OF THE 
 
 U N I VER.SITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 608.3 
 Su. 64 
 
Latel? ? iS * b °° k on or bef ore the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 /IP/? - Q iqc 
 
 ^University of Illinois Library 
 
 / 
 
 LI 6 1-^H41 
 
5 ^ l 0VER THE SEA 
 WITH THE SAILOR. 
 
 99 
 
 By WALTER BESANT and JAMES RICE, 
 
 1 Ready-Money B«T“Tm™“biDB,” ¥ E i°o^c. ^ 
 
 THE EXTRA CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND. 
 
 CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Containing the amount of THREE ORDINARY NUMBERS, 
 
 PRICE CHRISTMAS, 1880. 6d. 
 
 CZA * : 
 
 I. In the, Port of Boscastle . 
 II. Stephen Cobbledick, Pilot 
 III. Jack Bears a Hand . 
 
 IY. Ramsay, alias Angel . 
 
 Y. The Course of True Love . 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 YI. Nothing but a Common Pick-me-up . 
 YII. The Cleverness of the Commodore 
 YIII. The Wreck of the Maryland 
 IX. All the Way by the Underground 
 X. The Whirlpool of Niagara . 
 
 33 
 
 40 
 
 49 
 
 60 
 
 67 
 
 “ OYER THE SEA WITH THE 
 SAILOR.” 
 
 CHAPTER I. IN THE PORT OF BOSCASTLE. 
 
 On a certain evening in early summer a 
 couple of young men were lying on the 
 brow of a cliff between Boscastle and 
 Tintagel on the Cornish coast. Before 
 them was the broad Atlantic, with no land 
 between them and the coast of Labrador 
 except a little bit of Newfoundland -no 
 mankind all the way, an exhilarating 
 thought; below them on one side was 
 the little harbour and old-world town of 
 Boscastle, and on the other, two or three 
 miles to the south, Trevenna and King 
 Arthur’s Stronghold. Everybody knows 
 that there are two ways of lying on a sea- 
 board cliff. You may lie as^if you were 
 where you most wished to he, in perfect 
 repose, lazily looking out at the blue 
 stretch of water, idly following the course 
 of a sea-gull, and marking on the horizon 
 a sail or the smoke of a steamer, while the 
 sun gently warms you all over till you feel 
 “ done through,” like a conscientious steak 
 on a gridiron, while sweet breezes play on 
 your cheek, and you feel as if you would 
 ‘ hardly exchange these zephyrs, for the 
 breath of your mistress, and as if you in- 
 tended to remain until that great king and 
 despot, who, as Rabelais teaches, commands 
 
 everything, causes the invention of every- 
 thing, is .lord of all, and must he obeyed, 
 namely, Hunger, orders you to get up and 
 walk in the direction of provant. The other 
 is the restless and uneasy manner, as if your 
 heart was not in idleness and your mind 
 not in harmony with the seeming repose of 
 legs and spinal column. Both methods 
 were apparent in the attitude and appear- 
 ance of the two companions. They illus- 
 trated in their friendship a very old maxim 
 of philosophy. It is not in Solomon’s 
 Proverbs nor is it in Plato, but I am sure 
 it is old, because it is too profound for 
 myself, or any other modern philosopher, 
 to have invented. “ It is best,” said 
 the anonymous sage— very likely he was a 
 Chinaman — “ in choosing a friend to choose 
 one who will wear. Therefore he must 
 not follow the same calling as yourself. 
 In true friendship there must he no profes- 
 sional jealousy, no rivalry.” Now one of 
 these young men — he who sat and rested 
 with such perfect joy— was a Poet; and 
 the other— the restless person— was a 
 Painter. The Poet, by an unlucky stroke 
 of fate, did not look poetical ; he was short 
 in stature, wore a heard and spectacles, and 
 his legs were not so straight as those of 
 more favoured brethren — in fact, they formed 
 that interesting conic section, an elongated 
 ellipse. This curve, applied to human legs, 
 
nS: 
 
 2 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 ‘OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 is said to be. bad for stopping pigs. As for 
 his name, as it has got nothing to do with 
 the story, and as it was an ugly name, and 
 as the poet always committed the sin of 
 cursing his ancestors for having such a 
 name whenever he thought about it, and 
 as his friends always called him Poet, 
 Maker, Bard, or Inspired One, there is no 
 need to mention it at all. He wrote his 
 immortal verses under an assumed name, 
 and used to grind his teeth when admiring 
 maidens (of ravishing beauty) wrote him 
 rapturous letters, and he was fain to re- 
 member straight hair, curly legs, and 
 unromantic name. 
 
 The artist, on the other hand, wlm could 
 not write verses, had curly brown hair, the 
 brightest eyes possible, a manly complexion 
 composed of brown, red, and white, laid on 
 in artful gradations by nature, and features 
 as straight and handsome as those which 
 made the pride of Paris’s mother. For 
 young maidens to look upon those features 
 was a sovereign specific for headache, ennui, 
 languor, despondency, listlessness, vapours, 
 and lowness of spirits, for they straightway 
 began to sit upright, grow cheerful, take a 
 bright view of life, pity the sad condition 
 of nuns, and think how thankful they 
 themselves ought to be to Heaven, for 
 making them so beautiful. For comeliness 
 in man, they thought, not knowing that 
 even ugly men have their feelings, is 
 attracted magnetically towards beauty in 
 woman. 
 
 His name was much better than the 
 Poet’s, being Davenant, and his christian- 
 name was something of the romantic and 
 reverent kind greatly favoured by tender 
 mothers in the days when Miss Sewell’s 
 novels prepared the way for a generation 
 of Cyrils, Guys, and Cyprians, few of 
 whom have proved themselves fathers 
 . of the Church, though many have become 
 her prodigal sons. But, by reason of a 
 certain quality in the youth which one 
 cannot explain, he was always called 
 by his friends Jack. This being so, it 
 is useless to give his real name in . full. 
 The curious may refer to his baptismal 
 register. 
 
 He it was, as I have said, who looked 
 restless. Something was on his mind, else 
 he would have felt the repose of the hour 
 and enjoyed the splendour of the setting 
 sun. 
 
 The Poet spoke slowly and critically : 
 
 “ I agree with you, Jack. She is pretty 
 — she is very pretty, indeed. I like the 
 dark blue eye best, I think, of all eyes 
 
 that be. W ordsworth might have written a 
 sonnet on the Dark Blue Eye.” He took 
 out his pocket-book and made a note. 
 “I am sure that Wordsworth would 
 have mitten a sonnet, had he thought 
 of it, on the Dark Blue Eye — dark and 
 true and tender — beautiful collocation ! — 
 pity I am too late with it. Her features 
 are straight. In this day of snub noses 
 and little round faces it is refreshing 
 to come across the classical type. Her 
 figure ” 
 
 “ I declare,” Jack cried, “ that you poets 
 are the least imaginative of mortals. To 
 be sure it must be destructive to the 
 imagination to be for ever thinking what 
 ought to be said about a thing. You 
 4 agree with me !’ Hang . it, man, you 
 talk as if you were discussing the merits 
 of a poem. I say that her beauty is a 
 beauty that takes possession of a man — 
 unless he be a poet — and fills his brain, 
 and makes him go mad with longing and 
 delight.” 
 
 “ Take care, Jack.” 
 
 “ What am I to take care of ? Think 
 of her hair, man of sluggish blood ! how it 
 ripples like silk threads in the sunshine ; 
 Dorothea by the brook had not such long 
 and lovely locks; and then think of her 
 figure, the tall graciousness of her presence. 
 Helen of Troy was not more queenly than 
 this village girl. Think of her voice, so 
 musical and clear; it is the voice of Juliet. 
 With such tones that maiden ravished 
 the heart of Borneo. Think of her smile, 
 when one is happy enough to make her 
 smile ; did ever man dream of a woman’s 
 smile more sweet 1 Venus must never 
 laugh, but she should smile often. Think 
 of her eyes when she looks at you, Poet ! 
 They are the eyes of the Goddess of Love 
 herself, the Queen of Heaven and of 
 Earth.” 
 
 “ Take care, Jack,” repeated his friend 
 again. 
 
 “ Why should I take care 1” he asked for 
 the second time. 
 
 “ Granted that she is about a tenth part 
 as beautiful as you say and think ; granted 
 that you fancy yourself in love with her ; 
 granted, again, that she is as good as a 
 woman can be ” 
 
 “ This methodical and cold-blooded 
 person calls himself,” said Jack, “ a 
 poet!” 
 
 “ How would it do to transplant her to 
 London \ For a cottage by the sea a house 
 and a studio in the Abbey Boad ; for the 
 companionship of fishermen, that of your 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.” 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 3 
 
 friends ; for a boat in the harbour, a walk 
 in Regent’s Park. , , 
 
 « Poor child i” said Jack the lover ; but 
 wo would come to Cornwall as often as we 
 could. I should paint nothing but the 
 cliffs of Boscastle.” , 
 
 « How would she like the ladies who 
 would call upon her ? How would the ladies 
 like her ? Jack, give it up.” 
 
 “I shall not give it up. I can never 
 forget her face. Why, I think of her all 
 day long, and when I think of her 1 
 tremble.” 
 
 /‘Poor old boy ! Do you think she is 
 
 worth it?” ,. 
 
 11 1 am sure she is worth all the worship 
 and respect a man can give her. Every 
 woman is for that matter. 
 
 Humph!” said the Poet. “ do on, 
 
 J ack. _ ~ .. ,, 
 
 “It is by the special mercy of heaven, 
 continued the Painter, “that such women 
 are sent into the world ; else the standard 
 of things beautiful would be lowered, and 
 so our endeavours slacken, and all mankind 
 sink back into the mud.” _ . „ 
 
 “ I will take a note of that idea, J ack. 
 The Poet made his note. “ If you take no 
 thought yourself how things should be 
 said, permit me to do so. Thank you, I 
 am now listening again.” 
 
 « Ho,” replied Jack, “ I have done. . My 
 mind is made up. I shall ask Avis to 
 marry me. If she will not take me and 
 I don’t know ” — he added this ruefully, as 
 if unaware of his good looks, pleasant ways, 
 and gallant bearing— “I don’t know why 
 she should, being what she is compared with 
 what I am, why then we will go away, and 
 the sooner the better.” 
 
 “I think, Jack,” said the Poet, “that 
 Miss Avis will say Yes. Who would have 
 thought that out of a simple journey to the 
 Cornish coast such dreadful things could 
 follow?” 
 
 Jack laughed. . 
 
 “ Was it for this,” continued his friend, 
 « that I, who hate walking aiMlove London, 
 and especially the Temple, in June, was 
 persuaded to assume the disguiseof a. mus- 
 cular Christian ” — he pointed to his knicker- 
 bockers — “and to put on a knapsack, 
 whereby my shoulders are bruised into a 
 horrible black and blue, instead of re- 
 maining a pearly white ? We were to 
 travel all the summer, to make sketches, 
 collect legends, examine pools by the sea- 
 side, grow learned over anemones. What 
 have we done ? Sat down in a village, 
 and fallen in love with a country girl.” 
 
 “ I can’t help it,” Jack groaned. Then 
 he said stoutly : “I wouldnt help it, if 1 
 could. It would be too great happiness 
 for me to win Avis.” His voice sank as he 
 pronounced the sacred name of the girl he 
 
 l0V “ How shall I go back to the club and 
 tell them that their Jack is lost to them 
 —their Jack of Trumps— because he is 
 engaged to marry a young lady of surpassing 
 beauty, niece to a seafaring party I thin 
 party is the right word — who has certainly 
 been a mariner, who has certainly been a 
 pilot, and is also suspected of having been 
 
 ^ Pirates are scarce,” said Jack. “ I shall 
 swear he has been a pirate. I will paint 
 his portrait in character. . . . 
 
 “True, there is distinction m being a 
 
 Pir “ As for those little awkward things,” 
 Jack continued, harking back to a previous 
 point, “the convenances of society, the 
 tone of the world, I would as soon that 
 Avis never changed at all: I want no 
 change in her, Heaven knows. The man 
 or woman either — only women are so con- 
 foundedly jealous of each other— who cant 
 see with half an eye that here is a gracious 
 and blessed damosel fresh from heaven, to 
 whom the world can ^ add no eharm oi 
 manner or of style— 
 
 “ Spare me, Jack.” 
 
 “ Why, that man or that woman, I say, 
 may go to the devil.” 
 
 u yery lame and commonplace conclu- 
 sion to a sentence begun with commendable 
 originality. Well, what am I to do Shall 
 I up, take off these confounded knicker- 
 bockers, and go back to town ? . 
 
 “ Ho,” said Jaek ; “you are going to stay 
 here and see me through it.” 
 
 « I will, Jack, I will, if I have to wear 
 knickerbockers for a twelvemonth; only let 
 us send to Exeter or somewhere for some 
 decent ’bacea, and, as I am not in love, and 
 like a glass of respectable claret, let us 
 order some to be brought as quickly as 
 may be. And one thing I am quite cer- 
 tain of: the girl, whether it is the village 
 beauty or anybody else, who marries Jack 
 Davenant, will get as good a husband as 
 she deserves, and I hope she will behave 
 according.” 
 
 They had been together enjoying the 
 girl’s society, yet one had fallen in love 
 with her and the. other had not. To be 
 sure the lover was an Artist. Low people 
 whose thoughts are occupied a great deal 
 
4 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 “OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 with form and colour are naturally suscep- 
 tible ; and when one of them really meets 
 with a woman whose form is a dream of 
 beautiful curves, and whose colouring drives 
 a painter to despair, so delicate is it, yet so 
 firm, so beautifully shaded, and so full of 
 light, he is at once ready to believe that 
 here must be the long sought for per- 
 fect woman. Poets experience greater dif- 
 ficulty in losing their hearts ; it is not, as 
 Jack irreverently said, that they are of slow 
 imagination, but that the ideal woman, the 
 dream of a poet, is so hard ta find ; mere 
 grace will not do, nor exquisite colour. 
 They would have her at once lovely as 
 Phryne, sweet as Laura, sympathetic as 
 Cordelia, quick as Rosalind, queenly as 
 Cleopatra, loving as Juliet, and wise as 
 Heloise. Now, Nature makes few such 
 women; there are more poets than mis- 
 tresses for them, therefore they fall in love 
 less readily than men of coarser mould. 
 So that when Jack saw in that simple 
 Cornish maiden the one girl in all the 
 world whom he would care to marry, when 
 he raved of her beauty and her grace, when 
 he contrasted her with the girls of society 
 — poor girls of society ! how rough is their 
 treatment in love stories, yet how well they 
 do marry, as a rule ! — when he prated (I 
 have omitted most of his prating) of artifi- 
 cial ways and the falsities of London life, 
 the Poet only saw a tall and pretty girl, 
 whose beauty he could have wished to 
 express by magic art in immortal verse ; 
 whom, always in poetry, he would have 
 decked with most of the virtues. He 
 might, too, have fallen in love, not 
 with the sweet girl of flesh and blood, 
 but with the phantom of his own crea- 
 tion, as in the leading case of Pygmalion, 
 or as a certain noble Roman fell in 
 love — bigamously — with the pictures of 
 Atalanta and Helen, and another — but 
 this story I take to be an allegory— 
 who conceived a violent passion for an 
 Effigies of Fortune. 
 
 It was in the year 1863. You who can 
 remember seventeen years may pass oyer 
 the next page or two; you who cannot, being 
 yet in the bloom and blossom of youth, on 
 which happy circumstance I congratulate 
 you, and wish you every kind of enjoyment 
 while it lasts, must not, on any account, 
 omit to learn something of that older 
 generation which seems to you already far 
 advanced in fogeydom. 
 
 There were a great many more places in 
 that year, to begin with, where the traveller 
 
 could find quiet nooks, pleasant abiding- 
 places, seaside villages, unknown to the 
 general autumn outpouring, than there are 
 now. He would put up at a simple inn, 
 and sit in the evening, pipe in mouth, 
 among the rustics on a shiny settle ; or 
 he would find a bed over the shop of the 
 universal provider of the place, which 
 smelt of everything all at once, but mostly 
 of tallow, soap, and bacon. When he 
 went home he made his friends envious 
 with reminiscences of the beauty of that 
 place. Gradually the bruit and renown of 
 it spread abroad, people flocked, a hotel 
 was built, and its principal charm was 
 gone. 
 
 The man who did most mischief in 
 causing these discoveries and developments 
 was Charles Kingsley, for he not only 
 taught people how to look at beautiful 
 places, what to find at the sea-shore, and 
 how to talk about a sea-board village, but he 
 also inspired them with a craving to search 
 for new places. Also by the might and 
 magic of his pen he peopled the coasts of 
 North Devon and Cornwall with fiction- 
 folk far more real than any creatures of 
 real blood, so that at Clovelly one 
 always thinks of Sebastian Yeo, just as on 
 Exmoor one thinks of Lorna Doone — which 
 proves how good and great and desirable a 
 thing it is to be a novelist, and what a bene- 
 factor he is who can so touch the hearts of 
 kindly folk. Again, by his own enthu- 
 siasm and its contagion, he stimulated the 
 sluggish brains of men and women who, 
 but for him, would have gone to the end 
 of their days contented with the Parade of 
 Brighton, or even the Jetty of Margate, 
 ancT sent them abroad, all athirst for rock 
 and valley, cliff and rolling wave.. The 
 love of things beautiful is not, if you 
 please, born with us — it must be taught ; 
 the child of nature stands unmoved looking 
 upon the curves of the valley which 
 broadens as it slopes towards the sea, 
 whether the rains slant upon its hanging 
 woods, or the sunshine lies on every leaf; 
 whether the ocean lies beyond, far and 
 far away, a sheet of burnished gold in the 
 evening sunset, or the sea-fog rolls. up the 
 comb with the morning, and. clings to 
 every meadow like a bridal veil. There- 
 fore children of nature, as well as inn- 
 keepers, lodging-house keepers, and owners 
 of seaside property, ought to be very grate- 
 ful to Charles Kingsley, Mr. Blackmore, 
 and all who teach them what to see and 
 what to love, and their statues should 
 be erected in every town and village on 
 
fi 
 
 a 
 
 n 
 
 
 Charles Dickens.) WITH THE SAILOR.” IDecemher 1. 1880.) 5 
 
 
 the north coast of Devon or wherever 
 they have, led the people to wander and 
 admire. 
 
 Another thing, which was a curious 
 feature of this seventeen years old time, 
 was his doing : he gave the people a 
 taste for what, in those unscientific days, 
 was called science. After he had written 
 Westward Ho and Two Years Ago, tourists 
 of the “ higher culture ” used to carry ham- 
 mers, and solemnly knock off bits of rock, 
 never weary of collecting specimens, which 
 they afterwards mixed; or they would, 
 with much gravity, drag home ropes of 
 gruesome sea-weed ; or they would peer 
 into the pools left by the sea, as once, 
 they remembered, had peered that great 
 and good and crafty Tom Thurnal, whom 
 you, young friends, have clean forgotten. 
 Yet, Tom was once a person of considerable 
 influence. 
 
 They did not learn a great deal of science, 
 
 I think, for all their chippings, collections, 
 and pool - gazings. Geology and natural 
 history remained very much where . they 
 were. As for the young men and maidens, 
 it made them feel like having an improving 
 time when they looked about for anemones, 
 unrolled the sea-weed, found Latin names, 
 and reflected how much superior they were to 
 their grandparents (who had stayed at home 
 and minded the shop and made the money). 
 And there was another thing. When it 
 came to gazing in the pools by the rocks, it 
 not unfrequently ‘happened that the agile 
 shrimp, the crafty water-beetle, the crab with 
 his sidelong glance, the limpet, the cockle, 
 the anemone, and the green slime, were all 
 neglected when, in the untroubled mirror of 
 the surface, eye met eye and gazed each 
 upon either with more intentness and 
 meaning than had been bestowed upon the 
 wonders of the deep. This led to the study 
 of another kind of knowledge, namely, how 
 one person can lay himself out to the best 
 advantage in order to please another person. 
 This is a very delightful and interesting 
 study at a certain time of life, and, indi- 
 rectly, proves beneficial to trade — notably, 
 in stimulating the industry of the plain 
 gold ring, the mystery of the artificial 
 orange-blossom, and the craft of wedding- 
 cakes — which shows that everybody can 
 set a ball a-rolling, but no one know's 
 where it will stop. 
 
 Other visitors, such as the middle-aged, 
 who had already studied this branch of 
 philosophy, but were now fired by the new 
 love of science, went about with bottles 
 and nets, caught a triton, and put him into 
 
 an aquarium, where they watched his kicks 
 and his customs, and dreamed ambitiously 
 of writing a monogram upon him which 
 should for ever place them on a pinnacle 
 of fame. Alas ! the worship of this name- 
 less “ science ” is over ; the triton lives un- 
 regarded in his pool, the sea - anemone 
 attracts but little attention, and middle- 
 aged men have ceased to net grubs and 
 water-lizards in stagnant pools. 
 
 As for the amusements of that remote 
 period, young folks played croquet and 
 archery; they danced, but their waltzing 
 was of the kind called deux temps, which, 
 for most of the dancers, meant a rush 
 and a scramble; athletics were in their 
 infancy, and unfortunate girls had to wear 
 crinoline. A whole generation, a seven 
 years’ generation, of girls wore hideous 
 hoops — the recollection of them brings 
 tears to the eyes and rage to the heart, so 
 ugly, so misshapen, so inartistic, so abomin- 
 able and horrible was the fashion. I think 
 that it was somewhere about the year 1860 
 that the Evil One put it into the heads of 
 women that the best way to set themselves 
 off to advantage was to put on hoops. They 
 did so : they put them on : they allowed 
 them to grow greater and greater, until 
 those girls who were pretty — an enthu- 
 siastic Frenchman' once said that no young 
 woman can possibly be called plain — 
 looked like rose-buds growing out of 
 summer cabbages, and those who were 
 not pretty looked like a continuation or 
 upper blossom of the cabbage. The pity 
 of it ! 
 
 For the rest, there are a good many 
 things nowadays which were not then even 
 thought of. I am afraid the new inventions, 
 however, are chiefly intended to make 
 life more uncomfortable. They got on 
 without telephones, dynamite, electric bells, 
 electric lights, or torpedoes, though these 
 were just getting invented. The whole of 
 England was looking on the great Civil 
 War of America, and most of our people— 
 though we are rather ashamed of it now, 
 and wish we hadn’t — were taking the 
 wrong side, which meant the defence of 
 the Peculiar Institution. We are, indeed, a 
 strange and a wonderful people : a problem 
 for all foreign countries to gaze upon in 
 wonder. Why we sympathised with the 
 South, why we, as a body, were ready to 
 believe the worst of the North, and failed 
 to understand the passionate resolution to 
 keep together their splendid country, and 
 to destroy the traffic, in human flesh, is 
 a thing which passeth all understanding. 
 
 jL 
 
 tl 
 
 £r 
 
6 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 Therefore I cannot stop here to expound 
 at length my great theory that at times 
 there falls upon the nations of the earth a 
 plague or pestilence of stupidity, wrong- 
 headedness, or madness, whereby evil ap- 
 pears good. No remedy has been found 
 for this disease, and the only medicine yet 
 tried — that of continual talk, stump oratory, 
 and leading articles— has only, as yet, made 
 the mischief worse. 
 
 A few weeks before the conversation 
 above recorded, there was gathered together 
 in the bar parlour of the Wellington Arms, 
 in the village of Boscastle, a certain club, 
 consisting of the better sort, who met 
 nightly to talk, smoke a pipe, and discuss 
 the affairs of the parish, the country, 
 and the world. It was the intellectual 
 centre of Boscastle — its only solace, dis- 
 traction, and amusement. What would life 
 be in an English country town, to the 
 people who never leave it, without the 
 inn where they can sit of an evening and 
 talk ? ' 
 
 On this evening there were two strangers 
 present — gentlemen from London, that day 
 arrived, having walked over from Bude 
 carrying their knapsacks. It was early in 
 the season for tourists, but those who visit 
 Cornwall in May are wiser in their times 
 of walking than those who go in August. 
 For the inns are not yet full, and the air is 
 that sweet air of early summer which in 
 this far east of London we so seldom 
 breathe. While the season is young the 
 tourist meets with a warmer welcome ; the 
 people are not yet weary of the perpetual 
 coming and going of the curious stranger ; 
 they have forgotten the questions asked 
 last season ; they are ready to advance a 
 visitor’s knowledge as to local matters; they 
 even try to guess at the distances of neigh- 
 bouring places for him; his presence is a 
 change in the perennial parliament, which 
 after the long winter has become a little 
 dull and wants a fillip. Yet the presence 
 of a stranger brings with it some restraint ; 
 the customary jokes are not understood by 
 him, and have to be explained ; allusions 
 to personal peculiarities, historiettes of the 
 past, the small change of conversation 
 which passes current, as a rule, and serves 
 to keep the talk from awkward pauses, 
 seems out of place before strangers ; and 
 without these counters of conversation the 
 men feel strange. 
 
 The club this evening, among whom were 
 Joel Heard the blacksmith, William Hellyer 
 the sexton, Isaac Jago the shipwright, and 
 
 others of lesser note, sat mostly silent, 
 every man with his pipe in his hand, while 
 the two strangers, whom we already know, 
 tried to get up the talk. 
 
 J ack asked if there were many wrecks 
 upon the coast. It appeared that there 
 were many, but no one volunteered any 
 further information about wrecks. The 
 Poet enquired if there was any smuggling 
 going on. It appeared that there had once 
 been a creditably large trade in smuggling, 
 but that was in the good old war times, 
 when things were taxed, and brandy was 
 worth any price. But, even then, their 
 smuggling was nothing compared to that 
 on the south coast. 
 
 An attempt to draw the men on the 
 subject of local traditions and legends 
 broke down completely, as no one knew 
 any legends ; no one had ever heard 
 King Arthur’s name; nor been told of 
 pixy or fairy ; nor whispered to each 
 other ghostly stories round a winter fire — 
 feared no ghosts, in fact; and were altogether 
 as practical a folk as could be expected 
 anywhere. But then, the way to get to 
 the superstitions of a man is not to 
 ask him what they are ; that only makes 
 him declare loudly that he has got none, 
 just as a demand for money inclines 
 the mean of spirit to button up their 
 pockets. To extract the jewel of folk- 
 lore another and a better way must be 
 adopted. 
 
 “ You gentlemen want stories,” said the 
 Sexton. “There’s some can tell a story, 
 and some can’t ; I’m one of them as can’t. 
 First you gets the storm ; then a ship she 
 comes drivin’ down upon the rocks, and 
 gets wrecked into lucifer - matches ; then 
 the sailors they gets drownded, and cast 
 ashore ; then they gets buried by the sexton 
 and the parson. I don’t see much of a 
 story in that. But Stephen Cobbledick, 
 he would spin you a yarn about that, 
 or any other wreck, would keep you 
 gentlemen listening all a winter evening. 
 Pilot, he was, in America, where they are 
 fighting.” 
 
 “Ay!” murmured another; “Stephen 
 Cobbledick, who has been in foreign parts 
 and sailed the world around and round 
 again, and fought with pirates and sharks, 
 he can tell a tale or two. Stephen hath 
 gifts.” 
 
 At that moment the door opened, and 
 the great man himself walked in. 
 
 The visitors observed that a place had 
 been kept for him, which he immediately 
 occupied with the air of one who steps 
 
IB 1 - 
 
 SAILOR” 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 7 
 
 into his own seat. It was the _ most I 
 comfortable seat in the room, that in the 
 corner nearest the fire-place, with an 
 arm for one elbow, the fender for a 
 footstool, and the table within reaching 
 
 distance. , , , . . , 
 
 He was a man of about sixty years 
 of age, or perhaps more. He had white 
 hair, curling about his head as thickly 
 as when he was a young man; his eyes 
 were hazel and bright; his nose was 
 broad and rather flat ; his expression, 
 which was naturally good-natured and 
 somewhat weak, conveyed the idea that 
 he wished to seem stern and fierce; he 
 was not above the middle height, and he 
 wore a suit of blue as becomes a seafaring 
 
 man. - 
 
 The maid of the inn followed him. 
 
 He sat down, looked at her with great 
 severity for some moments, and then 
 
 said : , _ , 
 
 “ I will take, Mary, a glass of rum and 
 water — hot, with a slice of lemon. 
 
 The girl instantly set it before him, be- 
 cause, knowing his tastes, she had brought 
 it into the room with her. ;j 
 
 “Hope you are well, gentlemen, he 
 began affably. “The wind is freshemn, 
 and if it blows up you’ll have a chance ol 
 seeing a bit of a sea on to-morrow. You 
 can’t say you have seen our coast till you ve 
 seen it in a nor’-wester. Lord ! I’ve seen 
 it in every wind that blows ; ay, in such a 
 gale that we had to be lashed to the 
 
 masts.” „ 
 
 11 Never a gale that would wreck you, 
 said one of the company. 
 
 Mr. Cobbledick made no reply to this 
 compliment. 
 
 “ I know this coast, gentlemen, as well 
 as I know any, except, perhaps, the coast 
 of the Carolinas, where I was pilot. I 
 know this coast, and this coast knows 
 me.” 
 
 “ Queer if it didn’t,” said the Black- 
 smith. 
 
 “ I have been, gentlemen,” the Pilot had 
 a little American drawl, due doubtless to 
 his long residence in Carolina, “ north, 
 south, east, and west ; and there are not 
 many ports on this earth into which I could 
 not find my way. Nor are there many charts 
 which I have not larned, till I knowed 
 them as well as I knowed how to box the 
 compass, and could give the soundings ; 
 ay, even among the West Injy Cays. The 
 world is a big place to landlubbers, but 
 we seafarin’ men take the measure of it 
 between us.” 
 
 A hard life,” murmured one of the 
 young men. 
 
 “ No, sir, not a hard life. Regular work, 
 regular food, regular pay. What more 
 does a man want 1 There’s no women 
 aboard to fall in love with ; you cant get 
 married if you keep where you be ; whereas, 
 ashore, the difficulty is to keep single. Pit- 
 falls everywhere.” . 
 
 “ I have not felt any difficulty yet, said 
 the Poet, “in keeping single.” 
 
 “Any fool can get married, the Pilot 
 went on, “ but it takes a strong man to 
 keep single. For why % The single man 
 grows unmindful of his blessin’s ; he waxes 
 fat and kicks, like Jeshurun; he goes to 
 sleep on watch, whereby he falls a victim 
 to the first as dares to tackle him.” 
 
 A murmur of assent. 
 
 “ I grant you,” continued the Pilot, “ that 
 there’s dangers even in the single life : he 
 drinks too much rum, maybe ; he smokes 
 too much baccy ; he keeps himself too much 
 to his own craft, whereby his wisdom is 
 lost to his fellow man, and his remarks 
 and maxums are throwed away upon the 
 
 “ There seems a great deal in what you 
 say,” observed one of the strangers. 
 
 “ We all know,” said the Sexton, “ that 
 Stephen is a rover, with a rover’s eye.” 
 
 “ Gentlemen, a man who remains un 
 married, especially a seaman, generally 
 does have somethin’ good to say. Do not 
 think that my maxums, which may be next 
 best to Solomon’s Proverbs (though he was 
 a married man), growed of their own 
 accord. They come of long reflection and 
 observation, from a puttin’ of two and two 
 together, and a separatin’ of two and 
 two into one.” „ 
 
 “But if you are not married, Stephen, 
 said the Sexton, “ you can show the expe- 
 rience of them as is husbands. For you 
 have had your niece in the house for three 
 months and more.” • 
 
 “ A niece isn’t a wife,” said the Pilot. 
 “ When I feel to want a cruise, I can up 
 sail and away. Could I h’ist ^ the blue- 
 peter with a wife in the house % ” . 
 
 “ I saw her to-day,” said the Shipwright 
 “ she grows tall and comely, Stephen. 
 
 “She does, Isaac Jago. She grows to 
 favour the Cobbledicks. She’s got the 
 Cobbledick chin, which means determina- 
 tion; and the Cobbledick eyes. About 
 those eyes, gentlemen, they do ten the 
 story that my father, who was a bo’sn m 
 the Royal Navy and greatly resembled me 
 had eyes of such a fierceness, with eye 
 

 -fcs- 
 
 8 [December 1, 1880.1 
 
 “OVEE THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 brows so like bolsters for shagginess, that 
 when they boarded he was always reckoned 
 as three — one for his cutlash and two for 
 his eyes. When it came to the prize- 
 money, they cheated him out of two shares, 
 and only counted him as one ; which shows 
 how the best men in this world have been 
 treated. Else Stephen Cobbledick would 
 this day be sitting among you all a rich 
 man, and gladly would he stand the drinks 
 around. As for her nose, it is the exact 
 picture of mine” — the young men stared 
 straight at the feature named, but forebore 
 to laugh ; the Pilot’s nose, indeed, besides 
 being broader than a nose should be, 
 was rosy red, and possessed more flesh 
 than becomes a maiden’s nose— “ and her 
 figure is just my own to a T.” Here the 
 young men smiled. “ As for her voice ” — 
 his was a rich and husky organ— “ I 
 shouldn’t wonder, come to hear her sing, 
 that you’d say she even beat her poor 
 old uncle. The toast,” he sang in a hoarse 
 and rusty bass, “For ’twas Saturday 
 night, was the wind that blows, and the 
 ship that goes, and the lass that loves a 
 sailor.” 
 
 “This is truly wonderful,” whispered 
 the Poet. 
 
 “And one day you’ll have to be marryin’ 
 of the young maid, Stephen,” said the 
 Sexton. “ What will you say then to the 
 chap as marries her? Will you up and 
 tell him and her what a fool he be ?” 
 
 “ I never said,” replied the Pilot, “ that 
 twasn’t good for women to be married, 
 did I? It is their nature, too, as dogs 
 delight to bark and bite. Else they would 
 go off their chumps with chatter and 
 clack.” 
 
 “Delicately and feelingly put,” said 
 Jack. 
 
 “A sentiment, sir,” said the Poet, “ which 
 I have heard before, but never in language 
 more befitting its truth and beauty. Truth 
 is always beautiful, however conveyed ; 
 whether it be handed up in a shovel with 
 rags, broken bottles, and dust, or brought 
 on a silver salver.” 
 
 “ You mean well, gentlemen, no doubt,” 
 said the Pilot, “ but you are a-talkin’ just 
 a bit too high for me. When my niece 
 marries I shall find a jolly sailor for her — a 
 honest Cornishman, or even an American, 
 maybe, for the Americans, come to plain 
 swearin’, will take the wind out of any 
 Englishman’s sails. Or a Devonshire lad, 
 at least. None of your finikin’ fine gentle- 
 men for me. There was one down here 
 last week, high eonnected, bein’ a draper’s. 
 
 assistant at Camelford. Well, I sent him 
 to the rightabout before he got ever a 
 chance to speak to the gell.” 
 
 “No doubt, sir,” said the Poet, “you 
 are. quite right ; and your reasons for pre- 
 ferring an American do you credit. It 
 would be an enviable distinction indeed to 
 boast in one’s family the possession of a 
 really hard swearer. I should lead him to 
 the Thames bank, on a Sunday afternoon, 
 just to take the conceit out of the river- 
 side men. I suppose, sir, you would, to a 
 certain extent, consult the young lady’s 
 feelings ? ” 
 
 “ I should, sir,” replied the Pilot with 
 dignity ; “ my niece’s feelin’s, as a good 
 young woman’s, would go the same way 
 as her uncle’s^ I pass the word : she feels 
 accordin’. Mary, another glass of rum 
 and water.” 
 
 With his fourth glass of rum, the worthy 
 Pilot became more personal, and communi- 
 cated to the young men — the rest of the 
 company having already gone — many valu- 
 able and useful facts connected with his 
 own life. He was, it appeared, one of 
 those who put their light in a lamp, and 
 then hold it up on high. 
 
 “ I have been, gentlemen,” he said, “ upon 
 blue water since I was a boy that high.” 
 He held his hand about nine inches from 
 the ground to show the very early age at 
 which he first embarked. “ I could handle 
 the ropes, take a rope’s endin’ without 
 so much as a wink, play the fife while 
 they raised the anchor, make a sea -pie, 
 pour down a glass o’ rum, dance a horn- 
 pipe — ay ! and even make love to the 
 gells — before most boys left their nurse’s 
 laps. That’s Stephen Cobbledick, gentle- 
 men.” 
 
 The Poet said that this information 
 warmed his own heart, because he had 
 himself been also such a boy. 
 
 “ Since then, gentlemen,” said Stephen, 
 swallowing the rest of the glass, “where 
 haven’t I been ? ” 
 
 “ I suppose,” said the Poet, “ that Ulysses, 
 was nothing to it ?” 
 
 “ I don’t know them seas,” Stephen re- 
 plied, catching the last syllable ; “ but I’ve 
 been in all other seas as roll — roll they high 
 or roll they low — while the stormy winds 
 do blow, and the landlubbers lyin’ down 
 below. I’ve fought with pirates, sharks, 
 whales, and sea-sarpents ; I’ve been blowed 
 about with monsoons, tornadoes, cyclones, 
 and hurricanes ; I’ve been wrecked on most 
 every shore ” 
 
 “ Have another glass,” said Jack. 
 
 
 =p 
 
JL 
 
 Charles Dickens.] WITH THE SAILOR.” [December X, 1880 .] 9 
 
 
 “ Sir,” his voice began to thicken a little, 
 “you’re a gentleman. Now there’s a singular 
 thing about me— nothing never hurt me 
 yet. I’m one o’ them as nothing never can 
 hurt. Not fevers, nor choleras, nor even 
 a mangrove -swamp on the New Guinea 
 coast. Not crimps, nor gamblin’ saloons, 
 nor drinkin’ shops, nor sing-songs, nor 
 dignity balls, where the drink is free 
 and knives is handy. Not alligators, nor 
 rattles, nor cobras, nor hippopotamosses, 
 nor bears, nor panthers. Not arrows, nor 
 stinkpots, nor creases, nor assegais, nor 
 six-shooters, nor spears. It can’t be done, 
 gentlemen.” 
 
 He then proceeded to narrate circum- 
 stantially a few diabolical things connected 
 with natives, in which he had been con- 
 cerned with one Captain Ramsay, an officer 
 whose gallantry, spirit, and freedom from 
 the restraints of the Ten Commandments 
 he esteemed as of the highest value and 
 most proper for universal admiration. He 
 retired about eleven o’clock, having had as 
 much as it was safe even for so seasoned 
 a vessel to carry, and started for home, 
 the night being fine with but little 
 wind, and that from a quarter favourable 
 to one, so heavily laden, bound in his 
 direction 
 
 “ Jack,” said the Poet, “T should like to 
 see Miss Cobbledick.” 
 
 “ So should I,” replied Jack. “ Such a 
 young lady, with her uncle’s nose, his 
 voice, his eyes — those eyes which were like 
 gimlets, and made a Cobbledick when 
 going a-boarding count for three, one for 
 his cutlash and two for his eyes— his figure, 
 which is a truly beautiful figure for any 
 girl to own— such a girl, my boy, will be 
 a pleasing subject for me to paint and for 
 you to sing.” 
 
 “ Of such stuff as the Pilot,” said the 
 i Poet reflectively, “ are novelists made. He 
 | is a Captain Marry at spoiled. Did you 
 ! observe the broad square brow, and the 
 sharp observant eye ? The lips, too, are 
 mobile, which shows imagination.” 
 
 “ No,” said Jack, “ his is the mobility 
 caused by rum. I think he has been a 
 i pirate.” 
 
 “A novelist wasted. No, not wasted. 
 He amuses his neighbours. Did you remark 
 how his old comrade, Captain Ramsay, has 
 ' seized upon his imagination 1 _ Unless, 
 indeed, Captain Ramsay is a delicate crea- 
 tion of the fancy. And did you furthei 
 remark how Captain Ramsay is a most 
 desperate rogue, who ought to be hanged 
 from the yard-arm h It is pleasant to loot 
 
 upon an old man, and reflect that, with 
 better opportunities, he might have become 
 even a poet.” 
 
 CHAPTER II. STEPHEN COBBLEDICK, PILOT. 
 
 I do not know, for reasons I will pre- 
 sently explain, who my parents were, 
 nor where I was born, nor how old 
 I am, nor when I was christened (if 
 indeed that ceremony was ever per- 
 formed upon me), nor my christian-name, 
 nor my surname. So that I start at a 
 great disadvantage compared with other 
 people. For a long time I thought my 
 christian-name was Avis and my surname 
 Cobbledick. But now I am not at all 
 sure. 
 
 When I began to remember . anything I 
 answered to the name of Avis, and was 
 the charge of an old granny who was very 
 good to me and never tired of looking 
 after me. When I was old enough to feel 
 the want of a surname I asked her what 
 mine was. She replied that she did not 
 know, but that, as my uncle’s name was 
 Cobbledick, she supposed that might be 
 mine also. Therefore I remained Cobble- 
 dick. She taught me, while I was with 
 her, a good many useful and solid things : 
 to behave nicely and to repeat the Cate- 
 chism ) to tell the truth and say grace 
 before meat ; to sew a hem and read my 
 book ; to make a bed or a pudding ; fold a 
 blanket, toss up pastry, and sing hymns 
 I am sure that when you come to think ot 
 it, that means a good deal of teaching. 
 Much more she did not teach me because 
 that was all she knew. My uncle it was 
 who committed me to her charge, and his 
 lawyer or the person who had charge of 
 his money paid the bills. My uncle was a 
 pilot in America. When I was (to guess) 
 eleven years of age, and a great girl, I was 
 sent by this man of business to school. It 
 was at Launceston, and because my poor 
 granny presently died I remained at school \ 
 the school bills continuing to be paid by 
 my uncle’s order, as was supposed, for six 
 or seven years. 
 
 It was disagreeable at first to have the 
 deficiencies of my condition thrown in one s 
 teeth by the other girls, but gradually they 
 grew to like me, and then it became a really 
 , romantic distinction to be uncertain in 
 those points where all the rest were certain. 
 I suppose a girl with two heads might in 
 * the same way come to be envied. And, to 
 - he sure, if there is nothing enviable, there is 
 [ nothing disgraceful in the accident of know- 
 : ing nothing about yourself. A foundling 
 
 tt— u 
 
10 [December 1, 1830.] 
 
 OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 30 * 
 
 is in exactly the same situation. And 
 for myself, I had a most respectable uncle, 
 pilot in America, who, when I came to 
 know him, would, of course, be able to 
 explain all doubtful points to my entire 
 satisfaction. 
 
 As a guardian he was not what one 
 could wish, because he never sent me any 
 letters, messages, or tokens of affection of 
 any kind. It was not until I was already 
 past seventeen, as near as could be guessed, 
 that he wrote to me. It was not at all a 
 pleasant letter. It was badly written, and 
 badly spelt ; evidently the letter of an 
 illiterate person. He grumbled about the 
 expenses of school, said that he had come 
 home for good, and ordered me to join 
 him at Boscastle. 
 
 “ My dear,” said my schoolmistress, when 
 with a sinking heart I showed her the note, 
 “ we must judge people by their actions. 
 Your uncle has evidently never studied 
 the art of expressing ideas in kindly 
 words. But you must remember that 
 for many years he has cheerfully borne 
 the charges of your maintenance and 
 education. Therefore, child, go to him 
 with hopefulness.” 
 
 This was suitable advice, and I resolved 
 to be of good courage and to hope for the 
 best. 
 
 “ Now,” I said, on the last evening at 
 school, “lam going to find a father and a 
 mother ; perhaps, who knows, a sister and 
 a brother ; I shall find a birthday, a chris- 
 tening, one godfather and two godmothers, 
 a christian-name, a surname ” — because. I 
 never believed that a really nice girl 
 could have such a surname as Cobbledick 
 — “and an age. Fancy! I may be twenty, 
 or thirty, or forty. Oh ! my dears, suppose 
 I turn out to be forty.” 
 
 In the school at Launceston we were a 
 quiet collection of girls, mostly daughters 
 of professional men, retired officers, and 
 so forth ; they looked forward to a quiet 
 life whose mornings should be spent in 
 household matters, and evenings over 
 needlework, music, and books ; somebody 
 would come some day to marry them, then 
 they would lead the lives which their 
 mothers had led before them, wrestling 
 with servants, watchful of children, anxious 
 to make both ends meet. And they envied 
 me the romance of my position. 
 
 I came away from the school with hun- 
 dreds of good wishes, little presents, and 
 prophecies of happiness. Alas ! I little 
 knew that I was taking a blindfold leap to 
 that lower level, beneath the “respectable” 
 
 stratum, out of which a woman finds it so 
 difficult to climb. To be sure, my school- 
 fellows were not distinguished for birth 
 and family, but they were the daughters 
 of men who could call themselves gentle- 
 men and expect Esquire after their name, 
 although they did not belong to the gentry, 
 and bore no coats of arms. As for me — - 
 but you shall learn. It is painful to tell 
 the truth about one who had done so much 
 for me ; but if I write my part of the nar- 
 rative at all, I must set down exactly what 
 occurred, and how my guardian behaved to 
 me, and what he did for me, after I came 
 home to him. I will exaggerate nothing, 
 and I will try to write without anger or 
 bitterness. But, indeed, I have long since 
 forgiven. 
 
 Boscastle, when I got there after a long 
 journey of sixteen miles up and down the 
 Cornish hills, seemed to me the very 
 queerest place one would wish to see. 
 
 I left my boxes at the inn where I was 
 set down, and without asking for my uncle, 
 set off to find him somewhere in the 
 town. 
 
 The houses of Boscastle stand for the 
 most part on the slope of the hill above 
 the little landlocked harbour. There are 
 not many houses, because there are not 
 many people living there. I looked from 
 one to the other, wondering which was my 
 uncle’s. Standing apart from the small cot- 
 tages, which made up most of the village, 
 were two or three pretty villas. I at first 
 made up my mind that he must be living 
 in one of these ; it had always formed part 
 of my ideal life to live in such a villa with 
 such wide and ample gardens as these 
 houses possessed. But I thought of .my 
 letter and trembled. The rude spelling, 
 the blunt expressions, the roughness of the 
 letter, would not allow me to associate the 
 writer with houses so pretty, trim, and well 
 kept. I thought I would first try the 
 humbler cottages. 
 
 One of these attracted my attention by 
 the fact of its having a mast — with ropes, 
 rigging, and yard-arm complete — run up in. 
 the front ; also a flag ’was flying. Such an 
 ornamental structure is like a sign-post : it 
 shows that a nautical man lives in tjhe 
 house to which it belongs. I believe they 
 are generally used to decorate the back 
 garden, but at Boscastle the cottages have 
 no back garden. Therefore, it was put up 
 in the front, where a few broken palings 
 served to form a small enclosure adorned 
 by a tub and a heap of oyster-shells, broken 
 bottles, and other things which in well- 
 
Cfearles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.’ 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 1 1 
 
 ordered houses are generally taken away 
 to their own place. 
 
 The house was a small stone- built cot- 
 tage, with a window on each side of the 
 door, an upper storey with a similar pair 
 of windows, a slated roof, and a very large 
 porch also built of stone and with its own 
 slated roof. The porch was out of all pro- 
 portion to the size of the house, being 
 about as big as a church porch, with a 
 window in it; it was set up sideways so as 
 to face the east and to keep its back to the 
 sea whence blow the south-west gales. It 
 formed, in fact, except in such cold weather 
 as seldom falls upon King Arthur s Land, 
 another room to the house. In it was an 
 arm-chair, and upon the arm-chair I saw 
 an old man. His feet were crossed, his 
 hands were folded, his head was on one 
 side, his eyes were closed; he was at 
 peace with all the world, for, he was sound 
 asleep. 
 
 Anyone who saw that old man sleeping 
 would have fallen in love with him on the 
 spot ; he should have been painted for the 
 everlasting admiration of the world ; his 
 hair was curly, and of a beautiful silvery 
 whiteness; his features were strong and 
 rugged as if carved by a skilful sculptor 
 who knew exactly what lines to put in 
 and where to put them, and did. not 
 spoil his subject by any which would inter- 
 fere with his original conception ; his cheek 
 was browned bv sun and rain and wind ; 
 his hands were" not only browned by the 
 weather but they bore also marks of tar ; 
 he wore white ducks, in the construction 
 of which great liberality had been bestowed 
 in the matter of stuff, a blue flannel shirt, 
 a black ribbon tied loosely under the collar, 
 a blue cloth jacket, and at his feet lay a 
 “ shiny ” hat. 
 
 “ This man,” I thought, “ is a sailor ; he 
 is clearly above the rank of common sailor; 
 he lives in a house which is better, but not 
 much better, than the neighbouring cot- 
 tages ; he is well enough off to be able to 
 spend his afternoons asleep ; he seems by 
 his face to be a good old man ; I believe 
 he must be my uncle and guardian, him- 
 self” ■ , 
 
 My footsteps, as I lifted the latch and 
 walked into the garden, awakened the 
 sleeper ; he opened his eyes, rubbed them, 
 yawned, stretched his legs, yawned again, 
 and finally stood upon his feet and stared 
 at his visitor. 
 
 A very curious thing happened then. 
 It takes a sleeper a few moments to recover 
 consciousness; during those few moments 
 
 I observed a remarkable change come over 
 the face of this benevolent -looking old 
 sailor. He was not, in fact, so benevolent- 
 looking awake as he was asleep. . His face 
 now showed a lower level of virtue ; the 
 lines changed, the features broadened, the 
 mouth widened; it became a common 
 face, that of a man, you could easily see, 
 who was self-indulgent ; his eyes were 
 fiery, the veins in his forehead swelled 
 up and became blue; one became aware 
 of tobacco and rum without seeing any. 
 And I began to hope that this person, at 
 least, might not be my uncle. Alas ! he 
 
 was. 
 
 “Who are you?” he growled, still halt 
 asleep. 
 
 “ I am in search of Mr. Stephen Cobble- 
 dick,” I said. 
 
 “ Oh ! you are, are you ? Then, here 
 he yawned, “you couldn’t have come, my 
 pretty, to no more likely a man to give 
 you such information as you can trust about 
 that man and gallant officer. Cause no man 
 on this airth knows him better and loves 
 him more nor me.” He spoke with a slight 
 American accent, which strengthened my 
 suspicions. 
 
 « Pray, sir, are you yourself Mr. Cobble- 
 dick?” It is so unusual a thing in 
 this jealous and censorious world for one 
 man to speak well of another, that I now 
 felt almost sure of my conjecture. 
 
 “ Why not ? ” he replied, giving ques- 
 tion for question after the Scotch manner. 
 “Why not? And what might you be 
 wanting ? ” 
 
 « I want,” I said — “I want a few words 
 of conversation with him.” 
 
 “ And that, my dear,” he replied airily, 
 being now fully awake, “you. shall have. 
 Lord bless my soul ! a few minutes ? you 
 shall have a few hours. Hang me if I 
 wouldn’t like to make it a few years. Step 
 inside, my beauty, and sit down. If you 
 are not too proud— as many of your sect, 
 within my recollection, and not so very 
 long ago, didn’t used to be too proud 
 there’s rum in the locker.” 
 
 “I would rather,” I replied, shirking the 
 reference to rum, 11 talk outside for the 
 
 present.” ™ , 
 
 < < Outside, my dear, if you please. I nougn 
 if you ask them as once run after Steve Cob- 
 bledick, his communications was straight- 
 for’ard and his walk upright, Nothin 
 mean about Stephen, old. or young. n 
 the deck you might find him, the broad, the 
 wide, the ever free, visible for all eyes to 
 see. Therefore, pretty, whether in the open 
 
* ~ 
 
 12 [December 1, 1880.] “ OVER THE SEA [Conducted by 
 
 or below, up steam and forge ahead, trust- 
 ful. I am a listenin’. You comes here 
 first, and you axes, sayin’, ‘ Where is that 
 pride and boast of the Cornish coast?’ says 
 you. Full speed it is.” 
 
 I was perfectly overwhelmed by this burst, 
 and could not for the moment think of a 
 suitable reply. 
 
 “ Ah ! Time was,” he went on, without 
 waiting for one, “not so long ago, when 
 they came to Stephen in swarms they did ; 
 not more than others he deserved, but 
 more he got. Sought out he was, and 
 loved by high and low, Sought for by 
 short and tall, black hair and brown, curls 
 and plain. Now he’s grown old, they mostly 
 ranges alongside of the curate. With his 
 crowkett and his crickett, and his boat 
 upon the bay. And it’s hymns they 
 do sing and sweetly they do play. Go 
 on, my dear. Your cheeks is a thought 
 paler than the cheeks in Plymouth 
 Port, but you’ve a figger of your own 
 as makes amends. You comes here, you 
 says, for old Steve Cobbledick. ’Tis hard, 
 they say at Boscastle, to find a properer 
 man.” 
 
 “ I want to see him certainly, and, as I 
 
 make out, you are yourself But I think 
 
 I should like to talk to Mrs. Cobbledick first, 
 if I could.” 
 
 A look of the most profound amaze- 
 ment greeted this proposal. 
 
 “Mrs. Cobbledick? Mrs. Cob ” he 
 
 cried. “ Now, pretty, look at me straight 
 in the face. Do I look like the sort to 
 have a missus ? Missus Cobbledick ! My 
 pretty, Stephen may have his tender points. 
 Find them out first, and lead him with a 
 hairpin ever after ; he may have his weak- 
 nesses : them as knew him best loved him 
 better therefor. You and your Missus 
 Cobbledickery ! Like Lord Nelson he has 
 his faults. But to take and make a Missus 
 
 Cob Come, young woman, say you 
 
 didn’t mean it. Young folks is skittish and 
 will have their jokes.” 
 
 “It was not a joke at all,” I said, 
 feeling rather frightened. “ I am your 
 niece, Avis, and I thought I would like 
 to ” 
 
 “ You my niece ? You Avis ? Ay, 
 that’s the name. Avis ? ” His face showed 
 a variety of conflicting expressions, in 
 which I vainly endeavoured to find one 
 indicative of affection. Mostly, I read 
 disappointment and disgust. 
 
 “ You wrote me a letter ” I began, 
 
 trembling. 
 
 “I did,” he said. “D’rectly I found 
 > >- — 
 
 out what had been a-goin’ on. That’s 
 the way us poor fellows of the sea gets 
 robbed.” 
 
 “ What do you mean ? ” I asked. For 
 it really seemed as if he meant that I had 
 been robbing him. 
 
 “ I leavathis girl,” he replied, addressing 
 the world at large and the high heavens, 
 
 “ in charge of a old woman to be brought 
 up accordin’. I give over all my money 
 to my man of business when I ships for 
 North Carolina shore, and I tells him about 
 that little girl. I keeps sendin’ him over 
 the money as fast as it comes in ; never 
 thinkin’ nothing in the world about her; 
 and when I comes home after close upon 
 twenty years of work, I find they’ve 
 been spendin’ a matter of sixty pounds 
 a year — nigh upon seventy pounds a 
 year in bringin’ of her up ontoe pride, 
 luxury, kid gloves, high livin’, and pianner- 
 forty. That’s the way they treated my 
 money ! ” 
 
 “ Then do you mean,” I said, “ that you 
 did not intend to educate me ? ” 
 
 “ I tell you,” he replied, “ that I clean 
 forgot all about you. I gave the old 
 woman a pocketful of money and I said : 
 ‘There’s the little one, take care of her.’ 
 And then I came away and clean forgot 
 it.” 
 
 “ Then you are not glad to see me ? ” 
 
 “ Not at all,” he replied. “ I’m tarnation 
 sorry, and that’s a fact ! ” 
 
 “Then you would have allowed your 
 niece to starve ? ” 
 
 “ I dare say somebody would have taken 
 you,” he replied sulkily. “ As for starvin’ 
 — well, there, I was in America. It wasn’t 
 no business of mine. I suppose there’s the 
 parish.” 
 
 I stood considering what to do or to say. 
 What I might have told him, with justice, 
 was that he was a wicked and selfish old 
 man, and that I owed him nothing since it 
 was by an accident that I had been so well 
 and carefully brought up. What I did say 
 was this — being a good deal shaken by so 
 surprising a reception, and feeling inclined 
 to sit down and cry : 
 
 “Will you let me have shelter and 
 food here while I look round and think 
 what to do ? I will pay you back, later 
 on.” 
 
 “I suppose I must,” he replied. “You 
 can come, for a little while.” 
 
 It was beginning to rain, and I was glad 
 to avail myself of the permission. I fol- 
 lowed my uncle into a small sitting-room, 
 intolerably close, and reeking with the smell 1 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR 
 
 [December 1 , 1880.] 13 
 
 of grog and tobacco. I threw open the 
 window. 
 
 “ What are you doin’ that for ? ” he 
 asked. 
 
 “Fresh air. This room is stifling.” 
 
 “ Fresh air ! ” he growled. “ If a sailor 
 wants fresh air he goes on deck for it ; 
 there’s the porch for you. Now then, sit 
 down ; let us hear if you have been taught 
 anything useful to earn your grub. Seventy 
 pounds a year ! There’s a outlay ! How 
 is that to be got back ? ” 
 
 “I am afraid,” I said, “that I could 
 never pay back all that money.” 
 
 “ No ; that’s gone, that is. Clean 
 chucked away.” He plunged his hands 
 into his pockets, and looked surprisingly 
 unlike the old man I had found asleep. 
 
 “ I might be a governess,” I suggested 
 meekly, thinking how truly horrid it must 
 be to go out as a governess. “I could 
 teach what I have learned myself.” 
 
 He nodded his head grimly. 
 
 “Some gells,” he said, “go into ser- 
 vice ; there’s house-maids, lady’s-maids, 
 and kitchen-maids; some go dressmakin’, 
 which is more genteel. There’s always a 
 openin’ down Plymouth way, for a gell 
 as is good-lookin’, in the barmaid line. 
 The sailors, both officers and men, like ’em 
 pretty, and it’s a cheerful life, especially 
 for them as can take a joke and box a 
 fellow’s ears when he gets sassy.” 
 
 I shuddered. 
 
 “ I think I could not very well take 
 that kind of place. But I am too much 
 taken by surprise — I did not expect— 
 I will try to do something and keep 
 myself.” 
 
 “Spoken like a honest gell,” he said. 
 “That’s what I like. Give me a inde- 
 pendent sperrit. As for hangin’ around in 
 idleness, I never could abide it in man or 
 woman, specially woman. And for why ? 
 Because, the more work they do, the less 
 mischief they make.” 
 
 I thought this a favourable opportunity 
 for asking a few questions about myself. 
 
 “Will you tell me,” I said, “who and 
 what my father was ? ” 
 
 “ Let me see” — he looked at me thought- 
 fully — you’re my niece, ain’t you ? And 
 Avis is your name ? Likewise your 
 nature.” I think he meant nothing at 
 all by this last remark except to gain time 
 while he reflected. “You are the daughter 
 of my brother Ben, now gone to Davy’s 
 locker, where he lays all his days in the 
 Bay of Biscay oh.” 
 
 “ What was he by profession ? ” 
 
 “A Bible Christian, he was.” 
 
 “ I mean what was his trade ?” 
 
 “Why don’t you say what you mean 
 then ? Look here, my gell, if you and me 
 is to continue friends, don’t ask too many 
 questions and let them questions be 
 straight. He was third officer, he was, 
 aboard a East Indiaman.” 
 
 “ Oh ! and how did he die ? ” 
 
 “ A shark took him off Rangoon. When 
 the shark had done a-bitin’ of him he was 
 dead?” 
 
 “ How long ago is that ? ” 
 
 “ Nigh upon thirty years ago, that was. 
 I was aboard at the time and see it with 
 my own eyes.” 
 
 “It cannot be so long, because I am sure 
 that I am not more than eighteen.” 
 
 “ Then it was about eighteen years ago, 
 I daresay. I can’t be particular to a 
 year.” 
 
 “ And my mother ? ” 
 
 “ Here’s more questions ? Here’s curi- 
 osity ! What do you want to know about 
 your mother for ? ” 
 
 “ Is she living ? ” 
 
 He shook his head. “ No, she’s dead, 
 too.” 
 
 “ What did she die of?” 
 
 “Yellow Jack. We buried her at 
 Kingston in Jamaica.” 
 
 “ What was she doing in Jamaica ?” 
 “How can I tell you what she was 
 doing.” 
 
 “Did she leave nothing for me ? Were 
 there no books, no mementoes of any kind, 
 not even a portrait ? ” 
 
 “ She hadn’t got no books, because she 
 couldn’t read ; and nobody hadn’t taken 
 her picture.” 
 
 “ Who was she by birth ? ” 
 
 “ She was ” He reflected for a few 
 
 moments. “ She was a Knobling, at Devon- 
 port. It was a most respectable family. 
 You may be proud of your connections, 
 both sides. Her father carved ships’ 
 figureheads in his back-yard, and her 
 brother was transported for twenty years 
 for forgin’ the admiral’s name — nothing 
 short of the admiral, if you please, which 
 shows a soarin’ spirit — for five hundred 
 pounds. She was known in port as Lively 
 Bess, and her lines were gen’ally con- 
 sidered as clean cut, though built more for 
 show than for speed, as any woman’s on 
 the coast.” 
 
 I began to hope that the rest of the 
 family had remained in obscurity. If this 
 is the end of the romance, I thought it 
 must be better to be commonplace, and 
 
 f 3 
 
14 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 os 
 
 know from the beginning who one’s parents 
 actually were. 
 
 “ Now,” he continued, “have you any 
 more questions to put 1 ” 
 
 “ One or two, if you please. Had I any 
 brothers or sisters l ” 
 
 “ No ; you were a lone orphan, by your- 
 
 “ Do my mother’s relations know of my 
 existence % ” 
 
 “No; they do not. And if you go to 
 Plymouth you won’t find them, cause they’ve 
 gone, and it’s no use expectin’ nothing 
 from them.” He said this very quickly, as 
 if afraid of my making demands upon 
 them. 
 
 “ I wonder how my mother came to be 
 in Jamaica, when I was in England.” 
 
 “ I told you I don’t know.” 
 
 “ Yet you were with her, you say, when 
 she died. And with my father, when he 
 died. It is very strange. Where was I 
 born ? ” 
 
 “ I never axed and I never heard.” 
 
 “ Where was I christened 1 ” 
 
 “ I can’t say. Now you know all about 
 yourself, and we’ll change the subject. As 
 for slingin’ your hammock and stayin’ here 
 a bit, now.” 
 
 It was evident that he would not answer 
 any more questions. I therefore refrained 
 from asking any, and waited for him to 
 explain his views. This he did at length, 
 and we presently proceeded to draw up 
 certain articles which were to govern the 
 household. 
 
 He started with the maxim that in 
 marriage, or any other condition of life in 
 which a woman is concerned, the only way 
 to ensure happiness is to live as much 
 apart from that woman as the dimensions 
 of the roof will permit. He therefore 
 placed at my disposal the room in which 
 we were then sitting and one of the bed- 
 rooms upstairs. I was to have the right 
 to open the windows in them as much as I 
 pleased ; he wouldn’t interfere with me in 
 any way. He, for his part, was to have 
 the kitchen, the porch, and the other bed- 
 room. And I was not to interfere with 
 him. As regards the cost of my main- 
 tenance, that was to be defrayed by him, 
 with such other small money as might be 
 necessary to keep me neat ; it being un- 
 derstood that these charges were to be con- 
 sidered as a loan, to be repaid afterwards 
 when I began to earn money by going 
 a-governessing, or being called to the bar, 
 or by any other method which I should 
 choose to adopt. The said cost of main- 
 
 tenance being set down at thirty shillings 
 a week. When one comes to think of it, 
 the bargain was not disadvantageous to 
 him. 
 
 “ And that, my gell,” he continued, “ is 
 what I will do for you. Don’t hurry your- 
 self. Look round a bit. Stay a month 
 or so. You can easily pay me back. 
 Though as to that outlay, that seventy 
 pounds a year, I reckon I shan’t get that 
 back in a hurry. Unless,” he added 
 reflectively, “ that was to turn up which 
 once I fondly hoped and still will fondly 
 pray,” 
 
 I did not understand what he meant, 
 but was afraid to ask. 
 
 '“Some British uncles,” he said, with a 
 rolling of his head which meant great 
 pride and satisfaction with himself, 
 “ even among seafarin’ men, would ha’ 
 said : ‘ Take and go and get your own 
 livin’. You and your seventy pounds 
 a year ! ’ Stephen Cobbledick is not one 
 of that sort. He is resigned. He says 
 sweetly : ‘ Heaven’s will be done 1 ’ He 
 offers his prodigal niece forgiveness, and 
 opens his arms with a uncular blessin’ and 
 a bedroom all to herself.” 
 
 He did open his arms, but I did not fall 
 into them. I would gladly have kissed 
 that nobly benevolent old man whom I 
 found asleep in a chair. But the other 
 old man, so full of words, so selfish, 
 so inflated with self-satisfaction, I could 
 not kiss even to receive an “ uncular ” 
 blessing. 
 
 The convention agreed to on both sides, 
 my uncle, whom I propose to call for the 
 future, partly because everybody called 
 him so, and partly for other reasons which 
 will presently appear, Stephen Cobbledick, 
 went in quest of my luggage, and the new 
 life began. 
 
 Thus was I enriched with relations, at 
 last I had learned who my father was ; it 
 was now apparent that I belonged to the 
 lower class of the Queen’s subjects ; it was 
 also clear that the fewer enquiries I made 
 into the history of my connections the 
 better it would be for my pride. This was 
 the end of my dreams. Instead of an 
 affectionate uncle, I found a rough sailor, 
 who had been made to pay for me without 
 knowing it and by mistake ; instead of a 
 welcome, I received a plain notice that 
 I must expect nothing more ; instead 
 of the pleasant ways of ladyhood, I 
 was to look for a life of poverty, hard 
 work, and dependence. It was with a 
 heavy heart that I sought my room that 
 
Charles Dickens.] WITH THE SAILOR.” [December 1, 1880.] 15 
 
 night and tried to face my fortune with 
 courage. 
 
 Well, never mind the tears of disappoint- 
 ment at this sudden blow to my hopes. 
 One may cry, but the inevitable had to be 
 faced, and my new life began. 
 
 Its manner was simple. We lived, as 
 Stephen wished, almost entirely apart. I 
 “ messed in the cabin,” and- he in the 
 kitchen. After breakfast he took his pipe 
 to the port, and sat upon the quay among 
 the great hawsers, watching and criticising 
 any little operation which might be in 
 hand, such as the repairing of a ship, or 
 unlading her cargo, or warping her out of 
 port. This occupied the morning. Dinner 
 was served at one. This meal was regarded 
 by Stephen as a mere taking in of coal and 
 water. You need not sit down to it, or 
 wash your hands for it, or put on your coat 
 for it, or pull down your sleeves for it, or 
 brush your hair for it, or lay a cloth for it. 
 Nothing of the kind ever entered into his 
 head. He preferred to conduct his own 
 cooking, on principles well known to the 
 retired British sailor : a piece of pork 
 should be boiled for so long; the flavour 
 of a cabbage is enhanced by companion- 
 ship with the pork in a pot ; potatoes may 
 be made ready in twenty minutes ; onions 
 may be fixed in less time ; anybody can 
 put a chop or a steak on a griddle’; vic- 
 tuals, when cooked, can be turned out into 
 any dish that is handy, and then, mess- 
 mates, fall to and eat, standing or sitting, 
 as seems you best ; for knives, what better 
 than the great clasp-knife which does duty 
 for everything 1 for grace, what better 
 than a preliminary sharpening of the 
 blade ? 
 
 Dinner over, a single glass of grog, with 
 a pipe, prepared him for his afternoon 
 nap in the porch; another critical visit 
 to the port completed the labours of the 
 day, and brought nearer the evening, which 
 he spent at the Wellington Arms. On 
 Saturday evening he was always carried 
 or led home by his friends ; and he sang 
 songs as he tumbled up the stairs to his 
 bed. At first I was frightened, because 
 a girl, who has been naturally taught to 
 regard drunkenness as a most horrible 
 thing, cannot suddenly be got to regard it 
 without loathing. But one becomes used 
 to most dreadful habits. On Sunday 
 morning (being none the worse for his 
 Saturday evening’s excess) Stephen went 
 to chapel. He had “ found religion,” he 
 said, while in America. This made him 
 conform outwardly to the Bible Christians. 
 
 I never observed that his religion produced 
 the least effect upon his life, his manners, 
 his thoughts, or his conversation. 
 
 I must confess that, next to the shame 
 of having to take a lower level than I had 
 fondly hoped, I was chiefly concerned with 
 the necessity for earning my daily bread. 
 I do not think there could have been any- 
 thing more dreadful for me than thus sud- 
 denly to discover that there was absolutely 
 nothing forme to fall back upon — no friends, 
 no relations, no helping hands. I was 
 waiting there like one of Nero’s Christians 
 in his prison, before being thrown to the 
 lions who lived in the outer world. All I 
 knew of that outer world was what I had 
 gathered from the talk of girls in a little 
 town and from certain novels. Women 
 who have to work, I knew, are mostly 
 horribly cheated and imposed upon ; they 
 are paid wretched wages ; they have long 
 hours ; they cannot make money ; they 
 are scolded if they are not cheerful, and 
 bullied if they are not brisk. And then 
 there is so tremendous a gulf fixed between 
 the women who work and those who do 
 not. Alas ! the latter, who should be 
 kinder, make the difference felt. Perhaps 
 in those days we thought woman’s work 
 more unlovely than we do now, when our 
 sex are better paid, better taught, better 
 able to hold their own. Yet I think that 
 whatever improvements are made, it will 
 always be the happier lot to sit at home 
 and enjoy the fruits of others’ labour. 
 The novels of the time were full of the 
 woes of governesses, their doleful lives, 
 the wickedness of men, and the cruelty 
 of women who engaged them. Even 
 the more cheerful novels never held 
 out a better prospect than that of marry- 
 ing the curate. For my own part I 
 always disliked that prospect, and hoped 
 to marry a man of some more hopeful 
 profession. 
 
 At the beginning Stephen left me alto- 
 gether alone ; by degrees he seemed to 
 tolerate my presence ; he even offered me 
 the indulgence of a chair in his own 
 porch ; and, when he found out that I 
 could listen, he gave way to a natural 
 garrulity and began to tell me stories 
 about himself. I learned from them that 
 he had been a sailor for many years 
 before the mast ; that he rose somehow 
 to the rank of chief officer; that he 
 had made money in certain ventures the 
 nature of which he did not communicate ; 
 that he had the good sense to bring the 
 money home and give it to a trustworthy 
 
16 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 ‘OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 person to keep for him ; and that, for 
 reasons unexplained, he left the open sea 
 and became a pilot in the port of "Wil- 
 mington, North Carolina. When the war 
 broke out he retired, having saved more 
 money, and returned to England, resolved 
 to roam no more. 
 
 I found that he was a very great boaster ; 
 all his talk turned upon his own extra- 
 ordinary ferocity, smartness, and insight. 
 Certainly no sailor ever had so many ad- 
 ventures, or passed through them with such 
 immunity from accidents. 
 
 Now in most of his perils he seemed to 
 have been accompanied by a certain Captain 
 Ramsay, who seemed to my uncle a sort 
 of demi-god or hero. To me this model of 
 a gallant and chivalrous sailor seemed a 
 filibuster certainly, a pirate probably, and 
 a murderer if he were a pirate. But my 
 uncle was dominated by Captain Ramsay ; 
 he seemed to lose sight of moralit}^ 
 honour, and religion in contemplating the 
 career of this man. What in other men 
 he might have loathed, in Captain Ramsay 
 seemed additional proof of the man’s heroic 
 character. And although he professed, as 
 I have said, to have “found religion,” and 
 was by profession a Bible Christian, he 
 certainly lost sight of what he had found 
 when he talked of his former chief. His 
 admiration was perhaps heightened by 
 the fact that the object was twenty years 
 younger than himself. 
 
 Presently I made a very interesting dis- 
 covery. It was Stephen’s custom to vary 
 his stories every time he told them, 
 changing the place, the surroundings, and 
 the circumstances, which he always gave 
 in great detail, and the actors, whom he 
 always described at length, giving, so far as 
 he knew it, the family history of each in 
 all its branches. Thus, if he began a story 
 say at four in the afternoon, after his nap, 
 he would make it last until seven or eight 
 o’clock, when it was time to go to the tavern. 
 It was startling at first, until I became ac- 
 customed to it, to note the discrepancies in 
 his statements about them. Once or twice 
 I turned his attention to my father or- my 
 mother. At different times I learned that 
 my father had been an officer on board an 
 Indiaman, a ship’s carpenter, the purser, 
 and the quartermaster. Also that lie was 
 bitten in two by a shark ; that he died of 
 cholera ; that he was wrecked off Hallygoey 
 Bay ; and that he was knocked on the head 
 at a dignity ball. As regards my mother, 
 she was by birth a Knobling, a Chick, and 
 a Tamplin ; she was a native of St. Austell, 
 
 Looe, and Plymouth; her father followed 
 the callings of figure-head carver, dealer in 
 marine stores, market gardener, pay agent, 
 and ropemaker. She died at Kingston, 
 Jamaica (my uncle being present), of Yel- 
 low Jack; and at Halifax, Nova Scotia 
 (expiring in his arms), of frost-bite ; at 
 Falmouth (my uncle buried her) of dropsy; 
 and at Wilmington (my uncle engaged in 
 vain the first doctors) of earache. Why 
 she was travelling about was never ex- 
 plained ; and, indeed, these statements 
 were extremely hard to reconcile. In 
 plain terms I found that Stephen was a 
 most untruthful person ; that he was, 
 so to speak, niggardly of truth, avaricious 
 of expending facts, and of most brilliant 
 imagination. 
 
 Again, there was an old woman who 
 came every day to “do ” for us. Stephen 
 proposed at first that I should do her work 
 so as to save the money, but I refused. 
 She has nothing whatever to do with 
 this story except for one thing. In con- 
 versation with her one day, I learned 
 that she, being at that time nigh upon 
 a hundred years of age, yet fresh and 
 vigorous, with all her faculties about her, 
 had known her master from childhood. 
 And she told me, which was a very great 
 surprise, that he had neither brother nor 
 sister. 
 
 So that I could not be his niece. 
 
 I forbore to bring this discovery before 
 Stephen, because I knew very well that he 
 would at once invent some new story to 
 account for and explain those which had 
 gone before. 
 
 So far, therefore, from finding father 
 and mother and the rest of it, I remained 
 in as great an uncertainty as ever, and 
 was only quite convinced upon one point, 
 that not one word Stephen said could Re 
 believed. 
 
 I am ashamed, now, to think how poor- 
 spirited and feeble a creature I must have 
 been. Some girls would have strained 
 every nerve to get some situation by which 
 they could be relieved of such a depend- 
 ence as mine. I only wrote to my school- 
 mistress and asked her help. She promised 
 to “ let me know, if she heard ” — the usual 
 phrase. Then I sat down and waited. I 
 suppose she heard of nothing, because 
 nothing offered. And I was too ignorant 
 to know how to help myself. 
 
 Then I began to fall into bad ways. I 
 had no companions. There were no girls 
 at Boscastle with whom I could associate, 
 being— save the mark ! — a young lady, 
 
=ft* 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR” 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 1 7 
 
 whose mother was a Knobling born in 
 three different towns and buried in three 
 more towns, and whose father followed at 
 least four professions at once and died in 
 four different ways, all painful, and whose 
 uncle had had neither brother nor sister ; 
 with that distinguished connection I could 
 not foregather with the honest rosy-faced 
 lasses of the village. Stephen, again, was 
 a Bible Christian, like most Cornish men. 
 Now I could not bear the chapel, and yet 
 I could not walk to Forrabury by myself 
 and feel that the people were saying that 
 this girl was she who went by the name 
 of Stephen Cobbledick’s niece, whereas 
 it was well known that Stephen was 
 an only child. It was a foolish feeling, 
 of course, but I was young and shy. 
 Therefore, I left off going to church, 
 which was wrong. Presently, I left 
 off going out for walks, except in the 
 evenings, for much the same reason; I 
 fancied that people turned and looked 
 at me, and thought they were sneering at 
 me for not being like any other sailor’s 
 daughters, red -armed, bareheaded, and 
 dressed in a flannel frock. What busi- 
 ness had I, indeed, to go about in the 
 disguise of a young lady % Also, another 
 terror, suppose any of my old schoolfellows 
 should come to Boscastle and meet mej 
 With what face should I return their 
 greetings % With what shame should I ex- 
 plain my fall from the levels of Launceston 
 respectability and tea-parties ? 
 
 That dreadful debt, the thirty shillings a 
 week, went on growing. Stephen kept a 
 book in which I was to enter the weekly 
 bill. I did so faithfully, and used to look 
 at the amount with a kind of terror. For 
 it quickly grew from shillings to pounds — 
 five pounds — ten pounds — fifteen pounds. 
 I had nothing to pay it with ; I knew 
 no way to make money ; I had no 
 spirit to enquire or to try, being dejected 
 with the trouble of my position and 
 too much solitude. Yet the time must 
 come when I should have to pay up 
 in full. And the bill became a horrible 
 nightmare. 
 
 It was in February that I went to 
 Boscastle. It was four months afterwards, 
 in June, that the time of my deliverance 
 began, and kind Heaven took pity on a 
 helpless girl, yet after such strange adven- 
 tures as fall to the lot of few. 
 
 One thing alone redeemed the life. 
 Stephen had a boat, which he called the 
 Carolina. It was his custom, when the 
 weather permitted, to go a-sailing in her 
 
 outside the harbour along the grand and 
 terrible coast of Cornwall. It was not 
 often in the stormy and windy spring of 
 that year that he would venture in his little 
 craft outside the quay. One day, however, 
 he asked me if I would go with him. I 
 acceded, listlessly. Now whether it was 
 that he had experienced my powers of 
 listening, or whether he found me good, as 
 he said, at holding the lines and obeying 
 orders, he asked me again, and so we took 
 to sailing together every day that weather 
 permitted, and while he talked I looked 
 at the cliffs, and, although on shore I 
 continually brooded over my unhappy 
 position, the grandeur of the rocks and 
 headlands grew upon me, and while the 
 Carolina flew over the water I forgot my 
 troubles. 
 
 Yet I never received from my guardian 
 one word of affection or even friendship. I 
 was with him on sufferance ; 1 ought not 
 to have lived. The loss of all that money 
 was a thing he could not forgive. 
 
 CHAPTER III, JACK BEARS A HAND. 
 
 “ Boscastle in the morning,” said the 
 young man who answered to the name of 
 Jack, “ is, if anything, finer than Boscastle 
 in the evening.” It was seven o’clock, and 
 a sunny morning, and they were coming 
 out of the inn bearing towels with intent 
 to have a swim. “Poet, look about you, 
 and think what rhymes to harbour, sun- 
 shine, landlocked water, green water, boats 
 at anchor, and overhanging rocks ; because 
 your poem on Boscastle will have to con- 
 tain all those things.” 
 
 They were, in fact, at the most curious 
 place in all England. Here the sea has 
 pushed a winding creek through rocks 
 which rise steep on either hand ; where this 
 “ arm of the sea,” as geographers call it, 
 which is really only a finger, a baby’s little 
 finger, comes to an end, they have made a 
 toy port by running out a pier, which leaves 
 room at the end for a craft of reasonable 
 smallness to be towed and warped in and 
 out ; great hawsers as thick as any used to 
 tow the hull of the fighting Temeraire lie 
 about on the pier in readiness. There is 
 generally one ship in the harbour and a 
 dozen boats lying within the pier ; the 
 water is so green and transparent that you 
 can see the crabs, big and little, taking 
 their walks abroad on the stony bottom ; 
 on either side of the little harbour stand 
 workshops, where pigmy things in the ship- 
 wright way are done to the craft which 
 trade to Boscastle. Standing upon the hill 
 
 
18 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 and looking seawards, you may mark how 
 the little inlet winds between its guardian 
 rocks ; if the stormy winds do blow, 
 especially from the south-west, you may 
 see the waves madly rolling and rushing 
 with white foam into this narrow prison 
 from the broad Atlantic. It is bad, then, 
 for ships to be off this ruthless coast. Or 
 you may see it when the sun is setting upon 
 a cloudless day, when the sky and ocean 
 have no parting line, and a splendid glow 
 of colour lies upon the rocks and is reflected 
 in the motionless waters below. Whether 
 you see it in storm or in calm, you gaze 
 upon a place as wild, as strange, as pic- 
 turesque as any on the coast of England. 
 The two young men bathed, sat on 
 the rocks, looked at Willapark Headland 
 and Meachard Island, where there is a 
 great souffleur in windy weather, and 
 presently made their way back with a view 
 to breakfast. On their way they saw 
 Stephen Cobbledick, the hero of last 
 night’s talk. 
 
 “ See,” said Jack, while the gallant tar 
 was yet afar off, “ there is the man whose 
 niece has a figure exactly like his own. 
 Remarkable, yet happy maiden ! We must 
 make the acquaintance of that niece. I 
 must draw her. She should be better 
 known. Such a figure in one so young is 
 a distinction I have never before met 
 with. Good-morning, my captain,” he 
 shouted. 
 
 “ Hornin’, gentlemen,” replied Stephen ; 
 “fine mornin’. Are you for a sail this 
 mornin’? I am going to get my boat 
 ready while the rasher is a -fry in’ and 
 the water is a-boilin’. Soft tommy and 
 cocoa, that’s what we come to in our old 
 age.” 
 
 “ Ho doubt,” said the Poet, “ when you 
 were young it was curried peppercorns and 
 boiling brandy. You’ve been a devil of a 
 fellow, Mr. Cobbledick. Plenty to repent 
 of in your old age — eh V’ 
 
 “You may well say that, gentlemen. 
 Repentance is a solid job with an old salt 
 like me. Lord! Lord! Well ”— he heaved 
 a deep sigh— “ I dessay it’ll be got through 
 with after a bit. Though there’s work 
 ahead. It’s a lovely breeze to-day. Come 
 with me, and I’ll show you as good a bit o’ 
 coast in a small way as you’re likely to see. 
 Not the Andes, nor the coast of Peru. I 
 can’t promise you that, but a tidy show of 
 cliff.” 
 
 They accepted the invitation and went on 
 their way. 
 
 “ The retired pilot,” said Jack, at break- 
 
 fast, “ seems inclined to be friendly. Give 
 me another sole — I like them with the 
 bread-crumbs — and pour me out more tea. 
 
 I think this place is good for us. Let us 
 roam no more, Poet. Let us fix the camp 
 at Boscastle, go out sailing with our friend, 
 sketch the cliffs— that’s a splendid fellow 
 with the ragged edges opposite Willapark— 
 bathe in the morning, watch the sun set in 
 the evening — Nature is good at scene- 
 painting — and hear all the Pilot’s yarns. 
 What a splendid old liar it is ! No 
 doubt you’ll get some verses soon.” Jack 
 thought that verses came to poets like 
 trout to anglers. And I daresay they 
 do. 
 
 They found the old fellow, presently, on 
 the pier waiting for them. There was 
 lying in the harbour, besides a couple of 
 schooners engaged in the potato trade, a 
 little half-decked yacht, twenty feet long, 
 moored beside the steps. 
 
 This was the Pilot’s boat. 
 
 “ Look at her, gentlemen,” he said. 
 
 “ There’s a beauty ! She was built at 
 Falmouth, on lines laid down by me. ” This, 
 like most of his statements, was a fabrica- 
 tion, to which he presently gave the lie by 
 asserting that the boat had been built first 
 for the Prince of Wales. “ I rigged her ; I 
 carved her figure-head ; I christened her ; I 
 painted her. Nobody’s hands but mine 
 and the shipwright’s touched that craft, 
 and she’s the fastest boat of her size 
 that you’ll find outside the Solent. I 
 called her the Carolina in remembrance of 
 the country where I made that proud 
 and glorious name as a pilot which 
 you’ve read of in the papers. And here 
 comes my niece with the tiller and the 
 lines.” 
 
 The young men turned their heads quickly 
 to see the niece who in figure, voice, and 
 features was reported to resemble so 
 marvellously her uncle. They looked and 
 saw; their eyes caught each other’s and fell 
 with a kind of shame. 
 
 For they saw a tall and beautiful girl of 
 eighteen or nineteen, of graceful carriage, 
 stepping delicately over the rough stones. 
 She was dressed simply, with a straw hat, 
 white cotton gloves, and some sort of plain 
 stuff dress. 
 
 They took off their hats and saluted this 
 delectable nymph. 
 
 “Jump in, Avis,” said her uncle. 
 “ Gentlemen, this is my niece. She ships 
 as cox’un. I’m captain and crew, and 
 you’re the passengers. Now, then, all 
 aboord.” 
 
Avis took her place in the stern, saying 
 nothing. The young men sat on each side 
 of her. If they caught each other’s eyes 
 they were abashed, thinking of the blas- 
 phemy ^gainst beauty of which they 
 had been guilty in talking lightly of the 
 pilot’s niece ; and they tried not to be 
 caught looking at her face, but this was 
 difficult. 
 
 There is fashion in faces and figures as 
 there is fashion in dress. Now in the year 
 eighteen hundred and sixty-three faces were 
 round, noses were tip-tilted, figures were 
 short, tall girls were rare. Later fashions 
 have caused the growth of tall and slender 
 maidens with classical features. Girls are, 
 I am told, instructed while at school how 
 to conduct their growing according to the 
 requirements of fashion. It is not an 
 extra, and is taught to all alike ; but, of 
 course, all are not equally successful. The 
 prizes are obvious. Avis was one of the 
 unsuccessful girls ; that is, she had grown 
 beyond the fashionable stature, and her 
 features were of the Grecian type. She 
 wore her hair — unconsciously, for she 
 thought little of the fashion in those sad 
 days — in a simple knot, which went 
 straight to the hearts of both painter and 
 poet. The latter, after the wont of his 
 tribe, began to think by what collection of 
 words, phrases, and rhymes he could best 
 illustrate this beauteous image. Poets and 
 book-people are unhappy in this respect, 
 that they must needs perpetually be the 
 slaves of words. Jack, on the other hand, 
 who was not concerned with description, 
 immediately felt his heart leap up in con- 
 templating the most perfect and wonderful 
 work of creation, the last and best, a 
 lovely girl. Stephen Cobbledick put out 
 his sculls and rowed the boat along the 
 narrow and winding creek to the mouth. 
 Then he put up his sail, and the little 
 vessel caught the breeze and glided out 
 to sea. 
 
 They ran along the shore to the east, 
 under headlands and cliffs of dark slate, 
 mined by the sea into deep caverns, where 
 seals resort, and fishermen go at night to 
 knock them on their silly heads ; past broad 
 bays and narrow coves and gloomy chasms 
 in the rocks, which look like prison-houses 
 for criminal Tritons. The breeze was fresh ; 
 the sea was crisped with little waves, and 
 heaving with the mighty roll of the 
 Atlantic. 
 
 “ Think,” said the Poet softly, addressing 
 no one in particular, but looking at the face 
 of the coxswain, “ how the waves would dash 
 
 weather. 
 
 The girl lifted her eyes, but made no 
 reply. 
 
 “Ay,” said the Pilot, “think of having 
 this coast on your dee at such a time ! I 
 was once — thirty years ago and more — 
 sailing the Merry Maid of Penzance, two 
 hundred ton barque, bound from Falmouth 
 to Bristol Port.” He proceeded at full 
 length to tell how by extraordinary craft of 
 seamanship he had succeeded, when such a 
 storm fell upon them, and all thought they 
 were doomed to certain destruction, in 
 steering that vessel straight into Boscastle 
 Harbour, and bringing her up taut and 
 safe, not a spar carried away, nor a rope 
 lost. 
 
 While he related this story his hearers 
 were silent, looking about them. It was a 
 dull story told with an immense number of 
 details, with the names of the sailors who 
 could be called upon to testify to the truth 
 of his statement, if required ; a story which 
 called for no listening. 
 
 “That is a most interesting yarn, Mr. 
 Cobbledick,” said the Poet; “I am sure 
 you have another to tell us. We would 
 much rather listen than talk.” 
 
 They listened while the garrulous old 
 man told them another, and then a third, 
 and a fourth, while still the little craft dis- 
 covered headland after headland, and still 
 the black inhospitable rocks rose steep 
 and high, a fortification of Nature’s own 
 design. 
 
 Jack said not a word ; the presence of 
 the girl, so silent, so beautiful, so mysterious, 
 weighed down his soul. How could such a 
 girl belong to such a man 1 She had not 
 spoken. Perhaps her beauty was one of 
 those accidents whereby out of a rustic 
 and common stock sometimes a beautiful 
 flower is produced ; the village beauty is 
 often the daughter of a hind no whit dis- 
 tinguished above his fellows ; her grace, her 
 bearing, her face, comes to her as a gift 
 of the gods ; such a girl should be called 
 Theodora. But generally, when she speaks 
 the charm is broken ; for out of that maiden’s 
 mouth there drop no pearls, but quite the 
 contrary ; and the beauty of the village 
 belle is too often of the kind which we are 
 taught to associate with the devil ; it looks 
 better upon the stage, whither it is generally 
 brought, than in the drawing-room, where 
 it is seldom allowed to appear. This 
 girl possessed such a profile, such delicate 
 drawing, such graceful lines, as might 
 belong to the descendant of a hundred 
 
 rl 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.” 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 1 9 
 
 and the snrav fly over these cliffs in stormy 
 
20 [December 1,1880.] - “OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 queens of beauty. Where did she get it 
 from ? Was Cobbledick of aristocratic 
 descent ? Have noble families intermarried 
 with the Cobbledicks ? Are they con- 
 nected, by half-a-dozen descents, with 
 royalty ? All the morning long they 
 sailed ; all the morning long the old Pilot 
 gasconaded with story after story of his 
 own extraordinary courage in situations 
 where a lesser creature must have been 
 crushed. Captain Ramsay was generally 
 with him. He went on, the young men 
 observed, without seeming to care whether 
 any one listened or not ; he took no notice 
 whatever of his niece. The girl remained 
 perfectly silent ; once or twice, when the 
 Poet addressed her by name, she replied 
 with a “yes” or “no,” without adding a 
 word. Still Jack lay and looked, listened 
 and wondered. 
 
 Presently their captain put the ship 
 about and they made for home, beating up 
 against the wind. Then there were fewer 
 stories, because frequent tacks cause the 
 thread of a narrative to be broken, and it is 
 difficult when one is interrupted in the 
 full flight of imagination and has to de- 
 scend to earth to renew with fidelity, truth- 
 fulness, and consistency. Now, Stephen 
 was always consistent in his details 
 while the story lasted. He only altered 
 the story when he told it on another 
 occasion. 
 
 The voyage homeward, therefore, was 
 more silent. The girl still preserved the 
 same reserve ; the Poet ceased his en- 
 deavours to make her talk. Jack still 
 wondered. Presently the boat entered the 
 creek of Boscastle; Stephen lowered sail, 
 and in a few minutes they were standing 
 on the. quay. The girl, with a slight 
 inclination of her head, walked quickly 
 away. 
 
 “ Poet, said J ack, when a few minutes 
 later they were standing on the rocks above 
 “ Poet, this is some of your handiwork. 
 
 I have dreamed a dream. I thought we 
 were in a boat out at sea ; there were cruel 
 cliffs along, the shore with sharp teeth 
 ready to grind and destroy any ship that 
 should be driven upon them; there were 
 black caves ; there were long, hungry-look- 
 ing reefs running out to sea ; there were 
 rocks of strange shapes standing by them- 
 selves in the water ; there was a bright 
 sunshine and a dancing sea ; there was an 
 old sailor whose talk was like the sound of 
 the brook which ceases not, as the splash of 
 the water from the roof on a rainy day ; 
 and there was a maiden— such a maiden,' 
 
 so dainty, so sweet. Give me back mv 
 dream.” J 
 
 “Do you remember,” Jack presently 
 asked, “ what the old fellow was saying ? ” 
 
 “Not a word,” replied the Poet. “I 
 was thinking how such a girl could be his 
 niece. Why, his wife, and his daughters, 
 his female cousins, and their daughters, his 
 female connections by marriage, and their 
 daughters, must be, or have been, or 
 are about to be, dumpy, blowsy, full- 
 blown, broad-nosed. Call that girl his 
 niece ?”, . 
 
 “I was thinking about her, too,” said 
 Jack ; “ I was thinking how she came there. 
 Do you think she is really a person named 
 Cobbledick ? Beauty should have a graceful 
 name. Every girl who turns out well ought 
 to .be allowed to change her name for some- 
 thing, appropriate, just, as the actresses do. 
 Avis is pretty. How did she get that name, 
 
 I wonder ? Did you notice how sad she 
 seemed ? What is the matter with her, I 
 wonder? She would not speak; she did 
 not smile ; her face is too pale ; her eyes 
 are weighed down with some grief. Good 
 heavens! Does that old villain ill-treat 
 her?” Jack clenched his fists as the 
 thought came into his mind. 
 
 For two days they had no chance of 
 seeing her again, because she did not 
 leave the cottage. Yet the weather was fine. 
 Was she ill ? Did she never come out ? 
 
 “ I must and will see her,” said Jack, on 
 the third day. 
 
 His mind, was made up ; he would attack 
 the citadel itself. He boldly went to the 
 cottage ; no one was in the porch ; the door 
 stood open ; he stepped in ; before him was 
 another door ; he knocked gently, receiving, 
 the customary invitation ; he opened it, and; 
 found within the girl he desired to speak. 
 She was sitting at the table ; before her was 
 a book, but it was shut ; she was leaning 
 her head upon her hand in a weary, listless 
 way. 
 
 “Do you want my uncle?” she asked. 
 
 “ You will find him at the harbour.” 
 
 “ No,” said Jack, turning very reef. “I 
 wanted to speak to you.” s 
 
 “To me?” She looked up wondering. 
 “Tome?” 
 
 “Yes.” Jack blushed more violently. 
 
 “ I . am guilty of great presumption in 
 daring to call here; but,” here he stam- 
 mered, “ the truth is, you are unhappy, 
 and I want to know if I, if we, my friend 
 and I, can help ?” 
 
 “What makes you think that I am 
 unhappy ? ” she asked coldly. i 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 21 
 
 “Because you are pale, and your eyes 
 are heavy ; because you stay in doors all 
 day when you ought to be in the sunshine ; 
 because you never once smiled during the 
 whole time when we were in the boat. Do 
 not think that I alone remarked these 
 things ; my companion saw them, too. I 
 know you are unhappy.” 
 
 “ You cannot help,” she said sadly. 
 “No one can help.” 
 
 “Let me try,” he replied. “Believe me, 
 I am not forcing myself upon you through 
 any idle curiosity. I know the world 
 better than you — better, perhaps, than 
 your uncle ” 
 
 She shuddered slightly, as if the name 
 pained her. Was it then a fact that this 
 old villain ill-treated her ? “Let us 
 advise ” 
 
 “ Oh I” she replied- “you are very 
 good, but you cannot help. If you could 
 do me any good, I think I would take your 
 help. You look as if you were a gentleman, 
 and true.” 
 
 “ I do my best to be a gentleman, and 
 true,” said Jack humbly. “ Try me.” 
 
 She shook her head again. He saw that 
 the tears stood Jn her eyes. 
 
 “Come,” said Jack. “Will you do one 
 thing which will help 1” 
 
 “ What is that 1” 
 
 “ Put on your hat and come with me for 
 a walk upon the cliffs. That will do you 
 good.” 
 
 She hesitated. It was not through the 
 fear that to walk with a young man would 
 be improper, because she had never learned 
 by experience or example that certain 
 most innocent things may be regarded 
 as improper. Not only was the girl 
 innocent herself, but she was also igno- 
 rant of conventionalities. How should 
 she learn them, brought up in a school 
 where no men were present or talked 
 about ? 
 
 “ Come,” said the tempter. “ The day 
 is bright and warm ; it is a pleasure even to 
 breathe on such a day as this. Come with 
 me.” 
 
 She looked at him again. He was tall 
 and handsome. Perhaps comeliness does 
 produce some effect upon the minds of 
 girls, though they certainly manage to fall 
 in love with the most remarkably ugly 
 men. The face was bright, too, and the 
 eyes were “straight.” She looked, and 
 yielded. 
 
 Ten minutes later the port and town of 
 Boscastle were lying at their feet far below 
 them. They were climbing the headland 
 
 of Willapark. The girl was a good walker, 
 though she had taken to bad ways of late, 
 and stayed indoors. 
 
 When they reached the top, her pale 
 face was flushed, and her eyes were bright ; 
 the set look had left her lips, and on her 
 mouth was a smile. 
 
 J ack was almost afraid to look at her ; 
 she seemed to him, still, a kind of dream. 
 
 “ Let us talk,” he said. 
 
 They sat down, side by side, as if they 
 had known each other since infancy. 
 
 The first day they talked about the 
 place : the second day J ack felt his way to 
 more personal and confidential talk : the 
 third day he astonished himself by his 
 boldness and success. 
 
 “ Let me be your brother,” he began, 
 this artful deceiver, who would have refused 
 the offer of becoming the young lady’s 
 brother if it had been made in earnest. 
 “ My name is Davenant, and they always 
 call me Jack; that is, my name is 
 not J ohn, you know ; but, if you will 
 call me Jack, it would make things 
 simpler.” 
 
 “But I hardly know you at all,” she 
 replied, with a little laugh. “ It is so odd 
 to see a man for the third time or so 
 and then to call him by his christian- 
 name.” 
 
 “ Not if that man calls you by your 
 christian-name. Let us try. Now then : 
 Avis — what a pretty name !” 
 
 “Jack!” — she blushed a rosy red— 
 — “what a good name — for a man !” 
 
 “ Avis,” he repeated, “ now then that 
 we are brother and sister— let us take hands 
 upon it ” — he held out his right hand and 
 folded hers with his strong grasp — “ tell 
 me why you are unhappy ? ” 
 
 “ That would be to tell you all my'poor 
 little history.” 
 
 “ Then tell it me.” 
 
 She told him, as we know it. He was a 
 youth of quick sympathies, and guessed 
 more than what she told him. How could 
 he help ? 
 
 “Avis,” he said, “this kind of life can- 
 not go on. You must leave your guardian 
 as soon as possible. Strange ! I wonder if 
 he told the truth when he said you were 
 his niece 1” 
 
 “I do not know. The old woman who 
 waits upon us says that he had neither 
 brother nor sister.” 
 
 “ I do not believe that you are his niece 
 at all,” said Jack stoutly; “but that does 
 not matter. By his own showing, your 
 education was an accident ; you owe him 
 
22 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 nothing for that ; he makes no pretence at 
 affection ; he even charges you an exorbi- 
 tant sum every week for your simple 
 maintenance ; you are left wholly alone and 
 neglected ; you know no one in this place ; 
 you must leave it quickly.” 
 
 “ But I can hear of nothing to do. My 
 schoolmistress can find me no place as 
 governess, and, indeed, I fear I am not 
 clever enough to teach ; and I am 
 haunted, day and night, with the thought 
 that he' will force me to take any place 
 that I can get — even — even — to stand 
 behind a bar and serve sailors with 
 rum.” 
 
 “ By Heaven!” cried Jack, “ that 
 would be too much. But, Avis, there are 
 other people in the world besides your 
 schoolmistress. There are, for instance, 
 the Poet and myself.” 
 
 “ Now I have told you,” she said simply, 
 “ I feel as if hope was coming back to me. 
 J ack ” — she blushed again very prettily as 
 she called him a second time by his name — 
 “ you will not think I am ashamed to work, 
 and would rather live on with him in the 
 little cottage. To be sure, it is not pleasant 
 for a girl to be told that she is not, which 
 she always thought she was, a lady, but 
 only a common sailor’s daughter, or a ship- 
 carpenter’s daughter, or whatever profes- 
 sion my uncle’s fancy chooses to give my 
 father j and it is dreadful to think of leaving 
 the very pretence and outward show of 
 being a lady, and of descending to the 
 lower levels ; and then there is the terrible 
 debt. However can that money be paid 1 
 I owe him now for fifteen weeks, at thirty 
 shillings a week.” 
 
 “I know a way of paying that debt,” 
 said Jack. 
 
 “I cannot take money from you, Mr. 
 Davenant,” she replied, with a sudden 
 change in her manner. 
 
 “You shall not, Avis. Here isTny plan. 
 
 I am a painter, an artist. What I paint 
 best, are heads. My pictures are worth — 
 well, not too much, but something. I will 
 paint your head, and I will offer you for the 
 permission to make that painting the sum 
 of thirty guineas. Then you can pay your 
 debt.” 
 
 “ But that is taking money from you,” 
 she said. 
 
 “Not at all. It is earning money by 
 work. You will have to sit to me a dozen 
 times while I am painting it. That is your 
 part of the work, and very tedious work 
 it is. When the picture is finished, it 
 will be sent to the Boyal Academy, and, if 
 
 it is sold, will fetch a hundred guineas at 
 least.” 
 
 “ But if it is not sold ?” 
 
 “Then it will be worth to me,” said 
 J ack, “ a great deal more than a hundred 
 guineas.” 
 
 But she refused to take his money, 
 though she promised to let him paint her. 
 Two days afterwards she was astonished by 
 a most unexpected burst of generosity on 
 the part of Stephen Cobbledick, who in- 
 formed her, with effusion, that she was to 
 consider the debt due to him on account 
 of board and lodging as wiped off the 
 books. 
 
 “Stephen Cobbledick,” he said, “was 
 always a generous man. None of his 
 enemies ever accused him of meanness. 
 Therefore, when his niece came to stay 
 with him, he was content to share and 
 share so long as there remained a shot 
 in the locker.” So that, in fine, the past 
 was to count as nothing, and the thirty 
 shillings a week was to begin from that 
 day only. 
 
 He did not think it necessary to inform 
 the girl that in an interview with Mr. 
 Davenant, that young gentleman had used 
 strong expressions as to the vices of greed 
 and graspingness ; that Mr. Davenant had 
 further informed him that he was not fit to 
 have a girl at all in his charge ; that it was 
 his, Mr. Davenant’s, intention to find a 
 more fitting asylum for her; and that, mean- 
 time, he would pay her generous benefactor 
 for what he had already spent upon her 
 since her arrival, at the rate of a pound a 
 week. 
 
 Stephen was not one of those thin-skinned 
 people, who shrink into their shell on the 
 administration of rebuke ; not at all ; it was 
 customary on board ship both to give and 
 to take admonition, with or without kicks, 
 rope’s-ending, cudgelling, or knocking down, 
 and.no offence on either side, or subsequent 
 malice, grumpiness, or thought of revenge. 
 He therefore took the money; acknow- 
 ledged by his salute Jack’s rank as a 
 superior officer, and made no difference 
 in his cheerful manner when he met 
 him that evening at the Wellington Arms. 
 He liked Jack, in fact, all the better for 
 it. 
 
 Mr. Davenant, he said, was born to tread 
 the quarter-deck and to give his orders 
 through a trumpet. He should have been 
 sent to sea, by rights, where he would 
 have turned out an admiral or a pilot, at the 
 very least. 
 
 As for the Poet, Mr. Cobbledick regarded 
 
F 
 
 0 
 
 
 
 Charles Dickens.] WITH THE SAILOR.” [December 1, 1880.1 23 
 
 
 . i 
 
 him with aversion. He was always sneer- 
 ing, he said ; he turned up his nose at. the 
 finest yarn, and asked searching questions 
 as if they were not true. 
 
 He was not such a fool as not to see that 
 the girl was pretty, and that J ack had eyes, 
 and that the best way to get rid of his 
 niece, and at the same time secure a firm 
 hold upon her, financially, was to facilitate, 
 as well as his inexperience would allow, 
 the growth of a tender feeling towards the 
 girl as well as the interest she had already 
 aroused in the heart of the young fellow 
 from London. 
 
 He wanted ardently to get rid of her. 
 She was in his way ; he could not live as 
 he liked while she was there ; he wanted, 
 as most people do, to revert as much , as 
 possible to the ways of the Primitive 
 Man; he would have gnawed his hones, 
 cracked them with his teeth to extract the 
 marrow ; he would not have been unwilling 
 to clothe himself in skins, if there were any 
 to be got; and he would have made his 
 cottage like the cave of the flint weapon 
 period. It is painful to reflect that man- 
 kind have not only to be dragged against 
 their will to the chilly heights of culture, 
 but that they must be kept there forcibly, 
 else they will relapse and wallow once more 
 in the mire. Poor Pat, who loves the 
 society of his pig in his cabin, is a type of 
 what we should all become but for the 
 tyranny of people who are not only clean, 
 but also powerful. 
 
 Next to getting rid of her, he wanted to 
 recover the money which had been, against 
 his knowledge, spent upon the girl. Seventy 
 pounds a year ! This dreadful prodigality 
 for ten years at least, besides what he had 
 spent before ; and when he complained to 
 his man of business with whom he had left 
 his money, that unfeeling person called him 
 names. He reckoned it up. Seventy pounds 
 a year for ten years : that made seven 
 hundred, with which he could have bought 
 half-a-dozen cottages, the only form of 
 investment which he knew. Then there 
 was the interest : three pounds a year, at 
 least : thirty pounds more gone. Now, if 
 a gentleman — Stephen thought that all 
 gentlemen were, rich — were to fall in love 
 with Avis, it would be hard if he could not 
 extract from him, either before or after 
 marriage, the return of that sum, with a 
 little more. “ I should make it,” he said, 
 with glistening eyes ; “I should make it — 
 ay — a round thousand, or fifteen hundred 
 pounds. Hang me, if for such a girl as 
 Avis a man ought not to pay two thousand 
 
 down. And that would make me very 
 comfortable. Very comfortable, indeed, it 
 would. Ah ! if you do keep a goin’ on a 
 castin’ of your bread upon the waters, how 
 it does come back, some day, to be sure ! 
 
 If I’d forty nieces, blowed if I wouldn’t 
 treat ’em all the same .way ; make ’em 
 ladies, with silk stockings and white 
 hands, and take two thousand . pound 
 apiece for ’em all round when their chaps 
 came to marry them. It’s beautiful ! It’s 
 what the lawyers call, I suppose, a mar- 
 riage settlement. I only wish I’d had 
 forty — ay, or fifty nieces — or a hundred, 
 at the same rate.” 
 
 With this blissful dream of a numerous 
 and penniless family all dependent on 
 himself, all girls, and all bringing him 
 large dots, he indulged his waking hours. 
 
 “I must take you back to town, Jack,’ 
 said the Poet. 
 
 “Not yet. I must paint her face. I 
 have promised that.” 
 
 “ Do not promise too much,” the Poet 
 added, with a meaning in his words. . It 
 was at this period that the conversation 
 was held which I have already recorded. 
 “Do not promise too much.” 
 
 Jack turned from his . friend with im- 
 patience ; because at this time he was ready 
 to promise anything. 
 
 She was changed in those few days since 
 first he saw her ; no longer silent and 
 depressed. She was bright, smiling, and 
 ready to talk and ask questions. Life had 
 begun to look cheerful again ; hope was in 
 her heart, but not yet love. She was 
 humble ; the knowledge of her birth had 
 made her more humble than before. She 
 was ignorant of the world, but she knew 
 enough to be sure a gentleman ought not to 
 marry beneath him ; not to marry at all . 
 seemed a light affliction to her, and she was 
 resolute that since no gentleman could 
 marry her, she would marry no one at all. 
 Had she been brought up among girls of 
 Stephen Cobbledick’s class, she would, on 
 the other hand, have dreamed continually 
 of some gentleman falling in love with her. 
 That is, indeed, the dream of the London 
 dressmaker, and, I daresay, of the humblest 
 girl that lives. The king and the beggar- 
 maid ; the Prince and Cinderella; how 
 many stories have been written, how many 
 dreams dreamed, upon this theme. 1 ? Because 
 poor Avis had been taught to believe, as all 
 gentlewomen try to believe, that a gentleman 
 cannot fall in love below his station, she con- 
 cluded that she was never to marry at all. 
 A sad thing, to have no lover, no husband, 
 
 g£s 
 
 r 
 
 IS 
 
 
 u 
 
rfi: 
 
 
 24 [December 1, 1880 .] “ OYER THE SEA [Conducted by 
 
 and no joy of little children ; a grievous 
 thing, yet a light thing m comparison with 
 that threatened descent into the rough world 
 from which her new friend promised some- 
 how to rescue her. She had no thought of 
 love. Jack, the kind and generous-hearted 
 Jack, pitied her loneliness ; he would find 
 something for her, some place somewhere ; 
 she asked not what or ’when; she left it 
 trustfully to him. 
 
 The portrait, too, was begun. While 
 she sat, Jack could gaze upon her without 
 reproach. 
 
 As he looked and transferred her features 
 to the canvas, he fell more and more in 
 love. Yet he said no word of love; nor 
 did he by any of those outward signs, 
 common among lovers, betray his passion. 
 For as yet he was uncertain what to do ; 
 he thought of her happiness, or tried to 
 think of that, first ; but while he set him- 
 self to work to reason out the thing calmly, 
 the recollection of her voice, which was 
 cheerful and sweet — not low, which is so 
 common an affectation among women — 
 came upon him, and his heart leaped up ; 
 or he thought of her eyes so limpid and so 
 deep ; or the outline of her face, which he 
 drew perpetually upon every margin; or her 
 tall and lissom figure ; and he could not 
 reason because he felt. 
 
 At first he argued with himself that a girl 
 living in such a manner could not but be 
 coarse in her ideas ; yet she had so lived, 
 he remembered, but three short months, 
 and it was pain and misery to her. There 
 are minds which can never be coarse and 
 common, just as there are some which can 
 never be pure and sweet. 
 
 It had not entered into his scheme of 
 life to marry early. He was one of the men 
 who preach the doctrine that it is best to 
 make your way first, your name, if that is 
 possible, and your income, before you com- 
 mit yourself to the chances of matrimony. 
 Now, his name was not yet made, but was 
 already in the making, so to speak ; and his 
 fortune was all to be made. As for any 
 feeling that he would marry beneath him, 
 that was far from being in his thoughts at 
 all. Who marries Avis, he said, cannot 
 possibly marry beneath him. 
 
 It was so pleasant, this time of roaming 
 about with the girl, talking, sitting together, 
 walking on the cliffs, or sailing in the boat, 
 that he was loth to disturb it. The days 
 went on, and every day he saw more of her ; 
 the honest fishermen of Boscastle took it for 
 granted that they were courting. Avis had 
 no shame to run and meet him while he was 
 
 yet afar off ; she had no shame in telling 
 him all she thought and hoped ; she showed 
 him her very soul unconsciously in perfect 
 trust. Together they made journeys to 
 see the places of which the giri had heard 
 so many weird legends in her childhood. 
 The Castle of Tintagel, St. Nighton’s 
 Keive, and Minster Church, where Jack 
 made sketches always with Avis in the 
 foreground ; and they went to Forrabury 
 Church together, Avis haunted no more 
 by the foolish fear of meeting any of her 
 schoolfellows. 
 
 “ I told the girls,” she said, “ that I was 
 going into the world to find a father and a 
 mother, and, perhaps, a sister and a brother. 
 But, Jack, I never thought that I should 
 find so kind a brother as you.” 
 
 Remarks such as these are difficult to 
 receive, under similar circumstances. Yet 
 Jack, through some fear of the result, or 
 some scruple about himself, 'vyould not say 
 the words which would sever that fraternal 
 bond. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. RAMSAY, ALIAS ANGEL. 
 
 Now, while these two were- rapidly 
 passing through all those nicely graduated 
 emotions of admiration, wonder, respect, 
 longing, and ardent desire for each other’s 
 society, which make up and lead to the 
 delightful passion of love (which, unless a 
 man feel it at least once in his life, he had 
 better never have been born), an event 
 happened which was destined to trouble 
 everything. Always that detestable hitch 
 in human affairs which interrupts and 
 hinders ! The American poet observes on 
 this point, that the course of true love 
 may fitly be compared with the flow of 
 the Mississippi ; for it is a full and mighty 
 stream; and it is irresistible; and it has 
 snags; and there are in certain of its 
 latitudes alligators in its waters, and 
 rattles on its shores, besides fevers. The 
 snags, also, are not found in the early 
 reaches of the river, which further assists 
 that poet’s metaphor. 
 
 The event was this. 
 
 Stephen Cobbledick was one morning 
 seated on a hawser on the harbour quay. 
 His short pipe was in his mouth, his legs 
 were stretched out, and he was contem- 
 plating, with an air of great - satisfaction, 
 the wreaths of tobacco-smoke, for they con- 
 tained a delicious castle of Spain connected 
 with the “ marriage settlement” of his 
 niece. It had occurred to the wicked old 
 man that, while he was about it, eighty or 
 even ninety pounds a year might as easily 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 25 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR/ ” 
 
 be set down as the cost of Avis’s main- 
 tenance as seventy, and the same sum might 
 be charged for every year of her existence. 
 How, as she was eighteen years of age, that 
 meant a total of sixteen hundred and 
 twenty pounds, as he chalked it up on a 
 neighbouring stone. 
 
 “She owes me/’ he said, “sixteen 
 hundred and twenty pounds; or, countin’ 
 the interest out of which I have been 
 choused, seventeen hundred pounds in all. 
 There’s a sum! She shall go for it, though. 
 I shall charge nothing— nothing at all— for 
 loss of her services and agonies at parting 
 from my dearly beloved niece. . What a 
 uncle l am! ” 
 
 He was, indeed, as he was about to prove, 
 the most remarkable of all uncles recorded 
 in history, except perhaps Richard the 
 Third, the guardian of the Babes in the 
 Wood, and the Barber Fiend. 
 
 So rapt was he in the vision of his own 
 goodness, that he paid no attention to the 
 operation -conducted just below him, of 
 inserting a new plank in the side of a 
 coaster, nor did he hear the footsteps of a 
 man who was walking leisurely towards 
 him. He was a thin, slenderly-built man, 
 about the average height, dressed in a black 
 frock coat, buttoned up, black trousers, and 
 a tall hat.. He might have been a dissent- 
 ing minister, or a traveller for a religious 
 publication, or a temperance lecturer, or a 
 promoter of public companies,' so much did 
 his appearance betoken ostentatious respect- 
 ability. His age might have been any thing, 
 but was certainly over forty, as was 
 manifested by the crow’s-feet round his 
 eyes. His features were good and certainly 
 handsome, though too long and sharp ; his 
 eyes were keen and small ; his lips were 
 thin, with a nervous twitch in them, and 
 they were flexible; his hands and feet were 
 small and delicate. 
 
 He stood awhile looking- at the good 
 visionary, who sat gazing into space as he 
 counted up his gains, and heard him not. 
 The stranger smiled. “What mischief is 
 the old man thinking of now?” he mur- 
 mured. “ He looks aged, but them’s work 
 in Stephen yet.” 
 
 He stepped over the ropes which lay 
 about the quay, and laid his hand on 
 Stephen’s shoulder, not heavily, but with a 
 quick hard grip, as if he had caught his 
 victim at last. 
 
 “ Shipmate,” he said, “ how goes it 1” 
 
 Stephen started, looked up in his face, 
 jumped to his feet, dropping his pipe, which 
 was smashed on the stones, and forgetting 
 
 his vision of marriage settlements. Never 
 was man more astonished. His jaw dropped, 
 his eyes opened, he spread out his hands in 
 helpless astonishment. 
 
 “ Cap’en Ramsay !” he cried at length. “It 
 is hisself.” 
 
 “ Shake hands, old salt,” said the other. 
 “ It is myself, I guess. No other hoss has 
 got into this skin. Why, there ; it’s cheer- 
 ful lookin’ at your old face again. Kind o’ 
 brings back the old days ; doesn’t it V* 
 
 “It does; it does,” responded Stephen. 
 “ But come, Cap’en, this demands a drink.” 
 
 “Hold hard; you come in my tow so 
 long as I’m here,” said Captain Ramsay. 
 “ Let us go to the bar.” 
 
 They went there, and drank each other’s 
 health at the Captain’s expense. 
 
 “ And where,” asked the stranger, “ can 
 we have a place where we can sit and talk 
 by ourselves, with nobody prickin’ up their 
 ears to listen V’ 
 
 Stephen led the way to his own cottage, 
 where appropriating Avis’s room for the 
 occasion, they sat and talked. 
 
 “To think,” cried Stephen, “that I should 
 live to see you a settin’ down in my own 
 house.” 
 
 “Here I am, you see. I was at Liver- 
 pool, when I remembered that you had given 
 up the piloting and were come home. And 
 by reason of your sometimes answering to 
 the name of Boscastle Steve, I concluded to 
 run down here, and prospect around till I 
 found you.” 
 
 “ In my own house,” replied the other 
 with iteration ; “the same house as I bought 
 with half-a-dozen others when I come home 
 eighteen years ago, after that little job of 
 ours, where we done so well.” 
 
 “ What little job ?” 
 
 “You know, the black job, when we 
 shipped — Ho ! ho ! — that crew of darkies 
 in Boston, pretendin’ — Ho ! ho ! ho ! — 
 that we were bound for Liverpool, and run 
 ’em down to New Orleans and sold ’em 
 every man jack.” 
 
 “ I remember,” Captain Ramsay replied; 
 “ and divided the plunder. It was risky, 
 but creditable. It wouldn’t quite do to 
 have shown up in Boston for a while after 
 that, would it I” 
 
 “ And what have you been a doin’ of 
 since, Cap’en ■'i Have you sot down to 
 enjoy the proceeds of honest industry, or 
 have you fooled away your pile ? ” 
 
 “ I’ve fooled away that pile, and I’ve 
 made more piles, and I’ve fooled them 
 away.” 
 
 “ Euchre V’ asked the pilot. 
 
26 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 “OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “And monty, and any other darned 
 thing going. Guess if the Prodigal Son 
 had gone to New Orleans he would have 
 dropped the old man’s dollars in a way to 
 reflect credit on that city.” 
 
 “Ay, ay. When I set eyes last upon 
 yop, Cap’en, you was a Salem man, and a 
 Quaker by profession when in shore-goin’ 
 togs, and religion was useful. And you’d 
 changed your name from Ramsay to Angel. 
 Ho ! ho ! Angel ! ” 
 
 “ Your memory is so good, old mate, that 
 I must ask you to remember nothing about 
 me ’cept what I tell you. And what I tell 
 you now is this : I am Ramsay again, 
 Jefferson Ramsay, Commodore in the Navy 
 of the Confederate States. I was born and 
 reared in Norfolk. I am Secesh to the 
 back-bone. Bully for the blue flag ! I hail 
 from the South, the land of chivalry, where 
 no abolitionist skunk shall be permitted to 
 dwell, and all the whites air gentlemen 
 born, most of them of the ancient aristocracy 
 of Great Britain. We air fightin’, Sir, for 
 liberty and our constitution. The Peculiar 
 Institution has been forced upon us by our 
 ancestors. We shall consider it when we 
 have established our freedom from the 
 North. Abolition we abhor, because we 
 love our nigg'ers too well to give them the 
 liberty they would convert into license. 
 No, Sir, the South at this moment is the 
 proud champion of constitutional right, 
 and the defender of morality and religion.” 
 
 He delivered this harangue with a 
 slowness which greatly added to the 
 effect. 
 
 Stephen Cobbledick was affected almost 
 to tears. “ He ought,” he exclaimed, “ to 
 have been a bishop ! ” 
 
 “So I ought,” said Captain Ramsay, 
 “ if everybody had what was best for 
 him. I should like to be a bishop — in 
 England.” 
 
 Stephen then began to narrate his own 
 experiences. The Commodore of the Con- 
 federate Navy sat in the attitude of listen- 
 ing, which was polite, because the Pilot 
 was prolix. After a quarter of an hour or 
 so of patient pretence, he pulled up the 
 narrator short. 
 
 “ Say,” he began, “ what do you mean to 
 do next 1” 
 
 “ Nothing,” replied Stephen. 
 
 “ What ? Stay in this forsaken hole 1 
 Sit here and rot like an old hulk in a 
 harbour 1 ” 
 
 “Ay. Sit here is the word, Cap’en. 
 Time’s come when I’m bound to lay up. 
 I’ve got religion; I’ve got a dozen cottages; 
 
 I collect the rents of a Saturday; I’m sixty- 
 five years of age ; there’s no pilotin’ to do ; 
 and as for black jobs, why I doubt whether 
 that trade will ever again be worth what it 
 used to be. Lord! sometimes, when the 
 minister is a boomin’ away in the chapel, 
 
 I sit and think of the droves of ’em, bought 
 for a song, as one may say, sometimes took 
 for nothing, drivers and all, hurried over 
 the Atlantic in a clipper that could show 
 her heels to any British frigate afloat, and 
 put up at New Orleans or Havannah 
 
 for ” Here he stopped and sighed. 
 
 “It’s comfortin’ to think of those times. 
 It brings out the flavour of the hymns. 
 You should get religion, Cap’en.” 
 
 “ Some day, may ]be, Stephen. ’Spose 
 there was piloting to do V 1 
 
 “ Ay, ay ?” The old fellow sat upright 
 and listened intently. 
 
 “ ’Spose I was to say to myself: ‘ I’ve got 
 a job that wants a light hand, a quick eye, 
 and a knowledge of the coast 1 ’ ” 
 
 “ What coast 1 ” asked Stephen. 
 
 “The coast of North Car’lina, and the 
 port of Wilmington.” 
 
 “ He means blockade -runnin’ !” cried 
 Stephen with enthusiasm. “ Where there’s 
 danger, there’s Cap’en Ramsay! Where 
 there’s money to be made, there’s the 
 gallant Cap’en! Where there’s fightin r 
 and runnin’ away, and a shootin’ of six- 
 shooters, there he is in the middle of it, 
 whether it’s filibusterin’, or slavin’, or the 
 South Sea trade, or runnin’ the blockade 1 
 What a man ! What a Nero !” 
 
 You’ve guessed the job, old shipmate. 
 Some men would ha’ let me beat about the 
 bush for an hour. But you’ve got a head 
 upon your shoulders, Stephen, screwed 
 on tight, right end up, and eyes in that 
 head as can see straight. You’ve guessed 
 it !” 
 
 “ Go on, Cap ; go on.” This sagacious 
 flattery increased the good old man’s desire 
 to hear more. Blockade-running was next 
 to piracy; therefore dear to his heart. For 
 he was one of those perverse brethren who 
 ever love the thing that is illegal, because 
 it is illegal. 
 
 “ I’ve been blockade-running since that 
 little game began, and I haven’t been 
 caught yet. And I don’t mean to be, 
 though they’ve put on the coast some new 
 and fast cruisers. For I’ve got, at Liver- 
 pool, loading for me, a craft, Stephen, as 
 would make your eyes water. Yes, I 
 reckon you would weep for joy that you 
 had lived to see such a craft.” 
 
 “Ah!” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR. 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 27 
 
 “ Such lines ; such gracefulness ; such 
 lightness; such speed.” 
 
 “Oh!” ] 
 
 “ You shall see her, Stephen. Whether 
 you fall in with my proposal or not, you 
 shall see her and judge for yourself. Now, 
 listen. In my last trip we did well ; got 
 in and out without a brush or a shot. 
 Some of the boys aboard were pretty rough 
 — that’s a fact — and just before we sighted 
 Nassau there was a little difficulty between 
 the pilot and the chief officer. The chief 
 officer didn’t matter, because his sort, 
 though he was a plucky one, air plentiful, 
 and Nassau swarms with young English 
 chaps mad for a run ; but when the pilot 
 had to send in his checks too, and we heaved 
 both overboard at once, it was a real loss, 
 and rough upon us, as was generally felt. 
 For pilots air like angels — they air skarse.” 
 “Young men,” said Stephen, “will be 
 young men. I’ve drawed a bowie myself 
 before now, and let daylight into the other 
 chap. But for both to go at once ! That 
 seems a most extravagant waste.” 
 
 “ So, being at Liverpool, I remembered 
 you, Stephen. I said : £ This is a chance 
 which does not often happen. If Stephen 
 Cobbledick gets it, he is a made man.’ ” 
 
 “ I’m too old,” said Stephen. 
 
 “ Nonsense. You’re as young as you 
 feel Your hand is firm, and your eye is 
 straight; and what’s more, you know every 
 inch of the coast.” 
 
 “I do. No man better.” 
 
 “Why, then, we’re half agreed already. 
 And now, old pal, you shall see what a 
 thing it is I am goin’ to give you a share 
 of.” He pulled some papers and the stump 
 of a pencil out of his pocket. “ First, you 
 shall have, for the double trip, seven — 
 hundred — and — fifty pounds — nigh ■ upon 
 four thousand dollars.” 
 
 “ What 1” Stephen jumped out of his 
 chair. “ How much ? ” 
 
 “ Seven — hundred — and — fifty pounds 
 sterling. Half paid down on the day you 
 go aboard ; the other half when we get 
 back to Nassau. Stop a minute, I haven’t 
 done yet. Every man is allowed space for 
 his own ventures. You shall have room 
 for a dozen cases if you like. More than 
 that, I’ve bought them for you, and they 
 are shipped ready for you. I give them to 
 you.” 
 
 “ If I could !” cried Stephen. 
 
 “ Why not 1 What’s to prevent 1” 
 “There’s that gell o’ mine ; my niece. 
 Hanged if I don’t think they kep’ her alive 
 a purpose to worry an’ interfere.” 
 
 “ Leave her behind.” 
 
 “ I might do that.” 
 
 “ A dozen cases*' all your own. They’re 
 full of the things that sell in Richmond 
 and the other places. There’s women’s 
 stays, kid gloves, tooth-brushes, Cockle’s 
 pills, lucifer-matches — man ! whatever you 
 take will sell, ’less it’s raw cotton.” 
 
 “Ay.” 
 
 This good uncle was meditating a scheme 
 for the happiness of his niece. 
 
 “ As for danger, there’s none. Not that 
 you are the man to show a white feather. 
 There’s plenty at Liverpool could do it, 
 but I want you. ‘ Steve Cobbledick,’ I said, 
 
 ‘ would enjoy the business. Steve Cobble- 
 dick, as I’ve known these twenty years and 
 more, since I was little bigger than a 
 boy.” 
 
 “ You were on’y next door to a boy,” 
 said Stephen, “when you came aboard as 
 third mate. ’Twas at Havannah. You 
 were then, you said, the son of an 
 English gentleman, and you’d run away. 
 You shipped in the name of Peregrine 
 Pickle, which afterwards I saw in a 
 printed book. That was the first” — he 
 looked round him with admiration — “ of 
 his names and his descriptions. Never any 
 man had so many parents. And wicked 1 
 How a lad so young could pick up so much 
 wickedness, the Lord knows. Yet there he 
 was. And drink 1 Like a mermaid. And 
 swear 1 Don’t name it. And fight 1 Like 
 Great Alexander ; for the walloping of a 
 nig, to get the work out of him, I don’t 
 suppose there was ever a lad, Spaniard, 
 Mexican, or Yankee, could come within a 
 mile of him. And the sweetest temper 
 with it ; not proud, not pufffid up with 
 vain conceits; easy and affable with all 
 alike. And at a dignity ball, the cock of 
 the walk, though Mexican yellow noses, 
 which are well known to be more jealous 
 than a alligator, were waitin’ outside with 
 knives sharpened on the door-step to have 
 his blood.” 
 
 “ Then you will go with me ” said the 
 hero of this praise, unmoved. “ You will 
 be my pilot ? I’m part owner of the ship 
 and cargo, as well as skipper.” 
 
 “ When do you want to sail 
 
 “In a fortnight.” 
 
 “ Give me three days. I think I can go, 
 Cap’en. It’s only that cussed gell. She’s 
 cost me a thousand pounds a’ready, and I 
 want to get that back. I think the job is 
 as good as done. Three days, my noble 
 Cap’en.” 
 
 In the evening Stephen produced an 
 
 
 L 
 
OYER THE SEA 
 
 n 
 
 
 28 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 electrical effect in the smoking-room of the 
 Wellington Arms by the introduction of 
 his friend Captain Ramsay, who was, he 
 added, Commodore in the Confederate 
 Navy. 
 
 How Captain Ramsay was, as has been 
 explained, a familiar name with every man 
 who was privileged to hear the conversation 
 of Mr. Stephen Cobbledick. For whenever 
 he had to tell of a deed of peculiar atrocity, 
 an act of more than common treachery, a 
 deed which made the flesh to creep and the 
 blood to boil, a transaction more nefarious 
 than is usually considered possible to 
 humanity, he fathered it with every tribute 
 of praise and admiration upon Captain 
 Ramsay. And this heroic Viking actually 
 stood before the peaceful folk of Boscastle 
 in the flesh. A small, lithe, quiet-looking 
 man, with quick bright eyes, who sat 
 quietly beside Stephen, and for a while 
 said nothing. 
 
 The sexton, the blacksmith, and the 
 shipwright stared mutely at the stranger, 
 who presently began to talk and to smoke 
 cigars. 
 
 “ Yet he is a tiger, Jack,” whispered the 
 Poet, in answer to nothing. 
 
 Jack opened the conversation by asking 
 if the Commodore had left the States 
 recently, and what he thought were the 
 present prospects of the South. 
 
 “ Sir,” replied that officer, “ the present 
 prospect is certainty. The North is in her 
 last throes ; they’ve got through all their 
 Irish and Germans ; they can’t raise recruits 
 nor money ; they have been — but they won’t 
 own up — already licked into a cocked hat ; 
 their generals air like whipped curs with 
 their tails between their legs ; their papers 
 air clamouring for peace ; and the South 
 will be asked by the North, before very 
 long, to be good enough to take Maryland 
 and Washington, and go about her own 
 business. Wal, we do not wish to bear 
 malice : we will let them alone, provided 
 they let us alone. But go we must, and go 
 we shall. That is so, gentlemen.” 
 
 “ Of course,” said Jack, “ you speak as a 
 partisan. We hear other accounts from the 
 North.” 
 
 “ You hear, sir, whatever lies the meanest 
 press in the world chooses to tell you. What 
 1 tell you, sir, is fact/” 
 
 Undoubtedly a very strong adherent to 
 the Secession Cause. Salem a long way 
 behind, clean forgotten. Pilot Cobbledick 
 looked on in admiration. 
 
 Presently the Commodore passed from 
 Confederate matters, which, considering the 
 
 way in which the end has falsified his pre- 
 dictions, together with those of a great 
 many far-seeing English editors, would be 
 stale in the repetition, and, backed up 
 by his old comrade-in-arms, launched forth 
 upon the sea of general experience and per- 
 sonal reminiscences. Like Stephen, he had 
 been everywhere. 
 
 Stephen, for his part, was guarded. He 
 said nothing, except to murmur applause, 
 or to put a leading question. 
 
 “ What do you think of him ? ” asked 
 Jack, when the evening was over. 
 
 “ What I said before, my boy ; a tiger,” 
 replied the Poet. “ He looks it. ” 
 
 Avis’s reflections were exactly the reverse 
 of the Poet’s. She thought that if the man 
 was a tiger, as according to the statements 
 made by Stephen he most certainly was, he 
 looked like a lamb. His voice, to her, was 
 so gentle from the moment he saw her; 
 his manner so mild, so caressing ; his very 
 attitudes so modest and unassuming, that 
 she could not believe, from his appear- 
 ance, the stories told about him. He a 
 pirate? He a tiger? No; the imagi- 
 nation of Stephen must have invented 
 all. 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE. 
 
 The way — which the wise man found 
 marvellous in his eyes — when there are 
 three together, and one of them is a maid, 
 is that one of the other two must go 
 away by himself. The Poet, therefore, 
 went away. He adored Avis after the 
 poetical manner. It is very well known 
 how Petrarch found consolation. In like 
 manner, this poet sat on a rock ; thought 
 of this girl’s eyes and her wondrous face ; 
 made her immortal— at least, those of his 
 friends who reviewed him said so — in 
 undying verse ; and presently, with tran- 
 quillity of mind, married another woman. 
 You never find a poet, mind you, going 
 distraught with love. 
 
 As for the other two, they went about 
 without him, happy with each other ; they 
 wandered afield or along the rough Cornish 
 lanes, with cobbled walls on either side ; 
 'they gathered the wild roses ; they sailed 
 in the boat ; they climbed the steep sides 
 of Tintagel. They were yet in the sweet 
 misty time which comes before the spoken 
 love ; it is then that each to each puts 
 forth invisible arms ; ghostly embraces 
 follow, which are but half felt ; the very 
 air seems rosy with the glow of sunrise ; 
 it is a time of imperfect joy, of sweet 
 

 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR” 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 29 
 
 uncertainty, hopeful fear, tender doubt, 
 and ever-growing faith. A woman, per- 
 fect of her kind, once told me that marriage, 
 against which she had nothing to say, was 
 not so happy as the time of plighted 
 troth ; and this, again, not so sweet as 
 that uncertain time of undecided wooing, 
 of admiration, and of attraction. 
 
 This time must have an end. That is 
 most sure. Julie de Rambouillet marries 
 M. de Montausier at last, and Penelope is 
 rewarded in the end. But it is pleasant 
 while it lasts ; and, in the opinion of some, 
 the time which follows is more pleasant 
 still. 
 
 It was a new and divine joy for Jack to 
 read, day after day, the soul of this inno- 
 cent, fresh, and beautiful girl, whose heart 
 turned unto things good and beautiful, as 
 the hemlock turns to the east. A girl’s 
 thoughts are mostly, when she finds ex- 
 pression, clad in the words of others ; she 
 is not good at finding words for herself, 
 she stammers when she tries; it is a 
 shameful thing, in a way, for her to tell, 
 in words all of her own, and directly, the 
 things she feels rather than, thinks. There- 
 fore every girl is a mystery and an enigma.. 
 The better she is, the higher her aspirations, 
 the more mysterious is she to the lover 
 who would fain understand her deepest 
 thought, her most secret hope and wish. 
 Mostly, however, the talk of lovers seems, 
 to the outer world, commonplace. 
 
 “ Since Captain Ramsay came,” said 
 Avis to Jack, two days after the arrival 
 of that worthy, “I hear of nothing but 
 blockade-running. My uncle wants to go. 
 He has got out charts and maps, and 
 spreads them on my table ; he pores over 
 them, with his thumb on the places which 
 he' is interested in. And he has been 
 throwing out hints — you know his hints 
 are broad ones — about being able to go 
 if I were not in his way.” 
 
 “Perhaps,” said Jack gravely, as if he 
 believed what he was saying, “ Stephen 
 thinks he is getting old, and would like to 
 make better provision for you, in case 
 You see, Avis, you are a girl, and have not 
 been brought up to fight your way in the 
 world, which is a place where, unless you 
 are provided with cushions and hassocks 
 stuffed with bank-notes, you find the sitting 
 pretty hard.” 
 
 “I do not think that Stephen cares 
 much about providing for me,” said Avis 
 gently. She was not a girl who readily 
 thought evil or ascribed motives. But it 
 was ridiculous to imagine Stephen Cobbie- 
 
 dick as anxious to work for the sake of 
 herself. “ I hope you have got easy 
 cushions for yourself, Jack.” 
 
 “ Mine are easy enough for me,” he 
 
 replied gruffly. “ The question is 
 
 Avis, will you marry a poor man 1 ” 
 “Jack!” For, at the word “marry,” 
 all the possibilities of the situation rushed 
 upon her mind. 
 
 I am getting on, but an artist’s life is 
 uncertain. Still, if you love me as I love 
 
 you, Avis Darling, will you take 
 
 me 'l ” 
 
 She knew, she found out when he spoke 
 of love, that she already loved him ; she 
 felt that life would be intolerable without 
 him, but she was ashamed ; she could not, 
 so surprised, accept him. 
 
 “ Oh,” she said, the tears starting to her 
 eyes, “you ask me to marry you, Jack, 
 out of your kindness; just as you forced 
 your way to me, because you pitied me. 
 You cannot love me.” 
 
 “ My dear,” he said, taking her hand, “ I 
 have always loved you. I loved you I 
 think, from the very first, when you bat 
 in the boat so sad and silent. Take me, 
 my dear, and let your uncle go blockade- 
 running, or blockhead-breaking, or anything 
 he pleases, with his amiable pirate and 
 murderer, Captain Ramsay. Avis, once 
 more, can you love me 1 Will you send 
 me away empty, after all our talks and 
 walks and happy times, Avis 1 You called 
 me your brother once ; I will not be your 
 brother any more. I must be your lover, 
 Avis, or nothing.” 
 
 She shyly put out her hand. 
 
 “ I cannot give up my friend,” she 
 said, smiling through her tears; “and if 
 he means what he says, and his handmaid 
 has found favour in his sight, and he will 
 take her for his sweetheart, who loves 
 him ” 
 
 The noblest man in the world to marry 
 the noblest woman ! This is a dream which 
 has always presented itself to me in the 
 form of a nightmare. One can imagine the 
 loneliness, the terrible isolation of a house- 
 hold so perfect as to be a standing 
 and perpetual reproach to all the world ; 
 one may feel how husband and wife, 
 after many months of keeping up an ex- 
 hibition of the noblest virtues to each other 
 as well as to. all the world, would at last 
 fly apart with execrations, and descend to 
 a lower level and — separate. I have, 
 besides, never met any whom I could 
 call either the noblest man or the noblest 
 
 
30 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 “OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 woman. I have always found in the former 
 certain failings due to vanity, jealousy, loye 
 of adulation, or even a passion for port ; 
 and in the other I have sometimes noted 
 a tendency to positiveness, smallness, and 
 inability to recognise in the world anything 
 but what she sees. I am sure that Avis 
 was neither the noblest nor the best of 
 women. To begin with, she was not one 
 of the best educated, had few accomplish- 
 ments, knew nothing of society at all, was 
 imperfectly instructed in the fashions, and 
 had little to recommend her except her 
 beauty and — an old-fashioned quality, but 
 uncommon in these days — her virtue and 
 goodness. But, for an average pair of 
 imperfect mortals, with a good average 
 share of virtues, and a general leaning 
 to what is good rather than to what is 
 evil, and a power of unselfishness, and a 
 belief in each other as well as in goodness 
 as an abstract quality, I declare that Jack 
 and Avis promised to be as well mated 
 as Adam and Eve, who, as we know, were 
 imperfect. 
 
 “Poet,” said Jack, later on, with a 
 strange light in his eyes and a little 
 shaking in his voice. “ I have asked Avis 
 to marry me. She is good enough to 
 I take me.” 
 
 “ I congratulate you,” replied the man 
 of song. “ My belief is that you have 
 done the best thing you possibly could 
 for yourself. Now that you are engaged, 
 take her away as fast as ever you can ; the 
 sooner the better.” 
 
 “We shall be married,” said Jack-^ 
 he repeated the word, as if it gave 
 him gratification — “ some time in the 
 autumn. I’ve got to find a house and 
 furnish it.” 
 
 “Don’t wait for the autumn. Take 
 her away, out of this, as soon as you 
 can.” 
 
 “ What do you mean 1” 
 
 “ I mean that the atmosphere is 
 dangerous.” 
 
 “ If you will explain ” 
 
 “Well, then, what I mean is that I 
 have eyes in my head, even although I 
 wear spectacles; that I have been using 
 them ; that I have been watching the 
 piratical scoundrel who calls himself Com- 
 modore Ramsay — no more an officer of 
 the Confederate States than of the British 
 Navy. He is a tiger and a man-eater.” 
 
 “ Go on — go on.” 
 
 “And I think he has cast eyes of 
 affection on — on your fiancee.” 
 
 *5 
 
 Jack clenched his fists and swore a 
 great oath. 
 
 “They are unholy eyes, Jack; take her , 
 away at once.” 
 
 “ He cannot run away with her under 
 my very eyes,” said Jack presently. “ If 
 he dares to say one word to her, by 
 
 Heaven ” Here he choked. 
 
 In these days it is extremely difficult 
 for an Englishman to threaten an enemy. 
 
 He cannot make daylight through him : 
 with a revolver, as a Texan might or . 
 a gentleman of Colorado. He cannot , 
 call him out, with a choice of pistols or , 
 swords. He cannot even promise to punch 
 his head, because it is undignified. He 
 can do nothing. The law is to do every- , 
 thing. Yet, even in the most law-abiding f 
 country in the world, there is always that 
 possible return to the habits of the pre- 
 historic man, who carried a stick, sharpened . 
 its point in the fire, and carved his flint 
 axes, mainly for the purpose of enjoying 
 himself upon his enemy, should he get the 
 chance. < , 
 
 One thing Jack could do — which he did, 
 and with surprising results. He would 
 see old Cobbledick and tell him what he 
 was going to do. Accordingly, he sought t 
 the worthy Pilot, and, without thinking it , 
 necessary to ask the permission of Avis’s , 
 guardian, which is a formality observed 
 by most suitors, he informed him that he 
 was about to marry her. 
 
 “Since,” he said, “ she is good enough ; 
 to think me worthy of being a husband, 
 we shall be married as quickly as possible. ‘ 
 So you will be free of your charge, and 
 happy again. You will be able to live 
 as you like, never open the windows, 
 never clean the place, spread your dinner 
 on the floor, and get as drunk as you 
 please.” m 
 
 This, to be sure, was exactly what . 
 Stephen most wanted ; but he was not 
 going to let the girl go without getting 
 what he could for himself. And. when 
 Jack used the word “ worthy ” in his 
 humility, Stephen thought of the other 
 meaning attached to the word “worth.” 
 Therefore, he replied : 
 
 “ Easy a bit, young gentleman ; soft [ 
 and easy is the word. Now, before we 
 go a bit further into this business, we must 
 have the marriage settlements laid down 
 and agreed upon.” 
 
 “ The marriage settlements % ” 
 
 “ Just so, Mr. Davenant ” — the old man 
 looked unspeakably cunning — “ just so, 
 sir; the marriage settlements. Of course 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR” 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 31 
 
 you don’t expect that I am goin’ to let 
 Avis go with nothing.” 
 
 Jack was rather surprised at this. Still, 
 as a guardian, Stephen was perhaps justi- 
 fied in expecting something to be settled 
 on Avis. 
 
 “ I am not a rich man,” he said ; “ and 
 I cannot settle money upon my wife 
 which I have not got. But I will insure 
 my life for her benefit, for any reason- 
 able amount. That ought to satisfy 
 you.” 
 
 Insure your life for her benefit ! ” 
 Stephen was astonished at the young 
 man’s stupidity. “Well, I don’t mind; 
 that’s just as you like. I was talking of 
 marriage settlements, not insurin’ of lives 
 for her benefit. Who’s a-talkin’ of her 
 benefit ? ” 
 
 “ And I was saying that I will secure 
 her from want by means of an insurance 
 in place of a marriage settlement. That 
 is quite a usual thing to do, believe 
 me.” 
 
 “ Lord ! Lord ! ” cried Stephen. “ Why 
 can’t a man speak up plain and direct 1 
 When I said marriage settlement, I meant 
 marriage settlement ! If you want me to 
 go and beat about — this tack and that 
 tack — like a lawyer, say so ; if not, answer 
 me plain and straight. How much am I 
 to have 1 ” 
 
 “ You to have 1 You 'l ” 
 
 “Me, Mr. Davenant. Do you suppose 
 that I’ve paid for that gell’s education, 
 as fine as if she’d been a duchess, sixty 
 pounds — I mean ninety pounds a year, 
 money out of pocket for eighteen years, 
 for nothing. No, sir ; I calculate not.” 
 
 He added the last words for the sake 
 of emphasis, and with due American 
 intonation. 
 
 “ Good Heaven !” cried Jack. 
 
 “ I think if you tot up that sum, Mr. 
 Davenant, you will find it come to nigh 
 upon one thousand and eight hundred 
 pound. Then there’s the interest, which 
 would be — ah, I dessay a hundred pound 
 more. That makes, altogether, pretty 
 near two thousand pound. Now, the 
 man who marries that gell has got to 
 make a marriage settlement upon me of 
 all that money as I have laid out upon 
 her to make her what she is. She can 
 play the pianner, I am told ; she can sing, 
 when she isn’t sulky, like a angel; she 
 can patter French, they tell me, in a way 
 as would astonish you ; she can dress up 
 
 she can go along, holdin’ of her pettieuts 
 in her hand, like a lady. That’s what she 
 is, a real lady to look at; besides belongin’ 
 to a most respectable family. It was for 
 this that I laid out the money. < Do not 
 grudge it, Stephen,’ I says to myself ; ‘ it 
 is a-castin’ upon the waters, it will be 
 brought back ontoe you, like a runaway 
 nig.’ And I make no charge for the 
 love, nor for the affection, nor for the 
 grief — which might settle on the chest, 
 and be the death of a man, or turn 
 to lumbago — at losin’ of her ; and as 
 for ” 
 
 “ Stop ! ” cried Jack, “ you infernal old 
 humbug and impostor.” 
 
 “ Mr. Davenant ! ” Alarmed at this 
 response, Stephen began to wish he had 
 put his figures a little lower. 
 
 “ I know what you have done. How 
 you went away and forgot all about the 
 child ; how the man who held your money 
 went on paying for the girl and placed 
 her in a respectable school; how you 
 welcomed her back with reproaches and 
 grumbling. Why, she owes you nothing, 
 not even thanks. Now listen, and then 
 shut up. I shall give you not one farthing ; 
 do you hear 1 ” 
 
 “ Not one farthin’ ? Do you mean, 
 Mr. Davenant, that you will not pay me 
 back even the money I spent on her 1 ” 
 
 “Not one farthing. That is my answer. 
 You will do what you please ; but beware 
 of any harsh word or act to Avis.” 
 
 Jack withdrew, leaving Stephen in a 
 state of such disgust and disappointment 
 as he had never before experienced. For 
 the hope of getting back his money had 
 grown in his mind during the progress of 
 Jack’s brief courtship, until he almost saw 
 it within his grasp. It was because he 
 felt so certain that he had allowed him- 
 self to multiply the amount by about 
 three. It may be owned that if Stephen had 
 been acquainted with the nature of geo- 
 metrical progression, and its relation to 
 compound interest, his claims would cer- 
 tainly have been far higher than they were. 
 But to get nothing, absolutely nothing at 
 all ! Was that possible h Was it, this 
 good man asked, just and Christian so to 
 act 1 And how, if not by means of J ack, 
 was this casting of the bread upon the 
 waters to be returned to him ? 
 
 As for Avis’s marriage that was the 
 very thing he wanted. Nothing could 
 possibly suit him better. She would be 
 
 to make her husband proud ; she can talk off his hands, and out of his house ; he 
 pretty, when she isn’t in a temper ; and I need not trouble about her when he was 
 
32 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 away. But the cruel disappointment, and 
 when he had made quite certain that 
 Mr. Davenant was a real gentleman, who 
 would be only too pleased to pay for his 
 fancy. 
 
 The conversation took place in the porch, 
 while Avis herself was sitting on the cliff 
 thinking over the wonderful happiness 
 which had befallen her. So disturbed in 
 mind was her uncle, by Jack’s ungentle- 
 manlike and mean response to his pro- 
 posal, that he was fain to have a tumbler 
 of rum -and -water at once, and to load 
 another pipe. The grog despatched, he 
 sat gloomily in his arm-chair, growling 
 menaces, interjections, and expressions of 
 discontent, as one who has believed too 
 much in humanity, and now, like David, 
 is inclined to say, in his haste, unkind 
 things about all conditions of men. 
 
 While in this mood, he was joined by 
 Captain Ramsay, who, without speaking, 
 took a chair and tilted it against the 
 wall so that he could sit back comfort- 
 ably. As usual, he was provided with 
 an immense cigar, which he smoked con- 
 tinuously. 
 
 After a while, the Commodore spoke. 
 
 “Well, mate, got an answer ready'?’'’ 
 
 “ I’ll go,” said Stephen. 
 
 “ What about the gal?” 
 
 “ She may go — where she darn please,” 
 replied the Pilot. “'She may go to the 
 deviL I wish I’d never seen her > I 
 wish I’d never spent a farthing upon 
 her. Gratitude % Not a bit ; whistle 
 for it. She may marry who she likes. 
 I don’t care who she marries; she 
 may — ” 
 
 . il Dry up, man,” said Captain Ramsay. 
 “ There’s more to be said. Let us under- 
 stand one another. You will come with 
 me ? ” 
 
 “ There’s my hand on it,” said Stephen. 
 “ When I came home with my little pile 
 I said I’d have nothing more to do 
 with niggers. Besides, I’ve gut religion. 
 And I never did love the blacks; not to 
 feel kind o’ hearty toe-wards their .shiny 
 skins; not even when I was shippin’ of 
 ’em across the pond for the Cuban market. 
 Some skippers loved ’em like their own 
 brothers and cowhided ’em like their own 
 sons. Put their hearts, they did, into the 
 cat-o’-nine-tails. I never did.” 
 
 “ As for your religion,” said the Commo- 
 dore, “ and as for your virtue — there.” He 
 made a gesture which implied that he 
 believed Stephen’s late-bom virtue to be, 
 like other flowers of autumn, a pale and 
 
 scentless weed. “Well, that’s settled. 
 Half the money shall be paid to you before 
 we ship, the other half when we get back 
 to Nassau; the cases of notions I promised 
 you shall be yours. Did I ever treat an 
 old shipmate unfair, Steve ?” 
 
 “Never, Cap.” 
 
 “Very well, then. If we’re caught — 
 but that’s unlikely — we shall have a taste 
 of a Northern prison ; if not, we’ll have 
 another merry run, and another at the 
 back of that. And long may the war last, 
 and happy may we be ! ” 
 
 Stephen sprang to his feet and waved 
 his hat with a cheer. 
 
 “Now, Steve ”^-the Captain was more 
 than affable, he was affectionate to-day— 
 “ there’s another thing. That gal of yours 
 is as fine a gal as one would wish to 
 see. I don’t remember, nowhere, any 
 gal as come nigh her for good looks and 
 a straight back; and I conclude that she 
 hasn’t got any call to make that fine 
 figure of hers look finer by stuffin’ and 
 things.” 
 
 “No call whatsoever,” said her uncle ; 
 “she is a Cobbledick, which accounts for 
 her figure — where she takes after me- — as 
 well as her face. But^ if you come to 
 gratitude ” ~ 
 
 “ Now, shipmate ’’—the Commodore was 
 still lying back in the chair, with his feet 
 upon the back of another chair, and he spoke 
 without taking the trouble to remove the 
 cigar from his lips — “ I’ve took a fancy to 
 that gal o’ youm, and I tell you what I’ll 
 do for her — I will marry her.” 
 
 “You, Cap’en? Marry my gell ?” Here, 
 indeed, was condescension ! The greatest 
 man then living in the world, the most 
 perfect hero, the man who had set' at 
 defiance more laws than any other man, 
 proposed to marry into Stephen’s family ! 
 He forgot that he had only an hour before 
 received Jack’s announcement without 
 opposition ; he was dazzled by the bril- 
 liancy of the prospect before him. The 
 simple honour of the proposal took away 
 his breath. So surprised and delighted 
 was he that he even forgot his projected 
 marriage settlements, and never once 
 thought of even suggesting the subject to 
 his revered chief. Probably he knew 
 beforehand that the demand was not likely 
 to be well received. Gentlemen like 
 Captain Ramsay, with a wide experi- 
 ence of humanity, do not as a rule 
 receive statements which accompany 
 claims with a leaning in the direction 
 of credulity. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 33 
 
 “ Look at me, Steve,” said the Com- 
 modore. 
 
 “ Yes, Cap ; I am a-lookin’ my level 
 best,” Stephen replied, gazing hard. 
 
 “I am forty years of age ; I am hard as 
 nails; I feel as young as a ship just out; 
 of dock;, there are dollars in the locker 
 and more coming in as long as this provi- 
 dential and religious war goes on. And 
 that gal has fetched me as I never thought 
 to be fetched again; she is the kind of 
 woman a man would not get tired of. 
 Neat-handed, quick, as proud as Lucifer, 
 and as beautiful as a picture. I’m willin’ 
 to marry that gal ; we’ll take her over to 
 Nassau and marry her there, if you like;; 
 or we’ll have the marriage here, if you 
 like ; or anywhere.” 
 
 “ Have you spoke the gell ? ” For 
 Stephen recollected suddenly that Jack 
 had “spoke” the girl, and he felt that 
 there might be breakers ahead. 
 
 “No ; you can tell her what she’s got 
 to do,” said the Captain. “When she 
 knows, it will be time for me to come along 
 with soft sawder.” 
 
 Then Stephen remembered another 
 thing. 
 
 “When I saw Liberty Wicks last,”he said, 
 “ and it was at Norfolk port, two years ago, 
 he told me that you were married. He’d 
 seen you somewheres North with your wife. 
 Said she was a sweet and beautiful young 
 thing— black hair and eyes — answered to 
 the name of Olive. You can’t marry two 
 wives, Cap; not even you can’t do that, 
 ’less you keep ’em to different sides of the 
 sea.” 
 
 The Captain’s face darkened. Stephen 
 knew the expression; it meant mischief 
 for someone. 
 
 “Liberty Wicks,” he said softly, “was 
 quite right ; I was married. But now I’m 
 free.” 
 
 Here his choler rose, and he swore 
 vehemently against some unknown person 
 of the opposite sex, whom Stephen sup- 
 posed to be his late wife. 
 
 “ Did she die, Cap ? Did you— now- 
 chuck her overboard ? ” 
 
 He made this abominable suggestion 
 as if it were a most probable and even 
 praiseworthy thing to have been done. 
 
 “No; I wish I had. I found what 
 seemed a more artful plan. I took her 
 to the state of Indiana, and I di-vorced 
 her.” 
 
 “ Oh, you di-vorced her. And how did 
 she take that. Did she take it quiet ? ” 
 
 “ No ; like wild cats. She followed me 
 
 around ; last thing, she came over to 
 Liverpool and found me out. There she 
 is now.” 
 
 “Ah,” Stephen sighed; “women never 
 know what’s good for them. When we 
 ■act for the- best,- accordin’ to our lights, 
 they screeches for the worst. You was too 
 kind to her, Cap’en, I doubt.” 
 
 The words which fell from his chief’s 
 lips proved that if he had ever been too kind 
 he was now repentant, and would do so no 
 more. 
 
 “It might be awkward, mightn’t it,” 
 asked Stephen, “ if that young woman 
 was to turn up at Nassau just when you’d 
 got the hammocks slung comfortable, and 
 the cabbages planted in the back garden, 
 and the scarlet-runners climbing pretty 
 over the wall ?” 
 
 The Captain remarked curtly that if 
 a scene of rural felicity, such as that 
 described by the Pilot, was to be so inter- 
 rupted, chucking overboard or something 
 equivalent, short, direct, and efficacious, 
 would certainly follow. 
 
 “ Then,” said Stephen, “ here comes 
 Avis, and if you’ll leave her to me, Cap, 
 I’ll speak to her now, at once. She is a 
 good girl, and her feelin’s jumps with 
 her uncle’s and runs along the same 
 lines. A gay and a gallant sailor I’ve 
 always promised her ; but such a honour 
 as this was beyond her hopes and her 
 prayers. For which may we be truly 
 thankful ! ” 
 
 CHAPTER VI. NOTHING BUT A COMMON 
 PICK-ME-UP. 
 
 Life had become suddenly delightful to 
 Avis. Wonderful it is to note the differ- 
 ence made by a little sunshine in the heart. 
 Deliverance had come to her in the shape 
 considered by maidens the most desir- 
 able, namely, a lover. What were past 
 anxieties now ? No more worth consider- 
 ing than the earache she might have had 
 when a child. She felt kindly disposed, 
 and even affectionate, towards her uncle 
 — the more so, of course, because she was 
 going to leave him. Odd, that parting 
 should produce much the same effect on 
 the mind towards the people you love and 
 those you do not. Therefore, when her 
 uncle invited her to converse with him for 
 a few moments, she blushed a rosy red, 
 and her eyes lit. up, and her lips parted 
 with the sweetest smile ever seen, for she 
 thought that Jack must have been with 
 her uncle. So he had, but the pride and 
 splendour of the second offer had, for the 
 

 34 [December 1, 1SS0.] 
 
 ‘OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 moment, completely driven the first out of 
 the old man’s head. 
 
 “ That is right, my dear,” Stephen began 
 kindly ; “ sit down and be comfortable. 
 Because I’ve got a thing to tell you that’ll 
 make you jest jump clean out of your 
 shoes for joy ; never had a girl such a fine 
 chance.” 
 
 “ What is it ?” she asked, thinking, little 
 hypocrite, that she knew very well what it 
 was. 
 
 “ I’ve always said to myself, Avis,” he 
 began with solemnity, having just thought 
 of a lie quite new and appropriate to the 
 occasion, “ when I was considerin’ out in 
 Carolina about my little maid here in 
 Cornwall, that the time would come when 
 a husband would have to be found for her ; 
 and I was glad that she was bein’ taught 
 to play the pianner, because I was wishful 
 that she should have a husband out of the 
 common. Therefore you were brought 
 up to full blow-outs of duff, lie in your 
 bunk as long as you please, never ordered 
 before the mast, run about as you like, 
 and all.” 
 
 “ That is quite true,” said Avis 
 humbly. “ I fear I have not been grateful 
 enough.” 
 
 “ This is not the time,” said Stephen 
 with pride, “ to talk about gratitude ; I’ve 
 found the husband for you.” 
 
 “ Then he has spoken to you,” Avis said 
 with brightening eye. “ He said he should 
 tell you as soon as he could.” 
 
 The Captain, thought Stephen, forgetting 
 Jack for the moment, must have had a 
 word or two first. To deny it showed a 
 lack of candour; still, it made his own 
 task easier. 
 
 “ He certainly has spoken,” Stephen re- 
 plied, “ else how should I be a tellin’ of it 
 to you ? So he spoke to you first, did he ? 
 Well, he certainly always was a masterful 
 man, with a way of gettin’ over ’em most 
 surprisin’.” 
 
 “ Why,” asked Avis, surprised, and not 
 quite understanding what was meant, 
 “ how do you know that ? ” 
 
 “ How do I know that ? ” This in great 
 contempt. “ Have I got eyes ? Have 
 I got ears ? Can I remember ? Well 
 now, Avis, tell me just exactly what he 
 said.” 
 
 “ I can’t,” she replied ; “I can never tell 
 any one what he said. But I can never 
 forget what he said.” 
 
 “I don’t want the soft sawder,” said 
 her uncle, leaning back in his chair. 
 “ Tell me now ” — he looked very cunning 
 
 — “did he ask you anything about the 
 money?” 
 
 “No ; what money ?” 
 
 “ My money, stupid ! Did he ask how 
 much I had, and where it was stowed, and 
 if it was easy to get at, and could you find 
 your way to the place where it was kept ? 
 No ? Well, that shows the story about 
 the little pile at Nassau may be true.” 
 It might also be [taken to show how 
 deep is the trust reposed in each other 
 by gentlemen of the Pilot’s school of 
 honour. “Did he say anything about 
 goin’ away?” 
 
 “ We were to go to London, he said.” 
 
 “ London, eh ? Ah ! he told me Nassau. 
 But that doesn’t matter ; and perhaps 
 he forgot you was a sailor’s gell, not 
 to be frightened with a little blue water. 
 London, did he say ? Well, of all the 
 artfullest Did he promise you any- 
 
 thing ?” 
 
 “Only — only that he would make me 
 happy always ” 
 
 “I know — I know; they always say 
 that. Did he promise to give up his 
 gamblin’ ?” 
 
 “ Gambling ? Why, J ack does not 
 gamble.” 
 
 “ ‘ Jack,’ too,” the Pilot repeated with 
 admiration. “ What a man ! He’ll be 
 Timothy to one, and Jack to another, and 
 Julius Caesar to a third. Not gamble, my 
 dear? Why there isn’t — not even in Mexico 
 nor Rooshia — a man who will begin earlier 
 nor leave off later. Gamble ? While a red 
 cent is left behind. As for bettin’, he’ll 
 bet on anything ; if he was makin’ up a 
 party to go out and be hanged, he’d lay his 
 money on abet to kick longer than any of ’em. 
 Not a gambler ? Well, my dear, gamblin’, in 
 a way, is a nice quiet amusement ; it keeps a 
 man out of mischief ; he can’t be shootin’ 
 around, that’s certain, nor drinkin’ cock- 
 tails in a saloon, when he’s quiet and com- 
 fortable over a pack of cards or a pair of 
 dice. No woman of sense need be jealous 
 of her husband so long as he’s usefully occu- 
 pied that way with his friends. But, if I was 
 you, Avis ” — here Mr. Cobbledick bent his 
 head and whispered — “ if I was you, and 
 goin’ to marry him, I’d begin by gettin’ 
 all the money — every dollar — in my own 
 hands first. Have that handed over before 
 the parson brings aboard the weddin’ tackle. 
 Let him gamble with the next stroke o’ 
 good luck if he likes. ” 
 
 “ I cannot understand it,” she said. 
 “ Oh ! I am sure you are mistaken.” 
 
 “ I am never mistaken. How should 
 
Charles Dickens.] WITH THE SAILOR ” [December 1, 1880.] 35 
 
 I be mistaken in such a simple matter 1 
 As for drink, I suppose it’s no good askin’ 
 him to make promises. They always 
 promise, and they never keep their 
 word.” 
 
 “But Jack does not drink.” 
 
 “Doesn’t he?” The Pilot laughed/ 
 
 “ That’s what he has been tellin’ you, I 
 suppose. Not drink ? I’ve seen him drink 
 a three-decker full o’ Bourbon, and then 
 ask for more. No,” he continued reflectively, 
 
 “ I think about the drink you’d better let 
 him alone. I’m tryin’ to advise you for the 
 best, Avis, my gell, because you are but a 
 young thing, and you know nothing of the 
 world, though you’ve been brought up in 
 virtue and the maxums of your uncle. I 
 think you’d best let the whisky alone. 
 Only, I should say, when he is on the 
 burst, and pretty certain to come home at 
 night ragin’ around and dangerous in a 
 peaceful house, I would contrive to let him 
 have the cabin all to himself, even if you 
 had to sleep on the bare boards.” 
 
 “Good heavens!” cried Avis; “what 
 does this mean ?” 
 
 “ As for jealousy, now, you must remem- 
 ber he’s not a common man. They run 
 after him wherever he goes. Wherefore 
 you keep your eyes shut and your tongue 
 cpiiet, whatever you may see or hear. And 
 then, my dear, you’ll have a peaceful and a 
 lovin’ life, with such a husband as all the 
 ; world might envy. But let him be. Else — 
 well — theer.” 
 
 Avis shook her head in’ sheer bewilder- 
 i ment. 
 
 “ I never thought,” the Pilot continued, 
 •“ that so great a honour would be done 
 you. To me you owe it all. Some honest 
 sailor lad, I thought, skipper maybe of a 
 coaster, or officer in charge of a gentleman’s 
 
 ■ yacht ; but such a MAN he put the word 
 
 j into capitals — ‘ ‘ such an out-and-out, straight 
 
 up and down man as you’re goin’ to have, 
 never occurred to me. Why, girl, if you was 
 goin’ to marry a duke, I couldn’t be better 
 pleased. Dukes haven’t been in command 
 of clipper ships ; dukes haven’t been chased 
 night and day for a fortnight; dukes 
 , haven’t been chased day and night by 
 British cruisers, and yet landed their cargo 
 j safe, and never a man or woman lost all 
 : the way from the Gold Coast to Cuba ; 
 
 dukes can’t run a blockade. Why, he’s 
 been put in the papers, he has ; they know 
 all about him in New York and Liverpool ; 
 , they point him out when he lands, and 
 when he drops into a saloon they crowd 
 
 ■ around to stand him drinks.” 
 
 Avis clasped her hands to her head. 
 Was this a dream? 
 
 “ Pray,” she said, “ will you tell me of 
 whom you are speaking ?” 
 
 “Why, of Cap’en Ramsay, to be sure; 
 who else should I be speakin’ of ? ” 
 
 “ I am speaking of Mr. Davenant. It is 
 he, not Captain Ramsay, who has asked 
 me to marry him. Has he not spoken to 
 you about it ?” 
 
 “ I haven’t set eyes on him,” said the 
 mendacious one. “ This is a pretty thing 
 to be told, this is ; with Cap’en Ramsay — 
 actually Capbn Ramsay — holdin’ out his 
 hand !” 
 
 “ He said he would speak to you at 
 once,” replied Avis. 
 
 “ If he had a-come to me, I should ha’ 
 turned him out of the house. Who’s Mr. 
 Davenant ?” 
 
 “ I have told him I would marry him.” 
 There was no mistake about the deter- 
 mination with which the girl spoke. 
 
 Mr. Cobbledick replied in the manner 
 customary to the British sailor. Then 
 the girl repeated that she had given 
 Mr. Davenant her word. Then he tried 
 persuasion. 
 
 “But you won’t, Avis, you won’t,” he 
 said in a voice which seemed calm, but had 
 in it that little tremor which sometimes 
 betokens a coming storm. “You won’t, my 
 gell, will ye ? ” 
 
 “ Oh ! uncle,” she replied, “ I have pro- 
 mised him. And, besides, he is the only 
 man I could ever love.” 
 
 “ I don’t know nothing about love,” said 
 Stephen. “ Look here, lass ; my old ship- 
 mate, Captain Ramsay, as gallant a sailor 
 as floats, has asked me to let him marry 
 my niece. Now, I haven’t got two nieces, 
 but only one ; consequently, if I don’t give 
 you to him, there’s nobody to give. There- 
 fore, as my word is passed, you must 
 marry him. What’s your word compared 
 to mine ? ” 
 
 “ But I cannot,” said the girl. 
 
 “ But you must, and you shall,” said her 
 uncle, “ or I’ll know the reason why. So 
 don’t let us have no more words about it. 
 This is a very pretty state of things, when 
 a gell thinks she’s a-goin’ to marry who she 
 pleases.” 
 
 The girl did not burst into tears, nor 
 did she faint, nor did she turn deathly 
 pale, nor did her hands tremble, as 
 they use in novels. Not at all ; she 
 . only repeated, firmly standing before her 
 . uncle : 
 
 I “I cannot, and I will not.” 
 
cf: 
 
 36 [December l, 18S0.] 
 
 ‘OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ Then/’ said Mr. Cobbledick, “ I’ll lock 
 you in your room till you do.” 
 
 “ No, you will not,” she said ; “ because if 
 you are rough and violent, I shall call out 
 of the window to the first who passes to- 
 fetch Mr. Davenant.” 
 
 The enraged guardian swore that a dozen 
 Mr. Davenants should not prevent him 
 from doing what 'he liked with his own. 
 Was she not his niece? Did she not owe 
 him obedience ? Had he not brought her 
 up with his own hands almost ! What sort 
 of a return was this for all he had done 
 for her ? Where was gratitude ? Where 
 filial piety ? Where the reverence due to 
 parents and guardians % As for Mr. Dave- 
 nant, he should learn the strength of a 
 British sailor’s arm, with a club at the end 
 of it. He should remember the name of 
 Cobbledick all his life ; he should be sent 
 back to his own place with broken neck, 
 broken ribs, broken arms, and broken legs. 
 Did Avis think he would let a whipper- 
 snapper, a counter-jumper, a measly fine 
 gentleman, a painted peacock, with no 
 money even, such as Mr. Davenant, stand 
 between himself or Avis, and a man who 
 was a man ? 
 
 Avis let him run on without interruption. 
 Then she repeated that she had given her 
 word, and she would keep it. 
 
 “By your own showing,” she said, “you 
 would have me marry a man who is a 
 gambler and a drunkard, who breaks laws 
 and fives a violent fife. Instead of him I 
 have taken a gentleman, who is, I am sure, 
 a good and true man. And he says that 
 he loves me.” The girl’s eyes softened. 
 Then at the sight of this old man in undig- 
 nified and foolish rage they hardened again. 
 “Have you not often complained of the 
 expense I have been to you? Have you 
 not told me to look about for work to do ? 
 Have you not threatened to make me a 
 barmaid ? Have you ever shown me the 
 slightest affection, that I should consult 
 your wishes ? ” 
 
 “That’s the way with ’em.” Stephen 
 sat down, ready to weep over the ingrati- 
 tude of womankind. “ First you stint and 
 spare for ’em, then you give ’em all they 
 wants, pamper ’em, dress ’em up fine, and 
 they turn upon you. Gratitude ? Not 
 a ounce. Respect? Devil a bit. Do what 
 is best for ’em, fie awake and think how to 
 make ’em happy, and this is the end of it. 
 Best way after all ” — he shook his head as 
 if this conviction were forced upon him — 
 “to wallop ’em till they follow to heel 
 obedient, like them black Australian gins, 
 
 the only women in the world truly and 
 religiously reared.” 
 
 “ You will be reasonable,” Avis went on, 
 disregarding this attack upon her sex. “ You 
 will reflect that I am not bound to consider 
 your wishes at all, as you are chiefly anxious 
 to get rid of me ; and that I have seen a 
 great deal of Mr. Davenant, while I know 
 nothing of Captain Ramsay except what 
 you have told me about him, which is 
 quite enough to make me refuse outright 
 to marry him ” 
 
 “ I know him,” interrupted Stephen with 
 rising wrath. “ Isn’t that enough ? Now, 
 I will have no more talkin’. Will you 
 marry the Cap’en ?” 
 
 “ No, I will not.” 
 
 “ Then pack — put up your things, and 
 pack. Go, Isay. Leave the house. Pack.” 
 
 Avis hesitated a moment. 
 
 “ Go to your lover ; let him take care of 
 you.” 
 
 This was bringing things to a crisis, 
 indeed. The plain speech of which the 
 honest sailor prided himself had never been 
 so plain before. Avis had seen him grumpy, 
 greedy, lying, and drunk ; she knew that 
 her uncle based his conduct of fife on 
 maxims disliked in certain circles, and that 
 he admired things which many moralists 
 condemn. She had never before, how- 
 ever, seen him in the ungovernable 
 rage which now possessed him. He 
 stood, shaking both fists in her face : he 
 spluttered and swore, and then could 
 find no words but more curses to express 
 his meaning. His face was purple with 
 wrath. 
 
 It was, perhaps, fortunate for Avis — 
 because things looked much as if the Pilot 
 would begin to act upon his newly-discovered 
 principle for the training of girls, and 
 wallop her there and then — that the 
 discussion was here interrupted by the 
 arrival on the scene of Captain Ramsay 
 himself. 
 
 “ Be off, I say. Out of the house with 
 you.” 
 
 More spluttering. Then he saw, through 
 the tears of his righteous indignation, the 
 very man who was the innocent cause 
 of it all 
 
 “ Cap’en,” he cried, hoarse with passion, 
 “ look at this here. Say, did ever man see 
 the like ? I’ve brought up this gell, since 
 she was a baby, in the laps and legs of 
 luxury ; never asked her to do nothing for 
 me but once — that was to-day— and she 
 won’t do it.” 
 
 “What was it he wanted you to do, 
 
 r 
 
J, 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR. 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 37 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 if I may ask 3” said the Commodore 
 gravely. 
 
 “ He asked me to marry you,” said Avis. 
 
 “And will you not?” He spoke softly 
 and solemnly, as if he had thought out 
 the matter with gravity and deliberation. 
 “Can you not? I am, it is true, older 
 than you, and I may seem an unfit com- 
 panion for a girl so young and so pretty. 
 But I am not too old, child ; I am as steady 
 as ever, and as strong.” 
 
 “ Always as strong,” murmured Stephen. 
 “Nothing makes no difference with him. 
 Not years, nor Bourbon whisky, nor 
 Jamaica rum, nor six-shooters in a diffi- 
 culty, nor English cruisers, nor Yankee 
 blockaders. Here’s a Man for you. ” 
 
 “ Can you not regard me with kindness, 
 Avis ? ” the hero went on. 
 
 “I am engaged to another man,” she 
 replied simply. 
 
 His manner was beautiful ; it was at 
 once respectful to himself and to the young 
 lady; his voice was gentle, and his eyes 
 were soft ; he looked almost good. 
 
 “I am very unfortunate,” he said ; “we 
 sailors spend our lives apart from the re- 
 finement of women; we are apt to get 
 rough and coarse — I know that ; and when 
 I saw you first, Miss Avis, you looked so 
 sweet and good that I said to myself, ‘ Here 
 is a girl who would lead a man to heaven, 
 even against his will.’ And you are really 
 engaged ? ” 
 
 “• I cannot break it,” she said ; “ I would 
 not, if I could.” 
 
 “No need then to say what I hoped to 
 say; that all my dollars and my estates 
 are yours if you will take me.” Stephen 
 began to wonder what estates were these. 
 “There are gardens and palaces, flowers, 
 fruits, horses and carriages, and a faithful 
 servant to command — myself.” 
 
 He smiled sadly as he spoke. 
 
 Avis shook her head. 
 
 “ It is impossible,” she said. 
 
 Then Stephen broke out again. 
 
 “Come,” he cried, “don’t let us waste 
 time ; get out, and let me see your face no 
 more. Come, Cap’en, don’t take on; there’s 
 lots of better girls than her. Let her go. 
 I give you five minutes.” He braced him- 
 self up as if for a tremendous effort. “ And 
 now you have drove me to it, I’ve more to 
 tell you ” 
 
 “Easy, Stephen,” said the Captain. 
 
 “ Lucky for her,” the old man growled, 
 “ that you came in. But she shall 
 hear it. I thought to die with the 
 secret. Nobody shouldn’t know nothing 
 
 about it, only me. Fine airs you ve gave 
 yourself all along. Pride that was — pride 
 in bein’ a Cobbledick. That’s what made 
 her stick out her chin and hold up her 
 petticuts, wasn’t it ? Gar ! And all for 
 nought ; for now I’ll tell you, madam, that 
 you’re no more a Cobbledick than the 
 Cap’en here— not a touch of the Cobbledick 
 about you, as might be known by your 
 conducks. For, whereas a true-born Cob- 
 bledick ever loves a sailor, and would never 
 marry, could she see her way out of it, any 
 but sich, here we see you, to the shame 
 and disgrace of Boscastle port — which is 
 proud of the Cobbledicks, little though 
 it be — refusing a Nero, and takin’ up 
 with a mere landlubber and counter- 
 skipper.” 
 
 “ If I am not of your family,” asked the 
 girl, as soon as she could get in a word, 
 “ who am I ? ” 
 
 “ You are nothing but a Common Pick- 
 me-up.” Stephen pronounced these words 
 with peculiar emphasis, so as to bring 
 out the full measure of the contempt 
 involved. “ A Common^ Pick-me-up, you 
 were.” 
 
 “ What is that,?” 
 
 “You was found (by me) on a raft in 
 the Bay of Bengal; picked up (by me) 
 off of that raff. You was in the arms of 
 a dead Indian ayah. There was three 
 sailors on that raft who was also dead. 
 You was wropped up in four silk bandan- 
 ners when we carried you off to the ship, a 
 baby of a year old or thereabouts, and 
 gave you to a negress to nurse. You a 
 Cobbledick? With an ayah. Wropped in 
 bandanners. On a raft. In the middle 
 of the starved sailors. Nursed by a negress. 
 A Common Pick-me-up !” 
 
 The Pilot spoke as if the recovery of 
 babies in this manner was so common as 
 to entail disgrace upon all so found. 
 
 “ Did you find nothing more about 
 me?” 
 
 “No. The men searched the pockets of 
 the dead sailors for their money. Then 
 they chucked them overboard and broke 
 up the raft, because such things is dan- 
 gerous. You’re nobody’s daughter, you 
 are.” 
 
 “ At all events,” said Avis quietly, for 
 even a worm will turn, “it is some kind 
 of relief to know that I am not yours, or 
 the daughter of anybody connected with 
 you.” 
 
 “As for your names, v he went on, “I 
 gave you the name of Avis because it was 
 my mother’s, and Cobbledick because it 
 
3-8 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 OYEE THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 was my own. Give me them names back. 
 Avis ” — here he made a gesture as of one 
 who takes a thing from another and dashes 
 it on the ground — “ Avis, now you’ve got 
 no christian-name to your back. Cobble- 
 dick” — here he made a similar gesture — 
 
 “ Cobbledick, now you’ve got no surname 
 to your back ; and now, my Lady No 
 Name, you may pack. You and your 
 Mr. Davenant.” 
 
 The Captain stepped forward. 
 
 “ Pardon me, Miss Avis, are you engaged 
 to Mr. Davenant, the young gentleman at 
 the hotel 'l I am sorry indeed that my 
 unfortunate aspiration” — he smiled sadly 
 — “ should have led to these disagreeable 
 consequences. Had I been aware of 
 your engagement, I should have been 
 the last- ” 
 
 “Oh! yes, yes,” said Avis; “but I am 
 nearly driven mad by this man’s talk and 
 violence. Let me go.” 
 
 “Yes, let her go; a Common Pick-me- 
 up !” 
 
 Mr. Cobbledick waved his arms and shook 
 his head, with that well-known gesture 
 of contempt, chiefly practised by ladies of 
 the lower rank, which consists in tightly 
 pressing your mouth and closing your eyes, 
 while you shake your head. 
 
 “ Stay, Stephen.” The Captain pushed 
 him gently back into his chair. “ We must 
 not manage things in this way. If Miss 
 Avis cannot see her way — being already 
 promised to a happier man — she must not 
 be abused or ill-treated. Though, no doubt, 
 you mean it for the best.” 
 
 “Any way,” said Stephen, “she knows 
 the truth now. And she can go.” 
 
 “ No, Stephen, she cannot go” — Captain 
 Eamsay stood between them like the guar- 
 dian angel, or the representative genius 
 of benevolence — “things must not be 
 managed in that way. Miss Avis will re- 
 member that, niece or not, she has enjoyed 
 your protection for eighteen years. You, 
 my old comrade ” — it was remarkable how 
 the gallant Commodore seemed to drop the 
 American accent altogether — “ you will re- 
 member how she has become a credit to your 
 liberality, and stands before you a perfect 
 as well as a beautiful lady. And, for such 
 a lady, give me England.” 
 
 “ I have heard you say, Cap’en, that 
 New York or Baltimore beats all creation.” 
 “When I was there, old friend. But, 
 when one is in England, one is bound to 
 confess that English beauty bears the palm. 
 Come now, Stephen, you were disappointed. 
 You hoped that Avis would take the offer 
 
 of an old friend and comrade of your own. 
 Well, she can’t. Perhaps if she had not 
 been engaged, there would have been a 
 chance. But we are too late. Very good, 
 then. I withdraw, with an apology. Since 
 you cannot think of me, Avis, let me only 
 say that I shall never marry, or think of 
 another woman again.” 
 
 “ Oh, Lord ! ” cried Stephen 
 
 “ Because your image will never be oblite- 
 rated from my heart.” This was very noble 
 and grand. It seemed to do good to all 
 alike. “I had hoped,” the Commodore 
 went on, “ to have settled down, after this 
 run, to that beautiful life led by the 
 Southern planters, cheered by the affection 
 of an English wife and the devotion of my 
 faithful blacks.” 
 
 “ With a rattan and a cow-hide,” Stephen 
 interposed, by way of illustrating the depth 
 of negro affection, and its deeply-rooted 
 nature. 
 
 “ Since that is not to be, I must give up 
 the thought of it. Meantime, my dear 
 young lady, this has been a painful scene 
 for all concerned. I am sure you will 
 agree with me that it is best forgotten. 
 And if our friend here, whose heart is cast 
 in the truest mould of friendship, has for- 
 gotten, in his zeal for me, what is due to a 
 delicately brought up woman, you will, I 
 am sure, forgive him.” Stephen stared and 
 gasped. What could be the meaning of 
 this ? “You have a perfect right,” con- 
 tinued the Captain, “ to marry whom you 
 please. It will be better, however, for you 
 to have your — guardian’s consent ; and. if 
 Mr. Davenant, as I doubt not he will, 
 proves to be a moral sort of man, of sound 
 principles, no opposition will be made, and 
 all shall be as you wish.” 
 
 “ Lord ! ” murmured Stephen, not know- 
 ing what to make of this. Never had he 
 seen the Captain so silky, so polite, so 
 considerate. 
 
 “ My dear,” the Captain went on, taking 
 Avis’s hand in his, and pressing it in pater- 
 nal fashion, “I am sure we shall all part 
 friends. Stephen, you used hard words to 
 your ward.” 
 
 “I did,” said Stephen, perceiving that 
 the admission was expected of him. 
 
 “ Tell her you are sorry.” 
 
 “ I am sorry,” said Stephen, obedient to 
 command. 
 
 “ And that you did not mean them.” 
 
 “ Never meant ’em,” he repeated. 
 
 “Is it true,” asked Avis, “ about the 
 raft 1 ” 
 
 “ That,” said Stephen, “ is Gospel of St. 
 
 c 8' 
 
 : r 
 
- ■ - ^ 
 
 Charles Dickens.] WITH THE SAILOR.” [December 1, 1880.] 39 
 
 Matthew truth. Wropped up you were in 
 four red silk bandanners. Latitude about 
 twenty south, and, as for longitude, why it 
 might have been anywheres north-east of 
 Ceylon. Pity we were in such a hurry, 
 because else we should have searched for 
 papers and letters. Well, I’m sorry I told 
 you, that’s a fact.” 
 
 “ And all the stories about my mother 
 
 being a Knobling ” 
 
 “ Go on, let me have it,” said Stephen. 
 
 “ And her dying at J amaica ; and my 
 father and the shark ; and the cousin who 
 
 was transported ” 
 
 “ All lies, my gell ; lies and base decep- 
 tions, invented to put you off your guard, 
 and not to suspect them bandanners.” 
 
 “ What am I to call myself, then 1” 
 
 « Well,” said Stephen, “ since things are 
 smoothed over, I don’t greatly mind if you 
 go on bein’ Avis Cobbledick. No one 
 needn’t know ; so you can go on a stickin’ 
 out your chin with the same pride in your 
 family as you always have a stuck it 
 out.” 
 
 The face of her guardian was restored to 
 its usual expression of joviality mingled 
 with cunning ; the Captain, seated in a 
 chair, was nursing his chin in his hand, 
 thoughtfully and sadly. 
 
 “ I will go now, I think,” she said. “ Mr. 
 Cobbledick, I thank you for your care of 
 me. As I am not your niece at all, I will 
 — I will ask Jack if we cannot somehow 
 pay something of that heavy debt which I 
 owe you. Captain Ramsay, I am deeply 
 grateful for your forbearance.” 
 
 She held out her hand. He stooped and 
 kissed it. 
 
 “ Indeed,” he said, “I have done nothing. 
 I hope, however, that I may win your trust 
 and, perhaps, your friendship.” 
 
 As Avis walked slowly away she tried, 
 but in vain, to reconcile the picture drawn 
 by Mr. Cobbledick of his hero, the drunkard 
 and gambler, with the man himself, so 
 mild, so gentle, and so beautifully spoken. 
 
 - “ Cap’en,” whispered Stephen hoarsely, 
 “ what the blazes does this mean 1” 
 
 “It means,” replied Captain Ramsay, 
 “ that there are more ways than one for a 
 man to get what he wants. If it suits me to 
 sing small and pretty — hymn-books is the 
 word.” 
 
 Stephen shook his head; this was be- 
 yond him. 
 
 “ About this raft business, Steve 1 ” 
 
 “All true, Cap. Every word true.”- 
 “ You are such an almighty liar, as a 
 general rule -” 
 
 “ Ask anybody in this port of Boscastle, 
 where I was born, whether I had e’er a 
 brother or a sister. A gell can’t be a man’s 
 niece when that man is a only child. Like- 
 wise a orphan.” 
 
 “ She might be your daughter.” 
 
 “ I’ve not got no daughters. Picked her 
 off of a raft, I did — just as I told her — 
 wropped in four bandanners, with five- 
 and-twenty dead niggers around. In the 
 China seas.” 
 
 “ Then, what in thunder made you bring 
 up the child 1 ” 
 
 “I put it this way, Cap’en. I said to 
 myself : ‘ Here’s a child of respectable people, 
 ’cos she’s got a nurse all to herself ; and the 
 bandanners was the very best. They’ll 
 think she’s drowned. Wait a bit. When 
 she’s four years old, or risin’ five, a age 
 when children are pretty, I’ll advertise 
 for her parents, and I will take the 
 reward.’ ” 
 
 This, the Captain assured him, was a 
 prudent and far-seeing design. But why 
 had he not carried it out 1 
 
 “ Because,” Stephen explained, “ I forgot 
 the child. When I was away to North 
 Carolina, in the piloting line, I forgot her 
 altogether ; and there she was eatin’ her 
 head off, and my money meltin’ away with- 
 out my knowledge. Such wickedness as 
 no one never dreamed of, with the workus 
 not far off ; which was meant by heaven, 
 and built by religious people, for Pick- 
 me-ups, and such as are widowless and 
 in affliction, and dependent on their 
 uncles.” 
 
 This seemed like a faint reminiscence of 
 the Litany, but the allusion was lost on 
 Captain Ramsay who had not yet “ found 
 religion.” 
 
 “ Then why did you call her your niece 
 when you came home 1 ” 
 
 “ I couldn’t let on about the raft, bless 
 you. Why, she might ha’ claimed the 
 reward herself.” 
 
 The reward was a fixed idea with him, 
 just as the marriage settlement had become, 
 only the former was the growth of years. 
 
 “ As it is,” he murmured, “ I’ve done 
 wrong in tollin’ her. But the temptation 
 was great to take down her pride. There, ' 
 perhaps she won’t think of' it, and I 
 can advertise and get the reward all the 
 same.” 
 
 “ Steve,” said the Captain, clapping him 
 on the shoulder, “ you’ve got a head after 
 all. The reward is not unlikely to come 
 . off. But we must move carefully.” 
 
 “Wei” 
 
eft 
 
 40 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 “ OYER THE SEA 
 
 n 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “Yes, we. I shall be entitled to all 
 the reward if there is any. But I'm not 
 going to play it low on an old shipmate, 
 and you shall have a fourth of whatever 
 comes.” 
 
 “ What on airth ha’ you got to do with 
 it, Cap’en?” 
 
 “ Only this ; that I am going to be the 
 lady’s husband, and as such, you see 
 
 Steve Ah ! you shouldn’t let out 
 
 little secrets. That was always your 
 great fault.” 
 
 CHAPTER VII. THE CLEVERNESS OF THE 
 COMMODORE. 
 
 “If that is what you mean,” said Ste- 
 phen blankly, “ hang me if I know how 
 you are goin’ to do it. First, you tells the 
 girl you are very sorry and you wish you 
 hadn’t spoke. Next, you sends your love to 
 her spark. After tellin’ her, straight, that 
 you don’t want her no more, and you’re 
 
 sorry you spoke, you tell me Hang me 
 
 if I know what you mean.” 
 
 “ I did not think you would. Listen 
 now, while I give the sailing orders. You 
 get them in your head tight, and you go 
 on obeying them orders and no others, and 
 then you shall see.” 
 
 He then proceeded in brief but intelli- 
 gible terms to dictate those orders. The 
 Pilot nodded his head as they fell one by 
 one from his superior officer’s lips. They 
 were easy to learn and to execute, but 
 harder to understand. As his Captain 
 proceeded, however, the good old man’s 
 face lit up with surprise, admiration, and 
 delight. For a simpler plan of diabolical 
 villainy was never before unfolded. It was 
 almost too simple. Stephen slapped his 
 leg as the plan unfolded itself, till the 
 echoes were awakened among the rocks 
 and resounded from cliff to cliff like a 
 volley of musketry. These gestures he 
 naturally accompanied with a paean of con- 
 gratulation and joy, consisting entirely of 
 those interjections which are not found 
 in grammars, yet are generally sought 
 after by persons who aim at straight- 
 forward clearness rather than elegance of 
 language. 
 
 “I always said it !” he cried, when the 
 orders had been fully laid down. “ I 
 always said it !” He looked at the Cap- 
 tain with the most profound admiration. 
 “ Never a man in all the world his 
 equal for devilment and craft ! Who’d ha’ 
 thought of that, now ? ” 
 
 “Not you, Steve, certainly. Is this 
 better than turning the gal out o’ doors, 
 
 and driving her into the arms of her chap 1 
 I guess, Steve, you don’t quite know my 
 sort of stuff yet.” 
 
 “ Better ! — ah ! ” Stephen drew a long 
 breath. “ And now, considerin’ the high 
 honour to which Avis is goin’ to be 
 raised, I’m only sorry I told her any- 
 thing at all about the raft. She’ll only 
 be frettin’, when it’s all over, that .she 
 isn’t a Cobbledick after all, just to give 
 her a position more equal to her future 
 rank.” 
 
 “You think the scheme worth trying, 
 then 1 ” 
 
 “It will reel off, Cap’en, like a heavin’ 
 of the log. No vi’lence ; no quarrellin’ ; 
 no cryin’ and forcin’ ; and, the end of the 
 story most beautiful. I always did like a 
 story to end well. So they lived happy ever 
 afterwards, and had ten sweet children, 
 nine of ’em twins.” 
 
 The Pilot spent the rest of the day in a 
 kind of exaltation; he felt light of heart; 
 his soul was merry within him. And 
 when Jack Davenant, whom Avis had 
 without delay informed of this new reve- 
 lation respecting the raft, came for more 
 information, he was received with a hilarity 
 and joyousness which made him suspect 
 strong waters. For once he was wrong. 
 Stephen was perfectly sober and unfeignedly 
 glad and happy. 
 
 “ You are always welcome, Mr. Dave- 
 nant,” he exclaimed. “ Come in and sit 
 down. Never mind the marriage settle- 
 ments. The Cobbledicks, sir (Avis’s 
 mother having been a Knobling, also a 
 most respectable family), can afford to be 
 generous.” 
 
 “ How about the raft story, then % ” 
 
 “ Oh ! yes.” He was not in the least 
 disconcerted. “ The raft, Mr. Davenant, 
 is the truth. But I’ve always been accus- 
 tomed to consider that dear gell as my 
 niece, so that the family, as it were, 
 growed. I shall be sorry to lose the 
 Knoblings, too, for they’re a good stock 
 to know and to talk about.” 
 
 “ Then she is not your niece at all 1 ” 
 
 “Not at all, which brings my generous 
 conduct out in a more beautiful light.” 
 
 “ Well, I’m glad of that anyhow. _ Now 
 tell me the story of the raft over again.” 
 
 “We picked up the raft in the Gulf of 
 Mexico about two days’ run to the west of 
 Cuba, whither we were bound.” Jack re- 
 marked that this statement contradicted 
 the previous one as to the position of 
 the raft. “ No one was aboard that raft 
 except the dead ayah and the child.” 
 
WITH THE SAILOR/ 
 
 J=— 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ==!fc, 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 41 
 
 Here again another alteration. “We took 
 the child aboard without waiting to search 
 for proofs of who she might he, and we 
 sailed away.” Another, but a trifling 
 variation in the story. 
 
 “ Ah ! what was your cargo ? Could it 
 not wait while you had the common 
 curiosity to find out, if possible, who the 
 child might be ? ” 
 
 “ My cargoes, in those days, young gen- 
 tleman, was the kind that spile a good 
 deal by keeping particularly if there’s any 
 part of it gone off a bit, so to say, when it 
 comes aboard. Some o’ mine, that trip, 
 had already begun to spile.” 
 
 “ Oranges, fruit, lemons ■? ” 
 
 “Ho, sir, not fruit. A kind of cargo it was 
 which certain piratical cruisers pretendin’ 
 to be British were fond of scoopin’ up 
 for theirselves. Lord ! the losses I’ve seen 
 in that kind of cargo; a whole shipload I’ve 
 seen tossed overboard before now to save 
 the skipper and his ship. And the sharks 
 as busy as snappin’-turtles round that 
 ship.” 
 
 “ Do you mean — — ” Jack stopped be- 
 cause he was afraid, in a sense, to say the 
 word. 
 
 “ I mean niggers. Three hundred nig- 
 gers I had aboard that ship, spiling’ fast 
 for want of breathin’ room, fresh air, 
 fresh water, and fresh provisions. Three 
 hundred and sixty-five, as many as the 
 days in the year, I landed on the hos- 
 pitable shore of Cuba. But the number 
 that spiled on the way you would hardly 
 believe, sir. Well, the little maid was 
 very soon aboard, and a comfortable 
 negress had her in a jiffy, and there we 
 were.” 
 
 “I wonder if this man can tell the 
 truth,” said J ack. 
 
 “ Where she came from, who she was, I 
 don’t know no more- than you. As for 
 her name, I give it to her, like I give her 
 everything she owns, with a noble educa- 
 tion and no expense. Whereas, for mar- 
 riage settlements ” 
 
 “ Your nobility is well known and 
 acknowledged, Mr. Cobblediek. Also your 
 command of temper when Avis does not 
 act as you would wish.” 
 
 “ She’s been complainin’, has she ? Well, 
 Mr. Davenant, there’s no call for you to 
 find fault. Wait till you’re married and 
 
 found her out. As for that, too — ” * He 
 
 remembered the sailing orders, and stopped 
 himself after one broad grin, which indeed 
 he could not repress. “ As for that, I own 
 .1 did quietly whisper, as it were, when 
 
 she told me about your offer, that my 
 wishes lay other ways and I’d rather see 
 her take up with a sailor. I pointed out 
 her dooty to her, kind, and clear, and 
 Main. If she won’t do that dooty, I can’t 
 aelp it, can Id” 
 
 “ But you point out duty with too many 
 — well, too strongly.” > 
 
 “ Sailors must be swore to ; what’s good 
 afloat is good ashore. Ho sailors in the 
 world so smart as our’n. The reason why 
 is that they’re properly swore to both 
 young and old. That done Avis no harm. 
 As for you, Mr. Davenant, why, if she will 
 have you, and you’re still for your fancy, 
 we must make the best of a bad bargain.” 
 Jack laughed. 
 
 “Hot such a very bad bargain, I hope,” 
 he said. “ Well, Mr. Cobblediek, I shall do 
 my best to make Avis as happy as she 
 deserves.”. 
 
 “I did my best, too,” grumbled her 
 guardian. “ And what’s come of it? She 
 won’t even take the man I want her to 
 marry. If I’d asked her for any big thing 
 now, it would have been different — I’m too 
 old to expect much gratitude ; but for such 
 a trifle as that — just to tell her other young 
 man that she can’t keep company with him 
 no longer because a better feller has put 
 into port — theer ! . it’s enough to make a 
 British sailor never do a honourable and 
 generous thing no more. Better, a’most, 
 have left her on the raft.” 
 
 Jack laughed again. 
 
 “ Why, surely you can’t blame a girl for 
 taking the man of her own heart ? ” 
 
 “ Gells must do as they’re told. They’ve 
 got no business to have no heart.” 
 
 “ Well, she is not your niece, by 
 your own showing, so I suppose she can 
 do as she likes. How I want to marry 
 her as soon as I possibly can. Mean- 
 time you will, I suppose, allow her to 
 remain here ; of course I will pay for her 
 board.” 
 
 Here the Pilot began a series of winks, 
 nods, and pantomimic gestures indicative 
 of caution ; he looked . out of the window 
 and closed it carefully ; he opened the 
 door, and looked about to see if there were 
 any listeners. Finally, he sat down again, 
 and whispered hoarsely : 
 
 “You’ll have to. take her soon, young 
 gentleman. The sooner the better. The 
 Commodore, who’s not a man to lose his 
 
 time, has come here to What do you 
 
 think he’s here for?” 
 
 .“ I don’t know.” 
 
 “To ship me as one of his officers. 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 
 42 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 “OVER THE SEA 
 
 Nothing less. For he’s got a ship and 
 we’re off in a fortnight. Says the Cap’en : 
 'Give me old Steve. He’s sixty, hut 
 he’s tough. Give me Steve at any 
 price.’ ” 
 
 “Where are you going?” Jack knew 
 very well, but it seemed polite to ask. 
 
 “ Where we air a-going is a secret. Like- 
 wise the ship and all. It’s a state secret, 
 and they would stop her in port if they 
 guessed that a Secesh officer was her 
 captain.” 
 
 “ Is she another Alabama, then ? ” 
 
 “ Maybe ; maybe.” Stephen wagged his 
 : head mysteriously. “Never mind that. 
 
 I Keep the secret, young man, or I’m hanged 
 if you shall get the girl after all. The 
 question for you is : Can you take her just 
 as she is, in a fortnight’s time ? ” 
 
 “ I can take her to-day, if you like.” 
 
 “ Very good. Next question : When 
 [ you’ve got her, I suppose you are able to 
 keep her ? ” 
 
 “ I am a painter. I hope to be able to 
 keep her.” 
 
 “A painter!” Stephen took him for 
 something superior in the house-painting 
 line, and spoke with "the greatest contempt. 
 “A painter ! To think that gell has throwed 
 away a sailor, and such a sailor as the 
 Commodore, for a painter.” 
 
 “ Yet even a painter may make money,” 
 said the unfortunate artist. 
 
 “Well, well. And where does your 
 trade lie ? Where is your shop ? Air you 
 a journeyman or air you a master ? ” 
 
 “ I work in London where my shop is, 
 and, as I am paid by the job, I suppose I 
 am only a journeyman.” 
 
 ' “ Here’s adownfall ! ” Stephen spreadhis 
 
 hands in dismay. “ Yesterday the gell was a 
 Cobbledick, her mother was a Ennobling, 
 and she might ha’ married Captain Ramsay 
 himself. To-day she is a Common Pick- 
 me-up, with never a name to her back, and 
 she’s goin’ to marry a journeyman painter, 
 paid by the job. Ah ! pride, pride, which 
 cometh before a squall.” 
 
 “A fortnight,” Jack reflected. “ To-day 
 is Monday. If I go to town to-morrow I 
 can manage something. We can go into 
 lodgings for a while. I could get back on 
 Saturday and we might be married on 
 Monday. That will do. You may give 
 away the bride, if you like.” 
 
 “As there’s no marriage settlements,” 
 said Stephen, shaking his head, and think- 
 ing that he could not sell her as he 
 had proposed, “I s’pose I must give her 
 away. But she ought to fetch a thousand 
 
 pounds at least. Make it five hundred, 
 Mr. Davenant, and pay up before you 
 start,” here he could not repress another 
 smile, which broadened to a grin, “ and we 
 will call it square.” 
 
 “Old Stephen, dear Avis,” said Jack, 
 presently recounting his interview, “is not, 
 
 I suppose, your uncle, though I confess to 
 doubts about the raft story. When a man 
 cannot give the details twice in the same 
 afternoon without varying them in every 
 particular, I should say that the story 
 would not be taken as evidence.” 
 
 “I must be someone’s daughter, Jack.” 
 
 “You probably came straight down from 
 heaven, my darling.” 
 
 I always set down on paper as few of 
 the raptures of lovers as is consistent with 
 conveying a clear impression that there 
 were raptures. It will be seen from this 
 specimen what nonsense Jack was capable 
 of talking, and how very much he was 
 in love. 
 
 “ First,” said Avis, “ I used to be 
 ashamed of having no relations except an 
 unknown uncle in America. Next, I 
 began to think it a distinction. The other 
 girls had fathers and mothers; one’s father 
 was a doctor, and another a farmer, and 
 another a lawyer, and so on ; they had re- 
 ceived their stations in the nursery. Mine 
 was all to come. Perhaps, I thought, it 
 might never come. I was to be a princess; 
 the long lost heiress of a great estate ; I 
 was to be a heroine of romance. They were 
 all silly about me, and I suppose I was 
 silly about myself. Then there did come 
 as it seemed the telling of the riddle. 
 It was a lame ending, and I was a poor 
 weak creature to make myself unhappy 
 over my fate. Yet it seemed dreadful to 
 be told to go and work ; to be a lady’s- 
 maid, or a barmaid. And, though he had 
 been generous to me, I could not feel 
 that Stephen was quite what one would 
 look for in a guardian and a father’s 
 brother.” 
 
 “The Knobling connection was certainly 
 one to be forgotten,” said Jack. “Poor 
 Avis ! her mother’s brother — a most distin- 
 guished man — was transported for twenty 
 years for forging the port admiral’s sig- 
 nature. Mr. Cobbledick has got great 
 powers, my dear.” 
 
 “ But now, although it is a relief— yes, 
 Jack, a great relief to know that this un- 
 pleasant old man is not my uncle, remember 
 that I have no name. Cobbledick is not 
 pretty, but one gets used to it.” 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR. 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 43 
 
 “ I thought it very pretty till this after- 
 noon,” said Jack; “now I know what 
 an ugly name it is. You shall change 
 it, my darling, for Davenant this day 
 week.” 
 
 “ Oh ! Jack, not so soon ; give me 
 time.” 
 
 “ Not a day longer, my dear. I feel as 
 if I had been too long without you — years 
 too long ; we ought to have been together 
 ever since you were born.” 
 
 Then they planned their future lives. 
 Other married couples have troubles ; this 
 pair resolved upon having none ; their 
 path stretched before them bathed in sun- 
 shine, here and there shaded by rows of 
 the most beautiful trees ; all the road was 
 strewn with flowers ; there seemed no end 
 of sunny days and warmth and happiness 
 and love. It is also a part of Solomon’s 
 wondrous way of man and a maid, that 
 this dream of the perfect life should come 
 once, and for ever be remembered. The 
 clouds hide the sun, and the pathway 
 grows painful as the years run on. Well 
 if the love remain, because the dream of 
 youth has become, at the end, to be the 
 recollection of a life. 
 
 Re sure that Avis, told her lover of the 
 surprising and extraordinary behaviour of 
 Captain Ramsay, who had shown a chival- 
 rous courtesy worthy of the chivalrous 
 South. She also told, and it was ascribed 
 to the vivid imagination of the old man, 
 how Stephen had painted this true-bred 
 gentleman in the blackest colours. Jack, 
 for his part, made severe animadversions 
 on the blindness of people who practise the 
 trade of poet. “He called him a tiger,” 
 said Jack indignantly. 
 
 That evening he sought an opportunity 
 of speaking to Captain Ramsay in the 
 usual place of resort. 
 
 “I have to thank you, sir,” he said, 
 “for your great courtesy and forbearance 
 in the matter of a certain young lady.” 
 
 “ Say no more, Mr. Davenant,” said the 
 Captain. “ A man must be a mean skunk 
 to force himself on a young lady when 
 she’s already promised. I beg your pardon, 
 sir, most sincerely, for intruding to the 
 extent I did. Had I known earlier, I 
 should not have done so. Shake hand.s, 
 sir, and take a whisky cocktail made in 
 Baltimore style. I’ve taught them how to 
 do it.” 
 
 Friendly relations thus established, Cap- 
 tain Ramsay, still speaking in a slow gentle 
 way, and with thought, as if he was care- 
 fully looking for the right word and no 
 
 other, to express his opinion, went on to 
 assure Jack that he lamented very pro- 
 foundly his late arrival on the field ; that 
 he was one of those who believe in the 
 goodness of woman and the perfectibility 
 of human nature by the shining example 
 of that goodness ; that he was certain 
 from observation and experience of good 
 women, among whom, he said, his lot when 
 ashore had been chiefly cast, that Avis was 
 as good as she was beautiful. These .and 
 many other beautiful and comforting things 
 he said. And then, when the heart of J ack 
 was really warming to him, as to a man who 
 had seen many men and their manners, and 
 yet preserved a certain virginal purity of 
 thought which made him blush for him- 
 self, the Captain called for another cock- 
 tail. 
 
 It was irritating to observe the scowl 
 with which the Poet, who was present, sat 
 on his side of the settle and listened to 
 this conversation. 
 
 From sentiments, the Captain passed to 
 the narration of deeds. These had no 
 bearing, it is true, on the ennobling nature 
 of love, but they brought out his character 
 in vivid light as a practiser of a code which, 
 though not English, yet seemed in some 
 respects justifiable. 
 
 “And really,” Jack subsequently con- 
 fessed, “ it was not till afterwards that I 
 found out that he had been simply con- 
 fessing himself a murderer.” 
 
 “ In the Southern States,” he . said, 
 “men become brothers. If you will be 
 brothers with me, Mr. Davenant, I guess it 
 may be good, some day, for one of us. For 
 when two men air brothers, they air bound 
 to fight for each other, to spring a bowie 
 or a six - shooter for each other at a 
 moment’s notice ; not to desert each other. 
 I had a brother once down in Texas. Now, 
 he was murdered. Wal, gentlemen, every 
 time I land in Galveston, which happens 
 once in two years or thereabouts, I go for 
 those murderers with a rifle, a knife, and a 
 pair of revolvers. I do not say that I land 
 one at every visit, for there were ten, but 
 now, as near as I can count, there are 
 only three, and one is skeered and gone up 
 country, where I doubt I shall never find 
 him. The other two air fighting the battles 
 of the Lord in Dixie’s Land : wherefore, 
 for the present, they know that they air 
 safe. Once the war is over and the Yank 
 (as he will be) chawed up so that his own 
 mother won’t know him again, I shah 
 make for those murderers again, even if 
 they haven’t got a leg nor an arm left. 
 
 O 
 
J= 
 
 44 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 “OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “A tiger,” murmured the Poet, the 
 irreconcilable. 
 
 Because I am bound to remember my 
 brother. And so, Mr. Davenant, if you 
 please, we will be brothers. I envy you 
 your wife, that’s a fact. And I shall go in 
 mourning for being too late for that beau- 
 tiful young thing all the days of my life. 
 But you’ve won her. Wherefore, here is 
 my hand, fair and honest, and brothers we 
 shall be.” 
 
 Who could resist such an appeal to the 
 deeper feelings of the heart 1 Not Jack, 
 who mutely held out his hand and grasped 
 the hand of the American. As he did so 
 he thought he heard the Poet murmuring 
 softly : 
 
 “ He is a tiger — a man-eater ! ” 
 
 “ Steve Cobbledick tells me,” the Captain 
 went on, “that you are going to London 
 to-morrow ?” 
 
 “Yes, for a few days only. I have,” 
 said Jack, with an expressive blush, “a few 
 preparations to make.” 
 
 “ Nat ’rally. And you come back — 
 
 when V’ 
 
 “ On Saturday. To be married on 
 Monday.” 
 
 Just then a telegram was brought to the 
 Captain. He opened it, read it, threw the 
 paper into the fire, and stroked his chin 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 “ You come back on Saturday. Good. 
 Do not be later, because we, Steve Cobble- 
 dick and I, have very important business 
 to look after about then. It would be a 
 pity if you were to come after we. were 
 gone.” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Jack; “I should like to see 
 you off.” 
 
 “ A great pity it would be,” said Cap- 
 tain Ramsay. “Ah! Mr. Davenant, if 
 you were not going to be married, what a 
 time you might have with us ! What a 
 time ! ” 
 
 “Are you. not satisfied with one Ala- 
 bama 1” 
 
 “No; nor with a hundred, provided we 
 drive the Yanks off the seas; and provided, 
 if there be a row, that England pays. You 
 would enjoy yourself very much with us, 
 Mr. Davenant, I assure you, particularly” 
 — he added this with a frank winning 
 smile — “ if you knew who was going 
 to be aboard with us. You’ll remember 
 the words, won’t you, now ? I say 
 you’d be uncommon happy with us, 
 particularly if you knew, beforehand, 
 who was going to be a passenger 
 aboard.” 
 
 Jack laughed. “I will remember,” he 
 said. 
 
 In the morning, with fond farewells, 
 J ack took leave of his fiancee. 
 
 “ It is only for a week,” he said, while 
 she clung to him and wept. “ Only for a 
 week, my Avis. I go to make my darling 
 a nest.” 
 
 “ I cannot bear to let you go, Jack. Oh ! 
 it is all like a dream to me. I came here 
 in a dream of hope. It changed to a dream 
 of gloom and despair ; then came another 
 dream — of you, my lover ; and I have lost 
 my name and the people whom I thought 
 to have found. Now you are going away. 
 How do I know that I shall not to-morrow 
 awake and find that you, too, are a 
 dream 1 ” 
 
 He took off his ring, a simple seal, his 
 watch and his chain. “ Keep them,” he 
 said, “ for me. Wear the watch and chain. 
 Hang the ring upon the chain, and when 
 you look at them, think I am no ghost or 
 phantom of a troubled brain, because no 
 ghost who ever walked was able to carry a 
 watch and chain.” 
 
 “Yet,” she said — “Yet I cannot bear 
 to let you go. A week; a whole week. 
 And what may happen, meantime V” 
 
 “What should happen, dearest 1 ? You 
 are surrounded by friends. The Poet stays 
 here to keep watch over you. Captain 
 Ramsay will suffer no wrong or harm to be 
 done you. Courage, dear.” 
 
 “ I am foolish,” she said. “Yet it is so 
 hard to let you go, even for a week. I 
 am not afraid of Stephen, nor of anything 
 that I can tell you. Yet, Jack, I am 
 afraid.” 
 
 He kissed her again and again; he assured 
 her that there was nothing in the world 
 to fear ; he promised to write every day ; 
 he pictured his speedy return — why, if he 
 came back on Saturday, it would only be 
 for a five days’ absence ; he made her 
 blush by bidding her think of the next 
 Monday — Saint Monday — day ever to be 
 blessed and held most holy — when he 
 should stand beside her at the altar. And 
 so, at last, because time must be obeyed, 
 he caught her in his arms and kissed a 
 last farewell. 
 
 Alas ! that kiss was the last of Jack 
 that the girl would have to remember for 
 many a weary day. 
 
 It was on Tuesday, then, that Jack 
 Davenant left Boscastle, driving to Laun- 
 ceston to catch the train. He begged the 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.” [December 1, 1880.] 45 
 
 Poet, before he went away, to keep Avis 
 under his special charge, while he was 
 away; to amuse her, guard her, and see 
 that no harm happened to her ; a charge 
 which the Poet accepted with great zeal 
 and friendliness. There was then nothing 
 to fear : Captain Ramsay was entirely to 
 be trusted, a little rough in his expres- 
 sions, but a man of greatly noble mind ; 
 Stephen, who certainly had been violent 
 before, would not venture to break out 
 again : everything was settled and com- 
 fortable. Yet, in spite of assurances, 
 repeated again and again to himself, he de- 
 parted for London unaccountably anxious. 
 Perhaps Avis’s terrors infected him. He 
 felt the sudden chill which comes before a 
 storm. The power of prophesy for some 
 wonderful reason means the power of pre- 
 dicting the approach of unpleasantness. 
 Cassandra, Jeremiah, and Mr. Grey utter 
 their prophecies, but they are never of a 
 cheerful nature. Ascalon is to be made 
 desolate ; Troy is to be destroyed ; Tyre 
 is to be a rock for the spreading of nets ; 
 England is to be levelled with Holland; 
 and so on. Never anything to make us 
 contemplate the future with satisfaction. 
 Not only Ahab and his grandsons, but also 
 all mankind, have found the prophets pro- 
 foundly melancholy. Why have there 
 beenno joyous foretellers, jovial seers, cheer- 
 ful upraisers of man’s heart by painting a 
 future in which there shall be no injustice, 
 no hard times, and peace, prosperity, and 
 contentment for all alike 1 There must be 
 some good times coming. Sad as the history 
 of man has been, there has certainly been a 
 considerable improvement in cheerfulness, 
 which we hope may continue. And when 
 I go into the prophetic line it will be 
 to proclaim, in the immediate future, 
 the most delightful time imaginable, to 
 prepare for which we shall hang or im- 
 prison all kings, commanders of armies, 
 inventors of arms, troublers of the peace, 
 promoters of discontent, professional agi- 
 tators, and disagreeable people. The pre- 
 sent days, indeed, have become so eminently 
 uncomfortable that it is almost time to begin 
 making this announcement. 
 
 The Poet mounted guard with zeal. He 
 was suspicious of the old man, whose sud- 
 den change of front was inexplicable ; he 
 was suspicious of the gentleness assumed 
 by the American; such suavity was un- 
 natural in a person of his calling and his 
 self-confessed antecedents. Yet what harm 
 could they do % 
 
 It seemed on the first day of Jack’s 
 
 absence as if Captain Ramsay, in his zeal 
 for his “ brother,” was also mounting guard 
 for the protection of the girl against un- 
 known dangers. For he followed her 
 about and left the Poet few opportunities 
 of talking to her alone. Now he so 
 thoroughly disliked the American that 
 he could not bear even his presence. On 
 the second day, however, he got her to walk 
 with him on the cliffs, and of course they 
 talked of Jack all the time. 
 
 ‘'Stephen,” she said, “seems to have 
 forgotten his disappointment. I suppose 
 it is because Captain Ramsay has behaved 
 with so much consideration. I hope, at 
 least, that you have repented of your bad 
 opinion of him ? ” 
 
 “Not at all. I have ~a worse opinion 
 of him than ever.” 
 
 “ But that is surely prejudice. Remem- 
 ber how generous he has been.” 
 
 “I know. That is, I know what you 
 mean. What I cannot understand is— why 
 he puts on this new air of virtue ; I don’t 
 understand.” 
 
 “ But you may be wrong.” _ 
 
 “Yes,” said the Poet. “I thought when 
 I saw him first that he looked and talked 
 like a tiger. All the same, he may be 4 
 lamb.” 
 
 “ To-day is Wednesday,” Avk went on, 
 “ and Jack will be with us again on Satur- 
 day. I had a letter to-day. It is the 
 second letter, only the second letter that I 
 have ever had in all my life. The first 
 was a dreadful letter from my— from 
 Stephen, telling me to leave school and 
 
 go to him. But the second Oh ! 
 
 how do men learn to say such beautiful 
 things 1 ” 
 
 “Because they feel them, perhaps.” 
 
 “ Let us sit down,” said Avis, sighing, 
 “ and you shall tell me all about Jack, and 
 what he was like when he was a boy. I 
 am sure you will have nothing but what is 
 good to tell me.” 
 
 This was on the Wednesday morning. 
 The reason why Avis was left to the Poet 
 by Captain Ramsay was that he was having 
 a serious conversation with Stephen. The 
 Maryland, he told him, had already left 
 Liverpool ; she would arrive off Boscastle 
 Port about noon the next day. Therefore, it 
 behoved Stephen to make such arrangements 
 as might be necessary for immediate depar- 
 ture. Ramsay gave him, in fulfilment of 
 the agreement, the sum of three hundred and 
 seventy-five pounds in Bank of England 
 notes, half his pay as pilot from Nassau 
 to Wilmington and back, with a written 
 
li : 
 
 46 [December 1, 1880.] “OYER THE SEA [Conducted by 
 
 agreement for the other half on the com- 
 pletion of the round trip ; and then they 
 laid their heads together and whispered, 
 though no one was within ear-shot, for a 
 good half-hour. When two men whisper 
 together it is generally safe to consider 
 that they mean mischief to some person or 
 persons. When these two men are old 
 slavers, filibusters, blockade-runners, and 
 the like, it is quite safe to consider that 
 they mean mischief. 
 
 “ Then, I think,” said the Daptain at last, 
 
 “ that we have made all square and right. 
 There can’t be any difficulty. The weather 
 looks as if it will be fine. Mate, this little 
 job shall be pulled off in a way to do us 
 credit. As for me, I shall give all the 
 credit to you. Stephen, I shall say, devised 
 the plan. Stephen carried it through. 
 Stephen did it alL” 
 
 The old man grinned with pleasure and 
 pride. Then he thought of some disagree- 
 able side of the business, and he became 
 serious and even troubled. 
 
 “She’ll take on awful, she will,” he 
 said. 
 
 “ Let her take on. That won’t matter. 
 
 “ She’s a plucky one, too. Cap’en, I 
 don’t half like it.” 
 
 *“ Steve, old man, you don’t feel like 
 going back* upon your word, do you? 
 Don’t say that.” 
 
 Stephen Cobbledick took courage. 
 
 “ My word is passed,” he replied stoutly, 
 
 “ and shall be kep’. A sailor mustn’t go 
 back upon his word. Though, when you 
 come to turn it over in your mind, so. as 
 to look at it all round, it does seem kind 
 of unnat’ral for a man to kidnap his own 
 niece.” 
 
 “ If she’s your own niece, how about the 
 raft ? ” 
 
 “ Why, that’s true. Seeing, then, that 
 she isn’t my niece at all ” 
 
 “And that we air old shipmates and 
 pals ” 
 
 “ And that you’re goin’ to behave 
 honourable, and treat her kind 
 
 “ And marry her in the first port, and 
 settle down afterwards where’s there no 
 chance of nasty enquiries ” 
 
 “ And keep her out of the way of that 
 other one — Olive ? ” 
 
 “Ay! She shall never hear of Olive 
 at all. t 
 
 “ And to pro — vide the gell with all she 
 wants ” 
 
 “And stick cn to her faithful and 
 true ” . , 
 
 “ Why,” answered Stephen, “ I’m dom 
 
 cag = 
 
 the best I can, and everybody will own it, 
 for the gell ; and I’ll do it with a thankful 
 heart.” 
 
 “ Spoke like a man ! ” cried the Captain. 
 “Spoke like what I expected from old 
 Steve ! ” 
 
 Stephen had business that afternoon 
 which took him to Camelford. His busi- 
 ness was to arrange for the collection of 
 his rents and the safety of his money while 
 he was away. As for his kit, which was 
 not extensive, he packed it in a water- 
 proof bag, and stowed it in the locker of 
 his boat. A busy and eventful day it was 
 for him. In fact, it was more full of fate 
 than he at all anticipated. 
 
 While he was thus occupied Captain 
 Ramsay spent his time with Avis. 
 
 “ I come to tell you,” he began, “ that I 
 have received a telegram.” He handed it 
 to her. 
 
 “ The Maryland went out of dock this 
 morning. She will lie-to off Boscastle 
 Port about noon to-morrow. If the weather 
 is bad she will put in at Falmouth.” 
 
 “ The weather,” he said, “promises fine. 
 
 It is a pity that she does not go to 
 Falmouth, or you might have run down 
 with Stephen and me and gone aboard 
 her.” 
 
 “ I have never seen a ship,” Avis 
 said. “ Except the coasters which put in 
 here.” 
 
 “Poor child!” said the Captain, with, 
 feeling. “ She has never seen a ship ! ” 
 
 “And Stephen, does he sail with you 
 to-morrow 1 ” 
 
 “No; he joins us later on; we are going 
 for a trial cruise first.” The lies dropped 
 out of this mariner’s mouth as easily as- 
 out of Stephen’s. “ He comes aboard later 
 on ; three weeks or a month.” 
 
 “ I hope, Captain Ramsay,” said Avis, 
 
 “ that you are not going to run into any 
 terrible danger.” 
 
 “ You feel as if you would be sorry if I 
 was knocked on the head with a Yankee 
 cutlass.” 
 
 “I should be very sorry, for, indeed, 
 Captain Ramsay, I cannot tell you how 
 grateful I am to you for your consider- 
 ation.” 
 
 “ If I had known,” he said, “ that your 
 affections were already bestowed, I should 
 not have presumed to step in. As for 
 Stephen’s bad temper, that was all the 
 fault of my confounded bungling. In the 
 States a man speaks first to the gal, or 
 she sometimes to him ; which is, I guess, 
 
 =P 
 
Charles Dickens.] WITH THE SAILOR. [December 1, 1880.] 47 
 
 whether it’s he first or she first, the right 
 and natural way. I thought, bein’ a 
 stranger here, that a man was bound to 
 go to a gal’s parents and guardian first, 
 and, if they didn’t seem to yearn for him, 
 hitch off and try with another batch of 
 parents.” 
 
 “If I knew how to thank you ” 
 
 Avis began. 
 
 “ Then,” he replied, with a gush of 
 good feeling, “ do not thank me at all. As 
 
 to that story about the raft ” 
 
 “ Do you really think it is true 1 You 
 know how Stephen exaggerates.” 
 
 “I know. A beautiful liar he is. But 
 I think the raft story is true. Pity it was 
 so long ago. I wonder if there was any 
 name or mark on your clothes, or those 
 silk handkerchiefs with ' which you were 
 wrapped up ? ” 
 
 “ I do not know, indeed. I know only 
 what my — what Stephen told me.” 
 
 “ If there was any thing, and that thing 
 was kept, I suppose it would be in the 
 house and in Stephen’s own room ? ” 
 
 “ I suppose so,” said Avis. 
 
 “ It would be kind of romantic, wouldn’t 
 it,” he asked, “if we were to find your 
 parents after all? There must be some- 
 where in the world, some folk who had a 
 little baby lost aboard a ship coming from 
 India eighteen years ago or so.” 
 
 “I think,” said Avis, “that I do not 
 want to find any more relations. The first 
 discovery was not encouraging. I am con- 
 tent to remain what Stephen feelingly 
 called me, a Common Pick-me-up. Besides, 
 I shall have Jack.” 
 
 Notwithstanding, the Captain took an 
 opportunity of examining Stephen again 
 upon the point. But there was nothing 
 to go upon. The bandannas were gone, 
 expended in service, and there was 
 nothing else, not even the bit of coral 
 which the lost heiress always keeps trea- 
 sured up, tied by a ribbon round her 
 neck, and hidden in her bosom, where it 
 must scratch horribly and be about as 
 comfortable as a hair-shirt. Also, when 
 Stephen was required to relate the whole 
 story afresh, he told it with an entirely 
 new set of circumstances, and placed the 
 raft a thousand miles or so south of the 
 Cape, nearly in the regions of perpetual 
 ice. Charged with this variation, he ad- 
 mitted that he had been careless as to 
 details, but swore stoutly that the child 
 had been veritably picked up at sea, the 
 last survivor. 
 
 With Avis, however, the Captain changed 
 
 the conversation, and began to narrate his 
 adventures and perils by sea and land, 
 especially those which brought into strong 
 light his own generosity and many other 
 noble gifts. And presently he told the 
 girl of a certain enchanted castle, grange, 
 or palace, which he had built for the 
 solace of his soul in sunny Florida. . 
 
 “ I guess that when this war is over, 
 which will be before many months, I shall 
 return to that sweet location and stay there 
 till the time comes for sending in the checks. 
 There’s forests of palms and tree ferns, 
 eighty feet high, round the house ; there’s 
 miles of orange trees ; the pigs and the 
 niggers are fed on nothing else but 
 oranges; the alligators come ashore after 
 them ; they sit under the trees, and get 
 their manners and their hides softened by 
 eating that yaller civiliser. . It never 
 freezes there and never blows ; it is never too 
 hot ; there’s banks of flowers, most all. of 
 them magnolias, with creepers climbing 
 everywhere ; there’s pretty parrots and little 
 humming-birds ; there’s plenty of niggers ; 
 you can lie in a silk hammock under the 
 verandah, with one nigger told off for the 
 fan, another to swing you, another to. peel 
 the oranges, another to bring cooling drinks, 
 another to roll your cigarette, and another 
 to light them. Avis, it’s a life that you 
 poor people living in a blessed island where 
 there’s mostly rain, and when it doesn’t 
 rain, it blows east wind, wouldn’t under- 
 stand at first. You’d say 4 Lemme be. 
 Gimme more iced cocktail. I don’t want 
 no better heaven; this is a small bit of 
 the happy land chopped off and put down 
 in the Gulf of Mexico, just to let an 
 unbelieving world know what they may 
 expect if they play the game right through 
 honourable. Some day, perhaps,” he con- 
 tinued, 44 you will cross over the water and 
 see my little plantation. You and your 
 husband, I mean.” 
 
 With such discussion the crafty Captain 
 strengthened and increased the girl’s con- 
 fidence in him, so that she thought she had 
 a friend indeed in this rough yet gentle- 
 spoken sailor. And while the Poet watched 
 with a disquiet which he could not explain, 
 the Captain and Avis sat all the afternoon 
 together. When he left her he held out 
 his hand. 
 
 “We shall say good-bye to-morrow, he 
 said. 44 This is for you to say that you 
 trust me now.” 
 
 44 Why,” said Avis, laughing, 44 of course 
 I trust you. And so does Jack.” 
 
 “The other fellow doesn’t,” said the 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 48 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 “OVER THE SEA 
 
 Captain, “ but never mind him. As for 
 Jack, he ought to have been a sailor.” 
 
 Avis laughed again. “ All good men 
 cannot be sailors. 1 ’ 
 
 “ Jack ought to have been one,” he 
 repeated. “Ours is the trade for truth 
 and honour; also, for fair and open 
 play.” 
 
 How about eleven o’clock in the fore- 
 noon of Thursday, the Poet was sitting on 
 the rocks facing the sea. Avis was for the 
 moment forgotten ; his note-book was in 
 one hand and a pencil in the other. He 
 was quite happy, because after many 
 days’ wrestling he was finding freedom 
 of expression. He had just made up his 
 mind as to the metre fittest for his sub- 
 ject, which dealt with a seaside maiden 
 and her lover ; and was suggested, in fact, 
 by Avis herself. He had already planned 
 the story. It had a tragic conclusion, for- 
 he was young ; when one gets on in life, 
 one has seen so many tragedies, so many 
 disappointments, so many crushed hopes, 
 so many early deaths, that one feels it to 
 be really sinful to add another drop to this 
 ocean of tears. Poetry, like fiction, should 
 be glad. But the Poet’s story was a sad 
 one: the seaside maiden was to be torn 
 away from her lover by wicked pirates ; he 
 was to wander from land to land in search 
 of her. He was to find her at last, but 
 only to find her dying. The situation was 
 so affecting that he was already beginning 
 to shed tears over it. 
 
 Now while he pondered and made notes, 
 he became aware of a Steamer standing 
 in, apparently for BoScastle, whither no 
 steamers ever came. She hove to, how- 
 ever, a few hundred yards from the rocks, 
 the sea being nearly calm and the day 
 being fair, and presently her whistle 
 sounded sharp and clear. It ' was a 
 signal. 
 
 She was so close that everything on 
 board was easy to be made out. A small 
 craft, but long and narrow, like a cigar, 
 she lay low as if she was well loaded, her 
 hull showing only about nine feet above 
 the water; she was painted a dull grey 
 colour; she carried no other rigging than 
 a pair of lower masts without any yards ; 
 she was probably a boat of about five hun- 
 dred tons burden. She looked from the 
 height, where the Pdet was sitting, like a 
 toy steamer, too fragile and delicate to 
 stand the great waves of the rolling 
 forties. 
 
 Then a very singular thing happened. J ust 
 below the Poet’s feet was the mouth of the 
 
 little harbour; there came out, sailing slowly 
 in the light breeze, Stephen Cobbledick’s 
 boat. He himself sat midships, handy for 
 the sail; Avis held the rudder-lines ; 
 beside her- sat Captain Ramsay. It was 
 obvious that the steamer was in some way 
 connected with the American ; then the 
 Poet saw that the' sailors on board the 
 steamer were running about, and presently 
 a companion was lowered. It must be 
 Captain Ramsay’s ship. Then he was 
 going away ; that was a good thing; Avis- 
 and Stephen were taking him off; that was 
 a friendly thing to do. The little boat ran 
 alongside the steamer; Stephen hauled in 
 sail, while the Captain made the painter 
 fast to the ladder. Then he assisted Avis 
 to climb the steep and narrow ladder, and 
 sprang up himself.' Arrived on deck, the 
 girl walked for’ard, looking about her with 
 curiosity and interest. She was invited to 
 see the ship, that was plain.- What on 
 earth, then, did old Stephen mean J Here, 
 indeed, his behaviour became inexplicable. 
 For, with so much deliberation as to show- 
 premeditation and intention, he carefully 
 untied the painter, stepped out upon The 
 ladder, and climbed up ; as for the boat, she 
 drifted slowly astern. Then the steamer, 
 without more delay, suddenly and swiftly 
 forged ahead ; the boat was in a moment 
 far away. The Poet saw, as the ship glided 
 over the smooth water, Avis rushing to 
 the side and the Captain clutching at her 
 arm. He sprang to his feet and shouted 
 and waved his arms. Avis saw him, and 
 he saw her struggling, while Ramsay and 
 Stephen held her back, as if she would 
 spring overboard in a mad attempt to 
 escape: Then he saw her free herself from 
 
 her captors and sink, despairing, on the 
 deck. But the ship went on her course ; 
 the figures became more difficult to see ; 
 soon there was but a black hull ; then but 
 a line of smoke ; then that vanished ; all 
 Was out of sight. 
 
 Avis was gone ! She was enticed on 
 board the ship by the crafty American and 
 the villain Stephen : it was no accident ; 
 she was treacherously and foully deceived ; 
 the thing Was deliberately done : he had 
 seen with his own eyes the old Pilot untie 
 the painter and set his boat adrift ; she 
 was in the power of as black a villain as 
 ever walked. “ I always said,” cried the 
 Poet, “ that he was a tiger ! ’’ - . 
 
 In the worst misfortune it is always a 
 consolation to know that you have been 
 right in your prognostications. In fact, 
 some of your friends have always pro- 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 49 
 
 phesied it. I have said above that no man 
 is a prophet of joy, so that on the rare 
 occasions when joyful things do come the 
 happiness they cause is never diminished 
 by the voice of one who says he always 
 told you so. 
 
 “I knew,” repeated the prophet, “that 
 he was a man-eater, a tiger ! ” 
 
 He hastened down the rocks and told the 
 sailors and people about the port what he 
 had seen. They could not help ; they 
 knew nothing ; that Stephen should go 
 aboard with his friend was natural; that he 
 should cast his boat adrift was incredible. It 
 must have been an accident. They manned 
 a boat and put off, expecting to meet the 
 steamer coming back. The Poet went 
 with them ; outside, they picked up the 
 little yacht, a derelict ; but the steamer 
 did not return, and presently they came 
 back wondering. And in the Wellington 
 Arms that night, when the little club 
 met and realised the vacancy caused by 
 Stephen’s absence, they began slowly to 
 perceive that a great crime had been 
 committed. 
 
 All that night — the nights in June are 
 light — the Poet wandered about the rocks 
 on the chance that Avis might yet some- 
 how be brought back. He had betrayed 
 his charge, he said to himself. He ought 
 never to have left her while that man was 
 
 in the place. He ought And what would 
 
 Jack say — poor Jack, who had lost his 
 bride 1 With what face would the Poet 
 meet him and greet him with the dreadful 
 news 1 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. THE WRECK OF THE 
 MARYLAND. 
 
 I have now to tell a story of the most 
 wicked treachery and deceit that was ever 
 practised upon any girl. There never, 
 surely, could have been a greater villain 
 than Captain Ramsay, or a more ready 
 accomplice than Stephen Cobbledick. 
 
 They lulled me, between them, into so 
 great a confidence, that I believed the man 
 Ramsay to be my firm and most trustworthy 
 friend. He said Jack and he were sworn 
 brothers; that to be brothers among the 
 people with whom he had mostly lived, 
 meant to stand by and defend each other, 
 to make each ready to die, if necessary, for 
 the other. With such an affection did he 
 pretend to regard Jack; such mutual vows, 
 he said, had they interchanged. He was 
 full of' protestations about honour, loyalty 
 — playing a fair and open game. All this 
 time the plot was laid, and the plan resolved 
 
 upon, although it was not until the last 
 moment, and then only by a pretence at a 
 sudden thought, that I was enticed on board 
 his ship. 
 
 It was on the Thursday — Jack having 
 been gone two days — and early in the fore- 
 noon, that the man Ramsay came, walking 
 slowly, to the cottage where I was writing 
 a letter to Jack. He had stuck one of his 
 big cigars between his lips, and in his hand, 
 I remember, was a wild rose, which gave 
 him somehow the look of a man of peace. 
 But he had put off his black clothes, and 
 wore a smart seamanlike dress, with a gold 
 band round his peaked cap. 
 
 “ The craft is off the mouth of the port, 
 Miss Avis,” he said sadly and gently. “ I 
 hope you will run down and give me a 
 farewell wave of your handkerchief from 
 the point, when I am on board. Where is 
 Stephen 1 ” 
 
 “ Here I am, Cap’en,” said the old man, 
 coming out of the kitchen. Row there was 
 nothing, not the least sign, to show that he, 
 too, was on the point of sailing. He was 
 dressed as usual. He had made, so far as 
 I could see, no preparations. To be sure, 
 I was not suspecting any. “Is the gig 
 sent ashore 1 ” 
 
 “ Ro, Stephen. You shall take me off 
 yourself in your own boat.” 
 
 I thought that friendly of him. 
 
 “ I will, Cap’en ; I will,” replied Stephen 
 cheerily. “It’s the last thing I can do 
 before I jine next month.” 
 
 He said those words, I suppose, to put 
 me off any suspicion. But, indeed, I had 
 none. 
 
 “Then, Miss Avis” — the Captain held 
 out his hand — “ I will say farewell here. 
 You will promise to stand on the point and 
 see the last of me 1” 
 
 “ Why should she go to the point at alH” 
 Stephen suggested. “ Why can’t she come 
 off in the boat, as usual 1” 
 
 “ Why not 1” asked the Captain, his kind 
 thoughtful face lighting up with a smile. 
 “ A happy thought, old friend ! Will you 
 do me so much honour as to steer me on 
 board my own ship 1” 
 
 I was pleased to be of a little service, 
 and we all walked away to the quay, 
 where the boat was lying ready for the 
 trip. 
 
 When we reached the ship, Captain 
 Ramsay asked me if, as I was there, I would 
 like just to run up the companion and see 
 what an ocean steamer was like. 
 
 “ Let us make the painter fast first,” he 
 said. 
 
 F 
 
50 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 ‘OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 He gave me his hand up the steps, 
 Stephen remaining behind. 
 
 I began to look about me curiously, when 
 suddenly I heard the engines begin to work, 
 and felt the screw revolve. The ship was 
 moving. 
 
 “ Oh, Captain,” I said, laughing, “ you 
 must stop her quick, for me to get 
 out.” 
 
 “ Ay, ay,” he replied, hut said no more, 
 and still the screw went on. 
 
 “ Captain !” I cried. Then I ran to the 
 side. There was our boat drifting away 
 far astern, and beside me stood Stephen 
 himself, a waterproof bag in his hand, 
 looking so guiltily ashamed that I guessed 
 at once the truth. The boat had been sent 
 adrift on purpose. I was a prisoner on 
 board the ship. 
 
 If Stephen looked ashamed, not so the 
 Captain. He drew himself straight, with 
 a glitter in his eye, and a smile upon his 
 lips. It was a cruel glitter, and a hard 
 
 smile. . 
 
 The man’s face had changed ; the 
 thoughtfully sad expression was gone. . 
 
 “ This little plan, Miss Avis,” he said 
 
 quietly, “was arranged between me and 
 Stephen. We were anxious that it should 
 come off without any hitch, which was the 
 reason why you were not in the secret. 
 You are our passenger.” 
 
 “ Oh ! villain !” It was not to the 
 Captain, but to Stephen, that I spoke. 
 
 He made no reply. He hung his head, 
 and looked at the Captain, as if for help. 
 He spoke up, roughly and readily. 
 
 “You did it for the best, Steve. .No 
 kind o’ use to be skeered because the girl’s 
 riled. She’s nat’rally riled; anybody would 
 be, first go off. What you’ve got to think 
 is, that you done it for the best. Why, at 
 this very moment, come to listen, you 11 
 hear your conscience singing hymns in your 
 bosom with grateful joy.” . . „ . , 
 
 “ All for your own good, Avis, said 
 Stephen, with an effort. . 
 
 “ That is so. Meantime, Miss Avis, it 
 you feel like letting on, why, let yourself 
 rip ; we don’t mind.” 
 
 “ Not a bit,” said Stephen hoarsely. “ I 
 never heerd a woman let on out at sea 
 before.” 
 
 I suppose I was still silent, for presently 
 the Captain went on : 
 
 “ I told you that I was in love with you. 
 I am a man, and not a maid; so that, when 
 I set my fancy on a thing, that thing I must 
 have. I set my fancy on you, and no other. 
 I am powerful in love with you. I am 
 
 so much in love that, rather’n lose you, 
 I’d sink this craft with all her cargo, 
 and the crew, and you too. I would, 
 
 by ” 
 
 He strengthened the assurance with so 
 great an. oath, that it ought alone to. have 
 sunk the ship by the violence of its wicked- 
 ness. 
 
 “ Let’s have no sinkin’ of crafts,” said 
 Stephen uneasily. “ Avis will come round 
 bime-by. Give her rope.” 
 
 “ As for your lover,” the Captain went 
 on, “ he counts for nothing. You’ll forget 
 him in a week. Make up your mind to 
 forget him at once, for you’ve got to marry 
 me. That’s settled. I stand no sulks from 
 any gal. They’ve got to look cheerful, and 
 to do what they’re told to do. Then 
 things go well, and they find me a good 
 sort.” 
 
 He spoke as if he had a dozen wives. 
 
 Now, I know not what I answered, 
 because, indeed, my mind was confused. 
 
 I think I prayed them, of their mercy, to 
 set me ashore. I think I recalled to the 
 Captain’s memory the many things he had 
 said in truth and honour ; that I threatened 
 them, and set them at defiance. All I re- 
 member quite clearly is that Stephen stood 
 stupidly staring as if afraid and ashamed, 
 that the Captain quietly stood before me, 
 making no answer to speak of, and that 
 when I appealed to the man at the helm, 
 he kept one eye on the wheel, and the 
 other on the compass, and made no re- 
 sponse whatever. I wonder how far his 
 immobility would extend. I believe, how- 
 ever, that if they had thrown me over- 
 board he would have taken no notice, either 
 by word or gesture. He was a Norfolk 
 man (the American Norfolk) — a long-boned 
 weedy man — who afterwards was of great 
 service to me. His face was as red as 
 exposure to the weather could make it, and 
 its expression meant duty. His name was 
 Liberty Wicks. 
 
 When I was worn out with appealing. to 
 consciences as hard as the nether mill- 
 stone, I fell to tears and weeping. There 
 was not one among all the crew who could 
 be moved by the tears of a woman. Yet 
 they all knew what their captain had 
 done. . 
 
 “ There is not,” said the Captain, one 
 single man aboard this ship who will help 
 you. Therefore, you may spare your cries. 
 And now, if you please, as there’s the 
 ship to navigate and the work to be 
 done, p’raps you’ll let me show you your 
 cabin.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 51 
 
 “ Don’t frighten her, Cap’en,” said 
 Stephen, looking uneasy again. “ Tell her 
 what you’ve promised : else you may find 
 another pilot.” 
 
 “Your cabin is your own,” Captain 
 Eamsay explained. “It is your private 
 room. No one will disturb you there 
 except your steward. I am sorry there 
 is no stewardess. When you please, come 
 on deck. There we shall all be your ser- 
 vants, and I am sure,” he added, with a 
 return to the old manner, “ that we shall, 
 in a day or two, see you happier on board 
 the Maryland than you could ever have 
 been in any other land.” 
 
 He led the way, and I followed without 
 a word. Stephen came after, still crest- 
 fallen, though, by the wagging of his head 
 and the clearing of his throat, it was 
 apparent that he was making up his mind 
 to listen to those hymns which, according 
 to the Captain, his conscience was singing. 
 The "efforts made by a man who is 
 thoroughly ashamed of himself to recover 
 self-respect and seem at ease, are very sad 
 to witness. 
 
 The steamer had a pretty little saloon 
 aft, with a sleeping cabin on either side. 
 
 “ These,” said Captain Eamsay, still in 
 the same conciliatory but determined man- 
 ner, “ are your quarters. I give you up the 
 captain’s cabin. Here you will be quite 
 private and undisturbed. You need have 
 no fears. If any one aboard this ship were 
 to offer an insult to my future wife, that 
 man’s remains should be thrown overboard 
 shortly afterwards. Therefore, be under 
 no apprehension. You shall mess by 
 yourself.” 
 
 I sat down without a word. Oh ! J ack ! 
 Jack ! Who would tell you 1 
 
 “The Captain means kind,” saidStephen 
 hoarsely. “ Come, Avis, be comfortable. A 
 run across the herrin’ pond, and a husband 
 on the other side of it. Such a husband, 
 too ! Why, it’s honour and glory, not 
 cryin’ and takin’ on ! ” 
 
 “ Let her be,” said the # Captain. “ She is 
 riled. Give her time. Just now, Miss 
 Avis, you think it is mean. Why, all’s 
 fair in love. And after a few days, when 
 you’ve picked up a bit, we shall be friends 
 again. I am only sorry there’s never a 
 stewardess on board.” 
 
 Here one of the cabin doors opened, and 
 a woman stepped out. 
 
 “ There is a stewardess, Captain 
 Eamsay.” 
 
 At sight of her, the Captain stepped back 
 with an oath. 
 
 “ Olive ! By all the powers !” 
 
 “Oh! Lord!” cried Stephen, starting. 
 
 “ Here’s his wife !” 
 
 “ What do you — how did you,” stam- 
 mered the Captain. It was not pretty to 
 look upon his face, on which was expressed 
 a vehement desire to break the sixth com- 
 mandment. 
 
 She was a tall and handsome woman, of 
 five-and-twenty or so, with a profusion of 
 black hair, and black eyes. She was plainly 
 dressed ; on her finger I noticed a wedding- 
 ring. 
 
 “I am a stowaway,” she said. “ You 
 did not expect me here. Yet I told you at 
 Liverpool that I would never leave you. 
 And I never will !” 
 
 “She never will,” murmured Stephen, 
 in a kind of admiring stupor. “ She looks 
 as if she never would.” 
 
 “ I will murder you ! Do you hear l” 
 The Captain snatched at his waistcoat, as if 
 to draw the revolver which he generally 
 carried there. “ I will murder you ! You 
 shall be thrown overboard ! I say, I will 
 kill you !” 
 
 “ Do not be afraid, child,” she said to 
 me, apparently paying no attention to his 
 angry gestures. “ He will not murder me. 
 He would, if he dared, but even the sailors 
 of this ship, rough ' as they are, would not 
 screen him if he did. And he does not 
 desire to be hanged.” 
 
 She was quite quiet ; her face was very 
 pale ; her lips were set. I learned, after- 
 wards, to love her. But at first I was afraid 
 of her. 
 
 “ This,” said Stephen, “ is the very deuce 
 an’ all. What’s to be done now ?” 
 
 “Who are you?” I asked. “Oh! tell 
 me if you, too, are in a plot with these 
 wretched men ! ” 
 
 “I am the wife of the man who calls 
 himself Captain Eamsay,” she replied. 
 “ There stands my husband.” 
 
 “It’s a lie!” shouted the Captain, em- 
 phasising his words in manner common 
 among men of his kind. “ It’s a lie ! She 
 has been divorced by the law of the country. 
 I have no wife.” 
 
 “ I wear your wedding-ring still.” She 
 showed it on her finger. “ I refuse your 
 divorce. I will not acknowledge the law 
 which allows a man to put away a wife 
 without a- reason. I am still your wife. I 
 shall follow you wherever you go. I came 
 across the Atlantic, to Liverpool, after you. 
 I came on board this ship after you. I shall 
 make the voyage with you.” 
 
 The Captain laughed. 
 
ft 
 
 U -■ - "■ ----- — -===** 
 
 52 [December 1, 1880.] “OVER THE SEA [Conducted by 
 
 “ You shall,” he said. Hang me if you 
 
 shall leave the ship till I let you. You 
 shall follow me — whether you like it or not 
 — to Dixie’s Land.” 
 
 “Even there,” she said, though she 
 shivered, “ I will venture. I know what 
 is in your wicked brain. Yet I am not 
 afraid. I am here to protect this innocent 
 girl. As for you,” she turned to the unfor- 
 tunate pilot, “ I have heard of you. You 
 are still, old man, as you always have 
 been, the stupid tool of this man. At his 
 bidding, and for no use or help to your- 
 self, you are ready to throw away your 
 immortal soul. Go out of our sight ! Go, 
 Isay!” 
 
 Stephen straightened his back with an 
 effort, and cleared his throat. He looked 
 at me, who was now clinging to Olive, and 
 then at his chief, who stood biting his lip, 
 with an angry flush upon his cheek, and a 
 look that meant revenge if he could get it. 
 
 , “ Come, Cap,” said Stephen, “ we can do 
 no good here. Come on deck.” He led 
 the way, and mounted the companion with 
 alacrity. “ Phew !” he whistled on deck. 
 
 “ Trouble a-brewin’ now. What shall we 
 do next % ” 
 
 “ If I could ” the Captain began, but 
 
 stopped short. 
 
 . “ You can’t, Captain,” said Stephen. 
 
 “ The men would see it ; Avis would see 
 it. Put it out of your thoughts. Now 
 mind. When I said I’d help bring the gell 
 aboard, I never bargained for Olive as well. 
 What about Nassau f’ 
 
 “ Now,” said Olive kindly, when we were 
 alone, “ tell me who you are, and what has 
 happened.” 
 
 “ Oh ! he has stolen me ! He asked me 
 to come on board ; he pretended to be my 
 friend ; and he has stolen me. And J ack 
 is coming back on Saturday to marry 
 me!” 
 
 “ My poor child !” — her tears fell with 
 mine — “this is terrible, indeed. But, 
 courage. I am here. We are on his ship, 
 and cannot choose but go with him. Yet 
 - — yet— I do not think he will dare to harm 
 either of us. My dear, he is afraid of 
 me.” 
 
 “ Are you indeed his wife V’ 
 
 “ It is my unhappy lot,” she replied, “ to 
 be the wife of the worst man, I believe, in 
 all the world. Yet needs must that I follow 
 him, whatever be the end.” 
 
 I waited to hear more. 
 
 “ I was married to him,” she went on, 
 “ six years ago. He tired of me in a month. 
 Then he deserted me, and sent me letters 
 
 c* — — 
 
 from places where he never went, or else 
 he sent no letters at all. I found him out.. 
 Again he deserted me, and again I found 
 him out. He took me to the State of 
 Indiana, where he got something that he i 
 called a divorce. I know not on what pre- 
 tence, and do not care. He left me there 
 without money and without friends. But 
 I found both, and followed him again, 
 tracing him from port to port, for such as 
 he seldom go inland. Then I learned that 
 he had gone to Liverpool, and I followed 
 him, and found him again. It was the old 
 story. He began by cursing, and ended by 
 lying. He was going to Lo'ndon ; he would 
 send me money. He would let things 
 go on as if he had not got his divorce. I 
 did not believe him. And presently I dis- 
 covered that he was at the docks every 
 day, loading a vessel which he was to com- 
 mand. I guessed pretty well where the | 
 cargo of that ship was destined for. There 
 are dangers in that voyage which no woman 
 should face, and dangers for me that you 
 cannot think of. Yet it seemed as if I had 
 no choice but to go. I learned when the 
 ship would sail, and I came aboard and hid 
 myself. I ought to leave him to his fate,” 
 she went on, sitting with clasped hands. “I 
 have been beaten by him like a disobedient 
 dog; I have been cursed and abused; 
 
 I have been robbed and starved ; I have 
 been neglected and deserted. But I cannot 
 abandon him. I am driven to follow him 
 wherever he may lead. It may be I shall 
 
 yet But I do not know.. His conscience ! 
 
 is dead within him : he is. no. longer a man. 
 From the first week I knew him to be 
 gambler, drunkard, and manslayer ; a 
 defier of God’s law; one of those who 
 work evil with greediness ; yet I cannot 
 choose but go after him, even if my choice j 
 land me again on the shore of North 
 Carolina.” 
 
 “ And why do you fear to go there 1” 
 
 “ Child, you do not know the Southern 
 States.” She laughed bitterly. “ They are 
 the home, in your English papers and your 
 New York correspondents, of the chivalry 
 and nobility of America. They are also 
 the home of the slave. There are black 
 slaves, brown slaves, olive-coloured slaves, 
 and white slaves. I was a white slave. 
 
 I am one of those unfortunates for whom 
 they are fighting. I am a darkey — -a 
 Nigger.” 
 
 “ You 1” 
 
 “ Yes ; I. You would not think, to look 
 at me, perhaps, that I have been a slave. 
 Yet it is true. The young ladies with 
 
 — B 
 
=iL 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.” 
 
 [December 1. 1880.] 53 
 
 whom I was brought up had not whiter 
 skin than mine. Yet my great-great- 
 grandmother was a black woman. So 1 
 was a slave. You are not an American, 
 and so you do not shrink back with loath- 
 ing. I was a slave, and one day, being 
 then seventeen years of age, and un- 
 willing to be the mother of more slaves, 
 
 I started on a long journey by the 
 Underground Railway, and got safe to 
 Canada.” 
 
 “Is it possible ]” cried Avis, forgetting 
 for a moment her own troubles. 
 
 “ Yes ; it is true. I went to Montreal, 
 where I hoped to find employment and 
 friends. There I met Captain Valentine 
 Angel — as he then called himself — who 
 was so good as to fall in love with me, and 
 I with him. We were married. And now 
 you know my story.” 
 
 “And if you go back again to North 
 Carolina 1 ” 
 
 “ In the old days, if a runaway slave was 
 caught, they flogged him. Now, when the 
 Northern soldiers are gathering round 
 them, and their cause is hopeless ; now, 
 when they tremble lest fresh stories of 
 cruelties to blacks should be invented or 
 found out, I think they would hardly dare 
 to flog a white woman. Yet one knows 
 not. The feeling is very strong, and the 
 women are cruel — more cruel than the 
 men.” 
 
 “ But they will not know you. They 
 cannot find you out. They will have ceased 
 to search for you.” 
 
 “My dear, there are depths of wicked 
 ness possible which you cannot suspect. 
 My husband knows my story, because I 
 could hide nothing from him. I have seen, 
 in his eyes, what he thinks of doing. But 
 courage, my child ; there are many acci- 
 dents. We shall put in at Nassau for 
 coal. There we may find a chance ; or we 
 may be captured; or we may run away 
 when we get to Wilmington. Woman’s 
 wit against man’s, my dear. They can 
 plan their clumsy plots, but they cannot 
 always carry them through. And he is 
 afraid of me. That is always in our 
 favour.” 
 
 We then began to consider how we could 
 best protect ourselves on the voyage. Olive 
 advised that we should go on deck as much 
 as possible, so that all the sailors should 
 know that we were aboard, and grow 
 accustomed to see us ; that we should 
 never for a moment leave each other; 
 that we should share the same cabin; 
 that we should refuse to listen to, or 
 
 speak with, either the Captain or his 
 accomplice. 
 
 “ Lastly, my dear,” said Olive, “ among 
 wild beasts it is well to have other means 
 of defence than a woman’s shrieks. I have 
 — for the protection of us both — this. ” 
 
 She produced a revolver. 
 
 “ A pretty toy,” she said, “ but it is 
 loaded, and it shall be used, if need be, for 
 the defence of you as well as myself.” 
 
 Thus began this miserable voyage, wherein 
 my heart was torn by anxieties and fears 
 What would be the end 1 
 
 Presently we went on deck. The land 
 was nearly out of sight ; we were on the 
 broad Atlantic. The ship rolled in the 
 long swell ; the day was bright ; the 
 breeze fresh. Beside the helm stood the 
 Captain, who scowled, but said not a 
 word. 
 
 The crew were lying about the deck, ex- 
 cept one or two, on watch in the bows. As 
 the ship carried neither yards nor sails, 
 there was little or nothing to do, and they 
 mostly sat sleeping or telling yarns all the 
 voyage. Olive led me for’ard. Stephen, 
 although the pilot, and therefore a person 
 of great importance, was among the common 
 sailors, sitting in the sun, his pipe in his 
 mouth, with two or three listeners, fore- 
 most among the spinners of yarns. He sat 
 there — whether of free choice, or because 
 he wished to avoid me — all the voyage. 
 Nor did he once speak to me; on the 
 contrary, if he saw us amidships, he dived 
 below, and if he was aft when we came up 
 from the saloon, he went for’ard. I think 
 he was ashamed and anxious, for he had 
 not reckoned on the appearance of Olive. 
 She, for her part, knew some of the men, 
 and addressed them by name. She had 
 sailed with them before the war, when her 
 husband was in some more legitimate trade. 
 She called them by their names, one after 
 the other. They were such names as 
 sailors give each other, such as Liberty 
 Wicks, who w T as quartermaster ; Soldier 
 Jack, so called because he was reported 
 to have been a deserter from an English 
 regiment in Canada; Old Nipper, the 
 meaning of whose name I do not know ; 
 Long Tom, a lanky thin man of six feet 
 six, with a stoop in his shoulders caused 
 by stooping continually ’tween decks ; 
 Pegleg Smith, who went halt; and the 
 Doctor, as they called the cook. They 
 grinned, made a leg, and touched their 
 foreheads ; they knew that Olive was the 
 Captain’s wife ; they knew that she was 
 I a stowaway, and had come after her 
 
54 [December i, 1830.] “OYER THE SEA [Conducted by 
 
 husband ; tney knew that I had been 
 entrapped aboard. That was what Olive 
 wanted. 
 
 “ For, my dear,” she said, £< suppose my 
 husband was to catch me by the heels some 
 dark night and tip me overboard, which he 
 would very much like to do, these men 
 would miss me, and by degrees the thing 
 would become known.” 
 
 “ That would not restore you to life.” 
 
 “ No, my dear; but it might make things 
 safer for you.” 
 
 The Captain seemed to have no objection 
 to our talking with the sailors. It was not 
 his plan to show us the least unkindness 
 on the voyage : we were to be perfectly 
 free. We found them a rough, reckless set 
 of men, of the kind who would follow a 
 leader anywhere, provided he gave them 
 plenty to eat, drink, and smoke. Such 
 must have been the men who went about 
 with the pirate captains, and hoisted the 
 black flag : they loved plunder, and were 
 not afraid of battle. Such must have been 
 the buccaneers who would have no peace 
 on the Spanish Main ; such were the 
 followers of Pizarro and of Cortes. They 
 were also traders. Every man had 
 his private venture on board — his case 
 of “ notions out of which he would 
 
 make a hundred per cent, profit. They 
 believed in the luck of their captain, and in 
 his daring. Most of them knew Stephen 
 of old, and trusted in his skill. They 
 laughed at the risk of Yankee steel, Yankee 
 steamers, and Yankee shot ; they boasted 
 of the runs they had had in a vessel not so 
 fast as the Maryland, which could show a 
 clean pair of heels to any cruiser Uncle 
 Jonathan could set afloat. In a few days 
 they would be under the fort at Wilming- 
 ton, their cargo landed and sold, their 
 private ventures converted into dollars, 
 and their craft taking in cotton for the 
 homeward run. 
 
 These honest fellows concerned them- 
 selves not at all about the causes and the 
 merits of the war : that was a merry time 
 which made them rich : that cause was 
 righteous in which they could earn fifty 
 pounds a man for the double trip, and 
 frolic ashore like Nelson’s bull-dogs after 
 they were paid their prize-money. So far 
 from wishing that the war would speedily 
 end, they devoutly hoped that it would go 
 on, and with the Hew of forwarding this 
 object they would encourage, if they had 
 any voice in the matter, every Southerner 
 who could carry a rifle or lie behind a gabion 
 to go to the front. They were more patriotic 
 
 even than the Confederates themselves; 
 they were more sanguine of success even 
 than the English sympathisers; and though 
 most of them, including the Captain, were 
 Northerners by birth, they vied with each 
 other in protesting hatred undying to the 
 Yankees and their cause. 
 
 “One thing/’ said Olive, “ my husband 
 might have done. He dare not do it, 
 though, because he would lose the re- 
 spect of all Americans. He might tell 
 them that he has married a coloured girl. 
 You would witness, then, for yourself, 
 something of the loathing which the 
 presence of the negro blood rouses among 
 Americans.” 
 
 I have mentioned the bo’s’n and quarter- 
 master, Liberty Wicks, who was often at 
 the wheel. Now, one day, soon after 
 the voyage began, a very singular thing 
 happened. 
 
 The Captain was on £he bridge, Stephen 
 was for’ard, no one was aft except Olive 
 and myself and the quartermaster, who, 
 as usual, was making his two eyes do 
 double duty. We were sitting in silence, 
 when we became aware of a hoarse 
 whisper. 
 
 “ There’s friends aboard.” It was 
 Liberty -Wicks. “Friends. Don’t fear 
 nothing. Wait till you get to North Car’- 
 lina. Don’t look at me. Don’t answer.” 
 
 After this we were comforted, on every 
 possible opportunity, with the assurance 
 that there were friends aboard. 
 
 Then, day after day, the ship held her 
 course, and we two women remained un- 
 molested, walking on deck, or sitting in the 
 little saloon, unnoticed. We talked little, 
 having too much to think about. The 
 Captain raised his cap to us in the morning, 
 but he avoided the eyes of his wife. Stephen, 
 as I have said, skulked and remained for’ard. 
 We were supplied with what we wanted, as 
 if we had been in a hotel. Always we had 
 the same bright and beautiful sunshine, with 
 fresh breezes ; always the long rolling waves - 
 and billows, the broad streak of white foam 
 which lay like a roadway where the ship 
 had been. 
 
 When I think of that voyage, it seems to 
 me like a bad and dreadful dream — that 
 kind of dream in which one is wafted gently 
 onward by some unknown agency towards 
 a horrible, dreadful, unknown end ; the 
 dream out of which one awakens with 
 shuddering, and a fearful sense of its 
 reality. The days whieh followed slowly 
 seemed all alike from hour to hour : that, 
 too, was dream-like : there was no occupa- 
 
 

 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.” 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 55 
 
 tion, which was dream-like : the sight of 
 .the slight spare man, with the smooth 
 cheeks and the glittering eyes, was like a 
 dream : the mysterious protection of this 
 woman: resolute and brave, who said she 
 had oeen a slave, but whose skin was white 
 like my own, was dream-like. What had 
 become of the old quiet time 1 Was there 
 any Boscastle 1 Was there any Jack at all, 
 or was he, too, a part and parcel of this 
 dreadful dream ? 
 
 We sailed into warmer latitudes. It was 
 pleasant to sit on deck at daybreak and 
 watch the red sun rise fiery from the waves; 
 or at evening, when he sank out of sight 
 before our bows, so that we seemed as if 
 we were steering straight into some land of 
 enchantment, where clouds and land and 
 sea alike were bathed in gorgeous colours 
 and lapped in perpetual warmth ; at noon- 
 tide, when it was too hot to sit on deck, we 
 lay on the sofas of the saloon, silent, or m 
 whispers asking each other what would be 
 the end. We had no books ; we had no 
 paper, pens, or ink ; we had no dresses to 
 make or mend, nor anything to make or 
 mend with ; there was nothing to do except 
 to sit and wait. The silence grew awful ; 
 we ceased to feel the regular beat of the 
 screw; it became noiseless, like a pulse 
 which is neither heard nor felt ; the Captain 
 gave no orders; the very crew became 
 silent ; the roll of the ship was like the 
 throbbing of her engines, monotonous and 
 unnoticed. 
 
 So that, in the silence, our senses seemed 
 to quicken, and one night, sitting in the 
 saloon after nightfall, we heard voices above 
 us on the deck. 
 
 One of the speakers was Stephen. 
 
 « It’s a bad business, Cap’en,” he said. 
 
 “ Look at it any way, no way I like it. 
 What are we to do next ? ” 
 
 « I don’t know, Steve. That is a fact. 
 Your girl and me won’t run easy in harness 
 so long as the other one is about ; they 
 must be separated before we can do 
 anything else.” w , , 
 
 Olive caught my hand. We listened for 
 more. 
 
 “ Land ’em both at Nassau, and be shut 
 of the whole job,” counselled Stephen. “ No 
 good ever come of a voyage with a passel 
 o’ women aboard. Might as well have a 
 bishop, or Jonas himself.” 
 
 “ I might put Olive ashore,” said the 
 Captain ; “ and we could carry the other on 
 to Wilmington. Olive would scream a bit, 
 but then, she’d have to go. As for Nassau, 
 we are not going to New Providence at all. 
 
 Don’t you think, Stephen/’after it’s cost me 
 all the money to ship my crew, half paid 
 down and all, that they’re going to have 
 the chance of getting ashore and staying 
 there. Why, once ashore, it might be a 
 fortnight before I could get them all 
 back again. No; the coals lying on 
 Stony Cay, where we’ll take it on board 
 and so off again. We might land her on 
 the cay, to be sure, but there’s no rations 
 and no water.” , 
 
 “You can’t land the woman there, Cap en. 
 The men wouldn’t stand it.” 
 
 “ I can’t, because I’ve got a white-livered 
 lot aboard who’d make a fuss. I could if I 
 had the crew with me that I had twenty 
 years ago when we made that famous run. 
 You hadn’t gone soft, then.” 
 
 “ I was younger then,” said Stephen. 
 “When a man gets twenty years older, 
 he thinks twice before he chucks his 
 niggers overboard or lands people on 
 desert islands. Not that I ever approved 
 of them ways.” 
 
 “You looked on a powerful lot while 
 such things were being carried on, at any 
 rate. No, I think the first plan I thought 
 of will be the best.” 
 
 What is the first plan?” 
 
 - Never mind, Stephen. Perhaps the 
 plan is a rough way, of which you would not 
 approve.” 
 
 “Courage, Avis,” whispered Olive; 
 “ courage, child ; we are not separated yet ; 
 there is always hope. Even a shot between 
 wind and water, and a sinking of the ship 
 with all her wicked crew, would be better 
 than such a fate as the man intends for 
 you. But that fate will not be yours. 
 Some women, my dear, are prophetesses ; 
 I think I am one ; and I see, but I know 
 not how, a happy ending out of this for you 
 but" not for me.” 
 
 There is an islet among the Bahamas 
 lying just at the entrance of Providence 
 Channel, some sixty miles north-east of 
 Nassau. The small maps do not notice so 
 significant a rock, but on the charts it is 
 cij T4- in fant. nnt.hin.er 
 
 called Stony Cay. It is, in fact, nothing 
 but a rock, on which nothmg lives m 
 ordinary times ; but it was used in those 
 days by blockade-runners as a small 
 station where they could take in coal with- 
 out the risk of losing men by desertion, and 
 with little fear of observation. It is as 
 barren as Ascension, and as stony as Aden ; 
 nothing grows upon it, and the only water 
 is that which in the cold season lies in pools 
 among the rocks. Two or three, men were 
 there in charge of the stores, and, as a 
 
 
56 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 ‘OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 warning to American cruisers, the Union 
 Jack was kept flying from a mast. Thither 
 we steered, and here the men made their 
 final preparations. 
 
 The coaling, with these preparations, 
 occupied three days ; for they began by 
 taking on board as much coal as they could 
 carry, and then set to work to telescope the 
 funnel : that is, to lay it flat upon the deck, 
 so that, instead of the long tail of smoke 
 which shows a steamer so far off, the smoke 
 should be discharged over the surface of 
 the water where it would not be seen; 
 their coal, too, was anthracite, which burns 
 with little smoke : then they overhauled 
 what little rigging they had, and fitted 
 a look-out on the fore-top ; they lowered 
 the boats level with the gunwales, 
 and the chief engineer reported on his 
 engines. 
 
 All this time it seemed as if no watch 
 were set upon the two prisoners ; the crew 
 came and went about their business ; the 
 Captain stood about and looked on ; Stephen 
 Cobbledick sat for’ard doing nothing, as 
 becomes a pilot ; the boats kept coming and 
 going all day long, heavy barges full of coal; 
 nothing seemed easier than to get ashore. 
 But what then 1 The island had no in- 
 habitants ; there were no signs of water ; 
 there was no chance of any ship putting in 
 there except for the same purpose as the 
 Maryland. What could we do if we were 
 to land % 
 
 “Patience, Avis,” said Olive. “Three 
 days more will bring us to the end of this 
 chapter.” 
 
 The steward told us, what we pretty well 
 knew before, that they were going to run 
 the blockade into Wilmington, on the coast 
 of North Carolina ; that the place was about 
 seven hundred miles distance from the 
 Bahamas, and that the real danger was 
 about to begin. Hitherto there had been 
 none, except the chance of bad weather, 
 for the Maryland, built for nothing but 
 speed, and just heavy enough to stand 
 the waves of an ordinary stiff breeze, 
 would infallibly have gone down in a 
 gale. 
 
 “ The danger may mean deliverance, my 
 dear,” Olive said for Avis’s consolation. 
 “ The cruisers may take us. In that case, 
 you are safe; you have only to seek out the 
 British Consul, and tell him who you are, 
 and why you were on board the ship. As 
 for me ” 
 
 “As for you, Olive V* asked Avis. 
 
 “ I must follow my husband,” she replied. 
 “ If we are taken, he will go to a New York 
 
 prison ; and I must go, too, to look after 
 him.” 
 
 When the sun went down on the third 
 day, the engines got up steam ; by mid- 
 night the Maryland was out of the narrow 
 waters and rolling among the great waves 
 of the Gulf Stream. The night was 
 exactly the kind of night which blockade- 
 runners, buccaneers, privateers, and pirates 
 always most delight in; a dark night with 
 a new moon; cloudy, too. The steamer 
 carried no lights. By the wheel stood the 
 Captain, and old Stephen ready to take his 
 place as pilot. As for us, we were too 
 anxious to stay below, and were on deck 
 looking and waiting. 
 
 At this time, when the war had been 
 carried on for a couple of years and there 
 seemed little hope of a speedy conclusion, 
 the spirit of the North was fairly roused. 
 While the volunteers were pouring into the 
 camp by thousands, they were sending new 
 and fast cruisers to the Southern shores 
 as quickly as they could be built. Every 
 day increased the risk of a successful run ; 
 every day, however, the value of the cargo 
 was increased. 
 
 “ Stephen,” we heard the Captain say, “ I 
 have got a note from Nassau. The Yanks 
 expect me ; they don’t know I’ve arrived 
 and started ; but there’s a notion among the 
 cruisers that I’m to be met with somewhere 
 about this time. I know what their ships 
 are, and where they’re stationed. Twenty- 
 five steamers are lying off Wilmington this 
 night as close as they can lie — out of the 
 range of Fort Fisher. Half-a-dozen more 
 are cruising about these waters. I make no 
 count of them. Now, Stephen, the only 
 thing to decide is whether it’s best to dash 
 through the line or to creep along the 
 coast.” 
 
 “The coast,” said Stephen, “is a awkward 
 coast. There’s nothing to steer by ; there’s 
 sands, and there’s never a light:” 
 
 “ We can show a light from the inshore 
 side. They will answer it ; they are on the 
 look-out all night.” 
 
 “ I would rather,” said Stephen, “ make 
 a dash for it. Once inside their line they 
 will find it hard to stop us.” 
 
 “ Can you find the mouth of the river in 
 the night t” 
 
 “I can find the mouth of that river 
 blindfold ; never fear that ; what I think of 
 is the shifting sands along the coast, if we 
 have to creep in.” 
 
 “ Pray Heaven !” whispered Olive, “ that 
 one of those half-dozen cruisers catch 
 us.” 
 
-xr^— 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.” 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 57 
 
 We passed a sleepless night. Half-a- 
 dozen times, at least, the engines were 
 stopped on an alarm being given from the 
 watch in the fore-top, and we expected 
 to hear a cannon-shot crash into the 
 vessel, or an order, at least, to lay to. 
 Presently the engines would go on, and the 
 ship proceed on her way, though perhaps on 
 another tack. We showed no light ; our 
 coal gave out little smoke, and that little, 
 as I have said, was discharged from the 
 stern, the funnel lying flat along the 
 deck. 
 
 At daybreak we rose and went on deck 
 again. None of the men seemed to have 
 gone below. Stephen and the Captain 
 stood together by the wheel ; all hands 
 were on the watch, though as yet it was 
 too dark to see far ; and the men, if they 
 spoke at all, spoke in whispers. As the 
 sun rose behind us, we found ourselves 
 alone upon the ocean; not a sail was in 
 
 remained on deck till midnight, when we 
 reluctantly went below. 
 
 “ I almost hope,” said Olive, “ that we 
 shall get through them.” 
 
 In the morning, which was cloudy with 
 a little fog, though there was a steady 
 breeze from the north-west, we made our 
 first escape. It was just before daybreak; 
 we, who could not sleep, were on deck 
 again. All night there had been frequent 
 alarms, but happily (or unhappily) we 
 passed the danger. This time, however, 
 things looked as if our run had come to an 
 end. 
 
 The mist had thickened ; the day was 
 slowly breaking ; we held our course but at 
 half speed ; suddenly there seemed to spring 
 out of the water a cruiser three times our 
 size, under . steam and sail. We were almost 
 under her bows ; they shouted to us ; their 
 men sprang into the rigging to furl the 
 sails ; we saw them hastily run out the 
 
 sight. 
 
 “ No cruiser yet,” I whispered to Olive. 
 
 “ Shall we reach Wilmington to-night ?” 
 
 “ A steamer,” cried the man in the fore- 
 top, “off the starboard bow!” 
 
 I could see nothing ; the broad face of the 
 ocean glowed in the bright sunshine. 
 
 “ He sees,” said Olive, “ a faint wreath 
 of smoke.” 
 
 I suppose we altered our course, because 
 we saw no more of that steamer. We ran 
 till noon without further adventure ; then 
 another, and another, and another alarm 
 were given in quick succession, and the 
 wheel went round and the vessel changed 
 her course. There was no waiting to make 
 out the distant ship ; every stranger was a 
 supposed enemy. 
 
 Before long we, too, whose interest it 
 was that the ship should be taken, shared 
 in the general excitement, and stood on 
 deck watching the horizon, which lay clear 
 and well defined, with neither mist nor fog 
 to hide it. 
 
 No bells were rung that day. At noon 
 the chief officer made his observations and 
 reported to the Captain, who mechanically 
 ordered him to “ make it so,” but he made 
 it in silence. There were no meals served ; 
 any man who felt hungry went into the 
 cook’s galley and got something ; the cook 
 himself was in the bows ; the steward, who 
 brought us some tea, hurried back to be on 
 the watch with the rest. Now and then 
 one, tired, lay down on deck in the sun and 
 fell asleep for an hour or two. Darkness 
 fell; but the ship pushed on, all hands as 
 before remaining on deck all night. We 
 
 guns. 
 
 “ Avis !” cried Olive, “ you are saved !” 
 
 Not yet. Captain Ramsay gave an order 
 in his quiet voice, the wheel flew round, 
 and the next moment we were astern of the 
 vessel, at full speed steaming in the teeth 
 of the wind. With such way as was on the 
 cruiser, she was out of sight in the mist 
 almost before we had time to look. There 
 was a great popping of guns, and one cannon- 
 shot, but no damage done ; and when the 
 mist presently cleared, and the sun rose, 
 we could indeed see her smoke away on 
 the north horizon, but we were invisible to 
 her. 
 
 That night we were to' run the blockade. 
 
 The blockading fleet was chiefly con- 
 centrated round the port of Wilmington. 
 There were, as the Captain said, twenty- 
 five vessels lying or cruising, in a sort of 
 semi-circle, ten miles round the mouth of 
 the river, on one bank of which was Fort 
 Fisher. It was prudent to keep outside 
 the range of that fortress’s guns. And 
 without the circle were some half-dozen 
 fast-steaming cruisers always on the look- 
 out. That evening the Captain called the 
 men aft. 
 
 “ My lads,” he said, “ I had intended to 
 make a dash for it, as I have often done 
 before. You are not the men to be afraid 
 of a shot or two ; but this unfortunate fall- 
 ing in with one of their ships makes it seem 
 best to try creeping along shore, for the 
 alarm will be given. Therefore, every man 
 to his post, and not a word sppken ; and, 
 with good luck, we will be inside Fort 
 Fisher before daybreak.” 
 
58 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “OVER THE SEA 
 
 The men retired. Then night fell, 
 and we could hear the beating of our 
 hearts. 
 
 Stephen now took the wheel himself, and 
 the Captain became a sort of chief officer. 
 At the helm, proud of .his skill and new 
 employment, Stephen looked something 
 like that beautiful old man whom I had 
 found sleeping. The cunning, sensual look 
 was gone from him ; he stood steady as a 
 lion, yet eager and keen, with every sense 
 awake. Presently he ordered half speed ; 
 then we sounded ; then we forged ahead a 
 bit; sounded again; then before. us I saw, 
 low - and black in the night, the coast of 
 America. 
 
 Stephen kept her on her way slowly and 
 cautiously ; the screw never ceased, but we 
 crept slowly along, hugging the shore as 
 near as he dared. 
 
 “A few more yards nearer, Pilot ?” asked 
 the Captain. 
 
 “No, sir. I daren’t do it. We are as 
 near What’s that? See now.” 
 
 A long, grating sound as the bottom just 
 touched the sand. The ship cleared the 
 shallow, and continued her slow, silent 
 crawling along the shore. 
 
 How long was that night ! How slowly 
 the hours crept on; how patiently the men 
 watched and worked. 
 
 I suppose it must have been about two 
 o’clock in the morning, or rather later, the 
 ship still cautiously hugging the dark line 
 of coast, that the end came. 
 
 We were moving so slowly that the motion 
 of the screw could hardly be felt ; the night 
 was very still and dark ; the sea a dead 
 calm. We were as close to the shore as the 
 Pilot could possibly take her ; the men in 
 the bows were sounding perpetually, and 
 sending the depth aft in whispers. We 
 had shown a light on the inshore side ; this 
 was answered by two lights, so faint as to 
 be invisible farther out ; they were the 
 lights to guide the Pilot into the harbour. 
 Success was already in the Captain’s hand ; 
 a few minutes more and the last few 
 yards of the long voyage would be run in 
 safety. 
 
 Then there was a snapping as of wood 
 in the bows, a cry of alarm ; and the next 
 moment a rocket shot high in the air. On 
 our starboard, not a hundred yards from us, 
 was lying one of the cruisers, and the rocket 
 had gone up from a rowing barge, sent out 
 to signalise a chance blockade-runner, which 
 boat we had nearly run down. 
 
 It would have been better for Captain 
 Ramsay had we run her down altogether. 
 
 “ Put on all steam,” shouted the Captain, 
 as the rocket was answered by a gun, and 
 then another. “Let them blaze away. 
 Now, then. Five minutes’ run, lads, and 
 we’ll be out of danger. Steady, Pilot, 
 steady !” 
 
 “Steady it is, sir,” answered Stephen, 
 as another cannon-shot struck the water 
 close to our Stern, sending the spray 
 flying. 
 
 “ If there is to be fighting,” said Olive, 
 “ we h$d better be below, where, at least, 
 we shall be a little safer.” 
 
 We went below; but we could not escape 
 the horrible banging of the cannon, which 
 seemed to be firing all around us, nor the 
 rattling of the rifles. They fired at random, 
 because they could not see us. 
 
 The men lay on the deck, thinking to get 
 shelter from the bullets if any should come 
 their way ; but the Captain stood by the 
 Pilot. 
 
 “Plenty of water, Pilot?” he asked. 
 
 “ Deep water, sir. Only keep her head 
 straight. As for them lubbers with their 
 
 guns, why- ” Here he stopped, and fell 
 
 heavily to the deck with a groan. The 
 wheel flew round ; the little steamer swung 
 round with it, and before the Captain could 
 put up the helm, she ran bows on heavily 
 into a sandbank and stopped. 
 
 “We are ashore,” said Olive quietly. “ I 
 think, my dear, that we are saved.” 
 
 On deck we heard a great trampling. 
 The crew ran aft and jumped to ease her 
 off ; the engines were reversed, but the ship 
 was hard and fast. 
 
 No one took any notice of the unfortunate 
 Pilot, the only man struck by the shot. He 
 lay motionless. 
 
 “ Cap’en,” said the quartermaster and 
 bo’s’n, Liberty Wicks by name, of whom 
 I have already spoken, “ this is a bad 
 job.” 
 
 Captain Ramsay replied by a volley of 
 oaths. 
 
 “ They’re putting off a boat from the 
 Yankee, sir. Shall we lower boats ?” 
 
 The Captain made no reply. 
 
 “A New York prison or a run in the 
 Southern States it is, Cap’en.” 
 
 Still his Captain made no reply. 
 
 Then the chief officer came up. 
 
 “There is no time to lose, sir. The 
 men are lowering the boats. Shall we put 
 in the women first ? ” 
 
 The Captain,, still silent, went down the 
 companion, followed by the first officer and! 
 the boatswain. 
 
 Olive had lit our lamp by this time. 
 
ft. 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.” 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 59 
 
 “ Courage, Avis !” she whispered. “ Now 
 is the moment of your deliverance !” 
 
 “ Come,” he said roughly. “ The ship is 
 aground. Avis, and you other, come on 
 deck and get into the boats.” 
 
 “No,” said Olive; “we shall remain 
 here.” 
 
 “ I tell you, come !” 
 
 Olive stood before me. 
 
 “ She shall not come !” 
 
 “ Stand aside !” He added words of 
 loathing and hatred which I will not write 
 down. “ Stand aside, or by the Lord I will 
 murder you.” 
 
 “She shall not go with you. Oh, 
 villain! she shall not go with you !” 
 
 “Cap’en, there’s no time,” growled the 
 quartermaster. 
 
 The Captain drew his revolver ; the chief 
 officer knocked up his hand. 
 
 “ No murder, Captain Eamsay,” he said, 
 
 “ unless you murder me and the bo’s’n 
 too.” 
 
 “ The Yanks are on us !” cried the man. 
 They seized the Captain, one by each arm, 
 and dragged him up the companion. . We 
 heard a trampling on deck, a shouting, a 
 pistol shot, and a sound of oars in the 
 water. 
 
 “They are chasing the blockade-runners,” 
 said Olive. “ They will be back presently 
 to scuttle the ship and destroy the cargo. 
 Let us go on deck.” 
 
 It was too dark to see much. We heard 
 in the distance the regular fall of the oars ; 
 we saw a flash from time to time. Then 
 there was silence for awhile, and then we 
 heard the oars again. 
 
 “The cruiser’s men are coming back,” 
 said Olive. 
 
 In ten minutes they came alongside, and 
 we saw them climbing on deck. There 
 were twenty of them, armed with cutlasses 
 and pistols, headed by a young Federal 
 officer. 
 
 He was greatly surprised to find two 
 ladies on board. But he was civil, asked 
 us who we were, and what we were doing 
 on board a blockade-runner. 
 
 Olive told him that I was an English 
 lady who had been brought away against 
 her will, that her own business was my 
 protection. 
 
 “ We have no business in the South,” she 
 said ; “ and we have no papers.” 
 
 “What can I do with you ]” he asked, 
 evidently not believing the statement. “ If 
 I take you aboard, we shall not know 
 whether to treat you as prisoners or not. 
 If I land you, you would be worse off 
 
 than before. What is the name of this 
 ship]” 
 
 “ The Maryland, of Liverpool,” said Olive. 
 
 “ This is her first run.”. 
 
 “ And her captain ] ” 
 
 “ Captain Eamsay.” 
 
 The officer whistled. 
 
 “ I wish I had known,” he said. “ Well, 
 ladies, the best thing I can do, as you have 
 come all the way to the coast of North 
 Carolina, is to put you ashore on it. No 
 doubt that is what you want ; and I wish 
 you joy of Dixie’s Land.” 
 
 “We would rather,” said Olive, “that 
 you took us to New York, even as 
 prisoners.” 
 
 He shook his head and laughed. 
 
 Here a deep moan interrupted us, and 
 we became aware for the first time that poor 
 old Stephen was lying wounded at the helm, 
 where he had fallen. 
 
 “ Water,” he groaned. 
 
 I fetched him water. Olive raised his 
 head. 
 
 “Which of them is this]” asked the 
 Federal. 
 
 “ He is the pilot,” I replied, thinking no 
 harm in telling the truth. 
 
 “ The pilot, is he 1 Well, if he recovers, 
 he will find out what the inside of a prison 
 is; because you see, ladies, a pilot must 
 know the shore, and a pilot must, there- 
 fore, be a Eeb.” 
 
 He felt Stephen’s pulse. 
 
 “ It is very low. I doubt he is dying.” 
 
 I gave him the water, and he opened his 
 eyes. 
 
 “ Is that you, Avis ] Keep clear oi the 
 Captain,” he whispered slowly; “ he’s well- 
 nigh desperate.” 
 
 “Tell me,” I said: “was that story true 
 about the raft ] ” 
 
 “You was,” he said, “a Pick-me-up, off 
 a raft in Torres’s Straits; wropped in 
 bandanners; and your mother was. a 
 Knobling. Your father, he was admiral 
 to the Sultan of Zanzibar.” Here he 
 fainted again. 
 
 “ Come,” cried the officer, “ we have no 
 time. Bo’s’n.” 
 
 “ Sir.” 
 
 “Put these ladies into the boat, 
 and land them as quickly as you can. 
 Have you anything you wish to take with 
 you ] ” 
 
 “ Nothing,” said Olive. 
 
 “ Then ” He raised his cap, and we 
 
 followed the boatswain. 
 
 We were closer to the shore than I 
 thought. In ten minutes the sailors stood 
 
GO [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 “OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 up to help us to land. Then they put off 
 again. 
 
 The voyage was over; the ship was 
 ashore ; the cargo was lost ; the blockade- 
 runners were disappointed ; and we were 
 standing, friendless and helpless, on the 
 shores of the New World. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. ALL THE WAY BY THE 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 “ Oh, Olive ! ” I cried, “ what shall we do 
 now 1 ” 
 
 “I know the country,” she replied; “that 
 is a great thing to begin with. They were 
 trying to run the blockade from Long Bay 
 to Smith’s Island ; we are therefore, I 
 suppose, not far from the mouth of Cape 
 Fear Biver. Wilmington is twenty miles 
 to the north, and more. He must go to 
 Wilmington first. What will he do after- 
 wards 1 No one saw us landed,” she said, 
 after consideration ; “he will think we 
 are taken prisoners by the Federals. He 
 will make for New York in hopes of 
 finding you there.” 
 
 “ Then, if he goes to New York,” I 
 said, “we need have no fear for our- 
 selves.” 
 
 “ Nay, my dear,” she replied. “ Con- 
 sider, we are in a country torn by civil 
 war ; we have no means of showing that 
 we are not spies ; I myself may be arrested 
 as a fugitive slave ; we have five hundred 
 miles and more to go before we reach a 
 place where I may be free from that 
 danger ; we have no money ; we have no 
 friends ; what will become of you if I am 
 carried off to the State gaol 1 ” 
 
 To that I had nothing in reply. What, 
 indeed, would become of me — what would 
 become of her, if she were arrested 1 
 
 She read my thought. 
 
 “My dear,” she said, “do not be anxious 
 about me. I have no dread of the prison 
 for myself. At the most it will be a short 
 captivity, because sooner or later — and I 
 think very soon — the South must collapse. 
 Then abolition will set us all free. No 
 fear, now, of any compromise. At first, 
 indeed, when it. seemed as if they were 
 fighting for a point of law in which the 
 South had the best of it, I trembled lest 
 a peace might be patched up, and the 
 cause of the slave abandoned ; now, things 
 have gone too far. The negroes must be 
 emancipated, and with them all the poor 
 mulattoes, octoroons, and whites who have 
 the taint of negro blood, the most 
 wretched victims of this most wicked 
 system. Come,” she continued, after a 
 
 pause, “ we must not linger on the 
 shore. Follow me; I think I can take 
 you to a place where, for a day or two 
 if necessary, we shall contrive a hiding- 
 place.” 
 
 It was time to decide on something, 
 because figures were to be seen running 
 backwards and forwards on the sands; a 
 bright light shot up from the ill-fated 
 Maryland, and boats were seen putting off 
 from shore. 
 
 “ The Federals have set fire to the ship,” 
 said Olive; “those boats are put off by 
 the negroes, anxious to secure something 
 from the wreck. The light of the fire will 
 be useful to us.” 
 
 She hesitated a little. 
 
 “Close by,” she said, “but whether to 
 the right or to the left, is a little village 
 called Smithville ; five or six miles west 
 of Smithville is the village of Shallotte; 
 due north of us lies the Great Green 
 Swamp. There I am sure to find a place 
 where no one will look for us, and where 
 we can rest, though the accommodation 
 will be rather rough for you. Are you 
 tired T” 
 
 “ I must be tired indeed,” I said, “ if I 
 could not find strength to escape from 
 that man.” 
 
 It was still dark night. The flames of 
 the burning ship mounted high and shed 
 a lurid light, which was of some use to 
 us, if not much. Olive led the way, which 
 was over sand hills and across sandy 
 ground, fatiguing to walk over. After 
 half an hour’s walking we came to ground 
 which was wet and marshy. 
 
 “ This,” said Olive, “ is the beginning of 
 the swamp. Great swamps lie all along 
 the coast ; they were designed by Pro- 
 vidence, I believe, for the hiding-places 
 of runaways. Some years ago, when I 
 made up my mind there was nothing 
 before me but disgrace and wretchedness, 
 unless I ran away, I betook myself to 
 this swamp. Here I lived among friendly 
 blacks, until a way was opened for me 
 to escape. I want to go back to my old 
 friends and escape, with you, once more, 
 by the old route — the Underground 
 Railway.” 
 
 She went on to inform, me that stations 
 had- been established by Northern sym- 
 pathisers, where runaways were received, 
 entertained, and forwarded on their way 
 with money and provisions. Those who 
 acted the part of hosts did so at the risk 
 of death ; because, whatever mercy might 
 be shown them by the law, none would 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR. 
 
 [December 1 , 1830 .] 61 
 
 "be shown by the mob. She did not sup- 
 pose, she said, that these stations were 
 altogether broken up by the outbreak of 
 civil war ; rather, because the abolitionists 
 had always many friends in the South, they 
 would be multiplied and hedged round by 
 greater precautions. 
 
 “ If we had money,” she said, “ I would 
 travel openly by way of Columbia, in South 
 Carolina, to Tennessee and Kentucky. The 
 hue and cry would scarcely reach so far. 
 Besides, we might disguise ourselves as 
 boys if it were necessary. But without 
 money what can we do but incur suspicion 1 
 Therefore, for a second time, I will try the 
 Underground.” 
 
 We walked slowly along, I, for one, 
 being faint from hunger. The path — if it 
 was a path — was soft and yielding, yet 
 Olive went on in full assurance. We had 
 left the shore and the burning ship far 
 behind us. Presently the day broke, and 
 I found we were in a kind of forest, the 
 like of which I had never seen. The soil 
 was sometimes of silvery sand, in which 
 grew tall pine-trees ; a never-ending ex- 
 panse of pine-trees ; sometimes a green 
 swamp, in which cypresses, with great 
 trunks and roots sticking up like boulders, 
 took their place. Among them were also 
 the sycamore and the beech, with trees 
 whose names I did not know. There was 
 also a beautiful underwood of trailing vines 
 and creepers, which climbed to the very 
 tops of the trees and hung down in net- 
 work. When the sun rose there rose with 
 him flocks of great buzzards, sailing slowly 
 over the tree-tops, and the air became 
 musical with the notes of smaller birds. 
 But no road or path, no cultivation, no 
 huts, no rising smoke, no sign of human 
 habitation. 
 
 “ Before the war,” said Olive, “ there 
 would have been danger from turpentine 
 factories scattered about on the edge of the 
 swamp. Now their owners have gone to 
 the front and the factories are stopped. So 
 much the better for us.” 
 
 “ Oh, Olive,” I cried^ feeling as if flight 
 were useless and it were better to drop 
 down and let what might-be come, “is 
 there much farther to walk 1 ” 
 
 “Not much, before we make our first 
 halt,” she replied ; “ but I know not what 
 to expect for food.” 
 
 I suppose a mile or so is not much ; to 
 a strong girl it means twenty minutes’ walk; 
 to me it seemed as if we should never come 
 to an end. 
 
 “ I am looking,” said Olive, “ for Daddy' 
 
 Gabon’s hut. It is six years and more 
 since last I came here ; but the woods were 
 blazed, and I have followed their guidance. 
 
 And I think, Avis, I think that Here 
 
 it is.” 
 
 Within a little clump of pines standing 
 on a knoll, was a hut, at the door of which 
 sat an old negro. He was dressed in 
 nothing, apparently, but a pair of cotton 
 trousers and a cotton shirt. He was old 
 and bowed, yet his eye was bright and 
 keen. He rose slowly, as Olive pushed 
 her way between the trunks, and stared 
 at her curiously, but not as if he were 
 frightened. 
 
 “ Don’t you remember me, Daddy V’ she 
 asked. 
 
 “ I guess,” he replied, “ I tink for suali, 
 you’m Missy Olive, from Squire Cassily’s 
 over dah way yander. What you’m doin’ 
 back again 1 Wan’ anuder journey by dat 
 Undergroun’ 1 Ho ! ” 
 
 “I am back again, Daddy, because I 
 couldn’t help it. First, give this young 
 lady some breakfast.” 
 
 He peered into my face and took hold 
 of my hand. 
 
 “Dis young lady not a yaller gal; guess 
 she is from de Norf.” 
 
 “ No, Daddy; she is from England. She 
 has enemies, and she has no money; she 
 will travel with me.” 
 
 He gave me some simple food — cold 
 boiled pork, with meal and honey — which 
 I devoured greedily ; and then, overcome 
 with fatigue, I lay down in a corner, the 
 old man covering me with a blanket, and 
 fell fast asleep. 
 
 It was evening when I awoke. Olive 
 was sitting beside me, patient, watching, 
 just as she had sat beside me on board 
 the Maryland. Nothing changed her face. 
 It was always sad ; always the face of 
 one who has suffered ; always the face of 
 one who expects more suffering; always 
 patient. 
 
 We made our supper as we had made 
 our breakfast, off pork and meal and honey. 
 Then Olive told me something of her 
 plans. 
 
 This old negro, who, by some accident, 
 or for something he had done, had long 
 since received his freedom, came to Green 
 Swamp thirty years before, and settled in 
 the hut which he built there. How he 
 lived it was difficult to say ; he grew 
 nothing ; he had neither pigs nor cattle 
 nor fowls ; he did, apparently, no work ; 
 yet he had money, and bought things at 
 the nearest village where there was a store. 
 
 
62 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 < OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 In fact, the old man occupied a terminus 
 station on the great many branched Under- 
 ground Railway. All the slaves in North 
 Carolina knew that ; hut, at a time when 
 to he found guilty of such a crime was 
 enough to make the neighbourhood rise 
 and burn the man alive, when any reward 
 would have been offered for conviction, 
 not a negro or a mulatto in the State 
 ever gave information. If a “ boy ” wanted 
 to run away, he would go naturally and 
 without being told to Daddy Galoon s, 
 who would pass him on to the next 
 station. 
 
 The station of Green Swamp was sate 
 too, because the place was intersected by 
 so many streams that the hounds used 
 in hunting fugitives were easily put off the 
 scent. Therefore, for twenty years old 
 Daddy had been passing them along. No 
 one knew of his existence, except his own 
 people : no one knew of his hut except 
 those to whom the secret blazing of the 
 trees had been confided. _ „ 
 
 “It is much easier than it was,, said 
 Olive. “ All the men who used to live by- 
 hunting us are gone to the war; their 
 packs of hounds are destroyed ; the mean 
 whites who loafed around, too proud to 
 work, and only too happy to join in a nigger 
 hunt, have all been drafted to the armies 
 in the field ; people are too busy to look 
 much after us ; I do not think we shall 
 have much trouble, unless my— the Captain 
 — has had me already proclaimed. The 
 chief fear is that, as we cannot account for 
 ourselves, we may be taken for spies. If 
 only we had some money !” 
 
 She then told me that Daddy had gone 
 to Wilmington to ascertain if anything had 
 been done. . 
 
 He came back next day with news which 
 made my blood boil. 
 
 Captain Ramsay had learned that we 
 had been put ashore ; some “ beach com- 
 bers,” some of the men who prowled about 
 to pick up what they could from the wreck 
 of a blockade-runner, had seen us landed 
 by the Federal boat. His first idea was to 
 go in search of us, but he was ignorant of 
 the country ; he next proposed to organise 
 a hunting party in the ancient fashion, 
 with hounds ; this fell through because he 
 could get no one to join him; the old 
 pastime of the nigger chase was forgotten 
 in those days of fiercer excitement ; be- 
 sides, there were too many English and 
 others in Wilmington just then, for it was 
 a time when all parties in the South were 
 anxious to stand well with England, and 
 
 not get bad reports spread about the cruelty 
 of the Institution. Finally, he advertised 
 us. And the old man brought us a copy 
 of his infamous placard : 
 
 “ One Thousand Dollars Reward. 
 
 , — Run away. The girl Olive, the property 
 of Squire Cassily, Cumberland County. 
 Mulatto, will pass for white. Black hair, 
 black eyes, twenty-five years of age. Also 
 the girl Avis, eighteen years of age, mulatto, 
 brown hair, and blue eyes. Tries to pass for 
 an Englishwoman. Property of J efferson 
 Ramsay, master mariner. 
 
 “Were last seen together on the shore 
 near Smithville. Will endeavour to escape 
 to the North. The above reward will.be 
 given to any who will - bring these girls 
 together to the advertiser, Captain Ramsay 
 aforesaid.” 
 
 Would anyone believe that a man could 
 be so villainous ] One of these women, 
 his wife, put away by some idle form of 
 law, and the other the girl to whom he 
 had offered love, and the protection of a 
 husband. He would hunt down both by 
 slave-dealers ; he would hand over one to 
 the tender mercies of her former master, 
 and the other— what would he do with the 
 
 other] . . „ 
 
 “ We need not ask that question, Avis, 
 said Olive, “because you shall not fall into 
 his hands.” 
 
 “ What shall we do, Daddy ] she asked 
 the old negro. 
 
 “Missy bes stay here day or two. JNo- 
 body gwine come here. Dey won hunt in 
 de swamp. By’m-by, forget about it ; den 
 missy start right away.” 
 
 This seemed good advice, and we ref- 
 solved to adopt it. 
 
 After three weary days m the hut, it 
 was determined that we should make a 
 start. I was rested, and. felt strong again 
 in the bracing sharp air of this strange 
 new country. We had twelve miles to 
 make that day, with Daddy as our guide, 
 through the wild untrodden forest land. 
 
 This stage was easily done. We halted 
 for dinner at . noon in one of the clumps 
 of cypress of which I have spoken, and 
 reached our night quarters— another hut, 
 provided with little except two or three 
 blankets and a cache of preserved soup, 
 which he dug up from where he had 
 put it, and of which we made our 
 
 dinner. . ,, 
 
 The next day’s stage was the same. All 
 this time the country did not change. 
 Always the swamp and the sand ; always 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AVITH THE SAILOR.” 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 & 
 
 63 
 
 the pines and the cypresses ; always over- 
 head the buzzards ; and only sometimes, 
 to vary the monotony, a flock of wild 
 turkeys or a herd of deer. 
 
 On the third day we were to leave the 
 swamp and take to the roads and villages, 
 when our danger would begin. 
 
 “ Olive,” I said, “ if they take us pri- 
 soners, what will they do next 1 ” 
 
 “ They would be obliged, I suppose, to 
 take us to Wilmington in order to get the 
 reward.” 
 
 “ Would they — would they be cruel f ” 
 
 “ Well, my dear,” she replied calmly, 
 “ slave-catchers are not the most kindly of 
 men. But I doubt their daring to inflict 
 any cruelty upon us.” 
 
 I conjured up a dreadful vision of 
 manacles, chains, and men brandishing 
 heavy whips, which remained with me until 
 our escape was accomplished. I was, I 
 confess, horribly frightened. The name of 
 slave to an English girl has something truly 
 terrible in it; that I should be actually 
 advertised for as a runaway slave, was 
 a thing most appalling to me. Olive, to 
 whom it had happened before, naturally 
 took things more quietly. 
 
 The house which was to receive us on 
 the third day was on the confines of a 
 little town. It belonged to a Baptist 
 minister, who, a Northerner by birth, 
 had long since journeyed South with 
 the sole object of helping runaways 
 to escape. It was courageous and noble 
 of him ; how he reconciled it with his 
 conscience as a Christian to carry on 
 the deception of being a violent par- 
 tisan of the South and admirer of the 
 Institution, I do not know. Daddy Galoon 
 timed the march this day so as to bring 
 us to the house after dark. It was a 
 wooden house, like all the rest, standing 
 within a small fence. The old man removed 
 a bar and we stepped over. He led the 
 way to a back door, at which he gave 
 four knocks, which evidently belonged to 
 the secrets of his trade. The door was 
 instantly opened, and a lady invited us to 
 step in. 
 
 We found ourselves in a room which 
 seemed to serve as kitchen and dining- 
 room. 
 
 Daddy stood in the doorway. He came 
 no farther with his pilgrims. Here he 
 took off his hat, and said solemnly, “De 
 Lord bress de runaways !” Then he shut 
 the door and disappeared, to return to his 
 solitary hut in the Green Swamp and wait 
 for more. 
 
 “Good Heaven, girls!” cried the lady; 
 “who are you 
 
 I now became aware, though horribly tired 
 and oppressed with a dreadful anxiety 
 about my boots, the soles of which were 
 dropping off, that we were addressed 
 by a most delightful old lady, comely, 
 motherly, and kind. To be sure, it was 
 uncommon in her experience to be asked 
 shelter by two white girls, the elder of 
 whom was only five-and-twenty, and the 
 younger had not one single feature of the 
 ordinary mulatto appearance. 
 
 Olive, as usual, told the story. She 
 told it calmly, effectively, in a few words, 
 and so clearly that it carried with it the 
 internal evidence of truth. Our protector 
 was indignant. She had never, she said, 
 heard so dreadful a case. Negroes and 
 mulattoes in hundreds had used her house — 
 note that the house would have been burned 
 over their heads had one of the fugitives 
 for hope of reward or fear of punishment 
 informed upon them — they were running 
 away from the lash, from separation, from 
 slavery ; but never before had she heard of 
 a man trying to drive his wife back into 
 slavery, and putting an English girl into 
 the Hue and Cry as an escaped servant, 
 so that he might force her into a form of 
 marriage. 
 
 Long before she had concluded her in- 
 dignant invective against our persecutor I 
 was sound asleep. 
 
 We rested here for two days, and were 
 provided by our kind hostess — her husband 
 having gone North in charge of a runaway 
 mulatto family — with changes of dress, of 
 which we were greatly in want. Eemember 
 that I was “ shipped ” with nothing but 
 what I stood in; while my companion, who 
 could help me a little, had only what she 
 could bring on board in a bag when she 
 became a stowaway. And we were landed 
 with nothing at all, and had marched forty 
 miles and more over bog and rough country, 
 and had slept three nights in log huts. We 
 were, however, in the hands of a true 
 Samaritan, if ever there was one. She gave 
 us a complete new outfit, and provided us 
 with money, which we promised to repay, 
 in case any difficulty should arise in which 
 the almighty dollar might exhibit to 
 advantage. 
 
 She was of opinion that the advertise- 
 ment of us in the Wilmington papers would 
 be copied by others, so that we could not 
 rely upon being out of danger until we 
 were finally out of the Southern States. 
 Virginia, she said, was the most dangerous 
 
 : r 
 
64 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 OVER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 country for us, and slie counselled us to 
 travel by night if we could, or at all events 
 in the evening, by short stages, and by a 
 route laid down by her, on which we should 
 meet with plenty of friends and sympa- 
 thisers, because it was the regular way of 
 her “Railway.” She also gave us minute 
 directions as to our next resting-place, where 
 we should be entertained and treated in 
 like manner by her friends and fellow- 
 conspirators. 
 
 Thus rested and set up, we continued 
 on the third day our long and anxious 
 
 journey. 
 
 Our conductor was a young negro, who 
 informed me, thinking that I was, in spite 
 of blue eyes and fair hair, one of his own 
 people, that he was really free, and had 
 volunteered this dangerous Underground 
 Railway business, pretending to be the 
 minister’s slave-boy. 
 
 He chose cross roads, the badness of which 
 I could not have thought possible, to our 
 first stage. This, like the preceding, was 
 the first, or last, house in a little village' or 
 township, and here we were entertained 
 in like manner, and next day went on. 
 The indignation of our hosts, excited 
 everywhere as we told our story, encou- 
 raged them to take every possible pre- 
 caution with us. Yet once we were in great 
 danger, and escaped only by an accident 
 which I dare not call otherwise than 
 Providential. 
 
 The roads in North Carolina were then, 
 whatever they are now, everywhere bad. 
 Roads, indeed, many of them do not deserve 
 to be called ; they are mere openings through 
 the forest of the long-leaved pine, or, as they 
 call them, the “piny woods.” There are 
 frequent forks, so that it is more easy to 
 lose one’s way than to keep it. There are 
 brooks to cross, and fallen trunks to get 
 over. Every now and then we came to a 
 clearing, where maize had been planted, and 
 a small log cottage built. In all of them 
 we saw children, and listless, despondent 
 white women, mostly with pipes in their 
 mouths. All these houses were exactly 
 alike ; the furniture was rough and rude 
 they were dirty ; they looked what they 
 were, the houses of ignorant vagabonds, 
 too proud to work in the fields, too 
 lazy for any industry, too stupid for any 
 improvement. 
 
 “It is the curse,” said Olive, “which 
 slavery brings with it. The land . i 
 aecursed for the sins of its owners. Nothin 
 prospers. There are no roads ; there are 
 no farms; there are no manufactures. 
 
 because labour is considered the duty of 
 the blacks.” 
 
 There were no white men, because they 
 were — unless they were too old — one and 
 all away with the armies of the South. But 
 the women of the cabins asked us no ques- 
 tions, and seemed indifferent whether their 
 cause was winning or losing. They had no 
 papers, no books. I believe most of them 
 could not write. What a dreadful life must 
 theirs be, shut up in the silent woods, 
 with no knowledge of the world beyond, 
 no thought of how life can be made 
 beautiful! “It is the curse of slavery,” 
 said Olive. 
 
 I do not remember the names of the 
 places we stopped at ; they all seemed 
 to me exactly alike. The roads were 
 alike; the country seemed the same day 
 after day. Nor do I remember how many 
 days we had travelled — but it could not 
 have been many — when we fell into our 
 great danger. 
 
 It arose from our guide losing his way on 
 the road. Somehow or other we took the 
 wrong fork, and presently, instead of 
 arriving at one of the little places where 
 we were to stay, we drove straight into 
 the very town we wished most to avoid, 
 Fayetteville, which is not only the principal 
 place in North Carolina next to Raleigh, 
 but is also connected by a railway with 
 Wilmington. It was, indeed, a most dan- 
 gerous place. 
 
 Olive instructed our guide to say that we 
 were two ladies on our way to Richmond, 
 and that he was our boy. We then 
 drove to the hotel, and entered boldly. 
 It was then just after dark. It was 
 easy to stay in our room that evening, 
 and a couple of dimes induced one of 
 the servants to bring some supper to 
 us. But the morning would bring its 
 dangers. 
 
 We stayed in our room till breakfast- 
 time, when, not being able to make any 
 excuse, we descended slowly to the saloon. 
 There the tables were crowded with guests, 
 who all appeared too much occupied in the 
 business of eating to pay any attention 
 to us. Only one of the company— a 
 sallow, evil-looking man— seemed to me to 
 look at us more curiously than I liked. 
 In fact, his gaze became so earnest that 
 I became faint with terror, and was glad 
 indeed when we could rise and leave the 
 table. 
 
 The boy was waiting for us with the 
 trap in which he had driven us from 
 the last station. We brought down our 
 
j: 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 lugg a g e , paid our bill, and were ready 
 •to depart, when the man who had caused 
 me so much terror stepped up to me and 
 touched me on the shoulder with his 
 forefinger. 
 
 “ Guess,” he said roughly, “ that you’ve 
 got to hev a word with me before you 
 go.” 
 
 “Olive!” I cried, catching her by the 
 arm ; “ oh ! Olive !” 
 
 It was the worst thing I could have said. 
 He laughed aloud. 
 
 “ All right,” he said. “ Gentlemen, 
 these are two runaway yaller gals, adver- 
 tised for in the Wilmington Herald. A 
 thousand dollars reward.” 
 
 I stood trembling. For a moment Olive 
 lost her head. She made as if she 
 would tear me away and fly. Only for a 
 moment. 
 
 “Gentlemen,” she said, instantly re- 
 covering herself, “bear witness, all of 
 you, that I am the wife of an American 
 citizen, and this young lady is an English- 
 woman.” 
 
 There was a movement among the little 
 crowd which gathered round us, and 
 murmurs. 
 
 The man replied by reading the adver- 
 tisement, pointing out as he read the 
 exactness of the description. 
 
 Olive whispered me. 
 
 “I claim,” I cried, “ the protection of 
 the British Consul !” 
 
 There was no British Consul in the 
 place. 
 
 “Is there no one here,” I asked, “who 
 will defend two helpless women against a 
 villain 1 ” 
 
 “ Ef you air runaways,” said one man in 
 
 the crowd; “ ef you air yaller ” And at 
 
 that fatal word all sympathies were dried 
 up. 
 
 It seemed there was no help but we 
 must go. 
 
 “Na — ow,” said our captor, “guess you’d 
 better go quiet, or there’s handcuffs and 
 other things.” 
 
 Just then, however, a rescuer appeared, 
 a veritable St. George, a Perseus, though 
 in the lank shape and forbidding features 
 of Liberty Wicks, bo’s’n and quartermaster 
 of the Maryland. It seemed to me a 
 forlorn hope, but Olive cried to him by 
 name, and he turned, and, seeing us, burst 
 through the crowd. 
 
 “ Darn my scuppers ! What’s this ? Beg 
 . your pardon, ladies,” taking off his hat ; 
 “but what’s this little difficulty ?” 
 
 “ Bo’s’n,” said Olive, quietly and with 
 
 [December 1, 1880.] 65 
 
 dignity, “when I sailed with you from New 
 York to Havannah, four years ago, what 
 was my name 1 Perhaps you will tell these 
 gentlemen.” 
 
 “You was Mistress Angel, the captain’s 
 wife.” 
 
 “You hear, gentlemen. The captain’s 
 wife. The wife of Captain Angel, of the 
 ship Providence, in the Havannah trade. 
 Is it likely that Captain Angel’s wife 
 should be a runaway 1 Now, will you tell 
 these gentlemen, bo’s’n, where you took on 
 board this young lady 1 ” 
 
 “Off the port o’ Boscastle, on the coast 
 of Cornwall, in England,” he replied. 
 “ Brought aboard, she was, by the captain 
 and the pilot.” 
 
 “ Now, gentlemen,” said Olive, “ are 
 you satisfied h Or shall I ask my friend 
 here to protect us against a man, probably 
 a mean Yankee ” — she threw infinite con- 
 tempt into those words — “ who would pre- 
 tend that we are runaway slaves.” 
 
 Liberty Wicks stepped to the front, and 
 stood before us. 
 
 “ Ef,” he said resolutely, “any man here 
 lays hands on these two ladies, he lays hands 
 on me.” He drew a revolver from his 
 breast, and looked round, with his finger 
 on the trigger. “ I allow,” he said, “ two 
 minutes for that onfort’nate cuss to order 
 his coffin.” 
 
 He had so resolute an air, and looked so 
 terrible, this lanky man with the hard 
 features and the weather-beaten cheeks, 
 that they all drew back. 
 
 He then called our boy. 
 
 “Where, boy, was you goin’ to take 
 these ladies ?” he asked. 
 
 “ They was gwine,” said the boy readily, 
 “by the nearest way to Baleigh, on their 
 way to Bichmond, in Virginny, where they 
 was to stay with their friends.” 
 
 “ That looks like runnin’ away, that 
 does,” said Liberty, looking round with 
 triumph. “ Goin’ to Richmond. Goin’ to 
 head-quarters. Now, stand aside, lubbers 
 all, and let the ladies pass. By your leave, 
 ma’am,” he touched his hat again, “ I will 
 go part of the way with you. Lord love 
 us ! Here’s a sweet English rosebud for 
 you.” He addressed the crowd, but he 
 meant me. “A sweet and pretty blushin’ 
 young thing, and you play it that mean 
 on her as to call her a cussed yaller gell. 
 Yah ! I’m ashamed o’ North Car’lina. That’s 
 a fact.” 
 
 We were in the carriage now. He 
 hitched himself on to the footboard, and 
 we drove away as rapidly as our boy dared r 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR.” 
 
66 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 the honest bo’s’n hurling derision behind 
 him in language which our would-be captor 
 no doubt understood. To me it was a 
 foreign tongue. When we were outside’ 
 the town, and again in the “ piny woods,” 
 he changed his tone. 
 
 “ Boy,” he said, “ steer quick out of this 
 road. Take the first fork; never mind 
 where it takes you to. I know that slave- 
 hunting coon. He came down here a 
 purpus on the hunt for the reward. Them 
 mean whites ’ud live on rewards if they 
 could. Thought you’d make for the nearest 
 town, and be landed like a salmon in a 
 net. And he wont give in ’thout another 
 run for’t. I see that in his yaller eye. 
 He’s gone to git a warrant, an’ he’ll make 
 tracks after us as fast as he ^can lay fut to 
 yerth. Therefore, cross country is the 
 word, onless we are all to go to the State 
 gaol together, where you, brother Snow- 
 ball, will taste the Confederate cat, and 
 I shall grow fat on the Confederate 
 bacon.” 
 
 The boy grinned, and turned the trap 
 off the main road into one of the little 
 forest tracks. 
 
 « Ladies,” he went on, “I know all about 
 it, and you kin trust me, for though I was 
 born down to Norfolk, my father was a 
 honest Yank, and as for slavery, why, 
 
 I just hate ut ; there, I hate _ ut. As 
 for you, marm,” he addressed himself to 
 Olive, “ it may be true what that mur- 
 derin’ villain said, and it may not be true. 
 All I know for sartain is that you shipped 
 aboard with us twice : wanst you was the 
 Cap’en’s wife, and the second time, when 
 the skipper had changed his name, you 
 was a stowaway. And as for you, young 
 lady, you was kidnapped. Now we’re 
 comfortable and understand each other; 
 and so, ladies, ef you’ll tell me your plans, 
 you may trust me.” 
 
 It was risky, but we were completely at 
 his mercy, and besides, we remembered his 
 whispers on board the ship. 
 
 Olive told him all. She confessed that 
 she had been formerly a slave in this same 
 State, though in appearance as white as 
 any European ; that she had escaped by 
 the Underground Railway ; that she had 
 told Captain Jefferson _ Ramsay, alias 
 Valentine Angel, everything before their 
 marriage ; that we now designed to effect 
 our escape by the same way in which 
 she had before succeeded; and that it 
 was only by the accident of losing our way 
 that we found ourselves at Fayetteville 
 at all. 
 
 He approved our design, and told us, 
 which was a great comfort for us, that 
 Tennessee was most likely, by this time, 
 in the hands of the North, so ' that once 
 over the Alleghany Mountains we were 
 safe. 
 
 He then went on to speak of the 
 Captain. 
 
 “ At first,” he said, “ he was mad at losing 
 his ship, his cargo, and — the young lady. 
 
 Then he begged Olive’s pardon. 
 
 “ You need not,” she said. “ I know my 
 husband as well as you.” 
 
 “There is nothing,” he told us, “nothing 
 on this yerth that he would not do to 
 gain his ends. Robbery, murder, shootin’ 
 and slaughterin’, conspirin’ and plottin’, 
 misrepresentin’ and lyin’, bullyin’ and 
 threatenin’, all this comes in the day s 
 work. As for revenge, it is the Cap en s. 
 nature to remember the bad deeds and 
 forget the good. I’m his old shipmet. 
 
 Well, what then? As fur what I’ve 
 done in takin’ you out o’ the hands o’ 
 the ’Malakites, if he had me aboard knifin’ 
 would be too good for me. Reckon ef we | 
 meet there’ll be a hole made in the man 
 who draws the slowest. Bad job fur that 
 man, it’ll be. Shipmets we mustn't never 
 be no more. Pity, too, for the Cap en s 
 got a lucky hand, and blockade-runnin’ is 
 sweet and lovely biz for them as likes 
 large profits. "Wal, mad at first he waz, 
 and went around like — like a eel in a 
 ash-pit ; nobody, not even the chief officer, 
 didn’t venture go a-nigh him fur a spell. 
 
 Then he heard that you ladies was seen put 
 ashore ; and then he put out them advertise- 
 ments. I’ve knowed the Cap’en for nigh 
 twenty year, and sailed with him on many 
 a cruise, and seen a deal o’ wild and 
 bloody work, but I never seen nor hearn 
 a more desperate wickedness than to call 
 his own wife, and the young lady whom 
 he’d kidnapped, runaway, yaller gells. 
 ’Pears most as if I should be feared of 
 sailin’ in the same craft with such a man. 
 
 Talk o’ Jonas! What he did wasn’t 
 nowhere near it !” 
 
 So we changed the route which had 
 been laid down for us by our kind friends 
 of that secret institution which had be- 
 friended so many poor creatures, and drove 
 across the strange forest-covered country 
 by the cross tracks which we chose by 
 compass, not knowiug whither they would 
 lead us, so only that we should not come 
 out upon any town. Towns, indeed, in 
 North Carolina were scarce. 
 
 It was a wonderful journey, the recol- 
 
n 
 
 Charles Dickens.] WITH THE SAILOR” [December 1, 1880.] 67 
 
 lection of which lives always in my mind 
 and will never leave me. There was the 
 sense of being hunted, which made me 
 wake up in the dead of night, and clutch 
 at Olive’s wrist and cry aloud for help; 
 there was the silent deserted forest; the 
 cottages where the poor creatures lived 
 whose husbands were with the rebel armies, 
 and whose children ran about as wild and 
 as untaught as their mothers. There was 
 the midday camp for dinner, and some- 
 times the night camp, when in the warm 
 summer nights it was no great harm to 
 sleep in the open. There were the bad 
 corduroy roads, over which our hickory- 
 built carriage, tough and yielding as steel, 
 bumped and jumped us from the seat. 
 There were the places where we had to 
 get out and ford a stream; there were 
 days when we could get no food, and 
 days when we fared sumptuously. Our 
 negro boy was always good-natured, laugh- 
 ing, happy, and careless ; he had no 
 fear or any anxiety. Our protector was 
 always grim of aspect, yet kind of 
 speech; rough in his manner, yet a very 
 Don Quixote for chivalry towards women. 
 To walk beside him was to feel that 
 one had a protector indeed, as true and 
 faithful as even my poor Jack 'would have 
 been. 
 
 At last we came to the Alleghany 
 Mountains. If I had not seen those hills, I 
 should have thought the whole of America 
 was one vast plain covered with pine forests; 
 having seen them, when I think of places 
 beautiful, my thoughts go back to the 
 Alleghany Mountains. 
 
 Once on the other side we were soon in 
 Tennessee. 
 
 To our great joy, the Federals held Nash- 
 ville ; and here, the very day we got there, 
 we saw a great and splendid thing. 
 
 It was in the evening ; a mighty crowd, 
 almost entirely composed of negroes and 
 coloured people, were gathered together 
 in a square before a great building, which 
 was, I suppose, the town-hall or govern- 
 ment house. Presently there came forth 
 to them a man of insignificant presence, 
 like Paul, and, like him, the bearer of 
 good tidings. 
 
 “ In the name of this great Republic,” 
 he said in a solemn voice, “ I proclaim you 
 FREE.” 
 
 Olive burst into crying and sobbing. It 
 was the beginning of the end. Slavery 
 was doomed. 
 
 The man was Andrew Johnson. Two 
 years later, when the murder of Abraham 
 
 Lincoln put him in the president’s place, 
 and papers derided the self-made man, I 
 thought of the great deed he had done 
 in Tennessee, and how he had, on his 
 own responsibility, given liberty to the 
 thousands who, before his act, were like 
 the cattle of the field, to be bought and 
 sold. 
 
 We made no stay at Nashville, though 
 there was nothing to fear, but took train, 
 no longer in hiding or afraid, for the 
 North ; for we longed to be once more on 
 British soil, out of the dreadful war, out of 
 the never-ending controversy, out of the 
 tears of women, out of the anxiety of 
 men, out of the sights which showed us 
 how terrible is war, and how strong of 
 purpose were the men who would never 
 lay down the sword till the cause was 
 won. 
 
 When, at last, we crossed the bridge 
 at Niagara, we had been six weeks upon 
 our journey from the moment when we 
 started from the flat and sandy shore to 
 plunge into the depths of the Great Green 
 Swamp. 
 
 Often, at night, I dream of that time. In 
 my dream I am stumbling, tired, footsore, 
 and hungry, over the sand among the piny 
 woods, or across the yielding grass of the 
 quicksands ; beside me walks, patient, un- 
 complaining, always with a smile for me 
 and a word of hope — always with the hope- 
 less sadness for herself, poor Olive. It 
 seems as if to the forest and the pines there 
 shall never be any end. Or I am among 
 the green slopes and wooded heights of the 
 Alleghany Mountains. The air, here, is 
 bright and clear ; one feels stronger upon 
 the hill-sides ; we walk with elastic tread : 
 with us is the tall, ungainly sailor, who 
 hitches up one shoulder first, and then 
 the other, who screws up his right eye 
 tight, who chews tobacco as he goes ; who 
 talks with such a drawl; who inspires us 
 with so much trust that I, for one, could 
 laugh and sing. Or I am standing at the 
 outer edge of that great throng of blacks, 
 while the man of insignificant presence 
 proclaims the freedom of the slaves, and 
 Olive’s tears are a hymn of thanks and 
 praise. 
 
 CHAPTER THE LAST. THE WHIRLPOOL OF 
 NIAGARA. 
 
 At last we were on British soil. Truly 
 there had been no danger to us since 
 Andrew Johnson’s proclamation at Nash- 
 ville ; but, as I have said, the country was 
 wild with war excitement, and one longed 
 
 tr 
 
68 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 ‘ OYER THE SEA 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 to be away from the dreadful anxieties 
 depicted on every face. 
 
 The train landed us at last on the 
 American side of the Falls; we crossed over 
 and found on the English side a small hotel, 
 where we thought of resting for a few days 
 before we began to consider our plans. 
 Olive, especially, wanted rest ; she was pale 
 and anxious ; she had lost hope ; she felt, 
 she said, the approach of some fresh 
 calamity ; she knew that her husband, 
 wherever he was, would bring her new 
 sorrow and himself new disgrace. That 
 dreadful punishment in which the dead 
 were tied to the living was hers; for 
 she was joined with a man dead to all 
 goodness. 
 
 Here our protector left us, with thanks 
 which were heartfelt, if any ever were. He 
 had saved us from a most dreadful danger ; 
 he had literally torn us from the hands of 
 our enemies; he had carried us across a 
 rough and dangerous country, a country in 
 which he who helped a runaway would 
 have had a short shrift and a long rope ; 
 he had brought us to a place of safety. In 
 addition, rude and rough sailor as he was, 
 he had never intruded himself upon us, 
 maintained the most perfect respect towards 
 us ; had paid all our expenses for us ; and 
 now, with a courtesy and consideration 
 beyond all praise, he advanced us a sum 
 of money to provide for our passage to 
 England. 
 
 I have repaid that money long ago ; but 
 the faithful, loyal service I can never repay. 
 And though I know not where my protector 
 may be, I pray for him daily. 
 
 He left us, then, to make his way 
 to Liverpool first, and, if that failed, to 
 Nassau, in order to find another berth in a 
 blockade-runner, nothing daunted by the 
 ill-success of the last. He attributed the 
 disaster, indeed, just as poor old Stephen 
 did, to the presence of women aboard the 
 ship. Some sailors, except on passenger 
 ships where their admission is necessary, 
 believe in the superstition that my sex 
 brings misfortune to a ship. He promised 
 faithfully to keep out of Captain Ramsay’s 
 way, and so we parted, and I have never 
 seen him since. 
 
 The place, on the English side, was full 
 of Southern ladies ; they did not come to 
 o’aze upon the Falls, but to watch and wait. 
 Alas for them ! Their words were full of 
 boast and promise ; but the colour was 
 fading from their cheeks and the light from 
 their eyes in the days when day after day 
 passed and the armies of the South made 
 
 no headway. Their brothers were . with 
 those armies ; their sisters were starving in 
 the lonely homesteads ; their slaves were 
 scattered, their fields untilled; and they 
 believed— oh ! how those poor creatures 
 believed ! — in the justice of a cause most 
 unjust, and prayed— as only believers and 
 faithful women can pray— for the success of 
 arms which should never have been taken 
 up. 
 
 I had written every day since we left 
 Nashville letters to my dear Jack, telling 
 him what we were doing, and how we fared. 
 Thes;e letters I sent to London, but he did 
 not get them till long afterwards, for a very 
 good reason, as you shall hear. For, when 
 the Poet told him what had happened, with 
 tears in his eyes, taking shame and blame 
 to himself, who was not to blame at all, 
 but rather the reverse, as having clearly 
 discerned the character of the villain 
 Ramsay from the beginning, Jack, with 
 no more delay than was necessary to turn 
 everything he possessed into money 
 it was not much, poor fellow ! — took 
 train for Liverpool. He would cross 
 over to America and search the States 
 through till he found me. With him 
 came his friend, the Poet. They landed at 
 New York; here they heard of the wreck and 
 burning of the Maryland off Cape Fear, the 
 news of which was received with great joy, 
 because her captain’s name was well known 
 as that of a most successful runner, and this 
 was a new and very fast steamer. They 
 read in the papers, further, how two ladies 
 had been taken prisoners, but set ashore, 
 because it was no use carrying Southern 
 women to a Northern gaol. Then Jack 
 breathed with relief, for he knew who one 
 of the ladies was, and he hoped that I was 
 among people who would protect me from 
 the man Ramsay. The Americans make 
 short work of men who insult women. 
 Presently they heard, having by this time 
 discovered where to learn news from the 
 South— and, indeed, partly from the news- 
 papers, partly from private letters, and 
 partly from the information of spies, 
 nothing was done in North Carolina, "V ir- 
 ginia, or any other of the Confederate 
 States, that was not immediately known 
 in New York — the horrible news that the 
 villain Ramsay had taken advantage of the 
 Southern prejudices in the matter of colour 
 to get a Hue and Cry sent through the 
 country after us. The man who told Jack 
 this was one of the sailors of the Maryland, 
 
 I who knew, as all the crew knew, that 
 [ Olive was the Captain’s wife, and had 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR. 1 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 69 
 
 followed her husband on board as a stow- 
 away. Horrible ! his own wife, though he 
 had tried to put her away on a lying 
 pretext, the woman whom he had sworn 
 to love and protect, he had declared to be 
 
 a runaway slave. As for me Jack 
 
 ground his teeth, but he could find no 
 words fitting for his wrath and indignation. 
 There are acts whose guilt is greater than 
 any tongue can express ; such was this 
 act of the man who had betrayed me to 
 cross the ocean on his ship. But then, 
 to their joy and comfort, they heard how 
 we had escaped, and were reported to be 
 coming along by slow stages, and the help 
 of the Underground Bail way. If all went 
 well, we might be expected in New York 
 or Philadelphia in a fortnight or three 
 weeks at latest. 
 
 As you know, our route was changed, 
 and we came on with the help of another 
 protector. 
 
 When we did not appear, and they 
 learned that we had been carried away after 
 the danger at Fayetteville by a sailor, their 
 anxiety was very great. It was impossible 
 to guess with any certainty whither the 
 man had carried us, or whether he would 
 be loyal ; or whether, after all, he was 
 not (having been a sailor under Captain 
 Bamsay) a mere creature and servant of 
 his, anxious, perhaps, to show his zeal to 
 his chief by bringing back the runaways 
 for no reward at all. Granted that 
 he would be true to us, whither in so 
 troubled a time would he take us 'l Not 
 through Virginia ; perhaps South by way 
 of South Carolina, and so to New Orleans, 
 though that was a long and perilous 
 journey ; perhaps even through the worst 
 and most dangerous part of the country, 
 where we should be least expected to 
 venture. 
 
 Then, because news of us, not being 
 of public interest, came slowly, they went 
 north to Toronto, on the chance of hearing 
 more about us there from the people 
 interested in runaways. But no one there 
 had heard anything of ohr story. Then 
 they went back to New York, and from 
 there to Philadelphia, where they learned 
 the latest news from Wilmington. The 
 latest news Was to the effect that Captain 
 Bamsay was still at Wilmington waiting 
 for his two “ runaways,” but they had 
 not been heard of, and it was thought 
 that they had succeeded in making their 
 escape ; anyway, the country was much too 
 disturbed to allow of the old-fashioned hot 
 chase. Captain Bamsay had learned the 
 
 part played by his bo’s’n in our escape, and 
 went about stating his intentions (which 
 were closely copied from the old modes 
 of torture) with regard to that knight- 
 errant. 
 
 Then, because publicity would now be a 
 great thing for us, Jack wrote an account 
 of the story so far as he knew it — be sure 
 he made the most of Bamsay’s marriage, 
 and his treatment of his wife, though he 
 knew nothing of the Indiana divorce— and 
 sent it to one of the New York papers, 
 which immediately published it. All the 
 other papers copied it with comments. 
 This, then, was the kind of thing which 
 was possible in the South ! A man 
 marries a runaway mulatto, brings her 
 back to North Carolina, and advertises 
 her as a fugitive slave, while he advertises 
 for an English girl, whom he has kid- 
 napped, on the same pretext. _ Did ever 
 an indignant world hear the like ? Was 
 there ever an institution like that called 
 by its supporters the Peculiar and the 
 Domestic h When the story had gone the 
 round of the Northern journals, some treat- 
 ing it as a hoax, it was actually copied by a 
 Bichmond paper, in order to show the kind 
 of rubbish with which Yankee abolitionists 
 entertained their readers. The facts were, 
 of course, indignantly denied ; not only 
 were they denied, but people with common 
 sense were asked if it were even possible 
 that they could be true. A Southerner, they 
 said, could never, to begin with, marry 
 a mulatto runaway; if he did, it was 
 incredible that he should bring her back to 
 her master — the lowest of humanity would 
 revolt at such a wickedness ; and then we 
 were asked to believe that a man, whose 
 name was mentioned, and who was at the 
 very time among his friends at Wilmington, 
 had still further kidnapped an English girl, 
 and was trying to get her back when she 
 had escaped, under the pretence that she, 
 too, was a slave. Why, the story was 
 monstrous ! 
 
 Everybody at Wilmington knew the 
 truth, because you cannot silence men’s 
 mouths, and the crew talked ; yet so 
 vigorously did Captain Bamsay adhere to 
 his own statement, and so calmly resolute 
 were his announced intentions of letting 
 daylight into any who ventured to make 
 assertions to the contrary, that public 
 opinion only showed itself in a general 
 desire to avoid his presence. This method, 
 adopted at first by the more peaceful of 
 the citizens, was gradually followed by the 
 very rowdiest among the sailors and wild 
 
70 [December 1, 1880.] 
 
 creatures who haunted the Wilmington 
 saloons. If the Captain showed at a bar 
 there would be silence; presently the 
 visitors at that bar dropped away one 
 after the other, having immediate and 
 important business elsewhere. This was 
 galling to Captain Ramsay ; he could not 
 shoot a whole townful of men for the 
 crime of having business elsewhere when 
 he entered a saloon ; and as nobody 
 offered him any pretext, there was no 
 shooting to be done. Presently, as Jack 
 heard, there were murmurs abroad, the 
 citizens met and talked things over, the 
 Hue and Cry was torn down from the 
 walls, and the name of Lynch was freely 
 mentioned. At this juncture, Captain 
 Ramsay disappeared. 
 
 “ I know that he will run the inland 
 blockade,” said Olive, talking over things 
 at Niagara. “ He will cross the lines 
 and make for New York. Then he 
 will come North. I shall wait for him 
 here.” 
 
 “ Will you forgive him I” I asked. 
 
 “ Forgive ? Oh ! my dear, it is not a 
 question of forgiveness. What have I not 
 forgiven ? What have I not endured ? I 
 must be with him to save him from worse 
 
 things if I may. And What is it, 
 
 child?” 
 
 For below us, walking in the road, on 
 the shady side, were no other than Jack 
 and the Poet, and I was running and crying 
 to fly into the arms of my lover. How he 
 greeted me — with what words of affection 
 and -rejoicing — I cannot set down. When 
 he let me go for a moment, I shook 
 hands with the Poet, who hung his head 
 guiltily. 
 
 “It was all my fault, Miss Avis,” he 
 said ; “ I ought to have followed you day 
 and night. I knew he was a man-eater. 
 I saw that from the very beginning.” 
 
 “ He would come with me, Avis,” said 
 Jack. “He has never left me day or 
 night. See what it is to have a faithful 
 Poet!” 
 
 He spoke in his old light, airy way, but 
 his voice shook, and the tears stood in his 
 eyes as he held my hands in his. 
 
 “You have suffered much, Avis. My 
 poor girl : I would I could have suffered 
 for you.” 
 
 “ I think you have suffered for me too, 
 Jack.” 
 
 And then I told him of Olive, who had 
 left us together, and of what she had done, 
 and of Liberty Wicks the quartermaster. 
 Nothing would do now for Jack but 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 we must be married at once, to prevent 
 any further chance, he said, of the man 
 Ramsay, or Angel, or whatever he 
 called himself, running away with me. 
 Why, indeed, he said, should we wait? 
 Such protection and guardianship as had 
 been grudgingly afforded me by Stephen 
 Cobbledick was now withdrawn, because 
 the old man was killed (so far as we then 
 knew). I had no friends to consult, and 
 we loved each other. That consideration, 
 indeed, was all that we wanted. Could I 
 refuse my boy what he so ardently de- 
 sired — the right to call me his own ? We 
 went, therefore, two days afterwards to 
 the little Episcopal Chapel of Cliftonville, 
 where we were married, the Poet giving 
 me away. He gave me also, I remember, 
 the most beautiful bracelet to be got 
 at Niagara — it had been the property 
 of a poor Southern lady, who sold it to 
 pay her hotel bill — and a collection of 
 feather fans bought at the little shops 
 beside the Falls. And when we came 
 to England, he gave me his book of 
 poetry, which I shall always read with 
 pleasure, though I prefer Tennyson and 
 Longfellow, out of gratitude to my Jack’s 
 best friend. 
 
 One morning, a week after our marriage, 
 Olive came and told me, with tears, how 
 she had just heard from some quarter 
 whence she got secret information, that a 
 warrant had been issued against Valentine 
 Angel, alias Jefferson Ramsay, alias a great 
 many other names, including his first, 
 Peregrine Pickle, for piracy on the high 
 seas. It was one of those great and 
 gallant deeds remembered and lauded 
 by Stephen Cobbledick, committed some 
 years before. They had other charges 
 against him, but this would be taken first. 
 The little matter of kidnapping a whole 
 crew of free blacks at Boston, and sell- 
 ing them at New Orleans, would also be 
 brought up again. Meantime, there was 
 reason to believe that he was making for 
 British territory ; that he would cross the 
 frontier at Niagara; and, unless he were 
 captured before, would be taken on the 
 bridge. 
 
 Olive spent that day on the other side, , 
 watching and waiting, if haply she might 
 give her husband warning. 
 
 The next day and the next she sat or 
 walked. All night, too, she had no sleep ; 
 she never left her watch; he might come at 
 any moment. 
 
 On the fourth day he came. 
 
 “OYER THE SEA 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WITH THE SAILOR” 
 
 [December 1 , 1880 .] 71 
 
 He was in some kind of disguise, but 
 she knew him. It was already growing 
 dark ; he walked in the shadows of the 
 great square hotels, away from the lights in 
 the shop windows. She touched his arm. 
 He turned, and recognised her with an 
 oath. 
 
 “ Do not cross the bridge to-night,” she 
 said. “ They are on the watch for you 
 everywhere ; lie in hiding ; you will be 
 arrested.” 
 
 He pushed her roughly from him with 
 another oath, walked quickly to the toll- 
 gate, paid his toll, and hurried over the 
 bridge. What sign had been sent across 
 I do not know, nor how they knew their 
 man; but as he neared the English side, 
 three men stepped from the gate-house.. 
 
 They were armed to the teeth with rifles 
 and pistols, for they were going to catch a 
 wild beast. 
 
 “Stand,” cried one; “we arrest you, 
 Angel, alias Ramsay, for piracy on the high 
 seas.” 
 
 He looked back ; armed men were at the 
 other end of the bridge. He drew his 
 revolver, fired twice and missed, and, with 
 a bound, leaped to the railings of. the 
 bridge, and dived headlong into the river, 
 a hundred and fifty feet below. 
 
 Here the stream is narrow, and the deep 
 water, between perpendicular rocks, rushes 
 black, vehement, terrible even on the sunniest 
 days, as if anxious to get away from the 
 horror of the awful leap it has taken over 
 the Fall behind. He would be a good 
 swimmer who would keep his head above 
 the water in such a stream ; he would be 
 a strong swimmer who could think of 
 holding his own, even with the current,-' 
 in such a rush and roar of headlong waves 
 until he could come to a place where 
 the cliffs sink down and a landing-place 
 might be found. Ramsay disappeared in 
 the stream. A moment afterwards his 
 head appeared upon the surface; he had 
 not, then, been killed by the leap; he 
 was alive, and he was swimming. Crack ! 
 crack ! crack ! Three rifles were fired. 
 His head disappeared again, and was no 
 more seen. Olive’s husband had met his 
 fate. 
 
 Three miles or so below the Falls there 
 is a place which visitors are always taken 
 to see. The force of the water has hollowed 
 out a round basin in the rocks, and a bank 
 has been formed at the bottom of earth 
 and crumbled rock, where grow the wild 
 vine, the maple, and the hemlock of the 
 
 Canadian woods, with a thousand flowers, 
 bushes, and climbing things which make 
 this place a dream of loveliness. You may 
 clamber round this bank, among this 
 growth, and watch at your feet the great 
 round whirlpool which the river forms. 
 The season changes ; men come and go ; but 
 the boiling, roaring water never ceases to 
 rush round and round as if mad to devour 
 something, and for ever in a fierce insa- 
 tiable hunger and rage. Strange things 
 sometimes come down from the Falls and 
 are carried round upon its surface until, by 
 some accident, they drift out of the whirl- 
 ing circle, and are either carried away 
 down stream or thrown up on this bank ; 
 no stranger or more awful thing ever came 
 into this whirlpool, and was carried round 
 and round, than that which was seen the 
 day after Captain Ramsay’s desperate leap. 
 It was the body of a man. The waters 
 hurried him ceaselessly round the sweeping 
 circle ; in his hand he held a revolver ; 
 hand and pistol were above the water, the 
 rest of the body, black in the gloomy 
 pool, only visible when the current bore 
 it near the bank. And by the water’s 
 edge sat a woman with pale face and 
 sunken eyes and clasped hands. She 
 was waiting for the river to give up its 
 dead. 
 
 For three days that awful hand, its 
 fingers closed upon the pistol, was hurried 
 round ; in the night of the third day the 
 body of Captain Ramsay floated ashore, 
 and was laid by the river itself, as if 
 moved to pity at so much patience and 
 so much grief, at the very feet of his 
 widow. 
 
 They buried him in the churchyard at 
 Cliftonville. At his head Olive placed a 
 marble cross, with his initials and the date 
 of his death, and beneath she wrote the 
 words, “ Thy mercy, Jesu!” 
 
 When all was over we took her away. 
 
 She came with us as far as Quebec, 
 where we were to embark for England. 
 Here she parted from us. 
 
 “ My life,” she said, “ has gone from me ; 
 there is but one thing left to do : — to pray 
 for a dead man ; there is only one Church 
 which permits me so to pray; I shall enter 
 a convent, and pray for him night and 
 day.” 
 
 She kissed and wept over me ; she 
 prayed for my happiness ; she thanked 
 God that she had been of service to me ; 
 and then the doors of the convent closed 
 upon her, and Olive became, too, as one 
 dead. 
 
 R : 
 
 F 
 
“OVER THE SEA.” 
 
 [December 1, 18S0.J 
 
 I am glad to be able to add that Stephen 
 was not killed ; they carried him aboard 
 the cruiser, where, for a spell, he had a 
 pretty bad time ; then he pulled round and 
 presently found himself in a New York 
 gaol, where he lay cooling his heels and 
 reflecting for a good space, because, as I 
 have said, they were hard on pilots. In 
 the fulness of time, however, he returned 
 to Boscastle, where, his rents having been 
 collected for him in his absence, he 
 settled down again to the comfortable 
 old life. 
 
 He accounted for his d eparture by swearing 
 that the notorious pirate, Captain Ramsay, 
 had kidnapped him together with his niece ; 
 that in the rescue of that dear girl, at the end 
 of their run — he could not avoid narrating 
 the brilliant way in which he almost navi- 
 gated the ship right into Wilmington on the 
 darkest night ever known — he had received 
 wounds innumerable, which he did not re- 
 gret. Sometimes his friends would pull him 
 up to ask how, seeing he had no brothers or 
 sisters, the young lady could be called his 
 Then he reverted to the story of 
 
 the raft, into which my husband and I 
 never enquired further. The locality and 
 the minor details always varied according 
 to the geographical fancy of the moment ; 
 but he adhered to the leading situations 
 of the story. 
 
 “I picked her up, gentlemen, lyin’, with 
 a hundred and fifty-three poor fellows — 
 sailors — all starved to death, upon a raft. 
 She was wropped in four bandanners. It 
 was in latitude twenty-two and a half, 
 where it’s pretty hot, off the coast of Chili. 
 Wherefore I took her aboard, fed her 
 myself night and mornin’ with a spoon 
 and a bottle, and giv’ her, for her benefit* 
 the name of Cobbledick. Also, to make 
 her feel properly proud of her family, I 
 said her mother was a Knobling. This 
 made her grow up haughty. I sought for 
 her, gentlemen; I thought for her; I fought 
 for her. I crossed the sea with her. I 
 rescued her from the pirate, and I chucked 
 him over the bridge into Niagara Rapids. 
 Yet she remembered, in the long run, that 
 she was but a Common Pick-me-up, after 
 all, and married, in spite of her family 
 connections, a journeyman painter who 
 hadn’t the money to pay his Marriage 
 Settlements.” 
 
 NOW APPEARING 
 
 ALL THE YEAR ROUND, 
 
 ASPHODEL, 
 
 A NEW SERIAL STORY 
 
 By MISS M. E. BRADDON, Author of 
 ‘ ‘ Vixen, ” &c. 
 
 To be had of all Booksellers , and at the Railway Bookstalls , 
 
 DICKENS’S DICTIONARY OF LONDON. 
 
 DICKENS’S DICTIONARY OF THE THAMES. FROM 
 OXFORD TO THE NORE. 
 
 DICKENS’S DICTIONARY OF CONTINENTAL 
 
 RAILWAYS. (. PUBLISHED MONTHLY.) 
 
 PRICE ONE SHILLING EACH. 
 
 : P 
 
 Tf 
 
 Published at the Office. 20, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by Charles Dickens & Evans, 24, Great New Street, E.C. 
 
CHRISTOWELL. 
 
 . & 'g-xcimoax %nh. 
 
 By R. D. BLACKMORE, Author of “Lorna Doone,” etc. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. — A TINGLE AND A TANGLE. 
 
 T ouchwood park, as the owners 
 
 loved to call it, differed from Larks’ 
 cot almost as much as Sir Joseph Touchwood 
 from “ Captain Larks.” Brilliance without 
 shade, but striped and barred with brighter 
 brilliance, and slashed across with all bold 
 hues (in diaper patterns, glittering like a 
 newly varnished oil-cloth) with stucco pilas- 
 ters to relieve it (but all too shallow to 
 help themselves, or carry their white perukes 
 of pie-crust), and topped with a stuck-up roof 
 of tile and puckered things called “ minarets,” 
 but more like stable-lanterns — the gazer 
 found solace in shutting both eyes, and 
 hoping that the money had done good else- 
 where. 
 
 “ Winderful to my maind, winderful they 
 arktexts be ! ” said John Sage of Christowell 
 to his wife. “ Blest if they han’t diskivered 
 a plan to make tower of Babel out of Noah’s 
 ’ rainbow ! ” 
 
 “ What odds to thee ? ” replied his good 
 wife Judy ; “ our Bill hath drawed his ladder 
 wages, riglar, every Zatterday.” 
 
 Truly it made small difference to the quiet 
 folk of Christowell, whether the mansion were 
 tall or short, dazzling or soothing to the eye; 
 because it was out of their parish — which 
 marks a broad line in all matters of feeling — 
 and also because it was out of their sight, 
 till they mounted a gristly and scraggy bone 
 of hill. Some of them looked upon this as a 
 great denial, and grumbled at going so far, to 
 see the big house on a Sunday. But most 
 people said it was wisely ordained, lest the 
 liver’d young men should come courting 
 their daughters, and drive up the price of 
 beer at the ‘ Horse-shoes.’ 
 
 Sir Joseph Touchwood had a right to 
 please himself; as indeed he always did, 
 having vast self-complacence, which was 
 justified by his success in life.. Beginning 
 his career as a boy of all work, he had made 
 his way into a little grocer’s shop at Stone- 
 house, and so into the Pursers’ rooms, and 
 thence into Admiralty contracts, lucrative, 
 and elastic. He cheated as little as he could 
 help, until he could do it on a worthy scale, 
 and in superior company. 
 
 Rising thus, he was enabled, by and by, to 
 be the superior company himself, to reward 
 those who helped him, and make it more 
 XXII— 6 
 
 expedient to shake the head than to wag the 
 tongue about him. And little as he cared 
 for the shadow or even the sparkle of his 
 object, while he grasped the substance, the 
 showy part also was rendered to him, by a 
 pleasing and natural incident. 
 
 Lord Wellington’s men having worn out 
 their shoes, by constant pursuit of the enemy, 
 our Government took measures to prepare to 
 shoe them, by the time they had learned to 
 march barefoot. Joseph Touchwood got the 
 contract ; his beef had been found of such 
 durable texture, that the hides, in all reason, 
 must last for ever. The order was placed in 
 Northampton ; the shoes were made in a 
 jiffy, and came to Plymouth, two-and-twenty 
 thousand of them, all of a size, not in pairs, 
 but polygamous ; being shaped so admirably 
 as to fit either human foot alike. They 
 passed a triumphant examination, and were 
 happily shipped to a Spanish port, which fell 
 into the hands of Marshal Soult, on the very 
 day of their arrival. 
 
 That great commander rejoiced exceed- 
 ingly; for his men were bare-footed from 
 running away ; and he rigged out seven 
 thousand Gallic heroes in captured British 
 leather — or the like. On the very next day 
 a great battle came off, and the right side 
 won it, — that is to say, ours. Then every 
 Frenchman (shot, lanced, or taken prisoner) 
 was proved to be as lame as a cock on a 
 glassed wall ; and although no allowance was 
 made for that drawback, the hand of Provi- 
 dence was discovered in it. It was useless 
 for Touchwood to deny that he had foreseen 
 this result and produced, at great outlay, a 
 patriotic stratagem. In a word, with no more 
 waste of time than was needful for the British 
 Cabinet to conceive, ponder, and deliver a 
 large budget of jokes at the Frenchman’s 
 expense, of his vain attempt to fill British 
 leather, and getting into the wrong pair 
 of shoes, &c. — amid public applause, they 
 made the contractor a baronet, instead of 
 paying him. 
 
 Sir Joseph would liefer have received the 
 money ; for the shoes stood him fairly in 9d. 
 a-piece ; and he counted for a further loss 
 his non-gain of three shillings upon every one 
 of them. He had no honest ground for 
 complaint however, having run a good cargo of 
 French goods homeward, as well as established 
 a permanent basis for supplying the French 
 
74 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 through the rest of that campaign, with slop- 
 flannel trousers as blue as their legs. 
 
 Sir Joseph worked harder than ever, al- 
 though universally respected by this time. 
 And though he cared little for empty honour, 
 he loved fame when it led to business. Lady 
 Touchwood began to think more of his 
 opinion, and allowed him no longer to be 
 called “ our Joe.” He flourished exceed- 
 ingly ; but stuck to business still, and left all 
 the decorative part to her. This lady was 
 an admirable wife and mother, kind, 'warm- 
 hearted, full of interest in things that were no 
 concern of hers, an excellent adviser, when 
 not consulted, as good to the poor as they 
 would let her be, vigilant in her own house- 
 hold, and resolute in having her own way 
 always. The most captious of critics could 
 find r.o fault in her, except that she was 
 obstinate, imperious, narrow-minded, and 
 ridiculously passionate, when “put out.” 
 And a very little thing was enough to put 
 her out ; though she always believed it to be 
 monstrous. 
 
 “ Now I call it very good of you to cope 
 to me so promptly; ” she exclaimed, holding 
 out both fat hands to Mr. Short. “ I always 
 like people to do that so much. Never 
 mind anything. Do sit down.” 
 
 Mr. Short bowed pleasantly, but made no 
 pretty speech, though the ladies still expected 
 such politeness from the gentlemen. For he 
 knew that this lady would only cut short his 
 oration. 
 
 “ I am the most persecuted person in the 
 world,” she continued, glancing sadly at a 
 statuette of Dido; “no, she was not to be 
 compared to me, and she did burn the villain 
 who betrayed her ! ” 
 
 “ Sir Joseph ? ” enquired Mr. Short with 
 some surprise, but too wary to correct the 
 lady’s memory of the FEneid. 
 
 ‘‘Sir Joseph! How can you be so ex- 
 ceedingly provoking ? Sir Joseph is a 
 model ; and besides that, he knows better. 
 It is my daughter Julia.” 
 
 “I am grieved indeed,” Mr. Short said 
 softly, and dropping his eyes, lest they should 
 gleam' with any levity. “The young lady 
 promised to behave so well ; and she seemed 
 so truly sorry, so affectionate and dutiful, 
 after having shown a little— temper perhaps, 
 on Monday.” 
 
 “Then you shall hear how she has kept 
 her promise. This morning, without provo- 
 cation or excuse, she packed up all her pro- 
 perty, and she left my house ! ” 
 
 “ Surely there must have been something 
 more than usual ? ” 
 
 “ Not at all. You shall judge for yourself. 
 She is constantly pretending to have judg- 
 ments of her own, and to use what she calls 
 her reasoning powers. No good ever comes 
 of such a thing as that. But she is at liberty 
 to do it, when she pleases ; so long as she 
 only agrees with me. But to argue against 
 her own mother, Mr. Short ! ” 
 
 “ Lady Touchwood, I agree with you that 
 it is wrong. But of course, with your 
 superior intellect, you convinced her of her 
 error.” 
 
 “ That I did thoroughly. I boxed her 
 ears, untih they were as red as the things 
 they make sauce of. Oh, it was such a satis- 
 faction to me ! ” 
 
 Mr. Short stared a little, though he knew 
 the lady’s temper. Then he thought of the 
 haughty tall Julia, whom he admired with a 
 distant fervency. Julia, with her pretty ears 
 as red as ripe tomatoes ! 
 
 “ I hurt my poor hands shockingly, with 
 her nasty brilliants. It was too bad of her.” 
 Lady Touchwood exhibited her dimpled but 
 vigorous palms, with pink lines on them. 
 
 “ She went to bed, as I thought, in a chastened 
 spirit ; and I told her to pray for a better 
 frame of mind. But instead of that, she has 
 done what I tell you.” 
 
 “ But you know where she is ? You have 
 ascertained that, otherwise you would be in 
 great tribulation. Is she gone to her father 
 at Plymouth ? ” 
 
 “ Not she indeed. Sir Joseph has too 
 much high principle to encourage her ; though 
 he would, no doubt, if he dared, because she 
 can do exactly as she likes with him.” 
 
 “ Then perhaps to her aunt at Ivybridge ? 
 I am sure that you know, or you would be 
 more sorry for what you have done, Lady 
 Touchwood.” 
 
 “ I do the right thing, and I defy the con- 
 sequence. But I know where the hussy is 
 well enough. I ought to have taken her 
 purse away. She has hired a post-chaise, 
 and driven off forsooth, in noble state, to 
 Westcombe Hall.” 
 
 “To Colonel Westcombe’s place ! I had 
 not the least idea even that you knew him. 
 I have spoken of him, and you made no 
 sign.” Mr. Short looked surprised, for he 
 was thinking — “Well, you can hold your 
 tongue, when you please, as well as people of 
 better temper.” 
 
 “ Oh dear yes,” replied Lady Touchwood, 
 as if she were surprised at his surprise; “we 
 have known Colonel Westcombe for years 
 and years ; in fact he is Julia’s godfather, and 
 immensely proud she is of him. But circum- 
 
CHRISTOWELL. 
 
 75 J 
 
 stances — well you know, there was no par- 
 ticular reason, why one should go running 
 after him, until he came into that large pro- 
 perty ; and that, as you must be aware, was 
 not at all expected.” 
 
 “ It is an honour to any one to know 
 Colonel Westcombe. Land or no land, rich 
 or poor, no circumstances make any differ- 
 ence in his value.” 
 
 “ I dare say. But still you know, it adds 
 to his charms to be in a good position. Sir 
 Joseph was thinking of inviting him to dinner ; 
 but I must see first how he behaves about 
 my daughter. If he encourages poor Julia 
 in her headstrong violence, and evil tempers, 
 he shall never sit down in this house, Mr. 
 Short.” 
 
 “ Whatever he does will be right, Lady 
 Touchwood, whatever your opinion may be 
 about it. And now, though I am not the 
 clergyman of your parish, you have given me 
 the right to speak, by sending for me. And 
 setting aside all the folly of your conduct, 
 
 I must tell you that it is very wrong.” 
 
 Mr. Short spoke strongly, for he feared no 
 one, and cared very little for the temper of 
 any woman, except his own Mrs. Aggett. 
 He expected to be escorted to the door with 
 much despatch. But instead of that, his 
 hostess bore meekly with him, and even 
 seemed to listen with attention. For she 
 knew in her heart that she had gone a little 
 too far, peradventure, and she respected the 
 established church, whenever she was not 
 furious. In her youth she had been a quiet 
 gentle-looking person, with large blue eyes, 
 and a plump round face, and delicate com- 
 plexion. But even then, the doubling of the 
 chin, the bold cut of nostril, and fulness of 
 the eyelids showed that mischief might come 
 out, and patience not strike root in age. 
 
 “ Is your homily over ? ” she enquired with 
 a smile, which saved her words from rude- 
 ness ; for like many other quick-tempered 
 persons, she had a very pretty smile, to put 
 her in the right. “ You are famous for very 
 short sermons, with a very great deal in them. 
 How I wish you were our Vicar here, instead 
 of Mr. Barker ! He always goes on for three 
 quarters of an hour.” 
 
 “ Barker is a very sound and excellent 
 divine. Many of my people long for him. I 
 always get him over for collection-Sundays. 
 He draws half-a-crown, where I draw a shil- 
 ling. My farmers say, ‘ short time makes 
 short wages.’ But what have you sent for 
 me to do, about your fair deserter ? ” 
 
 “ To advise me, Mr. Short ; because you 
 are so clever. People are so liable to mis- 
 
 understand me. They never make allowances 
 for the trials I encounter. Sir- Joseph is all 
 the week long at his office, and I have to go 
 through every hardship, by myself. Even if 
 he were here this moment, I could not allow 
 him to interfere ; because he is so one-sided.- 
 He looks upon Julia, as a perfect angel, be- 
 cause she understands his snuff so well. She 
 gets on her father’s blind side so cleverly, the* 
 crafty young time-server ! ” 
 
 “ But your son, Lady Touchwood — your 
 admirable son ? ” 
 
 “ Dicky is a model of every known virtue y 
 but he spends all his time with the rat- 
 catcher’s dogs. At this time of year it is 
 most important to get the rats thinned off, 
 you know. And besides that, he takes such 
 extraordinary views, that he goes against me 
 very often. I have felt it my duty to have 
 this matter kept from him, for fear of his 
 taking it in an unbecoming manner.” 
 
 “ Which means in plain English, that he 
 would side with his sister. It was very good 
 of her to go away without involving him. 
 But something must be done, and done at 
 once, if possible. You have not allowed the 
 servants to discover, I suppose, the cause of 
 this sudden departure.” 
 
 “Their opinions are nothing whatever to- 
 me. If they form nasty ones, I discharge 
 them. But Julia has much more dignity, I 
 should hope, than to whine about what she 
 has brought upon herself. She could not 
 help feeling that she brought it on herself.” 
 
 “Very well then,” replied Mr. Short, to< 
 avoid that difficult subject, “we may treat 
 the matter as a simple visit of the young 
 lady to her dear godfather. The servants, 
 and the stable-men may be wroth at being 
 dispensed with, or endeavour to be so ; but 
 upon the whole, the less they have to do the 
 more thoroughly they enjoy it. You on the 
 other hand show no anxiety, but. leave the 
 fair fugitive to her own devices. She in her 
 exile begins to pine for her birds, and her 
 books, her flowers, her piano, and her pet- 
 dog Elfie.” 
 
 “No, not Elfie. She has taken that wretch 
 with her. You may trust her never to stir a 
 yard, without darling Elfie. She may pine, 
 as you say, if she is capable of it ; but surely 
 the first thing she should pine for is her own 
 good mother.” 
 
 “ So she will, and very painfully indeed. 
 And the end of it is that she writes a touch- 
 ing letter, and comes home with a wholesome 
 knowledge that the ears must expiate the 
 tongue’s offences.” 
 
 “You know nothing at all -about her,” 
 
76 
 
 GOOD WORDS, 
 
 Lady Touchwood answered, with a mother’s 
 smile. “ What does a bachelor know of 
 women ? They calculate on them, from their 
 own reason. For instance, do you think that 
 I could wait a month, with my daughter in 
 the hands of other people, and learning all 
 sorts of tricks against her own mother ? I 
 can be very patient, and most long-suffering, 
 when I am convinced that my trials require it. 
 But as for sitting down like this, and think- 
 ing, and hoping. for people to be reasonable, 
 your own sense must show you that I never, 
 never could put up with it. Surely you must 
 have some wiser plan than that ! ” 
 
 “ I will tell you then, what I will do, if you 
 think fit. I will call upon my old friend, 
 Colonel Westcombe, if you wish me to do so, 
 and see Miss Touchwood.” 
 
 “ Not as if you came from me, of course. 
 Julia would get the upper hand directly. 
 But why not go to-day, Mr. Short? The 
 days are getting nice and long, and it is not 
 very far.” 
 
 “ Twelve good miles, as the crow flies,” 
 said her visitor, thinking to himself that she 
 deserved some brisk anxiety ; “ and the crow 
 would have many steep hills to fly over. 
 My horse took me forty miles yesterday, and 
 more* And if I went now, it would look as 
 if you were devoured with regret and peni- 
 tence : and that would be below your dignity. 
 To-morrow I have an engagement of im- 
 portance. But unless you send to stop me, 
 1 shall make a point of being there in good 
 time on Saturday morning. You will see her 
 on Saturday by dinner-time ; it takes a little 
 time to get ovei such things.” 
 
 “ It ought to be sooner, but it must not be 
 later. Remember that Sir Joseph will be 
 home that evening; and if he should not 
 have done well that week, he might make a 
 whole string of troublesome enquiries. You 
 must not think me selfish. That is the last 
 thing to be said of me. But I like people to 
 be considerate to me, and amiable, and 
 sweet-tempered. And I have a good right 
 to expect it, Mr. Short, for I am always so to 
 others — when they let me.” 
 
 “ Ah, yes I see. But how fond you are of 
 self-examination, Lady Touchwood ! Is it 
 because you find the result so favourable ? ” 
 “I am never put out by sarcastic speeches ; 
 because I don’t understand them. I hope 
 you will come and dine with us on Sunday, 
 if that dreadful Mrs. Aggett will allow you.” 
 The Vicar was never ashamed to say that 
 he heartily loved a good dinner. How many 
 a parson has got his living, by knowing what 
 good living is ? Wherefore are college 
 
 kitchens far more glorious than the lecture- 
 rooms, and why does the buttery excel the 
 chapel ? Therefore Mr. Short said yes, with 
 a very cheerful countenance, and observed 
 with tender resignation, as he rode home 
 through the park, that the fattest of the bucks 
 was absent. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. — HOUSE-BREAKING. 
 
 As with orders of monoecious plants, so 
 with some families of human kind, the female 
 flower transcends the male in beauty, size, 
 and dignity. In all these points Sir Joseph 
 'Touchwood, and Richard, his only son, fell 
 far below the mark of the ladies they belonged 
 to. The father and founder was an admirable 
 man, when regarded from a national, that is 
 to say from a business point of view. He 
 had never been known, except by himself, to 
 miss a chance of getting on ; and from day 
 to day he became more honest, as his 
 character increased. Plymouth began to re-, 
 spect him deeply, as she found his vigour 
 enlarge her trade, and some Radical deputa- 
 tions begged him to go up to Parliament. 
 However he had too much sense for that, 
 and managed to get out of it, without offence 
 to any one. But several of his school fellows, 
 who had not got . on so well, thoroughly 
 agreed with one another, that “Sandy Joe” 
 (as they still called him) was making a fool 
 of himself in building, over there by Dart- 
 moor, that popinjay, pack-of-cards, peep-show 
 thing, like the Lord Mayor’s coach in London ; 
 and unless they were very much mistaken, 
 such a stuck-up lot would come down head- 
 long. Sir Joseph, as soon as he heard of 
 these sentiments, proved the largeness of his 
 mind by inviting all the critics to his great 
 house-warming, and the few of them who 
 went were so well treated, that they put down 
 all the rest who had no coats to go in. 
 
 A man who succeeds with the hardest 
 thing of all, and the highest in his opinion, 
 that is to say the money, is apt to believe 
 that he can have his own way — if he chooses 
 to assert it — in the lesser matters of life, such 
 as family love, and respect, and the character 
 of his children. The great contractor, per- 
 ceiving that his son had no special turn for 
 business, resolved to give him a fine educa- 
 tion, and harness him afterwards if needful. 
 He sent him to a private school, and thence 
 to Cambridge, and was proud to hear him 
 called “the Cantab.” The youth learned 
 little, but was not dissatisfied either with 
 himself or the world around him. For every- 
 body looked upon him as a pleasant fellow, 
 free-handed, careless, and good-natured in his 
 
CHRISTOWELL. 
 
 77 
 
 way, talkative, full of small adventures of his 
 own, and not disagreeably truthful. He was 
 never long without some mighty hero, whom 
 he worshipped for strength or ability or 
 knowledge of the world, and who could have 
 done better whatever was done well, and with 
 less than a quarter of the trouble. Though 
 indolent enough of mind, he was very restless 
 bodily, and would keep the whole house upon 
 the fidget, unless he got his daily exercise. 
 And now, as he was missing his term at 
 Cambridge, and no field-sports were toward, 
 his mother considered it a special grace of 
 Providence in favour of her Dicky, that 
 Dartmoor was invaded by a mighty host of 
 rats. For if there was anything that Dicky 
 Touchwood thoroughly enjoyed, it was a 
 good rat-hunt. 
 
 Now the fact that every one, high or low, 
 who possessed the pleasure of his acquaint- 
 ance — and one need not be very high to do 
 that — called him without hesitation, “ Dicky 
 Touchwood,” is as clear a proof as can be 
 given of his easy careless style. His mother 
 and sister had bravely striven, at the dates of 
 his breeching, and then of his horsing, and 
 then of his having a tail thrown over, to 
 redeem him from a Dicky into Richard, 
 Dick, or Richie, or even the old-fared Dickon. 
 At each of these epochs their struggle was 
 vain, but they rallied for a final stand upon 
 the breastwork of his matriculation. For 
 many a mile and league around them, none 
 but some half a score of parsons knew the 
 meaning of that mighty word, and possibly 
 it might have triumphed over nature, if the 
 latter had not ignobly adopted the argwnen- 
 tum ad hominem. For the Cantab, upon his 
 return, as arranged by his mother, in full aca- 
 demical plight, as he leaped from the chariot 
 of the Park, in the presence of the whole 
 population, upset the entire effect, by shout- 
 ing — “ Three cheers for Dicky Touchwood ! ” 
 
 His only sister Julia was of a very different 
 order. Tall, and handsome, and resolute, and 
 straight-forward, she kept her own place, and 
 followed her own liking. She reigned over 
 her father, when he was at home, and was 
 fairly reducing her mother to subjection in 
 spite of some violent outbreaks. The latest 
 of these had filled her with amazement even 
 more than with indignation, until she per- 
 ceived, being very clear-sighted, that it was 
 a last despairing effort to cast off the tighten- 
 ing yoke. With skilful management on her 
 part, it would prove the final clenching of the 
 link. Dicky was a far more uncertain sub- 
 ject, for there was not substance enough in 
 him to bind. 
 
 The sportive Dicky made few inquiries as 
 to the reason of his sister’s absence. When 
 she was gone he could have his own way, 
 without let or hindrance, until something 
 disagreed with his mother. For he was her 
 darling, her pet, and her idol, and he alone 
 of mortals might ever contradict her. So 
 now he resolved to make the most of this 
 fine opportunity, and be master so far as he 
 cared to be, which was chiefly in matters of 
 sport and of feeding. Ordering the house- 
 hold right and left, that very afternoon he 
 sent for three rat-catchers, and commanded 
 them to sink their feuds till Sun da;', and be 
 ready for him at the Park-gate the next 
 morning, with every dog and ferret they 
 could hear of, together with their shovels, 
 wire-cages, knobsticks, and all the other 
 items of their interesting gear. With the 
 prospect of a guinea and the certainty of 
 beer, they were punctual as the sun at ten 
 o’clock ; and a motley host of bipeds, qua- 
 drupeds, and tripods — for some of the dogs 
 had only three feet left — set forth gallantly 
 to invade the rats of Dartmoor. 
 
 Meanwhile, on this same Friday morning, 
 Mr. Arthur (generally known as “ Captain 
 Larks ”) was busy with a lot of little vines in 
 pots, which were crying out for more room 
 and more nurture. He had brought them 
 from- his span-roof forcing-house to a little 
 glazed building of his own construction 
 snugly ensconced beneath the cliff. And 
 here, with half a hundred of his new patent 
 pots, he was craftily preparing a delicious com- 
 post, of mealy sod, mellow manure, and spicy 
 bone-dust, enough to make the little mouths 
 of dainty creatures water. At this he worked 
 hard, without sparing his hands, pulling 
 asunder the fibrous clods, but not reducing 
 them to siftage, nipping in twain every wire- 
 worm and grub, carefully distributing the 
 sweet-stuff from the linhay, and the benefit 
 of happy bones that should never ache again, 
 and lightly with his open fingers carding up 
 the mixture, until the whole was sleek and 
 fragrant with the vital gifts of earth. 
 
 None but a very gruff fellow, unworthy to 
 love or be loved by nature, can minister thus, 
 to his little dependants, without ministering 
 also to his own cares. Captain Larks was 
 down-hearted, and perplexed, and quavery, 
 when he drew his hand to do this work ; 
 but courage came to him, and the love of 
 life, and the golden touch of hope, as he 
 went on. The interest in other things be- 
 yond himself grew bright and gladsome, as 
 he worked for good; and without thinking of 
 it, he began to whistle the old English tune, 
 
GOOD WORDS, 
 
 ./8 
 
 “ W e won’t give up.” Last night he had said to 
 himself, “ I must give up. Fate is too much 
 for me, and all things go against me. I must 
 fly from this refuge of many quiet years, and 
 of pet things, the fruit of my own work. I 
 must fly somewhere else, and begin once 
 more, with the loss of all the little relics of 
 my money, and rheumatism settling in my 
 left shoulder-blade. And, worst of all, with 
 -darling Rose astray, and quite bewildered.” 
 
 But now he was hoping for the best, and 
 well believing that fear had made too much 
 of his imaginary trouble. The day was fine 
 and the sunshine brisk, enlivening mankind, 
 and especially those who live among the off- 
 spring of the sun. The soft spring air, afloat 
 with sunbeams, brought the blue distance of 
 the heavens to the earth, and the white 
 blossoms shone upon it, as if they saw it. 
 The gardener, as he plied his work, was 
 breathing sweet contentment, for his heart 
 drank in the beauty; and, better still, at 
 every breath, he felt that fruit was setting. 
 
 “ Father, how glad I am to see you look 
 like your old self again ! ” cried Rose, coming 
 in from the grass-walk. “ Mr. Short is won- 
 derfully good and kind; but I should simply 
 hate him, if he were to begin to disturb your 
 mind. You never ate as much as my thumb 
 for supper, and you couldn’t look worse if I 
 ran away from you.” 
 
 “ I scarcely know how much your thumb 
 eats for supper,” her father replied, as his 
 pleasure increased with gazing at her bright 
 and affectionate face; “but if it has not 
 over-eaten itself, I would beg some help 
 irom it with the ball of this vine.” 
 
 “ Now if you don’t know, papa, you ought 
 to know,” she said in a low voice, as they 
 worked together; “and you ought to be 
 punished for not knowing well, that I am 
 • come to years of full discretion.” 
 
 “ It is a fine thing to have a good opinion 
 of oneself. There, you have proved your 
 words by snapping this root-fibre ! ” 
 
 Although he spoke thus, he was thinking 
 to himself — “ this daughter of mine is dis- 
 creet beyond her years. How she would en- 
 joy her youth, if it were the same as other girls 
 have ! And how beautiful she is, the pretty 
 darling ! ” As for that he was right beyond 
 all doubt, though a father’s pride goes astray 
 sometimes, from cleaving over-fondly to the 
 grooves of love. A very sweet face has its 
 sweetness trebled, when tender doubt, and a 
 light shade of anxiety, soften the bloom of 
 the cheeks, and deepen the lustre of in- 
 quiring eyes. Rose Arthur (with the sun- 
 gleam on her hair, and the pure white fore- 
 
 head touched with thought, and the delicate 
 oval of the face enhanced by the suppliant 
 curve of neck) was not only charming to 
 look at, J)ut also bewitching to think of 
 afterwards. 
 
 “ How can I have at all a good opinion of 
 myself,” she asked her father, with some 
 twinkle of a tear, “ when nobody considers 
 me of any use at all ? ” 
 
 “ What a bare-faced bit of fishing for a com- 
 pliment ! Can I ever do anything without 
 you now ? And when have I failed to praise 
 you up to your deserts ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t mean such trumpery things as 
 potting — or at least they are not at all 
 trumpery, I know — but what I mean is great 
 things, about people’s lives, and reasons for 
 doing things, and not telling other people.” 
 
 “ My darling,” said her father, without 
 displeasure, for he saw that she was trembling 
 at her own audacity ; “ I will not pretend to 
 misunderstand you, neither have I any right 
 to blame you. You want to know why I 
 live a different life from other people whom 
 you know ; why I am so reserved and lonely, 
 and keep you shut up in this dull place.” 
 
 “ Father, I never had such an idea. The 
 place is quite good enough for me, I should 
 hope, if it is good enough for you. And as 
 for being lonely, what more can I want than 
 to have you, and help you, and try to be half 
 as good to you as you are to me ? ” 
 
 “Well, my little Rosy one, that is all 
 very fine in theory.' The practice, however, 
 goes otherwise, or why are you asking ques- 
 tions now? ” 
 
 “ I never would have said a word, dear 
 father, except that I cannot bear to see you 
 vexed. It does not matter a bit about my- 
 self ; but when it comes to you, it is dread- 
 ful.” 
 
 “ But suppose, my pet, that it is only for 
 you that I care much about anything. Sup- 
 pose that, for reasons which are not my own 
 to tell, I am bound to keep my darling child 
 from the roughness of the world ; and can 
 do it only by keeping outside of the world 
 altogether. If that were so, you would have 
 faith enough to believe that I acted for the 
 best, and love enough not to increase my 
 cares by questions which I cannot answer.” 
 
 “ Oh, father, I wish that I had bitten out 
 my tongue, before I asked a single question. 
 I will never be so cruel and undutiful again. 
 But you will forgive me for this once ? ” 
 “Rosy, I am very glad that you did ask. 
 It will make things happier between us, on 
 the whole. You must have thought a thou- 
 sand times that there was something odd 
 
CHRISTO WELL. 
 
 79 
 
 about us. It is better to make up your 
 mind to that, than to live in a doubtful 
 suspicion of it. In the course of time you 
 will know the whole. But I fear that it will 
 not be while I live.” 
 
 “ Then I hope that it will never be in this 
 world, father. Whatever should I do with- 
 out you ? It is too dreadful ! ” 
 
 “ There now, my darling, let us talk no 
 more about it,” said the father, with his child’s 
 fears on his cheek ; “ we have got a lot of 
 work to do, and let us give our minds to it. 
 After all, there are millions of people in the 
 world not a thousandth part so happy as you 
 and I may be, while we have one another’s 
 love to help us.” 
 
 “ I should like to see anybody impudent 
 enough to be happier than I am, all day long. 
 
 I have never known an atom of unhappiness 
 in my life.” 
 
 She gave a little sob, to prove her words, 
 and caught her breath quickly at such a mis- 
 take. Then she tossed up a heavy pot, and 
 turned her sleeves up to show what energetic 
 arms she had. 
 
 “ How they have grown in the night ! 
 Look at this ! ” she exclaimed with a smile 
 that was full of delight. “ Father, there is 
 nothing in all the world more lovely than a 
 baby vine, just when it begins to understand 
 things, and offer its innocent hands to us. 
 Look for one moment at this little darling ; 
 now doesn’t it seem to be toddling to me, 
 with its tiny hands spread out ? Papa, I am 
 sure there is nothing in the world half so 
 beautiful as gardener’s -work. What are 
 jewellers, or watchmakers, or ivory-carvers, 
 or even painters, to compare with a genuine 
 gardener ? The things that they handle are 
 dead, and artificial, and cannot know the 
 meaning of the treatment they receive. But 
 our work is living, and natural, and knows 
 us, and adapts itself to follow our desires and 
 please us, and has its own tempers, and 
 moods, and feelings, exactly the same as we 
 have. For people to talk about ‘ sensitive 
 plants ’ does seem to be such sad nonsense, 
 when every plant that lives is sensitive. 
 You are very busy, but just spare time to 
 look at this holly-leafed baby vine, with 
 every tiny point cut like a prickle, yet much 
 too tender and good to prick me. It fol- 
 lows every motion of my hand, it crisps its 
 little veinings up, whenever I come near it, 
 and it feels in every fibre that I am looking 
 at it.” 
 
 “ It is in my power to swallow tales of 
 gigantic bulk,” Mr. Arthur replied, and then 
 opened his mouth, to show its noble capacity; 
 
 “ especially when they come from you, my 
 dear. Nevertheless, after watching my vines 
 for many years, I have never had the luck to 
 receive such reciprocity. Please to show 
 me the next time you see them looking at 
 you.” 
 
 “ As if I would be guilty of such treachery, 
 Papa ! They know that I am foolish, and 
 they like me for it. But you are much too 
 wise for them, and scare them of their con- 
 fidence. Stop a moment, did you hear that 
 noise again ? There has been such a noise 
 going on around the beacon. The glass has 
 prevented you from hearing it, I suppose. I 
 meant to have told you, till we spoke of 
 something else. There seems to be a quantity 
 of men and dogs up there, shouting, and bark- 
 ing, and screaming out, and making the 
 greatest uproar.” 
 
 “ Whatever it is, I would strongly recom- 
 mend them to keep it outside of my premises. 
 Halloa!” 
 
 Well indeed might he thus exclaim. A 
 dark bulk fell upon the glittering roof, at the 
 crash a shower of flashing splinters flew like a 
 bursting firework, and a human form tumbled 
 in all doubled up, and rolled upon a newly- 
 potted platoon of those sensitive vinelets. 
 
 “ Oh, he must be killed !” cried Rose, run- 
 ning up to him. “ The poor unfortunate 
 little boy ! I have got his head up on a pot. 
 Father, hold him up till I get the water.” 
 Rose herself was bleeding sadly from the 
 arrowy sleet of glass ; but without two 
 thoughts she was off, and came back with a 
 long-spouted can, and put a copper spreader 
 on it. 
 
 “ No,” said her father, as she held up the 
 can to water this gentleman freely; “not a 
 drop of water. I have seen much bloodshed. 
 Water would be wrong in a case like this. 
 Leave him to me. Run for bandages quickly, 
 and send Moggy off the short way to the 
 village, quick foot, for Dr. Perperaps.” 
 
 Rose was off, like a deer, and the gardener 
 began, after drawing out one or two splinters 
 of glass, and placing the youth in a better 
 position, to close the worst cuts with cotton 
 wool (which he always kept in the green- 
 house) tightly bound with broad strips of 
 bast. Then he soaked the wool with cold 
 water, and the patient gave a long gasp, and 
 began to look about him. 
 
 “ Not dead yet, my boys !” He tried to 
 shout, but only muttered ; “ at him again, 
 Tiger, at him again ! Get him by the scruff, 
 Bob, don’t be an idiot. Hurrah, well done 
 Peppercorns !” 
 
 “ Hold your tongue, sir, and shut your 
 
So 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 eyes,” Mr. Arthur broke in, with his deepest 
 tone, and the youth stared at him, and obeyed 
 his voice, after putting up his lips, as if he 
 longed to whistle. And while his mind went 
 wandering into wonder, and distant dim- 
 ness, a little dog, with all his wits about him, 
 came in at the door, and, making obeisance 
 with a tremulous tail, asked courteous leave 
 to sniff at him. Mr. Arthur, being fond of 
 dogs, said, “ Yes;” and before this dog could 
 have satisfied his mind, two more came in to 
 help him. But the first dog, being of a 
 kingly order, signified to them that they were 
 not wanted ; and when they retired at his 
 growl, he joined them, and the three held 
 council. As sagely as any three M.D.’s they 
 conducted their consultation, with their ears 
 upon the curl, and their tails upon the wag, 
 so far as men had spared them. But sud- 
 denly all three stumps fell flat, and quivered 
 with humility, for, lo ! there stood their wor- 
 shipful masters, puffing, and blowing, and 
 inclined to 3wear, at having only two legs 
 each, to bring them down the wall of crag. 
 
 “ Cappen Larks, be ’un killed ?” they cried, 
 all scared to go into the greenhouse. “ The 
 young Squire Dicky, oh lor, oh lor, and all 
 the vault to be laid on us ! Back there 
 with ’e, every one o’ you chaps ! Us’ll lash 
 the legs of any chaps as trieth it. These be 
 Cappen’s own privy grounds, and no black- 
 guards admitted in.” 
 
 “Be off every one of you,” the owner 
 shouted, with a smile which went against his 
 words ; “or in two minutes you will be pro- 
 secuted with the utmost rigour of the law.” 
 
 “ Cappen Larks, don’t ye be so haish for 
 to deny us a zaight o’ the poor Master Dicky. 
 There never wor a better one to work a rat 
 out, and if a’ be killed us ’ll niver hunt again.” 
 
 “ My good fellows, he is not killed, and he 
 won’t be, if you will get out of the way. But 
 I won’t answer for it, if you come plaguing 
 here. Be off, if you care for his life, this 
 moment.” 
 
 “ Cappen, us 'll get out of the wai, quick- 
 sticks. It goo’th to our hearts to zee ’un 
 blading so. But to vare up they stones again 
 is beyond our breeches.” 
 
 “ Fare out this way, then ; across the water. 
 But tell me first how the young man fell, and 
 what his name is, and where he lives.” 
 
 “ ’Twor all by rason of the bottled beer, 
 sir. Do ’e see thiccy moot-stane round the 
 cornder ? Us had a score of bottled beer up 
 yonner, and young Squire Dicky’s hat were 
 too small to hold ’un. Muster Dicky Touch- 
 wood, from Touchwood Park. Whatever 
 will my lady zay to us ?” 
 
 “You had better go and see, but tell her 
 not to be uneasy. The doctor will be here 
 .at once, and the lad will soon come round. 
 Clear out this very instant, dogs and men.” 
 
 For by this time thirty dogs of every 
 genealogy were poking about among the 
 captain’s pots. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. COLONEL WESTCOMBE. 
 
 While the sportive Cantab thus broke into 
 Mr. Arthur’s humble greenhouse, his sister 
 Julia was enjoying the keen air of the western 
 moors, and passing through it swiftly and 
 sweetly with the cheerful aid of a well-bred 
 horse. Miss Touchwood always looked well 
 in the saddle, and a lady’s riding-habit was 
 a graceful dress at that time, although the 
 hat was hideous. But this young lady, think- 
 ing for herself, would not wear the hideous 
 hat, but designed in lieu thereof a sensible 
 and becoming head-gear, and got it made at 
 Devonport. With its curving rim turned up 
 at one side, and a grey feather pluming round 
 the front without any monstrous buckle, it 
 sat lightly over her long dark eyebrows, clear 
 eyes, and expressive face. “ What a booty 
 her be ! ” said a tramp, to whom she had 
 thrown a shilling graciously. “ So her maight 
 be,” his wife replied, “ so long as her getteth 
 her own way.” 
 
 Riding with her across the moor was her 
 host and godfather, Colonel Westcombe, a 
 plain, stout man of average stature, thick-set, 
 broad across the back, and looking as if no 
 tailor’s art could make his clothes sit well to 
 him. But that consideration moved him not, 
 so long as he had plenty of room inside them. 
 He thought of appearances no more than 
 “Captain Larks” himself did, though he 
 liked to see ladies nicely dressed, and young- 
 men looking tidy. Upon his face his character 
 was as clearly outlined as his nose, a distinct 
 and eloquent feature. Any one could see 
 that he was simple-minded, slow at working 
 out the twists of thought, accustomed to let 
 his ideas flow into the mould of words before 
 dealing with them, gently reluctant to think 
 evil of mankind concerning any matter in 
 which he had not as yet been robbed atro- 
 ciously, compassionate, fearless, and as 
 hopeful as a child, and properly indignant 
 when he came across a rogue. But large as 
 the field was for that right feeling, even in 
 those more upright days, the Colonel was 
 pleased to get out of it and say, that his 
 knowledge of the world must not harden 
 him so much. 
 
 After many years of scrimped penurious life, 
 such as behoves the British officer (especially 
 
CHRISTOWELL. 
 
 81 
 
 when he has done great things, and must pay 
 for the honour of doing them) this Colonel 
 suddenly came into possession of large pro- 
 perty. Diggory Westcombe, his father’s elder 
 brother, who never would have anything to 
 do with them in life, through some bitterness 
 of blood, forgave upon his death-bed all the 
 injuries he had done, and left all his pro- 
 perty, when quite despaired of, to his next of 
 kin and right heir, Colonel John Westcombe. 
 
 That well-known warrior, and strong sharp- 
 shooter against the sap-work of poverty, was 
 amazed at being taken in the rear like this, 
 and surrounded with an army bearing gifts. 
 For a month of market-days, he was out of 
 sorts at not* having to do his own marketing ; 
 for his clear sense told him that what used to 
 be economy would now be no better than 
 meanness. For the sake of his wife, whose 
 health was weak, and of his son, who had 
 the world before him, he was bound to re- 
 joice at this access of wealth ; but for him- 
 self, as he was laid upon the shelf, he would 
 rather have rested on an oaken than a golden 
 one. 
 
 “ If you please, Uncle John,” said his fair 
 god-daughter, who had leave to call him so, 
 though she was only of church-kin to him, 
 “ I cannot allow you to stay in the silent 
 mood which is growing over you.” 
 
 “ My dear, I beg your pardon,” he answered 
 with his simple courtesy and pleasantness ; 
 “ I am sure I would have talked, if I had 
 anything to say. But surely with all this 
 noble prospect — hills, and valleys, and water- 
 courses, and the gorse coming out, and the 
 sheep and the ponies, you would much rather 
 look about than talk.” 
 
 “ Not for a moment; I am used to all that. 
 It comes and goes just the same, and tells 
 me nothing. I would rather have one of 
 your stories of the war, than all the hills of 
 Dartmoor, and the valleys full of water, and 
 the sheep that must terminate in tough mut- 
 ton. And the beauty of your stories is that 
 they must be true, because you always tell 
 them in the very same words, and with the 
 very same look, every time.” 
 
 “ What a prosaic companion you have got ! 
 They say that Charles II. told his stories 
 always so ; but I hope that I resemble him 
 in few other points. Now which of my 
 stories do you wish me to begin ?” 
 
 “ The two, Uncle John ; the famous pair 
 which you promise to tell when you have had 
 a good dinner. You must know the two I 
 mean as well as I do. The first is about the 
 bravest man you ever met with; and the 
 second ought to be about the noblest man. 
 
 The one I have heard always makes me 
 proud of being born in England. I would 
 rather hear such than see fifty miles of moor- 
 land, or even a waterfall fifty feet high, be- 
 cause they stir me into great ideas without 
 making me seem small. Oh, how can poor 
 Dicky spend the best of his time in rat- 
 hunting ?” 
 
 “ Different people look at things from dif- 
 ferent points of view, my dear,” said the 
 Colonel, who liked a rat-hunt himself, and 
 also was fond of a waterfall, and a fine view 
 from the saddle. For although he never 
 noticed things particularly much, he was 
 pleased that they should pass by him nicely, 
 without obliging him to think, any more than 
 change of air might do. “As long as I can 
 remember, Julia, I have been an admirer of 
 fine landscapes ; and, indeed, I saw very 
 beautiful things in Spain ; yet I do not know 
 enough about such matters to deny that — that 
 what you may call human affairs should have 
 the preference. Certainly the bravest man 
 I ever yet have met with ” 
 
 “Uncle John, if you dare to begin it like 
 that, you will flounder before you have come 
 to the snuff place ; and if you were to hesi- 
 tate, you would begin to shake my perfect 
 faith in it.” 
 
 “Julia, is it possible that you can enter- 
 tain the mere shadow of a doubt about the 
 very least particular? If I could imagine 
 that you did that, you should never again — 
 I mean that I should never take any further 
 pleasure in relating to you that, or any other 
 fact again.” 
 
 “ Now, Uncle John, you really must not 
 be so exceedingly savage and peppery. You 
 begin to remind me of — well, never mind.” 
 
 “My dear,” said the Colonel, “I beg your 
 pardon heartily, if I have hastily expressed 
 myself. I am well aware that I sometimes 
 do so, since I came into what people will 
 insist upon calling my improved position. 
 But I never mean anything by it, my dear 
 child, and I am always' sorry afterwards.” 
 
 “ Then you have no right to be so, and 
 ought to go on more. Your only fault is 
 that you are too fond of letting people 
 triumph over you. But now be quick, that’s 
 a dear Uncle John, and make amends by 
 beginning it aright. You know that it always 
 begins like this, — 4 Towards the close of the 
 hardest, perhaps, of the many hard conflicts 
 our great Commander ’ — but stop, till I come 
 the right way of the wind.” 
 
 “ I am not at all sure,” her companion 
 answered, as the young lady drew her horse 
 to the leeward side of his, and looked at him 
 
GOOD WORD'S. 
 
 with an encouraging smile; “that it is in my 
 power to do justice to that remarkable little 
 incident, while I am riding a fast-trotting 
 horse. I was thoroughly used to a horse in 
 my youth, for my father did afford to keep 
 one, and I was on his back perpetually. 
 And in the Peninsula, I have ridden some 
 thousands of miles with despatches. But 
 for five-and-twenty years, since I have not 
 been wanted, our circumstances did not per- 
 mit of much riding ; and it takes a little 
 time to be comfortable again.” 
 
 “You ride like a Centaur, Uncle John. 
 It is impossible for anybody to ride better. 
 But still I can easily understand that you 
 like to do things in the regular way. Look, 
 here are two great stones that seem to have 
 dropped from the sky on purpose to be sat 
 upon. Suppose we jump off. and rest the 
 horses, and you can enjoy all the landscape, 
 while you talk.” 
 
 By the side of the long and lonely track, 
 these hoary granite blocks invited the tra- 
 veller to a breezy rest. A tranquil mind 
 would not have found that invitation marred, 
 because accepted, through long ages now, by 
 those who have the rest without the breeze. 
 The stones are the well-known “ Coffin- 
 stones,” whereat for more than six hundred 
 years the bearers of the dead across the moor 
 have halted from their heavy plod, laid down 
 their burden on the stones, to take its latest 
 stretch of mountain, and spread then own 
 bodies on the grass around, to talk of what 
 would happen to themselves ere long. Of 
 these things the young lady had no know- 
 ledge, else would she never have sat down 
 there ; neither did her companion know ; but 
 the knowledge would not have moved him 
 more than to make him sit bare-headed. 
 
 “ Let the poor things graze ; the grass is 
 sweet,” he said, as he took the bridles off ; 
 and the nags, after jerking their noses with 
 surprise, pricked their ears forward — not 
 enough for him to catch them — and looked 
 at him with vrell-meaning doubt. “Yes, you 
 go and crop, I say. The Lord has given 
 you good teeth. And be sure you come at 
 once, when you hear me whistle.” 
 
 Obedient to his voice they went, with a 
 little tenderness of step at first, because it 
 was long since they had crushed the blade, 
 but presently the joy of nature’s colour and 
 the taste broke forth in them ; they pranced 
 and threw up their heels and capered, and 
 the gentleman’s horse made his stirrups clash 
 beneath him, then fearing to waste one pre- 
 cious moment, they fell to and worked the 
 best mowing-machine that has ever been 
 
 invented. The Colonel, more happy than a 
 king, smiled at them, rested on his elbow, 
 and began his tale. 
 
 “ Towards the close of the hardest, per- 
 haps, of the many hard conflicts our great 
 Commander won, by the aid of a Gracious 
 Providence and his own unwearied vigilance, 
 although the position of the enemy was 
 turned, and the issue of the day was scarcely 
 doubtful, one very important post held out, 
 and had repulsed all our attempts to carry 
 it. The difficulties of the ground were 
 great ; not only was the approach very steep 
 and intersected by a watercourse, but also 
 the French artillery, beautifully served at 
 grapeshot range, poured a crossing fire upon 
 our attack. At the same time our own guns 
 could not be brought to bear with any good 
 effect upon this crest, which was defended 
 with admirable spirit by a body of seasoned 
 veterans, as calm and as steady as our very 
 best brigade. In short, there seemed no 
 chance of carrying the position, without fear- 
 ful sacrifice, or even with it. 
 
 “ The line of the enemy, as I have said, was 
 being driven in at almost every other point ; 
 and our great Commander perceiving that 
 we must eventually obtain this post, sent 
 orders that as w r e could not take it, we should 
 maintain our position, until the post was 
 taken for us. 
 
 “ Gentlemen, or rather I should say, c my 
 dear,’ it is impossible for me to make you 
 understand what the feeling of our division 
 was when we received that message.” 
 
 “'Yes, Uncle John, I can understand it 
 thoroughly. I should have been ready to 
 knock my head against the first French 
 cannon I could find. But here you always 
 take a pinch of snuff, with permission of the 
 ladies, if any are present. You have my 
 permission, and more than that, my orders. 
 You will never take that post, without it.” 
 
 “ I know how incapable I am,” resumed 
 the Colonel in his proper tones, “ of describ- 
 ing the condition of the human mind ; but 
 all around me being Englishmen — or, at 
 least, an English lady, I need only say that 
 we were vexed. Because we had always sup- 
 posed ourselves, whether rightly or wrongly, 
 is not for me to say, to be the flower of 
 the whole British army. Every man of us 
 was burning to be at it once again ; and yet 
 we knew better than to set at nought our 
 orders, by attempting another direct assault. 
 I remember, as if I were looking at him now, 
 
 how the indomitable General H turned 
 
 from the staff- officer, and spat upon the 
 ground, to save himself from swearing at our 
 
“ The Colonel, more happy than a king, rested on his elbow and began his tale.” 
 
 Page 82. 
 

CHRIST OWELL. 
 
 83 
 
 great Commander. But while we were all 
 of us as red as a rocket, a young fellow who 
 had lately joined our division, a lieutenant 
 in the ‘Never mind what Hussars,’ as we 
 called them from their recklessness, came 
 
 sheepishly up to our General H- , and 
 
 asked for a private word with. him. The 
 General knew something of his family, I 
 believe, and that makes no small difference, 
 even with the strictest discipline. So,, in 
 spite of his temper, which was very bad -just 
 then, he led the young man apart ; and pre- 
 sently came back with his usual smile re- 
 covered, while the young man remounted 
 his horse and rode away. 
 
 “ To us it had been a most irksome thing 
 to wait there doing nothing, but hearing in 
 the distance the laughter of the enemy, and 
 receiving now and then a round shot ; and 
 when there was a call for some forty volun- 
 teers who could handle an axe, and haul 
 trees away, the only trouble was to choose 
 the men. Having been lucky enough to do 
 something which pleased the General that 
 morning, and being rather supple-jointed m 
 those days, I obtained the command of this 
 little detachment, under very simple orders. 
 Our duty was nothing more than to draw 
 three corks, as the General said, with a laugh 
 at his own wit ; and I never draw a cork 
 now, or get it done for me — since I lost the 
 right of doing my own work — without think- 
 ing what a hard job it was on that occasion. 
 
 “ It sfeems that the young man I told you 
 of just now was very fond of wandering 
 among the woods alone, whenever he could 
 get the opportunity, without actual breach of 
 orders ; and he had just recognised the spur 
 of the hill, which the enemy held so stub- 
 bornly, as a spot well known to him from a 
 former visit. And unless his memory de- 
 ceived him altogether, a narrow neck ot land 
 would be found running down slantwise 
 from the hill on our right, into the very heart 
 of the position. With a hundred, or a hun- 
 dred and fifty horse, dashing down upon the 
 guns, while engaged in front, the whole must 
 falL into our hands at once. Only there was 
 no possibility of a charge, while three young 
 cork-trees, which stood upon the neck at its 
 narrowest point, were standing. 
 
 “ Now the difficulty was, as you will see 
 at once, if you honour me by following my 
 story, gentlemen, not only to cut down those 
 three trees, but to get them clean out of the 
 way, ere ever the enemy should have time to 
 learn what was intended, and bring their 
 guns to bear in that direction. In such a 
 case, cavalry crowded together would simply 
 
 be blown away, iikc waus , 
 forced to go to work very warily, taking ad- 
 vantage of the sham attack in front. 
 
 “ The trees were quite young, and the 
 softness of the bark dulled the sound of our 
 axes as well as their edge ; and being partly 
 sheltered from the outlook of the enemy by 
 the form of the ground, we were getting on 
 quite nicely, and had cleared away two 01 
 the trees and felled the third, and were 
 rolling it out of the way before giving the 
 signal for the charge, when the whistle of 
 grape-shot told us that we had been dis- 
 covered. One man fell, and we lifted him 
 aside, that the horses might not tread on 
 him ; and then at any risk, I gave the signal; 
 because it must be now or never. Our 
 volunteers were ordered to slip off right and 
 left, as two other guns were brought to bear 
 on us ; but my duty compelled me, very 
 much against my liking, to stop in the middle 
 of the drift, to show our cavalry where 
 the obstruction was. For the smoke was 
 hanging low upon the ground, just like a fog. 
 
 “ Now while I stood there, without any 
 consideration, and spread out like a finger- 
 post — for I had not the courage to be care- 
 ful — the enemy sent another volley up the 
 drift, and much of it fell to my share. So 
 that if they had measured their powder 
 aright, I had never lived to find fault with it. 
 Down I went, just in the stream of the 
 track, and for three months heard no more 
 of it. 
 
 “ But the men at the side, who were out 
 of the way, gave a very clear history of what 
 happened, when the shower of grape went 
 past them. The charge, which must have 
 trampled me to death, was stopped by the 
 young officer commanding, with a wave of 
 his sword and his horse reined across ; and 
 then he leaped off, and came alone to where 
 I lay. In the thickest of the fire he lifted 
 me, they said, as calmly as a nurse takes a 
 baby from the cradle, and placed me behind 
 the cork-tree, where shot could never touch 
 me, and the hoof must turn aside. Then he 
 tore off the scarf from his neck, and bound 
 up a wound that was draining my body; 
 while the Frenchmen perceived him, as the 
 smoke rolled off, and like truly noble fellows 
 forbore their fire. He kissed his hand to 
 them, in acknowledgment of this, and then 
 shouting to them that the fighting was re- 
 sumed, returned to his horse, gave the signal 
 to charge, and carried their guns in a twink- 
 ling. Now, such a deed as that makes one 
 proud to be an Englishman.” 
 
 “ Or even a good Frenchman,” fair Julia 
 
*4 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 replied. “I scarcely know which of them 
 behaved the best. And though you make 
 so little of your own part, I think you were 
 the hero of the whole thing, Uncle John. 
 But of course you found out the young 
 officer’s name? And now for the other 
 story, Uncle John. I have heard this story 
 of the bravest man, a lot of times; and I 
 like it better almost every time. But I have 
 never heard the story of the noblest man ; 
 and I dare say that is finer still.” 
 
 “ It is,” the Colonel answered in his simple 
 way. “But I never like to tell that tale in 
 cold blood, or before my dinner. And even 
 so, I must have people who can enter into 
 it. And even then, one ought to have a 
 heavy cold, to explain the condition of the 
 eyes that comes of it.” 
 
 “ The heavy cold you will certainly have, 
 if you sit on these cold stones so long. And 
 here comes a hailstorm, the delicate atten- 
 tion of soft April to Dartmoor. Oh, I shall 
 be blind, if it goes on like this. Whistle for 
 the horses, uncle dear.” 
 
 CHAPTER IX. THE RED-FACED MAN. 
 
 Before “ the ever loyal city,” as Exeter 
 loves to call itself, was undermined with iron 
 bars beneath its Castle-ramparts, Northern- 
 hay was a quiet place, aside of the noisy 
 London road, and pleasant for a Sunday 
 walk. Here, in a good old ivied house, 
 snugly encompassed by thick cob walls, was 
 living, and well deserved to live, a gentleman 
 of the ancient name of “ Tucker.” Also his 
 Christian name was ancient, being “ Caleb,” 
 and no more. 
 
 This gentleman lived with his widowed 
 sister, Mrs. Giblets, late of Barnstaple, whose 
 two boys went to the high grammar-school, 
 as often as they could not help it. The 
 deceased Mr. Giblets, a currier of repute, 
 had thrice been Mayor of Barnstaple, and 
 had sacrificed his life to his festive duties ; at 
 the time of the Reform Bill. His relic was 
 a lady of like dignity and virtue, convinced 
 (as all Barum people are) of the vast superi- 
 ority of that town, yet affable to the Mayor 
 of Exeter. Their daughter, Mary Giblets, 
 was a very nice young lady, a thorough girl 
 of Devon, with a round rosy face, a smile 
 for everybody j, and almost at everything, a 
 pair of brisk substantial feet, and a special 
 turn for marketing. 
 
 Caleb Tucker, the owner of the house, 
 but not the master always, had long been in 
 business as a timber - merchant, and still 
 would make a purchase, or a sale, upon 
 occasion, although he had retired from the 
 
 firm which he had reared. Honesty, indus- 
 try, enterprise, and prudence, had won for 
 him nearly quite enough of money to live 
 upon happily, and want no more. In the 
 vigour of life, when the hearts of men are as 
 quick of warmth as a fire at its prime, he 
 had incurred a very serious loss, never to be 
 balanced in £ s. d. The wife of his love, 
 and the little ones of theirs, went all to the 
 grave between a Sunday and a Saturday, 
 through a storm of black fever, called in 
 Devonshire “ the plague.” This sorrow took 
 the zeal out of his existence, and left him a 
 grave well-balanced man, who had learned 
 that life is not counted by troy-weight. 
 
 Now in the holiday of calm age, Caleb 
 Tucker was a venerable person, slow to move 
 except with pity, and tranquil in the steadfast 
 hope of finding in a larger world the losses 
 of the little one. His sister was twenty 
 years younger than himself, and her children 
 were his successors ; and he meant to do his 
 duty to his own kin, instead of founding 
 charities to be jobbed by aliens. Under 
 these circumstances, it was right of Mrs. 
 Giblets to make much of him, and encour- 
 age him to save and increase his cash. 
 
 How sudden the changes of the weather 
 seem to be ! ” He was saying to his sister, 
 as they sat out in the garden, on the Satur- 
 day, the very day after the Colonel’s tale had 
 been hurried by the hailstorm ; “ the spring 
 weather never used to change like this ; at 
 least when the turn of the days was over. 
 How bright it was yesterday, until it began 
 to rain ! Then the hills towards Dartmoor 
 were covered with snow, or hail, or whatever 
 it may have been.” 
 
 “ It must have been either hail or snow, if 
 it was white : ” Mrs. Giblets replied, being 
 proud of perfect accuracy; “ the weather is 
 continually changing; but the only white 
 things in it are snow and hail.” 
 
 “ Certainly Mollikins, and frost as well. 
 It might have been the white frost on the 
 moors. But whatever it was, it made me 
 think this morning, as I looked at it from my 
 bedroom window, of that poor gentleman I 
 bought the land for. He has made such a 
 beautiful garden up there, and I fear that 
 the frost will destroy all his bloom.” 
 
 “ He must suffer the will of the Lord, I 
 suppose, as everybody else is obliged to do. 
 Sometimes I lose my patience with him, be- 
 cause you never tell me who he is. Why 
 should a gentleman come down here, and 
 buy a little far-off place like that, and work 
 like a common labourer? No one would 
 dare to attempt such a thing in the neigh- 
 
CHRISTO WELL. 
 
 85 
 
 bourhood of Barnstaple. It would be the 
 duty of the Mayor to find him out. But in 
 this part of the world, conspirators carry on 
 just as they please.” 
 
 “ Sister, you talk a great deal too fast. It 
 you ever know the truth you will be sorry 
 for your words. Women are so fond of rush- 
 ing to the worst conclusions.” 
 
 “ Some of them do so ; but whose fault is 
 it ? You know that I do the very opposite, 
 my dear, whenever I am not denied the 
 knowledge. I wish with all my heait that I 
 had never heard about him ; although I liked 
 him very much the only time I saw him. But 
 I always take things as I find them. I have 
 no curiosity whatever about anything.’ 
 
 “ Molly, you are very wise ; ” answered Mr. 
 Tucker ; “ we have all of us enough of trouble 
 with our own affairs. And here comes pretty 
 Mary, for to tell us something pleasant.” 
 
 “No indeed, uncle, it is quite the other 
 way,” cried Mary, as she hurried up the 
 walk from the side door ; “ I took the short 
 cut, and I left all the nuts I was buying 
 for Bob and for Harry, to tell you not to see 
 the man — or the gentleman at least, who is 
 riding up the hill to look for you. Oh, 
 uncle dear, he is such a nasty man, and has 
 the evil eye, if ever anybody had it ! Oh 
 dear, I turned my testament in my pocket, 
 — mischief will come of it, as sure as I m 
 alive.” 
 
 “If ever there was a little goose in the 
 King’s, or rather in the Queen’s dominions 
 now, her name is Mary Giblets.” Though 
 he spoke thus bravely, Mr. Tucker did not 
 like it ; and his sister said, “ Mary, fie for 
 shame ! Look at your gathers, Miss ! ” 
 
 “ I had no time to think about anything 
 at all,” she answered with her colour ripened 
 from the peach-bloom into peach ; “ he was 
 asking at Besley’s, and Snell’s, and Sharland s, 
 where Mr. Caleb Tucker lived, and he called 
 you the land-agent. Mr. Snell told him you 
 had never been that, but a strictly retired 
 gentleman ; and then the man laughed 
 such a nasty laugh, mamma, and young Tom 
 Besley, who is always such a stupid, looked 
 up from the copper mill where he was grind- 
 ing pepper, and he says ‘ that young lady 
 will show you sir • that’s his own niece, Miss 
 Giblets.’ I felt as if I could have boxed his 
 ears. And the red-faced man rode up to me 
 with his hat off, and said, ‘ Miss Giblets, will 
 you be my charming guide ? ’ And I couldn’t 
 think of anything to say, he looked so impu- 
 dent. But I made him a curtsey, and began 
 walking up the hill, and then I thought to 
 myself that I would pay him out. So I turned 
 
 down Black Horse Alley towards the cut 
 across Parson’s meadow (which is the nearest 
 way, you know) and left him to follow, or 
 not, as he pleased. Well it pleased him to 
 come, and to want to talk to me, just a.s if 
 I were nothing but a shop-girl. I looked at 
 him over my shoulder now and then, and said 
 yes and no, for a quarter of a mile; and 
 likely he considered me as stupid as Tom 
 Besley. Then suddenly we came upon the 
 high turn-stile of Parson’s meadow where 
 the bull Is, and I slipped through like any- 
 thing. 4 Halloa ! Do you expect me to ride 
 over this ? ’ he said. And I said, 1 Oh dear ! 
 Oh dear ! How very stupid of me ! But you 
 only asked me for the shortest way, sir. I 
 dare not stop to give you . any more direc- 
 tions, because of the bull in the bottom of 
 the ham.’ And away I ran, and here I am.” 
 
 “ My darling, what a risk to run ! I have 
 told you not to do it.” Her mother ex- 
 claimed, as she finished her tale ; “ that bull 
 has tossed three people.” 
 
 “ I am ten times more afraid of a bad man 
 than a bull. Now be sure that you refuse to 
 see him, Uncle Caleb.” 
 
 “My dear,” said Mr. Tucker, “you are 
 scarcely old enough to be reproached with 
 ■want of reason. I dare say the gentleman 
 has no harm in him, although he may be a 
 little forward. If so, he had his match in a 
 very modest girl, though one of strong pre- 
 judices, I am afraid. Let us go into ? the 
 house ; perhaps he will be here directly.” 
 Before they had time to put their garden- 
 cjiairs away, the rusty wire beneath the thatch 
 of the warm cob-wall that sheltered them 
 gave a slow reluctant creaking jerk, and then 
 a quick rattle, as it was pulled again ; and 
 the big bell swinging in the ivy of the house- 
 porch, threw up its mouth, like a, cow about 
 to bellow, and fell back upon its wagging 
 tongue through a rustle of crisp leafage. 
 “ Let him ring again,” said Mr. Tucker; 
 “ when a man is in a hurry, I have known it 
 do him good. Don’t go away, sister, I will 
 see him here. x I am too old a soldier to be 
 carried by storm in this way. Mary, you be 
 off, my dear, as if the bull was after you.”. 
 
 Miss Giblets withdrew, but much against 
 her will, for she had a fine stock of. healthy 
 curiosity, and had made up her mind that 
 the red-faced man was come upon an interest- 
 ing errand. Then Bill, the boy of all work, 
 came grinning, with a card in one hand, and 
 a shilling in the other. “ A’ gied me this,” 
 he said, showing first the shilling, as ^the 
 more important object of the two. “Be 
 1 to kape ’un, or gie ’un to you ? ” 
 
86 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 “Gie ’an to your mother,” replied his 
 master, as he took the card, and read the 
 words “ Mr. George Gaston,” with no address 
 beneath them. 
 
 “ Ha, sir, and how are you to-day ? ” The 
 visitor shouted with a hearty voice. “ I have 
 taken the liberty of following my pasteboard. 
 I hope I see the lady quite well also. Madam, 
 your servant ! I am quite old-fashioned. I 
 glory in the society of the ladies ; but my 
 manners are comparatively out of date, I 
 fear.” 
 
 The widow of the mayor possessed a 
 shrewd tongue, as well as a stately reserve, 
 sometimes ; and the former was burning to 
 say that the sooner such manners were posi- 
 tively out of date the better. Like her 
 daughter, the lady conceived an extraor- 
 dinary hatred of this man at sight : but she 
 only showed it by a careful bow, and a gaze 
 of reasonable surprise. 
 
 “ Excuse me, sir — Mr. Gaston, I suppose,” 
 said Caleb Tucker rising slowly, and lifting 
 his hat from his silvery curls ; “ but I doubt 
 not that if you are come upon business you 
 have brought me a letter of introduction ; I 
 do very little in the way of business now, and 
 only with people who are known to me. 
 And I have not the honour of remembering 
 your name.” 
 
 “ You are quite right. Everything you do 
 is right, according to the account I have 
 received of you. Shall I take this chair ? 
 But it would make me wretched to think 
 that I had banished Mrs. Tucker.” 
 
 “ That lady is my sister, sir — Mrs. Giblets, 
 formerly of Barnstaple.” 
 
 “ Bless my heart ! I never heard of such a 
 thing. Have I met Mrs. Giblets at last, 
 without knowing her ? My cousin, Sir 
 Courtenay, is always speaking of her, and 
 her graceful and refined hospitality. But too 
 exclusive — he told me as much. Like all 
 the superior ladies, you are too exclusive, 
 Mrs. Giblets.” 
 
 “That charge has been brought against 
 me, I confess ; ” the lady replied with dig- 
 nity ; “ but wherever would you be, sir, 
 without you drew a line between wholesale 
 and retail ? ” 
 
 Mrs. Giblets retired, with a gracious bow, 
 but some doubt still about the good faith of 
 the visitor ; for although he was older than 
 herself, as her conscience (which she always 
 consulted on the subject) told her, he wore a 
 red-striped neckerchief, and a cutaway coat 
 of bright green with gilt buttons. More- 
 over, his voice was loud and harsh, his man- 
 ner too bold, his figure burly, and his gestures 
 
 impatient and almost imperious ; while his 
 face, though resolute and rather handsome, 
 expressed more than impressed good opinion 
 of himself. His forehead was high and 
 square, the eyes keen and glittering, the nose 
 strong and aquiline, and the chin very firm 
 and prominent. But the colour of the 
 cheeks was fiercely red, the mouth very 
 wide and voracious, and instead of a curve 
 at the hinges of the jaws there occurred a 
 conspicuous angle. Boys, who have powers 
 of observation happily extinguished in later 
 life, dubbed him at school “ George Coffin- 
 face ; ” but when his brow expanded, the 
 name no longer suited him, except as regards 
 the part below the ears, where a few white 
 whiskers showed the harshness of the _ angle, 
 now become more prominent from years of 
 zealous exercise ; while his very florid 
 colour and thick crop of tawny hair gave 
 abundance of life to his countenance. 
 
 “ Now, Mr. Tucker, I have ridden a long 
 way,” he began, after looking round and 
 bringing his chair nearer, “upon a matter 
 really of no importance to me, in any other 
 light than this — that. I may do a kindness, 
 and help a fellow-creature. Probably I shall 
 not even earn so much as thanks, and you 
 know how little those are worth. I do not 
 pretend to be moved by any Quixotic 
 ardour, or Christian duty, or broad philan- 
 thropy, or any romantic motive. But a sense 
 of gratitude for a good turn done me five-, 
 and-twenty years ago, together with some 
 natural desire to baffle selfish roguery — 
 although it is no concern of mine, you see — 
 has led me to sacrifice some valuable time, 
 and trespass perhaps on yours, sir.” 
 
 “Not at all. Don’t speak of it. I am 
 glad to be of service;” Mr. Tucker replied 
 in his regular way. “But did I understand 
 that you had brought a letter to me ? ” 
 
 “ Not a syllable of any kind. I make a 
 point of never insulting anybody. And to 
 suppose that a man of your experience could 
 fail to know a gentleman at first sight would 
 be most impertinent. And let me remind 
 you,” continued Mr. Gaston, perceiving that 
 the other looked a little glum at this, “ that 
 I am not come upon any business question, 
 where my solvency, and so on, might require 
 to be established. My object is simply to 
 perform a kindness, and your aid will cost 
 you nothing, neither risk a single penny. I 
 ask you no favour ; I simply propose it as a 
 duty to yourself, that you should enable me 
 to confer a benefit upon a most deserving 
 and ill-treated fellow-Christian. Instead of 
 losing anything by it, you will gain very 
 
CHRISTOWELL. 
 
 3 7 
 
 largely. For you will thus restore to position 
 and some wealth a man of most grateful and 
 generous nature. I have no cant about me, 
 and it is my abhorrence ; but it would be too 
 much of the opposite extreme to deny that 
 the hand of a good Providence is here.” 
 
 “ Sir, you speak well, and very sensibly so 
 far;” answered the cautious timber-merchant, 
 trying to conquer his unreasonable dislike of 
 the red-faced gentleman at first sight ; “ if 
 you will kindly tell me what it is that I can 
 do, I will do it, unless there should be reason 
 to the contrary, or at any rate necessity for 
 consideration.” ? 
 
 “'Oh, it does not require half a moments 
 hesitation ; you will say that I have made 
 much ado about nothing. All I want to 
 know is the address of a gentleman, for 
 whom you bought a small estate from fifteen 
 to twenty years ago ; probably the shorter 
 date is the more correct one, rather a tall 
 man, with a military manner.” 
 
 “ l am not a land-agent,” Mr. Tucker re- 
 plied ; “ neither do I meddle with the law- 
 yer’s business. But at one time, from my 
 knowledge of the county, and purchase of 
 timber, and so on, I was frequently asked to 
 obtain a purchaser for small outlying pro- 
 perties, perhaps belonging to the gentlemen 
 who were selling me their timber. Of course 
 the matter afterwards passed through the 
 proper hands, and I never thought of making 
 any charge for what I did. Still there were 
 so many cases, that without particulars I 
 cannot pretend to say anything.” 
 
 “ Still you must have known in almost 
 every case, who the purchaser was, what made 
 him buy, where he lived, what he did with 
 himself, &c. Officers seldom turn farmers, I 
 believe, and seldom have managed from their 
 miserable pay to save money to buy land 
 with.” 
 
 “ I am ready to oblige you, Mr. Gaston, if 
 I can, without any breach of confidence. 
 Your inquiry is unusual, as you must know ; 
 and unless you can manage to be more pre- 
 cise, I see no possibility of helping you. If 
 you can supply me with the name and date, 
 I may have some recollection of the matter 
 you refer to. Also it is only fair to ask how 
 you have heard of me, and my share in the 
 business. You can scarcely consider that 
 question rude.” 
 
 “ Certainly not, my dear sir ; ” replied the 
 visitor ; “ everything is plain and above 
 
 board here. I only regret that, from my 
 own ignorance I should have to give you so 
 much trouble. But in your desire to do 
 good you will excuse me. The case has 
 
 some little peculiarities, which with your per- 
 mission I will recount. Only let me ask 
 you first if you are sure that a long tale will 
 not weary you.” 
 
 “ Nothing will weary me about — I mean m 
 a case of so much interest.” 
 
 “ How good of you to feel such interest 
 without any knowledge of the people im- 
 plicated. But alas, Mr. Tucker, I am suffer- 
 ing from thirst. I have ridden nearly fifty 
 miles since noon ; now all very pure air, such 
 as that of Devon, contains saline particles ; 
 and in the distance I behold a pump. I would 
 crave your hospitable leave to go and move 
 the handle.” 
 
 “Mr. Gaston, I humbly beg your pardon,’ 
 said the ancient gentleman, arising with a 
 sigh ; “ but my mind is not as present to me, 
 as it used to be. We have not the name of 
 inhospitality, as a rule, in Devonshire ; but 
 I give you my honour, sir, that it quite 
 escaped me. And after your ride— what will 
 my sister say ? I beg you to come into our 
 little parlour. It is getting rather cold out 
 here, and not so comfortable. Perhaps you 
 have never even dined ? Oh dear ! 
 
 “ I shall go to the pump, and that alone, 
 if you say another syllable, my dear. sir. But 
 if you make a point of it, I will go in. But, 
 nothing to eat, sir— not one morsel. My din- 
 ner is a trifle to a man like me, and I have 
 made arrangements about it. Anything, 
 anything — a glass of cold water, with^ a 
 quarter of a knob of sugar suits me well.” 
 However, like most men who speak thus, 
 the traveller was better in his deed than 
 word ; so that three large tumblers of hot 
 rum and water confessed him more capacious 
 than themselves before he had much to say 
 to them. 
 
 “ It is a curious story. You misdoubted 
 me out there ; ” he began, with a wave of his 
 glass drumstick towards the garden. “ Bat, 
 Tucker, I have found you now to be a hearty 
 fellow. The heart, after all, is the thing that 
 matters most with all human beings. Hang 
 it, I don’t suppose one man in fifty thousand 
 would have taken up this thing like me, from 
 pure love of the specie.” 
 
 “ Of the human species ; ” his host amen- 
 ded gently ; then, fearful ot any rudeness, 
 added—' “ no doubt you are right however; the 
 two words are much the same, I do believe.” 
 “ To me no matter is of any moment,” 
 resumed the red-faced man, with his roses 
 deepening into mulberries, “ in comparison 
 with the glow ot heart produced by a noble 
 action. And when we can benefit ourselves 
 as well, what a poor heart it must be that 
 
GOOD WORDS 
 
 hesitates ! Look at the case which I have in 
 hand. An amiable but eccentric man, a 
 pattern of every virtue, except the rare one 
 of common sense, takes a turn against all 
 his family. He fancies that they are all set 
 against him, that their views are sordid and 
 his alone are large ; that as he cannot alter 
 them his best plan is to have nothing to do 
 with them and keep out of their sight. Also 
 he believes that a man’s truest work is to earn 
 his own living with his own hands, and wash 
 them clean of all the vices of the world. In 
 a word, he has crotchets about society, 
 nature, and things of that sort, to put it 
 clearly. Well, he disappears, without rhyme 
 or reason, having lost the only link that re- 
 tained him in society, a charming young 
 wife, who was the goddess of the day. He 
 buries himself in some outlandish region, 
 although he belongs 'to a distinguished 
 family, and has done a good deal to dis- 
 tinguish himself. No doubt he believes 
 that he has acted for the best, that he is 
 fulfilling what is called in the cant of the day, 
 
 * a lofty mission,’ that he stood across the 
 light of other people’s prospects, and was 
 bound in duty to obliterate himself ; whereas 
 in reality he is consulting his own tastes, 
 which are out of all reason and fantastic. 
 
 “Let us say that his family have long 
 looked upon him as an excellent but mis- 
 guided feHow, not a black sheep, but a stray 
 sheep, who will have his own way; and 
 hoping for his happiness they make no fuss 
 about him. But in the course of years, he 
 becomes more needful, as a snug little pro- 
 perty falls to him by succession, and his sig- 
 nature is needed, as a matter of formality in 
 a settlement of importance. In such a case, 
 he must abandon for a moment his hermitage, 
 receive his dues, and perform his duty. 
 Possibly he may be induced to return alto- 
 gether to civilised existence. If so, he will 
 be welcomed by enthusiastic friends, and his 
 history shall appear in letters of pure gold. 
 On the other hand, if he prefers the seclusion 
 .which must have become his second nature 
 now, he may return to it with his wheels 
 greased — excuse the coarseness of the allu- 
 sion, my dear sir, what I mean is with more 
 butter for his farmhouse bread. Now, what 
 do you think of my proposal ? ” 
 
 “ I do not appear to have quite under- 
 stood,” Mr. Tucker replied very quietly and 
 slowly, “ what proposal there is before me, 
 or even that there is any at all. If not a 
 rude question in my own house, I would 
 venture to ask, sir, without offence, whether 
 you are a solicitor ? ” 
 
 “ Come now, my friend, you are a little 
 too hard on me. When I have tried to 
 make it clear to you that I desire to do 
 good ! ” 
 
 “ I am sure I beg your pardon, sir. But 
 so they may sometimes ; I do assure you I 
 have known it. But since you are not in the 
 law, I may speak freely. And to save you 
 further trouble, I will own right out that I 
 am pretty sure by this time of the gentleman 
 you mean. I know of no great mystery in 
 the matter ; and such things are not at all in 
 my line. He wished to be quiet and undis- 
 turbed, as a man might well do in a sad 
 affliction, and as every man has a right to 
 do, if he chooses. I felt the same feeling 
 myself, Mr. Gaston, in the days when the 
 Lord afflicted me.” 
 
 The voice of the old man trembled 
 slightly, for his affliction was life-long; and 
 this had helped to draw him towards the 
 man in like trouble, who had made up his 
 mind to retire from the world. 
 
 “ You too have lamented? ” said the red- 
 faced man. “ It is the lot of us all, my dear 
 sir. But the duty of the strong man is, to 
 up, cast off, and gird himself.” 
 
 “ I will not deny it. But it takes a time 
 to do it, as well as a clear view of the world. 
 And for looking at the world there are quite 
 as many hills, as there are men to stand on 
 them. But I am keeping you long from your 
 dinner, Mr. Gaston, which I believe you 
 have ordered. You do not expect me to tell 
 you, I suppose, ail I know about the gentle- 
 man you ask of? ” 
 
 “If there is anything that I avoid, 
 Tucker,” the visitor replied, as he com- 
 pounded for himself a fourth instalment of 
 rum-punch— “ it is the barest semblance of a 
 liberty. Your excellent health, my dear 
 friend ! I have never encountered a more 
 harmonious soul. No, no; I only ask you 
 for the gentleman’s address, to do him a 
 genuine and great kindness.” 
 
 “ It will give me real pleasure,” said the 
 host, who^was standing, and bowing at the 
 generous carousal in his honour, “ to place 
 you in communication with him, upon the 
 receipt of his permission. That is a thing 
 for him to give, and not for me to take as 
 granted. Shall I write and inform him of 
 your application ? Or will you write your- 
 self, Mr. Gaston, and leave it with me to be 
 forwarded? You do not know the name, I 
 think you say — the present name of the 
 gentleman. But if you will use the name 
 you know him by, I will answer ior saie 
 delivery. W e may save the post, ii you begin 
 
THE ROAD TO THE POLE. 
 
 89 
 
 at once. Here is all you want, including 
 sealing-wax ; and I will leave the room while 
 you write, if you think proper.” 
 
 “Well!” cried the visitor, jumping up 
 with a force that shook the room, and made 
 the glasses rattle, while his face turned white, 
 and its glow flew to his eyes ; “ is that all 
 you mean to tell me?" 
 
 “ I can tell you nothing more,” the old 
 man answered, looking at him firmly, but with 
 great surprise; “ nothing more, until I get 
 
 permission. Surely you would not ” 
 
 “ I forgot one little thing,” the other in- 
 terrupted, as he thrust his hand so violently 
 into a breast-pocket that the host nearly made 
 up his mind to see a pistol ; “ I forgot that 
 nothing is to be had for nothing. My mind 
 is so set upon discovering that man, that if 
 fifty pounds — well then a hundred pounds — ” 
 
 “ Not a thousand, sir ; no, nor fifty thou- 
 sand ; ” Caleb Tucker broke in sternly. “ You 
 must be a bad man, whatever you may say 
 about your heart, to insult me so. It is 
 lucky for you that I am not a young man. 
 Leave my house. I am not accustomed to 
 entertain such visitors.” 
 
 “ Over-righteous Caleb,” said the red-faced 
 man, recovering his colour and his temper, 
 or enough of it to supply cool insolence ; 
 “ we have no faith in all this noble indig- 
 nation. You know, my remarkably stingy 
 host, upon which side your bread is buttered. 
 And you think to make a good thing of what 
 you have got out of me. Ta, ta, Master 
 Dry-rot. Your very cheap rum has spoiled 
 my appetite for dinner. I shall go to your 
 cathedral, and pray to be delivered from the 
 company of ancient hypocrites.” 
 
 THE ROAD TO THE POLE. 
 
 & la-chiins Qtatiae to Emin* ant) #eas abjacent. 
 
 By Captain ALBERT HASTINGS MARKHAM, R.N. 
 
 FIRST PAPER 
 
 | WAS meditating over 
 the large amount of in- 
 teresting work which 
 lies open to the explorer 
 in the Arctic Seas, and deploring the in- 
 activity of our own countrymen, who ap- 
 peared to view with apathetic indifference 
 the exertions of other nations in a field in 
 which the British have so distinguished them- 
 XXII— 7 
 
 selves in bygone days, when I received an 
 invitation from a friend to accompany him on 
 a sporting trip to Novaya Zemlya. 
 
 The object of the cruise was the pursuit of 
 walruses, seals, polar bears, and other oil- 
 yielding animals, the capture of which would 
 afford more sport than profit. 
 
 My friend, in order to follow out his scheme, 
 had hired a small Norwegian cutter, which was 
 being prepared for his reception at Tromso. 
 She was to be ready early in May, and all he 
 wanted was a companion for the voyage. 
 
 Although three days, all the time allotted 
 me, was a short period in which to obtain 
 my leave and make preparations for an 
 Arctic cruise, I gladly accepted the offer to 
 share his small cabin, only stipulating that 
 when satisfied with the murder of unoffending 
 animals, we might be engaged in the more 
 useful employment of examining the edge of 
 thp pack ice supposed to exist between Novaya 
 Zemlya and Spitsbergen. _ My friend, being 
 quite as enthusiastic regarding the exploration 
 of the unknown Arctic world as myself, at 
 once agreed to my amendment, so, our pre- 
 parations being hurriedly concluded, we left 
 England on the 1st of May. 
 
 I will not weary my readers with an ac- 
 count of our passage across to Norway, or 
 with the grand scenery enjoyed by us as we 
 threaded our way up the fiords and inside the 
 
90 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 islands which fringe, and form such a protec- 
 tion from the sea to, the western Norwegian 
 coast. Suffice it to say, that we reached 
 Tromso, the most northern city in the world 
 — for it is a bishop’s see and contains a popu- 
 lation of over 7,000 people — on the ioth of 
 May, and found the little vessel, that was 
 destined to be our home for the succeeding 
 five months, nearly ready to receive us. 
 
 Our yacht, the Isbjorn , had already ac- 
 quired historical celebrity as an arctic voyager. 
 She was of 43 tons burthen and, being 
 fitted up essentially as a cargo-carrying ship 
 and therefore with a large, commodious 
 main hold, our accommodation was in propor- 
 tion limited. The cabin, common both to 
 my companion and myself, in which we lived, 
 slept, and ate our meals, was slightly raised 
 by a small deck house being built over it, but 
 its dimensions were only 5-^ feet by 5 feet 9 
 inches, with a height of 6 feet 4 inches. Our 
 bunks were 1 foot 9 inches in breadth. A 
 small caboose or deck galley served as our 
 kitchen, and this was taken possession of by 
 K., our general factotum, one of those useful 
 sort of men so seldom met with, who are not 
 only willing, but able, to turn their hands to 
 almost anything that is required of them. 
 He was our cook, and did for us generally 
 during the cruise. Our crew consisted of the 
 skipper, mate, two harponeers, cook, and 
 four seamen, all Norwegians. They lived in 
 a small place at the fore end of the vessel. 
 
 The captain’s qualifications for the com- 
 mand were nil , for he was no navigator ; but 
 being the owner of the vessel, he naturally 
 regarded himself, and we dubbed him, as 
 skipper. The Isbjorn was well protected for 
 ice navigation, and was 55 feet long, with 
 a beam of 17 feet. 
 
 The interior of our cabin presented a very 
 business-like appearance, for we had no less 
 than eight guns and rifles, of different calibres, 
 suspended in various parts of the cabin. 
 Nor ought I to omit mentioning another of 
 our messmates, namely, “ Gouch,” a collie 
 dog belonging to my companion, to whose 
 good nose we were repeatedly indebted for 
 many a fine fat haunch of venison. 
 
 • Calm weather or head winds was our lot 
 for some days after leaving Tromso, and 
 our progress was therefore necessarily slow. 
 Sometimes we would lie becalmed in a 
 narrow channel, completely surrounded by 
 hills from one to three thousand feet in 
 height, their snow-covered slopes and sum- 
 mits being clearly reflected in the placid and 
 unruffled water that nestled at their bases, 
 whilst our own hull and sails as we gazed 
 
 into the water appeared mirrored as in a. 
 looking-glass, a perfect illustration of Cole- 
 ridge’s “ painted ship upon a painted ocean.” 
 
 As a contrast to this, occasionally _ we 
 would be assailed by strong and furious- 
 squalls, which, gathering in strength and 
 velocity as they rushed through the mountain- 
 gaps and gorges, would burst upon us in un- 
 controlled fury, necessitating constant vigi- 
 lance and caution on the part of our crew. 
 
 Passing through the fjords to the south- 
 ward of North Cape, we emerged into the 
 Barents Sea on the 28th, and shaped a course 
 to the eastward. 
 
 It is certainly an undoubted fact, which 
 has elsewhere been recorded, that wherever 
 Englishmen have been they have left their 
 mark ! And although it is many years since 
 English explorers sailed into the sea, now 
 called after the celebrated Dutch navigator, 
 the mark of our countrymen is there to be 
 found ; for the most northern point of 
 Europe proper (as distinguished from the 
 great continent comprising both Europe and 
 Asia) was named the North Cape by an 
 Englishman, and was, in all probability, first 
 rounded by Sir Hugh Willoughby in 1553. 
 It received its name from his second in com- 
 mand, Richard Chancellor. The name by 
 which this headland was known to the Rus- 
 sians was Murmansky Noss, which means the 
 Nose or Cape of the Normans ! 
 
 A voyage in a small craft like the little 
 Isbjorn , when continued for any length of 
 time, must always be attended with a certain 
 amount of monotony. It is almost impos- 
 sible to settle down to any work of a serious- 
 nature, for the very liveliness of the little 
 craft tosses and jumbles up all one’s ideas 
 into such an incongruous mass that it re- 
 quires at least a day’s perfect stillness to dis- 
 entangle them from the unutterable confusion 
 they have got into. As for walking, or 
 taking any exercise, that is quite out of the 
 question, for even if the afore-mentioned 
 antics of the vessel would admit the possi- 
 bility of walking, such a proceeding is ren- 
 dered impossible by the way in which the 
 deck is lumbered, for at sea we had to carry 
 our two walrus boats, which are very little 
 smaller than the vessel itself, inboard ! We 
 certainly found the Isbjorn the liveliest of 
 little “ ice-bears.” 
 
 Birds indigenous to the Arctic regions 
 soared over our heads, many of which were 
 sacrificed in the interests of science as addi- 
 tions to our natural history collections. Some- 
 times we would watch, with eager interest, 
 our sympathies being always on the side of 
 
THE ROAD TO THE POLE. 
 
 the aggrieved party, the Pomatorhine Skua, 
 or Robber Gull, as it is more commonly 
 called, chasing the unfortunate Kittiwake, if 
 it should be the fortunate possessor of a fish, 
 and swooping down upon it in rapid fierce 
 flight, attempt to rob it of its prey, both 
 hunter and hunted screaming discordantly 
 all the time. Well is it named the Robber 
 Gull ; for too lazy, or unable, to fish for itself, 
 it relies for its food upon what it is able to 
 steal from the harmless and graceful Kitti- 
 wake. 
 
 A falling thermometer and a sharp crisp- 
 ness of the air announced that we were rapidly 
 approaching the neighbourhood of ice, and 
 on the afternoon of June 4th, being some 
 fifty miles off the south-west coast of Novaya 
 Zemlya, we ran into a large . quantity of 
 loosely packed thin ice, existing in loose 
 streams, through which we had little diffi- 
 culty in penetrating. 
 
 During the time we were in the ice we ex- 
 perienced most changeable weather. At one 
 moment the sun would shine upon us out of 
 a clear, cloudless sky, and the next we would 
 have to run for shelter from a heavy snow- 
 storm, accompanied by a keen, cutting wind. 
 There is hardly any region in the world where 
 the weather is so uncertain and changeable 
 as in the Arctic zone, and where the sun 
 breaking forth, in one moment makes every- 
 thing bright and joyous, which before was a 
 dull, dreary scene, a vast and illimitable 
 waste of snow and ice. 
 
 It was quite a relief that we experienced 
 as we sailed from a rather rough tumbling 
 sea into the smooth water invariably found in 
 the vicinity of ice, the change from the 
 boisterous tumult of the one to the remark- 
 ably quiescent state of the other being mar- 
 vellously sudden and almost instantaneous. 
 This first . encounter of ours with the ice 
 showed us, unmistakably, the extreme aver- 
 sion evinced by our Norwegian crew to run- 
 ning any undue risks by forcing the ship into 
 the pack. 
 
 When working through ice, or being any- 
 where in its vicinity, it was quite amusing to 
 watch the doleful and anxious look which our 
 skipper’s face invariably assumed ; but when 
 at sea and clear of all dangers both of ice 
 and land, no member of our little ship’s com- 
 pany was merrier or apparently more happy 
 than the captain. Although well advanced 
 in years he was as active as a monkey, and 
 would frequently go aloft for the express pur- 
 pose of amusing himself by sliding down the 
 boom topping lift or some other rope. 
 
 During his spell at the wheel he would 
 
 91 
 
 beguile the time by singing Norwegian songs, 
 and although unable to speak a word of Eng- 
 lish, he learnt, before our return, from our 
 attendant, the famous Jingo song; and we 
 would hear at all hours of the day old “ Jog ” 
 or “ Sindbad,” as we used to call him, bawl- 
 ing out at the top of his voice, in a curious 
 foreign accent — 
 
 “ Don’t want ter fecht, 
 
 By yingo ef I do,” 
 
 &c., &c., &c. 
 
 Our first visitor from the shores of Novaya 
 Zemlya was a beautiful little “ Sylvia,” about 
 the size of a wren, perhaps a little larger, 
 possessing the most brilliant blue plumage 
 about its neck and breast. This little warbler 
 was blown off from the land during a south- 
 easterly breeze, and fluttering around the 
 ship for a few minutes, alighted upon the 
 bulwarks, innocently imagining it would be 
 allowed to rest after the fatigues incidental 
 to its flight. But, alas ! poor deluded little 
 bird ! Instead of receiving kind treatment 
 and a warm welcome it was ruthlessly at- 
 tacked and felled to the deck by a blow from 
 a large* broom, and soon deprived, of its 
 beautiful skin. It was too rare a specimen to 
 be allowed to escape, and was therefore sacri- 
 ficed in the interests of science. 
 
 On the 9th of June we sighted, for the first 
 time, the little-known land of Novaya Zemlya. 
 A strong gale of wind was blowing from the 
 south-east at the time,, accompanied by a 
 dense snowstorm, and it was only during a 
 lull in the weather that we succeeded in ob- 
 taining a glimpse of it. In the afternoon of 
 the same day we ran close in for shelter and 
 smooth water, and eventually anchored for a 
 few hours under the lee of Goose Land, as 
 the low, flat, jutting-out peninsula is named, 
 several of which are to be found along the 
 west coast of the island. 
 
 I cannot say that our first view of the land 
 prepossessed us very much in its favour ; all 
 that could be seen was a low snow-covered 
 coast, whilst in the background were lofty 
 snow-capped hills more or less uniform. The 
 whole country was entirely wrapped in one 
 impervious mantle of snow. 
 
 The next morning saw the little Isbjorn 
 again under way and pursuing a northerly 
 course. 
 
 On the same evening a little excitement 
 was caused by suddenly observing a small 
 boat bearing down upon us from the land, its 
 occupants firing blank charges in order to 
 attract our attention. Many were the con- 
 jectures as to what she could possibly be. 
 The most plausible seemed to be that she 
 
92 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 contained the crew of a shipwrecked vessel ; 
 yet at the same time we knew that it was 
 almost too early in the year for any vessel to 
 have been destroyed by the ice north of us. 
 We therefore concluded that the boat must 
 contain the crew of a vessel that had been 
 caught by the ice the previous year, and had 
 therefore been compelled to pass the winter 
 on the sterile and inhospitable coast of 
 Novaya Zemlya. Our surmises were speedily 
 set at rest, for on heaving-to and allowing 
 her to come alongside, she proved to be a 
 small open boat, containing five Samoyedes : 
 two men, a woman, and a couple of children. 
 They were clad in reindeer-skin coats, with 
 hoods of the 
 same mate- 
 rial, and seal- 
 skin trousers 
 and boots. 
 
 They ap- 
 peared very 
 merry and 
 cheerful, and 
 boarded us 
 in a very 
 unceremoni- 
 ous manner, 
 entirely set- 
 ting at rest 
 any idea we 
 might have 
 had of their 
 being in a 
 semi-starved 
 or famished 
 condition. 
 
 The lady 
 (although it 
 required a 
 very keen 
 observer to 
 detect the 
 difference of 
 sex, so similar were they in their clothing) 
 was handed up the side by our gallant 
 skipper in true cavalier style. The children, 
 however, were treated less ceremoniously, 
 being summarily seized by the nape of the 
 collar of their skin habiliments and thus 
 dragged on board. 
 
 They informed us that they had passed the 
 winter in a hut not far from where they met 
 us, and that they were then on their way to 
 the Kostin Shar to visit their friends — a 
 settlement of Samoyedes being established in 
 that neighbourhood. A Russian had passed 
 the winter with them, but had been left in 
 charge of the hut. We also received the 
 
 agreeable intelligence that we were the first 
 vessel they had seen going north this year ; 
 which naturally elated us not a little, know- 
 ing that if we could get amongst game, by 
 which term we alluded to walruses and seals, 
 we should find them undisturbed by the visits 
 of previous hunters, and therefore expect 
 to reap a rich harvest. They also told us 
 that the ice had broken up along the coast 
 some eight weeks before. The Samoyedes 
 were accompanied by four wretched-looking 
 dogs, resembling Eskimo dogs, though per- 
 haps not quite so large, all equipped with 
 sledging harness, whilst the runners., and 
 framework of a sledge could be seen in the 
 bottom of 
 the boat. 
 
 Our visit- 
 ors remain- 
 ed on board 
 for upwards 
 of an hour, 
 when, sup- 
 plying them 
 with a small 
 quantity of 
 bread and 
 water, and 
 r ej oic ing 
 their hearts 
 with a glass 
 of aqua vitce. 
 each, they 
 took their 
 departure 
 and sailed 
 to the south- 
 ward. 
 
 As the 
 small stock 
 of fresh meat 
 we had 
 brought with 
 us from 
 Tromso was diminishing in a most alarming 
 manner, it was decided to put into a har- 
 bour, called Nameless Bay, in order to 
 replenish our provisions. This bay was 
 reputed to be a famous place for “ looms,” 
 as Brunnich’s guillemots are invariably 
 called ; and well did it deserve the reputa- 
 tion it had acquired, for it was one vast 
 loomery, teeming with birds. The bay was 
 bounded on the three sides by high hills, 
 terminating at the water in abrupt, precipi- 
 tous cliffs, about one hundred feet in height. 
 Frost and the action of the weather had 
 formed narrow ledges on the faces of these 
 limestone cliffs, rising in regular stratifica- 
 
THE ROAD TO THE POLE. 
 
 93 
 
 tions, tier over tier, from base to summit. 
 These ledges were the loomeries, and on 
 them were congregated myriads of birds. So 
 thickly were they clustered together, that 
 the combination of their black and white 
 plumage made the face of the cliffs assume a 
 “ pepper and salt ” hue. 
 
 Some idea may be gathered of the count- 
 less numbers of these birds by the fact that 
 my companion and myself in less than two 
 hours bagged six hundred, and, had we re- 
 quired it, many hundreds more could have 
 been obtained in the same space of time. 
 On the first discharge of our guns, a perfect 
 cloud rose in front of us, completely obscur- 
 ing the face of the cliff. The noise produced 
 by the tremendous whirring and flapping of 
 wings can only be compared to that made by 
 the fall of water from a large cascade. As 
 they flew seawards they struck us in the 
 boats, whilst the killed and wounded fell 
 upon us like hail. The incessant flight of 
 these birds in different directions, during the 
 days we remained at anchor in the bay, 
 reminded me more of the swarming of hun- 
 dreds of hives of bees than anything else; so 
 continuous were their flights, that we used to 
 find it almost impossible to sweep the land 
 carefully with a telescope for game, in conse- 
 quence of the rapid passage of these birds 
 across the fields of our glasses. 
 
 The looms build their nests on the ledges 
 of the cliffs, where their eggs, of which there 
 is only one in each nest, are perfectly secure 
 from the depredations of all thieves but the 
 skuas and the Glaucus gulls. These latter 
 birds breed on the summits of the cliffs, im- 
 mediately over the loomeries, which they 
 watch with a jealous and greedy eye. The 
 male and female loom alternately guards the 
 precious egg, and woe betide the unfortunate 
 guillemot who should be tempted away, by 
 food or otherwise, from its sacred treasure. 
 The watchful skua or burgomaster quickly 
 swoops down, and on the return of the loom 
 its nest is empty. 
 
 We were, unfortunately, a few days too 
 early to obtain any of the eggs for our break- 
 fast table, but we revelled for some time in 
 such delicacies as “loom soup,” " stewed 
 loom,” “ curried loom,” and other ingenious 
 methods of cooking those birds. 
 
 Under some of the cliffs were large caves, 
 worn away by the action of the sea, the fronts 
 of which were, in some instances, almost 
 choked by heavy masses of pure white snow, 
 whilst clusters of large transparent icicles, 
 hanging pendant like stalactites from the top, 
 formed a beautiful fringe or fret-work to the 
 
 entrances, past which all was wrapped in 
 sombre gloom. 
 
 It did not require a very great stretch of 
 imagination to fancy one’s self suddenly trans- 
 ported into fairyland, a feeling enhanced by 
 the beautiful prismatic colours which were 
 reflected, as the rays of the midnight sun, 
 
 “ bathing in deep joy ” the snow-clad hills on 
 the northern side of the bay, just caught the 
 icicles that adorned the mouths of the caverns 
 on the southern side. It was such a scene 
 as might be imagined would be produced by 
 a visit to the “ Halls of Dazzling Light,” or 
 to “Aladdin’s Cave.” 
 
 Whilst pulling up in our boats to the head 
 of the bay one beautiful still night, and en- 
 joying the glorious scenery I have attempted 
 to depict, we were aroused from our pleasing 
 reverie, and called into active life, by seeing 
 four reindeer quietly browsing on the few 
 patches of vegetation which, here and there, 
 appeared in the long stretches of snow- 
 covered land. Fairyland had, for the time, 
 to be forgotten, the peaceful beauties of the 
 scene had to be ignored, and the more prac- 
 tical and cruel work of slaughter had to be 
 considered. 
 
 They were the first reindeer we had seen, 
 and although we had already well supplied 
 ourselves with fresh provisions in the shape 
 of “looms,” a venison steak or haunch was 
 not to be despised. 
 
 Quickly landing, although not without 
 some difficulty on account of the ice-foot we 
 had to scramble up, and which was about 
 eight feet high, we started in pursuit ; and so 
 well were our precautions taken and arrange- 
 ments carried out, that in little over two 
 hours we had the satisfaction of pulling back 
 to our ship with four fine bucks in our boat. 
 
 The reindeer, during the month of June, 
 in consequence of their winter coats being so 
 assimilated in colour to the snow, are by no 
 means easy to see, and it requires a very 
 quick and practised eye to distinguish them. 
 
 So covered is the land, in this month, with 
 snow, that it is surprising that these animals 
 can find sufficient food on which to subsist. 
 Their scent, however, is so keen, that they 
 quickly discover the presence of moss or 
 other vegetation under the snow, which latter 
 is soon displaced in order to get at it. The 
 willow [Salix arcticci) is the favourite food of 
 the reindeer. Of course, in the early part 
 of the season these animals are very lean and 
 scraggy, but towards August and September 
 they are in magnificent condition. The last 
 reindeer shot by us had five inches of fat on 
 its hind quarters. 
 
94 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 Although Novaya Zemlya may be regarded 
 as an uninhabited land, numerous vestiges of 
 former visitors are everywhere to be found. 
 These traces consist of ruined huts and 
 circlets of stones, or old fire-places and fox- 
 traps. The huts owe their existence to 
 Russian walrus hunters, and others engaged 
 in the like occupation, whilst the stones are 
 evidently the sites of old Samoyede encamp- 
 ments. These migratory tribes frequently 
 pass many years of their lives in the southern 
 part of Novaya Zemlya, and wander north- 1 
 
 wards during the spring and summer in the 
 pursuit of game. 
 
 Cairns, those essentially Arctic landmarks, 
 abound along the coast, every prominent 
 cape, headland, or hill, being ornamented 
 with one or more. These cairns are erected 
 by the Russian and Norwegian fishermen 
 during their idle moments. A great many 
 are also doubtless due to the Russian officers 
 and men who were engaged in surveying the 
 coast during the early part of the present 
 century. 
 
 IS SOCIETY CHRISTIANIZED? 
 
 By the EDITOR. 
 
 W ERE St. Paul to revisit the earth, and 
 to contemplate the actual state of 
 European society, we wonder how far he would 
 recognise the characteristics of that Kingdom 
 of God for which he laboured. Or, to put it 
 on still higher ground, to what extent would 
 our Lord, if He came among us, trace 
 the influence of the religion He sought to 
 establish? Without touching on what exists 
 elsewhere there can be no doubt as to the 
 power — on the whole, unspeakably beneficial 
 — which Christianity visibly exercises in this 
 kingdom. Its existence is felt everywhere, 
 directly or indirectly. There is not a parish 
 which does not betray some evidence of zeal 
 for Church or creed. Everywhere Church 
 or Dissent is busy. No rank escapes their 
 activity. And yet the contrast betwixt ex- 
 istent Christianity and the spirit of Christ’s 
 religion may, in spite of all, be as marked 
 as what He found betwixt the zeal for 
 Moses and the Pentateuch which possessed 
 the Jerusalem of His day, and the true 
 requirements of the Mosaic law. “ Did 
 not Moses give you the law ? ” He asked, 
 “ and yet none of you keepeth the law.” The 
 assertion was extraordinary. If there was 
 one object more than another to which they 
 devoted thought and zeal it was the endeavour 
 to keep the law with precision. Reverence 
 for Moses and his holy books, and loyalty 
 to the historic Church, were not merely 
 the religion, but the very passion of the 
 people. And yet it was to them Christ said, 
 “ None of you keepeth the law.” Standing in 
 the midst of a society, the very breath of 
 whose life was theology and ecclesiasticism, 
 He told them they “ knew not the Father.” 
 He finds more of the spirit of true religion 
 in Roman officers, in heathen women, even 
 in publicans and harlots, who at all events 
 
 were real in their conscious sinfulness, than 
 among the Scribes, Pharisees, and lawyers 
 who filled the synagogues. 
 
 Is there anything in the condition of 
 society now which would lead us to suspect 
 a similar condemnation at the hands of 
 Christ? The question opens far too wide 
 and difficult a field for adequate discussion 
 in this brief paper. We can only suggest some 
 thoughts in reply. 
 
 If we take The Sermon on the Mount as 
 the best exposition of the spirit of the reli- 
 gion which Christ sought to establish, and 
 making full allowance for the vivid style in 
 which, after oriental fashion, the truth is there 
 put, we cannot fail to notice the uncompro- 
 mising nature of the demands He urges. 
 Humility, meekness, an intense love of the 
 right, mercy, peacefulness, sincerity form the 
 elementary themes from which the full har- 
 mony of the discourse is sounded. Good- 
 ness, which is to be like a permeating salt ; 
 good works, that are to shine forth like light, 
 from their intrinsic beauty; such love towards 
 others as cannot brook causeless anger ; for- 
 giveness to the uttermost ; purity, not merely 
 of conduct, but desire; such high honour 
 that no oath is requisite ; unquestioning gene- 
 rosity, embracing the unthankful as well as 
 the grateful ; freedom from that rancour of 
 party-spirit which salutes its sympathizers 
 only ; such an absence of ostentation that all 
 is done in secret and before God alone ; such 
 unworldliness as cares primarily for what is 
 right and godly, and treats money or success', 
 and even the question of food and raiment, 
 as of secondary importance ; the honest 
 charity which refuses to judge a brother — 
 that tone of mind, in short, which Christ 
 terms the spirit of both law and gospel, and 
 the essence of all social religion : — “ Whatso- 
 
IS SOCIETY CHRISTIANIZED? 
 
 95 
 
 ■ever ve would that men should do to you, 
 
 <lo ye even so to them.” If these or such- 
 like principles express the will of Christ as 
 manifested in the individual or society, how 
 far do we find it realised now ? 
 
 If we commence with the ecclesiastical 
 world, we are free to acknowledge that there 
 is great zeal and an extraordinary expendi- 
 ture of energy by different parties on behalf 
 of what each terms “ the truth,” or “ the 
 •Church,” thereby meaning those aspects of 
 truth, or that branch of the Church, with 
 which they have identified themselves. . But 
 if Christ’s religion is in its spirit that which is 
 described in the Sermon on the Mount, we 
 may entertain some doubts as to whether it 
 has been advanced or retarded by ecclesiasti- 
 oisrn, as distinct from the beneficent work 
 which all Churches more or less promote. 
 When we estimate the bitter quarrelling about 
 the mint and anise of government, combined 
 with neglect of mutual fair play— the strain- 
 ing out of the gnats of observance and the 
 swallowing of camel-loads of uncharity— the 
 outrageous importance attached to Shibbo- 
 leths, "united with intolerance, jealousy, pride, 
 and the petty trickeries of party politics, we 
 wonder whether there is no ground for Christ 
 addressing Priest and Presbyter now as He 
 did the old Jewish ecclesiastics— “ Have not 
 I o-lven you the law of humility,. charity, and 
 righteousness ? whence this strife and evil- 
 speaking in the name of the religion I 
 founded ? None of you keepeth my law. . 
 
 Or if, passing to social life, and overlooking 
 many immoralities and sins of luxury, we re- 
 gard in the light of the Christian ideal the 
 class separations which divide rank from rank, 
 rich from poor, we must experience a sense 
 of antithesis rather than of any approach to 
 realisation. For the spirit of Christianity is 
 essentially socialistic — not the socialism of 
 the Nihilist assassin or the Communist petro- 
 Jeuse — but the socialism of the New Testa- 
 rfient, which would have us, recognising the 
 brotherhood of man, to come under the 
 burdens of others in order to elevate and 
 bless. We, however, have left it to. Red 
 Republicans and visionaries to preach in the 
 name of atheism a wild travesty of the truth 
 committed to us by Christ, and God is visit- 
 ing the sin of our neglect by these outbursts 
 of a slumbering social volcano. 
 
 Or again, taking a broad view of. the com- 
 mercial world, and assuming that it is com- 
 posed chiefly of men professing to be governed 
 by the principles which Christ inculcated, we 
 may ask how far there is a proportionate 
 importance attached by them, such as He 
 
 attached, to that kingdom whose primary re- 
 ward is righteousness, and that other kingdom 
 whose primary rewards are success, money, 
 and the power which wealth bestows?. How 
 far can it be said of the way in which so- 
 called Christian men, as a whole, act in 
 business, that they seek first the kingdom of 
 God and its righteousness, not giving the fore- 
 most place in their hearts to profit but to 
 what is just and true ? Is there conformity m 
 all things to what is honest, or conformity to 
 “ the custom of the trade,” whether strictly 
 honest or not? Is it first the claims of 
 honour and then success, or is it first success 
 and then as much honour as may be conve- 
 nient or usual in the circumstances ? Would 
 it not in like manner be difficult to make 
 Christ’s precepts harmonize with the attitude 
 in which employer and employed mutually 
 
 stand? , . r c ^ 
 
 Such a review, however brief, of some of 
 the features which the worlds of ecclesiastical, 
 social, and commercial life present may 
 suggest a few painful reflections. . I do not 
 deny that there are large exceptions to be 
 made, or that the tone of society as a whole 
 is in many respects becoming better. Bm 
 the fault of the present time, as it has been 
 the fault of other ages of the Church, is 
 to forget the all-embracing character of the 
 demand of Christ, and that the true measure 
 of the advance of His kingdom, as distinct 
 from any ecclesiasticism, is to be found m 
 the extent in which the spirit of Christ 
 is carried into every sphere of interest ana 
 duty. For while modern society is certainly 
 to some extent chargeable with such breaches 
 of Christ’s law as have been sketched, yet 
 were society resolved into its component 
 parts, we would discover a. great, deal that is 
 apparently sincerely religious m the indi- 
 viduals who so compose it. The ecclesiastic 
 who leads the party warfare, who is a con- 
 scientious hater of the rival sect, and is as 
 unscrupulous in the furtherance of his side 
 as any wire-puller in secular politics, maybe 
 a man earnest in prayer, the subject of deep 
 religious emotion, and really anxious to serve 
 Christ. The man of wealth, and the lady of 
 rank and fashion, who live as separate from 
 those of a lower social scale, as the high-caste 
 Brahmin does from the Pariah, may be full of 
 a certain luxurious religious sentimentalism 
 and zealous for the specialities of their 
 favourite church or worship. The merchant 
 whose mind is absorbed with gam, and whose 
 transactions may not always be quite 
 “ regular ” if tested by the standard of un 
 blemished honour, would not only be mdig- 
 
96 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 nant if any doubt were fhrown on his 
 Christian character, but, as the world has 
 frequently seen, he may be a religious pro- 
 fessor, famous for his long prayers and strict 
 observances. These are not necessarily 
 hypocrites, if it is thereby meant that they are 
 consciously acting a part. The causes lie 
 deeper. One of these causes may be found 
 in the false distinction between the religious 
 and the secular, which makes so many people 
 act as if they were two departments, the one 
 somehow connected with the next world, and 
 
 having appropriate sentiments for certain 
 occasions, and the other belonging to this life, 
 with principles suitable for things as they are. 
 They say, “ Business is business, and religion 
 is religion,” or, “ If the Church has its duties, 
 it is also necessary to maintain one’s position.” 
 And in this way religion becomes divorced 
 from its true function as an influence which 
 ought to elevate and consecrate all duties by 
 the spirit which is carried into all. 
 
 There are other causes, chiefly theological, 
 which may be touched on in a future paper. 
 
 A WINTER REVERIE. 
 
 TVJ OW slowly fades and dies the light of day, 
 
 While over hill and plain steals twilight grey, 
 Shrouding both lowly cot and lordly hall 
 In sombre folds of Nature’s funeral pall. 
 
 The wind moans sadly through the branches bare 
 Of sturdy oak and elm, whose boughs, so fair 
 And green erewhile, waved gaily in the breeze, — 
 
 Their rustling leaves making sweet harmonies. 
 
 The limpid brooks which watered hill and glade, 
 Whose murmuring music sweet accompaniment made 
 To love-song of the birds, make no glad sound. 
 
 For all are fast in icy fetters bound. 
 
 The meadows, once so gay with blossoms bright, 
 
 Look brown and dreary in the cold, grey light ; 
 
 While o’er the hill-tops, which the sunlight kissed, 
 Comes creeping up the cold and wintry mist. 
 
 The blithesome birds who erst on joyous wing 
 Did thankful melodies in sweet notes sing, 
 
 Have ceased their song, and to a sunnier shore 
 Have flown, where they may still their glad notes pour. 
 
 The merry insects who in colours fair 
 Oft danced so lightly on the summer air, 
 
 Are seen no more ; their little part they played 
 In life, — then sank in calm Oblivion’s shade. 
 
 All things are hushed and still ; vain strives the ear 
 To catch some mirthful sound — nought but the clear 
 And ringing tone of woodman’s axe is heard, 
 
 Or far-off cry of some lone, startled bird. 
 
A WINTER REVERIE. 
 
 97 
 
 But yet a little while, and once again 
 Nature shall chant in glad, exultant strain, 
 
 For all-obedient to Divine command, 
 
 Sweet Spring shall spread her brightness o’er the land. 
 
 Then shall be heard again in shady grove 
 And leafy dell glad symphonies of love, 
 
 Warbled by sweet-voiced songsters, and upborne 
 To realms celestial on the wings of morn. 
 
 The flowers upspringing from Earth’s genial breast, 
 
 In all their gayest, brightest colours drest, 
 
 With rich luxuriance shall bedeck the ground, 
 
 And shed their fragrant perfume all around. 
 
 “ Earth’s many voices ” shall harmonious blend 
 In one glad chorus, which shall e’en ascend 
 To highest skies, proclaiming far and near, 
 
 “ Stern Winter’s past, and merry Spring is here ! ” 
 
 ELLA H. ROZIER. 
 
REMINISCENCES OF THE HIGH CHURCH REVIVAL. 
 
 By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. 
 
 LETTER II. — THE TRACTARI AN S. 
 
 I VI I have told you that the Tractarians’ 
 
 object, so far as they understood themselves, 
 was to raise up the Church to resist the revo- 
 lutionary tendency which they conceived to 
 have set in with the Reform Bill; that the 
 effect of their work was to break the back of 
 the resisting power which the Church already 
 possessed, and to feed the fire which they 
 hoped to extinguish. I go on to explain in 
 detail what I mean. 
 
 When I went into residence at Oxford my 
 brother was no longer alive. He had been 
 abroad almost entirely for three or four years 
 before his death; and although the atmo- 
 sphere at home was full of the new opinions, 
 and I heard startling things from time to 
 time on Transubstantiation and such-like, he 
 had little to do with my direct education. 
 I had read at my own discretion in my father’s 
 library. My own small judgment had been 
 satisfied by Newton that the Pope was the 
 Man of Sin ; and Davison, to whom I was 
 sent for a correction, had not removed the 
 impression. I knew the Fairy Queen pretty 
 well, and had understood who and what was 
 meant by the False Duessa. I read Sharon 
 Turner carefully, and also Gibbon, and had 
 thus unconsciously been swallowing anti- 
 dotes to Catholic doctrine. Of evangelical 
 books properly so-called I had seen nothing. 
 Dissent in all its forms was a crime in our 
 house. My father was too solid a man to be 
 carried off his feet by the Oxford enthusiasm, 
 but he was a High Churchman of the old 
 school. The Church itself he regarded as 
 part of the constitution; and the Prayer-book 
 as an Act of Parliament which only folly or 
 disloyalty could quarrel with. My brother’s 
 notion of the evangelical clergy in the Esta- 
 blishment must have been taken from some 
 unfortunate specimens. He used to speak 
 of them as “ fellows who turned up the 
 whites of their eyes, and said Lciwd 1” We 
 had no copy of the “ Pilgrim’s Progress ” 
 in the house. I never read it till after I 
 had grown up, and I am sorry that I did not 
 make earlier acquaintance with it. Specula- 
 tions about the Church and the Sacraments 
 went into my head, but never much into my 
 heart ; and I fancy, perhaps idly, that I might 
 have escaped some trials and some misfor- 
 tunes if my spiritual imagination had been 
 
 I allowed food which would have agreed with 
 it. 
 
 In my first term at the university, the con- 
 troversial fires were beginning to blaze, but not 
 as yet hotly. The authorities had not taken 
 the alarm, but there was much talk and ex- 
 citement, and neither the education nor the dis- 
 cipline of the place was benefited by it. The 
 attention of the heads and tutors was called 
 off from their proper business. The serious 
 undergraduates divided into parties, and the 
 measure with which they estimated one an- 
 other’s abilities was not knowledge or indus- 
 try, but the opinions which they severally 
 held. The neo- Catholic youths thought them- 
 selves especially clever and regarded Low 
 Churchmen and Liberals as fools. Itwas un- 
 fortunate, for the state of Oxford was crying 
 out for reform of a different kind. The scheme 
 of teaching for the higher class of men was 
 essentially good ; perhaps as good as it could 
 be made, incomparably better than the uni- 
 versal knowledge methods which have taken 
 its place. But the idle or dull man had no 
 education at all. His three or four years 
 were spent in forgetting what he had learnt 
 at school. The degree examination was got 
 over by a memoria, technica , and three months’ 
 cram with a private tutor. We did pretty 
 much what we liked. There was much 
 dissipation, and the whole manner of life was 
 needlessly extravagant. We were turned 
 loose at eighteen, pleasures tempting us on 
 all sides, the expense of indulgence being the 
 only obstacle ; and the expense for the first 
 year or two was kept out of sight by the eager- 
 ness of the tradesmen to give us credit. No 
 dean or tutor ever volunteered to help our 
 inexperience. The prices which we paid for 
 everything was preposterous. The cost 
 of living might have been reduced to half 
 what it was if the college authorities would 
 have supplied the students on the co-opera- 
 tive system. But they would take no trouble, 
 and their own charges were on the same ex- 
 travagant scale. The wretched novice was 
 an obj ect of general plunder till he had learnt 
 how to take care of himself. I remember cal- 
 culating that I could have lived at a board- 
 ing-house on contract, with every luxury which 
 I had in college, at a reduction of fifty per 
 cent. In all this there was room and to spare 
 for reforming energy, and it may be said that 
 
THE TRACT ARIANS. 
 
 99 
 
 the administration of the university was the 
 immediate business of the leading members 
 — a business, indeed a duty, much more im- 
 mediate than the un- Protestantizing of the 
 Church of England. But there was no leisure, 
 there was not even a visible desire to meddle 
 with concerns so vulgar. Famous as the Trac- 
 tarian leaders were to become, their names 
 are not connected with a single effort to im- 
 prove the teaching at Oxford or to mend its 
 manners. Behiftd the larger conflict which 
 they raised, that duty was left untouched for 
 many years ; it was taken up ultimately by 
 the despised Liberals, who have not done 
 it well, but have at least accomplished some- 
 thing, and have won the credit which was left 
 imprudently within their reach. 
 
 The state of things which I found on coming 
 up was, thus, not favourable to the proper 
 work of the place. In general there was far 
 too little intercourse between the elder and 
 the younger men. The difference of age was 
 not really very great, but they seldom met, 
 except in lecture-rooms. If an undergra- 
 duate now and then breakfasted with his 
 tutor, the undergraduate 'was shy, and the 
 tutor was obliged to maintain by distance 
 and dignity of manner the superiority which 
 he might have forfeited if he allowed himself 
 to be easy and natural. I myself, for my 
 brother’s sake, was in some degree an excep- 
 tion. I saw something from the first of the 
 men of whom the world was talking. I 
 might have seen more, but I did not make 
 the most of my opportunities. I wished to 
 be a disciple. I thought I was a disciple. 
 But somehow I could never feel in my heart 
 that what they were about was of the import- 
 ance of which it seemed to be, and I was 
 little more than a curious and interested 
 spectator. 
 
 Nor, with two exceptions, were the chiefs of 
 the movement personally impressive to me. 
 Isaac Williams I had known as a boy. He 
 was an early friend of my brother’s, and spent 
 a vacation or two at my father’s house before 
 I went to school. His black brilliant eyes, 
 his genuine laugh, the skill and heartiness 
 with which he threw himself into our childish 
 amusements, the inexhaustible stock of stories 
 with which he held us spell-bound for hours, 
 had endeared him to every one of us ; and 
 at Oxford to dine now and then with four 
 or five others in Williams’s rooms was still 
 one of the greatest pleasures which I had. 
 He was serious, but never painfully so ; and 
 though his thoughts ran almost entirely in 
 theological channels, they rose out of the 
 soil of his own mind, pure and sparkling as 
 
 the water from a mountain spring. He was 
 a poet, too, and now and then could rise into 
 airy sweeps of really high imagination. There 
 is an image in the “Baptistery” describing the 
 relations between the actions of men here in 
 this world and the eternity which lies before 
 them, grander than the finest of Keble’s, or 
 even of Wordsworth’s : — 
 
 “Ice-chained in its headlong tract 
 Have I seen a cataract, 
 
 All throughout a wintry noon, 
 
 Hanging in the silent moon ; 
 
 All throughout a sunbright even, 
 
 Like the sapphire gate of Heaven ; 
 
 Spray and wave, and drippings froze, 
 
 For a hundred feet and more 
 Caught in air, there to remain 
 Bound in winter’s crystal chain. 
 
 All above still silent sleeps, 
 
 While in the transparent deeps, 
 
 Far below the current creeps. 
 
 Thus, methought men’s actions here. 
 
 In their headlong full career, 
 
 Were passing into adamant ; 
 
 Hopes and fears, love, hate, and want. 
 
 And the thoughts, like shining spray. 
 
 Which above their pathway play, 
 
 Standing in the eye of day, 
 
 In the changeless Heavenly noon, 
 
 Things done here beneath the moon.” 
 
 Fault may be found with the execution in 
 this passage, but the conception is poetry ol 
 the very highest order. But Williams was of 
 quiet, unobtrusive spirit. He had neither 
 the confidence nor the commanding nature 
 which could have formed or led a party. The 
 triumvirs who became a national force, and 
 gave its real character to the Oxford move- 
 ment, were Keble, Pusey, and John Henry 
 Newman. Newman himself was the moving 
 power ; the two others were powers also, but 
 of inferior mental strength. Without the 
 third, they would have been known as men 
 of genius and learning. But their personal 
 influence would have been limited to and 
 have ended with themselves. Of Pusey I 
 knew but little, and need not do more than 
 mention him. Of Keble I can only venture 
 to say a few words. 
 
 He had left residence at the time I speak 
 of, but the “ Christian Year ” had made 
 him famous. He was often in Oxford as 
 Professor of Poetry, and I was allowed to 
 see him. Cardinal Newman has alluded 
 in his “Apologia” to the reverence which 
 was felt for Keble. He is now an acknow- 
 ledged Saint of the English Church, admired 
 and respected even by those who disagree 
 with his theology. A college has been 
 founded in commemoration of him, which 
 bears his name; and the “ Christian Year ” 
 itself has passed through more than a hundred 
 editions, and is a household word in every 
 family of the Anglican Episcopal communion, 
 both at home and in America. It seems 
 presumptuous, to raise a doubt about the 
 
IOO 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 fitness of a recognition so marked and so 
 universal. But the question is not of Keble’s 
 piety or genuineness of character. Both are 
 established beyond the reach of cavil, and 
 it would be absurd and ungracious to depre- 
 ciate them. The intellectual and literary 
 quality of his work, however, is a fair subject 
 of criticism ; and I am heretical enough to 
 believe that, although the “ Christian Year” 
 will always hold a high place in religious 
 poetry, it owes its extraordinary popularity to 
 temporary and accidental causes. Books 
 which are immediately successful, are those 
 which catch and reflect the passing tones of 
 opinion — all-absorbing while they last, but 
 from their nature subject to change. The 
 mass of men know little of other times or 
 other ways of thinking than their own. Their 
 minds are formed by the conditions of the 
 present hour. Their greatest man is he who 
 for the moment expresses most completely 
 their own sentiments, and represents human 
 life to them from their own point of view. 
 The point of view shifts, conditions alter, 
 fashions succeed fashions, and opinions opi- 
 nions ; and having ourselves lost the clue, we 
 read the writings which delighted our great- 
 grandfathers with wonder at their taste. Each 
 generation produces its own prophets, and 
 great contemporary fame, except in a few 
 extraordinary instances, is revenged by an 
 undeserved completeness of neglect. 
 
 Very different in general is the reception of 
 the works of true genius. Afew persons appre- 
 ciate them from the first. To the many they 
 seem flavourless and colourless, deficient in all 
 the qualities which for the moment are most 
 admired. They pass unnoticed amidst the 
 meteors by which they are surrounded and 
 eclipsed. But the meteors pass and they 
 remain, and are seen gradually to be no 
 vanishing coruscations, but new fixed stars, 
 sources of genuine light, shining serenely for 
 ever in the intellectual sky. They link the 
 ages one to another in a common humanity. 
 Virgil and Horace lived nearly two thousand 
 years ago, and belonged to a society of 
 which the outward form and fashion have 
 utterly perished. But Virgil and Horace do 
 not grow old, because while society changes 
 men continue, and we recognise in reading them 
 that the same heart beat under the toga which 
 we feel in our own breasts. In the Roman 
 Empire, too, there were contemporary popu- 
 larities ; men who were worshipped as gods, 
 whose lightest word was treasured as a 
 precious jewel — on whose breath millions 
 hung expectant, who had temples built in 
 their honour, who in their day were a power 
 
 in the world. These are gone, while Horace 
 remains — gone, dwindled into shadows. They 
 were men, perhaps, of real worth, though of 
 less than their admirers supposed, and they 
 are now laughed at and moralized over in 
 history as detected idols. As it was then, so 
 it is now, and always will be. More copies 
 of Pickwick were sold in five years than of 
 Hamlet in two hundred. Yet Hamlet will 
 last as long as the Iliad; Pickwick, delightful 
 as it is to us, will be unreadable to our great- 
 grandchildren. The most genial caricature 
 ceases to interest when the thing caricatured 
 has ceased to be. 
 
 I am not comparing the “ Christian Year” 
 to Pickwick, ‘but there are fashions in religion 
 as there are fashions in other things. The 
 Puritans would have found in it the savour 
 of the mystic Babylon. We cannot tell 
 what English thought will be on these sub- 
 jects in another century, but we may know if 
 we are modest that it will not be identical 
 with ours. Keble has made himself a name 
 in history which will not be forgotten, and 
 he will be remembered always as a person of 
 singular piety, of inflexible integrity, and 
 entire indifference to what is called fame or 
 worldly advantages. He possessed besides, 
 in an exceptional degree, the gift of express- 
 ing himself in the musical form which is 
 called poetical. It is a form into which 
 human thought naturally throws itself when 
 it becomes emotional. It is the only form 
 adequate to the expression of high intel- 
 lectual passions. However powerful the in- 
 tellect, however generous the heart, this 
 particular faculty can alone convey to others 
 what is passing in them, or give to spiritual 
 beauty a body which is beautiful also. The 
 poetic faculty thus secures to those who 
 have it the admiration of every person; but it 
 is to be remembered also that if the highest 
 things can alone be fitly spoken of in poetry, 
 all poetry is not necessarily of the highest 
 things ; and if it can rise to the grandest 
 subjects, it can lend its beauty also to the 
 most commonplace. The prima donna 
 wields the spell of an enchantress, though 
 the words which she utters are nonsense; 
 and poetry can make diamonds out of glass 
 and gold out of ordinary metal. Keble was 
 a representative of the devout mind of 
 England. Religion as he grew to manhood 
 was becoming self-conscious. It was passing 
 out of its normal and healthy condition as 
 the authoritative teacher of obedience to the 
 commandments, into active anxiety about the 
 speculative doctrines on which its graces 
 were held to depend. Here, as in all other 
 
THE TRACTARIANS. 
 
 directions, the mental activity of the age was 
 cmecuui a, evangelical move- 
 
 making itself felt, me evang revival 
 
 mentwas one symptom of t. lhe r eviv 
 of sacramentalism was another ^ found 
 a voice in Keble. But this is all. We look 
 in vi?n to him for any insight into the com- 
 olicated problems of humanity, or for any 
 sympathy with the passions which are the 
 7 dses of human life. With the Prayer-book 
 for his guide, he has provided us with a manual 
 of religious sentiment corresponding to the 
 Christian theory as taught by the Church of 
 
 England Prayer-book, beautifully expressed in 
 language which every one can understand and 
 remember. High Churchmanship had been 
 Eo dry and formal ; Keble carried into 
 it the emotions of Evangelicalism, w 1 e e 
 avoided angry collision wrth Evangdmd 
 opinions. Thus all parties could find much 
 to admire in him, and little to suspect 
 English religious poetry was ge«rad y wea 
 —was not, indeed, poetry at all. Here was 
 something which in its kind was excellent , 
 and every one who was really religious, or 
 wished to be religious, or even outwardly ana 
 from habit professed himself and believe 
 himself to be a Christian, found Keble 
 verses chime in his heart like church bells 
 The “Christian Year,” however, could be 
 
 all this, and yet_ notwithstandrng it could be 
 
 poetry of a particular period, and not for at 
 time/ Human nature remains the same , but 
 religion alters. Christianity has taken many 
 forms. In the early Church it had the hues 
 of a hundred heresies. It developed in the 
 successive councils. It has been Reman, it 
 has been Greek, it has been Anta 
 Lutheran, Calvinist, Armiman. :t has aa 
 msted itself to national characteristics, 
 has grown with the growth of general know- 
 ledge Keble himself in his latest edition is 
 found keeping pace with the progress of the 
 times, and announcing that the hand as well 
 as the heart receives the mystic presence 
 the Eucharist. He began to write for Church 
 people as they were sixty years ago. The 
 Church of England has travelled far since 
 1820. The “Highest” rector then alive 
 would have gone into convulsions if his 
 curate had spoken to him about celefcmt- 
 ing” mass. The most advanced Biblical 
 erftic would have closed the Speaker s com- 
 mentary with dismay or indignation. Change 
 opinions will bring change of feelings, and 
 fresh poets to set the feelings to must ^ . 
 The “ Christian Year ” has reigned without 
 a rival through two generations, but me 
 
 rhymes” are not of the powerful sort which 
 
 will “ outlive the Pyramids,” and the qualities 
 
 which have given them their immediate in- 
 fluence will equally forbid their immortality. 
 
 The limitations of Keble’s poetry were 
 visible in a still higher degree in himself. He 
 was not far-seeing, his mind moved in the 
 groove of a single order of ideas. He could 
 not place himself in the position of f persons 
 who 1 disagreed with him, and thus he could 
 never see the strong points of their arguments 
 Particular ways of thinking he dismissed as 
 wicked, although in his summary condemn^ 
 
 tionhe mightbe striking some ° f *eabtet and 
 most honest men m Europe. If be had mot 
 been Keble he would have been called (trea 
 son though it be to write the words) nmow- 
 minded. Circumstances independent of him 
 self could alone have raised him into a leader 
 of a party. For the more delicate functions of 
 such an office he was constitutional^ unfit 
 and when appealed to for advice and assist 
 ance by disciples who were ln dlffic ^ tieS ^ 
 answers were beside the purpose. He could 
 “ t give to others what he did not himself 
 possess. Plato, in the Dialogue of the Io, 
 describes an ingenious young Athenian seaich- 
 intr desperately for some one who would 
 teach him to be wise. Failing elsewhere he 
 goes to The poets. Those he thought who 
 could say such fine things in their verses 
 would be able to tell him in prose what 
 wisdom consisted in. Their conversation un- 
 fortunately proved as profitless as that of the 
 philosophers ; and the youth concluded that 
 the poetry came from divine inspiration, and 
 that The/ off the sacred tnpod they ■were but 
 common men. Disappointment could not 
 chill the admiration which the inquirer : wou 
 continue to feel for so venerable a teacher 
 as Keble, but of practical light that would L 
 useful to him he often gathered as little 
 as the Athenian. Even as a poet Keble : was 
 subjective only. He had no variety of note, 
 and nothing which was not in harmony with 
 his own theological school had intellectual 
 
 mterest^is - mmediate fr ; enl js he was genial, 
 affectionate, and possibly instr active, ffiut he 
 had no faculty for winning the unconverted. 
 If he was not bigoted he was “tensely pre- 
 judiced. If you did not agree with him, 
 there was something morally wrong with you 
 and your « natural man” was provoked into 
 resistance. To speak habitually with au- 
 thority does not necessarily indicate an 
 absence of humility, but does not encourag^ 
 the growth of that quality. If “ere ’ haa 
 been no “movement,” as it was called, if. 
 Keble had remained a quiet country clergy- 
 man, unconscious that he was a great man, 
 
102 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 and uncalled on to guide the opinions of his 
 age, he would have commanded perhaps more 
 enduring admiration. The knot of followers 
 who specially attached themselves to him, 
 show traces of his influence in a disposition 
 not only to think the views which they hold 
 sound in themselves, but to regard those 
 who think differently as their intellectual 
 inferiors. Keble was incapable of vanity in 
 the vulgar sense. But there was a subtle 
 self-sufficiency in him which has come out 
 more distinctly in his school. 
 
 I remember an instance of Keble’s narrow- 
 ness extremely characteristic of him. A 
 member of a family with which he had been 
 intimate had adopted Liberal opinions in 
 theology. Keble probably did not know what 
 those opinions were, but regarded this person 
 as an apostate who had sinned against light. 
 He came to call one day when the erring 
 brother happened to be at home ; and learn- 
 ing that he was in the house, he refused to 
 enter, and remained sitting in the porch. St. 
 John is reported to have fled out of a bath at 
 Ephesus on hearing that the heretic Ce- 
 rinthus was under the roof. Keble, I pre- 
 sume, remembered the story, and acted like 
 the apostle. 
 
 The inability to appreciate the form of 
 arguments which he did not like, saved him 
 from Rome, but did not save him from 
 Roman doctrine. It would, perhaps, have 
 been better if he had left the Church of 
 England, instead of remaining there to shelter 
 behind his high authority a revolution in its 
 teaching. The mass has crept back among 
 us, with which we thought we had done 
 for ever, and the honourable name of Pro- 
 testant, once our proudest distinction, has 
 been made over to the Church of Scotland 
 and the Dissenters. 
 
 Far different from Keble, from my bro- 
 ther, from Dr. Pusey, from all the rest, was 
 the true chief of the Catholic revival — John 
 Henry Newman. Compared with him, they 
 all were but as ciphers, and he the indicating 
 number. The times I speak of are far dis- 
 tant ; the actors and the stormy passions 
 which bubbled round them are long dead 
 and forgotten among new excitements. 
 Newman, too, for many years had dropped 
 silent, and disappeared from the world’s eyes. 
 He came out again in a conflict with a dear 
 friend of mine, who, on my account partly, 
 (at least, in reviewing a book which I had 
 written,) provoked a contest with him, and 
 impar congressus Achilli seemed to have 
 been foiled. Charles Kingsley is gone from | 
 
 us. English readers know now what he was, 
 and from me or from any one he needs no 
 further panegyric. In that one instance he 
 conducted his case unskilfully. He was wrong 
 in his .estimate of the character of his an- 
 tagonist, whose integrity was as unblemished 
 as his own. But the last word has still to be 
 spoken on the essential question which was 
 at issue between them. The immediate 
 result was the publication of the famous 
 “Apologia,” a defence personally of New- 
 man’s own life and actions, and next of the 
 Catholic cause. The writer of it is again 
 a power in modern society, a prince of the 
 Church ; surrounded, if he appears in public, 
 with adoring crowds, fine ladies going on 
 their knees before him, in London salons. 
 Himself of most modest nature, he never 
 sought greatness, but greatness found him 
 in spite of himself. To him, if to any 
 one man, the world owes the intellectual 
 recovery of Romanism. Fifty years ago it 
 was in England a dying creed, lingering in 
 retirement in the halls and chapels of a few 
 half-forgotten families. A shy Oxford stu- 
 dent has come out on its behalf into the 
 field of controversy, armed with the keenest 
 weapons of modern learning and philosophy ; 
 and wins illustrious converts, and has kindled 
 hopes that England herself, the England of 
 Elizabeth and Cromwell, will kneel for abso- 
 lution again before the Father of Christendom. 
 Mr. Buckle questioned whether any great 
 work has ever been done in this world 
 by an individual man. Newman, by the soli- 
 tary force of his own mind, has produced 
 this extraordinary change. What he has 
 done we all see ; what will come of it our 
 children will see. Of the magnitude of the 
 phenomenon itself no reasonable person 
 can doubt. Two writers have affected power- 
 fully the present generation of Englishmen. 
 Newman is one, Thomas Carlyle is the other. 
 But Carlyle has been at issue with all the 
 tendencies of his age. Like a John the Bap- 
 tist, he has stood alone preaching repentance 
 in a world which is to him a wilderness : 
 Newman has been the voice of the intellec- 
 tual reaction of Europe, which was alarmed 
 by an era of revolutions, and is looking for 
 safety in the forsaken beliefs of the ages which 
 it had been tempted to despise. 
 
 The “ Apologia ” is the most beautiful of 
 autobiographies, but it tells us only how the 
 writer appeared to himself. We who were 
 his contemporaries can alone say how he 
 appeared to us in the old days at Oxford. 
 
 J. A. FROUDE.. 
 
THE FIRST ENGLISH 
 
 T HE first English New Testament was 
 printed in Worms, in the years 1525-6. 
 The story of its origin is of deep and abiding 
 interest, and the book itself has strong claims 
 upon the attention of Englishmen, and of 
 the whole English-speaking peoples of the 
 world. It was the basis of all subsequent 
 English versions ; and our present authorised 
 New Testament is simply a revision of it. 
 
 It is deserving of notice, moreover, because 
 its publication forms an era in the history of 
 English literature. It showed, for the first 
 time, the wonderful scope and expressiveness 
 of our language ; and it served, probably 
 more than any other book, to make that 
 language popular in the widest sense. It 
 fixed the grammatical structure, idiom, and 
 diction of our tongue once for all, having 
 carried it to the homes and hearts of all 
 classes, and having constituted it the lan- 
 guage of common life and the instrument for 
 developing the most profound truths of 
 theology and science. 
 
 The author of the version was William 
 Tyndale, and the reward he got for his noble 
 work was the crown of martyrdom. Strange 
 to say, historians have hitherto been unable 
 satisfactorily to discover either the place or 
 date ofTyndale’s birth. Foxe, his first biogra- 
 pher, tells us somewhat vaguely, that “ he was 
 born about the borders of Wales.” An old 
 tradition makes the picturesque village of 
 Nibley, in Gloucestershire, his birth-place ; 
 and on a little hill above it a monument has 
 recently been erected in his honour. The 
 date of his birth was probably about the year 
 1484, just a century after the death of Wycliffe. 
 We know nothing of his parents, or his boy- 
 hood, or his early training. His name would 
 seem to favour the tradition that his ances- 
 tors came from Tynedale, in Northumberland, 
 where there were barons of that name in the 
 reign of King John. It has been said that 
 some members of that noble family fled from 
 their home during the wars of the Roses, took 
 the plebeian name Hitchins, and settled at 
 Hunt’s Court, near Nibley. Be this as it 
 may, the preface to Tyndale’ s first avowed 
 work commences thus : — “ William Tyndale-, 
 otherwise called Hitchins, to the Reder.” 
 Our first authentic information is what Foxe 
 says, that he “ was brought up from a child 
 in the University of Oxford,” and that he 
 remained there a long time studying success- 
 fully the Greek and Latin languages, “ and 
 other liberal arts.” Another important fact 
 is mentioned by the same historian ; that 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 Tyndale was specially noted for his know- 
 ledge of Scripture, and gave private lessons 
 in theology to students and fellows of Mag- 
 dalen College. At that period there was a 
 marked revival of learning, and especially of 
 the study of Greek, in Oxford. John Colet, 
 afterwards Dean of St. Paul’s, began, in 1496, 
 to lecture on the Epistles of St. Paul, and 
 created a great sensation in the University. 
 Among his pupils were Sir Thomas More and 
 Erasmus, of Rotterdam ; and it is probable 
 that before leaving Oxford in 1505, Colet 
 kindled in the mind of Tyndale that zeal for 
 Scripture knowledge and the study of New 
 Testament Greek, which afterwards bore such 
 fruit. 
 
 Tyndale, it would seem, took the degree 
 of Master in Oxford, and then, in the quaint 
 but suggestive words of Foxe, “ spying his 
 time, he removed to the University of Cam- 
 bridge, where he made his abode for a cer- 
 tain space.” Erasmus was probably the great 
 attraction there, as he was then lecturing on 
 the Greek language in the University, and 
 maintaining, at the same time, with boldness 
 and power, the supreme authority of Scripture. 
 Erasmus remained at Cambridge from 1509 
 till 1514, and his scathing exposures of the 
 absurd theories of the schoolmen, and of the 
 ignorance of the clergy, must have made a 
 deep impression on the mind of Tyndale. 
 In 1516 Erasmus published the first edition 
 of the Greek Testament ; and its publication, 
 coupled with the strongly expressed opinion 
 of its author that it should be translated into 
 all languages, may have induced Tyndale to 
 undertake his English version. About the 
 close of 1521, Tyndale left Cambridge and 
 became tutor or chaplain in the family of 
 Sir John Walsh, of Sudbury Manor, near 
 Nibley. Here he had frequent opportunities 
 of meeting many of the more influential 
 clergy and laity of Gloucestershire, and he 
 found them so ignorant of Scripture that he 
 became more and more impressed with the 
 necessity of preparing an English translation. 
 “ I perceive,” he says, “ how that it is impos- 
 sible to establish the lay people in any truth, 
 except the Scripture were plainly laid before 
 their eyes in their mother tongue, that they 
 might see the process, order, and meaning of 
 the text.” He could not conceal his great 
 project \ and so, on one occasion, as Foxe 
 tells us, when disputing with a learned dig- 
 nitary at the table of Sir John, upon the rela- 
 tive authority of Scripture and the Pope, the 
 ecclesiastic lost his temper, and exclaimed 
 
104 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 indignantly, “We were better be without 
 God’s law than the Pope’s.” Tyndalewas also 
 excited, and rashly replied : “I defy the Pope 
 and all his laws. If God spare my life, ere 
 many years I will cause a boy that driveth 
 the plough to know more of the Scripture 
 than thou dost.” They were bold words and 
 they cost Tyndale his place, for Sir John, 
 though strongly sympathizing with his views, 
 could no longer protect him from the power- 
 ful antagonists he had so much offended. 
 
 Tyndale went to London in the hope that 
 its new bishop, Tunstal, a man of learning 
 and a friend of More and Erasmus, would 
 become his patron. He was disappointed, 
 for a short interview was sufficient to show 
 that there was no hope in that quarter. He 
 found a temporary home in the house of a 
 generous London merchant, Humphrey Mon- 
 mouth, who had heard, and was impressed 
 by, his earnest preaching. There he re- 
 mained about a year working at his transla- 
 tion. The Reformation was then progressing 
 on the Continent of Europe. It had reached 
 England also, and men eminent for learning 
 were propagating the new doctrines in Oxford 
 and Cambridge. The King, with that strange 
 inconsistency which characterized his acts, 
 ordered that the study of Scripture in the 
 original languages should be prosecuted as a 
 regular branch of study in Oxford ; and in 
 1519, Wolsey founded a Greek professorship 
 in the University. But though free inquiry 
 and free thought were thus apparently en- 
 couraged, those who ventured to think for 
 themselves on religious matters were perse- 
 cuted to the death. Tyndale was soon 
 forced sorrowfully to say, “Not only that 
 there was no room in my Lord of London’s 
 palace to translate the New Testament, but, 
 also, that there was no place to do it in all 
 England.” So he left England and went to 
 Hamburg, Monmouth providing him with 
 the necessary funds. This was in 1524, and 
 in the following year we find him at Cologne. 
 It would seem that during the interval he 
 took a journey to Wittemberg to see Luther, 
 who had published in that city, in 1522, the 
 first edition of his German Testament. 
 
 Tyndale’s New Testament was now ready 
 for the press. It was the first English ver- 
 sion translated from the Greek. There is 
 evidence to show that the text chiefly used 
 was the third edition of Erasmus’s Greek 
 Testament, published in 1522; but the 
 author uniformly consulted the Latin version 
 of Erasmus, the Vulgate, and the German of 
 Luther, from each of which he adopted not 
 a few renderings. He followed Luther’s 
 
 order also in the arrangement of the Epistles, 
 placing those of Peter and John before, and 
 those of James and Jude after, the Epistle to 
 the Hebrews. Careful comparative criticism 
 shows that Tyndale’s version was thoroughly 
 independent. While taking advantage, as 
 any judicious scholar would do, of all aids, 
 he exercised his own judgment on the mean- 
 ing of each Greek word. In his brief “ Epistle 
 to the Reder,” he says : “ My conscience 
 beareth me record that of a pure intent, singly 
 and faithfully, I have interpreted it as far 
 forth as God gave me the gift of knowledge 
 and understanding . . . that I had no man 
 to counterfeit (imitate), neither was helped 
 with English of any that had interpreted the 
 same or such like thing, in the Scripture be- 
 fore time.” The assertions, therefore, which 
 have often been made, even by scholars 
 who ought to know better, that Tyndale’s 
 New Testament was not translated from the 
 Greek, are opposed to all evidence, external 
 and internal. He had not, it is true, the lite- 
 rary apparatus which modern scholars pos- 
 sess; he was exposed, besides, during his work 
 to the most harassing difficulties, and yet 
 his translation is a marvel of success. It 
 fixed substantially and permanently the 
 general character -of the English version. 
 Eighty-five years intervened between its pub- 
 lication and the issue of the authorised ver- j 
 sion, and many other so-called versions were 
 printed in the interval, but they were mere 
 revisions of Tyndale’s. 
 
 The Testament was put to press in the 
 establishment of Peter Quentel, Cologne. 
 
 It was arranged to print three thousand 
 copies of a quarto edition, with prologue and 
 notes, taken largely from Luther’s version. 
 
 But when only a few sheets had been printed 
 fresh difficulties arose which frustrated the 
 plans of Tyndale. It so happened that, a 
 certain ecclesiastic, called Cochloeus, an in- 
 veterate adversary of Luther, was then an 
 exile in Cologne, and engaged in passing a 
 work through Quentel’s press. Two of the 
 printers were Lutherans,- and given to con- 
 troversy ; they were also, unfortunately, given 
 to wine. Cochloeus, being a keen contro- 
 versialist, discussed with them the theological 
 questions which were then convulsing Ger- 
 many ; and they, in the heat of discussion, 
 threw out dark hints of a revolution that 
 would soon take place in England. Cochloeus 
 resolved to discover their secret. He invited 
 them to his house, plied them freely with 
 wine, and at length got from' them the whole 
 story of Tyndale’s New Testament. Coch- 
 loeus himself narrates the incident with 
 
THE FIRST ENGLISH NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 IC 5 
 
 amusing simplicity, evidently charmed with 
 his own ingenuity. He took immediate steps 
 to have the printing interdicted and Tyndale 
 arrested ; but he was only partially success- 
 ful, for Tyndale, receiving timely notice, 
 perhaps from the penitent printers, collected 
 his manuscripts and printed sheets, entered 
 a boat, and escaped up the Rhine to Worms. 
 There he was safe, because it was a Lutheran 
 city ; and there, too, he found a skilful and 
 sympathizing printer in the person of the 
 celebrated Peter Shoffer. This occurred 
 about the month of September, 1525, when 
 the printing was at once resumed. N ow, how- 
 ever, a change was made, the reason of which 
 has never been satisfactorily explained. The 
 edition begun at Cologne was, as has been 
 said, in quarto, with a long doctrinal prologue 
 and marginal notes. The completion of this 
 book was delayed, and three thousand copies 
 of another in octavo, without preface or notes, 
 were struck off. Then followed the quarto, 
 the remaining sheets of which were passed 
 through the press. The exact time when the 
 printing was finished is not known, but there 
 is evidence that the Testaments were for 
 sale in England in the spring of 1526. 
 
 The story of the introduction of the Tes- 
 taments to England, and of their reception 
 there, is as strange and exciting as that of 
 their translation and publication. Cochloeus 
 had warned the King and Cardinal of the 
 terrible danger which threatened the realm, 
 and every precaution was taken to avert it. 
 The ports were watched, ships were searched, 
 suspected agents were seized. Still the books 
 came in thousands, transmitted, it is said, 
 partly by Jewish merchants of ^Antwerp and 
 Frankfort in the heart of bales of flax, and 
 partly by a society called the Christian 
 Brothers. The agents of Wolsey searched 
 everywhere. During the summer a conclave 
 of bishops appointed Tunstal to preach at 
 St. Paul’s Cross, London, and denounce the 
 English Testament. He did so, and after 
 the sermon a fire was kindled, and the 
 sacred volume publicly cast into the flames. 
 The efforts then made to destroy the work 
 must have been largely effectual, for of the 
 octavo edition only two copies are now 
 extant— one in the Baptist Museum, Bristol ; 
 the other, imperfect, in the Library of St. 
 Paul’s. Both want the title-page. Of the 
 quarto edition only eight of the sheets 
 printed at Cologne, containing the prologue 
 and twenty- two chapters of St. Matthew, 
 remain. The title-page is here also gone. 
 
 Widely different opinions having been 
 expressed regarding the merits of Tyndale’s 
 
 XXII— 8 
 
 New Testament and its relation to our 
 authorised version, I think it well to give 
 one or two short passages, that the reader 
 may judge for himself. I take the first from 
 Arber’s fac-simile reprint of the quarto frag- 
 ment, and the second from Bagster’s, with- 
 out any change beyond modernising the spell- 
 ing. 
 
 Matt. v. “When he saw the people, he 
 went up into a mountain, and when he was 
 set his disciples came unto him, and he 
 opened his mouth, and taught them saying : 
 Blessed are the poor in spirit ; for theirs is 
 the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they 
 that mourn; for they shall be comforted. 
 Blessed are the meek ; for they shall inherit 
 the earth. Blessed are they which hunger 
 and thirst for righteousness; for they shall 
 be filled. Blessed are the merciful ; for they 
 shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in 
 heart ; for they shall see God. Blessed are 
 the maintainers of peace ; for they shall be 
 called the children of God. Blessed are they 
 which suffer persecution for righteousness’ 
 sake ; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” 
 
 John xv. “I am the true vine, and my 
 father is an husbandman. Every branch that 
 beareth not fruit in me, he will take away. 
 And every branch that beareth fruit will he 
 purge that it may bring more fruit. Now 
 are ye clean by the means of the words 
 which I have spoken unto you. Abide in 
 me, and I in you. As the branch cannot 
 bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the 
 vine; no more can ye except ye abide in 
 me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. 
 He that abideth in me, and I in him, the 
 same bringeth forth much fruit. For without 
 me ye can do nothing.” 
 
 These passages show the character of the 
 version, and larger extracts would confirm 
 the statement I have already made, that our 
 authorised version is in substance, and fre- 
 quently in exact words, that of Tyndale. 
 
 Mr. Demaus, in his admirable biography 
 of Tyndale, says : — “ It has been found by 
 actual examination that nine-tenths of the 
 first Epistle of St. John as we now have it 
 are retained from Tyndale ; and even in the 
 difficult Epistle to the Ephesians, five-sixths 
 are Tyndale’s ; and similar proportions obtain 
 throughout the whole volume. 
 
 So great was the demand for the book, 
 that a large edition was published in Ant- 
 werp in 1526, without Tyndale’s sanction. 
 Four other editions followed in the same 
 place in successive years ; but, having been 
 printed without due supervision, they were 
 full of errors. Gigantic efforts were made in 
 
io6 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 England — not so much by the King and 
 Wolsey as by a fanatical section of the hie- 
 rarchy — to suppress the work. The Christian 
 Brethren, who were chiefly instrumental in 
 introducing it, were seized and imprisoned. 
 The English ambassador in Holland was 
 instructed to endeavour to have the Antwerp 
 printer punished ; and when this failed, he* 
 was commissioned to buy up all the copies, 
 and he actually did thus secure and burn 
 about a thousand in the Low Countries. 
 Another large collection was purchased from 
 Jews in Frankfort, and consigned to the 
 flames. But the ready sale only encouraged 
 the printers, and thousands issued from the 
 Dutch press. In 1534, George Joye under- 
 took, at the request of the printer, to correct 
 for the press a new edition, and received the 
 handsome remuneration of fourpence-half- 
 penny per sheet ! He made some alterations 
 in the text, for which he was sharply reproved 
 by Tyndale. One of these led to a bitter 
 controversy. In Matt. xxii. 30, 31, in place 
 of Tyndale’s rendering, “ resurrection,” Joye 
 has “ the life after this ; ” his object being to 
 set forth his own view regarding the state of 
 the soul between death and judgment, as 
 opposed to Tyndale’s, who held that the 
 soul remains in a state of sleep. 
 
 While Joye’s Testament was passing 
 through the press, Tyndale was engaged in 
 a thorough revision of his own, which was 
 published in November, 1534, by Martin 
 Emperour, of Antwerp. “ The corrections 
 may be reckoned by thousands, and in the 
 great majority of cases their obvious ten- 
 dency is to bring the English version into 
 closer correspondence with the Greek.” Yet 
 in the general characteristics and style no- 
 thing is changed. 
 
 Westcott rightly says that Tyndale esta- 
 blished at the first a standard of translation 
 which he himself and all his successors 
 followed. To the edition of 1534 were 
 added marginal notes, chiefly of an exposi- 
 tory character, and a special introduction to 
 each of the books except the Acts and 
 Revelation. In the following year Tyndale 
 made another and final revision, which he 
 published without note or comment in 1536. 
 Like the previous edition, it had appended 
 to it “ The Epistles taken out of the Old 
 Testament which are read in the Church 
 after the use of Salsbury.” 
 
 While Tyndale was thus labouring to per- 
 fect his translation of the New Testament 
 he was basely betrayed by an English emis- 
 sary in Antwerp, and on the 23rd of May, 
 
 1 535, taken prisoner, to the Castle of Vil- 
 
 vorde, near Brussels. There can be no 
 doubt that this act of treachery was 
 planned in England. His crime was, that 
 he gave the Word of God to the English 
 people in their own tongue, and thus laid 
 the foundation of civil and religious liberty. 
 The services he rendered to English litera- 
 ture were great, but his services to the cause 
 of freedom were greater still. He was per- 
 secuted, but he bore his persecutions with a 
 heroism never surpassed. Having been 
 driven from position and prospects in Eng- 
 land, he was for twelve years a homeless, 
 exile. He had one grand object in view, 
 and one only; and in an appeal to 
 Henry VIII. he stated it with singular pathos 
 and power : — 
 
 “ I assure you if it would stand with the 
 King’s most gracious pleasure to grant only 
 a bare text of the Scripture to be put 
 forth among his people, like as is put forth 
 among the subjects of the Emperor in these 
 parts, and of other Christian princes, be it 
 of the translation of what person soever shall 
 please his Majesty, I shall immediately make 
 faithful promise never to write more, nor 
 abide two days in these parts after the same ; 
 but immediately repair into his realm, and 
 there most humbly submit myself at the feet 
 of his royal Majesty, offering my body to 
 suffer what pain or torture, yea, what death, 
 his Grace will, so that this be attained.” 
 
 It was in, vain. Henry would not move 
 to save him. He was tried, condemned, 
 and sentenced to be strangled and burnt at 
 the stake. His death was an everlasting 
 disgrace to both England and the German 
 Empire, but it was also a grand termination 
 of a heroic and devoted life. His last 
 words were, “ Lord, open the King of Eng- 
 land’s eyes.” 
 
 Tyndale died on the 6th of October, 1536,. 
 and even then the cause for which he suf- 
 fered was triumphant. In that very year his 
 New Testament was published in London. 
 In that very year also a royal injunction was 
 issued, “ That every parson or proprietary 
 of any parish church throughout this realm 
 shall, on this side the feast of St. Peter next 
 coming, provide a book of the whole Bible 
 in Latin, and also in English , and lay the 
 same in the quire for every man that will to 
 look and read therein.” “ In this act,” says 
 Froude, “was laid the foundation-stone on 
 which the whole later history of England, 
 civil as well as ecclesiastical, has been 
 reared ; and the most minute incidents be- 
 come interesting connected with an event of 
 so mighty moment.” j. l. porter. 
 
“ TALITHA CUMI.” 
 
 gi Sermon io (ftltiltiten pwaxlwb on Smurcetits’ ^pajj, 28, ISSO, in tf&cstmnstcx ^bbcj). 
 By A. P. STANLEY, D.D., Dean of Westminster. 
 
 L et me take this evening the. story , of 
 our Saviour’s kindness to a little girl. 
 There was in Capernaum a well-kjiown house 
 where lived one of the chief officers of the 
 Synagogue. His name was Jairus. In that 
 house was one only child, a little daughter of 
 twelve years old — -just at the age when a child 
 has had time to endear itself to its parents— 
 when its character first becomes to be seen 
 and known. The child was thought to be 
 dying. The father heard that the Great 
 Healer had just crossed the lake. He was 
 feasting in the house of Levi, the publican. 
 The father rushes in — he falls at His feet 
 — he entreats Him to come and save his 
 daughter. The Lord arose ; that little life 
 was as precious in His sight as the souls of 
 those whom He was convincing by His 
 divine wisdom. He who said, “ Suffer the 
 little children to come unto Me,” was. as 
 eager, if one may so say, to soothe the sick 
 bed of this small Galilean maiden as though 
 He had nothing else to do. For Him the 
 thought of human sickness, the call of a 
 suffering parent, was the most sacred of human 
 duties. He came at once. All along the 
 shore and all through the streets He had to 
 force His way through the dense crowd, 
 thronging even more and more closely round 
 Him. Whilst He thus struggled with the 
 crowd, a messenger broke through the press 
 with the sad tidings that it was too late. 
 “ Thy daughter is dead.” Amidst the surg- 
 ing of the crowd, and above the hum of 
 many voices, the Master’s wakeful ear heard 
 the whisper of the messenger. He bade the 
 father still keep up his heart. “ Fear not,” 
 He said, “only believe.” “Fear not,” He 
 says to all anxious mourners. “ Fear not 
 the dark and dreary void into which thy 
 loved one has passed. Fear not that God 
 will desert thee in thine hour of need. Fear 
 not but thou wilt once more see the child, the 
 parent, the brother, the sister thou hast lost. 
 Only believe in the loving-kindness of God our 
 Saviour. Only believe that He who makes the 
 flowers to spring and the buds to come forth 
 again, will raise that little flower, will help that 
 bursting blossom of the human soul.” He 
 reaches the house. The hired mourners of 
 Eastern countries are already there. They 
 are wailing and shrieking, as is their wont. 
 He said to the parents, “ She is not dead, but 
 sleepeth” — words that have often brought 
 comfort to parents who have hung over 
 
 the face of their dead child, in the hope 
 of the general resurrection — words that are 
 written in this church, on the pedestal 
 of one of the children of the great family 
 of Russell, who died in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. He touched the hand' 
 of the child, as she lay on her couch as if in 
 the sleep of death. He addressed her in 
 words which have been handed down lite- 
 rally. It is doubtful, in His discourses 
 generally, what language our Saviour spoke 
 — whether Greek or Syriac ; but here, at 
 any rate, the Syriac words are given. They 
 are, “ Talitha cumij” that is, “My little 
 lamb, my little pet lamb, rise up.” By 
 these endearing appellations He roused the 
 sleeping soul. By this He showed to the 
 parents that He was one with them in their 
 parental love, in their domestic joy as well 
 as in their domestic sorrow. And she came 
 again to life, and was to them as before. 
 
 Now let me apply this both to parents 
 and children. Parents, remember what a 
 gift, what an inestimable gift, is given to you 
 in the gift of the soul of a little child, how 
 its playful ways are to you the special gift of 
 God. Think what a sight it is to see an 
 innocent little girl ; reflect how, to any one 
 except the most brutal of mankind, such a 
 sight banishes all thoughts of filthy language 
 or foul deeds; remember that the tenderness 
 and gentleness which the sight of such a 
 little girl awakens is one of the best parts of 
 your nature. If any of you doubt whether 
 it is in you to be self-controlled and masters 
 of yourselves, remember that, unless you are 
 very bad indeed, you must be so in the 
 presence of such a little being. Sir William 
 Napier describes, in his “ History of the 
 Peninsular War,” how aftecting it was to 
 see, at the battle of Busaco, in Portugal, a 
 beautiful Portuguese orphan girl coming 
 down the mountains, driving an ass loaded 
 with all her property through the midst of 
 the armies. She passed over the field of 
 battle with a childish simplicity, scarcely 
 understanding which were French and which 
 were English, and no one on either side was 
 so hard-hearted as to touch her. And let 
 me give two stories which show how the 
 strongest men are open to those kindly 
 feelings which little children are given by 
 our heavenly Father to promote in all of us. 
 That same Sir William Napier once in his 
 walks met with a little girl of five years old 
 
1 08 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 sobbing over a pitcher she had broken. She, 
 in her innocence, asked him to mend it. He 
 told her that he could not mend it, but that 
 he would meet her trouble by giving her six- 
 pence to buy a new one, if she would meet 
 him there at the same hour the next even- 
 ing, as he had no money in his purse that 
 day. When he returned home he found 
 that there was an invitation waiting for him, 
 which he particularly wished to accept. But 
 he could not then have met the little girl at 
 the time stated, and he gave up the invitation, 
 saying, “I could not disappoint her 3 she 
 trusted in me so implicitly.” That was the 
 true Christian English gentleman and soldier. 
 Another example is that of Martin Luther, 
 one of the fiercest and most courageous men 
 that ever lived. But when he thought of his 
 little children, especially of his little daugh- 
 ter, he was as gentle and kind as any woman. 
 His daughter Magdalen died when she was 
 thirteen years of age, and it is most affect- 
 ing to read his grief, and, at the same time, 
 his resignation. “ Magdalen, my little daugh- 
 ter, thou wouldst gladly stay with thy father 
 here, and thou wouldst also gladly go to thy 
 Father yonder.” “ Ah ! thou dear little 
 thing, thou shalt rise again, and shine like a 
 star ; yea, like the sun.” “ Her face,, her 
 words cleave to our heart, remain fixed in its 
 depths, living and dying, the words and 
 looks of that most dutiful child. Blessed 
 be the Lord Jesus Christ who called, chose, 
 and magnified her. I would for myself, and 
 all of us, that we might attain to such a 
 death, yea, rather, to such a life.” 
 
 And you, children, these words are also 
 addressed to you. “My little lamb,” the 
 very word tells to you how precious you are 
 to the Good Shepherd. Arise, get up, bestir 
 yourself; get up from any slothful habit, 
 from any idle, selfish habit you have formed. 
 Let His voice reach your innermost heart, 
 and raise you from the deepest sleep. 
 
 There was a little boy who used to carry 
 parcels from a bookseller to his customers. 
 He went every day trudging through the 
 streets with a heavy parcel of books under 
 his arm, and one day he was sent to the 
 house of a great duke with three folio volumes 
 of Clarendon’s “ History of England.” The 
 parcel was so heavy, his shoulders were so 
 tired, that as he passed through Broad Sanc- 
 tuary, opposite Westminster Abbey, he laid 
 down the load, and sobbed at the thought 
 that there was nothing higher in life for him 
 to look forward to than being a bookseller’s 
 porter. Suddenly he looked up at the great 
 building which towered above him. He 
 
 thought of the high thoughts and great men 
 who were enshrined within it. He brushed 
 away his tears, replaced the load on his 
 shoulders, and walked on with a light heart, 
 determined to bide his time. And his time 
 came at last. He became one of the best 
 and most learned of our Indian missionaries. 
 
 There was a little girl living with her old 
 grandfather. She was a good child, but he 
 was not a very good man, and one day 
 when the little child came back from school 
 he put in writing over her bed, “ God is no- 
 where ,” for he did not believe in the good 
 God, and he tried to make the little child 
 believe the same. What did the little girl 
 do? She had no eyes to see, no ears to 
 hear, what her grandfather tried to teach her. 
 She was very small ; she could only read 
 words of one syllable at the time ; she rose 
 above the bad meaning which he tried to 
 put into her mind ; she rose as we ought all 
 to rise, above the temptation of our time ; 
 she rose into a higher and better world ; she 
 rose because her little mind could not do 
 otherwise, and she read the words, not “ God 
 is nowhere ,” but “ God is now here .” That 
 is* what we all should strive to do. Out of 
 words which have no sense, or which have 
 bad sense, our eyes, our minds, ought to 
 be able to read a better sense. The old 
 grandfather was touched, and made serious, 
 and we ought all of us to be made serious 
 in like manner by the innocent questions 
 and answers of our little children. God is 
 now here. God is now, at this moment, 
 watching over them and us. God is here, 
 in this very Abbey, watching over the little 
 children here assembled. God is here, in 
 your homes, in your play, in your prayers, 
 listening to you, as He is in this church, 
 and He says to each one of us, “ Talitha 
 cumi ” — My little lamb, rise, mount up, be 
 better this year than you were last year. 
 Mount up, become better and wiser ; mount 
 up, rise up, as if you are climbing a long 
 ladder; mount up, rise up, as if you are 
 climbing a high mountain, and then you 
 will be able to read those words, “ God is 
 nowhere ,” in their truest sense. They mean 
 that God is in no particular place. That 
 is true ; but it is not the whole truth — it is 
 only half the truth, or, rather, it is, when 
 taken by itself, the reverse of the truth. . But 
 when we make it, “ God is now here , ’it be- 
 comes a great truth, for it tells us that it 
 is because God is in no particular place, 
 therefore He is in all places. God is now 
 here, for God is always everywhere-- your 
 help in ages past, your hope in years to come. 
 
the camorristi. 
 
 By Madame GALLETTI. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 E can go no far- 
 ther without ox- 
 en,” said the 
 driver of an ante- 
 diluvian - looking 
 vehicle, drawn by a pair of famished and 
 jaded horses, which had been for the last 
 three hours struggling up a steep ascent 
 winding from the dreary shores of the Adria- 
 tic to the more picturesque heights above, 
 and had now come to a halt at the last and 
 most precipitous turn of the road. He . 
 la retta ,” he shouted, as a plough came m 
 sight at the end of a long furrow, drawn by a 
 pair of gigantic oxen and guided by a peasant 
 
 in a white smock. . 
 
 The peasant made no reply until the driver 
 had exhausted himself in mingled threats and 
 entreaties. At last he stopped his plough 
 and appeared to ruminate for a second on 
 the promise of “ mezza lira” for his trouble. 
 Having come to the conclusion that such 
 recompense was insufficient for leaving his 
 work in order to draw a coach up the hill, he 
 merely shook his head and went on with his 
 
 ° C “ U Una°lira,” shouted the driver, “ wicked, 
 unfeeling, good-for-nothing cheat that you 
 
 are 1 ” . 
 
 Another shake of the head was the only 
 
 reply* 
 
 The traveller now interfered. “ Give him 
 anything he asks, but let us get on, or we 
 shall not be in Oliveto before nightfall. 
 
 “ No, certainly we shall not,” grumbled 
 the vetturino. 
 
 “ Then I will pass the n*ight at that village 
 I see on the top of the hill.” 
 
 “ What, up there! Well, I should not 
 advise you. You could scarcely choose a 
 worse halting-place. Monte Bngida it was 
 called after the saint, but we’ve altered the 
 name a little. Monte dei Briccone we call it 
 now, for there’s scarce an honest ^man in it. 
 
 “ There is an inn, I suppose?” 
 
 “ Inn ! no ; but there’s the house ot 
 Marotti. They’re good folk. _ Yes, you can 
 go there ; ” and that point being settled, old 
 Pasquare, as our driver was called, again 
 apostrophized the heartless ploughman. 
 
 “ Maledetto porco birbante ! Two francs, 
 and come directly. May a bad accident 
 
 overtake you ! ” . 
 
 Thus bribed, and noways discomposed by 
 the abusive epithets showered upon him, the 
 stolid contadino detached his oxen from tie 
 plough and fastened them to the travelling- 
 carriage in front of the jaded horses. Then 
 the procession moved slowly on— the two 
 drivers walking by the side of their respec- 
 
 tive animals. . , , A 
 
 “ Why has yonder village got such a baa 
 name?” inquired the inmate of the carriage. 
 
 “ It would take too long to tell you, re- 
 plied Pasquare shortly; “ and now that we 
 are nearing it, I prefer being silent on the 
 subject; but this much I will say” (putting 
 his head in at the carriage window, and 
 speaking low and impressively) : “This world 
 is made for thieves. The law favours them, 
 the Church favours them, and fortune favours 
 them ; and the honest ones must wait for 
 their rights until they go to Paradise. 
 
 So saying, good Pasquare took his head 
 back with a sigh, as if regretting his own un- 
 fortunate bias in the direction of ho^sty. 
 The bias was not so very strong but that he 
 had succeeded in overcoming it now and 
 then, still Pasquare was as times went 
 worthy enough soul. 
 
 The stranger hazarded another remark. 
 
 “You content yourself with philosophy. 
 It does not occur to you when you see 
 things go wrong to try and put them right. 
 
 Pasquare shook his head and shrugged hisv 
 shoulders. “ I mind my own concerns, he 
 said “I never found any good come ot 
 
 meddling with other people’s—especially with 
 
 theirs ,” pointing with his whip to JiHag • 
 Then again poking his wizen face far m 
 the carrfage window. “Ask no questions, 
 
no 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 make no remarks once you get there, as you 
 value your life ! ” 
 
 “As I value my life!” repeated the tra- 
 veller with a little scornful laugh. “How 
 often have I risked it, and to so little pur- 
 pose,” he murmured, as to himself, whilst his 
 thin pale lips shaped themselves into a bitter 
 ■'curve that seemed habitual to them. His 
 eyes, deep sunk in his head, had that subdued 
 fire in them only seen in the eyes of people 
 who have suffered- a great wrong. It was a 
 gainful countenance ; one on which so much 
 was written, and so clearly, that the most 
 casual observer could scarcely fail to read 
 something. Pasquare’s active mind had 
 soon been made up on the subject of his new 
 fare. 
 
 “ A galantuomo ; but one of those who has 
 found honesty doesn’t pay; and he feels 
 • angry — no wonder ! ” 
 
 _ They had arrived at the archway in the 
 high massive wall built centuries ago as a 
 protection against the pirate hordes, who had 
 once been the terror and the scourge of all 
 that coast, until the frightened population fled 
 to the hilltops and built and fortified villages 
 as far above the sea as they could get. All 
 around this wall outside was the public pro- 
 menade, shaded by acacias, and adorned here 
 ■and there with a rustic bench; and through 
 the archway the principal street, paved un- 
 evenly and sloping upwards, was visible. 
 Here the oxen were unloosed, and the 
 rickety vehicle was brought to a standstill at 
 ■ ; the door of the biggest house in the street. 
 
 Such an important event as the arrival of 
 ■a carriage at Monte Brigida excited an im- 
 mense sensation. All the windows were 
 blocked with eager faces, and a dense crowd 
 quickly surrounded the travelling-carriage. 
 Many were the lean hands stretched out for 
 “ un soldo,” and the shrill voices demanding 
 “Carita ! Signor Conte ! Marchese ! ! Prin- 
 cipe!!!” Pasquare showered down upon 
 the beggars a torrent of oaths, bade them 
 leave the “ forestiere ” alone, and struck 
 about with his whip. 
 
 The stranger noticed, and with a pang, their 
 sharp and hungry faces, their dirt and their 
 rags ; but the encouragement of beggary was 
 against his principles, and instead of the ex- 
 pected coins he bestowed a lecture stranger 
 and more unwelcome to their ears than the 
 driver’s oaths. 
 
 Meantime Pasquare had responded “Amici ” 
 to a demand of “Chi e?” from within the 
 house, this being the customary formula. 
 Phe door w r as opened by an old gentleman 
 (for, in spite of the meanness and shabbiness 
 
 of his attire, a gentleman he evidently was), 
 to whom the vetturino explained he and his 
 fare were afraid of being benighted, and had 
 resolved to remain at Monte Brigida instead 
 of prosecuting; their journey to Oliveto. The 
 forestiere was confided to Marotti’s care, 
 whilst Pasquare himself repaired to the 
 osteria. 
 
 i “ You are welcome, most welcome,” said 
 the old man, bowing courteously, “ to what 
 poor shelter my house affords.” 
 
 “ I hope I am not inconveniencing you,” 
 said the traveller. 
 
 “No, no ; but I am afraid you will be in- 
 commoded yourself. You do not look,” 
 glancing at the neat travelling-suit, “ as if 
 you were accustomed to such rough ways as 
 ours.” 
 
 The new-comer smiled rather strangely. 
 “ My life has been passed amongst such 
 various scenes,” he replied, “ that nothing 
 comes amiss to me. You can scarcely ima- 
 gine rougher experiences than some* which 
 have fallen to my lot.” 
 
 He was led up the stone staircase to a 
 large and lofty room, on the ceiling of which 
 many fat and rosy Cupids disported themselves 
 with garlands in an azure sky. The imagina- 
 tive genius of the painter had been exercised 
 too upon the walls, whereon flights of steps 
 and colonnades innumerable were suggested, 
 with more display of fancy than knowledge 
 of perspective. The actual furniture of the 
 room was scanty. It consisted of a large, and 
 certainly a handsome, carved oaken table and 
 benches covered with faded silk against the 
 walls. The floor was of brick, and carpetless. 
 There were one or two wooden chairs and an 
 arm-chair in the window recess, in which sat 
 an old lady intent on elaborate embroidery. 
 On a stool at her feet sat a girl knitting. The 
 ladies were poorly but cleanly dressed. Both 
 wore white linen aprons embroidered by their 
 own hands — as is the custom with notable 
 housewives in that primitive part of Italy. 
 Signor Marotti introduced his wife and 
 daughter, bidding them make haste and see 
 what there was for supper. “ Little enough, 
 
 I am afraid,” he added with a sigh. The 
 signora proceeded to spread a clean table- 
 cloth, and from a cupboard in the wall took 
 some slices of ham, a cheese made of ewe’s 
 milk, and a loaf of maize bread. 
 
 “ That is all there is,” she said. 
 
 The guest vowed it was plenty. 
 
 “ And wine ? ” demanded the host. “ Is 
 there none? Here, Tetella,” to his daughter, 
 “run to the osteria. Nay” (with another 
 glance at his guest), “ the wine there is not 
 
THE CAMORRISTI. 
 
 hi 
 
 fit for such as you. Wife ! get a bottle of 
 that Sicilian wine the grandfather brought 
 back from his travels so many years ago.” 
 “What ! the grandfather’s ! ” exclaimed 
 the old lady with horror, as if asked to com- 
 mit some act of sacrilege. 
 
 « Yes, certainly. What is wine for but to 
 drink ? and stay, it is cold— what are fire- 
 places for but to light fifes in ?.” 
 
 So saying the old man, in his eager hospi- 
 tality, let down a board which concealed an 
 open hearth, thereby making a notable change 
 in the fictitious landscape. 
 
 “Figlia mia, run and fetch some wood. 
 Let us make the best of our poor resources. 
 Lascia fare,” as the stranger began again to 
 apologize for the trouble he was causing; 
 
 “ it is not often that we have the chance of 
 entertaining so distinguished a guest.” 
 
 What was there about the new-comer that 
 inspired at once so much respect and defe- 
 rence? By his clothes, his manners, his 
 carriage, he would appear to be one who 
 rather avoided than invited attention. He 
 had not an imposing presence. He was a 
 little man, bent, yellow, and somewhat 
 shrunken. Yet instinctively his hosts treated 
 him with a homage that his outward circum- 
 stances scarcely warranted ; for what did 
 they know of him, except that he was a be- 
 nighted wayfarer, who had come from the sea- 
 port in Pasquare’s lumbering old carriage? 
 He did justice to the homely meal, praised 
 the wine, and as he warmed his hands before 
 the cheerful blaze of the oak logs a genial 
 smile lighted up his cadaverous face, and he 
 looked round on his friendly hosts as if their 
 kindly welcome had warmed his frozen heart. 
 
 Looking more attentively at the girl, who 
 had returned to her position on the low 
 stool, he fell to wondering what the some- 
 thing strange, almost uncanny, about her 
 was. She had a way of jerking her head 
 round, as if afraid of some one behind her, 
 and her eyes had a fixed, scared look. “ She 
 has had some nervous shock,” thought the 
 guest. There had been a time when even 
 he, brave man though he was, had been 
 afflicted with nervous terrors. Even now he 
 would shudder and tremble like a frightened 
 child at any sound which resembled the 
 clanking of a chain. 
 
 “You come from far?” inquired Teresa 
 hastily, to hide her confusion, as she sud- 
 denly encountered the penetrating gaze of 
 the guest’s hazel eyes. 
 
 “ I come immediately from Rome.” 
 
 “ And you go to Oliveto to-morrow ? ” 
 
 “Just so.” The stranger’s answers were 
 
 curt ; but the tone was not unpleasant nor 
 unfriendly in which he put a stop to the 
 further indulgence of curiosity by saying, 
 
 “ To tell you the truth, signori, I am fonder 
 of asking than of answering questions. You 
 have a great many beggars in this village ot 
 yours. It does not seem to be in a highly 
 flourishing condition.” 
 
 The old man sighed. 
 
 “ Twenty years ago,” he said, “ when my 
 father was sindaco, it was as well-to-do a 
 place as you could see, and the old babbo’s 
 favourite joke was that he was the only poor 
 man in it ; for never a wayfarer asked hospi- 
 tality in vain, never a beggar was turned 
 from his door, and the good father’s hospi- 
 tality was out of proportion to his means, 
 which were but moderate. Now things are 
 reversed. The only rich and prosperous 
 man in all this village, is his worship the 
 present sindaco, who drives his carriage and 
 eats and drinks of the best, while the villagers 
 starve, and the roads go unmended, the 
 church unrepaired, and the taxes augment 
 annually. These are curious coincidences, 
 are they not ? ” with a bitter laugh. 
 
 “ Most curious,” returned the guest drily. 
 
 “Hush!” exclaimed the old lady in a 
 frightened whisper, putting her finger to her 
 lips, as she saw her husband showing symp- 
 toms of growing excitement. “ Take care 
 what you say.” 
 
 The girl, too, looked round in that startled 
 way which had been noticeable in her before. 
 
 “ Walls have no ears,” observed the 
 guest reassuringly, “ and you may trust me. 
 Then, with a certain hesitation, he added, 
 “I might even be able to help you a little 
 perhaps.” 
 
 Signor Marotti looked at the stranger 
 keenly, half suspiciously. “ It was so it all 
 began,” he murmured, “through being too 
 trustful and simple.” And as he scrutinised 
 he gave a sudden start, for his eye fell on the 
 hand which the guest had stretched forth 
 to warm at the fire. A little of the wrist 
 was visible; there was an ugly dark ring 
 round it. Marotti knew the. meaning of 
 such a mark, for he had seen it on another 
 wrist. It was the mark of a fetter. Yes, and 
 the iron had eaten not only into the flesh, 
 but into the very soul of the man. Five 
 years in a Neapolitan dungeon ! Chained, 
 not to a stake or a stone, but worse— a thou- 
 sand times worse — linked in horrible com- 
 panionship with a criminal of the worst 
 order, whilst he had committed no crime 
 but that of having loved his country with a too 
 unbounded devotion. In a moment he saw 
 
J 12 
 
 GOOD WORDS, 
 
 it all. He saw that he was now confounded 
 with that criminal, or others such as he. It 
 was too much. He sprang to his feet, and 
 stood confronting the three awe-struck hosts 
 with flashing eyes : but it was not to them 
 that he spoke. 
 
 “ Oh, Italia ! patria mia ! ” he exclaimed, 
 as if addressing some spectre invisible to all 
 eyes but his. “ Is this my reward for my 
 long devotion? To be branded with eter- 
 nal ignominy ! Bracketed with thy worst 
 enemies ! with the very dregs of the earth ! 
 
 I — I ” And covering his face with his 
 
 hands, he wept. 
 
 The Marottis were simple folk, naturally 
 inclined to believe and trust. Only the 
 bitterest experience could have taught them 
 suspicion, and that they had had ; but they 
 were not proof against strong and terrible 
 emotion such as this. The man must be a 
 consummate actor indeed, were he feigning 
 now. The women wept from sympathy, and 
 the old man, placing his hand on the guest’s 
 shoulder, said, “ Forgive me, you are a 
 galantuomo, or there is not one on this 
 earth. I believe it ; nothing shall make me 
 doubt it, and I will give you my entire con- 
 fidence.” 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 “ Now, listen,” said Marotti, when they 
 had all recovered their composure, “ and you 
 shall hear how our troubles came about. 
 The babbo was getting old, and some- 
 what failing in his intellect. The regulation 
 of the municipal affairs was becoming a task 
 beyond his strength. I, at that time, was a 
 man in the prime of life, and too much 
 occupied with la caccia, which was my 
 passion, to care to sit poring over accounts. 
 Our municipal secretary, although he just 
 knew how to read and write, was no hand at 
 complex arithmetic. One evening — just such 
 an evening as this — I remember there came 
 a stranger asking for hospitality. He was 
 on foot, unshorn and in rags, presenting 
 altogether a most miserable appearance. 
 From one of his wrists dangled part of a 
 chain, and he told a piteous story of how he 
 had escaped from a dungeon in Naples, 
 where he had been immured only for a poli- 
 tical offence.” 
 
 The guest started. 
 
 “ You will understand by-and-by,” con- 
 tinued the old man apologetically, “ why 
 these tales make us suspicious.” 
 
 “Yes, indeed,” returned the stranger with 
 a sigh ; “ and why should I expect you to 
 believe in me ? ” 
 
 ‘■'Nevertheless I do,” said Marotti; “whilst, 
 to do me justice, I never quite believed the 
 other, in spite of his plausible story and his 
 insinuating manner. There was something 
 in his eye which belied his voice. He made 
 out that he was a gentleman of some old 
 family (he hinted at a title), and he cer- 
 tainly gave proof of education, for, quickly 
 taking my father’s accounts in hand, he soon 
 made order, or what seemed like order, out 
 of chaos. The babbo, delighted to see the 
 figures added up in such neat columns, irn 
 mediately began to think of how he might find 
 his poor stupid secretary another employ 
 ment, and give the new-comer his place. 
 My faint objections that we knew nothing 
 of the man, except that he had escaped from 
 prison, and that a person should not be 
 admitted to a place of public trust without 
 credentials, were overruled ; and in a very 
 few days the ragged stranger was installed 
 as municipal secretary, being lodged and 
 boarded in the house. Nicolai — that was 
 the name by which he called himself, hint- 
 ing, however, that his real name was one too 
 celebrated to give ” 
 
 “Very likely,” interpolated the guest, “it 
 is that probably of some notorious thief or 
 swindler.” 
 
 “ Well, he was full of advice and sugges- 
 tions, which sounded most plausible and 
 sensible. It is true that there was room for 
 improvement in the babbo’s way of adminis- 
 tering affairs. Yet the' village prospered 
 under his merciful rule. If he were occa- 
 sionally too lenient to the vicious, his good 
 example excited the honest and virtuous 
 to further efforts. Nicolai soon put down 
 indiscriminate charity, was always discover- 
 ing new rights and perquisites of the munici- 
 pality which we had never even thought of. 
 Then he was quite' shocked at the way in 
 which my father had allowed the villagers, by 
 one excuse or other, to evade the taxes. ‘ It 
 was cheating the government,’ he said with 
 an air of virtuous indignation. The ‘ giudice 
 conciliatore ’ was pronounced incompetent, 
 and the old ‘ curato ’ imbecile. No one 
 could deny the jiistice of these remarks ; but 
 somehow Nicolai’s reforms seemed to benefit 
 none but himself and friends. He soon 
 grew fat and ruddy, his rags gave place to 
 smart new clothes, and he was quite the 
 dandy of the village. The inefficient magis- 
 trate was replaced by a man from the ‘ Regno.’ 
 When the good old curate died, our secre- 
 tary found out that he had a particular friend 
 just ready to step into the vacant place, and 
 so gradually every office of importance in 
 
THE CAMORRISTI. 
 
 
 the village was filled by some new-comer 
 who started up like magic no one knew from 
 
 whence.” , , . 
 
 “ Good heavens ! ” exclaimed the. guest 
 impatiently. “ And you were so blind as 
 not to see the trap that was being laid tor 
 
 you.” . . . 
 
 “ You may well be surprised, signor, at 
 our simplicity. We swallowed down every 
 lie, fell into every snare, until our oppressors 
 no longer cared to wear a disguise. But I 
 am anticipating. When the poor father died, 
 Nicolai had already ruled everything for 
 some time past ; but he did not let the poor 
 old man die in peace. Babbo was told that 
 his former negligence had got the munici- 
 pality into debt and difficulties from which 
 Nicolai had been trying in vain to extricate 
 it ■ and the dying man was induced to alter 
 his will, leaving all his little fortune m the 
 secretary’s hands for the payment . of this 
 supposed debt. I was thus disinherited, le t 
 with nothing but this house and the patch of 
 ground attached to it, which I have to culti- 
 vate with my own hands. My wife and 
 daughter earn what they can by embroidery, 
 and so we eke out a miserable existence. 
 When my father was in his grave, and I 
 came to know the mean trick that had 
 been played me, you may imagine my fury 
 — but it was all in vain. The man who 
 had ruined me laughed in my face when I 
 told him he was a cheat and a scoundrel. 
 
 « Prove it ! ’ he said mockingly. There were 
 no proofs ; and if there had been I had no 
 money wherewith to go to law. He had 
 already gathered round him a strong party, 
 and he was made sindaco in spite of grow- 
 ing murmurs. Then the reign of tenor 
 began. The whole machinery was complete. 
 Our oppressors played into each other s 
 hands with a skill which showed they were 
 accustomed to the game. When at last, 
 goaded to desperation, we drew up and 
 signed a petition to the prefect, and sent it 
 to Oliveto, the petition never reached. How 
 should it, when the postman was a creature 
 of the sindaco’s, who peruses every, letter 
 which leaves or which enters this village! 
 Our simple minds at last convinced of this 
 fact, we sent a messenger, one whom we 
 could trust, with another petition, drawn up 
 with great caution by a secret committee, to 
 be delivered into the prefect’s own hands. 
 That messenger was found dead by the road- 
 side mysteriously murdered. And that is 
 not the only mysterious, murder that has 
 been committed since Nicolai became sin- 
 daco. We cannot prove, but we all know 
 perfectly well, that the two ‘guardie’ kept 
 ostensibly for our protection are paid assas- 
 sins.” . 
 
 “ In a word,” said the guest with deep 
 solemnity, “ you are in the clutches of a 
 powerful, and probably a very extensive, 
 camorra.” 
 
GOOD WORDS. 
 
 114 
 
 “ Yes, that is the word,” replied Marotti. 
 “ And how should we poor villagers attempt 
 to struggle against an institution which the 
 Government is unable to put down ? ” 
 
 “ Unable to put down ! That shall not 
 be said. Great God ! I will disprove that,” 
 cried the stranger, pacing the room in great 
 agitation. 
 
 “ But I have not told you all our particular 
 troubles yet,” pursued Marotti, who, once set 
 off, seemed unable to stop in his eager narra- 
 tion. “ You see my daughter there ? ” 
 
 “Yes!” said the stranger more gently, 
 and fixing his eyes on Teresa with a pitying 
 look. “ Is she peculiarly a victim ? ” 
 
 “ One of the greatest victims. Our sindaco 
 did her the honour to admire her ; and, 
 although he had no intention of proposing 
 to marry her — for a penniless girl would 
 never suit him for a wife — he so per- 
 secuted her with his odious attentions that 
 she was at last afraid to leave the house. 
 One day he got drunk at a ‘ fiera,’ and re- 
 turning late, as ill luck would have it, just as 
 Tetella had run out on a commission — for you 
 see we keep no servant — he met and fright- 
 ened her so much that she never recovered 
 from the shock. She ran as for her life, and 
 making good her escape from the drunken 
 wretch, she rushed sobbing into the arms of 
 Pietro Fontana, her betrothed. It was dark. 
 Nicolai managed to slip away, or he would 
 probably not be alive at this moment, for 
 Pietro’s blood runs hot in his veins. The 
 next day, as our plunderers were holding 
 what they are pleased to call a municipal 
 council, they were astonished by the sudden 
 appearance of Pietro, who, going straight up 
 to the mayor, dealt him such a blow as sent 
 him reeling off his chair. 
 
 “ Pietro was, of course, prosecuted for 
 having struck a public officer during the 
 exercise of his functions. You know, sir, 
 the leniency with which the sort of offence 
 
 of which he had been guilty is usually dealt, 
 in this country. Even murderers, when 
 they show just cause for anger, frequently get 
 off scot free. But in this case the extenuat- 
 ing circumstances were not admitted, and 
 the offender was sentenced to undergo the 
 utmost penalty of the law. 
 
 “ My future son-in-law has languished for 
 more than a year in prison at Oliveto, and 
 his term is not half out. He was a carpenter 
 by profession, but with a name as good as 
 our own, and a title to boot, if he chose to 
 claim it, which was all that his father left him. 
 Plis business, which was prospering, has 
 passed into other hands ; and when at length 
 he emerges from prison, he will have to 
 begin life over again with a blot upon his 
 name.” 
 
 “But, surely,” exclaimed the stranger, 
 “ the pernicious influence of this mayor, this 
 escaped criminal, does not extend, to the 
 chief town of the district ! The young man 
 surely had a fair trial ! ” 
 
 “ That is just what he did not have. How 
 could there be a fair trial when the previous 
 instruction was entirely falsified? For is 
 not our worthy magistrate one of the coali- 
 tion ? They have their accomplices, their 
 nest of thieves, in every quarter., In the 
 army, the Church, the law, the nobility. It 
 is all wheel within wheel of intrigue ; but 
 where it begins and where it ends is a prob- 
 lem which simple folk like you and me 
 cannot hope to solve.” 
 
 The guest smiled a little at being counted 
 amongst the simple folk — he, who owed 
 his high position to a head clear and acute — 
 who had foiled lawyers at their own game 
 when they tried to draw secrets out of him 
 by cross-examination. It was amusing. Sup- 
 pressing the smile quickly he pleaded fatigue, 
 and bade his host good night ; but even in 
 his sleep he murmured at intervals, “Povera 
 Italia!” 
 
 JACK CHIDDY. 
 
 & Tme Snriiifttt xrf ike flail. 
 
 "O RAVE Jack Chiddy ! Oh, well you may sneer, 
 
 ^ For the name isn’t one that sounds nice in the ear; 
 But a name is a sound — nothing more — deeds are best, 
 And Jack had the soul of a man in his breast. 
 
 Now, I heard you say that you’re fond of a tale 
 If it bears upon railway men and the rail. 
 
 Well, here is one that will suit you, I know, 
 
 Though it happened a good many years ago. 
 
JACK CHIDDY. 
 
 Jack Chiddy— there you are smiling again 
 
 At the name, which I own is both common and plain — 
 
 Jack Chiddy, I say, wrought along with his mates, 
 
 Year in and year out, on a section of plates. 
 
 Simple enough was the work, with no change 
 But to see that both lines were in gauge and range ; 
 
 Fasten a key there, and tighten a bolt, 
 
 All to keep fast trains from giving a jolt. 
 
 Strange when one thinks where a hero may rise, 
 
 Say at times, in a moment, before our eyes, 
 
 Or right from our side ere we know it, and do 
 The work of a giant and pass from our view. 
 
 But the story? you say. Well, I’m coming to that, 
 
 Though I wander a little — now, where was I at ? 
 
 Let me see. Can you catch, shining round and clear, 
 
 The mouth of the Breslington tunnel from here ? 
 
 You see it ? ' Well, right on the bank at the top, 
 
 When stacking some blocks, all at once, down the slope 
 A huge slab of stone from the rest shore its way, 
 
 And fell down on the up-line of metals and lay. 
 
 One sharp cry of terror burst forth from us all, 
 
 As we saw the huge mass topple over and fall. 
 
 We stood as if bound to the spot, dumb of speech, 
 
 Reading horror and doubt in the faces of each. 
 
 Then one of our mates snatched a glance at his watch, 
 
 Gave a start and a look that made each of us catch 
 At our breath, then a cry, that thrill’d our hearts through— 
 
 “ My God I the ‘ Flying Dutchman ’ is overdue ! ” 
 
 Hark, straight from over the hill we could hear 
 A dull, dead sound coming faint to the ear, 
 
 Then a short, sharp whistle that told with its blast 
 That the “ Dutchman ” was into the tunnel at last. 
 
 And there on the rail lay that huge mass of stone, 
 
 And the “ Dutchman” behind coming thundering on; 
 
 In a minute or less he would come with a dash, 
 
 And a hundred lives would be lost in the crash. 
 
 « Now, for your life, Jack ! ” for Chiddy had flown 
 
 Down the bank, and three leaps brought him close to the stone. 
 
 Not of his own life, for wife and child’s sake, 
 
 Thought he, but the hundreds that now were at stake. 
 
 ’Twas the work of a moment. With terrible strength 
 And a heave of the shoulder the slab moved at length— 
 
 Slipp’d clear of the rail— when, half-muffled in smoke, 
 
 From the mouth of the tunnel the “ Dutchman” broke. 
 
 There was one sharp whistle, a roar, and a crash 
 Of wheels ringing clear on the rail, and a flash 
 Of coiling smoke, and a glitter and gleam 
 Of iron and steel, and then down fell the steam. 
 
 Not a breath could we draw, but stood blank with dismay 
 As the train tore along, making up for delay ; 
 
 Till at last from us all burst a shout and a cheer, 
 
 When we knew that the “ Dutchman ” had pass’d and was clear. 
 
GOOD WORDS. 
 
 T T 6 
 
 And Chiddy ? Ah me ! you will pardon these tears, 
 
 For he was my mate on the rails many years. 
 
 When we found him, one look was enough to reveal 
 That Jack’s life-blood was red on the engine- wheel. 
 
 Brave Jack Chiddy ! Now you don’t sneer 
 At the name which I own is but harsh to the ear ; 
 
 But a name is a sound — nothing more — deeds are best, 
 
 And Jack had the soul of a man in his breast. 
 
 ALEXANDER ANDERSON. 
 
 LITTLE MARY. 
 
 By ELLICE HOPKINS, Author of “Work among Working Men.” 
 
 I T was raining with the soft, warm, straight 
 rain of spring. The golden eave-drops of 
 the laburnums in the cottage gardens dripped 
 upon me as I passed ; the delicate plumes 
 of lilac were hung with momentary jewels, 
 and all around were — 
 
 “ Cool whispers rippling- round the eaves, 
 
 And soft sweet pipings by the hour 
 Of chilly birds in dim wet lanes, 
 
 And glades all haunted with grey rains, 
 
 And footfalls of the falling shower.” 
 
 I was just thinking what a lovely world it 
 was, as lovely in this soft floating grey veil 
 as it was the day before in its spring sun- 
 shine, when a sweep passed me. I do not 
 know that I should have noticed the man 
 particularly had he not been followed by 
 two children, a boy and a girl. I simply stood 
 aghast in the middle of a puddle and stared 
 stupidly at them. The boy looked degraded 
 enough, and evidently belonged to that class 
 of homeless “ gamins ” whom, in revolution- 
 ary France, Victor Hugo describes as pos- 
 sessed with two unattainable ideals — “to 
 upset the government and mend their own 
 trousers ” — but who in our more peaceful and 
 matter-of-fact England are chiefly associated 
 with pitch and toss, of coppers, not govern- 
 ments, much cadgering and general “ up to 
 no good.” But the little girl — how shall I 
 describe her? She was clad in an old great- 
 coat ; a piece of faded print was tied with a 
 bit of tape round her to do duty for a skirt; 
 her feet were bare ; shadowing her little 
 impish face she wore an old wideawake, and 
 she was literally as black as a coal. Evi- 
 dently she had been used for sweeping 
 chimneys. There they stood, that outcome 
 of the great human world and of nineteenth- 
 century civilisation, in the midst of all that 
 blossom and verdure, their degradation stand- 
 ing out all the more painfully in that pure, 
 sweet, sacred setting. 
 
 Seeing me stand still gazing at them, the 
 
 father stopped and said ironically, “ She’s a 
 nice-looking girl, ain’t she ? ” Whilst I was 
 saying a few grave words to him about the 
 child, and receiving the excuse that his wife 
 had left him, and he had no home and no one 
 to take care of her, the child pulled him by 
 the coat and said, “ Show the lady the pretty 
 picture.” This was at once produced and 
 displayed to me, “ the pretty picture ” being 
 a photograph of the father lying dead drunk, 
 the man taking off his cap and displaying 
 his bald head, from which every atom of 
 hair had been singed in some fire, to show 
 me how very like it was. 
 
 I passed on with a saddened heart, but I sup- 
 pose, like the hundreds who had passed those 
 two children by on the other side, it would 
 not have occurred to me that I could do any- 
 thing, and I should have forgotten all about 
 them, had I not belonged to an “ Association 
 for the Care of Friendless Girls.”* Would 
 to God that every educated woman with a 
 happy home and well-cared-for children of 
 her own would belong to such an associa- 
 tion, and our degraded children would soon 
 cease out of the land ! In vain I tried to 
 escape the thought of that child, in vain I 
 
 pleaded that I had come to U for perfect 
 
 rest ; “ Thy vows were upon me, O Lord,” 
 and I felt. I must care for those friendless 
 children. 
 
 I was just making up my mind to go round 
 to all the low public-houses and inquire for 
 them, when, to my joy, the very next morn- 
 ing I caught sight of the boy just outside 
 my garden gate. It rained harder than 
 ever ; the lad was so wet and grimy I dared 
 not have him inside the passage, and I can 
 see the poor little forlorn object as I stood 
 talking with him just outside the doorway, 
 every now and then tilting his head side- 
 
 * See “ Preventive Work among Girls,” “ Ladies’ Associa- 
 tions for the Care of Friendless Girls,” and “Work in 
 Brighton,” 15th Thousand, 6d. Hatchards, Piccadilly. 
 
LITTLE MARY. 
 
 117 
 
 ways to let the pouring rain run off the gutter 
 of his old wideawake. 
 
 His story was much what I expected. 
 
 His father was a confirmed drunkard and 
 his mother had been so knocked about that 
 she had herself taken to drinking, and had 
 finally deserted them, and now they tramped 
 about the country, their father, when intoxi- 
 cated, often cruelly ill using them. I found 
 the boy could not read or write, never went 
 to any school or place of worship, and was 
 literally in heathen ignorance. He was most 
 anxious to escape from his awful slavery, and 
 when I suggested sending him to a school, 
 where he would be apprenticed to a trade, 
 he exclaimed, “Ma’am, it would make a 
 gentleman of me ! ” I had concluded from 
 his size that he was about twelve, but, on 
 asking his age, he told me he was sixteen. 
 
 I exclaimed in dismay, “ Oh, you are a little 
 
 Well, ma’am,” he said apologetically, “ I 
 ain’t big; but you see I have had a deal 
 
 agin me.” , . , . . , 
 
 I gave him my address, and told him to 
 ask for a letter at Burwash, as they were 
 going to sweep chimneys for the next week 
 in that neighbourhood. 
 
 I was then just leaving U , and my 
 
 last sight of my son, as I proudly called him, 
 was lying in the mud on his stomach, with 
 his arms behind him, picking up a halfpenny 
 with his lips out of a puddle, the admired of 
 all beholders. 
 
 I at once wrote to the Hon. Thomas 
 Pelham and to Dr. Barnardo about the 
 children, stating that I had no funds to pay 
 for the boy, but that our Association would 
 aive a donation with the girl. Dr. Barnardo 
 most kindly consented to take the boy free ; 
 the little girl was to be sent to the Ilford 
 Village Homes under Mr. and Mrs. Saltau, 
 which we had already had good reason to 
 think very highly of. 
 
 But by the time all arrangements were 
 made and the papers procured to be filled 
 up, it was long past the time when I had told 
 the boy to call at the Burwash post-office. 
 They were tramps, they had no settled home, 
 they could none of them read, and there was 
 all England to wander over for stray jobs in 
 the way of chimney-sweeping.. How was 1 
 to find them ? It was much like setting out 
 m search of two flies that had stung one and 
 
 down away. , , 
 
 If there is one thing I have learned more 
 than another in these sceptical days, it is the 
 omnipotency of faith. “ All things are pos- 
 sible to him that believeth.” I knew that 
 
 the great Shepherd of the sheep knew where 
 his lost lambs were, and would guide me to 
 them. “ God has love, and I have faith, m 
 David Grey’s lovely dying words ; and that 
 was enough. 
 
 I first wrote to an uncle, whose address 1 
 had got from the boy, their only self-sup- 
 porting relation. I received a scarcely de- 
 cipherable letter back, to say that he could 
 do nothing for the poor children as his wife 
 was ill, and no one could do anything with 
 the little girl. He did not even know where 
 they were to be found, and felt sure the 
 father would refuse to part with them. Evi- 
 dently the man was very poor and ignorant. 
 
 I then wrote to the neighbouring clergy, 
 and asked them to keep watch for me, which 
 they kindly promised to do. Before two 
 weeks were passed I received a letter from 
 the Vicar of Burwash stating that in . his 
 parish visitations he had observed two miser- 
 able children sitting on a bag of soot by the 
 wayside, and feeling sure from the looks of 
 them they were the children I was in search 
 of he had at once accosted them, and found 
 they were. He then hunted up the father 
 in a public-house, and found that he was 
 willing to part with the girl if I would come 
 
 over to U and fetch her, but he refused 
 
 to give up the boy. 
 
 Owing to a mistake in the arrangements, 
 
 I again lost sight of them for a time, but my 
 indefatigable vicar again caught them, and 
 with a thankful heart I started off to U > 
 an hour’s rail from Brighton, to claim the little 
 girl, and with faith that I should get the boy 
 
 t0 °6n arriving I found the sweep and the two 
 children waiting for me. The sight of the 
 poor little degraded mite to be handed over 
 into my keeping made my eyes fill with tears, 
 and, as much to ease the ache of my own 
 heart as anything else, I stooped down and 
 said, “You are God’s little girl; will you 
 come with me and be taught to love God 
 and be a good, happy little girl ? At once, 
 with the touching trustfulness of childhood, 
 she thrust her little black hand into mine, 
 and, lifting her queer little gipsy face up to 
 mine, said, “ Shall I have a doll and little 
 gals to play with? Boys do knock one 
 about so. I should like a little gal to play 
 
 We had to turn into a public-house to fill 
 in the papers. “ I am so black, them there 
 won’t have me; they like the clean sort, 
 said the man, pointing with his thumb to the 
 coffee-shed which I had suggested as prefer- 
 able A hint that, I thought, to our teetotal 
 
n8 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 friends. All sorts are welcome at the gin- 
 shop. 
 
 All the while that I was filling in the papers 
 the publican, regardless of my presence, was 
 addressing “God’s little girl” as, “ You young 
 devil you, can’t you keep still?” Evidently 
 she was held in small estimation. 
 
 But in vain I made any approaches to 
 getting the boy. He swore I should not 
 have the lad, and got so angry that I had to 
 leave and go back to the station, waiting 
 the arrival of the train. I have, however, 
 great faith in friendly talk, and I sat down 
 and entered into chat with the man. Once 
 or twice the boy broke in with a piteous 
 entreaty to his father to let him go with the 
 lady, and was shut up with an angry word 
 and a threatened cuff. No, nothing but death 
 should ever part him from the lad. 
 
 Suddenly, in the middle of a talk about 
 the wet season and the state of the crops, the 
 man turned round and said, “ You shall have 
 him for ten shillings.” 
 
 “Done!” I exclaimed. “Quick, let us 
 fill in the papers before the train starts.” 
 
 So I bought my son for ten shillings. 
 
 And yet the man, bad as he was, touched 
 me. I don’t think it was only the ten shil- 
 lings, but also a lingering sense of all that I 
 had been saying about the lad’s good, that 
 made him give him up. I wondered whether 
 he, too, had been a degraded lad with none 
 to have pity on him. He kept pacing up 
 and down on the opposite side of the station, 
 whilst I and the children were waiting for the 
 train, the tears making pink wormy channels 
 down his poor sooty cheeks, evidently in 
 sore trouble at parting with the lad. 
 
 As ill-luck would have it, the train was 
 half an hour late. I thought it would never 
 come. To the last, I did not know whether 
 that imp of a child would not be off. Her 
 brother and I were perpetually making for- 
 lorn darts after her. Never did I so sympa- 
 thize with the man whose pig bolted in a 
 crowded London thoroughfare just as it had 
 been driven with much labour to its destina- 
 tion, while the man stood stock still, and, 
 clutching at his hair in a frenzy of despair, 
 exclaimed, “ Blowed if it won’t run all up 
 Cheapside ! ” 
 
 But when at length the train did draw up 
 never did I find myself such an unpopular 
 character with my black following. Looks 
 of loathing turned me from all doors, and it 
 was not till, at last, I got a guard to lock me 
 up in an empty compartment with my two 
 “ wild beasties ” that I began to draw a free 
 breath. They roared, they danced, they 
 
 hullaballo’d, they punched one another, they 
 behaved like young savages, but I knew I 
 had got them safe. 
 
 But my difficulties were renewed at the 
 other end of my journey. They were so 
 dirty not a fly would take them, and my 
 house was some distance from the station, 
 and I was -far too tired to walk. At length 
 I bribed a broken-down fly to convey us, 
 and arrived at my own door feeling much- 
 aged, but still cheered at the beaming faces 
 of my two servants and fellow-helpers in my 
 work, who rushed out to greet my two jewels, 
 ‘‘rejected of man and despised,” but exqui- 
 sitely precious to our hearts. 
 
 When, however, they got the little girl into 
 her bath she cursed and swore so awfully and 
 used her teeth so freely, that cleanliness on 
 that occasion did not come next to godliness. 
 Their clothes had to be burned then and 
 there ; the state of living filth they were in 
 was indescribable. They ate with their hands, 
 having no_ notion of using a knife and fork ; 
 and on being asked how she had broken one 
 of her front teeth, at first the child said, 
 
 “ Jack did it.” 
 
 “ That’s a lie !” retorted poor Jack. “ You 
 know you did it yourself, Polly, when you 
 were tight the other day and fell down.” 
 
 “ Oh yes, so I did,” she answered affably. 
 
 “ I was so drunk I couldn’t stand !” 
 
 Only nine years old, this child of our Chris- 
 tian civilisation ! 
 
 By the afternoon we had got them rigged 
 out in decent clothing, and looking quite 
 clean and respectable, and they started, 
 under the care of my own servant, for 
 London. Alas ! it was only the outside 
 of the- platter we had cleaned. The little 
 girl’s behaviour was such that every one 
 had to leave the carriage, and my unfortu- 
 nate servant heaved no slight sigh of relief 
 when, at length, she handed them over to 
 the agent, who was in waiting for them at 
 the London station. 
 
 My heart sank at the very thought of them. 
 Surely it was a task beyond any human 
 power to reclaim them : the boy was too 
 old, and the girl too utterly wild and savage. 
 Could anything be done with such waste and 
 cruelly misused material ? 
 
 To my surprise and joy, I heard from time 
 to time that both were doing well, and were 
 very happy ! 
 
 Only lately have I had a simple and un- 
 pretending record from little Mary’s cottage 
 mother of all that lay behind that brief report. 
 
 One immense advantage of the cottage sys- 
 tem adopted at Ilford over the old-fashioned, 
 
LITTLE MARY. 
 
 119 
 
 detestable barrack system, is that it admits of 
 classification, not only of the children, but 
 also of the “ mothers.” Little Mary was put 
 with the cottage mother who was most likely 
 to be able to manage her, and was always 
 under one loving, firm hand, not under 
 
 half-a-dozen. . . , 
 
 For the first eight days it was as it a little 
 wild savage had been admitted into the 
 peaceful home. She bit and pinched the 
 children, till th*e youngest, called “the baby, 
 a little tliree-year-old child, was ill from sheer 
 fright of her. Her skin was as hard and 
 tanned as leather from constant exposure, 
 and bore the scars of ill treatment. She would 
 turn the tap and splash the water all about, 
 and on being rebuked would say, “Oh, but I 
 want to get white like the other little gals. 
 She had never slept in a bed, and it was im- 
 possible to get her to lie straight m one. 
 The instant the mother’s eye and hand were 
 removed she would curl herself up m a little 
 brown heap on the pillow, or she would pu 
 all the bed-clothes off her own and the other 
 children’s beds and sleep on the floor. It 
 was impossible to make her keep on her 
 clothes. She would be dressed in the morn- 
 ing, and half an hour after would appear m 
 the same state as — 
 
 « When wild in woods the noble savage ran.” 
 
 Her shoes were the greatest offence of all, 
 and she was in the habit of running out on 
 the wet veranda with her shoeless feet, and 
 then pattering up the clean stairs and jump- 
 ing on her white counterpaned bed with her 
 muddy stockings. 
 
 She had apparently no knowledge ol Hod 
 or sense of His presence. The only thing 
 she had any reverence for was . the moon. 
 On one occasion, when the children were 
 going to evening service, and a beautiful 
 moon was shining, one of them pointed to 
 it, exclaiming, “Oh, mother, look what a 
 beautiful moon ! ” Little Mary caught hold 
 of her hand and cried, “ Yer mustn’t point 
 at the blessed moon like that, and yer 
 mustn’t talk about it ! ” Was it from con- 
 stantly sleeping under hedges and . in barns, 
 and waking up and seeing that bright calm 
 eye looking at her, that some sense of a 
 mysterious Presence had come upon the 
 
 child ? ( 
 
 Her only idea of prayer was _ a sort ol 
 heathen incantation of unmeaning words 
 jumbled together ; her “ form of prayer 
 was generally, “ Our Father chart in heaven . 
 Hollered by thy name: Kingdom come. 
 Amen : Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
 
 four angels round my bed : Good night 
 father, good night mother, good night uncles, 
 and good night everyboby. Amen.” This 
 curious spiritual exercise was accompanied 
 with other exercises in the shape of pinching 
 the child next her, pulling the blind tassel to 
 pieces, dabbing at a passing fly, &c. On 
 one occasion, when the poor, much-tired 
 cottage mother was pouring out her heart in 
 prayer for the poor child, and asking God to 
 change her heart, and telling Him how very 
 naughty she was, and how she liked to do 
 wrong things rather than right, the child ex- 
 claimed quite out loud, “Yes, that I do ; it s 
 iver so much nicer to do wrong things than 
 
 right ! 15 . . 
 
 At last things came to a crisis. me 
 mother heard the child go out on the veranda 
 and then with her little wet feet, as usual, 
 run pattering up -stairs into her bedroom. 
 She had a sort of human affection for her 
 bed and would be found cuddling it, and 
 saying, “Oh, my dear, dear bed!” The 
 mother went up-stairs, and said 
 
 “ Now, Mary, you must put on some dry 
 stockings and keep on your slippers.’ 
 
 Her large dark eyes flashed nre, and, 
 doubling her little brown fists, she said 
 “ I won’t !” 
 
 “ Mary, you will.” 
 
 One of the elder girls advanced with the 
 clean stockings ; but with a well-planted 
 blow she knocked her backward. Another 
 came forward to take the post of danger ; but 
 the mother interfered, and said 
 
 “ No, Mary, I will not let you ill-treat the 
 children. I will put the stockings on myself.” 
 The child struggled with all her strength, 
 but did not offer to strike her; and having 
 gained the victory, the mother left the room, 
 feeling utterly done. 
 
 One of the elder children came to the child, 
 and began talking to her in sweet childish 
 fashion, how it made them all so unhappy 
 to see her so rude to their mother, and then 
 began telling her about our Lord how He 
 loved us, and how He came on the earth, 
 and “ was poor just like us,” and hadn t a 
 nice bed to lie on when He was tired, and 
 how He died for us, because He loved us so 
 
 very, very much. . r 
 
 The child looked up m her face and 
 
 said — , . v , 
 
 “ Yer don’t believe that now, do yen' 
 
 “ Yes, I do ; and oh, Mary, to please Jesus, 
 will you ask mother’s forgiveness ? ” 
 
 “Well, ves, I will.” And the child flew 
 down-stairs and burst like a November squib 
 into mother’s room. 
 
GOOD WORDS. 
 
 Suddenly she stood transfixed. The 
 mother’s tea stood untouched; her eyes 
 were very red. She had, in truth, been 
 having a good cry over the child. 
 
 “ Yer’ve been crying ! ” Mary exclaimed. 
 
 “ Yes, dear, because I am so very, very 
 sorry for you, and fear I shall have to tell 
 Mr. Saltau how naughty you have been.” 
 
 “I wouldn’t cry, I wouldn’t. You’ve not 
 got to be punished. You have nothin’ to 
 cry for.” 
 
 The mother proceeded to butter her a 
 bit of toast, as she generally gave the child 
 something from her own tea. “ This is for a 
 little girl who is going to ask mother to for- 
 give her.” . 
 
 “ That ain’t me,” said. Mary conclusively. 
 
 “ Very well, then, I will give it to Brenda. 
 Out she flew, and said to the eldest girl — 
 “What do yer think? That ’ere mother 
 has been cryin’; it’s all to make me cry; but 
 I ain’t a-goin’ to.” 
 
 Then she ran back. Suddenly, m the 
 middle of their talk, she fixed her impish 
 brown eyes on the mother’s face. u I dare say 
 yer a-wishin’ that I’d ask yer forgiveness? ” 
 
 “ Yes, Mary.” 
 
 “ But I ain’t a-goin’ to.” 
 
 Conversation was again resumed. Then 
 suddenly the child again broke . in. ^ “ I dare 
 say yer still thinkin’ that ’ere wish ? 
 
 “ Yes, Mary.” 
 
 “ But I ain’t a-goin’ to.” 
 
 “ Very well, my child. I shall have to 
 tell Mr. Saltau.” 
 
 “But yer won’t tell him, and yer wont 
 cry no more if I do ?” 
 
 “ No, there’ll be no need.” 
 
 The child then insisted that the mother 
 should turn her chair away from the table, 
 and 6it straight upright; and hereupon, the 
 ground being clear in front, and all things 
 properly prepared, she fell down on her knees, 
 
 looking a most miserable object, and implored 
 
 her forgiveness. At once the mother caught 
 her in her arms, and they had a good hug 
 and cry together. 
 
 From that moment little Mary was con- 
 quered. , . , . , 
 
 “ It was the tears that did it,’ as the dear 
 cottage mother exclaims. The child had 
 known beating enough, but she had never 
 known the “ grief of the Spirit ” in the heart 
 of one who loved her. From that time her 
 devotion to her cottage mother knew no 
 bounds. She poured out her forgotten 
 heart upon her with the divine wastefulness 
 of a child who had none to love her. She 
 never had to be punished. Of course, the 
 
 mother had to be constantly correcting her, 1 
 but she never had to speak twice ; she never | 
 forgot what the mother told her. 
 
 One of the. first signs of change was that 
 Mary wanted to learn to pray like the others. 
 The mother had sent her to bed with the 
 other children to see if she could undress 
 herself. Soon after she peeped into the room 
 to see what was happening. _ There was little 
 Mary properly clad in her little night-dress, 
 kneeling by the bedside, while “ the baby 
 was sitting up in bed like a doctor of divinity 
 teaching Mary to pray, while Mary was 
 reverently repeating the words after her. 
 
 And so little Mary learned to pray much 
 as the dear birds learn to sing from one 
 another; only since in man we ever touch 
 on mysteries, it was the callow nestling that 
 taught the full-grown song. And native as 
 song to a bird was prayer to little Mary s 
 heart. It was literally with her the beautiful 
 child-definition of prayer — “ the heart talking 
 with God.” She prayed for every one, but 
 especially for her brother, to whom she was 
 fondly attached, the tie between them being 
 very close. If ever she thought that the 
 cottage mother in their morning prayers was 
 croing to forget to pray for him, she would 
 whisper very low as a reminder, “ My poor 
 little brother /” _ 
 
 At length, in the spring, poor little Mary 
 fell ill of bronchitis. Her cottage mother 
 suspected that there was something more 
 amiss, as whenever she caught the least cold 
 she had a most dreadful cough ; and, alas ! but 
 too truly, the exposure and ill-treatment of 
 her past life had sown the seeds of consump- 
 tion, which rapidly developed. She clung 
 intensely to her cottage mother, and with that 
 reverence for a child’s heart which seems to 
 me so profoundly Christ-like, Mr. and Mrs 
 Saltau managed that she should be nursed 
 through all the first months of her illness at 
 the cottage, and only quite towards the end 
 was she removed to the school infirmary. She 
 showed a most sweet patience in her suffer- 
 ings ; sometimes when the terrible fit of 
 bleeding came on she would look up and 
 say, “Don’t cry, dear mother; Jesus helps 
 me, and I will try to bear it.” And once, 
 when the cottage mother said she feared she 
 would not get about again, she replied simply 
 and brightly, “ I don’t know, mother, what 
 Jesus will do ; perhaps He will make me 
 better He is inside me, you know, and He 
 can do it.” But later on the dear child 
 seemed to have a longing to depart and be 
 with her Lord. “ If I die now I shall go to 
 Jesus, and He will take care of me till you 
 
LITTLE MARY. 
 
 I 2 I 
 
 come. But, mo- 
 ther,” she added 
 wistfully,' “ don’t 
 you think if we 
 ask Him He will 
 let you come with 
 me ?” 
 
 Onceinthe'first 
 part of her illness 
 she said to the 
 mother, who was 
 sitting by her, “ I 
 know what makes 
 me ill like this. 
 
 My father was so 
 unkind to me ; 
 he would often 
 pay for a bed for 
 himself and leave 
 me to sleep out- 
 side on the door- 
 step, or anywhere. 
 
 I never had anice 
 bed like this, or 
 I shouldn’t be ill 
 like as I am now.” 
 
 Then they prayed 
 for the poor father ; and when the prayer 
 was done, the child said, “Now I should 
 like to be quiet and pray too.” And, putting 
 her hands together, she prayed by name for 
 every one who had shown her kindness. 
 
 “ Who taught you to pray like that, Mary ? ” 
 said the mother in secret amazement. 
 
 “ Mother, I like praying,” she answered 
 simply, “ and I used to get behind the cot- 
 tage with” — naming a particularly tiresome 
 child — “ and pray with her, and try to help 
 her to be better.” 
 
 On another occasion the mother had at- 
 tended a mission service among the pea- 
 pickers, and was speaking of the little bare- 
 foot children and the untidy, drinking mo- 
 thers. It evidently recalled her own past, 
 and she said, “ Oh, that’s just like my poor 
 mother. She did drink awful !” 
 
 “ And what did you do ?” 
 
 “ Oh, I used to look out for a p’liceman, and 
 when I saw one I used to run up to him and 
 say, 4 Mister, just come and take this woman 
 off ; she’s drunk and can’t take care on us.’ ” 
 “ And did he take her?” 
 
 “Yes, mother, he took her off.” 
 
 “ And what became of you?” 
 
 “ Oh, Johnny and me we used to give our- 
 selvesup at the Union to get a night’s lodging.” 
 “ Well, dear, which would you rather be, 
 back in the old life or with me and like you 
 are now?” 
 
 XXII — 9 
 
 “ Never,” says 
 the cottage mo- 
 ther, “ shall 1 for- 
 get the beautiful 
 soft expression 
 that came into 
 her eyes as she 
 said in a low 
 voice, 4 Oh, mo- 
 ther, don’t ask 
 me that ! ’ ” 
 
 She was the 
 pet of the whole 
 village. 44 Every 
 one loves little 
 Mary,” Mrs. 
 Saltau wrote to 
 me. 
 
 On my return 
 from a short ab- 
 sence abroad, I 
 wrote to say that 
 if sea air would 
 do the child any 
 good she had 
 better be sent 
 down to me ; but 
 I received the answer that little Mary was 
 rapidly fading away. Only a few weeks after, 
 she was taken home to sing more fully in 
 heaven the little hymn she was always singing 
 on earth : — 
 
 “ I am Jesu’s little lamb ; 
 
 Happy all the day I am.” 
 
 What can I add to this narrative of facts 
 for the accuracy of which I can vouch, and 
 which are so much more touching and 
 powerful than any poor w T ords of curs ? 
 This, and this only. 
 
 Hundreds had passed that poor child, and 
 some had even done her little kindnesses, 
 but not one seemed to have asked them- 
 selves, 44 What will this child be as a woman? 
 Drunken, swearing, dissolute, it will be im- 
 possible to save her then ; cannot I save her 
 now?” We all know it is the girl, and not 
 the boy, that is most likely to become a 
 social outcast. Once let her fall over that 
 fearful moral precipice which skirts her path, 
 and it is hard indeed to recover her. Were 
 it not better, then, to fence the precipice at 
 the top, rather than to confine ourselves to 
 providing ambulances in the shape of peni- 
 tentiaries, rescue societies, &c., at the bottom ? 
 Yet how systematically preventive work 
 among girls has been neglected (in England) 
 is shown by the proportionate number of 
 girls to boys in the London Industrial 
 Schools — 200 girls to 1,300 boys. In Ire- 
 
122 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 land, on the contrary, where the standard ot 
 female honour is high, and the Roman 
 Catholic sisters look after the girls, the pro- 
 portion is 2,039 boys to 3,171 girls. _ At one 
 of our large seaports 500 boys are in care- 
 ful industrial training to o girls. Is it any 
 wonder that all our large towns swarm with 
 outcast girls? Till within the last few months 
 the Industrial Schools Act refused to take 
 any cognisance of what I may call the repre- 
 sentative danger in a girl’s life ; and now 
 that, through the instrumentality of Colonel 
 Alexander, M.P., to whom my most grateful 
 thanks are due, I have got an amended 
 clause passed to the 14th Section, by which 
 we can save a little girl who is in peril ,' * 
 the parents being compelled to pay towards 
 her support, where are the schools to work 
 it? Dr. Barnardo would, I believe, open 
 and certify a cottage for girls far more 
 degraded than little Mary, children who 
 are being deliberately brought up for a life 
 of shame and misery, who will come under 
 the operation of the amended clause ; but 
 where are the funds? I appeal especially 
 to the women of England. Surely we nine- 
 teenth-century women have influence enough 
 to procure sufficient industrial training for 
 our girls to save our own womanhood from 
 utter degradation ? 
 
 And may I not plead for the loving Ilford 
 Home, with its wise and tender Christian 
 influence, that in a few months could tame 
 the child that bit and swore and drank and 
 told lies into sweet obedience, and thus 
 show the power of the grace of God in a 
 child’s heart ? Cannot we send a thank- 
 offering for little Mary to Mr. and Mrs. Saltau, 
 Ilford Village Homes, Barkingside, Essex? 
 And might we not make such a home a valu- 
 able adjunct in educating our own children ? 
 Is not James Hinton right in saying that the 
 great basic evil of all is the sort of uncon- 
 scious selfishness and individualism on which 
 
 # The Amendment of the Industrial Schools Act, 1880, can 
 be had of the Queen’s Printers,. Eyre & Spottiswoode. 
 
 our life is founded, that the two great factors 
 of our Christianity have been God and our 
 own soul ; the third and equally vital factor, 
 the world, humanity, has either been left 
 out or come in by the way as an after- 
 thought ? * Cannot we, I ask, bring up our 
 children with the motto of the Heir-Appa- 
 rent — certainly the motto of every heir- 
 apparent of the kingdom of heaven — “ I 
 serve ? ” Cannot we get into their very 
 bones that all they have, all their advantages, 
 are not theirs by right, but only as a trust 
 for the good of others, to give them a van- 
 tage ground for helping and serving ? And 
 might not one way be to get children to help 
 children, and so from their earliest years 
 bring them up in the true human attitude of 
 “looking up and lifting up?” Why should 
 they not have their little “ children’s sale of 
 work ” for Ilford ? The making the things, 
 would be an endless delight to both girls 
 and boys, and few of our own circle of 
 friends would grudge the expenditure of a 
 few shillings in purchases. In this way two 
 little girls I know made £9. Why should 
 not they have one dear child to keep clothed 
 out of their own cast-off clothing, and occa- 
 sionally to get something pretty for her, 
 instead of for themselves ? Again, they 
 might sort and tear up the waste paper and 
 old books of the house and get 6s. a sack at 
 a paper-mill. In many ways they might really 
 work and deny themselves to help other 
 children, and taste the joy of service. 
 
 May little Mary, being dead, yet speak to 
 our hearts, and may the mother in us rise up 
 in the power of Christ, and unite with our 
 children in making such sacrifices of money, 
 of time, of labour, that there may be no 
 longer in our midst hundreds and hundreds 
 of degraded children being brought up to a 
 life of shame and misery for the want of 
 industrial schools to train them to better 
 things, and make them “ God’s little girls.” 
 
 * “ Life and Letters of James Hinton.” Third edition. 
 (Kegan Paul.) 
 
 CONIES. 
 
 Q <S.enn.crn xrat af Clmrclt. 
 
 By the Author of “John Halifax, Gentleman.” 
 
 “The conies are but a feeble folk.”— P roverbs. 
 
 J ISTENING of late to the above text, it 
 j — ' struck me, what a number of people 
 there are in this world who may be termed 
 “ conies ; ” — very sleek, mild, amiable souls, 
 quite harmless too (or apparently so), who 
 
 go pottering about on their pretty little feet, 
 and hiding themselves in holes and corners, 
 coming out every now and then in the sun- 
 shine — only in the sunshine— and escaping 
 everything unpleasant as much as they can. 
 
CONIES. 
 
 123 
 
 Eor they like brightness, and smoothness, 
 and easiness of living ; they are but “ a feeble 
 folk ” after all. 
 
 And yet 
 
 Long ago I planned an article— On the 
 Tyranny of Weakness;” for a tyranny it truly 
 is, the sight of which often makes one’s blood 
 boil with indignation. But indignation against 
 what? Against creatures so feeble that at- 
 tacking them feels like “hitting a man that 
 is down.” And chivalry— the pitying protec- 
 tion of the weak by the strong— is a thing so 
 right and noble, besides being so rare, that 
 one fears to make it one whit the rarer. Be- 
 sides, in dealing with the feeble, should we 
 not rather try and put strength into them than 
 abuse them for their want of it ? 
 
 These “ conies,” they are pretty, innocent- 
 looking, peaceful folk, passing their mild 
 lives m a hole in a rock, and desiious of 
 troubling nobody — or at least they say so. 
 Yet the extent to which they do trouble 
 people, the torment they are to their affec- 
 tionate friends, and to the world at large, by 
 tl>eir weakness, indecision, and general in- 
 capacity, is something incalculable. A wicked 
 person one can meet and battle with and 
 some forms of wickedness are only energy 
 turned into a wrong channel, and capable of 
 being turned back again — but with the weak 
 one has no chance. To have to do with 
 them is like walking along shifting sands, 
 slipping at every step, and dragged down 
 continually by a weight not one s own. No 
 wonder that we at last cry out, and learn to 
 hate amiable fools with a rancour almost 
 more than that we feel towards absolute 
 villains. The latter are ravening wolves, but 
 these our wolves in sheep’s clothing nay, 
 clothed in the wool of the very mildest of 
 lambs— creep beside us and gnaw out our 
 vitals before we are aware. 
 
 Well do we know them, these dear 
 “ conies,” who have the character of being 
 so very amiable ; who are always defer- 
 ring to other people, who never know their 
 own minds — perhaps, indeed, they have 
 not got any to know — who are always hang- 
 ing th e burthen of their existence upon 
 friends and relatives; asking advice but 
 seldom following it, making endless plans 
 which are never carried out. They are full 
 of the best intentions, have the most ardent 
 desire to do right ; they put forth that desire 
 and those intentions in the most voluminous 
 and exemplary form, yet somehow nothing 
 seems to come of either. They are always 
 getting into muddles, and if they ever suc- 
 ceed in doing anything, the chances are they 
 
 do it wrong. In fact most things seem to go 
 wrong with them. Why ? I hey are not wild 
 beasts, they are not reptiles, they are simply 
 “ conies.” The worst" we can accuse them of 
 is that they are “ a feeble folk,” and yet they 
 aggravate us to the limit of endurance. 
 
 Ay, even in small things. We all know 
 sometimes what it is to have a cony at the 
 head of a pleasure party— which is sure soon 
 or late to become a party of pain. Not 
 through any intentional badness ; in fact, 
 the cony is the most yielding creature pos- 
 sible, always giving in to everybody, and 
 asking the opinion of everybody. But of 
 that quick yet firm decision which, taking in 
 unselfishly and wisely “ the greatest good of 
 the greatest number,” has sense to act upon it, 
 and, without troubling anybody, does the best 
 for all— of this the cony, male or female, is 
 absolutely incapable. Consequently arise all 
 kinds of mistakes and mismanagements 
 some lose head, others temper, and the 
 government, or autocracy, drifts into a feeble, 
 muddling, wrangling democracy, which is 
 the worst form of rule for either a picnic or 
 a kingdom. For, not to speak it profanely, 
 the doctrine of li Every man for himself and 
 God for 'us all,” very often ends in “ every 
 man against himself and God for nobody. 
 
 It is a still more unfortunate circumstance 
 when a cony happens to be. the master or 
 mistress of a family. Especially the latter, 
 since soon or late a household must fall into 
 the hands of its women, and sink or swim 
 according to their capacities. I have seen 
 more than one creditable well-managed 
 family, in which all the world except him- 
 self — recognised that the head of it was a 
 mere goose — happy if only a goose ! Yet he 
 kept up the delusion that he was the head 
 of it, and under his imaginary guidance and 
 some one else’s real control — all went well. 
 But I never yet saw a household in which 
 the mistress was a fool, or even a cony, which 
 did not soon or late crumble into hopeless 
 decay. She who is exactly the opposite of 
 Solomon’s “ virtuous woman;” who does .//.?/ 
 “ work willingly with her hands ; ” who rises 
 up late in the morning and dislikes the 
 trouble of taking care of her children ana 
 guiding her servants ; who, so far from con- 
 sidering a field and buying it,” knows little 
 or nothing about money, except spending it; 
 who has no will of her own, or opinion either, 
 but appeals in everything to her husband or 
 whoever chances to be near her — for these 
 sweet climbing plants will hang on to any 
 sort of stick— such a woman, may be very 
 charming, very pretty, very amiable, but woe 
 
124 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 betide the man who marries her ! He will 
 soon learn to sicken at her sweetness, to care 
 nothing for her charms, nay, perhaps even to 
 despise her affection, which probably expends 
 itself in words and demonstrations instead of 
 being the silent love of deeds, which make 
 the rest and comfort of a man’s home. 
 
 It is bad enough for a man to marry 
 a bad woman ; but still, if she is not too 
 bad, he can sometimes reason with and 
 control her, or, at the worst, he can get rid 
 of her. But for the man who marries a 
 feeble woman there is no hope. She can 
 neither take care of him nor of herself ; he 
 cannot rule her, for the hardest thing possible 
 to manage is a fool — and, saddest thought of 
 all, what hope has he for the future ? A bad 
 man’s children often turn out very good — 
 perhaps, as said the temperance lecturer who 
 led about a drunken brother, in consequence 
 of his “ shocking example.” But what 
 chance, either by inheritance or upbringing, 
 have the children of a foolish, feeble mother, 
 who, however sweet she may be, has no 
 notion of the firmness which is as necessary 
 as tenderness, and of the wise authority 
 which results from truest love ? 
 
 Glance at the inner life of a household 
 like this, and *we know at once what to 
 expect. There is a general sense of doubt- 
 fulness and confusion. Meals never appear 
 at the fixed time ; arrangements are always 
 liable to be altered or put off ; servants call 
 you a little after the right hour, and carriages 
 •drive round to the door just in time to let 
 you miss your train. Children hang about, 
 and get in your way ; poor lambs ! they 
 have no notion of obedience, because, in 
 truth, there is nothing to obey; domestics 
 are disorderly, because the orders given are 
 often so irregular and contradictory that it 
 is impossible to carry them out. There 
 hangs about the whole family a kind of 
 haziness — a sense of being out of focus — 
 which to clear-eyed, accurate people is simply 
 maddening. One feels it would be pardon- 
 able to relinquish the most charming friends 
 m the w r orld, if they will not give us our 
 “ meals reg’lar,” — if they are late at night 
 and equally late in a morning — and add to 
 all their plans and intentions the modifica- 
 tion which a sarcastic friend of mine once 
 suggested should be put up as the motto of 
 a very amiable family, “ If please Heaven 
 we remain in the same mind to-morrow.” 
 
 Poor dear “ conies ! ” they have little 
 enough mind to remain in. But for all 
 that they are very aggravating. They always 
 listen to the advice of the last adviser; 
 
 you may leave them on Monday, quite 
 satisfied that they will follow yours — after 
 you have taken an immensity of trouble 
 to plan and to act for them ; and, coming 
 back on Tuesday, you may find that some- 
 body else has persuaded them to a contrary 
 course ; that they now see everything in a 
 quite different light, and are prepared to act 
 diametrically opposite to their declared in- 
 tentions of yesterday. Of course you have 
 nothing to say; all your labour has been 
 thrown away. But they are so kind, so sweet, 
 so grateful ; so desirous of acting for the best, 
 and pleasing everybody ; — what can you do 
 but “ grin and bear it ” ? 
 
 This faculty, or non-faculty, of never know- 
 ing one’s own mind, sometimes passes for 
 wisdom. The gift of “seeing a subject on 
 all sides ” is supposed to be very valuable ; 
 prudence and caution are always ranked 
 among the virtues, and with reason. Yet I 
 doubt if in the long run a habit of rapid de- 
 cision — even though it occasionally becomes 
 rashness — is not less harmful than that fatal 
 indecision which is the curse and misery of 
 life. The people who do something — even 
 though they may now and then do it hastily 
 and amiss — are certainly more useful than 
 the people who only talk and do nothing ; 
 and they who have the blessed quality oi 
 being able to make up their minds — even 
 though they may make it up in a hard bundle 
 and throw it at their neighbours’ heads — are, 
 on the whole, less harmful to society than 
 those who never know their own minds at 
 all. The shrillest clarion, if in tune, is more 
 tolerable than those feeble trumpets giving 
 an uncertain sound, which are the torment 
 and irritation of life. 
 
 Especially in one phase of life, to which 
 “ conies ” of both sexes are particularly 
 liable, are they particularly objectionable 
 — I mean the amatory phase. Of course 
 they fall in love— everybody does — and being 
 conies, that is, a smooth, soft, pliable, and 
 attractive race, are specially prone to give 
 and take the universal complaint in a mild 
 sort of way. Then, the trouble they give 
 to their friends and relations is endless. 
 
 If there is a question to which man or 
 woman ought to 'be able to give a simple 
 and direct answer, and in which not to be 
 able to give it is something worse than ridi- 
 culous, it is the question whether they do 01 
 do not prefer one to all others as a com- 
 panion for life ; or whether, having chosen, 
 they will hold fast to him or her, through life. 
 One would imagine this was the very easiest 
 question to ask or answer, the very plainest 
 
CONIES. 
 
 i 2 5 
 
 point of right and wrong ; in which, what- 
 ever difficulties presented themselves outside, 
 there could be none in the mind of the petsons 
 concerned, who are, in truth, the only persons 
 concerned. If there is one thing in life which 
 people ought to decide tor themselves, it 
 their choice in marriage. 
 
 Yet this is the thing in which everybody 
 interferes, appeals for or listens to interfer- 
 ence: so that what ought to be the happiest 
 bit of life becomes the most unhappy. 1 
 hope, to the end of my days, to be able o 
 sympathize with an honest an. d hearty ' love 
 whether happy or unhappy ; but I own th* 
 the “ bother” some young people and ther 
 love affairs cause to their friends and the 
 public in general, is quite intolerable. 
 
 Sneerers at our sex have said that any 
 man can succeed in marrying any woman ; 
 and really when one looks round on the sort 
 of men some women do condescend to marry, 
 one is tempted to believe this. Persistency 
 patience, and courage are such rare qualities 
 that they almost deserve to wm-and do win 
 with certain kinds of women. Though it 
 seems strange that any true man truly lovmg 
 should stoop to be loved m that sort of way 
 -being asked by his idol for ‘ a months 
 time to think it over;” or, “till she has 
 consulted her friends ; ” or, lowest degrada- 
 tion of all, “ till she can inquire into his in- 
 come, and whether he can make good settle- 
 ments.” Of course exceptions will occur. 
 Some men will make offers— especially to 
 conies— before the girl has ever seriously 
 thought of them. And some girls of timid 
 nature, require long thinking before t y 
 love. Persistency is so attractive, that it 
 often attains its end, and happy marriages 
 are not unknown, in which the lover has 
 been refused several times and accepted 
 at last Still, the safest marriage is certainly 
 that in which the momentous question 
 needs only a Yes or No, absolute and final 
 Nay, perhaps the ideal of marriage is that 
 which I once heard expressed, or implied, by 
 an old lady, looking with a smile at her old 
 husband, and talking to a newly-affianced 
 grand-daughter, “Asked me did you say 
 Why, my dear, he never asked me at all . 
 We both knew our own minds, and so we 
 
 m ^But < the cony never knows her own mind, 
 either before the offer or after it. It has 
 been the fashion to abuse faithless men 
 “ deceivers ever ”— yet quite as much woe 
 has been worked by women, not intention- 
 ally faithless, and by no means meaning to 
 deceive. A point-blank refusal kills no man. 
 
 Often it does his character real good ; teaches 
 him his own failings, and shows him— a rather 
 desirable thing for modern youths— that he 
 has not merely to ask and to have. No 
 tender-hearted maiden need fear her dis 
 carded lover’s breaking his heart ; many a. mas- 
 culine heart is “ caught at the rebound, and 
 the chances are that the second woman will 
 do quite as well as the first. But terrible 
 harm is done to men by feeble women, who 
 play fast and loose — making and breaking 
 engagements with equal facility, and wit 1 
 such exceeding sweetness that they still ge 
 credit for that “ amiability ” which is counted 
 the utmost charm of our sex. How far it is 
 so, whether a creature who can neither take 
 care of herself nor anybody else, .neither 
 decide for herself nor anyone else, is fit to 
 be a wife and mother, I will not attempt to 
 argue. All I can say is, I would rather see 
 a son of mine engaged or married to the 
 “ strongest-minded ” woman alive, than to 
 cony Not that strength consists m never 
 changing one’s mind, in the mu lsh theory 
 « I’ve said it and I’ll stick to it ;’ or m that 
 other most amusing characteristic of weak peo- 
 pie the “ contrariness ” of the Irish pig, which, 
 when you want it to go one way, obliges you 
 to pull it by the tail in another direction 
 Strong people are seldom obstinate, and 
 never feel it the least humiliation rationally 
 to change their minds. The courage which 
 can frankly say, “ I retract; I was mistaken, 
 and act upon it — what worlds of misery 
 does it not often save, especially in the 
 matter of marriage ! How many unions, 
 rashly planned, are as madly carried out, 
 when a P few plain words would hwe pre- 
 vented the wreck of two lives ! Far be it 
 from me to defend infidelity; but I do 
 say seeing we are all liable to err liable, 
 
 alas! even to change— that an honest broken 
 
 engagement is more honourable, either to 
 man or woman, than the false honour of a 
 deceitful, loveless marriage. , 
 
 The most trying thing about weak people 
 is that they are often such exceedingly good 
 people, in a negative way You never can 
 “ pick a hole ” in them ; they are most self- 
 devoting and self-sacrificing; that is, they 
 will let themselves be killed by inches, when 
 a little wholesome resistance would have 
 saved them for long and useful lives. They 
 are ready to “ go on till they drop, when y 
 stopping in time they need never have 
 
 dropped at all. Stronger natures, who have 
 to stand by powerless and see all thls > ' v0 “ 
 often prefer a little honest badness to that 
 inane goodness which results in the goo 
 
126 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 being altogether a prey to the wicked. Still, 
 often the tables are turned. There is no 
 victimiser like your amiable friend, who, with- 
 out having the strength or the courage to be 
 happy, has yet the power to make you, and 
 many others, most thoroughly miserable. 
 
 How is this to be remedied? for a fault- 
 finder without a remedy is like a doctor who 
 can diagnose but not heal. 
 
 So many co-agents, of fate or circumstance, 
 so many qualities mental and physical, in- 
 herent or hereditary, combine to produce 
 what we call weakness of character, that 
 wholesale condemnation of it is as useless as 
 it is cruel ; besides, we have always to fight 
 against the old superstition that strength is a 
 dangerous quality, except in men. A child 
 “ with a will of its own ” was the horror of 
 our forefathers ; and “ to break the will ” of 
 their little ones was considered one of the 
 first duties of parents. 
 
 Things are changing now ; yet what a load 
 of scorn, vituperation, and ominous warning 
 has been heaped upon the devoted head of 
 at least one parent I know, who persists in 
 not exacting from her child blind obedience, 
 and in believing that to whip a child degrades 
 equally itself and its punisher. “ A rod for 
 the fool’s back,” if you will ; but let it be the 
 grown-up fool, who has so misused his autho- 
 rity that he needs to enforce it by whipping. 
 Exceptional instances may arise, impossible to 
 judge, but as a rule I never hear of flogging 
 being the established system of a family 
 without feeling that it ought previously to be 
 administered to the parents. 
 
 The rule of fear and the restraint it induces, 
 destroying all individuality of character, is 
 the primary cause of that numerous race 
 which I have termed conies. Having never 
 been accustomed to think or decide for them- 
 selves, they never attempt decision. It is so 
 much less trouble to lean on other people, to 
 get other people to decide and act for them. 
 And then dependence is so charming — espe- 
 cially in women. Thus the “feeble race” 
 begin their career, and grow gradually feebler 
 year by year, causing more and more trouble 
 to all about them, until at length a sigh of 
 relief mingles with the tear of due regret as 
 their affectionate friends shovel the mould 
 over them. At least they will burthen no- 
 body any more. 
 
 But why should they ever have done it? 
 u A will of one's own ” is not a curse but a 
 great blessing to every human being ; that 
 is, a defensive rather than an aggressive 
 will. To think, and act for one’s self, with- 
 out interfering with others, saves a world j 
 
 of trouble to one’s neighbours, and is a 
 faculty which far from being repressed, ought 
 to be cultivated as much as possible. A 
 year-old infant, who, if you hold out to it a 
 handful of toys, knows exactly which toy it 
 wants, snatches at it, grasps it, and, if losing, 
 weeps after it, is a far more hopeful specimen 
 of humanity than the irresolute child who 
 never knows what it wants, nor how to keep 
 what it has. 
 
 True, you will need to teach the small 
 creature not to snatch and not to cry. You 
 must help it to govern its own will, and even 
 to learn the last lesson of true bravery, to 
 resign its own will, should necessity arise. 
 And there is always a transition stage, when 
 the will is strong and the reason weak, during 
 which your child will give you a good deal 
 of trouble, and you will have to exercise not 
 only great patience, but that wise authority 
 which superiors must always have over infe- 
 riors, for the inferiors’ good — a very different 
 thing from mere tyranny. But wait, and you 
 will have your reward. If, instead of merely 
 controlling a child you can teach it to control 
 itself, you will have made it into a higher 
 human being, and benefited both it and 
 yourself for the rest of its life. 
 
 It may be heresy — many old-fashioned 
 people will think it so — but I believe we 
 ought to encourage in all children, from the 
 first dawn of reason, a reasonable free will ; 
 which should be exercised, whenever pos- 
 sible, in all unimportant things, gradually 
 becoming more and more important as reason 
 and common sense increase. Under due 
 supervision I would allow a child to choose 
 its own clothes, pursuits, companions; subject 
 to advice, suggestion, or a veto if necessary ; 
 but still made to understand that to guide 
 and control itself, to act and decide for itself, 
 is not a crime to be punished, but a duty of 
 life to be fulfilled every year more perfectly 
 and more wisely. And above all, I would 
 teach children never to lean where they can 
 stand upright, never to ask another person 
 to decide for them what they can decide for 
 themselves, or to do for them what they are 
 able to do for themselves. At all ages, and 
 in all crises, if we must act, let us act with- 
 out troubling other people; if we must suffer 
 — alas ! it is hard to teach* a child this, and 
 yet we ought — let us, as much as possible, 
 learn to suffer alone, without inflicting need- 
 less pain upon other people. 
 
 Sharp discipline this. It is even more 
 difficult to guide a will than to break it ; but 
 what a different result we shall find if we 
 succeed! Instead of feeble, helpless, useless 
 
LUCCA. 
 
 127 
 
 creatures— conies, in short— we shall have 
 made our children into capable human 
 beings, whom we can rely on and trust in, 
 who will be a help to us, and not us only, 
 through the thorny paths of life ; whom if 
 it be God’s will, we may even leave with- 
 out fear to fight the world without us. That 
 sharpest agony of parents-to die and l leave 
 our children helpless— is greatly lessened if 
 in our life-time we are able to make them 
 helpful, by urging them to independence, no 
 dependence, to decision instead of inde- 
 cision, and brave action rather than pas- 
 sive endurance. They may make a few mis- 
 takes— we all do— and some enemies ; the 
 weak often secretly hate the strong, even 
 while making use of them ; but m the long 
 run they will have the best of it. 
 
 Still, let us not curtail our text. lhe 
 conies are but a feeble folk, yet they make 
 their nests in the rock.” 
 
 So they do. They always find somebody 
 
 or other to help them, and very comfortable 
 « nests” do they sometimes make, chiefly at 
 other people’s expense. No matter. It is to 
 the credit of human nature, and perhaps for 
 the education of human nature, that this 
 should be so. Let us not g™dg e it them 
 poor things ! Let us rather rejoice that there 
 are some “ stony rocks ” which will serve as 
 “ a refuge for the conies.” 
 
 Still, one would prefer not to be— and 
 above all one would try to save one s child, 
 nav, every child with whom one had to do, 
 from being— a cony. For we must never 
 forget, it will be our “ child only for a few 
 years : and an independent human being, 
 for, we hope, many years more, when we 
 are sleeping in dust.. Better even 
 teaching it to obey us, is to put mto it that 
 obedience to absolute right which is in truth 
 obedience to God : safer even than the 
 
 wisest habit of deciding for it, is to give it 
 strength and courage to decide for itself. 
 
 LUCCA. 
 
 By AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE, Author of “Walks in Rome.” 
 
 t T is pleasant when the whole country is 
 1 scorched under the noonday summer sun 
 to saunter through Lucca, where the state.y 
 houses with their overhanging roofs always 
 throw a delicious shade upon the streets, 
 which are kept as clean as the floor of any 
 drawing-room, and where the air and the 
 senses are refreshed by the constant splash o 
 fountains. Everywhere m these quiet ok 
 streets, where carriage wheels are seldom 
 heard, there is a stealthy sound of church 
 music and a whiff of incense from behind the 
 heavy crimson curtains which hang under 
 Gothic archways encrusted with sculpture. 
 Strangers are welcomed and kindly treated 
 alike by noble and peasant ; they may linger 
 unmolested to sketch the cressets ana other 
 ironwork on the many old palaces, where 
 the descendants of the histone families of the 
 Middle Ages— Guinigi, Possenti, Trenta, Far- 
 nese, Orsini, Manzi, da Gia, dal Portico, 
 Manfredi, Bernardini, Boccella, are still to be 
 found; they may loiter on the ramparts, to 
 gaze on the Apennines, or on the hill oi ban 
 Giuliano, which, as Dante observes, prevents 
 the Pisans from seeing Lucca, and may rest 
 under the remnant of the great old avenues, 
 for centuries the pride of Lucca, which have 
 
 been so terribly mutilated under the Sar- 
 dinian government ; or, if they love churches, 
 they may have a surfeit of them here, for there 
 are fifty churches in Lucca, and few without 
 
 U T tlie smaller churches San Giusto with 
 its rich portal is a good specimen. But at 
 least three of the larger churches must not 
 be left unvisited. Of these San Michele, 
 founded in 764, when the worship of the 
 Archangel spread over the whole north of 
 Italy from Monte S. Archangelo, has a noble 
 facade of 1188, by Guidetto, the architect of 
 the cathedral, copied from , the west fiont of 
 Pisa, the successive tiers of its delicate round 
 headed arches leading up to a statue of bt. 
 Michael on the summit of the gable, with 
 great gilt bronze wings glittering against the 
 sky In San Francesco the dearest associa- 
 | tions of the Lucchese linger round the tomb of 
 Castruccio Castracani, though the Sardinian 
 government has turned this noble church mto 
 ! military magazine. But the most curious 
 of the churches is San Frediano— ' Basilica 
 Longobardorum,” founded m 685, and dedi- 
 cated to an Irish Saint who emigrated to 
 Italy and became Bishop of Lucca in the 
 sixth century. He obtained great veneration 
 
128 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 by his miracles, especially by turning the 
 Serchio away from the town during a flood, 
 having marked out its new bed with a harrow, 
 and by his enormous strength lifting a gi- 
 gantic stone, 
 which is still 
 to be seen in 
 the church, 
 from its quar- 
 ry, and plac- 
 ing it in a 
 cart drawn 
 by wild cows, 
 who drew it 
 to its present 
 resting-place. 
 
 San Fredi- 
 ano stands 
 just beneath 
 the shady 
 ramparts, 
 and in all 
 distant views 
 of the town 
 its tall square 
 Lorn bard 
 campanile is 
 a conspicu- 
 ous feature. 
 
 Close by are 
 the remains 
 of a Roman 
 amphitheatre 
 now used as 
 a market and 
 generally 
 known as 
 “ II Parlas- 
 cio,” from its 
 having been 
 employed as 
 a place of po- 
 litical assem- 
 bly. The ex- 
 cessive sim- 
 plicity of the 
 front of the 
 church is in- 
 tended to 
 concentrate 
 attention up- 
 on its one 
 ornament, a 
 
 ture, the Israelites being represented as pass- 
 ing through the Red Sea in chain armour ; 
 and there is an inexhaustible wealth of pic- 
 tures and monuments. 
 
 Like the 
 cathedral, 
 San Fredia- 
 no has its fa- 
 mous shrine,, 
 to which a 
 festa annu- 
 ally attracts, 
 thousands of 
 pilgrims. 
 Every do- 
 mestic ser- 
 vant in Lucca 
 and itsneigh- 
 b o u r hood 
 comes on the 
 27 th of April 
 to visit and 
 bring a fresh 
 nosegay to 
 Santa Zita, 
 the faithful 
 servant, who, 
 entering the 
 Fantinelli fa- 
 mily in her 
 twelfth year, 
 served them 
 faithfully and 
 affe ct io n- 
 ately for 
 forty-eight 
 years. The 
 crowd is so 
 
 glorious mo- 
 saic of Christ 
 adored by angels and apostles. Its font of 
 I ^ 5 I , f° r baptism by immersion, is inscribed 
 with the name of its artist, Magister Ro- 
 bertus, and is covered with quaint sculp- 
 
 Entrance to San Giusto, Lucca, 
 
 great upon 
 her festival 
 that armed 
 soldiers with- 
 drawn swords 
 are placed 
 at every en- 
 trance of the 
 church to 1 
 prevent the 
 pilgrims from 
 crushing 
 each other to 
 death. The 
 ancient mum- 
 my of Santa 
 Zita is then 
 
 dressed up in green satin and lace, and the 
 streets are full of men selling medals in her 
 honour and her memoirs, which have little 
 except her faithful servitude to record. It is 
 
LUCCA. 
 
 129 
 
 haracteristic that while the tombs of the great 
 
 hieftains of the fourteenth century, Uguccione 
 
 e] la Faggiola and Castruccio Castracam, 
 zho in turn have knelt at her shrine, are dis- 
 Lon oure d, 
 he tomb of 
 he poor ser- 
 vant should 
 emain ; that 
 ihe should 
 3e honoured 
 is the patron- 
 ess of Lucca, 
 is Santa Ro- 
 salia is of 
 Palermo; 
 and that her 
 name should 
 be immor- 
 talised by 
 Dante. 
 
 The streets 
 of Lucca are 
 full of old 
 palazzi, of 
 whicli the 
 most inter- 
 esting are the 
 two palaces 
 of the Guini- 
 gi, which have 
 remained for 
 five centuries 
 in the hands 
 of the same 
 family, per- 
 haps the 
 proudest in 
 Italy, and 
 one of whose 
 m embers, 
 
 Francesco di 
 Lazzaro, 
 bore, like 
 Cosmo de’ 
 
 Medici, the 
 title of Father 
 of his coun- 
 try. The 
 larger palace, 
 built in 1384 
 by Michele, 
 
 Francesco, 
 and Niccola 
 Guinigi, has 
 
 a noble machicolated tower, frequently used 
 as a prison in early times, and two ranges 
 of windows, each formed by four beautiful 
 trefoil Gothic arches enclosed in a circular 
 
 arch. The walls retain their cressets and 
 iron rings and coats of arms in coloured 
 marbles let into the walls. Many are the 
 deeds of blood which the palace has wit- 
 nessed, es- 
 pecially the 
 murder of 
 Lazzaro Gui- 
 nigi by his 
 younger bro- 
 ther, who was 
 seduced to 
 the crime by 
 a promise of 
 the lordship 
 of Lucca 
 from the 
 Duke of Mi- 
 lan, and who 
 was behead- 
 ed for it by 
 his cousin, 
 Michele Gui- 
 nigi, the Gon- 
 faloniere. 
 The family 
 archives con- 
 tain four hun- 
 dred and 
 fifty- three 
 parchments, 
 of which five 
 are of the 
 tenth, and 
 nine of the 
 eleventh cen- 
 tury. 
 
 A large 
 house of the 
 sixteenth 
 century in 
 the Via San 
 Paolino is in- 
 teresting as 
 having been 
 the house of 
 Francesco 
 Burlamacchi, 
 famous in 
 Italian his- 
 tory for his 
 project which 
 was to secure 
 at once the 
 reform of the 
 
 Church and the union of Tuscany into one 
 great republic, for which he was executed by 
 the intrigues of Paul III. and the Medici m 
 1546. He was the first leader of the Re:or- 
 
 Porch of San Cristoforo, Lucca. 
 
* 3 ° 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 mation in Italy, for which twenty years after 
 his family were exiled, including his son 
 Michele with his wife Clara Calandrini, his 
 father-in-law Giuliano Calandrini, his sister- 
 in-law Laura, and her husband Pompeo 
 Diodati, one of whose descendants was the 
 well-known translator of the Bible. After 
 having been driven from town to town 
 through France, all these exiles found a 
 refuge in Geneva, where their descendants are 
 still numerous and honoured. 
 
 In the Via Fillungo is the fagade of San 
 Cristoforo, a noble work of the great archi- 
 tect Diotisalvi, with a beautiful porch. 
 
 The modern Palace of the Dukes of Lucca, 
 due for the most part to the Baciocchi, 
 occupies the site of the fortress of Castruccio 
 Castracani for which Giotto furnished designs, 
 and which was pulled down when the Pisans 
 were driven out of the city. During the 
 reign of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany it was 
 the home of a brilliant little court which 
 formed the centre of the happiest society in 
 Italy. Since the annexation to Sardinia, the 
 palace has been a desert ; but strangers must 
 still turn to it to visit the pictures which the 
 present government has plundered from the 
 churches and convents, in many cases doing 
 grievous injury to the history of art, espe- 
 cially in the case of the grand works of Fra 
 Bartolommeo, which have been stolen from 
 the Church of San Romano in characteristic 
 violation of the law that as long as a church 
 is kept open and used for public worship, its 
 works of art are to be respected. For the 
 reception of one of these, the famous Ma- 
 donna della Misericordia, a chapel was ex- 
 pressly built and its lights purposely arranged. 
 Ill seen and crudely lighted in the gallery of 
 the palace, this picture is still one of the 
 grandest in the world. It exhibits all the 
 peculiar powers of Fra Bartolommeo, who 
 was the greatest of the religious painters, pos- 
 sessing a thorough knowledge of form and 
 anatomy, and who always drew his figures 
 in the nude before he draped .them, as may 
 be seen by his original sketches in the Uffizi 
 at Florence. Here the Virgin is repre- 
 sented as extending her mantle, sustained by 
 angels, to shelter the people of Lucca — old 
 men, maidens, and little children, who are 
 scattered over the steps in front of her, some 
 seated, some standing, but all gazing anxi- 
 ously at the figure of Christ in the clouds, 
 who is showering lightnings and thunder- 
 bolts upon them. Even more noble still, also 
 taken from San Romano, is the picture of 
 St. Mary Magdalen and St. Catherine of 
 Siena in adoration of God the Father, being 
 
 one of the pictures which have often been 
 mistaken for a work of Raffaelle, from whom 
 the artist had received instruction in per- 
 spective, while imparting information on his 
 own wonderful richness and harmony of 
 colour. The lovely figure of the Magdalen 
 is of the same type as many a peasant girl 
 who may still be seen in the streets of Lucca, 
 and, as Ampere suggests, when we gaze upon 
 her beauty we may imagine the charms of 
 Gentucca when she captivated Dante. 
 Vasari declares that it is impossible for any- 
 thing in art to exceed the beauty of the figure 
 of St. Catherine in her ecstasy of adoration. 
 
 It is an enchanting drive from the town 
 to the Baths of Lucca. The white road, 
 dazzling and dusty, first runs across the 
 flowery plain to the foot of the hills, and 
 then follows the Serchio far into their re- 
 cesses. Picturesque villages with widely 
 overhanging roofs and pergolas of vines 
 bowed with their purple grape clusters cling 
 to the sides of the hills. Roses, especially 
 our common China roses, are formed into 
 hedges amidst which a little shrine with a pic- 
 ture or an image of a saint peeps out here 
 and there. The corn-fields are red with 
 gladiolus and poppies or blue with corn- 
 flowers. High above the olives, tall cy- 
 presses shoot up into the sky. At length, in 
 the narrowest part of the valley, we come 
 upon the old bridge, the Ponte della Madda- 
 lena, built by Castruccio more than five hun- 
 dred years ago, with one of the highest and 
 widest arches in Italy, raised even far higher 
 than the roofs of the neighbouring houses to 
 be out of the way of the sudden floods which 
 characterize the river. So high is it that the 
 peasants believe it impossible that it can 
 have been built by human hands, and it is 
 often known by the name of Ponte del 
 Diavolo. When the builder was in despair, 
 they say, the devil came by night to help 
 him, but demanded the first passenger across 
 the bridge as his reward. In the morning 
 the bridge was finished, but the man out- 
 witted the fiend by making a dog cross the 
 bridge first. So furious was the devil at his 
 disappointment, that he seized the animal 
 and dashed it with such force upon the 
 ground that it went through the central arch, 
 and was carried away by the flood, “in 
 proof of which,” say the contadini, “ the hole 
 which the dog fell through might be seen 
 under the present pavement to this day.” 
 Three miles beyond the bridge are the 
 three villages of the Bagni with their many 
 hotels and lodging-houses, which are crowded 
 in summer with visitors, attracted less by the 
 
Ponte della Maddalena. Bagni di Lucca. 
 
132 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 mineral qualities of the baths than by the 
 charm of their chestnut-covered hills. The 
 village of Ponte a Serraglio is close to the 
 bed of the river, in a narrow and confined 
 situation, but 
 contains the 
 club and the 
 principal 
 shops, and 
 is the busiest 
 part of the 
 place during 
 the summer 
 months. 
 
 High on the 
 hill behind 
 are the Bag- 
 ni Caldi, a 
 picturesque 
 group of 
 houses buried 
 in chestnut 
 woods, with 
 delightful 
 paths lead- 
 ing down to 
 the Bagni 
 alia Villa, the 
 most fashion- 
 able of the 
 three vil- 
 lages, in the 
 highest part 
 of the valley. 
 
 Witho ut 
 possessing 
 any claim to 
 grandeur of 
 scenery, no- 
 thing can be 
 more attrac- 
 tive during 
 the summer 
 heat in Italy 
 than the fresh 
 green valleys 
 and thickly 
 wooded hills 
 at Lucca 
 Baths. No 
 words can 
 paint the 
 richness of 
 the vegeta- 
 tion,the vines 
 
 dancing from tree to tree, the luxuriance of 
 the corn and flax, or the splendour of the 
 oleander blossoms in the little gardens. Every 
 evening it seems as if each blade of grass, 
 
 each ear of corn was illuminated, so great 
 is the glory of the fire-flies, and, though the 
 heat is very great at mid-day, there is a de- 
 lightful freshness on the shady hill-sides in 
 tire morning 
 and evening. 
 All through 
 the hot hours 
 of the day the 
 Bagni seem 
 to be asleep, 
 but by five 
 o’clock the 
 lanes through 
 the chestnut 
 woods are 
 alive with 
 pleasure- 
 seekers in 
 carriages or 
 on horse- 
 back. Till 
 the fall of 
 Tuscany, the 
 Grand Dukes 
 always spent 
 their sum- 
 mers here in 
 a quiet old 
 palace at the 
 Bagni alia 
 Villa, taking 
 a more than 
 friendly in- 
 terest in the 
 welfare of the 
 people. It 
 was the hap- 
 piest part of 
 their lives. 
 In the morn- 
 ings the 
 
 Grand Duch- 
 ess Dowager 
 would walk 
 withherLady 
 in^ Waiting 
 to the little 
 schools or 
 cottages to 
 teach the 
 
 children or 
 inquire after 
 the sick poor. 
 In the even- 
 ing, the Grand Ducal pair, with their two sons 
 and the lovely Austrian daughter-in-law who 
 was snatched from them by an early death, 
 would ride quite unattended upon the hills. 
 
 Contadino of Lucca. 
 
LUCCA. 
 
 133 
 
 Lucchio. 
 
 exchanging friendly greetings with the for- 
 eigners staying in the place, many of whom 
 were invited to join their family circle 111 1 
 
 eV Very 'delightful are many of the excursions 
 from the Bagni-to Lucchio, ^^food^f 
 Cocciglia, in the hills where the sole food of 
 the peasants is the heavy bread made of 
 
 chestnut flour ; to Barga, with its splendid 
 reliefs of Della Robbia and its deserted rose- 
 covered cloisters: to Galicano with its rift 
 overhung by many bridges m the midst of 
 the town and its curious rock-perched hermr- 
 tare • and to the Prato Fiorito, a lovely mea- 
 dow ’with exquisitely beautiful alpine flowers 
 high above the forests in the mountains. 
 
 Cocciglia. 
 
*34 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 PRINCIPAL CANDLISH. 
 
 By ALEXANDER MACLEOD SYMINGTON. 
 
 T T seems strange to find ourselves search- 
 . in g the pages of Burns to find, in one of 
 the poet’s minor effusions, a link between him 
 and the distinguished evangelical preacher 
 and theologian who forms the subject of this 
 paper; the contrast is pronounced enough, 
 and significant in more ways than one. It 
 wants yet some years of a century since the 
 poet sang, — 
 
 InMauchline there dwells six proper young Belles, 
 
 Tne pride of the place and its neighbourhood a’ ; 
 
 Their carriage and dress, a stranger would guess. 
 
 In Lon ’on or Paris they’d gotten it a’ : 
 
 Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland’s divine, 
 
 Afiss Smith she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw ; 
 
 Tnere’s beauty and fortune to get wi’ Miss Morton, 
 
 But Armour’s the jewel for me o’ them a’. 
 
 What a world of thought might be gathered 
 around the one half-line when we know 
 where to find the other end of the slender 
 thread. The Miss Smith whom Burns sang 
 m 1784 died at the age of eighty-six 
 (January, 1854), beloved and honoured, in 
 the house of her son, Dr. Candlish, which 
 had been for many years her home. James 
 Candlish, also, her husband, was addressed 
 by Burns as “ My ever dear old acquaint- 
 ance ” in a letter craving help toward a col- 
 lection of Scottish songs. Mr. Candlish was 
 then (1787) studying medicine in Glasgow, 
 and it appears from his answer that he was 
 at the same time teaching “ no less than ten 
 hours a day.” It is something to know that 
 he was thus diligent— a student, and an 
 intelligent lover of the national muse— 
 but we know more. James Candlish’s 
 reason for preferring the medical to the 
 clerical protession was thus expressed by 
 himself: — 
 
 “ By nature I hate hypocrisy, and consequently 
 feel great reluctance to preach doctrines I do not 
 believe. I have never felt it possible to dissemble 
 my opinions for one day when I had any need to 
 express myself in religious matters, and from this 
 have concluded that should I ever put myself into an 
 employment which will make it necessary for me to 
 dissemble, my own internal happiness must be lost 
 by it.” 
 
 His son inherited in abundant measure all 
 this courageous fidelity to conviction, and 
 although the development in his case was in 
 the other direction, he was not less careful 
 to keep his utterances within the mark of 
 what he believed and felt. But the son owed 
 nothing directly to his father’s influence, for 
 James Candlish, after a successful career of 
 seventeen years as a teacher of medicine in 
 Edinburgh, died suddenly when Robert was 
 
 six weeks old. He was born on the 23rd of 
 March, 1806. 
 
 To his mother Candlish owed much. The 
 wit which Burns ascribed to her was, Dr. 
 Wilson says,* “ strong common sense and 
 sagacity.” Such at least was her character, 
 as developed under the trials of early widow- 
 hood. All who knew this lady, first and last, 
 were impressed bv the dignity of her bear- 
 ing, always combined with courtesy and 
 1 kindness ; and behind that there lay a faith- 
 fulness of love nobly severe. She refused to 
 put crape on her widow’s dress, feeling she 
 would best honour her husband by not taking 
 bread out of his children’s mouths. By 
 teaching a school in Glasgow she maintained 
 her four children, and found means to give her 
 two sons a classical education. Both sons did 
 her honour, the elder having attained con- 
 siderable success as a physician when he was 
 suddenly cut off by fever. “ Fratrem unicum 
 optimum ! ” wrote his brother (in that do- 
 mestic register which he sometimes sought 
 to make the more sacred by using the Latin 
 or the Greek tongue), and well he might. 
 Being four or five years older, James did 
 much for Robert at a period of life when 
 four or five years make all the difference, for 
 Robert was singular in appearance as well as 
 precocious in mind from the first. A lady 
 who knew him when herself a pupil in Mrs. 
 Candlish’s school, says : — 
 
 “ When I first came to be associated with Dr. C. 
 he was a little boy of about eight years of age. 
 We were at that time very much together, both at 
 lessons and play. While the girls were engaged at 
 needlework little Robert always sat on a low stool 
 beside his mother doing sums of arithmetic, of which 
 occupation he seemed never to tire. He was never 
 sent to a public school. His mother and eldest sister 
 gave him all the instruction he required until he was 
 too far advanced for them to carry on. His eldest 
 sister’s love for her little brother was very tender. 
 She watched over and took an interest in everything 
 he did and said. I remember her often saying how 
 much she felt hurt at the remarks people made about 
 him when she went out with him and an old nurse, 
 Jenny, who came with his mother and young family 
 to Glasgow. He was a peculiar and interesting-look- 
 ing child. His delicate, fair complexion, his large 
 forehead, and eyes with very long eyelashes, and the 
 rest of his body being so small, made him so pecu- 
 liar-looking that people often stopped and asked 
 whose child he was. One day a lady gave him a 
 penny, which he carried home and showed to his mo- 
 ther, and asked if she thought the lady took him for a 
 
 * “Memorials of R. S. Candlish, D.D.” By Wm. Wilson, 
 D.D. Edinburgh : Adam and Charles Black, 1880. A book 
 of which it may be said that, while necessarily travelling over 
 forty years of recent ecclesiastical warfare, it does not con- 
 tain one hard word. 
 
principal candlish. 
 
 T 35 
 
 „ • Tip was so early trained to abhor everything 
 fwVs and sS. His brother James took 
 
 If education entirely on himself after his mothers 
 aining, “ 
 
 That was only, however, till the boy was 
 ,relve years old, when he entered the Um- 
 evsity. 1 James had himself worn clothes 
 Side by his mother at home ; but now he 
 rent to her and “ insisted that Robert should 
 lave his clothes made by a regular tat or 
 md so be spared the ridicule and discomfort 
 vhich he himself had undergone 
 .vould not omit on any account these : pathe- 
 ■ic touches of the res angusia dam. the 
 straitness is all gain where there is so much 
 sterling principle and love. Home, became 
 he safe refuge of Dr. Candlish m days of 
 severe public toil, and the presence i of his 
 children would often, we have been told dis- 
 pel the hysteria induced by the strain of long 
 
 and exciting debate. _ i 
 
 The college course was run with marked 
 success. He got many prizes, some of them 
 the highest, and was a favourite with both 
 professors and fellow-students. In disposi- 
 tion he was impatient yet persevering ; versa- 
 tile yet persistent 3 sensitive and sometimes 
 irritable, but always kind, mai *\y g e ^ erous ; 
 
 I have seen him playing football on the 
 college green with all the intense energy, 
 keenness, and activity which characterized 
 him in later years.’’ 
 
 So says the late Lord Artmllan, his h e- 
 long friend. Another class-fellow, now the 
 rector of Wood Ditton, tells us something 
 still better. Speaking of young Candlish 
 and a cousin, he says, “ There was in them, 
 without a trace of effeminacy, a purity ot 
 thought, an unconscious sanctity of character, 
 that could not be forgotten even amidst the 
 most boisterous excitement of boyish spoits. 
 Not the most coarse and reckless 01 their 
 comrades would have uttered in their ears a 
 lewd or profane word.” The same friend 
 tells of earnest discpssiops m which he took 
 part with both brothers a few years later, ana 
 records a very remarkable prophecy. He is 
 writing to the present Professor Candlish : 
 
 “ Your father, though firm as a rock in all his 
 own opinions, was as incapable as his brother 
 of ill-temper, intolerance or bitterness. Yet, 
 Tames’s intellectual sympathies were . more 
 fully, I think, on my side, at least m our 
 theological discussions. . I remember how, 
 after one of them, in which your father had 
 insisted on a fuller adherence to the spirit in 
 which the Westminster divines had framed 
 their confession than we were disposed to 
 yield, your uncle, when left alone with me. 
 
 said ‘ Bob will one day cause the Church a 
 deal of trouble/ or words as nearly as pos- 
 sible to that effect.” 
 
 When the professors at Glasgow were 
 asked to recommend a tutor for a young 
 Scotch baronet at Eton, they named Robert 
 Candlish, and he thus had the opportunity of 
 becoming somewhat acquainted with English 
 scholastic life between his twenty-first and 
 twenty-third years. At Eton he learned to 
 play fives, and became proficient m rowing 
 and swimming. There also took place, so 
 far as there is any record of it at all, ms de- 
 cisive spiritual crisis. It was characteristic ot 
 the man to the last that he was most reticent 
 about his personal religion, a reticence which 
 arose from very genuine humility ; but_ his 
 mother once spoke of the matter to an mt- 
 mate friend. Far from home, he had fallen 
 into deep spiritual anxiety, and wrote to her 
 for guidance. Mrs. Candlish’s answer is 
 memorable: “ I just told him, Robert, I 
 cannot venture to solve the doubts and diffi- 
 culties that occur to a mind like yours. My 
 advice is to go to your Bible, and pray to the 
 Lord for light, and you will get it 
 
 Robert Candlish came to his life-work as 
 a preacher of the gospel m 1829, being 
 twenty-three years of age. For about four 
 years he was an assistant (Angh* K curate) in 
 St Andrew’s parish, Glasgow, and m Bonhill, 
 about which period the most significant fact 
 recorded is that, in the latter place, he pre- 
 vailed on the old minister to allow him to 
 preach on behalf of the mission to India 
 The thing was till then unheard of in the 
 vale of Leven ; but the old man was after- 
 wards proud that the collection from his 
 parish was the largest m the Presbyter). 
 There are signs that he felt the subordinate 
 place irksome as the years went on. H 
 longed for a quiet parish of his own, .and 
 when there seemed little hope of _ that 1 
 applied for work in Canada. But all the 
 time he went on composing sermons that 
 afterwards told mightily on other audiences 
 and painfully toiling to make his work as 
 perfect as he knew how. At college he h 
 
 studied oratory under Sheridan Knowles, an 
 had been taken to the theatre when any well- 
 known actor was there (getting up an . inuta- 
 tion at home on the first opportuni y ) , 
 great pains had been taken to overcome a 
 defect P in his articulation. He had made a 
 careful study of Barrow, with the desne ot 
 attaining to something like his copiousness 
 and facility of speech” Of living men, , he 
 been influenced by the writings and the fame 
 of the elder M‘Crie and Andrew Thomson, 
 
136 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 and by the preaching of Chalmers and Ed- 
 ward Irving in Glasgow, preferring the latter. 
 And now, with so high an ideal, he strove to 
 make himself a preacher, all unconscious of 
 the sphere awaiting him. In the beginning 
 of 1834 he became assistant to the minister 
 of St. Gecrge’s, Edinburgh, then abroad in 
 failing health. Andrew Thomson, entering 
 on that charge as its first minister in 1814, 
 had given to it the ripeness of his splendid 
 gifts, laying deep and broad foundations for 
 congregational efficiency. His successor, 
 Mr. Martin, after a single year’s service, was 
 forced abroad in search of health ; and now, 
 on his death, the man was already there who 
 proved himself, during the next forty years, 
 so worthy to enter on the labours of the most 
 distinguished man, next to Chalmers, in the 
 Scottish Church during the early part of this 
 •century. 
 
 It was only by the more intelligent, indeed, 
 that Robert Candlish was appreciated just 
 at first. Look and manner were not win- 
 ning. Two sisters of Isaac Taylor went to 
 his church twenty years after this time, and 
 one of them, who was deaf, says : “ M. 
 heard and I saw him — a short man, with 
 broad shoulders and a head large enough 
 for his diploma. But, oh! such nervous 
 varieties. If I were his wife I should make 
 his waistcoat and his gown fit better ; they 
 
 were never doing their duty to his satisfac- 
 tion.’ But had Mrs. Gilbert been his wife 
 she would have known that all sartorial skill 
 m this matter was vain. Mr. Benjamin Bell 
 describes his first hearing thus : — 
 
 Returning after an absence of three years from 
 Edinburgh, I found him minister of St. George’s 
 where I had been a hearer from boyhood of Dr! 
 Andrew Thomson, and whom, with most others who 
 enjoyed that privilege, I regarded as a very grfeat man 
 whose place no successor could be expected to fill 
 My first impressions, therefore, were unfavourable! 
 The minister looked so young ; he had an awkward 
 way of habitually shrugging up one shoulder, which 
 gave him almost a deformed look; his voice often 
 passed into a scream, or even screech, and his gesti- 
 culations were sometimes almost extravagant. But 
 these peculiarities speedilyvceased to be regarded and 
 very soon I felt with everybody else that a great 
 preacher had appeared, and that a new era was comin^ 
 in for the Scottish pulpit.” 
 
 Here we cease to take note of the events 
 of Dr. Candlish’s life in their order. His 
 life was very public indeed, and is well 
 known ; what we did not know before and 
 what it is instructive to learn, is the root 
 from which such a life grew. During the 
 first four or five years of his residence in 
 Edinburgh, the work of the congregation— in 
 preaching, visiting, organizing— was his only 
 work, and on to the end, in 1873, it con- 
 tinued to be the chief. This will surprise 
 
PRINCIPAL CANDLISH. 
 
 137 
 
 many, and deserves to be said with em- 
 phasis. When Dr. Robert Buchanan urged 
 him to be ready to take part in the Assembly 
 debates of 1839, he declined, saying with all 
 sincerity, that “ he was no speaker, and could 
 be of no use in a debate.” He did speak, 
 however, as all men know, and fiom that 
 time rode high on the crest of no mean 
 battle ; indeed, during the next thirty years 
 he must have uttered as many speeches as 
 sermons, every one of which told, some ot 
 them with very large and abiding effect. 
 None the less is it strictly true that he 
 laboured earnestly as a minister and a phi- 
 lanthropist all through this time, and that he 
 did so not out of fidelity merely, but obeying 
 the most constraining impulses of his heart. 
 Becoming at a leap the prince of debaters, 
 obtaining and keeping an immense influence 
 over the opinions of thousands of his coun- 
 trymen, he never lost but always increased 
 his hold upon the warm affections of his 
 congregation. This is the congregation to 
 which Norman Macleod used generously to 
 point as putting others to the blush m the 
 matter of giving and working for Christ. No 
 fewer than five congregations were formed 
 from it during Candlish’s day, all of them 
 thriving ; and its last report shows the parent 
 congregation as giving over ,£10,000 a year 
 for the support and spread of the gospel. 
 Health did begin to give way about i860 
 under the double toil, and he was relieved 
 by such colleagues as Dr. Dykes and Mr. 
 Whyte; but he never ceased to preach so 
 long as it was possible, and remained the 
 head and heart of his congregation to the 
 last. When Chalmers died in 1847 he was 
 appointed professor in his room, and ac- 
 cepted the office because judging it even 
 higher than the preacher’s : but he never did 
 more than deliver his inaugural lecture, for 
 the successor whom the congregation chose 
 died before he could be inducted, . and Dr. 
 Candlish quietly went back to his place. 
 Made Principal of the New College in 1862, 
 he did no class-work, refusing to be sundered 
 from his flock. Wherein lay the secret of so 
 vast labour and so unquestionable success . 
 
 For one thing, there pertained to Cand- 
 lish’s intellect, in addition to its general 
 robustness, an attribute which is imperfectly 
 described as acuteness : it had a most un- 
 common power of swift and decisive penetra- 
 tion. The crow is said to have a sensitive 
 nerve between the eyes which enables it to 
 discern a grub two inches under the clod, 
 and to pounce on it with unerring precision. 
 Dr. Candlish was gifted with such a faculty 
 
 for discerning the root of a matter with 
 astonishing quickness and certainty. . I sat 
 for three years in a large committee, in the 
 proceedings of which he took the keenest 
 interest.*' When his deafness made him 
 unable to hear the speaker, he would come 
 nearer him, take a seat for a minute or two, 
 then rise and go back to his place. The few 
 sentences heard were quite enough to enable 
 him to apprehend fairly, and to answer, all the 
 man had said. And with this there went a 
 faculty of splendid exposition. What scarcely 
 any one else would have seen, at least till he 
 had found time for calm reflection, Dr. 
 Candlish saw at once ; and on the spot he 
 would make it so luminous that men thought 
 it quite self-evident. Herein his facility in 
 copious and accurate utterance stood the 
 orator in good stead. He did not believe 
 himself possessed of that facility at first, and 
 he never leaned on it to save himself. 
 Speeches could not be written, but sermons 
 were always written, and read. On one 
 occasion the hotel in which he was living in 
 London took fire, and he escaped with bare 
 life — his sermons burned. He preached 
 none the worse ; and his sermon, printed m 
 a newspaper, he found so correct m form 
 and substance that he afterwards preached it 
 from the type. Far above any exceptional 
 powers of mind and readiness of utterance 
 was the play of Candlish’s heart. Like the 
 Baptist, this man burned and therefore shone. 
 The things about which he spoke were great, 
 and had fully possessed themselves of his 
 soul : therefore all obstacles must give way 
 that the torrent of passionate convictions 
 might flow out. The readers of his sermons, 
 if they never heard him, can scarcely under- 
 stand this. Dr. Addison Alexander, of 
 Princeton, a very competent judge, went 
 once to hear Candlish with small expecta- 
 tions, and describes himself as electrified anc 
 moved beyond all that he would have 
 thought possible. Like all true men his 
 first care was to bum rather than to shine. 
 Those who neglect this sacred order and are 
 only concerned about their shining, verily 
 they have their reward. 
 
 His highly nervous temperament gave to 
 Dr Candlish’s manner a certain abruptness 
 and pungency; but those who knew him even 
 a little way under this surface knew him t 
 be singularly childlike, generous, noble 1 
 have written Mr. Whyte, taking him to any 
 heart,” he wrote on receiving the tidings that 
 
 of these negotiations, “ There is sin somewher . 
 
GOOD WORDS. 
 
 *33 
 
 a colleague had been found. Rumour had 
 it that he was pocketing a thousand a year 
 during the first years of his astonishing acti- 
 vity at the time of the Disruption; but the 
 facts were these. His congregation, thinking 
 £400 “ a very pioderate and reasonable sti- 
 pend,” paid the half of that sum to his account 
 at the bank, which he only consented to 
 receive on the understanding that he should 
 draw nothing from the central fund; and 
 when the other half was paid he informed his 
 deacons of his resolution not to accept more 
 than ^300 a year until time should reveal 
 what was in store for his brethren throughout 
 the Church. At the same time he quietly 
 sent the sixth part of his stipend to the cen- 
 tral fund. 
 
 A very painful alienation occurred between 
 Dr. Cunningham and Dr. Candlish about 
 college matters, bitter and sad in proportion 
 to the warmth and cordiality of their previous 
 brotherhood. It does seem that Candlish 
 was the least to be blamed, but that is of 
 little matter. When he heard that his old 
 friend was likely to lose the sight of one eye, 
 he wrote to “ My dear Cunningham ” in the 
 warmest sympathy, totally ignoring the quar- 
 rel and making no explanations. Restless 
 till he knew how the letter was taken, he 
 begged Dr. Guthrie to go to Cunningham the 
 next morning and discover for him. Great 
 was the joy on learning that the estrangement 
 was swept away. A month or two later, dis- 
 covering that his friend was hindered from 
 visiting a German oculist by want of means, he 
 wrote thus to Dr. Robert Buchanan : — “ Now 
 really something should be done. It would 
 not do for you or me to originate a move- 
 ment. It would be misunderstood. But it 
 occurs to me that, if you approve, you might 
 write to Robert Paul, sending him this letter 
 if you like, and urge something immediate 
 and decisive being done. A few hundred 
 pounds ought to be raised at once and put 
 into Cunningham’s hands. Not a day should 
 be lost. Of course it should be done very 
 privately as well as promptly.” The few 
 hundreds soon became ^7,000. 
 
 Dr. Candlish was eminently domestic. The 
 fruit of his mother’s noble love and the bene- 
 diction of the first commandment with pro- 
 mise were found in his house. His friend 
 and biographer says : — 
 
 “ To see him in the bosom of his family, sustaining 
 at once, as he long did, the relation of son and hus- 
 band, and brother and father, one would have said 
 that his home was the peculiar sphere in which, not 
 only his greatest happiness was found, but in which 
 
 the rich endowments of his nature were unfolded with 
 singular grace and attractiveness. The entire sim- 
 plicity of his nature drew children to him, and he was 
 among them as a child.” 
 
 Death came on a Sabbath night in October, 
 in 1873, not suddenly. Unlike Chalmers 
 and Arnot and Buchanan, he was called to 
 show how a Christian can die. When Lord 
 Ardmillan came to see him, he threw his arms 
 about his neck and said, “ Oh, James Craw- 
 ford, we have been friends for fifty years ! ” 
 He asked the doctors only three questions — 
 “Would it be long ? Would it be painful? 
 Would it affect his head ? ” — and was thank- 
 ful when they answered No to each. His 
 grandchildren were lifted up on the bed and 
 sang “ Rock of Ages ;” he kissed them and 
 said, “ Love Jesus and meet me in heaven,” 
 sending the same words as a message to one 
 not present. Mr. Beil told him his arms 
 were weaker than Guthrie’s had been to the 
 last. “Ah,” said he, “but my arms are not 
 so weak as my legs. I was just saying to 
 Jeanie that if you set me in the pulpit I still 
 could make you all hear on the deafest side 
 of your heads.” One expressed a hope that 
 he was enjoying the comfort of the gospel, 
 and asked if he had much of the sensible 
 presence of Christ: his answer was, “No; 
 my experience is more objective than sub- 
 jective. I would not wish it to be higher or 
 lower than it is. I have a deep sense of sin, 
 but a sure confidence in my Saviour.” At 
 another time, “ This is the beginning of the 
 end, and we must look it in the face. And 
 I can look forward to it, not with rapture — 
 no, not anything like that ; but I know whom 
 I have believed.” He thought of others — 
 his congregation, his colleague, his friends — 
 and spoke kind, manly w^ords, fully knowing 
 that they would be remembered ; especially 
 he gave thanks for the blessing his wife had 
 been to him, and for the support she was 
 now enjoying. He would not leave any but 
 friends behind him so far as lay in his power. 
 The housemaid being in the room, he said, 
 
 “ Is that Elizabeth ? Come here. I have 
 often been sharp to you about my study fire. 
 
 I am sorry. Will you forgive me ? ” Then 
 he shook hands with her and said, “ I pray 
 that when, like me, you come to lie on your 
 death-bed, you may have the same peace I 
 enjoy through my Saviour Jesus Christ.” No 
 art less than divine could have given us a 
 closing picture like that — so suggestive, so 
 full of the best things of earth and of heaven 
 together. 
 
the photophone 
 
 N 
 
 OT many years ago it was thought won- 
 j. ^ derful that messages could be sent 
 by electricity, and very various were the 
 popular notions as to how it was done 
 To some persons it still is probably a bit of 
 a mystery, for we hear now and then of 
 doubts as to the “ genuineness of the hand- 
 writing.” Yet more wonderful was the an- 
 nouncement that persons could speak to one 
 another, even if separated by distances of 
 one or two hundred miles. This has now 
 been fully realised, and the telephone is not 
 only employed in conjunction with the tele- 
 graph to take messages over long distances, 
 but forms a constant means of intercommu- 
 nication between various merchants offices 
 in the City of London and the Exchange, 
 and between business centres in several large 
 towns. The telephone in fact has made itself 
 a necessity to the business world, and is no 
 longer merely an instrument for the scientist s 
 
 eXP Whne en sc S ;rcely accustomed to this rapid 
 and vocal means of communication, we 
 are startled by the news that messages can 
 be sent on a beam of light. This mven- 
 tion, like that of the telephone, is due to 
 Professor Graham Bell, who reminds us that 
 everything is easy when we know how to 
 do it ; even “ to produce sounds of articulate 
 speech in a distant place, by the simple 
 agency of a quivering beam of light. 
 
 We are mainly indebted to the learned 
 Professor for the brief account, which we 
 now give, of this new and beautiful applica- 
 tion of science. 
 
 To begin, we must introduce rather a rare 
 substance, one that is very sensitive to the 
 action of light, and which belongs to the 
 ■ same class of elements as sulphur It is 
 selenium. Discovered by Berzelius, the cele- 
 brated chemist, in 1817, it was then mentioned 
 merely as a rare substance, and a non-con- 
 ductor of electricity. It has since, however 
 been discovered that its conductivity is changed 
 by the influence of light. This discovery 
 was made by Mr. Willoughby Smith, m the 
 early part of 1873. He found that m the 
 dark the resistance was something enormous , 
 but immediately light fell upon it, it offered 
 at once a free passage for electricity. A 
 ' striking illustration of this can easily be ar- 
 ranged by taking a piece of selenium and 
 connecting it with two bits of copper wire, 
 the ends of which are joined to a Thomson s 
 reflecting galvanometer. If the selenium be 
 
 placed in the focus of a parabolic reflector, 
 the galvanometer, hitherto standing at o , 
 will be deflected immediately a strong beam 
 of light is thrown into the reflector. . At first, 
 the resistance of the selenium is exact y 
 balanced, so that the galvanometer shows 
 nothing; but the light thrown 6n it reduces 
 this resistance, and immediately the balance, 
 is destroyed, as shown by the deflection 01 
 
 the needle. ... , 
 
 It is well known how readily metallic sub- 
 stances convey electrical currents, and that 
 the larger the surface the more readily is 
 electricity conveyed. Copper stands, second 
 as a good conductor, although even it offers 
 some resistance; but a bar of selenium an 
 inch or two in length would offer as much 
 resistance as an ordinary telegraph wire, long 
 enough to reach from the earth to the sun. 
 This puts selenium and metallic conductors 
 in strong contrast. This substance, selenium, 
 has, however, been an object of much in- 
 quiry and experiment, and is now made up 
 into the form of cells in which this resist- 
 ance can be reduced immensely ; for a cell 
 which offers a resistance of ^ 
 
 in the dark, is reduced one-half, or to 
 150 ohms, in the light. _ Professor Adams 
 has shown us that the resistance of selenium 
 to electricity is also reduced in proportion to 
 the intensity of light. As in the tele P h °“ 
 
 the sound is not produced continuously, but 
 
 at intervals, so in the photophone, beams 
 of light flashed on the selenium cell produce 
 changes which vary according to the mtensity 
 or duration of the light, and are indicated 
 
 "Twanging the photophone Professor 
 Bell and Mr. Sumner-Tainter made provision 
 for this by contriving two perforated screens, 
 so that the slits in one screen exactly cor- 
 respond with those of the other. These were 
 made to revolve, the one m front of the other , 
 by this means the passage of a strong beam 
 of light through these perforations occurred at 
 regular intervals. As m the telephone, the 
 
 speaker’s voice sets a diaphragm at the morn - 
 
 piece of the instrument into vibration, so 1 
 the photophone; but the diaphragm heie 
 is a silvered reflector of very thm glasb 01 
 mica. The effect of this vibration may be 
 readily seen by any one who will take a re 
 fleeter of thin glass; microscopic gas 
 silvered forms an excellent mirror tor tffi. 
 
 • T he ohm stands in the same relation to electrical resist- 
 ance as degrees of Fah, or Cent, do to temperature. 
 
140 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 purpose. On such a reflector allow a 
 strong beam of light to strike so that its 
 image can be . caught on a sheet of white 
 paper. Now if the speaker utters harsh or 
 soft tones close behind the reflector it will 
 become alternately convex and concave, and 
 
 with different degrees of convexity and con- 
 cavity, according to the intensity of the tone. 
 Each of these changes, however slight, will 
 be noted by a difference of light thrown on 
 the screen from the reflector. We are now 
 in a position to see how the combined 
 
 c 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 results we have named work in the actual 
 photophone. 
 
 In Fig. i we have the arrangement for 
 sending and receiving a message. A beam 
 of light— strong sunlight is best — is received 
 on the inclined plane mirror at a ; this, by 
 
 are received by the parabolic reflector, d, in 
 the focus of which a selenium cell, e, has 
 been placed. With the selenium cell or 
 receiver a telephone is connected, so that 
 the sound produced by the transmitter is 
 taken up and reproduced by the telephone 
 in circuit with the selenium. The appa- 
 ratus, as here shown, has been tested and 
 found capable of carrying sound on the 
 beam of light to a distance of a little 
 more than 800 feet. Through this dis- 
 D tance words distinct and clear have been 
 successfully conveyed. 
 
 By a little modification of the appara- 
 tus it was found that musical tones were 
 brought out by the telephone. For this pur- 
 pose the light is rendered regularly intermit- 
 tent by a revolving disc which rotates a certain 
 number of times per second. This apparatus 
 we show in Fig. 2. The light coming from the 
 mirror at a is focussed by a lens, b ; at this 
 focus the light passes through one 
 of the small openings in the disc, c, 
 from which the' light diverges and 
 passes through a second lens, d, 
 from whence it travels in parallel 
 rays to a distant station, where it is 
 received on the selenium cell, e : 
 this is in circuit with the telephone. 
 
 The sound is at once heard by the 
 listener at f. 
 
 The interruption of the light ray, by 
 merely putting the hand into it, so that the 
 shadow fell on the selenium, was found to 
 stop the sound immediately ; but it recom- 
 menced at once on the hand being removed. 
 
 Fig. 3. 
 
 means of the intermediate achromatic lens, 
 is thrown upon the mirror b, at the back of 
 which the sender speaks through a tube. 
 This sound puts the mirror into vibration. 
 The reflected rays from this mirror, b, pass 
 through the lens, c, from which they are 
 thrown to some distant point, where they 
 
 Thus it is possible to hear the fall of a ray 
 of light and the fall of a shadow, each vary- 
 ing according to their intensities. The three 
 branches of science that have been so long 
 considered separately — Light, Electricity, 
 and Sound — are evidently shown by the 
 photophone to be more closely allied than 
 
TOILING BY TANGANYIKA. 
 
 141 
 
 we have hitherto been aware. In this novel 
 application we see light changed into sound 
 and for some time we have had electricity 
 converted into light. Undoubtedly further 
 experiments will prove a still closer relation- 
 ship and give us the means of conveying 
 our messages upon the “playful sunbeam*, 
 for the photophone will in all probability 
 soon be an old acquaintance are in- 
 
 debted to the Editor of the Society of Arts 
 Journal for Figs. 1 and 2, and to the Editor 
 
 of Engineering for the perspective view of 
 Professor Graham Bell’s apparatus, Fig. 3, 
 which he employed in his last experiments. 
 In this apparatus m is the mirror upon which 
 light is thrown, which, by means of the lens, 
 Lfis thrown on to the flexible mirror d, to 
 which the mouthpiece, o, is attached. From 
 the mirror, d, the light is sent through tie 
 lens, e, to the distant station, where the 
 selenium cell receives and puts it in con- 
 nection with the telephone, as we have shown. 
 
 JOHN A. BOWER. 
 
 TOILING BY TANGANYIKA. 
 
 By JOSEPH THOMSON. 
 
 TN the article entitled “ To Usumbara and 
 1 Back,” I tried to sketch our first experi- 
 ences on the African Continent. I now 
 propose to transport the readers of Good 
 Words, by the magic power of the pen, into 
 the very heart of Africa, and to give some 
 glimpses of our movements by the shores of 
 Lake Tanganyika. 
 
 Before reaching this point in our journey ^ 
 we have traversed hundreds of unexplored 
 miles, and seen many strange tribes, not 
 without manifold fracas, dangers, and troubles, 
 which met us in a thousand shapes But 
 from the fiery ordeal we have passed un- 
 scathed, with one great and irreparable ex- 
 ception. Our gallant and enthusiastic leader 
 has fallen a victim in the attempt to break 
 through the barriers of disease and barbarism 
 which make the interior of Africa almost 
 impenetrable, and his name is added to the 
 long and honoured list of geographical mar- 
 tyrs. Among the swamps of Uzaramo and 
 the Rufiji valley Mr. Keith Johnston met Ins 
 fate ; and he sleeps in the primeval forest of 
 Behobeho, where his grave is now green, as 
 his memory ever will be. But though his 
 presence was taken from us his spirit went 
 with us. Like the mantle of Elijah, his 
 enthusiasm for the work of research was left 
 behind him ; and I, though young and inex- 
 perienced, resolved to carry out his designs. 
 
 Resuming our march, then, under these 
 new conditions, we pushed rapidly on through 
 the remaining part of the malarious low-lying 
 country, over which a shadow of death seems 
 ever to hang. Crossing the range of mountains 
 which bounds the great central plateau, we 
 traversed Uhehe, with its bleak, monotonous 
 moorlands, its cutting east winds, and its 
 gentlemanly, warlike savages. We next as- 
 
 cended to a second and higher plateau, 
 where we met with a tribe of squinting 
 natives At last we reached the edge of 
 the mountains which bound the north end 
 of Nyassa; and there, several thousand feet 
 below us, lay the undulating waters of the lake. 
 
 Here commenced the second section ot 
 our work. Passing through the charming 
 country of Makula, with its pleasant Arcadian 
 I scenes, we traversed the hitherto unexplored 
 region between the north end of Lake Nyassa 
 and the south end of Lake Taganyika. And 
 now, when our story begins, the East Central 
 African Expedition stands by the shoies of 
 the latter lake on the 3rd of November, 1879. 
 It is a proud moment for all of us; and, like 
 boisterous school-boys, we give free vent to 
 our delight. Down go the loads, and with 
 shout and song a ring is formed of energetic 
 dancers, who literally plough up the ground 
 as if they were shod with iron, while the 
 woods and rocks re-echo with the thunders of 
 
 With the waves of the lake rippling at our 
 
 feet, the roll is called j and as each sonorous 
 name is uttered, a cheerful 
 (Here Sir !) is returned, until the list is 
 finished. Out of the one hundred ana fifty 
 men who had left the y n dian ° ce ari there 
 was not one absent. Neither desertion nor 
 death had deprived us of a smgle porter 
 an occurrence unique in the history of African 
 
 "Tanganyika was the terminus of the route 
 marked out for us by the Royal Geographical 
 Society. Our appointed work was thus 
 finished, and we might with all honour have 
 returned once more to the comforts of 
 sation and the joys of home But an me 
 sistible impulse within me forbade the thought. 
 
142 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 The sight of that glorious lake, with its en- 
 closing mountains, in the bosom of which it 
 lay so calm and still, raised a craving to see 
 and know more of it. The setting sun, re- 
 flected from the rippling water, seemed to form 
 a veritable path of gold, inviting me onward. 
 
 And then there was the fascination of 
 mystery about the question of the lake’s 
 outlet. The conflicting statements of Came- 
 ron and Stanley had only made the mystery 
 greater. Was the Lukuga the lake’s outlet 
 or not ? Here was a problem which I could 
 not leave unsolved, so I braced myself for 
 a new effort. 
 
 The point we had reached was the most 
 southerly part of the lake, where it forms a 
 narrow acute angle, running into the subtend- 
 ing plateau. At one side a point of land 
 extended into the water, like a huge quay, 
 rising to a height of three hundred feet in 
 sheer rocky precipices, and topped by a 
 covering of trees. Over this could be dis- 
 cerned a bay, surrounded by picturesque and 
 almost perpendicular mountains, three thou- 
 sand feet in height. On the opposite or 
 eastern side the shores rose less abruptly, 
 but in great inclined steps, till they culmi- 
 nated in the magnificent Lambalamfipa 
 Mountains, eight thousand feet above the 
 sea, the whole being clothed with a dense 
 and uniformly green vegetation. At our feet 
 dashed a delightful clear stream, lined with 
 luxuriant trees and tangled creepers. In front 
 lay the lake in expansive beauty, with its 
 broken shore-lines and threatening walls of 
 rock, here sweeping round in a fine bay, 
 there forming a miniature fjord, while the 
 scene was further varied by capes and islands, 
 like emeralds set in a sea of glass. 
 
 The day after our arrival we proceeded to 
 that classic spot where Livingstone had first 
 seen the lake, namely, Pambete. Here, 
 after his weary and arduous wanderings from 
 the south end of Lake Nyassa, he arrived 
 half-dead with hard fare and malignant fevers, 
 to rest for six weeks among the friendly and 
 hospitable natives. 
 
 As was the case with Livingstone, I was 
 extremely reduced by fever on my arrival at 
 Pambete, and I therefore resolved to have a 
 few days’ rest to recruit. 
 
 On the fifth, while lying in a pative hut 
 musing over my plans for future action, I 
 was much surprised to hear a stange hubbub. 
 Yelling and shouting and firing of guns sud- 
 denly became the order of the day. Think- 
 ing that the village had been attacked by 
 some enemy, I rushed hastily out of the hut. 
 gun in hand ; and there to my infinite amaze- 
 
 ment stood a white man ! In my astonish- 
 ment at the sight I seemed like one paralysed. 
 Similarly the “ great unknown ” came for- 
 ward, and according to the African salutation 
 a la mode, he touched his hat and said— 
 “Mr. Thomson, I presume.” Recovering 
 myself somewhat I replied “ Yes, that is my. 
 name; but, good gracious! who are you?” 
 “My name is Stewart.” Ah! thought I, .a 
 Scotchman of course! But what on earth 
 is he doing here ? And how did he come 
 so unexpectedly ? Can he have been sent 
 by some one to bring me back, and, fear- 
 ing that I would run away, determined to 
 take me by- surprise? These and similar 
 notions which . flashed through my dumb- 
 foundered brain were soon dissipated. I 
 learned that he was no such unwelcome 
 emissary, but an excellent lay missionary 
 from Livingstonia at the south end of Lake 
 Nyassa, who had come to explore the country 
 between the two lakes, and who for several 
 days had been following my footsteps. 
 
 The effect of such a meeting upon me 
 after my . long weary months of isolation 
 from civilised society, cannot be expressed 
 in words. With breathless interest I hung 
 on every word he had to tell of the latest 
 European affairs, and I began to feel as if I 
 had got a new lease of life, so invigorated 
 did I find myself. 
 
 Pambete we found to be very much altered 
 since the days in which Livingstone visited it. 
 Then it was a thriving and prosperous village, 
 with its well-cultivated fields, its oil palms 
 and busy fisheries. Now it has almost 
 dwindled out of existence. The huts are 
 deserted except by a few old men and innu- 
 merable rats. The oil palms seem to have 
 been destroyed, and there is little fishing in 
 the lake. 
 
 The scenery around Pambete is pictur- 
 esque in the extreme. The village occupies a 
 niche in^ the surrounding mountains, and 
 over their rugged red sandstone cliffs the 
 River Else falls in a beautiful cascade. At 
 their base is a small plain, formed by the 
 detritus brought down by the stream, and 
 in the dense jungles and forests which cover 
 it buffaloes roam unmolested. In front is 
 the lake, with its broken outline and little 
 islands. The place, however, is entirely un- 
 healthy. It is a perfect oven, where the 
 wind rarely enters, and, from the swampy 
 surroundings, a malaria ever seems to hang 
 over it. It may be a romantic, but it is by 
 no means a desirable residence. 
 
 During our stay here I ran a narrow escape 
 of being caught by a crocodile. According 
 
TOILING AT TANGANYIKA. 
 
 i43. 
 
 to my usual custom I went out one morning 
 to enjoy a good splash in the lake. Wading 
 out a considerable distance, but not out of 
 nw depth, I observed what appeared to be a 
 loo- of wood floating a short distance from 
 me Taking no notice of this I went on 
 laving the cool water over myself. Looking 
 up after a few minutes I observed that the 
 apparent log had floated nearer to me. 
 Noting it more closely, I made out the out 
 lines of a crocodile’s head, with its ugly snout 
 wrinkled skin, and glittering eyes. I stood 
 for a moment aghast at the sight, for I was a 
 considerable distance from the shore, and 
 still it came nearer. Regaining my presence 
 of mind, I made the welkin ring with a shout 
 of “Mambo! Mambo ! ” (crocodile). I he 
 cry instantly brought my men with their 
 guns to the water’s edge, and they seeing my 
 imminent danger and desperate efforts to 
 reach the shore, rushed in in a body to meet 
 me, making the waters boil. When they 
 reached me the crocodile was within a few 
 feet and would have seized me in another 
 minute. But seeing the porters in such 
 numbers, yelling and shouting, and firing 
 their guns, it evidently thought that an empty 
 stomach was better than a feast of bullets, 
 and wisely disappeared. If I had been out 
 of my depth at the time my chance of surviv- 
 ing the rencontre would have been a poor one. 
 
 Half-recovered from a sharp attack of 
 fever I prepared to continue my journey 
 northward, while Mr. Stewart retraced his 
 steps. On the tenth of November we 
 separated on our different roads I for 
 Lukuga, he for Nyassa. 
 
 Crossing the river Eise, we commenced 
 the ascent of the bordering precipices of the 
 lake. The first part of my way led up an 
 extremely rocky talus of fallen rubbish, 
 where we had to jump from boulder to 
 boulder like so many goats. As we as- 
 cended, the path, became steeper and more 
 rugged, till hands and knees had to be 
 employed— the men alternately putting up 
 their loads on some resting place above 
 them, and then clambering up themselves. 
 
 . Half-way up the ascent a sad spectacle 
 met our eyes — a chained gang of women and 
 children. They were descending the rocks 
 with the utmost difficulty, and picking their 
 steps with great care, as, from the manner 
 in which they were chained together, a fail 
 meant dislocation of the neck. Truth com- 
 pells me to say that this was the first slave 
 caravan I had yet seen in Africa, though 1 
 had heard of a number which had kept out 
 of our path for fear of our liberating the 
 
 slaves. But, though it was the first, it ex- 
 hibited all the well-known horrors of the 
 cursed traffic. The women, chained to each 
 other by the neck, were carrying many of 
 them their children on their backs, besides 
 heavy loads on their heads. Their faces and 
 general appearance told of starvation and 
 utmost hardship, and their naked bodies 
 spoke with ghastly eloquence of the flesh- 
 cutting lash. Their dull despairing gaze 
 showed that all hope of life and liberty was 
 gone for ever. Even the sight of an English- 
 man gave no hope to them ; for, unfortu- 
 nately, the white man has more the character 
 of a ghoul than of a liberator of slaves m 
 the far interior. Saddest sight of all was 
 that of some little children reduced to perfect 
 skeletons, looking up as if they beseeclied us 
 to kill them and put them out of further torture. 
 
 It was out of the question to attempt 
 releasing them. The most I could do was 
 to stop them and give the little things such 
 a feed as they had not had for weeks. I ne 
 rascally leader came fawning up to me : but 
 I gave him a look, as I touched my gun, 
 which speedily sent him out of my sight. 
 
 Resuming our climbing, we reached the 
 top of the cliffs after several hours hard 
 work, and were rewarded by a magnificent 
 view of the south end of the lake, lying like a 
 great panorama two thousand feet beneath us. 
 
 Two hours’ marching over a deserted bush- 
 land brought us to the village of Setche, 
 where we encamped. I sent a small present 
 to the chief, according to custom, but it was 
 returned with the observation that I was 
 probably not aware he was a great chief, and 
 could not accept such a paltry present from 
 the great white man. I represented that I 
 was ashamed to send so small a present, but 
 I had travelled far and my goods were 
 dwindling fast away. In reply, I was in- 
 formed that the times were hard and the 
 harvest bad, and he was extremely sorry to 
 say that, in consequence, there was.no food 
 in the village for the white mans caravan 
 Thereupon the porters raised a howl 01 
 dismay as they thought of them empty 
 stomachs, and bad names began to circulate 
 Rather alarmed, I took the question of the 
 present once more into consideration, I 
 found that, after all, I could g adden the 
 heart of the chief with a nice cloth, which 
 proved an “ Open Sesame ” to the granaries 
 
 of Setche. , . .. 
 
 Two more hard marches brought us to the 
 Arab settlement of Iendwe, situated near e 
 mouth of the river Lofu. It lies in a deep 
 depression of the plateau, forming a broad, 
 
144 
 
 GOOD WORDS. 
 
 densely populated plain on the bank of the 
 river. We entered this important place with 
 all the pomp and circumstance attainable in 
 a caravan. A new English flag replaced the 
 battered Union Jack which had led us from 
 Dar-es-Salaam. The men donned their best, 
 while in front I myself marched, surrounded 
 by a brilliantly dressed body-guard of head- 
 men, each carrying a spear in his hand and 
 a gun slung on his back. I presented a con- 
 siderable contrast in my free and easy suit of 
 tweeds and only a stick in my hand. The 
 caravan band with its native drums, clarionet- 
 like zomiri, and antelope’s horns, made an 
 appropriate amount of noise as an accompani- 
 ment to the recitative and chorus of the 
 porters. Crowds of astonished natives lined 
 the path, and at our camping ground there 
 stood a group of Arabs in snow-white shirts 
 and ponderous turbans, ready to welcome 
 me with their “Salaams’’ and “ Yambos.” 
 They were dying with curiosity to know where 
 I had come from, and what my objects were. 
 
 As the tents were being pitched I told them 
 the story of my wanderings, and many were the 
 looks of astonishment and wonder with which 
 it was greeted. Such a march they had never 
 heard of. Countries had been traversed which 
 no Arab would have dared to approach. And 
 then there had been no deaths, no desertions, 
 no stealings, and, strangest of all, I had 
 walked every step of the way, and had neither 
 ridden donkeys nor been carried by my men. 
 
 I was looked upon as a perfect prodigy, and 
 was universally voted a “Mzungu hodari 
 sana” (a very strong and lucky white man). 
 
 When I next told them that I intended to 
 go along the west side of the lake a chorus 
 of disapproval met the scheme. It was not 
 to be thought of. No one ever attempted it. 
 One declared the mountains were impassable, 
 and drew dark pictures of the danger of try- 
 ing to cross them. A second described the 
 fierceness and the ungovernable savagery of 
 the natives. A third declared there was no 
 food, and that we would all be starved. Not 
 even the natives dare go such a road! 
 Though rather taken aback by these ominous 
 assurances I was not convinced. “See,” said 
 I, “these good men of mine. With them I 
 have scaled great and dangerous mountains. 
 
 I have passed unhurt through tribes that you 
 yourselves say would fight you, if you went 
 among them. We have together crossed 
 countries hitherto unknown. And yet there 
 they all stand, without a single break in their 
 
 ranks. Shall I, then, be afraid of this new 
 work? No, I am determined not to be 
 baulked! If the mountains be difficult I 
 shall take light and easy loads. If there is 
 little food to be got I shall take few men with 
 me. And if the natives are dangerous I shall 
 make them my friends, and show them that the 
 white man comes with a different purpose 
 than to make slaves and to steal their food.” 
 
 This interview shaped my plans at once. 
 Iendwe was a populous place with unlimited 
 supplies of food. I therefore determined to 
 leave all my men, except thirty, under the 
 charge of Chumah ; and then, taking only 
 absolute necessaries, to push on by forced 
 marches to the Lukuga. The prospect of a 
 difficult road and adventurous march quite 
 animated me, and made me commence with 
 eagerness the needful preparations. So, on 
 the following morning the men were col- 
 lected by beat of drum, and my intention 
 was declared. 
 
 It was necessary to build a house for our 
 goods, and that was at once commenced. 
 The whole caravan, headed by the drummer 
 and piper, set off for the wood to cut poles 
 and bark ropes. At mid-day they returned 
 loaded, but singing lustily all the time. The 
 men entered into my schemes most heartily, 
 and as it was necessary to hurry off before 
 the worst of the rainy season came, they 
 worked as if it was a matter of life or death. 
 In two days the largest house in that part of 
 the world was erected by the hundred and 
 fifty men, and we were ready to start. The 
 loads were speedily prepared, and it only 
 remained that the personnel of the travelling 
 party should be determined. 
 
 As this trip was to be manifestly a danger- 
 ous one, I determined to take only volunteers. 
 The men were called up and the question 
 was asked, Who would go? On the one 
 side were hardships and manifold perils : on- 
 the other idleness and ease. The latter 
 alternative was tempting to dispositions like 
 the Waswahili. Yet no time was lost. First 
 one and then another and another cheerfully 
 offered himself for the enterprise, till, from 
 the best of the caravan, I was able to select • 
 the required number — thirty. 
 
 The Arabs had been extremely hospitable 
 and had loaded us with presents. And now, 
 on the morning of our departure, they arrived 
 in a body to conduct us a part of the way, 
 bringing us rice, fish, and fowls to carry with us. 
 (To be continued.') 
 
 pushed Sfw' 6 on the part of the aged and reverend author of “The Soul’s Oratorio 
 
 .? “e August part of Good Words, the lines were sent to us by him in forgetfulness of the fact that thev h; 
 been contributed previously to the Quiver, , and that they had appeared in that magazine in 1865.— Ed. G.W. y 
 
THE EXTRA 
 
 SUMMER NUMBER 
 
 OF 
 
 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. 
 
 CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 CONTAINING THE AMOUNT OF THREE ORDINARY NUMBERS. 
 
 PRICE] 
 
 881 . 
 
 [SIXPENCE. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 PAGE 
 
 A BARROW OP PRIMROSES 
 CONCERNING CAMELOT 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD 
 AUNT AGATHA’S CONVERSION 
 
 FROM THE GRAVE . 
 
 PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD . 
 
 AN OUT-OF-THE-WAY STORY 
 
 “A BARROW OF PRIMROSES.” 
 
 BY “ RITA.” 
 
 CHAPTER I. HOW THE ROMANCE BEGAN. 
 
 Chancery Lane is not a very likely spot, 
 for a romance to have its beginning. There 
 is no poetry about it. It is a long, unsightly, 
 dreary street, filled at certain times °f the 
 day with noise and bustle enough, as white- 
 wigged barristers hurry along the narrow 
 pavement, their hands filled with briefs and 
 law-papers, or business men run down on 
 their way to Fleet Street, or the traffic of 
 carts, and cabs, and omnibuses, and such 
 plebeian vehicles, wend along to the wider 
 
 thoroughfares beyond. 
 
 A group of barristers were standing one 
 spring morning under the gloomy archway 
 leading to Lincoln’s Inn. They were 
 wigged and gowned, and talking eagerly 
 together of some case of peculiar interest 
 which was occupying the public mind. . 
 
 “ Here comes Heron Archer,’’ exclaimed 
 one of the group. “ Looks as if he^had a 
 power of work on hand, doesn’t he 1 
 
 The young man alluded to was walking 
 leisurely along. He saw the little knot of 
 talkers, and recognising two with a careless 
 nod was about to pass by. 
 
 “ Stay, Archer,” cried one. “ Have yon 
 beard bow Cray v. Wood is going „on * 
 Your friend has not a leg to stand on. 
 
 “ Have you turned him into a Green 
 wicli pensioner already 1 ” asked Archer 
 with a smile, as he paused beside the man 
 who had addressed him. Heron Archer was 
 
 a tall well-built young fellow of some six-and- 
 twenty years, with nothing very remarkable 
 about him save his powerful figure and a 
 certain good-humoured expression of calm- 
 ness and determination about the. face. 
 The clear grey eyes and short-cut hair and 
 drooping moustache were just the charac- 
 teristics of many an Englishman, and it is 
 probable that in a crowd no one would 
 lave thought of singling him out as being 
 in any way better-looking or more remark- 
 able than his fellow-men. - ■ . 
 
 Yet he was so unlike most of his friends 
 and associates as to have won the appella- 
 tion of “ eccentric,” and almost everyone 
 who knew him dechi. d there was some- 
 thing about the young man odd and 
 Quixotic, and clever though he was, a queer 
 fellow enough all the same. 
 
 Even now, as he stood listening to the 
 chatter of his friends, his eyes were roving 
 to a barrow heaped up with masses of 
 sweet pale primroses, and then to the face 
 of the boy selling them, and while he 
 appeared to be listening to the intricacies 
 of Cray v. Wood his thoughts were specu- 
 lating as to how many of those bunches 
 the hoy would sell in such an unlikely 
 locality as this, where men had no leisure 
 to listen to Nature’s messages sent from 
 mossy hanks and dim green woods, but 
 thought only of work and money-getting. 
 
 “You should have heard Puffins’s speech, 
 said Herbert Gray, a rising young barrister. 
 “ It was first-rate— the neatest thing I ever 
 listened to. There can he no question as 
 to the issue of the case now. I wish you 
 
— 
 
 2 [July 4, 1881.] “A BARROW OF PRIMROSES.” [Conducted by 
 
 had been in court. You are such an idle 
 dog. Why, bless the man ! ” he exclaimed in 
 amazement, “ where’s he run off to ? I — 
 by Jove !• — the boy’s down ! ” 
 
 “ What a plucky thing ! — see, he’s got 
 him out ! ” exclaimed the aroused Puffins. 
 
 “ See how that horse is kicking — he can’t 
 hold him. Let’s go and help.” And regard- 
 less of dignity and wigs the four friends 
 rushed to the scene of the accident. 
 
 How had it occurred ? How do street 
 accidents ever occur ? . It was all so quick 
 — so sudden. The boy had been standing 
 by his barrow a moment before, a subject 
 of speculation to Heron Archer’s wandering 
 thoughts. Someone had beckoned him 
 across the street. Without looking right 
 or left he darted across, and the next 
 instant was lying under the hoofs of a 
 horse. Quick as lightning Heron Archer 
 had seen the danger and rushed to the 
 rescue. His strong hand was on the reins. 
 He forced the animal back on its haunches, 
 to the imminent danger of occasioning a 
 new catastrophe by the upsetting of the 
 hansom cab to which it belonged, and the 
 boy slipped like an eel through the plung- 
 ing hoofs, and was safe on the pavement 
 ere anyone could recover presence of mind 
 enough to give assistance. So far well. 
 But the hansom cab had an occupant, and 
 that occupant was a lady. When the horse 
 was released it showed many signs of ill- 
 temper at the treatment it had received, 
 
 ‘ and reared and snorted and shook its 
 head, and altogether behaved in a manner 
 quite unbecoming a well-broken London cab 
 . horse. Perhaps he was new to the business. 
 The lady became a Farmed. She appealed 
 to Heron Archer. “ Ask the man to stop,” 
 she cried. “ This is a horrible animal. I 
 have been frightened to death all the time 
 . I have been in the cab.” 
 
 Her face was very pale. Two frightened 
 eyes met the calm glance of the young 
 barrister. He needed no second bidding. 
 
 “ Stop,” he said sternly to the man. 
 “You are a very careless driver. You had 
 no business to come dashing down a street 
 like this at the rate I saw you ! ” 
 
 The man made some sulky rejoinder, 
 but he stopped his steed at that peremptory 
 order, and Heron Archer assisted the lady 
 to alight. She trembled very much. 
 
 “Allow me to pay the man,” he said 
 gently, then sternly demanded the fare 
 and settled it with another caution against 
 such driving as had occasioned the 
 catastrophe. 
 
 He then turned to his companion. She 
 
 k — _ 
 
 looked better now ; the colour was 
 returning to her cheeks. 
 
 “ Thank you so much,” she said grate- 
 fully, as she handed him the money he had 
 paid. “Where is the boy? I am so sorry. 
 
 I do hope he is not hurt.” 
 
 “ He is over there,” said her companion, 
 pointing to where the hero of the event 
 was already the centre of a sympathising 
 and admiring crowd. 
 
 “ I should so like to speak to him — to 
 know he is not hurt,” she said eagerly. 
 
 “I will bring him over here,” said 
 Heron Archer. “ The crowd is dispersing, 
 you see. Ah ! there comes a policeman 
 now he is not wanted.” 
 
 He crossed over to the boy. 
 
 “ The lady wants to speak to you. She 
 is afraid you were hurt,” he said. 
 
 “ No, sir, not a bit, thanks to you,” said 
 the lad gratefully. “ I don’t believe I’ve 
 got so much as a bruise.” 
 
 The crowd began to melt away as 
 suddenly as it had arisen. 
 
 The lad, with the dust and mud of the 
 road on his torn clothes and bare arms 
 and face, looked anything but an inviting 
 object, but the lady’s face was full of 
 sweet compassion and sympathy as she 
 questioned him and heard, in course of 
 time, many more of the events and troubles 
 of his life than that one accident. 
 
 She got his address and bought as many 
 of his primroses as would fill her basket, and 
 paid him treble the value of her purchase. 
 
 Then cutting short his thanks and 
 blessings she turned to the spectator of 
 her gentle charity, and with a grave bow 
 was about to pass on. But Heron Archer 
 was not so minded. 
 
 “ Pardon me,” he said abruptly. “ This 
 is a rough neighbourhood for a lady. Can 
 I be of any further assistance to you? ” 
 
 “ No ; I thank you,” she said graciously 
 but firmly. “ I know my way, I am close 
 to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and I shall meet 
 my father there.” 
 
 He could not say more. He would have 
 given anything to have detained her — to 
 have heard the sweet low voice — to have 
 gazed again into the soft shy eyes, but * 
 he had no pretext to delay her. He 
 could but return her bow and watch the 
 graceful figure vanish through the gloomy 
 archway, taking with it — for him — all the 
 sunshine and brightness of the young 
 spring day. 
 
 That was how the romance began. 
 
 Heron Archer went back to his chambers 
 
 — ===== — — a 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 “A BARROW OF PRIMROSES.” 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 3 
 
 in the Temple, and then sat himself down 
 and tried to bring his mind to the work 
 he had to do, but surely no work m the 
 legal profession entails the perpetual draw- 
 ing on every available sheet of paper, of a 
 fair girlish profile, which was the sole use 
 of time, fingers, and brains that Heron 
 Archer made that morning. And none of 
 the drawings satisfied him. He tore them 
 all up in disgust at last— all, save one 
 sketch, which displeased him less than the 
 others. That one he locked away m a 
 drawer of his writing-table, and then m a 
 most unsettled frame of mind he put on 
 his hat and went out to get some lunch. „ 
 
 « I wonder if I shall ever see her again 1 
 he thought impatiently. 
 
 It was strange for a face to haunt him 
 so He was not a man who held women 
 of much account, or ever troubled his 
 head about them ; but now, suddenly, he 
 could not put this pale sweet face out of 
 his mind, or cease to hear the echo of tha 
 low musical voice. The voice in especial 
 had pleased his rather exacting fancy, lor 
 if he had one weakness it was for a perfect 
 sweet-toned woman’s voice, and he had 
 never heard one like this. 
 
 How it lingered on his ear all through 
 that day ! How many times he found him- 
 self gazing into vacancy, wrapped m a 
 vague dream, yet always having that same 
 soft music floating through the mists of 
 imagination and thrilling his whole soul 
 
 with its spell ! T ,i. n t 
 
 “ Pooh, this is all nonsense, I Shall for- 
 get her to-morrow,” he said with angry 
 impatience, as he sought his couch that 
 night. He had forgotten other women so 
 easily — had cared for them so lightly, why 
 should it not be the same now % W hy * 
 Well, he could not answer that question ; 
 he only knew as to-morrow, and yet to- 
 morrow passed on, and days came and went, 
 and the busy hum and stir of life was 
 about him, and he did his usual work, and 
 tried to appear his usual self, that there 
 was a difference somewhere in it all. 
 
 Nothing was the same quite. _ I he 
 flavour had gone out of life, and it was 
 dull, insipid, commonplace. . 
 
 One evening he bethought himself 
 suddenly of the harrow of primroses, and 
 remembered also that he had the boy s 
 address. He resolved to go and see him > 
 perhaps the girl had already done so ; he 
 might hear of her, learn where she lived. 
 The thought was delightful. He put it 
 into execution without loss of time. 
 
 It was about six o’clock when he left his 
 
 chambers and went on his errand. Such 
 visits were nothing new to him. He had. 
 a score of poor pensioners on his bounty, 
 and did more good in his quiet unostenta- 
 tious fashion than many a millionaire with 
 his pompous donations. For there is so 
 much more in charity than mere money 
 than the actual momentary relief of bodily 
 necessities. A kind word, a token of 
 sympathy, a smile of encouragement, an 
 outspoken appreciation of manly efforts to 
 fight against the ills and temptations of 
 
 life all these which cost so little to the 
 
 giver, linger longer in the mind of the 
 recipient than the gold which is pom- 
 pously offered and considered as more than 
 equivalent for any other expression ot 
 
 Sy AftCT ' half-an-hour’s walking he found 
 the court he was in search of. ft was 
 dark and foul, and full of miserable tene- 
 ments, at one of which he paused and 
 
 knocked. , 
 
 A thin slatternly woman came to the 
 
 d °°r)oes Jack Murphy live here]” he 
 
 «Yes,” answered the woman, surveying 
 her visitor with evident surprise. 
 
 “ Is he in ]— can I see him ] he con- 
 
 ' The woman regarded him doubtfully. 
 
 “ The lad hasn’t been doing anything 
 wrong, has he ] ” she questioned anxiously ; 
 “or maybe you’re one of them School 
 Board chaps agin.” 
 
 “ No ” he said with his pleasant smile. 
 -Both your suppositions are wrong. I only 
 want to see if Jack has got over the effects 
 of his accident the other day. Are you 
 his mother?” 
 
 “Yes. Are you the gentleman he told me 
 of whokept the horse from running over 
 him]” she exclaimed with sudden eagerness. 
 “Yes.” 
 
 « Oh," come in, sir, pray, if you do not 
 mind our poor room. J ack has always been 
 talking of you. He’s all right, not a bit 
 hurt. My 1 won’t he be glad to see you. 
 
 Heron Archer followed her into the close 
 dark room at once. He was accounted a 
 fastidious man, and one whose artistic taste 
 was rarely at fault, but there was no sign 
 of disgust in his face, as his eyes roved 
 over the dirt and disorder around and 
 people who declared they hardly dared 
 invite him to their tasteless,^ inartistic 
 rooms for fear of his cynical criticism, would 
 have stared at him in amazement now. 
 
 The place seemed full of children, of all 
 
[Conducted* by 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 “A BARROW OF PRIMROSES.” 
 
 ages and sizes, and in various stages of 
 dirt and raggedness. There was nothing 
 around that was not wretched and hideous 
 and unsightly, but Heron Archer spoke 
 pleasantly to the wondering urchins, and 
 seated himself on the rickety chair by 
 the fireplace, and made himself so at 
 home that they stood and gazed in wonder- 
 ing admiration, and Mrs. Murphy herself 
 forgot to blush for her own neglect and 
 untidiness. Heron Archer learned all 
 about the family. The father worked as 
 compositor at a printing-office in Fleet 
 Street ; Jack, the eldest, a lad of thirteen, 
 sold flowers and fruit in the streets; 
 the intermediate-aged children went to 
 school; the younger ones tumbled about in 
 the dirty court at home. There was 
 nothing pathetic or sad in the story, it 
 was only one very commonplace, very 
 dreary, and very often to be heard; hundreds 
 and thousands, in the great city and its 
 suburbs, lived similar lives, shared similar 
 fates, told similar stories. Heron Archer 
 knew that well. 
 
 These people had a roof to shelter them 
 and enough food for the many mouths — that 
 was enough for them. They drudged on 
 in an aimless, indifferent fashion. They 
 were neither happy nor wretched, neither 
 discontented nor the reverse, yet somehow 
 the utter barrenness and unloveliness of 
 such an existence seemed to Heron Archer 
 a more pitiable fate than the sharpness of 
 utter poverty; the pathos of a bitter 
 struggle. 
 
 There was nothing to do here, nothing 
 to relieve, nothing to comfort. “They 
 were well enough,” the woman said. 
 
 Well enough ! No wonder the visitor 
 sighed, thinking how hopeless it seemed to 
 urge her to make things a little better : 
 to give cleanliness and tidiness to the 
 home and neatness to the children, and 
 not believe that prodigal wastefulness one 
 day, and stint and deprivation at other 
 times, was good management. However, he 
 was too wise to urge anything at present. 
 He sat there and chatted with them all, 
 and made friends even with the dirty 
 crying baby, and yet he could not summon 
 up courage to ask Jack that one question 
 burning on his tongue. He rose at last 
 to go, and his eye fell upon a large bowl 
 of primroses in the window. He bent 
 over them for a moment. 
 
 “ Have you ever seen that lady again 1 ” 
 he asked abruptly, with a curious wonder 
 that his heart should throb in so odd a 
 fashion, as he waited for the answer. 
 
 “ Oh yes, sir ! ” exclaimed Jack eagerly. 
 “ She came round here the very next day. 
 So kind she was too, and gave mother 
 half-a-sovereign to buy some clothes for the 
 baby, and spoke so nice to me, and wanted 
 to know if she could do anything for me. 
 I told her as how I should like to be 
 errand-boy in a shop, and she said she 
 would speak to her father about me ; and 
 I’m sure she won’t forget, though she do 
 seem a grand lady and was dressed so 
 beautiful, and had lots of gold money in 
 her purse.” . . 
 
 “She told you her name, I suppose?” 
 questions the visitor with well-assumed 
 carelessness. 
 
 “No, sir; she didn’t.” 
 
 “Nor where she lived ?” 
 
 “No, sir.” 
 
 Heron Archer feels as if the world had 
 grown suddenly dark and empty again. 
 He takes leave of the family, and with a 
 buneh of primroses in his hand (the pretty 
 yellow flowers seem always associated now 
 with her), goes away through the noisy 
 dirty court, and so home to his chambers 
 once more. 
 
 Charity had brought him no reward this 
 time ! 
 
 CHAPTER II. AN ECCENTRIC 
 RESOLUTION. 
 
 Another week went by, but, despite the 
 press of business and the fact that he was 
 at last retained on a great and important 
 case, Heron Archer could not get this fancy 
 out of his mind. 
 
 That fair sweet face floated for ever 
 before his eyes and haunted his dreams. 
 Such an experience was new to his life, 
 and perplexed and worried him accordingly. 
 He heard no more and saw no more of the 
 girl, and gradually began to think it 
 unlikely he should do so. 
 
 One evening, just as he was putting aside 
 his papers and thinking of leaving off work 
 for the day, a note was brought to him by 
 a little ragged urchin. It contained a few 
 hastily-scrawled lines, but they evidently 
 gave him deep concern, for he put on his 
 hat, locked his room, and went out at 
 once. 
 
 He hailed the first passing hansom and 
 was driven rapidly to the north-west of 
 London. In a small mean-looking street 
 of this district he alighted and dismissed 
 the cab. A few steps up the street brought 
 him to the house he sought. 
 
 A moment later, and he was bending 
 over a slight young figure lying on a couch 
 
4b 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 < A BARROW OF PRIMROSES.” 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 in a poor, ill-furnished room. In one 
 corner stood a piano littered over with 
 music, and the instrument, though plain, 
 was solid and good of its kind, and 
 singularly out of place among the shabby 
 furniture of the room. . ■ 
 
 “ So you are ill ; suffering again, said 
 Heron Archer gently, as he bent over the 
 young man. “ I am sorry to hear it. 
 
 The pale wan face lit up brightly at 
 sight of the welcome visitor ; the young 
 man made an effort to rise, but sank back 
 directly, while a violent fit of coughing 
 shook him from head to foot. 
 
 The strong man by his side looked with 
 inexpressible compassion at the slight 
 figure, the thin pale face, and delicate 
 attenuated features. 
 
 “ Hush ! lie still,” he said. “ I see what 
 it is; you have caught fresh cold again. 
 You must take care of yourself for a day or 
 two. You will be all rigid again then. 
 What is it I can do for you V’ }> 
 
 “It is so vexatious, so unfortunate, said 
 the invalid faintly. “I had such a good 
 engagement for to-night, and up to an hour 
 ago I was in hopes I should be able to 
 keep it. But I see it is no use. I wrote 
 to you, I thought you might help me. I 
 tried to get a deputy, and could not. I was 
 to have two guineas. It is such a loss to 
 me. But perhaps you know someone who 
 can take my place ; only it„ is such short 
 notice. At nine is the ball.” 
 
 “What balU Where V’ 
 
 “It is a private subscription-ball, and 
 takes place at the Marlborough Booms, not 
 far from here. I was to play the piano. 
 There are three other musicians— cornet, 
 violin, and double-bass. It is ^most 
 unfortunate. Someone must be got. „ 
 
 “ Well, I’ll see what I can do for you, 
 said Heron Archer cheerfully. “ And you 
 shan’t lose the two guineas if I can help 
 it. Is this the music % ” 
 
 “Yes; it’s mostly waltzes. I have 
 played with these men before. They are 
 good fellows, and we get on very well. I 
 know they’ll be sorry for me.” 
 
 “ There’s not much time certainly, said 
 Heron Archer, looking at his watch.. “Do 
 you know what I’ve been thinking, 
 Staunton ] I’ll take your place myself.” 
 “You, sir !” and the young fellow raised 
 himself up on his elbow, and stared at his 
 visitor as if he thought he had suddenly 
 taken leave of his senses. 
 
 “Yes, I,” laughed Heron Archer 
 amusedly. “ Why not 1 I play fairly 
 well, and there really seems no time to get 
 
 a substitute, even if I knew of one— which 
 
 I don’t.” . ,, . 
 
 “ Oh sir, you cannot do such a thing ;. it 
 is impossible ! ” cried the youth. “I ' w ^ s j 1 
 I had let you know earlier. It is not fair 
 to give you all this trouble ; you have keen 
 always much too good to me as it is. My 
 life is one long debt to you.”. w 
 
 “ Nonsense, I have done little enough, 
 exclaimed Heron Archer, looking sadly at 
 the wasted form and delicate features before 
 
 In his heart he knew how little benefit 
 could be done him ; how short a span of 
 life remained for the troubles and per- 
 plexities of earth. * 
 
 There was a moment’s silence, lhen 
 Heron Archer broke it abruptly. 
 
 “ Come,” he said, “ I have made up my 
 mind; I shall like the duty immensely. 
 You know I am fond of masquerading. 
 This will be a new character to come out 
 in. Give me the address.” ? 
 
 “You are only joking, sir, surety,' 
 pleaded the young man. “Supposing 
 anyone you know happened to be at the 
 
 ball * ” 1 T I 
 
 “There is no chance of that, i Know 
 no one in this neighbourhood; even if I 
 was recognised I should not care. It would 
 only be one eccentricity the more for my 
 friends to chronicle.” 
 
 The invalid looked admiringly ■ up at 
 the handsome determined face. 
 
 “Your acts of eccentricity are all noble 
 and generous,” he murmured. “ How few 
 of your friends know you really as you 
 
 are.” , . , 
 
 “It is just as well they do not, said 
 Heron Archer lightly. “No man bears 
 being turned inside out, you know. There is 
 always a little something about ourselves 
 which we like to keep dark. But we are 
 wasting time. It gets late, and I must go 
 home and don my evening dress. Where 
 do we sit-in a gallery 1 ” „ 
 
 “No ; there is a platform, I believe. 
 
 “ Whew — w ! Then the guests have a 
 full view of us 1 ” 
 
 “ Yes. Pray don’t carry out your words, 
 sir. Supposing anything ^happened that 
 might make you regret it ! ” 
 
 Heron Archer laughed. “ Just as it 
 anything could,” he said lightly. IN on- 
 sense, Staunton ; my mind is made up. It 
 will be great fun, and I shall come round 
 to-morrow and bring your two guineas with 
 me. If I got you a deputy now you would 
 be a loser by the transaction.” 
 
 “ I would rather lose it twenty times 
 
6 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 “A BARROW OF PRIMROSES. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 over, sir, than -that you should repent your 1 
 determination of to-night.” % 1 
 
 “I shall not repent it,” laughed the ] 
 young barrister good-humouredly. 11 Good- : 
 bye, now, and go to bed and rest yourself. : 
 I shall ask Dr. Leigh to look in to- : 
 morrow.” 1 
 
 And without waiting to hear the grateful 
 thanks the invalid would have uttered, he 
 hurried swiftly from the room. 
 
 All throughout his drive home Heron 
 Archer never gave a serious thought to his 
 eccentric scheme ; it was a good joke, he 
 thought, and it would benefit his poor 
 consumptive prot6g6, in whom he had felt a 
 most unusual interest for years past. As to 
 anything awkward or unpleasant accruing 
 to himself from such an act, it was a 
 probability that never crossed his mind. He 
 was accustomed to do strange things, and 
 very rarely even troubled himself to give 
 an explanation of them. People had grown 
 accustomed to his ways by this time, 
 and ceased to wonder when anything 
 eccentric or startling reached their ears. 
 
 “ He is the worst man possible for the 
 legal profession,” argued his friends. “ He 
 never cares two straws for his own interests.” 
 
 But Heron Archer paid no heed, and 
 went on still in his own way. So it was 
 no wonder that friends and acquaintances 
 gave up wondering at him and arguing 
 with him at last, and suffered him to take 
 it unmolested. 
 
 That was just what he wanted. It is a 
 thing many men want, and never get. 
 
 A large lofty hall, prettily decorated 
 with flowers and plants ; a smooth, well- 
 polished floor, looking very inviting to 
 lovers of dancing ; a general sense of space 
 and emptiness, and brilliant lights reflected 
 back by numerous mirrors : this was the 
 scene that met Heron Archer’s eyes as he 
 entered the Marlborough Rooms. He had 
 explained to the other musicians that young 
 Staunton was too ill to come, and he had 
 been sent as deputy; and though they had 
 regarded him with evident wonder, and 
 treated hi m with a certain sullen deference 
 as one plainly superior to themselves, he 
 yet in no way assumed any airs of 
 superiority, or for one moment allowed 
 them to perceive he was in any way 
 different to what he represented himself. . 
 
 The people began to arrive at last in 
 large numbers. Heron Archer sat there at 
 the piano, and watched them with a certain 
 amused indifference. Presently one of the 
 masters of ceremonies advanced and ordered 
 
 the band to play a waltz, and while his 
 fingers struck the notes and his powerful 
 rhythmic touch brought out the full sweet 
 melody, the pianist’s eyes roved carelessly 
 from group to group of the moving, float- 
 ing figures, and he was conscious that life 
 still held for him a new sensation. 
 
 Dance after dance followed now. Heron 
 Archer looked less at the dancers and 
 more at his music, though his thoughts 
 were far enough away from either, and his 
 fingers only did their work with mechanical 
 precision. It must have been nearly eleven 
 o’clock, when he suddenly stood up to 
 reach a set of Lancers lying on a chair on 
 the platform. As he turned back to his 
 seat, his eyes fell on a group just forming 
 into the figure at his end of the room. 
 He started as if a pistol-shot had struck 
 him. There, in the full brilliance of the 
 lights — there, facing him a few yards distant, 
 stood the object of his search, his thoughts, 
 his dreams, these two weeks past ! She 
 was talking to her partner, and her face 
 was flushed and slightly turned away from 
 the platform. With a strong effort Heron 
 Archer recovered himself, and then, as he 
 once more took his seat, the full sense of 
 what his eccentric action might cost him 
 burst upon his mind. Suppose she saw 
 him, recognised him; what would she 
 think 1 He could have groaned aloud as 
 he thought of this, as he saw the barrier 
 he had raised between them, and knew 
 that now, though she was so near, he dared 
 not give one sign of recognition or seek 
 her side, despite his frenzied longing. 
 
 Hi a one hope now was that she might 
 not recognise him, and yet that was a 
 chance he hardly dared count on. The 
 platform was raised some feet from the 
 hall, and he was the most prominent of all 
 the players. The set in which the girl was 
 dancing was close to the platform, and she 
 herself stood directly facing him. At any 
 moment she might raise her eyes — see him 
 . — and then 1 He dared not dwell on the 
 . humiliation such a recognition would bring. 
 
 He only prayed she might not think of 
 s looking at the platform. He tried to avert 
 s his eyes, but every moment they stole a 
 : glance at that couple. How he envied the 
 [ man who danced with her 1 How he cursed 
 r the fate that held him here, chained to a 
 hateful penance, while any of the careless 
 l vapid throng below were free to win her 
 : smiles and seek her hand in the dance ! 
 l The signal was given, the music struck up. 
 i Mechanically he played the selection from 
 L Carmen before him, and uselessly he strove 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 “A BARROW OF PRIMROSES.” 
 
 [July 
 
 1881.] 7 
 
 himself in so false a position. The money 
 was in his hand, and with young Staunton s 
 roll of music under his arm, he hurried 
 out of the building. At the entrance a 
 crowd of cabs and carnages were still 
 waiting. He paused a moment. A vague 
 hope that he might see her once more ere 
 
 to keep his face turned away from that 
 one set in the room below. 
 
 But in vain. Despite his efforts, his 
 resolves, his eyes would turn to that 
 radiant, graceful figure, with her crown of 
 sunny hair and snowy floating robes, biie 
 
 was ^standing still while the -to M -f mind. ^ " He saw a 
 
 going through their e ™totiona ^ He 7 gentleman call a cab and then go back to 
 
 roved carelessly aw befo ,^ rTi JT the portico for two ladies, one elderly, and 
 Heron Archer should have turned away, j r ", , •, oar a - t.Vip. 
 
 but to ^notable to do so. Like some 
 spell, those eyes met and held his own, 
 and across the distance that separated them 
 flashed one lightning glance of mutual 
 recognition. That she remembered him 
 
 tne puruou , •/ ' . 
 
 shawled and cloaked with great care ; the 
 other— yes, it was— the mysterious “ she 
 who had so changed the calm and even 
 tenour of his life. A mass of fleecy white 
 lace was round tor head and shoulders, 
 
 recognition. That she remembered him we was ^ w rested lightly on her 
 he could doubt no longer for a burnin h - If Heron Archer A his 
 
 ne cornu uuuut , — x 
 
 wave of colour swept up to her brow, and 
 the startled glance told its own tale. _ 
 
 His heart beat high despite the pain and 
 humiliation that oppressed him. At least 
 she had not forgotten him. That thought 
 was sweet beyond all others, though he gave 
 her no sign, and kept his head turned 
 resolutely away for the rest of the dance. 
 
 When it was over, the various couples 
 began to promenade round the room. 
 Heron Archer followed that slight , figure 
 with anxious, watchful eyes. She did no 
 make the circle of the room, but passed 
 out with her partner through a door leading 
 
 companion’s arm. Heron Archer drew his 
 hat low over his brows, and strained his 
 ears to catch the directions given to the 
 
 cabman. “ L Street, Mania Vale 
 
 Then a silvery voice said, Hood- bye. 
 
 It has been a most delightful evening. So 
 many thanks for the tickets,” and the cab 
 
 drove off. , n 
 
 That was all. Yet no, not quite all, 
 for lying on the pavement, close to 
 Archer’s feet, lay a little bouquet of faded 
 primroses. They must have fallen from 
 her dress as she stepped into the cab. He 
 snatched them up as a miser might have 
 
 - I cnotpliprl at sold. They were more 
 
 to the refreshment-room. With beating than ® ld tQ him He thrust them 
 
 heart and eager gaze he watched for P breast, and then, dizzy with con- 
 
 reappearance. How he envied t e y hopes and thoughts and plans, he 
 
 her" side ; how he wonderedwhathewas a h ans0 m°close by, and was 
 
 saying to her, or she to tom. d P rive ° rapi dly home through the pale sweet 
 
 dawn of the spring day. 
 
 CHAPTER III. HOW THE ROMANCE 
 ENDED. 
 
 It would be impossible to describe the 
 
 in, TTavrm 
 
 came the summons to pjay, and 
 plaintive waltz air rose and fell, he saw her 
 again floating round the room to the melody 
 his fingers gave forth. . . , 
 
 The situation was torturing m the 
 
 extreme, and as the hours went by and he I Xi geif.^rmenting which Heron 
 
 saw her courted, besieged, surrounded, , a vigorously inflicted upon himself 
 
 met no further glance from her averted Archer ju f But he was too 
 
 eyes, and could guess nothing let his invalid P roteg6 know 
 
 it through. , A 
 
 But everything must have an end, and 
 at last the final waltz was on the desk. 
 How gladly he played it ■; what a welcome 
 relief to feel each bar, each page brought 
 him nearer to the conclusion ot his 
 unpalatable duty ! 
 
 Then out crashed “ Hod save the 
 Queen,” and he was free to go, free to 
 return home and chew the cud of sweet 
 and bitter fancies, and wish, with vain 
 fierce wishes, that he had never placed 
 
 P Yet the qmck eye of the faithful youth 
 soon discovered there was something amiss 
 with his benefactor. Amidst his own pain 
 and weariness to saw that there was gloom 
 and shadow on the noble face he loved, and 
 it distressed him. Heron Archer was wont 
 to be as calm and cheerful as only frank, 
 honest, and untroubled natures cau be, and 
 he was not* hypocrite enough to hide his 
 uneasiness successfully. „ , 
 
 “I knew you would repent it; I len 
 
8 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 “A BARROW OF PRIMROSES.” 
 
 certain of it,” said the invalid, looking 
 sadly up at his friend’s face, for friend 
 indeed had Heron Archer been to him 
 in the truest sense of that much misused 
 word. “ You saw someone who knew you ; 
 it has troubled you ; am I not right 1” 
 
 Heron Archer looked away from the 
 eager questioning face. “ Yes,” he said at 
 last, “I did see someone; but it is no 
 matter ; there is no harm done that need 
 vex you.” 
 
 “ What troubles you is my trouble also,” 
 answered the young man sadly. “ I have 
 no other friend in the world save yourself, 
 and it would be strange indeed if my heart 
 were not grateful for all the benefits you 
 have bestowed on me.” 
 
 Heron Archer silenced him with an 
 impatient gesture. He hated thanks or out- 
 spoken gratitude, and would have always 
 avoided them had it been possible. 
 
 That evening the longing that had been 
 in his heart through all these weary days 
 since he had known where she lived — 
 the longing to go himself to the street and 
 trust to chance for another glimpse of her — 
 came over him so strongly that he at last 
 resolved to yield to it. He took the train 
 to Edgware Road, and from there walked 
 over to Maida Yale. He knew nothing of 
 the neighbourhood, but by dint of searching 
 and enquiries he found the street he 
 wished at last ; then so strange a reluctance 
 came over him to traverse it that he was 
 very nearly turning back without even 
 setting foot within it. 
 
 While he still stood, looking with longing 
 eyes down the street, yet not daring to 
 venture through it, the door of one of the 
 villas near was opened ; a slight young 
 figure came down the steps, and in another 
 second he was face to face with the object 
 of his thoughts. 
 
 He started and coloured furiously. The 
 girl gave him one rapid glance and then 
 passed on. It was a moment into which 
 the emotions and experiences of years 
 seemed crowded. After a short indecision 
 Heron Archer grew desperate. She was still 
 in view, hurrying along up the road he had 
 just traversed, and forthwith he started off in 
 pursuit. A few moments brought him to 
 her side. She moved close to the wall, as 
 if for him to pass ; perhaps she guessed to 
 whom those eager hurrying feet belonged. 
 
 Heron Archer hesitated, passed, looked 
 back. Then, with the courage of despair, 
 he raised his hat and spoke abruptly. 
 
 “ Pardon me, I pray, but I have sought 
 you so long. I — I have so much to explain. 
 
 [Conducted by : 
 
 Do give me the favour of a few words with 
 you.” 
 
 She drew herself up with sudden stately 
 hauteur. 
 
 “Sir!” she said quickly, “you have 
 spoken more than a few words already. 
 There can be nothing for you to explain 
 which concerns me. Allow me to pass.” 
 
 “ I cannot. I will not. You must hear \ 
 me ! ” he cried passionately, forgetting all 
 prudence and reason in the fear that she 
 might leave him now. “You think me 
 other than I am. It was all a mistake. I 
 can explain it — only listen. ” 
 
 She grew very pale. 
 
 “ I have made a mistake,” she said scorn- 
 fully. “ I took you for a gentleman — once. 
 
 If I had need of proof to convince me of , 
 my error your conduct to-night has given | 
 it to me. Once more will you allow me to> t b 
 pass, or must I return home for protec- jj 
 tionl” 
 
 The bronzed and manly face before her . 
 grew pale as death — his eyes looked at her l 
 with unspeakable reproach, but to such f 
 words there could be but one answer. He j 
 took off his hat and stepped aside, such j 
 shame and agony, and humiliation in his j 
 heart as would have touched her now with 
 an infinite compassion could she have read i 
 its meaning and its cause. 
 
 But she passed on without a look or j 
 word, yet in her own mind she seemed 
 suddenly to feel what a poor and pitiful j 
 thing her pride was. 
 
 Heron Archer went home, his heart full j 
 of bitterness, yet aching with a fierce \ 
 unsatisfied longing that had never been his 
 lot before. 
 
 “It is no use. I can never set things | 
 straight in her eyes,” he thought to himself. 
 
 “I must try and forget her.” 
 
 How hard he tried, and how equally j 
 futile his efforts were, he alone knew. .For \ 
 love was never yet conquered by trying, if \ 
 indeed it is love worth calling by the \l 
 name. I 
 
 He . worked hard, and began to find j 
 his talents recognised, and to take a more 
 prominent position in his profession than, j 
 had yet been his lot. Yet even now j 
 the man’s innate conscientiousness and j 
 impatience of the petty hypocrisies and j 
 simulations of all business life began* to I 
 threaten his promised success. 
 
 One evening, at a dinner-party given by j 
 an eminent member of the legal profession,, I 
 he made a speech that so overthrew all 
 conventional rules and doctrines of legal: 
 
 
ife as to array his colleagues in Wigt»‘ 
 “position against his boldly - hazarded 
 
 ’““Allow solicitors to P le J} d in 
 acclaimed an eminent Q.C. vvny, 
 Archer, you must he mad ! Such a th g 
 s unheard of! It goes against aU the 
 ;enets of our profession. You surely 
 Wt mean what you say? . . , 
 
 “ Indeed I do,” was the calm f { 
 
 « There is a prejudice against the idea, I 
 
 know, but the generality of P e0 P le ^« 
 not barristers think, and agree, that it is 
 most desirable. Solicitors know their own 
 cases much better than we do, and then- 
 information on legal points and tech 
 calities is quite as correct. It is my 
 opinion that ere long the present course of 
 -things will be quite changed. „ 
 
 “You are a traitor to your order! 
 smiled the great man good-humouredly. 
 
 He still thought it a joke. No member 
 •of the legal profession in his sane mind 
 • (except a solicitor) would have put forward 
 such a startling opinion. 
 
 “You are cutting your own throat by 
 advocating such heresy, Archer said one 
 of his companions, also a barrister. W he 
 
 would Vbe if your view of the case were 
 taken and acted upon ? Things are had 
 enough as it is, hut we should be reduced 
 o bread and cheese at that rate. 
 
 “No had fare when we purchase it 
 rith clean hands and clear consciences, 
 emarked the young man 
 “ It might suit you ; besides, you have 
 ther means. You are not solely depen- 
 lent on what you make. But as for me 
 Jo thank you. Social martyrdom is not 
 n my line. 7 Human nature is all more or 
 ess selfish ; I lay no claim to exemption 
 ■rom that one great fault. As for you, Don 
 Quixote and his windmills are nothiug to 
 She way in which you persistently fight 
 against prejudice and impossibility. 
 
 ° Heron Archer laughed. 
 
 “You are wrong,” he said; I do not 
 fight against impossibilities. _ I am wise 
 than that. But my warfare is very nearly 
 as useless as if I did. There is nothing so 
 .-stubborn as established rules, so imprac- 
 ticable as prejudice.” . , 
 
 “ Why not leave them alone and take 
 life as it is 1 ” asked his friend. You 
 would be much more comfortable, and so 
 should we. It is so much pleasanter to 
 walk along the path of custom blindfold 
 than to have the bandage snatched from 
 your eyes and be told : ‘ See, your path is 
 full of holes and pitfalls, and your way lies 
 
 beside a hundred precipices, and all behind 
 you is misery and all before yon da ^ r ,/ 
 
 That is the sort of thing you do, Archer. 
 
 “ Well, I would rather suffer any hard- 
 ship than know I was doing harm to others, 
 or pursue blindfold a path that was strewn 
 with victims to the Juggernaut of false 
 custom,” answered Heron Archer. I like 
 to have my eyes unbandaged, to see my 
 way clear before me ; to know where each 
 footstep leads, and to what each motion 
 
 tends.” . . . „ . 
 
 “ What a restless, unhappy being you 
 must be, then,” laughed the other I 
 would not change consciences with you tor 
 something, old boy ! But, now, a truce to 
 these grave subjects. I have something to 
 tell you. Do you remember one day, some 
 months ago now, when you rushed under a 
 horse’s hoofs to save a lad who was selling 
 
 priniroses jj eron Archer eagerly, 
 
 as he set down the_ glass he had been in the 
 act of raising to his lips. 
 
 “ Well, then, I daresay you have not 
 forgotten the lady who was m the 
 
 ^“What of her ? asked the young man 
 with well-assumed indifference, though his 
 heart throbbed wildly at the mere mention 
 of the idol of his dream. 
 
 “ It’s a curious thing,” said the other 
 who was no less a personage than the 
 renowned Puffins. “I But, to begin at the 
 beginning, I was asked out a few nights 
 ago to an ‘At home’ given by Mrs 
 Trafford Well, her rooms were crowded 
 as Hi, and among the guests w^a 
 young lady who sang divinely. I begged 
 the favour of an introduction We bowed 
 —looked at each other, and behold, it was 
 the heroine of the hansom ! Eh— did you 
 
 SP Heron Archer’s face was averted, his glass 
 was lifted to his lips, but Mr. Puffins cer- 
 tainly thought he had caught an exclama- 
 tion not cfuite saintly from his friends 
 lips. However, he proceeded : . 
 
 “ She was as charming as her singing. 
 We became great friends. I recalled to 
 her mind the 8 incident of the primroses 
 She remembered it quite well, but seem 
 embarrassed at the mention of the occur- 
 rence, so I changed the subject. I was 
 introduced to her father-queer old chap 
 
 always going to law about something o 
 
 other. 7 1 received an invitation to their 
 house, and am going there to-morrow. 
 What do vou say to that V 
 
 What Heron Archer thought of it was 
 
10 [July 4, 1881.] “A BARROW OF PRIMROSES.” [Conducted by 
 
 more to the purpose, but he did not 
 acknowledge that, and changed the subject 
 with what speed he could. Certainly Fate 
 was against him, for here was this empty- 
 headed prattler suddenly put forward into 
 the very place he so coveted, and that 
 without an effort or desire to force circum- 
 stances to his will, while for himself was 
 no hope of such good fortune. 
 
 As soon as dinner was over he took his 
 leave, regardless of the fact that by so 
 doing he was universally voted more un- 
 social and eccentric than ever. All that 
 evening he passed his time in solitary 
 musing and bitter regrets, inveighing 
 against his luck in a manner the reverse 
 of philosophical. 
 
 Early next morning, as he was busily 
 engaged with his papers, a knock came at 
 his office-door, and in answer to his per- 
 mission, in rushed Puffins. 
 
 “ Look here ; never say I don’t do you 
 a good turn !” exclaimed that voluble 
 pleader. “ I got this letter this morning, 
 and I thought of you immediately. See, 
 I’ve brought it on at once !” 
 
 “ Is it another case ?” questioned Archer 
 coolly. 
 
 “ Case ? Well, I don’t know about 
 that. It depends on yourself I should say,” 
 answered little Puffins, laughing over his 
 joke. “Read it for yourself.” 
 
 Heron Archer took the pretty little 
 feminine note held out to him and began 
 reading it with careless indifference. At 
 the first line, however, he started and 
 flushed nervously up to the very roots of 
 his hair. Puffins watched him with no 
 small amusement. His keen eyes had 
 detected something the night before ; his 
 suspicions became certainty now as he 
 observed the young barrister’s evident 
 agitation. 
 
 This was what Heron Archer read : 
 
 “ Dear Mr. Puffins, — A s we intend 
 having a carpet-dance to-night after the 
 music, I write to ask you if you will kindly 
 bring a friend with you. We are rather 
 short of gentlemen. 
 
 “ With kind regards, very truly yours, 
 “Dora Morison,” 
 
 Heron Archer laid down the letter and 
 looked up at his friend’s face. 
 
 “Well!” he said with assumed care- 
 lessness. 
 
 “ Well ?” mimicked Puffins. “And is 
 that all your gratitude? Aren’t you pleased 
 at the chance of seeing your ‘ handsome 
 heroine ’ again ? Don’t you care to come ?” 
 
 “ I should like to very much,” answered i 
 Heron Archer slowly, “ but ” 
 
 “Now don’t pull any of your conscien- 
 tious scruples in by the forelock,” laughed j 
 Puffins. “ It’s all right. You’re mutually 
 interested in each other — renewal of 
 acquaintance ; topics of conversation, prim- 
 roses and hansom horses, services rendered, 
 gratitude, etc. etc. There’s the case plainly 
 stated. The concluding points I leave to 
 you. Good morning ; eight sharp ; I shall 
 be here. 
 
 Then he was gone, noisy and voluble to 
 the last. But Heron Archer did little 
 work that day, only young Staunton was 
 astonished by the receipt of a five-pound 
 note sent him anonymously, and posted in 
 the S.E. district of London. 
 
 It was there that Heron Archer’s restless- 
 ness first had taken him, for his mind was 
 too unsettled and perplexed to allow of his 
 sitting in his chambers. “Would she be 
 offended ? ” he thought. She must hear 
 his explanation now — and then ! 
 
 Well, then he dared not pursue the 
 subject any farther. Fate must settle it for 
 him in the time to come. 
 
 At eight sharp, even as he had said, 
 Puffins drove up to his friend’s chambers 
 in a hansom. Heron Archer had been 
 ready since seven, but naturally he did 
 not inform the lively barrister of that fact. 
 
 He was strangely nervous and agitated, 
 though he strove to hide it by an unusual 
 amount of coolness and indifference ; and 
 when he reached the house, and was 
 ushered into the drawing-room, and heard 
 his name announced in conjunction with 
 that of Puffins, he absolutely trembled at 
 his own temerity. 
 
 A moment, and a fair white-robed figure 
 stood before him, and his low bow and 
 appealing look were met by a half-timid 
 apologetic glance that filled his heart with 
 wonder. He heard Puffins’s introduction 
 and was conscious of being extolled as “ a 
 shining light in my own profession ” by that 
 well-intentioned individual, but her smile 
 and glance were too much for his dazzled 
 senses. The whole room seemed to swim 
 round him, and he could find no words in 
 which to answer her greeting. 
 
 With ready tact the young hostess drew 
 the talkative Puffins away, and introduced 
 him to a lady by whose side was a vacant 
 chair. Then, to Heron Archer’s amaze- 
 ment, she came to him again — a deepening 
 flush on her cheek, a timid, shy anxiety in 
 the eyes that had looked so proud and 
 cold at their last meeting. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 11 
 
 Proud and cold]— ah, surely not!— there 
 was no such look within them now. 
 
 “ I have an old acquaintance of yours to 
 introduce you to, Mr. Archer, she said 
 hashfullv* “will you come with me j 
 Like one in a dream he followed. Meed 
 it seemed to him that this must all be 
 a dream— that on some cold desolate 
 to-morrow he would awake and find hims . 
 back in his chambers once more, feel in 
 his now throbbing heart the old fierce 
 gnawing pain of that sudden and hopeless 
 
 love of his. . , ,, 
 
 She paused beside the piano, and there 
 sat young Staunton, a radiant contented 
 look on his face, such as had not rested 
 there for many a long day ! 
 
 “ There is no need to introduce you, l 
 see,” she said smiling, and Heron Archer, 
 in whom no single gram of false shame 
 ever found resting-place, shook hands 
 warmly with the young musician, under- 
 standing at last that this was no dream 
 His eyes turned appealingly to her. 
 
 “ You understand — now,” he said, in low 
 
 earnest tones. .... , . 
 
 She flashed at him an exquisite look that 
 more than repaid him for aU he had 
 endured, for sake of which he felt he could 
 have endured a hundredfold more suffering. 
 
 “ How did it come about h he asked. 
 James Staunton later on, when she had 
 left them, and was gliding to and fro among 
 
 he ^4he heard of me— how, I do not know, 
 he said, in a low voice that fell m like an 
 accompaniment to the melody he was 
 playing. “ Then she came to me one day, 
 and asked me to play to her and was so 
 full of praise, and so sweet and gracious— 
 oh, I cannot tell you all— she is an angel! 
 
 “ She is ! ” agreed Heron Archer en- 
 thusiastically. 
 
 “ And she said I ought to have better 
 engagements and not play dance music, 
 and she is going to speak to all her friends, 
 and to-night she gives this party that t may 
 play as I can play, as I have never had the 
 chance of playing yet. And only yesterday 
 it all came out about you. I told her ot 
 that engagement at the Marlborough Rooms, 
 and how I should have lost it but for your 
 kindness, and how that, gentleman as you 
 were, you took my place, and sat with the 
 band, and brought me the money next 
 day: and, sir, when I told her this, her 
 eyes were full of tears, she grew strangely 
 agitated, and she asked your name, and 
 where you lived, and all about you, and 
 told me how once you had done her a great 
 
 service. And I saw by her manner to- 
 night that she was glad to meet you again. 
 And if, indeed, I have been of any use m 
 
 the matter, or ” , 
 
 “ Use ! Oh Jim, you have done me the 
 most inestimable service I have ever 
 received from any human being . 
 
 No wonder Jim Staunton looked up m 
 amazement at those impulsive words, cut 
 as he saw the light in the young mans 
 eyes, the glory and gladness m his face, he 
 seemed to read a meaning beyond what 
 the words told him, and his grateful heart 
 rejoieed that, for all the benefits he had 
 received at Heron Archer’s hands, he had 
 been able to make one return at last. 
 
 Ere the evening was over Heron Archer 
 had heard from her lips of the regret she 
 had felt for her misjudgment. Ere the 
 evening was over he had let her see, too, 
 in some degree, the tenacity and devotion 
 of that swift and sudden passion which 
 had leaped up like flame m his heart on that 
 spring morning when they had first met. 
 P And afterwards 1 Well, afterwards the 
 romance ended, as all such romances should 
 end : and in the next spring Heron Archer 
 led to the altar the girl he had wooed and 
 won for his own. 
 
 There was one odd thing about the 
 wedding, people said ; and that was that on 
 the bride’s dress and in her snowy bouquet, 
 as well as along the path and msles she 
 trod, were scattered bunches of primroses. 
 
 Only two people knew what it meant, 
 but they were the two for whom that 
 marriage rite united hearts as well as 
 hands, and before whom the future lay, a 
 land of sweet and glorious promise, that 
 they should henceforth tread together ! 
 
 CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 by theo gift. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The thing was that nobody knew any- 
 thing about them. „ 
 
 “ It looks suspicious, you know, our 
 qneen said, shaking her handsome head; 
 and though I put in mildly : 
 
 “ Hardly suspicious, dear Mrs. Arthur, 
 only unusual among us,” she wouldnt 
 listen to me, but went on in the same tone : 
 “ And we don’t want suspicious people 
 here. I wish Mr. Braun was more careful. 
 If we had kept the letting of the house m 
 our own hands it wouldn’t have hap- 
 i pened and there, of course, I agreed ; for, 
 as a rule, not only did our king and queen 
 
CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 d, 
 
 1 2 [July 4, 1831.1 
 
 know everything about their tenants, but 
 all the tenants knew everything about one 
 another, who each was, how he lived and 
 what he did ; and besides, we belonged to 
 them ourselves, and therefore had a right 
 to be particular as to our neighbours, and 
 to resent the settlement among us of any 
 who might introduce a bad element into 
 our select and artistic little society. 
 
 For that is what we were — very select 
 and very artistic, and extremely jealous of 
 outsiders coming to disturb our innocent 
 and aesthetic Bohemia with innovating 
 ways or vulgar immorality. Of course, as 
 everyone knows, Camelot is a very tiny 
 place, a mere child’s toy-box of miniature 
 red-brick houses, built in quaint Queen 
 Anne patterns, and set out on a patch of 
 ground bordered by the railway on one 
 side and a few acres of kitchen-garden and 
 apple-orchards on the other ; a fragment 
 stolen out of the kitchen-gardens indeed, 
 and made into a suburban home for artistic 
 and “ cultured ” people. Yet though so near 
 London that the apple-trees looked very 
 black and sooty about the trunks, and 
 the east 'wind filled our rooms with fog 
 and mist from the city, and even by going 
 up the steps to the railway bridge you 
 could see the line of dark chimney-pots 
 and murky haze of the metropolis encir- 
 cling us on two sides, we chose to consider 
 ourselves as a world apart, and a very 
 different world from that common wicked 
 one of London town. 
 
 Mind you, I don’t myself think that 
 London or any place is altogether common 
 or wicked. I cannot quite love the big 
 city, for the three years I spent there were 
 the saddest in my life : seeing that I only 
 came up from my Devonshire home to 
 nurse my dear sister Dora through her last 
 illness, and then stayed on to take care of 
 her two children and the house until the 
 lease of the latter was out, and Doris (she 
 was christened Dora, after her poor 
 mother, but altered that name to the 
 quainter Doris when the rage for old- 
 fashioned things came in) had finished her 
 course at South Kensington and her educa- 
 tion generally. Lance was in an architect’s 
 office then; but after he modelled that 
 bust of Cressida which Mr. Arthur bought, 
 he threw up plans altogether for sculpture. 
 It was rather a blow to me at first ; but 
 the Arthurs were very kind and encouraged 
 him, and when once he and Doris had 
 been asked to a garden-party at Camelot, 
 nothing would satisfy either of them but 
 that we should offer ourselves as tenants 
 
 for one of the little red houses, and take 
 up our residence there altogether. 
 
 Well, it did not much matter to me. 
 London was a big, sad, airless place, and 
 that little plot of suburban villas was 
 not in the least to be compared with the 
 country; but Lance and Doris liked it, 
 and I couldn’t expect two such bright, 
 clever young things to bury themselves 
 down in the wilds of Devonshire. So I 
 made up niy mind to like it too, and ended 
 by succeeding so thoroughly that I forgot 
 there had ever been any effort in the 
 matter, and was as proud of my stained 
 floors and peacock dados, and the row of 
 big sunflowers in my tiny garden, as were 
 any of my neighbours of their combina- 
 tions of colour and “harmony” and re- 
 vivals of old-fashioned gardening, which 
 looked so homely and commonplace to my 
 west-country eyes, and were so “ subtle ” 
 and “ precious ” to theirs. Why, they 
 even fell in love with my plain grey gowns 
 and folded white kerchiefs, which I had 
 worn to please my dear mother (she was a 
 Quaker) ever since I was a girl, and which 
 poor Dora’s Bloomsbury friends found so 
 outr6 and dowdy ! “ Dowdy indeed ! If 
 you want to be perfectly harmonious, never 
 wear anything else, my dear Miss Jervis,” 
 our queen herself said to me; “we could 
 as ill spare your grey gowns as your sunny 
 self.” And after that compliment, what 
 vain old woman wouldn’t have clung 
 triumphantly to them % 
 
 But all this time I am not telling you 
 why we were so disturbed about these 
 new arrivals at Camelot. You will under- 
 stand, of course, that it was only a joke of 
 ours calling the landlord of the estate our 
 “ king.” You see his name was Arthur, and 
 when he took the idea of building a lot of 
 quaint eccentric houses on this land of his, 
 he called it the “ Camelot Park Estate,” 
 for which reason his tenants, who, accord- 
 ing to his scheme, were to be all artistic or 
 literary people of kindred souls, christened 
 it Camelot simply, and himself “ The Stain- 
 less King ; ” and if every monarch had as 
 loyal and devoted subjects as that dear 
 good man and model landlord, kings would 
 be a happier race than they are. 
 
 I suppose even prosperity has its draw- 
 backs, however, for as Camelot grew and 
 prospered Mr. Arthur found that it gave 
 him so much to do, that before long he had 
 to engage an agent to help him with the 
 management of the estate, and this it was 
 which led to the complication I am going 
 to tell you about. Not that Mr. Braun 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 13 
 
 was a bad agent : on the contrary, he was 
 a very good one ; but he thought far more 
 of his patron’s pecuniary advantage than 
 of what he was wont to call his “ tads, 
 and, wholly regardless of the noble and 
 poetical scheme in which Camelot had its 
 birth, almost thefirstpiece of business he did 
 was to refuse one of the most aesthetic cot- 
 tages to a delightful if impecunious novelist, 
 and let it in preference to a well-to-do young 
 stockbroker with a wife who never dressed 
 in anything but the most modern of Tans 
 fashions, and went, in for gilt frames and 
 chairs in her drawing-room. If that young 
 stockbroker had not been one of the plea- 
 santest and most hospitable of men, and 
 his little wife so fond of new gowns ot 
 any sort that she was ready to discard all 
 her old ones for the sake of a fresh supply , 
 
 I don’t know how some of our neighbours 
 would have got over the incident. 
 
 There was one villa, however, which 
 had remained unlet for some time. It was 
 a corner house, the garden and one side 
 facing our own cottage, the front .ookmg 
 out on a green field as yet unbuilt on. 
 
 A small place certainly, with only two 
 bedrooms, but fitted up throughout most 
 charmingly, with miniature bath and dress- 
 ing-rooms, Dutch tiles, a conservatory, and 
 quite a large garden with a grand old apple- 
 tree in it, which was the envy of Donss 
 
 116 While the house was building she used to 
 steal clusters of rosy blossoms from it to 
 paint on plates and panels ; and later on 
 in the year the king lent her the key to go 
 in and gather the apples as they ripened 
 and fell on the soft green grass below. 
 We grew to consider that tree almost as a 
 property of our own ; and it was therefore 
 with some little excitement that, one fine 
 morning, we heard the announcement of 
 Sally, our little maid, that she thought 
 the corner house was going to be let, for 
 Mr. Braun was showing a gentleman over 
 it, and they were out in the garden then. 
 
 I am half ashamed to write what , fol- 
 lows, it looks so vulgar and inquisitive ; 
 but Doris and I went upstairs to the 
 window of my room, and peeped over the 
 little muslin blinds to see what could be 
 seen, and Lance, who had just come in all 
 white with dust and plaster from his 
 studio, thrust his head over ours and 
 peeped too. Sure enough there, under 
 the apple-tree, stood Mr. Braun and the 
 stranger, the latter a tall, handsome, well- 
 dressed man, with all the look of a gentle- 
 man ; and as the window was open, and 
 
 the sweet spring breeze blowing m our 
 direction, we could hear their voices almost 
 as plainly as if they were addressing us 
 “ You are sure you can do it in tne 
 time 1 ” said the stranger. 
 
 “We could,” said Mr. Braun, ‘but, 
 really, the house is always considered so 
 perfect, and Mr. Arthur has laid out so 
 
 much money on it ” 
 
 “That, of course, no one could expect 
 him to lay out more,” the stranger inter- 
 rupted rather sharply. “ Any alterations 
 will be at my expense. All I asked you 
 about was the time. Mrs. Trevillian is 
 delicate, and I don’t want her to have the 
 bother of workmen in the house when 
 she arrives.” 
 
 Mr Braun’s answer was not so audible, but 
 he seemed to say the time would be ample, 
 and then both men went into the house; 
 and a few minutes later we saw them leave 
 it and go off towards the station. 
 
 That same afternoon we met the little 
 agent in the High Street, and in the joy ot 
 his heart he must needs tell us that he had 
 got a new tenant for his chief and an 
 opposite neighbour for ourselves. 
 
 “Capital people too, I fancy Dont 
 seem to care what they spend on the house. 
 Taken it for three years.” 
 
 “ Is it a family, Mr. Braun 1 
 “ No family, ma’am, if you mean chil- 
 dren ; only the gentleman, Mr. Trevillian, 
 and his lady; and I should say she was a 
 bride by the fuss he makes about her 
 comfort and fancies.” 
 
 “ Not people in— in trade, I suppose, 
 Mr Braun % ” said Doris, for which I was 
 rather ashamed of her ; for her own great- 
 grandfather was a small bookseller m 
 Taunton, and I do not care who. knows it ; 
 but I suppose she was thinking of the 
 
 king’s scheme. . . , 
 
 “ Not unless it’s a foreign trade, 
 ma’am, for he told me he had been living 
 chiefly in France for the last five years 
 or so. Bless you, they’re of the rich idle 
 sort, and just after Camelot taste I should 
 think. He was very particular, about the 
 
 height of the drawing-room, lest it shouidn t 
 
 1 hold his wife’s organ, which he said was a 
 very good one, and the dining-rooms all 
 to be repapered and painted, because the 
 present tone don’t do for some of his 
 pictures. I’m thinking Mr. Arthur will 
 be pleased when he comes back from 
 
 Antwerp.” . , 
 
 We thought so too. It . certainly di 
 matter to us who our opposite neighbours 
 were, seeing that we could quite easi y 
 
14 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 talk to them out of our parlour- windows; 
 and it seemed as if nothing could be more 
 charming than a newly-married couple, 
 refined, musical, artistic, and well-to-do. 
 Lance was the only dissentient. 
 
 “What do you know about them after 
 all % ” he said, throwing back his fair 
 ruffled hair with an impatient gesture as 
 we sat talking it oyer after tea. “The 
 wife may be the worst sort of Philistine, 
 and as for the man, I didn’t care about his 
 looks a bit.” 
 
 “ Oh Lance ! ” cried Doris, “ Aunt 
 Fanny and I thought him quite handsome 
 and dignified-looking.” 
 
 Lance tossed his head more impatiently 
 than ever. 
 
 “I didn’t,” he said. “Never mind, I dare- 
 say they won’t come at all. Pass me the 
 butter, Doris.” 
 
 It struck us afterwards as strange that 
 Lance should have taken this dislike to 
 Mr. Trevillian; but he was wrong in one 
 thing, for they did come, and within the 
 week ; but even, before then a cart had 
 arrived full of young trees and plants 
 which it took two men a whole day to 
 put into the ground; then the furniture, 
 after inspecting which we were able to 
 assure our friends that there was not 
 such a thing as a gilt console or a 
 garlanded carpet among it, and which 
 included the organ, a really beautiful in- 
 strument and fit for a nobleman’s chapel ; 
 and after that, each time we looked in 
 at the pretty club-house, which, with its 
 tennis-court and reading-rooms, was one 
 of the favourite institutions of Oamelot, 
 we were plied with questions. 
 
 “ Have the new people come yet ? Mind 
 you tell us what they are like.” 
 
 When they did come, however, no one 
 knew of it or could tell what they were 
 like, for they arrived so late one evening, 
 that even we were not aware of the event 
 till next day ; and it was quite late in the 
 afternoon when Doris came rushing into 
 the long low workshop at the bottom of 
 the garden, which Lance called his studio, 
 her pretty face, which no tangled hair or 
 graveyard garments could make anything 
 but fresh and pert and daisylike, all 
 glowing with excitement as she panted out : 
 
 “ Oh, come and look, do, both of you. 
 She is in the garden, and oh ! she is 
 so-o-o-o ” 
 
 I really am ashamed to own it again ; 
 but, despite a sniff or two from Lance, we 
 did go all of us, and peeped over my bed- 
 room-blinds as before. There was more 
 
 to see this time. Mr. Trevillian was there 
 indeed, seated on a low chair smoking; 
 but standing near him was a woman, 
 bareheaded in the sunshine ; tall, clad in 
 a long blue gown, her slim white hands 
 full of crocuses, her hair of a warm auburn 
 colour, parted on her forehead and rippling 
 down over the ears in a thick wavy mass 
 which glittered in the yellow April sunlight 
 like soft flame, and was loosely coiled into 
 a knot on the back of her neck. About 
 her feet was the short spring grass. Over 
 her head the blue sky ^nd the apple 
 blossoms, their pale,* pinky-white petals 
 fluttering down on hair and gown, like 
 showers of rosy-tinted snow. 
 
 Doris clasped her hands in girlish ecstasy. 
 
 “ Oh ! ” she said with a long-drawn 
 breath, “ isn’t she quite too — why, 
 
 Lance ! ” But Lance pulled her back 
 
 from the window and dropped the curtain 
 with an angry jerk. 
 
 “ Come away, do, ” he said impatiently ; 
 “because she happens to be the most 
 beautiful woman o.ne has ever seen, have we 
 any right to stand staring at her like a lot 
 of cockney cads 1 How do you know she 
 mayn’t have seen us 1 Aunt Fanny, pray 
 don’t let Doris do such things.” 
 
 His face was quite red and excited, and 
 he never used one of his ordinary phrases, 
 or said Mrs. Trevillian was “ utter,” or 
 “precious,” or any of the terms he and his 
 friends usually applied to people they 
 admired, and then he marched off to the 
 workshop in a huff. I had never seen our 
 Lance in such a mood. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I wonder where the suspicion first arose 
 that there was something not quite right 
 about the people at the Corner House, or 
 how soon it began to be whispered about ? 
 
 Perhaps the original root of the thing 
 was in the fact aforementioned, that no one 
 in Camelot knew anything about the Tre- 
 villians ; not even the Arthurs or Mr. Braun 
 himself. The one thing the latter gentle- 
 man had troubled himself about was their 
 reference to their bankers, and this being 
 unexceptionable, he had asked no further ; 
 while Mr. Arthur, being away, had known 
 nothing of the matter till the house was let 
 and the people installed in it. Of course 
 this would be nothing in London, where a 
 man may live for twenty years next door 
 to you, and you know no more of him at 
 the end of that time than you did after 
 the first week ; but here in little Camelot, 
 where we formed a sort of nineteenth- 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 15 
 
 century Arcadia, ran in and out of each 
 other’s houses, read each other’s stories 
 and poems, and criticised each other s 
 pictures, it was widely different. 
 
 Nearly all of us, indeed, had been 
 recommended to the Arthurs as tenants 
 bv prior acquaintanceship or by one ot the 
 earlier settlers. Mrs. Dash who wrote 
 novels, persuaded her dear friend, Mr. 
 Blank, who illustrated magazines, to 
 migrate to Camelot because the light was 
 so much clearer than in town. Professor 
 Asterisk, who was on old chum of King 
 Arthur’s, and whose brain was suffering 
 from the noise of London, came here for 
 quiet ; and the widow and children of poor 
 Star, the actor, for economy ; but in all these 
 cases most of us knew all there was to 
 know of the Blanks, Stars, and Asterisks 
 long before they came among us, and were 
 ready to be intimate as soon as introduced ; 
 while it was a proud boast of Mr. Payne, 
 our ritualistic young clergyman (religion, 
 like everything else, was “ high. . at 
 Camelot), that with all their eccentricities 
 there was not one black, .hardly one 
 speckled sheep among all his little flock. 
 
 Now the question which was being asked 
 among us was no other than this : was the 
 beautiful woman at whom we had gazed so 
 admiringly on her arrival, Mr. Trevillian s 
 wife at all, and if not, what were we to do 
 if she were to become a member, of the club, 
 or were to follow up the opening afforded 
 her by one or two people, the Arthurs and 
 the doctor and his wife, who had un- 
 wittingly called on her at the outset 1 
 To be sure they had not found, her at 
 home,” nor had she returned their call as 
 yet, but the latter event might occur 
 any day, and though to be a member of the 
 club entailed a recommendation from the 
 king and either Mr. Payne or the applicant s 
 own clergyman, these were such simple 
 formalities that they had almost come to 
 be taken for granted, and. to blackball a 
 person without proof positive of the most 
 damning cause would have been almost 
 impossible. Was it to be done for the 
 first time against this charming and culti- 
 vated couple, to whom, Mr. Braun owned, 
 he had recommended the club as one of 
 the chief attractions of the place] 
 
 Yet what had we really against them ] 
 Nothing very tangible. 
 
 Mr. Trevillian had been unwontedly 
 reserved with the agent, but reserve does 
 not necessarily imply guilt; neither does 
 discourtesy, which term might be applied 
 to Mrs. Trevillian’s remissness in returning 
 
 the visits of those people who had 
 charitably left cards on her. Still there 
 was no denying that their conduct was not 
 quite like ordinary people on first arriving 
 in a little country place. For one thing, 
 we had been told that they were a newly- 
 married couple ; but after staying for less 
 than a week at the Corner House, Mr. 
 Trevillian went away one morning and 
 never returned for more than a month, 
 which is scarcely what a bridegroom would 
 generally care to do. It is true that while 
 he was here he appeared to be on most 
 affectionate terms with Mrs.. Trevillian, 
 and indeed did little else but sit out m the 
 garden with her, sing with her, or take her 
 for walks ; but even in these things their 
 conduct was rather peculiar ; for though 
 within the garden-walls, she often went 
 about bareheaded, and used to rake and 
 weed and run in and out like any active 
 happy girl ; out of doors she never showed 
 herself, except so thickly veiled that no one 
 could have recognised her features, and 
 clinging as closely to her husband s arm as 
 though she was either too weak to walk 
 alone, or was afraid of being snatched from 
 him. Nor did they on these occasions 
 explore the quaint little village, as would 
 have been natural in new comers who had 
 ■just taken up their abode in it. On the 
 contrary, they invariably turned their backs 
 on Camelot as soon as they left their own 
 door, taking their way across the fields and 
 waste land, where there was certainly 
 nothing to see, and where, if they did meet 
 anyone who looked enquiringly at them, 
 his audacity was sure to be rewarded by a 
 scowl from Mr. Trevillian which might 
 have frightened a burglar. 
 
 The same air of reticence, not to say 
 mystery, was shown in their household. 
 This latter consisted of an old woman and 
 a boy; and as all the shopping in Camelot 
 was done at one establisment, a certain 
 brand-new, “ Early-English,” Co-operative 
 Store, where you could buy anything, irom 
 a leg of mutton to a peacock’s feather 
 you may guess that no little gossip went 
 on among the housekeepers and. maids 
 assembled at its counters of a morning. 
 
 In this, however, the servants at the 
 Corner House proved markedly different to 
 the rest of the community, for no amount 
 of chatter or questioning on the part ol 
 neighbouring domestics availed to draw one 
 word of information respecting her master 
 or mistress from the old woman, whose 
 grim face and short surly answers were 
 enough in themselves to frighten all bu 
 
16 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 
 the boldest, while the boy proved equally 
 uncommunicative, turning off all enquiries 
 by a laugh or a chaffing answer, and 
 beyond the fact that he always spoke of 
 “ my mistress and Mr. Trevillian,” never 
 of “ my master,” and that once, in answer 
 to some questions about foreign parts, 
 he said “he had never been in them, 
 so he couldn’t say,” no more was to be 
 got out of him than from the old dame 
 herself. 
 
 The Trevillians were not, however, to 
 be condemned only by their own or their 
 servants’ silence. 
 
 He had been gone from the place about 
 a fortnight, and the solitary shadow against 
 the fire-lit blind of an evening, the solitary 
 figure pacing up and down the garden-walk, 
 or creeping out veiled and cloaked in the 
 twilight for -a lonely ramble, had something 
 in it so friendless and pathetic that I began 
 to feel quite angry with my neighbours’ 
 suspicions, and was just meditating calling 
 on Mrs. Trevillian myself, when, one 
 evening, as we were dining at the Arthurs’, 
 the Corner House mystery cropped up in 
 conversation as usual, and attracted the 
 attention of a London acquaintance of our 
 king’s who was at table. 
 
 “ Trevillian 1 ” said he, looking up. “I 
 wonder if it’s the same man I knew in 
 Paris'? Tall, good-looking, wears a long 
 beard, and sings very well.” 
 
 There was a general exclamation that 
 the description fitted exactly, and as every- 
 one knew that the one piece of information 
 vouchsafed about himself by Mr. Trevillian 
 was that he had lived on the Continent for 
 some years, the stranger was plied with 
 questions about him. 
 
 Unfortunately; however, he had very 
 little to tell. He had met the gentleman 
 in question about a dozen times, had 
 talked to him about music and politics, and 
 found him a very pleasant gentlemanly 
 fellow; but their acquaintance had been 
 confined to the Club and the Bois, and 
 he had never visited him or been 
 introduced to his wife. 
 
 “ Oh, he was married then 1 ” someone 
 said eagerly, and the speaker looked up in 
 some surprise. 
 
 “ Married 1 Certainly ; and to a very 
 nice-looking little woman. I often saw 
 them out together.” 
 
 “ I suppose there are people who would 
 call the Diana of Ephesus a ‘ nice-looking 
 little woman,’ ” said Lance in a low angry 
 tone ; but fortunately someone else spoke 
 at the same moment. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ A very pretty woman certainly. Such 
 lovely eyes ! ” 
 
 “To those who admire black eyes ; but, 
 for a Frenchwoman, I think she is pretty. 
 That neat little figure and curly black 
 hair ” 
 
 A chorus of voices interrupted him. 
 
 “ Black 1 Why, her hair is a rich red 
 
 gold, and her eyes ” 
 
 “ Were the colour of her hair,” said the 
 stranger quietly. “ If that is black now, 
 she must have dyed it ; but I didn’t know 
 ladies could dye their eyes also.” 
 
 “Mrs. Trevillian’s eyes are blue. No 
 one who had- seen her once could ever 
 forget them,” said Lance suddenly, “ and 
 as to her being little, she is taller than 
 any lady here present. I think, sir, you 
 have been mistaking some other person for 
 Mr. Trevillian’s wife.” 
 
 “And I am sure I am not,” said the 
 stranger, surprised though good-humoured. 
 “ Though I did not know Mrs. Trevillian 
 personally, several of my friends did, and 
 could tell you the same as I do. She is a 
 tiny woman, thoroughly French, and wears 
 her hair short in a crop.” 
 
 “Perhaps this lady is a second wife,” 
 said our queen very kindly, but with a 
 look of rebuke at poor Lance. 
 
 “ How long ago is it since you met them 
 in Paris, Mr. Robinson 1 ” 
 
 Mr. Robinson thought a moment. 
 
 “ About two months,” he said. “ If 
 Mrs. Trevillian is dead and her husband 
 re-married in that time, all I can say is 
 that he has been very quick about it.” 
 There was a general glancing at one 
 another, and a silence which said more 
 than words. 
 
 For my part I felt very sorry, I could 
 not help it, for the beautiful sad-eyed 
 creature all alone at the Corner House at 
 present ; but I was sorrier still when, as 
 we were walking home a little later, Lance 
 burst out wrathfully : 
 
 “What a petty, gossiping, spiteful set 
 we are ! I hope, Aunt Fanny, you’re not 
 as ready as the rest to believe all manner 
 of evil of that poor lady ? ” 
 
 “ My dear boy ” I said, quite shocked ; 
 
 but he would not let me finish. 
 
 “ All right, believe what you like ; but 
 don’t ask me to listen to it. The man 
 may be a scoundrel if you please. I 
 always thought he looked like one ; but 
 how anyone can glance at her face, and not 
 read purity and goodness in it, I can’t 
 think. If anybody has been deceived it is 
 she, and I’ll swear it.” 
 
CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.1 
 
 17 
 
 
 Lance too was going m — j 
 
 walks, and that his return home generally 
 coincided with the lighting of the lamp m 
 the parlour-window over the way. 
 
 “Oh dear! oh dear! I said to my- 
 self, “ what folly is my hoy dreaming ot 
 now 1” and I got so uneasy, being a silly 
 old woman, that one day, when Dons was 
 spending the evening out, I went for a 
 walk as® well, and chanced to meet Mrs. 
 Trevillian just as she was returning across 
 the open space of grassy ground which 
 bounded the village on that side. 
 
 It was getting late, and by the dim 
 it w« g & , h d an d 
 
 Le alter sunset. .. , , -p. 
 
 •• Yes, my dear,” I answered, but Dons 
 is in our care, and Mr. Trevillian 
 
 “Where is Mr. Trevillian 1 Lance 
 broke in contemptuously. “For aught we 
 know he may have deserted her, as he has 
 probably done his former— wife H e has 
 
 been gone a month now, and she 
 Have you noticed how pale and ll she 
 looks'! But perhaps he has reasons for 
 not staying long in England. Do y 
 know what they are saying of him now . 
 
 “ No, my dear ; what 1 
 “ That he had to leave the country some 
 J. o uio- fraud m 
 
 "it 'was getting' late, and “Td I years lgo“on"account of a big fraud in 
 
 reflected light the grass and ftUed whhdi hf was concerned. He was manager 
 the distant bty oSowefwYth of a bank, and swindled or embezded o 
 
 black whde the sky beyond g something. I daresay sh ; 
 
 something. I daresay she ne ver heard the 
 story;, but the king is awfully vexed 
 about it.” 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It was quite true. People had been 
 setting themselves to make enquiries about 
 the Trevillians, and had found out that a 
 
 black, wnue une --- 
 
 the clear green light of a jewel, agamst 
 which the tall slight figure, wrapped in a 
 long pale-coloured dust cloak, had some- 
 thing strangely ghostlike and shadowy. 
 
 She had thrown back her thick veil, how- 
 ever, on account of the heat, and I suppose 
 
 there was nothing very a , i s y ie xrevunans, aim — -\ 
 
 an old lady’s face, for her beautif y name, and answering in every 
 
 met my look quite frankly, with an P ^ descri tion> had got into some 
 
 expression of wistful, sorrowful gentleness j w y 4 orkT >f. aforementioned 
 
 • nmn mv heart. Not alto 
 
 Xhdmo^-Tormy heart °Not alto- 
 gether, however, for there in. the rear was 
 Lance: far enough off, it is true, for me 
 noTto see him at first : hut as we came 
 nearer the start with which he recognised 
 
 r and the rush of colour to his fhce were 
 
 so boyishly self-betraying, that I felt more 
 sorry than angry with him, and as I put 
 my hand on his arm, I only said : 
 
 “ Oh Lance, my dear, my dear, is this 
 
 W1 “ 6 Why not 1 ” he said petulantly. ” I’m 
 only taking a walk like yourself. Where s 
 the harm in that, auntie * 
 
 “In a walk 1 None, my dear, but— 
 forgive me, Lance-there is a great deal of 
 talk at present about that poor lady , 
 
 I take as much interest in her as i you da 
 If you compromise her name still mo 
 by following her in her walks you will 
 do her serious harm at any rate , and I 
 
 think you would be sorry for it. 
 
 His passionate answer took my breath 
 
 aW “ Sorry ! I would shoot myself rather. 
 But, Aunt Fanny, I did not ? om ® 
 to follow her— only to be in the > ne»g 
 bourhood in case she met any rude or 
 unpleasant people. There are plenty of 
 rough characters loafing about these wastes 
 after dusk, and a woman as love y as she 
 is, a stranger too Why, aunt, you 
 
 way to his description, naa goi mw 
 grievous trouble of the sort aforementioned 
 about six years ago, and had only escaped 
 a criminal prosecution by flying the country. 
 How he had managed to come back again 
 now, and under his own name, was not 
 explained ; but possibly money or interest 
 might have been used to hush up the 
 matter. There seemed no doubt, however, 
 as to his identity, and it was further said 
 that he was a married man at the time oi 
 his disgrace and flight. . . ,, 
 
 Was Mrs. Trevillian the wife m question . 
 Lance, of course, vowed that it was so and 
 that it was shame for her husband s villainy 
 which made her hide her face and lead a 
 life of seclusion; but while the subject 
 was still under discussion the gentleman 
 who gave rise to it reappeared at the 
 Corner House, and resumed his gardening 
 and walks as quietly as if he had never 
 left them off, as well as those evening 
 duets with his wife, when the two rich 
 voices, rising high above the pealing notes 
 of the organ, used to fill the summer air 
 with such strains of melody as made 
 nassers-bv pause to listen, and held us 
 hushed and breathless with delight till far 
 
 m Yet he only stayed with her five days on 
 this occasion, and when next we heard o^ 
 him it was in a character which threw a 
 still darker colour on his life. 
 
— A 
 
 18 [July 4, 1881.] CONCERNING CAMELOT. [Contacted by 
 
 _ Someone from Camelot chanced to meet 
 him at Forest Hill about five weeks after 
 his last brief visit to Camelot, and surprised 
 at seeing him there, had the curiosity to 
 follow him. He had not to go far. In 
 about five minutes Mr. Trevillian turned 
 in at the gate of one of those ordinary 
 well-to-do suburban residences which are 
 so common thereabouts. Two or three 
 children’s faces were watching for bim 
 from the parlour-window, and as he came 
 into view there was a shout of “ Papa ! ” 
 and a rush of a couple of long-legged, 
 black-eyed, foreign-looking little girls and 
 a sturdy handsome boy to greet the home- 
 comer. Greatly excited and somewhat 
 shocked, the amateur detective turned 
 away, but only as far as a baker’s shop at 
 the corner, where he proceeded to make a 
 few enquiries. To his surprise, they were 
 answered more fully than he could have 
 hoped. “Who lived at Holly Lodge? 
 Why, some people of the name of Trevillian 
 had took it about a month back, but 
 weren’t new comers for all that, for they’d 
 had a house in the same neighbourhood when 
 they were first married, and dealt here for 
 bread. They went away some five year or 
 more ago, some folks said because madame 
 (she was a Frenchwoman) didn’t like 
 England ; others because Mr. Trevillian 
 had had some business trouble; but he 
 (the baker) didn’t know nothing about 
 that. It wasn’t his way to poke his nose 
 into other people’s affairs so long as they 
 paid their bread-book reg’lar.” 
 
 The amateur detective took the hint, 
 thanked him, and departed ; but from 
 that day even those who were least prone 
 to think evil felt themselves obliged to 
 abandon Mr. Trevillian’s cause, and to 
 content themselves with holding their 
 tongues when he was spoken of. 
 
 It was with regard to the .unfortunate 
 partner in his offences that opinions were 
 still divided. Of course all idea as to her 
 being the lawful wife had had to be 
 abandoned after the Forest Hill baker’s 
 confirmation of Mr. Robinson’s story; but 
 there still remained the doubt _ whether, as 
 Lance said, she might not be equally 
 innocent and deceived as to her husband’s 
 conduct ; and this question was enough to 
 set all Camelot by the ears. 
 
 The young men of course were all 
 vehement in her defence, and so were a 
 few among the elder ones, who could not 
 help being fascinated by the exquisite 
 purity of the face which, seen so rarely at 
 other times, shone down all the rest, of her 
 
 sex every Sunday in the painfully modern- 
 mediseval little church of which Mr. Payne 
 was the vicar ; and equally, of course, all 
 the married women were dead against her, 
 and convinced that King Arthur did very 
 wrong to let such a creature live in one of 
 his houses. 
 
 Ah, dear me ! I often scolded myself for 
 it ; but down in my secret soul I could not 
 help pitying the poor woman who now 
 only received a flying visit of an hour or 
 two at rare intervals from Mr. Trevillian ; 
 and whose life might almost have been a 
 nun’s, but for an occasional visit which she 
 paid to town, and from which she used to 
 return of an evening looking so white and 
 tired that my old heart could hardly help 
 aching for her. 
 
 # Yet, rare as these excursions were, they 
 did her more harm than anything else; 
 for on one occasion she mentioned to our 
 station-master that she had lost her purse 
 in the train, she thought just before getting 
 out at Forest Hill Station ; and even this 
 got about, and you may guess how it 
 damaged her with those who, like Lance, 
 had been bold in asserting that we had no 
 reason to suppose that she was even aware 
 of the existence of the other household. 
 
 This was not the worst, however. The 
 very next time that she returned from a 
 visit to London, she was accompanied by a 
 gentleman who followed her up the High 
 Street, and overtook her just as they came 
 in front of her own house. 
 
 I was sewing at my parlour-window, and 
 saw the start she gave, and the way in 
 which her colour went first white, and 
 then red, in a way which looked far more 
 like dismay than pleasure, though Mrs. 
 McGregor, who was sitting with me, 
 thought the contrary. 
 
 A few words, very few, of evident 
 indignation on her side and appeal on his 
 followed, and then she almost hurried into 
 her own house, the door of which was 
 being held open by the old woman, and the 
 stranger, left outside, stood for a minute 
 with rather a discomfited air, and then 
 sauntered slowly away. 
 
 He did not go far, however ; only to the 
 inn, where he made various enquiries about 
 the lady of the house, speaking of her as a 
 “widow,” and manifesting much surprise 
 at hearing of Mr. Trevillian’s existence. 
 He even asked for a full description of that 
 gentleman, and having heard all that the 
 landlord had to say in the way of informa- 
 tion and gossip on the subject, sat down 
 and wrote a note to Mrs. Trevillian, which 
 
CONCERNING CAMELOT. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.1 
 
 19 
 
 Charles Dickens.] ~ - . , 
 
 — : „ j TTnr Mr Trevillian was her brother, 
 
 he despatched by the J hi more nor less, and her husband, 
 
 after, following it up by a call in person n ^ © m . 1i: fViair first cousin. 
 
 about an hour later. , 
 
 This time he was admitted, and 1 teit 
 sorry for it, for Doris, coming down from 
 her little painting-room shortly after he 
 had left, told me that poor Mrs. Trevillian 
 was sitting under the apple-tree m the 
 garden, her face hidden m her hands, and 
 crying as if her heart would break. 
 
 I think it was the following evening, 
 Lance and Doris were spending it with a 
 friend, and the postman had gone his last 
 round and departed about five minutes 
 before, when I was startled by a violent 
 knocking at the door, and going o l 
 found the old woman from over the way 
 trembling with agitation, and her face quite 
 pale, as she told me that her mistress was 
 in a fainting fit from which she couldn t 
 recover her. Would I come over, or wou 
 
 Arthur* Trevillian, was their first cousin. 
 It was he who was suspected of embezzling 
 the bank moneys, and who, in the first 
 shock to an over-sensitive, impulsive nature, 
 of discovering that a large fraud had been 
 committed through his own carelessness m 
 leaving too much in the hands of subordi- 
 nates, had done the most foolish thing an 
 innocent man could do, and fled the country 
 to escape the disgrace of the impending 
 prosecution. He left a letter behind him 
 for his brother-in-law, confiding his wife to 
 the latter’s care, and imploring the forgive- 
 ness of both for the shame he had brought 
 on them. He said he was guiltless of the 
 crime imputed to him, but his own culpable 
 folly had left him no means of proving it, 
 and rather than stand in a felons dock, or 
 still further injure the innocent woman 
 
 1 1 "1 J 1 i-L /v AY1 A'f Til Pi Tl9iTTfl(v DV 
 
 recover her. Would I come over, or would sun “-“burden of his name by 
 I let my servant go for the doctor, for h h ^ the world in the position 
 
 boy was out and she dared not le P wife ^ad resolved to escape 
 
 poor lady alone h . 
 
 Of course I went over at once, sending 
 her off for the doctor; but 7 su PP ose 1 
 knew more about faints than die did ; or 
 before many minutes I had that, poor, 
 beautiful creature, whom I found lying on 
 the floor, stiff and white as a corpse, and 
 with a crumpled letter clenched m^her 
 hand, resting in my arms, with her head 
 on my bosom and a faint colour 
 back into her cheeks as she tried to thank 
 me, and ask me what was the matter. Had 
 she been ill, and where was old Susan 
 I told her that she had fainted, and that 
 Susan was frightened and had gone for the 
 doctor; but she only heard the first 
 
 words. , 
 
 “ Fainted 1 Oh yes ; I remember now. 
 The letter ! Oh, how could I forget it 1 
 My husband, my dear husband ! Do you 
 know what has happened to me . ] He is 
 alive, and his innocence is proved ! ? Ah, 1 
 always knew it would be, some day. 
 
 “Your husband 1” I repeated, bewil- 
 
 dcrcd* • 
 
 « Yes. I have not seen him for six 
 years. He would have had me think 
 he was dead, but I knew better May I 
 tell you about it? There is no harm m 
 talking of him now, and I am so happy 
 
 so happy!” , , 
 
 And then and there she told me the 
 whole story, her head on my breast, and 
 her soft hands clasping my wrinkled fingers, 
 as if I had been her mother ; but, dear me, 
 dear me, how I blushed for our village 
 gossips before the tale was done ! 
 
 of a felon’s wife, he had resolved to escape 
 the ignominy of a trial, and only trusted 
 that death would soon release ^ e . r 
 even the shadow of a marriage which had 
 been so unfortunate to her. 
 
 Two months later, and while the pursuit 
 of him was still hot, that trust was realised, 
 for news came to England that he was 
 dead, drowned from a river steamer on the 
 Mississippi ; and the facts having been 
 verified apparently beyond dispute, the 
 search for him ceased, and his name was 
 allowed to rest in silence. Two P^P 1 ?, 
 however, never believed in his death his 
 wife and her brother ; and in her confidence 
 that he would one day return to her, and 
 establish the innocence of which she needed 
 no assurance, the former even continued to 
 live in the town and close to the house 
 where he had brought her as a bride ; and, 
 for his own safety, she wore widow s weeds 
 for him, to mourn him in her heart as 
 absent, not dead. Her life was a very sad 
 one, however, for few, even among his 
 friends, shared her faith in his innocence, 
 and her own brother’s wife was so con- 
 vinced to the contrary that, rather than 
 remain in a country where their name had 
 been so disgraced, she persuaded her 
 husband to take her back to France, thus 
 leaving her young sister-m-law more deso- 
 late than ever. The poor thing had 
 another trial too— one I could easi y 
 imagine, though she blushed like a girl m 
 owning it. Men would fall in love with 
 her and want- her to marry them ; and 
 by-and-by came a suitor more formidable 
 
20 rJuly 4, 1881.] 
 
 than the rest — a son of one of the bank 
 directors, a man who would take neither 
 rebuff nor denial, and who carried his 
 persecution of her to such a pitch that, in 
 the impossibility, for her husband’s own 
 sake, of hinting to him her reason for 
 shrinking from the idea of a second mar- 
 riage, she took the resolution of leaving 
 L — — during his temporary absence, and 
 making her home in some place where he 
 would not be likely to follow her. 
 
 In this trouble she wrote to her brother 
 to come to her, and it was he who, having 
 heard of Camelot, decided that it would 
 be the very place for her; while the idea 
 of taking the house in his name, and by 
 simply speaking of her as “Mrs. Trevillian” 
 to allow people to credit her with a 
 husband’s protection, was hers, urged on 
 him to avoid the same difficulties which 
 
 had troubled her at E . Her own 
 
 innocence, and her desire to lead as 
 secluded a life as possible, while her 
 husband’s name remained under a cloud, 
 prevented her from seeing the incon- 
 veniences to which this might expose her ; 
 while it was simply her dread of being 
 followed by the persistent suitor from 
 whom she had fled that made her go about 
 as little, and as thickly veiled, as she had 
 done. In the meantime, however, her 
 brother, feeling her need of protection, 
 had returned to England with his family, 
 and it was in one of the rare visits which 
 she felt it was her duty to make to her 
 unfriendly sister-in-law that Mrs. Arthur 
 Trevillian chanced to meet the very man 
 from which she had been hiding. How 
 he recognised and followed her we have 
 seen ; but it now transpired that the gossip 
 of the landlord at the inn had enlightened 
 him as to the imputations cast on the 
 object of his passion, and he used the dis- 
 covery to obtain admittance to her, and 
 by working on her woman’s delicacy to 
 secure the acceptance of his suit. That he 
 failed utterly in the latter it is needless to 
 say ; but none the less he left the brave 
 and long-enduring wife wounded to the 
 very soul by the news of how her fair fame 
 had been traduced, and her brother’s name 
 dragged through the mud, by people who 
 knew nothing of either, and of whom she 
 had never thought except with kindliness 
 and a little admiring envy of their pretty 
 artistic homes, and the happy social life 
 they seemed to live among one another. 
 
 “But that is all over now,” she said, wiping 
 the indignant tears from her eyes. “ The 
 man who committed the robbery, a clerk 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 in whom Arthur foolishly trusted, has con- 
 fessed to his guilt; and my darling’s 
 innocence is proved at last. He has written 
 to tell me of it himself, and to say he will 
 be in England next week. Next week ! oh 
 think of that ! He has suffered terribly, he 
 has been ill and lonely, and his hair is 
 quite white ; but he has never ceased to love 
 and watch over me from a distance, and it 
 was because he knew how true and faithful 
 I had been to him, that now that he is free 
 to come back, he is not afraid to ask my 
 forgiveness for the mistake he made in 
 ever leaving me.” 
 
 “ My dear,” I said gravely, “ he needs 
 it. It was more than a mistake, it was 
 very wrong. Suppose, believing in his 
 death, you had married again ! ” 
 
 “ In that case, he says, he had determined 
 that I should never be robbed of the 
 happiness to which I had a right by a dis- 
 covery of the truth ; and I know him well 
 enough to believe it. But why suppose 
 any such thing, or talk of wrongs or for- 
 giveness between husband and wife who 
 love one another, and have been parted as 
 long as we have 1 He is coming back to 
 me, that is all I can think of, and we shall 
 go away from this place where people 
 have gone out of their way to think evil 
 of us who never interfered with or harmed 
 them, and shall be happy again as we were 
 long ago.” 
 
 And that is what happened. Mr. 
 Trevillian arrived next week ; but neither 
 he nor his wife could forgive Camelot for 
 the way in which it had chattered about 
 her. They went away a few days later, 
 and the beautiful face and sweet voice were 
 lost to us for ever. 
 
 She wrote to me a few months after- 
 wards, it is true ; but we never saw her 
 again, and the Corner House is let to some 
 commonplace people in whom nobody takes 
 any interest whatever. 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 BY MISS MULHOLLAND. 
 
 I. 
 
 The following little comedy was opened 
 by the accidental circumstance of that 
 respectable lawyer, Mr. Benjamin Hansard, 
 having for a short time in his service an un- 
 usually absent-minded and careless servant. 
 
 One morning this domestic received a 
 note from his master, with orders to deliver 
 it at once at a certain hotel; and imme- 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ME. HANSAED’S WAED. [jm y 4, issi.] 21 
 
 diately afterwards Mr. Hansard jumped into 
 a hansom and hurried away to catch a tram 
 from London. He was hardly gone when 
 the servant with the wandering mind 
 swept the note with other litter into a 
 waste-paper basket, and sauntered forth 
 upon business or pleasure of his own. 
 
 Half an hour later a knock came to the 
 door, and a gentleman was admitted by a 
 maid-servant, who believed her master was 
 within because she had heard he was not 
 going to his chambers that morning, m 
 consequence of his expecting a visitor at 
 home. She left him in the study and went 
 up to Mr. Hansard’s bedroom door, grum- 
 bling to herself as she went at Thomas s 
 absence, and knocking, she informed, as 
 she thought, the master of the house that 
 a gentleman was waiting to see him below. 
 Then she also went out, as it was her 
 lawful holiday. , 
 
 Meantime the visitor strode about tne 
 study, stared at the calf-bound law. books 
 on the shelves, gazed out of the window, 
 sat down, got up again, and did everything 
 else that waiting people generally do. 
 While he did so he reflected : 
 
 “ I feel downright ill ever since I heard 
 that that girl is in London. If people only 
 knew the asses they make of themselves by 
 planning marriages before they die, and 
 making tyrannical conditions' as to their 
 confounded legacies, I don’t suppose they 
 would indulge in such freaks. When I 
 think of the ill-tempered, disagreeable 
 letters that young minx has been writing 
 me ever since she was fifteen I can 
 hardly make up my mind to meet her with 
 common civility. Not that I want to be 
 hard on her; she is. not mercenary cer- 
 tainly; but her impertinence in treating me 
 as if I were so as a matter of course, merely 
 because I have been, like herself, thrust 
 into a false position, is provoking, to speak 
 mildly. I am resolved that things shall be 
 placed on their proper footing from the 
 first and not all Hansard’s worldly-wise 
 pleading shall induce me to parley with 
 this intolerable young woman for a moment. 
 He shall tell her from me that I am as 
 little desirous of gaining a fortune by an 
 uncongenial marriage as she herselt can 
 possibly be. By Jove I I wish he would 
 appear. I have an appointment at twelve. 
 
 At this moment a carriage stopped at 
 the door and a lady stepped out. A second 
 maid now opened the door, and having 
 been told by the housekeeper that master 
 was waiting in to receive a visit from his 
 rich ward from America, and having heard 
 
 a man’s step in the room the moment 
 before, she informed the young lady that 
 Mr. Hansard was in his study, and ushered 
 her through the door of the room without 
 looking further. . 
 
 The impatient gentleman at the window 
 turned to look at the new comer, and saw 
 a slight, graceful, elegantly-dressed . girl, 
 with a round face as fresh and fair as 
 an apple-blossom, large grey eyes, and 
 delicate eyebrows, with that surprised 
 expression which gives piquancy to a pretty 
 face; a mouth that seemed made for 
 laughter, so rosy the lips, so white the teeth 
 they disclosed ; a dimpled chin, and brown 
 hair shot with gold. A tiny and daintily- 
 gloved hand did not escape him, indeed 
 was unexpectedly forced upon his notice 
 as the girl advanced quickly to meet him, 
 saying : 
 
 “ I am so glad to meet you at last, Mr. 
 Hansard, to thank you for all the trouble 
 you have taken for me during so many 
 years.” 
 
 Mr. Hansard’s waiting visitor was 
 amazed, but not being a dull, man he 
 grasped the situation at once, with all its 
 absurdity. . 
 
 “ By Jove ! ” was his first reflection, 
 
 “ and this is Henrietta Featherstonhaugh ! 
 She is not long enough for such a name. .1 
 fancied her as tall as a maypole. This is 
 the girl who told me she was as ugly as 
 she was ignorant and ill-tempered ! If 
 temper and education keep pace with her 
 looks — she is an angel ! ” 
 
 After this flash of thought the. gentle- 
 man took her hand gravely, and said : 
 
 “My dear Miss Featherstonhaugh, I am 
 delighted to see you.” 
 
 “ I can’t think of anything else he ought 
 to say just at the first moment,” reflected 
 our hero ; “ but that much is safe, and I 
 will certainly prolong this misunderstand- 
 ing to the utmost, let the after-consequences 
 be what they may. I hope Hansard has 
 fallen asleep upstairs, and that he may not 
 come down for the next hour.” 
 
 Having shaken hands, they changed 
 their relative positions, and the light falling 
 full upon the gentleman the lady gazed at 
 him fixedly, while an expression of lively 
 surprise sat upon all her features. 
 
 « Excuse me if I stare,” she said, with 
 an enchanting smile, “but I thought — I 
 really don’t know why — I seemed to have 
 been told — that you were quite an elderly 
 person.” 
 
 “ And you do not think me looking old.i 
 I must confess, however, that my hair is 
 
22 [July 4, 1881.] MR. HANSARD’S WARD. [Conducted by 
 
 getting thin on the top. You will hardly 
 
 perceive it here, hut in a better light ” 
 
 “ That happens with all young men 
 nowadays ” (joyously) ; “at least, all who 
 have brains.” 
 
 The imaginary Mr. Hansard bowed. 
 “ Allow me to say, in my turn, that I was 
 totally unprepared to see so charming a 
 young lady — after your descriptions of 
 yourself.” 
 
 “I am glad I please you,” said Miss 
 Featherstonhaugh simply. “As for some 
 things I said, you know they were to 
 frighten off that odious George Gains- 
 borough. And you must help me to keep 
 up the disgust in his mind. You will, I 
 am sure, enter into my little plans. You 
 seem the sort of man who might prefer to 
 marry a person chosen by himself, some- 
 one whom you really liked. You — ah — I 
 forgot ! I know — at least, I heard — that 
 you — you have five grown-up children.” 
 
 “ And are a widower,” added her 
 thoughts; but she said no more, only gazed 
 at the young man before her, bewildered. 
 
 “ That was a mistake,” said the young 
 man gravely, after a severe struggle to 
 master the muscles of his face. “But 
 about this Gainsborough. If you do not 
 
 already prefer someone else ” 
 
 “ 1 1 ” — with a little laugh of scornful 
 surprise — “ Oh no ; nor do I mean to.” 
 
 “ Then why nourish such enmity against 
 him % He may be a very fine fellow, if you 
 only allow yourself to know him.” 
 
 “ I could not bear the very sight of 
 him,” cried Henrietta. “ If you but knew 
 how that man has poisoned my existence 
 ever since I can remember. If I went out 
 in the sun, it was : ‘ Oh, you will be 
 freckled, and Mr. Gainsborough will not 
 look at you ! * If I did not learn my 
 lessons, it was : ‘ Oh, Mr. Gainsborough 
 will have nothing to do with a dunce ! ’ 
 If I would not eat I was to be too thin ; 
 if I ate enough I was to be too fat to hit 
 the fastidious taste of Mr. George Gains- 
 borough. ‘ And then/ they said, ‘ you know 
 you will lose your fortune.’ That was the 
 constant cry. It was not for love’s sake I 
 was to please Mr. Gainsborough, but to save 
 my money. When I was fifteen I took the 
 matter into my own hands, as you know, 
 and determined to make him hate the 
 thought of me. I said to myself, I am 
 quite sick of being an heiress, so rich that 
 I am nothing else, but only rich ; and as for 
 depriving him — why a man ought to be 
 able to work, and earn for himself.” 
 
 “ True ; but you ” 
 
 “ You know, Mr. Hansard, that I shall 
 have a hundred a year when I am twenty- 
 one, and still a spinster. It is not 
 muchj I shall have to give up wearing 
 these "pretty clothes and things. But then 
 I intend to see the world and to work. 
 I have already got a plan. I will tell you 
 all about it another time.” 
 
 “ Why not now 1” 
 
 “ Because I have got so much else to 
 say. First of all though, my chaperon has 
 obeyed you and brought me to England, 
 and I have also obeyed in allowing her to 
 bring me. I may as well tell you at 
 once that I never should have come, only 
 that I wanted to see England, and prefer 
 to carry out my own little plans here. 
 Besides, I thought you would have a 
 kindly eye over me, for I don’t want to do 
 anything too dreadfully wild, you know. 
 Though I do mean to have my own way, I 
 would like your advice.” 
 
 “ I see. As a lawyer, I am not unused 
 to have my advice sought in that spirit.” 
 “And, first of all, I want to impress 
 upon you that I can have no meeting with 
 George Gainsborough. I will not see him, 
 will not hear a word he has to say. It was 
 chiefly with a view to this that I was so 
 anxious to see you at once. You must 
 help me to keep him off.” 
 
 “You may change your mind.” 
 
 “ Never. The other matter I wish to con- 
 sult you about is this. You know that when, 
 at twenty-one, I am found still unmarried 
 my fortune goes to some old ladies, cousins 
 of my uncle who left me this troublesome 
 inheritance. I believe they are poorly off, 
 and I have always felt that injustice had 
 been done to them in order to make a sort 
 of golden idol of me. Now when that is 
 all put straight, I shall be perfectly content. 
 I hope you understand me.” 
 
 “ I am afraid I do,” said the supposed 
 Mr. Hansard, looking at the blooming 
 lively face lifted to his, and feeling pro- 
 voked, bewitched, charmed, and angry. 
 “ I fear I do , but, fortunately, there are yet 
 some months in which to reconsider your 
 decision.” 
 
 “ If you are going back upon all that, 
 I will say good-morning,” cried Miss 
 Featherstonhaugh, “and, indeed, I have a 
 great deal to do to-day, and must go and 
 set about it. Good-bye, Mr. Hansard, and 
 try to think my actions do not all spring 
 from unworthy caprice. If you only knew 
 what a thraldom I have suffered, and how 
 I gasp for fresh air !” 
 
 He held her hand for one moment, took 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 23 
 
 a last look at her roselike face, and then 
 in a little breeze of laughter, perfume, and 
 musical words she fluttered out of the 
 room. He saw her into her carriage ; she 
 nodded 'brightly, and was gone. 
 
 The supposed guardian then rang the 
 bell violently ; and upon ascertaining that 
 Mr. Hansard was not in the house, went 
 away in a very impatient frame of mind, to 
 pass the time that must intervene before 
 the lawyer’s return. 
 
 it; 
 
 Late that evening Mr. Hansard, an 
 elderly dignified man with a grave reticent 
 countenance, was sitting over his wine 
 when Mr. Gainsborough was announced. 
 
 « My dear fellow,” said the lawyer, 
 
 “ I am so glad you came. I have been 
 quite distressed by the curious mistakes 
 which it appears have been made to- 
 day by my domestics. All the fault of 
 that forgetful rascal, who, I see, must 
 go at last. I left a message for you that 
 I was obliged unexpectedly to leave 
 town; also a note to be delivered at 
 Miss Featherstonhaugh’s hotel, putting on 
 my interview with her till to-morrow ; and 
 neither reached its destination. I fear you 
 and she met under peculiarly awkward 
 circumstances, and I have just written to 
 apologise to her. I was about to do the 
 same to you— — ” 
 
 “ A note of explanation to her, inter- 
 rupted Gainsborough eagerly. “ Has it 
 left the house 1 
 
 “ I hope so. But, really, that fellow—— 
 
 “ Excuse me, Hansard, but may I ring 
 and ask 1 If it be not gone, let me tear 
 up the note.” 
 
 Mr. Hansard stared. 
 
 “ What do you mean % ” 
 
 “I will tell you afterwards. May I 
 ring ? ” 
 
 At a nod from the lawyer he rang. The 
 servant appeared, declaring that he was 
 just going out with the letter. 
 
 “ Give it to me,” said his master ; and 
 after the door had closed upon the man, 
 he handed the letter to Gainsborough, who 
 deliberatelv tore it across. 
 
 “ I met her to-day,” said the young man, 
 smiling, “under the most curious circum- 
 stances — not awkward, but peculiarly 
 delightful. She took me for you.” 
 
 The lawyer laughed. 
 
 “I am complimented,” he said. “Not 
 every young fellow would be flattered at 
 such a mistake.” 
 
 “ We got on excellently. She gave me 
 
 some of her confidence, and promised me 
 more. I cannot have her enlightened at 
 present. I have laid a little plot to 
 punish her impertinence, to have my 
 revenge for her malice. Allow us to 
 make further acquaintance.” 
 
 “ Let me understand you. This young 
 lady, whatever be her faults, is under my 
 guardianship. Do you intend to annoy 
 and wound her merely, or would you after 
 all marry, merely to spite her, a plain, 
 ignorant, ill-tempered girl 1” 
 
 “My dear Hansard, she is simply en- 
 chanting ! ” „ 
 
 The lawyer elevated his eyebrows and 
 looked incredulous. 
 
 “ Have we not seen her photograph 1 ” 
 
 “ No more her photograph than it was 
 yours or mine. That was a part of her 
 plan to get rid of me. She is lovely, 
 elegant, piquante, bewitching ! No wonder 
 she was indignant at being bought and 
 sold. I admire her pluck. I tell you I 
 never was so captivated.” 
 
 “ Humph ! You have fallen in love 
 with her at first sight. Capital ! And 
 she V” 
 
 “As you, I think she liked me very 
 
 well. But as myself By Jovel 
 
 how she does hate me ! Had your note 
 of explanation gone she would never have 
 looked at me again. If you allow me to 
 pass as you for some time longer I„ may 
 punish her by winning her affections.” 
 
 Mr. Hansard sipped his wine. 
 
 “ I have met with many curious situations 
 in the course of my long experience, he 
 said, “ but never with one more amusing 
 than this. You know, my dear fellow, 
 that it has always been my wish to see 
 you married to the wealthy niece of my old 
 friend. You are a man of brilliant parts, 
 and that longing of yours after a parlia- 
 mentary career ” 
 
 “ Pshaw ! ” said Gainsborough impa- 
 tiently. “ I was not thinking of the 
 money at all. I have my profession, and, 
 as she said, £ a man ought to be able to 
 work for himself.’ If she prefers to be a 
 poor man’s wife we can wait till the stipu- 
 lated time is over, endow the old ladies 
 with the money, and be happy in her way. 
 
 “ Ahem ! ” said Mr. Hansard, looking at 
 his young friend’s flushed face and spark- 
 ling eyes. “ The fellow is in earnest, he 
 reflected. “I will give him his head, and 
 we shall see what will come of it.” 
 
 “ Well i ” he said aloud. “ What would 
 you have me to do to further your 
 scheme ] ” 
 
2i 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. [Conducted by 
 
 “ If necessary, you must personate me, 
 George Gainsborough.” 
 
 “ The devil ! Are you going to make a 
 harlequin of me at my time of life 1 ” 
 
 “ I see,” said Gainsborough, laughing, 
 
 “ you are still young enough to object to 
 being made an object of disgust to a pretty 
 girl.” 
 
 “ How am I to proceed ? ” 
 
 “We must have a George Gainsborough 
 to bring forward if occasion should arise. 
 If not, we may be discovered. You 'will 
 not refuse!” 
 
 “On the contrary — I will go farther. I 
 will not wait for a case of necessity. I 
 will call to-morrow and send up my card, 
 that there may be no mistake. I mean 
 your card. If she sees me, I will be as 
 stiff and elderly as possible, and bore her 
 to death.” 
 
 “ And you will abuse me — I mean you, 
 Hansard, accusing him of being the cause 
 of our bad understanding 1 ” 
 
 “Assuredly. I will rouse her feminine 
 spirit in your behalf.” 
 
 hi. 
 
 Next day George Gainsborough pre- 
 sented himself at Miss Featherstonhaugh’s 
 hotel. In a bright room, and without her 
 hat, she looked even more delightful than at 
 their first interview, a perfect rosebud, and 
 shining with an archness and intelligence 
 that does not always accompany the rose- 
 bud style of beauty. She ran to meet him 
 with outstretched hands, exclaiming : 
 
 “ Ah, my guardian ! I am so pleased 
 to see you. I want to tell you that the 
 odious Gainsborough has been here 
 already.” 
 
 “ I am glad you have been induced to 
 see him.” 
 
 “ I ? Oh no ! I would not see him. 
 At least, I beheld him ; but it was through 
 a chink of that door. Nothing will induce 
 me to hold intercourse with him.” 
 
 “ What am I to understand 1 ” 
 
 “ He called this morning so early that it 
 is evident he can’t be a well-bred man.” 
 
 “ I wonder what o’clock it is now.” 
 
 “ Oh, never mind. You can call when 
 you like. Are you not my guardian 1 
 But he — ; well, he sent up his card, and I 
 made Mrs. Slumberton, my chaperon, re- 
 ceive him. Even she, who is always lec- 
 turing and advising me for my good, was 
 shocked to find that he is quite bald and 
 elderly. As for me — I could not help 
 taking a peep at him through that folding- 
 door, which does not shut properly ; and 
 
 what with his oldness and his prosy talk, 
 
 I have not recovered from it yet ! ” 
 
 “ Poor fellow ! It seems he has only 
 diminished his chance with you.” 
 
 “ He never had any. Not a fragment. 
 My instincts are never at fault, and from 
 the first I knew he was intolerable.” 
 
 “Iam afraid he is going to give us some 
 trouble.” 
 
 “ Then I will give him trouble for 
 trouble, I can assure you. Yesterday I 
 told you I had some plans to confide to 
 you. Will you sit down and give me a 
 hearing 1 ” 
 
 “Willingly. I am bound to give you 
 all my attention.” 
 
 “No, you are not bound. I hate being 
 bound. I will not have anyone bound on 
 my account. The only thing worth having 
 in this world is liberty.” 
 
 “ Then, as I am not bound, I had better 
 go away and keep an appointment with a 
 person who likes being bound.” 
 
 She looked very blank and sighed. 
 “ Of course, if you must. But I thought 
 
 you might wish ” 
 
 “ I do wish. Hang my appointment ! ” 
 The girl laughed gleefully. “ How very 
 unlike the language of a guardian. Oh, 
 you ought to have been Mr. Gainsborough, 
 and Mr. Gainsborough ought to have been 
 you ! ” 
 
 “ Ahem ! ” said George. “ I assure you 
 we are two very different persons. But if 
 you would like me to copy his manners — ” 
 “ For Heaven’s sake, no ! I only meant 
 that guardians are so different — in books, 
 you know. I never knew one out of a 
 book before. But everything in this 
 world is, I observe, exactly opposite to 
 what it is supposed to be.” 
 
 “ That is the result of your long 
 experience ? But about this Gains- 
 borough. I do confess he is not worthy of 
 you. I have known him to be taken for 
 the father of five grown-up children.” 
 
 “ He is old enough to be my father, I 
 am sure. Here is my plan. I told you I 
 intend to relinquish the fortune, and to 
 strike out an independent career for 
 myself.” 
 
 “ Doctor, or lawyer ? ” 
 
 “ Nonsense ! As if I could be either ! 
 No, I intend to be a poultry-farmer.” 
 
 “ Capital ! ” . 
 
 “ My intimate friends call me Hen. A 
 good name to start with.” 
 
 Excellent ! ” 
 
 “ I have lately learned that my poor old 
 ladies, whom I have deprived of a com- 
 
:fi=D 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ME. HANSAED’S WARD. 
 
 [July 4, 1881-1 25 
 
 fortable income, are in Sussex, trying to 
 eke out their subsistence by the culture 
 and sale of fowls.” 
 
 “ Indeed.” 
 
 “ And as they want a girl-assistant, I 
 have offered for the situation. 
 
 “ The very thing.” # 
 
 Henrietta looked at him with. a little 
 dismay. “ I think it the very thing ; but 
 it would be kinder of you to disagree with 
 me. I shall have to give up a good deal ; 
 and I daresay I shall look hideous in a 
 brown holland pinafore and a pair of 
 wooden clogs.” 
 
 “ I cannot tell till I have seen you thus 
 arrayed. Afterwards I will give you my 
 candid opinion.” 
 
 “ Oh, you will come to see me] 
 
 “ As your guardian it will be only 
 correct.” 
 
 “ But they must not know you are my 
 guardian. It would spoil everything were 
 they to discover who I am.” 
 
 “ Then I must come as a purchaser of 
 poultry.” 
 
 “ That will be charming. After 1 have 
 passed the age of twenty-one, and seen the 
 property devolve upon the old ladies, I 
 will take up the business on my own 
 account, and develop into a thriving 
 poultry farmer.” # , n 
 
 “ And confess your identity % 
 u That is as may be when the time shall 
 arrive. Perhaps I shall be afraid of the 
 lamentations of my old ladies. I do not 
 know. I will not be bound. 
 
 “ And when do you intend to join your 
 old ladies ] ” 
 
 < ‘That will depend on the answer I 
 receive to my application. Of course I 
 shall let you know before I start for Daisy 
 Farm.” 
 
 As Gainsborough walked away from the 
 hotel, he reflected that things were taking 
 a capital turn ; for although he must have 
 more opportunities of meeting Henrietta 
 in London, yet there, every moment was 
 likely to bring frustration of his plans by 
 revealing his identity to the wilful girl. 
 Frequent visits to Sussex, in the character 
 of a fowl-fancier, must be the means 
 through which to carry on his suit. 
 
 He must at once begin to get up some 
 knowledge of poultry, so as to be able to 
 sustain creditably the part he was to play 
 at Daisy Farm. He went off to search for 
 books on the subject, his mind filled with 
 visions of Hen in brown holland and 
 wooden clogs, selling her chickens to him, 
 a connoisseur from a distance ; a merry 
 
 secret, shared between them,, shining in 
 their eyes as they made their bargains, 
 and the old ladies standing innocently by. 
 
 That evening, as he was relating his 
 experiences to his friend at the house of 
 the latter, the postman brought a. dainty 
 note, addressed in pretty handwriting to 
 Mr. Hansard. . 
 
 “Which of us shall open it ]” said George. 
 “ It is addressed to you.” 
 
 “ But it is meant for you.” 
 
 It was opened and found to contain 
 information of the fact that Miss Feath.er- 
 stonliaugh, having obtained the situation 
 she sought as assistant fowl-cultivator with 
 the ladies in Sussex, was to start for Daisy 
 Farm on the following morning. 
 
 “ And I shall at once set to work, she 
 said, “to fatten the best pair of chickens 
 for you.” 
 
 IV. 
 
 Wintry sunlight was streaming over 
 the downs, flittering through the bare 
 brown woods of Sussex. The roads were 
 covered with snow, the ponds with ice, all 
 the little paths leading through the Daisy 
 Farm were slippery and dangerous, and a 
 bright glow of firelight shone through the 
 wide window of the quaint old parlour. 
 Upstairs in a large old-fashioned room four 
 figures were squatted on the floor, bending 
 eagerly with faces full of anxiety over a 
 square box which stood in the centre of 
 the apartment. Was this some grotesque 
 wooden idol, all the more sacred because 
 so shapeless, and were these the . isolated 
 worshippers of some. secret paganism] Or 
 was the object — yes, it was an incubator. 
 
 The three worshippers were Miss Priscilla, 
 Miss Anne, and Miss Sophy Hyde, with 
 their new assistant, a girl with the peculiar 
 and appropriate name of Hen. 
 
 “ You see it is quite new to us all, my 
 dear,” said Miss Priscilla, a tall, thin, 
 determined-looking lady, with white cork- 
 screw curls and the narrowest of black 
 gowns; “but it is interesting to think 
 that a vast fortune is enclosed for us. within 
 these four little wooden walls. It is quite 
 awful to take up your pen and make a 
 calculation of the number.of living creatures 
 one can conjure out of this inanimate thing 
 in a year, to enrich ourselves and increase 
 the supply of food for mankind.” 
 
 “It makes my head go round,” mur- 
 mured Miss Sophy, who had rosy cheeks, 
 and misty blue eyes that peered mildly 
 through spectacles. 
 
 “ Had we not better proceed to turn the 
 
26 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 eggs % ” said Miss Anne, a sharp-featured, 
 good-hiunoured woman, who was the most 
 practical of the three sisters. 
 
 “ All in good time,” said Miss Priscilla, 
 asserting her right to lead, and looking 
 round for the books which Miss Anne 
 placed in her lap. “ Shall we take French or 
 English advice'?” she continued, looking 
 from one to another of the open volumes 
 before her. 
 
 “The whole thing is French manufac- 
 ture,” said Miss Anne; “but French or 
 English, there is only one way of turning 
 eggs.” 
 
 “ Pardon, sister,” said Miss Priscilla. 
 “ If we were to turn them merely in our 
 character of human beings that might be 
 so, but we are called upon to play the part 
 of mother hens. Twice in twenty-four 
 hours the hen scratches about with her 
 claws and turns the eggs in a manner 
 peculiar to herself. Let us consider how 
 best to imitate her movements. Hen, my 
 dear, this is a part you will have to perform 
 every day. You had better begin at once.” 
 
 Hen, prettier than ever in a large white 
 apron that covered her from shoulders to 
 ankles, advanced upon her knees to the 
 open drawer of the incubator, and began a 
 light scrambling movement with her little 
 fingers among the eggs, making them roll 
 over, and change places with each other, 
 without crack or breakage. 
 
 “ Good !” said Miss Priscilla, patting her 
 cheek. “ It must have been some pre- 
 vision in your god-parents that made them 
 name you Hen. A special providence has 
 sent you to us.” 
 
 A large black kettle was now introduced, 
 and the four ladies were enveloped in 
 clouds of steam, looking more than ever 
 like priestesses of some mysterious rite 
 looming through incense, while the reser- 
 voir of the incubator was solemnly and 
 cautiously refilled with boiling water. 
 
 “Ah!” said Miss Priscilla, retiring to 
 her desk in the window, and laying the 
 tip of her penholder against the bridge of 
 her nose, while she mused aloud. “ What 
 a calculation I have made, my fellow- 
 workers ! Fifty chicks of a costly breed at 
 present within the incubator, value, when 
 fattened, at least ten shillings apiece ! 
 Total, twenty-five pounds. Each incubator 
 will produce twenty-five pounds within 
 tw,enty-one days. More than four hundred 
 a year out of one incubator, my dear ; and 
 is there any reason why we should not 
 multiply our incubators 1 Suppose we have 
 twenty incubators. I will just ask you, 
 
 Anne, to calculate the amount of the riches 
 that are about to flow in upon us.” 
 
 “ It makes my head go round,” repeated 
 Miss Sophy. 
 
 “ I am afraid to put a name upon 
 it,” said Miss Priscilla. “I never was 
 of a grasping nature. Our gains might 
 be almost limitless were we servers of 
 Mammon ; but I, for one, will be content 
 to stop short at ten thousand a year.” 
 
 “Don’t count your chickens before they’re 
 hatched !” said Miss Anne with sardonic 
 good humour. 
 
 “ You were always a doubter,” said Miss 
 Priscilla ; “ but I shall be glad if you can 
 tell me where the hitch can come from 
 now ?• I can prove my case to you in 
 black and white.” 
 
 “ In the first place, how do you expect 
 to afford to buy twenty incubators l” 
 
 “ That, I grant you, is a difficulty with 
 our straitened means ; but time will arrange 
 all. Out of the produce of each drawerful of 
 eggs, we can take the price of an incubator, 
 or perhaps two.” 
 
 “ The price of twenty would be eighty 
 pounds,” said Hen. 
 
 “ Exactly,” said Miss Priscilla. 
 
 “ And twenty incubators, worth four 
 hundred pounds' a year each, would 
 realise ” 
 
 Hen took out her pocket-book and 
 scribbled. 
 
 “I am delighted to find you so accurate 
 and businesslike, my dear,” said Miss 
 Priscilla, who thought she saw her making 
 calculations with her pencil; but what Hen 
 wrote was as follows : 
 
 “ My dear Guardian, — Please send, 
 by to-morrow’s post, a bank bill for one 
 hundred pounds, addressed to Miss Hyde 
 at this place, with a line stating that it is 
 conscience-money, due to her father’s 
 daughter, from one who wishes to remain 
 unknown. — Yours, “ Hen.” 
 
 Next morning, as the Miss Hydes sat 
 at breakfast in their pretty old parlour, 
 while the robins fed outside the wide 
 window on the crumbs spread for them on 
 the snow, the hundred-pound bill dropped 
 out of a letter on Miss Priscilla’s plate. 
 
 “ More than the price of twenty incu- 
 bators!” she cried in joy and amazement. 
 
 “ Oh, how our dear father must have been 
 cheated by someone ! Now, indeed, sisters, 
 our fortunes must be made.” 
 
 The twenty incubators were ordered 
 from France, and then arose a question of 
 where to put them, and by what contri- 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 vance they were to be replenished twice a 
 day with boiling water. 
 
 u We must have a large outhouse built 
 for the purpose of their accommodation,'’ 
 said Miss Priscilla, “ and furnished with a 
 copper to hold a constant supply of water 
 on the boil.” 
 
 “ And an unlimited amount of coal,” said 
 Miss Anne. “ Meantime, I should be glad 
 to see one of our egg-shells chipped.” 
 
 “ I have just been looking,” said Miss 
 Sophy, “but I see no chip as yet.” 
 
 “ You must not look too frequently,” 
 said Miss Priscilla. “ It is highly dangerous 
 to open the drawer often.” 
 
 “ Would the eggs explode 1 ” asked 
 Hen. 
 
 “No, my dear; but too many puffs of 
 cool air might blight the little lives within 
 the shells.” 
 
 “Then a drawerful may be easily lost ?” 
 
 “ Most easily.” 
 
 “ Twenty-five pounds gone ! ” said Miss 
 Anne. 
 
 “Anne,” said Miss Priscilla gently, “do 
 not look so unkindly on the gloomy side 
 of things. You damp one’s spirits.” 
 
 v. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 27 
 
 of the little 
 
 The snow had vanished away, and 
 within the large kitchen-garden at Daisy 
 Farm all the fruit-trees had burst into 
 blossom. Wreaths of pink and white 
 foamy bloom draped the high walls and 
 the apple and cherry trees. All along the 
 back of one wall a large shed had been 
 built and thatched over, and within this 
 stood the twenty incubators and the copper 
 for boiling water. 
 
 Hen had just emerged from this build- 
 ing, and was walking down the path of the 
 garden, driving a little flock of yellow 
 chicks before her with a sallow wand. A 
 broad shepherdess-hat sheltered her head 
 from the already brilliant sun, and the 
 dreaded coarse strong shoes encased her 
 little feet. She was a picture of the goose- 
 girl in the story. Miss Priscilla Hyde 
 lifted the latch of the kitchen-garden door 
 and ushered in a gentleman whom Hen’s 
 heart recognised with a bound. 
 
 Said Miss Priscilla : 
 
 “ This is Mr. Hansard, who visited us 
 before, and is a connoisseur of poultry. He 
 desires to add to his collection by selec- 
 tions from our stock. I must leave him 
 to your care for a short time, and will 
 return as soon as possible.” 
 
 As soon as she was gone, the connoisseur 
 
 gazed merrily in the eyes 
 hen-wife. 
 
 “ Well, how goes it all, my most wilful 
 ward 1” 
 
 “ Beautifully. Just look at my flock ot 
 fifty chicks ! ” 
 
 “Fifty chicks! After a struggle of 
 three months, and an outlay of two 
 hundred pounds !” 
 
 “ Well, sir, what would you have % We 
 are only at the beginning of our career.” 
 
 “ I visited, on my way here, a lady who 
 has produced a hundred fine fowl since 
 Christmas, and never saw an incubator.” 
 
 “ She must be a narrow-minded person. 
 
 1 1 tell you we are looking to the future.” 
 
 | “ And how many more hundred-pound 
 
 bills will you spend before the future 
 begins to arrive ? ” 
 
 “Your views are sordid, Mr. Hansard.” 
 “And yours are visionary.” 
 
 “ I tell you I will not have my dear old 
 ladies disappointed. Besides, you know, I 
 am laying up a provision for my own old 
 age. I shall take all this off their hands 
 after they have succeeded to my fortune.” 
 “That is, if you do not marry Mr. 
 George Gainsborough.” 
 
 “ If ! Mr. Hansard, if you only came 
 here to insult me, I beg you will take your 
 departure at once.” 
 
 “All in good time. He told me he had 
 paid you a visit here, also as a connoisseur.” 
 
 “ Oh yes, and how delighted dear Miss 
 Priscilla was ! ‘ My dear, all the connois- 
 
 seurs are finding us out,’ she said to me. 
 
 ‘ It must be a lucky omen.’ ” 
 
 “ He made a good hit on that occasion, 
 
 I understand; was able to be very useful 
 to you.” 
 
 “ The wretch ! he dared to prescribe for 
 our ailing nursery, and poisoned them all” 
 “What?” 
 
 “ I was sitting on one side of the parlour 
 fire, and Miss Sophy on the other, and we 
 had each a poor sick dear of a chick rolled 
 up in hot flannel in our laps. That was 
 bad enough, as the poor little martyrs 
 ought to have been out pecking about in 
 the fresh air instead of being roasted alive 
 at the fire. Divers draperies were hanging 
 up in irregular places to screen the gasping 
 creatures from the breath of air that would 
 have given them life. In came Mr. Gains- 
 borough, the audacious creature, to perse- 
 cute me even in my obscurity. He 
 pretended to know all about the . diseases 
 of chickens, and advised me to give them 
 pills of cayenne pepper and butter. We 
 obeyed him, and dosed our chicks to death. 
 
, 5 = 
 
 
 28 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 poisoned onr baby-chicks with cayenne 
 pepper.” 
 
 The cayenne pepper finished their miser- 
 able career, and what a wretched evening 
 that was after he left ! Miss Sophy and I 
 wept over our murdered chicks.” 
 
 “ I begin to fear poor Gainsborough was 
 born under an unlucky star ; but let us 
 forget both him and the chickens for a 
 little while. Do you know, I find this 
 garden the most perfect Paradise I ever 
 entered. Was the sky ever so blue before, 
 or were fruit blossoms ever so fresh and 
 beautiful 1 I could imagine this the 
 Garden of Eden, and you and me the only 
 creatures inhabiting it.” 
 
 Hen looked up at him radiantly. 
 
 “ Don’t, please,” she said ; “ don’t 
 
 distract my mind from my business. You 
 are a guardian and I am a hen-wife. A 
 hen-wife at so much wages per week 
 knows nothing about Gardens of Eden.” 
 
 “ Rut when that person at so much per 
 week creates the Garden of Eden around 
 her 'l At this moment I cannot imagine a 
 Paradise without a hen-wife in it.” 
 
 “ This moment ! And the next 1 ?” 
 p “This moment and for ever are the 
 same to my mind. I have seen a vision of 
 happiness that may melt away as the blos- 
 soms will vanish from these exquisite trees. 
 Should it be so, I am a broken man. I ” 
 
 “Here is Miss Priscilla,” said Hen, 
 smiling mischievously, while she slyly 
 dashed off a happy tear from her eyelashes. 
 
 “ Hang Miss Priscilla !” muttered the 
 supposed connoisseur. 
 
 “ I have been consulting my practical 
 sister Anne,” said Miss Hyde, “ and she 
 agrees with me that it will be better to 
 keep the fowls for you a little longer, and 
 to let them be well grown and fattened 
 before they are transferred to a new 
 home.” 
 
 “Capital idea!” said George, greatly 
 relieved to think he need not yet pay the 
 awkward penalty of his visits. 
 
 “Our little maid here will take good 
 care of them for you. And, perhaps, you 
 will come soon again to have a look at their 
 progress ?” 
 
 “ Willingly,” said George, beaming upon 
 her. 
 
 “You and another gentleman connoisseur 
 have agreed to take the entire flock from 
 us. I think you know Mr. Gainsborough. 
 Perhaps you will come together some 
 day 1” 
 
 “ No,” said Hen, stamping her little foot. 
 
 “My dear!” said Miss Priscilla, in 
 amazed remonstrance. 
 
 “I hate him!” said Hen. “He — he 
 
 “ My dear, you must leave my business 
 arrangements to me,” said Miss Priscilla, 
 administering the nearest approach to a 
 snub that Hen had received since entering 
 her service. 
 
 And then she carried the connoisseur 
 away with her, and the hen-wife was left 
 alone in the kitchen-garden, staring at the 
 bloom-covered fruit-trees in a dream, while 
 the chicks pecked about, and ran where 
 they ought not to go, and their mistress 
 thought blissfully and a little anxiously of 
 what their new owner had said about 
 Paradise. 
 
 VI. 
 
 A week later Miss Sophy and Hen were 
 busy among the incubators enveloped in 
 clouds of steam. The drawers had been 
 visited and the eggs inspected and turned. 
 
 “I begin to fear with Anne,” whispered 
 Miss Sophy, “ that our fortunes will not be 
 made as rapidly as Priscilla thinks. Here 
 we have all this expensive machinery, and 
 after all the village schoolmistress has as 
 many fowls as we have. And she never 
 saw a wooden mother but ours in her 
 life.” 
 
 “I don’t believe much in the good of 
 fortunes,” said Hen sagely. “If we all 
 amuse ourselves, and get enough bread-and- 
 butter to eat, what does it matter about the 
 rest It ” 
 
 “ You are young and strong,” said Miss 
 Sophy, “ and it is all fun to you. But I 
 may say to you with the frogs, ‘ What is 
 play to you is death to us.’ We are getting, 
 at least Priscilla is getting old, and we 
 were delicately reared and brought up to 
 expect a provision for our latter days. All 
 our lives we were taught to expect a fortune 
 to come to us.” 
 
 “Indeed!” said Hen. “Do tell me 
 about it, dear Miss Sophy.” 
 
 “You are such a sympathetic creature I 
 don’t mind, though Priscilla and Anne 
 would be so angry if they knew. The 
 fact is, a fortune which is ours by right, 
 has been willed away to a little chit of an 
 American girl, and we are left out in the 
 cold. She is in America, and we don’t 
 know anything about her. Sisters are so 
 proud they never would make the smallest 
 enquiry. Shut themselves up from all 
 knowledge concerning her. But it is a 
 little hard, is it not ?” 
 
 “Shameful!” said Hen. “Couldn’t it 
 be taken from her ? ” 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 29 
 
 «0h no, no. Nor would we wish it. 
 
 Only there might have been shares. How- 
 even don’t speak or think of it, my dear 
 I am only afraid now that we may lose our 
 little all in this venture ; after so many 
 frugal and laborious years. 
 
 “You shall have the money, poor dears 
 thought Hen. “ Oh to think of that 
 monster Gainsborough grasping to get it. 
 
 I shall take care he does not, however. 
 
 Ah here he is!” as the door of the kitchen- 
 
 garden opened and the supposed George 
 Gainsborough, the real Hansard, entered 
 « Here is one of our connoisseurs,^ said 
 Miss Sophy, adjusting her spectacles. And 
 
 here is the other, she added, asto > rea 
 George appeared behind him. Well, 1 
 think we may safely deliver them their 
 
 Pr M^s fl pris S ciUa d and Miss Anne followed 
 the gentlemen into the garden, for a 
 solemn and memorable moment was at 
 aand — the moment when the firstlings of 
 ;heir flock, the darlings they had ; cherished 
 rnd tended, were to be bartered into the 
 
 justody of strangers. All moved on l 
 solemn procession round the garden, 
 
 Astern and Hen, and the connoisseurs, 
 so wards the hen-house. Miss PnsciUa ^pur- 
 posely lingered and prolonged the walk, 
 pointing out certain super-excellent fruit- 
 ■rees, and descanting on lettuces, cauli 
 lowers and parsley, with a weak desire to 
 put off the evil day, and to delay the final 
 
 parting with the feathered nurselings. 
 
 Meantime, the supposed Gainsborough, 
 she real Hansard, grave, dignified, with his 
 nost solemn and formal manner, assumed 
 'or the occasion, contrived to place himse 
 oeside Hen and to detach himself a 
 'rom the party. , „ , , a T 
 
 “ Miss Featherstonhaugh, he began, i 
 implore you to listen to me. Only think 
 if the undignified position in which you 
 rave placed me. I am here under false 
 pretences, deceiving these amiable ladies 
 ill to have an opportunity of pleading my 
 ;ause with you.” „ -rr 
 
 “lt is very foolish of you, said Hen, 
 
 • and all for nothing. No eloquence _ m 
 she world could alter my determination. 
 
 “ Have you seriously thought of how you 
 ;an bear poverty for the rest of your life 1 
 [f you accept me for a husband, as your 
 ooor dear uncle arranged, you shall have 
 Wery pleasure in the world, all your desires 
 
 = ratifie<l^e ^ ^ es i reSj and I don’t want 
 shem gratified,” said Hen incoherently. 
 - 1 only wish to see you no more, and to 
 
 have done with all mention of that weary 
 money which has been the plague of my 
 existence. It will not go to loss, sir, even 
 though neither you nor I touch it. It is 
 delightful to me to think of the astonish- 
 ment of these dear friends whom I have 
 learned to love when the unexpected wealth 
 drops down upon them.” 
 
 The imaginary Gainsborough groaned. 
 
 “As for poverty, sir, I rather like it. 
 
 No position ever suited me so well as that 
 
 1 a “ rrllfthe fault of that good-for- 
 nothing guardian of yours,” growled the 
 supposed suitor. “ Having so silly a creature 
 to aeal with he ought to have managed 
 
 1)6 lien started and turned her face upon 
 him, pale with indignation. Then drawing 
 herself up to the fullest height she could 
 assume, she turned away from him, and 
 with a few swift steps placed herself 
 deliberately by the real George s side. 
 
 The hen-house was now reached, tne 
 fowl approved and admired, all the arrange- 
 ments made for sending them to their new 
 owners, and the procession filed home again, 
 once more traversing the kitchen-garden, 
 the real Hansard cunningly beguiling the 
 ladies on, round and round the place with 
 his questions about their management ot 
 vegetables and fruit; while Hen and the 
 real Gainsborough followed at a little 
 distance absorbed in their own affairs. ^ 
 
 “I brought him here,” said George, at 
 the risk of your displeasure, to give him 
 and you a last chance. In one shoit week 
 the time will be up, and the wealth- 
 wealth which, despise it as we wih, can 
 make life so pleasant to all of us— will be 
 gone for ever from you, and can never be 
 rGralled ” 
 
 “Do not speak of it any more. 
 
 “ Believe me, it is only for your sake I 
 urge all this upon you. As for Gains- 
 borough, I feel with you, and more than 
 ever, since I heard you on the subject that 
 a man ought to be able to make all he 
 requires for himself.” - 
 
 “ Ah, now I can listen to you. 
 
 “ Would I might venture to go farther. 
 If I could only feel sure you would listen 
 to all I have to say.” 
 
 “ Try.” 
 
 “ Hen, could you marry a man who has 
 nothing but the uncertain prospects ol a 
 professional man to put before you 1 Could 
 | vou take me fora husband instead of 
 guardian, and share the struggles ot the 
 I world with me 1 ” 
 
30 [July 4, 1S81.] 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 [ConductedTfcy 
 
 “I could.” 
 
 “ My darling ! I have loved you since 
 the first moment of our meeting.” - 
 “ I have hoped so.” 
 tl Then you love me 1 ” 
 
 “I have felt from the first as if I 
 belonged to you. I never could bear to 
 belong to anyone else.” 
 
 He caught the little hand hanging by 
 her side and held it ; and they walked on 
 blissfully between the gooseberry bushes. 
 
 The latch of the kitchen-garden door was 
 lifted, and two ladies in showy garments 
 fluttered into the place. 
 
 “ Some lady connoisseurs,” said Miss 
 Priscilla, smiling complacently, and as the 
 new comers advanced to meet her, the 
 whole company assembled and came to a 
 stop upon a grass plot under a rosy fret- 
 work of apple-blossoms. 
 
 After. greeting the Miss Hydes, one of 
 the ladies turned smilingly on the real 
 George, saying : “ Ah, Mr. Gainsborough, 
 so glad to see you here ! Who would have 
 thought of meeting you among the 
 poultry?” 
 
 The other lady turned to the false Gains- 
 borough, saying: “How do you do, Mr. 
 Hansard ? Are you also a fancier of fowls ? ” 
 “ Are they both dreaming ? ” thought 
 Hen. “ They have got the names, yet 
 misplaced them strangely.” 
 
 _ The Miss Hydes gazed gravely at their 
 visitors, ladies and gentlemen, and the 
 latter looked startled and disturbed. 
 
 After a few constrained remarks the 
 whole party moved towards the hen-house 
 once more, that the ladies might see the 
 feathered flock before they were sent off 
 upon their journey. George Gainsborough 
 and the elder lady who had greeted him 
 so warmly walked together, and Hen, who 
 followed, could not help hearing every 
 word they said. 
 
 “Is it possible you are not married 
 yet,” said the lady in a shrill high voice, 
 “ and only a week of the time remaining ? 
 What are you delaying about ? Is the 
 American heiress as delightful as we all 
 hope she may be 1 I am glad, at all events, 
 to see you have Mr. Hansard taking care 
 of you. He will see that the good fortune 
 does not slip through your fingers. If you 
 disappoint us I shall never forgive you ; I 
 have several bets on the matter.” 
 
 “Oh!” groaned George inwardly; “if 
 anyone had swooped down on me rather 
 than this vulgar woman ! Why did I ever 
 make her acquaintance ? And how has 
 she learned so much of my affairs ? ” 
 
 Hen, walking behind, received all the 
 shrill-voiced woman’s words into her 
 bewildered brain, and gradually a light 
 broke upon her. 
 
 When the hen-house was reached, and 
 the Miss Hydes and the lady connoisseurs 
 entered it, she touched Gainsborough on 
 the arm, and as he turned to confront her 
 she gazed at him full in the eyes. 
 
 “ Who are you % ” she said with a stern 
 frown on her fair brow. 
 
 “Iam George Gainsborough,” said our 
 hero, half defiantly half deprecatingly. 
 
 “ And he ? ” indicating his friend. 
 
 “ Your guardian, Mr. Hansard.” 
 
 She shrank away from them both, threw 
 out her hands with a repellent gesture, 
 and turned and fled away out of the 
 garden. 
 
 “You have gone a little too far,” said 
 Hansard to his companion. “ What a pity 
 you did not take my advice and explain 
 all to her a week ago.” 
 
 . George was too much overwhelmed by 
 his misfortune to make any. answer. 
 
 VII. 
 
 # “ Ho, I will never speak to, never see 
 either of them again,” said Hen. She was 
 sitting at the open window of her own 
 little room at the farm, looking out with a 
 pale determined face at the wealth of fruit 
 blossoms that had helped to jnake the 
 world so beautiful only a few hours ago. 
 How nothing was beautiful, not even Hen’s 
 face with that angry frown upon it. 
 
 “I have been grossly, hatefully deceived,” 
 she continued, while Miss Sophy stood 
 before her wringing her plump hands and 
 gazing at her in wonder and dismay. 
 
 “My dear, you must change your mind,” 
 said Miss Sophy, “the youngman really loves 
 you with all his heart, and, only think, what 
 could sisters and I do with all this money 
 that you are going to fling out of your 
 hands h If it were a matter of five or six 
 hundred a year to make our old age com- 
 fortable; but to think of such heaps of 
 riches coming down upon us ! It will 
 spoil, our peace of mind for ever, and 
 deprive us of the rest we could enjoy. We 
 shall feel bound to go hunting about the 
 world for worthy objects upon which to 
 expend it, instead of sitting down to repose 
 in the evening of our days.” 
 
 “ Hear Miss Sophy, you can give it, if you 
 like, to the first beggar-man you meet. I 
 will never touch a penny of it. Heither 
 shall he — mean, false that he has proved. 
 Oh,” bursting into tears, “ to think that I 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MR. HANSARD’S WARD. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.1 31 
 
 should have made such a hero of him, and 
 loved him so well l” . , 
 
 Miss Anne knocked at the door and 
 
 came in. ,. ,, 
 
 “ My dear Henrietta, your guardian, Mr. 
 Hansard, desires to have a word with you. 
 
 “ Miss Anne, I will not go near him. 
 
 My guardian, Mr. Hansard 1 Who is he . 
 How do I know whether there is any Mr 
 Hansard in the world at all 1 I thought I 
 knew my guardian, and he has proved to 
 
 be that odious ” . . 
 
 “ My young friend,” said Miss Anne, 
 
 “ when you have done raving I will take 
 back your message to your uncle s friend. 
 But, let me tell you, I will countenance no 
 impertinence from a chit like you tb so 
 dignified and estimable a gentleman. 
 
 Hen stared. 
 
 To be spoken to like this was entirely 
 
 new to her. . n , T 
 
 “He deceived me, she said,^ an d 1 
 have no reason to respect him. He will 
 want me to marry that detestable—- 
 
 “ Do not speak falsehoods, said Miss 
 Anne severely. “You know you do not 
 think him detestable. Some women would 
 gladly bestow good things on the man 
 whom they love. But that is as you please. 
 No one is going to force you. One thing, 
 however, you are bound to do— that is, to 
 treat your guardian with proper considera- 
 tion. And I advise you to descend witn me 
 instantly as he desires.” 
 
 Hen’s eyes flashed defiance ; and then 
 she suddenly changed her mind. 
 
 “ Yes, I will go to him,” she said. . it 
 will be a relief to tell him what I think oi 
 them both.” 
 
 Mr. Hansard was waiting for her alone 
 in Miss Hyde’s nice old parlour, the three 
 sisters having retired to Miss Priscillas 
 chamber to talk over the curious discovery 
 of the day, and to try to steady their poor 
 old brains, which were almost overturned 
 at the likelihood of having the responsi- 
 bility of enormous wealth thrust upon 
 them in their latter days. That the 
 obliging little hen-girl should prove to be 
 their own kinswoman, the objectionable 
 American heiress who had for so many 
 years deprived them of the competency 
 they had had a right to, was astonishing 
 enough, but the girl’s fantastic wilfulness 
 and obstinacy, and her tender regard lor 
 them, her utter disregard for her own 
 interests and unmerciful harshness towards 
 her lover, all went to make up a still greater 
 wonder in their minds. How would it 
 end 1 they asked themselves ; and m the 
 
 meantime Hen had confronted her guardian 
 in the parlour. T 
 
 “ I can have neither respect nor regard 
 for you, nor for Mr. Gainsborough, Hen 
 was saying excitedly— “ never any more. 
 
 You have deceived me basely, for the 
 purpose of obtaining a fortune for him. 
 
 “ My dear child,” said Mr. Hansard 
 gently, “we shall never get on if you give 
 way to passion. I begin to think, indeed, 
 that my friend has had a lucky escape. 
 “Escape 1 ?” T 
 
 “ Yes, certainly. You do not suppose 1 
 am going to press this marriage upon him, 
 or you? I merely wish to discuss the 
 future with you — to learn what you. 
 intend to do with yourself after this day 
 week, when the Miss Hydes will take 
 possession of your uncle’s wealth, and jou 
 will have to do something for yourself. 
 
 All the light and colour had vanished 
 from Hen’s face. She grew very pale and 
 
 hung her head. - . 
 
 “ As for our deception, 1 will just 
 remind you that it was you who first 
 deceived. You sent a false photograph, 
 and represented yourself as altogether 
 different from what you are. In justice to 
 myself and friend, I am bound to say, while 
 admitting that we fell into a mistake, 
 that our deception was, at all events m the 
 first instance, unpremeditated. You mis- 
 took him for me, finding him alone by 
 accident in my study. His wrong-doing 
 in this case lay in the fact that he was silly 
 enough to fall in love with you. Love, 
 and love alone, prompted him to the course 
 of conduct he has followed, and which i 
 deeply regret I was weak enough to 
 countenance.” 
 
 Hen raised her head to speak, but was 
 checked by Mr. Hansard’s uplifted hand 
 “ I know what you would say, he said, 
 
 “ but do not attempt to utter it. I will 
 not hear a calumny upon the noblest fellow 
 that breathes. So far from plotting to 
 gain your wealth, he said to me that, if you 
 pleased, he would wait till the stipulated time 
 should hare expired, and the riches have 
 been foregone, and that working at his pro- 
 fession he could be happy with your love. 
 
 “ He said that ? ” murmured Hen, a tear 
 starting to her eye. . , 
 
 “And meant it. 1 thought his a far- 
 fetched overstrained nobility of feeling in 
 the matter, though I could not help res- 
 pecting him for it. I knew he had dreamed 
 of a Parliamentary career, for which he is 
 admirably suited, and I regretted that the 
 vain selfishness, the utter want of genero- 
 
' — ’ - =U 
 
 32 [July 4, 1881.] AUNT AGATHA’S CONVERSION. [Conducted by 
 
 sity, in the woman he had so oddly set his 
 heart upon should be the cause of ruining 
 the fine prospect my late dear old friend 
 had meant to open up for him.” 
 
 “Mr. Hansard!” cried Hen, fixing a 
 pair of dismayed imploring eyes upon him. 
 
 “ Yes, my dear ; it is well that you 
 should hear the truth for once. You have 
 thought only of yourself, and have cared 
 nothing about blighting the life of another. 
 As you have chosen, however, there is 
 nothing more to be said. I think, upon 
 the whole, it may be better to defer our 
 further conversation to a day when you 
 may be better able to hear it. At present 
 you seem rather disturbed. Good morning. ” 
 
 He bowed himself out, and Hen stood 
 musing silently alone for some moments, 
 then suddenly, with a wild cry, fled from 
 the parlour and out of the house. 
 
 At some distance there was a little 
 shady grove, seldom visited, where one 
 might hope to give free vent unobserved 
 to a passion of remorse and grief, or an 
 agony of disappointed love ; and thither 
 the trembling girl began to run as fast as 
 her young fleet limbs could carry her. 
 
 As fate would have it, however, another 
 person was at this moment in possession of 
 the grove, walking up and down among 
 the trees with bent head and folded arms, 
 awaiting a signal from the lawyer, who 
 was to wave his stick from the road when 
 ready to depart for the train. 
 
 Hen, with eyes blinded by tears, did 
 not see this person till she rushed up 
 against him. The next moment she was 
 gazing at him pitifully, her two hands 
 clasped fast in his. 
 
 “ Oh George, George ! Is it too late ? 
 I mean for the Parliamentary career.” 
 
 “ Hang the Parliamentary career ! ” said 
 George joyfully. 
 
 But they were married before the week 
 was over; and the Miss Hydes have 
 escaped the affliction of enormous wealth 
 in their declining days, though they are 
 at present in the enjoyment of an ample 
 income. 
 
 materials had been brought into her neat 
 little “ keeping-room ; ” and, just as with 
 sleeves tucked up (she was rather proud of 
 her beautiful arm) she was immersed in 
 the mysteries of rolling, and patting, and 
 buttering tins, and lining them with crust, 
 glancing out of the window, she had seen 
 the immaculate carriage of Miss Tipple 
 stopping at the door, and a gentleman 
 handing out that spruce and dainty little 
 personage. 
 
 Poor Betsy Ward, Aunt Agatha’s only 
 servant, had likewise taken a stealthy peep, 
 and she now bustled into the room. 
 
 “ Lor’, mum,” said she, “ there’s Miss 
 Tipple and a strange gentleman; let me 
 clear away the things while you go and 
 make yourself tidy. They can knock again ^ 
 and I’ll have ’em away in a minute.” 
 
 “ No, Betsy,” said my aunt, “ Miss 
 Tipple knows very well that I make my 
 own pastry, and when she comes to see 
 me she must just take me as I am. There,, 
 open the door.” 
 
 And she complacently went on with her 
 rolling and patting. 
 
 The fact is, Aunt Agatha had no great 
 opinion of Miss Tipple. Herself, though 
 very limited as to income, the representa- 
 tive of one of the oldest and most respected 
 families in Hilderstock, she did not con- 
 sider that Miss Tipple, whose father she 
 remembered as a well-to-do grocer, was at 
 all lifted to an equality with her by her 
 wealth, and she had not formed a very 
 exalted estimate of Miss Tipple’s sincerity 
 or of her discretion, so that when she now 
 entered the room Aunt Agatha, quite un- 
 disturbed by her rich and irreproachable 
 costume, looked at her coolly, as who 
 should say: “I’ve taken the measure of 
 you, my lady, and I don’t think much of 
 you.” 
 
 “ You’d better not come too near me,” 
 said Aunt Agatha as Miss Tipple advanced y 
 putting out a pretty little neatly-gloved 
 hand, “ for, you se’e, I’m all over flour. But 
 those that fear feathers shouldn’t go among: 
 wild fowl.” 
 
 “ My dear Miss Gayfer,” said Miss Tipple, 
 who always placed a strong emphasis on 
 her adjectives, “ you are so perfectly fresh 
 and natural that it is always charming to- 
 see you; so unlike the artificial world 
 which is made up of show. Let me introduce 
 to you Mr. Jordan, my cousin, our new 
 rector. I am sure you will be delighted 
 with him.” 
 
 My aunt acknowledged by a word or 
 two the new rector’s salutation, took a 
 
 AUNT AGATHA’S CONVERSION. 
 
 BY B. D. BRIGHTWELL 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 “ Whip it J” said my aunt. 
 
 With kerchief pinned over her well- 
 developed bust, and apron tied round her 
 figure, she was engaged in manufacturing 
 a batch of lemon-cheesecakes for which the 
 
 ■ — 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AXJNT AGATHA’S CONVERSION. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 good look at him, and didn’t feel by any 
 
 means so sure about it. ™ av wi 
 
 He was a tall pale man, much marked 
 with small-pox, with crisp black hair, and he 
 spoke in a low, mellow, cooing voice, which 
 most women found it pleasant to listen to 
 “I trust, Miss Gayfer, said he, that 
 we shall be very good friends I under- 
 stand that you are a recognised power in 
 Hilderstock, and that your co-operation 
 is quite essential to success here. 
 
 “if you had said that I am pretty well 
 known here, where I have spent my lite, 
 
 Sd Aunt Agatha, “ you won d have^been 
 well within the mark; as to 
 you’ll find that our people have, most ot 
 ’em, got a wiUof their own— and its 
 
 generaltyw: ^ ^ flattering description of 
 my parishioners than I have had from my 
 cousin,” said he with a smile. 
 
 » Ah well, you’ll see. The proof of the 
 pudding is in the eating. I don t mean to 
 sav but what they are honest enough and 
 
 good-natured. But they are shiftless and 
 
 wilful, so that it’s very hard to help 
 
 I ^“ilm sure, my dear Miss Gayfer” said 
 
 Miss Tipple, “ that your example and your 
 instructions have gone far to cure them o 
 both those faults; and I know you will 
 appreciate Frank, my cousin, who is the 
 most methodical man in the world He 
 has made an absolute conquest of the 
 j Blackmans, ( and the Wilkinses, and the 
 
 W a k 2ye,” S said Aunt Agatha, with a laugh, 
 
 “ new brooms sweep clean. 
 
 “Of one thing you may he quite sure, 
 Frank,” said Miss Tipple, turning to her 
 cousin : “ Miss Gayfer will always tell you 
 
 what she thinks.” „ __ .. 
 
 « I certainly shan’t tell Mr. Jordan, nor 
 anybody else, what I don’t think, said 
 Aunt Agatha; “hut all truths are not to 
 
 be Presently, when the cheesecakes were 
 finished and the apparatus dismissed, Miss 
 
 ^ 1 ??Youreally must let my cousin see your 
 exquisite fernery, Miss Gayfer. You have 
 such perfect taste in all these matters, and 
 manage them so admirably. 
 
 “It runs in the blood,” said my aunt 
 not insensible to the flattery. fy father 
 was very fond of his garden, and she that 
 I comes of a hen must scrape. But i ve 
 scarcely any pleasure to go into my garden 
 now, since Miss Payne has stuck up that 
 abominable red-brick wall at the end of it. 
 
 It scorches my eyes to look upon A. It s 
 not much after all,” she said, turning to 
 Mr. Jordan, “ but such as it is, come and 
 S6G it* ^ i • i 
 
 She led the way up the steps which 
 climbed into the garden from the back 
 door, between the dwarf yews and magni- 
 ficent trees of blush roses old-fashioned 
 but sweet as the odours of a dream, and 
 turning down to a little dell where dwarf 
 ivy and periwinkle clambered over artfully- 
 disposed rocks, presented her pretty little, 
 fernery, lush and delicate in its verdure, 
 
 and delicious in its coolness. 
 
 Mr. Jordan examined it with a critical 
 
 67 “ Excellent, Miss Gayfer,” said he, stoop- 
 ing down as he spoke to examine the soil 
 “ But these scolopendnums would do better 
 if you would give them some sandy loam 
 mixed with leaf-mould. _ . . 
 
 “ The man has a gram of gumption in 
 him, after all,” said my sotto voce 
 
 but not so low as to be inaudible to a little 
 nephew whose hand she held,_ and who, 
 having a sense of humour, very imperfectly 
 succeeded in stifling a laugh, as he caught 
 Miss Tipple’s eye fixed upon him. Ine re 
 was an awkward hush for a second or two 
 and in the pause the sound of shears was 
 distinctly audible. 
 
 My aunt gathered up her skirts _ with 
 inimitable speed, and proceeded to mves- 
 tigate, followed more leisurely by tne 
 cousins, who seemed to be exchanging ^con- 
 fidences in a complacent and tv the 
 manner, till they were startled by the 
 indignant tones of my aunt’s voice ex- 
 
 **?. Hi! you man, what are you doing 
 there 1 How dare you 1 ” 
 
 On the opposite side of the garden rose 
 the hideous red-brick building which had 
 excited my aunt’s righteous indignation. 
 Just struggling up to reach had ^ 
 a magnificent crop of ivy ; but the pluce 
 thereof knew it no more, for a man who 
 stood there, open-mouthed with his shears 
 in his hand, and with the spoils of his 
 labour all round him, had sheared and 
 trimmed it till the wall was as bare as a 
 
 ^My^unt had followed up her exclama- 
 tion by rushing across the garden, seizing 
 the intruder by the collar of his jacket, 
 and shaking him till his teeth chattered m 
 
 lllS «Come away, Frank, come away t”said 
 Miss Tipple, plucking the new rectors 
 I sleeve. “ The woman must be mad. 
 
i 
 
 £3 
 
 34 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 AUNT AGATHA’S CONVEBSION. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 But Mr. Jordan, without heeding the in- 
 junction, with a smile on his face, strode 
 to the scene of the conflict, just as my 
 aunt, fairly out of breath, released poor 
 J obson in a condition of extreme physical 
 exhaustion and mental bewilderment. 
 
 “ Oh, it’s you, Jobson, is it V* she said, 
 as soon as she had sufficiently recovered 
 breath. “ How dare you come trespassing 
 here, and destroying my garden % You 
 touch another leaf of that ivy, sir, and I’ll 
 make you smart for it, or my name is not 
 Agatha Gayfer.” 
 
 There was scarcely a leaf left for him to 
 touch : he had done his work completely. 
 
 “Well,” she continued impatiently, 
 “ what do you stand there for, with your 
 mouth open, like a drivelling idiot 1 Have 
 you got nothing to say for yourself'?” 
 
 “Why, lord, Miss Gayfer,” said Jobson, 
 “ you right down skeer me, that you do ,* 
 I han’t had sich a jouncing not sin’ I was 
 tossed in a blanket. I never knowed I 
 was doin’ any harm. Miss Payne she said 
 the ivory made her walls damp, and I was 
 to come over and cut it. She towld me, 
 and I thought it was all right. I never 
 knowed I was doing any harm. Why, lor’, 
 there ” 
 
 “ And are you such a born fool, then, as 
 to go and do whatever Miss Payne tells 
 you % Don’t you know I could have you 
 prosecuted and imprisoned for trespass 
 and wilful damage ? and I don’t know but 
 what I shall, too. He that will needs 
 blow in the dust must look to fill his eyes 
 with it. Now you go and tell Miss Payne, 
 that if she’s got anything to say by way of 
 excuse, she had better say it at once, or it 
 may be too late.” 
 
 “ Sakes ! Miss Gayfer,” began Jobson, 
 “ I never ” 
 
 “ Don’t stand talking there, man, but go 
 and do as I tell you.” 
 
 The unhappy Jobson gathered up his 
 tools, climbed up the short ladder by which 
 he had made his descent, drew it after him, 
 and disappeared. 
 
 “It’s a most vexatious incident,” said 
 the new rector. 
 
 “ Vexatious ! ” interrupted my aunt with 
 perfectly recovered composure, “ it’s mad- 
 dening.” 
 
 There was a curious contrast between the 
 words and the tone in which they were 
 uttered, and the rector smiled as he said : 
 
 “ I hope, after the first natural ebullition 
 of feeling, you will be able to accommodate 
 your difference with this Miss Payne 
 amicably.” 
 
 “ Oh, fiddle-de-dee ! ” said my aunt. “ But 
 there now, good-bye. I shall see you — on 
 Sunday.” 
 
 My dear Miss Gayfer,” said Miss 
 -Tipple, “your energy of character quite 
 astonishes me ! I could no more do what 
 you have done, than I could write Frank’s 
 sermons for him.” 
 
 “ It’s just as well the world holds a few 
 people who have some control over them- 
 selves,” said my aunt with a laugh. 
 
 “ That’s a remarkable woman,” said Mr. 
 J ordan as he drove away with Miss Tipple. 
 
 “ A remarkably disagreeable woman,” 
 said the lady with a little shudder. 
 
 “ Do you think so ?” said the new rector, 
 and both lapsed into silence. 
 
 “ Those people mean to make a match 
 of it,” said my aunt as she waited for Miss 
 Payne. “Love and a cough, they say, can’t 
 be hid, and anyone can see that she has 
 made up her mind to marry him. A pretty 
 dance she’ll lead him, too, poor fellow.” 
 
 Miss Payne was a lady of ponderous 
 build, but short in proportion to her bulk, 
 with a complexion like an uncooked muffin, 
 and eyes in a chronic state of moisture, apt 
 to overflow on slight provocation. She 
 was elephantine in her movements, wheezy 
 and faint in her voice, and lachrymose in 
 her general views. Aunt Agatha, who had 
 been chirping merrily, straightened herself 
 in her chair as the click of the front gate 
 announced the approach of this obnoxious 
 personage. 
 
 “Well!” exclaimed my aunt as she 
 waddled into the room. 
 
 “ Oh-h-h ! ” sobbed Miss Payne, sinking 
 uninvited into a chair. 
 
 My aunt eyed her with profound con- 
 tempt, but gave her time to recover breath 
 before she asked : 
 
 “Well, Miss Payne, have you anything 
 to say why I should not put this matter in 
 the hands of my lawyer, and take pro- 
 ceedings against you for your abominable 
 trespass.” 
 
 “ Miss Agatha ! ” gasped the offender, 
 “ I declare you frighten me, and my heart 
 is that bad ” 
 
 “ Stuff ! ” said Aunt Agatha promptly. 
 
 “ Only think, Miss Agatha, what’s the 
 use of going to law with me ” 
 
 “I know,” broke in my aunt, “that 
 whether you boil snow or pound it, you 
 get only water ; but to put up with such 
 an abominable outrage as this is to invite 
 injury. Those that make themselves sheep 
 have no call to complain if the wolf eats 
 them.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AUNT AGATHA’S CONVERSION. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 35 
 
 “My dear Miss Agatha,” pleaded Miss 
 
 Pa “ Don’t ‘ dear Miss Agatha ’ me woman,” 
 said my aunt; “ it makes me sick. 
 
 “ I declare, Miss Agatha, I m more vexed 
 than you can think. ^ You know damp 
 makes me so miserable. , ,i 
 
 “ I don’t know,” said my aunt abruptly. 
 
 . « It does, really, and the ivy did make 
 
 th “?hen d ^ou ’should have told me about 
 it, and not sent people trespassing m my 
 
 garden^ev^ thought) Miss Agatha Jobson 
 was going to do so much. I told him just 
 to trim the ivy so that it didn t make the 
 
 wall damp.” . _ , At 
 
 “ I don’t believe it,” said my aunt l 
 know Jobson very well, and you told him 
 to cut it down or he wouldn’t have done 
 so, and you made him believe that I knew 
 all about it.” 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Aunt Agatha pronounced Mr. Jordan s 
 first sermon “ very sensible,” and wondered 
 what such a man could see in that “ mincing 
 affected little bit of goods, Miss Tipple. 
 
 But as the weeks went by she did not 
 hear of him quite in the way she lixed m 
 the cottages where she visited, and she 
 heard of him a good deal more than she 
 liked in a parson of the parish at garden- 
 parties, archery-meetings, and social gather- 
 ings of various kinds. Not that he failed, 
 to visit among the humbler inhabitants ot 
 Hilderstock, but while she heard of him as 
 smoking his pipe with them, talking about 
 their gardens, or their pigs and their 
 poultry, and otherwise rendering -himself 
 very popular, he never seemed to speak to 
 them of religion or about purely pro- 
 fessional topics. . ,. 
 
 This was very different from the practice 
 of the late rector, a zealous evangelical, 
 whose dutiful disciple Aunt Agatha had 
 been, though in her sturdy independence 
 she had sometimes ventured to express her 
 doubt as to the wisdom of prolonged 
 exhortations in houses where the struggle 
 for existence was hard and exacting, for, 
 as she would say, /‘you can’t make a wind- 
 mill go with a pair of bellows.” _ 
 
 Something between the prolixity of his 
 predecessor and the too purely mundane 
 converse of Mr. Jordan would have been 
 her idea of the happy mean. 
 
 “ I have just been telling Mrs. Gimpson, 
 said he one day when he encountered her 
 at the door of a cottage, “that if she wants 
 her hens to lay she must vary their food a 
 
 little.” ,, . 
 
 “ Don’t you think there are some things 
 more important than hens’ eggs you might 
 speak to Nanny Gimpson about? asked 
 my aunt, looking him Ml in the face. 
 
 “ I’m afraid she’s dreadfully ignorant^ and 
 they say parsons are souls’ waggoners. 
 
 “ Do you know, Miss Gayfer, he 
 answered, “ that when I see that cheerful, 
 active old lady, stricken withpam and with 
 years, making the thinnest of livelihoods 
 by unremitting care, yet always contented, 
 I feel that it is for me to learn and be silent ; 
 she is the teacher.” 
 
 My aunt was silent for a second or two, 
 and then answered : “There is a great deal 
 in what you say, but it is a way of looking 
 at things that is new to me. If it is the 
 right way, I think I have wasted a 
 deal of time.” 
 
 « Assuredly not,” said he, “ you ha\ e 
 carried brightness and order into many 
 
 Li a Dour id. 4 n 
 
 “ I didn’t really, Miss Agatha ; no, realty, 
 didn’t When I saw what hed done. 
 
 you might have knocked me down with 
 a feather. ? I’m so sorry you were an- 
 
 Annoyed ! ” said my aunt with 
 vehemence. ‘‘Miss Payne, I could have 
 
 skinned you I ” , « 
 
 Poor Miss Payne gave a start of such 
 unmistakable alarm that my aunts sense 
 of the comic overmastered her indignation, 
 and she broke into laughter, after which 
 she felt that if was quite hopeless to prolong 
 the interview, and she accordingly broug 
 it to an abrupt close, saying : 
 
 “Well, Miss Payne, it’s no use crying 
 over spilt milk. I don’t forgive you yet, 
 and it’s no use pretending that I uo, 
 but I will not say anything mow 
 about this affair. But if ever you do 
 such a thing again I wont spare you 
 
 m ’“ Ah now, Miss Agatha,” said the old 
 ladv, gathering spirit with this promise, 
 
 “ don’t half do the thing while you are 
 about it. Let us be friendly and neigh- 
 
 PC "“ We may come to that in time,” was 
 the reply. “He’s a fool that asks much, 
 and he’s more fool that grants it. 1 fee 
 very sore about this matter, I can e you 
 and I shall take a week and a day to get 
 over it. And now the less that s said about 
 it the more likely I shall he to forget it, so 
 
 good-bye.” , , , . 
 
 Miss Payne gasped, heaved her deepest 
 sigh, shook her underdone head, and 
 waddled off. 
 
36 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 AUNT AGATHA’S CONVERSION. 
 
 homes, and wherever I go I find you have 
 been an influence for good. Sympathy is 
 the true ‘ open sesame ’ to a human heart, 
 and in power of sympathy we men lag far 
 behind women.” 
 
 From that time a gradual change was 
 observable in Aunt Agatha’s dealings with 
 the poor folk whom she visited. It would 
 have been difficult to say exactly what it 
 was. A more frequent touch of tenderness, 
 a greater readiness to make allowances for 
 the circumstances and difficulties of each. 
 A greater readiness to help there could not 
 be, but there was less readiness to scold. 
 
 Sometimes, in the course of her inde- 
 fatigable rounds, she would meet with and 
 have pleasant converse with the rector, 
 and would come home quite radiant 
 with pleasure. At other times she only 
 heard of him as having been the life and 
 soul of some party, rowing Miss Tipple 
 and her friends down the river, organising 
 picnics and other frivolities on which Aunt 
 Agatha looked with scant toleration. 
 
 “ That man,” she remarked one day, 
 “ might put new life into the whole parish, 
 and he’s becoming a mere butterfly. It’s 
 bad enough now ; what it will be after he 
 gets married to that shallow, worldly- 
 minded woman, Heaven only knows.” 
 
 One day in early autumn, as Aunt 
 Agatha was moving softly among her 
 asters and chrysanthemums, musing pro- 
 bably of these matters, a harsh crashing 
 noise and a shock as of earthquake rudely 
 broke the current of her reflections. She 
 turned in the direction from which the 
 sound had come, and there, where Miss 
 Payne’s flaunting eyesore of a red-brick 
 upper storey had been, was a cloud of 
 dust, momently thinning, and leaving the 
 clear blue of a bright October sky. 
 
 “ A good riddance of bad rubbish,” was 
 Aunt Agatha’s brief exclamation ; but 
 then, the possibilities involved suddenly 
 flashing upon her mind, she added : 
 “ Heaven forgive me ! Why, the woman 
 and that poor little half-starved Lucy 
 Chalk may be buried in those ruins !” 
 
 In an instant she was rushing out of her 
 garden, . bonnet flying behind her, quite 
 unconscious of the amazed look of the 
 butcher over the way, the group of mil- 
 liners at Miss Firmin’s, and the portly 
 landlord of the Red Lion, who, ignorant as 
 they were of what had transpired at the 
 rear of Aunt Agatha’s dwelling, were half 
 amused and half curious about her deshabille 
 and her haste. 
 
 “ Here ! hi!” she called to two men 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 who were passing. “ Jobson, Tyler, come 
 with me to Miss Payne’s directly. There 
 has been an accident there : the new storey 
 has fallen in.”' 
 
 Hastening with them round the corner 
 of Horn Lane, she came upon Miss Tipple, 
 escorted by the rector, with whom she was 
 gaily conversing. 
 
 “My dear Miss Gayfer!” said Miss 
 Tipple, advancing with her everlasting 
 wintry smile. 
 
 “ What is the matter, Miss Gayfer ] ” 
 asked Mr. Jordan. “ Can I help you 1 ” 
 
 J ust then a small boy came running by, 
 and thinking he might be useful to run 
 errands, Aunt Agatha impounded him by 
 clutching the collar of his jacket, a piece 
 of his ear, and a handful of his hair, 
 holding him in firm grasp while she 
 explained to the rector briefly what had 
 happened. 
 
 “You may as well come,” she added, 
 “ though I don’t know you can do anything. 
 Better a lame foot than none.” 
 
 And without further parley she hurried 
 on. 
 
 Miss Tipple, who clung to the rector’s 
 arm, and with a soft invincibility declined 
 either to hurry her steps or to be left to 
 herself, so impeded his motion that Aunt 
 Agatha, with her followers, was out of 
 sight in no time. When at last he came 
 up, half dragging the shrinking and 
 reluctant Miss Tipple, whose strong objec- 
 tion to imperilling either her person or her 
 millinery quite overmastered her curiosity, 
 he heard Aunt Agatha’s voice ringing out 
 from the dusty confusion with anything 
 but complimentary exhortations to her 
 recruits, who were pausing irresolute at 
 the entrance. 
 
 “ Don’t you go in, Miss Agatha— now. 
 don’t you,” shouted one of the men. “ That 
 ain’t safe, really.” 
 
 “ You cowardly loons,” said my aunt, 
 “would you let the woman die without 
 help % ” 
 
 “Don’t go, Frank,” said Miss Tipple. 
 “You hear it is not safe, and you’ll get 
 your coat all over dust.” 
 
 Mr. Jordan firmly, but not ungently, 
 removed her grasp. 
 
 “Where there is danger and distress, 
 there is the parson’s place,” said he, and in 
 another moment he had followed Aunt 
 Agatha, the men timidly imitating his 
 example, and leaving Miss Tipple alone 
 with little J ob Chalk, of whom she did not 
 condescend to take any notice. 
 
 The rickety building was a mere heap 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AUNT AGATHA’S CONVERSION. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.1 
 
 of ruins. Some village wiseacre had super- 
 imposed on a lath and plaster basement a 
 brick upper storey.. This angle o the 
 building had fallen in, and in its fall had 
 dragged with it older portions of the 
 house, so that now timbers were sloping m 
 all directions, and what had not actually 
 fallen seemed tottering to its fall. Am 
 this dangerous debris Aunt Agatha was 
 making her way, when some of the boldest 
 
 of those who were following her star ed 
 
 back with a shout of alarm. . A thin blue 
 smoke, followed by hungry, vicious-looking 
 tongues of flame, was apparent, and even 
 Mr § Jordan and Aunt Agatha, who were 
 now side by side, paused for an instant 
 on seeing these evidences of pen . 
 hesitation, which was but momentary, aid 
 not survive the stifled sound of moaning 
 that broke upon the ear. , , 
 
 But Aunt Agatha was no longer allowed 
 to take the command. The soft cooing 
 voice to which she had at times listened 
 with something akin to contempt could, 
 assume the tone of command, and, strong 
 as she was, and “masterful” as all the 
 village folks said, Aunt Agatha was woman 
 in her heart, leaning with gladness and 
 submission on a stronger will than her 
 
 ^“You will wait here,” said Mr. Jordan, 
 “for a few moments. I will call you 1 
 you can be of help ; ” and then, with keen 
 rapid glance sweeping those who 
 present, he singled out a robust young 
 Lan, and in a voice that might have led 
 soldiers on to battle, said : “ Howard, you 
 
 come with me.” f 
 
 The young fellow obeyed as a matter ot 
 course, and then ensued a short pause of 
 painful suspense. Presently Howard re- 
 appeared with a flushed and frightened 
 expression, but evidently putting a strong 
 restraint upon himself. 
 
 “ Stallybrass and Ward, you be to come 
 with me. Miss Agatha, you be to wait 
 But Bob Howard’s voice had not the 
 magic of Mr. Jordan’s, and she would wait 
 no longer. Pushing her way through the 
 ruins and the smoke with those that had 
 been summoned into what had been Miss 
 Payne’s little parlour, she pressed her lips 
 tighter together, and the colour fled her 
 face as she saw the motionless form of he 
 old enemy stretched on a couch there, and 
 standing by the side of it the rector blood 
 streaming from a wound on his head his 
 coat torn, and one arm hanging listless by 
 his side. Some falling bricks and timber had 
 struck him and had disabled the arm, and 
 
 lest his appearance should excite alarm he 
 had sent Bob Howard with the message 
 for help and a strict injunction to say 
 nothing beyond what he had been told. 
 
 In a few seconds Miss Payne more 
 frightened than hurt, was moved beyond 
 the reach of peril, and was conveyed to 
 Aunt Agatha’s cottage, accompanied by the 
 wounded rector. Aunt Agatha s foresight 
 had already summoned good Doctor 
 Holmes to the place, and hurrying as fast 
 as his lame foot would permit, he reached 
 the cottage almost at the same time as the 
 cavalcade. Miss Tipple, indignant that 
 her cousin should have deserted her for 
 “that woman,” had not awaited the issue 
 
 of the investigations. 
 
 Dr. Holmes pronounced Miss Payne to 
 have sustained a very severe shock from 
 fright, but to be free from bodily damage. 
 The rector’s arm was broken, but the 
 wound on the head was only skm deep, 
 and not much more serious than the torn 
 
 C ° Prom that time for many months Aunt 
 Agatha’s house became Miss Payne s home 
 and her hostess tended her with all the 
 solicitude of a daughter. A great poet has 
 told us that “ the learned eye is still the 
 loving one,” and it so happened that m 
 this unwearied tendance and ministration 
 Aunt Agatha discovered not a few ^sus- 
 pected virtues in the fat, wheezy, puffy old 
 soul, and something like genuine attach- 
 ment sprung up between them. 
 
 A verv constant attendant was the Kev. 
 Frank Jordan. Even when his arm was 
 still very painful, and he might, well have 
 been excused had he abstained from 
 visiting a parishioner who was m no immi- 
 nent danger, his solicitude about Miss 
 Payne was remarkable. In spite of the 
 severity of winter snows and frosts, his 
 arm secured by splints and bandages, he 
 would come, and sit for a whole ten min ta 
 with Miss Payne, and for whole: 
 mg with Aunt Agatha— probably about the 
 patient’s symptoms. 
 
 But the snows melted on the high hills, 
 and the brooks, swollen with their muddy 
 tribute, chattered noisily down the 'Hopes, 
 and snowdrops and crocuses, daffodils and 
 violets, bloomed again, and m due course 
 the breath of the blush-roses m the garden 
 was wafted into the cottage. 
 
 And then people in the village said, and. 
 laughed at each other as they said it, that 
 Miss Tipple was going to give up Earham 
 House and to leave Hilderstock. She had 
 indiscreetly , spoken to some bosom friends 
 

 38 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 of her approaching marriage with the 
 rector, and before the chrysanthemums had 
 opened out their ragged beauties to the 
 next autumn sun it became known that 
 Mr. J ordan’s consent had never been asked 
 for this arrangement, and that the parson 
 had, with good success, asked that “re- 
 markably disagreeable woman ” to be his 
 bride. 
 
 Miss Tipple reflected, however, with some 
 complacency that the living was a very poor 
 one, and that Miss Gayfer’s fortune, for all 
 her ridiculous pride, was barely enough for 
 her to live on in decency. But even in 
 this she fell into her besetting sin of pre- 
 mature talk : for when poor old Miss 
 Payne died a year or so later, it was found 
 that she had left the whole of her not 
 inconsiderable fortune to Frank Jordan, in 
 recognition of the great kindnesses and 
 services that she had received from her 
 dear friend Agatha, his wife. 
 
 FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 BY DUTTON COOK. 
 
 I. 
 
 At the back of a large old-fashioned red- 
 brick house in the Soho district, a spacious 
 studio, lit by a glazed dome, had been built 
 over what had been once probably a 
 walled-in London garden. A strong door, 
 fastened by means of a heavy lock and 
 bolt, and half hidden by a dark-hued cur- 
 tain of embossed velvet, opened from the 
 studio on to a narrow back street or mews. 
 The whitewashed walls were hung with 
 unframed paintings, sketches, and studies, 
 while here and there appeared plaster casts 
 of heads, hands, feet, and fragments of 
 limbs. There were to be found also, but 
 in no excess, such artistic objects as the 
 painters have always delighted to possess : 
 weapons and armour, screens and draperies, 
 specimens of carved oak, mediaeval 
 furniture and accessories, with the indis- 
 pensable dais or throne, for the due exhibi- 
 tion of sitters and models. The floor was 
 only in part carpeted. A large canvas 
 rested upon a substantial straddling oaken 
 easel. A red fire glowed in a capacious 
 grate, emitting much heat, yet leaving 
 certain of the remote corners of the 
 studio bleak enough. It was night : the 
 darkness . without wrapped the glazed 
 dome as in a cloak. The room within was 
 but imperfectly lighted by an oil lamp 
 
 and by tallow candles burning in massive 
 candlesticks of silver. 
 
 Before the fire, toasting his shapely 
 gaitered . legs, sat an elderly gentleman 
 clothed in black, his attire of a pattern 
 that has long years since passed out of 
 vogue. He wore powder in his carefully- 
 arranged hair ; a pigtail jerked and strayed 
 about the high collar of his coat. A watch- 
 ribbon, carrying seals and keys, swung 
 from his fob. His white ringed fingers 
 were closed over a gold snuff-box. He 
 was dark-browed, and rather grave of 
 expression ; his face was certainly hand- 
 some, though a good deal lined and 
 puckered, as characterised, moreover, by a 
 certain birdlike aspect; his nose took an 
 aquiline curve, and his eyes owned the 
 keenness and brightness of a hawk’s. His 
 broad-brimmed, low-crowned beaver hat 
 rested upon a small spindle-legged table 
 beside him. 
 
 A much younger man, slight of figure, 
 fair-complexioned, with fine features, but 
 rather worn and haggard of look, leant 
 against a corner of the mantelshelf. He 
 was clad in a claret-coloured cloth suit, 
 with dark grey stockings; his buttons, 
 knee and shoe buckles were all of cut steel. 
 His unpowdered hair, of an auburn hue, 
 was so disposed as to fall curling upon his 
 forehead and almost to cover his temples. 
 From where he stood he could obtain a 
 view of the large canvas upon the easel. 
 He glanced at it uneasily from time to 
 time, with the air of a dissatisfied critic. 
 The picture was incomplete; it repre- 
 sented an Entombment. The young man 
 was, in truth, a painter by profession. The 
 studio was his ; he had been listening to 
 certain unfavourable comments upon his 
 handiwork. For his friend, Dr. Dempster, 
 had ventured to be critical. 
 
 The younger man moved from the fire- 
 place to the easel, carrying the lamp with 
 him ; he held it up so that the light might 
 fall fully upon his canvas ; and then stood 
 still for some moments, frowningly consi- 
 dering it. 
 
 “You are perhaps right, doctor,” he said 
 at length, slowly and with a sigh. 
 
 “I know I am right, Paul Reinhardt,” 
 observed the elder man confidently. “ It’s 
 my business to be right. I have not studied 
 and practised medicine and surgery all these 
 long years to be wrong at last. For, look 
 you, this is not simply a fine-art question, 
 or I would hold my tongue. It is rather a 
 physical question ; it concerns' natural 
 philosophy, science, anatomy, physiology, 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 [July 4 , 1881 .] 39 
 
 fact. I am likely to be informed upon 
 those subjects.” 
 
 The doctor refreshed himself with a 
 noisy pinch of snuff. . , 
 
 “The figures are all drawn conscientiously 
 and laboriously from the life, I do assure 
 you,” said the young man addressed as 
 Paul Reinhardt. 
 
 “ Yes You have justified your German 
 origin, my friend,” the doctor continued. 
 “Your work is grand and true : 7 0U . 
 not spared yourself; you are a skilled 
 draughtsman, if your general effect is— 
 what shall I call it 1— prosy, stolid. Yes ; 
 your figures are all, as you say, drawn con- 
 scientiously and laboriously from theme; 
 not a doubt of it. But, my good friend, 
 in this instance ” — as he spoke the doctor 
 pointed to the most prominent figure m 
 the painter’s composition— “ it was not 
 Life that you had need of : it was Death. 
 
 “ You mean — — ” . 
 
 “That is simply a live model lying 
 down in a position you have chosen for 
 him. He is not even asleep. He is alive 
 and awake. Those are not the limbs of a 
 corpse. Those are not a dead man s 
 muscles. That is not a dead man s hand 
 The blood of life still courses through 
 those veins. If I were to put my finger 
 upon that wrist I should feel, a healthy 
 pulse beating.” 
 
 “ But the colour 'J ” 
 
 “ Well, the colour is livid, unwholesome, 
 ghastly. But does that sufficiently convey 
 the idea of your picture, or does it merely 
 demonstrate that you are not a colourist, 
 my friend 1 It strikes me that you have 
 tainted all your carnations alike with tones 
 of clay, or of leather, or of nankeen. If one 
 figure is dead, all are dead. If one lives, 
 
 all live.” . „ ,, 
 
 “You are perhaps right, doctor, the 
 young man said again after a pause, and 
 with another sigh. “But I think you 
 hardly allow for the unavoidable limitations 
 of art— the difficulties under which an artist 
 labours. I strive hard, I do assure you, to 
 be true to nature, to be sincere in art. It 
 is the same thing almost. But if I fail, I 
 must fail. I can only depict death from a 
 living model, arranged in a particular pose, 
 such as, to my thinking, a dead body might 
 reasonably and naturally be expected to 
 assume.” 
 
 “I apprehend,” said the aoctor calmly, 
 tapping his snuff-box, “ tjiat if death is to 
 be accurately and faithfully^ portrayed, it 
 must be from a dead model.” 
 
 “ That is easily said.” 
 
 - And easily done. Where is the diffi- 
 culty % My dear Paul, if I have need of what 
 we call ‘ a subject,’ do you think one would 
 not readily be forthcoming 1 Indeed, if 
 I wanted a hundred subjects I should 
 obtain them forthwith. As a rule, what is 
 wanted is supplied. There is a price to 
 be paid of course. According to my ex- 
 perience, at every step in life there is a 
 price to be paid, of one kind or of another ; 
 for it is not invariably payable in money. 
 
 A man has his price, be he alive or dead ; 
 he is worth just so much and no more. In 
 the one case, he can hesitate and haggle 
 about terms; in the other, he cant; he 
 must leave that to his representatives legal 
 or illegal, as the case may be. But one 
 must allow for human infirmities, for the 
 nervous system, epigastric condition, the 
 state of the digestion, and so on — not 
 to speak of moral scruples, for they are 
 always possible, however irrational their 
 character. It may be that you are . so 
 accustomed to paint only from the quick, 
 you would object to paint from the dead , 
 that what is called your nature— by which 
 term I understand the stomach simply to 
 be signified — would revolt at such a 
 proceeding.” 
 
 “ If I do not think so,” said the painter. 
 
 “ If I know myself ” 
 
 “'So few of us know ourselves, the 
 doctor interrupted. 
 
 “ If I know myself,” repeated the young 
 man, putting from him the remark with a 
 waving movement of his hand, “ I should 
 not hesitate to ply my brushes even in the 
 presence of the dead. Surely my hand 
 would not fail me ; my eyes would not 
 lose their power of observing ; my senses, 
 my reason would not abandon me^l I have 
 no moral scruples on the subject.” 
 
 “I am glad of that. What we call 
 moral scruples are often only silly pre- 
 judices in masquerade.” . 
 
 “ I am not timid, although I desire tp 
 make no foolish vaunt of my courage.” 
 
 « No, you are not timid, my friend. But 
 you own a certain element of imaginative- 
 ness. Sometimes it seems to me that the 
 very brave are merely the very stupid. 
 They confront danger boldly because they 
 fad to understand it. They have no 
 mind’s eye. They only see what is before 
 them ; and they see without fully com- 
 prehending. Men are often frightened, 
 not simply by facts, but by the strange 
 thoughts, dreams, and inventions they 
 weave round facts, magnifying and mystify- 
 ing them. After all, what is a dead body 1 
 
40 (July i, 1881.] 
 
 FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 / [Conducted by 
 
 To me it is nothing. We members of the 
 healing art are so often brought face to 
 face with death,” he said with a grim 
 smile. “ We are for ever walking, as it 
 were, over a battle-field. The bodies of 
 those who have fallen in the great battle 
 of life encompass us upon every side. If we 
 doctors have not absolutely slain them with 
 our own hands, we have not saved them. 
 Should we fear the dead? Should we 
 flinch and shiver and tremble when we 
 pass them by or step over them ? Surely 
 not. They are powerless for good or for 
 evil, poor things. Yet they have their uses. 
 Science has need of them. Why should 
 they not serve Art likewise 1 ” 
 
 “ I know no reason why they should 
 not,” answered the painter. 
 
 “ To me the dead are ‘subjects/ as I 
 said. We force Death to betray to us 
 certain of the secrets of Life. We cut 
 our way, literally, to the mysteries of 
 nature. For us the dead speak, and 
 to good and salutary purpose. Who is 
 wronged? Well, possibly — I say possibly — 
 the grave is desecrated. Is that anything 
 more than a manner of speaking — a set 
 phrase, without any particular significance ? 
 If bodies are wanted they must come from 
 somewhere. If they come from the church- 
 yard, what is that to me ? I do not feel 
 bound to make enquiries that might or 
 might not be inconvenient. There are 
 traders in ‘ subjects ’ as there are traders in 
 other wares. Do you ask in every shop 
 you enter whence came the shopkeeper’s 
 goods ? The ‘subjects’ are brought from the 
 hospital, from the jail, from the poorhouse, 
 from the grave. I care not, I know not, 
 which. Does it matter to me, to you, to 
 anybody ? To the dead it can matter not 
 at all. For my part, when life has left this 
 old trunk of mine, I place it at the disposal 
 of Science. Surgery may do its best or its 
 worst with it. I shall reck not. Living I 
 have served my fellow-men; I shall be 
 happy if it may be possible for me to serve 
 them in death and afterwards. ” 
 
 The doctor looked at his watch. 
 
 “ Near midnight,” he said. “ I did not 
 think it was so late. I grow old and 
 garrulous, and upon some topics, when I 
 once begin, I cannot stop myself. But one 
 word more. Is it to be Aye or No ? ” 
 
 “ You mean ? ” 
 
 “ Say Aye, and by this time to-morrow, 
 or let me say rather in the course of to- 
 morrow night, the model you and your 
 picture have need of shall be brought 
 into your studio, shall be lodged before 
 
 your easel. All shall be done secretly and 
 silently. I will charge myself with the 
 accomplishment of the project. It shall 
 be carried out completely without your 
 stirring. You need not appear, you need 
 speak no word ; but I pledge myself that 
 you shall have your model. All I ask is 
 that you will be at once bold and prudent 
 and calm, and that you will leave that door 
 unlocked ” — he pointed to the door which 
 led from the studio into the mews — “or 
 that you will be in readiness to open it 
 upon the instant when you hear a tap upon 
 it without. You understand ? I see you 
 do. Now, is it to be Aye or No ? ” 
 
 “ It is to be Aye,” said the painter 
 firmly. 
 
 “ So be it, then. Good-night, Paul 
 Reinhardt.” 
 
 “Good-night, Doctor Dempster.” 
 
 The doctor went his way. The painter 
 sat musing before the fire. He out- 
 stretched his hands — they had turned very 
 cold — and warmed them over the red-hot 
 embers. Presently he took up the lamp to 
 inspect anew his large incomplete picture 
 of the Entombment. Passing a small 
 looking-glass fixed against the wall he 
 glanced for a moment at the reflection of 
 himself. He started : he had never before 
 known himself to look so extremely wan 
 and pallid. 
 
 II. 
 
 Twenty-four hours had passed. 
 
 Paul Reinhardt was alone in his studio. 
 His lamp was lighted, and the fire glowed 
 again in his grate. He moved about 
 uneasily ; now pausing before his picture, 
 and now examining and re-examining the 
 lock and flints of a horse-pistol that rested 
 upon the mantelshelf. He looked not so 
 much alarmed as anxious and suspicious. 
 He knew that something strange was 
 about to happen. He was less certain as 
 to how he should meet and endure the 
 coming event ; its shadow was already 
 upon him. Frequently he consulted his 
 watch. He opened the door leading to the 
 narrow street at the back of the house 
 and looked out, this way and that. It was 
 very dark. He held his breath that he 
 might listen the better. All was very still. 
 Stay ! Surely he heard something. Foot- 
 steps ? No. A voice ? Yes. But it was 
 only the echo of the watchman’s cry, as, in 
 a distant street, he announced the hour of 
 the night and the state of the weather. 
 
 It was very cold; a bitter wind blew 
 down the narrow street. Paul Reinhardt 
 
Charles Dickens.} 
 
 FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 41 
 
 rith a shiver returned to his hearth, and. 
 tood there with one foot upon 
 eaning against the mantelshelf m his old 
 .ttitude, his cut-steel buckles sparkling in 
 
 Can § any accident have occurred! 
 re asked himself. “ Has there been any 
 mistake 1 Can the old doctor have failed 
 io carry out his plan ? ” 
 
 He was trembling with nervous anxiety. 
 
 But now, he could not he deceived. 
 
 The sounds, first of wheels, then of foot- 
 steps, of low-toned speech, were plainly 
 audible. The door— it had been left 
 unfastened— was pushed open slowly. 
 Then appeared a man with his hat 
 slouched over his face, and wearing 
 long, heavy, many-caped coat; a la 
 coloured handkerchief was wound loosely 
 round his neck. Bor a moment he stood 
 still, glancing round the studio, as though 
 taking note of its contents. His eyes met 
 Paul Reinhardt’s. _ ~ 
 
 The man raised a thick grimy forefinger, 
 by way of signal. A thick-set, swarthy man, 
 dark - eyed, black - browed, blue - chinned, 
 coarse-featured. . 
 
 “ By the doctor’s order, he said m a 
 hoarse whisper, “ a male subject paid lor. 
 
 Is that right ? ” 
 
 Paul Reinhardt nodded. 
 
 The man withdrew for a moment; a low 
 whistle was heard. Presently he reappeared 
 with a companion assisting him. I hey 
 I carried a long and heavy burthen wrapped 
 I in a sheet of rough and ragged sackcloth 
 of a dark hue. They stood for a moment 
 in doubt. Paul pointed to the dais. I hey 
 rudely and rather noisily deposited or 
 rather flung down, there the thing they had 
 
 been carrying. . . . 
 
 “ You will drink ? asked Paul. Yes , 
 they would drink : brandy, gin, usquebaugh, 
 anything. They were not particular. 
 
 Thereupon he took a bottle and glasses 
 from a cabinet in a corner of the studio 
 and gave them brandy. They emptied 
 their glasses very promptly and prepared 
 
 to go. , 
 
 “ Stay,” said Paul; “one word more. 
 
 There has been no foul play ? ” 
 
 “There has been no foul play, as tar as 
 I know,” calmly answered the man who 
 had first entered the studio. “ The subject 
 died a natural death— at least I suppose he 
 did.” 
 
 “ In a workhouse ? ” 
 
 “ Ho — the case was" urgent— we could 
 
 hear of no workhouse subject suitable. 
 Our order was very strict.* But, there 
 
 was a funeral this morning at St. 
 Pancridge’s. Our dread was lest there 
 should be any one watching the grave. 
 
 We get shot at sometimes— no one wants 
 to be shot at if he can help it. But there 
 were no watchers this time, and the dark 
 night favoured us. We ^ managed the 
 business very comfortably. 
 
 “ Let me fill your glasses again. 
 
 They drank more and more brandy. 
 
 He gave them money; they departed; 
 the painter closing, locking and bolting 
 the door behind them. He listened ; he 
 could hear their footsteps, the grinding of 
 wheels, the tramp of a horse’s hoofs, lhey 
 had gone. Paul Reinhardt was left alone 
 with the dead body. It was with an effort 
 he induced himself to approach it. 
 
 His face was very pallid, his fingers- 
 trembled curiously as he lightly raised the 
 sackcloth sheet and tossed it on one side, 
 and gazed at the figure it had wrapped 
 and concealed. 
 
 - A man of my own age,” mused the 
 painter, “and about my height Well- 
 formed, symmetrical, muscular, with short 
 curling dark hair. He must have been 
 handsome, I think. Surely he has not 
 long been dead. How pale he is— how- 
 very pale. Yet,” he added, as he caught 
 sight of his reflection in the glass, “ not 
 paler than I am, I think; no one could 
 well be paler than that. How cold and 
 dark and stiff are his hands. How cold he 
 is here about his heart. Yet, I should 
 have thought death would have been 
 colder. What has this mans life been 1 
 What brought him to the grave whence 
 he has been but now so rudely torn l 
 He had not lived so very many years 
 the world. Was his life happiness 
 to him? Hid he love much? Was he 
 loved ? Was he loath to die ? Who can 
 tell ? His lips are closed for ever, Ine 
 story of his life — if it had a story— is a. 
 secret that will never be told. Ho 
 know the man? No. A face like that, 
 it seems to me, that I may have seen 
 somewhere, at some time. But not that 
 face. No, I do not know the man. 
 
 The painter brought his lamp nearer to 
 his large picture of the Entombment, then 
 glanced from the design to his dead model. 
 With a scrap of white chalk he made 
 certain marks, corrections, or memoranda 
 upon the canvas. , 
 
 “ It is curious,” he noted, “ how nearly 
 the body has fallen into the lines of the 
 figure in the picture. Chance brought me 
 in the neighbourhood of the truth then. 
 
42 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 =0 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 Yet the doctor was right. There is a want 
 of accuracy here. I have failed to give or 
 to suggest the effect of death. The painting 
 is not so dead as the model. If the doctor 
 were to place his finger upon that wrist he 
 would feel no pulse beating.” He glanced 
 again from the model to the picture 
 and hack again. Suddenly he stopped. 
 “ Strange,” he said, “what is that spot 
 upon the wrist? A scar ? A birth-mark ? ” 
 He bent down to examine it more par- 
 ticularly. 
 
 It was a tattoo mark, a double circle, 
 about half an inch in diameter, enclosing a 
 St. Andrew’s cross. 
 
 The artist was painfully agitated. “ What 
 may this mean ? ” he demanded huskily, his 
 heart throbbing noisily. He bared his own 
 wrist ; it was marked in a corresponding 
 manner, with a like double circle enclosing 
 a St. Andrew’s cross ! 
 
 “ Years ago, when I was a boy at Utrecht, 
 that figure was tattooed upon my wrist by 
 a Scotch schoolfellow and comrade of my 
 own age — one Allan Hay. Can this be 
 indeed Allan Hay ? It might be. I cannot 
 be sure. For years we have not met. But 
 what wondrous chance could bring Allan 
 Hay to me, and in this dreadful plight ? 
 Am I dreaming ? Am I going mad ? We 
 were firm fast friends once. Did we ever 
 join in a pledge that if such a thing might 
 be, whichever of us died first should come 
 back from the grave to visit the survivor 
 with tidings of the other world ? Some 
 such mad thing we may have madly said in 
 the long-forgotten past. Is this, indeed, 
 Allan Hay ? Ah ! ” 
 
 He started back with a scream. 
 
 There was a strange movement about the 
 body, a sort of convulsive twitching of the 
 nerves ; then there passed over the frame a 
 curious trembling. 
 
 Paul Reinhardt placed his hand again 
 gently upon the bare breast of his model. 
 
 “Great Heaven !” he cried, “ the heart 
 beats ! He grows warm ! The dead man 
 is coming to life again !” 
 
 in. 
 
 He might have said with Lear, “ You do 
 me wrong to take me out of the grave.” 
 He seemed to suffer so acutely in returning 
 to animation. It was anguish to him to 
 breathe again. 
 
 Vitality was restored gradually and 
 painfully. It was so hard to induce the 
 little leaven of life that had awoke within 
 him to leaven his whole body, to extend 
 to his extremities. A faint action of the 
 
 heart was discoverable, and for a long 
 time nothing more than that. Then came 
 a slight and intermittent heaving of the 
 chest. He was bathed in hot water, his 
 limbs were chafed, his lips were moistened 
 with wine. For hours he lay wrapped in 
 blankets before the fire. 
 
 He began to murmur inarticulately. The 
 first words he uttered were scarcely in- 
 telligible ; but he was understood to com- 
 plain of the cold. He moaned, shivered, 
 and his teeth chattered, the while he was 
 nearly scorched by the heat of the heaped- 
 up and roaring fire. 
 
 Dr. Dempster had been sent for, but 
 could not be found. Paul Eeinhardt had 
 been left almost to his own resources. He 
 thought there might be danger in admitting 
 strangers to his counsels. The man he 
 recognised as his former friend, Allan 
 Hay, had been brought to the studio under 
 such strange conditions. The painter 
 deemed it possible that some criminal 
 charge might be brought against him, that 
 he had rendered himself liable to some 
 penalty of the law. It was desirable, he 
 decided, that secrecy should be maintained 
 as far as possible — for the present at 
 any rate. 
 
 “ I wish the doctor were here to advise 
 and help me,” he said to himself over and 
 over again. “ His absence at. this time, 
 of all others, is most inconvenient and 
 vexatious.” 
 
 He had sent again to Dr. Dempster’s 
 house in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall. He 
 could only learn, concerning the doctor’s 
 movements, that he had been hurriedly 
 summoned to attend a patient in the 
 neighbourhood who was presumably in a 
 state of danger. The doctor had been 
 absent some hours, and was expected back 
 at any moment, but as yet he had not 
 returned. 
 
 Paul Reinhardt, pondering on the 
 anxieties and difficulties of his posi- 
 tion, sat by his studio fire, leaning 
 forward. He was gazing into the burn- 
 ing coals, his hands supporting his head 
 and his elbows resting upon his knees. 
 What was he to do next ? What was 
 the story, the mystery of Allan Hay’s 
 life ? What strange occurrences had 
 brought^ him to this dreadful pass ? It 
 was plain that he had been buried alive ! 
 By what cruel chance, or by what infamous 
 design? Would he recover? Was it 
 possible he could survive the terrible 
 trial he had undergone ? The painter dis- 
 tressed himself with these questions, asking 
 

 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 from the grave. 
 
 [July 4, 1831.] 43 
 
 them repeatedly, and vainly striving to 
 reply to them. 
 
 Suddenly he was conscious of a move- 
 ment on the part of the man. The poor 
 creature was moving uneasily in his blan- 
 kets. One hand was raised and waving 
 feebly and helplessly above his head. He 
 seemed struggling to rise. His eyes were 
 wide open, his ashen lips were parted, ex- 
 posing his clenched teeth. There was upon 
 his face an expression not so much of fear 
 as of almost insane wonder and extreme 
 
 ^^Where am II ” he asked in a strangely 
 scared voice. 
 
 “Hush! Becalm. You are sale now. 
 You have nothing to fear. Be sure of 
 
 that.” „ T 
 
 “ Ah, I have seen your face before. 1 
 have heard your voice, somewhere, I know. 
 
 I am sure of it. But where % Let me 
 think, think. No, I am not mad. I have 
 been called mad, but I am not mad. Ah! 
 tell me, is this Utrecht I” 
 
 “ No, not Utrecht. But you are sale, 
 in friendly hands. No harm can come to 
 
 you here.” , _ T , 
 
 “ Stay; you are Paul Bernhardt. „ I know 
 you now. "W© were friends once. 
 
 “ We are friends still, Allan Hay : if 
 you have need of my friendship or of any 
 help that I can render you 
 
 “Friends ! no. We are foes rather. We 
 parted years since. Have you forgotten A 
 We loved the same fair-haired doll: 
 Amanda Milston, with her schoolgirl 
 prettiness, her lily face, her rosy lips, 
 her heaven-blue eyes. She came between 
 us, and we.quarrelled,as men always quarrel 
 when a woman comes between them. 
 And we w'ho had vowed to be such friends 
 always ! To fall apart for a wretched thing 
 like Amanda Milston ! A doll, did I say % 
 A devil rather. We loved her : fools that 
 we were ! And we hoped, each of us, for 
 her love in return. Madness ! What love 
 had she to give % None ! She knew not, 
 she could not know, she could not even 
 dream what love was. A doll ! A devil I 
 say again.” 
 
 “Hush! hush! you over excite your- 
 
 self.” . , 
 
 “ I wrong her, you think 1 No, no ; 1 do 
 her no more than justice. You did not — 
 you do not know her as I know her.” 
 
 “ But all this is past and gone by long 
 since. We have nothing to do with this 
 now. This child— she was but a child — 
 Amanda Milston, is nothing now to you 
 or to me. Why distress yourself with 
 
 reviving these old sad memories % Pray 
 be calm. Forget that we ever disagreed 
 and parted. Let us be friends again as 
 in the time long past, Allan Hay. Forget 
 that there ever lived this Amanda Milston. 
 
 “ Forget her'?” he laughed Wildly. “ It 
 is easy for you to say that. You can 
 afford to be lenient and generous, benign 
 and benevolent. It costs you nothing to 
 forgive and to forget. You did not marry 
 her as I did. ” 
 
 “ You married her ! ” 
 
 “ What ! You did not know? ” 
 
 “Pray pardon me. I thought I heard 
 that Amanda Milston had dismissed you as 
 she had dismissed me ; that she had affected 
 to prefer you only to discomfit you the 
 more. And, but that harsh words had 
 passed between us, no real reason existed 
 why our old schoolboy friendship should 
 not be resumed, and that we might meet 
 again in the old way upon the old terms. 
 But it so chanced that we never did meet 
 again until now, in this strangest of 
 
 fashions.” . , 
 
 “ True, she dismissed me as she dismissed 
 you, but it was to beckon me back as she 
 would have beckoned you back had you 
 remained in sight and within range of her 
 power to allure and illude. Prudently 
 you received her sentence and manfully 
 departed. You did not know how easily 
 she could reverse her own judgments, 
 unsay to-day the things she had said 
 yesterday, in order, perhaps, to say them 
 over again to-morrow. Fool that 1 was .. I 
 lingered, to find myself at her feet again, 
 her chained slave, her abject spaniel, 
 fawning and crouching, only to be teased 
 and buffeted, the victim of her every idle 
 caprice and wanton fancy. I loved her so ! 
 
 I begged for her heart ; she gave me— a 
 stone. It was all she had to give. She 
 promised to become my wife— withdrew 
 her promise — renewed it again. We 
 parted for ever; to meet again half an hour 
 afterwards. No wonder you heard that 
 all was over between us! We were for 
 ever agreeing that we could never be 
 anything to each other. At length l 
 really seemed that We had finally separated. 
 For weeks I did not see her or hear from 
 her. Suddenly a wild impulsive letter 
 reached me. She implored my return. . I 
 went. A new whim had taken possession 
 of her, or she wished to wound some other 
 lover. I found her in a yielding mood. 
 She fled with me to Scotland and became 
 my wife. What a triumph! Amanda 
 Milston my wife — my evil genius my 
 
44 [July 4, 1881.] FROM THE GRAVE. [Conducted by 
 
 sworn tormentor! The happiness of my 
 life was wrecked upon her flint of a heart. 
 Give me wine ; let me wash away the taste 
 of these thoughts.” 
 
 His voice grew weaker; he had over- 
 taxed his strength ; he was still suffering 
 from the perils he had undergone ; he had 
 not escaped whole and unscathed from the 
 grave. But a nervous excitement possessed 
 him ; he tossed to and fro uneasily among 
 his blankets before the fire. He talked 
 incessantly; he could not be calmed or 
 silenced. Almost it seemed as though his 
 wits were disordered, his mind diseased. 
 He told of the discord, the strife, the 
 misery of his married life; of his wife’s 
 heartlessness, cruelty, and treachery. 
 
 “ I had not, as you had,” he said, “ an 
 art to turn to as an anodyne. I could not, 
 as you could, seek in professional life 
 forgetfulness of the miseries of my home. 
 
 I was, as you may remember, a law student. 
 
 I was duly called to the Scottish bar ; but I 
 had not the strength, the alertness of 
 mind, the firmness of nerve necessary to 
 success as an advocate. I had but little 
 practice. Amanda had thus a new reason 
 for despising me. Our means were but 
 small. The son of a Scottish laird of 
 small fortune, unable to proceed with my 
 profession, I found myself often poor 
 enough. Even those who love find poverty 
 hard to bear. Think how Amanda found 
 it ! She could not love, but she could hate, 
 as I had soon to learn. She despised me ; 
 she hated me ; she wished me dead. But 
 I can say no more now. I grow faint and 
 very, very weary. By-and-by I will tell 
 you more.” 
 
 He fell back, and in a moment was 
 soundly asleep : not to waken for some 
 hours. Paul sat beside the sleeper, 
 contemplating him, and considering his 
 strange story. 
 
 Suddenly he stirred, shook himself, and 
 rose. 
 
 “ I must go out. Fear not ; I will come 
 back. I am strong enough now. Lend 
 me clothes and money — a very little will 
 do. Enough to pay for a hackney-coach.” 
 
 It was in vain that Paul opposed his 
 . going forth. 
 
 “You forget,” he said. “ I have a wife 
 at home who thinks herself a widow. I 
 must undeceive her. She has to learn that 
 I am still alive.” 
 
 Paul offered to accompany him. It was 
 not prudent for him to go alone. 
 
 “ What ! ” cried Allan Hay with a wild 
 laugh, “you would see your old love 
 
 again 1 You are curious as to how Amanda 
 looks after all these years 1 Another time, 
 my friend — another time will do for that.” 
 
 And, weak and ailing, wild of look and 
 with trembling limbs, he went forth alone. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It was late at night when Dr. Dempster 
 re-entered Paul Reinhardt’s studio. 
 
 “You sent for me,” said the doctor, 
 “but I could not come before. I have 
 been closely engaged all day long. I have 
 not had an hour to call my own. Are you 
 ill 1 Has anything happened 1 You wear 
 a strangely troubled look ; your face is 
 very pale and worn. How your hand 
 burns ! And what a pulse ! What’s the 
 matter ? Have you seen a ghost ? Have 
 you been allowing your imagination to run 
 riot and scared yourself into a fit 1 Have 
 you been suffering from indigestion, and 
 are you just wakened from a nightmare 1 ” 
 
 “ Not that exactly,” answered Paul, 
 with some hesitation. 
 
 He felt some difficulty in relating to the 
 doctor what had happened, noting his 
 unsympathetic mood. 
 
 “ Has Joel kept his word 1 ” The doctor 
 glanced round the studio as though looking 
 for something. “ But I see he has not.” 
 
 “ Who is Joel 1 ” 
 
 “ The question shows that he has* failed 
 me. Joel deals in ‘subjects.’ He received 
 particular instructions from me. I suppose 
 some difficulty occurred. But I never 
 knew Joel to fail before, he is usually 
 very businesslike and punctual and trust- 
 worthy in his dealings. Let me sit down 
 by the fire; I feel quite worn out. I have 
 seldom gone through a more trying and 
 fatiguing day. And if you could give me a 
 glass of punch, I’d drink it and be obliged 
 to you.” 
 
 “It is my turn to ask what has hap- 
 pened 1 ?” said the painter, as he attended to 
 the doctor’s needs. 
 
 “ You must know,” Dr. Dempster began 
 presently, “ that I was hurriedly sent for 
 the morning after I left you, to attend a 
 lady who had been seized with violent 
 fever and delirium. She was a young 
 woman of considerable beauty, a widow. 
 She had lost her husband very recently, I 
 was told, and it was supposed that the 
 shock had deranged her intellects. At the 
 same time I gathered — though it mattered 
 little enough, all things considered — that 
 she and her departed husband had not 
 lived happily together — had, indeed, lived 
 most unhappily together. He had been a 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 FROM THE GRAVE. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 45 
 
 Scottish advocate, I learnt, but had no 
 practice. For some time they had been 
 living in lodgings near Charing Cross. 1 
 saw her for the first time. I was called 
 in to advise with her regular medical at- 
 tendant, a man of whom I knew nothing, 
 and whom, I may say at once, I did not 
 like. His manner struck me as insolent 
 and offensive. He had simply sent for me 
 to confirm his opinion, and to second, his 
 proposals as to the treatment of the patient. 
 How I am in the habit of forming opinions 
 for myself, and of adopting my own modes 
 of medical treatment. 
 
 “ It so happens,” the doctor continues, 
 after a pause, “that I have made much 
 study of cerebral derangement. That the 
 lady was suffering from a serious mental 
 disorder I could not doubt. She had made 
 some attempt at self- destruction. She had 
 accused herself of a very dreadful crime- 
 nothing less than the murder of her 
 husband. She believed detection to be 
 imminent. She had persuaded herself 
 that she was being watched, and that the 
 officers of justice were already in quest of 
 her; that a shameful death upon the 
 scaffold was assuredly in store for her. 
 need not tell you that propensity to 
 suicide, unreasonable fears, forebodings, 
 and self-accusations are plain indica- 
 tions of a diseased mind. The patient 
 was in a state of acute mental distress.: 
 she was talking wildly, incoherently, deli- 
 riously ; she was what people call raving. 
 But I mustn’t weary you with a long 
 story, or set forth the process by which I 
 arrived at a certain important conclusion. 
 
 I was influenced, however, less by what the 
 woman said, though she said many strange 
 things, than by the man’s manner. He 
 evidently desired to silence her at all costs, 
 by the most brutal means if no others 
 were available. In fine, I convinced myself 
 that a crime had really been committed ; 
 that the woman’s husband had been 
 murdered in the most shameful manner, 
 and that the man I found with her was her 
 accomplice and, as I suspect, her lover. In 
 plain words, the husband had been heavily 
 drugged with opium, then treated as dead, 
 and hurriedly buried — alive.” 
 
 <• The woman’s name is Amanda Hay,” 
 cried Paul. “She is the wife of Allan Hay, 
 advocate.” 
 
 “ How did you know that 1 I 
 careful not to mention any names.” 
 
 Paul then related how Allan Hay had 
 returned to life from the grave, describing 
 the incidents that preceded his recovery. 
 
 All this is very strange,” mused the 
 doctor. “You are sure you have not been 
 dreaming, Paul 1 Then, after all, Joel was 
 as good as his word.” 
 
 “ But Amanda — is her state hopeless i 
 « She cannot recover, as I judge. She 
 is shattered, mind and body, by her fears 
 and her remorse. Could anyone wish her 
 to live 1” „ 
 
 “ She was very beautiful once. 
 
 “ She is beautiful still, for that matter.” 
 “And I loved her with my whole 
 
 heart.” . , 
 
 1 ‘ Of course that alters the case, said the 
 
 doctor. 
 
 A SUDDEN movement in the half-lighted 
 studio startled the two men. A gaunt, 
 weird, ghostly figure emerged from the 
 darkness and stood before them. It was 
 Allan Hay. . . 
 
 “ I have seen her. She lives,” he said m 
 hollow tones, feebly swaying to and fro the 
 while. “ But she did not know me. She 
 is stark mad. - If she had known me I 
 should have killed her. I looked into her 
 eyes. I found no recognition, no specula- 
 tion there. It was as though she had never 
 seen me. So I spared her. It was best, I 
 think.” 
 
 He laughed wildly, tossing up his arms 
 and staggering about the room. 
 
 “ Who is this % ” whispered Dr. Dempster. 
 
 “ Allan Hay.” 
 
 “ The husband. Ah, I understand.” _ 
 Rising from his chair, the doctor with 
 his keen hawk’s eye watched curiously the 
 man returned from the grave. 
 
 “But he is dead!” cried Allan Hay, 
 laughing and staggering anew. 
 
 But for Paul’s aid, indeed, he would have 
 fallen. 
 
 “ Who is dead V’ asked Paul, with both 
 arms supporting him. 
 
 “ Her lover. The man who helped her 
 to poison me. He loved her and he hated 
 me. She was to become his wife after my 
 death. I heard them whispering their 
 plans together. He will never whisper 
 again. I did not quit my hold until I 
 knew that he was dead. Look here ! ” He 
 held out his hands ; they were torn and 
 bleeding. “ See how he scratched and bit, 
 like a wild cat ! But I strangled him. He 
 will bite and scratch no more. All is 
 over now.” 
 
 Uttering a strange cry, a sob, a gasp, a 
 groan— it was hard to say which — the poor 
 wretch slipped through Paul’s arms on 
 
46 [July 4, 1881.) 
 
 PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 to the dais beside the picture of the 
 Entombment. 
 
 Dr. Dempster sprang towards him. In 
 a moment the doctor’s fingers were upon 
 his pulse. 
 
 “ He is dying,” said the doctor with a 
 significant glance at Paul. 
 
 “ Can nothing be done ?” 
 
 “ Nothing.” There was a dreadful 
 stillness for some minutes. 
 
 “He is dead,” said the doctor. He 
 released the wrist he had been holding 
 between his right forefinger and thumb, 
 and lightly let the dead man’s hand fall 
 beside him. “You can renew your studies 
 from the dead model.” 
 
 The painter shook his head mournfully. 
 
 “Never more,” he said. “Allan Hay 
 was dear to me once.” 
 
 Paul buried his face in his hands. 
 
 “ Come, come, my friend ; this must not 
 be. There is something to be thought 
 about. After all, the living are rather to 
 be considered than the dead. What are we 
 to do % I will tell you. We must turn 
 our backs upon all this. We must treat it 
 all as though it had never been, or as 
 though it had been the bad dream I once 
 judged it to be.” 
 
 He threw over the body some ragged 
 sackcloth he found upon the dais. 
 
 “ We must forget the whole business.” 
 
 “ Never,” said Paul Beinhardt. 
 
 “ This I will do, at any rate,” said the 
 doctor. “ It will be the best course to 
 pursue for all concerned. I will send to 
 J oel straightway and bid him carry back to 
 St. Pancras’s Churchyard the body he stole 
 from it some few hours since. That act of 
 restitution is in our power at any rate. 
 For the rest — well, I think we will leave 
 the rest to chance, and hold our tongues 
 meanwhile.” 
 
 # The doctor regaled himself with repeated 
 pinches of snuff as he literally turned his 
 back upon the dead body of Allan Hay. 
 
 PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. 
 
 BY R. E. ERANCILLON. 
 
 I. 
 
 With a light heart I threw myself into 
 the very earliest train that left Macon for 
 Geneva, and realised that at last I was 
 alone — and free ! I had been eccentric 
 enough to take a first-class ticket, for 
 silence and solitude, and the freedom that 
 they mean, had become things of vital 
 necessity. In freedom, solitude, and 
 
 silence I lighted my cigar, and gazed out of 
 window, in a mood of luxurious idleness, 
 upon the flying vineyards, glittering with 
 last night’s rain and with the early morning 
 sun. And, as I gazed, thus I mused : 
 
 # “ Yes, I have done the trick at last, this 
 time ! It was a happy thought, that, to 
 tell the infernal old villain, last night in 
 the smoking-room, that I should start for 
 Paris by the mid-day train. He thinks 
 I’m safe in. bed, and I shall be able to 
 fancy him in an hour from now coming 
 down to breakfast, smirking and smiling, 
 and rubbing his hands, and looking round 
 for me, like a spider for a fly, only to find 
 that 4 fly ’ has been the very word ! I am 
 free — free — free ! ” 
 
 Yes, for ages, as the period of my 
 torture seemed, I had been suffering from 
 the intolerable persecutions of a Bore. I 
 was sketching one morning on the bank 
 of the Eance, long ago, when I became 
 conscious that my canvas was being over- 
 looked by a little, fat, bald-headed being, 
 who appeared to be beaming at my work 
 with a smile of perfectly imbecile ecstasy. 
 
 . “ Equal to Titiens, that ! ” said he, rub- 
 bing his hands in a way with which I was 
 doomed to become acquainted only too 
 well. “ You’re a genius, that’s what 
 you are, or my name isn’t Simpson. And 
 when I say a thing, that’s the thing I 
 mean. I must tell you in confidence, you 
 know, that I’m a most extraordinarily candid 
 man. Give me the man that wears his 
 heart on his sleeve, you know, for daws to 
 peck at, as they say in the play. If I had 
 the pleasure of your acquaintance, I’d say 
 more. But if anybody told me the 
 painter of that picture' isn’t a greater 
 genius than Caractacus, I’d— I’d— tell him 
 —I d tell him, sir, that I didn’t agree with 
 him ‘ and I m a candid man. I always 
 speak my mind whatever the consequences 
 may be. I mayn’t know much about art 
 myself, but I know when I like a thing, 
 and I’m never afraid to say so ; no, not to 
 the very face of the man who did it — 
 there! I hope you’re not one of those 
 that are offended with candour? For if 
 you are, I can tell you you’ll never get any- 
 thing else from John Simpson. And I tell 
 you, sir, that you are a genius, and if you 
 say you re not, then I won’t give a fig for 
 your opinion— there ! I’m plain John 
 Simpson, and I always speak my mind.” 
 
 I’m afraid— sadly afraid— that a first 
 dose of praise, though laid on inches 
 thick by a man who thinks that Caractacus 
 and Titiens were portrait - painters, and 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. 
 
 [July 4, 1831.1 47 
 
 misquotes -Shakespeare, has a certain relish 
 for us all. 
 
 My Bessy thought me a genius, I know, 
 but Mr. Simpson was the first stranger, in 
 or out of print, who had ever told me so. 
 After all, the appreciation of genius does 
 not require learning — or where would 
 genius be? And John Simpson might be 
 a great art-patron for aught I could tell, 
 while I was struggling and poor, and in 
 love besides. 
 
 Well for me if my acquaintance with. 
 
 “ Plain John Simpson,” as he delighted to 
 call himself, and with perfect truth so far 
 as face and figure were concerned, had 
 ended then and there ! He seemed to be 
 pretty well off, to judge from his com- 
 fortable way of going on, but to have no 
 travelling companions; and he chose to 
 hook himself on to me, who am not 
 particularly fond of casual company. He 
 talked a great deal, and the one subject 
 of his conversation was my transcendent 
 merits and his extraordinary candour. It 
 was not only when I painted that I was 
 superior to Caractacus and Titiens. And 
 the very vainest of mortals likes sometimes 
 to do something without being told that 
 he is superior to somebody. 
 
 He happened once, in the hotel where 
 we were both staying, to catch me strum- 
 ming on the piano ; he sat down in a 
 corner in an attitude of rapture, and 
 brought my idle performance to an end by 
 proclaiming defiantly that candour obliged 
 him to recognise me as a regular Maestoso, 
 adding that music hath charms, and that a 
 thing of beauty is a joy for ever. 
 
 From that moment I, as politely as I 
 could, tried to put my elbow between 
 myself and his advances, and to turn 
 silent and cold. But cold water has no 
 more effect upon a duck’s back than cold 
 manners appeared to have upon plain 
 John Simpson. The more he got of it, 
 the warmer he grew. 
 
 Circumstances detained me three weeks 
 at Dinan ; and during that time I could 
 not say, “ Good-morning, Mr. Simpson,” 
 without an answer of “ Ha, ha, ha ! ho, 
 ho, ho ! but that was a good one ! And a 
 candid man must have his laugh out at a 
 good joke, whatever the consequences may 
 be I Send it to Punch, sir, send it to Punch; 
 and if they don’t put it in — why, I’ll say 
 they ought to ; and plain John Simpson 
 always speaks his mind ! ” 
 
 At first his praise a little tickled me, for 
 it was not unpleasantly new. Then it 
 began to amuse, then to annoy me, then to 
 
 disgust ; at last to bore. Something of a 
 painter I believed myself to be, but when 
 I was treated as painter, musician, critic, 
 poet, philosopher, and wit all in one— well, 
 all that even I myself could not contrive to 
 swallow. I began at last to look forward 
 with hope to the day when I should be 
 asked for the temporary loan of that 
 inevitable half-crown which, in the 
 language of the Arabian Nights, is “ the 
 terminator of delights and separator of 
 companions.” 
 
 Alas ! though Mr. Simpson never 
 suggested that he should become the 
 purchaser of one of the sketches he so 
 much admired, it was very soon plain 
 to be seen that I was more likely to have 
 occasion for his half-crowns than he for 
 mine. No suspicion of a motive for his 
 universal admiration for me could cross my 
 mind when I saw the ready punctuality 
 with which he paid for everything, and 
 how eager he was to stand whatever we ate, 
 drank, or smoked in company. 
 
 Tiresome as he was, I could not accuse 
 him of being niggardly ; and I not seldom 
 had to use my better knowledge of the 
 coinage and language of the country to 
 keep in check his tendency to pay double 
 for everything. He seemed to be over- 
 flowing with generosity and good-nature 
 towards all the world, so that I was now 
 and then almost tempted to like him if he 
 had only been a little more chary of his 
 expressions of devoted friendship and 
 boundless admiration. 
 
 Often, towards the latter part of my 
 stay at Dinan, I tried to escape from his 
 society. But it was never of the least use 
 to try. By some fiendish instinct or other 
 he would trace me out within an hour, 
 and then I was doomed to his clutches for 
 the remainder of the day. 
 
 But at last I said “ Good-bye,” and I 
 thought I saw tears in his eyes. There 
 were certainly none in my own. 
 
 I continued my wanderings to Borne, 
 and thence to the Nile. And it was at 
 the foot of the Great Pyramid that I heard 
 these words : 
 
 “Oh, what a wonderful thing is sym- 
 pathy ! Here we are again ! ” 
 
 And so we were. By some strange 
 accident, plain John Simpson had been on 
 his way to Egypt too. And he clasped 
 my hand as if I were glad to see him. 
 From that hour the great land . of 
 mysteries, crocodiles, and excursionists 
 had lost its charm. Plain John Simpson 
 pervaded it all. 
 
" — = : 
 
 48 [July 4, 1881,] PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. [Conducted by 
 
 Need I continue this portion of my 
 tale ? From that hour I knew that I had 
 become the prey of plain John Simpson 
 no less than if he had been a fiend 
 expressly sent to plague me. Wherever 
 chance or purpose led me, there, by some 
 unaccountable coincidence, he also turned 
 up, everywhere the same, imperturbable 
 in temper, overflowing with unctuous 
 amiability, eternally praising, glorifying 
 his own candour, beaming, and rubbing 
 his hands. It was hopeless to think of 
 quarrelling with a man who could neither 
 give a snub nor feel one. But was this 
 to go on until one of us died h 
 
 And now I had been tumbling over 
 him again at Macon, when fondly believing 
 him to be on his way down the Rhine. 
 But I had freed myself from my incubus 
 at last ; that day would carry us in 
 different directions. I was free. And it 
 should be my own fault if I ever fell 
 into his clutches again. 
 
 ii. 
 
 I forget the name of the station at 
 which, to drink a glass of wine, I first 
 left the train. It does not signify. I was 
 not more than a couple of minutes away 
 from my carriage ; and yet, no sooner had 
 the train started than I heard from the 
 opposite corner : 
 
 “ What a wonderful thing sympathy is, 
 to be sure ! Why, if here we aren’t 
 again ! And I thought — but, well, we’re 
 a regular Demon and Python, as we used 
 to say at school. You are such a jolly 
 fellow, you know ! None of the long- 
 hair, turn-over collar nonsense about you. 
 Why, I feel as if I might have been a 
 genius myself, seeing you take things so 
 easy. P’r’aps I should have been if I’d 
 been edicated to that line. But if I 
 haven’t got the genius I must do myself 
 the justice to confess I know what I 
 like, speaking as a candid man. Mock 
 modesty’s just cant and humbug, sir ! I 
 know what I’m not, but I know what I 
 am. I’m not a Hamlet nor an Othello ; but 
 I’m plain John Simpson, and that’s more 
 than Hamlet could say. Now, some 
 people might wonder to see how first-rate 
 we chum together, you and me. The fact 
 is, you’re a genius, and I’m a man that 
 says to genius, when he sees it, ‘There 
 you are ! ’ And so we can’t drop apart, 
 even if we tried. Why, I do verily 
 believe that if you were at the North 
 Pole and me at the South, the law of 
 what d’ye call it, you know, would bring 
 
 us together again in half an hour. I do 
 believe that nature meant me and you 
 to be born in Siam — twins, you know. I 
 was thinking of some beautiful lines upon 
 that very subject as I came along in 
 another part" of the train, for, would you 
 believe it, sir, I didn’t know you were 
 in this carriage till I saw you get out 
 just now, and then I changed in the 
 twinkling of an eye, as, they say. It was 
 some lines I once came across in a news- 
 paper which you mayn’t have happened to 
 see : 
 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,. 
 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air ! 
 
 There — those lines are just as if they 
 were written on purpose about you and 
 me. You’re the flower, you see, born to 
 blush unseen, if it wasn’t for the desert, 
 you know — that’s me — coming in, and— 
 No ; that isn’t quite how I made it out in 
 the other carriage ; but I know I did 
 make it come all right, somehow ; and that’s, 
 the great thing. I daresay I shall re- 
 member presently. I’ll be sure and tell 
 you when I do. I am so glad to have met 
 you again, my dear, dear sir ! Sympathy’s 
 a wonderful thing — almost as wonderful as 
 steam ! Take one of these cigars. They 
 didn’t cost more than eight pounds a . hun- 
 dred; but they’re fairish, all the same. 
 And while we’re going on, I’ll tell you the 
 whole story of how I came to be bald. I 
 don’t think you ever heard it before % ” 
 
 I had heard just twenty-nine times 
 before. How was a life-long eternity of 
 chatter like this to be endured, however 
 strongly larded with personal flattery it 
 might be 1 And if it were true that the 
 distance of the poles was not to keep us. 
 asunder — I inwardly groaned. Something 
 must be done. 
 
 “I must own,” said I, “that I didn’t 
 expect to have the — the pleasure — of 
 meeting you again so soon. I thought 
 you were bound for Paris, while I ” 
 
 “ For Paris % Of course I am.” 
 
 A. ray of hope flashed through me. “Are 
 you aware,” I asked, “ that this train is not 
 for Paris, but Geneva 'l ” 
 
 “Not for Paris — for Geneva 'l Bless my 
 soul ! I must have got hold of the wrong 
 page of Bradshaw. I could have sworn 
 that this was the train for Paris, as sure as 
 my name’s John Simpson. I remember that 
 I had some difficulty with the young woman 
 at the booking-office — either I couldn’t 
 understand her, or she couldn’t understand 
 me. I’m not a walking Babel, like you 
 are, my dear sir. I declare such a thing 
 
a- . ■— "== = 
 
 Charles Dickens.] PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. [July 4, 188 1.1 49 ] 
 
 never happened to me in my life before. 
 But it shows how we ought to be taught 
 French when we’re young. Now I can 
 understand your French ; but I’m hanged 
 if I can ever quite make out a French- 
 man’s; and as for a Frenchwoman’s, it’s no 
 more like what I used to be taught at 
 school than a cabbage is like a grasshopper, 
 so to say. It’s my belief those French 
 fellows don’t know any sort of civilised 
 tongue — not even their own. But — by 
 Jingo !— where’s my luggage gone h ” 
 
 “ But you needn’t go all the way to 
 Geneva,” said I, eagerly. “ Look here,” I 
 went on, opening my Bradshaw, “ if you 
 leave the train at Belgarde — it s early yet, 
 you know — here’s a train from there that 11 
 bring you to Paris by evening. Of course 
 you’ve got the ticket for your luggage ; 
 and you’ll find it all safe and sound, with- 
 out having lost more than a morning s 
 travel.” 
 
 “ Eh ! Oh ah ! I see. I never saw 
 a fellow for helping another out of a mess 
 like you ! Sir, you’re a true friend ! And 
 I’m plain John Simpson, and always speak 
 my mind. * May we never want a friend, 
 nor a bottle to give him.’ ‘ Give me the 
 man that is not passion’s slave, and I will 
 wear him 
 
 “ Out ! ” suggested I, by way of a new 
 but singularly appropriate, only too pain- 
 fully suggestive, reading. 
 
 “ Ha, ha, ha ! Ho, ho, ho ! ‘ Wear him 
 out ’ ! Ho, ho, ho ! Send it to Punch- 
 capital, by Jingo ! — and if they don’t put it in, 
 then all I can say is, and I will say it, they 
 don’t know a good thing when they see 
 one. 1 Wear him out ’ — just like a hat or 
 a coat, you know — that’s as witty a thing 
 as ever I heard ! Sir Sydney Smith never 
 said a better, nor that other witty fellow— 
 what’s-his-name % It’s as good as ‘ Why 
 does a miller wear a white hat % ’ I forget 
 the answer just, this minute, but the ques- 
 tion’s capital. But, on second thoughts, I 
 won’t go to Paris, after all. As you’re 
 going to Geneva, I’ll go to Geneva too. 
 ’Pon my soul, I haven’t the heart to dis- 
 appoint you, after you’d been reckoning on 
 my company. After your readiness to help 
 a fellow-creature out of a mess, I mustnt 
 allow you to travel to Geneva all alone. I 
 look upon ingratitude, my dear sir, as un- 
 worthy of any candid man. I’ll get a new 
 rig-out at Geneva — there’s nothing in my 
 baggage that won’t keep till we go back 
 to Paris together. You mean to make some 
 stay at Geneva, I presume % ” 
 
 Confound the fellow ! Why had I not 
 
 said I was going to Timbuctoo ^ At that | 
 moment I was anything but “the man who 
 is not passion’s slave.” 
 
 “ May be for years — may be for mi- 
 nutes,” said I. 
 
 “ Extraordinary — just my case too ! In 
 fact, I never know how long I may be any- 
 where, and, to speak candidly, the pleasure 
 we take in one another’s company will weigh 
 with me more than anything. We’ll have 
 a regular good time in Geneva, my dear 
 sir, as the Yankees say. I’m travelling for 
 improvement — to make up for the educa- 
 tional deficiencies of my parents and guar- 
 dians — and I must congratulate myself on 
 having met with an intellectual giant, so to 
 say, like you— a regular philosopher and 
 friend. After a talk with you, the last 
 thing before I go to bed I jot down every 
 word I can remember your saying during 
 the day, like old Ben Jonson did to Bos- 
 well. I only wish I’d met you in the days 
 when I was young.” 
 
 This was too terrible ! 
 
 “ I’m afraid, though, you’ll hardly care 
 to accompany me to the top of the Matter- 
 horn ! ” said I. I had no thoughts of 
 going there myself ; but it was the best 
 makeshift I could think of on the spur of 
 the moment for Timbuctoo or Hades. 
 
 “The Matterhorn 1 No; I’m afraid 
 that’s rather high. But, I can wait 
 at the bottom till you come down again ! 
 
 I assure you, candidly, I shan’t mind wait- 
 ing a bit ; you needn’t deprive yourself of 
 the Matterhorn on my account, my dear 
 sir.” 
 
 “ But, you see, I’ve engaged to meet a 
 friend, and — perhaps he mightn’t suit you, 
 you know.” 
 
 “ Any friend of yours, my dear sir, must 
 needs be a friend of mine ! I shall be 
 proud, proud to make the acquaintance of 
 any friend of yours. We shall make a 
 jovial band of brothers, we three, ‘ Old 
 King Cole was a jolly old soul,’ like you 
 and your friend, and me.” 
 
 What, in the name of Despair, was I to 
 do 1 
 
 ill. 
 
 Plain John Simpson did accompany me to 
 Geneva, and, of course, put up at the same 
 
 Of* course it was utterly untrue that I 
 was expecting to meet any friend at Geneva. 
 
 : I had invented an imaginary friend in the 
 i hopeless hope that my persecutor might 
 not care to intrude upon a company ot 
 ; which he had not been specially invited 
 
 — =1 
 
50 [July 4, 1881.1 
 
 PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 to make a third. I had made a terrible 
 blunder. Not only had my rather feeble 
 expedient failed, but I found myself com- 
 pelled, for my credit’s sake, to give my non- 
 existent friend the name of Paul Jones 
 (the first that occurred to me), and — this 
 with intent — to make him out the most 
 disagreeable, detestable, and contemptible 
 of mankind. I turned him into a sort of 
 Bogey, who might, by the dark hues in 
 which I painted him, scare plain John 
 Simpson away. Alas ! he would not have 
 been scared from . my shoulder by a friend 
 with cloven hoofs, horns, and a barbed tail. 
 Over the entire history of the next few days 
 I prefer to draw a veil. It must suffice that 
 my efforts to escape became feebler and 
 fewer, till at last I gave up making any at 
 all. No man can conquer his destiny, and 
 plain John Simpson was mine. 
 
 I had, however, at once established com- 
 munications with England, and the one 
 event of the day in which plain John 
 Simpson’s society allowed me to take any 
 interest was my regular visit to the post- 
 office — an interest with which a certain 
 young lady named Bessy Field was inti- 
 mately concerned. And, alas ! even in 
 this daily excursion my incubus took 
 the most active interest too. He never, 
 so far as I saw, received any letters 
 himself, though he always enquired for 
 them ; but he set up an absorbing anxiety 
 about the movements of my imaginary 
 travelling companion, Paul J ones. When 
 would he come ? I had serious thoughts 
 of receiving the melancholy tidings that 
 Paul J ones had been buried alive ’ in an 
 avalanche, or devoured by wolves. At last, 
 on the fourth day after our arrival in 
 Geneva, I did receive a letter forwarded 
 from the post-office in Paris, in a hand that 
 I knew better than any other in the 
 world. 
 
 “ Heard from Paul at last ? ” asked Mr. 
 Simpson. “ When’ll he be here ? Why 
 don’t you open your letter ? Never mind 
 me. Any letters for plain — I mean for 
 Monseer Jong Sing-song ? ” he asked the 
 post-office clerk, putting everything into 
 English except his own name. “ Yes ? 
 Well, that’s more than I looked for. I 
 wonder who it’s from?” 
 
 He opened it, while I was quietly 
 making my way to the door, with my 
 own prize unopened. But hardly had I 
 turned my back when he was after me. 
 
 “ Well, and how is Paul ? And when’ll 
 he be here ?” 
 
 I could not open Bessy’s letter then and 
 
 there, and read it, however slightly, under 
 the beaming eyes of plain J ohn Simpson. 
 
 I thrust it into my pocket, and, affecting to 
 have read it, said : 
 
 “Paul Jones has had a bad sprain. I’m 
 afraid he won’t be here for some time.” 
 
 “ Poor fellow — poor fellow! Dear, dear 
 me ! A sprain’s a worse job than a broken 
 leg, you know. Where is he ? Where did 
 he write from to you ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, let me see — from Chamouni.” 
 
 “ Chamouni, eh ? All alone at Chamouni, 
 poor fellow, and sprained ! - ■ By Jingo, 
 then, as he can’t come to us, you must go 
 to him.” 
 
 “ What ? ” 
 
 “ Of course you must be anxious to be 
 by the bedside of your friend Paul, all 
 alone and sprained in a foreign land. Yes, 
 my dear sir, I understand the delicacy of 
 heart which makes you dislike the thought 
 of leaving me alone. But Candour before 
 all things. I will not be in the way. You 
 shall go to Chamouni.” 
 
 “ Ah, that’s a good thought. I will go 
 to Chamouni. I’ll start in an hour.” 
 Freedom loomed before me once again. 
 Blessings on Paul Jones for that ! 
 
 “In an hour?” asked John Simpson. 
 “ Quick work that. The restless energy of 
 genius there— aye, and of philanthropy. 
 Yes, I’ll be ready in an hour. You shall 
 not suffer for your kindness to poor Paul. 
 
 . . . I’ll go tool” 
 
 I could occasionally effect a retreat into 
 the solitude of my own bedroom, though I 
 never could manage to get away from the 
 hotel without finding J ohn Simpson some- 
 where in the doorway. Of course I lost 
 no time in carrying Bessy’s letter, on the 
 very first opportunity, into the only place 
 in the whole wide world, except her heart, 
 which plain John Simpson allowed me any 
 longer to call my own for half an hour. 
 Thus I read, and, as I read, even plain 
 John Simpson took himself out of mind, 
 and gave me five minutes’ holiday. 
 
 “ I suppose you will get this in Paris, as 
 that is where you told me to write next. 
 But do you know that something very 
 wonderful has happened since last Tuesday 
 — yes, wonderful indeed for me ? You are 
 not the only one who is to go wandering 
 about all over the world, and I daresay not 
 amusing himself so very badly, for all that 
 he may say. Mrs. Archer has asked me to 
 go with her to the Ehine and Switzerland, 
 and I don’t know where else ; and, what’s 
 more, I’m going, and by the time you get 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 51 
 
 this we shall have gone. I don’t know 
 our exact route, but I shouldn’t be very 
 much surprised if, by some accident or 
 other, we happened to be somewhere 
 about Chamouni from the eighteenth to the 
 twenty-third. ...” 
 
 And it was the seventeenth to-day ! 
 Why, if I had been in Paris I would have 
 taken the next train, with full faith in that 
 some accident or other,” and here I was, 
 so near as Geneva already ! It was not 
 will, but adverse circumstance, that com- 
 pelled me for the present to live abroad 
 while Bessy remained at home, and if I 
 had not been so compelled, that tyrannical 
 social prejudice which leads young ladies 
 relations to object to painters without cus- 
 tomers would have forbidden me to see 
 anything of her worth mentioning. But 
 under the chaperonage of that dearest and 
 best of old ladies, Mrs. Archer, five whole 
 days at Chamouni would be worth living 
 for — things to be gained and drained to the 
 last drop if I had been obliged to come from 
 the antipodes to get them. I would start 
 
 for Chamouni in an hour 
 
 A tap at the door. 
 
 “ Here I am ! I’m ready to start, and 
 I’ve paid the bill. Don’t mention it, my 
 dear sir ! Are you ready ? Come along ! 
 We’ll be by poor Paul’s bedside in next to 
 no time, so to say. Won’t he be glad to 
 see us ! By Jingo, the thought of it gives 
 me quite a glow!” 
 
 What was I to do now, with that 
 accursed Bore ? 
 
 Well, I must go to Chamouni ; but, alas, 
 must go with him. There was no help for it. 
 
 I could not even give him the slip on 
 the road which led to Her. And that 
 confounded Paul Jones ! Non-existent 
 though he was, he had become almost as 
 great a bore as plain John Simpson, 
 could not tell the latter how things really 
 were. I am convinced that, had I told 
 him outright that my true object in start- 
 ing for Chamouni was to meet a young 
 lady, he would have insisted on obliging 
 me by being present at our interview. 
 
 All the way to Chamouni plain John 
 Simpson’s tongue went on. He waxed 
 enthusiastic over my loyal self-devotion to 
 poor Paul. He tried to recollect some 
 receipt of his mother’s for sprains, which, 
 so far as I remember, was concocted of 
 brimstone and treacle, jalap and blue pill. 
 He remarked that Mont Blanc is the 
 monarch of mountains — in fact, the highest 
 in all Europe — and that Lord Byron was a 
 very extraordinary man. 
 
 “ Don Juari, eh, you know?” he asked, 
 with a knowing wink and an extra rub of 
 the hands. “ Some wicked bits there, you 
 know, but uncommonly fine. Just the 
 thing you could write, my dear sir. Most 
 interesting to know he used to drink gin- 
 and-water. It’s a drink I’m rather partial 
 to myself, you know — now and then.” 
 
 Then, for the thirtieth time, he told me 
 the story of how he, John Simpson, became 
 bald; and th6n— — But sleep came to 
 my help, and- I heard no more, except, 
 even in my dreams, a refrain of “Plain 
 John Simpson— and I’m a candid man.” 
 Most unaccountably, our enquiries for 
 Paul Jones at Chamouni completely failed. 
 Not only did* we fail to hear of a Paul 
 Jones with a sprained ankle, but even of a 
 Paul Jones at all. My persecutor’s dis- 
 appointment was profound. 
 
 “Most extraordinary!” said he. “I 
 never heard of such a thing. I’ll ask if 
 there’s a crier here, and send him round 
 with the bell’. Dear, dear, I’m afraid it 
 must be a very bad sprain indeed. But, 
 by Jingo, my dear sir, I’ll find your poor 
 friend, poor Paul, dead or alive.” 
 
 But my enquiries had not failed in one 
 respect. Somebody was at Chamouni, 
 though her name was not Paul Jpnes ; and 
 suddenly a brilliant idea came, like a flash 
 of light, into my mind. Paul Jones should 
 save me, after all! 
 
 I IV. 
 
 It was as well, for the sake of appear- 
 ances, that my first meeting with Bessy 
 should be accidental ; it was absolutely 
 necessary that it should be free from the 
 supervision of John Simpson. I learned 
 (what cannot love learn of such matters ?) 
 that Bessy and Mrs. Archer had planned 
 next morning an excursion to the Montan- 
 vert. 
 
 “Mr. Simpjson,” said I, “Paul Jones is 
 found!” 
 
 “ Bless my soul ! What? — where ? — 
 why ? ” 
 
 “ He is in a chalet among the mountains. 
 You’ve heard of the Mer de Glace ? He’s 
 there.” 
 
 Everything is fair in love. On that point, 
 at least, the world is agreed. 
 
 “Poor fellow ■ — poor Paul! Come 
 along ! ” 
 
 “ Yes, I must not delay. But to reach 
 that chalet demands the wind of an ostrich 
 and the agility of a chimpanzee. You, Mr. 
 Simpson, are neither an ostrich nor a chim- 
 panzee.” 
 
 
52 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ Ha, ha, ha ! Ho, ho, ho ! I’m not an 
 
 ostrich ! Capital ! Send it to But 
 
 what’s to be done 1 ” 
 
 “ Only one thing can be done. I will 
 gc to the chalet— alone. You, meanwhile, 
 will have quite enough to do in preparing 
 for the reception of Paul Jones — when he 
 comes. You can make that famous lini- 
 ment, you know.” 
 
 “ I suppose you’re right,” he said, “ be- 
 cause you always are. It’s true I’m not an 
 ostrich — ha, ha, ha ! — nor a chimpanzee. 
 But — you’ll return % ” 
 
 “ Be easy on that score. Ho — this must 
 be. I will not permit you, Mr. Simpson, 
 to risk the loss of your valuable breath by 
 climbing Heaven knows how far — half- 
 way up the mountain, for aught I know. 
 Good-bye,” I said aloud. “For ever,” I 
 added aside. 
 
 He looked after me a little doubtfully 
 and sadly as I strode off at a pace calcu- 
 lated to show him how impossible he would 
 find it to keep up with me. I breathed 
 again as soon as I was out of sight, and 
 slackened my speed. My plan was (for I 
 knew the tracks pretty well) to head the 
 direction that would be taken by Mrs. 
 Archer and Bessy, then to descend, and 
 meet them by the veriest accident in the 
 world. Hours might pass before I actually 
 met them, but they would have all the 
 charms of anticipation, and passed in 
 active exercise among the mountains which 
 are Nature’s crowning glory, while hours in 
 a gaol would now be delightful so long as 
 plain John Simpson did not share my cell. 
 
 I had started very early — so early that 
 Bessy must have been still sleeping. I 
 enjoyed my walk immensely, it was a 
 glorious summer day, and all was going 
 welL I reached the foot of the Montan- 
 vert and ascended. I knew jny way with- 
 out a guide ; every minute brought Bessy 
 nearer, every step left plain J ohn Simpson 
 farther away. Was it cruel to leave him 
 to concoct a liniment for a non-existent 
 sprain 1 ? A thousand times, no. A certain 
 measure of vengeance was due to me for 
 all I had suffered at his hands. This 
 should not be another failure like that 
 at Macon. I was free as the hills. 
 
 I had even reached the Mer de Glace 
 itself, when the minute came at which I 
 had predetermined to descend, so as to 
 meet Bessy at a point that her mule must 
 needs pass on the ascent of the Montan- 
 vert. I had been gone many hours, and 
 had made numberless little detours and 
 explorations of my own. I strolled back 
 
 over the icy sea, only taking care of the 
 cracks and chasms that make the Mer de 
 Glace not free from danger for pilots who 
 had less experience of it than I. Pre- 
 sently I looked up from my path and — 
 
 Plain John Simpson again 1 ? No, a fiend! 
 
 “ Thank Heaven, thank Heaven ! ” 
 puffed he. “ Safe and sound — hurrah!” 
 
 “ And what, in the devil’s name, brings 
 you here 1 ” I asked, unable any longer to 
 speak to the fellow in a co mm only civil 
 tone. 
 
 “ What 1 Why 1 Uh ! How plaguy 
 slippery it is, to be sure ! They ought to 
 lay down ashes — they ought, indeed. Look 
 what I found in the guide-book as soon as 
 you’d gone off at that swinging pace of 
 yours — look here ! ‘ The Montanvert is 
 
 ascended on mules, and thus the Sea of 
 Ice may be reached ; but the latter part of 
 the excursion is not without some risk, on 
 account of the numerous crevasses in the 
 ice, which are of unfathomable depth.’ 
 Unfathomable depth ! — Think of that ; it 
 gave me the shudders to think of. Aye, 
 indeed ! And do you think plain J ohn 
 Simpson could rest quiet when a valuable 
 life like that of a man of genius was 
 in danger of unfathomable depth in the 
 cause of philanthropy 1 No, sir j no, 
 though I mayn’t be an ostrich or a chim- 
 panzee, I’m a candid man. So I just 
 dodged after you, and by extraordinary 
 good luck— power of sympathy, I suppose 
 — I got sight of you as soon as you began 
 to easy all. And then, thought I to my- 
 self, what would rare old Ben Jonson 
 have done if he’d seen Boswell or Oliver 
 Cromwell risking his valuable life in un- 
 fathomable depth — aye, sir, unfathomable ! 
 By Jingo ! he’d have been after him like a 
 racer ; he wouldn’t have waited for mules. 
 You didn’t see me, but I had my eye on 
 you, till I lost you ; and now I’ve found 
 you, and I won’t leave you till we stand 
 together by the side of poor Paul.” 
 
 It was too much ; how could this be 
 borne 1 ? And I had thought — and there 
 was Bessy. At last Nature was too 
 much for one, and out of the fulness of the 
 heart I spoke : 
 
 “ Mr. Simpson, I have been weak 
 enough to be your victim too long. 
 There are times when courtesy ceases 
 to be a duty. You are a pest, a fool, 
 and a bore. My one object, ever since 
 we met on the banks of the Bance, 
 has been to escape from you. You have 
 embittered and clouded my days, and 
 
p, -■ 
 
 Charles Dickens, PLAIN JOHN SIMPSON. Wyi.im.) 53 
 
 poisoned my dreams. Your idiotic jabber, 
 your horrible way of rubbing your hands, 
 your vacant smile, have become odious to 
 
 me. I hold myself justified in everything 
 
 I have ever done to rid myself of your 
 society. You were too stupid to take 
 hints, too thick-skinned to feel rebuffs. I 
 invented Paul J ones to get rid of you ; 
 there is no such man. I insisted on your 
 staying alone in Chamouni, solely that I 
 might escape from you and never see you 
 more. Leave me this instant ! Let . me 
 never see your face nor hear your odious 
 voice again ! ”" 
 
 “ Bless my soul!” said plain John 
 Simpson. “ Talk of candour ! Bless my 
 soul!” „ 
 
 “ Do you understand me ? . said 1. 
 
 “ There lies the path to Chamouni. Go. 
 
 For a moment, I will do him the justice 
 to own that he did look startled and 
 amazed. But it was only for a moment, 
 and: 
 
 “ Ha, ha, ha ! Ho, ho, ho ! ” laughed he. 
 “Why you’re a born Siddons, a regular 
 young Boscoe ; never saw such acting ; 
 no, not in Drury Lane ! Upon my soul, 
 you were uncommonly near taking me 
 in ! ” . 
 
 “ Hear taking you in ? Do you think 
 I’m playing a comedy ? Do you want to 
 
 madden me ? Co, or ” 
 
 “Bravo, bravo, my dear sir. I shall 
 have something good for my ^ journal 
 to-night, as sure as my name’s plain 
 
 John ” 
 
 “You will not go ? ” 
 
 “ Ha, ha, ha ! ” 
 
 “You will drive me to violence — you 
 will understand me when I knock you 
 down !” 
 
 “Ho, ho!” 
 
 I could not help it. What was left but 
 the unmistakable earnest of a blow ? I 
 struck. But of what should come of that 
 blow, Heaven knows I never dreamed. Of 
 anger I was guilty, but not of that. . 
 
 My blow sent plain J ohn Simpson 
 sliding backwards. And in one moment, 
 before I could reach out a hand, he was 
 over the edge of a yawning crevasse ! 
 
 And I was his murderer ! And, nearly 
 at the same instant, I was aware that Bessy, 
 whom I loved, had reached the Sea of Ice 
 from Chamouni. 
 
 V. 
 
 “By Jingo, that’s a bad sprain, that oi 
 poor Paul’s. Uncommonly bad, to be sure 
 Why, I feel it just as if it was my own 
 
 > ir-%? — 
 
 Wonderful thing, sympathy ! Just like 
 steam. And, by Jingo, it is my own. I 
 never knew sprains were catching. Well, 
 live and learn. Ah, I remember now. 
 
 Surely r never had such an irrepressible 
 being been known, even in the form of a 
 Bore. Not even throwing him into a 
 crevasse among the Alps had been able to 
 get rid of him. Here he was again. Mrs. 
 Archer’s guides, with further help from 
 the valley, had, by means of ropes and so 
 forth, extracted plain John Simpson from 
 the crevasse— alive ; though any common 
 man must have been killed. I can only 
 set down his miraculous preservation to 
 his abnormal thickness .of skin and skull. 
 
 He was in bed in the inn, and I, even I, 
 was by his bedside at the moment when 
 his few battered senses found their way 
 back to him. I had come to watch and 
 help, but, now that he had recovered, I 
 dared not remain in the sight of the man 
 whom I had nearly killed. 
 
 Mrs. Archer and Bessy, believing the 
 matter to be a simple accident — for my 
 confession had yet to be made — were also in 
 the hotel, and in attendance upon their 
 fellow-countryman. Hearing him speak 
 at last, she entered the room. At the 
 rustle of her dress, he turned towards her, 
 though with obvious pain. 
 
 “What— what— little Bessy !” exclaimed 
 he. 
 
 «Why— Uncle John!” 
 
 My heart sank deep indeed. Bessy’s 
 Uncle John, never spoken of by his sur- 
 name nor without awe j the rich, eccentric 
 bachelor uncle upon whom her worldly 
 future hung; the one great man of the 
 family whose consent was needful to all her 
 hopes ; for whose return from his travels 
 I had been waiting as the one possible 
 good fairy who might think fit to crown 
 all mine! All was over now. It was 
 Uncle John whom I had called pest, fool, 
 bore ; upon whom I had heaped all the in- 
 sults that my tongue could frame ; whoTn 
 I had struck in anger ; whom I had done 
 my best, short of direct intention, to kill ! 
 Why had I not allowed him to remain in 
 his belief that I was only acting a comedy .? 
 
 It was no good asking myself questions. 
 Only one duty was left me — to make a 
 ) clean breast of it and depart for ever. 
 
 “Bessy,” said I, as bravely as I could 
 contrive, “ appearances are against me, I 
 own. But you will not think me guilty 
 f of any design to commit — murder 1 when 
 . I struck your uncle.” 
 
 “Eh? What? You know my niece 
 
 — — ! 
 
 
K - - ■— — — « 
 
 54 [July 4, 1881.1 AS GOOD AS GOLD. [Conducted by 
 
 Bessy 1 Call her by her name, then — by 
 George and Jingo.” 
 
 H “Yes, Mr. Simpson; you guess the 
 
 truth. And now ” 
 
 “ Then all I can say is, I’m as glad as if 
 I’d got back all my head of hair again ; 
 but I’ll tell you that story another time. 
 By Jingo, sir ! when I think how you must 
 have suffered after tumbling me, your 
 other self, you know, down into that un- 
 thingumable depth, you know, my heart 
 bleeds for you, my dear sir. Yes, candidly, 
 bleeds for you. P’r’aps some people might 
 : think you carried your high spirits just a 
 trifle too far. But allowance must be 
 made for the eccentricities of genius by a 
 plain man like me. I’m proud of your 
 genius, sir, though it has given me a tumble. 
 I shall be proud to be your uncle-in-law. 
 No, my dear sir, don’t mind me ; it won’t 
 inconvenience me at all. Oh dear, dear, 
 to think of all the sorrow and suffering 
 * you must have been feeling for me when 
 you thought of plain John Simpson lying 
 at the bottom of an unfathomable depth 
 all dead and cold ! I really must apologise, 
 my dear sir ; I must, indeed ! ” 
 
 “ You apologise to me % ” 
 
 £C It is my duty as a gentleman,” said 
 he. “Unless you consent to take my 
 hand, and say, ‘ J ohn Simpson, I forgive 
 you,’ I shall never be able to forgive my- 
 self for having nearly broken your heart 
 by breaking my neck. I did not mean to 
 break my neck, indeed. I really did mean 
 well. Only the next time you want to 
 play a practical joke, don’t hit out quite so 
 hard at a fellow, that’s all ; though it’s the 
 finest actors that get most carried away by 
 their parts, I know. Anybody but myself 
 would have thought that you really did 
 think me a bore — fancy, me ! A capital 
 joke that, to be sure ; ha, ha, ha ! Send 
 that to Punch, my dear sir;. I’ll go bail 
 they put that in — me a bore, Bessy ; just 
 think of that ! — ho, ho, ho ! Don’t make any 
 more jokes though till I’m better, because 
 laughing hurts my sprain. So my Bessy 
 will marry a genius. For a genius you 
 are, as sure as my name’s plain John 
 Simpson — and I’m a candid man.” 
 
 It was of no use to fight against destiny. 
 Once more I had to give in. Nothing 
 would convince Bessy’s uncle that I was 
 not actuated by the highest moral and 
 intellectual motives in narrowly escaping 
 homicide. The man was such an impene- 
 trable 
 
 Fool? Well, I suppose that is what 
 plain John Simpson would be called by 
 
 nine men out of ten. Looking back upon 
 all I have written down, I find him ridicu- 
 lously free from every well-known mark 
 of superior spirit and intellect — he could 
 not lose his temper; he enthusiastically 
 reverenced all whom he thought his betters; 
 he never spoke an unkind or bitter word 
 of a fellow-creature, or turned up his nose, 
 or sneered. Not one atom of what would- 
 be clever people take to be the salt of life 
 was to be found in his whole composition. 
 He was so loyal that he braved the thought 
 of those unfathomable depths,' so that the 
 man he thought his friend might not have 
 to i$ce them alone. He was so ridiculously 
 trustful as to believe even in me. He 
 hungered for sympathy, with so much faith 
 in it as to be unable to dream that love 
 and affection could possibly beget dislike 
 or scorn. At the first hint of a friend’s 
 friend being in trouble, he could think of 
 nothing but of flying to his aid. He 
 was unable to realise that his fellow- 
 creatures could be actuated : by unworthy 
 motives or could tell lies. He was 
 
 as innocent, as confiding, as simple- 
 hearted as a child — he, a grown-up, fat, 
 bald-headed man ! Yes, verily the man 
 was a fool and a bore. And, for his sake, 
 I have learned that those terrible names 
 may be terms, not of contempt, but of 
 honour. They may be fools who are sneered 
 at ; but tenfold fools are they who sneer. 
 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 BY MBS. HOEY. 
 
 CHAPTER. I. 
 
 We were rather proud of the uncom- 
 promising sternness, and the undeniable 
 breeziness of St. Magioire-des-Champs. 
 Grey were its cliffs, dangerous were the 
 sands at their feet, sharp and shark’s teeth- 
 like were the projections from the face of , 
 the steeps on whose summit the jonc marin 
 grew sparingly and coarsely, stony were 
 the wide-spreading fields that stretched, a 
 great tableland, for many miles, and the 
 white roads, suggestive of illimitable plod- 
 ding, and with never a poplar row to break 
 their monotony by the help of its own. It 
 was no place for delicate people ; we used 
 to say that anybody who wanted “coddling” 
 had better not come to St. Magloire for it ; 
 the north-west wind prevailed there a good 
 deal, “fit to blow one’s teeth down one’s 
 throat,” as a visitor indignantly remarked ; 
 and the ways of the place were rough, like 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 [July 4 , 1881 .] 55 
 
 its winds. Grand seas and beautiful skies, 
 these were what St. Magloire-des-Champs 
 had to offer to strangers who came to see 
 what manner of place that was which was 
 so near to England, and as “ foreign ” as 
 Timbuctoo, and which we, who lived there, 
 enjoyed all the year round. 
 
 “We” were my brother Joscelyn, and 
 myself, Joan Quin, at your service ; orphan 
 nephew and niece of our good uncle, Count 
 Quin. 
 
 We had no remembrance of either of 
 our parents, or of any other house than 
 that to which we had been brought as little 
 children. Our family was Irish, but our 
 father’s elder brother, like his father before 
 him, had served for many years in the 
 Austrian service, and was the third of the 
 race who had borne the foreign title of 
 count. It was not backed with much 
 wealth, but we never wanted for anything, 
 and were perfectly happy. I believe I 
 might include the old count in that unusual 
 summary, for he was always cheerful, and 
 he had the youngest smile in his blue 
 eyes — they never lost their blueness — I 
 ever saw in an old face. It was a great 
 trouble, I afterwards knew, that led him 
 to leave the Austrian service and the gay 
 city of Vienna, and settle . down in the 
 remote village of St. Magloire ; “a pain 
 of the heart,” hopeless of cure, for he loved 
 a great lady who was given to a great 
 lord, in whose train the count rode to the 
 wedding, and it spoiled all' his life — at 
 least in the world’s estimate of the worth 
 of life. However that may have been, it 
 did not harden him ; we had the happiest 
 of homes, at the Chateau des Quatre V ents, 
 situated in the only valley, dell, recess, I 
 don’t know what to call the variation of 
 the wide flat tableland. You may form a 
 notion of the place if you picture to your- 
 selves a saucer turned upside down, with 
 a three-cornered piece broken out of the 
 side of it ; and set the saucer on a table 
 representing the open sea and the flat 
 sands. In the nook formed by the broken 
 bit, place a fishing town on the smallest 
 scale; a shelving stone quay, generally 
 draped with red-brown fishing-nets, and 
 surrounded by a flotilla of fishing-boats ; 
 and far back on a slope, answering to the 
 middle distance in a picture, the Chateau 
 des Quatre Vents. 
 
 It w r as a grey stone house with a steep 
 leaden roof, with “snuff-boxes” in it, and tall 
 thin windows set in leaden frames, with 
 quaint • shields above those on the ground- 
 floor, in whose heraldic devices birds built 
 
 their nests and lived happy and undis- 
 turbed. It had a flat ‘front, two wings, a 
 courtyard with tall gates which had 
 never been closed within my recollection, 
 a brown marble fountain with a leaden 
 dolphin in the centre, and in a corner near 
 the entrance-gates a porter’s lodge with a 
 little garden on the roof, which had formed 
 our delight in our childhood. It was an 
 old house, with curious tufts of grey and 
 yellow growths springing from the walls, 
 and green sprays clinging to the spouts 
 projecting from the eaves ; but it was not 
 decayed or forbidding of aspect, and there 
 was a cheery hospitable look about the 
 place which was entirely borne out Jay the 
 disposition of its owner. The corny ard 
 was a kind of Alameda or fashionable 
 promenade for the dogs and the pigeons of 
 the neighbourhood, and also afforded spots 
 favourable for basking in the sunshine, 
 with contingent possibilities of subsidies 
 from the kitchen, to many an observant 
 cat. A noble animal of the latter species 
 reigned supreme in the porter’s lodge, but 
 as he was always fed to repletion, and 
 nothing was ever allowed to disturb his 
 personal comfort, he adopted the philosophy 
 of “ live and let live,” and admitted . the 
 visits of his neighbours with lazy gracious- 
 ness. At the back of the house were the 
 gardens, and an extensive but stony- 
 hearted farm* forming one side of the 
 little valley which, as the only picturesque 
 “bit” of St. Magloire-des-Champs, was 
 occasionally enlivened by excursionists from 
 a seaport town six miles away. On these 
 occasions the resources of the little auberge 
 were generally overtaxed, and contribu- 
 tions of milk and fruit were freely levied 
 on the Chateau des Quatre Vents. 
 
 With the exception of the vicaire, there 
 was not in the village a person whose 
 education or station fitted him to be an 
 associate for my uncle, but that exception 
 was an important one, for M. Herve was a 
 scholar and a gentleman. No great pre- 
 ferment had attended his' exemplary fulfil- 
 ment of his vocation ; he seemed strangely 
 out of place in that mere hamlet, with the 
 rude fishing people and ourselves for the 
 whole of his flock. But he did not feel 
 this ; he was a man of the simplest tastes, 
 and he always maintained that the fisher 
 people are the best class of the community, 
 the most honest, the most religious, the 
 most self-respecting. I do not know whether 
 he was right or wrong in that estimate ; 
 the people of St. Magloire were proud and 
 pious, and honest enough, and I liked 
 
56 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 them ; only I wish they had not put it 
 into my brother Joscelyn’s head that there 
 was no life so delightful as the life of a 
 sailor. The boy used to go out with them, 
 to my alarm and disgust, for I could not 
 bear their dirty boats — which looked so 
 picturesque at a distance — when I came 
 near them ; and when I besought of our 
 uncle not to let him go, Count Quin 
 only laughed at me, and said Joscelyn 
 must be a sailor if he liked, and it was not 
 bad training for him to get a good tossing 
 in the bay where our people mostly fished. 
 Our uncle was not at all affected by the fact 
 that our father had been a sailor, captain 
 of an East Indiaman, indeed, and was lost 
 at sea with his ship. 
 
 “ If the sons of drowned sailors were 
 never to go to sea, and the sons of killed 
 soldiers were never to carry arms, what 
 would become of the services, my girl V’ he 
 asked me once. 
 
 As for my own training, that was a 
 very different affair. My instruction was 
 conducted by my uncle and M. Herv6, in all 
 its branches of solid learning, including 
 military history and the German language, 
 both of which the count held to be indis- 
 pensable to a polite education; for the 
 lighter feminine acquirements I was sent 
 to a convent, a mile away, on the bleak 
 heights, where the nuns wrought in the 
 lace and needlework which were traditional 
 accomplishments of their order and had a 
 school for poor children. I was not a poor 
 child, but our good vicaire interceded for 
 me, and I was admitted to learn needle- 
 work and singing at the convent. 
 
 There was a curious severance between 
 the fishing people and the agricultural 
 people of the district ; but our uncle used 
 to say that it was a common thing; those two 
 classes never amalgamated in any country. 
 My brother and I took different sides about 
 this ; he was for the sea folk, I for the 
 land, and all because I believed I should 
 never have to part with Joscelyn but for 
 the sea folk. Our uncle did not take either 
 side ; and he was so far justified in his im- 
 partiality that both classes of the people 
 treated him with respect, and he possessed 
 a kind of extra-judicial authority and 
 influence over them. A frequent topic of 
 conversation between Count Quin and the 
 vicaire was the varieties and peculiarities 
 of the French character, and our uncle, 
 with all his admiration of the “ Great 
 Nation,” would contend that their political 
 faithlessness and ingratitude, and the 
 
 lower classes from a quality into a vice, 
 were far more demoralising than the 
 political ignorance and the thriftless- 
 ness of “ our own people,” as the count 
 called the Irish. M. Herv6 knew as little 
 of Ireland as most Frenchmen know of any 
 country except France, but he was well 
 acquainted with human nature, and he 
 shared the count’s views of the effect of 
 avarice upon the French character fully. 
 In life and death, I heard him say, this vice 
 was the most to be dreaded ; “ the glutton 
 and the wine-bibber will renounce their 
 favourite sins when the hour of account 
 draws nigh, but not the money-lover.” 
 
 “ True,” was the count’s reply, “ but the 
 dying glutton cannot eat, the dying 
 drunkard cannot drink ; while the dying 
 miser can lie on his money if he likes, up 
 to the last moment.” 
 
 “Yes,” said the vicaire; “I have known 
 more than one man do that very thing. 
 Old Antoine Huret, the miller, died with 
 his head on a pillow stuffed with bank-notes, 
 and it would never have been known what 
 he had done with the money but that his 
 niece sent the bedding to be remade, and 
 the pillow fell into honest hands.” 
 
 “I wonder how Celestine Huret re- 
 warded their honesty,” said Count Quin, 
 with a comical shake of the head ; 
 “ meagrely I should think ; for if she is not 
 as miserly as her uncle I am much mistaken. 
 I am sorry old Leblond is making a match 
 between his son and Celestine. Jules 
 Leblond is a good fellow, but he has not 
 the courage of a mouse, and the miserly 
 old miller’s ugly daughter will lead both 
 father and son a hard life of it, I should 
 say.” 
 
 “ There is another instance of the love 
 of money,” said the vicaire. “ Leblond 
 knows well what Celestine Huret’s cha- 
 racter is, how she helped her father ‘ to 
 grind the faces of the poor ’ in his time, 
 and has done it since on her own account, 
 and yet he will marry his son to her 
 because she is rich.” 
 
 “But why does she consent to. marry 
 J ules Leblond ? ” asked the count. “ I 
 understand the old man ; he is only acting 
 according to his class and his kind; the 
 woman I do not understand.” 
 
 “ It is a marriage of inclination on her 
 side,” said the vicaire, “ and she has done 
 all the bargaining.” 
 
 “ Bad, that, for the Leblonds,” said the 
 count, and then the subject was dropped. 
 
 J oscelyn and I resumed it, however, on 
 our own account. Here was an opportunity 
 
A 
 
 ....... — — 
 
 Charles Woken,] AS GOOD AS GOLD. [July 4, 1881.] 57 
 
 E 
 
 rsp 
 
 for him to praise the sea folk, who made 
 no such mean bargains. # 
 
 The marriage of old Leblond’s. son with 
 the daughter of the miserly miller took 
 place in due course, and was fixed in my 
 memory by an event which occurred at the 
 same time. Let me say in passing that 
 I was then just seventeen, and my brother 
 Joscelyn was one year younger, and that I 
 knew that my brother was to go to sea, 
 and that very soon. It was boisterous 
 weather at the middle of September, the 
 wind was on the riot at St. Magloire-des- 
 Champs, and when the little fishing fleet 
 sailed away from the stone, quay the 
 women resorted with alacrity to the 
 humble little chapel and the Calvary upon 
 the height, to pray for the men who were 
 gone to wrest the subsistence of them all 
 from the sea. Coming home from the 
 convent of Sainte Agathe, after my lessons, 
 under escort of my uncle, and seeing 
 from the road the fishing-boats, already 
 distant, dotting the foam-flecked sea, I was 
 reminded of, and repeated to him . the 
 touching Scottish ballad, “Caller herrin , 
 with its refrain : 
 
 Some may ca’ them vulgar fairin’, 
 
 Ah, they little ken. _ . 
 
 Wives and mithers, ’maist despairm , 
 
 Ca’ them lives o’ men ! 
 
 “It’s a rough evening, uncle,” I said 
 then, “ and there’s a bad night in store for 
 the boats. Do you mark the sough m 
 the wind, and the yellow line under the 
 long dark clouds out to sea 'l ” 
 
 “ Yes, I do,” said the count, and his face 
 was not so serene as usual ; “the 
 vicaire tells me they expect bad weather. 
 I wish Joscelyn had not gone out with 
 them.” 
 
 j “ Joscelyn ! Has he gone, uncle % ? 
 
 “Yes, in Pierre Pastor’s boat. Don’t 
 look so frightened, child. Do you suppose 
 he won’t have bad weather and stormy 
 seas to face like everybody, else % ” 
 
 I did not suppose anything of the kind, 
 but I turned cold with an unaccountable 
 fear for all that. And the wind went on 
 rising, until, by the time we turned off the 
 tableland into the steep descent to the 
 1 Chateau des Quatre Yents, I had to tie 
 1 my hat down over my ears with my scarf, 
 and hold tightly by the count’s arm tc 
 ! keep my feet. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The “nooe” drove through the village jusi 
 before dark, and the women gathered ii 
 the straggling street, glad of anything tha 
 
 turned their thoughts from the sea and the 
 weather, to look at the bride and her party. 
 They were all land-folk, and they were 
 merely stared at, except by the count, who 
 stood in the gateway of the Chateau and 
 waved his hat to the cortege. It was 
 done now, it could not be helped ; he might 
 wish the wedded pair happiness even if he 
 did not much believe in it, and it was 
 Count Quin’s way to think all things that 
 were irrevocable for the best. I had a 
 good look at old Leblond’s daughter-in- 
 law, and saw a dark-skinned, high-nosed, 
 thin-lipped, hard-featured woman of at least 
 forty. Jules Leblond, a soft, goodnatured- 
 looking fellow, with bulbous blue eyes, 
 straight fair hair, and very large, fat, limp- 
 looking hands, sat by her side in the big 
 lumbering carriage that was well known at 
 every wedding and funeral all round the 
 countryside, looking as if he did not much 
 mind. His silly old father smirked and 
 giggled, and was, doubtless, the happiest 
 of the party. It was a diversion for a few 
 minutes from the heart-sickening, anxiety I 
 was in, but there was the long night to be 
 faced, with the wind, now roaring and now 
 moaning, and the horrid knowledge that 
 my brother was on the sea. My uncle and 
 M. Herv6 affected to have no anxiety, and 
 to be unconscious of mine, and I left them 
 at an earlier hour than usual. It would 
 be easier to bear quite alone. 
 
 It was late before I was wearied out 
 and fell asleep, and they mercifully let. me 
 sleep until late on the next morning. 
 When I awoke "with a start, to a vague 
 sense of trouble, it was to learn that , a 
 storm had raged all night, and was still 
 raging, and that there was a panic in the 
 place. I had seen the women in the agony 
 of fear more than once, but this was the 
 first time I had felt it myself, and I could 
 not tell how I got through that day and 
 the following night. With the next 
 morning suspense at least was at an end ; 
 a fishing-boat from St. Magloire had been 
 lost. It was Pierre Pastor’s. 
 
 A week later, when, for the first time, I 
 , was able to leave the house, I went down 
 i w ith my uncle to the fishermen’s houses, 
 
 | and we saw Pierre Pastor’s widow and 
 1 orphan children. The count had seen them 
 daily, and he told me as we walked how 
 patient and resigned the broken-hearted 
 woman was, and how good to the bereaved 
 b family the other fisher people were. My 
 i uncle looked quite an old man now, and 
 t j though his grief was manly and reticent, I 
 
 
 u 
 
 U 
 
58 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 could see how poignant it was. I cannot 
 describe our visit to the widow, but I have 
 never forgotten it, and from that moment 
 I felt towards the sea-folk as my brother 
 had felt. When we were on our way 
 home, the few people whom we met saluted 
 us gravely, and cast compassionate looks 
 at my black gown and long mourning veil. 
 A dusty carriage was standing at the door 
 of the auberge, the tired horses were 
 drinking out of a trough. 
 
 “ The last of the excursions for this 
 season, I suppose,” said the count ; but 
 Laurent, the aubergiste, standing in the 
 road, informed us that the carriage had 
 not brought an excursion-party, but only 
 one gentleman, an Englishman, who had 
 alighted at the auberge and proceeded on 
 foot to the Chateau des Quatre Vents. An 
 English visitor to us, and at such a time! 
 We hastened onwards, wondering, and I 
 had just said to my uncle that I would go 
 to my own room, as it could not be 
 necessary that I should see a stranger, 
 when my plan of retreat was frustrated 
 by the approach of our old servant 
 Jacques, who came out to meet us on 
 the road, accompanied by a young man 
 whom no one could have mistaken for 
 any but an Englishman. In the minute 
 which it took them to reach us, I recog- 
 nised a seagoing air about him, and as 
 he came up I saw that he cast a quick 
 glance of pity at me. But what was the 
 matter with J acques ? Why were tears 
 
 running down his face, while his mouth 
 was quivering with a smile, and why were 
 his hands shaking 1 My uncle spoke first. 
 
 “ They told me at the inn that an 
 English gentleman had enquired for my 
 house.” 
 
 “ Yes, I am he. My name is Annesley. 
 I have come over from Folkestone on 
 purpose to see you. I know a stranger’s 
 visit must seem ill-timed, but there’s a 
 reason.” - j 
 
 He spoke quickly and earnestly; 
 there was excitement in his manner 
 though he strove to subdue it, and he 
 glanced at me, with every second word. 
 
 “ Let us go into the house and hear it,” 
 said the count ; and we did so. 
 
 When we had passed the door of the 
 salon, my uncle placed me in a chair, and 
 said to the stranger : 
 
 “ Is your news good 1 ” 
 
 (“ Ah, Monsieur le Comte, how good ! ” 
 interjected Jacques.) 
 
 “ My news,” replied the young English- 
 man gravely, “ is the best which could be 
 
 brought to you, and to this young lady. 
 Your nephew, her brother, is alive, and if 
 not well, in a fair way of being so. It 
 was only yesterday that I discovered his 
 identity, and where he came from, or you 
 should have known this sooner.” 
 
 I had started up at his first words, and 
 the next, though I heard them distinctly, 
 seemed to be uttered a long way off. I 
 had not fainted when they told me Pierre 
 Pastor’s boat was lost, but this I knew was 
 fainting, and I knew no more. 
 
 . I should never have been weary, I think, 
 of lying still and listening, as I did all 
 that evening, to Mr. Annesley’s story of 
 how my brother had been picked up by his 
 yacht, after many hours of exposure in the 
 terrible sea, how he had put in at the 
 nearest harbour with his guest, by that 
 time in a stupor, and there had tended 
 him until he was pronounced safe, and 
 was in a fit state to be questioned. Of 
 his own conduct, of his journey to 
 St. Magloire, of his interest and sympathy 
 in us and our feelings, this frank and 
 generous young Englishman made light in 
 so absolutely unaffected a manner that we 
 could not thank him. He had a bright 
 face with merry grey-blue eyes and a 
 brown skin, tanned with the sea breezes, 
 and his dark hair curled closely all over 
 his head ; he had a pleasant voice and a 
 charming manner; I think we should 
 have been delighted with him, even had 
 he not brought us such blessed news. I 
 should not have known my uncle before 
 that evening closed, he was so changed, 
 and I never before had any idea of how 
 pleasantly he could talk, and what a store 
 of reminiscences he had. We were joined 
 in the evening by the good vicaire, to 
 whom Jacques had carried the good news 
 early, and who did not fail to remind us of 
 the gratitude we owed to Heaven as well 
 as to the earthly preserver of my brother. 
 Mr. Annesley was an object of interest to 
 the vicaire, and the vicaire to him. 
 
 The Leblond marriage turned up in the 
 course of our talk, and Mr. Annesley 
 asked several questions about the French 
 marriage system, and amused the vicaire 
 very much by denouncing the mere idea 
 of interested motives being allowed to 
 influence marriage. He was for love- 
 matches, and nothing but love-matches, he 
 said, and he was sure the count agreed 
 with him. 
 
 The count and the .vicaire laughed, but 
 did not argue the question, and again the 
 vicaire alluded to the Leblonds. He found, 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 59 
 
 to his great regret, he told us, that old 
 Leblond had been induced to hand his 
 farm, and indeed everything he possessed, 
 over to his son, unreservedly, as an equiva- 
 lent for the dot of Huret’s daughter ; and 
 he feared the poor old man would find 
 himself a sufferer by this arrangement. 
 
 “ It is not an uncommon one among the 
 peasant proprietors of France,” the vicaire 
 explained to Mr. Annesley, “ though of 
 more frequent occurrence in the south than 
 in the north. The old people retire, as it 
 were, and have their place by the fireside, 
 their maintenance, and ease in their 
 declining years, by handing over the 
 property that would be their children s at 
 their death; then the family is kept together, 
 which, among us, is regarded as a great 
 object. I have heard that in England you 
 do not care so much about that. In some 
 cases the expedient is successful, in others 
 it has been known to. lead to great mis- 
 fortunes and terrible crimes.” 
 
 (l I hope old Leblond’s hard-faced 
 daughter-in-law will not poison him to get 
 rid of the cost of him,” said my. uncle ; 
 
 “ she looks as if she would not stick at a 
 trifle.” „ 
 
 “ No, no,” said the vicaire hastily, “ we 
 must not say such a thing even in jest 
 What will monsieur think of St. Magloire !” 
 Mr. Annesley declared himself most 
 favourably impressed with St. . Magloire, 
 and he seemed to be very much in earnest. 
 
 We had sent to the auberge for his 
 portmanteau, and Mr. Annesley was 
 to be our guest. With what feelings 
 did I unlock the door of my brother’s 
 room — about which the gloom and mystery 
 of death had hung for all those days— and 
 help to get it ready for his rescuer ! It 
 was to be occupied for one night only, as 
 Mr. Annesley had persuaded my uncle to 
 go with him to England on the following 
 day. 
 
 On the next morning, as the count had 
 many things to attend to, it fell to me 
 to be Mr. Annesley’s cicerone. 
 
 I had put my black garments out of my 
 sight, and I wore my prettiest gown and 
 quite a smart hat, when I went out with 
 him ; and all the people we met nodded 
 kindly to me, and seemed truly glad for 
 me. I did not take Mr. Annesley to. the 
 fishermen’s houses, I thought Pierre 
 Pastor’s widow might find the sight of us 
 hard to bear ; but when I explained that, 
 I found he had been at her house already, 
 long before I was up, and had given her a 
 message from Joscelyn. He did not tell 
 
 me that he had added to the message 
 twenty English sovereigns, nor did she 
 until afterwards, when he did not mind 
 my knowing this. 
 
 We walked a long distance, and we were 
 out a long time; but I remember every 
 foot of that road, and every word of that 
 conversation. It was wonderful what an 
 interest Mr. Annesley took in hearing 
 about all our life at St. Magloire,. and that 
 he should have found the sayings and 
 doings of two young people who knew 
 nothing at all of the world he lived in 
 amusing ; but so it was. It seemed as if 
 he could never hear enough of the boy 
 whose life he had saved, so I took him to 
 all our haunts, and we called on the dogs 
 whom Joscelyn and I knew, and I was 
 glad to find that they regarded Mr. 
 Annesley as a friend from the first. 
 
 I packed up all Joscelyn’ s clothes, and 
 everything he was likely to want for 
 several weeks, and I tried to write to him ; 
 but a dreadful fluttering came over me ;. I 
 had to give up the attempt. I was quite 
 composed again before my uncle and Mr. 
 Annesley went away. 
 
 After they were gone, and when I had 
 time and solitude in which to realise it all, 
 I felt as though I had lived through a 
 whole life since yesterday. 
 
 St. Magloire-des-Champs was at its 
 breeziest, and the sternness of its winter 
 aspect was settling down upon it, when my 
 uncle returned, bringing with him Jocelyn, 
 and, to my great surprise, Mr. Annesley. 
 The latter had, it appeared, taken a 
 sudden resolution to revisit France, and 
 did not shrink at all from the inclemency 
 and the dulness of St. Magloire. Of course 
 he was a welcome guest at the Chateau, 
 and nothing could be more uncalled for 
 than Joscelyn’s reproaches upon the cold- 
 ness of my manner to his friend. 
 
 “ I should have shown more pleasure at 
 sight of him if he had pulled Hector (the 
 biggest of our dogs) or Alcide (the cat at 
 the lodge) out of the water,” said my 
 brother, indignantly; “but there s no 
 accounting for you girls.” 
 
 I said that I was very sorry, very grateful, 
 very happy ; I said I did not believe that 
 Mr. Annesley could think I was not very 
 glad to see him again ; and somehow, not- 
 withstanding what Joscelyn said, I was not 
 at all uneasy on that point. Whether he 
 had or had not any fault to find with me, 
 Mr. Annesley was in no hurry to leave 
 St. Magloire, and day by day he seemed to 
 
* ” ■■■■ - = 
 
 60 [July 4, 1881 .] AS GOOD AS GOLD. [Conducted by 
 
 like tlie place better, and to take 
 more interest in me and it. My uncle 
 had taken to him wonderfully; he was 
 thoroughly in the family confidence ; and 
 the plans for Joscelyn’s future were 
 discussed with him. It was very hard to 
 reconcile me to those plans, for my brother 
 was still bent on going to sea, and Mr. 
 Annesley facilitated them in the most 
 provoking way, offering to use his interest 
 with some great shipowners so that Joscelyn 
 might commence his seafaring life under the 
 most favourable auspices. Even the vicaire 
 was against me : it was the boy’s calling, 
 he said, and not to be gone against. 
 
 “ Some day I shall be the captain of a 
 great ship, ever so much bigger than our 
 father’s,” said J oscelyn exultingly, and 
 apparently oblivious of his father’s fate 
 and his own narrow escape. 
 
 J oscelyn was very eloquent on the sub- 
 ject of Mr. Annesley ’s yacht. “ She ” was 
 a marvel of everything that a “ sea-going 
 boat ” ought to be ; (he was vexed when I 
 asked him what a land-staying boat was, 
 and said I was too clever to be so foolish !) 
 and her “ fittings ” were of a superb de- 
 scription. From my brother’s talk I began 
 to derive a somewhat awful notion of 
 Mr. Annesley, as a personage, in his own 
 country, of great wealth and importance, 
 and on my hinting this to Joscelyn, he con- 
 firmed my fears, with much laughter, and 
 covered me with confusion by his boyish 
 heedlessness in making fun of me on 
 account of them, to Mr. Annesley himself ! 
 
 “ Here’s Joan,” he said, when Mr. An- 
 nesley joined us, as he very often did, on 
 our walk to the quay, “in a fright lest she 
 has been too familiar with your grace, since 
 she finds that your excellency is no end of 
 a grandee of the White Albion ; that your 
 lordship’s shadow is tall upon both land 
 and sea ; that, in short, your worship is the 
 pot de fer of her favourite fable, only with 
 the difference that your highness helps the 
 pot de terre to swim instead of knocking it 
 into smithereens !” 
 
 So saying, Joscelyn hooked his arm into 
 Mr. Annesley’s, and gave him a playful 
 twirl which brought him exactly in front 
 of my blushing and burning face. 
 
 “Don’t be so stupid, Jos !” said he, as 
 he shook the boy gently off, and looked, 
 I am bound to say, quite as much em- 
 barrassed as I did. “ Miss Quin has no such 
 stuff in her thoughts about me. May I 
 walk with you *? ” he added, addressing me. 
 “ The vicaire has just come to see the 
 count, and I took myself away.” 
 
 Those were happy days for us all, and 
 they passed •with the rapidity of pleasant 
 things. Why do I find it difficult to record 
 that which has been in my mind all the 
 time I have been writing 1 It is, I think, 
 because even now it seems so wonderful 
 and unreasonable that I, who had 
 never had a compliment paid to me in 
 my life, or been looked at twice by any 
 man, except from motives of the purest 
 benevolence, was forced to see that I 
 was becoming a person of importance 
 in the eyes of Mr. Annesley, and that he was 
 doing all he could to win my regard. 
 Instinct told me this for the first time on 
 the day of Joscelyn’s embarrassing speech ; 
 and something beyond that repeated it to 
 me every day after. There was no talk of 
 his proceeding on his journey ; he would 
 probably remain with us until Christmas- 
 tide, when J oscelyn was to go to England 
 and embark upon his first voyage and 
 his new career. I did not shrink so 
 much from the idea now, I did not think 
 so much about it. So two or three 
 more happy weeks went by, and I was 
 absorbed in the new world of thought 
 and feeling in which I was living. I 
 wonder whether everyone will be dreadfully 
 shocked at my admission that I loved 
 the young Englishman who had saved my 
 brother’s life'? I am bound to make it, 
 whether or no. Things went on around 
 me very much as usual, inside and outside 
 the Chateau des Quatre Yents ; my uncle 
 and our guest were the best of friends, but 
 I do not think either my uncle or my 
 brother knew what I knew — that he was 
 staying with us on account of me. The 
 vicaire knew it — of that I felt perfectly 
 certain ; also that he approved of Mr. An- 
 nesley. I remember every hour of those 
 weeks, after all these years, with their 
 delightful emotion, and their suspense, in 
 which there was no pain, because, however 
 much I wondered, I did not really doubt. 
 
 Among the matters that were talked of, 
 but in which I could not force myself to 
 be interested, was the state of things at the 
 Leblonds’ farm. The treatment of the old 
 man by his daughter-in-law was becoming 
 a public scandal, and everyone pitied the 
 victim and blamed the supineness of the 
 son, who allowed his father to be bullied 
 and ill-treated. The wife whom old 
 Leblond had purchased for Jules was a 
 cruel, avaricious shrew, and she made the 
 fives of both miserable. Neglect, privation, 
 and insult were the portion of old Leblond 
 in the house where he had once been 
 
 — 
 
AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 master, and where he was debarred by a 
 woman’s ingenious malice from any share 
 in the increased comfort that her money 
 had procured. The woman was hopeless , 
 she was not to be ruled by love or fear, for 
 she was incapable of either. The old man 
 used to come up to the Chateau des Quatre 
 Vents, and tell his grievances to Jacques 
 and occasionally to the count himself, and 
 he would potter about our fields and 
 o-arden in a melancholy way, that in- 
 spired Joscelynand myself with great pity. 
 Jules Leblond sought consolation from a 
 source which is, to do them justice, not 
 extensively resorted to by the French : he 
 took to drinking, and the little auberge had 
 him for a constant customer. The influence 
 of these circumstances upon my future, 
 though indirect, was destined to be con- 
 siderable. I am now about to state how it 
 was that they exerted any. 
 
 “Joan,” said Joscelyn to me one day, 
 
 “ I want you to help me to play a trick on 
 that hag. I really can’t stand the poor 
 old fellow’s wretched, half-starved look— 
 they are feeding him in the kitchen just 
 now— and thevicaire’s telling Annesley that 
 if Leblond had kept anything at all back 
 from the vixen she might have been held 
 within bounds by her anxiety to get hold 
 of that too, has put a notion into my head 
 But, first, I must swear you to secrecy— 
 towards everybody, Annesley included 
 mind. Are you ready to be sworn h 
 “ Of course I am.” 
 
 “ Then we’ll take the oath for granted. 
 Now come along to your own room, and 
 get out the big box with the brass edges 
 that you keep all your gimcracks in. I 
 want to have a look at them. 
 
 “ What for 1” 
 
 “Never mind; I’ll tell you when Ive 
 seen the things.” , 
 
 We went to my room and I produced 
 the box. It contained a number of valuable 
 things, my sole personal wealth, inherited 
 from my mother chiefly : there were several 
 articles of Chinese and Indian jewellery, 
 cameos, strings of Turkish sequins, a lot of 
 Indian coins, and some fine pearl ornaments. 
 Joscelyn disregarded all my “ rubbish, as 
 he contemptuously called my treasures, 
 except the strings of sequins ; these he 
 removed from the box and closely examined, 
 comparing the size of the coins with that 
 of a ten-franc piece. 
 
 “ Very much of a size,” he said ; but 
 these are not gold, are they 1 ” 
 
 “ I believe not ; I was told they are 
 silver, washed with gold, to make them 
 
 prettier to wear in the hair and on the 
 neck ” 
 
 “just as good as gold for my purpose. 
 Now I’m going to take a hundred of them, 
 and I don’t mean to tell you what I intend 
 to do with them until it’s done. But you 
 shall have them back all safe when they 
 have served my purpose.” 
 
 “ Oh Joscelyn, and you said I was to 
 consider myself sworn to secrecy l ” 
 
 “ Certainly, and so you are. You will 
 keep the secret ever so much better for not 
 knowing anything about it ; and you will 
 not be in the scrape, if I get into one, with 
 the count.” 
 
 He went off in his boyish way with 
 my Turkish coins, and I thought very 
 little about the matter, for my mind 
 and my heart were full of myself and 
 
 another. - T , , 
 
 Before that week came to an end, 1 had 
 a good right to account myself the happiest 
 girl in existence, for George Annesley had 
 asked me to be his wife, and my consent 
 had been ratified by my uncles. We had 
 a very friendly though agitating discussion 
 of our plans, and George besought my 
 uncle to give up the Chateau des Quatre 
 Vents and come to England. To this, 
 however, the count would not consent ; he 
 liked his breezy old home, and its inde- 
 pendent ways, and he meant to keep 
 
 them. _ . , 
 
 If anything could have dashed my 
 happiness it was this refusal. I thought 
 so sadly of him, all alone, when I should 
 be married and away, and Joscelyn at sea ; 
 but George consoled me by assuring me 
 the count would change his mind. 
 
 “ He will get tired of his loneliness, and 
 come to us,” said George, “ and we will 
 give him the Ivy House at Annesley 
 Towers if he won’t live with us, and 
 we will clear the big library of all 
 the books on military history and fill his 
 shelves with them, and he shall be as 
 happy as a king, or, better still, as you 
 
 and I.” . 
 
 I was consoled and delighted ; but in 
 my heart I did not think any one m 
 the world could ever be as happy as he 
 
 ail They talked a great deal about business 
 matters which I did not understand, 
 only remember my uncle’s saying, with his 
 hand upon my head, as he used to lay it 
 there when I was a child : 
 
 “ Gold and silver has she none ; but she 
 is as good as gold, and better.” 
 
 Christmas came and passed, and Joscelyn 
 
62 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 was to leave us, George going with him, 
 early in the year. It was about a week 
 after New Year’s Day, when my brother 
 came to me, his bright eyes dancing with a 
 mischievous delight, and gave me back my 
 Turkish sequins, unstrung, and in a rough 
 canvas bag. 
 
 ‘‘I’ve done it,” he said; “I’ve restored 
 peace and harmony to the blighted home 
 of the Leblonds. I’ve beaten the vicaire 
 on his own ground. Madame Leblond is 
 a perfect lamb, and the pearl of daughters- 
 in-law. Old Leblond has a well-stuffed 
 fauteuil at the chimney-corner, an 4dredon 
 for his poor old legs, bouillon gras when- 
 ever he likes, and old Huret’s cachet vert 
 at least twice a week at his dinner. And 
 you should just see her coddling the old 
 man, and hear her wheedling him ! It is 
 much better than any play that our limited 
 opportunities have given us an opportunity 
 of seeing, I can tell you.” 
 
 “ What on earth do you mean ?” 
 
 “I’ll tell you now; and here, you will 
 please to remember your oath comes into 
 operation. I made old Leblond understand 
 that if it was the fact that he had given up 
 everything he possessed that made Madame 
 Catherine so brutal to him, he might get a 
 pull upon her by persuading her that she 
 was mistaken ; that he had a secret 
 treasure unknown to everybody, and that by 
 very good conduct, and throwing him 
 completely off his guard, she might wheedle 
 him out of it. As she is a miser, and the 
 daughter of a miser, I calculated that it 
 would be easy enough to make her believe 
 that other people had hoarded money also. 
 He took to the notion very readily, but he 
 objected, first, that his son would know 
 he was only deceiving Madame Catherine; 
 and secondly, that she would never believe 
 anything but the sight of the hoarded 
 treasure. To this I replied, that he must not 
 attempt to take his son into his confidence, 
 as he was not to be trusted, and that he 
 might be quite sure Madame Catherine 
 would say nothing to her husband, if the 
 thing were managed as I should arrange 
 it, for she should behold the bona-fide 
 treasure with her own eyes. Now I 
 suppose you begin to guess what I wanted 
 with your sequins I Exactly so; I see 
 it in your nod. I unstrung the sequins, 
 mixed up some French money with them, 
 put them in an old sample seed-bag, and 
 gave them to old Leblond, with instruc- 
 tions to watch for a favourable opportunity 
 of letting the sweet creature see him count 
 his money ; but I charged him not to let it 
 
 be off his own person for one moment ; he 
 was to carry the bag in his breast with the 
 string round his neck day and night. The 
 opportunity arose very soon, for one of 
 Madame Catherine’s amiable habits is that 
 of spying through keyholes. This she did, 
 just as the moon was shining through the 
 poor old man’s garret-window ; and he was 
 all ready for her with the coins spread out 
 in the patch of moonlight on the floor, and 
 himself on his knees, gloating over them 
 in the true miserlike attitude. He acted 
 it all for me in the greenhouse. It was 
 great fun. He heard her breathe deeply, 
 and she put her hand on the latch, but 
 very softly, and withdrew it in a few 
 moments. Next morning she was silent 
 and thoughtful, and let him have as much 
 sugar in his coffee as he wanted. Since 
 then she has been undergoing a complete 
 transformation, but she has not said a 
 word ; indeed she has been singularly 
 silent about everything, and she has 
 watched him incessantly when he has been 
 in the house. Everyone notices the change, 
 and the neighbours shake their heads and 
 think Madame Catherine must be going to 
 die and is £ converting herself.’ Old 
 Leblond has kept me informed of the 
 progress of the affair, and as I think she 
 will never venture to ill-treat him again, 
 and wanted you to have your sequins all 
 safe before I go away, I gave him instruc- 
 tions two days ago for the last act of the 
 little play. Every night she comes and 
 peeps through the keyhole — the room is a 
 very comfortable one now — and the night 
 before last she saw the old man walking 
 about, hugging the bag to his breast, 
 and muttering : Not safe, not safe ; I 
 
 must bury it. No safety except in the 
 earth ! But where 1 — where % ’ And 
 yesterday, when he went out she fol- 
 lowed him at a distance. He came up 
 to the chateau as usual, and while he was 
 talking to me she was hanging about, but 
 too far off to hear a word of what we were 
 saying. The final scene took place last 
 night, while you and Annesley were talking 
 your nonsense together in the salon, and I 
 assure you it was quite dramatic. It might 
 have been a murder and the burial of the 
 body ! I took up my position at the back 
 of the cucumber-frame, close by the old 
 well, in the potager, and lay close. 
 Presently, under the pale and watery 
 moonbeams, in creeps old Leblond — and, 
 by-the-bye, narrowly escapes tumbling into 
 the well, for the cover is off — his hand on 
 the bag, his old jaws mopping and mowing. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AS GOOD AS GOLD. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 63 
 
 He searches for a spade — I had put one in 
 readiness — digs a hole at the side of the 
 cucumber-frame, squats on the ground, 
 counts the money very audibly— -for his 
 precious daughter-in-law is behind the 
 hedge on the other side of the walk, 
 intently watching him — and drops the coins 
 back into the bag. Then he kneels, with 
 his back to the amiable Madame Catherine, 
 and with many groans and moans inters 
 his treasure, carries the spade to a remote 
 corner of the garden, and steals away, 
 followed by the spy.” 
 
 “ And you dug up the bag ? ” 
 
 “ Hot at all ; it never was buried. 
 Nothing at all reposes in the grave wherein 
 are centred the hopes of Madame Cathe- 
 rine j and old Leblond honestly and punc- 
 tually restored to me the properties of our 
 little drama this morning. His daughter- 
 in-law is more than ever devoted to him 
 now that she thinks the treasure is abso- 
 lutely safe, beyond the reach of all acci- 
 dents, and everybody’s knowledge except 
 her own.” . . 
 
 “ But suppose she goes to dig it up, and 
 finds it is not there 1 ” 
 
 “ Thave thought of that, and I will tell 
 you what she will do. She will think she 
 has mistaken the place, and she will dig 
 abore it and below it, and in a line with it 
 and all round it ; she will return to the 
 charge again and again, for seeing is be- 
 lieving, and she believes that she saw him 
 bury the money ; but even if she is con- 
 vinced it is not there, she will only sup- 
 pose that old Leblond has buried it else- 
 where, and watch him more closely still. 
 But she will not ill-treat the old man 
 again ; she has something more to get out 
 of him, if only” — and here Joscelyn as- 
 sumed a comical air of melodrama — “ the 
 secret on his death-bed.” 
 
 I locked up my sequins, and we laughed 
 and talked a great deal about Joscelyn’s 
 practical joke. 
 
 About a week after Mr. Annesley and 
 Joscelyn had left the Chateau des Quatre 
 Vents, when I was settling down into the 
 routine of writing and receiving letters 
 daily, and the count and the vicaire had 
 resumed their winter evenings’ chess 
 battles, there arose a disturbance in St. Mag- 
 loire-des-Champs. Jules Leblond’s wife, 
 whose odd abstracted manner had recently 
 attracted a good deal of attention, was 
 missing. Jules and his father came to my 
 uncle, as they always did in a difficulty, 
 and told him about the woman’s disap- 
 pearance. On several occasions lately, 
 
 Jules said, she had been absent from home, 
 leaving him and his father together, but 
 she had explained her absence quite rea- 
 sonably. They had been getting on very 
 well together, notwithstanding her mean 
 ways, for the last few weeks, and Jules 
 had forsaken the auberge ; but she had 
 gone out after nightfall on the previous 
 evening — she was always talking about the 
 moonlight, Jules said, and everyone knows 
 that is a bad sign— saying she was going 
 down to the Chateau to speak to the house- 
 keeper about some household matter. She 
 had not returned. No one belonging to 
 the Chateau had seen her. The great gate, 
 as I have said, invariably lay open, and she 
 might have passed in and out unnoticed \ 
 but it was explained that persons coming 
 from the heights never used the chief 
 entrance ; they would come in through the 
 small gate that gave admittance into the 
 potager. 
 
 A sudden dread struck me at the 
 mention of the potager. Had Madame Le- 
 blond’s disappearance any connection with 
 the supposed-to-be-buried money I took 
 old Leblond aside and asked him the ques- 
 tion. The first impulse of the cunning 
 old man was to affect ignorance of my 
 meaning ; but I told him briefly that I knew 
 what had been done, and that he would 
 not come to. any harm by telling me the 
 truth. Then he acknowledged that he in 
 his turn had enjoyed the pleasure of watch- 
 ing his daughter-in-law, and had been 
 aware that three times she had made vain 
 search for the supposed money. He did 
 not doubt, though he had not taken the 
 trouble to follow her last night, that her 
 errand had been the same ; but he. was 
 totally at a loss to account for her disap- 
 pearance. 
 
 “ You shall be held quite harmless, I 
 said ; “ but you must tell the whole truth 
 to the count at once.” I was trying to 
 get the room cleared, so that the story of 
 Joscelyn’s expedient should be told to my 
 uncle without any superfluous hearers, 
 when the gardener rushed in, and in a 
 state of excessive terror announced a 
 dreadful discovery— that of the dead body 
 of Jules Leblond’s wife. She had fallen 
 into the uncovered well in the potager and 
 been drowned ! 
 
 I was married to George Annesley in 
 London, and although he has not given 
 up the Chateau des Quatre Vents, my 
 uncle has taken wonderfully to the Ivy 
 House. 
 
64 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 AN “ OUT-OF-THE-WAY ” STOEY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 AN “ OUT-OF-THE-WAY ” STOEY. 
 
 BY W. W. FENN. 
 
 “ Freedom and quiet, fresh air and sea- 
 bathing.” This was the doctor’s prescrip- 
 tion. “ But,” he added, “ don’t go to a 
 fashionable watering-place, you’ll get no 
 rest there ; find an out-of-the-way spot 
 where there is no noise hut the sound of 
 the sea, which should soothe you to sleep; 
 and, by-the-way, a pair of blue spectacles 
 with large side flaps to keep off the glare 
 would be advisable. One word more,” 
 said he ; “ forgive my appearing personal, 
 but let me suggest that you should get 
 your hair cut— a man with your excitable 
 brain should wear it as short as possible, 
 especially when it grows as thick as yours. 
 Have a regular convict’s crop, you know. 
 Never mind your appearance. Write me 
 a line when you have been away a 
 fortnight, and tell me how you are. Glood- 
 morning ! ” 
 
 Why, I knew the very place to go to, 
 the most out-of-the-way spot in the world. 
 I had often longed to go, but, of course, 
 like all commercial men in these high- 
 pressure days, could never find the time. 
 
 Now since I had lately been unable to 
 sleep, had once or twice turned suddenly 
 dizzy in the street, and been seized with a 
 fainting fit whilst sitting at my desk, I 
 began to see that, if I did not find time for 
 a holiday, I should have to find time to 
 be ill. 
 
 Hey, then ! for Dulworth Cove, the 
 prettiest, quaintest, and quietest out-of-the- 
 way nook for a bather on the south coast. 
 Was it not a familiar acquaintance 
 already 1 I knew all about it from my 
 friend Burnish’s sketches as well as if I 
 had been there. Nine or ten miles from 
 the dreary old Southshire town of Tareham, 
 or five from the little shed of a station at 
 Fleece — a certain fly at the former or an 
 uncertain lift in a cart at the latter, it did 
 not signify. The cove inn would sure to 
 have room ; or if it had not, there were 
 two or three cottage-lodgings where quiet, 
 fogey-like provincials were in the habit of 
 putting up when they wanted a breath 
 of sea air. Otherwise Dulworth was 
 unfrequented, almost unknown. The time- 
 bill at the London terminus showed that 
 the train I hit upon stopped at Fleece, so 
 to Fleece I booked. 
 
 The month was August, the heat great, 
 and town intolerable. By the time we 
 were skirting Westhampton Waters, I 
 
 began to feel better. The breeze smelt 
 salt already, and the cropping I had under- 
 gone had literally taken a weight off my 
 head. Nevertheless, I think it was over- 
 done, for nature, apparently exhausted by 
 her expenditure of strength on a luxuriant 
 head of hair, had left my cheeks and chin 
 as bare as a baby’s ; and now, after True- 
 fit’s operation and in my blue spectacles, I 
 looked the veriest scarecrow imaginable. 
 
 “ Fleece ! Fleece ! Fleece ! ” shouted the 
 station porter. 
 
 “ Plenty of cry, and very little Fleece,” 
 thought I as I got out of the train, for a 
 smaller place boasting of a station it would 
 have been hard to find. Half-a-dozen strag- 
 gling cottages made up the village, and but 
 for the luck of finding a fisherman’s cart 
 returning to Dulworth, I should probably 
 have had to carry my own portmanteau 
 and trudge the five miles on foot. How- 
 ever, Mr. Eichard Tye, fisherman, was 
 very willing, after some confabulation, to 
 give me a lift, and we were soon side by 
 side jolting along in his little ramshackle 
 vehicle. Tye was a character, and shall 
 speak for himself. He soon told me what 
 I chiefly wanted to know — namely, that 
 there would be no difficulty in getting a 
 room at the inn. 
 
 “ T’other lodgings he’s pretty full, I 
 reckon,” he said, “ for there bean’t many 
 on ’em, and the last — them at Mrs. 
 Hutchett’s — was took yesterday by a lady. 
 And terrible solitary and sad-lookin’ she 
 be’s too, surely. Missus Hutchett says to 
 my missus as she’d heerd her sobbin’ and 
 cryin’ well-nigh all last night through, and 
 I see her myself up on the tops this mornin’, 
 all dressed in black, so miserable-like as it 
 made my heart ache, She was . staring 
 away, to the west’ard there, with tearful 
 eyes, as if she ’spected summut to come up 
 out of the deep. There, that be Missus 
 Hutchett’s, that little cottage there, agin 
 the church,” he added, pointing with his 
 whip as we were now winding down the 
 ever-narrowing road towards the sea. 
 “ This ’ere be’s the beginning of Dulworth 
 village like, and it’s a’most half a mile 
 more to the hotel.” 
 
 During our progress past a succession 
 of old-fashioned thatched cottages, each 
 standing in its patch of kitchen-garden, 
 with here and there a rustic draw-well, 
 and an old weather-worn tree or two, we 
 overtook and passed the lady in question, 
 and she certainly bore out my companion’s 
 description to the letter. Although I 
 abstained from anything more than a 
 

 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AN “ OUT-OF-THE-WAY ” STORY. 
 
 [July 4, 1881] 65 
 
 furtive glance, I saw that she had a pair 
 of eyes which, as they met mine, even 
 through my blue spectacles, imparted a 
 peculiar sensation. Whether it was their 
 natural look, I do not know, but there was 
 an appealing, beseeching expression in them 
 which was very touching, as though their 
 owner was looking everywhere for help — 
 a help that was lost, but on which she had 
 once relied and was hoping to find again. 
 This was the involuntary interpretation 
 I put upon her expression. I am not a 
 romantic man, but Tye’s few words, and 
 the aspect of the lady, absorbed my thoughts 
 until I reached the inn — indeed until I 
 went to sleep that night. 
 
 Quarters tolerably comfortable ; sur- 
 roundings just what I expected ; great relief 
 to be in such air in such weather. A 
 “ header ” into the glistening waters of the 
 cove ; the freedom of the beach with only a 
 stray coastguard or fisherman in the distance; 
 no bother of bathing-machines or crowds of 
 watering-place idlers ; this was, of course, 
 the very spot for me to pull round in, and 
 I had not been twenty-four hours, at Dul- 
 worth before I felt a different man. 
 
 For days and days I spent the most 
 monotonous and regular life; by degrees 
 extending my walks along the cliff-tops 
 right and left, and so recognising in their 
 turn all the leading features of the coast, 
 as I had seen them in Burnish’s sketches— 
 faithful Burnish !— and what a fine prospect 
 it was from that coastguard look-out just 
 above the inn ! Ensconced in the little turf 
 shelter, and soon on good terms with the 
 man on duty, I used to sit for hours 
 watching the expanse of sunlit sea, and 
 indolently gazing through my blue spec- 
 tacles at the glittering headlands. I knew 
 them all : there was St. Maurice Head m 
 the far east, Peaceborough, Beacon Bay, 
 Dul worth ; and to the westward, Maresfall, 
 Gurdle, Grey nose ; and . finally, in the 
 extreme distance, the fashionable watering- 
 place of Curdsmouth, dominated by the 
 rocky promontory of the great convict 
 settlement at Fortland. Very soon, how- 
 ever, these points of natural interest faded 
 before the human, and the mysterious lady 
 in black, young and beautiful as she was, 
 became the chief object of my contem- 
 plative moods. With not more than half- 
 a-dozen nondescript visitors wandering over 
 the downs and along the shore, this solitary 
 figure was necessarily conspicuous. 
 
 In addition, likewise, there was in her 
 manners and habits sufficient to attract 
 attention. All day long she would sit at 
 
 one or other of the most commanding 
 outlooks in the immediate neighbourhood, 
 and all day long she was gazing, often 
 through a field-glass, in one direction. 
 Wander where I would on the cliffs, 1 came 
 across her sitting and staring perpetually 
 at the western horizon. 
 
 Sometimes, too, I came upon her at the 
 coastguard look-out, trying to use the blue- 
 jacket’s telescope. She spoke little, to the 
 man, and there was no abatement either in 
 the sadness or in the appealing, beseech- 
 ing expression of her face. My interest 
 in her increased, and I casually asked Mr. 
 Tye one morning, whilst he was pottering 
 about amongst the little group of boats 
 drawn up on the beach of the cove, if he 
 had heard her name. 
 
 He had “heerd”it was Smith, but he 
 could give me no information beyond that 
 she was kind o’ half furriner he thought, a 
 poor lonesome body, never had no letters, 
 gave very little trouble, had come from 
 London the day before I arrived, as he had 
 told me when he druv me over, and had 
 paid her rent reg’lar. . 
 
 This rather lent a whet to my curiosity, 
 unoccupied as I was, and a strong 
 desire to make her acquaintance took pos- 
 session of me. I would have liked to talk 
 to that poor woman ; to have seen if i 
 could do anything to help her, and, if pos- 
 sible, to alleviate the terrible burthen of 
 sorrow which was evidently weighing her 
 
 d °Afortnight passed. One afternoon, after 
 a broiling hot day, and just when a gentle 
 breeze, springing up from the south, 
 carried away the banks of sea-fog m which 
 the coast had been enveloped for twenty- 
 four hours and made locomotion impossible, 
 I strolled far away across the downs and 
 struck the coast at a greater distance from 
 the inn than I had ever yet wandered to. 
 
 I suppose I was four or five miles from 
 Dul worth, for I could see the flagstaff of 
 the next coastguard station to it consider- 
 ably in my rear. As there was still plenty 
 of daylight, it occurred to me that, before 
 turning homewards, it would be pleasant 
 to have a bathe in yonder tempting little 
 bay of blue-green water lying still as a 
 mill-pond, and reflecting vividly a long 
 reef of rocks which shut it in. So, descend- 
 ing the crumbling, but here comparatively 
 low cliffs to the beach, I was -about to 
 undress under the shelter of the ridge of 
 rocks, when I fancied I heard someone 
 moving on the other side. 
 
 The breeze had quite died away again, 
 
66 [July 4, 1881.] AN “OUT-OF-THE-WAY” STORY. [Conducted by 
 
 and the faint ripple which gently kissed the 
 shore only served to increase the delicious 
 evening silence pervading all around. The 
 solitude of the place, too, was not the least 
 of its attractions ; scarcely a living creature 
 had been visible for hours, therefore the 
 crunch, crunch as of a furtive footstep so 
 close, was a little startling. 
 
 Immediately scrambling to the top of 
 the rocks I looked over on the other side, 
 whence the sound had come, and as I 
 could see nobody, I thought my ears had 
 deceived me. When I had waited and 
 watched for fully ten minutes, and still 
 saw nobody, I was convinced I had been 
 deceived. 
 
 The noise, probably, was caused by 
 nothing but an accidental shifting of some 
 of the little heaps of shingle at the base of 
 the rocks, such as frequently happens 
 when the tide has just left them. Thus 
 reassured, I was soon stripped and revelling 
 in the delights of my dip. The water felt 
 like tepid milk ; it was the most delicious 
 bath I had ever known, and I swam 
 straight away out, without looking back, 
 for a long distance to a little patch of table 
 rock which the ebbing tide was just 
 revealing. Reaching it, I stretched myself 
 lazily, otterlike, upon its smooth top and 
 took a rest. For several minutes I lay 
 looking out seawards, then I turned round, 
 and as my eyes fell upon the shore I saw, 
 to my consternation, a man partly un- 
 dressed, stooping over my pile of clothes. 
 
 I was so taken aback for the first 
 moment, that I did not even call out, but 
 when I descried him rapidly putting them 
 on, I was in the water again, shouting my 
 best in an instant, and swimming back for 
 dear life. , 
 
 But, by Jove, there is far too great a 
 distance between me and the land to make 
 it possible to stop the thief. He is even 
 now hustling on my shooting-coat, and I 
 cannot hope to overhaul him if he takes to 
 his heels, as he assuredly will. Yes, there 
 he goes ! running with all his might up 
 towards the cliffs, as he crams his head 
 into my lovely soft brown wideawake, 
 and drags the brim of it down over his 
 eyes. By the time I touch the shore, 
 breathless, he has disappeared round a mass 
 of broken cliff, and I see him no more ! 
 
 The first impulse is still to keep up the 
 chase, and I actually run a few yards up 
 the beach ere I remember my condition. 
 In this guise, however, pursuit is out of 
 the question, and I return to where my 
 clothes had been, and where now are 
 
 lying, scattered about, what the scoundrel 
 has left of his own. 
 
 It is impossible to describe my disgust 
 at the thought of having to put on these 
 garments; it was worse than losing my 
 own. For the latter were gone, every 
 stitch, from the guernsey and shirt down 
 to my socks and shoes. Gone ! and with 
 them the contents of the pockets — keys, 
 money, pocket-book, and spectacles. And 
 what was left in exchange % A more 
 motley nondescript attire had never been 
 seen. The coat was of a strange friezy 
 homespun, with a waistcoat and knicker- 
 bockers to match — but their colour ! Half 
 drab, half yellow ; the first a dust-coloured 
 brownish grey, the latter bright and 
 staring as cadmium; the hues seemed 
 arranged, moreover, to show them off to 
 the full. First a yellow sleeve, then a drab 
 breast, next a yellow breast, then last a 
 drab sleeve, and below the drab breast one 
 yellow leg, below the yellow breast a leg 
 of drab. All this I took in as I laid out 
 the wardrobe for inspection on the shingle. 
 There was apparently no hat or cap, but I 
 found a pair of heavy high-laced ankle- 
 jacks, fit for a navvy, a common blue 
 striped shirt, flannel drawers and jersey, 
 and last of all, a pair of long stout stock- 
 ings, blue ribbed, with narrow bars of red 
 at intervals around the leg. Who, in 
 Heaven’s name, could be the owner of a 
 kit like this ? 
 
 A puff of chill night air, wafted from the 
 sea as the evening closed around, re- 
 minded me that for the nonce, at least, I 
 myself must be their happy possessor, for 
 to return home utterly unclothed was .of 
 course impossible. Fortunately my disguise 
 was tolerably clean, and fitted me fairly 
 well, but the closer I became acquainted 
 with the clothes the less I liked their style. 
 I found now a sort of pattern stamped 
 upon the cloth — a curious device in black — 
 two sides of a triangle with a straight line 
 inside from the apex, and these were 
 sprinkled plentifully but at irregular dis- 
 tances all over the drab-and-yellow suit. 
 On the right sleeve, again, there was a 
 circular patch of drab bearing the mysterious 
 letters “ P. S.,” and below them the figures 
 fourteen, and on a third line eight thousand 
 four hundred and thirty-two. The boots, 
 which I put on last, were big, but not un- 
 comfortable. They carried tremendous nails 
 upon the soles, which I found, on looking 
 back at my footprints on a patch of sand, 
 made a mark exactly similar to the quaint 
 black pattern on my clothes. 
 
 F 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AN “OUT-OF-THE-WAY” STORY. 
 
 [July 4, 1881.] 67 
 
 I know not how long I was attiring 
 myself in this wondrous dress, hut I had 
 just put on the coat, when I was aroused 
 from my speculations as to what it could 
 mean by the sudden appearance of a 
 couple of coastguardmen hurrying down 
 the cliffs towards me. Before I had time 
 to congratulate myself, as I thought, on a 
 rescue from my dilemma in having to 
 return home in this disguise, the foremost 
 of the new comers addressed me, as he 
 approached. 
 
 “ Hullo, mister,” he said, “ we ve nabbed 
 ye, have we % Y ou’re a cool customer to go 
 bathin’ here on the open beach.” _ 
 
 By this time they were both within a 
 few yards of me, and the second one, I saw 
 to my astonishment, carried, menacingly, 
 a heavy pistol. . 
 
 “Now, look here,” went on this latter, 
 raising the weapon, “ don’t go for to make 
 a bolt of it, or you’ll have a bullet through 
 your leg in a moment. Those are my 
 orders, and I’ll carry ’em out, so help me. 
 You are our prisoner, and you’d best give 
 in quietly.” ' . . , , 
 
 “Your prisoner!” I exclaimed, aghast 
 and bewildered by the men’s behaviour 
 and words. 
 
 “ Yes,” said the first speaker, “ and we 
 mean to collar the five pounds reward, so 
 don’t you give us no trouble, and we wont 
 do you no mischief.” 
 
 « yyh wh— what do you mean? 1 
 
 stammered. 
 
 “Oh come, don’t let’s have any of your 
 kid. You know what we mean j though, 
 how you could be such a soft as to go for 
 to show yourself in broad daylight beats 
 me,” said one. 
 
 “Yes, and how we come not to see ye 
 afore, beats me,” said the other ; ‘ how- 
 somever, come along quietly, for your 
 game’s up now.” 
 
 With this he put his arm through 
 mine and began to urge me away. I 
 resisted slightly, for I was still perfectly in 
 the dark 
 
 “ Now, look here, once for all,” said the 
 first man, “we’ve been a-looking for you 
 all day, and we don’t mean to let you go 
 now. Will you come quietly, or wont 
 ye V’ 
 
 “ Come 1 Yes, of course I’ll come ; but 
 where to ^ I don’t understand. 
 
 “Ha, ha, ha! You don’t understand. 
 I like that, upon my life I do. Why, back 
 to Fortland Prison, to be sure. ^ So put your 
 best leg foremost, or we shan’t get ye in 
 afore the gates are locked for the night. 
 
 So suddenly had this phase of the 
 affair developed, that it took me several 
 minutes ere I could realise its true meaning, 
 but as I found myself mechanically strug- 
 gling up the broken ground between the 
 two men, the truth began to dawn. 
 
 “ Do you mean to tell me,” I said, “ that 
 you take me for an escaped convict 1 ” 
 
 “ Looks like it,” was the answer. 
 
 “ But, you know, it’s all a mistake. I’ve 
 had my own clothes stolen.” 
 
 “ Oh yes, it’s all a mistake ; we know 
 that, and you’ll know it too, by-and-by.” 
 
 “ Now,” I said, “ don’t be impudent, or 
 it may be the worse for you. I can explain 
 the whole business perfectly, and then 
 you’ll see you are utterly in the wrong.” . 
 
 We were nearly at the top of the cliff 
 now, and no sooner had we reached it than 
 I saw a policeman in a ramshackle cart 
 driving across the downs towards us, 
 followed by three or four boys. 
 
 « Got him, have ye, mates V’ shouted the 
 constable as we neared him. “ All right,” 
 went on the man^ pulling up, “there 11 
 be room for us all in the cart. Now, my 
 cocky wax, let’s have the darbies on ] and, 
 almost before I knew it, or could resist, 
 the policeman had sprung from the cart and 
 I was handcuffed. 
 
 Vain was it for me to protest, to explain, 
 to remonstrate, to insist on being driven 
 back to Dulworth, where, as I averred, 
 immediate proof would be forthcoming of 
 my identity. The horse’s head was per- 
 sistently kept by the policeman in the 
 very opposite direction, after I had been 
 hoisted into the cart and seated between 
 the two blue-jackets. All expostulations 
 were useless. My captors alternately jeered, 
 chaffed, or swore at me for one of the 
 coolest blades they had ever come across 
 in their days, and finally telling me to 
 « shut up,” lighted their pipes and refused 
 to talk further. Night was now fast setting 
 in, and by the time we had left the 
 downs, and struck into a by-lane upon 
 more level land, the little following 
 of shouting boys and the two or three 
 labourers (who had gathered about the 
 cart as the news of the capture of the 
 escaped convict got wind) fell off. Not o 
 dwell on my sensations unduly, as the tuli 
 gravity of the situation began to dawn 
 upon me, as in silence, for awhile, we jogged 
 along the road towards Fortland, I will only 
 say that I gladly hailed the obscurity which 
 the ever-deepening twilight threw rou^d 
 us I endeavoured to console myself by 
 the thought that at least, when we reached 
 
68 [July 4, 1881.] 
 
 AN “OUT-OF-THE-WAY” STORY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 aur destination, I should have no diffi- 
 culty in making the authorities see the 
 mistake. 
 
 Nevertheless certain misgivings would 
 arise that this might not be so easy at 
 first, and that at the best I should have to 
 pass an unpleasant night either in or out 
 of Fortland Prison. Amongst some fifteen 
 hundred convicts, each recognisable only 
 by his number, it was quite likely that that 
 on the sleeve of this accursed garb would 
 be held sufficient to warrant the assumption 
 that its wearer was its legitimate owner, 
 and the story of the misappropriation would 
 hardly be credited. Then the convict crop 
 which the doctor had insisted on 1 Why, 
 that would be almost confirmatory on the 
 first blush of the thing ! My heart sank, 
 and I turned deadly sick . as these possi- 
 bilities occurred to me. 
 
 “ Is this Curdsmouth ?” I said at length, 
 as we gradually neared the straggling out- 
 skirts of a well-lighted town. 
 
 “Just as if you didn’t know,” was the 
 reply from one of the coastguard ; “ any- 
 one’d think you was as innocent as a lamb, 
 to hear you talk. Why don’t you shut 
 up 1 ” 
 
 “Do you mean to say that you will 
 persist in driving me through the public 
 streets in this fashion ? ” I exclaimed, goaded 
 to desperation by the thought of such an 
 ignominious progress. 
 
 “ P’raps you’d like to go in a carriage 
 and four, would ye ? I reckon the fiver 
 won’t run to that,” was the reply. 
 
 .“Well, my fine fellows,” I said, “ this 
 will be the worst day’s job you ever did, as 
 you will find by-and by, and I shall appeal 
 to some of the passers-by to give me 
 assistance,” I went on, hardly knowing 
 what I said. 
 
 “Yes, and a mighty lot of good you’ll 
 get by that ; it’s more than anyone’s place 
 is worth to interfere with us and you in 
 that dress, let alone your having been up 
 to this game before.” 
 
 “ What game ?” I asked. 
 
 “ Why, breaking prison. This ain’t your 
 first offence in this line, as you well know, 
 else you wouldn’t be striped yellow 
 alternate, like an old wasp.” 
 
 Worse and worse ! but here was the 
 explanation in full of my strange motley. 
 
 The town was alive with evening 
 loungers and merry with music and 
 laughter, as we drove along the gas-lit 
 quays and esplanades. Many a curious 
 glance was directed towards the vehicle 
 in which I was such a conspicuous figure 
 
 — unable to hide my face in the slightest 
 degree — hatless, handcuffed as I was. 
 
 “ Fancy,” I said to myself, “ if that sweet- 
 looking woman at Dulworth had chanced to 
 be in Curdsmouth this evening and had 
 recognised me, or if any of my friends or 
 one of my partners could have seen me V ’ 
 
 One of my partners ! This thought 
 brought some relief. Oh that such good 
 luck might have been mine ! Why, of 
 course, the first thing I should have to do 
 would be to communicate with my partners 
 if the authorities at the prison proved as 
 obdurate as did my captors. By way of 
 making me more comfortable, these 
 humorous dogs would, from time to time, 
 interchange jocose remarks at my expense 
 with stray friends, as we passed often at a 
 walking pace through some of the narrower 
 thoroughfares ; and I was not a little 
 relieved when eventually we came out 
 upon the deserted causeway road running 
 along the top of the great ridge of beach 
 by which the promontory of Fortland is 
 reached. 
 
 A hazy moon shed a ghostly light on 
 the placid expanse of sea right and left, 
 whilst straight in front loomed ominously 
 the rocky elevation whereon is established 
 the huge penal settlement. 
 
 Less than half an hour then brought us, 
 by a steep ascent, to the prison-gates. The 
 aspect of these gloomy portals, illumined by 
 a solitary lamp, which made the darkness 
 of the shadow in which they stood more 
 evident, struck me with a chill. 
 
 “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” 
 they seemed to say, and truly the last 
 remnants of my hope and courage evapo- 
 rated at the sight. Accustomed to a quiet 
 uneventful life, I trust I may be excused 
 for any cowardice I displayed. 
 
 I confess, as I have said, I had never 
 been very confident of making my identity 
 clear at once, even to the officials, after the 
 experience I had had of the way my 
 protests were received by my captors. I 
 foresaw many difficulties, and perhaps, from 
 being out of health and unnerved, my 
 imagination magnified these, .but not very 
 greatly, as will be seen. Any way, I was 
 in no mood to take the matter as a joke, as 
 I suppose a man in strong health might 
 have done, and I was so bewildered by the 
 novelty, and, to say the least of it, the 
 disagreeable character of the situation, that 
 I do not pretend to remember in detail 
 what followed. I am only conscious that 
 there was much congratulatory jargon 
 interchanged about my recapture between 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AN “OUT-OF-THE-WAY” STORY. 
 
 [July 4, 1831.] 69 
 
 my escort and the stern-looking official 
 who unlocked, and then relocked the 
 swinging gates the moment I had been 
 made to descend from the cart, and had 
 entered the outer precincts of the prison. 
 
 My request to see the governor was 
 treated with derision. When the police- 
 man had removed my handcuffs, and he 
 and the coastguard had given their names 
 and taken their departure, I was conducted 
 through some open ironwork gates to an 
 inner line of security by a second blue- 
 coated warder armed with a short sword 
 at his side, and carrying a bull’s-eye 
 lantern. 
 
 There was an endless unlocking and 
 unbolting, and relocking and rebolting of 
 heavy gates and wickets, and a few roughly 
 given orders and counter-orders. I was 
 spoken of simply as eight thousand four 
 hundred and thirty-two, and every attempt 
 I made to speak and explain, every protest 
 I offered, every appeal I uttered, was met 
 by the stern command, “ Be silent.” 
 
 “ Hold your tongue, will you 1 or you’ll 
 be put in the dark cell,” at length said a 
 third official to whom I was passed on. 
 
 “ We’ve had enough trouble with you as it 
 is, and we’ll take good care you don’t step 
 it again in the fog, as you did this 
 morning.” 
 
 “ I tell you ” I was going on. 
 
 “ There now, that’s enough,” interrupted 
 he, “into the dark cell you go, and no 
 mistake this time, if you say another word. 
 I’ve given you fair warning, and now you 
 shall take the consequences.” 
 
 We were just then entering a long, lofty, 
 and dimly-lighted hall, having tier above 
 tier of small doors running round it which 
 were approached by flights of iron stairs 
 and galleries. Another warder, carrying 
 a huge bunch of keys, here came forward, 
 moving noiselessly by reason of soft slippers 
 which he wore. 
 
 “ Eight thousand four hundred and 
 thirty-two just brought back. Give him 
 his own cell if he’ll be quiet,’ said my 
 latest escort. 
 
 A door on the ground-floor was quickly 
 unlocked, and I was just on the point of 
 being thrust in, when I observed the man 
 look at me closely and start. . 
 
 “Ah,” I cried eagerly in a moment, 
 “ you see the mistake — you see I am not 
 the personage you take me for. For Gods 
 sake be reasonable, and understand what 
 you are doing.” 
 
 The other official came up as I con- 
 tinued : 
 
 “If you won’t take the responsibility 
 upon yourselves, let me see the governor at 
 once. I tell you I had been bathing, and 
 my clothes ” 
 
 “I think there is some mistake, Mr. 
 Rawkins ; this is not our customer,” broke 
 in the warder, scratching his head with a 
 key and looking dubiously at him who had 
 threatened me with darkness. 
 
 “ What ! have we been fooled again % ” 
 said the latter. “ How is this % Stay, I’ll 
 ring the governor’s bell. Hold on a bit 1” 
 
 At last then there was a prospect of my 
 being listened to. The warder who had 
 had charge of the real criminal of course 
 saw the mistake, the other men through 
 whose hands I had hitherto passed natu- 
 rally were not familiar with his features, 
 and had accepted the dress as sufficient and 
 conclusive evidence. 
 
 “ Come with me, but keep silent,” said 
 Mr. Rawkins • “ there’s some hanky-panky 
 going on which the governor must see to.” 
 More unlocking and relocking, more 
 traversing of dimly-lighted passages and 
 corridors, and then we entered a large 
 room fitted up like an office. Abell was rung, 
 the gas was turned up, several more warders 
 came in, and finally a good-looking soldier- 
 like gentleman, . of about forty, dressed in a 
 suit of gray dittos — obviously the governor. 
 Eyeing me keenly as he passed, he took his 
 seat at a desk, and in an authoritative tone 
 demanded : 
 
 “ What was the matter ]” 
 
 “ I can explain,” I said, “in two minutes.” 
 
 “Silence,” said the gentleman peremp- 
 torily. 
 
 Mr. Rawkins here stepped forward and 
 told his story. 
 
 “ And this is not your man, you say 
 said the governor. “ Who in the name of 
 mischief is he then 1” 
 
 “ My name is ” 
 
 “ Silence,” repeated the governor. 
 
 “ Well, sir, that remains to be seen,” 
 continued Rawkins. “ Anyhow, Mr. Muffet 
 says he is not eight thousand four hundred 
 and thirty-two — not Jollett.”. 
 
 “No, he is not Jollett certainly,” attested 
 two of the bystanding warders, scrutinising 
 me curiously. 
 
 “But he has the clothes on of eight 
 thousand four hundred and thirty-two, 
 said the governor, turning red; “the clothes 
 Jollett escaped in this morning. What is 
 the meaning of this 1 Connivance at escape, 
 I suppose. Where are the men who brought 
 him here % ” 
 
 “ They’ve left, sir,” said the gatekeeper, 
 
70 [July 4, 1881.] AN “OUT-OF-THE-WAY” STORY. [Conducted by 
 
 who had recently entered ; “ hut they will 
 be up in the morning first thing.” 
 
 “Then lock- him up till the morning,” 
 said the governor angrily, and rising from 
 his chair. “It is felony to assist in the 
 escape of a convict, and that’s what this 
 means.” 
 
 The prospect of remaining incarcerated 
 after all, just as I was rejoicing at having 
 obtained freedom, was too much. Sum- 
 moning all my resolution, and totally 
 disregarding the attempts to silence 
 me, with which I was met when I first 
 began to speak, I went on, and in a loud 
 voice blurted out the main facts of my 
 case. 
 
 “ And mind you, sir,” I added, gaining 
 fresh courage as I saw that my words had 
 made some impression on the gentleman in 
 grey, “ mind you, sir, if you keep me here 
 after this explanation an action will lie 
 against you for false imprisonment, and 
 I shall get heavy damages.” 
 
 “ Can this possibly be a true story 1 ” 
 said the governor, looking round to his 
 officials doubtfully. Then, resuming his 
 seat after a moment’s hesitation, he en- 
 quired, “ What proof can you bring 1 ” 
 
 “ Simply by sending over to Dul worth. 
 Half-a-dozen people there will tell you that 
 what I say is a fact.” 
 
 “ What ! that you had your clothes 
 stolen whilst you were bathing ? ” 
 
 “Well, nobody, I suppose, actually 
 saw that, or I shouldn’t be here, but they 
 
 can Stay, to clear up all your doubts, 
 
 telegraph at once to my own home, or, 
 better still, to one of my partners.” 
 
 The governor bit his lip, looked at me 
 searchingly, and then taking up a pen, 
 said : 
 
 “ Well, give me your name and address, 
 and that of your partners, as you say.” 
 
 I did as he requested. 
 
 He continued : 
 
 “ Now, I don’t wish to appear dis- 
 courteous, or to disbelieve your story, but 
 I must be assured of its truth. I am in a 
 post of great responsibility here, sir, and I 
 can take nothing for granted. It is too 
 late to communicate with your friends 
 to-night, and I am afraid you must stay 
 here till the morning.” 
 
 “ What ! in durance vile 1 ” 
 
 “Certainly not; I can accommodate 
 you, I daresay, with a shakedown in my 
 quarters, and you will understand that I 
 detain you very reluctantly. Get a decent 
 suit of liberty clothes, Mr. Rawkins,” he 
 went on, turning to that functionary with 
 
 a grim smile, “ and let this ” he hesi- 
 
 tated for a second, and then added 
 quickly, “this gentleman make a change. 
 He has at least restored us part of our 
 property, but mind the police are informed 
 eight thousand four hundred and thirty- 
 two is still at large.” 
 
 So far then I was relieved in mind and 
 body, for the hateful garments were soon 
 removed in an ante-room, and I found 
 myself attired in a set of plain new slop 
 clothes. Being then conducted - to the 
 governor’s quarters, I was regaled with a 
 fair supper, of . which I was in sore need, 
 and by eleven o’clock was sleeping soundly 
 on a sofa in his sitting-room. 
 
 All thenceforth went as might have 
 been expected. The governor was per- 
 fectly satisfied by the replies he received 
 in the morning to his telegrams, and 
 with many apologies I was permitted 
 to depart. Taking an early train from 
 Curdsmouth to Fleece, by midday I was 
 once more back in my room at Dulworth. 
 
 I pass over the astonishment and 
 interest which the adventure, when it 
 became known, created amongst the natives 
 of that out-of-the-way retreat. Nor is 
 there any need to dwell at any length on 
 my sensations and emotions. These were 
 such, however, as to render it impossible 
 for me to settle down again quietly in such 
 solitude as I had lately been undergoing. 
 My term of penal servitude, though short, 
 had, in familiar parlance, rather taken it 
 out of me, and I determined on spending 
 the remainder * of my holiday in a less 
 retired spot. In fact, I had been un- 
 nerved again, and further solitude, I felt, 
 under the circumstances, would only make 
 me worse. So once more clothing myself 
 in garments of my own, I packed up my 
 traps, got over to Fleece in Mr. Tye’s cart, 
 and took an evening train to the lively 
 and pleasant seaport of Westhampton. 
 Here, I said to myself, I could still enjoy 
 fresh air, plus the amusement to be had 
 from the shipping, but yet minus the 
 dressiness and fallalism of a fashionable 
 watering-place. 
 
 But how about my lost clothes and the 
 contents of the pockets, etc. 1 Nothing 
 whatever, as far as I could learn from 
 Mr. Tye or others, had been seen of the 
 scoundrel who had stolen them, and who, 
 when dressed in them, must have looked 
 very like me. Safe, doubtless, in his dis- 
 guise, of which the blue spectacles, of 
 course, formed no unimportant part, and 
 with my money in his pocket, he had 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AN “ OUT-OF-THE-WAY ” STORY. 
 
 [July 4 , 1881 .] 7 1 
 
 had no difficulty in getting out of the 
 way. 
 
 The gas-lit streets and bustle of West- 
 hampton came as a most agreeable change 
 to my urban spirit as, after dining at mine 
 inn, I lighted a cigar (the first smoke 
 I had had for nearly a month) and strolled 
 forth into the summer evening. 
 
 “ The moon was up, and yet it was not 
 night,” that moon whose light but twenty- 
 four hours before had fallen upon me under 
 such different circumstances as I traversed 
 the beachy causeway towards Fortland ! 
 The contrast of my present situation pro- 
 duced a thrill of pleasure; it was all very 
 well for the doctor to recommend solitude 
 and quiet; I had had enough of it. 
 Gradually I found my way down to the 
 quays and jetties, whence were arriving 
 or departing one or two of the last 
 steamers plying between Westhampton 
 and the Isle of Blank. Over against one 
 of the piers a great commotion was going 
 on. A small steam-packet lying there 
 with her steam up, whistle blowing,, and 
 bell ringing, seemed to be on the point of 
 starting upon some urgent mission^ 
 
 “ Where is she going 1 ?” I asked of a 
 bystander in the loitering crowd who 
 were watching certain passengers and 
 porters hurrying towards the gangway. 
 
 “ She’s the Cape-mail’s tender, sir,” was 
 the reply ; “ they’re only waiting for the 
 bags now, to take ’em off to the ship lying 
 out there in the waters, where you see 
 them four lights burning.” 
 
 I loitered and watched too for awhile. 
 
 In a few minutes a tramcar laden with 
 heavy boxes and packages was run down 
 to the tender’s side, and the post-office 
 officials commenced shifting the mails on 
 board. 
 
 Suddenly my attention is diverted from 
 this proceeding by the appearance of two 
 persons pressing hurriedly through the 
 crowd and making towards the pas- 
 sengers’ gangway. Why, one of them 
 is no stranger to me — it is none other than 
 the solitary lady of Dulworth ! I have 
 caught a glimpse of her face as she passed 
 under a strong gaslight close to me, and I 
 am convinced it is she, My heart gives a 
 great bound. Those wistful eyes are not 
 to be mistaken, and as they meet mine, 
 produce their usual effect. For a moment 
 I am bewildered, but only for a moment, 
 for she is no longer alone — no longer 
 solitary. By her side is a man to whose 
 arm she clings eagerly, desperately. Yes, | 
 
 and, moreover, a man who looks like me ; 
 at least who looks as I did yesterday 
 morning. For is not that my soft brown 
 wideawake ; is not that my light shooting- 
 coat ; and are not those my blue spectacles 
 which he wears 1 By heavens, there is no 
 mistake about it. Here is the fellow who 
 stole my clothes — the escaped convict ! The 
 rush with which these convictions overtake 
 me is swifter than lightning. 
 
 Involuntarily I press forward upon the 
 heels of the pair and follow them on board 
 the steamboat. She looks back and sees 
 that I am doing so. Her eyes meet mine 
 again. Their old habitual appealing ex- 
 pression is intensified a thousandfold by 
 one of despairing agony which touches me 
 to the quick. 
 
 Whispering something rapidly into her 
 companion’s ear she loosens his arm, and 
 he glides in amongst the crowd on deck. 
 Then she turns and faces me, as if to cover 
 his retreat and prevent pursuit, saying as 
 she does so, in a nervous, choking, scarcely 
 audible voice : 
 
 “ Tray forgive me. May I speak one 
 word with you 1 ” 
 
 I know not what answer I made, if any, 
 but a moment later I found myself com- 
 paratively alone with her near the stern of 
 the boat. The very words she used come 
 back to me as I write, so indelibly are they 
 fixed on my memory. 
 
 “ I know who you are,” she went on, in 
 a tremulous whisper ; “I know the outrage 
 that you have suffered ; but, oh sir, as you 
 hope for mercy, if you have any pity left 
 in your heart, or look for pity for any fault 
 that you have ever done, have mercy, do 
 not betray us. If you have a mother, 
 sister, any one whom you love, think of 
 her now, and think what she would suffer 
 in my place. He is my husband, not 
 married two years yet ; he fell into a trap 
 that was laid for him ; he forged unknow- 
 ingly. He is not guilty, but I cannot tell 
 you all. It was a mistake — a trap, I say, 
 into which he fell — take my word for it, 
 you will be doing no wrong. For God’s 
 sake, do not give him up.” 
 
 I suppose the conduct of a man with 
 strong nerves and in robust health would 
 have been very different to mine throughout 
 the whole of these adventures — at least thus 
 far, but I do not believe there would have 
 been any difference in his behaviour from 
 this point. 
 
 I answered : 
 
 “ Madame, I say no more; I will take 
 your word for it ; I don’t think I can be 
 
2 [December 1, 1881.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 As to the window, which had a warm 
 south aspect, it looked upon a churchyard. 
 A grape vine grew upon the side of the 
 house, and some of its branches trailed 
 across the upper panes, making a green 
 drapery which was pleasant to look upon, 
 though none of its leaves this year were 
 able to grow to their usual generous 
 amplitude, by reason of the ungenerous 
 season. The churchyard itself was planted 
 with planes, lime-trees, and elms, whose 
 foliage, for the like reason, was not yellow, 
 as is generally the case with such trees in 
 mid-October, but was still green and sweet 
 to look upon. The burying-ground was 
 not venerable for antiquity, because it 
 was less than a hundred years old, church 
 and all ; but yet it was pleasing and 
 grateful, a churchyard which filled the 
 mind with thoughts of rest and sleep, with 
 pleasant dreams. Now, the new cemeteries 
 must mostly be avoided, because one who 
 considers them falls presently into grievous 
 melancholy, which, unless diverted, pro- 
 duces insanity, suicide, or emigration. 
 They lend a new and a horrid pang to 
 death. 
 
 It is difficult to explain why this church- 
 yard, more than others, is a pleasant spot ; 
 partly, perhaps, on account of the bright 
 and cheerful look of the place in which it 
 stands ; then, there are not many graves in 
 it, and these are mostly covered or honoured 
 by grey tombstones, partly moss-grown. 
 On this day the sunshine fell upon them 
 gently, with intervals of shifting shade 
 through the branches; and though the 
 place around was beset with noises, yet, as 
 these were always the same, and never 
 ceased except at night, they were not 
 regarded by those who lived there, and so 
 the churchyard seemed full of peace and 
 quiet. The dead men who lie there are 
 of that blameless race who venture them- 
 selves upon the unquiet ocean. The dead 
 women are the wives of the men, their 
 anxieties now over and done. When such 
 men are gone, they are, for the most part, 
 spoken of with good will, because they 
 have never harmed any others but them- 
 selves, and have been kind-hearted to the 
 weak. And so, from all these causes 
 together, from the trees and the sunshine, 
 and the memory of the dead sailors, it is 
 a churchyard which suggested! peaceful 
 thoughts. 
 
 At all events it did not sadden the 
 children when they came out from the 
 school, built in one corner of it, nor did its 
 presence ever' disturb or sadden the mind 
 
 of the girl who was making a pudding in 
 the kitchen. There were sparrows in the 
 branches, and in one tree sat a blackbird, 
 now and then, late as it was, delivering 
 himself of one note, just to remind himself 
 of the past, and to keep his voice in 
 practice against next spring. 
 
 The girl was fair to look upon, and while 
 she made her pudding, with sleeves turned 
 back and flecks of white flour upon her 
 white arms, and a white apron tied round 
 her waist, stretching from chin to feet like 
 a child’s pinafore or a long bib, she sang 
 snatches of songs, yet finished none of 
 them, and when you came to look closer 
 into her face you saw that her cheeks 
 were thin and her eyes sorrowful, and that 
 her lips trembled from time to time. Yet 
 she was not thinking out her sad thoughts 
 to their full capabilities of bitterness, as 
 some women are wont to do — as, in fact, 
 her own mother had done for close upon 
 twenty years, and was still doing, having 
 a like cause for plaint and lamentation ; 
 only the sad thoughts came and went 
 across her mind, as birds fly across a garden, 
 while she continued deftly and swiftly to 
 carry on her work. 
 
 At this house, which was none other than 
 the well-known Captains’ boarding-house, 
 sometimes called “Rydquist’s, of Rother- 
 hithe,” the puddings and pastry were her 
 special and daily charge. The making of pud- 
 dings is the poetry of simple cookery. One is 
 born, not made, for puddings. To make a 
 pudding worthy of the name requires not 
 only that special gift of nature, a light and 
 cool hand, but also a clear intelligence and 
 the power of concentrated attention, a gift 
 in itself, as many lament when the sermon 
 is over and they remember none of it. 
 If the thoughts wander, even for a 
 minute, the work is ruined. The instinc- 
 tive feeling of right proportion in the 
 matter of flour, lemon-peel, currants, 
 sugar, allspice, eggs, butter, breadcrumbs ; 
 the natural eye for colour, form, and 
 symmetry, which are required before 
 one can ever begin even to think of 
 becoming a maker of puddings, are all 
 lost and thrown away, unless the attention 
 is fixed resolutely upon the progress of the 
 work. Now, there was one pudding, a 
 certain kind of plum duff, made by these 
 hands, the recollection of which was wont 
 to fill the hearts of those Captains who 
 were privileged to eat of it with tender 
 yearnings whenever they thought upon it, 
 whether far away on southern seas, or on 
 the broad Pacific, or in the shallow Baltic, 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 3 
 
 and it nerved their hearts when battling 
 with the gales while yet a thousand knots 
 at least lay between their plunging bows 
 and the Commercial Docks, to think that 
 they were homeward bound, and that Lai 
 would greet them with that pudding. 
 
 As the girl rolled her dough upon the 
 white board and looked thoughtfully upon 
 the little heaps of ingredients, she sang, as 
 I have said, scraps of songs 3 but this was 
 just as a man at work, as a carpenter at 
 his bench or a cobbler over his boot, will 
 whistle scraps of tunes, not because his 
 mind is touched with the beauty of the 
 melody, but because this little action 
 relieves the tension of the brain for a 
 moment without diverting the attention or 
 disturbing the current of thought. She 
 was dressed — behind the big apron in a 
 cotton print, made up by her own hands, 
 which were as clever with the needle as 
 with the rolling-pin. It was a dress made 
 of a sympathetic stuff — there are many 
 such tissues in every draper’s shop— which, 
 on being cut out, sewn up, and converted 
 into a feminine garment, immediately pro- 
 ceeds, of its own accord,, to interpret and 
 illustrate the character of its owner ; so that 
 for a shrew it becomes draggle-tailed, and 
 for a lady careless of her figure, or conscious 
 that it is no longer any use pretending to 
 have a figure, it rolls itself up in unlovely 
 folds, or becomes a miracle of flatness; and 
 for a lady of prim temperament it arranges 
 itself into. stiff vertical lines, and for an 
 old lady, if she is a nice old lady, it 
 wrinkles itself into ten thousand lines, 
 which cross and recross each other like the 
 lines upon her dear old face, and all to 
 bring her more respect and greater con- 
 sideration ; but for a girl whose figure is 
 tall and well-formed, this accommodating 
 material becomes as clinging as the ivy, 
 and its lines are every one of them an 
 exact copy of Hogarth’s line of beauty, 
 due allowance being made for the radius of 
 curvature. 
 
 I dp not think I can give a better or 
 clearer account of this maiden’s dress, even 
 if I were to say how-much-and-eleven- 
 pence-three-farthings it was a yard and 
 where it was bought. As for that, how- 
 ever, I am certain it came from Bjornsen s 
 shop, where English is spoken, and where 
 they have got in the window, not to be sold 
 at any price, the greatest curiosity in the 
 whole world (except the Golden Butterfly 
 from Sacramento), namely, a beautiful 
 model of a steamer, with everything com- 
 plete — rigging, ropes, sails, funnel, and 
 
 
 g ear — the whole in a glass bottle. And if 
 a man can tell how that steamer got into 
 that bottle, which is a common glass bottle 
 with a narrow neck, he is wiser than 
 any of the scientific gentlemen who have 
 tackled ' the problems of Stonehenge, the 
 Pyramids, the Yucatan inscriptions, or the 
 Etruscan language. 
 
 That is what she had on. As for herself, 
 she was a tall girl ; her figure was slight 
 and graceful, yet she was strong ; her waist 
 measured just exactly the same number of 
 inches as that of her grandmother Eve, 
 whom she greatly resembled in beauty. 
 Eve, as we cannot but belie vp, was. the most 
 lovely of women ever known, even including 
 Rachel, Esther, Helen of Troy, Ayesha, and 
 fair Bertha-with-the-big-feet. The colour 
 of her hair depended a good deal upon the 
 weather : when it was cloudy it was a dark 
 brown ; when the sunlight fell upon it her 
 hair was golden ; there was quite enough 
 of it to tie about her waist for a girdle if 
 she was so minded ; and she was so little 
 of a fine lady, that she would rather have 
 had it brown in all weathers, and was half 
 ashamed of its golden tint. , 
 
 It soothes the heart to speak of a 
 beautiful woman ; the contemplation of one 
 respectfully, is in itself, to all rightly con- 
 stituted masculine minds, a splendid moral 
 
 lesson. . 
 
 “ Here,” says the moralist to himself, “ is 
 the greatest prize that the earth has to 
 offer to the sons of Adam. One must 
 make oneself worthy of such a prize ; no 
 one should possess a goddess who is not 
 himself godlike.” 
 
 Having drawn his moral, the philosopher 
 leaves off gazing, and returns, with a sigh, 
 to his work. If you look too long, the 
 moral is apt to evaporate and vanish 
 away. 
 
 The door of the kitchen opened upon 
 the garden, which was not broad, being only 
 a few feet broader than the width of the 
 house, but was long. It was planted with 
 all manner of herbs, such as thyme, which 
 is good for stuffing, of veal : mint, for 
 seasoning of that delicious compound, and 
 as sauce for the roasted lamb; borage, 
 which profligates and topers employ for 
 claret - cup, though what it was here used 
 for I know not; parsley, good for garnish, 
 which may also be chopped up small and 
 fried ; cucumber, chiefly known at the W est 
 End in connection with salmon, but not 
 disdained in the latitude of Rotherhithe for 
 breakfast, dinner, tea, or supper, in com- 
 bination with vinegar or anything else, lor 
 
4 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 cucumber readily adapts itself to all palates 
 save those set on edge with pieksomeness. 
 Then there were vegetables, such as onions, 
 which make a noble return for the small 
 space they occupy, and are universally 
 admitted to be the most delightful of all 
 roots that grow ; lettuces crisp and green ; 
 the long lettuce and the round lettuce 
 all the summer; the scarlet-runner which 
 runneth in brave apparel, and eats short in 
 the autumn, going well with leg of 
 mutton; and, at the end of the strip of 
 ground, a small forest of Jerusalem arti- 
 choke, fit for the garden of the Queen. As 
 for flowers, they were nearly over for the 
 year, but there were trailing nasturtiums, 
 long sprigs of faint mignonette, and one 
 great bully hollyhock ; there were also 
 in boxes, painted green, creeping-jenny, 
 bachelors’ - button, thrift, ragged - robin, 
 stocks, and candy-tuft, but all over for the 
 season. There was a cherry-tree trained 
 against the wall, and beside it a peach; 
 there were also a Siberian crab, a medlar, 
 and a mulberry-tree. A few raspberry-canes 
 were standing for show, because among them 
 all there had not been that year enough 
 fruit to fill a plate. The garden was sepa- 
 rated from the churchyard by wooden pail- 
 ings painted green; this made it look larger 
 than if there had been a wall. It was, in 
 fact, a garden in which not one inch of 
 ground was wasted ; the paths were only 
 six inches wide, and wherever a plant could 
 be coaxed to grow, there it stood in its 
 allotted space. The wall fruit was so care- 
 fully trained that there was not a stalk or 
 shoot out of place. The flower-borders 
 were so carefully trimmed that there was 
 not a weed or a dead .flower, while as for 
 grass, snails, slugs, bindweed, dandelion, 
 broken flower -pot, brickbat, and other 
 such things which do too frequently dis- 
 figure the gardens of the more careless, it is 
 delightful to record that there was not in 
 this little slice of Eden so much as the 
 appearance or suspicion of such a thing. 
 The reason why it was so neat and so well 
 watched was that it was the delight and 
 paradise of the Captains who, by their united 
 efforts, made it as neat, snug, and orderly as 
 one of ; ; their own cabins. There were live 
 creatures in the garden, too. On half-a-dozen 
 crossbars, painted green, were just so many 
 parrots. They were all trained parrots, who 
 could talk and did talk, not altogether as is 
 the use of parrots, who too often give way 
 to the selfishness of the old Adam, but one 
 at a time, and deliberately, as if they were 
 instructing mankind in some new and great 
 
 truth, or delighting them with some fresh 
 and striking poetical ejaculation. One 
 would cough slowly, and then dash his 
 buttons. If ladies were not in hearing he 
 would remember other expressions savour- 
 ing of fo’k’sle rather than of quarter-deck. 
 Another would box the compass as if for 1 
 an exercise in the art of navigation. 
 Another seldom spoke except when his 
 mistress came and stroked his feathers with 
 her soft and dainty finger. The bird was 
 growing old now, and his feathers were 
 dropping out, and what this bird said you 
 shall presently hear. 
 
 Next there was a great kangaroo hound, 
 something under six feet high when he 
 walked. Now he was lying asleep. Be- 
 side him was a little Maltese dog, white 
 and curly, and in a corner — the warmest 
 corner — there was an old and toothless 
 bulldog. Other things there were — some 
 in boxes, some in partial confinement, or 
 by a string tied to one leg ; some running 
 about, such as tortoises, hedgehogs, Persian 
 cats, Angola cats, lemurs, ferrets, Mada- 
 gascar cats. But they were not all in the 
 garden, some of them, including a mon- 
 goose and a flying-fox, having their abode 
 on the roof, where they were tended 
 faithfully by Captain Zachariasen. In 
 the kitchen, also, which was warm, there 
 resided a chameleon. 
 
 Now, all these things — the parrots, the 
 dogs, the cats, the lemurs, and the rest of 
 them — were gifts and presents brought 
 across the seas by amorous captains to be 
 laid at the shrine of one Yenus — of 
 course I know that there never can be 
 more than one Yenus at a time to any 
 well-regulated male mind — whom all wooed 
 and none could win. There were many 
 other gifts, but these were within doors, 
 safely bestowed. It may also be remarked 
 that Yenus never refuses to accept offer- 
 ings which are laid upon her altar with 
 becoming reverence. Thus there were 
 the fragile coral fingers, named after the 
 goddess, from the Philippine Islands ; 
 there were chests of the rich and fragrant 
 tea which China grows for Russia. You 
 cannot buy it at all here, and in Hong-Kong 
 only as a favour, and at unheard-of prices. 
 There were cups and saucers from Japan; 
 fans of the coco de mer from the Sey- 
 chelles ; carved ivory boxes and sandal- 
 wood boxes from China and India ; 
 weapons of strange aspect from Malay 
 islands ; idols from Ceylon ; praying tackle 
 brought down to Calcutta by some wan- 
 dering Thibetan ; with fans, glasses, mats, 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. i December l f 1831 ] 5 
 
 carpets, pictures, chairs, desks, tables, and 
 even beds, from lands d ’outre mer, inso- 
 much that the house looked like a great 
 museum ^r curiosity-shop. And every- 
 thing, if you please, brought across the sea 
 and presented by the original importers to 
 the beautiful Alicia Rydquist, commonly 
 called Lai by those who were her friends, 
 and Miss Lai by those who wished to be, 
 but were not, and had to remain outside, 
 so to speak, and all going, in consequence, 
 green with envy. 
 
 On this morning there were also in the 
 garden two men. One of them was a very 
 old man — so old that there was nothing 
 left of him but was puckered and creased, 
 and his face was like one of those too 
 faithful maps which want to give every 
 detail of the country, even the smallest. 
 This was Captain Zachariasen, a Dane by 
 birth, but since the age of eight on an 
 English ship, so that he had clean forgotten 
 his native language. He had been for 
 very many years in the timber trade 
 between the ports of Bergen and London. 
 He was now in the protracted evening of 
 his days, enjoying an annuity purchased 
 out of his savings. He resided constantly 
 in the house, and was the dean, or oldest 
 member among the boarders. He said 
 himself sometimes that he was eighty-five, 
 and sometimes he said he was ninety, but 
 old age is apt to boast. One would not baulk 
 him of a single year, and certainly he was 
 very, very old. 
 
 This morning, he sat on a green box 
 half-way down the garden — all the boxes, 
 cages, railings, shutters, and doors of the 
 house were painted a bright navy-green — 
 with a hammer and nails in his hand, and 
 sometimes he drove in a nail, but slowly 
 and with consideration, as if noise and 
 haste would confuse that nail’s head, and 
 make it go loose, like a screw. Between 
 each tap he gazed around and smiled with 
 pleased benevolence. The younger man, 
 who was about thirty years of age, was 
 weeding. That is, he said so. He had a 
 spud with which to conduct that opera- 
 tion, but there were no weeds. He also 
 had a pair of scissors, with which he cut off 
 dead leaves. This was Captain Holstius, 
 also of the mercantile marine, and a 
 Norwegian. He was a smartly-dressed 
 sailor — wore a blue cloth jacket, with 
 trousers of the same ; a red silk handker- 
 chief was round his waist ; his cap had a 
 gold band round it, and a heavy steel 
 chain guarded his watch. His face was 
 kind to look upon. One noticed, especially, 
 
 a greyish bloom upon a ruddy cheek. It 
 was an oval face, such as you may see in 
 far-off Bamborough, or on Holy Island, 
 with blue eyes ; and he had a gentle voice. 
 One wonders whether the Normans, who 
 so astonished the world a thousand years 
 ago, were soft of speech, mild of eye, kind 
 of heart, like their descendants. Were 
 Bohemond, Robert the Devil, great Canute, 
 like unto this gentle Captain Holstius? 
 And if so, why were they so greatly 
 feared ? And if not, how is it that their 
 sons have so greatly changed % They 
 were sailors — the men of old. But sailors 
 acquire an expression of unworldliness not 
 found among us who have to battle with 
 worldly and crafty men. They are not 
 tempted to meet craft with craft, and 
 treachery with deceit. They do not cheat ; 
 they are not tempted to cheat. Therefore, 
 although the Yikings were ferocious and 
 bloodthirsty pirates, thinking it but a 
 small thing to land and spit a dozen Saxons 
 or so, burn their homesteads, and carry 
 away their pigs, yet no doubt, in the 
 domestic circle, they were mild and gentle, 
 easily ruled By their wives, and obedient 
 even to taking charge of the baby, which 
 was the reason why they were called, in 
 the pronunciation of the day, the hardy 
 Nursemen. 
 
 A remarkable thing about that garden 
 was that if you looked to the north, over 
 the garden walls of the Seven Houses, you 
 obtained, through a kind of narrow lane, a 
 glimpse of a narrow breadth of water, 
 with houses on either side to make a 
 frame. It was like a little strip of some 
 panorama which never stops, because up 
 and down the water there moved per- 
 petually steamers, sailing-ships, barges, 
 boats, and craft of all kinds. Then, if 
 you turned completely round, and looked 
 south, you saw beyond the trees in the 
 churchyard a great assemblage of yard 
 arms, masts, ropes, hanging sails, and 
 rigging. And from this quarter there was 
 heard continually the noise of labour that 
 ceaseth not, the labour of hammers, saws, 
 and hatchets ; the labour of lifting heavy 
 burdens with the encouraging, “Yo-ho;” 
 the labour of men who load ships and 
 unload them; the labour of those who 
 repair ships ; the ringing of bells which 
 call to labour; the agitation which is 
 caused in the air when men are gathered 
 together to work. Yet the place, as has 
 been already stated, was peaceful. The 
 calm of the garden was equalled, by the 
 repose of the open place on which the 
 
6 [December 1, 1831.] ' THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 windows of the house looked, and by the 
 peace of the churchyard. The noise was 
 without ; it affected no one’s nerves ; it 
 was continuous, and, therefore, was not felt 
 any more than the ticking of a watch, or 
 the beating of the pulse. 
 
 The old man presently laid down his 
 hammer, and spoke, saying softly : 
 
 “ Nor — wee — gee.” 
 
 “ Ay, ay, Captain Zachariasen,” replied 
 the other, pronouncing the name with a 
 foreign accent, and speaking a pure English, 
 something like a Welshman’s English. 
 They both whispered, because the kitchen- 
 door was open, and Lai might hear. But 
 they were too far down the garden for her 
 to overhear their talk. 
 
 “ Any luck this spell, lad 1 ” 
 
 The old man spoke in a meaning way, 
 with a piping voice, and he winked both 
 his eyes hard, as if he was trying to stretch 
 the wrinkles out of his face. 
 
 Captain Holstius replied evasively, that 
 he had not sought for luck, and, therefore, 
 had no reason to complain of unsuccess. 
 
 “ I mean, lad,” whispered the old man, 
 “ have you spoke the barque which once 
 we called the Saucy Lai ? And if not,” 
 because here the young man shook his 
 head, while his rosy cheek show r ed a deeper 
 red — “ if not, why not ? ” 
 
 “ Because,” said Captain Holstius, speak- 
 ing slowly— “ because I spoke her six 
 
 months ago, and she told me ” 
 
 Here he sighed heavily. 
 
 “ What did she tell you, my lad ? Did 
 she say that she wanted to be carried off 
 and married, whether she liked it or not ? ” 
 “ No, she did not.” 
 
 “ That was my way, when I was young, 
 i always carried ’em off. I married ’em 
 first and axed ’em afterwards. Sixty year 
 ago, that was. Ay, nigh upon seventy, 
 which makes it the more comfortable a 
 thing for a man in his old age to 
 remember.” 
 
 “ Lai tells me that she will wait five 
 years more before she gives him up, and 
 even then she will marry no one, but put 
 orr mourning, and go in widow’s weeds 
 — being not even a wife.” 
 
 “ Live years !” said Captain Zachariasen. 
 “ ’Tis a long time for a woman to wait for 
 a man. Five years will take the bloom off 
 of her pretty cheeks, and the plumpness 
 off of her lines, which is now in the height 
 of their curliness. Five years to wait ! 
 Why, there won’t be a smile left on her 
 rosy lips. Whereas, if you’d the heart of 
 a loblolly boy, Cap’en Holstius, you’d ha’ 
 
 run her round to the church long ago, 
 spoke to the clerk, whistled for the parson, 
 while she was still occupied with the 
 pudding and had her thoughts far away, 
 and — well, there, in five years’ time she’d 
 be playin’ with a four-year-old, or maybe 
 twins, as happy as if there hadn’t never 
 been no Cap’en Armiger at all,”. 
 
 “ Five years,” Captain Holstius echoed, 
 “is a long time to wait. But any man 
 would wait longer than that for Lai, even 
 if he did not get her, after all.” 
 
 “ Five years ! It will be eight, count- 
 ing the three she has already waited 
 for her dead sweetheart. No woman, in 
 the old days* was ever expected to cry 
 more than one. Not in my day. No 
 woman ever waited for me, nor dropped 
 one tear, for more than one twelvemonth, 
 
 sixty years ago, when I was dr- ” Here 
 
 he recollected that he could never have 
 been drowned, so far back as his memory 
 served. That experience had been denied 
 him. He stopped short. 
 
 “ She thinks of him,” Captain Holstius 
 went on, seating himself on another box, 
 face to face with the old man, “ all day ; 
 she dreams of him all night ; there is no 
 moment that he is not in her thought — I 
 know because I have watched her ; she 
 does not speak of him : .even if she sings at 
 her work, her heart is always sad.” 
 
 “ Poor Rex Armiger ! Poor Rex Ar- 
 miger!” This was the voice of the old 
 parrot, who lifted his beak, repeated his 
 cry, and then subsided. 
 
 Captain Holstius’s eyes grew soft and 
 humid, for he was a tender-hearted Nor- 
 wegian, and he pitied as well as loved the 
 girl. 
 
 “ Poor Rex Armiger !•” he echoed; “ his 
 parrot remembers him.” 
 
 “ She is wrong,” said the old man, “ very 
 wrong. I always tell her so. Fretting has 
 been known to make the pastry heavy : 
 tears spoil gravy.” He stated this great 
 truth as if it was a well-known maxim, 
 taken from the Book of Proverbs. 
 
 “ That was the third time that I spoke to 
 her; the third time that she gave me the 
 same reply. Shall I tease her more ? No, 
 Captain Zachariasen, I have had my answer, 
 and I know my duty.” 
 
 “ It’s hard, my lad, for a sailor to bear. 
 Why, you may be dead in two years, let 
 alone five. Most likely you will. You 
 look as if you will. What with rocks at 
 sea and sharks on land, most sailors, even 
 skippers, by thirty years of age, is num- 
 more. And though some,” here he tried 
 
 F 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 7 
 
 to recollect the words of Scripture, and 
 only succeeded in part, “ by good seaman- 
 ship escape, and live to seventy and eighty, 
 or even, as in my case, by a judgmatic 
 course and fair winds, come to eighty-five 
 and three months last Sunday, yet in their 
 latter days there is but little headway, 
 the craft lying always in the doldrums, 
 and the rations, too, often short. Five 
 years is long for Lai to wait in suspense, 
 poor girl ! Take and go and find another 
 girl, therefore,” the old man advised. 
 
 “ No,” the Norwegian shook his head 
 sadly; “ there is only one woman in all the 
 world for me.” . , . 
 
 “Why, there, there,” the old Captain 
 cried, “ what are young fellows coming to 1 
 To cry after one woman ! I’ve given you 
 my advice, my lad, which is good advice ; 
 likely to be beneficial to the boarders, 
 especially them which are permanent, 
 because the sooner the trouble is over, the 
 better it’ll be for meals. I did hear there 
 was a bad egg, yesterday. To think of 
 Rydquist’s coming to bad eggs ! But it a 
 gal will go on fretting after young fellows 
 that is long since food for crabs, what are 
 we to expect but bad eggs ^ Marry her, 
 my lad, or sheer off, and marry some one 
 else. P’raps, when you are out of the way , 
 never to come back again, she will take on 
 with some other chap.” 
 
 Captain Holstius shook his head again. 
 
 “If Lai, after three years of waiting, 
 says she cannot get him out of her heart 
 why, why there will be nothing to do, no 
 help, because she_ knows best what is in 
 her heart, and I would not that she 
 married me out of pity.” 
 
 “Come to pity!” said Captain Zacha- 
 riasen, “she can’t marry you all out of 
 pity. .There’s Cap’en Borlinder and 
 Cap’en Wattles, good mariners both, also 
 after her. Should you like her to marry 
 them out of pity ? ” . __ „ 
 
 “ I need not think of marriage at all, 
 said the Norwegian. “ I think of Lai’s 
 happiness. If it will be happier for her 
 to marry me, or Captain Borlinder, or 
 Captain Wattles, or any other man, I hope 
 that she will marry that man ; and if she 
 will be happier in remembering her dead 
 lover, I hope that she will remain without 
 a husband. All should be as she may most 
 desire.” 
 
 Then the girl herself suddenly appeared 
 in the doorway, shading her eyes from the 
 sunshine, a pretty picture, with the flour 
 still upon her arms, and her white bib still 
 tied round her. 
 
 “It is time for your morning beer, 
 Captain Zachariasen,” she said. “ Will you 
 have it in the kitchen, or shall I bring it 
 to you in the garden V’ 
 
 “ I will take my beer, Lai,” replied the 
 old man, getting up from the box, “ by the 
 kitchen fire.” 
 
 He slowly rose and walked, being much 
 bent and bowed by the weight of his years, 
 to the kitchen-door. 
 
 Captain Holstius followed him. 
 
 There was a wooden armchair beside the 
 fire, which was bright and large, for the 
 accommodation of a great piece of veal 
 already hung before it. The old man sat 
 down in it, and took the glass of ale, cool, 
 sparkling, and foaming, from Lai s hand. 
 
 « Thoughtful child,” he said, holding it 
 up to the light, “she forgets nothing— 
 except what she ought most to forget. 
 
 “You are pale to-day, Lai,” said the 
 Norwegian gently. “ Will you come with 
 me upon the river this afternoon 1 
 
 She shook her head sadly. # . 
 
 “ Have you forgotten what day this is, 
 of all days in the year 1 ?” she asked. 
 
 Captain Holstius made no reply. 
 
 “ This day, three years ago, I got his last 
 letter. It was four months since he sailed 
 away. Ah me ! I stood upon the steps 
 of Lavender Dock and saw -his ship slowly 
 coming down the river. . Can I ever forget 
 it % Then I jumped into the boat and 
 pulled out mid-stream, and he saw me and 
 waved his handkerchief. And that was 
 the last I saw of Bex. This day, three 
 years and four months ago, and at this 
 very time, in the forenoon.” 
 
 The old man, who had drained his glass 
 and was feeling just a little . evanescent 
 headiness, began to prattle in his armchair 
 not having listened to their talk. 
 
 “ I am eighty-five and three months, last 
 Sunday ; and this is beautiful beer, Lai, 
 my dear. ’Twill be hard upon a man to 
 leave such a tap. With the Cap’ens room ; 
 and you, my Lai.” „ A . 
 
 “Don’t think of such things, Captain 
 Zachariasen,” cried Lai, wiping away the 
 tear which had risen in sympathy for her 
 own sorrows, not for his. 
 
 “’Tis best not,” he replied cheerfully. 
 “Teal, I see. Roast veal! Be large- 
 handed with the seasonin’, Lai. And 
 
 beans'! Ah! and apple-dumplings. The 
 credit of Rydquist’s must be kept up. 
 Remember that; Lai. Wherefore, awake my 
 soul, and with the sun. Things there are 
 that should be forgotten. I am eighty-five 
 and a quarter last Sunday, like Abraham, 
 
— - - — - ■■ • ^ 
 
 S [December 1, 1S81.] THE CAPTAINS’ RQOM. [CpA«A4by 
 
 Isaac, and Jacob — even Methuselam was 
 eighty-five once — when he was little more 
 than a boy, and never a grey hair — 
 and, like the patriarchs at their best and 
 oldest, I have gotten wisdom. Then, listen. 
 Do I, being of this great age, remember 
 the gals that I have loved, and the gals 
 who have loved me 1 No. Yet are they 
 all gone like that young man of yourn, 
 gone away and past like gales across the 
 sea. They are gone, and I am hearty. I 
 shall never see them nummore ; yet I sit 
 down regular to meals, and still play a 
 steady knife and fork. And what I say is 
 this : ‘ Lai, my dear, wipe them pretty eyes 
 with your best silk pockethandkercher, put 
 on your best frock, and go to church in it 
 for to be married.’ ” 
 
 “ Thank you, Captain Zachariasen,” said 
 the girl, not* pertly, but with a quiet 
 dignity. 
 
 Do not,” the old man went on. His 
 eyes kept dropping, and his words rambled 
 a little — “ do not listen to Nick Borlinder. 
 He sings a good song, and he shakes a good 
 leg. Yet he is a rover. I was once myself 
 a rover.” 
 
 She made no reply. He yawned slowly 
 and went on : 
 
 “ He thinks, he does, as no woman can 
 resist him. I used to have the same per- 
 suasion, and I found it sustaining in a 
 friendly port.” 
 
 “ I do not suppose,” said Lai softly, 
 ‘‘that I shall listen to Captain Borlinder.” 
 
 “ Next,” the old man continued, “ there is 
 Cap’en Wattles. Don’t listen to Wattles, 
 my dear. It is not that he is a Yankee, 
 because a Cap’en is a Cap’en, no matter 
 what his country, and I was, myself, once 
 a Dane, when a boy, nigh upon eighty 
 years ago, and drank corn brandy, very 
 likely, though I have forgotten that time, 
 and cannot now away with it. Wattles 
 is a smart seaman ; but Wattles, my 
 dear, wouldn’t make you happy. You 
 want a cheerful lad, but no drinker and 
 toper like Borlinder ; nor so quiet and. 
 grave as Wattles, which isn’t natural, afloat 
 nor ashore, and means the devil.” 
 
 Here he yawned again and his eyes 
 closed. 
 
 “ Very good, sir,” said Lai. 
 
 “ Yes, my dear — yes — and this is a very 
 — comfortable — chair. ” 
 
 His head fell back. The old man was 
 asleep. 
 
 Then Captain Holstius drew a chair to 
 the kitchen door, and sat down, saying 
 nothing, not looking at Lai, yet with the | 
 
 i — 
 
 air of one who was watching over and 
 protecting her. 
 
 And Lai sat beside the row of freshly- 
 made dumplings, and rested her head upon 
 her hands, and gazed out into the church- 
 yard. 
 
 Presently her eyes filled with tears, and 
 one of them in each eye overflowed and 
 rolled down her cheeks. And the same 
 phenomenon might have been witnessed 
 directly afterwards in the eyes of the 
 sympathetic Norweegee. 
 
 It was very quiet, except, of course, for 
 the screaming of the steam-engines on the 
 river, and the hammering, yo-ho-ing, and 
 bell-ringing of the Commercial Docks ; and 
 these, which never ceased, were never 
 regarded. Therefore, the calm was as the 
 calm of a Sabbath in some Galilean village, 
 and broken only in the kitchen by the 
 ticking of the roasting-jack, and an occa- 
 sional remark made, in a low tone, by a 
 parrot. 
 
 Captain Holstius said nothing. He 
 stayed there because he felt, in his con- 
 siderate way, that his presence soothed and, 
 in some sort, comforted the girl. It cost 
 him little to sit there doing nothing at all. 
 
 Of all men that get their bread by labour 
 it is the sailor alone who can be perfectly 
 happy doing nothing for long hours to- 
 gether. He does not even want to whittle 
 a stick. 
 
 As for us restless landsmen, we must be 
 continually talking, reading, walking, fish- 
 ing, shooting, rowing, smoking tobacco, or 
 in some other way wearing out brain and 
 muscle. 
 
 The sailor, for his part, sits down and 
 lets time run on, unaided. He is accus- 
 tomed to the roll .of his ship and the 
 gentle swish of the waves through which 
 she sails. At sea he sits so for hours, while 
 the breeze blows steady and the sails want 
 no alteration. 
 
 So passed half an hour. 
 
 While they were thus sitting in silence, 
 Lai suddenly lifted her head, and held up 
 her finger, saying softly : 
 
 “ Hush ! I hear a step.” 
 
 The duller ears of her companion heard 
 nothing but the usual sounds which in- 
 cluded the trampling of many feet afar off. 
 
 “ What step ? ” he asked. 
 
 Her cheeks were gone suddenly quite 
 white and a strange look was in her eyes. 
 
 “ Not his,” she said. “ Oh, not the step 
 of my Rex; but I know it well for all 
 
 that. The step of one who Ah l 
 
 listen ! ” 
 
■ — — Hr- 
 
 Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [December 1, 1881.1 9 
 
 i 
 
 Then, indeed, Captain Holstius became 
 aware of a light hesitating step. It halted 
 at the open door (which always stood open 
 for the convenience of the Captains), and 
 entered the narrow halL It was a light 
 step, for it was the step of a bare-footed 
 man. 
 
 Then the kitchen-door was opened 
 softly and Lai sprang forward, crying 
 madly : 
 
 “ Where is he ? Where is he ? Oh, he 
 is not dead ! ” 
 
 At the sound of the girl’s cry the whole 
 sleepy place sprang into life ; the. dogs 
 woke up and ran about, barking with an 
 immense show of alertness, exactly as if 
 the enemy was in force without the walls; 
 the Persian cat, which ought to have known 
 better, made one leap to the palings, on 
 which she stood with arched back and 
 upright tail, looking unutterable rage ; and 
 the parrots all screamed together. 
 
 When the noise subsided the new 
 comer stood in the doorway. Lai was 
 holding both his hands, crying and 
 sobbing. 
 
 Outside the old parrot repeated : 
 
 “ Poor Rex Armiger ! Poor Rex 
 Armiger ! ” 
 
 Captain Zachariasen, roused from his 
 morning nap, was looking about him, 
 wondering what had happened. 
 
 Captain Holstius stood waiting to see 
 what was going to happen. 
 
 The man, who was short in stature, not 
 more than five feet three, wore a rough 
 cloth sailor’s cap, and was barefoot. He 
 was dressed in a jacket, below which he 
 wore a kind of petticoat called, I believe, 
 by his countrymen, who ought to know 
 their own language, a “ sarong.” His skin 
 was a copper colour ; his eyes dark bro wn ; 
 his face was square with high cheek-bones; 
 his eyes were soft, full, and black; his 
 mouth was larg6 with thick lips ; his nose 
 was short and small, with flat nostrils ; 
 his hair was black and coarse— all these 
 characteristics stamped him as a. Malay. 
 
 Captain Zachariasen rubbed his eyes. 
 
 “ Ghosts ashore !” he murmured. “ Ghost 
 of Deaf-and-Dumb Dick ! ” 
 
 “Who is Dick?” answered Captain 
 Holstius. 
 
 “ Captain Armiger’s steward — same as 
 was drowned aboard the Philippine three 
 years ago along with his master and all 
 hands. Never, nevermore heard of, and 
 he’s come back.” 
 
 The Malay man shook his head slowly. 
 He kept on shaking it, to show them that 
 
 tie quite understood what was meant, 
 although he heard no word. 
 
 “Where is he? Oh, where is he?” 
 cried the girl again. 
 
 Then the dumb man looked in her face 
 and smiled. He smiled and nodded, and 
 smiled again. . # 
 
 “ Like a Chinaman in an image,” said 
 Captain Zachariasen. “He can’t be a 
 ghost at the stroke of noon. That s not 
 Christian ways nor Malay manners.” 
 
 But the smile to Lai was like the first 
 cool draught of water to the thirsty 
 tongue of a wanderer in the desert. Could 
 he have smiled were Rex lying in his 
 grave ? 
 
 A Malay who is deaf and dumb is, I 
 suppose, as ignorant of his native language 
 as of English ; but there is an atmosphere 
 of Malayan abroad in his native, village 
 out of which this poor fellow picked a 
 language of his own. That is to say, he 
 was such a master of gesture as in this 
 cold land of self-restraint would be im- 
 possible. 
 
 He nodded and smiled again. Then he 
 laughed aloud, meaning his most cheerful 
 note, but the laughter of those who can 
 neither hear nor speak is a gruesome thing. 
 
 Then Lai, with shaking . fingers, took 
 from her bosom a locket, which she opened 
 and showed the man. It contained, of 
 course, the portrait of her lover. 
 
 He took it, recognised it, caught her by 
 one hand, and then, smiling still, pointed 
 with eyes that looked afar towards the east. 
 
 “ Lies buried in the Indian Ocean,” mur- 
 mured the old man ; “ I always said it.” 
 
 Lai heard him not. She fell upon the 
 man’s neck and embraced and kissed 
 him. . 
 
 “He is not dead,” she cried. “ You 
 hear, Captain Holstius? Oh, my friend, 
 Rex is not dead. I knew he could not be 
 dead— I have felt that he was alive all this 
 weary time. Oh, faithful Dick ! Sh6 
 
 patted the man’s cheek and head as if he 
 was a child. “ Oh, good and faithful Dick ! 
 what shall we give him as the reward 
 for the glad tidings ? We can give him 
 nothing — nothing — only our gratitude and 
 our love.” 
 
 “ And dinner, may be,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen. “No, not the veal, my dear; 
 for the girl, in her hurry to do something 
 for this messenger of good tidings, made as 
 . if she would sacrifice the. joint. “ First, 
 because underdone veal is unwholesome 
 even for deaf and dumb Malays; second, 
 ; 1 roast veal is not for the likes of him, but 
 
 *1 
 
 U 
 
1 0 [December 1, 1881. ] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 (Conducted by 
 
 for Cap’ens. That knuckle of cold pork 
 now— — ” 
 
 Lai brought him food quickly, and he 
 ate, being clearly hungry. 
 
 “ Does he understand English 1 asked 
 Captain Holstius. 
 
 “ He is deaf and dumb; he understands 
 nothing.” 
 
 When he had broken bread, Dick stood 
 again and touched the girl’s arm, which 
 was equivalent to saying, “ Listen, all of 
 you!” 
 
 The man stood before them in the 
 middle of the room with the open kitchen 
 door behind him, and^ the sunlight 
 shining upon him through the kitchen 
 window. And then he began to act, after 
 the fashion of that Roman mime, who was 
 able to convey a whole . story with by- 
 play, underplot, comic talk, epigrams, tears, 
 and joyful surprises, without one word of 
 speech. The gestures of this Malay were, 
 as I have said, a language by themselves. 
 Some of them, however, like hieroglyphics 
 before the Rosetta Stone, wanted a key. . 
 
 The man’s face was exceedingly mobile 
 and full of quickness. He kept his eyes 
 upon the girl, regarding the two men not 
 at all. 
 
 And this, in substance, was what he did. 
 It was not all, because there were hundreds 
 of little things, every one of which had its 
 meaning in his own mind, but which were 
 unintelligible, save by Lai, who followed 
 him with feverish eagerness and attention. 
 Words are feeble things at their best, 
 and cannot describe these swift changes 
 of face and attitude. 
 
 First, he retreated to the door, then 
 leaped with a bound into the room. 
 Arrived there he looked about him a little, 
 folded his arms, and began to walk back- 
 wards and forwards, over a length of six 
 feet. 
 
 “ Come aboard, sir,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen, greatly interested and inter- 
 preting for the benefit of all. “ This is 
 good mummicking, this is.” 
 
 Then he began to jerk his hand over his 
 shoulder each time he stopped. And he 
 stood half-way between the extremities of 
 his six-f3ot walk and lifted his head as one 
 who watches the sky. At the same time 
 Lai remarked how by some trick of the 
 facial muscles, he had changed his own 
 face. His features became regular, his 
 eyes intent and thoughtful, and in his 
 attitude he was no longer himself, but — 
 in appearance — Rex Armiger. 
 
 “They’re clever at mummicking and 
 
 conjuring, 77 said Captain Zachariasen ; 
 
 “ I’ve seen them long ago, in Calcutta, 
 when I was in ” 
 
 “ Hush ! ” cried Lai imperatively. “ Do 
 not speak ! Do not interrupt.’ 
 
 The Malay changed his face and attitude, 
 and was no more Rex Armiger, but himself ; 
 then he held out his two hands, side by 
 side, horizontally, and moved them gently 
 from left to right and right to left, with 
 an easy wave-like motion, and at the same 
 time he swung himself slowly backwards 
 and forwards. It seemed to the girl to 
 imitate the motion of a ship with a steady 
 breeze in smooth water. 
 
 “Go on,” she cried; “ I understand what 
 you mean.” 
 
 The man heard nothing, but he saw that 
 she followed him, and he smiled and nodded 
 his head. - 
 
 He became onee more Rex Armiger. He 
 walked with folded arms, he looked about 
 him as one who commands and who has the 
 responsibility of the ship upon his mind. 
 
 Presently he lay down upon the floor, 
 stretched out his legs straight, and with 
 his head upon his hands went to sleep. 
 
 “ Even the skipper’s bunk is but a 
 narrow one,” observed Captain Zachariasen, 
 to show that he was following the story, 
 and proposed to be the principal interpreter. 
 
 The dumb actor’s slumber lasted but a 
 few moments. Then he sprang to his feet 
 and began to stagger about. He stamped, 
 he groaned, he put his hand to his head, 
 he ran backwards and forwards ; he pre- 
 sented the appearance of a man startled 
 by some accident; he waved his arms, 
 gesticulated wildly, put his hands to his 
 mouth as one who shouts. , 
 
 Then he became a man who fought, who 
 was dragged, who threatened, who was 
 struck, tramping all the while with his 
 feet so as to produce the .impression of a 
 crowd. 
 
 Then he sat down and appeared to be 
 waiting, and he rocked to and fro con 
 tinually. 
 
 Next he went through a series of panto- 
 mimic exercises which were . extremely 
 perplexing, for he strove with his hands as 
 one who strives with a rope, and he made 
 as one who is going hand over hand, now 
 up, now down a rope ; and he ran to and 
 fro, but within narrow limits, and presently 
 he sat down again, and nodded his head 
 and made signs as if he were communi- 
 cating with a companion. 
 
 “Dinner-time,” said Captain Zachariasen, 
 “ or, may be, supper.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 1 1 
 
 After awhile, still sitting, he made as if 
 he held something in his hand which he 
 igitated with a regular motion. 
 
 “locking the baby,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen, now feeling his way surely. 
 
 Lai, gazing intently, paid no heed to 
 this interruption. 
 
 Then he waved a handkerchief.. 
 
 “Aha !” cried Captain Zachariasen; “I 
 always did that myself.” 
 
 Then he lay down and rested his head 
 again uponhisarm; butLal noticed that now 
 he curled up his legs, and the tears came 
 into her eyes, because she saw that he, per- 
 sonating her Rex, seemed for a moment to 
 despair. 
 
 But he sat up again, and. renewed 
 that movement, as if with a stick, which 
 had made the old skipper think of babies. 
 
 Then he stopped again, and let both 
 arms drop to his side, still sitting. 
 
 “ Tired,” said Captain Zachariasen. 
 Pipe smoke time.” 
 
 The Malay did not, however, make any 
 show of smoking a pipe. He sat a long 
 time without moving, arms and head 
 hanging. 
 
 Then he started, as if he recollected 
 something suddenly, and taking paper 
 from his pocket, began to write. Then he 
 went through the motion of drinking, 
 rolled up the paper very small, and did 
 something with it difficult to understand. 
 
 “ Sends her a letter,” said the Patriarch, 
 nodding his head sagaciously. “ I always 
 wrote them one letter after I’d gone away, 
 go’s to let ’em down easy.” 
 
 This done, the Malay seated . himself 
 again, and remained sitting some time. At 
 intervals he lay down, his head upon his 
 hands as before, and his legs curled. 
 
 The last time he did this he lay for 
 a long time— fully five, minutes— clearly 
 intending to convey the idea of a consider- 
 able duration of time. 
 
 When he sat up, he rubbed his eyes and 
 looked about him. He made motions of 
 surprise and joy, and, as before, commu- 
 nicated something to a companion. Then 
 he seemed to grasp something, and began 
 again the same regular movement, but 
 with feverish haste, and painfully, as if 
 exhausted. 
 
 “Baby again!” said the wise man. 
 “ Rum thing, to bring the baby with 
 
 him,” i - i 
 
 Then the Malay stopped suddenly, 
 sprang to his feet, and made as if he 
 jumped from one place to another. 
 
 Instantly he began again to rush about, 
 
 shake and be shaken by shoulders, arms, 
 and hands, to stagger, to wave his hands, 
 finally to run along with his hands straight 
 down his sides. 
 
 “ Now I’m sorry to see this,” said 
 Captain Zachariasen mournfully. “ What’s 
 he done 1 Has that baby brought him 
 into troubled Character gone for life, no 
 doubt.” 
 
 Lai gazed with burning eyes. 
 
 Then the Malay stood still, and made 
 signs as if he were speaking, but still with 
 his arms straight to his sides. While he 
 spoke, one arm was freed, and then the 
 other. He stretched them out as if for 
 relief. After this, he sat down, and ate 
 and drank eagerly. 
 
 “ Skilly and cold water,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen. “ Poor young man ! ” 
 
 Then he walked about, going through a 
 variety of motions, but all of a cheerful 
 and active character. Then he suddenly 
 dropped the personation of Rex Armiger, 
 and became himself again. Once more he 
 went through that very remarkable per- 
 formance of stamping, fighting, and 
 dragging. 
 
 Then he suddenly stopped and smiled 
 at Lai. The pantomime was finished. 
 
 The three spectators looked at each 
 other enquiringly, but Lai’s face was full 
 of joy. 
 
 “ I read this mummicking,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen, “ very clearly, and if,, my 
 dear, without prejudice to the dumplings, 
 which I perceive to be already, finished, 
 and if I may have a pipe, which is, I know, 
 against the rules in the kitchen— but so is 
 a mouthing mummicking Malay— I think 
 I can reel you off the whole story, just as 
 he meant to tell it, as easy as I could read 
 a ship’s signals. Not that every man could 
 do it, mind you ; but being, as one may 
 say, at my oldest and best — — ” 
 
 Lai nodded. Her eyes were so bright, 
 her cheeks so rosy, that you would have 
 thought her another woman. 
 
 “Co, fetch him his pipe, Captain 
 Holstius,” she said. Then, seized by a 
 sudden impulse, she caught him by ^ both 
 hands. “ It could never have been,” she 
 
 said, “even — even — if You will 
 
 rejoice with me 1 ” 
 
 “ If it is as you think,” he said, “ I both 
 rejoice and thank the Father humbly.” 
 Fortified with his pipe, the old man 
 spoke slowly, in full enjoyment of his 
 amazing and patriarchal wisdom. 
 
 “ Before Cap’en Armiger left Calcutta, 
 he began, “ he did a thing which many 
 
12 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 sailors do, and when I was a young man, 
 now between seventy and eighty years ago, 
 which is a long time to look back upon, 
 they always did. Pecker up, Lai, my 
 beauty. You saw how the mummicker 
 rolled his eye3, smacked his lips, and 
 clucked his tongue. Not having my ex- 
 perience, prob’ly you didn’t quite under- 
 stand what he was wishful for to convey. 
 That meant love, Lai, my dear. Those 
 were the signs of courting, common among 
 sailors. Your sweetheart fell in love with 
 you in the Port of London, and presently 
 afterwards with another pretty woman in 
 the Port of Calcutta, which is generally 
 the way with poor Tom Bowling. She 
 was a snuff - and - butter, because at Cal- 
 cutta they are as plenty as blackberries ; 
 and when young, snuff - and - butter is 
 not to be despised, having bright eyes; 
 and there was another thing about her 
 which I guess you missed, if you got 
 so far as a right understanding of the 
 beginning. She was a widow. How do 
 I know she was a widow 1 This way. 
 The mummicking Malay, whose antics can 
 only be truly read, like the signs of the 
 weather, by the wisdom of eighty and odd, 
 put his two hands together. You both 
 saw that — second husband that meant. 
 Then he waved his hands up and down. 
 If I rightly make out that signal it’s a 
 signal of distress. She led the poor lad, 
 after he married her, a devil of a life. 
 Temper, my girl, goes with snuff-and- 
 butter, though when they’re young I can’t 
 say but there’s handsome ones among 
 them. A devil of a life it was, while the 
 stormy winds did blow, and naturally 
 Cap’en Armiger began to cast about for to 
 cut adrift.” 
 
 “ Go on, Captain Zachariasen,” said Lai, 
 who only laughed at this charge of infi- 
 delity. 
 
 The Malay looked on gravely, under- 
 standing no word, but nodding his head as 
 if it was all right. 
 
 “He marries this artful widow then, and, 
 in due course, he has a baby. You might 
 ha’ seen, if you’d got my eyes, which can’t 
 be looked for at your age, that the mum- 
 micking mouther kept rocking that baby. 
 Very well, then ; time passes on, he has a 
 row with the mother ; she, as you may 
 have seen, shies the furniture at his head, 
 which he. dodges, being too much of a man 
 and a sailor to heave the tables back. 
 Twice she shies the furniture. Then he 
 ups and off to sea, taking — which I confess 
 I cannot understand, for no sailor to my 
 
 knowledge ever did such a thing before — 
 actually taking — the — baby — with him ! ” 
 The sagacious old man stopped, and smoked 
 for a few moments in meditation. “ As to 
 the next course in this voyage,” he said, “ I 
 am a little in doubt. For whether there 
 was a mutiny on board, or whether his last 
 wife followed him and carried on shameful 
 before the crew, whereby the authority of 
 the skipper was despised and his dignity 
 lowered, I cannot tell. Then came chucking 
 overboards, and whether it was Cap’en 
 Armiger chucking his wife and baby, or 
 whether he chucked the crew, or whether 
 the crew chucked him, is not apparent, 
 because the mummicker mixed up Jonah 
 and the crew, and no man, not even 
 Solomon himself, in his cedar-palace, could 
 tell from his actions which was crew and 
 which was Jonah. However, the end is 
 easy to understand. The Cap’en, in fact, 
 was run in when he got to shore- you all 
 saw him jump ashore — for this chucking 
 overboard, likely. He made a fight for it, 
 but what is one man against fifty. So they 
 took him off, with his arms tied to his 
 sides, being a determined young fellow, 
 and he was tried for bigamy, or chucking 
 overboard, or some such lawful and statut- 
 able crime. And he was then sentenced to 
 penal servitude for twenty years or it 
 may be less. At Brisbane, Queensland, 
 it was, perhaps, or Sydney, New South 
 Wales, or Singapore, or perhaps Hong- 
 Kong, I can’t say which, because the mum- 
 micker at this point grew confused. But 
 it must be one of these places where there’s 
 a prison. There he is still, comfortably 
 working it out. Wherefore, Lai, my dear, 
 you may go about and boast that you 
 j always knew he was alive, because right 
 | you are and proud you may be. At 
 I the same time, you majr now give up all 
 thoughts of that young chap, and turn 
 your attentions, my dear, to ’’—here he 
 pointed with his pipe — 44 to the Nor- 
 weegee.” 
 
 Captain Holstius.who had shaken his head 
 a great deal during the Seer’s interpretation, 
 shook his head again, deprecatingly. 
 
 “ Thank you, Captain Zachariasen,” said 
 Lai, laughing. What a thing joy is ! She 
 laughed, who had not laughed for three 
 years. The dimples came back to her 
 cheek, the light to her eyes. “ Thank you. 
 Your story is a very likely one, and does 
 your wisdom great credit. Shall I read you 
 my interpretation of this acting ! ” 
 
 The Captain nodded. 
 
 “ Rex set sail from Calcutta with a fair 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1 , 1881 . ] 1 3 
 
 — 20 
 
 wind, leaving no wife behind, and taking 
 with him no baby. How long he was at sea I 
 know not ; then there came a sudden storm, 
 or perhaps the striking on a rock, or some 
 disaster. Then he is in an open boat alone 
 with Dick here, though what became of 
 the crew I do not know ; then he writes 
 me a letter, but I do not understand what 
 he did with it when he had written it; 
 then they sit together expectant of death ; 
 they row aimlessly from time to time ; 
 they have no provisions ; they suffer 
 greatly ; they see land, and they row as 
 hard as they can; they are seized by 
 savages and threatened, and he is there 
 still among them. He is there, my Rex, 
 he is there, waiting for us to rescue him. 
 And God has sent us this poor dumb 
 fellow to tell us of his safety.” 
 
 The old man shook his head. 
 
 “ Poor thing !” he said compassionately. 
 “Better enquire at every British port, 
 where there’s a prison, in the East, after an 
 English officer working out his time, and 
 ask what he done, and why he done it h 
 “ Let be, let be,” said Captain Holstius. 
 
 “ Lai is always right. Captain Armiger is 
 among the savages, somewhere. We will 
 bring him back. Lai, courage, my dear ; 
 we will bring him back to you alive and 
 well ! ” 
 
 CHAPTER II. THE PRIDE OE ROTHERHITHE. 
 
 The terrace or row called Seven 
 Houses is situated, as I have stated above, 
 in a riverside township, which, . although 
 within sight of London Bridge, is now as 
 much forgotten and little known as any of 
 the dead cities on the Zuyder-Zee or in the 
 Gulf of Lyons. In all respects it is as 
 quiet, as primitive, and as little visited, 
 except by those who come and go in the 
 matter of daily business. 
 
 The natives of Rotherhithe are by their 
 natural position, aided by the artificial 
 help of science, entirely secluded and cut 
 off from the outer world. They know 
 almost as little of London as a Highlander 
 or a Cornish fisherman. And as they know 
 not its pleasures, they are not tempted to 
 seek them ; as their occupations keep them 
 for the most part close to their own homes, 
 they seldom wander afield ; and as they are 
 a people contented and complete in them- 
 selves, dwelling as securely and with as 
 much satisfaction as the men of Laish, 
 they do not desire the society of strangers. 
 Therefore great London, with its noises 
 and mighty business, its press and hurry, 
 is a place which they care not often to 
 
 encounter ; and as for the excitement and 
 amusements of the West, they know them 
 not. Few there are in Rotherhithe who 
 have been further west than London Bridge, 
 fewer still who know the country and 
 the people who dwell west of Temple 
 Bar. 
 
 It is a place protected and defended, so 
 to speak, by a narrow pass, or entrance, 
 uninviting and unpromising, bounded by 
 river on one side and docks on the other. 
 This Thermopylae passed, one finds oneself 
 in a strange and curious street with water 
 on the left and water on the right, and 
 ships everywhere in sight. 
 
 It possesses no railway, no cabstand, no 
 omnibus runs thither; there is no tram. 
 The nearest station is for one end, Thames 
 Tunnel, and for the other, Deptford. All 
 the local arrangements for getting from 
 one place to the other seem based on the 
 good old principle that nobody wants to 
 get from one place to the other ; one would 
 not be astonished to meet a string of pack- 
 horses laden with the produce of the town, 
 so quiet, so still, so far removed . from 
 London, so old-world in its aspect is the 
 High Street of Rotherhithe. 
 
 If, however, they are little interested in 
 the great city near which they live, they 
 know a great deal about foreign countries 
 and strange climates; if they have no 
 politics, they read and talk much about the 
 prospects of trade across the sea ; they do 
 not take in Telegraph, Standard, or Daily 
 News, but they read from end to end that 
 admirable paper, the Shipping and Mercantile 
 Gazette. F or all their prospects and all their 
 interests are bound up in the mercantile 
 marine. No one lives here who is not 
 interested in the Commercial Docks, or the 
 ships which use them, or the boats, or in 
 the repairs of ships, or in the supply of 
 ships, or in the manners, customs, and 
 requirements of skippers, mates, and 
 mercantile sailors of all countries. Their 
 greatest man is the Superintendent of the 
 Docks, and after him, in point of import- 
 ance, are the dock-masters and their 
 assistants. 
 
 Rotherhithe consists, for the most part, 
 of one long street, which runs along the 
 narrow strip of ground left between the 
 river and the docks when they were built. 
 The part of the river thus overlooked is 
 Limehouse Reach ; the street begins, at the 
 new Thames Tunnel Station, which is close 
 beside the old Rotherhithe Parish Church, 
 and it ends where Deptford begins. There 
 are many beautiful, and many wonderful, 
 
 .to 
 
14 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 and many curious streets in London “ and 
 her daughters ; ” but this is, perhaps, the 
 most curious. It is, to begin with, a 
 street which seems to have been laid down 
 so as to get as much as possible out of the 
 way of the ships which press upon it to 
 north and south. Ships stick their bows 
 almost across the road, the figure-heads 
 staring impertinently into first - floor 
 windows. If you pass a small court or 
 wynd, of which there are many, with little 
 green-shuttered houses, you see ships at 
 the end of it, with sails hanging loosely 
 from the yard-arms. 
 
 On the left hand you pass a row of dry 
 docks. They are all exactly alike ; they 
 are built to accommodate one vessel, but 
 rarely more; if you look in, no one 
 questions your right of entrance; and if 
 you see one you have seen them all. 
 
 Look, for instance, into this dry dock. 
 Within her is a two-masted sailing vessel; 
 most likely she hails from Norway or from 
 Canada, and is engaged in the timber 
 trade. Her planks show signs of age, and 
 she is shored up by great round timbers 
 like bits of a mast. Her repairs are 
 probably being executed by one man, who 
 is seated on a hanging board leisurely 
 brandishing a paint-brush. Two more men 
 are seated on the wharf, looking on with 
 intelligent curiosity. One man — perhaps 
 the owner of the ship, or some other person 
 in authority — stands at the far end of the 
 dock and surveys the craft with interest, but 
 no appearance of hurry, because the timber 
 trade, in all its branches, is a leisurely 
 business. No one is on board the ship 
 except a dog, who sits on the quarter-deck 
 sound asleep, with his nose in his paws. 
 
 The wharf is littered all about with 
 round shores, old masts, and logs of 
 ship timber ; it is never tidied up, chips 
 and shavings lie about rotting in the rain, 
 the remains of old repairs long since done 
 and paid for, upon ships long since gone 
 to the bottom ; there is a furnace for 
 boiling pitch, and barrels for the reception 
 of that useful article ; there is a winch with 
 rusty chains; there is a crane, but the 
 wheels are rusty. The litter and leisure of 
 the place are picturesque. One wonders 
 who is its proprietor; probably some old 
 gentleman with a Ramillies wig, laced 
 ruffles, gold buckles on his shoes, silk 
 stockings, a flowered satin waistcoat down 
 to his knees, sober brown coat, and a 
 gold-headed stick. 
 
 At the entrance to the dock there is a 
 little house with green shutters, a pretence 
 
 of green railings which enclose three feet 
 of ground, and green boxes furnished with 
 creeping-jenny and mignonette. But this 
 cannot be the residence of the master. 
 
 Beyond the dock, kept out by great 
 gates which seem not to have been opened 
 for generations, so rusty are the wheels 
 and so green are their planks with weed 
 and water-moss, run the waters of the 
 Thames. There go before us the steamers, 
 the great ocean steamers, coming out of the 
 St. Katharine’s, London, and West India 
 Docks ; there go the sailing ships, dropping 
 easily down with the tide, or slowly making 
 way with a favourable breeze up to the Pool; 
 there creep the lighters and barges, heavily 
 laden, with tall mast and piled-up cargo, 
 the delight of painters ; there toil con- 
 tinually the noisy steam-tug and the river 
 packet steamer; there play before us un- 
 ceasingly the life, the movement, the bustle 
 of the Port of London. 
 
 But all this movement, this bustle, seems 
 to us, standing in the quiet dock, like a 
 play, a procession of painted ships upon a 
 painted river, with a background of Lime- 
 house church and town all most beautifully 
 represented ; for the contrast is so strange. 
 
 Here we are back in the last century ; 
 this old ship, whose battered sides the one 
 man is tinkering, is a hundred years old ; 
 the Swedish skipper, who stands and looks 
 at her all day long, in no hurry to get 
 her finished and ready for sea, flourished 
 before the French Revolution ; the same 
 leisurely dock, the same leisurely carpenter, 
 the same leisurely spectators, the same 
 green palings, the same little lodge with 
 its green door and green flower-box, were 
 all here a hundred years ago and more ; 
 and we, who look about us, find ourselves 
 presently fumbling about our heads to see 
 whether, haply, we wear tye-wigs and three- 
 cornered hats. 
 
 On the doors of this dock we observe an 
 announcement warning marine-store dealers 
 not to enter. What have they done— the 
 marine-store dealers ? 
 
 A little farther on there is another dry 
 dock. We look in. The same ship, 
 apparently ; the same leisurely contempla- 
 tion of the ship by the same man; the 
 same dog ; the same contrast between the 
 press and hurry of the river and the leisure 
 of the dock ; the same warning to marine- 
 store dealers. Again we ask, what have 
 they done — the marine-store dealers r l 
 
 Some of the docks have got suggestive 
 and appropriate names. The “ Lavender ” 
 leads the poet to think of the tender care 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1 , 1881 .] 1 5 
 
 bestowed upon ships laid up in that dock (the 
 name is not an advertisement, but a truth- 
 ful and modest statement) ; the “ Pageants” 
 is magnificent ; the “ Globe ” suggests geo- 
 graphical possibilities which cannot but 
 fire the imagination of Rotherhithe boys ; 
 and what could be more comfortable for a 
 heart of oak than “Acorn” Wharf? 
 
 One observes presently a strange sweet 
 fragrance in the air, which, at first, is 
 unaccountable. The smell means timber. 
 For behind the street lie the great timber 
 docks. Here is timber stacked in piles; 
 here are ships unloading timber ; here is 
 timber lying in the water. It is timber 
 from Canada and from Norway; timber 
 from Honduras; timber from Singapore; 
 timber from every country where there are 
 trees to cut and hands to cut them. 
 
 It is amid these stacks of timber, among 
 these ships, among these docks, that the 
 houses and gardens of Rotherhithe lie 
 embowered. 
 
 Some of the houses were built in the 
 time of great George Tertius. One recog- 
 nises the paucity of windows, the flat 
 facade, the carved, painted, and varnished 
 woodwork over the doors. More, how- 
 ever, belong to his illustrious grandfather’s 
 period, or even earlier, and some, which 
 want painting badly, are built of wood and 
 have red-tiled roofs. 
 
 Wherever they can they stick up wooden 
 palings painted green. They plant scarlet- 
 runners wherever they can find so much as 
 a spare yard of earth. They are fond of 
 convolvulus, mignonette, and candy-tuft 
 in boxes. They all hammer on their walls 
 tin plates, which show to those who can 
 understand that the house is insured in the 
 “Beacon.” And some of the houses — 
 namely j the oldest and smallest — have 
 their floors below the level of the street.. 
 
 There is one great house — only one — in 
 Rotherhithe. It was built somewhere in 
 the last century, before the Commercial 
 Docks were excavated. It was then the 
 home of a rich merchant living among the 
 dry docks — probably he was the proprietor 
 of Lavender and Acorn Docks. There is 
 a courtyard before it; the door, with ’a 
 porch, stands at the top of broad stairs ; 
 there is ornamental stone-work half-way up 
 the front of the house ; and there is a gate 
 of hammered iron, as fine as any in South 
 Kensington. 
 
 The shops have strange names over the 
 doors. They are chiefly kept by Nor- 
 wegians, Dutchmen, Swedes, and Danes, 
 with a sprinkling of Rotherhithe natives. 
 
 The things exhibited for sale look foreign. 
 Yet we observe with satisfaction that the 
 public-houses are kept by Englishmen, and 
 that the Scandinavian taste in liquor is 
 catholic. They can drink — these North- 
 men — and do, anything which “bites.” 
 
 Quite at the end of this long street you 
 come to a kind of open place, in which 
 stands the terrace called “ Seven Houses.” 
 They occupy the east side. On the west 
 is, first, a timber-yard, open, to the river ; 
 next, a row of houses, white, neat, and 
 clean; beyond the terrace is the church, 
 with its churchyard and schools. Then 
 there is another short street, with 
 shops, the fashionable shopping-place of 
 Rotherhithe. And here the town; pro- 
 perly so called, ends, for beyond is the 
 entrance to the Commercial Docks, and all 
 around spread great sheets of water, in 
 which lie the timber-ships from Norway, 
 Sweden, Canada, Archangel, Stettin, Mernel, 
 Dantzic, St. Petersburgh, Savannah, and 
 the East. 
 
 Hither, too, come ships from New 
 Zealand, bringing grain and wool, and 
 here put in ships, but in smaller number, 
 bound for almost every port upon the 
 globe. 
 
 And what with the green trees in the 
 churchyard, the clean houses, the bright 
 open space, the ships in the dock, and the 
 glimpses of the river, one might fancy 
 oneself not in London at all, but across 
 the North Sea and in Amsterdam. 
 
 It was in Rotherhithe that Lai Rydquist 
 was born, and in Rotherhithe she was 
 educated. Nor for eighteen years and 
 more did the girl ever go outside her 
 native place, but continued as ignorant oi 
 the great city near her as if it did not 
 exist. On the other hand, from the con- 
 versation of those around her, she became 
 perfectly familiar with the greater part of 
 the globe ; namely, its oceans, seas, ports, 
 harbours, gulfs, bays, currents, tides, pre- 
 valent winds, and occasional storms. Most 
 people are brought up to know nothing 
 but the land : it is shameful favouritism 
 to devote geography books exclusively to 
 the land upon this round globe; Lai 
 knew nothing about the land, but a 
 great deal about the water. Such other 
 knowledge as she had acquired pertained 
 to ships, harbours, cargoes,. Custom dues, 
 harbour dues, bills of lading, insurance, 
 wet and dry docks, and the current 
 price of- timber, grain, rice, and so. forth. 
 A very varied and curious collection of 
 I facts lay stored in her brain ; but as for 
 

 16 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted, y 
 
 the accomplishments and acquirements of 
 ordinary English girls, she knew none of 
 them. 
 
 Her chris tian-name was Alicia. When 
 she was but a toddler, the sailor folk with 
 whom she played, and who gave her dolls, 
 called her Lai. As she grew up, these 
 honest people remained her friends, and 
 therefore her name remained. Girls grow 
 up, by Nature’s provision, gradually, so 
 that there never comes a time when a pet 
 name ceases of its own accord. Therefore, 
 the Captains, who used the boarding-house, 
 being all personal friends , — none but 
 friends, in fact, were admitted to the 
 privileges of that little family hotel — she 
 continued to he Lai. 
 
 The boarding-house was carried on by 
 Mrs. Rydquist, Lai’s mother, who had 
 been a notable woman in her day. The 
 older inhabitants of Rotherhithe testified 
 to that effect. But her misfortunes greatly 
 affected and changed her for the worse. 
 One need only touch upon the drowning 
 of her father, which happened many years 
 before, and was regarded by the burgesses 
 of Rotherhithe as a special mercy bestowed 
 upon his family, so wasteful was he and 
 fond of drink when ashore. He was chief 
 officer of an East Indiaman which went 
 down with all hands in a cyclone, as was 
 generally believed, somewhere north of the 
 Andaman Islands, outward bound. He 
 had spent all his pay in ardent drinks, and 
 there was nothing left for his daughter. 
 But she married a stout fellow, a Swede 
 by nation, and Rydquist by name, who 
 sailed to and fro between the ports of 
 Bjorneborg and London, Captain and part 
 owner of a brig in the timber trade. Alas S 
 that brig dropped down stream one morn- 
 ing as usual, having the Captain on board, 
 and leaving the Captain’s wife ashore with 
 the baby, and she was never afterwards 
 heard of. Also there was some trouble 
 about th6 insurance, and so the Captain’s 
 widow got nothing for her husband’s share 
 in the ship. 
 
 Mrs. Rydquist, then a young woman 
 and comely still, who might have married 
 again, took to crying, and continued to 
 cry, which was bad for the boarding-house 
 which her husband’s friends started for her. 
 In most cases time cures the deadliest 
 wounds, but in this poor lady’s case the 
 years went on and she continued to bewail 
 her misfortunes, sitting, always with a tea- 
 pot before her, upon a sofa as hard as a 
 bed of penitence, and plenty of pocket- 
 handkerchiefs in her lap. 
 
 There could not have been a happier 
 child, a brighter, merrier child, a more 
 sunshiny child, a more affectionate child, a 
 more contented child than Lai, during her 
 childhood, but for two things. Her mother 
 was always crying, and the house went on 
 anyhow. When she grew to understand 
 things a little, she ventured to point out 
 to her mother that men who go to sea do 
 often get drowned, and among the changes 
 and chances of this mortal life, this accident 
 must be seriously considered by the woman 
 who marries a sailor. But no use. She 
 remonstrated again, but with small effect, 
 that the house was not kept with the neat- 
 ness desired by Captains ; that it was in all 
 respects ill found ; that the quality of the 
 provisions was far from what it ought 
 to be, and that meals were not punctual. 
 The aggravation of these things, and the 
 knowledge that they were received with 
 muttered grumblings by the good fellows 
 who put up with them chiefly for her own 
 sake, sank deep into her heart, and shortened 
 — not her life, but her schooling. 
 
 When she was fourteen, being as tall and 
 shapely as many a girl of eighteen, she 
 would go to school no more. She announced 
 her intention of staying at home ; she took 
 over the basket of keys — that emblem of 
 authority — from her mother’s keeping into 
 her own ; she began to order things ; she 
 became the mistress of the house, while 
 the widow contentedly sat in the front 
 parlour and wept, or else, which made her 
 deservedly popular among the Captains, 
 prophesied, to any who would listen, ship- 
 wreck, death, and ruin, like Cassandra, 
 Nostradamus, and old Mother Shipton, to 
 these friends. 
 
 Immediately upon this assumption of 
 authority the house began to look clean, 
 the windows bright, the bedrooms neat] 
 immediately the enemies of the house, who 
 were the butcher, th6 baker, the bacon- 
 man, the butterman, and every other man 
 Avho had shot expensive rubbish into the 
 place, began, to use the dignified language 
 of the historian, to “roll back sullenly across 
 the frontier.” Immediately meals became 
 punctual; immediately rules began to be 
 laid down and enforced. Captains must 
 henceforth only smoke in the evening; 
 Captains must pay up every Saturday ; 
 Captains must not bring friends to drink 
 away the rosy hours with them ; Captains 
 must moderate their language — words be- 
 ginning with D were to be overhauled, so 
 to speak, before use ; Captains must com- 
 plain to Lai if they wanted anything, not 
 
Charles Djekejis.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM, 
 
 ^epemher 1, IASI,] 17 
 
 go about grumbling with each other in a 
 mean and a mutinous spirit. These rules 
 were not written, but announced by Lai 
 herself in peremptory tones, so that those 
 who heard knew there was no choice but to 
 obey. 
 
 She was the best and kindest of 
 managers ; she made such a boarding-house 
 for her Captains as was never dreamed of 
 by any of them. Such dinners, such beer, 
 spirits of such purity and strength, tobacco 
 of the finest; no trouble, no disturbance, 
 the wheels always running smoothly. 
 Captains’ bills made out to a penny, with 
 no surcharge or extortion. And, withal, 
 the girl was thoughtful for each man, 
 mindful of what he liked the best, and with 
 a mother’s eye to buttons. 
 
 It was indeed a boarding-house fit for the 
 gods. So startling were the “effects” in 
 cleanliness that honest Dutchmen rubbed 
 their eyes, and seeing the ships all round 
 them, thought of the Boompjes of Rot- 
 terdam ; not a plank in the house but was 
 like a tablecloth for cleanliness. 
 
 Then, as to punctuality : at the stroke 
 of eight, breakfast on the table, and Lai, 
 neat as a bandbox, pouring out tea and 
 coffee, made as they should be ; while 
 toast, dry and buttered, muffins, chops and 
 steaks, ham and eggs, bacon, and fish just 
 out of the frying-pan, were on the table. 
 
 On the stroke of one, the dinner, devised, 
 planned, and personally conducted by Lai, 
 herself, more diligently than any Cook of 
 modern or ancient history, was borne from 
 the kitchen to the Captains’ room. 
 
 The nautical appetite is large, both on 
 shore and afloat ; but on shore it is critical 
 as well. The skipper aboard his ship may 
 contentedly eat his way through barrels 
 of salt junk, yet ashore he craves variety, 
 and is as particular about his vegetables as 
 a hippopotamus who has studied the art of 
 dining. 
 
 And this is the reason, not generally 
 understood, why the market-gardens in the 
 neighbourhood of Deptford are so ex- 
 tensive, and why every available square 
 inch of Rotherhithe grows a cabbage or a 
 scarlet-runner. 
 
 There were no complaints here, how- 
 ever, about vegetables. 
 
 Tea was served at five, for those who 
 wanted any. 
 
 Supper appeared at eight ; and after 
 supper, grog and pipes. Yet, as at dinner 
 the supply of beer was generous yet not 
 wasteful, so at night, every Captain knew 
 that if he wanted more than his ration, or 
 
 double ration, he must get up and slink out 
 of the house like a truant school-boy, to 
 seek it at the nearest public-house. 
 
 The mercantile skipper in every nation is 
 much the 3ame. He is a responsible person, 
 somewhat grave; ashore he does not con- 
 descend to high jinks, and leaves sprees 
 to the youngsters. Yet, among his fellows 
 in such a house as Rydquist’s, he is not 
 above a song or even a cheerful hornpipe. 
 He is generally a married man with a large 
 family of whom he is fond and proud. He 
 reads little, but has generally some book 
 to talk of; and he is brimful of stories, 
 mostly, it must be owned, of a professional 
 and pointless kind, and some old, old. Joe 
 Millers, which he brings out with an air as 
 if they were new and sparkling from the 
 mint of fancy. 
 
 These men were the girl’s friends, all 
 the friends she had. They were fond of 
 her and kind to her. When, as often 
 happened, she found herself in the Captains 
 room in the evening and sat on the arm 
 of Captain Zachariaseu’s chair, the stories 
 went on with the songs and the laughing, 
 just as if she was not present, for they 
 were an innocent- minded race, and whether 
 they hailed from Russia, Sweden, Norway, 
 Denmark, Holland, or America, they were 
 chivalrous and respected innocence. 
 
 The house accommodated no more than 
 half-a-dozen, but it was always full, and the 
 Captains were of the better sort. Captain 
 Hansen from Christiania dropped in after 
 his ship was in dock ; if the house was full 
 •he went back to his ship ; if he could have 
 a room he stayed there. The same with 
 Captain Bebbington of Quebec, Captain 
 Griggs of Edinburgh, Captain Rosenlund 
 of Hamburg, Captain Skantlebury of Leith, 
 Captain Eriksen of Copenhagen, Captain 
 Vidovich of Archangel, Captain Ling of 
 Stockholm, and Captain Tilly of New 
 Brunswick, and a dozen more. 
 
 They rallied round Rydquist’s; they 
 thought it a proud thing to be able to put 
 up there ; and they swore by Lai. 
 
 Then who but Lai overhauled the linen, 
 gave out some to be mended and some to 
 be condemned, and rigged them out for 
 the next voyage h And as for confidences, 
 the girl was not fifteen years old before 
 she knew all the secrets of all the men 
 who went there, with their love stories, 
 their disappointments, their money matters, 
 their hopes, and their ambitions. And 
 she was already capable, at that early 
 age, of giving sensible advice, especially 
 
— — — — % 
 
 18 [December 1, 1881 .] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 in matters of the heart. Those who fol- 
 lowed that advice subsequently rejoiced ; 
 those who did not, repented. 
 
 When she was seventeen, they all began, 
 with one consent, to fall in love with her. 
 She remarked nothing unusual for awhile 
 having her mind greatly occupied in con- 
 sidering the price of vegetables^ which 
 during that year remained like runagates 
 for scarceness. Presently, however, the 
 altered carriage of the boarders was impos- 
 sible to be otherwise than remarkable. 
 
 Love, we know, shows itself by many 
 external symptoms. Some went careless 
 of attire; some went in great bravery 
 with waistcoats and neckties difficult to 
 describe and impossible to match; some 
 laughed, some heaved sighs, some sang 
 songs ; one or two made verses ; those who 
 were getting grey tried to look as if they 
 were five-and-twenty, and made as if they 
 still could shake a rollicking leg ; those 
 who were already turned of sixty persuaded 
 themselves that a master mariner’s heart is 
 always young, and that no time of life is 
 too far advanced for him to be a desirable 
 husband, 
 
 Lai laughed and went on making the 
 puddings ; she knew very well what they 
 wanted, but she felt no fancy, yet, for any 
 of them. 
 
 When, which speedily happened, one 
 after the other came to lay themselves, their 
 ships, and their fortunes at her feet, she 
 sent them all away, not with scorn or un- 
 kindness, but with a cheerful laugh, bidding 
 them go seek prettier, richer, and better 
 girls to marry; because, for her own part, 
 she had got her work to do, and had no 
 time to think about such things, and if she 
 had ever so much time she most certainly 
 would not marry that particular suitor. 
 
 They went away, and for a while looked 
 gloomy and ashamed, fearing that the girl 
 would tell of them. But she did not, and 
 they presently recovered, and when their 
 time came and their ships were ready, they 
 dropped down the river with a show of 
 cheerfulness, and sa away to distant lands, 
 round that headland known as the Isle of 
 Logs, with no bitterness in their hearts, 
 but only a little disappointment, and the 
 most friendly feelings towards the girl who 
 said them nay. 
 
 When these were gone, the house, which 
 was never empty, received another batch 
 of Captains, old and young. Presently 
 similar symptoms were developed with 
 them ; all were ardent, all confident. They 
 had been away a year or two. They found 
 
 the little Lai, whom they left a handy 
 maiden, a mere well-grown girl of fourteen 
 or so, developed into a tall and beautiful 
 young woman. Upon her shoulders, in- 
 visible to all, sat Love, discharging arrows 
 right and left into the hearts of the most 
 inflammable of men. This batch, except- 
 ing two, who had wives in other ports, 
 and openly lamented the fact, behaved in 
 the same surprising manner as their pre- 
 decessors. They were presently treated 
 with the same dismissal, but with less 
 courtesy, because to the girl this behaviour 
 was becoming monotonous, and it some- 
 times seemed as if the whole of mankind 
 had taken leave of their senses. They 
 retired in their turn, and when their ships 
 were laden, they, too, sailed away a little 
 discomfited, but not revengeful or bearing 
 malice. Then came a third batch, and so 
 on. But of sea-captains there is an end : 
 Lai’s friends, one after the other, came, 
 disappeared after a while, and then came 
 back again. Those who used the house 
 at Rotherhithe were like comets rather 
 than planets, because they had no fixed 
 periods, but returned at intervals which 
 could only be approximately guessed. 
 When, however, the cycle was fulfilled, 
 and there was no more to fall in love with 
 her (strangers, as has been stated, not being 
 admitted), there was a lull, and the re- 
 jected, when they came back again and found 
 the girl yet heart free, rejoiced, because 
 every man immediately became confident 
 that sooner or later Lai’s fancy would fall 
 upon him; and every man cherished in his 
 own mind the most delightful anticipations 
 of a magnificent wedding feast, with the 
 joy of Rotherhithe for the bride, and him- 
 self for bridegroom. 
 
 CHAPTER III. THE SAILOR LAD FROM 
 OVER THE SEA. 
 
 A woman’s fate comes to her, like most 
 good or bad things, unexpectedly. Nothing 
 is sure, says the French proverb, but the 
 unforeseen. Nothing could have been more 
 unexpected, for instance, than that the 
 falling overboard of a Malay steward from 
 an Indian liner should have led to the 
 sorrow and the happiness of Lai Rydquist. 
 That this was so you will presently read, 
 and the fact suggests a fine peg for medi- 
 tation on causes and effects. Had it not 
 been for that event, this story, which it is 
 a great joy to write, would never have been 
 written, and mankind would have been 
 losers to so great an extent ; .whereas, that 
 temporary immersion in the cold waters of 
 
 ; 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 19 
 
 the river in Limehouse Reach produced so 
 many things one after the other that they 
 have now left Lai in the possession of the 
 most necessary ingredient of happiness 
 quintessential. We all know what that is, 
 and in so simple a matter a lifting of the 
 eye is as good as a printer’s sheet of words. 
 
 And could one, had it not been so, have 
 had the heart to write this tale? Why, 
 instead of a Christmas story it would have 
 been a mere winter’s tale, a Middle-of- 
 March story, a searching, biting, east wind 
 story, fit only to be cut up and gummed 
 upon doors and windows, to keep out the 
 cold. 
 
 When the dinner was off her mind, 
 served, commended, and eaten, and when 
 her mother was deposited for the day upon 
 the sofa, with teapot and the kettle ready, 
 the pocket-handkerchiefs for weeping, the 
 book which she never read in, and, perhaps, 
 one of the younger Captains who had not 
 yet heard the story of her misfortunes more 
 than a dozen times or so ; or with some of 
 her friends among the widows and matrons 
 of Rotherhithe, with whom she would 
 exchange prophecies of disasters, general 
 and particular ; Lai would hasten to enjoy 
 herself after her free and independent 
 fashion. One of the Captains had given her 
 a little dingy, and taught her to row it, 
 and her pleasure was to paddle about the 
 river in Limehouse Reach, dodging the 
 steamers, and watching the craft as they 
 went up and down. 
 
 This is a pursuit full of peril, because 
 steamers in ballast sometimes come down 
 the river at a reckless speed, their pilots 
 being drunk, cutting down whatever 
 falls in their way; yet to a girl who is 
 handy with her sculls, and has a quick eye, 
 the danger is part of the delight. On 
 the Thames in Limehouse Reach one may 
 be easily run over and one’s boat cut in two. 
 There then follows a bad time for a few 
 moments, while the victim of the collision 
 is getting drowned or saved ; still, if one 
 thinks of danger, half the fun of the world 
 is gone. Lai thought of the change, 
 the amusement, the excitement : on the 
 Thames there is continual life, movement, 
 and activity ; on the Thames, there may 
 be found by girls, sometimes worried, by 
 perpetual housekeeping, rest and soothing. 
 As for Lai, the daily press of work 
 was practically finished with the dinner, 
 because the “service” might be trusted 
 with the rest. And after dinner, on the 
 river she breathed fresh air. Here was not 
 only mental rest, but also exercise for her 
 
 young muscles ; here was all the amuse- 
 ment and variety she ever desired ; here 
 she could even let her imagination wander 
 abroad, to the pinnacles and spires of the 
 city of which she knew so little even by 
 hearsay, or to the foreign lands of which 
 she heard so much. Above all, she was 
 alone. This is so rare, so unattainable a 
 thing to most girls, even to those who do 
 not make puddings for sea-captains, that 
 one quite understands how Lai valued the 
 privilege. Her life was all before her. 
 Like other maidens she loved to sit by 
 herself and take a Pisgah-like view of her 
 future. It might lie among the steeples 
 and streets— she had never heard of any 
 West End splendours — of London ; it 
 might be in those far-off lands where some 
 of her Captains had wives ; say, in New 
 Brunswick, or beside the beauty of the Great 
 St. Lawrence, or even in Calcutta, or in 
 Dantzic, or in Norway or it might lie 
 always in simple and secluded Rotherhithe, 
 among the timber piles of the Commercial 
 Docks. Not a girl given to self-commun- 
 ings, tearing her religion up by the roots 
 to see how it was getting on, or the doubts 
 which nowadays seem to assail most 
 fiercely those who have the least power or 
 knowledge to help them to a solution, 
 a quiet, simple, cheerful, hopeful girl, with 
 a smile for everyone and a laugh for all 
 her friends, yet a girl so hard-worked and 
 so full of responsibilities that there were 
 days when she had what the French ladies 
 call an attack of nerves, and must fain get 
 away from all and float at rest, thinking 
 of other things than the wickedness of 
 butchers, upon the bosom of the great river. 
 
 Sometimes, if the weather was too rough 
 for her little boat, she would paddle along 
 the bank till she came to the mouth of the 
 Commercial Docks, and there would row 
 about among the timber ships, watching 
 the men at work, and the great planks 
 being shot from the portholes in the stern 
 of the vessels, or the dockmen piling the 
 timbers, or the foreign sailors idling about 
 upon the wharves. But mostly she loved the 
 river. 
 
 Now it came to pass, one Saturday 
 afternoon late in the month of May, and 
 the year eighteen hundred and seventy- 
 six, that Lai happened to be out in her 
 boat upon the river. It was a delightful 
 afternoon, quite an old-fashioned May day, 
 without a breath of east wind, a sky 
 covered , with light flying clouds, so that 
 the sunshine dropped about in changing 
 breadths, now here and now there, throwing 
 
— 
 
 20 [December 1, 1SB1.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 ==& 
 [Conducted by 
 
 a bright patch upon the water, gilding a 
 steeple, flashing from a window, making 
 even a stumpy little tug glorious for a 
 moment. She sang to herself as she sat in 
 her boat, not a loud song like a Siren or a 
 Lurlei person, but a gentle happy melody 
 — I think it was some hymn — and she sat 
 with her face to the bows, keeping the 
 boat’s head well to the waves raised by the 
 swell of the passing ships. She was quite 
 safe herself, being near the shore and 
 between two heavily-laden lighters, waiting 
 for tide to go up stream ; the river was 
 rising, and was covered with all kinds of 
 craft. 
 
 Presently she became aware of a vast great 
 ship, one of the big Indian liners, slowly 
 rounding the Isle of Dogs. A great ship 
 always attracted her imagination ; it is a 
 thing so vast, so easily moved, and so life- 
 like. As the tall hull drew nearer, her 
 eyes were fixed upon it, and she paddled 
 a little beyond her protecting lighters, so 
 as to get a better view of the vessel as she 
 passed. 
 
 The ship moved up stream slowly here, 
 because the river was so full. First Lai 
 saw from her place the lofty bows, straight 
 cut like a razor, rounding the Isle of Dogs 
 and steadily growing nearer. Then her 
 pilot put her a point more to starboard, 
 and Lai saw the long and lofty side of her, 
 her portholes open wide, high out of the 
 water. Along the bulwarks were ranged 
 a line of faces, mostly pale with Indian 
 summers, but not all ; they were the faces 
 of the passengers who leaned over and 
 watched the crowded river and talked 
 together. Lai wondered whether they 
 were glad to come home again, and what 
 they were telling each other, and she hoped 
 they would think their country improved 
 since they saw it last ; and then ventured 
 in mute wish to congratulate their mothers, 
 daughters, and sisters, wives, sweethearts, 
 and all female cousins, relatives, and 
 friends, that the ship had not gone to 
 Davy’s Locker on her homeward voyage, 
 with so many brave fellows on board. 
 The ship belonged to the great Indian 
 Peninsular Line, and was called the 
 Aryan. She was so great a ship, and 
 she moved so slowly, that Lai had time for 
 a great many observations as she passed 
 her. Also when her little boat was about 
 midships, still kept bows-on to meet the 
 coming waves, one of the passengers, a 
 young fellow, took off his hat to her with 
 a loud “ Hurrah ! ” He meant a respectful 
 salutation to the first pretty girl they had 
 
 met in the good old country which is full 
 of the prettiest girls in the world. Lai 
 wondered what it felt like, this coming 
 home. All her life long she had been 
 among men who went out of port and 
 presently put into port again ; one or 
 two, in her own experience, never came 
 back, having met with the fate reserved for 
 many sailors ; but that was not a home- 
 coming like that of these exiles from India. 
 There would be joy in their homes, no 
 doubt, but what would the poor fellows 
 themselves feel after these years of separa- 
 tion % The feminine mind, everybody 
 knows very well, reserves nearly all its 
 sympathies for the sufferings of the men ; 
 while it is an honourable trait in the male 
 character, that it is roused to fury by the 
 sufferings of women. 
 
 Just before the ship passed her, the 
 great wave which rolled upwards from her 
 keel came curling six feet high, like the 
 Bore of the Severn and the Parrott, towards 
 Lai’s little boat. The lighters reeled and 
 rolled, she seized her sculls and held her 
 bows straight, steady to meet the swell, so 
 that the little vessel gallantly rode over 
 the wave ; and this passed swiftly on trying 
 to swamp everything in its way, and pre- 
 sently capsized a boat with two promising 
 and ambitious young thieves, who had gone 
 down the river gaily, hoping to pick up 
 plunder by the way. They got no plunder 
 on that, occasion, but a wet skin and 
 a very near escape from the habitual 
 criminal life for which they were pre- 
 paring themselves. In this they are now 
 in fact actively engaged ; insomuch that 
 one has been in prison during three of the 
 five years since that event, and the other 
 two and a half years. When they are out 
 they enjoy themselves very much and 
 drink bad gin. Then the wave caught a 
 Greenwich steamboat and knocked the 
 land lubber passengers off their legs ; and 
 then it filled and sunk a barge full of 
 hay. The hay went down the river with 
 the next tide and littered the shore of 
 Greenwich, where people who went down 
 to dine gazed upon it from the windows of 
 the Ship. There was also a sister or a 
 brother wave on the north bank, proceed- 
 ing from the starboard bow, but I do not 
 know what mischief that wave succeeded 
 in accomplishing. 
 
 While Lai was considering the ways of 
 this swell, and looking to see what a 
 pother, with a rolling and a rocking and a 
 staggering to and fro it caused, she heard 
 a sudden splash, and right in front of her 
 
 
 : r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 21 
 
 A=t 
 
 she was aware of a man in the water. 
 Immediately afterwards another man 
 leaped gallantly from the ship after the 
 first man, and a moment afterwards came 
 up to the surface holding him. 
 
 Then, without waiting to think, be- 
 cause at such moments the reasoning 
 faculty only brings people to grief and 
 discredit, Lai shot her boat ahead to 
 help, for certainly the two appeared to 
 want immediate assistance, and that so 
 badly, that if it came not at once, they 
 would very soon want it no longer. 
 Their arms were interlocked, they beat, 
 or one of them beat, the water helplessly ; 
 their heads kept disappearing and coming 
 up again. On the ship there was a crowd 
 of faces, terror-stricken. The girl caught 
 one hand as her boat came to the spot. 
 The hand belonged to one of the two men, 
 that was clear, but whether the first or the 
 second she could not tell ; in fact, only 
 that one hand and a little piece of coat cuff 
 were at the moment visible above water, 
 and probably the next moment there would 
 have been nothing at all. The fingers 
 clutched hers like a vice. Lai threw her- 
 self down in the boat to prevent being 
 drawn over, and caught the wrist with her 
 other hand. 
 
 Then the group, so to speak, emerged 
 again from the water, and the hand the 
 girl had seized caught the gunwale of the 
 boat, and the eyes in the head which 
 belonged to the hand opened, and the 
 mouth in the head gasped something 
 inarticulate. As for the man’s other hand 
 and the whole of the rest of him, that was 
 locked tight in the embrace of the first 
 man who had fallen overboard. It is, any- 
 body knows, the general custom and the 
 base ingratitude of persons who are drown- 
 ing, to try and drown their rescuers. 
 
 “ Row us ashore quickly,” cried the one 
 who clung to the gunwale ; “I can hold on 
 for a spell. He won’t let go, even to be 
 helped into the boat.” 
 
 The ship was brought to now, and there 
 was a vast crowd of passengers, and the 
 officers shouting and gesticulating. 
 
 They saw the action of the girl in the 
 boat, and then they saw her seize the 
 sculls and pull vigorously to shore. As for 
 Lai, all she saw was a pale and dripping 
 face, fingers which clutched the gunwale 
 and nearly pulled it under, and an indis- 
 criminate something in the water. 
 
 “ Oh, can you hold on ? ” she cried. 
 “It is but a moment — twenty strokes — 
 see, we are close to the steps.” 
 
 “Quick!” he replied; “it is a heavy 
 weight. Row as hard as you can, 
 please.” 
 
 Presently, when the Captain of the ship 
 saw the boat landed at the steps, and was 
 sure of the safety of the two men, he made 
 a sign to the pilot, and the ship went on 
 her way, for time is precious. 
 
 “ Lucky escape,” he said. “ Armiger 
 will come over presently, none the worse for 
 a ducking ” 
 
 But the passengers with one accord 
 raised a mighty cheer as the boat touched 
 the shore, and the men on the lighters 
 cheered lustily, and even the two young 
 capsized thieves who were wet and drip- 
 ping, cheered. And there were some who 
 said the case must be forwarded to the 
 Royal Humane Society, and some who 
 talked about Grace Darling, and made 
 comparisons, and some who said it was 
 their sacred duty to write to the papers, 
 and tell the story of this wonderful pre- 
 sence of mind. But they did not, because 
 shortly afterwards they reached the docks, 
 and there was kissing of relations, packing 
 of wraps, counting of boxes, and after- 
 wards so much to see and to talk about, 
 and so many things to tell, that the 
 rescue of the second officer in the Thames 
 became only an incident in the history of 
 the voyage, and the voyage itself only an 
 incident in the history of their sojourn 
 abroad. 
 
 The distance to be rowed was more, 
 indeed, than twenty strokes, but not much 
 more. Still, there are times when twenty 
 strokes of the oar take more time, to the 
 imagination, than many hours of ordinary 
 work. Lai rowed with beating heart ; in 
 two minutes the boat lay alongside the 
 steps. 
 
 When her passenger’s feet touched the 
 stones he let go, and, being a strong young 
 fellow, and none the worse for his cold 
 bath, he carried his burden, an apparently 
 inanimate body, up the stairs to the top. 
 Here he laid him while he ran down again 
 to help his preserver. 
 
 “ These are my steps,” she said ; “ my 
 boat is always moored here. Thank you, 
 but if you don’t give her the whole length 
 of her painter, she will be hung up by the 
 bows when the tide runs out.” 
 
 She jumped out and ran lightly up ihe 
 stone steps. At the top the man who had 
 given them all this trouble sat up, looking 
 about him with wondering eyes. Then 
 Lai saw that he was of some foreign 
 country, partly by his dress and partly 
 
22 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 from his face. The other, who did indeed 
 present a rueful appearance in his dripping 
 clothes, was, she perceived, an officer of 
 the steamer. Then Lai began to laugh. 
 
 “It is all very well to laugh,” he said 
 grimly, and shaking himself like Tommy 
 Trout, medallist of the Humane Society, 
 after rescuing that Tom, “ but here’s half 
 my kit ruined. And, I say, you’ve saved 
 my life and I haven’t even thanked you. 
 But I do not know how to thank you.” 
 
 “It was all by chance,” replied Lai, 
 “and I am very glad.” 
 
 “And what are we to do next?” he 
 asked. 
 
 He made a sign to the other man, who , 
 sprang to his feet, shivered and nodded. 
 
 “ I am very glad you saved his life, at 
 any rate,” the young man went on \ “ he is 
 the steward of the officers’ mess, and he 
 cannot thank you himself, because he is 
 deaf and dumb ; we call him Dick.” 
 “Come, both of you,” said the girl, 
 recovering her wits, which were a little 
 scattered by this singular event. “ Come 
 both and dry your clothes.” 
 
 She led the way, and they all three set 
 off running — -a remarkable procession of 
 one dry girl and two wet men, which drew 
 all eyes upon them, and a small following 
 of boys, in the direction of the Captains’ 
 house. 
 
 “ I thought we should have dragged the 
 gunwale under water,” gasped the young 
 fellow. 
 
 « So did I,” said Lai simply. “ Can you 
 swim ? ” 
 
 “ No,” he replied. 
 
 “Yet you jumped overboard to rescue 
 your steward. What a splendid thing to 
 do ! ” 
 
 “ I forgot I couldn’t swim till I was in 
 the water. Never mind. I mean to 
 learn.” 
 
 The young fellow was a tall, slight-built 
 lad of twenty-one or twenty-two. . Lai 
 pushed him into a bedroom, and pointed 
 to a bundle of clothes. It was not 
 her fault that they belonged to Captain 
 Jansen, who was five feet nothing high, 
 and about the same round the waist. So 
 that when the lad was dressed in them, he 
 felt a certain amount of embarrassment, as 
 anyone might who was sent forth into an un- 
 known house with trousers no longer than 
 his knees, and of breadth phenomenal. 
 
 “ Where can I hide,” he said to himself, 
 “ till the things are dry? ” 
 
 He found a room set with a long table 
 and a good many chairs. This was the 
 
 Captains’ room, where they took their 
 meals by day and smoked pipes at night. 
 Just then no one was in it. He wanted 
 to find the girl who had saved his life and 
 rescued him \ so, after a look round, he 
 went on his cruise of discovery. 
 
 Next, he opened another door. It was 
 Lai’s housekeeping room, in which sat an 
 old, old man in an armchair, sound asleep. 
 This was Captain Zachariasen. 
 
 He shut the door quietly and opened 
 another. This was the front parlour, and 
 in it sat Mrs. Rydquist, alone, also fast 
 asleep ; but the opening of the door 
 awakened her, and she sat up and put on 
 her spectacles. 
 
 “ Come in, Captain,” she said, thinking 
 it was one of her friends, but uncertain 
 which of them looked so young and wore 
 clothes of such an amplitude. “ Come in, 
 Captain. It is a long time since we have 
 had a talk.” 
 
 “ Thank you, ma’am,” he replied. “ It 
 is my first visit here. We always, you 
 know, put into East India Docks.” 
 
 “Ah!” She shook her head. “Very 
 wrong — very wrong ! Many have been 
 robbed at Shadwell. But come in, and I 
 will tell you some of my troubles. Do 
 take a chair.” 
 
 She drew out a handkerchief, and wiped 
 a rising tear. 
 
 “Dear me, what a delightful thing to 
 see a young fellow like you — not drowned 
 yet ! ” 
 
 “ I might have been/’ he replied, “ but 
 
 for 
 
 “ Ah, and you may be yet.” This 
 seemed a very cheerful person. “ Many 
 no older than yourself are lying at the 
 bottom of the sea this minute.” 
 
 “ That is very true,” he said, “ but — 
 
 “ Oh, I know what you would say. 
 And Captain Zachariasen eighty-six years 
 of age if a day.” 
 
 The young man began to feel as if ne 
 had got into an enchanted palace. 
 
 When Lai found him there, he was 
 sitting bolt upright, while Mrs. Rydquist 
 was discoursing at large on perils and 
 disasters at sea. 
 
 ‘•'You yourself,” she was saying, “look 
 like one who will go early and find your 
 
 end ” . . 
 
 “ Gracious, mpther ! ” cried Lai, in her 
 quick sharp way, “ how can you say such 
 things? Time enough when he does go 
 to find it out. Besides— — Your clothes 
 are quite dry now, and — oh ! oh ! oh ! ” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 23 
 
 
 Then she laughed again, seeing the 
 delightful incongruity of trousers, sleeves, 
 arms, and legs, so that he retired in 
 confusion. 
 
 When he came to put on his own things, 
 he discovered that the girl of the boat — 
 this girl so remarkably handy with her 
 sculls — had actually taken the opportunity 
 to restore a button to the back of his neck. 
 The loss of this button had troubled him 
 for two voyages and a half. So delicate 
 and unusual an attention naturally went 
 straight to his heart, which was already 
 softened by the cqnsideration of the girl’s 
 bravery and beauty. 
 
 He thought she looked prettier than 
 ever, with her large eyes and the sweet 
 innocence of her face, when he came down 
 again in his uniform. 
 
 ‘‘Your steward is dry too,” she said, 
 “ and warming himself before the kitchen 
 fire. Will you have some tea with the 
 Captains % It is their tea-time.” 
 
 “I would rather have some tea with 
 you,” he replied, “ if I might.” 
 
 “ Would you 1 Then of course you 
 shall.” 
 
 She spoke as if it were a mere nothing, 
 a trifle of no value at all, this invitation to 
 take tea with her. 
 
 She took him into her own room, where 
 the young man had seen the old fellow 
 asleep, and presently brewed him a cup of 
 tea, the like of which, he thought, he had 
 never tasted, and set before him a plate of 
 hot toast. 
 
 “That is better for you,” she said as 
 wisely as any doctor, “than hot brandy- 
 and-water.” 
 
 At last he rose, after drinking as much 
 tea as he could and staying as long as he 
 dared. The ship would be in dock by this 
 time. He must get across. 
 
 “May I come over, when I can get away, 
 to see you again ? ” he asked bashfully. 
 
 She replied, without any bashfulness at 
 all and with straightforward friendliness, 
 that she would be very glad to see him 
 whenever he could call upon her, and that 
 the best time would be in the afternoon, or, 
 as the evenings were now long, in the 
 evening ; but not in the morning, when 
 she was busy with all sorts of things, and 
 especially in superintending the Captains’ 
 dinner. 
 
 “ I will come,” he said, and this time he 
 blushed. “ What is your name 1 ” 
 
 “ I am Lai Rydquist,” she replied, as if 
 everybody ought to know her. But that 
 was not at all what she meant. 
 
 “ Lai ! What a pretty name. It 
 
 suits ” And here he stopped and 
 
 blushed again. 
 
 “ And what is your name 1 ” 
 
 “ Rex Armiger,” he said. “ And I am 
 second officer on board the Aryan, of the 
 Indian Peninsular line, homeward bound 
 from Calcutta.” 
 
 This was the beginning of Lai’s love- 
 story. A young fellow, gallant and hand- 
 some, pulled dripping out of the river — a 
 sailor, too — how could Lai fall in love with 
 anybody but a sailor ? 
 
 Every love-story has its dawn, its first 
 faint glimmering, which grows into a 
 glorious rose of day. There are generally, 
 as we know, clouds about the east at the 
 dawn of day. Club-men about Pall Mall 
 frequently remark this in the month of June 
 on leaving the whist-table ; policemen have 
 told me the same thing ; milkmen, in spring 
 and autumn, report the phenomenon ; old- 
 fashioned poets observed it. There can be 
 no real doubt or question about it. After 
 the dawn and the morning comes the 
 noon, when the story becomes uninterest- 
 ing to outsiders, yet is a very delightful 
 story to the actors themselves. There are 
 different kinds of clouds, and you already 
 know pretty well what was the cloud which 
 for a long time made poor Lai’s story a 
 sad one. 
 
 When, however, the first streaks of 
 dawn appeared the sky was cloudless. 
 You must not suppose that this young 
 lady beheld the man and straightway fell 
 in love with him. Not at all. Love is a 
 plant which takes time to grow. In her 
 case it kept on growing long after Rex had 
 left her ; long, indeed, after everybody 
 said he was dead. But it cannot be denied 
 that she thought about him. 
 
 The Captains congratulated her on 
 having pulled the young fellow out of the 
 river. Captain Zachariasen, with a gallantry 
 beyond his years, even went so far as to 
 wish he had himself been the subject of 
 the immersion and the rescue. He also 
 related several stories of his own daring, 
 fifty, sixty, or seventy years before, in 
 various parts of the ocean. All this was 
 pleasing. 
 
 Lai laughed at the compliments *and 
 sang the more about the house, nor did it 
 disturb her in the least when her mother 
 lifted up her voice in prophecy. 
 
 “ My dear,” she said, “ mark my words. 
 If ever* I saw shipwreck and drowning — I 
 mean quite young drowning — on any man’s 
 face, it is marked on the face of that young 
 
Ox: 
 
 24 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 man. The heedless and the giddy may 
 laugh ; but we know better, my dear— we 
 who have gone through it.” 
 
 When a ship comes home and has but 
 three weeks in which to discharge her 
 cargo and take in her new lading, the 
 officers have by no means an easy time. 
 
 It is not holiday with them, but quite the 
 reverse ; and it was not often that Rex 
 could get even an evening free. In fact, 
 the whole of his wooing was accomplished 
 in five visits to Rotherhithe. 
 
 On his first visit he was disappointed. 
 Lai was on the river in her boat, and so he 
 sat with her mother and waited. Mrs. 
 Rydquist took the opportunity, which 
 might never occur again, of solemnly 
 warning him against falling’ in love with 
 her daughter. This, she said, was a very 
 possible thing to happen, especially for a 
 sailor, because her girl was well set-up, not 
 to say handsome. Therefore, it was her 
 duty to warn him, as she had already 
 warned a good many, including Captain 
 Skantlebury, afterwards cast away in Torres 
 Straits, that it was an unlucky thing 
 to marry into a family whose husbands 
 and male relations generally found a 
 grave at the bottom of the sea. Further, 
 it was well known among sailors that if 
 you rescued a person from drowning, that 
 person would, at some time or other, repay 
 your offices by injuring your earthly 
 prospects. So that there were two excel- 
 lent reasons why Rex should avoid the 
 Rock of Love. 
 
 They were doubtless valid ; but they 
 were not strong enough to repress in the 
 young man a look of joy and admiration 
 when the girl came home fresh and bright 
 as an ocean nymph. He took supper with 
 her, and between them the two managed 
 to repress the gloom even of the prophetess 
 who sat with them, as cheerful as Cassandra 
 at a Trojan supper. Did ever any one 
 consider how much that good old man 
 King Priam had to put up with 1 
 
 Another time was on a Sunday evening. 
 They went to church together and sang 
 out of the same hymn-book. Captain 
 Zachariasen was in the pew also, and he 
 went to sleep three times, viz., during the 
 first lesson, the second lesson, and the 
 sermon, without counting the prayers, 
 during which he probably dropped off as 
 well. After the service, as the evening 
 was fine and the air warm, they sat awhile 
 in the churchyard, and the young fellow, 
 seated on a tombstone, unconscious of the 
 moral he was illustrating, had a very good 
 
 time indeed talking with Lai. When they 
 were tired of the churchyard they walked 
 away to the bridge over the entrance, to 
 the docks, and leaned over the rail talking 
 still. Lai was quite used to the confidences 
 of her friends, but somehow this one’s 
 confidences were different. He sought no 
 advice, he confessed no love-affair ; he did 
 not begin to look at her as if he was 
 struck silly, and then ask her to marry 
 him — which so many of the Captains had 
 done; he asked her about herself, and 
 seemed eager to know all she would tell 
 him, as if there was anything about herself 
 that so gallant a sailor would care to know, 
 with such stupid particulars about her daily 
 life, and how she never left Rotherhithe 
 at all, and had seen no other place. 
 
 “ What a strange life ! ” he said, after 
 many questions. “ What a dull life ! Are 
 you not tired of it 1 , ” 
 
 “ No,” she answered. “ Why should I 
 be ? Do they not bring a constant change 
 into the house, my Captains 1 I know all 
 their adventures, and I could tell you, oh ! 
 such stories. You should hear Captain 
 Zachariasen when he begins to recollect.” 
 
 “Ay, ay, we can all spin yarns. But 
 never to leave this place !” He paused with 
 a sigh. 
 
 “I am happy,” said Lai. “ Tell me about 
 yourself.” 
 
 It was her turn now, and she began to 
 question him until he told all he had to 
 tell ; but I suppose he kept back . some- 
 thing, as one is told to leave something on 
 the dish, for good manners. But if he did 
 not tell all, it was because he was modest, 
 not because he had things to hide of which 
 he was ashamed. 
 
 He was, he said, the son of a Lincolnshire 
 clergyman, and he was destined to the 
 Church; solemnly set apart, he was., by his 
 parents and consecrated in early infancy. 
 This made his subsequent conduct the 
 more disgraceful, although, as he pleaded, 
 his own consent was not asked nor his 
 inclinations consulted. The road to the 
 Church is grievously beset by wearisome 
 boulders, pits, ditches,, briars, and it may 
 be fallen trunks, which some get over 
 without the least difficulty, whereas to 
 others they are grievous hindrances. These 
 things are an allegory, and I mean books. 
 Now unlucky Rex, a masterful youth in 
 all games, schoolboy feats, fights, freaks, 
 and fanteegs, regarded a book, from his 
 earliest infancy, unless it was a romance of 
 the sea or a story of adventure, with a 
 dislike and suspicion amounting almost to 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 25 
 
 mania. In his recital to Lai, he avoided 
 mention of the many floggings he received, 
 the battles he fought, and the insubordina- 
 tion of which he was guilty, and the count- 
 less lessons which he had not learned. He 
 simply said that he ran away from school 
 and got to Liverpool, where, after swop- 
 ping clothes with a real sailor boy, he got 
 on board a Canadian brig as loblolly boy, 
 and was kicked and cuffed all the way to 
 Quebec and all the way back again. The 
 skipper cuffed him, the mate cuffed him, 
 the cook cuffed him, the crew cuffed him ; 
 he got rough treatment and bad grub. His 
 faculties were stimulated, no doubt, and a 
 good foundation laid for smartness in after 
 life as a sailor. Also, his frame was 
 hardened by the fresh breeze of the Windy 
 Fifties. On his return, he wrote to 
 his father, to say that he was about to 
 return to school. He did return ; was the 
 hero of the school for two months, and 
 then again ran away and tried the sea once 
 more, from Glasgow to New York in a 
 cargo steamer. Finally, his father had to 
 renounce his ambitious schemes, in spite of 
 the early consecration and setting apart, 
 and got him entered as a middy in the 
 service of a great line of steamers. Now, 
 at the age of twenty-two, he was second 
 officer. 
 
 Such was the modesty of the young man 
 that he omitted to state many remarkable 
 facts in his own life, though these redounded 
 greatly to his credit ; nor was it till after- 
 wards that Lai discovered how good .a 
 character he bore for steady seamanship 
 and pluck, how well he stood for promo- 
 tion. Also, he did not tell her that he 
 was the softest-hearted fellow in the world, 
 though his knuckles were so hard ; that he 
 was the easiest; man in the world to lead, 
 although the hardest to drive; that on board 
 he was always ready, when off duty, to act 
 as nursemaid, protector, and playfellow for 
 any number of children ; that he was also 
 at such times as good as a son or a brother 
 to all ladies on board; that on shore he 
 was ever ready to give away all his money 
 to the first who asked for it; that he 
 thought no evil of his neighbour ; that he 
 considered all women as angels, but Lai as 
 an archangel ; and that he was modest, 
 thinking himself a person of the very 
 smallest importance on account of these 
 difficulties over books, and a shameful 
 apostate in the matter of the falling off 
 from the early dedication. 
 
 When a young woman begins to take a 
 real interest in the adventures of a young 
 
 man, and, like Desdemona, to ask questions, 
 she generally lays a solid foundation for 
 much more than mere interest. Dido, though 
 she was no longer in her premiere jeunesse, 
 is a case in point, as well as Desdemona. 
 And every married person recollects the 
 flattering interest taken in each other by 
 fianc^ and fiancee during the early days, 
 the sweet sunshiny days, of their engage- 
 ment. 
 
 That Sunday night, after the talk in the 
 churchyard, they went back to the house, and 
 Rex had supper with the Captains, winning 
 golden opinions by his great and well- 
 sustained powers over cold beef and 
 pickles. After this they smoked pipes 
 and told yarns, and Lai sat among them 
 by the side of Rex, which was a joy to 
 him, though she was sitting on the arm of 
 Captain Zachariasen’s wooden chair, and 
 not his own. 
 
 On another occasion during that happy 
 and never to be forgotten three weeks, 
 Rex carried the girl across the river and 
 showed her his own ship lying in the East 
 India Docks, which, she was fain to confess, 
 are finer than the Commercial Docks. He 
 took her all over the great and splendid 
 vessel, showed her the saloon with its velvet 
 couches, hanging lamps, gilt ornaments, 
 and long tables in the officers’ quarters; 
 and midships, and the sailors’ for’ard ; took 
 her down to the engine-room by a steep 
 ladder of polished iron bars, showed her 
 the bridge, the steering tackle, and the 
 captain’s cabin, in which he lowered his 
 voice from reverence as one does in a church. 
 When she had seen everything, he invited 
 her to return to the saloon, where she 
 found a noble repast spread, and the chief 
 officer, the third mate, the Purser, and the 
 Doctor waiting to be introduced to her. 
 They paid her so much attention and 
 deference ; they said so many kind things 
 about her courage and presence of mind ; 
 they waited on her so jealously, they were 
 so kind to her, that the girl was ashamed. 
 She was so very ignorant, you see, of the 
 power of beauty. Then a bottle of cham- 
 pagne, a drink which Lai had heard of but 
 never seen, was produced, and they, all 
 drank to her health, bowing and smiling, 
 first to her and then to Rex, who blushed 
 and hung his head. Then it appeared that 
 every man had something which he ardently 
 desired her to accept, and when Lai came 
 away Rex had his arms full of pretty Indian 
 things, smelling of sandal-wood, presents 
 to her from his brother officers. This,, she 
 thought, was very kind of them, especially 
 
 B 
 
 r 
 
26 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 
 as they had never seen her before. And 
 then Dick, the officers’ steward, the deaf 
 and dumb Malay whom she had helped to 
 pull out of the water, came and kissed her 
 hand humbly, in token of gratitude. A 
 beautiful and wonderful day. Yet what 
 did the Doctor mean when they came 
 away ? For while the Purser stood at one 
 end of the gangway, and the chief officer 
 at the other, and the third mate in the 
 middle, all to see her safe across, the 
 Doctor, left behind on board, slapped Eex 
 loudly upon the shoulder and laughed, 
 saying : 
 
 “ Dad ! Rex, you’re a lucky fellow ! ” 
 How was he lucky ? she asked him in 
 the boat, and said she should be glad to 
 hear of good luck for him. But he only 
 blushed and made no reply. 
 
 One of the things which she brought 
 home after this visit was a certain grey 
 parrot. He had no particular value as 
 a parrot. There were many more valuable 
 parrots already about the house, alive or 
 stuffed. But this bird had accomplish- 
 ments, and among other things, he knew 
 his master’s name, and would cry, to every- 
 body’s admiration : “ Poor Rex Armiger ! 
 Poor Rex Armiger ! ” 
 
 When Lai graciously accepted this gift, 
 the young man took it as a favourable 
 sign. She had already, he knew, sent 
 away a dozen Captains at least, and he was 
 only second mate. Yet still, when a girl 
 takes such a present she means — she surely 
 means to make some difference. 
 
 Then there was one day more — the last 
 day but one before the ship sailed— the 
 last opportunity that Rex could find 
 before they sailed. He had leave for a 
 whole day ; the lading was completed, the 
 passengers were sending on their boxes 
 and trunks ; the Purser and the stewards 
 were taking in provisions — mountains of 
 provisions, with bleating sheep, milch cows, 
 cocks and hens — for the voyage. 
 
 All was bustle and stir at the Docks, 
 but there was no work for the second 
 officer. He presented himself at Seven 
 Houses at ten o’clock in the morning, 
 without any previous notice, and proposed, 
 if you please, nothing short of a whole day 
 out. A whole day, mind you, from that 
 moment until ten o’clock at night. Never 
 was proposal more revolutionary. 
 
 “All day long?” she cried, her great 
 eyes full of surprise and joy. 
 
 “ All day,” he said, “ if you will trust 
 yourself with me. Where shall we go 1 ” 
 
 “ Where ? ” she repeated. 
 
 I suppose that now and then some 
 echoes reach Rotherhithe of the outer 
 world and its amusements. Presumably 
 there are natives who have seen the 
 Crystal Palace and other places ; here and 
 there might be found one or two who 
 have seen a theatre. Most of them, how- 
 ever, know nothing of any place of amuse- 
 ment whatever. It is a city without any 
 shows. Punch and Judy go not near it ; 
 Cheap Jack passes it by; the wandering 
 feet of circus horses never pass that way; 
 gipsies’ tents have never been seen there ; 
 the boys of Rotherhithe do not even know 
 the travelling caravan with the fire-eater. 
 To conjurors, men with entertainments, 
 and lecturers it is an untrodden field. 
 When Lai name, in a paper, upon the 
 account of festive doings she passed them 
 over, and turned to the condition of the 
 markets in South Africa or Quebec as being 
 a subject more likely to interest the 
 Captains. Out of England th’ere were 
 plenty of things to interest her. She knew 
 something about the whole round world, 
 or, at least, its harbours ; but of London 
 she was ignorant. 
 
 “ Where 1 ” she asked, gasping. 
 
 “ There’s the Crystal Palace and Epping 
 Forest; there’s the National Gallery and 
 Highgate Hill ; there’s the top of St. Paul’s 
 and the Aquarium ; there’s Kew Gardens 
 and the Tower ; there’s South Kensington 
 and Windsor Castle Rex bracketed the 
 places according to some obscure arrange- 
 ment in his own mind — “ lots of places. 
 The only thing is where ? ” 
 
 “ I have seen none of them,” she replied. 
 “ Will you choose for me ? ” 
 
 “ Oh ! ” he groaned. “ Here is a house 
 full of, great hulking skippers, and she 
 works herself to death for them, and not 
 one among them all has ever had the grace 
 to take her to go and see something ! ” 
 “Don’t call them names,” she replied 
 gently ; “ our people never go anywhere, 
 except to Poplar and Limehouse. One 
 of them went one evening to Woolwich 
 Gardens, but he did not like it. He said 
 the manners of the people were forward, 
 and he was cheated out of half-a-crown.” 
 
 “ Then, Lai,” he jumped up and made a 
 reat show of preparing for immediate 
 eparture with his cap ; “ then, Lai, let us 
 waste no more time in talking, but be off 
 at once.” 
 
 “ Oh, I can’t ! ” 
 
 Her face fell, and the tears came into 
 her eyes as she suddenly recollected a 
 reason why she could not go. 
 

 Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [December X, 1881 .] 27 
 
 “ Why can’t you ? ” 
 
 “ Beoause — oh, because of the pudding. 
 
 I can trust her with the potatoes, and she 
 will boil the greens to a turn. But the 
 pudding I always make, and no one else 
 can make it but me.” 
 
 The lady referred to was not her mother, 
 but the assistant — the “ service.” 
 
 “ Can’t they go without pudding for 
 once 'l ” 
 
 Lai shook her head. 
 
 “ They always expect pudding, and 
 they are very particular about the currants. 
 You can’t think what a quantity of currants 
 they want in their pudding.” 
 
 “Do you always give them plum-duff, 
 then 1 ” 
 
 “ Except when they have roly-poly or 
 apple dumplings. Sometimes it is baked 
 plum-duff, sometimes it is boiled, sometimes 
 with sauce, and sometimes with brandy. 
 But I think they would never forgive me 
 if there was no pudding.” 
 
 Rex nodded his head, put on his cap — 
 this conversation took place in the kitchen 
 — and marched resolutely straight into the 
 Captains’ room, where three of them were 
 at that moment sitting in conversation. 
 One was Captain Zachariasen. 
 
 “ Gentlemen,” he said, politely saluting ; 
 “ Lai wants a whole holiday. But she says 
 she can’t take it unless you will kindly go 
 without your pudding to-day.” 
 
 They looked at each other. No one for 
 a time spoke. The gravity of the pro- 
 posal was such that no one liked to take 
 the responsibility of accepting it. A dinner 
 at Rydquist’s without pudding was a thing 
 hitherto unheard of. 
 
 “ Why,” asked Captain Zachariasen 
 severely — “why, if you please, Mr. Armiger, 
 does Lai want a holiday to-day ? And 
 why cannot she be content with a half- 
 holiday 1 Do I ever take a whole day ] ” 
 
 “Because she wants to go somewhere 
 with me,” replied Rex stoutly ; “ and 
 if she doesn’t go to-day she won’t go 
 at all, because we sail the day after to- 
 morrow.” 
 
 “ Under these circumstances, gentlemen,” 
 said Captain Zachariasen, softening, and 
 feeling that he had said enough for the 
 assertion of private rights, “seeing that 
 Lai is, for the most part, an obliging girl, 
 and does her duty with a willing spirit, I 
 think — you are agreed with me, gentle- 
 men ? ” 
 
 The other two nodded their heads, but 
 with some sadness. 
 
 “ Then, sir,” said Captain Zachariasen, 
 
 as if he were addressing his chief officer at 
 high noon, “make it so.” 
 
 “Now,” said Rex, as they passed 
 Rotherhithe parish church, and drew near 
 unto Thames Tunnel Station, “ I’ve made 
 up my mind where to take you to. As for 
 the British Museum, it’s sticks and stones, 
 and South Kensington is painted pots; 
 the National Gallery is saints and sign- 
 boards ; the Crystal Palace is buns, and 
 boards, and ginger-beer, with an organ; 
 the Monument of London is no better 
 than the- crosstrees. Where we will . go, 
 
 Lai — where we will go for our day out is to 
 Hampton Court, and we will have such a 
 day as you shall remember.” 
 
 There had been, as yet, no word of 
 love ; but he called her Lai, and she called 
 him Rex, which is an excellent beginning. 
 
 They did have that day ; they did go to 
 Hampton Court. First they drove in a 
 hansom — Lai thought nothing could be 
 more delightful than this method of 
 conveyance — to Waterloo Station, where 
 they were so lucky as to catch a train 
 going to start in three-quarters of an 
 hour, and by that they went to Hampton 
 Court. 
 
 It was in the early days of the month of 
 June, which in England has two moods. 
 
 One is the dejected, make-yourself-as- 
 miserable-as-you-can mood, when the rain | 
 falls dripping all the day, and the leaves, 
 which have hardly yet fully formed on the 
 trees, begin to get rotten before their time, 
 and think of falling off. That mood, of 
 June is not delightful. The other, which 
 is far preferable, is that in which the 
 month comes with a gracious smile, bearing 
 in her hands lilac, roses, laburnum, her 
 face all glorious with sunshine, soft airs, 
 and warmth. Then the young year springs 
 swiftly into vigorous manhood, with fra- 
 grance and sweet perfumes, and the country 
 hedges are splendid with their wealth of a 
 thousand wild flowers, and the birds sing 
 above their nests. Men grow young again, 
 lapped and wrapped in early summer ; the 
 blood of the oldest is .warmed; their 
 fancies run riot ; they begin to babble of 
 holidays, to talk of walks m country 
 places, of rest on hill-sides, of wanderings, 
 rod in hand, beside the streams, of shady 
 woods, and the wavelets of a tranquil sea ; 
 they feel once more— one must feel it every 
 year again or die— the old simple love for 
 earth, fair mother-earth, generous earth, 
 mother, nurse, and fosterer — as well as | 
 
 grave; they enjoy the sunshine. Sad autumn ; 
 
28 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 is as yet far off, and seems much farther ; 
 they are not yet near unto the days when 
 they shall say, one to the other : 
 
 “Lo ! the evil days are come when we 
 may say, ‘ I have no pleasure in them.’ ” 
 
 The train sped forth from the crowded 
 houses, and presently passed into the fields 
 and woods of Surrey. Rex and Lai were 
 alone in a second-class carriage, and she 
 looked out of the window while he looked 
 at her. And so to Hampton, where the 
 Mole joins the silver Thames, and the 
 palace stands beside the river hank. 
 
 I have always thought that to possess 
 Hampton Court is a rare and precious 
 privilege which Londoners cannot regard 
 with sufficient gratitude, for, with the 
 exception of Fontainebleau, which is too 
 big, there is nothing like it — except, 
 perhaps, in Holland — anywhere. It is 
 delightful to wander in the cool cloisters, 
 about the bare chambers, hung with 
 pictures, and in the great empty hall, 
 where the Queen might dine every day, if 
 she chose, her crown upon her head, with 
 braying of trumpets, scraping of fiddles, 
 and pomp of scarlet retainers. But she does 
 not please. Then one may walk over 
 elastic turf, round beds of flowers, or down 
 long avenues of shady trees, which make 
 one think of William the Third ; or one 
 may even look over a wooden garden gate 
 into what was the garden in the times 
 before Cardinal Wohey found out this old 
 country grange and made it into a palace. 
 Young people — especially young people in 
 love — may also seek the windings of the 
 maze. 
 
 This boy Rex, with the girl who seemed 
 to him the most delightful creature ever 
 formed by a benevolent Providence, enjoyed 
 all these delights, the girl lost in what 
 seemed to her a dream of wonder. Why 
 had she never seen any of these beautiful 
 places ? For the first time in her life, 
 Rotherhithe, and the docks and ships, 
 became small to her. She had never 
 before known the splendour of stately halls, 
 pictures, or great gardens. She felt humi- 
 liated by her strangeness, and to this day, 
 though now she has seen a great many 
 splendid places, she regards Hampton 
 Court as the most wonderful and the most 
 romantic of all buildings ever erected, and 
 I do not think she is far wrong. 
 
 One thing only puzzled her. She had 
 read, somewhere, of the elevating influences 
 of art. This is a great gallery of art. Yet 
 somehow she did not feel elevated at alL 
 Especially did a collection of portraits of 
 
 women, all with drooping eyes, and false 
 smiles, and strange looks, the meaning of 
 which she knew not, make her long to 
 hurry out of the room and into the fair 
 gardens, on whose lawns she could forget 
 these pictures. How could they elevate 
 or improve the people ? Art, you see, 
 only elevates those who understand a little 
 of the technique, and ordinary people go 
 to the picture-galleries for the story told 
 by each picture. This is the reason why 
 the contemplation of a vast number of 
 pictures has hitherto failed to improve our 
 culture or to elevate our standards. But 
 these two, like most visitors, took all for 
 granted, and it must be owned that there 
 are many excellent stories, especially those 
 of the old sea-fight pictures, in the Hampton 
 Court galleries. 
 
 Then they had dinner together in a room 
 whose windows looked right down the 
 long avenue of Bushey, where the chestnuts 
 were in all their glory ; and after dinner 
 Rex took her on the river. It was the 
 same river as that of Rotherhithe. But 
 who would have thought that twenty miles 
 would make so great a change ? No ships, 
 no steamers, no docks, no noise, no shout- 
 ing, no hammering ; and what a difference 
 in the boats ! They drifted slowly down 
 with the silent current. The warm sun of 
 the summer afternoon lay lovingly on the 
 meadows. It was not a Saturday. No 
 one was on the river but themselves. The 
 very swans sat sleepily on the water ; there 
 was a gentle swish and slow murmur of 
 the current along the reeds and grasses of 
 the bank ; crimson and golden leaves hung 
 over the river ; the flowers of the lilies 
 were lying open on the water. 
 
 Lai held the ropes and Rex the sculls ; 
 but he let them lie idle and looked at the 
 fair face before him, while she gazed 
 dreamily about, thinking how she should 
 remember, and by what things, this won- 
 derful day, this beautiful river, this palace, 
 and this gentle rowing in the light skiff. 
 As she looked, the smile faded out of her 
 face and her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 “ Why, Lai ? ” he asked. 
 
 She made no reply for a minute or two, 
 thinking what reason she might truthfully 
 allege for her tears, which had risen 
 unbidden at the touch of some secret 
 chord. 
 
 “I do not know,” she said. “Except 
 that everything is so new and strange, 
 and I am quite happy, and it is all so 
 beautiful.” 
 
 Rex reflected on the superior nature of 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 29 
 
 & 
 
 women who can shed tears as a sign of 
 happiness. 
 
 “I am so happy,” he said, “that I 
 should like to dance and sing, except that 
 I am afraid of capsizing the craft, when to 
 Davy’s locker we should go for want of 
 your dingy, Lai.” 
 
 But they could not stay on the river all 
 the evening. The sun began to descend ; 
 clouds came up from the south-west ; the 
 wind freshened ; a mist arose, and the 
 river became sad and mysterious. 
 
 Then Rex turned the bows and rowed 
 back. 
 
 The girl shuddered as she stepped upon 
 the shore. 
 
 “I shall never forget it,” she said, 
 “never. And now it is all over.” 
 
 “Will you remember, with this day, 
 your companion of the day % ” asked Rex. 
 
 “Yes,” she replied, with the frank and 
 truthful gaze which went straight to the 
 young man’s heart ; “ I shall never forget 
 the day or my companion.” 
 
 They went back to the palace, and while 
 the shadows grew deeper, walked in the 
 old-fashioned garden of King William, 
 beneath its arch of branches, old now and 
 knotty and gnarled. 
 
 Rex was to sail in two days’ time. He 
 would have no other chance. Yet he 
 feared to break the charm. 
 
 “We must go,” he said. “Yes, it is all 
 over.” He heaved a mighty sigh. “ What 
 a day we have had. And now it is gone, 
 it is growing dark, and we must go. And 
 this is the last time I shall see you, Lai.” 
 
 “ Yes,” she murmured, “ the last time.” 
 Years afterwards she remembered those 
 words and the thought of ill omens and 
 what they may mean. 
 
 “The last time,” she repeated. 
 
 “ I suppose you know, Lai, that I love 
 you % ” said Rex quite simply. “ You must 
 know that. But, of course, everybody 
 loves you.” 
 
 “ Oh 1 ” she laid her hand upon his arm. 
 “ Are you sure, quite sure that you love 
 me % You might be mistaken, Rex.” 
 
 “ Sure, Lai \ ” 
 
 “ Can you really love me ? ” 
 
 “ My darling, have not other men told 
 you the same thing % Have you not 
 listened and sent them away ? Do not 
 send me away, too, Lai.” 
 
 “ They said they Oh, it was non- 
 
 sense. They could not really have loved me, 
 because I did not love them at all.” 
 
 “ And — and — me 1 ” asked Rex with 
 fine disregard of grammar. 
 
 “ Oh, no, Rex. I do not want to send 
 you away — not if you really love me ; and, 
 Rex, Rex, you have kissed me enough,” 
 
 They could not go away quite then ; 
 they stayed there till they were found by 
 the custodian of the vine, who ignomi- 
 niously led them to the palace-gates and 
 dismissed them with severity. Then Rex 
 must needs have supper, in order to keep 
 his sweetheart with him a little longer. 
 And it was not till the ten o’clock train 
 that they returned to town, Lai quiet and 
 a little tearful, her hand in her lover’s; 
 Rex full of hope, and faith, and charity, 
 and as happy as if he were, indeed, 
 rex orbis totius, the king of the whole 
 world. 
 
 At half -past eleven he brought, her 
 home. It was very late for Rotherhithe ; 
 the Captains were mostly in bed by ten, 
 and all the lights out, but to-night Mrs. 
 Rydquist sat waiting for her daughter. 
 
 “ Mrs. Rydquist,” said the young man, 
 beaming like a sun-god between the pair 
 of candles over which the good lady sat 
 reading, “ she has promised to be my wife 
 — Lai is going to marry me. The -day after 
 to-morrow we drop down the river, but I 
 shall be home again soon — home again. 
 Come, Lai, my darling, my sweet,, my 
 queen,” he took her in his arms and kissed 
 her again — this shameless young sailor — 
 
 “ and as soon as I get my ship — why — 
 why — why— — ” he kissed her once more, 
 pud yet once more. 
 
 “i wish you, young man,” said Lai’s 
 mother in funereal tones, “ a better fate 
 than has befallen all the men who fell in 
 love with us. I have already given you 
 my most solemn warning. You rush upon 
 your fate, but I wash my hands of it. My 
 mother’s lost husband, and my husband, 
 lie dead at the bottom of the sea. Also 
 two of my first cousins’ husbands, and a 
 second cousin’s once - removed husband. 
 We are an unlucky family ; but, perhaps, 
 my daughter’s husband may be more 
 fortunate.” . ‘ 
 
 “Oh, mother,” cried poor Lai, “dont 
 make us down-hearted ! ” 
 
 “ I said, my dear,” she replied, folding 
 her hands with a kind of resignation to 
 the inevitable, “ I said that I hope he may 
 be more fortunate. I cannot say more ; if 
 I could say more I would say it. If. I 
 think he may not be more fortunate I will 
 not say it; nor will I give you pain, 
 Mr. Armiger, by prophesying that you will 
 add to our list.” 
 
 “ Never mind,” said Rex ; “we sailors 
 
THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 cA 
 
 30 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 : fe 
 
 are mostly as safe at sea as the land- 
 lubbers on shore, only people won’t think 
 so. Heart up, Lai ! heart up, my sweet ! 
 Come outside and say good-bye.” 
 
 “ Look ! ” said Mrs. Rydquist, pointing 
 cheerfully to the candlestick when her 
 daughter returned with tears in her eyes 
 and Rex’s last kiss burning on her lips ; 
 “there is a winding-sheet, my dear, in the 
 candle. To-night a coffin popped out of 
 the kitchen-fire. I took it up in hopes it 
 might have been a purse. No, my dear, a 
 coffin. Captain Zachariasen crossed knives 
 at dinner to-day. I have had shudders all 
 the evening, which is as sure a sign of 
 graves as any I know. Before you came 
 home the furniture cracked three times. 
 No doubt, my dear, these warnings are for 
 me, who am a poor weak creature, and 
 ready, and willing, and hopeful, I am 
 sure, to be called away'; or for Captain 
 Zachariasen, who is, to be sure, a great 
 age, and should expect his call every day 
 instead of going on with his talk, and his 
 rum, and his pipe as if he was forgotten ; 
 o.r for any one of the Captains, afloat or 
 ashore ; these signs, my dear, may be meant 
 for anybody, and I would not be so pre- 
 sumptuous in a house full of sailors as to 
 name the man for whom they have come ; 
 but, if I read signs right, then they mean 
 that young man. And oh ! my poor 
 
 girl ” she clasped her hands as if now, 
 
 indeed, there could be no hope. 
 
 “ What is it, mother ? ” 
 
 “My dear, it is a Friday, of all the 
 days in the week !” 
 
 She rose, took a candle, and went to bed 
 with her handkerchief to her eyes. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. OVERDUE AND POSTED. 
 
 This day of days, this queen of all days, 
 too swiftly sped over the first and last of 
 the young sailor’s wooing. Lai’s sweet- 
 heart was lost to her almost as soon as 
 he was found. But he left her so happy 
 in spite of her mother’s gloomy forebodings, 
 that she wondered, not knowing that all 
 the past years had been nothing but a long 
 preparation for the time of love, how 
 could she ever have been happy before? 
 And she was only eighteen, and her lover 
 as handsome as Apollo, and as well- 
 mannered. Next morning at about twelve 
 o’clock she jumped into her boat and 
 rowed out upon the river to see the 
 Aryan start upon her voyage. The tide 
 was on the turn and the river full when the 
 great steamer came out of dock and slowly 
 made her way upon the crowded water 
 
 a miracle of human skill, a great and wonder- 
 ful living thing which though even a clumsy 
 lighter might sink and destroy it, yet could 
 live through the wildest storm ever known 
 in the Sea of Cyclones, through which she 
 was to sail. As the Aryan passed the little 
 boat Lai saw her lover. He had sprung 
 upon the bulwark and was waving his hat 
 in farewell. Oh, gallant Rex, so brave, 
 and so loving ! To think that this glorious 
 creature, this god-like man, this young 
 prince among sailors, should fall in love 
 with her ! And then the Doctor, and the 
 Purser, and the chief officers, and even the 
 Captain, came to the side and took off their 
 caps to her, and some of the passengers, 
 informed by the Doctor who she was, and 
 how brave she was, waved their hands and 
 cheered. 
 
 Then the ship forged ahead and in a few 
 moments Rex jumped down with a final 
 kiss of his fingers. The screw turned 
 more quickly ; the ship forged ahead ; Lai 
 lay to in mid-stream, careless what might 
 run into her, gazing after her with strain- 
 ing eyes. When she had rounded the 
 point and was lost to view, the girl, for 
 the first time in her life since she was a 
 child, burst into tears and sobbing. 
 
 It was but a shower. Lai belonged to 
 a sailor family. Was she to weep and go 
 in sadness because her lover was away 
 doing his duty upon the blue water ? Not 
 so. She shook her head, dried her eyes, 
 and rowed homewards, grave yet cheerful. 
 
 “Is his ship gone?” asked her mother. 
 “ Well, he is a fine lad to look at, Lai, and 
 if he is as true as he is strong and well- 
 favoured, I could wish you nothing better. 
 Let us forget the signs and warnings, my 
 dear,” this was kindly meant, but had an 
 unpleasant and gruesome sound, “ and let 
 us hope that he will come back again. 
 Indeed, I do not see any reason why he 
 should not come back more than once.” 
 
 Everything went on, then, as if nothing 
 had happened. What a strange thing it is 
 that people can go on as if nothing had 
 happened, after the most tremendous 
 events ! Life so changed for her, yet 
 Captain Zachariasen taking up the thread 
 of her discourse just as before, and the 
 same interest expected to be shown in the 
 timber trade ! Yet what a very different 
 thing is interest in timber trade compared 
 with interest in a man ! Then she dis- 
 covered with some surprise that her old 
 admiration of Captains as a class, had been 
 a good deal modified during the last three 
 weeks. There were persons in the world, 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1 , 1881 .] 31 
 
 it was now quite certain, . of culture 
 superior even to that of a skipper in the 
 Canadian trade. And she clearly dis- 
 covered, for the first time, that a whole 
 life devoted to making Captains comfort- 
 able, providing them with pudding, looking 
 after their linen, and hearing their confi- 
 dences, might, without the gracious in- 
 fluences of love, become a very arid and 
 barren kind of life. Perhaps, also, the 
 recollection of that holiday at Hampton 
 Court helped to modify her views on the 
 subject of Rotherhithe and its people. The 
 place was only, after all, a small part of a 
 great city ; the people were, humble. One 
 may discover as much certainly about one s 
 own people without becoming ashamed of 
 them. It is only when one reaches a grade 
 higher in the social scale that folk become 
 ashamed of themselves. An assured posi- 
 tion in the world, as the chimney-sweep 
 remarked, gives one confidence. Lai 
 plainly saw that her sweetheart was of 
 gentler birth and better breeding than she 
 had been accustomed to. She therefore 
 resolved to do her best never to make him 
 on that account repent his choice, and 
 there was an abundance of fine sympathy, 
 the assumption or pretence of which is 
 the foundation of good manners, in this 
 girl’s character. 
 
 It was an intelligent parrot which Rex 
 had given her, and at this juncture proved 
 a remarkably sympathetic creature, for at 
 sight of his mistress he would shake his 
 head, plume his wings, and presently, as if 
 necessary to console her, would cry : 
 
 “ Poor Rex Armiger ! Poor Rex 
 Armiger l ” 
 
 But she was never dull, nor did she 
 betray to any one, least of all to her 
 old friend Captain Zachariasen, that her 
 manner of regarding things had in the 
 least degree changed, while the secret joy 
 that was in her heart showed itself in a 
 thousand merry ways, with songs and 
 laughter, and little jokes with her Captains, 
 so that they marvelled that the existence 
 of a sweetheart at sea should produce so 
 beneficial an effect upon maidens. Perhaps, 
 too, in some mysterious way, her happiness 
 affected the puddings. . I say not this at 
 random, because certainly the fame of 
 Rydquist’s as a house where comforts, else- 
 where unknown, and at Limehouse and 
 Poplar quite unsuspected, could be found, 
 spread far and wide, even to Deptford on 
 the east, and Stepney on the north, and 
 the house might have been full over and 
 over again, but they would take in no 
 
 strangers, being in this respect as exclusive 
 as Boodle’s. 
 
 This attitude of cheerfulness was greatly 
 commended by Captain Zachariasen. 
 “Some girls,” he said, “would have let 
 their thoughts run upon their lover instead 
 of their duty, whereby houses are brought 
 to ruin and Captains seek comfort elsewhere. 
 Once the sweetheart is gone, he ought 
 never more to be thought upon till he 
 comes home again, save in bed or in 
 church, while there is an egg to be boiled 
 or an onion to be peeled.” 
 
 The first letter which Rex sent her was 
 the first that Lai had ever received in all 
 her life. And such a letter ! It came 
 from the Suez Canal ; the next came from 
 Aden ; the next from Point de Galle ; the 
 next from Calcutta. So far all was well. 
 
 Be sure that Lai read them over and over 
 again, every one, and carried them about in 
 her bosom, and knew them all word for 
 word, and was, after the way of a good and 
 honest girl, touched- to the very heart that 
 a man should love her so very, very much, 
 and should think so highly of her, and 
 should talk as if she was all goodness— _a 
 thing which no woman can understand. 
 
 It makes silly girls despise men, and good 
 girls respect and fear them. 
 
 The next letter was much more im- 
 portant than the first four, which were, 
 in truth, mere rhapsodies of passion, 
 although on that very account more 
 interesting than letters which combine 
 matter-of-fact business with love, for, on 
 arriving at Calcutta, Rex found a proposal 
 waiting for his acceptance. This offer 
 came from the Directors of the Company 
 and showed in what good esteem he was 
 held, being nothing less than the command 
 of one of their smaller steamers, engaged 
 in what is called the country trade. 
 
 “ It will separate us for three years at 
 least,” he wrote, “and perhaps for five, 
 but I cannot afford to refuse the chance. 
 Perhaps, if I did, I might never get another 
 offer, and everybody is congratulating me, 
 and thinking me extremely fortunate to 
 get a ship so early. ^ So, though it 
 keeps me from the girl ol my heart, I have 
 accepted, and I sail at once.. My ship is 
 named the Philippine. She is a thousand- 
 ton boat, and classed 100 Al, newly 
 built. She is not like the Aryan, fitted 
 with splendid mirrors, and gold, and pamt, 
 and a great saloon, being built chiefly for 
 cargo. The crew are all Lascars, and I am 
 I the only Englishman aboard except the 
 > mate and the chief engineer. We are 
 
32 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 under orders to take in rice from Hong- 
 Kong ; bound for Brisbane, first of all ; if 
 that answers we shall continue in the 
 country grain trade; if not, we shall, I 
 suppose, go seeking, when I shall have a 
 commission on the cargo. As for pay, I 
 am to have twenty pounds a month, with 
 rations and allowances, and liberty to trade 
 — so many tons every voyage — if I like. 
 These are good terms, and at the end of 
 every year there should be something put 
 by in the locker. Poor Lai ! Oh, my dear 
 sweet eyes ! Oh, my dear brown hair ! Oh, 
 my dear sweet lips ! I shall not kiss them 
 for three years more. What are three 
 years ? Soon gone, my pretty. Think of 
 that, and heart up ! As soon as I can I 
 will try for a Port of London ship. Then 
 we will be married and have a house at 
 Gravesend, where you shall see me come 
 up stream, homeward bound.” With much 
 more to the same effect. 
 
 Three years — or it might be five ! Lai 
 put down the letter, and tried to make out 
 what it would mean to her. She would 
 be in three years, when Rex came home, 
 one-and-twenty, and he would be five-and- 
 twenty. Five-and-twenty seems to eighteen 
 what forty seems to thirty, fifty to forty, 
 and sixty to fifty. One has a feeling that 
 the ascent of life must then be quite ac- 
 complished, and the descent* fairly begun; 
 the leaves on the trees by the wayside must 
 be ever so little browned and dusty, if not 
 yellow ; the heart must be full of expe- 
 rience, the head must be full of wisdom, the 
 crown of glory, if any is to be worn at all, 
 already on the brows. The ascent of life 
 is like the climbing of some steep hill, 
 because the summit seems continually to 
 recede, and so long as one is young in 
 heart it is never reached. Rex five-and- 
 twenty ! Three years to wait ! 
 
 Is It is, indeed, a long time for the young to 
 look forward to. Such a quantity of things 
 get accomplished in three years ! Why, in 
 three years a lad gets through his whole un- 
 dergraduate course, and makes a spoon or 
 spoils a horn. Three years makes up one 
 hundred and fifty-six weeks, with the same 
 number of Sundays, in every one of which a 
 girl may sit in the quiet church, and wonder 
 on what wild seas or in what peaceful haven 
 her lover may be floating. Three years 
 are four summers in the course of three 
 years, with as many other seasons ; in 
 three years there is time for many a hope 
 to spring up, flourish for a while, and die ; 
 for friendship to turn into hate ; for 
 strength to decay ; and for youth to grow 
 
 old. The experience of the long succession 
 of human generations has developed this 
 sad thing among mankind that we cannot 
 look forward with joy to the coming 
 years, and in everything unknown which 
 will happen to us we expect a thing of evil. 
 Three years ! Yet it must be borne, as 
 the lady said to the school-boy concerning 
 the fat beef, “ It is helped, and must be 
 finished.” 
 
 When Mrs. Rydquist heard the news 
 she first held up her hands, and spread 
 them slowly outwards, shaking and wagging 
 her head — a most dreadful sign, worse than 
 any of those with which Panurge discom- 
 fited Thaumast. Then she sighed heavily. 
 Then she said aloud : “ Oh ! dear, dear, 
 dear ! So soon ! I had begun to hope 
 that the bad luck would not show yet ! 
 Dear, dear ! Yet what could be expected 
 after such certain signs 'l ” 
 
 “ Why,” said Captain Zachariasen, “ as 
 for signs, they may mean anything or any- 
 body, and as for fixing them on Cap’en 
 Armiger, no reason that I can see. Don’t 
 be downed, Lai. The narrow seas are as 
 safe as the Mediterranean. In my time 
 there were the pirates, who are now shot, 
 hanged, and drowned, every man Jack. 
 No more stinkpots in crawling boats pre- 
 tending to be friendly traders. You might 
 row your dingy about the islands as safe as 
 Lime’us Reach. Lord ! I’d rather go cruis- 
 ing with your sweetheart in them waters 
 than take a twopenny omnibus along the 
 Old Kent Road. Your signs, ma’am,” he 
 said to Mrs. Rydquist politely, “ must be 
 read other ways. There’s Cap’en Biddi- 
 man ; perhaps they’re meant for him.” 
 
 Then came another letter from Singa- 
 pore. Rex was pleased with the ship and 
 his crew. All was going well. 
 
 After six weeks there came another 
 letter. It was from Hong-Kong. -The 
 Philippine had taken on board her cargo 
 of rice, and was to sail next day. 
 
 Rex wrote in his usual confident, happy 
 vein — full of love, of hope, and happiness. 
 
 After that— no more letters at all. 
 Silence. 
 
 Lai went on in cheerfulness for a long 
 time. Rex could not write from Brisbane. 
 He would write when the ship got back to 
 Hong-Kong. 
 
 The weeks went on, but still there was 
 silence. It was whispered in the Captains’ 
 room that the Philippine was long over- 
 due at Moreton Bay. Then the wdiispers 
 became questions whether there was any 
 news of her : then one went across to the 
 
1. ■ — - - " - 11 "—Xn 
 
 Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM. tDeeember 1, 1881.] 33 
 
 office of the Company, and brought back 
 the dreadful news that the owners had 
 given her up ; and they began to hide 
 away the “ Shipping and Mercantile 
 Gazette.” Then everybody became ex- 
 tremely kind to Lai, studying little sur- 
 prises for her, and assuming an appearance 
 of light-heartedness so as to deceive the 
 poor girl. She went about with cheerful 
 face, albeit with sinking heart. Ships are 
 often overdue ; letters get lost on the way ; 
 for a while she still carolled and sang 
 about her work, though at times her song 
 would suddenly stop like the song of a 
 bullfinch, who remembers something, and 
 must needs stay his singing while he thinks 
 about it. 
 
 Then there came a time when the poor 
 child stopped singing altogether, and would 
 look with anxious eyes from one Captain 
 to the other, seeking comfort. But no 
 one had any comfort to give her. 
 
 Captain Zachariasen told her at last. 
 He was an old man ; he had seen so many 
 shipwrecks that they thought he would tell 
 her best; also it was considered his duty, 
 as the father or the oldest inhabitant of 
 Bydquist’s, to undertake this task ; and as 
 a wise and discreet person he would tell 
 the story, as it should be told, in few 
 words, and so get it over without beatings 
 on and off. He accepted the duty, and 
 discharged himself of it as soon as he 
 could. He told her the story, in fact, the 
 next morning in the kitchen. 
 
 He said quietly : 
 
 “ Lai, my dear, the Philippine has gone 
 to the bottom, and — and don’t take on, 
 my pretty. But Cap’en Armiger he is 
 gone, too ; with all hands he went 
 down.’ 
 
 “ How da you know 1 ” she asked. The 
 news was sudden, but she had felt it 
 coming ; that isj she had felt some of it - 
 not all. 
 
 “ The insurances have been all paid up ; 
 the ship is posted at Lloyd’s. My dear, I 
 went to the underwriters a month ago and 
 more, and axed about her. Axed what 
 they would underwrite her for, and they 
 said a hundred per cent. ; and then they 
 wouldn’t do it. Hot a atom of hope - 
 gone she is, and that young fellow aboard 
 her. Well, my dear, that's done with. 
 Shall I leave you here alone to get through 
 a spell o’ crying % ” 
 
 “ The ship,” said Lai, with dry eyes, 
 “ may be at the bottom of the sea, and 
 the insurances may be paid for her. But 
 Bex is not drowned.” 
 
 That was what she said : “ Bex is not 
 drowned.” 
 
 Her mother brought out her cherished 
 crape — she was a woman whom this nasty 
 crinkling black stuff comforted in a way 
 and offered to divide it with her daughter. 
 
 Lai refused ; she bought herself gay 
 ribbons, and she decked herself with them. 
 She tried, in order to show the strength 
 of her faith, to sing about the house. 
 
 “Bex,” she said stoutly, “is not 
 drowned.” 
 
 This was a most unexpected way of 
 receiving the news. The Captains looked 
 for a burst of tears and lamentation, after 
 which things would brighten up, and some 
 other fellow might have a chance. Ho 
 tears at all ! Ho chance for anybody 
 else ! 
 
 “Bibbons!” moaned Mrs. Bydquist. 
 “Oh, Captain Zachariasen, my daughter 
 wears ribbons — blue ribbons and red 
 ribbons — while her sweetheart, lying at 
 the bottom of the sea, cries aloud, poor 
 lad, for a single yard of crape ! ” 
 
 “ ’T would be more natural,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen, “ to cry and adone with it. 
 But gals, ma’am, are not what gals was in 
 my young days, when so many were there 
 as was taken off by wars, privateers, 
 storms, and the hand of the Lord, that there 
 was no time to* cry over them, not for more 
 than a month or so. And as for flying in 
 the face of Providence, and saying that a 
 drownded man is not drownded — a man 
 whose ship’s insurances have been paid, 
 
 1 and his ship actually posted at Lloyd’s — 
 
 I why it’s beyond anything.” 
 
 “ Bex is not dead,” said the girl to her- 
 | self again and again. “ He is not dead. 
 
 I I should know if he were dead. He would, 
 somehow or other, come and tell me. He 
 is sitting somewhere — I know not where 
 it is — waiting for deliverance, and think- 
 ing— oh, my Bex! my Bex !— thinking 
 about the girl he loves.” 
 
 This was what she said ; her words 
 were brave, yet it is hard to keep one s 
 faith up to so high a level as these words 
 demanded. For no one else thought there 
 was, or could be, any chance. For nearl} 
 three years she struggled to keep alive 
 this poor ray of hope, based upon nothing 
 at all ; and for all that time no news came 
 from the far East about her lover’s ship, 
 nor did any one know where she was cast 
 , away or how. 
 
 Sometimes this faith would break down, 
 
 ■ and she would ask in tears and with sob- 
 bings what so many women bereft of their 
 
34 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 lovers have asked in vain — an answer to 
 her prayers. Ah ! helpless ones if her 
 prayers were mockeries, and her lover were 
 dead in very truth ! 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE PATIENCE OF PENELOPE. 
 
 The longer Ulysses stayed away from 
 the rocky Ithaca, the more numerous 
 became the suitors for the hand of the 
 lovely Penelope who possessed the art 
 revived much later by Ninon de TEnclos 
 of remaining beautiful although she grew 
 old. That was because Penelope wickedly 
 encouraged her lovers — to their destruction 
 — and held out false hopes connected with 
 a simple bit of embroidery. Why the 
 foolish fellows, whose wits should have 
 been sharpened by the vehemence of their 
 passion, did not discover the trick, is not 
 apparent. Perhaps, however, the climate 
 of Ithaca was bracing, and the wine good, 
 so that they winked one upon the other, 
 and pretended not to see, or whispered : 
 “ He will never come, let us wait.” 
 
 The contrary proved the case with the 
 lass of Rotherhithe. When, after two 
 years or so, some of her old suitors 
 ventured with as much delicacy as in them 
 lay to reopen the subject of courtship, they 
 were met with a reception so unmistakable, 
 that they immediately retired, baffled, and 
 in confusion ; some among them — those 
 of coarser mind — to scoff and sneer at a 
 constancy so unusual. Others- — those of 
 greater sympathies — to reflect with all 
 humility on the great superiority of the 
 feminine nature over their own, since it 
 permitted a fidelity which they could not 
 contemplate as possible for themselves, and 
 were fain to admire while they regretted it. 
 
 Gradually it became evident to most of 
 them that the case was hopeless, and those 
 Captains who had once looked confidently 
 to making Lai their own, returned to 
 their former habits of friendly communi- 
 cations, and asked her advice and opinion 
 in the matter of honourable proposals for 
 the hands of other young ladies. 
 
 Three suitors still remained, and, each 
 in his own way, refused to be sent away. 
 
 The first of these was Captain Holstius, 
 whose acquaintance we have already made. 
 He was, of course, in the Norway trade. 
 
 Perhaps it is not altogether fair to call 
 Captain Holstius a suitor. He was a 
 lover, but he had ceased to hope for any. 
 thing except permission to go on in a 
 friendly way, doing such offices as lay in 
 his power, to please and help the girl 
 whom he regarded — being a simple sort of 
 
 fellow of a religious turn — as Dante regarded 
 Beatrice. She was to him a mere angel 
 of beauty and goodness ; in happier times 
 she had been that rare and wonderful 
 creature, a merry, laughing, happy angel, 
 always occupied in good works, such as 
 making plum-duff for poor humanity ; 
 now, unhappily, an angel who endured 
 suspense and the agony of long waiting 
 for news which would never come. 
 
 For the good Norwegian, like all the 
 rest, believed that Rex was dead long ago. 
 Captain Holstius was not a man accustomed 
 to put his thoughts into words; nor did 
 he, like a good many people, feel for 
 thoughts through a multitude of phrases 
 and thousands of words. But had he been 
 able to set forth in plain language the 
 things he intended and meant, he would 
 certainly have said something to this 
 effect. I think he would have said it more 
 simply, and therefore with the greater 
 force. 
 
 “ If I could make her forget him : if I 
 could substitute my own image entirely for 
 the image of that dead man, so that she 
 should be happy, just as she used to .be 
 when I first saw her, and if all could be 
 as if he had never known her, I should think 
 myself in heaven itself ; or if by taking 
 another man to husband, and not me at 
 all, she would recover her happiness, I 
 should be contented, for I love her so 
 much that all I ask is for her to be 
 happy.” 
 
 It is a form of disinterested love which 
 is so rare that at this moment I cannot 
 remember any other single instance of it. 
 Most people, when they love a girl, 
 vehemently desire to keep her for them- 
 selves. Yet in the case of Captain Hol- 
 stius, as for marrying her, that seemed a 
 thing so remote from the region of prob- 
 ability, that he never now, whatever he 
 had done formerly, allowed his thoughts 
 to rest upon it, and contented himself with 
 thinking what he could do for the girl ; 
 how he could soften the bitterness of her 
 misfortune ; how he could in small ways 
 relieve the burden of her life, and make 
 her a little happier. 
 
 Lai accepted all he gave, all his devotion 
 and care. Little by little, because she saw 
 Captain Holstius often, it became a pleasure 
 to her to have him in the house. He 
 became a sort of brother to her, who had 
 never had that often unsatisfactory relative 
 a brother, or, at all events, a true and 
 unselfish friend, much better than the 
 majority of brothers, who gave her every- 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 35 
 
 thing and asked nothing for himself. She 
 liked to be with him. They walked together 
 about the wharves of the Commercial 
 Docks in the quiet evenings ; they rowed 
 out together on the river in the little 
 dingy, she sitting in the stern gazing upon 
 the waters in silent thought, while the Nor- 
 wegian dipped the sculls gently, looking 
 with an ever-increasing sorrow in the face 
 which had once been so full of sunshine, 
 and now grew daily more overcast with 
 cloud. They spoke little at such times to 
 each other, or at any time ; but it seemed 
 to her that she thought best, most hope- 
 fully, about Rex when she was with 
 Captain Holstius. He was always a silent 
 man, thinking that when he had a. thing 
 to say there would be no difficulty in say- 
 ing it, and that if anyone had a thing to 
 say unto him they could say it without any 
 stimulus of talk from himself. Further, in 
 the case of this poor Lai, what earthly good 
 would it do to interrupt the girl in her 
 meditations over a dead lover, by his idle 
 chatter 1 ? 
 
 When they got home again she would 
 thank him gently and return to her house- 
 hold duties, refreshed in spirit by this 
 companionship in silence. . 
 
 It is a maxim not sufficiently understood 
 that the most refreshing thing in the world, 
 when one is tired and sorry, disappointed 
 or vexed, is to sit, walk, or remain for 
 awhile silent with a silent friend whom you 
 can trust not to chatter, or ask questions, 
 or tease with idle observations. Pythagoras 
 taught the same great truth, but obscurely 
 and by an allegory. He enjoined silence 
 among all his disciples for a term of years. 
 This meant a companionship of silence, so 
 as to forget the old friction and worry of 
 the world. 
 
 The Norway ships come and go at 
 quickly-recurring periods. Therefore Cap- 
 tain Holstius was much at the Commercial 
 Docks, and had greater chances, if he 
 had been the man to take advantage of 
 them, than any of the other men. . He 
 was also favoured with the good opinion 
 and the advocacy of Captain Zachariasen, 
 who lost no opportunity of recommending 
 Lai to consider her ways and at the same 
 time the ways of the Norweegee. His 
 admonition, we have seen, produced no 
 effect. Nor did Holstius ask for his 
 mediation any longer, being satisfied that 
 he had got from the girl all the friendship 
 which she had to offer. 
 
 The other two suitors, who would not 
 be denied, but returned continually, were 
 
 of coarser mould. They belonged to the 
 very extensive class of men who, because 
 they desire a thing vehemently, think 
 themselves ill-used if they do not get it, 
 fly into rages, accuse Providence, curse the 
 hour of their birth, and go distraught. 
 Sometimes, as in the case of the young 
 Frenchman whose story is treated by Robert 
 Browning, they throw themselves into the 
 Seine, and so an end, because the joys of 
 this world are denied to the poor. At 
 other times they go about glaring with 
 envious and malignant eyes. At all times 
 they are the enemies of honest Christian 
 folk. 
 
 One of these men was Captain Nicolas 
 Borlinder, whose ship sailed to and fro 
 from Calais to the port of London, carry- 
 ing casks of sherry for the thirsty British 
 aristocracy. It is not a highly-paid service, 
 and culture of the best kind is not often 
 found among the Captains in that trade. 
 Yet Nick Borlinder was a happy man, 
 because his standard was of a kind easily 
 attainable. Like his friends of the same 
 service, he loved beer, rum, and tobacco ; 
 like them he loved these things in large 
 quantities ; like them he delighted to sit 
 and tell yarns. He could also sing a good 
 song in a coarse baritone ; he could dance 
 a hornpipe — only among brother Captains, 
 of course — as well as any fo’k’sle hand ; 
 and he had the reputation of being a smart 
 sailor. This reputation, however, belonged 
 to all. 
 
 It was an unlucky day for Lai when this 
 man was allowed a right of entry to 
 Rydquist’s. For he immediately fell in 
 love with her and resolved to make her his 
 own — Mrs. Borlinder — which would have 
 been fine promotion for her. 
 
 He was a red-faced jolly-looking man of 
 five-and-thirty, or thereabouts. He had a 
 bluff and hearty way ashore ; aboard ship 
 he was handy with a marlinspike, a rope’s- 
 end, a fist, a kick, or a round stimulating 
 oath, or anything else strong and rough 
 and good for knocking down the mutinous 
 or quickening the indolent. Behind his 
 hearty manner there lay — one can hardly 
 say concealed — a nature of the most pro- 
 found selfishness ; and it might have been 
 remarked, had any of the Captains been 
 students of human nature, which is not a 
 possible study, save on a very limited 
 scale, for sailors, that among them all Nick 
 Borlinder was about the only one who had 
 no friends. 
 
 He came and went. When he appeared 
 no one rejoiced; while he stayed he sang 
 
 tf 
 
36 [December 1 , 1881 .] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ EOOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 
 ■5bi 
 
 and laughed and told yarns ; when he 
 went away nobody cared. 
 
 Now, a skipper can go on very well as a 
 bachelor up to the age of thirty-five or 
 even forty. He is supported by the dignity 
 and authority of his position; he is sus- 
 tained by a sense of his responsibilities; 
 perhaps, also, he still looks forward to 
 another fling in port, for youthful follies 
 are cherished and linger long in the breasts 
 of sailors, and are sometimes dear even to 
 the gravity of the Captain. When a man 
 reaches somewhere about thirty-five years 
 of age, however, there generally comes 
 to him a sense of loneliness. It seems 
 hard that there should be no one glad to 
 see him when he puts into port ; visions 
 arise of a cottage with green palings 
 and scarlet-runners, and, in most cases, 
 that man is doomed when those visions 
 arise. 
 
 Captain Borlinder was thirty-one or so 
 when he first saw Lai. She was in her 
 housekeeper’s room making up accounts, 
 and he brought her a letter from a “Eyd- 
 quist’s man,” introducing him and request- 
 ing for him admission. She read the 
 letter, asked him what his ship was, and 
 where she traded, and showed him a room 
 in her girlish business-like manner. This 
 was in the year eighteen hundred and 
 seventy-six, shortly before she met Eex 
 Armiger. 
 
 Captain Borlinder instantly, in her own 
 room, at the very first interview, fell in 
 love with her, and, like many men of his 
 class, concluded that she was equally ready 
 to fall in love with him. 
 
 All the next voyage out he thought 
 about her. His experience of women was 
 small, and of such a woman as Lai 
 Eydquist, such a dainty maiden, he had no 
 experience at all, because he had never 
 known any such, or even distantly resem- 
 bling her. The talk of such a girl, who 
 could be friendly and laugh with a roomful 
 of Captains, and yet not one of them would 
 dare so much as to chuck her under the 
 chin — a delicate attention he had always 
 heretofore allowed himself to consider 
 proper — was a thing he had never before 
 experienced. Then her figure, her face, 
 her quickness, her cleverness — all these 
 things excited his admiration and his 
 envy. Should he allow such a treasure to 
 be won by another man 1 
 
 Then he thought of her business capacity 
 and that snug and comfortable business at 
 Eydquist’s. What a retreat, what a 
 charming retreat for himself, after his 
 
 twenty years of bucketing about the sea ! 
 He pictured himself a partner in that 
 business — sleeping partner, smoking part- 
 ner, drinking partner, the partner told off 
 to narrate the yarns and shove the bottle 
 round. What a place for a bluff, hearty, 
 genuine old salt ! How richly had he 
 deserved it ! 
 
 He resolved, during that voyage, upon 
 making Lai Eydquist his own as soon as 
 he returned. They met with nasty weather 
 in the Bay, and a night or two on deck, 
 which he had always previously regarded 
 as part of his profession, and all in the 
 day’s work, became a peg for discontent 
 as he thought of the snug lying he might 
 have beside — not in — the churchyard in 
 the Seven Houses. 
 
 The more he thought of the thing the 
 more clearly he saw, in his own mind, its 
 manifest advantages. And then, because 
 the seclusion of the cabin and the solitude 
 of the Captain’s position afford unrivalled 
 opportunities for reflection, he began to 
 build up a castle of Spain, and pictured to 
 himself how he would reign as king-consort 
 of Eydquist’s. 
 
 “ The old woman,” he said, “ shall be 
 the first to go. No useless hands allowed 
 aboard that craft. Her room shall be 
 mine, where I will receive my own friends 
 and count the money. As for old Zacha- 
 riasen, he may go too, if he likes. We 
 shall get more by a succession of Captains 
 than by feeding him all the year round. 
 And as for the feeding, it’s too good for the 
 money ; they don’t want such good grub. 
 And the charges are too low ; and the 
 drinks ridiculous for cheapness. And as 
 for Lai, she’d make any house go, with her 
 pretty ways.” 
 
 About this point a certain anxiety crossed 
 his mind, because the girl herself rather 
 frightened him. In what terms should he 
 convey his intentions ? And how would 
 she receive them % 
 
 When he got back to London he hastened 
 to propose to Lai. He adopted the plain 
 and hearty manner, with a gallant nautical 
 attitude, indicating candour and loyalty. 
 This manner he had studied and made his 
 own. It was not unlike the British tar of 
 the stage, except that the good old “Shiver 
 my timbers!” with the hitch-up of the 
 trousers, went out before Nick Borlinder’s 
 time. Now it must be remembered that 
 this was very shortly after young Armiger’s 
 departure. 
 
 “What you want, my hearty,” said 
 Captain Borlinder, “is a jolly husband, 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 37 
 
 that’s what you want ; and the best husband 
 you can have is a sailor.” 
 
 Lai was accustomed to propositions of this 
 kind, though not always conveyed in lan- 
 guage so downright, having already refused 
 four-and-twenty Captains, and laughed at 
 half-a-dozen more, who lamented their pre- 
 vious marriages for her sake, and would 
 have even seen themselves widowers with 
 resignation. 
 
 “Why a sailor, Captain Borlinder 1” . 
 
 “ Because a sailor is not always running 
 after your heels like a tame cat and a puppy- 
 dog. He goes to sea, and is out of sight ; 
 he leaves you the house to yourself ; and 
 when he comes home again, he is always 
 in a good temper. A sailor ashore is easy, 
 contented, and happy-go-lucky.” 
 
 “ It certainly would be something,” said 
 Lai, “ always to have a good-tempered 
 husband.” 
 
 “ A sailor for me, says you,” continued 
 the Captain, warming to his work. “ That’s 
 right; and if a sailor, quartermaster is 
 better than able seaman ; mate is better 
 than quartermaster. Wherefore, skipper 
 is better than mate ; and if skipper, why 
 not Nick Borlinder % Eh ! Why not Nick 
 Borlinder h ” 
 
 And he stuck his thumbs in his waistcoat- 
 pockets, and looked irresistible tenderness, 
 so that he was greatly shocked when Lai 
 laughed in his face, and informed him 
 that she could not possibly become Mrs. 
 Borlinder. 
 
 He went away in great indignation, and 
 presently hearing about Rex Armiger and 
 his successful courtship, first declared that 
 he would break the neck of that young 
 man as soon as he could get a chance, and 
 then found fault with his own eyes because 
 he had not struck at once and proposed 
 when the idea first came into his head. 
 Lost ! and all for want of a little pluck. 
 Lost ! because the moment his back was 
 turned, this young jackanapes, no. better 
 than a second mate in a steamer, cut in, saw 
 his chance, and snapped her up. 
 
 For two voyages he reflected on the 
 nature of women. He said to himself that 
 out of sight, out of mind, and she would 
 very likely forget all about the boy. He 
 therefore resolved on trying the effect of 
 bribery, and came offering rare gifts, con- 
 sisting principally of an octave of sherry. 
 
 Lai accepted it graciously, and set it up 
 in the Captains’ room, where everybody 
 fell to lapping it up until it was all gone. 
 
 Then Lai refused the donor a second 
 time. So the sherry was clean thrown 
 
 away and wasted. Much better had made 
 it rum for his own consumption. 
 
 We know what happened next, and 
 none rejoiced more cordially than Captain 
 Borlinder over his rival’s death. 
 
 When a reasonable time, as he thought, 
 had elapsed, he renewed his offer with 
 effusion, and was indignantly, even scorn- 
 fully, refused. He concluded that he had 
 another rival, probably some fellow with 
 more money, and he looked about him and 
 made guarded enquiries. He could find 
 no one likely to be a rival except Captain 
 Holstius, who appeared to be a poor 
 religious creature, not worth the jealousy 
 of a lusty English sailor ; and, later on, he 
 discovered that a certain American captain 
 called Barnabas B. Wattles,, who came and 
 went, having no ship of his own, and yet 
 always full of business,, was certainly a 
 rival. 
 
 Captain Wattles puzzled him, because, 
 so far as he could see, Lai was no kinder 
 to him than to himself. Always there was 
 present to his mind that vision of himself 
 the landlord or proprietor of Rydquist’s, 
 counting out the money in the front 
 parlour over a pipe and a cool glass of 
 rum-and-water, while Lai looked after the 
 dinners and made out the bills. 
 
 “ Bills ! ” he thought. “ Yes ; they should 
 be bills with a profit in them too, when he 
 was proprietor ! ” 
 
 Rage possessed his soul as the time went 
 on and he got no nearer the attainment, of 
 his object. He could not converse with 
 the girl, partly because she avoided him, 
 and partly because he had nothing to say. 
 Worst of all, she told him when he ven- 
 tured once more to remark that a jolly 
 sailor, namely, Nick Borlinder, would 
 restore her to happiness, that if he. ever 
 dared to propose such a thing again he 
 would no longer be admitted to Rydquist s, 
 but might stay aboard his own ship in the 
 London Docks, or find a house at Poplar. 
 Fear of being sent to Poplar kept him 
 quiet. . 
 
 There remained the third suitor, Captain 
 Barnabas B. Wattles. 
 
 When he made the acquaintance of Lai, 
 a skipper without a ship, it was in the 
 year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven. 
 He was an American by birth, hailing, 
 in fact, from the town of Portsmouth, 
 New Hampshire, and he was always 
 full of business, the nature of which no 
 man knew. He was quite unlike the 
 jovial Nick Borlinder, and, indeed, resem- 
 bled the typical British tar in no respect 
 
whatever. For he was a slight spare man, 
 with sharp features and hairless cheek. He 
 was not, certainly, admitted to the privi- 
 leges of Eydquist’s, but he visited when 
 his business brought him to London, and 
 sat of an evening in the Captains’ room 
 drinking with any who would offer 
 gratuitous grog; at other times he was 
 fond of saying that he was a temper- 
 ance man, and went without grog rather 
 than pay for it himself. 
 
 He first came when Lai was waiting for 
 that letter from Bex which never came; 
 he learned the whole story; and either 
 did not immediately fall in love, like the 
 more inflammable Borlinder, being a man 
 of prudence and forethought, else he 
 refrained from speech, even from the good 
 words of courtship. But he came often; 
 by speaking gently, and without mention 
 of love and marriage, he established friendly 
 relations with Lai; he even ventured to 
 speak of her loss, and, with honeyed sym- 
 pathy, told the tales of like disasters, which 
 always ended fatally to American sailors. 
 When she declared that Eex could not be 
 drowned, he only shook his head with 
 pity. And in speaking of those early 
 deaths at sea which had come under his 
 own observation, he assumed, as a matter 
 of course, that the bereaved woman 
 mourned for no more than a certain term, 
 after which time she took unto herself 
 another sweetheart, and enjoyed perfect 
 happiness ever afterwards. He thought 
 that in this way he would familiarise- her 
 mind with the idea of giving up her grief. 
 
 “ When she reflected,” he would con- 
 clude his narrative, “ that cry in’ would not 
 bring back any man to life again, she gave 
 over cryin’ and looked about for consolation. 
 She found it, Miss Lai, in the usual quarter. 
 As for myself, my own name is Barnabas, 
 which means, as perhaps you have never 
 heard, the Son of Consolation.” 
 
 With such words did he essay to sap the 
 fidelity of the mourner, but in vain, for 
 though there were times when poor Lai 
 would doubt, despite the fervent ardour of 
 her faith, whether Eex might not be 
 really dead and gone, there was no time 
 at all when she ever wavered for a moment 
 in constancy to his memory. Though 
 neither Borlinder nor Barnabas Wattles 
 could understand the thing, it was impos- 
 sible for Lai ever to think of a second 
 lover. 
 
 He would talk of other things, but 
 always came back to the subject of con- 
 solation. 
 
 Thus one evening he began to look about 
 him, being then in her own room. 
 
 “ This,” he said, “ is a prosperous con- 
 cern which you are running, Miss Lai. 
 I guess it pays ? ” 
 
 Yes ; Lai said that it paid its expenses, 
 and more. 
 
 “And you’ve made your little pile 
 already out of it t ” 
 
 Yes, said Lai carelessly, there was money 
 saved. 
 
 His eyes twinkled at the thought of 
 handling her savings, for Captain Wattles 
 was by no means rich. He forgot, how- 
 ever, that the money belonged to her 
 mother. 
 
 “ Now,” he went on with an insinuating 
 smile, “ do you never think the time will 
 come when you will tire of runnin’ this 
 ho— tel 1 ” 
 
 Lai said she was too busy to think of 
 what might happen, and that, as regards 
 the future, she said, sadly, that she would 
 rather not think about it at all, the past 
 was already too much for her to think 
 about. 
 
 “ Yes,” he said, “ that time will come. 
 It has not come yet, Miss Lai, and, there- 
 fore, I do not say, as I am ready to say, 
 Take me and let me console you. My 
 name is Barnabas, which means, as perhaps 
 you do not know, the Son of Consolation.” 
 
 “ It would be no use at all,” said Lai ; 
 “ and if we are to remain friends, Captain 
 Wattles, you will never speak of this 
 again.” 
 
 “I will not,” he replied, “until the 
 right moment. Then, with your little 
 savings and mine, we will go back to the 
 States. I know what we will do when we 
 get there. There’s an old ship-building 
 yard at Portsmouth which only wants a 
 few thousand dollars put into it. We will 
 put our dollars into that yard, and we will 
 build ships.” 
 
 “ You had better give up thinking of such 
 nonsense,” said Lai. 
 
 “ Thought is free, Miss Lai. The time 
 will come. Is it in nature to go on crying 
 all your life for a man as dead as Abraham 
 Lincoln 1 The time will come.” 
 
 “ Enough said, Captain Wattles,” Lai 
 said. It was in her own room, and she 
 was busy with her accounts. “You can 
 go now, and you need not come back any 
 more unless you have something else to 
 say. I thought you were a sensible man. 
 Most American Captains I know are as 
 sensible as Englishmen and Norwegians.” 
 
 Captain Wattles rose slowly. 
 
 38 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ EOOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
1 ' ' 111 
 
 Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [December 1, 1881.) 39 
 
 “Wal,” he said, “ you say so pow. I 
 expected you would. But the time will 
 come. I’m not afraid of the other men. 
 As for Oap’en Borlinder, he is _ not fit 
 company for a sweet young thing like you. 
 He would beat his wife; after a while, that 
 man would. He drinks nob biers all day, 
 and swaps lies with any riff-raff who will 
 stand in a bar and listen to him. You will 
 not lower yourself to Cap’en Borlinder. 
 As for the Norweegee, he is but a poor 
 soft shell ; you might as well marry a gell. 
 
 I shan’t ask you yet, so don’t be afraid. 
 When your old friends drop away one by 
 one, and you feel a bit lonesome with no 
 one to talk to, and these bills always on 
 your mind, and the house over your head 
 like a cage and a prison, I shall look in 
 again, and you will hold out your pretty 
 hand, and you will sweetly say : 1 Cap en 
 Wattles, you air a sailor and a temperance 
 man : you subscribe to a missionary society 
 and have once been teacher in a Sunday- 
 school; you have traded Bibles with natives 
 for coral and ivory and gold dust ; you air 
 smart ; you air likewise a kind-hearted 
 man, who will give his wife her head in 
 everything, with Paris bonnets and New 
 York frocks ; your name is Barnabas, the 
 Son of Consolation.’ . ... Don’t run away, 
 Miss Lai. I’ve said all I wanted to say, 
 and now I am going. Business takes me 
 to Liverpool to-night, and on Thursday I 
 sail again for Baltimore.” 
 
 CHAPTER VI. THE MESSAGE FROM THE SEA. 
 
 It was, then, in October, eighteen 
 hundred and seventy-nine, that Dick, the 
 Malay, made his appearance and told his 
 tale. Having told it he remained in the 
 house, attaching himself as by right to Lai, 
 whose steward he became as he had been 
 steward to Rex. 
 
 The thing produced, naturally, a pro- 
 found sensation in the Captains’ room, 
 whither Dick was invited to repeat his 
 performance, not once but several times. 
 
 It was observed that, though substan- 
 tially the same, the action always differed in 
 the addition or the withdrawal of certain 
 small details, the interpretation of which 
 was obscure. One or two facts remained 
 certain, and were agreed upon by all : an 
 open boat, a long waiting, a rescue, either 
 by being picked up or by finding land, and 
 then one or two fights, but why, and with 
 whom, was a matter of speculation. 
 
 Captain Zachariasen remained obstinate 
 to his theory. There was a widow, there 
 was a marriage, there was a baby, there 
 
 os-as: : — — — - — — — 
 
 were conjugal rows, and finally a prison in 
 which Rex Armiger still remained. How 
 to fit the pantomime into these wonderful 
 details was a matter of difficulty which he 
 was always endeavouring to overcome by 
 the help of the more obscure gestures in 
 the mummicking. 
 
 The general cheerfulness of the house 
 was naturally much elevated by this event. 
 
 It was, indeed, felt not only that hope had 
 returned, but also that honour was con- 
 ferred upon Rydquist’s by so mysterious 
 and exciting a revelation. 
 
 This distinction became more generally 
 recognised when the Secretary and one of 
 the Directors of the Indian Peninsular 
 Line came over to see the Malay, hoping 
 to get some light thrown upon the loss of 
 their ship. 
 
 Captain Zachariasen took the chair for 
 the performance, so to speak, . and ex- 
 pounded the principal parts, taking credit 
 for such mummicking as no other house 
 could offer. 
 
 The Director learned nothing definite 
 from the pantomime, but came away pro- 
 foundly impressed with the belief that 
 their officer, Captain Armiger, was living. 
 
 The Malay, now domesticated at Seven 
 Houses, was frequently invited of an 
 evening to the Captains’ room, where he 
 went through his performance — Captain 
 Zachariasen always in the chair — for every 
 new comer, and was a continual subject of 
 discussion. Also there were great study- 
 ings of charts, and mappings out of routes, 
 with calculations as to days and probable 
 number of knots. And those who had been 
 in Chinese and Polynesian waters were 
 called upon to narrate their experiences. 
 
 The route of a steamer from Hong-Kong 
 to Moreton Bay is well known, and easily 
 followed. Unfortunately, the Malay’s 
 
 pantomime left it doubtful of what nature 
 was the disaster. It might have been a 
 piratical attack, though that was very un- 
 likely, or a fire on board, or the striking on 
 
 “ Her course,” said Captain Holstius, 
 laying it down with Lai for the fiftieth 
 time, “ would be — so — E.S.E. from Hong- 
 Kong, north of Lu<jon here ; then due 
 S.E. between the Pelews and Carolines, 
 through Dampier Straits, having New 
 Guinea to the starboard. Look at these 
 seas, Lai. Who knows what may have 
 happened 1 And how can we search for 
 i him over three thousand miles of sea, 
 s among so many islands % ” 
 s How, indeed \ And yet the idea was 
 
 — ; 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 <£ 
 
 40 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ EOOM. 
 
 growing up strong in both their minds that 
 a search of some kind must be made. 
 
 And then came help, that sort of help 
 which our pious ancestors called Provi- 
 dential. What can we call it? Blind 
 chance? That seems rather a long drop 
 from benevolent Providence, but it seems 
 to suit a good many people nowadays 
 almost as well — more’s the pity. 
 
 Two months after the Malay’s appear- 
 ance, while winter was upon us and 
 Christmas not far off, when the church- 
 yard trees were stripped of leaf, and the vine 
 about the window was trimmed, the garden 
 swept up for the season, and the parrots 
 brought indoors, and Rydquist’s made snug 
 for bad weather, another person called at 
 the house, bringing with him a message 
 of another kind. It was no other than 
 the Doctor of the Aryan, Rex’s old ship. 
 He bore something round, wrapped in 
 tissue paper. He carried it with great 
 care, as if it was something very precious. 
 
 The time was evening, and Lai was in 
 her room making up accounts. In the 
 Captains’ room was a full assemblage, 
 numbering Captain Zachariasen, Captain 
 Borlinder, who purposed to spend his 
 Christmas at Rydquist’s and to consume 
 much grog, Captain Holstius, Captain 
 Barnabas B. Wattles, whose business had 
 again brought him to London, and two 
 or three Captains who have nothing to do 
 with this history except to fill up the group 
 in the room where presently an important 
 Function was to be held. 
 
 At present they were unsuspicious of 
 what was coming, and they sat in solemn 
 circle, the Patriarch at the head of the 
 table, getting through the evening, all too 
 quickly, in the usual way. 
 
 “ This was picked up,” the Doctor said, 
 still holding his treasure in his hands as if 
 it was a baby, “in the Bay of Bengal, by 
 a country ship sailing from Calcutta to 
 Moulmein ; it must have drifted with the 
 currents and the wind, two thousand miles 
 and more. How it contrived never to get 
 driven ashore or broken against some boat, 
 or wreck, or rock, or washed up some creek 
 among the thousands of islands hy which 
 it floated, is a truly wonderful thing.” 
 
 “ Oh, what is it ? ” she cried. 
 
 He took off the handkerchief and showed 
 a common wide-mouthed bottle, such as 
 chemists use for effervescing things. 
 
 “ It contains,” he said solemnly, “ poor 
 Rex Armiger’s last letter to you. The 
 skipper who picked it up pulled out the 
 cork and read it. He brought it to our 
 
 office at Calcutta, where, though it was 
 written to you, we were obliged to read it, 
 because it told how the Philippine was cast 
 away ; for the same reason our officers 
 read it.” 
 
 “ His last letter ? ” 
 
 “ Yes ; his last letter. It is dated three 
 years ago. We cannot hope — no, it is 
 impossible to hope — that he is still alive. 
 We should have heard long ago if he had 
 been picked up.” 
 
 “ We have heard,” said Lai. She went 
 in search of the Malay, with whom she 
 presently returned. “We have heard, 
 Doctor. Here is Rex’s steward, who came 
 to us two months ago.” 
 
 “ Good heavens ! it is the dumb Malay 
 steward, who was with him in the boat.” 
 
 “Yes. Now look, and tell me what you 
 read.” 
 
 She made a sign to Dick, who went 
 through, for the Doctor’s instruction, the 
 now familiar pantomime. 
 
 “ What do you think, Doctor ? ” 
 
 “ Think ? There is only one thing to 
 think, Miss Rydquist. He has escaped. 
 He is alive, somewhere, or w r as when Dick 
 last saw him — though how this fellow got 
 away from him, and where he is- ” 
 
 “Now give me his letter.” 
 
 It was tied round with a green ribbon — 
 a slender roll of paper, looking as if sea- 
 water had discoloured it. 
 
 The Doctor took it out of the bottle and 
 gave it her. 
 
 “I will read Rex’s letter,” she said 
 quietly, “ alone. Will you wait a little for 
 me, Doctor ? ” 
 
 She came back in a quarter of an hour. 
 Her eyes were heavy with tears, but she 
 was calm and assured. 
 
 “I thank God, Doctor,” she said; “I 
 thank God most humbly for preserving 
 this precious bottle and this letter of my 
 dear Rex — my poor Rex- — and I thank 
 you, too, and your brother officers, whom 
 he loved, and who were always good to 
 him, for bringing it home to me. For now 
 I know where he is, and where to look for 
 him, and now I understand it all.” 
 
 “ If he is living we will find him,” said 
 the Doctor. “ Be sure that we will find 
 him.” 
 
 “We will find him,” she echoed. “ Yes, 
 we will find him. Now, Doctor, consider. 
 You remember how they got into the 
 boat?” 
 
 “ Yes — off the wreck. The letter tells 
 us that.” 
 
 “ Dick told us that two months ago, but 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM. [December 1, 1881.] 41 
 
 we could not altogether understand it. 
 How long were they in the boat ? ” 
 
 “ Why, no one knows.” 
 
 “ Yes, Dick knows, and he has told us. 
 Consider. They were left, when this 
 bottle was sent forth, like the raven out 
 of the Ark, with no food. They sat in the 
 boat, waiting for death. But they did not 
 die. They drifted — you saw that they 
 made no attempt to row — for awhile ; they 
 grew hungry and thirsty ; they passed two 
 or three days with nothing to eat. It 
 could not have been more, because they 
 were not so far exhausted but that, when 
 land appeared in sight, they still had 
 strength to row.” 
 
 “ Go on,” cried the Doctor. “ You are 
 cleverer than all of us.” 
 
 “ It is because I love him,” she replied, 
 “and because I have thought day and 
 night where he can be. You know the 
 latitude and longitude of the wreck ; you 
 must allow for currents and wind; you 
 know how many days elapsed between the 
 wreck and the writing of the letter. Now 
 let us look at the chart and work it all 
 out.” 
 
 She brought the chart to the table, and 
 pointed with her finger. 
 
 “ They were wrecked,” she said, “ there. 
 Now allow five days for drifting. Where 
 would they land ? Bemember he says that 
 the wind was S.W.” 
 
 “Why,” said the Doctor, “they may 
 have landed on one of the most westerly 
 of the Caroline Islands, unless the current 
 carried them to the Pelews. There are 
 islands enough in those seas.” 
 
 “Yes,” she replied; “it is here that we 
 shall look for him. Now come with me to 
 the Captains’ room.” 
 
 She walked in, head erect and paper in 
 hand, followed by the Doctor, and stood 
 at Captain Zachariasen’s right — her usuaj. 
 place when she visited the Captains in the 
 evening. 
 
 -“You who are my friends,” said Lai, 
 bearing in one hand the chart and in the 
 other the precious letter, “will rejoice 
 with me, for I have had a letter from Bex.” 
 
 “ When was it wrote, and where from 1 ” 
 asked Captain Zachariasen. 
 
 “It is nearly three years old. It has 
 been tossing on the sea, driven hither and 
 thither, and preserved by kind Heaven to 
 show that Bex is living still, and where he 
 is.” 
 
 Captain Wattles whistled gently. It 
 sounded like an involuntary note of 
 incredulity. 
 
 Lai spread the chart before Captain 
 Zachariasen. 
 
 “ You can follow the voyage, she said, 
 
 “ while I read you his lettter. It is on the 
 back of one from me. It is written with a 
 lead pencil, very small, because he had a 
 great deal to say and not much space to 
 say it in — my Bex !” 
 
 Her voice broke down for a moment, 
 but she steadied herself and went on 
 reading the message from the sea.. 
 
 “ ‘ Anyone who picks this up/ it begins, 
 ‘will oblige me by sending it to Miss 
 Bydquist, Seven Houses, Botherhithe, 
 because it tells her of the shipwreck and 
 perhaps the death’ — But you know, all 
 of you,” Lai interposed, “ that he sur- 
 vived and got to land, else how was 
 Dick able to get back to England 1 — 
 
 ‘ of her sweetheart, the undersigned Bex 
 Armiger, Captain of the steamer Philip- 
 pine, now lying a wreck on a reef in 
 latitude 5*30 N. and longitude 133*25, as 
 near as I could calculate.’ 
 
 “ ‘ My dearest Lal, — I write this in 
 the Captain’s gig, where I am floating about 
 in or about the above-named latitude and 
 longitude, after the most unfortunate 
 voyage that ever started with good pro- 
 mise. First, I send you my last words, 
 dear love, solemnly, because a man. in a 
 boat on the open seas, with no provisions 
 and no sail, cannot look for anything but 
 death from starvation, if not by drowning. 
 God help you, my dear, and bless you, 
 and make you forget me soon, and find a 
 better husband than I should ever have 
 
 made. You will take another man ’ ” 
 
 “ Hear, hear ! ” said Captain Borlinder 
 softly. 
 
 “ Hush ! ” said Captain Wattles reproach- 
 fully. “ Captain Armiger was a good man 
 and a prophet.” 
 
 “ ‘ You will take another man, Lal 
 repeated. “Never!” she cried, after the 
 repetition, looking from one to the other. 
 “ Never ! Not if he were dead, instead of 
 being alive, as he is, and wondering why 
 we do not come to rescue him.” 
 
 “ The boy had his points,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen, “ and a good husband he 
 would have made. Just such as I was 
 sixty years ago or thereabouts. Get on to 
 the shipwreck, Lal, my dear.” 
 
 “ ‘ It was on December the First that we 
 set sail from Calcutta. The crew were all 
 Lascars, except Dick, my Malay steward, 
 the chief officer, who was an Englishman, 
 and the engineer. We made a good 
 passage under, canvas, with auxiliary screw, 
 

 - 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 42 [December 1, 1881,3 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 
 err' 
 
 to Singapore, and from thence, in ballast, 
 except for a few bales of goods, to Hong- 
 Kong. Here we took in our cargo of rice, 
 and started, all well, on January the Four- 
 teenth, eighteen hundred and seventy- 
 seven. The mate was a good sailor as ever 
 stepped on a bridge, and the ship well 
 found, new, and good in all respects. 
 
 “ ‘ We had fair weather across the China 
 Sea, and in the straits north of Luzon 
 until we came to the open seas. Here a 
 gale, which blew us off our course to N.E., 
 but not far, and still in clear and open 
 sailing, with never a reef or an island on 
 the chart. We kept steam up, running in 
 the teeth of the wind, all sails furled. 
 When the wind moderated, veering from 
 S.E. to S.W. (within a point or two), 
 we made the Pelew Islands to starboard 
 bow, and came well in the track of the 
 Sydney steamers. If you look at a chart 
 you will find that here the sea is open and 
 clear ; not a shoal nor an island laid down 
 for a good thousand miles. Wherefore, I 
 make no doubt that after enquiry I should 
 have my certificate returned to me, in spite 
 of having lost so good a ship. 
 
 “ ‘ On Sunday, at noon, the wind having 
 moderated, we found we had made two 
 hundred and twenty-seven knots in thefour- 
 and- twenty hours. We were, as I made it, 
 in latitude 5*30 N. and longitude 133*25, 
 as near as I could calculate. At sunset, 
 which was at six twenty-five, we must 
 have made some sixty miles more to the 
 S.W., so that you can lay down the spot 
 on the map. The wind was fresh, and the 
 sea a little choppy, but nothing of any 
 consequence in open water. At eight I 
 turned in, going watch and watch about 
 with the mate, and at five minutes past 
 eight, I suppose I was fast asleep. 
 
 ‘“It was, I think, a little after six bells, 
 that I was awakened by the ship striking. 
 I ran on deck at once. We were on a 
 reef, and by the grating and grinding of 
 her bottom I guessed that it was all over. 
 I’m sorry to say that in the shock the mate 
 seems to have been knocked overboard 
 and drowned, because I saw him no more. 
 The ship rolled from side to side, grinding 
 and tearing her bottom upon the reef. 
 The men ran backwards and . forwards 
 crying to each other. There was no dis- 
 cipline with them, nor could I get them to 
 obey orders. The engineer went below 
 and reported water gaining fast. He and 
 I did our best to keep the crew in hand, 
 but it was no use. They lowered the boats 
 and pushed off, leaving behind only the 
 
 engineer, and Dick the steward, and my- 
 self. They were in too great a hurry to 
 put provisions on board, so that I greatly 
 fear they must have perished, unless they 
 have been picked up by some steamer. 
 
 “ ‘ All that night we stayed on deck, we 
 three, expecting every moment that she 
 would break her back. The cargo of grain 
 was loose now, and rolled with the ship 
 like water. Her bows were high upon the 
 rocks, and I believe we were only saved 
 because she was lodged upon the reef as 
 far aft as the engine-room. In the dark- 
 ness the engineer must have slipped his 
 hold and fallen overboard, I don’t know 
 how. Then there was only Dick and 
 me. 
 
 “ ‘ In the morning, at daybreak, the look- 
 out was pretty bad. The reef is a shoal, 
 with nothing but a fringe of white water 
 round it to mark where it lies. It is now, 
 
 I reckon, about seventeen feet below the 
 surface of the water, but I take it to be a 
 rising reef, so that every year will make it 
 less, and I hope it will be set down at once 
 on the chart. My mate was gone and 
 my engineer, the boats and their crews 
 were out of sight, or may be capsized, not 
 a sail upon the sea. But there was the 
 Captain’s gig. 
 
 “ ‘When we got afloat, my purpose was 
 to keep alongside the poor wreck until we 
 had got enough victuals to last a week 
 or two, and some running tackle whereby 
 we could hoist some sort of a sail. But, my 
 dear, we hadn’t time, because no sooner 
 had we lowered the boat and put in a few 
 tins, with a bottle half full of brandy and 
 a keg of water, than she parted amidships, 
 and we had no more than time to jump 
 into the boat and shove off. 
 
 ‘“There we were, then, with no oars, no 
 mast, no sail, no rudder even, and pro- 
 visions for two or three days. 
 
 “‘We have now been floating a week. 
 We drifted first of all in a nor’-westerly 
 direction, so near as I could make out, so 
 long as the poor wreck remained in sight. 
 Since then I know not what our course has 
 been. There is a strong current here, I 
 suspect, from the short time we took to 
 lose sight of her, and there has been a good 
 strong breeze blowing from the S.W. for 
 three days. 
 
 “ ‘We have now got to the end of our 
 provisions ; the last drop of water has 
 been drunk ; the last biscuit eaten. Poor 
 Dick sits opposite to me all day and all 
 night, he cannot speak, but he refused his 
 share of the last ration for my sake.’ ” 
 
 i 
 
 
 0 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 43 
 
 Here Lai broke down again, and Captain 
 Zachariasen said something strong, which 
 showed that his admiration for a generous 
 action was greater than his religious 
 restraint. 
 
 “‘We spend the day in looking for a 
 sail ; at night we take watch about. There 
 remains only a little brandy in the heel of 
 the bottle. We husband that for a last 
 resource. We have fashioned a couple of 
 rough oars out of two planks of the boat. 
 
 “ ‘ I have kept this a day longer. No 
 sail in sight. We have had two or three 
 drops of brandy each. They are the last. 
 Now I must commit this letter to the sea 
 in the bottle. Oh, my dear Lai, my pretty 
 tender darling ! I shall never, never see 
 you any more. Long before you get this 
 letter I shall be drifting about in this boat, 
 a dead man. I pray Heaven to bless 
 you——’” 
 
 Here Lai stopped and burst in in tears. 
 
 “ Read no more,” said Captain Holstius, 
 
 “ the rest concerns yourself alone.” 
 
 Lai kissed her letter, folded it tenderly, 
 and laid it in her bosom. 
 
 “ The rest only concerns me,” she re- 
 peated, and was silent a while. . 
 
 Captain Zachariasen, meantime, was at 
 work upon the chart. 
 
 “ I read this story somewhat different,” 
 he said. “You can’t always follow a 
 mummicker in his antics, and I now per- 
 ceive that I was wrong about the baby. 
 The widow I stick to. Nothing could be 
 plainer than the widow, though, of course, 
 it was not to be expected that he’d make 
 a clean breast of it in that letter, which 
 otherwise does him credit. Lai, my dear, 
 you are right. If Dick is alive, then his 
 master is alive. Question is, where would 
 he get to, and where is he now ? ” 
 
 They were all silent, waiting the con- 
 clusion of the Patriarch before any other 
 ventured to speak. He was bending over 
 the chart, his right thumb as the position 
 of the reef, and his fore-finger acting as a 
 compass. 
 
 “ I calculate from the position of the 
 reef, which is here, and the run of the 
 currents, and the direction of the wind, 
 that they drifted towards the most westerly 
 of the Caroline Islands.” 
 
 It hardly required patriarchal wisdom to 
 surmise this fact, seeing that these islands 
 are the nearest places north-west of the 
 reef. 
 
 “ And next ? ” asked Lai. 
 
 “ Next, my pretty, they were taken off 
 of that island, but I do not know by 
 
 whom, and were shipped away to some 
 prison, but I don’t know where, and there 
 Cap’en Armiger is still lying, though 
 what for, as there was seemingly no baby 
 and no chucking overboard, we mortals, 
 who are but purblind, cannot say.” 
 
 Then Captain Holstius spoke again. 
 
 “ I think we might have in the Malay 
 and go through the play-acting again. 
 May be, with this letter before us, we may 
 get more light.” 
 
 The Doctor now showed Dick the bottle. 
 He seized it, grinned a recognition, and, 
 on a sign from the girl, began the story 
 again at that point. 
 
 First, leaning over the imaginary side of 
 the boat, he laid it gently on the floor. 
 
 “ Thereby,” said Captain Zachariasen 
 solemnly, “ committing the letter to the 
 watery deep, to be carried here and driven 
 there while the stormy winds do blow, do 
 blow. Amen ! ” N 
 
 Then Dick became pensive. He sat 
 huddled up, with his elbows on his knees 
 and head in his hands, looking straight 
 before him. For the time, as always in 
 this performance, of which he never tired, 
 he was Rex himself ; the same poise of the 
 head, the same look of the eyes ; he had 
 put off the Malayan type, and sat there, 
 before them all, pure Caucasian. 
 
 “ Creditable, my lad,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen. “ I think you can, all of 
 you, understand so far, without my 
 telling.” 
 
 They certainly could. 
 
 Then the Malay sprang o his feet and 
 pointed to some object in the distance. 
 
 “ Sail ho ! ” cried Captain Borlinder. 
 
 Then he sat down again and . began 
 the regular motion of his arm, which the 
 Patriarch had mistaken for rocking the 
 
 baby. . . 
 
 “ This,” said the Venerable, “is plain 
 and easy. Land it is, not a sail — why 
 Because, if the latter, they^ would wave 
 their pocket-handkerchiefs ; if the former, 
 they would h’ist sail or out sculls. If the 
 mummicker had been as plain and easy to 
 understand the first time, we shouldn t 
 have gone astray and sailed on that wrong 
 tack about the baby.” 
 
 With the help of the letter the panto- 
 mime became perfectly intelligible. The 
 whole scene stood out plainly before the 
 eyes of all. They were no longer in the 
 Captains’ room at Seven Houses, Rother- 
 hithe ; they were somewhere far away, 
 east of New Guinea, watching two men in 
 a little boat on a sea where there was no 
 
44 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 sail nor any smoke from passing steamers. 
 Low down on the horizon was a thin 
 streak ? which a landsman would have 
 taken for a cloud. The two men with 
 straining faces were rowing with feverish 
 eagerness, encouraging each other, and 
 ceasing not, though the paddles nearly fell 
 from their hands with fatigue. 
 
 “Oh ! Rex, Rex !” cried Lai, carried away 
 by the acting. “ Rest awhile ; oh, rest !” 
 
 But still they paddled on. 
 
 Then came the scene of the struggle and 
 the binding of the arms, and the march up 
 country. Next the release and the quiet 
 going up and down ; and then the second 
 struggle, with another capture, and a 
 second binding of arms. 
 
 “ See, Lai,” said Captain Holstius, point- 
 ing triumphantly to the actor ; “ who is 
 bound this time ? ” - 
 
 Why, there could be no doubt whatever. 
 It was not Rex, but the Malay. 
 
 “ This is the worst o’ mummicking now,” 
 said the Patriarch, as if pantomime was a 
 recognised instrument in the teaching and 
 illustration of history. “ You’re never quite 
 sure. We’ve had to give up the baby 
 with the chucking overboard. I was sorry 
 for that, because it was so plain and easy to 
 read. And now it seems as if it was the 
 poor devil himself that got took off to gaol. 
 Was his hair cut short, do you remember, 
 Lai, when he came here two months ago 1 
 I can’t quite give up the prison, neither, so 
 beautiful as it reeled itself out first time 
 we did the mummicking. You’re a 
 stranger, sir,” he addressed the Doctor, 
 “and you knew Cap’en Armiger. What 
 do you think 1 For my own part — well, 
 let’s hear you, sir.” 
 
 “There cannot be a doubt,” said the 
 Doctor, “that the man personated Armiger, 
 and no other, until the last scene, and that 
 there he became himself intentionally. 
 He exaggerated himself. He walked dif- 
 ferently; he carried his head differently. 
 There was a fight of some kind, and the 
 Malay, not Armiger at all, was taken 
 prisoner.” 
 
 “What is your opinion, Captain Borlin- 
 der 1 ” asked Lai, anxious to know what 
 each man thought. 
 
 “ My opinion,” said Captain Borlinder 
 with emphasis, “ is this. They got ashore ; 
 no one can doubt that. Very well, then. 
 Where ? Not many degress of longitude 
 from the place where they were wrecked. 
 Who were the people they fell among ? 
 The natives. That’s what I read so far. 
 Now we go on to the fight at the 
 
 end. A better fight I never saw on 
 the stage, not even at the Pavilion 
 Theatre, though but one man in it. As 
 for Captain Armiger, he was knocked on 
 the head. That is to me quite certain. 
 Knocked on the head with a stick, or 
 stuck with a knife, according to the reli- 
 gion and customs of them natives, among 
 whom I never sailed, and therefore do 
 not know their ways. It’s a melan- 
 choly comfort, at all events, to know the 
 manner of his end. Next to looking for- 
 ward to a decent burial, people when they 
 are going to be knocked on the head die 
 more comfortable if they know that other 
 people will hear how they came to be 
 knocked on the head, whether a club or a 
 boathook or a bo’sn’s cutlash.” 
 
 “I think, sir,” said the Doctor, “that 
 you are perfectly wrong. There is nothing 
 whatever to show that Armiger was killed.” 
 But then he did not know that Captain 
 Borlinder spoke according to the desire of 
 his own heart. 
 
 Then Lai turned to the only man who 
 had not yet spoken : 
 
 “ And whkt is your opinion, Captain 
 Wattles 1 ” 
 
 “ I think,” replied Barnabas the Consoler, 
 “that Cap’en Armiger landed on some 
 island, and worried through the first 
 scrimmage. I know them lands, and I 
 know that their ways to strangers may 
 be rough. If you get through the first 
 hearty welcome, which means clubs and 
 knives and spears mostly, there’s no reason 
 why you shouldn’t settle down among ’em. 
 There’s many an English and American 
 sailor livin’ there contented and happy. 
 P’raps Cap’en Armiger is one of them.” 
 “Not contented,” said Lai, “nor yet 
 happy.” . 
 
 Captain Wattles went on : 
 
 “ On the other hand, there’s fights 
 among themselves and drunken bouts, and 
 many a brave fellow knocked on the head 
 thereby.” 
 
 “Do you speak” from your own' know- 
 ledge ? ” asked the Doctor. 
 
 “ I was once,” he replied unblushingly, 
 “ a missionary in the Kusaie station. Yes ; 
 we disseminated amongst us the seeds of 
 civilisation and religion among those poor 
 cannibals. I also traded in shirts and 
 trousers, after they had been taught how 
 to put them on. They are a treacherous 
 race ; they treasure up the recollection of 
 wrongs and take revenge ; they are in- 
 sensible to kindness and handy with their 
 arrows. I fear that Cap’en Armiger has 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 45 
 
 long since been killed and eaten. They 
 probably spared the Malay on account of 
 his brown skin, as likely to disagree.” 
 
 Then Captain Holstius rose and spoke. 
 
 “ Friends all,” he said, “ and especially 
 Captain Borlinder and Captain Wattles, 
 here is a message come straight from Captain 
 Armiger himself, though now nigh upon 
 three years old. And it comes close upon 
 the heels of that other message brought us 
 by this poor fellow who gave it as he knew 
 best, though a difficult message to read in 
 parts. Now we know, partly from Dick, 
 and partly from the letter, what happened 
 and how it happened, and we are pretty 
 certain that they must have landed, as 
 Captain Zachariasen has told us, in one of 
 the islands lying to the nor ’-west of the 
 spot where she struck.” Here he paused. 
 Captain Borlinder blew great clouds of 
 tobacco and looked straight before him. 
 Captain Wattles listened with impatience. 
 Then the Norwegian went on : “I think, 
 friends all, that here we have our duty 
 plain before us. Here are three men in 
 this room, Captain Borlinder, Captain 
 Wattles, and myself, who have been in love 
 with Lai, who is Captain Armiger ’s sweet- 
 heart, and therefore has no right to listen 
 to us so long as there is any hope left that 
 he is alive. If no hope, why, I do not say 
 myself that she has no right ■” 
 
 “ No right, Captain Holstius,” said Lai ; 
 “no right to listen to any other man, 
 whatever happens.” 
 
 “ Very well, then. But for us who love 
 her in a respectful way, and desire nothing 
 but her happiness, there is only one duty, 
 and that is ” 
 
 Here Captain Wattles sprang to his 
 feet. 
 
 “ To go in search of him. That is what 
 I was going to propose. Miss Rydquist, J 
 promise to go in search of Cap’en Armiger. 
 If he is alive I will bring him home to you. 
 If he is dead, I will bring you news of how 
 and when he died. I ask no reward. I 
 leave that to you. But I will bring you 
 news.” 
 
 This was honestly and even nobly spoken. 
 But the effect of the speech was a little 
 marred by the allusion to reward. What 
 reward had Lai to offer, except one 1 and 
 she had just declared that to be im- 
 possible. 
 
 Then Captain Borlinder rose ponderously 
 and slapped his chest. 
 
 “ Nick Borlinder, Lai, is at your service. 
 Yours truly to command. He hasn’t been 
 a missionary, nor a dealer in reach-me- 
 
 down shirts, like some skippers, having 
 walked the deck since a boy. And he 
 doesn’t know the Caroline Islands. But 
 he can navigate a ship, or he can take a 
 passage aboard a ship. Where there’s 
 missionaries there’s ships. He will get 
 aboard one of them ships, and he will visit 
 those cannibals and find out the truth. 
 Lai, if Cap’en Armiger is alive, he shall be 
 rescued by Nick Borlinder, and shall come 
 home with me arm-in-arm, to the Pride 
 of Rotherhithe. If he isn’t alive, why — 
 then ” 
 
 He sat down again, nodding his head. 
 
 Lai turned to Captain Holstius. 
 
 “Yes,” he said; “ I thought this brave 
 Englishman and this brave American would 
 see their duty plain before them. I will 
 go in search of him, too, Lai. I know not 
 yet how ; but I shall find a way.” 
 
 “Gentlemen,” said Lai, “I have nothing 
 to give you except my gratitude. Nothing 
 at all. Oh ! who in the world has ever 
 had kinder and nobler friends than I V } 
 
 She held out her two hands. Captain 
 Wattles seized the right and kissed it 
 with effusion, murmuring something about 
 Barnabas, the Son of Consolation. Captain 
 Borlinder followed his example with the 
 left, though he had never before regarded a 
 woman’s hand as a proper object for a 
 manly kiss. He took the opportunity to 
 whisper that in all her troubles, Nick 
 Borlinder was the man to trust. 
 
 “ Now,” said Captain Holstius, “ there is 
 no time to be lost ; we all have things to 
 arrange, and money to raise. Shall we all 
 go together, or shall we go separate 1 ” 
 
 “ Separate,” said the Son of Consolation. 
 
 “ Separate,” cried Borlinder firmly. “ If 
 the job is to be done, let me do the job 
 single-handed.” 
 
 “ Very well,” said Captain Holstius ; 
 “ then how shall we go ? ” 
 
 “We will go,” said Captain Wattles, 
 “in order. First one, and then another, 
 to give every man a fair chance and no 
 favour. And to get that fair chance we 
 will draw straws. ' Longest straw first, 
 shortest last.” 
 
 He retired and returned with three 
 straws in his hand. 
 
 “ Now, Borlinder,” he said, “ you shall 
 draw first.” . 
 
 Borlinder took a straw, but with hesita- 
 tion. 
 
 The Doctor, who was rather short- 
 sighted, thought he detected a little sleight- 
 of-hand on the part of Captain Wattles at 
 this moment. But he said nothing. Captain 
 
46 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ KOOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 Holstius then drew. Again the Doctor 
 thought he observed what seemed to } 
 be tampering with the oracle of the j 
 straw. 
 
 On the display of the straws it was found 
 that the longest straw was Captain 
 Borlinder’s ; the shortest, that of Captain 
 Holstius. The order of search was there- 
 fore, first, Captain Borlinder. He heaved 
 a great breath, struck his hands together, 
 and smote his chest with great violence 
 and heartiness. ¥ou would have thought 
 he had drawn a great prize instead of the 
 right to go first on an extremely expensive 
 voyage of search. The next was to be 
 Captain Wattles. The third and last, 
 Captain Holstius. 
 
 Captain Zachariasen called for glasses 
 round to drink health and success to the 
 gallant fellows going out on this brave and 
 honourable quest. 
 
 Outside the house, presently, two of the 
 gallant seekers stood in discourse. 
 
 ‘•'You don’t think, Wattles,” asked 
 Borlinder, “ that he’s really alive h ” 
 
 “ I can’t say,” replied the ex-missionary. 
 
 “ I shouldn’t like, myself, to be wrecked on 
 one of those islands. You see, there’s 
 been a little labour traffic in those parts, 
 and the ungrateful people, who don’t 
 know what’s good for them, are afraid of 
 being kid — I mean recruited. And they 
 bear malice. But I suppose he’s one of the 
 sort that don’t easily get killed. I shall 
 be going Sydney-way about my own 
 business next year, or thereabouts, I 
 expect, so it’s all in my day’s work to make 
 enquiries. As for you ” 
 
 “ As to me, now, brother ” Captain 
 Borlinder ^poke in his most insinuating 
 way. “ As to me, now ? Come, let’s have 
 a drink.” 
 
 “ As to you,” said the Consoler, after a 
 drink at his friend’s expense, “ I’m sorry 
 for you, because you’ve got to go at once, 
 and you’ve got no experience. Among 
 cannibals, a man of your flesh is like a 
 prize ox at Christmas.” 
 
 Captain Borlinder turned pale. 
 
 “ Yes — that is so. They would put you 
 in a shallow pit, with a few onions and 
 some pepper, cover all up snug with stones, 
 and make a fire on top till you were done 
 to a turn ! ” • 
 
 Captain Borlinder shuddered. 
 
 “You are going first, you are, like a 
 brave Briton. I will tell you a little , story. 
 There was once a man who promised to go 
 over Niagara in an india-rubber machine of 
 his own invention. A beautiful machine 
 
 it was, shut up tight, with air-holes so as 
 the man inside could breathe free and open 
 when so disposed.” 
 
 “ Well?” 
 
 “ Wal, sir, he was cert’n’y bound to go. 
 But after looking at the Falls a bit, he con- 
 cluded to send a cat over first.” 
 
 “Well?” 
 
 “Yes, Cap’en Borlinder, the cat went 
 over and that man is still waiting below 
 the Horseshoe Fall for the critter to turn 
 up again.” 
 
 Captain Borlinder looked after his friend 
 with pale cheeks and apprehensive heart. 
 What did it mean — this parable of the cat 
 and Niagara ? 
 
 . N ow, after the glass round was drank, and 
 the three men gone, the Doctor found his 
 way round the table and looked under it on 
 the floor, and there found two short bits 
 of straw lying on the carpet. He picked 
 them up and considered. “ What did he 
 do it for ? ” he asked. “ Longest first. 
 They were, I suppose, all the same length, 
 so that the man with the red face should 
 go first. Easy, then, to nip bits off the 
 straw and make the Norway man take the 
 shortest. What did he do it for ? ” And 
 the knowledge of this fact made him 
 uneasy, because it looked as if the search 
 for Armiger would not be altogether fair. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. CAPTAIN BORLINDER 
 AMONG THE CANNIBALS. 
 
 When Captain Borlinder sought the 
 privacy of his own chamber that evening, 
 he gave way to meditations of a very un- 
 pleasant and exasperating nature. Was 
 ever a man more forced into a hole than 
 himself ? Was ever proposition more 
 ridiculous ? Why, if, as Holstius truly 
 said, they were all after the same girl, what 
 the dickens was the good of going out of 
 the country, all the way to the Eastern 
 Seas, at enormous expense, to say nothing 
 of the danger, in order to find and bring 
 home the man who would cut them all out 
 and carry the girl away 1 He would rather 
 fight for the girl ; he should like, he 
 thought, to fight for the girl. That slow 
 and easy Norweegee would pretty soon 
 knock under, though the little Yankee 
 would be more difficult to tackle. But 
 actually to go and look for the man ! 
 Why, since he was happily disposed of, and 
 if not dead, then missing for three years, 
 what madness to disturb so comfortable 
 and providential an arrangement ! As for 
 such disinterestedness as to desire the 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 47 
 
 happiness of any woman in the world as 
 the first consideration, that was a thing 
 too high for Nick Borlinder’s understand- 
 ing, a dark saying, a flight into unattain- 
 able heights, which appeared to him 
 pure unmitigated nonsense. Should his 
 own happiness, should any man’s happi- 
 ness, be wrecked to save that of any 
 woman, or man either, on the whole earth ? 
 What is the happiness of another to a 
 man who cannot himself be happy ? 
 
 Who, thought honest Nicholas, without 
 putting the thought into words, is the most 
 important person, the central person, of the 
 whole universe ; the person about whom 
 the stars do revolve, for whom the sun 
 shines and the rain falls, for whose pro- 
 tection governments exist, for whom all 
 people who on earth do dwell continually 
 toil, so that this person may receive good 
 things without cessation ? Who is it, but 
 — moi meme ? Was, then, Captain Bor- 
 linder to labour and be spent for the 
 promotion of another’s happiness ? Was 
 he to give up his ship in order to find a 
 man who would destroy his own best chance 
 of good fortune ? The thing appeared 
 more preposterous every moment ! 
 
 “ Who, in fact,” he asked, giving full vent 
 to his feelings, “ but a Norweegee could be 
 such an enormous, such an incredible 
 ass » ” 
 
 Then he remembered again the Yankee’s 
 apologue. 
 
 “ Sniggerin’ beast ! ” he said ; “ I hate 
 him ! I wish he’d fall overboard of a dark 
 night and blowin’ great guns. What did 
 he mean 1 I’m to be the cat to go over 
 among the cannibals, am I ! ” 
 
 Then a beautiful and comforting thought 
 crossed his mind. 
 
 “ I know now,” he said, “ what I ought 
 to have replied. I should have said there 
 was a man cleverer than that man. For he 
 promised to go over the Falls in a bathing- 
 machine, or a sewing-machine, or a reap- 
 ing machine, or something, and he went 
 away and presently he came back and said 
 he’d done it.” 
 
 This happy repartee pleased him so 
 much that he repeated it twice, and then 
 sat down and thought it over with 
 intentness. 
 
 “ Why,” he said to himself, reasoning as 
 a Christian of the highest principle, “ man 
 was told to stand out of the reach of 
 temptation, and if I were to meet that 
 man, I might be tempted to knock him on 
 the head. If it wasn’t for Holstius and 
 Wattles I would knock him on the head. 
 
 But to kill a fellow for other fellows to 
 reap the advantage of, it doesn’t seem quite 
 worth while. Still, there’s the temptation, 
 and I oughtn’t to go anigh of it. As for 
 searching for him, again. Where am I to 
 look for him? Am I to land on every 
 island and pass the word for Cap’en 
 Armiger*? Naked black savages don’t 
 know about Cap’en Armiger. Ate him up, 
 no doubt, long ago. Am I to put up a 
 signal at every port for Cap’en Armiger ? 
 Do these ignorant? natives know a signal 
 when they see one ? Very well, then. 
 This Norweegee is all the bigger fool.” 
 
 As for the allegory of the cat again. He 
 was himself the cat. Pleasant thing for a 
 man of his position to be compared to the cat 
 which led the way over the Falls and was 
 smashed and never returned again ! Work 
 that thing out as much as you please, and 
 it always came to this, that he, Nick Bor- 
 linder, was to go out first, get devoured 
 by the cannibals, and never get back 
 again. 
 
 Then the Yankee, himself out of the 
 way, would try another way. 
 
 “I sha’n’t go at all,” he murmured. 
 “ Yah ! for cheating and dishonesty give 
 me a Yankee ! I shall pretend to have 
 been there ! 
 
 “ As for finding him,” he went on 
 with his meditations, “ it’s a thousand to 
 one that you don’t light on the island 
 where he put foot ashore ; and if you do 
 find him, a million to one at least that he’s 
 dead — and all the journey, with the expense 
 of it, for nothing. 
 
 “To say nothing of risk and danger. 
 Shipwreck : I suppose that goes for 
 
 nothing. Fever : I suppose we needn’t 
 reckon that. Oh, no, certainly not. Sun- 
 stroke : that never kills in tropical cli- 
 mates, does it ? Oh, no ; don’t reckon that. 
 Natives : they’re a mild and dovelike race, 
 ain’t they ? Everybody knows that ! 
 Don’t reckon natives.” 
 
 It was, after all, very well to propose a 
 pretended voyage, but what would the 
 Yankee do ? And what did he really 
 mean about the cat and the india-rubber 
 ball? 
 
 This doubt puzzled him not a little. 
 The plan he proposed to himself was 
 simple — beautiful in its simplicity. But 
 he could not help feeling that his American 
 cousin had some other and some deeper 
 plan, by means of which he would himself 
 be circumvented and anticipated. 
 
 Nothing more disturbs the crafty and 
 subtle serpent, or more fills him with 
 
 F 
 
 S : 
 
48 [December 1 , 1881 .] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 virtuous indignation, than the suspicion 
 that his brother serpent is more crafty and 
 more subtle than himself. 
 
 Everybody knows how the two burglars, 
 friends in private but strangers in pro- 
 fession, met one night in the same house, 
 proposing independent research. 
 
 His plan involved no expense, no danger, 
 no possible privations. It was nothing 
 more nor less than to wait awhile, and then 
 to present himself with the report of a 
 pretended voyage. 
 
 At first he thought he would so far give 
 in to the outward §eeming of things as to 
 get a substitute to take command of his 
 ship for a certain space, spending that 
 time on shore in some secluded spot. This 
 plan, however, involved a considerable 
 amount of expense, with the necessity of 
 much explanation to hi3 employers. . It 
 therefore seemed to him best to go on just 
 the same — to take his ship from the 
 London Docks to Cadiz as usual, and back 
 again, to give Rotherhithe a wide berth, 
 and then, after a certain decent interval, 
 to present himself at Seven Houses with a 
 narrative. 
 
 Seven weeks to Hong-Kong, seven weeks 
 back, eight weeks for the search — say 
 six months in all. 
 
 Having roughly drawn out his plan of 
 action, and considered in broad outlines the 
 leading features of the narrative, Captain 
 Borlinder purchased a few sheets of paper, 
 on which to set down the account of his 
 voyage, which he intended should be a 
 masterly performance. He then, without 
 waiting for the Christmas festivities, 
 though nigh at hand — and no such 
 pudding anywhere as at Rydquist’s — pre- 
 sented himself at Rotherhithe to take fare- 
 well before he started on his long and 
 dangerous journey. 
 
 This haste to redeem his promise could 
 not fail, he thought, of producing a favour- 
 able impression. 
 
 He carried a red pocket-handkerchief, 
 as if that contained a \\ the luggage 
 required for a hardy mariner even with 
 such a journey before him. He had tied a 
 •string, with a jack-knife at the end of it, 
 round his waist, like a common sailor. He 
 had a profoundly shiny hat, and his face 
 was set to an expression of as deep sympathy 
 as he could command. 
 
 “ I know,” he said in his lowest tones, 
 “ that to look for Cap’en Armiger in the 
 Eastern Seas will very likely be a mighty 
 tough job ; but I’ve passed my word to 
 tackle that job, and when Nick Borlinder’s 
 
 word is passed to do a thing, that thing has 
 got to be done, or the reason why is asked, 
 pretty quick. Same as if I was in com- 
 mand of my own ship. For, sezi to 
 myself, before ever the Norweegee up and 
 spoke, or the Yankee pretended to have 
 meant it — but I am slow to speak, though 
 amazing quick to think — I sez, ‘ What we 
 three men have got to do in this business 
 is to look after Lai’s happiness.’ That I 
 sez after you read that most affecting 
 letter, before the talk begun, and speaking 
 in a whisper, as a man might say, down 
 his baccy-pipe. ‘Nothin’ else consarns us 
 now. It is that which we have to look 
 after. The way to look after it is to make 
 quite sure that Cap’en Armiger is gone, 
 and the way he went, and where his 
 remains remain ; or else, if he is not gone, 
 but he still alive-and-kicks, wherever that 
 may be, then to bring him home.’ ” 
 
 “ Thank you, Captain Borlinder,” said 
 Lai, thinking that the Patriarch’s dislike 
 to this good and disinterested man was 
 founded on prejudice ; and, indeed, the 
 meaning was quite plain, though the 
 language was a little mixed. 
 
 “ There’s a many islands in the Eastern 
 Seas,” continued Nicolas the Brave. “ I’ve 
 been looking at them in. the charts. There’s 
 thousands of islands — say ten thousand, 
 little and big. Say every one of those 
 islands has to be searched. If we give a 
 month to each island all round, counting 
 little and big, that will make close upon 
 nine hundred years. If it’s only a fort- 
 night, four hundred years. What’s four 
 hundred years to a determined man 1 . I 
 shall search among them islands, if it’s 
 four hundred or nine hundred years, till I 
 find him.” 
 
 “ But this will cost a great deal, Captain 
 Borlinder, I am afraid.” 
 
 “ Never mind about the cost,” he replied 
 grandly. “If it was ten times as much 
 I’d never grudge it. We will say good- 
 bye now. Perhaps I shall come home, 
 with news, in a year, or even less. Per- 
 haps it may be forty years before I come 
 home again. Perhaps I shall bring him 
 home in a few months, well and hearty ; 
 perhaps in about fifty years, with never a 
 tooth to his head. *But never you fear. 
 Pluck up. Say to yourself : ‘Nick Bor- 
 linder, as never puts his hand to nothing 
 but he carries that thing through, has got 
 this job in hand.’ Perhaps I may come 
 with news that you don’t want. But there 
 -—we will not talk of that. If I never 
 come home at all, but get, maybe, devoured 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 49 
 
 by sharks, cannibals, and alligators, besides 
 being struck with sunstroke, fever, rheu- 
 matics, and other illnesses, and knocked 
 on the head with clubs, and shot with 
 poisoned arrows, so that there’s an end, 
 then, Lai, you will perhaps begin to think 
 kind of a man who loved you so dear, that 
 he went all that way alone to look for 
 Cap’en Armiger, also with the Lord. For 
 women never know the value of a man 
 until he’s gone.” 
 
 This said, he shook hands, wagging his 
 head mournfully, but smiting his chest as 
 if to repress the gloomy forebodings of 
 his soul, and the manly sobs that choked 
 further utterance. 
 
 Captain Holstius also went away, and 
 Captain Wattles, who made no further 
 allusion to the letter or the pledge he had 
 made, also returned to Liverpool, whither, 
 he said, business called him. 
 
 Then Lai was left alone with the letter 
 of Rex to read and read again, and she 
 never doubted that Captain Borlinder, 
 true to his word, was on his way to the 
 far East, to begin the search for her lost 
 lover. 
 
 One man, however, doubted very much, 
 but in a vague way. It was the Patriarch. 
 
 “Lai, my pretty,” he said, “I mistrust 
 two of them three chaps — the Yankee first, 
 and Nick Borlinder next. »As to Cap’en 
 Wattles, he’s told me over and over again 
 that he wants to get back to the Pacific. 
 It isn’t hunting for Cap’en Armiger will 
 take him back there. And as for Cap’en 
 Borlinder, it’s my opinion, my dear, that 
 he means to make a voyage there and a 
 voyage back, whereby to clear the cobwebs 
 from his brain and the wrinkles from his 
 eyes, and to gain experience. What then 1 
 Will either of them bring him back ? Do 
 they want him back? Think, my dear. 
 No ; they want him dead. The more dead 
 he is the better they will be pleased. And 
 if I was Cap’en Armiger, my pretty, and I 
 was to see either of them brave master- 
 mariners sailing up a creek with no one 
 else in sight, I would sit snug or I would 
 prepare for a fight. My dear, they may 
 talk, but they don’t want him back ! The 
 only man who means honest is the Nor- 
 weegee. As for him, he loves the very 
 ground you tread upon, and I think he’d 
 rather be your father than your husband, 
 which, to be sure, was never a sailor’s way 
 when I was young ; and that, my dear, is 
 seventy, and soon will be eighty years ago: 
 which proves the Fifth Commandment and 
 shows how much I honoured my father 
 
 and my mother — all the more because I 
 never saw neither of them since ten years 
 old.” 
 
 Captain Borlinder, dropping down the 
 river on his next voyage, passed the Com- 
 mercial Docks with a light and jocund 
 heart. He was about to earn the grati- 
 tude of the girl he loved at a -cheap rate, 
 namely, at the cost of remaining out of 
 her sight on the next occasion of his return 
 to the Port of London. His love was not 
 of that ardent and absorbing kind which 
 prevents a man from feeling happy unless 
 he is in the presence of the object of his 
 affections. Quite the contrary. Captain 
 Borlinder was happier away from the 
 young lady, because conversation with 
 her was carried on under considerable 
 constraint. Once safely married, that 
 constraint, he felt, would be removed, 
 and expressions, now carefully guarded, 
 might be again freely used. If a married 
 man’s house is not his own quarter-deck, 
 what is it ? thought the captain, who, 
 despite the culture of many centuries and 
 the religion of his ancestors, retained the 
 ideas of marital authority common among 
 primitive men. He is now married, how- 
 ever, though not to Lai, and has learned 
 to think quite otherwise. 
 
 The weather was favourable across the 
 Bay, and with all sail set, a rolling sea, 
 and a fresh breeze, the Captain stood aft 
 and began- to consider the shaping of his 
 narrative. 
 
 He was a good hand at a yarn. But 
 then to write a yarn is, if you please, 
 much more difficult than to spin one. The 
 pen is a slow, tedious instrument. We 
 want, in fact, something more rapid with 
 which to interpret our thoughts. While 
 we are painfully setting down one thing, 
 the next, equally important, escapes us 
 and is forgotten. 
 
 Captain Borlinder felt this, and there- 
 fore, very wisely, resolved upon not 
 writing anything until he had thoroughly 
 mastered the whole story and told it to 
 himself half-a-dozen times over. Thus 
 great novelists, I believe, get the whole of 
 their situations clearly in their mind, with 
 the grouping of the characters, before 
 writing a word. And it would be an 
 admirable plan if certain lady novelists 
 would also follow the Captain’s method, and 
 write nothing before they are almost word- 
 perfect with their story. 
 
 His crew were amazed at the behaviour of 
 their skipper, both outward and homeward 
 
M : sc 
 
 50 [December 1 , 1881 .] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 bound. For he paced the quarter-deck 
 all day long, gazing at sky and sea. He 
 struck strange attitudes ; he shook his 
 head ; he swore at himself sometimes ; he 
 left the navigation of the ship to the mate ; 
 he seemed to be perpetually repeating 
 words. 
 
 These things were strange. He was not 
 drunk. He even seemed to drink less than 
 usual; and, if he had got a touch of 
 “ horrors,” as sometimes happens to sailors 
 after a spell ashore, they were manifested 
 in a most unusual manner. 
 
 On the voyage to Cadiz and back the 
 Captain restricted himself to mental com- 
 position. We all know how difficult it is 
 to describe a place which you have never 
 seen. One would like to see a competitive 
 young man’s description, say of Rother- 
 hithe, which nobody but myself has ever 
 visited. That difficulty is, of course, 
 lessened when your readers are equally 
 ignorant, but immensely increased by the 
 consideration that perhaps they know the 
 place. 
 
 Now, certainly Lai had not seen any of 
 the islands of Micronesia, or Polynesia. 
 The contemplation of the chart whereon 
 the countless islands of the Pacific lie 
 dotted among the coral-reefs, the shoals, 
 and atolls of that great sea, only filled her 
 mind with vague thoughts -of palm-trees, 
 soft winds, and brown natives. In those 
 seas sailed the ships she had heard of, the 
 whalers, the schooners trading from island 
 to island. On those dots of dry land lived 
 men, of whom she had heard, who had 
 grown grey in these latitudes, who cared 
 no more to return to England, who had 
 learned native ways and native customs. 
 Though Lai had never travelled, she knew 
 a great deal more than Captain Borlinder, 
 and it might be embarrassing for him to 
 be asked questions arising out of her 
 superior knowledge. 
 
 Again, there was Captain Zachariasen. 
 Nobody knew where that old man had not 
 been in his long life of sixty years’ sailing 
 upon the sea. In his garrulous way, he 
 laid claim to a knowledge of every port 
 under the sun. Now, supposing he had 
 actually visited the place fixed on by him- 
 . self for the scene of Captain Armiger’s 
 exile and death. This, too, would be 
 embarrassing. 
 
 It is true that Nick Borlinder was not 
 one of those who place truth among the 
 highest duties of mankind, but rather con- 
 sidered the search for enjoyment, in all its 
 branches, as a duty immensely superior, 
 
 v 
 
 and, indeed, a duty to be ranked fore- 
 most among those imposed on suffering 
 humanity. Yet the worst of lying is that 
 you have got to be consistent in order to 
 be believed. Random lying helps no man. 
 
 It is a mere amusement, a display of clever- 
 ness, intellectual fireworks, the indulgence 
 of imagination. The story, therefore, must 
 be constructed in accordance, somehow, 
 with possible facts. 
 
 The romancer had provided himself, not 
 only with a few sheets of paper but with 
 a map, and over this he pored continually, 
 seeking a likely spot for the scene of his 
 Fabulous History. But it was not till 
 his second return voyage that he found 
 himself so far advanced with the story as 
 to begin committing it to writing. 
 
 It is interesting to record further that 
 the Captain on returning to London sought 
 a bookseller’s shop, and enquired after any 
 work which treated of the Eastern Seas. 
 
 He obtained a second-hand copy of an old 
 book — I think by Captain Mundy — and 
 then learned that the island of New Guinea, 
 which he easily found on the map, was 
 entirely unknown, and had hardly ever 
 been visited. He therefore resolved to 
 make New Guinea the scene of Rex 
 Armiger’s landing. At all events, Captain 
 Zachariasen would be unable to put him 
 to shame in the matter of New Guinea. 
 
 He made three voyages to and from Cadiz, 
 bringing home a vast quantity of sherry, 
 Portugal plums, raisins, oranges, and other 
 things, and taking out I know not what, 
 except that what he took out was not worth 
 so much as what he brought home. And as 
 this appears to be the case with every 
 ship which leaves a British port, we must 
 be working our way gaily through the 
 national savings, and shall all very shortly 
 take refuge in the national workhouse, so 
 that the dreams of the Socialist will be 
 realised, and all shall be on the same 
 level. This is a very delightful prospect to 
 contemplate, and the position of things 
 reflects the highest credit on both sides of 
 the House. 
 
 It was on October the fourteenth, 
 eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, that 
 Dick the Malay came back and told his 
 tale. It was in December following that the 
 Doctor of the Aryan brought the message 
 from the sea. On J anuary the second, 
 Captain Borlinder took his farewell, and 
 sallied forth on that desperate quest to the 
 Eastern Seas, the description of which 
 was written between Cadiz and London. 
 
 ' No news came to Rotherhithe all the 
 
 * 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [December 1, 1881.] 51 
 
 winter. The Aryan returned, and the 
 Doctor came to say that the Company were 
 making enquiries among the ships trading 
 with the islands for news of a white man 
 cast away upon one of them. No news 
 had yet been received. 
 
 It was the eighth day of June, in 
 the year eighteen hundred and eighty, 
 that Captain Borlinder returned from the 
 East. 
 
 He bore in his hand the same red silk 
 pocket-handkerchief with which he had 
 started, he wore the same blue clothes, in 
 the same state of preservation, because they 
 were his best ; the same rough fur cap. 
 
 He presented himself in the kitchen 
 because it was in the forenoon, and Lai 
 was engaged in her usual occupation 
 namely, the daily pudding. The Patriarch 
 as usual sat in the armchair sound asleep. 
 
 She dropped her work and turned pale, 
 seeing that he was alone. 
 
 “ Alone ! ” she cried. 
 
 “ Alone,” he answered in the deepest 
 and most sepulchral notes which his voice 
 contained. “ Alone,” he repeated. “ I 
 have been a long voyage, and have come 
 back— alone. But not empty-handed. 
 No; I have brought you news. Yes; 
 bad news, I grieve to say.” 
 
 She sat down and folded her hands, 
 prepared for the worst. 
 
 “ Go on,” she said ; “ tell me what you 
 have to tell.” 
 
 At this juncture, Captain Zachanasen 
 awoke and rubbed his eyes. 
 
 “Ho! ho!” he said; “here’s one of 
 them come back. W ell, I thought he 
 
 would be the first. What cheer, mate % ” 
 
 “ Bad,” replied the traveller. 
 
 “ Where’s Cap’en Armiger 1 ” 
 
 Captain Borlinder pointed upwards, 
 following the direction of his finger with 
 one eye, as if that eye of faith could readily 
 discern Rex among the angels. 
 
 “ I thought he’d say that ; I told you so, 
 Lai, my dear. Keep your pluck up, and 
 go tell Cap’en Holstius and Cap’en Wattles. 
 They must hear the news too.” 
 
 “ They here 1 ” 
 
 Captain Borlinder changed colour. He 
 had not thought of this possibility. „ 
 
 “In this very house, both of them, 
 replied the Patriarch. “ Cap’en Wattles 
 he’s been backwards and forwards between 
 Liverpool and New York and London all 
 the time, with his business, and Cap’en 
 Holstius, he’s just brought to port as fine 
 a cargo of white deal as you ever see. 
 Yes, they’re both about.” 
 
 At this point they entered and shook 
 hands. 
 
 “And now,” continued the old man, 
 “let us be comfortable. . Keep your pecker 
 up, Lai, my dear, and give me a pipe. So 
 I told you what he would say, Lai. What 
 a thing it is to have the wisdom of four- 
 score ! Now, my hearty, pay it out.” 
 
 “I have set down on paper,” Captain 
 Borlinder began, “ a Narrative— ahem ! — 
 a Narrative of my adventures since I 
 started to find Cap’en Armiger. If you 
 please, I will read my Narrative.” . 
 
 He lugged his precious manuscript out 
 of his pocket, unrolled it, coughed solemnly, 
 and began to read it. 
 
 “ Stop,” interrupted the Patriarch; “ did 
 you try Moreton Bay % ” 
 
 “No, I did not.” ' 
 
 Captain Zachariasen shook his head 
 mournfully. 
 
 “ Go on, my lad, go on,” he sighed; “ I 
 doubt it’s no good.” 
 
 “ Now, Venerable, keep your oar out, 
 said Captain Borlinder impatiently. “ You 
 and your Moreton Bay ! Lemme go on.” 
 
 He looked round him half ashamed of 
 reading his own literary effort, spread the 
 manuscript upon his knees, flattening it 
 out, and smoothing down the dog’s ears. 
 Then he began. He was, unfortunately, 
 unacquainted with the rules of punctua- 
 tion, so that his reading was hardly up to 
 the Third Standard, the point at which, I 
 believe, most school children stop. But 
 the matter was clear and precise, so that 
 the manner mattered little. 
 
 “I set sail,” he said, “on January 
 the third from Southampton aboard the 
 P. and 0. steamer Batavia, bound for 
 Singapore, a second-class passenger. 
 
 “We navigated the Bay of Biscay, the 
 weather being fine and the sea smooth. 
 We had light showers and a breeze off 
 Malta. We passed through the Canal and 
 down the Red Sea— the weather being 
 warm for the time of year, but cloudy, 
 with much rain— to Aden. From Aden 
 we sailed in a furious gale of wind to 
 Point de Galle, and from Galle with a 
 fair breeze and a smooth sea to Singapore, 
 where we brought up all standing six 
 weeks after leaving Southampton. 
 
 “ At Singapore I began to look about 
 me, making enquiries, but asking no 
 questions for fear of arousing suspicion. # 
 
 “What suspicion 1 ” asked Captain 
 Zachariasen. 
 
 The reader hesitated. Then he read 
 the passage over again. 
 

 52 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ For fear of arousing suspicion.” 
 
 It was a phrase he had encountered 
 somewhere or other in a somewhat limited 
 course of reading, and he set it down, 
 thinking that it sounded rather well. 
 
 “ What suspicion 'l ” 
 
 “If you don’t keep your oar out,” he 
 answered, “ we shall never get along.” 
 
 “ What suspicion ? ” repeated Captain 
 Zachariasen. “ Suspicion that you wanted 
 to make away with the lad when you found 
 him 1 ” 
 
 “ If you was five - and - forty years 
 younger, my Patriarch,” returned the 
 traveller, “ I’d let you know what sus- 
 picion. Now, Lai, if you’ll believe me, 
 my suspicion was that some one else beside 
 me might tackle this job, and so spile it. 
 I wanted it finished off workmanlike. So 
 I cast about. Hold your old jaw, will 
 you 1 ” 
 
 He murmured something more in his 
 throat which rumbled and echoed about 
 the room like suppressed thunder. 
 
 “ First, I went around the public-houses 
 and hung about the bars.” Captain 
 Zachariasen grunted. “ But nothing could 
 I learn. Then I sat upon the wharf and 
 went about the shipping. Mighty civil, 
 well-spoken skippers they were, as a rule, 
 but they could tell me nothing, though 
 some of them knew the Philippine, and 
 one or two remembered Cap’en Armiger. 
 It will be a comfort to you, Lai, to reflect 
 that they all spoke well of him as a good 
 sailor, who could carry his drink like a 
 man.” Here Captain Zachariasen again 
 grunted. “ So I saw what I had all along 
 suspected, that I should have to go upon 
 the search myself. First, therefore, I 
 picked up such information as a man can 
 come by as to the currents and the winds. 
 This done, I laid down the supposed course 
 of the boat, with such winds and such 
 currents, on the chart. Now, you must 
 know that Cap’en Armiger made a great’ 
 mistake. So far from the current being 
 N.R, and the wind S.W., the current sets 
 in strong S.W. And the prevalent wind, 
 less it’s a monsoon or a cyclone, is S.W. 
 too. What the devil are you grunting at 
 now % ” This to Captain Zachariasen, who 
 was making this sign again. 
 
 “ Go on, my lad. Go on heavin’. Sooner 
 we get to the bottom of the page, the 
 better.” 
 
 “ Very well, then. Grunt and I beg 
 
 your pardon, LaL He’s enough to make a 
 bishop swear. Where was I ? Oh ! a 
 cyclone, in S.W. too. What did I do 
 
 then 1 Laid down on the map the place 
 where that boat would likely make the 
 land, and then I cast about to get a ship 
 which would land me on that very identical 
 spot. Sure enough there was a boat in 
 harbour just about to sail.” 
 
 “ What trade might she have been in ?” 
 asked the Patriarch. 
 
 “ Coal trade,” he replied promptly. “ I 
 took a passage, bargained to be disembarked 
 and called for again in three weeks’ time, 
 and we set sail. Beautiful sailing it is in 
 those seas, and one of these winter even- 
 ings, Lai, when you and me have got 
 nothing to do, I will tell you such yarns of 
 they islands as will make you long for to 
 go there yourself. Our course was south 
 of Borneo, and so into the narrow seas, 
 through the Macassar Straits, north of 
 Celebes and Gillolo, and so along the north- 
 west of New Guinea, where I’d made up 
 my mind to find Cap’en Armiger. If 
 you’ve got a chart anywhere about, any of 
 you, you might follow.” 
 
 “ Never mind the chart, my lad,” said 
 Captain Zachariasen; “go on.” 
 
 “Nobody, before me and Cap’en Ar- 
 miger, had ever landed on that desolate 
 coast. They set me ashore with six foot 
 or so of baccy, a pipe, a box of lucifers, a 
 bottle of rum, a gun, and a small fishing- 
 net. That, I thought, would be enough 
 to carry me along for a spell, while I made 
 my enquiries. 
 
 “ I found the natives black but friendly. 
 They appeared not to be cannibals. 
 They greatly admired my appearance and 
 manners. They invited me to stay among 
 them with the gun and be their king. 
 And, although I was obliged to refuse, 
 they were civil, and answered all my 
 questions to the best of their capacities, 
 which are naturally limited.” 
 
 Another grunt. 
 
 “After a bit I discovered that I had not 
 been mistaken in my conclusions. Three 
 years before, or thereabouts, because you 
 cannot expect naked savages to be as 
 accurate as us truth-telling Christians, a 
 white man and a Malay had been washed 
 ashore in an open boat. 
 
 “ Directly I heard that I pricked up my 
 ears. There might have been two different 
 white men come ashore in an open boat, 
 but not two pairs of white man and Malay 
 man. That seemed impossible. So I up 
 and enquired at once where they were. 
 
 “ They told me that at landing there 
 was a fight, but that they were taken up- 
 country after the fight with their arms 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ■ fa 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM. [December 1, 1881.] 53 
 
 bound to their sides.” Here Captain 
 Borlinder stopped. “You remember, 
 Venerable,” he said, “how you interpreted 
 that scrimmage shown by the dumb man % 
 You were quite right.” 
 
 The Venerable grunted again. 
 
 “Of course,” the discoverer resumed, 
 
 “ I made haste to find out which way they 
 were taken, and it was not long before I 
 started following their track, led by a 
 native boy who knew the country well, 
 having been born and brought up there.” 
 “Where were the rest of the natives 
 born and brought up 1” asked Captain 
 Zachariasen. “ Go on, brother. Reel it 
 out.” 
 
 “ The first day ” Captain Borlinder 
 
 turned suddenly pale, as if a weak point 
 had been discovered in his armour, and 
 went on reading rapidly. “ The first day 
 we made five-and-twenty miles, as near as 
 I could reckon, going in a bee-line across 
 country, over hills and valleys where lions, 
 bears, tigers, hyaenas, leopards, elephants, 
 and hippopotamusses roamed free, seeking 
 whom they may devour ; cross rivers where 
 crocodiles sat with open jaws snapping at 
 the people as they passed by.” 
 
 “ It is hot, I suppose, in these latitudes 1 ” 
 said Captain Zachariasen. 
 
 “Hottish,” replied the traveller. “I 
 was given to understand that it was their 
 summer. Hottish, walking. Made a man 
 relish his rum and water. And I found a 
 pint of cold water with a jack-towel re- 
 freshing on a Saturday night. The next 
 day we made thirty knots of sandy desert, 
 where there were camels and ostriches, and 
 never a drop of water to make a cup of 
 tea with. The third day we crossed a 
 mountain, twenty-five thousand feet high, 
 on the sides of which were bears, wolves, 
 and pemmican. From the summit we 
 obtained a splendid view right across the 
 China Seas, and with my glass I could 
 easily make out Hong-Kong. 
 
 “ On the fourth day, after doing thirty 
 miles good, and living for a week on the 
 bark of trees and wild roots, we passed 
 through a thick forest inhabited solely by 
 monkeys and snakes, after which we 
 emerged upon a town, the like of which 
 I had never expected to find in the heart 
 of New Guinea. It appeared to consist of 
 a million and a half of people, as near as I 
 could learn. They go dressed in white 
 cotton knee-breeches and turbans ; they 
 smoke cigarettes and drink Jamaica rum ; 
 their manners are pleasant and their ways 
 hospitable. 
 
 “As soon as they saw that a white man 
 had arrived, they flocked round me and 
 began to ask questions. These I satisfied 
 to the best of my power and requested to 
 be taken to the king. They led me, or 
 rather carried me, shouting along the 
 streets to the Royal Palace, which is a 
 trifle bigger than the Crystal Palace, and 
 all made of solid gold. 
 
 “ The king is a young man, who wears 
 his crown both day and night. He is 
 always surrounded by his guards, and has 
 to be approached on bended knees. 
 
 “ After the usual compliments, he invited 
 me to tell him what I came for. 
 
 “I replied that I was sent by the most 
 beautiful girl in Rotherhithe — at this he 
 seemed pleased, and said he wished she had 
 come herself — in order to discover what had 
 become of her sweetheart, named Rex 
 Armiger, wrecked upon his majesty’s coast 
 in the year 1876. 
 
 “ I confess that I felt sorry, when I had 
 put the question, but then I had come all 
 the way on purpose to put it. For the 
 king and all his courtiers immediately 
 burst into tears. 
 
 “ I then learned the whole story. 
 
 “ Cap’en Armiger had, in fact, landed 
 on this shore, as I expected and calculated. 
 He had been separated from his steward 
 Dick in a scrimmage on the coast, and had 
 been brought inland to be presented as a 
 captive to the king. At the court he made 
 himself at once a great favourite, being a 
 good shot, which pleased his majesty, and 
 a good dancer, which pleased the ladies. 
 He lived three years with them in great 
 favour with everybody, and at the end, 
 though this you will hardly credit, engaged 
 to be married to the king’s sister, being 
 by that time in despair of ever getting 
 away. 
 
 “ Unfortunately, only the week before I 
 arrived, he was killed and devoured by a 
 lion, and the princess was gone off her 
 royal chump. 
 
 “ I am truly sorry to be the bearer of 
 such bad news, Lai. You will own that I 
 done my best. 
 
 “ The rest of my log, how I got away, 
 and how I came here again, would not 
 interest you now. You will, perhaps, like 
 to hear them yarns in the long . winter 
 evenings when we have got nothing else 
 to do. .. 
 
 “As for poor Cap’en Armiger, I brought 
 away with me one relic of him— -the last 
 cap he ever wore. The king sent it to you 
 by my hands. He said a great many civil 
 
54 [December 1, 1881.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 things about my courage in coming all that 
 way to find my friend, and I had to pro- 
 mise to go back again. However, that is 
 nothing. Here, then, is Cap’en Armiger’s 
 cap — the. cap of the Company.” 
 
 He untied the handkerchief and took out 
 a cap with a gold band and a couple 
 of anchors in silver embroidery upon the 
 front. It was a uniform cap, that of the 
 Indian Peninsular Company. 
 
 Lai received it, and turned it over in 
 her hand, but with some doubt, stimulated 
 by Captain Zachariasen’s grunts. 
 
 The old man reached out his hand for 
 the cap, examined it carefully, tried it on 
 his own head, and grunted again. 
 
 “ What are you grunting for now ? ” 
 asked Captain Borlinder in great uneasi- 
 ness. 
 
 “ Gentlemen,” said Captain Zachariasen 
 to the other two, “ tell me what you 
 think 1 ” 
 
 Captain Holstius made answer, like the 
 country gentleman who read Gulliver’s 
 Travels, that he did not believe a word of it. 
 And why 'l Because, no one who had read 
 accounts of those latitudes could reconcile 
 Captain Borlinder’s Narrative with the tales 
 of other travellers. 
 
 Captain Wattles shook his head. 
 
 “ Coarse work,” he said. “ Yery common, 
 and coarse work.” 
 
 Upon this Captain Borlinder lost his 
 temper, and behaved like an officer of his 
 rank when in a rage upon his own quarter- 
 deck. 
 
 “You shouldn’t ha’ thought, brother,” 
 said the old man, holding out the cap and 
 examining it with contempt, “ that a man 
 of fourscore and odd could be taken in by 
 such a clumsy jemmy as yourn. I’d ha’ 
 spun a better yarn myself, by chalks. 
 Two things shall set you right. First, my 
 lad, this cap, which, I suppose, you bought 
 on your way in Houndsditch, is the cap of 
 a boy of thirteen, a midshipmite. Now, 
 Cap’en Armiger, like me, had a big head. 
 We may toss the cap into the fire, Lai, my 
 pretty, because it isn’t your sweetheart’s 
 cap, and never was.” He did toss it into 
 the fire, where it was immediately con- 
 sumed, all except the gold lace which 
 twisted into all shapes. “ Look at him ! ” 
 he added. “Sails in gaily with a boy’s 
 cap in one hand and a yard and half 
 of lies, made up Lord knows where, in the 
 other. Another thing.” Captain Borlinder at 
 this juncture, because he had in, fact, bought 
 that cap in Houndsditch, presented every 
 appearance of discomfiture. “ When he 
 
 landed among the blacks, all alone, what 
 language did he talk with them 1 English 1 
 He knows no other. What do you say, 
 Cap’en Wattles ? ” 
 
 “ Coarse work. Coarse and clumsy 
 work.”' 
 
 Captain Borlinder replied in general 
 terms, and endeavouring to. bluster it out, 
 that this was hard for a man to bear, this 
 was, after going through all he had gone 
 through. 
 
 But here Captain Wattles gave him the 
 coup de grace. 
 
 “ I can tell all of you where that pre- 
 cious Narrative was written. For I made 
 it my business to enquire at the London 
 Docks. He has been all the time aboard 
 his own ship, and he has made three voyages 
 to Cadiz and back since January. If you 
 doubt, go and ask his people.” 
 
 This was an unexpected one. Captain 
 Borlinder reeled. 
 
 Then Lai rose in her wrath. 
 
 “ Go ! ” she cried. “ You are not fit to 
 be under the same roof with honest 
 people. Go, impudent liar ! Oh, that men 
 can be so wicked. He has kept my Rex 
 for six long months more in his captivity. 
 Go ! let us never see your face again.” 
 
 She clenched her hands and pointed to 
 the door with as threatening a gesture as 
 Medea might have employed. 
 
 Captain Borlinder hastened to obey. He 
 crammed the narrative in his packet, and 
 his fur cap upon his head, and walked 
 forth, saying never a word. And although 
 he has never since set foot upon the 
 southern shores of the Port of London, I 
 think he still sometimes feels over again 
 the humiliation of that moment. 
 
 “ And now,” said Captain Wattles, “ it 
 is my turn. We have lost more than six 
 months, it is true. I have settled all my 
 business, and I have got command of a 
 ship which trades among the islands, a 
 Sydney schooner. I meant to tell you this 
 to-day, not expecting to find this — this 
 lying lubber here. Why, there ain’t a lad 
 of ten in the States that wouldn’t put 
 together a better story than that. Coarse 
 and clumsy work” 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. THE QUEST OF CAPTAIN 
 WATTLES. 
 
 The next turn, therefore, fell to Captain 
 Wattles. He, for his part, took leave in a 
 quiet and business-like manner, making no 
 protestations. 
 
 “ I shall be,” he said, “ off and on about 
 I the Carolines, where we expect to find him. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 55 
 
 He is not in the regular track of the 
 traders, else you would have heard from 
 him. He is on none of the islands touched 
 for pearl and b6che de mer — that we may 
 be quite certain of ; therefore, I shall try 
 at those places which are seldom visited. 
 
 If I find him, good ; if not, I will let you 
 know. I don’t pretend to waste my time 
 in looking for a man and nothing else ; I 
 am going to trade on my own account, and 
 look about me the while. News runs from 
 island to island in an astonishing way , ana 
 we shall likely hear about him. That s all 
 I have to say, Miss Lai, and here’s my 
 hand upon it. Barnabas, the Son of Con- 
 solation, will act up to his name. So he, 
 too, disappeared. 
 
 Then, for a while, the house resumed 
 its usual aspect, and things went on as 
 before. A letter came in due course from 
 Captain Wattles. He had arrived at Sydney 
 and was preparing for departure. Then no 
 more letters. T , 
 
 The time passed slowly. Captain HoJL- 
 stius was away with his ship. The life 
 and light seemed to have gone from the 
 girl. Only the old man was left to cheer 
 her continually, and Dick to raise her 
 
 “I shall live, Lai, my dear, he said, to 
 see Cap’en Armiger come home again. 1 
 have no doubt of that; and, pretty, Ive 
 been thinking about the mummicker and 
 the end of his story. Somehow, I doubt 
 whether it wasn’t him, and not the Cap en 
 they took off to prison, I wish I 
 could trust that Yankee chap ; he’s worse 
 than the other. Now, if the Norweegee 
 could go ” 
 
 As for Barnabas, there was something 
 in his cold and quiet way which impressed 
 those who made his acquaintance. Such 
 men, when they are on the right side, 
 make good generals ; . when they are on 
 the wrong, they provide the picturesque 
 element of history. Thus in the sixteenth 
 century he would have been invaluable as 
 a buccaneer, being full of courage and as 
 cool as a melon; also, under favourable 
 conditions, he might have developed a fine 
 religious fanaticism, under the influence ol 
 which he would have hated a Spaniard and a 
 Papist more than even Sir Walter Raleigh 
 hated him. In the seventeenth century 
 he would have found scope as a pirate, with 
 Madagascar, the West -Indian and Floridan 
 Keys, the harbours of Eastern Africa, and 
 nearly all the ports of South America for 
 refuge ; and the 'navies of the world, with 
 the rich galleons of Spain, and the East- 
 
 Indiamen of England, for his booty ; and 
 all the rogues and murderers afloat, actual 
 or possible, longing to become part of his 
 crew. In the eighteenth century the trade ot 
 pirate fell into disrepute, by reason of the 
 singularly disagreeable end which happened 
 to many of its followers. Happily, that of 
 privateer took its place. In the present 
 century, men like Barnabas B. Wattles 
 have gone filibustering ; have carried black 
 cargoes from the West Coast across the 
 Atlantic ; and have gone blockade-running 
 to Charleston and Galveston. All these 
 exciting pursuits have come to. an end ; 
 and there would seem, at first sight, little 
 for a sailor to find ready for a willing hand 
 to do, except perfectly legal pursuits. 
 
 There is not much. Still, there is 
 always something. A man may carry 
 Chinese coolies to Trinidad, Peru, or Cuba. 
 Under what pretences he inveighs them 
 aboard, what promises he makes them, and 
 how much he gets for each, no one, outside 
 the trade, which is a limited company, 
 knows or can discover. You might sooner 
 hope to learn the secrets of the Royal Arch. 
 Again, you may ship coolies for Reunion. 
 They are British subjects, but they are taken 
 on board at Pondicherry, which is a French 
 settlement. And the like mystery sur- 
 rounds each transaction in Hindoo flesh. 
 Lastly, there is a delightful pastime still 
 carried on in Polynesia, known as the 
 Labour Traffic. Opinions differ as to the 
 beneficial results of a few years of coolie- 
 dom in Queensland. For whereas some 
 authorities say that the Polynesian learns 
 the blessings of second-hand reach-me- 
 downs, with a smattering of Christianity, 
 with which to astonish his relatives, the 
 Browns, on his return; others declare 
 that the extra garments are discarded as 
 soon as he lands, the rudiments of the 
 Christian faith forgotten, and only the 
 taste for rum remains. I know not which 
 is right, because in order to decide the 
 point, one ought to live along with native 
 Polynesians, or with Australian colonists, 
 in order to hear both sides of the question, 
 and no controversialist has as yet done 
 that. One thing, however, is quite certain, 
 that the coolies embark for various reasons, 
 among which no one has as yet pretended 
 to find a desire to toil on the Queensland 
 cotton and sugar estates. Toil of any kind 
 is, indeed, the last thing which these 
 children of Equatorial Pacific desire. Rest 
 is what they love, or, if any exercise, 
 then a- languid swim in tepid waters, a 
 dance in the evening, and the joyous cup. 
 
56 [December 1, 1881.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 Now to ship these innocents and to bring 
 them to the market where they may be 
 hired is a profitable, albeit a dangerous, 
 pursuit. 
 
 It is never a fault of the American 
 adventurer that he too carefully considers 
 the danger. Where there are dollars to be 
 picked up there is generally danger. The 
 round earth may be mapped out in dif- 
 ferent belts of fertility, so far as dollars are 
 concerned. Where they most abound and 
 may most readily be gathered there is such 
 a crowd, with so much fighting and 
 struggling, or there are so many perils 
 from climate, crocodiles, settlers, snakes, 
 natives, and sharks, that it is only the 
 brave man who ventures thither, and only 
 the strong man who comes home in safety, 
 bringing with him the treasures he has 
 fought for. Barnabas B. Wattles was 
 brave and strong, and he knew the islands 
 of old, where he had sojourned, though 
 certainly not, as we have once heard him 
 state, as a missionary. He now saw his 
 way to a neat stroke of business combined 
 with love. He would prove, not clumsily, as 
 did his rival, but prove beyond a doubt, the 
 death of Rex Armiger. Then he would 
 return, carry off the girl with the money, 
 which he supposed belonged to her, for- 
 getting the existence of Mrs. Rydquist, and 
 get back to America, where he knew of a 
 certain dry dock, to possess which was the 
 dream of his soul. It may be also stated 
 that he firmly believed that the man was 
 dead, and to find Rex Armiger alive was 
 the last thing which he expected. 
 
 Yet this, as you will see, was exactly 
 what he did find. 
 
 He took command of his trading schooner, 
 loaded her with the things which Poly- 
 nesians love, such as gaudy cottons, powder, 
 tobacco, rum, and strong perfumes, and set 
 sail. 
 
 It is not my purpose to follow the 
 voyage of the Fair Maria across the 
 Pacific Ocean, nor to tell of the various 
 adventures which befell her Captain, and 
 the trade he did. Wherever he touched 
 he made enquiries, but could hear nothing 
 of a young white man cast ashore in an 
 open boat. No one knew or had heard of 
 any such jetsam. 
 
 At last he began to think his search 
 would lead to nothing, and that all trace 
 of the man was lost. This he regretted, 
 because he was unfeignedly anxious to send 
 home or bring home proofs of his death; 
 so anxious that he had grown perfectly 
 certain that Rex was dead. 
 
 It came to pass, however, after many 
 days that he sighted an island, an out- 
 lying member of a group at which he 
 knew that traders never touch, because it 
 was too small a place for trade and lay out 
 of the usual track. 
 
 It is very well known that a large 
 number of the Caroline Islands are com- 
 posed of certain coral formations called 
 atolls. These consist of a round ring of 
 rock just appearing above the surface, 
 enclosing a shallow lagoon, whose diameter 
 varies from a few yards to a hundred miles, 
 in which lie islands, some of them large 
 islands with hills, streams, and splendid 
 woods of cocoa-palm, bread-fruit, durian, 
 and pandang; whose islanders lead, or 
 would lead if they knew how, delightful lives 
 in fishing in their smooth waters, eating 
 the fruits which Heaven sends, and doing 
 no kind of work. Others there are, small 
 atolls with small lagoons, whose islets are 
 mere rocks on which grow nothing but 
 the universal pandang, the screw palm, 
 which serves the people for everything. 
 Such was this. It was too insignificant 
 even to have a name ; it was distant about 
 two hundred miles from the group of which 
 it might be supposed to be a member ; 
 it was simply laid down on the chart 
 as a “shoal,” and had, perhaps, never 
 been visited by any ship since its first 
 discovery. 
 
 Moved by some impulse, perhaps, a mere 
 curiosity as to the capabilities of trade and 
 the possibility of pearls, Captain Wattles 
 steered towards this low-lying land. 
 
 When his boat lay upon the shallow 
 waters within the reef he found a group of 
 the inhabitants of the principal islet 
 gathered upon the beach. They were of 
 the brown Polynesian race, and were 
 apparently preparing for a hostile re- 
 ception. 
 
 Among them stood, passive, a man 
 almost as brown as themselves, but with 
 fair hair and blue eyes. He was a white 
 man ; he was a young white man ; he was 
 evidently no common beach-comber; and 
 Captain Wattles immediately recognised, 
 without any doubt, the man of whom he 
 was in search. He was dressed in rags ; 
 the sleeves were torn from his jacket and 
 his bare arms were tattooed ; his trousers 
 had lost most of their legs ; he wore some 
 kind of sandals made of the pandang leaf ; 
 his beard was long, his hair was hanging 
 in an unkempt mass ; his head was pro- 
 tected from the sun by an ingenious 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 67 
 
 arrangement of another leaf of the same 
 tree. It could be no other than Rex 
 Armiger. 
 
 A strange feeling, akin to pity, seized 
 on Captain Wattles. He repressed it, 
 as unworthy of himself. But he did at 
 first feel pity for him. 
 
 The white man stood among the natives, 
 afraid to excite their suspicion by running 
 before them to meet the boat ; . yet his 
 eagerness was visible in his attitude, in 
 the trembling of his lips, in the way in 
 which he looked upon the boat. 
 
 He carried a short lance in his hand 
 like all the rest. 
 
 Captain Wattles rowed to within hailing 
 distance of the shore. Then he stood up. 
 
 “ White man, ahoy ! ” 
 
 The white man said something to his 
 companions, and stepped forward, but in a 
 leisurely manner, as if he was not at all 
 anxious to speak the boat. 
 
 He came to the water’s edge and sat 
 down. 
 
 “I am an Englishman, he said, 
 speaking slowly, because he was speaking 
 a language he had not used for three 
 years. “ I am an Englishman. My name 
 is Armiger. I was the Captain of the 
 Indian Peninsular ship Philippine, wrecked 
 on a shoal three years or so ago. I have 
 been living since among these people. 
 
 “Do you know their lingo ?” 
 a Yes.” 
 
 “ Then tell them I am harmless and 
 I want to row nearer land.” 
 
 Rex turned to the men and addressed 
 them in their own language. . 
 
 They all sat down and waited. . 
 
 “You may come nearer,” he said ; “ but 
 make no movement that may alarm them, 
 and do not attempt to land. They are 
 suspicious since two years ago a ship came 
 down from the Ladrone Islands and kid- 
 napped twenty of them, including a 
 Malay, cast away with me.” 
 
 Here then was the interpretation of 
 Dick’s second pantomimic fight. He did 
 not escape, he was kidnapped. How he 
 got away from the Ladrone Islands, . how 
 he found his way to England, remains a 
 matter hitherto undiscovered. 
 
 Captain Wattles brought up his boat 
 within a few yards of the beach, but in 
 deep water, holding his men in readiness 
 to .give way. 
 
 Sitting in the stern he was able to talk 
 freely with Rex, who stood at the very 
 edge of the water waiting for an oppor- 
 tunity to leap on board. 
 
 So,” said Captain Wattles, “you are 
 Cap’en Armiger, are you ? ” 
 
 Rex was astonished at the salutation. 
 
 “ Why ? Do you know me ? ” 
 
 “ You see I know your name, stranger. 
 
 I confess I am sorry to find you. I thought 
 you were dead. I hardly calculated that 
 I’d find you, though I certainly did promise 
 to keep one eye open for you.” 
 
 “ What promise ? ” asked Rex. 
 
 “I promised We’ll come to that 
 
 directly. Now, what are those black 
 devils dancing about for ? ” 
 
 The natives had jumped to their feet, 
 and were now shaking clubs and spears in 
 a threatening way. 
 
 “They want my assurance,” Rex said, 
 
 “ that you are not a black-birder.” 
 
 “ Honest trading schooner,” replied 
 Captain Wattles. “Tell them they may 
 come aboard and see for themselves. 
 What have they got to sell ? ” 
 
 “What should we have on this little 
 island? We live on kabobo. Do you 
 want to buy any ? What is your name ? ” 
 “Barnabas B. Wattles, Cap’en of the 
 Fair Maria, lying yonder. Guess you’d 
 like to be aboard her. Well, business first. 
 Let’s trade something. Got no turtle ? ” 
 “No.” 
 
 “No beiche de mer ? No copra ? ” 
 
 “We have nothing.” 
 
 “ Very well, then,” said Captain Wattles. 
 
 “ After business, pleasure. Mate, I guess 
 you are tired of this gem of the sea — eh ? ” 
 
 “ So tired,” replied Rex Armiger, “ that 
 if you had not turned up I believe I should 
 have made a raft out of the pandang leaves 
 and tried my luck.” 
 
 “ Then I’m devilish glad we came,” said 
 Captain Wattles. “ The more so as I have 
 a little bargain to propose before you come 
 aboard my craft.” 
 
 “ Any bargain that’s fair.” 
 
 “ I guess this is quite fair and honour- 
 able,” the Captain went on. “ You have 
 been a beach-comber upon this island for 
 nigh upon three years. Three years is a 
 long time. The gell you were in love 
 with has likely got tired of waiting. Your 
 name is wrote off the books ; your ship is 
 long since posted; your friends have put 
 
 on mourning for you ” 
 
 “What’s the good of so much talk? 
 interrupted Rex. “ I want to be taken off 
 this island. What’s your bargain ? ” 
 
 “ Fair and easy, lad. Let me have my 
 talk out.” Captain Wattles looked at him 
 with a curious expression. “Why, you 
 are as good as dead already.” 
 
58 [December 1 , 1881 ,] THE C ATTAINS ROO^M. [Conducted by 
 
 “What do you mean % ” 
 
 “ I mean this. There’s one or two men 
 who would like you to he dead. I’m one 
 of those. What’s more, I ain’t goin’, for 
 my part, to be the means of restoring you 
 to life. No, sir. I don’t exactly wish you 
 dead, and yet I don’t want to see you alive 
 in England!” 
 
 This was said with great decision. 
 
 Rex listened with amazement. 
 
 “ What harm have I ever done to you, 
 man 1 ” he cried. “ You wish me dead % ” 
 “ There’s no use keeping secrets between 
 us two,” continued the strange trader. 
 “Look here, three years ago, before you 
 got command of the Philippine, you were 
 in love with a certain young lady who lives 
 at Rotherhithe.” 
 
 “ Go on. For God’s sake, go on.” 
 
 “ That sweet young thing, sir, whom it’s 
 a privilege to know and a pride to fall in 
 love with, peaked and pined more than a 
 bit, thinkin’ about you and wonderin’ 
 where you were.” 
 
 “ Poor Lai ! dear Lai I ” 
 
 “ Yes, she was real faithful and kind- 
 hearted, that gelL Her friends, and espe- 
 cially her mother, who takes a kind of 
 pleasure in reckoning up the dead men 
 she knows located at the bottom of the 
 briny, gave you up. But she never gave 
 you up. No, never.” 
 
 “ Poor Lai ! dear Lai ! ” 
 
 The tears stood in the castaway’s eyes 
 as he sat and listened. Behind him the 
 men of the island stood like wild beasts 
 on the alert, waiting for the moment of 
 flight or attack. And also like wild beasts, 
 they were never certain whether to fly or 
 to fight. 
 
 “ No one like that gell, sir, no one,” 
 continued Captain Wattles ; “ which is all 
 the more reason why other fellows want to 
 cut in.” 
 
 Rex began to understand. 
 
 “Among other fellows is myself, Bar- 
 nabas B. Wattles. Very good. Now you 
 see why I would rather hear that you 
 were dead than alive, and why I’m darned 
 disappointed to meet you here. However, 
 you are on about as desolate a place as I 
 know of, that’s one comfort.” 
 
 The fact brought no comfort to Rex, but 
 quite the reverse. 
 
 “ Mate, I want to tell you the whole 
 story fair and above board. I will tell you 
 no lies. Therefore, you may trust what I 
 say. And first let me know how you came 
 here, and all about it.” 
 
 Rex told his story. It was all as Lai 
 
 had divined from Dick’s action. They 
 sighted the island, being then half dead 
 with hunger, and with difficulty managed 
 to paddle themselves ashore. They were 
 seized by the natives, and a consultation 
 was held as to whether they should be 
 killed. They were spared. 
 
 Life on that island is necessarily simple. 
 The people live entirely on kabobo, which 
 is a sort of rough bread made of the 
 pandang nut. They have no choice, 
 because there is nothing else to live upon. 
 It is the only tree that grows upon this 
 lonely land. Kabobo is said to be whole- 
 some, but it is monotonous. 
 
 Rex explained briefly that he had 
 learned to talk with them, and won by slow 
 degrees their confidence; that he had 
 taught them a few simple things, and that 
 he was regarded by them with some sort 
 of affection ; that, after a year’s residence 
 on the island, a ship came in sight, but did 
 not anchor. That a boat put off, manned 
 by an armed crew, who, when the people 
 came down to meet them, half disposed to 
 be friendly, attacked them, killed some, 
 and carried off others, among whom was 
 the Malay. This made them extremely 
 suspicious. Since that event nothing had 
 happened ; nothing but the slow surge of 
 the wave upon the reef and the sigh of the 
 wind in the pandang trees. 
 
 “Now that you have come,” Rex con- 
 cluded, “ you who know — her,” he added 
 cheerfully, though his heart was heavy in 
 thinking of the bargain, “you will take 
 me off this island — for her sake.” 
 
 “ For her sake % ” echoed Captain 
 Wattles. “ Man alive ! It is for her sake 
 that I won’t do no such a silly thing. No, 
 sir. You understand that she thinks you’re 
 alive. Yery good then. Bein’ a faithful 
 gell, she keeps her word with you Once 
 she knows you are dead, why, there will 
 be a chance for another chap. And who 
 so likely as the man who came all the way 
 out here to discover that interestin’ fact ? 
 See, pard 1 ” 
 
 “ Good God ! ” cried Rex. “ Do you 
 mean that you will leave me here and say 
 I am dead 1 ” 
 
 “ That is exactly what I am coming to, 
 Cap’en Armiger. I take it, sir, that you 
 air a sensible man, and I have been told 
 that you know better than most which 
 way that head of yours is screwed on. 
 You can. understand what it is to he in 
 love with that most beautiful creature. 
 What you’ve got to do is to buy your 
 freedom.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1 , 1881 .] 59 
 
 “ How am 1 to buy my freedom. 3 ” 
 
 “ I’ve thought of this meeting, sir this 
 was a happy invention of the moment — 
 
 “ and I considered within myself what 
 would be best. The easiest way out of it, 
 the way most men would choose, would be 
 to get up a little shindy with those brown 
 devils there and to take that opportunity 
 of dropping a bead into your vitals. That 
 way, I confess, did seem to me, at first 
 sight, the best. But why kill a man when 
 you needn’t 1 I know it’s foolish, but I 
 should like to go back to that young creature 
 without thinking that she’d disapprove if 
 she knew.” 
 
 Rex sprang to his feet. The man who 
 lay there in the stern of the boat, six feet 
 from the shore, his head upon his hands, 
 calmly explaining why he did not murder 
 him, was going back to England to marry 
 Lai — his Lai. To marry her ! He threw 
 up his arms and was speechless with rage 
 and horror. 
 
 Behind him the savages stood grouped, 
 waiting for any sign from him to fly or 
 rush upon the strangers with their spears. 
 
 The day was perfectly calm, the sea was 
 motionless in the land-locked water, and, 
 in the calm and peace of the hot noonaay, 
 the words fell upon his brain like words 
 one hears in a ghastly dream of the 
 night. 
 
 “Yes,” the man went on, “I want to 
 do what is right, and this is my proposal, 
 Cap’en Armiger. I know you can be 
 trusted, because I’ve made enquiries. Some 
 Englishmen can lie like Rooshans, but 
 some can’t. You, I am told, are one of 
 that sort who can’t. Promise me to drop 
 your own name, not to go back to England 
 for twenty years at least, never to let out 
 that you are Rex Armiger, to stay in these 
 seas, and I’ll take you aboard my schooner 
 and land you at Levuka or Honolulu, or 
 wherever you please. Come, you may 
 even go to Australia if you like. As for 
 names, I’ll lend you mine. You shall have 
 the name of my brother, Jacob B. Wattles, 
 now in Abraham’s bosom. He won’t mind, 
 and if he does, it don t matter. As for 
 work, there’s plenty to get and plenty to 
 do among these islands. There’s the labour 
 traffic; there’s pearl-fishing; there’s trading. 
 You may live among them, marry among 
 them, turn beach-comber for life ; you may 
 get to Fiji and run a plantation. Oap’en 
 Armiger, if I were you, I would rather 
 not go back. 
 
 “ As for this place, now, I don’t suppose 
 a man grows to get a yearning for kabobo 
 
 for a permanence, and on this durned one- 
 horse island there doesn’t seem much 
 choice outside the pandang tree. Like- 
 wise, those young gentlemen with their 
 toothpicks are not quite the company you 
 were brought up to, I reckon. Whereas, 
 except for the missionaries, who spoil 
 everything, I don’t suppose there’s better 
 company to be got anywhere in this world 
 than you’ll find in this ocean when I land 
 you on an island worth the name. At 
 Honolulu, for instance, there’s nobblers 
 
 and champagne, and Wal, I’d rather 
 
 live there, or in one or two other islands 
 that I know, than anywhere in Europe or 
 the States. And so would you, come to 
 look at things rightly.” 
 
 Rex still kept silence, pacing on the 
 narrow beach. 
 
 “ As for being dead, you’ve been dead 
 for three years, so that can’t be any objec- 
 tion. Why, man, I give you life; I 
 resurrect you. Think of that ! 
 
 “ As for being altered, you are so changed 
 that your own mother would not know 
 you again. No fear of any old friends 
 recognising you. And, so far as a few 
 dollars go to start with, say the word and 
 you shall have them, with a new rig-out.” 
 Still Rex made no reply. 
 
 “ There is my offer, plain and open. I’m 
 sorry for you, Cap’en Armiger, I re lly am, 
 because she’s out an’ out the best set-up gell 
 that walks. But two men can’t both have 
 her. And I mean to be the . man that 
 does— not you. And all is fair in love.” 
 
 “ And if I refuse your offer 1 ” 
 
 “ Then, Cap’en Armiger, you stay just 
 where you now happen to be. And a 
 most oncomfortable location. Now, sir, 
 make no error. Since the day that you 
 landed on this island, have you seen ary a 
 sail on the sea 1 No. Ships don’t come 
 here. Even the Germans at Yap know 
 that it’s no manner of good coming here. 
 You are out of the reach of hurricanes, so 
 you can’t expect so much as a wreck. You 
 are hundreds of miles from any land ; you 
 have got no tools to make a raft, and no 
 provisions to put aboard her if you could 
 make one ; you are altogether lonely, and 
 hopeless, and destitute. Robinson Crusoe 
 hadn’t a more miserable a look-out. As for 
 that young lady, you have no . chance, not 
 the least mite of a chance, sir, of seeing 
 her ever again. You have lost her. W hy, 
 then, give her another chance, and let me 
 say you are dead. Cap’en, you can write 
 that’s another of my conditions— a last 
 dying will and testament on a bit o 
 
60 [December 1 , 1881.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 paper, which I will send her. Come, be 
 reasonable.” 
 
 Rex stood still, staring blankly before 
 him. On the one hand, liberty and life — 
 for to stay upon the island was death ; on 
 the other, perhaps a hopeless prison. 
 
 Yet — Lai Rydquist ! If she mourned 
 him as one dead, would it hurt to let her 
 mourn until she forgot him? He shud- 
 dered as he thought of her marrying the 
 cold-blooded villain before him. Perhaps 
 she would never marry anyone, but go on in 
 sadness all her days. 
 
 I am happy to say that the third course 
 open to him — to give his parole and then 
 to break it — did not occur to him as 
 possible. 
 
 He decided according to the nobler 
 way. 
 
 “ Co without me,” he said. And then, 
 without a word of reproach or further 
 entreaty, he left the beach and walked 
 away, and was lost among the palm-trees 
 standing thickly upon the thin and sandy 
 soil. 
 
 Captain Wattles gazed after him in 
 admiration. 
 
 “ There goes,” he said, “ one of the 
 real old sort. Bully for the British bulldog 
 yet ! ” 
 
 The group of savages stood still, looking 
 on and wondering. They suspected many 
 things : that their white prisoner would 
 run away with the boat; that the crew 
 might fire upon them or try to kidnap 
 them. They also hoped a few things, such 
 as that the white Captain would give them 
 things, fine beads, fine coloured stuffs, or 
 rum to get drunk with. Yet nothing 
 happened. Then Captain Wattles, seeing 
 that Rex Armiger had disappeared, be- 
 thought him of something. And he began 
 to make signs to the black fellows and to 
 show them from the stern of his boat things 
 wonderful and greatly to be desired, and 
 at the same time he gave certain directions 
 to his crew. 
 
 Thereupon the savages, moved with the 
 envy and desire of those things, did with 
 one accord advance a few yards nearer. 
 
 Captain Wattles spread out more things, 
 holding them up in the sun for their admi- 
 ration, and making signs of invitation. 
 
 They then divided into two groups, 
 of whom one retreated and the other 
 advanced. 
 
 Captain Wattles next displayed a couple 
 of most beautiful knives, the blades of 
 which, when he opened them, flashed in 
 the sun in a most surprising manner. And 
 
 he pointed to two of the islanders, young 
 and stalwart fellows, and invited them by 
 gestures to come into the water and take 
 these knives. 
 
 The crew meantime remained perfectly 
 motionless, hands on oars. Only those 
 experienced in rowing might have observed 
 that their oars were well forward ready for 
 the stroke. 
 
 The advanced group again separated 
 into two more groups, of which one 
 consisting of a dozen of the younger men, 
 including the two invited, advanced still 
 nearer, until they were close to the water’s 
 edge, and the others retreated further 
 back. All of them, both those behind and 
 those in front, remained watchful and 
 suspicious, like a herd of deer. 
 
 Presently the two singled out plunged 
 into the water and swam out to the boat. 
 At first they swam round it, while Captain 
 Wattles continued to smile pleasantly at 
 them and to exhibit the knives. Also the 
 crew dipped their oars without the least 
 noise, and with a half stroke, short and 
 sharp, not moving their bodies, got a little 
 way upon the boat. The swimmers, with 
 their eyes upon the knives, did not seem 
 to notice this manoeuvre. Nor did they 
 suspect though the oars were dipped again 
 and the boat fairly moving. 
 
 For just then they made up their minds 
 that Captain Wattles was a kind and be- 
 nevolent person, and they swam close to 
 the stern of the vessel and held up their 
 hands for the knives. 
 
 It is very well known that the Polynesian 
 natives have long and thick black hair, which 
 they tie up in a knot at the top of their 
 heads. 
 
 What, then, was the surprise of these 
 two poor fellows to find their top-knots 
 grasped, one by Captain Wattles, and the 
 other by his interpreter, and their own 
 heads held under water till they were half 
 drowned, while the crew gave way and the 
 boat shot out to sea. 
 
 There was a wild yell of the natives on 
 shore, and a rush to the water. But the 
 boat was too far out for missiles to reach 
 or shouts to terrify. 
 
 “ Now,” said Captain Wattles, when the 
 half-drowned fellows were hauled up the 
 ship’s side, “we didn’t exactly want this 
 kind o’ cargo, and I had hoped to have 
 stuck to legitimate trade. Wal ! this will 
 make it very awkward for the next ship 
 which touches here, and I don’t think it 
 will add to Cap’en Armiger’s popularity. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 61 
 
 After all,” he added, “ I doubt I was a fool 
 not to finish this job and have done with 
 it. Who knows but some blundering ship 
 may find out the place by mistake and pick 
 him up i ” 
 
 When the Fair Maria returned to 
 Sydney, some months later, the very first 
 thing Captain Wattles did was to put 
 into the post a bulky letter. 
 
 Like Captain Borlinder he had written 
 a Narrative. Unlike that worthy’s story, 
 this had all the outward appearance of 
 vraisemblance. I would fain enrich this 
 history with it, at length, but forbear. 
 Yet was it a production of remarkable 
 merit, combining so much that was true 
 with so much that was false. 
 
 As a basis we may recall the history, 
 briefly touched upon, of the kidnapping by 
 the ship from the Ladrones. 
 
 This story put Captain Wattles upon the 
 track of as good a tale of adventure ending 
 with the death of Eex Armiger as was ever 
 told. Some day, perhaps, with changed 
 names, it may see the light as a tale for 
 boys. 
 
 The local colouring was excellent, and 
 the writer’s knowledge of the natives made 
 every detail absolutely correct. It ended 
 by an appeal, earnest, religious, to Lai’s 
 duties as a Christian. No woman, said 
 Captain Barnabas, was allowed to mourn 
 beyond a term ; nor was any woman (by 
 the Levitical law) allowed to consider 
 herself as belonging to one man, should 
 that man die. Wherefore, he taught her, 
 it was her bounden duty to accept the past 
 as a thing to be put away and done with. 
 
 “We forget,” he concluded, “the 
 sorrows of childhood ; the hopes and disap- 
 pointments of early youth are remembered 
 no more by healthy minds. So let it be 
 with the memory of the brave and good 
 man who loved you, doubtless faithfully as 
 you loved him. Do not hide it, or stifle it. 
 Let it die away into a recollection of 
 sadness endured with resignation. I would 
 to Heaven that it had been my lot to touch 
 upon this island, where he lived so long, 
 before the fatal event which carried him 
 off. I would that it had been my privilege 
 to bring him home with me to your arms.- 
 I cannot do this now. But when I return 
 to England, and call at Seven Houses, may 
 it be my happiness to administer that con- 
 solation which becomes one who bears my 
 christian-name. ” 
 
 This was very sweet and beautiful. 
 Indeed, Captain Wattles had a poetical 
 spirit, and would doubtless have written 
 
 most sweet verses had he turned his atten- 
 tion to that trade. 
 
 After the letter was posted, he was 
 sitting in a verandah, his feet up, reading 
 the latest San Francisco paper. Suddenly 
 he dropped it, and turned white with some 
 sudden shock. 
 
 His friends thought he would faint, and 
 made haste with a nobbier which he drank. 
 Then he sat up in his chair and said 
 solemnly : 
 
 “ I have lost the sweetest gell in all the 
 world, through the darndest folly ! Don’t 
 let any man ask me what it was. I had 
 the game in my own hands, and I threw it 
 away. Mates ! I sha’n’t never — no, never 
 — be able to hold my head up again. A 
 nobbier ? Ten nobblers 1 ” 
 
 The letter reached England in due 
 course, and, for reasons which will imme- 
 diately appear, was opened by Captain 
 Zachariasen. He read it aloud right 
 through twice. Then he put it down, and 
 the skin of his face wrinkled itself in a 
 thousand additional crow’s-feet, and a ray 
 of profound wisdom beamed from his 
 sagacious eyes, and he said slowly : 
 
 “Mrs. Rydquist, ma’am, I said at first 
 go off that I didn’Ji trust that Yankee 
 any more than the Borlinder lubber. 
 Blame me if they ain’t both in . the same 
 tale. You and me, ma’am, will live to 
 
 see!” „ , . 
 
 “ I hope we may, Captain Zachariasen ; 
 
 I hope we may. Last night I lay awake 
 three hours, and I heard voices. . We have 
 yet to learn what these voices mean. 
 Winding-sheets in candles I never knew 
 to fail, but voices are uncertain.” 
 
 CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT GOOD LUCK OF 
 CAPTAIN HOLSTIUS. 
 
 The clumsy cheat of Captain Borlinder 
 brought home to Lai the sad truth that 
 nobody, except herself and perhaps Cap- 
 tain Holstius, believed Rex could still be 
 living. Even the Doctor of the Aryan, 
 who called every time the ship came home, 
 frankly told her that he could not think 
 it possible for him to be anywhere near 
 the track of ships without being heard of. 
 The Company had sent to every port 
 touched by Pacific traders, and to every 
 missionary station, asking that enquiry 
 should be made, but nothing had been 
 heard. All the world had given him up. 
 There came a time when anxiety became 
 intolerable, with results to nerve and brain 
 which might have been expected had Lai s 
 
62 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS' ROOM. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 friends possessed any acquaintance with 
 the diseases of the imagination. 
 
 “I must do something,” she said one 
 day to Captain Holstius, who remonstrated 
 with her for doing too much. “I must 
 be working. I cannot sit still. All day I 
 think of Rex — all night I see Rex — wait- 
 ing on the shore of some far-off land, 
 looking at me with reproachful eyes, 
 which ask why I do not send some one to 
 take him away. In my dreams I try to 
 make him understand — alas ! he will not 
 hear me, and only shakes his head when I 
 tell him that one man is looking for him 
 now, and another will follow after.” 
 
 Captain Holstius, slowly coming to the 
 conclusion that the girl was falling into a 
 low condition, began to cast about, in 
 his thoughtful way, for a remedy. He 
 took a voyage to Norway to think about 
 it. 
 
 Very much to Lai’s astonishment he 
 reappeared a month later, without his 
 ship. He told her, looking a little 
 ashamed of himself, that he had come by 
 steamer, and that he had made a little 
 plan which, with her permission, he would 
 unfold to her. 
 
 “ I drew the shortest straw,” he said ; 
 “ otherwise I should have gone long ago. 
 Now, without waiting for Captain Wattles, 
 who may be an honest man or he may not 
 be ” 
 
 “Not be,” echoed the Patriarch. 
 
 “ I mean to go at once.” 
 
 Lai clasped her hands. 
 
 “ But there is another thing,” he went 
 on. “ Lai, my dear, it isn’t good for you 
 to sit here waiting ; it isn’t good for you 
 to be looking upon that image all day 
 long as well as all night.” 
 
 “ It never leaves me now,” she cried, 
 the tears in her eyes. “ Why, I see him 
 now, as I see him always while you are 
 talking — while we are all sitting here.” 
 
 Indeed, to the girl’s eyes, the figure 
 stood out clear and distinct. 
 
 “ See ! ” she said, “ a low beach with 
 palm-trees, such as you read to me about 
 last year. He is on the sands, gazing out 
 to sea. His eyes meet mine. Oh, Rex — 
 Rex ! how can I help you ] What can I 
 do for you ] ” 
 
 Captain Holstius shuddered. It seemed 
 as if he, too, saw this vision. 
 
 Captain Zachariasen said that mum- 
 micking was apt to spread in a family like 
 measles. 
 
 “ Then, Lai dear,” said Captain Hol- 
 stius, “ hear my plan. I have sold my 
 
 share in the ship. I got a good price for 
 it — three hundred pounds. I am ready 
 to start to-morrow. But I fear that when 
 I am gone you will sit here and grieve 
 worse because I shall not be here to com- 
 fort you. It is the waiting that is bad. 
 So ” — he hesitated here, but his blue eyes 
 met Lai’s with an honest and loyal look — 
 “ so, my dear, you must trust yourself to 
 me, and we will go together and look for 
 him. ” 
 
 “ Go with you]” 
 
 “ Yes ; go with me. With my three 
 hundred pounds we can get put from port 
 to port, or pay the Captain of a trader to 
 sail among the Carolines with us on board. 
 I daresay it will be rough, but ship Captains 
 of all kinds are men to be trusted, you 
 know, and I shall be with you. You will 
 call me your brother, and I shall call you 
 my sister if you like.” 
 
 To go with him ! Actually to sail away 
 across the sea in quest of her lover ! To 
 feel that the distance between them was 
 daily growing less ! This seemed at first 
 sight an impossible thing, more unreal 
 than the vision of poor Rex. 
 
 To be sure such a plan would not be 
 settled in a day. It was necessary to get 
 permission from Mrs. Rydquist, whose 
 imagination would not at first rise to the 
 Platonic height of a supposed brotherhood. 
 
 She began by saying that it was an 
 insult to the memory of her husband, and 
 that a daughter of hers should go off in 
 broad daylight was not what she had 
 expected or hoped. She also said that if 
 Lai was like other girls she would long 
 since have gone into decent crapes and 
 shown resignation to the will of Heaven. 
 That fair warning with unmistakable signs 
 had been given her; that, after all, she 
 was no worse off than her mother ; with 
 more to the same effect. Finally, if Lai 
 choose to go away on a wild-goose chase, 
 she would not, for her part, throw any 
 obstacle in the way, but she supposed that 
 her daughter intended to marry Captain 
 Holstius whether she picked up Rex or 
 not. 
 
 “He ought, my dear,” said Captain 
 Zachariasen, meaning the Norweegee, “ to 
 have been a naval chaplain, such is his good- 
 ness of heart. And- as gentle as a lamb, and 
 of such are the kingdom of heaven. You 
 may trust yourself to him as it were unto 
 a bishop’s apron. And if ’twill do you any 
 good, my pretty, to sail the salt seas o’er 
 in search of him who may be for aught 
 we know, but we hope he isn’t, lying snug 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [December 1 , 1881 .] 63 
 
 at the bottom, why take and up and go. 
 
 As for the Captains, I’ll keep ’em in order, 
 and with authority to give a month’s 
 warning, I’ll sit in the kitchen every 
 morning and keep ’em at it. Your mother 
 can go on goin’ on just the same with her 
 teapot and her clean handkerchiefs. 
 
 This was very good of the old man, and 
 in the end he showed himself equal to the 
 task, so that Rydquist’s fell off but little in 
 reputation while Lai was away. 
 
 As for what people might say, it was 
 very well known in Rotherhithe who and 
 of what sort was Lai Rydquist, and why 
 she was going away. If unkind things 
 were spoken, those who spoke them might 
 go to regions of ill repute, said the Captains 
 in discussion. 
 
 How the good fellows passed round the 
 hart to buy Lai a kit complete; how 
 Captain Zachariasen discovered that he 
 had a whole bag full of golden sovereigns 
 which he did not want, and would never 
 want; how it was unanimously resolved 
 that Dick must go with them ; how the 
 officers of the Aryan for their share pro- 
 vided the passage-money to San Francisco 
 and back for this poor fellow; how the 
 Director of the Company, who had come 
 with the Secretary to see the “ mummick- 
 ing,” heard of it, and sneaked to Rother- 
 hithe unknown to anybody with a purse 
 full of bank-notes and a word of good 
 wishes for the girl ; how everybody grew 
 amazingly kind and thoughtful, not allow- 
 ing Lai to be put upon or worried, so that 
 servants did what they ought to do with- 
 out being looked after, and meals went on 
 being served at proper times, . and the 
 Captains left off bringing things that 
 wanted buttons; how Mrs. Rydquist for 
 the first time in her life received super- 
 natural signs of encouragement ; and how 
 they went on board at last, accompanied 
 by all the Captains— these things belong 
 to the great volumes of the things un- 
 written. 
 
 All was done at last, and they were, m 
 the Channel steaming against a head wind 
 and a chopping sea. They were second-class 
 | passengers, of course ; money must not be 
 wasted. But what mattered rough accom- 
 modation ? 
 
 All the way across to New York on 
 the Rolling Forties they had head winds 
 and rough seas. Yet what mattered 
 bad weather h It began with a gale from 
 the south-west in the Irish Sea, which 
 bucketed the ship about all the way from 
 the Mersey to Queenstown. The sailors 
 
 stamped about the deck all night, and 
 there was a never-ending yo-ho-ing with 
 the dashing and splashing of the waves 
 over the deck. The engines groaned 
 aloud at the work they were called upon 
 to do ; the ship rolled and pitched without 
 ceasing ; the passengers were mostly groan- 
 ing in their cabins, and those who could 
 get out could get no fresh air except on 
 the companion, for it was impossible to go 
 on deck ; everything was cold, wet, and 
 uncomfortable. Yet there was . one glad 
 heart on board who minded nothing, of the 
 weather. It was the heart of the girl who 
 was going in quest of her lover ; so that 
 every moment brought them nearer to him, 
 what mattered for rough weather 1 Besides, 
 Lai was not sea-sick, . nor was her com- 
 panion, as by profession forbidden that 
 weakness. 
 
 When they left Queenstown, the gale, 
 which had been south-west, became north- 
 west, which was rather worse, for them, 
 because it was colder. And this gale was 
 kept up for their benefit the whole way 
 across, sothatthey had no easy moment, nor 
 did the ship once cease her plunging through 
 angry waters, nor did the sun shine upon 
 them at all, nor did the fiddles leave the 
 tables, nor were the decks dry for a 
 moment. Yet what mattered wind and 
 rain and foul weather % For every moment 
 brought the girl nearer to her lost lover. 
 
 When Lai stood on the rolling deck, 
 clinging to the arm of Captain Holstius, 
 and looked across the grey waters leaden 
 and dull beneath the cloudy sky, it was 
 with a joy in her heart which lent them 
 
 sunshine. . . 
 
 “I see Rex no longer m my dreams, 
 she said ; “ what does that mean 1 
 
 “ It means, Lai,” replied Captain 
 Holstius, who believed profoundly that 
 the vision was sent direct by Providence, 
 “ that he is satisfied, because he knows 
 that you are coming.” . . 
 
 Some of the passengers perceiving that 
 here was an extremely pretty girl, accom- 
 panied by a brother— brothers are not 
 generally loth to transfer their sisters to 
 the care of those who can appreciate them 
 more highly — endeavoured to make ac- 
 quaintance, but in vain. It was not m 
 order to talk with young fellows that Lai 
 was crossing the ocean. 
 
 Then, the voyage having passed through 
 like a dream, they landed at New York, 
 and another dream began m the long 
 journey across the continent among people 
 whose ways and speech were strange. 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 64 [December l, 188L] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 This is a journey made over land, and 
 there was no more endurance other than 
 that of patience. But it is a long and 
 tedious journey which even the ordinary tra- 
 veller finds weary, while to Lai, longing to 
 begin the voyage of search, it was well- 
 nigh intolerable. Some of the passengers 
 began to remark this beautiful girl with 
 eyes that looked always westward as the 
 train ploughed on its westward way. She 
 spoke little with her companion, who was 
 not her husband and did not seem to be 
 her brother. But from time to time he 
 unrolled a chart for her, and they followed a 
 route upon the ocean, talking in undertones. 
 Then these passengers became curious, 
 and one or two of them, ladies, broke through 
 the American reserve towards strangers and 
 spoke to the English girl, and discovered 
 that she was a girl with a story of sur- 
 passing interest. She made friends 
 with these ladies, and after a while 
 she told them her story, and how the 
 man with whom she travelled was 
 not her brother at all, and not even 
 her cousin, but her very true and faithful 
 friend, her lover, more loyal than Amadis 
 de Gaul, who had sold all that he had and 
 brought the money to her that she might 
 go herself to seek her sweetheart. And 
 then she told what reason she had to 
 believe that Rex was living, and pointed 
 to the Malay who had brought the message 
 from the sea, and was as faithful to her as 
 any bull-dog. 
 
 They pressed her hands and kissed her ; 
 they wished her God-speed upon her 
 errand, and they wondered what hero this 
 lover of hers could be, since, for his sake, 
 she could accept without offer of reward 
 the service, the work, the very fortune of 
 so good and unselfish a man. 
 
 He was no hero, in truth, poor Rex ! 
 nor was he, I think, so good a man as 
 Captain Holstius ; but he was her sweet- 
 heart, and she had given him her word. 
 
 Yet, although she talked, although the 
 journey was shortened by the sympathy of 
 these kind friends, it was like the voyage, 
 a strange and unreal dream; it was a 
 dream to be standing in the sunshine of 
 California ; a dream to look upon the 
 broad Pacific; a dream that her brother 
 stood beside her with thoughtful eyes and 
 parted lips, looking across the ocean on 
 which their quest was to be made. 
 
 “ Yes, Lai,” he murmured, pointing 
 where westward lie the lands we call Far 
 East, “yonder, over the water, are the Coral 
 Islands. They are scattered across the sea 
 
 for thousands of miles, and on one of them 
 sits Captain Armiger. Doubt not, my dear, 
 that we shall find him.” 
 
 Now it came to pass that the thing for 
 which a certain English girl, accompanied by 
 a Norwegian sea-captain, had come to San 
 Francisco became noised abroad in the city, 
 and even got into the papers, and inter- 
 viewers called upon Captain Holstius 
 begging for particulars, which he supplied, 
 saying nought of his own sacrifices, nor of 
 the money, and how it was obtained. 
 
 The story, dressed up in newspaper 
 fashion, made a very pretty column of 
 news. It was copied, with fresh dressing 
 up, into the New York papers, and accounts 
 of it, with many additional details, all 
 highly dramatic, were transmitted by the 
 various New York correspondents — all of 
 whom are eminent novelists — to the 
 London papers. The story was copied 
 from them by all the country and colonial 
 papers, whence it came that the story of 
 Lai’s voyage, and the reason of it, became 
 known, in garbled form, all over the 
 English-speaking world. But, as a great 
 quantity of most interesting and exciting 
 things, including the Irish discussion, have 
 happened during this year, public interest in 
 the voyage was riot sustained, and it was 
 presently forgotten, and nobody enquired 
 into the sequel. 
 
 This, indeed, is the fate of most interest- 
 ing stories as told by the papers. An 
 excellent opening leads to nothing. 
 
 But the report of her doings was of great 
 service to Lai in San Francisco. In this 
 wise. Among those who came to see the 
 beautiful English girl in search of her 
 sweetheart was a lady with whom she had 
 travelled from New York, and to whom 
 she had told her story. This lady brought 
 her husband. He was a rich man just 
 then, although he had recently spent a 
 winter and spring in Europe. A financial 
 operation, which was to have been a 
 Bonanza boom, has since then smashed him 
 up ; but he is beginning again in excellent 
 heart, none the worse for the check, and 
 is so generous a man that he deserves to 
 make another pile. He is, besides, so full 
 of courage, resource, quickness, and inge- 
 nuity that he is quite certain to make it. 
 Also, he is so extravagant that he will most 
 assuredly lose it again. 
 
 “ Miss Rydquist,” he said, “ my wife has 
 told me your story. Believe me, young 
 lady, you have everybody’s profound sym- 
 pathy, and I am here, not out of curiosity, 
 because I am not a press man, but to tell 
 
 F 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 [December 1 , 1881 .] 65 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 you that perhaps I can be of some help to 
 you if you will let me.” 
 
 “ My dear,” said his wife, interrupting, 
 
 “ we do not know yet whether you will let 
 us help you, and we are rather afraid of 
 offering. May we ask whether — whether 
 you are sure you are rich enough for what 
 may turn out a long and expensive 
 voyage % ” 
 
 “Indeed,” said Lai, “I do not know. 
 Captain Holstius sold his share in a ship, 
 and that brought in a good deal of money, 
 and other friends helped us, and I think 
 we have about five hundred pounds left.” 
 
 “That is a good sum to begin with,” 
 said the American. “ Now, young lady, 
 is your — your brother what is reckoned a 
 smart sailor h ” 
 
 “ Oh yes.” Lai was quite sure about 
 this. “ Everybody in the Commercial 
 Docks always said he was one of the best 
 seamen afloat.” 
 
 “So I should think. Now then. A 
 week or two ago — so that it seems pro- 
 vidential — I had to take over a trading 
 schooner as she stands, cargo and all. 
 She’s in the bay, and you can look at her. 
 But — she has no skipper.” 
 
 “ Now,” said his wife, “ you see how we 
 might help you, my dear. My husband 
 does not care where his ship is taken to, 
 nor where she trades. If it had not been 
 for this accident of your arrival, he would 
 have sold her. If Captain Holstius pleases, 
 he can take the command, and sail wherever 
 he pleases.” 
 
 This was a piece of most astonishing 
 good fortune, because it made them per- 
 fectly independent. And, on the other 
 hand, it was not quite like accepting a 
 benefit and giving nothing in return, be- 
 cause there was the trading which might 
 be done. 
 
 In the end, there was little profit from 
 this source, as will be seen. 
 
 Therefore they accepted the offer with 
 grateful hearts. 
 
 A few days later they were sailing across 
 the blue waters in a ship well manned, 
 well found, and seaworthy. With them 
 was a mate who was able to interpret. 
 
 Then began the time which will for ever 
 seem to Lai the longest and yet the 
 shortest in her life, for every morning she 
 sighed and said, “Would that the even- 
 ing were here 1” and every evening she 
 longed for the next morning. The days 
 were tedious and the nights were long. 
 Now that they are all over, and a memory 
 of the past, she recalls them, one by one, 
 
 each with its little tiny incident to mark 
 and separate it from the rest, and remem- 
 bers all, with every hour, saying, “ This 
 was the fortieth day before we found him,” 
 and “ Thirty days after this day we came 
 to the island of my Rex.” 
 
 The voyage, after two or three days of 
 breeze, was across a smooth sea, with a 
 fair wind. Lai remembers the hot sun, • 
 the awning rigged up aft for her, the 
 pleasant seat that Captain Holstius arranged 
 for her, where she lay listening to the plash 
 of the water against the ship’s side, rolling 
 easily with the long waves of the Pacific, 
 watching the white sails filled out, while 
 the morning passed slowly on, marked by 
 the striking of the bells. 
 
 It seemed, day after day, as her eye lay 
 upon the broad stretch of waters, that they 
 were quite alone in the world ; all the rest 
 was a dream ; the creation meant nothing 
 but a boundless ocean, and a single ship 
 sailing slowly across it. 
 
 In the evening, after sunset, the stars 
 came out— stars she had never seen before. 
 They are no brighter, these stars of the 
 equator, than those of the North. They 
 are not so bright ; but, seen in the cloud- 
 less sky from the deck of the ship, they 
 seemed brighter, clearer, nearer. Under 
 their light, in the silence of the night, the 
 girl’s heart was lifted, while her companion 
 stood beside her and spoke out of his own 
 fulness, noble thoughts about great deeds. 
 She felt humbled, jet not lowered. She 
 had never known this man before; she never 
 suspected, while he sat grave and silent 
 among the other Captains, how his brain 
 was like a well undefiled, a spring of sweet 
 water, charged with thoughts that only 
 come to the best among us, and then only 
 in times of meditation and solitude. 
 
 Thinking of those nights, she would now, 
 but for the sake of Rex, fain be once more 
 lea nin g over the taffrail, listening to the 
 slow and measured words of this gentle 
 Norweegee. 
 
 As for Djck, he knew perfectly what 
 they left England for, and why they came 
 aboard this ship. . At night, when they 
 got into warm latitudes, he lay coiled up 
 on deck, for’ard ; all day long he stood in 
 the bows, and gazed out to sea, looking for 
 the land where they were cast ashore. 
 
 It matters little about the details of the 
 voyage. The first land they made was 
 Oahu, one of the Sandwich Islands. They 
 put in at Honolulu and took in fresh pro- 
 visions. Then they sailed again across a 
 lonely stretch of ocean, where there are no 
 
66 [December 1, 1881.1 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 islands, where they hailed no vessel, and 
 where the ocean soundings are deepest. . 
 
 Then they came into seas studded with 
 groups of islands most beautiful to look 
 upon. But they stayed not at any, and 
 still Dick stood in the bows arid kept his 
 watch. Sometimes his face would light up 
 as he saw, far away, low down in the 
 horizon, a bank of land, which might have 
 been a cloud. He would point to it, gaze 
 patiently till he could make it out, and 
 then, as if disappointed, would turn away 
 and take no more interest in it. 
 
 If you look at a map you will perceive 
 that there lies, north of New Guinea, a 
 broad open sea, some two thousand miles 
 long, and five or six hundred in breadth. 
 This sea is shut in by a group of islands, 
 great and small, on the south, and another 
 group, all small, on the north. There are 
 thousands of these islands. No one ever 
 goes to them except missionaries, ships in 
 the beche de mer trade, and “ black- 
 birders.” On some of them are found 
 beach-combers, men who make their way, 
 no one knows how, from isle to isle, who 
 are white by birth, but Polynesian in 
 habits and customs, as ignorant as Pagans, 
 as destitute of morals and culture as the 
 savages among whom they live. They 
 have long since imparted their own vices 
 to the people, and, as a matter of course, 
 learned the native vices. They are the 
 men who have relapsed into barbarism. 
 All over the world there are found such 
 men, they live among the lands where 
 civilised men have been, but where they 
 do not live. On some of these islands are 
 missionary stations with missionary ships. 
 
 It was among these islands that they 
 expected to find their castaway, or at least 
 to hear something of him. And first 
 Captain Holstius put his helm up for 
 Kusaie, where there is a station of the 
 American mission. 
 
 Kusaie, besides being a missionary 
 station, occupies a central situation among 
 the Carolines ; if you look at the map you 
 will see that it is comparatively easy of 
 access for the surrounding islands. Un- 
 fortunately, however, communication be- 
 tween is limited. In the harbour there 
 lay the missionary schooner, and a brig 
 trading inb^che de mer. She had returned 
 from a cruise among the western islands. 
 However, she had heard nothing of any 
 such white man living among the natives. 
 Nor could the missionaries help. They 
 knew of none who answered at all to the 
 description of Rex. But there were many 
 
 places where they were not permitted to 
 land, the people being suspicious and 
 jealous ; and there were other places where 
 traders had set the people against them so, 
 that they were sullen and would give no 
 information. There was a white man, 
 more than one white man, living among 
 the islands in the great atoll of Hogoleu. 
 There was a white man who had lived for 
 thirty years on Lugunor, and had a grown- 
 up family of dusky sons and daughters. 
 There were one or two more, but they 
 were all old sailors, deserters at first, who 
 had run away from their ships, and settled 
 down to a life of ignoble ease under the 
 warm tropical sun, doing nothing among 
 the people who were contented to do 
 nothing but to breathe the air and live 
 their years and then die. 
 
 One of them, an old beach-comber of 
 Kusaie, who knew as much as any man can 
 know of this great archipelago, gave them 
 advice. He said that it was very unlikely 
 a castaway would be killed even by jealous 
 or revengeful islanders. No doubt he was 
 living with the natives, but the difficulty 
 might be to get him away; that the temper 
 of the people had been greatly altered for 
 the worse by the piratical kidnapping of 
 English, Chilian, and Spanish ships, and 
 he warned them wherever they landed to 
 go with the utmost show of confidence, and 
 to conceal their arms, which they must 
 however carry. 
 
 From Kusaie they sailed to Ponap6, 
 where the American missionaries have 
 another station. Here they stayed a day 
 or two on shore, and were hospitably enter- 
 tained by the good people of the station, 
 their wives making much of Lai, and 
 presenting her with all manner of strange 
 fruit and flowers. Here the girl for the 
 first time partly comprehended what 
 beautiful places lie about this world of 
 ours, and how one can never rightly com- 
 prehend the fulness of this earth which 
 declareth everywhere the glory of its Maker. 
 There are old mysterious buildings at 
 Ponap6, the builders of which belong to a 
 race long since extinct, their meaning as long 
 since forgotten as the people who designed 
 them. They stand among the woods, like 
 the deserted cities and temples of Central 
 America, a riddle insoluble. As Lai 
 stood beside those mysterious buildings 
 with an old missionary, he told her how, 
 thousands of years before, there was a race 
 of people among these islands who built 
 great temples to their unknown gods, 
 carved idols, and hewed the rock into 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. 
 
 [December 1, 1881.] 67 
 
 
 massive shapes, and who then passed 
 away into silence and oblivion, leaving a 
 mystery behind them, whose secret no one 
 will ever discover. Lai thought the man 
 who told her this, the man who had spent 
 contentedly fifty years in the endeavour to 
 teach the savages, who now dwelt here, 
 more marvellous and more to be admired 
 than these mysterious remains, but then 
 she was no archseologist. 
 
 Then with more good wishes, again they 
 put out to sea. 
 
 They were now in the very heart of the 
 Caroline Archipelago. Nearly every day 
 brought them in sight of some island. 
 Dick, the Malay, in the bows, would spring 
 to his feet and gaze intently while the 
 land slowly grew before them and assumed 
 definite proportions. Then he would sit 
 down again as if disappointed, and shake 
 his head, taking no more interest in the 
 place. But, indeed, they could not possibly 
 have reached the island they sought. That 
 must be much further to the west, some- 
 where near the Pelew Islands. 
 
 “ See, Lai,” said Captain Holstius for 
 the hundredth time over the chart, “if 
 Bex was right as to the current and the 
 wind, he may have landed at any one of 
 the Uliea Islands, or on the Swedes, or 
 perhaps the Philip Islands, but I can- 
 not think that he drifted farther east. If 
 he was wrong about the currents, which is 
 not likely, he may be on one of the Pelews, 
 or on one of the islands south of Yap. If 
 he had landed on Yap itself, he would 
 have been sent home in one of the 
 Hamburg ships, long ago. Let us try 
 them all.” 
 
 For many weeks they sailed upon those 
 smooth and sunny waters, sending ashore 
 at every islet, and learning nothing. 
 Lapped in the soft airs of the Pacific, the 
 ship sailed slowly, making from one island 
 to another. Lai lay idly on the deck, 
 saying to herself, as each land came in 
 sight, “ Haply we may find him here.” 
 But they did not find him, and so they 
 sailed away, to make a fresh attempt. 
 
 Does it help to name the places where 
 they touched 1 You may find them on the 
 
 They examined every islet of the little 
 groups. They ventured within . the great 
 lagoon of Hogoleu, a hundred miles across, 
 where an archipelago of islets lie in the 
 shallow land-locked sea, clothed with forest. 
 The people came off to visit them, paddling 
 in canoes of sandal-wood; there were two or 
 three ships put in for pearls and beche de 
 
 mer. Then ^hey touched at the Enderby 
 Islands, the Boyalist Islands, the Swede 
 Islands, and the Uliea Islands. 
 
 “ Perhaps,” said Captain Holstius, as 
 they sighted every one, “he may have 
 drifted here.” 
 
 But he had not. 
 
 To these far-off islands few ships ever 
 come. Yet from time to time there 
 appears the white sail of a trader or a 
 missionary schooner, or the smoke of an 
 English war-vessel. The people are mostly 
 gentle and obliging, when they recognise 
 that the ship does not come to carry them 
 off as coolies. But to all enquiries there 
 was but one answer, that they had no 
 white man among them, unless it was some 
 poor beach-comber living among them, 
 and one of themselves. They knew nothing 
 of any boat. Worse than all, Dick shook 
 his head at every place, and showed no 
 interest in the enquiries they prosecuted. 
 
 A voyage in these seas is not without 
 danger. They are shallow seas, where 
 new reefs, new coral islands, and new shoals 
 are continually being formed, so that where 
 a hundred years ago was safe sailing, there 
 are now rocks above the surface, and even 
 islands. There are earthquakes top, and 
 volcanic eruptions. There are islands 
 where plantations and villages have been 
 swallowed up in a moment, and their 
 places taken by boiling lather ; in the seas 
 lurk great sharks, and by the shores are 
 poisonous fish. The people are not 
 everywhere gentle and trustful ; they 
 have learned the vices of Europe and 
 the treacheries of white men. They 
 have been known to surround a be- 
 calmed ship and massacre all on board. 
 Yet Captain Holstius went among them 
 undaunted and without fear. They did 
 not offer him any injury, letting him come 
 and go unmolested. Trust begets trust. 
 
 So they sailed from end to end of this 
 great archipelago and heard no news of 
 Bex. 
 
 Then their hearts began to fail them. 
 
 But always in the bows sat Dick, search- 
 ing the distant horizon, and in his face 
 there was the look of one who knows that 
 he is near the place which he would find. 
 
 And one day, after many days’ sailing 
 —I think they had been out of San 
 Francisco seventy-five days— they observed 
 a strange thing. 
 
 Dick began to grow restless. He bor- 
 rowed the Captain’s glasses and looked 
 through them, though his own eyes were 
 almost as good. He rambled up and 
 
^ - - - ^ ^ 
 
 68 [December 1, 1881.] THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM. [Conducted by 
 
 down the deck continually, scanning the 
 horizon. 
 
 “ See,” cried Lai, “ he knows the air of 
 this place ; he has been here before. Is 
 there no land in sight ? ” 
 
 “ None.” He gave her the glass. “ I see 
 the line of sea and the blue sky. There is 
 no land in sight.” 
 
 Yet what was the meaning of that rest- 
 lessness 1 By some sense unknown to 
 those who have the usual five, the man 
 who could neither hear or speak knew 
 very well that he was near the place they 
 had come so far to find. 
 
 Captain Holstius showed his companion 
 their position upon the chart. 
 
 “We are upon the open sea,” he said. 
 “Here are the Uliea isles two hundred 
 miles and more from anywhere. A little 
 more and we shall be outside the shallow 
 seas, and in the deep water again. Lai, 
 we have searched so far in vain. He 
 is not in the Carolines, then where can he 
 be 1 Nothing is between us and the 
 Pelews excepting this little shoal.” 
 
 The charts are not always perfect. The 
 little shoal, since the chart was laid down, 
 had become an atoll, with its reef and 
 its lagoon. 
 
 It was early morning, not long after 
 sunrise. 
 
 While they were looking upon the chart, 
 which they knew by heart, the Malay 
 burst into the cabin and seized Lai by the 
 hand. He dragged her upon the deck, his 
 eyes flashing, his lips parted, and pointed 
 with both hands to the horizon. Then he 
 nodded his head and sat down on deck 
 once more, imitating the action of one who 
 paddles. 
 
 Lai saw nothing. 
 
 The captain followed with his glasses. 
 
 “ Land ahead,” he said slowly, “ ofi the 
 starboard bow.” 
 
 He gave her the glasses. She looked, 
 made out the land, and then offered the 
 glass to Dick, who shook his head, pointed, 
 and nodded again. 
 
 “We have found the place,” cried Lai, 
 “ I know it is — I feel it is — Oh, Bex, Bex, 
 if we should find you there ! ” 
 
 As the ship drew nearer, the excitement 
 of the Malay increased. It became certain 
 now that he had recognised the place, of 
 which nothing could be seen except a low 
 line of rock with white water breaking 
 over it. 
 
 The day was nearly calm, a breath of 
 air gently floating the vessel forward; 
 presently the rock became clearly defined ; 
 
 .... ^ . "sf — 
 
 a low reef, of a horse-shoe shape, sur- 
 rounded, save for a narrow entrance, a 
 large lagoon of perfectly smooth water; 
 within the lagoon were visible two, or 
 perhaps three islands, low, and apparently 
 with little other vegetation than the uni- 
 versal pandang, that beneficent palm of the 
 rocks which wants nothing but a little 
 coral sand to grow in, and provides the 
 islanders with food, clothing, roofs for their 
 huts, and sails for their canoes. 
 
 As soon as Dick saw the entrance to the 
 lagoon he ran to the boats and made signs 
 that they should lower and row to the land. 
 
 “Let him have his way,” said the 
 captain, “he shall be our leader now. 
 Let us not be too confident, Lai, my dear, 
 but I verily believe that we have found the 
 place, and, perhaps, the man.” 
 
 They lowered the boat. The first to 
 jump into her was the Malay, who seated 
 himself in the bows and seized an oar. 
 Then he made signs to his mistress that 
 she should come too. 
 
 They lowered her, and she sat in the 
 stern. Then the Captain got in, and they 
 pushed off. 
 
 “ What do you say, Lai 1” asked Holstius, 
 looking at her anxiously. 
 
 “ I am praying,” she replied, with tears 
 in her eyes. “ And I am thinking, brother,” 
 she laid her hand in his, “ how good a man 
 you are, and what reward we can give you, 
 and what Bex will say to you.” 
 
 “ I need no reward,” he said, “ but to 
 know and to feel that you are happy. 
 You will tell Bex, my dear, -that I have 
 been your brother since he was lost. 
 Nothing more, Lai, never anything else. 
 That has been enough.” 
 
 She burst into tears. 
 
 “ Oh ! what shall I tell him about you ? 
 what shall I not tell him ? Shall I in very 
 truth be able to tell him anything — to 
 speak to him again 1 Kiss me, before all 
 these men that they may know how much 
 I love my brother, and how grateful I am, 
 and how I pray that God will reward you 
 out of His infinite love.” 
 
 She laid her hand on his while he 
 stooped his head and kissed her forehead. 
 
 “ Enough of me,” he said, “ think now 
 of Bex.” 
 
 By this time they were in the mouth of 
 the lagoon. The boat passed over a bar 
 of coral, some eight feet deep, and then 
 the water grew deeper. In this beautiful 
 and remote spot Lai was to find her lover. 
 All the while the Malay looked first to the 
 islands and then back at his mistress, his 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAINS’ EOOM. [December i, 1881.] 69 
 
 face wreathed with smiles, and his eyes 
 flashing with excitement. 
 
 The sea in this lagoon was perfectly, 
 wonderfully transparent. The flowers of 
 the seaweeds, the fish, the great sea slugs 
 — the beches de mer — collected by so 
 many trading vessels ; the sharks moving 
 lazily about the shallow water were as 
 easily visible as if they were on land. 
 This small land-locked sea was, apparently, 
 about three miles in diameter, bounded on 
 all sides by the ring of narrow rocks, and 
 entered by one narrow mouth ; the islets, 
 which had been visible from the ship, were 
 four in number. The largest one, of 
 irregular shape, appeared to be about a 
 mile and a half long, and perhaps a mile 
 broad ; it was a low island, thinly set with 
 the pandang, the screw palm, which will 
 grow when nothing else can find moisture 
 in the sandy soil ; there were no signs of 
 habitation visible. The other three islands, 
 separated from the larger one, and from 
 each other, by narrow straits, were quite 
 small, the largest not more than two or 
 three acres in extent. 
 
 The place was perfectly quiet ; no sign 
 of life was seen or heard. 
 
 Dick pointed to the large island, which 
 ran out a low bend of cape towards the 
 entrance of the lagoon. His face was 
 terribly in earnest, he laughed no longer ; 
 he kept looking from the island to his 
 mistress and back again. As they drew 
 nearer, he held up his finger to command 
 silence. 
 
 The men . took short strokes, dipping 
 their oars silently, so that nothing was 
 heard but the grating of the oars in the 
 rowlocks. 
 
 On rounding the cape they found a 
 narrow level beach of sand stretching back 
 about a hundred feet. This was the same 
 place where, five months before, Captain 
 Wattles held his conference with the 
 prisoner. 
 
 “ Easy ! ” cried the Captain. 
 
 The boat with her ■weigh- on slowly 
 moved on towards the shore. There 
 seemed on the placid bosom of the lagoon 
 to be no current and no tide, nor any 
 motion of the waters. For no fringe of 
 hanging seaweed lay upon the rocks, nor 
 was there any belt of the flotsam which 
 lies round the vexed shores where waves 
 beat and winds roar. Strange, there was 
 not even the gentle murmur of the washing 
 wavelet, which is never still elsewhere on 
 the calmest day. 
 
 All held their breaths and listened. The 
 
 air was so still that Lai heard the breathing 
 of the boat’s crew ; the boat slowly moved 
 on towards the shore. The Malay in the 
 bows had shipped his oar and now sat like 
 a wild creature waiting for the moment to 
 spring. 
 
 “ Hush ! ” It was Lai who held up her 
 finger. 
 
 There was a sound of distant voices. 
 The place was not, then, uninhabited. 
 
 The boat neared the shore. When it 
 was but two feet or so from the shelving 
 bank, the Malay leaped out of the bows, 
 alighting on hands and knees, and ran, 
 waving his arms, towards the wood. 
 
 It was now three months since the offer 
 of freedom was brought to Rex and refused 
 on conditions so hard. So far the predic- 
 tion of Captain Wattles was fulfilled ; no 
 sail had crossed the sea within sight of the 
 lonely island, no ship had touched there. 
 It was likely, indeed, that the castaway 
 would live and die there abandoned and 
 forgotten. Rex kept the probability before 
 his mind; he remembered Robinson Crusoe’s 
 famous list of things for which he might be 
 grateful ; he was well ; the place was 
 healthy; there was food in sufficiency 
 though rough; and he was not alone, 
 though perhaps that fact was not alto- 
 gether a subject for gratitude. 
 
 The sun was yet in the forenoon, and 
 Rex, inventor-general of the island, while 
 perfecting a method of improving the fish- 
 ing by means of nets made of the pandang 
 fibre, was startled by the rush of twenty or 
 thirty of the people, seizing clubs and 
 spears, and shouting to each other. 
 
 The rush and the shout could mean but 
 one thing— a ship in sight. 
 
 He sprang to his feet, hesitated, and 
 then went with them. 
 
 He saw, at first, nothing but a boat close 
 to land, and a figure running swiftly across 
 the sandy beach. 
 
 What they saw, from the boat, was a 
 group of very ferocious natives, yelling to 
 one another and brandishing weapons, 
 intent, no doubt, to slay and destroy every 
 mother’s son. They were darker of hue 
 than most Polynesians ; they were tattooed 
 all over ; their noses and ears were pierced 
 and stuck with bits of tortoise-shell for 
 ornament ; their abundant and raven-black 
 hair was twisted in knots on the top of 
 their heads. 
 
 And among them stood one with a long 
 brown beard; he wore a hat made out of a 
 palm-leaf ; his feet were bare ; his clothes 
 were shreds and rags ; his bare arms were 
 
IX, — — ^ 
 
 " 70 [December 1, 1881 .] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [Conducted by 
 
 tattooed like the islanders’ arms ; his hair 
 was long and matted ; his cheeks, his hands, 
 arms, and feet were bronzed ; he might have 
 passed for a native hut for his face and 
 hair. 
 
 It was exactly what Captain Wattles 
 had seen, hut that the men were fiercer.. 
 
 When they saw from the boat the white 
 man, they grasped each other s hands. 
 
 u Courage, Lai,” said Captain Holstius. 
 
 “ Courage and caution.” 
 
 When Eex, among the natives, saw and 
 recognised Lick, his faithful servant, run- 
 ning to greet him and kissing his hand ; 
 when he saw the people suddenly stop 
 their shouts, and gather curiously about 
 their old friend, who had been kidnapped 
 long before with their own brother, he 
 stared about him as if in a dream. 
 
 Then Lick seized his master’s hand and 
 pointed. 
 
 A ship was standing off the mouth of 
 the lagoon ; a boat was on the beach ; and 
 
 in the boat But just then Captain 
 
 Holstius leaped ashore, and a girl after 
 him. And then— then— the girl followed 
 the Malay and ran towards him with arms 
 outstretched, crying : 
 
 “ Eex ! Eex ! ” 
 
 This must he a dream. Yet no dream 
 would throw upon his breast the girl of 
 whom he thought day and night, his love, 
 his promised wife. 
 
 “ Eex ! Eex ! Lo you not know me 1 
 Have you forgotten 1 ” 
 
 For a while, indeed, he could not speak. 
 The thing stunned him. 
 
 In a single moment he remembered all 
 the past; the long despair of the weary time, 
 especially of the last three months ; the 
 dreadful prospect before him ; the thought 
 of the long years creeping slowly on, un- 
 marked even by spring or autumn ; the 
 loneliness of his life ; the gradual sinking 
 deeper and deeper, unto the level of the 
 poor fellows around him ; living or dead 
 no one would know about him ; perhaps 
 the girl he loved being deceived into marry- 
 ing the liar and villain who had sat in the 
 boat and offered him conditions of freedom 
 — he remembered all these things. He 
 remembered, too, how of late he had 
 thought that there might eome a time 
 when it would be well to end everything 
 by a plunge in the transparent waters of 
 the lagoon. Two minutes of struggle and 
 all would he over. Leath seemed a long 
 and conscious sleep. To sleep unconscious 
 and without a waking, is nothing. To 
 sleep conscious of repose, knowing that 
 
 there will be no more trouble, is the 
 imaginary haven of the suicide. 
 
 Then he roused himself and clasped her 
 to his heart, Grying : 
 
 “ My darling ! You have come to find 
 me!” 
 
 But how to get away % 
 
 First, he took the ribbons from Lai’s 
 hat and from her neck, and presented them 
 to the chief, saying a few words of friend- 
 ship and greeting. 
 
 The finery pleased the man, and he tied 
 it round his neck, saying that it was good. 
 
 The Malay he knew, and Eex he knew, 
 hut this phenomenon in bright-coloured 
 ribbons he did not understand. Could she, 
 too, mean kidnapping % 
 
 Meantime the boat was lying close to 
 the beach, and beside the how stood 
 Captain Holstius, motionless, waiting. 
 
 “ Lai,” said Eex. “ Go quietly hack to 
 the boat and get in. Take Lick and make 
 him get into the boat with you. I will 
 follow. Lo nothing hurriedly. Show no 
 signs of fear.” 
 
 She obeyed; the people made no attempt 
 to oppose her return ; Captain Holstius 
 helped her into the boat. Unfortunately 
 Lick did not obey. He stood on the beach 
 waiting. 
 
 Then Eex began, still talking to the 
 people, to walk slowly towards the boat. 
 
 He was promising to bring them presents 
 from the ship; he begged them to stay 
 where they were, and not to crowd round 
 the boat ; he bade them remember the bad 
 man who stole two of their brothers, and 
 he promised them to find out where they 
 were and bring them hack. They listened, 
 nodded, and answered that what he said 
 was good. 
 
 When he neared the boat they stood 
 irresolute, grasping the idea that they were 
 going to lose the white man who had been 
 among them so long. 
 
 I believe that he would have got off 
 quietly, but for the zeal of Lick, who 
 could not restrain his impatience, hut 
 sprang forward and caught his old master 
 in his strong arms, and tried to carry him 
 into the boat. 
 
 Then the islanders yelled and made for 
 the beach all together. 
 
 No one hut Lai could tell, afterwards, 
 exactly what happened at this moment. 
 
 It was this. Two of the islanders, who 
 were in advance of the rest, arrived at the 
 beach just as Lick had dragged his master 
 into the boat. Captain Holstius had pushed 
 
 - ^ y 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAINS’ ROOM. [December 1 , 1881.] 71 
 
 her off and was standing by the hows, up 
 to his knees in water, on the point of 
 leaping in. In a moment more they would 
 have been in deep water. 
 
 The black fellows, seeing that they were 
 too late, stayed their feet, and poised their 
 spears, aiming them, in the blind rage of 
 the moment, at the man they had received 
 amongst themselves and treated hospitably 
 — at Rex. But as the weapons left their 
 hands, Captain Holstius sprang into the 
 boat, and. standing upright, with out- 
 stretched arms, received in his own breast 
 the two spears which would have pierced 
 the heart of Rex. The action, though 
 so swift as to take but a moment, was 
 as deliberate as if it had been determined 
 upon all along. 
 
 Then all was over. Rex was safely 
 seated in the stern beside his sweetheart ; 
 Dick was crouching at his feet ; the boat 
 was in deep water ; the men were rowing 
 their hardest ; the savages were yelling 
 on the beach ; and at Lai’s feet lay, pale 
 and bleeding, the man who had saved 
 the life of her lover at the price of his 
 own. 
 
 She laid his pale face in her lap ; she 
 took his cold hands in her own ; she kissed 
 his cold forehead, while from his breast 
 there flowed the red blood of his life, 
 given, like his labour and his substance, 
 to her. 
 
 He was not yet quite dead, and presently 
 he opened his eyes — those soft blue eyes 
 which had so often rested upon her as if 
 they were guarding and sheltering her in 
 tenderness and pity. They were full of 
 love now, and even of joy, for Lai had got 
 back her lover. 
 
 “We have found him, Lai,” he mur- 
 mured — “ we have found him. You will 
 be happy again— now— you have got your 
 heart’s desire.” 
 
 What could she say? How could she 
 reply ? 
 
 “ Do not cry, Lai dear. What matters 
 for me — if — only — you — are happy ? ” 
 
 They were his last words. 
 
 Presently he pressed her fingers ; . his 
 head, upon her lap, fell over on one side ; 
 his breath ceased. 
 
 So Captain Holstius, alone among the 
 three, redeemed his pledge. If Lai was 
 happy, what more had he to pray for upon 
 this earth? What mattered, as he said, 
 for him ? 
 
 At sundown that evening, when the ship 
 was under weigh again and the reef of the 
 lonely unknown atoll low on the horizon, 
 
 they buried the Captain in the deep, while 
 Rex read the Service of the Dead. 
 
 The blood of Captain Holstius must be 
 laid tO' the charge of his rival ; the blood 
 of all the white men murdered on Poly- 
 nesian shores must be laid to the charge of 
 those who have visited the island in order 
 to kidnap the people, and those who have 
 gone among them only to teach them some 
 of the civilisation out of which they have 
 extracted nothing but its vices. 
 
 As regards this little islet, the people 
 know, in some vague way, that they have 
 had living among them a man who was 
 superior to themselves, who taught them 
 things, and showed them certain small 
 arts, by which he improved their mode of 
 life ; if ever, which we hope may not be 
 their fate, they fall in with the beach- 
 combers of Fiji, Samoa, or Hawaii, they 
 will easily perceive that Rex Armiger was 
 not one of them. They will remember 
 that he was a person of such great im- 
 portance that two chiefs came to see him ; 
 one of them carried off two of their people, 
 the other, with whom was a great princess, 
 carried off their prisoner himself. 
 
 In a few years’ time the story will 
 become a myth. Some of the missionaries 
 are great hands at collecting folk-lore. 
 They will land here and will presently 
 enquire among the people for legends and 
 traditions of the past. They will hear 
 how, long, long ago (many years ago), 
 they had living among them a white 
 person, whose proper sphere — by birth — 
 was the broad heaven ; how he stayed with 
 them a long time (many moons); how 
 one after the other white persons came 
 to see him, both bad and good ; for some 
 kidnapped their people and took them 
 away to be eaten alive; how at last a 
 goddess, all in crimson, blue, and gold, 
 came with a male deity and took away 
 their guest, who had, meantime, taught 
 them how to make clothes, roofs, and 
 bread, out of the beneficent pandang ; 
 how the companion was killed in an 
 unlucky scrimmage ; and how they look 
 forward for their return— some day. 
 
 The missionaries will write down this 
 story and send it home ; wise men will get 
 hold of it, and discuss its meaning. They 
 will be divided into two classes; those 
 who see in it a legend of the sun-god, 
 the princess being nothing but the moon, 
 and her companion the morning star ; the 
 other class will see in the story a corrup- 
 tion of the history of Moses. Others, 
 
 tr 
 
72 
 
 THE CAPTAINS’ BOOM. [December 1, 1881.] 
 
 . more learned, will compare this legend 
 with others exactly like it in almost all 
 lands. It is, for instance, the same as 
 the tale of Guinevere returning for Arthur, 
 and will quote examples from Afghanistan, 
 Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, Borneo, the 
 valleys of the Lebanon, Socotra, Central 
 America, and the Faroe Isles. 
 
 Five weeks later Lai was married at 
 San Francisco. The merchant who lent 
 her the schooner gave her a country 
 house for her honeymoon. 
 
 “ She ought,” said Bex, “ to have mar- 
 ried the man who gave her himself, all his 
 fortune, and his very life. I am ashamed 
 that so good a man has been sacrificed 
 for my sake.” 
 
 “No, sir,” said the Californian; “not 
 for your sake at all, but for hers. We may 
 remember some words about laying down 
 your life for your friends. Perhaps it is 
 worth the sacrifice of a life to have done 
 so good and great a thing. If there were 
 many more such men in the world, we 
 might shortly expect to see the gates of 
 Eden open again.” 
 
 “ Unfortunately,” said Bex, “ there are 
 more like Captain Wattles.” 
 
 « Yes, sir ; I am sorry he is an American. 
 But you can boast your Borlinder, who is, 
 I believe, an Englishman.” 
 
 The account of Lai’s return and the 
 death of Captain Holstius duly appeared 
 in the San Francisco papers. It was 
 accompanied by strictures of some severity 
 upon the conduct of Captain Barnabas B. 
 Wattles, who was compared to the skunk 
 of his native country. 
 
 It was this account, with these strictures, 
 which the Son of Consolation found in the 
 paper after posting his packet of lies. 
 
 Further, a Sydney paper asked if the 
 Captain Barnabas B. Wattles, of the Fair 
 Maria, was the same Captain Wattles who 
 behaved in the wonderful manner described 
 in the Californian papers. 
 
 He wrote to say he was not. 
 
 From further information received, it 
 presently appeared to everybody that he 
 was that person. 
 
 He has now lost his ship, and I know not 
 where he is nor what occupation he is at 
 present following. 
 
 It remains only to suggest, rather than 
 to describe, the joyful return to Seven 
 Houses. We may not linger to relate how 
 
 Mrs. Bydquist, who still found comfort in 
 wearing additional crape to her widow’s 
 weeds for Bex, now kept it on for Captain 
 Holstius, calling everybody’s attention to 
 the wonderful accuracy of her predictions : 
 how Captain Zachariasen first sang a Nunc 
 dimittis, loudly proclaiming his willingness 
 to go since Lai was happy again ; and then 
 explained, lest he might be taken at his 
 word, that perhaps it would be well to 
 remain in order to experience the fulness 
 of wisdom which comes with ninety years. 
 He also takes great credit to himself for 
 the able reading he had given of the 
 mummicking. 
 
 The morning after their arrival, Bex, 
 looking for his wife, found her in the 
 kitchen, making the pudding with her old 
 bib on and her white arms flecked with 
 flour, just as he remembered her three 
 years before. Beside her, the Patriarch 
 slept in the wooden chair. 
 
 “It is all exactly the same,” he said; 
 “ yet with what a difference 1 And I have 
 had three years of the kabobo. Lai, you 
 are going to begin again the old house- 
 keeping 1 ” 
 
 She shook her head and laughed. Then 
 the tears came into her eyes. 
 
 “The Captains like this pudding,” she 
 said. “Let me please them once more, 
 Bex, while I stand here looking through 
 the window, at the trees in the churchyard 
 and through the open door into the garden, 
 and when I listen to the noise of the 
 docks and the river, and for the white 
 sails beyond the church, and watch the 
 dear old man asleep there beside the fire, 
 I cannot believe but that I shall hear 
 another step, and turn round and see 
 beside me, with his grave smile and tender 
 eyes, Captain Holstius, standing as he used 
 to stand in the doorway, watching me 
 without a word.” 
 
 Bex kissed her. He could hear this talk 
 without jealousy or pain. Yet it will 
 always seem to him somehow, as if his wife 
 has missed a better husband than himself, 
 a feeling which may be useful in keeping 
 down pride, vain conceit, and over master- 
 fulness ; vices which mar the conjugal 
 happiness of many. 
 
 “ He could never have been my hus- 
 band,” the young wife went on in her 
 happiness, thinking she spoke the whole 
 truth ; “ not even if I had never known 
 you. But I loved him, Bex.” 
 
 The Right of Translating any portion of “The CAPTAINS’ Room” is reserved by the Authors. 
 
 
 
 Published at the Office, 26 , Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by Charles Dickens & Evans, 24, Great New Street, E.C. 
 
i —T he Robbery at the Hall. 
 
 T DON’T know how often my nephew 
 1 Charles has asked me to write down my 
 recollections of sundry episodes in my life. 
 Of course I know well enough it is half 
 chaff on his part when he says it is a pity 
 the world should lose them; and I also know, 
 when the subject was mooted to his father 
 (my junior by just two years), he said, in his 
 usual coarse way, “ The old fool is conceited 
 enough for anything.” Let all this pass ; 
 Charles is my favourite nephew, and half-a- 
 dozen idle words won’t make me quarrel with 
 my brother. 
 
 We belong to one of the oldest, families m 
 the kingdom. It appears that in 1476 a 
 small grant of land was made to one Michael 
 Stonnor, for services rendered to Edward IV. 
 during his French campaign. My ancestors 
 must have been thrifty, forin 1640 it had grown 
 
 large enough to attract the unwelcome at- 
 tention of the Roundheads, who destroyed 
 the mansion and appropriated what revenue 
 they could. We came in again with Chailes 
 II., and my father succeeded to the estate 
 with scarcely a break in the family tree. He, 
 poor soul, was one of the finest men of his 
 time ; but his revered name is no protection 
 against my brother’s love of a good joke. 
 I am sorry to say I have heard him tell story 
 after story at the expense of his memory. 
 One in particular, as showing how the split 
 occurred between us and the Anstrutliers, he 
 narrates with great unction. 
 
 It appears that my father was very intimate 
 with a young Edward Anstruther, who died 
 while they were travelling together on the 
 Continent. A visit of condolence to Anstru- 
 ther Park followed, during which he walked 
 round the famous picture gallery with Sir 
 George, and, stepping before one of the 
 portraits, examined it with considerable emo- 
 tion. At last, turning to his host, he said : 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 “ How happily the artist has caught poor 
 Ned’s winning smile.” The picture was, un- 
 fortunately, a study for the head of Barabbas. 
 Now whether the story is true or not (for my 
 part I don’t believe one word of it), it is 
 certainly very bad taste for my brother to 
 repeat it. Alas ! no ties protect you from 
 a professional raconteur. Even I am not 
 free ! In the agonies of gout I am told I am 
 enjoying one of the privileges of the head of 
 the house ; and the theft of the family plate, 
 of which more hereafter, and other misfor- 
 tunes are made the subjects of so many 
 standing jokes. 
 
 My father was not only a thorough gentle- 
 man of the old school, but in his day the 
 handsomest man about town. I am told I 
 strongly resemble him. This annoys my 
 brother. Poor Robert ! he is a good-looking 
 enough man, but plain for a Stonnor. 
 
 Then again he belongs to what is called 
 an advanced school of politicians, while the 
 Stonnors from time immemorial have con- 
 sistently supported the fine old bulwarks of 
 the Constitution. I can give my adherence 
 to neither of the present political parties, and 
 have therefore repeatedly refused to represent 
 my county in Parliament. Parliament in- 
 deed ! I should as soon think of being 
 elected mayor, or provost, or beadle, of a 
 town, as of being elected M.P. now-a-days. 
 Not that I wish to shirk any political ques- 
 tion. No. I don’t wish to get rid of them 
 as a worthy Scotch friend of mine disposes 
 of the utterances of Mr. Tyndall and Mr. 
 Huxley. He calls them “ fogs ” — an honest 
 enough confession of ignorance, but not one 
 to be used by me. Oratory, too ! Don’t 
 talk to me about the power of oratory, 
 I know all about it. I have it myself. 
 Many a time in my solitary rambles have 
 tears come to my eyes at the words that have 
 gushed from me on some of the burning 
 topics of the day. But I don’t use this 
 power simply because I happen to have it ; 
 it is not in a gentleman’s province to do so. 
 The same with writing ; I have no scruples 
 about it. The Stonnors have always been 
 pretty ready with their pens. Why, my 
 grand-uncle’s “Letters on the Times,” written 
 after the model of Lord Chesterfield, and 
 considered by some superior to his, had 
 a European celebrity, and a well-preserved 
 copy can be seen even now in most of the 
 libraries of our county gentlemen. 
 
 No, I have no scruples. The great thing 
 is to have something to write about ; and, 
 notwithstanding my brother’s cynical remarks, 
 it is not improbable that the personal recol- 
 
 lections of a gentleman in my position, how- 
 ever fragmentary and disconnected, may be 
 eagerly read by a select class of readers. 
 
 It is very odd that every little adventure that 
 befalls me seems to afford him such amuse- 
 ment. The more unpleasant it happens to 
 be the more he exaggerates it, twisting and 
 turning the details till so many standing 
 jokes are scored up against me, and I am 
 thus compelled, in self-defence, to write true 
 versions of them. Questionable taste, to 
 say the least of it, this holding up the head of 
 the house to ridicule ; but, as I said before,. 
 I will not be a party to an undignified quarrel ; 
 besides, at heart, I believe he has an honest 
 affection for me. 
 
 Only the other day he kept my table in 
 roars of laughter by narrating the story of the 
 loss of the family plate. Why, he was him- 
 self partly the cause of it ! It was he who 
 persuaded me to hire a yacht, and if it had 
 not been for that yacht the misfortune would 
 not have occurred. 
 
 He bothered me about a boat. My father 
 kept one, and I ought not to let the custom 
 drop. I could afford it, and he couldn’t. 
 Then it would be such a grand opportunity 
 for his son Charles, the artist, to explore 
 fresh sketching-ground. Dr. Pascal, the 
 traveller, who was staying with him at the 
 time, backed him up by talking of ozone 
 and iodine and the health-giving properties 
 of salt air. 
 
 “ Yes,” said my brother, “ our father went 
 for his health, you know. He liked a yacht, 
 because it possessed such convenient capa- 
 bilities for eating and sleeping. He would 
 never take any one with him who was not a 
 good sleeper. This was a sine qua non. You 
 must be able to drop off at a moment’s notice, 
 like the fat boy in ‘ Pickwick.’ After meals, 
 during which I have no doubt he enlightened 
 his guests on the general magnificence of 
 the Stonnors, they would put up their legs 
 without moving from their seats, and snooze 
 away till the next meal. He was musical in 
 his sleep, too, and old Barton said, when he 
 came back from a cruise with him, that 
 ‘ Stonnor could blow his own trumpet even 
 in his sleep.’” 
 
 “ Really, Robert,” I said, “ I don’t think 
 you need entertain Dr. Pascal with our 
 father’s peculiarities.” 
 
 “ Oh, but there is a better joke than that,” 
 he went on. “ Do you know, Pascal, he 
 took a sheep on board, that he might have a 
 fresh kidney for breakfast every morning.” 
 
 “ Ah,” laughed Pascal, “ I suspect your 
 father’s physiological researches had been 
 
THE ROBBERY AT THE HALL. 
 
 confined to poultry ; but, joking apart, a sea 
 trip would do your brother good. 
 
 “ Look here, Peter,” said Robert ; “ there is 
 a rare chance for you just now. You can hire 
 the Frolic, a forty tonner, lying at her moor- 
 ings in the Gareloch, all ready for sea. Be 
 off, and show Charley the West Highlands. 
 
 “ Well well,” X said at last, “ don t bother 
 me any more. Send Charles up to Scotland, 
 and if he likes the craft we will try a 
 
 Cr Four days later I joined my nephew on 
 the Gareloch. What a lovely scene it was 
 from the deck of our craft ! Beautifully 
 wooded hills on either side of us, here and 
 there crowned with heather, and between 
 them the sea all green and gold sparkling up 
 for five or six miles till stopped by a grand 
 range of purple hills. These stretched rig 
 across the landscape, and were called Ar- 
 gyle’s Bowling Green.” 
 
 “ A curious name,” I said to our skipper, 
 Captain McCosh. “ Is it possible that the 
 Argyle family ever played bowls on such 
 
 eX “^ 1 aVe^he g r^lmd. ? ” “ The Macallum 
 More would mount yon steep hill before 
 breakfast, and roll the big stanes doon from 
 t h e top— just for exercise, ye ken. You may 
 see the rocks they hurled doon to this very 
 day lying all aboot the shores of Loch Goil 
 
 and Loch Long.” , 
 
 Dear me, what Titans these old Scotch 
 fellows must have been ! I looked m vain, 
 however, for any remains of their strong- 
 holds. Nothing to be seen but the most 
 objectionable of pretty villas, with eagles and 
 statues before the doors, the largest being a 
 sort of Greek temple belonging to the Duke 
 of Argyle himself. . . 
 
 We were amused at the eccentric behaviour 
 of some person sketching on the shore close 
 by us : he would gaze bareheaded at the land- 
 scape, rush to his easel, dab on some paint, 
 then fall back on the bank and gaze at the 
 sky Suddenly he would rise and repeat the 
 operation. We watched and watched, till at 
 last Charles got so interested that we landed 
 to see what he was doing. We found him 
 in a sort of swoon. A young man with fair 
 hair brushed straight back from his forehead, 
 dreamy blue eyes looking into vacancy, an 
 aquiline nose, and a thin-lipped mouth. 
 
 t( X beg your pardon,” Charles began.. 
 
 « Who is it that speaks ? ” . he said, jump- 
 ing up. “ Ah, gentlemen, it is I who should 
 ask pardon ; but my thoughts were far 
 
 “ I see you are an artist,” said my nephew, 
 
 “ and I thought perhaps you could give me 
 some hints as to the subjects about here. ^ 
 
 “ I wish it was in my power to assist you, 
 he replied ; “ but the fact is, I am lately come 
 from Germany, and am seeking sketchmg- 
 ground myself. You are almost the first 
 person I have spoken to.” 
 
 “ Well, I am sorry we have disturbed 
 
 you.” 
 
 “ Not at all. It was kind of you to notice 
 a stranger. Will you look at my work? 
 The question is,” he went on as we walked 
 to his easel, “ the question is, whether you 
 would paint the Seen or the Unseen? Look 
 at this.” 
 
 Charles looked puzzled. _ . . 
 
 “ Bless my soul,” I exclaimed, “ it is a 
 regiment of soldiers ! ” ■ . 
 
 « Exactly,” he said, “ a regiment of soldiers 
 from the great cloud army. There they ate 
 clothed in blood red, to do battle with the 
 world. See how they overthrow the moun- 
 tains, and blot them out from morta eyes! 
 See how they frown upon the waters ! lhis 
 is how I see a landscape — not as a copy oi 
 hill and water, but. as a triumph of spiritual- 
 ism over the material world ! ” 
 
 I can’t make it out,” said Charles 
 
 bluntly. , „ ., T 
 
 “ I distinctly see the soldiers,” said I. 
 
 “ It is comforting to meet any one who has 
 your perceptive faculty, sir,” said the stranger 
 to me. “ Depend upon it, if you say of a land- 
 scape, ‘how like the spot !’ it is a bad picture, 
 because the spiritual has been sacrificed to 
 the material. The same also of a portrait. 
 How easy to make it like by accentuating 
 some commonplace peculiarity. The true 
 painter’s aim should be, not only to paint 
 the soul of the man, but also to show what 
 traditions belong to him, and what portent 
 they have. You will pardon my rudeness, 
 he continued, “ but your face plainly speaks 
 of a long history.” 
 
 “ You are right !” I answered. Extraoi- 
 dinary as the guess is, you are perfectly 
 I am the representative of one of the oldest 
 families in Britain. The Stonnors, sir, date 
 back to Edward the Fourth— a pretty long 
 
 “ It^ is sir,” he said, with a polite bow; 
 “ but there was no need of your assuring me 
 of the fact. It is written on your face. 
 
 “ I’ll be hanged if I can make out how 
 you can paint the ‘ Unseen ’ though ! said 
 
 Charles. _. . , • 
 
 “ That is because the new light is too 
 dazzling for your eye,” replied the stranger ; 
 « but it will come. However, if you are fond 
 
4 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 of the ‘ Seen ’ I have a folio of German 
 sketches that would interest you. Will you 
 honour me by looking at them?” 
 
 “ Certainly r ” I replied. “ Come and dine 
 on board the Frolic , and we will inspect them 
 during the long evening.” 
 
 I liked this young fellow. There was a 
 deferential air about him that is sadly missing 
 in most young men of the present day. My 
 nephew did not at first share in my admira- 
 tion, but began to alter his opinion after 
 looking at the drawings. They were dis- 
 tinctly different from what we had seen on 
 the shore. Small literal transcripts of Dutch 
 
 scenery, quaint figures, boats, buildings, all 
 drawn with great skill and care, and all 
 signed Edward Hansen. My nephew raved 
 about their artistic merits, and talked Ger- 
 man art with Hansen all the evening. 
 
 After this we saw a great deal of him. We 
 were detained for provisions, and the young 
 men sketched and fished together, till Charles, 
 with his usual contradictory and impulsive 
 way, took such a liking for the young Ger- 
 man that he accompanied us on our cruise. 
 
 We had a happy time. We explored the 
 Clyde Lochs, sailed round the Mull of Can- 
 tire, and saw most of the coast lately made 
 
 The Gareloch. 
 
 famous by Mr. Black and Mr. Colin Hunter. 
 Our skipper was invaluable. His memory 
 was marvellous — no place of interest but 
 what he knew every legend and story con- 
 nected with it. He told us of the Piper of 
 Duntroon, of Dancing Peter of Kilmahonaig, 
 and of the strange sounds to be heard at 
 Corrievreckan. We had no need for guide- 
 books. Hansen drank in these legends with 
 avidity. He was a strange, gentle creature, 
 thoroughly gentlemanlike and unselfish, mak- 
 ing himself useful to my nephew and myself 
 in a thousand little ways, till he became 
 almost indispensable to our comfort. We 
 found out that he was in reduced circum- 
 stances, and I was glad to be able, at my 
 
 nephew’s suggestion, to purchase the folio of 
 drawings. 
 
 His fits of abstraction were absolutely 
 painful to witness. They appeared also to 
 be accompanied with considerable physical 
 suffering, and at these times he would pace 
 the deck for hours, refusing both food and 
 drink. 
 
 I remember when at Mull we were looking 
 at Aros Castle from the sea when McCosh 
 observed, “Yon’s the rock where Maclaine 
 slew his dochter. Will I be tellin’ ye aboot 
 it ? Weel, the Maclaines were always famous 
 for their good looks ; but this young lassie was 
 the most beautiful cratur that was ever seen 
 whatuvver. She was as graceful as a roe, or 
 
THE ROBBERY AT THE HALL. 
 
 5 
 
 one of the siller birks on Ben Lui. Peoples 
 would come from all ’roon aboot just to 
 look at her face, ye ken, and her lang yellow 
 hair was the pride o’ the country. The 
 auld laird he was a prood, passionate man. 
 
 He loved his dochter, but he hated a Sasse- 
 nach like pisin. Was it no unfortunate now 
 that when he was awa’ a young English 
 spark should come to the island, and fall 
 strecht off in love wi’ bonnie Miss Ellen ? 
 She puir thing, learned to love this stranger, 
 and they used to whisper their vows on 
 yonder rock. But evil tongues did their 
 wark. The auld laird he returns all unbe- 
 known to them, and finds Miss Ellen on the 
 rock where she had just parted frae her 
 lover. Ah, man, there was an awfu’ scene ! 
 the laird he upbraided her, and vowed if she 
 didn’t gie up her English lover he would 
 throw her into the watter. _ 
 
 “ 1 Na,’ says she ; 1 I’ve plighted my troth, 
 and a Maclaine never broke a vow.’ 
 
 “ Then he asked her again, and she wadna. 
 Sae he seizes her yellow hair, and swirled her 
 roond and roond ower his heed, and drops 
 her plump, plosh into the watter. 
 
 « Weel, Mr. Stonnor, after this nothing 
 prospered with the laird. His sons were 
 killed in battle; he lost his money abroad ; 
 his cattle died at hame ; and at last the auld 
 man came back to Aros just to dee. 
 
 “ Weel, sir, the morning of his death no- 
 thing would do but that he must be moved 
 up to yonder wundow to look ower the sea. 
 And, lo ! there upon the rock was seated 
 puir’ Ellen, with her yellow hair all blowing 
 in the wind. When the laird saw this, he 
 gave a great cry, and de’ed strecht off, and 
 at the verra same moment Ellen’s ghaist 
 gave a groan, and jumped plump, plosh into 
 the watter. The folks all say, sir, that she 
 is to be seen to this verra day seated on 
 yonder rock when any trouble is coming to 
 the Maclaines.” 
 
 “ Curiously enough,” I said, 1 there is a 
 legend of a somewhat similar character 
 attached to our family. The story goes that 
 some time during the last century there was 
 a certain Miss Lettice Stonnor who had 
 offended her father in the same way as poor 
 Ellen Maclaine, and was in consequence 
 made a close prisoner by him in one of the 
 rooms in Stonnor Hall. She was treated 
 with so much harshness that at last she threw 
 herself out of the window in despair. There 
 used to be some story of a ghost, but not m 
 my time. The room, however, remains un- 
 touched, and I can show it to you now. 
 There is a curious old inscription carved in 
 
 oak over the fireplace. It is worded thus : 
 
 ‘ Your lettuce grows within the garden, but 
 our Lettice buds in Paradise.’ ” 
 
 Poor Hansen listened spell-bound, and 
 subsequently had an unusually severe fit of 
 abstraction. So wretchedly ill did he look 
 in the morning that I determined to speak to 
 him. . 
 
 “ Mr. Stonnor,” he said, grasping my hand, 
 
 “ the sympathy of a gentleman of your high 
 position is one of the most precious comforts 
 I have experienced. I am a most unfortu- 
 nate person. You see how these legends 
 affect me. The fact is, sir, I have the mis- 
 fortune to be en- rapport with the spiritual 
 world. Why the mantle should have fallen 
 upon me, I cannot tell, but so it is— and the 
 suffering it entails is dreadful. I believe I 
 am the most powerful medium known. The 
 manifestations that have been elicited through 
 me in Germany have had the effect of ruin- 
 ing my health. The expenditure of odic 
 force has rendered me as weak as an infant. 
 
 I can no longer produce such sketches as 
 those you have lately purchased from me. I 
 flew from Germany to distract my thoughts, 
 and to avoid being made use of by the 
 Spiritualists. In your society I have been 
 happier ; but still you see I suffer. 
 
 “ Is there anything then,” I asked, in 
 this Spiritualism ? ” . T . . 
 
 “ Anything, Mr. Stonnor! Oh, I wish 
 there was not ! ” 
 
 “ I have always thought that it was^ consi- 
 dered by our learned men as humbug.” 
 
 “ Yes,” he replied sadly, “ all the higher 
 truths suffer from modern scepticism. But 
 the position of Spiritualism is very simple. 
 We are acquainted with two classes of phe- 
 nomena, one visible— such as day and night, 
 the movements of planets and tides ; the 
 other mysterious, invisible, and unsolved 
 we call some of these electricity, galvanism, 
 gravitation ; but there still remains an abun- 
 dance of powerful forces unknown and unde- 
 veloped.” . , ,, 
 
 “Perhaps, by-and-by, science may be able 
 
 to explain it all ? ” 
 
 “ I cannot tell, neither can I account tor 
 the manifestations. But surely there may be 
 a higher and more subtle force than either 
 electricity, light, or heat? It may be in- 
 voked unconsciously, or the latent force may 
 exist only in a few.” 
 
 “ You interest me ; but of course I have 
 
 not studied the ” . 
 
 ‘ * Pardon me for interrupting you ; hut 
 that is the very reason why your calm judg- 
 ment would be invaluable. A great mind 
 
6 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 like yours — unfettered by study, and free from 
 school traditions, one that has lain dormant 
 in its strength — would bring a new light on 
 the subject.” 
 
 “ I dare say I could do something towards 
 elucidating it,” I said. “ The Stonnors have 
 generally succeeded in what they under- 
 take.” 
 
 “ I am sure of it,” he replied, “ and I feel 
 relieved now that I have unburdened my 
 mind to you.” 
 
 This was the first of many conversations 
 we had on the subject. My interest was 
 roused, not so much at Spiritualism itself as at 
 the knowledge of finding a power of philo- 
 sophical reasoning within me which I had 
 been hitherto unaware of. One evening we 
 had a little seance. The manifestations were 
 slight, but quite enough to convince me. He 
 was especially pleased at my explanation of 
 some of the phenomena. “ We will pursue 
 the subject,” I said, “ but in the meantime 
 I should like to see you more cheerful.” 
 
 “ The prospect of parting makes me sad,” 
 he replied. 
 
 “ Surely you are not going to leave us ? ” 
 I asked. 
 
 “ I am only too happy where I am,” he 
 said ; “ but I have a presentiment that we 
 shall be parted soon.” 
 
 “ Then we will meet again at Stonnor 
 Hall,” I rejoined gaily. 
 
 Oddly enough it happened as he predicted, 
 for at Oban I found letters that called me 
 home. One from India telling me that my 
 niece had sailed for England and was coming 
 to the Hall — the trouble consequent on the 
 death of her child, some two or three years 
 old, had so preyed upon her health that her 
 husband had packed her off by the first 
 steamer ; the other from my brother, say- 
 ing she had arrived, and offering to come 
 and finish the cruise with his son. I set off 
 at once — arranging that my brother should 
 join the yacht at Oban, and that Hansen 
 should then come and pay a visit to Stonnor 
 Hall. 
 
 I found that the young wife had picked up 
 her health and spirits during the voyage, but 
 that she might have a cheerful companion, I 
 asked Mrs. Randall Rawson and her husband 
 to spend a few days with us. 
 
 Mrs. Rawson was a brisk, busy lady, who 
 would manage everything and everybody in 
 the county if she could. She had a for- 
 midable array of domestic virtues ; had the 
 reputation of being very strong-minded, but 
 withal was a most nervous woman, hiding it 
 well, however, under a loud sort of bluster. 
 
 Another peculiarity was her absurd jealousy 
 of her husband. Poor Rawson himself was 
 one of the meekest and mildest of men. He 
 was known at school as Pink Rawson, and 
 now he was married and the father of a 
 large young family, he was pinker and milder 
 than ever. His life was made a burden to 
 him from this ridiculous jealousy. Even his 
 periodic visits to his mother who lived in 
 London were looked upon with distrust. 
 She always accompanied him if she could, 
 and frequently, to my knowledge, made her- 
 self excessively disagreeable. I never shall 
 forget a walk we had together. I don’t 
 think it is quite the correct thing to walk 
 through the London streets, but there was 
 no help for it on this occasion, our horses 
 having met with some accident in Regent 
 Street, and walk we must to a cabstand. 
 But that walk ! Gracious me, we couldn’t 
 look across the road ! It was, “ Rawson, 
 who are you looking at ?” “Pray don’t stare 
 so ! ” “ Can we not go into a shop ? ” “Mr. 
 Stonnor, be kind enough to call a cab ! 
 and call a cab I did at last, with great satis- 
 faction. 
 
 A remarkable occurrence took place at 
 the Hall shortly after they arrived. _ We had 
 all met in the drawing-room after dinner, my 
 brother was dozing in an arm-chair, Mrs. 
 Rawson was reading a novel, my niece was 
 at the piano, and Rawson would have been 
 turning over the leaves had his wife’s eye 
 not been on him. 
 
 Suddenly the door opened, and my butler, 
 Thomas (a most exemplary person), came 
 up to my chair with a startled sort of look 
 and desired to speak to me. When we got 
 outside, he told me that one of the house- 
 maids was in hysterics, having seen a ghost 
 on the lawn. It was bright moonlight, and 
 while the girl was closing some shutters her 
 attention was attracted by a moaning. On 
 looking out she saw the figure of a young 
 lady gazing up at one of the windows and 
 wringing her hands. Thomas, who ran to her 
 assistance when she screamed, said also that 
 he distinctly saw the figure disappearing 
 in the shrubs. “ Where is this girl ? ” 
 whispered a voice close to us, and there was 
 Mrs. Rawson, looking very white. She had 
 followed us out of feminine curiosity. 
 
 “ Take me to this girl,” she said loudly. 
 “ I’ll soon take the nonsense out of her ! ” 
 
 However, notwithstanding cold water, sal 
 volatile, and abundant scolding, the girl 
 stuck to her statement. She gave the most 
 circumstantial account of it. 
 
 The figure was dressed in white, had 
 
THE ROBBERY AT THE HALL. 
 
 7 
 
 black hair, looked very sad, would stare up 
 at a particular window, then wring her hands 
 and moan. < 
 
 The window sheMescribed was that which 
 belonged to the haunted chamber. My 
 brother scoured the shrubberies without avail. 
 
 Then we talked away about poor Lettice’s 
 sad story, till the two ladies went to bed in 
 considerable perturbation. 
 
 Nothing occurred the following night, 
 but on the next Thomas knocked at my 
 dressing-room door as I was going to bed. 
 “For Heaven’s sake come here, sir,” he 
 cried. I hurried after him. “ Look there ! ” 
 he said, pointing out of the corridor win- 
 dow. There, sure enough, on the lawn, in 
 the bright moonlight, was the figure the 
 girl had described. I could see it with 
 painful distinctness. It was like in face, 
 figure, and dress to Scheffer’s picture of 
 “ Mignon regrettant sa patrie,” that hung in 
 my nephew’s room. It would look up at the 
 haunted room, then clasp its hands and 
 moan. When I turned to speak to Thomas, 
 
 I was confronted by another white figure. 
 
 It was that of Mrs. Randall Rawson, who, 
 having heard the disturbance, had followed 
 us in dishabille. “ What is all this about ? ” 
 she said in sepulchral tones. For answer I 
 pointed to the figure. “Ah!” she cried, 
 clutching me violently. “ I am not frightened ! 
 no ; this is some trick. I’ll have the crea- 
 ture punished. I tell you both, these things 
 do not frighten me ! ” 
 
 Here she clasped me so violently that I 
 nearly fell. “ Open the window, Thomas,” 
 she continued loudly. “ I’ll speak to the 
 
 At the sound of the opening casement the 
 figure turned slowly towards us, and with a 
 despairing cry disappeared amid the trees. 
 Mrs. Rawson fell back in hysterics, and 
 being rather stout, it was as much as Thomas 
 and I could do to support her. “ Ah, ah ! ” 
 she laughed; “I tell you I am not frightened; 
 I tell you ” 
 
 Here the noise she made was so great 
 that Rawson himself appeared on the land- 
 ing in a hurried toilet. 
 
 “What on earth is the matter?” he cried. 
 His voice recovered her at once. 
 
 “ Come here, Mr. Rawson, and give me 
 your arm to my room.” 
 
 They made rather an undignified exit, but 
 just then my mind was too much engrossed 
 with the extraordinary apparition to notice 
 anything else. Through that long night I 
 lay thinking it over. What could it mean ? 
 I remembered the psychological discussions 
 
 with Hansen, in which I was invariably 
 right ; and before morning was quite certain 
 that I had grasped the meaning of this. It 
 was a portent that affected the family. 
 
 When my brother, who had slept soundly 
 all night, began deriding it, and saying it was 
 a dodge of the servants, I pulled him up at 
 once. “Perhaps,” I said, “I know more 
 about it than you think.” 
 
 “ What are you driving at ?” he said. 
 
 “I mean that it may portend something 
 more serious than you hint at.” 
 
 “ Ah ! Peter,” he said, “ how often have I 
 told you not to keep all the jewels and plate 
 at the Hall. Why don’t you send them to 
 your banker’s ? ” 
 
 “ You mistake me,” I said ; “ the trinkets 
 and plate are safe enough ; but did it never 
 occur to you that spirits may actually visit 
 the earth?” 
 
 “ If I did not know you better, Peter, I 
 should think you had adopted whisky in 
 Scotland, or had softening of the brain coming 
 on. Where did you pick up this non- 
 sense?” 
 
 I laid my hand upon his shoulder. “ Ro- 
 bert,” I said seriously, “ I’ll tell you about 
 Scotland. My mind was opened there, and 
 I am now convinced that it is possible for 
 spirits, both seen and unseen, to visit this 
 earth. Moreover, we may converse with 
 them.” 
 
 He looked at me dumbfoundered. At last 
 he said, “ Poor Peter ! you are worse than I 
 expected*’’ 
 
 “ And,” I continued, not heeding him, “ the 
 question to be answered is, what should we 
 do, or how should we act, when they do 
 appear?” _ 
 
 “ In this case,” he said brutally, ‘ I should 
 look after the spoons.” 
 
 It was no use talking to a man of this sort. 
 In fact, the more serious and intent we were 
 in watching for, or trying to find out about 
 this spiritual manifestation, the more frivolous 
 and absurd he became. He dressed himselt 
 in white and stalked about the front of the 
 house, saying, “ One ghost was as good as 
 another.” 
 
 Just before he started for Scotland he 
 played a very stupid and reprehensible prac- 
 tical joke on Randall Rawson. Rawson 
 happened to leave an envelope addressed to 
 his mother on the library table. This was 
 taken by my brother, who, imitating the 
 handwriting, wrote, “ Dear mother, I shall 
 send you fifteen blue goats to-morrow. Can’t 
 I get any more, but will telegraph to New 
 York.” Poor Rawson came up to me in 
 
3 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 great excitement the next day with a telegram 
 in his hand. “ Good heavens ! Stonnor,” he 
 said, “ here’s a calamity : my poor mother’s 
 gone mad. Read this.” 
 
 “ From Mrs. Rawson, Queen’s Gate, to 
 Randall Rawson, Stonnor Hall. — Don't want 
 any blue goats — don’t telegraph to New 
 York.” 
 
 Cl Poor mother ! — I must be off at once. 
 My wife is out driving. Could you manage 
 to come with me?” 
 
 “ Certainly,” I said. “ Write aline to your 
 wife, and let us be off. We shall just catch 
 the London train.” 
 
 So Rawson wrote on the back of the tele- 
 gram, “ Dear Wife, — This will explain it- 
 self. Hope to be back to-morrow. Poor 
 mother ! ” 
 
 Of course, when we got to Queen’s Gate 
 and saw the spurious letter, the hoax began 
 to dawn upon us. We vowed vengeance 
 against Robert, but by the time we got back 
 he had started for Scotland. What a miser- 
 able time we had of it with Rawson’s wife ! 
 Nothing would persuade her that it was not 
 a planned thing between us. 
 
 “ The next time you take my husband to 
 dissipate in London, Mr. Stonnor,” she said 
 with cutting irony, “ pray find some more 
 sensible excuse than blue goats.” 
 
 “ Really, Mrs. Rawson,” I protested, “ it 
 was nothing more than a practical joke of 
 my brother’s.” 
 
 “ How fortunate to have an absent brother ! ” 
 she replied sarcastically. 
 
 Luckily our attention was now distracted 
 by Mr. Hansen’s arrival. His presence acted 
 like oil on the troubled waters. In a couple 
 of days he had settled down, a favourite with 
 all, and a special comfort to me. Even Mrs. 
 Rawson pronounced him to be a most 
 superior person, and it was interesting to 
 notice that, after pooh-poohing the very 
 name of Spiritualism and abusing its con- 
 verts, she insensibly became converted herself. 
 
 “ We ought to write to Dr. Pascal,” she 
 said, “and insist on a searching inquiry being 
 made. It is a crying shame that the savants 
 do not recognise it !” 
 
 “ The inquiry would come to nothing,” 
 said Hansen. “ They would investigate, and 
 probe, and test ; and, then, if they could 
 account for the phenomena as being the 
 sequence of some so-called law, their intel- 
 lects would be satisfied ; if not, they would 
 call it humbug.” 
 
 “But, Hansen,” I said, “there must be 
 laws, you know ; everything must be governed 
 by laws.” 
 
 “ Exactly,” he answered ; “ but what these 
 so-called philosophers call laws are nothing 
 more than assumptions on which they con- 
 veniently base their facts.” 
 
 “ There may certainly be,” said Mrs. Raw- 
 son, “ some occult power which they know 
 nothing-whatever about.” 
 
 “ There is ! There is ! Believe me, 
 there is, Mrs. Rawson ! ” cried Hansen. 
 “And then how sweet and comforting to 
 think we can hold converse with departed 
 friends i” 
 
 “ Indeed it is ! ” said Mrs. Rawson ; “ it 
 satisfies our loftiest aspirations ! ” 
 
 “ By-and-by history will be read by its 
 help,” I said. 
 
 “ A noble idea — one worthy of you ! ” said 
 Hansen, pressing my hand. 
 
 After this we had many interesting conver- 
 sations. We of course told him of the 
 spectre. He was intensely interested. He 
 made us narrate the circumstances again and 
 again. He examined the lawn, shrubberies, 
 and windows, and finally put the girl Jane 
 under severe cross-examination. One day, 
 in company with Mrs. Rawson, we explored 
 the old house, and were looking at the 
 family jewels and plate, in the strong fire- 
 proof box. 
 
 “ We must not wonder at your brother 
 telling you to look after these valuable heir- 
 looms,” said Hansen, “any more than we 
 wonder at the girl Jane’s fright. The idea 
 of burglary is just what would occur to an 
 unenlightened mind.” 
 
 “ I think this box would resist any attempt 
 at burglary,” I said, smiling. “ See how this 
 key turns two strong bars right across the 
 inside of the lid.” 
 
 “ Most beautiful mechanism ! ” he said, 
 “ and how ingeniously contrived.” 
 
 He tried the key several times, then 
 returning it to me continued, “But I am 
 more interested in the haunted room. Let 
 us go there ! Let us go quickly ! ” 
 
 Something in the change of his voice as he 
 spoke the last words made us look at him. 
 His eyes were fixed in vacancy, and both 
 his hands were extended towards us. We 
 each took one, and without any direction on 
 our part, his eyes still fixed, he led us straight 
 to the haunted room ! While the door was 
 being opened we fancied we heard some 
 knocks and a sort of moaning noise. No- 
 thing daunted, however, we entered — Hansen 
 still in his trance and Mrs. Rawson pale yet 
 determined. For some time there was 
 silence, then he heaved a great sigh, drew 
 his hand across his brow and said, “ This 
 
THE ROBBERY AT THE HALL. 
 
 9 
 
 is Lettice’s chamber ! Where is the inscrip- 
 tion ? ” 
 
 Before we could answer there were four 
 distinct knocks from the fireplace. Again 
 his eyes assumed the vacant stare, his jaw 
 fell, and he looked about him in a dazed 
 sort of manner. 
 
 “ Would you learn more of the apparition?” 
 he asked dreamily. 
 
 “I would,” I answered boldly; “ was it a 
 portent ? ” 
 
 “ It was.” 
 
 “ A portent of what?” I asked breath- 
 lessly. 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 “ Could you bring us into communication 
 with this spirit ? ” said Mrs. Rawson. 
 
 Still ho answer; but with a sigh he sank 
 back in a chair apparently asleep. Presently 
 he awoke, quite unconscious of what had 
 happened, examined the room and inscrip- 
 tion with great interest, and then went down 
 with us to the drawing-room. 
 
 We told my niece and Rawson what had 
 happened, and that evening we all tried to 
 persuade him to conduct a seance with the 
 view of eliciting information from the departed 
 Lettice. At first he refused. “Remember,” 
 he £aid, “how my health suffered in Germany 
 from these investigations. Since that I have 
 been unable to follow my calling. Oh, let 
 me regain my health ! ” 
 
 It was at my solicitation that he at last 
 yielded ; and that he should not be a sufferer, 
 I induced him to accept a douceur that would 
 relieve his anxiety about working for a year 
 or so. 
 
 He thought the manifestations would be 
 stronger if some of his time were spent in 
 the old chamber ; so we had his bed moved 
 to a room opening from it, that he might go 
 in and out as he pleased. 
 
 I must own we were all morbidly excited 
 on the morning of the pre-arranged seance. 
 For myself I was determined to solve the 
 portent. I was proud that the philosophical 
 investigation should have fallen on my 
 shoulders, and was quite conscious of the 
 power of elucidating the phenomena. I 
 determined also to take copious notes and 
 submit them to the Royal Society. F.R.S. 
 is not by any means an ungentlemanly 
 adjunct to one’s name, and one of my first 
 subsequent actions should be certainly to 
 show my unbounded gratitude to Hansen 
 for having opened to me these vistas of philo- 
 sophical research. 
 
 Mrs. Randall Rawson talked and laughed 
 loudly to hide her excitement. Her husband 
 
 walked about the house on tip-toe all day, 
 and my niece had a pale, pinched look and 
 was occasionally in tears. Dinner seemed 
 an impertinence, and the servants must have 
 noted how little we ate. Their presence was 
 irksome. We were impatient till they retired 
 for the night, and then, more like a row of 
 conspirators than ordinary inmates, we 
 silently went up to the haunted room. 
 
 Hansen was already there. The night 
 was very dark and warm, and he stood by 
 the open window calm and collected. 
 
 “ You all know,” he began, “ how trying it 
 is for me to conduct these investigations, and 
 I only do so now out of deference to the 
 mental attainments of our host. We cannot 
 tell — no one can tell — whether there will be 
 any manifestations, but we will try. The 
 night is favourable.” 
 
 We seated ourselves round the table, placed 
 our hands upon it, and made a contact with 
 our fingers. Presently it moved; then was 
 violently agitated, almost tailing on our feet, 
 while occasional loud raps were heard on the 
 inscription. 
 
 “ Strong manifestations on the oak carv- 
 ing,” he said in a low tone ; “ let me go to- 
 it.” 
 
 He got up, and as he moved to the fire- 
 place his chair ran after him. 
 
 We all saw it, and made some involuntary 
 exclamation as we rose from our seats. 
 
 “ Ah ! ” he said, “ don’t destroy the con- 
 tact ; the spirits are busy to-night.” 
 
 We re-seated ourselves. My niece, rather 
 faint, next to Rawson, then myself, Mrs- 
 Rawson, and Hansen. Presently my niece 
 cried, “Something touched my leg !” 
 
 “ Be calm,” said Hansen. “ Be calm.” . 
 
 “ Oh ! ” she exclaimed, “ I cannot bear it ; 
 something is on my lap ! ” 
 
 “ Rawson, move your place this instant,, 
 sir,” cried his wife. “ Move your place this 
 instant, or I leave the room.” 
 
 “ My dear ” he began. 
 
 “ Move your place, sir,” she insisted. 
 
 So poor Randall had to move. “ I think 
 I’ll go to bed,” he said, and slipped out of 
 the room. 
 
 “ What was it? ” I whispered to my niece. 
 
 “ It was as if my child was climbing on to- 
 my knee,” she whispered back. 
 
 Hansen rose and drank some water. “ I 
 think,” he said, “ it would be advisable to 
 conduct the rest of the seance in darkness.” 
 
 “ Your late researches, Mr. Stonnor, must 
 have shown you the wonderful properties of 
 light as an occult motive power. No doubt 
 it interferes somewhat with spiritualistic 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 10 
 
 phenomena. In the light we get indirect in- 
 formation by rappings, but in the darkness 
 we may obtain more direct communica- 
 tions.” 
 
 So saying he put out the candles, and we 
 resumed our seats. 
 
 The rappings increased. They were very 
 loud. Then small flickers of light darted 
 all about the room. Then a moaning, such 
 as we heard on the lawn, could be detected 
 in the air close to us. 
 
 “ Are you the spirit of Lettice Stonnor ? ” 
 asked Hansen. 
 
 There were three raps and a moan. 
 
 u Is your visit a portent of evil ? ” 
 
 Two raps. 
 
 “ Is your visit to the Hall a friendly 
 one ? ” 
 
 Three raps. 
 
 “ Where do you come from ? ” 
 
 Here a shower of stars shot all about the 
 room. 
 
 “ Will you show yourself to us ? ” 
 
 Three raps. 
 
 Our excitement was now positively awful. 
 We could hear our hearts beating. Presently 
 out of the darkness a luminous figure was 
 seen moving towards the window. Arriving 
 there, it turned, and we saw, illumined by a 
 soft light, the features of the departed Lettice 
 Stonnor. Her black hair clung about her 
 shoulders, and she moaned and gesticulated 
 as she did on the lawn. 
 
 “ Speak ! ” said Hansen. 
 
 “ I return no more,” she said in unearthly 
 tones, and slowly disappeared out of the 
 window. 
 
 There was a crash in the room. Hansen 
 lit the candles, and there on the floor were 
 my niece and Mrs. Rawson in hysterical 
 faintings. To this day I don’t know how we 
 got to bed. I remember calling Rawson, and 
 somehow between us we saw the two ladies 
 to their rooms. When I got back Hansen 
 had thrown himself on his bed. 
 
 “ Let me sleep, let me sleep,” he said, 
 shaking me by the hand — “ the expenditure 
 of odic force has been too much for me ; 
 but what a glorious success ! ” 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The reaction from the excitement gave me 
 a heavy sleep, but I was rudely awakened 
 before eight the next morning by Thomas. 
 He had shaken me out of my stupor, and 
 was standing over me in his shirt sleeves. 
 
 “ Oh lor, sir ! ” he cried. “ Oh lor, Mr. 
 Stonnor ! ” 
 
 “ What is the matter, Thomas ? ” I ex- 
 claimed, starting up and rubbing my eyes. 
 
 “ Oh lor, sir ! the family plate, sir, and 
 the jewels ! all gone !” 
 
 “ Gone ! ” I shrieked, jumping out of bed. 
 “ Call Mr. Hansen ! ” 
 
 “ He’s gone too, sir ! ” 
 
 I kept my room for a week. Owing to 
 something he had heard in Scotland, my 
 brother had suddenly returned to the Hall 
 the day after the robbery, but had imme- 
 diately left for London. Ten days after he 
 appeared. 
 
 “ I hope the Detectives and I have not 
 compounded a felony,” he said, laying some 
 of the lost jewels on the table, “ but these 
 are all we could recover. The plate is melted 
 down by this time and your cheque was cashed 
 the day you gave it. Would you like me to 
 read the result of Pascal’s inquiry about your 
 friend ? 
 
 “ * Edward Hansen,’ he writes, ‘ is not an 
 artist himself, but is the son of a well-known 
 painter of the same name. No doubt the 
 sketches your brother purchased are by 
 the father. This Edward is married to a 
 handsome dark woman, and a clever pair 
 of scamps they are, the Stonnor Hall seance 
 not being the least of their clever adven- 
 tures. 
 
 “ ‘ He first caught your brother by a little 
 judicious flattery, and then carefully elicited 
 all your family history from him. The story 
 of Lettice he utilised by writing to his wife 
 and telling her to impersonate her in the 
 moonlight. This and subsequent deferential 
 flattery to your brother’s mental attainments 
 brought about the seance. The raps are 
 produced by a very common trick. Your 
 niece’s sensation that her child was seated on 
 her lap, was induced by the contact of his 
 foot, having previously throughout the day 
 led her to speak of her trouble. The sparks 
 and stars are simply caused by rubbing the 
 top of a common lucifer match, and flicking 
 it up into the air. As to the apparition, 
 this was no one else but his own wife, who 
 had entered the room, as they subsequently 
 left it, by a rope ladder. The luminous 
 appearance was caused by a compound of 
 phosphates and sulphides well known in 
 Germany, and the greater light near the win- 
 dow showed that she had come within the 
 focus of some lantern cunningly hidden by 
 her husband. 
 
 “ 4 The subsequent robbery was absurdly 
 easy, seeing that the fire-proof box had 
 been left unlocked after Hansen tried the 
 key. 
 
 “ ‘ I hope Peter is better. “ Experientia 
 docet,” &c.’ ” 
 
7 rontispiece . 
 
 “I return no more,” she said in unearthly tones, and slowly disappeared. 
 
 Page 
 
II. — Kilmoig. 
 
 PARTI. 
 
 I WAS excessively annoyed. 
 
 My nephew, Charles, had coolly signified 
 his intention of adopting the career of a 
 professional Artist ! I would not believe it 
 at first. Of course he was bound to paint 
 well, because the Stonnors invariably succeed 
 in whatever they undertake. Moreover, I 
 had no objection to his following Art in a 
 dilettante way ; but conceive my horror 
 at being confronted with a picture of his 
 in a public gallery, and advertised in 
 the printed catalogue so that it could be 
 
 pounds ! 
 
 It was in vain I protested. I pointed out to 
 him that it was not quite a gentleman’s calling. 
 I had no objection, I said to him, that 
 he should qualify himself for any profession, 
 lawyer, doctor, or what not, so long as he 
 did not give himself up to the drudgery of it ; 
 but the idea of parading a picture for public 
 sale was positively appalling. 
 
 I thought then, and I think now, that our 
 short intimacy with that dreamy German 
 Hansen (which ended in such a humiliating 
 manner) had exerted a baneful influence 
 on him. He was up in the clouds ; he had 
 an idea that there was a new Renaissance in 
 
12 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 Art, and that he was one of its exponents. 
 Nothing I could say would stop him. He 
 said he had a “ Calling.” 
 
 “ Fancy,” I said in disgust, “ a Stonnor 
 being an Artist ! ” 
 
 “ I hate the word ! ” he replied. “ Chi- 
 ropodists and hairdressers are Artists. Call 
 me a painter, if you please, or an impressionist, 
 or intentionist — anything but an Artist.” 
 
 “ You liked the term well enough at one 
 time,” I said. “ You were rather proud of 
 it when you painted pictures I could under- 
 stand. Now, upon my word, it is hard to 
 make out what you mean. You seem to have 
 gone back to the child’s Noah’s ark for 
 your figures.” 
 
 “ Not quite so far back,” he answered, 
 smiling ; “ but far enough back to court the 
 spirit that actuated Botticelli. Why should 
 we crave for colour or for pretty pictures 
 when sadness ends everything? To learn, we 
 must first unlearn. The grand aim is to 
 paint in the innocence of the child who 
 owned your Noah’s ark free from school 
 dogmas.” 
 
 “ Ah,” said my visitor, Dr. Pascal, “ you 
 believe in the new school. You are so far 
 advanced that you would go back in art and 
 morals and throw the teachings of eighteen 
 hundred years to the winds. And what for ? 
 For a fashion that is as transient and un- 
 healthy as high-heeled boots.” 
 
 “Cannot you understand,” replied my 
 nephew, “ that I would throw away the old 
 false and worn-out garments of conven- 
 tionality and show- the world the loveliness 
 of innocence ? ” 
 
 “ I see nothing lovely in the productions 
 of your party ; but I see much that is 
 hideous. Your figures remind me of the 
 post-mortem room, and your typical beauty 
 is invariably hectic with phthisis. No! no! 
 Charlie my boy, your so-called Renaissance 
 is unhealthy! It is a burlesque, and the 
 very earnestness you fellows display in this 
 retrograde movement makes matters worse. 
 Botticelli and Co. were grand old fellows, 
 but you copyists have hurt the honest love I 
 had for them. I feel like the man who 
 after reading Robinson Crusoe in simple 
 faith all his life, was told in his old age it 
 was all fiction.” 
 
 “ Ah, Pascal !” laughed Charles, “ you are 
 in a bad temper. Come and see my An- 
 dromeda, that will put you in good-humour 
 and make you change your mind about Art.” 
 
 “ What is to be done ? ” I asked Pascal, 
 when my nephew left us. 
 
 “ Change of air and scene,” he replied. 
 
 “Go away to the hills and confront him with 
 something real. See if mountain air won’t 
 blow this nonsense out of him. Go to Scot- 
 land and shoot and fish.” 
 
 “ I don’t like Scotland.” 
 
 “ Why not ? ” 
 
 “Well,” I said, rising and speaking im- 
 pressively, for I had thought the matter over 
 — “ well, the Scotch are people of imperfect 
 sympathies. I suppose this to be a natural 
 result of the struggle for existence among 
 predatory tribes, but the farther you go 
 north, the more marked is the peculi- 
 arity.” 
 
 “ My dear friend,” said Pascal, with his 
 most cynical smile — he can be very dis- 
 agreeable when he chooses — “my dear friend, 
 if you persist in enunciating these sentiments 
 in such a superfine manner, you will run the 
 risk of being called the Sententious Stunner. 
 What can you possibly know about Scot- 
 land?” 
 
 “ I know this much,” I replied warmly, 
 “ that as long as you let a Scotchman think 
 that he conducts the ordinary actions of life 
 better than any other mortal on the face of 
 the earth, he is an excellent friend to you. 
 Once question his superiority, and he is your 
 enemy for life. As to deference and a proper 
 recognition of social standing , they have none. 
 When I was there I got no more civility than 
 my valet ! ” 
 
 “ Pooh, pooh ! ” said Pascal ; “ deprive a 
 Scotsman of his manful independence, and 
 you destroy his grand characteristic. What 
 says their poet ? — 
 
 “ * The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, 
 
 A man’s a man for a’ that ! ’ ” 
 
 “ Please remember,” I said quickly, “ that 
 before his death Burns expressed his contri- 
 tion for this Radical utterance. He said, 
 sir, ‘ Next to my God I venerate the British 
 Constitution.’ A fine sentiment ! Worth all 
 his poems put together ! ” 
 
 “ Nay,” he said, rising and imitating my 
 voice and manner very rudely, “nay, Stonnor, 
 the Scotch are noted for a manful independ- 
 ence, unbounded hospitality, and unswerving 
 friendship. There are always two sides to a 
 character. What a dreadful state of things it 
 would be if the English were all Prigs ! But 
 this national priggishness is counterbalanced 
 by an innate love of truth and an abhorrence 
 of cant. You should study Pantagruellism, 
 my friend. Read your Punch and be happy. 
 He is doing for England what Aristophanes 
 did for Athens. Through them history will 
 be able to tell, not only what the people did 
 and said, but what they thought.” 
 
KILMOIG. 
 
 i3 
 
 ‘‘You are a privileged person, Pascal,” I 
 
 said curtly, “ or — ” 
 
 “ If that is so,” he interrupted me, “let me 
 prescribe a national remedy for you. Take a 
 Scotch moor and kill something. Go, and 
 you’ll alter your opinion about the Scotch. 
 Take Charles too, and see if the actual con- 
 tact with natural beauty doesn’t give a 
 healthy tone to his Art. I wish I could go 
 with you, but I’m going to try the hot water 
 at Dax. Then I shall go to Spain, ana tell 
 Charlie all about Velasquez and Murillo. 
 Then to Berlin to see my old father, and 
 back to you at Christmas.” 
 
 A Scotch moor was not a bad idea. I was 
 fond of shooting, and it was a correct way of 
 spending the autumn recess. Then — as he 
 said — it may do my nephew some good. 
 
 “ How am I to get one ? ” I asked. 
 
 “ Consult that wonderful book, The Sports- 
 man s Guide ,” he answered; “you’ll find any- 
 thing there, from one hundred to five thou- 
 sand a year rental.” 
 
 Then the language! My experience of 
 Scotland had * been confined to a few days’ 
 unfortunate yachting on the west coast, and 
 then I had "considerable difficulty in under- 
 standing Captain McCosh’s stories. Pascal, 
 however, assured me that there was no need 
 of a dictionary or other books, as my natural 
 aptitude for languages would enable me to 
 pick it up quickly. 
 
 Then I had to consult my keeper, Daw- 
 son. An excellent servant is Dawson. His 
 father and grandfather had been keepers 
 at the Hall before him. A Dawson was 
 always head keeper — and I believe my 
 father was greatly exasperated with old 
 Dawson until the present man was born. 
 He had scarcely been out of the county 
 all his life — was a good, honest fellow, 
 with a strong predilection for fine words. 
 The prospect of Highland sport elated him. 
 “ But with your leave, sir,” he said, “ I 
 should like to insure my life before I go. 
 Nobody can tell what may happen to us. I 
 would go anywhere or suffer anything for you, 
 Mr. Stonnor, even exparturition (he meant ex- 
 patriation), but I must consider my family.” 
 After this it was soon settled. From an 
 advertisement we found a place in Argyll- 
 shire, that offered all we required — shooting, 
 fishing, a good house, and splendid scenery. 
 Our preparations were made quickly. We 
 procured every possible requisite, not even 
 forgetting kilts. I demurred at this, but 
 Charles insisted. “ What was the use,” he 
 said, “ of going to the Highlands unless you 
 entered into the true spirit of it ? ” 
 
 So we ordered two sober-patterned tartan 
 kilts, and one of plain tweed for Dawson. 
 He started off at once with dogs, guns, rods, 
 and all the paraphernalia of sport ; I followed 
 more leisurely, stopping a day in Glasgow, 
 while Charles promised to join us as soon as 
 his picture was finished. 
 
 A curious place is Glasgow. It is a city 
 of many smells and few traditions. The 
 inhabitants walk with extreme rapidity. 
 Everybody has a preoccupied air, and 
 slouches along with his hands in his pockets, 
 too much engrossed with thoughts of cotton 
 or sugar to perform even the ordinary saluta- 
 tion on meeting an acquaintance. Away from 
 ' the abominations of business, however, they 
 are surprisingly kind and polite. 
 
 A stupid blunder of mine made me 
 acquainted with this fact. I walked into one 
 of their clubs, thinking it an hotel — I had 
 actually sat down and ordered lunch before 
 the mistake was discovered ; but as I was 
 about to leave, a handsome, grey-headed 
 gentleman, who had heard my conversation 
 with the waiter, begged me to consider my- 
 self his guest. The lunch led to an invita- 
 tion to dine at his private house, where I was 
 grandly entertained. 
 
 My host, Mr. Graham, was full of wit and 
 anecdote, telling story after story and laugh- 
 ing immoderately at them. He was in 
 school-boy spirits just then at the prospect 
 of his month’s holiday. 
 
 He was going to the Highlands, and we 
 met on board the Iona on the following 
 morning, in one of those fogs for which the 
 Clyde is famous. Nothing damped his 
 spirits, and I suspect his innate love of fun 
 and humour made him deceive me in many 
 matters. For instance, when I asked him 
 what a curious-looking white tower w T as that 
 sent forth an occasional booming sound, he 
 replied without hesitation that it was an 
 Episcopal Church built by a Mr. Burns ; that 
 the Episcopalians were not allowed to have 
 bells, and if it was not for the employment 
 of a fog-horn the congregation would never 
 get to church at all. 
 
 Unfortunately, I had to repeat all this — 
 word for word — to a majestic-looking lady 
 who asked me for information. She was a 
 little past the middle-age and very large and 
 tall. She wore gold spectacles, through which 
 she focussed you when she spoke, by throw- 
 ing her head back and thrusting out her chin. 
 She was deaf too, so much so that I posi- 
 tively had to shout out my information. No 
 sooner had I done so than there was a loud 
 guffaw from some coarse fellow standing near 
 
14 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 us. “Ho, ho!” he laughed, “that’s a 
 good ’un ! Man, you’re an awfu’ leear ! Yon’s 
 the Clock lighthouse.” 
 
 And so it was ! I had some difficulty in 
 appeasing my lady interrogator, but at last 
 we became excellent friends. She had an 
 insatiable desire for information. By hook 
 or by crook' she would ferret out all she 
 wanted to know. In five minutes she knew 
 all about me, and in return told me all about 
 herself. She was a Miss McCraggan, and 
 lived at Titchfield, near Southampton. 
 
 “ Now,” she said, fixing me through her 
 spectacles — “ now, what am I ? How do 
 I employ myself? I’ll tell you — I am an 
 adjuster — I decorate houses. None of your 
 house-painter’s work, mind — but renovation, 
 readjustment, and decoration, according to 
 aesthetic laws. Sometimes I simply give 
 advice and take a fee, at other times I con- 
 duct the whole operation.” 
 
 “A pleasant occupation,” I said, deter- 
 mined to make myself agreeable after my 
 involuntary rudeness. 
 
 “ Pleasant, but troublesome,” she replied. 
 “ Sometimes it is heart-breaking. The other 
 day I was sent for by Lord Forton — Lady 
 Forton went round the place with me. Dear 
 me, what horrors ! One room actually 
 painted lilac ! I thought I should have 
 fainted. They had to give me wine. After 
 lunch I screwed up courage enough to try 
 again, and, lo, in one of the top attics I 
 found a Holbein -looking portrait. I tucked 
 it under my arm and went down delighted. 
 ‘ Now,’ I said to her ladyship, ‘ I have found 
 your key-note. Here it is, and we must 
 renovate and readjust from this. It is our 
 key-note.’” 
 
 “I know Lord Forton,” I put in; “his 
 house is beautiful.” 
 
 “ Exactly,” she replied ; “ I did it. I did 
 it, Mr. Stonnor, from that one little portrait. 
 That key-note reclaimed the house. It cost 
 Lord Forton twelve thousand pounds, but 
 ‘ What of that,’ I said to her ladyship, 4 what 
 of that, when you have a thing of beauty and 
 a joy for ever?’” 
 
 “And now you are enjoying your well- 
 earned holiday ? ” I asked. 
 
 “ Not at all,” she answered sharply. “ I 
 never have a holiday. I am never still — to 
 Dresden for china, Holland for brass and 
 pottery, Spain and Italy for furniture — never 
 still — here, there, and everywhere ! I’ve 
 scoured every county in England and found 
 heaps of little treasures — now and then I 
 come upon a key-note, but not often.” 
 
 “ Have you succeeded well in Scotland ? ” 
 
 “ Pretty well,” she replied, bringing for- 
 ward one of her many bags. “ Here is an 
 exquisite Sevres cup. See, it is painted by 
 Chabry. Signed too, and dated 1771. This- 
 is a quaint bit of old Chelsea, and this is a 
 bit of oriental porcelain with the rare glaze. 
 I picked them all up in Edinburgh.” 
 
 “ Do you mean to say you travel about 
 with all these valuables ? ” 
 
 “ It is the safest plan. I never broke a 
 thing in my life. In that bonnet-box is a 
 magnificent bit of Capo di Monti. Not a 
 leaf or a bit of the Cupid’s wings will be 
 chipped, because it is snugly packed in 
 oatmeal. Then see this fine set of 
 Apostles’ spoons. I keep ’em in my pocket 
 for safety. Bought them for an old song m 
 Dumbarton.” 
 
 “ Surely there is nothing worth looking for 
 in the Highlands ? ” 
 
 “Not much to be got there. I am going 
 to see my brother, who is living near 
 Kilmoig. A marvellous man, Mr. Stonnor. 
 He was a military surgeon. Tallest man in 
 the British army — six feet four* and a half, in 
 his stockings ! ” 
 
 “ I have taken a shooting at Kilmoig, in- 
 Argyllshire. Is it the same place ? ” 
 
 “Yes, and Dounie, my brother’s place, is 
 about four miles from it. You must call 
 on him. He will be glad to see you — quick 
 temper, but religious. He requires manage- 
 ment, but I can always arrange matters with 
 him. There he lives with his son and 
 daughter. Doesn’t care for daughter, and 
 dotes upon his son. My nephew, his son, is- 
 a genius — he is a poet ; you may have read 
 ‘ Moans from Mona.’ ” 
 
 “ I am sorry to say I have not. But why 
 are they thus buried in the Highlands ? ” 
 
 “ Well, my brother is odd, very odd, and 
 sharp-tempered. He met with some injury 
 to his head in the Crimea, since which he has 
 been a little queer. He won’t be thwarted. 
 Don’t you try to thwart him ! He hates the 
 restraint of English society. Then again my 
 nephew says he finds inspiration in the 
 Highland glens.” 
 
 “ And the daughter ? ” I asked. 
 
 “ Ah, that is what brings me here. There 
 is something wants readjusting and arranging, 
 and I intend to do it. The girl has grown 
 up without any education at all, and here 
 she is, past seventeen and cannot read or 
 write. They are quite content about it ; I call 
 it shocking.” 
 
 “ She certainly ought to be educated.” 
 
 “ Of course she ought ! and that is the 
 very thing that I am going to arrange. Just 
 
KILMOIG. 
 
 1 S> 
 
 fancy too, from some stupid Shakesperian 
 folly they have called her Audrey till she has 
 forgotten her real name entirely. _ She is run- 
 ning about like a wild colt. It is shocking.” 
 She talked without ceasing till we. reached 
 Ardrishaig, where Dawson was waiting for 
 me with the dog-cart. Here, too, with con- 
 siderable regret I took leave of Mr. Graham. 
 He was one of nature’s gentlemen, _ and 
 had already made me modify my opinion 
 about the Scotch. I saw Miss McCraggan, 
 with her innumerable packages, safe in the 
 coach, and then started for Kilmoig. We 
 could see it for miles before we reached ^ it. 
 There it was on the brow of the hill, catching 
 the western glow and flashing back a crimson 
 welcome from every window. I was sure I 
 should like it. Dawson said he liked it and 
 the people too. But “ How about the lan- 
 guage ?” I asked. 
 
 “ Well, sir,” he said, “ it is hard to under- 
 stand them, they speak a sort of dog-latin, 
 but we shall manage the vermicular by-and- 
 by.” 
 
 The house at last ! and a beautiful spot. 
 The shooting was on the high ground behind 
 us, and there we saw tempting stretches of 
 purple heather peeping out between pine and 
 birch woods. In front a gradual slope took 
 one to the little fishing village. The smoke 
 was hanging lazily about the brown-sailed 
 boats in the bay, and beyond them lay the 
 open sea, all calm and golden, with Jura 
 faintly seen in the evening mist. Even the 
 sun was at his best, and danced across the 
 water in his grandest manner to bid me wel- 
 come. 
 
 I never enjoyed a meal more than I aid. 
 on that evening, and when I woke in the 
 morning felt really sorry for having spoken 
 to Pascal so strongly about the Scotch. I 
 was quite ready, too, to adopt the national 
 costume, which I found fully laid out by my 
 bedside. 
 
 With a little help I managed to get into 
 it, but could not for the life of me make out 
 where or how the strange-looking bag called 
 a Sporran was to be worn. I tried it several 
 wa y S — round my neck, under my arm, over 
 my shoulders— but determined at last to 
 carry it down and take my cue from 
 Dawson. I had not long to wait. Be- 
 fore breakfast was over there was a rush 
 of dogs to the front, and one peep through 
 the window showed me that Dawson had it 
 strapped on behind. Convenient to sit upon, 
 I thought, as I arranged mine similarly, and 
 off we started for Roy the bailiff, who was to 
 show us our boundaries. 
 
 A carriage drove past while we were wait- 
 ing for him in the road. The occupants 
 seemed mightily amused at something, and 
 though the laughter and tittering was not 
 exactly ill-bred, it appeared nevertheless 
 to be in some way connected with us. 
 They stopped some fifty yards off, and a 
 gentleman came back and introduced 
 himself to me as our landlord, Sir Archibald 
 Campbell. 
 
 “ I see you are giving your dogs a pre- 
 liminary canter, Mr. Stonnor,” he said. 
 
 “ I’m afraid you’ll find the birds scarce 
 this year. Is the lodge comfortable ? 
 Lady Campbell and myself hope to call 
 
 soon.” . 
 
 Though he only spoke these hurried words 
 of welcome, one glance showed me that his 
 Sporran was in front . I was much discon- 
 certed, and leaned against the wall till he 
 drove off. Then we readjusted the straps as 
 quickly as possible, and I could not help 
 being struck with the delicate manner m 
 which he had made me sensible of my mis- 
 take. It was done without a single word being 
 spoken on the subject, and no gentleman 
 in the county of Hertford could have 
 done it with more grace. I was already 
 quite agreeably disappointed with the Scotch 
 
 P By mid-day we were on the top of the hill 
 with Roy, a taciturn man, who walked the 
 hill as if on a level road. He never had 
 the civility to wait for me : strode straight 
 on to the top, and when I panted up to 
 him dead beat, said, “ Ye’re a puir body ! ” 
 Then to Dawson, who walked well, She 11 
 do ” 
 
 The marches lay beneath us. There was 
 the river Moig, creeping through Sir Archi- 
 bald’s policies, like a white snake. There 
 was Loch Dhu, famous for its trout, with 
 Malcolm’s little farm on its banks. .Farther 
 on, Dr. McCraggan’s house, Doume; and 
 then the sea, with its numerous islands, and 
 a few bold headlands stretching far out. It 
 was worth the climb. Dawson said, “ It was 
 worth ascending the acclivities to view such 
 a first-class panorea.” W e lay in the heather. 
 Roy lit his pipe, and discoursed to us on our 
 surroundings. 
 
 “Sir Archibald was a grand man, and the 
 Queen was gey proud to see him in London. 
 He was a good friend to the fisher-folk, and 
 a good landlord. He had some trouble with 
 his tenants, though. There was young Mal- 
 colm, down yonder at Loch Dhu, a fine 
 young fellow, but misfortunate. He is behind 
 with his rent all through feeding Cheviots. 
 
i6 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 Cheviots won’t do here, and so I’ve told him, 
 but Cheviots he will have, and none other. 
 Then the Bank fails, and he lost his money. 
 He’s just a misfortunate. Mebbe tho’ his 
 greatest misfortune is in hankering after that 
 glaikit lassie o’ McCraggan’s.” 
 
 “Ho you mean Dr. McCraggan of Dounie?” 
 “ Ay ! They’re clean daft, the lot of ’em. 
 The auld Doctor’s an awfu’ man. See this, 
 now. I went to him the other day and asked 
 him ceevily enough aboot the byres, when 
 
 he ups and throws all the furniture at me. 
 Then the son has a bee in his bonnet; 
 he walks about bare-headed, and makes 
 his crambo jinks. I tell ye they’re all clean 
 daft ! ” 
 
 “ So Mr. Malcolm, of the farm yonder, is 
 in love with Miss McCraggan ? ” 
 
 “ Ay, he’s saft aboot her. He’s a good, . 
 foolish sort o’ body ; but hoots ! see this, 
 now ! What’s he to do wi’ a wife and canna 
 keep hissel? See here, now! Yonder he is 
 
 :, Offwe started.” 
 
 in the yard. Come doon to the farm and 
 take a drink o’ milk.” 
 
 I checked my resentment at the man’s 
 familiarity, and went down to the farm. Mal- 
 colm, a good - looking, well - spoken young 
 fellow, came forward and conducted us to the 
 house. It was a small place, in miserable 
 repair. By the door stood an old woman 
 knitting, and looking wistfully out to the 
 distant sea. Malcolm, telling her to bring us 
 milk, led us into the little sitting-room. 
 
 It was poorly furnished, but neat and clean. 
 
 The woman brought in a huge jug of milk, 
 with the half-knitted stocking across her arm. 
 Many books were lying about. 
 
 “ They are my only companions,” he said, 
 seeing my notice of them. 
 
 “ Ah, you must feel lonely here.” 
 
 “At times I do,” he sighed; “but my 
 books are always a solace. It is a grand 
 thing, sir, to tire yourself out on the hills 
 yonder, among the sheep, and then get rest 
 and forget your troubles among your books. 
 They are true friends. Then the country is 
 
KILMOIG. 
 
 17 
 
 full of old stories — old Celtic traditions — 
 quite worth collecting and preserving.” 
 
 “ How do you manage to collect them ? ” 
 “Oh, there is scarcely an old woman in 
 the parish who has not some wild story which 
 she will tell you in Gaelic.” 
 
 “ You understand the old language 
 then?” 
 
 “ Yes ; and I am teaching it to my neigh- 
 bour, Mr. Victor McCraggan. He is the 
 doctor’s son, sir, at Dounie, a clever poet, 
 and quite mad about Ossian and the old 
 Bards.” 
 
 “ I should have thought modern subjects 
 would prove more acceptable to the general 
 public.” 
 
 “Nothing is grander, sir,” he said proudly, 
 
 “ not even Homer, than the poems of Ossian ; 
 though,” he added, sighing, “ there are plenty 
 of troubles and sad themes for a poet even 
 now. Victor wrote a beautiful poem on old 
 Sara, whom you saw knitting at my door. 
 Years and years ago she lost her only son at 
 sea. She had been knitting stockings in 
 readiness for his return, when the news came 
 of his being drowned. She never would 
 believe it, but went on, and still goes on, 
 knit, knit, knit, till her room is crammed full 
 of hosen.” 
 
 “And you really like this life?” I asked 
 dubiously, for the man was evidently 
 educated. 
 
 “ Anything is better than office-work,” he 
 answered ; “ and I was glad when I was able 
 to stock this little out-of-the-way place and 
 cut the City.” 
 
 “ Has the venture proved successful? ” 
 
 “Bad times come to us all, sir, and we 
 must take the rough with the smooth ; but,” 
 he added', with a determined sort of smile, 
 “ it will all come right by-and-by.” 
 
 He accompanied us to the main road, 
 whence Roy returned with him to transact 
 some business. 
 
 “ Come in when you are passing, sir,” he 
 said, “and take a drink of milk. I don’t 
 like whisky myself, but keep it for my 
 friends. You can’t miss your way. There 
 is Sweeney’s cart going to Kilmoig for fish. 
 If you follow it you will pass the lodge gates. 
 Good day, sir.” 
 
 Sweeney’s cart did not prove much of a 
 guide. Before we had gone half-a-mile it 
 had come to a stand-still, and there was 
 a manifest difference of opinion between 
 pony and master. Nothing would make 
 the brute budge. Blows and objurgations 
 were useless. We saw Mr. Sweeney make 
 the most ruthless attacks, but all the animal 
 
 did was to turn its back in sullen remon- 
 strance, and when they were over move 
 slowly round and stare its master in the 
 face. 
 
 By the time we had reached him, he 
 had taken a stake from the hedge and was 
 belabouring the brute with all his savage 
 might. 
 
 “ Stop ! ” I cried, running up, “ what do 
 you mean, fellow, by this cruelty ? ” 
 
 “Speerin’ cratur’, what’s yer beeziness?” 
 was his polite rejoinder, as he sat down on 
 the bank and wiped his brow. The little 
 pony simply turned round, came close up to 
 him and glared. 
 
 “D’ye see that?” he cried, jumping up, 
 “she is just laughing at me. Oh, I’ll do 
 for ye.” 
 
 “ I’ll certainly have you punished, if you 
 dare to touch her again,” I said. 
 
 “What am I to do?” he whined, turning 
 suddenly civil. 
 
 “lama poor man, sir, and have my living 
 to get. I am sure I ask your pardon, sir, for 
 being so rude.” 
 
 “ You certainly won’t get your living by 
 killing your horse. What is wrong with 
 her?” 
 
 “ Oh, she’s just dour. She’s always a-doin 
 this and puttin’ me wrong with the market. 
 I’d do better without a horse ava\ She’d do 
 fine for you, sir.” 
 
 “ Her late performances are certainly not 
 recommendations,” I said, smiling. 
 
 “ Oh, she is right enough, sir, out of the 
 cart, and the blessedest temper you ever came 
 across. She’s just awfu’ steady. See now.” 
 With this he unharnessed her, and she 
 began to nibble the grass as if nothing had 
 happened. She followed Dawson down the 
 road as if she belonged to him. 
 
 “ Ay, sir ! She’s awfu’ steady,” continued 
 Mr. Sweeney. “Why, she’d carry your 
 honour on the hills and you might shoot 
 from her back.” 
 
 “Come to the lodge and talk to my 
 keeper,” I said. 
 
 Here Dawson was made to mount and 
 discharge a gun several times. The reports 
 did not disturb her in the least. Then 
 Sweeney gave such heartrending accounts of 
 his poverty that he at last went away with 
 pTio in his pocket, leaving Stella (we named 
 her thus from a large white star on her fore- 
 head) in our stables. 
 
 My nephew arrived the next evening, and 
 her first exploit was a most determined jib 
 with his luggage. Then she jibbed with the 
 bread, and jibbed with the coals ; in fact, she 
 
i8 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 jibbed and stared whenever she was put in 
 the cart. 
 
 Charles had a perpetual joke about my 
 “ racer,” but when the shooting began her 
 good qualities appeared. You might ride 
 her anywhere so long as you confined 
 yourself to a walking pace. She would 
 not be hurried, but was so tractable that 
 she actually knew when the dogs pointed 
 and you could take a steady shot from her 
 back. They were all surprised. Roy called 
 her an uncannie beast, and Dawson said 
 she was a most notorious quadruped. I 
 contented myself with letting them see that 
 
 I was generally right in my estimation 
 of character, even in the humble matter of 
 horseflesh. 
 
 The shooting and fishing proved as good 
 as we anticipated. The weather was mode- 
 rately fine. I had not had a single twinge 
 of gout, and our outing would have been 
 entirely enjoyable, had it not been for the 
 McCraggans. With their intimacy, our 
 troubles began. Even now I can scarcely 
 recall with patience the indignities I suffered 
 through them, and how completely they de- 
 stroyed the pleasure of my visit. 
 
Kilmoig. — Part ii. 
 
 I HAD forgotten all about them. The 
 shooting and fishing had driven Miss 
 McCraggan and her nick-nacks out of my 
 head. One morning, however, the post 
 
 brought the following note 
 from her : — 
 
 “ Dear Sir, — My brother 
 will be glad to see you 
 whenever you please to 
 call. He hopes you will 
 excuse this informal pro- 
 ceeding, and I also hope 
 you may be able to pay us, 
 an early visit, as I purpose leaving 
 in a few days.— I am, yours, faithfully, 
 Martha Mc-Craggan.” 
 
 I went over the next day. It was arranged 
 that while Charles shot the high ground, I, 
 on the now faithful Stella, should ride round 
 
20 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 the coast-road to Dounie, and meet him 
 there about lunch-time. We started in a 
 regular Scotch mist, and, by the time I 
 reached the shore, a dense grey cloud had 
 blotted out Jura and all the distant islands. 
 Roy said we should have a soft day. The 
 fisher-folk were all clad in oil-silk ; the rain 
 began in earnest, and my steed’s progression 
 seemed slower than ever. We were both 
 glad enough to reach the shelter of Dounie, 
 and Stella plodded in as if the place belonged 
 to her. She refused to be checked till she 
 walked past the front and into an open stable- 
 door at the back of the premises. So low 
 was it, that I barely escaped a fall, but ulti- j 
 mately gave her in charge of an uncouth boy, 
 who stood grinning at her obstinacy, never 
 budging one inch to offer any assistance. 
 The place was larger than I anticipated : an 
 old semi-castellated structure, built of solid 
 masonry, but going rapidly to decay. Byres 
 and various outhouses were built against the j 
 crumbling walls. 
 
 My friend, Miss McCraggan, stood at the 
 open door beckoning me. 
 
 “ Come in, come in ! ” she cried ; and I 
 followed her through some dark passages 
 into a dimly lighted room. Here she closed 
 the door in silence, put her finger to her lips, 
 and altogether behaved in such a mysterious 
 manner that I thought I had unfortunately 
 made my call when there was a death in the 
 house. “ What do you think of this ?” she whis- 
 pered, pointing to a horribly suggestive long 
 mahogany box that lay partly covered up on the 
 floor. It proved, however, to be nothing more 
 than an old-fashioned three-cornered cup- 
 board. “ N ow,” she said, “ did you ever see the 
 like of this ? picked it up for three pounds in 
 one of the old cottages on the shore. See, it is | 
 finely carved. History of the Spanish Ar- 
 mada. Look at the panels. Here is the 
 Queen of England, and here is the King of 
 Spain. Here they are again with their backs 
 turned in high dudgeon with each other. 
 Then see the grand ships sailing all round, 
 and at the bottom all wrecked and the j 
 people drowning. Just wants cleaning and 
 polishing and some handsome brass-work, [ 
 and it wall be worth twenty pounds ! ” 
 
 “Still collecting and adjusting?” I said. 
 
 “ Can’t help it, Mr. Stonnor ; but I must 
 tell you I’m getting on bravely with Audrey. 
 
 I am arranging that satisfactorily, just as I 
 told you I would. There she sits at her 
 lessons, and she is coming back with me 
 to complete her education in Hampshire. 
 Audrey, my dear, this is Mr. Stonnor, our 
 neighbour.” 
 
 I had not noticed the figure in the window^ 
 but it was a pretty face that looked up at me 
 with a defiant smile — a pretty face, framed in 
 a mass of unkempt hair, very blue eyes, and 
 a wilful little mouth. She jerked her head 
 in a bright sort of manner by way of a nod, 
 and then went on with her book. 
 
 “ Now you’ll see my brother,” said the 
 aunt; “but mind what I told you. Dorit 
 thwart him. Let him have his way; and 
 dodt disagree with Victor. I can always 
 arrange them, and so will you if you don’t 
 thwart them. Maggie ! ” she cried, after open- 
 ing the door, “ Maggie ! is your master 
 down ? ” 
 
 “Doon! ay, and fechting his eggs V 7 was 
 the extraordinary response from the passage. 
 
 We passed through a large hall, with some 
 old armour on the walls, and found the 
 doctor in a small room at breakfast. Now 
 I understood what “ fechting his eggs” meant. 
 The table was strewn with eggs and the 
 shells of those he had devoured. By his 
 side lay an open Bible and a huge crook. 
 But what a man ! His large head was bald, 
 and his face entirely covered with an enor- 
 mous red beard. This had grown in a curious 
 party-coloured manner, being quite white 
 round his mouth, and thence gradually merg- 
 ing on all sides to the deepest red. He was like 
 a demon monkey. When he rose to welcome 
 me, and showed a height of “ six feet four 
 and a half in his stockings,” I was really 
 terrified. 
 
 “Ah, Stunner , I’m glad to see you,” he 
 said, nearly crushing my hand (Stunner, in- 
 deed ! If there is one thing more ill-bred 
 than another it is the travestying of a person’s 
 name. Of course, the more exalted the name, 
 the greater the vulgar opportunity). “ Come 
 away, Stunner 1 ” continued the brute. “ Sit 
 down ; you must be hungry. Take an egg ; 
 take a big ’un ! ” 
 
 Remembering he was not to be thwarted, 
 I went through some pretence with the egg, 
 and bore his vulgarity with as much equa- 
 nimity as I could. My efforts at conversation 
 were not happy. I tried farming, and he 
 bluntly told me I knew nothing whatever 
 about it. I tried shooting. He said he 
 hated shooting and shooters, and had no 
 patience with gunners who stalked about the 
 hills to the detriment of the farmers. We 
 got on better on the subject of angling. 
 
 “I’ll tell you what we'll do. Stunner, my 
 boy,” he said. “ When the first spate comes, 
 we’ll get leave from the Laird, and kill a 
 salmon in the Moig. I know every pool; 
 flies too — red body and teal wing. My 
 
KILMOIG. 
 
 namesake, the doctor, ’s good too. I gave 
 Francis Francis a wrinkle when he was up 
 here. Man, I'll show ye my fly-book.” 
 
 I should have made my escape while he 
 was away, but Miss McCraggan assured me 
 he would be much thwarted if I did, and 
 while we were parleying the son, Mr. Victor, 
 entered. 
 
 He was a pale-faced young man, dressed 
 in black velvet, wore long black hair, and 
 had black rolling eyes. You might see his 
 exact portrait in a clever French sketch 
 which depicts a poet in lugubrious rhapsody 
 talking to a young lady. He says, 44 Oui, 
 Madame, je suis poete ! ” and she in reply — 
 “ Pauvre garqon, vous avez done des choses 
 bien graves a vous reprocher ! ” 
 
 We were formally introduced, immediately 
 upon which he subsided silently into a chair. 
 The doctor returned with his book, and 
 began scattering its contents among the egg- 
 shells in a most reckless fashion. Mr. Victor 
 presently rose and said: — 
 
 44 I suppose you don’t spend the whole of 
 your time in shooting and fishing, Mr. 
 •Stonnor.” 
 
 44 My nephew does most of that,” I replied. 
 ** Still I am fond of it.” 
 
 “ Ah ! but there are pursuits to be fonder 
 of ! and which would repay you ten thousand 
 times better than grouse and trout. Do you 
 know, sir, this country is unequalled for 
 legendary lore ? ” 
 
 “Ah, Mr. Malcolm told me the same 
 thing.” 
 
 “You have made acquaintance with my 
 friend Ian then ! A noble fellow ! He has 
 •every song and legend at his fingers’ ends. 
 I have much to thank him for.” 
 
 “He spoke highly of your poetry, espe- 
 cially of a little poem about the old woman 
 Sara.” 
 
 “ A simple fugitive trifle. It is supposed to 
 be written in the evening, with the Old 
 Mourner looking towards the sea. It com- 
 mences — 
 
 ‘The blood-red splendour of the dying day/ 
 
 But the fact is, sir, I am uncertain whether 
 I should form my opinion or my style first.” 
 “You’ll get ’em both better in London,” I 
 said quickly. 
 
 “ What ! ” he cried, “ London ! to be jeered 
 at by the many-headed monster ! Never.” 
 
 “ Stunner, you’re an ass,” put in the father, 
 thumping the Bible with his crook. “ What 
 says the Book, sir ? 4 He that is of a proud 
 
 heart stirreth up strife.’ I’ll ” 
 
 “ Pardon me,” interrupted the poet, with a 
 deprecatory wave of the hand to his father. 
 
 2 1 
 
 “ Let me tell this gentleman when he speaks 
 of London, that I came here to study the 
 Minstrelsy of Scotland, which stands alone. 
 Alone, I say, and incomparably the finest in 
 the world ! ” 
 
 “ Hear that, ye Sassenach,” cried the doctor, 
 thumping the book. 
 
 44 Do you think, sir,” Victor continued, 
 44 that because these lovely ballads were 
 written in the time of bloodshed and rapine, 
 that the people were therefore wicked ? I say 
 no ! a thousand times no ! ” 
 
 44 A thousand times no ! ” roared his 
 father. 
 
 44 It shows, sir, the existence of an under- 
 lying sentiment, which even in these days of 
 chemicals and cotton is a landmark to the 
 nation.” 
 
 44 Burns was a great poet,” I ventured to 
 say, for I was getting uncomfortable, and 
 wished to propitiate them. 
 
 44 Burns ! ” he laughed. 44 Ha, ha ! Burns ! 
 vox et prooterea nihil ; any fool can write 
 Burns. Listen ” 
 
 44 Now you just listen,” said the doctor, 
 thumping with his crook. 44 Man, you’re 
 going to have a treat ! ” 
 
 The poet cleared his throat and began. 
 
 “ Oh, lonesome linker’d ilka fern 
 And murdlin moorned the pubbly burn. 
 
 When frae the wars I did return 
 To Arden tinny. 
 
 But garksome gashes ’gan to heal. 
 
 And witherin’ wouns did skank and skreal, 
 
 And laverin’ love did o’er me steal 
 At sicht o’ Jennie. 
 
 “ I saw her tresses trinsome treen, ' x 
 Her bonnie goun o’ garly green, 
 
 An’ roon her waist some silken sheen 
 Sae bonnie buskit. 
 
 Quoth I, an angel frae her place 
 Has droppit doon this airth to grace. 
 
 And wi’ the fashion o’ her face 
 I’m fairly fluskit. 
 
 “ Yon hurdlin’ Harper throps and thraws 
 And ilka loun his pibroch blaws, 
 
 The chatterin’ chiels lay doon the laws , 
 
 Sae gran’ and kennie. 
 
 But mind ye, lassie, a’ this rout 
 Of haverin’ howk, and fliskie flout, 
 
 And skirling skelp, can ne’er pit out 
 My love for Jennie.” 
 
 44 D’ye hear that !” shouted the old mad- 
 man, applauding with his big hands and feet. 
 44 Ah, Stunner, man, what do you think of 
 that ? ” 
 
 44 Well, I don’t quite understand,” I began. 
 
 44 Not understand ! ” he shrieked. 44 If you 
 don’t understand that you’re a natural fool ! 
 you’re an anomaly, a monstrosity ! Man, 
 I’d like to dissect you ; you’ve got no pineal 
 gland ! ” 
 
 44 Don’t thwart him,” whispered Miss Mc- 
 Craggan behind my chair. 44 I'll arrange it 
 all.” 
 
 44 1 wish to go home instantly,” I said. 
 
22 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 rising to go. “ I was never so insulted in my 
 life ! ” 
 
 “If you go now,” she said, putting her 
 hand gently on my shoulder, “ he will attack 
 you.” 
 
 My sole desire was to get out of this nest 
 of lunatics ; but while Miss McCraggan was 
 endeavouring to pacify me, Victor was ex- 
 postulating with his father, who presently 
 came forward and offered me his hand, 
 
 “I ask your pardon, sir,” he said, giving 
 me a dreadful wiench, “but I was hasty. 
 What says the Book ? ‘ A fool uttereth all his 
 mind, but a wise man keepeth it in till after- 
 wards.’ Pray forgive me ; let us lunch and 
 drink a cup to our reconciliation.” 
 
 How glad I was when my nephew arrived ! 
 matters went pretty smoothly after that. 
 Audrey appeared at lunch all the prettier for 
 being a little more tidy. She was certainly 
 a pretty girl. Charles seemed to think so. 
 He sat next to her, and the three young 
 people waxed very merry. Victor and he 
 made a quick friendship. Then they had 
 much in common to talk about, and the poet 
 was so engrossed by my nephew’s explana- 
 tion of the new Renaissance that he and 
 Audrey accompanied us part of our way 
 home. We parted from them at Malcolm’s 
 corner. They turned round as they mounted 
 the hill — Victor waved his cap, and Charles 
 kissed his hand to Audrey. 
 
 As we walked home I made the resolution 
 to see as little of these eccentric people as 
 possible. Eccentric ! They were lunatics ! 
 In fact I determined to drop the acquaint- 
 ance ; but I might as well have tried to stem 
 the burn that dashed down behind the lodge 
 as to stop the course of events that took 
 place from our first visit to them. Charles 
 conceived a sudden desire to learn Gaelic, 
 and this continually took him to Dounie ; 
 then Victor took an equally sudden interest 
 in Art, and was for ever at the lodge, quoting 
 poems and legends while my nephew sketched. 
 Scarcely a day passed but they were together. 
 Sometimes they would meet at Malcolm’s 
 farm, where poet and painter would get in- 
 spiration from Ian’s stirring Celtic stories. 
 Sport was neglected. 
 
 One morning Miss Audrey appeared at 
 the lodge. I don’t know which looked the 
 roughest, she or her pony. They made a 
 pretty picture, though — the shaggy _ little 
 Shetland, and she with her green habit and 
 dainty Scotch bonnet with a rosebud in it. 
 Charles must have thought so as he stood 
 joking and talking Gaelic to her. 
 
 She had brought a note from her father to 
 
 the effect that he had obtained permission 
 from Sir Archibald, and as the river was 
 likely to be in “ good ply,” he would drive 
 over directly he had dispatched his late 
 breakfast. 
 
 I certainly objected to go with the old 
 madman, but Audrey seemed to imply that 
 her father was making this effort entirely 
 for my benefit, — that he never fished now, 
 and only underwent this unwonted exertion 
 as a compliment to me after having been so 
 rude. Her aunt, too, hoped I would not 
 thwart him. 
 
 There was no help for it. In common 
 politeness I was bound to go. It would 
 ! never do to allow a Stonnor to be under the 
 charge of discourtesy, so when the doctor 
 drove up in his crazy dog-cart I was pre- 
 pared for the start. We drove to Kilmoig 
 Castle, lunched with Sir Archibald, then to 
 the river. 
 
 “ Now, Sir Archibald,” said McCraggan* 
 “ I’ll have nothing to do with keepers. If 
 you please, we will go to the fishing alone, 
 and I think I can show Stunner how to catch 
 a salmon.” 
 
 “ Go where you please, and do as you 
 like,” laughed our landlord ; and away we 
 went. I was expatiating on the kindness of 
 Sir Archibald and Lady Campbell when we 
 reached the river. “ She’s rather dirty,” said 
 the doctor. 
 
 “ Dirty ! ” I cried. “ I thought her the 
 perfection of ladylike neatness.” 
 
 “ I’m talking of the river, man,” he growled. 
 “ She’s dirty, and we need go a bit higher. 
 If the yew pool is clean we’ll have a fish.” 
 
 The yew pool was clean, the fly was 
 chosen, and I was directed to go to the top 
 and fish it down. I began. 
 
 “ Not like that,” he cried. “ See ! — throw 
 your fly well over into the deep water, and 
 let it swim round into the shallows. That’s 
 the way ! ” 
 
 I fished on, with him at my elbow. Half- 
 way down the pool a fish rose, but was not 
 hooked. “ A twenty-pounder, if it’s an 
 ounce!” he whispered. “Try back; try 
 back.” 
 
 The next time I cast over the spot there 
 was no mistake about the fish being hooked. 
 It was like an electric shock. “Let him 
 run; let him run. Dash it, Stunner, give 
 him line ! ” shouted McCraggan. 
 
 The reel was going at a tremendous pace ; 
 it was as much as I could do to hold the rod. 
 “ Give him the but, man ; give him the but. 
 Ah, you purple old idiot ! Hold your rod 
 up, man ! ” 
 
KILMOIG. 
 
 23 
 
 Presently the reel stopped. “ Wind in, 
 man ; wind in. Ah ! ” he cried, as the fish 
 jumped out of the water. “ Be cannie, now ; 
 be cannie. He’s over twenty pound. Now 
 reel up.” 
 
 This sort of thing went on for ten minutes. 
 Then the fish got to the end of the pool, and, 
 before I could realise what I was about, was 
 out of it, and dashing up the rough water to 
 the next pool. The reel was going like mad. 
 
 I was faint and giddy, and trees stopped my 
 further progress on the bank. 
 
 “ Into the water, man, and follow him ! ” 
 
 I hesitated. “Man Stunner,” he hissed in 
 my ear — “ Man Stunner, if ye don’t go I’ll 
 put the clip in ye ! ” 
 
 Remembering he was not to be thwarted, 
 and really in awe of his fierce looks, I 
 stepped in, floundered about the boulders, 
 slipped into deep water, clambered out 
 again, and at last, with a gasp, got on the 
 dry bank of the next pool, McCraggan’s 
 objurgation ringing in my ears the whole 
 time. 
 
 “ Well done, well done !” he said, “ We’ll 
 have him now. Ah, now he sulks ! — Reel 
 in, man, and let him feel the rod.” 
 
 Sulk he did. He sulked at the bottom of 
 the pool more or less for twenty minutes, 
 while I was literally perishing with cold. 
 There was a slight frost, and my kilt got stiff 
 and uncomfortable. At last the brute began 
 to move, made a dash or two about the pool, 
 then lay on his side. “ Go to the top of the 
 bank and bring him into the shallows,” cried 
 the doctor. Once there, after one last spurt, 
 the fish floated in to the bank, where 
 McCraggan cleverly gaffed it. I threw down 
 the rod, and fell half fainting on the grass. 
 The doctor gave the fish a tap on the head, 
 unhooked it, tied head and tail together, cut 
 a stout stick to sling it on, put up. the rod, 
 and said, “ Lay hold of one end of it — that’s 
 right. Now for the Castle ! ” 
 
 A dreadful little journey it was. I was 
 horribly cold. My frozen kilt was like a bit 
 of armour that had slipped down into the 
 wrong place. By the time we got to the 
 Castle my knees were cut and bleeding. 
 
 Our capture proved to be a clean-run 
 salmon of twenty-two pounds — “ The biggest 
 fish, Mr. Stonnor,” said Sir Archibald, “ that 
 has been taken this year.” 
 
 “Ah!” said the doctor. “Didn’t I tell 
 ye I’d show him how to kill a salmon ? But 
 the man’s frozen. Can ye no lend him a dry 
 kilt?” 
 
 “ Certainly, and,” he added slyly, “ a 
 sporran too.” 
 
 After a warm bath, complete change, and 
 a glass of cherry brandy, I felt somewhat 
 restored. We were induced to stay for 
 dinner, during which McCraggan behaved 
 moderately well. He was always quieter 
 away from his son. Once only he became 
 excited, while speaking of Ian Malcolm’s 
 misfortunes. 
 
 ; “ Ian is a fine fellow,” he said, “but mighty 
 
 proud. He would na’ hear of my lending 
 him a hundred or two — not he. But what 
 says the Book, my Lady ? — ‘ Pride goeth 
 before destruction, and a haughty spirit before 
 a fall.’” Here he thumped the table and 
 set all the glasses ringing. 
 
 After dinner we rattled back to Kilmoig, 
 where Victor was waiting for his father. As 
 I went up to my room I noticed that Charles 
 had made a clever sketch of Audrey and her 
 pony, and that he wore a rosebud in his coat. 
 
 I woke in the morning with a bad attack 
 of gout. They had great difficulty in pre- 
 venting old McCraggan from coming to 
 doctor me. Victor, however, managed it, and 
 he, during my ten days’ convalescence, was a 
 daily visitor. Audrey often accompanied 
 him. I did not like the growing familiarity 
 between her and my nephew. They joked, 
 and called each other by their Christian 
 names — I. particularly noticed that she made 
 a point of doing all this whenever Malcolm 
 (who called once or twice) was present. She 
 took a delight in piquing him. 
 
 Another circumstance made me uncomfor- 
 table. Miss McCraggan departed without her 
 niece. “ She won’t come,” she said to me. 
 “She is mad about her books and education, 
 but there is something wants arranging — I 
 can’t stop any longer, and she has promised 
 to follow me later.” 
 
 Poor Malcolm’s troubles increased. Some- 
 thing went wrong with his stock, and he 
 became gloomy and despondent. Charles 
 and Victor, however, were full of life, and 
 madly enthusiastic about carrying out some 
 grand plan. They were far too advanced for 
 my comprehension. 
 
 “ Don’t speak to me of Pope and Milton 
 and all that artificial trash,” said Victor. “ I 
 have thrown that aside, just as Carlo has 
 dismissed the academic teachings. We have 
 a glorious work before us. Ian corrects the 
 Ossianic traditions, I put them into hexame- 
 ters, and Carlo illustrates— truly a magnum 
 opus. We will call it ‘Poems from the 
 Valleys of Mysteries.’ Let us hope that the 
 Flames of Hope will not turn to dead 
 shadows.” 
 
 One evening, they all (including Dr. 
 
24 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 McCraggan) met at Kilmoig to consult and 
 arrange about carrying out their plan. The 
 first poem was to be presented as a dramatic 
 piece at Dounie, in honour of Victor’s 
 coming of age. Malcolm was silent, and 
 Audrey more than usually wilful. She was 
 proud to be able to act as amanuensis, and 
 lost no opportunity of saying a biting word to 
 him. 
 
 “ Does your lordship of Loch Dhu intend 
 to act with us?” she said, with a mock 
 curtsey. 
 
 “ I’ll do anything you please,” he an- 
 swered, changing colour. 
 
 “ How could we act the piece without 
 Ian ? ” said Victor. “ Besides, it is all arranged. 
 We shall act the ‘ Poem of Comala. ’ This 
 is it. Comala, daughter of Sarno, is betrothed 
 to Hidallan. Fingal, a victorious young king, 
 arrives ; when Comala, forgetting her vows, 
 falls in love with him, and follows him to the 
 wars dressed as a youth. Hidallan follows, 
 and arrives just in time to see her killed 
 while endeavouring to protect Fingal. They 
 lament over the body, and the curtain falls.” 
 
 “ D’ye hear that ? ” said the old doctor. 
 “ Eh, Stunner man, that’s fine ! ” 
 
 “ Now for the cast,” resumed the poet. 
 “ Ian will act Hidallan ; Carlo, Fingal ; and 
 Audrey, Comala.” 
 
 “ You will have to make love to me,” said 
 Charles gaily. 
 
 “ I shall act that beautifully,” she replied 
 saucily, with ever so quick a glance at 
 Malcolm — Malcolm bit his lip. 
 
 “ Father, you will act the Bard, and Mr. 
 Stonnor the Druid.” 
 
 “ You must excuse me,” I said hastily, “ I 
 never acted in my life ; I could not think of 
 such a thing.” 
 
 “ I think you may make an effort on this 
 occasion. The Druid has nothing to say, he 
 has only to groan.” 
 
 “ I could not think of it.” 
 
 “ What do you mean, Stunner ! ” shouted 
 McCraggan. “ Do you mean to insult me 
 by saying you won’t act when my son asks 
 you ? Man, you’d better be careful ! ” 
 
 “ Be tranquil ! be tranquil ! ” said Victor, 
 waving his hand. “ I am sure Mr. Stonnor 
 won’t spoil the dramatic arrangements.” 
 
 “ If the old starch-pot doesn’t act I’ll cut 
 his ears off ! ” roared the brute. “ What does 
 he mean by giving himself these grand airs ? 
 See here now, I’ll toss up with ye — heads a 
 Bard, tails a Druid — heads it is ! so you’re 
 the Druid. It’s all settled. Why, you’ve 
 only got to groan, man.” 
 
 It was useless attempting to thwart this old 
 
 lunatic, and so the arrangements were 
 completed. Charles was to paint rough 
 Caledonian scenes. The parts were given 
 out, and the McCraggans departed without 
 any further fracas. My nephew walked part 
 of the way back with them, leaving me alone 
 with Malcolm. 
 
 The man was so depressed, so unlike 
 himself, and there was such a manifest fight 
 to hide his troubles, that I determined to 
 speak to him. I told him how sorry I was 
 to hear of his misfortunes. Could I be of 
 any use ? Could I speak to Sir Archibald ? 
 He thanked me heartily, said he feared he 
 should not be able to keep on at the farm. 
 Sir Archibald had already done so much for 
 him that he could scarcely expect him to do 
 more. He was behind in his rent. 
 
 “ Would a small loan assist you ? ” 
 
 “I couldn’t take it, sir; it would only 
 go the way of the rest. But what does it 
 matter ? I’m young and strong, and have no 
 cares, because I have nothing to care for ! ” 
 
 “ Nothing and nobody? ” I asked. 
 
 “ Nothing and nobody. I’ve neither kith 
 nor kin.” 
 
 “ Audrey ! ” I blurted out. 
 
 He jumped up and said savagely, “Who 
 mentioned her name with mine ? ” 
 
 “ Well, old Roy,” I began. 
 
 “ Old Roy talks too much, but,” he con- 
 tinued manfully, “ it is true, I love the very 
 ground she walks on ! ” 
 
 “ Have you told her this ? ” 
 
 “ How could I ? ” 
 
 “ Surely,” I said, in showing him to h\s 
 seat, “ it is customary in all classes of society 
 for the gentlemen to make a declaration. 
 If he is in love, the proper course is to make 
 a proposition of marriage to the lady.” 
 
 “ Beggars can’t do that, sir ; they must 
 grin and bear it.” 
 
 “ Can I be of any sort of service to you ? ” 
 “ The only service you can render me, sir, 
 is to promise me faithfully not to divulge my 
 confidences to you.” 
 
 “ ‘ Stonnor et Honor ’ is my motto, Mr. 
 Malcolm. Your confidences are sacred. At 
 the same time I wish to befriend you.” 
 
 “ I cannot sufficiently thank you, Mr. 
 Stonnor,” he said, wishing me good night, 
 “ but I don’t see how you can help me.” 
 
 I determined to try. 
 
 This was the “ something ” that, according 
 to Miss McCraggan, wanted “arranging.” 
 The first thing to do was, to speak to Charles 
 about his flirtation with Audrey. I could 
 quite understand the poor girl falling in love 
 | with a Stonnor, but it would never do for 
 
KILMOIG. 
 
 25 
 
 him to take advantage of his high position to 
 break a country girl’s heart. He laughed at 
 my grave looks, and said it was all nonsense. 
 Then I saw Sir Archibald; he would be 
 sorry to lose Malcolm, though he was a bad 
 farmer. It was probable that . he might 
 make important changes before going abroad, 
 and contemplated putting Roy into the Loch 
 Dhu farm, and offering Malcolm the factor- 
 ship of the whole estate, with residence at 
 Kilmoig Lodge. Not one word, however, 
 was to be spoken at present. 
 
 The season was now past, and I was get- 
 ting anxious to return home. Charles would 
 not hear of it. It would be insulting the 
 McCraggans, he said, to leave before their 
 grand day of rejoicing. So the preparations, 
 rehearsals, jokings, flirtations, and what not, 
 went on without intermission. Dawson and 
 Stella were in continual requisition, car- 
 rying and fitting up the various scenes. 
 At last the evening arrived. Dounie bright- 
 ened up for the occasion. The big hall was 
 tastefully decorated with cut heather. The 
 old armour was polished up, and the seats 
 filled with Kilmoig folk, including the Laird 
 and his wife. We all wore kilts ; my Druid 
 costume was simply a long coat made of 
 coarse sacking, and a white . wig. The 
 doctor, as Bard, wore a similar affair of 
 bright crimson. The curtain rose and dis- 
 covered him in the halls of King Sarno. 
 After reciting about the valour of his king, 
 and the beauty of his daughter Comala, he 
 finished in stentorian tones — 
 
 “ Lo, Fingal returns from the battle, 
 
 To our shores comes the blushing young hero. 
 
 He sails through the foam of the ocean 
 Like the golden-haired son of the heavens ; 
 
 Strike loud on your harps, and be joyful ! 
 
 Shout loud in the strength of your voices ! 
 
 We join in the song of his triumph, 
 
 And re-echo the sound of his welcome ! ” 
 
 Then Charles as Fingal entered triumph- 
 antly, and there were sports in which all, 
 including Dawson joined. He was thrown 
 about like a ball, but always got up smiling, 
 saying it was “ most notorious.” Stella 
 brought on Audrey as Comala, and, refusing 
 to retire, was ultimately carried bodily off by 
 the doctor and Dawson. Then came some 
 pretty love-making (rather overdone I thought) 
 between Fingal and Comala. Fingal departs 
 and Comala follows him in disguise. 
 
 Then Malcolm slowly enters as .the young 
 chief Hidallan, and says — 
 
 “ The mist gathers high on the mountain, 
 
 No sound but the roar of the torrent, 
 
 But in vain for her footstep I listen, 
 
 And call on her name in despair ; 
 
 Oh, where is the maiden Comala, 
 
 The white-bosomed daughter of Sarno, 
 
 Who plighted her troth to Hidallan, 
 
 By the rocks of the swift-flowing Conna ? 
 
 He spoke this wretched doggrel with such 
 earnestness, that it suddenly occurred to me 
 the play was uncomfortably applicable to the 
 present condition of affairs among the actors. 
 
 I had not much time for reflection. The 
 big doctor bounced up to me. “ Now, man 
 Stunner, what are ye glowerin’ at ? Go on 
 and groan, man.” He pushed me on, and I 
 groaned away till the dead body of Comala, 
 preceded by Fingal and the Bard, was carried 
 in by a company of warriors. . “ Groan 
 louder, ye old mumble-peg ! ” he said to me 
 as he passed, loud enough to be heard all over 
 the hall. 
 
 Then Hidallan and Fingal join hands 
 over the body, and with a grand dirge from 
 the Bard, interspersed with my groans, the 
 play ends. I noticed that Audrey as the 
 dead Comala held Malcolm’s hand in hers 
 and not Charles’s. It was odd, but there is no 
 accounting for a woman’s behaviour. 
 
 As for Malcolm, when the curtain de- 
 scended he threw off Charles’s hand with 
 sufficient force to make him stagger, and 
 then stalked out of the house. 
 
 There was immense applause. The poet 
 was complimented. Seats were put aside 
 for dancing and all was bustle and noise. 
 
 “ Now, Stunner man, ye’ll dance a reel,” 
 said McCraggan as I was talking to Lady 
 Campbell. 
 
 “ Thank you,” I replied, “ I never dance ; 
 besides, I ” 
 
 “ D’ye mean to tell me,” he jerked out, his 
 red and white beard bristling with wrath— 
 “d’ye mean to tell me that ye’ll no take the 
 floor on my son’s birthday ? Man, if ye don’t 
 dance, I’ll bash yer head ! ” 
 
 “Mr. Stonnor will dance with me,” cleverly 
 put in her ladyship. 
 
 “ I assure you, Lady Campbell,” I began ; 
 but just at that moment one of the musicians 
 uttered such a weird and awful sound from 
 his bladder-looking instrument, close into my 
 ear, that I fairly jumped into the air. 
 
 “ Hooray ! hooray 1 ” cried the doctor. 
 “Three cheers for MacStunner. He’s the 
 boy to foot it. Strike up, Hullachan ! ” 
 
 In one moment the hall was full of wild 
 music and still wilder dancers. My partner 
 helped me as much as possible. I tried to 
 acquit myself with decorum, but was clapped 
 on the back by McCraggan with “ Wake up, 
 old Starchy !” and “ Yell out, man; ye’re no 
 a Druid the noo.” 
 
 In one part of this horrible figure I 
 was seized from behind by this red-headed 
 giant and absolutely whirled in the air, my 
 feet striking Lad} 7, Campbell in the in- 
 
26 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 voluntary gyration. I thought it never would 
 end. It did at last, and I conducted her to 
 the remotest corner I could find. I had 
 never felt in such an undignified position. 
 She assured me of her sympathy ; but before 
 I could recover myself the horrible tune 
 recommenced, and McCraggan’s voice was 
 heard shouting “Where’s MacStunner? Come 
 away, MacStunner, for another reel ! ” 
 
 I’m ashamed to say I bolted. I fairly ran 
 away hatless out into the open air. The 
 savage, however, caught sight of me and 
 followed like a tiger. He was excited with 
 drink and dancing and chased me round 
 the yard shouting horribly. Just then Victor’s 
 voice was heard calling “ Father.” In one 
 instant he was like a lamb and re-entered 
 the house. 
 
 Malcolm was harnessing his horse. “The 
 doctor is never in his right mind on these 
 occasions,” he said ; “ but put my plaid over 
 your head, sir, and I’ll drive you to Kil- 
 moig.” 
 
 My troubles were nothing to Malcolm’s ; 
 
 I had never seen him so low. At Kilmoig I 
 gave him some tea, and it did the poor fellow 
 good to unburden his mind over the fire. 
 He couldn’t stand it any longer, he said. 
 At one moment he would think Audrey 
 loved him, and in the next she would flirt 
 with Charles in the most atrocious manner 
 before his very face. But what right had 
 he to interfere ? It was breaking his 
 heart. 
 
 Just as he was leaving Charles returned. 
 
 I was surprised to see him so early. Malcolm 
 rose and eyed him sullenly. My nephew held 
 out his hand. 
 
 “ Ian,” he said, “ until to-night’ I had no 
 sort of suspicion that you cared for Audrey. 
 My dear fellow, if any idle words of mine or 
 any harmless flirtation has made you unhappy, 
 I am heartily sorry. She cares no more for 
 me than she does for that fly.” 
 
 Malcolm grasped his hand. 
 
 “Mr. Charles, you have spoken like an 
 honest gentleman ” 
 
 “ Like a Stonnor,” I put in. 
 
 “ I do care for Audrey. I love her with 
 my whole heart, but she doesn’t know it. I 
 have never breathed one word of love to her.” 
 
 “ Why not ? Now I come to recall things 
 I believe he loves you.” 
 
 “ Love a beggar?” he said bitterly. “ No, 
 no ! I thank you both sincerely, but we are 
 helpless.” 
 
 Charles and I had a long talk after he left. 
 He, in his impulsive way, was for going and 
 telling all straight out to Audrey. I knew this 
 
 would never do, with her unmistakable feeling 
 towards him. So, by way of blinding him, 
 
 I simply said that I was the proper person to 
 conduct any negotiations. I had promised 
 Malcolm not to divulge his feelings towards 
 her, but my duty seemed to be to point out 
 to her the futility of loving a Stonnor. 
 
 I went over in the morning. Luckily the 
 effect of the night’s festivities had compelled 
 the old madman to keep his bed. Victor 
 was on the hills, so my interview would be 
 unmolested. 
 
 “ Miss McCraggan,” I began. 
 
 “ I am called Audrey,” she said simply. 
 
 “ Well, Miss Audrey, you must not be 
 offended at what I am going to say to you.. 
 You are young and inexperienced, and— par- 
 don me for saying so — not well acquainted 
 with the amenities of polite society.” (I flat- 
 tered myself this was a good phrase.) “ Now, 
 there has been some harmless flirtation be- 
 tween you and my nephew Charles, but it is 
 my duty to tell you that nothing can come of 
 it. You must not set your affections on a 
 Stonnor.” 
 
 She crimsoned up to the roots of her hair m r 
 she clenched her hands, and her little figure 
 quivered with passion. “ How dare you, 
 she said, “ speak to me like that ? What 
 right have you to say such words? I care 
 no more for Charley than I do for you, but 
 he is far too much of a gentleman to speak 
 as you have. This is what you do in polite 
 society, is it? I hate polite society ! And 
 as for your grand Stonnors, why Ian is worth 
 all the Stonnors put together.” 
 
 With this she flounced out of the room. 
 Now, was ever anything so unlooked-for? 
 As I before said, I never could understand 
 women. It was incomprehensible, and placed 
 me in a very awkward predicament. I went 
 back and told Charles, who actually had the 
 bad taste to laugh. “ You’ve put your foot 
 in it,” he said ; “ but let me see if we can’t 
 make a happy ending out of it.” 
 
 We drove on to Loch Dhu farm. Mal- 
 colm was walking about excitedly. “ Ah ! 
 he said, running to meet us, “ I was just 
 coming to you, good friends. Read this. . 
 
 It was a letter from Sir Archibald offering 
 him the Factorship, with residence at Kilmoig 
 Lodge. “ It only wants one thing to make 
 me the happiest man in the world,” he 
 said. 
 
 “ I think I can give you that,” I said, and 
 then told him about my morning’s interview 
 with Audrey. 
 
 After this matters went on happily enough. 
 
THE BALL SCANDAL. 
 
 27 
 
 My fear of -the old doctor prevented my tra- 
 velling up for the wedding, but Charles acted 
 as best man. Miss McCraggan was kind 
 enough to say that I had arranged the affair 
 
 very well, and through her help I made the 
 drawing-room at Kilmoig very pretty, as my 
 present to the young couple. Stella finds a 
 good home there still. 
 
 ^COLLECTIONS 
 
 3. THE BALL^CA 
 
 m . — T he Ball Scandal. 
 
 I T will scarcely be credited, notwithstanding 
 my unswerving neutrality during the 
 periodical parliamentary contests, and the 
 strict impartiality which directs my actions 
 in any political excitement, important changes 
 are sometimes made in the county without 
 my even being consulted. My reserved atti- 
 tude pleases neither party. You must be 
 either for them or against them. They do 
 not seem to be able to comprehend that, 
 standing aloof as I do from party influence, 
 unbiassed by excitement, and unambitious of 
 power, I am therefore the more able to give 
 judicious advice. Upon my word, they 
 almost seem to imply that unless you 30m 
 in their petty strifes and place-huntings you 
 are not entitled to an opinion at all. * 
 
 Now who, I should like to ask, can be 
 a better judge of what is good for the county 
 than one who, like myself, has a traditionary 
 interest in the land? Of course, one party 
 
 says, “ It is your duty to do so and so,” and 
 :he other, “ It is your duty to do so and so. 
 
 \s a Stonnor I will not submit to be dictated 
 :o • nor will I see my constitutional rights 
 issailed without protest. Have I not always 
 Derformed the duties of my station ? I am 
 iberal to my tenants, entertain without stmt, 
 religiously preserve foxes, and if I am hard 
 an a poacher it is because I look upon him 
 as an impudent thief. 
 
 When our Lord-Lieutenant, old Sir Thomas 
 Anstruther, died, I certainly did think the 
 Government would like to have the oppor- 
 tunity of paying me the compliment o 
 appointing me his successor 5 indeed, my 
 social position in the county almost gave it 
 to me as a right. They ignored me how- 
 ever, and appointed my friend and neighbour. 
 Lord Forton. 
 
 Now, I have not a single word to say 
 against Lord Forton (and to show that 
 there was no ill-feeling I cheerfully allowed 
 myself to be made his Deputy). He is 
 a good fellow — in fact, I may say a very 
 good fellow; but do all he can, he cant 
 
28 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 get his people farther back than the first 
 George. Somewhere about this time there 
 was a Dawlish (his family name) who managed 
 to make a huge fortune out of the notorious 
 James Law speculations in France. I believe 
 it was further supplemented during the South- 
 Sea Bubble. He certainly assisted the Re- 
 gent Louis in France ; and report says, George 
 also in England. At all events, he was raised 
 to the peerage as Lord Forton, taking his 
 title from his Hertford estates. I have known 
 the present man all my life. He is about 
 ten years my junior, sowed a great number 
 of wild oats, which considerably impoverished 
 his rent-roll, is a careless, brave, little man, 
 and when young notorious for many absurd 
 escapades. His declarations and formal pro- 
 positions of marriage would fill a volume. 
 On one occasion he proposed to a belle at 
 the county ball, and wrote the next morning 
 to apologize for his rudeness. For this he 
 was called out by the brother, and after two 
 ineffectual shots proposed they should prac- 
 tise at a target for ten minutes and begin 
 again. Then, wishing to be impressive with 
 the daughter of a very aristocratic house, he 
 took her to the family mausoleum, and asked 
 her if she would allow her bones to repose 
 with his ancestors ! He married the wrong 
 woman at last. He had made up his mind 
 to propose to the second daughter of Lady 
 Bowmaster, and went fast asleep while cogi- 
 tating on the form of his proposal. When he 
 awoke in the twilight she was, as he thought, 
 still by his side, upon which he dropped on 
 one knee, and said what he had to say as 
 tenderly as possible. The voice, however, 
 that answered, 44 It shall be as you wish, Lord 
 Forton,” was that of the elder sister, who had 
 by chance come in during his nap. Forton 
 married her, and she has made him an ex- 
 cellent wife. To a nature so naturally care- 
 less as his she must have proved invaluable. 
 She is very agreeable, and knows by instinct 
 the exact amount of consideration to be 
 given to each person. He may be the Lord- 
 Lieutenant, but it is she who rules the county 
 with an iron hand, though you only see the 
 kid glove. She has frequent sources of worry, 
 either with Mrs. Randall Rawson, who op- 
 poses her sway in the county, or with her 
 husband’s young brother and sister. 
 
 The Hon. Percy Dawlish (commonly known 
 as Dawley) is twenty years younger than 
 Forton, and as mad a little scapegrace as 
 ever entered the British army. He is always 
 in some shocking scrape, always impecunious, 
 and always bothering his brother for help. 
 Her ladyship is for ever financing, arranging, 
 
 or taxing her energies in some way on his 
 account. Then there was a young sister 
 Emilia (about Dawley’s age), with whom she 
 was always bickering, and who in consequence 
 of sustained disagreements was living with 
 the Dowager Lady Bowmaster. 
 
 A few weeks before the ball .at Stonnor 
 Hall Lady Forton was greatly perturbed, for 
 not only had Dawley done some dreadful 
 thing that entailed the sale of his commission, 
 but she had received a letter from the Dowager 
 Aunt Bowmaster, which quite alarmed her. 
 Forton told me that whenever she came into 
 his smoking-room with papers in her hand, 
 and closed the door carefully, he lit a fresh 
 cigar and prepared for the worst. He knew 
 he was in for a bad half-hour. On this occa- 
 sion she was unusually excited. 
 
 44 This is a wretched business, Forton,” 
 she began. “ What do you mean to do ?” 
 
 44 Haven’t the slightest idea — unless we cut 
 down the trees and go to Boulogne.” 
 
 44 Don’t be absurd ! The money must be 
 paid somehow, and then what is he to do?” 
 
 44 Perhaps you’ll tell me. Why, there isn’t 
 a single respectable calling he is fitted for. 
 He has a remarkable genius for iniquity, but 
 where else his talents lie I know not. The 
 first question is, 4 What has he let me in 
 for?’ ” 
 
 44 These bills appear to be drawn in con- 
 junction with Captain Benson of his regiment. 
 You remember him ? Benson has had none 
 of the money, but is in some way or other 
 responsible for ^2,000. He has paid ^1,000. 
 Then Dawley’s other debts are terrific ! ” 
 
 44 Well, he must make a clean breast of it. 
 We had better see him and hear the worst.” 
 
 44 1 won’t have him here. Why, he would 
 upset the household.” 
 
 44 1 don’t believe he would stop here, if 
 you asked him, for any length of time. Write 
 up to Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and get Lawson 
 down to meet him for a day or two. He 
 may invent a plan to get him out of the 
 country with a clear stage.” 
 
 44 Now about Emilia.” 
 
 44 What about her ? ” 
 
 44 Something most unpleasant. Lady Bow- 
 master writes that she is starting for Cannes, 
 and that Emilia refuses to go with her. She 
 also says that Emilia has been in close cor- 
 respondence with Captain Benson, and that 
 she believes they are engaged.” 
 
 44 Whew ! Why, she can’t marry without 
 my consent, and I’m not going to consent to 
 the marriage of two mendicants. She must 
 come here too.” 
 
 44 Exactly. But remember, Forton, she is 
 
THE BALL SCANDAL. 
 
 29 
 
 very quiet and very obstinate, exasperatingly 
 so. Benson cannot have any money, and 
 she has given all she could of her own to 
 Dawley. The engagement is nonsense, and 
 must not be listened to.” 
 
 “ Well, you had better talk to her,” said 
 his lordship. 
 
 “ I ! I may as well talk to your cigar. 
 It is for you to speak ; you have authority 
 over her.” 
 
 “ I can’t sermonise,” said her husband. 
 
 “ It is out of my line. But let ’em both come, 
 and see if we can’t put things straighten” 
 
 In due course brother and sister appeared 
 at Forton House. Dawley I had never seen 
 in my life, but Emilia I remembered as a 
 little girl some — well, a good many years 
 ago. She was now grown into a tall young 
 woman, who carried herself with extreme 
 grace and dignity. Her face was not what 
 is termed beautiful, but had regular, classical 
 features. Her chief charm was her carriage. 
 She stepped like an empress, and had that 
 indescribable thoroughbred air which to me 
 is more captivating than a pretty face. 
 
 As to Dawley, he was a dissipated-looking 
 little fellow, with light hair and moustache. 
 He wore an eye-glass, and drawled out the latest 
 London scandals with irresistible humour. 
 Rather bad some of them ; but it was impos- 
 sible to be angry with this wicked little 
 gentleman, for at the end of each story he 
 would put his eye-glass in his eye and say, 
 with the most comical drawl, “ ’Pin my 
 sawl, it is the best thing I ever heard in the 
 whole course of my life ! ” 
 
 With Mr. Lawson’s aid the Fortons got 
 him clear of his present embarrassments 
 without any expose. With Emilia they were 
 not quite so successful. Lady Forton had 
 high words with her, and Forton reminded 
 her she could not marry without his consent. 
 She merely kept a dignified silence, wouldn’t 
 budge an inch or promise anything. After a 
 time Forton left it all to his wife, so the two 
 ladies were soon at daggers-drawn. At last 
 Lady Forton confided her troubles to me. 
 
 “What a pity,” she said, “to see such 
 a noble creature throwing herself away ! 
 Could you not, Mr. Stonnor, as an old friend, 
 speak to her quietly ? ” 
 
 “A very delicate task ! ” I answered. “ But 
 your ladyship must remember that my ac- 
 quaintance with Miss Forton is quite recent.” 
 “ Oh, you have known her since she was a 
 child. But come oftener, Mr. Stonnor ; 
 come and help us. She is really destined 
 for a higher sphere than to be the wife of 
 a poor captain.” 
 
 She was quite right. Emilia was fitted 
 for a higher sphere. She was the sort of 
 person who had presence enough to grace 
 the house of any county gentleman. 
 
 I don’t think Lady Forton could have con- 
 fided the task to better hands than mine. It 
 required much patience and delicate tact, 
 but by degrees Emilia gave me her con- 
 fidence, and ultimately told me all about her 
 engagement with Captain Benson. I indyced 
 her to allow me to teach her billiards, so our 
 conversations were generally undisturbed in 
 the neglected room. 
 
 “I would not tell you one word, Mr. 
 Stonnor,” she said, during one of our games, 
 “did I not leel sure you would keep my 
 secrets.” 
 
 “ Pray, be sure,” I replied, “ that whatever 
 you say to me will be held sacred.” 
 
 “I do believe it. You are a man of too 
 much refined feeling and good breeding to 
 do anything underhand. I feel I can trust 
 you.” 
 
 “ ‘ Stonnor et Honor,’ ” I said, bowing. 
 “Lady Forton can think of nothing but 
 money. As if money was everything ! I 
 suppose you believe there are such things as 
 love and affection, Mr. Stonnor ? ” 
 
 “ Assuredly, most assuredly,” I replied 
 warmly. 
 
 “Now, suppose, Mr. Stonnor, you had a 
 very intimate friend — one, in fact, with whom 
 you had daily intercourse — and your rela- 
 tives were suddenly to take upon themselves 
 to tell you peremptorily to drop his acquaint- 
 ance, what would you do?” 
 
 “ I certainly would not submit to be dic- 
 tated to, unless ” 
 
 “ Ah ! there would be no ‘ unless ’ about 
 it. You of all others, Mr. Stonnor, would 
 stick by your friend loyally; you wouldn’t 
 give him up.” 
 
 “ I don’t think I would.” 
 
 “Well, then, you cannot expect me to 
 give up Pierce all at once, can you ? ” 
 
 ' “ Perhaps not. But by degrees ” 
 
 “ And you would never so far forget your- 
 self as to burn and intercept letters that did 
 not belong to you ? ” 
 
 “ Do you mean to tell me that this is done 
 here ? ” 
 
 “ It is. Lady Forton bribes my maid, and 
 I am not sure she does not open my letters.” 
 “ I can scarcely believe it.” 
 
 “No man of honour could believe it ; but 
 it is now, oh ! ever so many days since I 
 have heard from him, and I am sure our 
 letters must be intercepted, for he was most 
 regular in correspondence. I want you to 
 
3 ° 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 post a letter for me, Mr. Stonnor, and x shad, 
 at all events, be sure he gets that.” 
 
 “ I will gladly take charge of your letter; 
 but don’t you think ” 
 
 “ I think of nothing but getting my letter 
 posted ; perhaps it is giving you too much 
 trouble ? ” 
 
 “ Not at all ! not at all ! It shall be 
 done.” 
 
 “ And will you also take charge of the 
 answer, if it is addressed under cover to 
 you? ” 
 
 Now really, Miss Emilia, this seems equi- 
 valent to being privy to a sort of clandestine 
 correspondence. I really ” 
 
 “ I cannot congratulate you on your 
 choice of adjectives,” she said in her most 
 dignified way, “ and if the first little office I 
 ask of you is so distasteful, pray return me 
 the letter.” 
 
 “Believe me I am anxious to serve you, 
 but what will Lady Forton say ? ” 
 
 “Ah, there it is — Lady Forton. Perhaps 
 you would like to show my letter to her? 
 You are like the rest. I inferred from your 
 kind expressions of interest that you were 
 prepared to go a little farther than ordinary 
 courtesies. I am sorry I have been mis- 
 taken.” 
 
 Now nothing could be better than this 
 little allusion to myself. It forthwith iden- 
 tified me with her interests and made the 
 future easy. “ Be assured,” I said tenderly, 
 “ that you may count on me as a true friend. 
 Don’t say another word. I will take charge 
 of your letters.” This was a little bit of 
 finesse on my part. I yielded simply because 
 our object could not be gained by direct 
 opposition with such a temperament as 
 hers. The worst of it was that this first letter 
 and its answer led to others more bulky, till 
 my self-imposed duty as postman became 
 :rather too engrossing. One day I found 
 Dady Forton in the billiard-room alone. 
 
 “ Ah, you cunning man ! ” she said play- 
 fully — “ you expected to find Emilia here! 
 Let me say two words before Lord Forton 
 and Dawley come in. Do you know I really 
 cannot tell you how delighted I am at your 
 progress with Emilia. I wouldn’t have 
 believed it. She is fitted for any sphere, Mr. 
 .Stonnor ! I don’t know what you have been 
 telling her, you wily creature you ; but Forton 
 and I both notice that she is far more cheer- 
 ful. Here come the men to consult you 
 about some prospective gaiety.” 
 
 “ Ah, Stonnor ! ” Forton cried, as he 
 entered, “ you are the smartest man in the 
 country. I verily believe that is the third 
 
 new spick-span suit I’ve seen on you within 
 the last fortnight.” 
 
 “ Poole’s cut too, I swear ! ” said Dawley. 
 “Oh, he is teaching Milly pool, you 
 know,” said his lordship. 
 
 “’Pin my sawl, that is one of the best 
 things I ever heard in the whole course of my 
 life,” Dawley drawled, popping up his eye- 
 glass. 
 
 “What about this proposed gaiety?” I 
 asked. 
 
 “ Let us hear her ladyship’s opinion,” said 
 Forton, taking up a cue. 
 
 “ All we could do here would be a tennis 
 party with marquees. A ball is impossible, 
 the floor is in such a wretched condition that 
 a wax cloth would be useless. People don’t 
 care to dance on carpets. What is your 
 opinion, Mr. Stonnor ? ” 
 
 “ Tennis parties are pleasant enough,” I 
 answered, “ and you may see a great number 
 of people ; but a Lord-Lieutenant’s ball 
 would be the thing. It would be immensely 
 popular.” 
 
 “Let Milly decide,” said Forton as his 
 sister entered the room. “ Shall it be a ball 
 or a big afternoon affair, Milly ? ” 
 
 “ A ball of course,” she answered. _ 
 
 “ I cannot have a ball here,” said Lady 
 Forton peremptorily. 
 
 “Look here,” said Dawley, leaning on his 
 cue: “let us have both — Lieutenant gives 
 big kettledrum and Deputy a ball. There’s 
 something for you, Stonnor.” 
 
 “ Fie, fie ! Dawley,” said her ladyship ; “ this 
 is really asking too much. Positively, Dawley, 
 you have no compunction.” 
 
 “ Compunctions ! ’Pin my sawl I’m 
 smothered in ’em. Stonnor is dying to give 
 a ball.” 
 
 “ A ball in your dear old-fashioned house 
 would be very charming,” said Emilia. 
 
 “ Well,” I replied, as gallantly as I could, 
 “ if you and Lady Forton think it would be 
 a success, and would kindly help me with 
 the arrangements, I shall be delighted.” 
 
 “ You are quite too dreadfully good,” said 
 her ladyship, “ but really— — ” 
 
 “ But, now no buts,” said Forton. “ It is 
 all arranged. I give an afternoon and 
 Stonnor an evening. Let us get it over as 
 soon as possible.” 
 
 After this all was hurry and bustle. Invi- 
 tations were sent, marquees hired, and the 
 continual fine weather seemed to promise 
 success. The ball, however, was the object, 
 and my lady-helps were most useful. Not a 
 day now but there was a grand confab at 
 Forton House or the Hall about it. Emilia 
 
THE BALL SCANDAL 
 
 3i 
 
 showed a lively interest in all the details, and 
 I took care that stie should understand that 
 it was she I consulted and not Lady Forton. 
 This required tact, but my success was appa- 
 rent, by ever so little increase of tenderness 
 in her manner towards me. Really once 
 or twice the pressure of her hand fairly elec- 
 trified me. What a noble mistress she would 
 make for Stonnor Hall ! How imperial she 
 looked, standing in her brown velvet dress 
 under the old escutcheon, with “ Stonnor et 
 Honor ” over her head ! Oh yes, doubtless 
 she was born for a high social position. Then 
 these day dreams would be cut short by the 
 knowledge that I had in my pocket letters 
 for her from this fellow Benson. Bah ! I 
 don’t think I was sorry when a regular row 
 occurred at Forton House about this gentle- 
 man. 
 
 A few days before the “ afternoon,” Lord 
 Forton received the following letter, which 
 he threw across the table to his wife, saying 
 it was another kettle of fish for her to cook. 
 He told me all about it afterwards. 
 
 “ Dear Lord Forton, — 
 
 “ I am staying with our mutual friend, 
 Randall Rawson, and he proposes taking me 
 to your party on Tuesday next. Nothing 
 would give me greater pleasure, but before I 
 come, it is only fair to tell you that your 
 sister Emilia has promised to be my wife. 
 The engagement is not of long standing, and 
 she has probably apprised you of the fact. 
 With compliments to Lady Forton, 
 
 “ Believe me, yours faithfully, 
 
 “ Pierce Benson.” 
 
 “ Well, what next?” said her ladyship, 
 laying down the letter. “What shall you 
 say ? ” 
 
 “ Don’t know ! I suppose he must come.” 
 “Come! Forton, you must be mad. Emilia 
 certainly thinks less of him, because there 
 has been no correspondence between them 
 for a long time ; but I doubt if she is prepared 
 to give him his conge. He must not come on 
 any account.” 
 
 “ What am I to say to him ? ” 
 
 “ Suppose you let me write ? I could write 
 a friendly letter, and imply that Emilia would 
 rather he did not come here just at present. 
 I wish he was anywhere but with these 
 disagreeable Rawsons ! ” 
 
 “ That sounds well — and it would get me 
 out of a hobble — awfully clever of you ! ” 
 This was her ladyship’s diplomatic note, 
 written under the impression that there had 
 been no late correspondence between the two. 
 
 “ Dear Captain Benson, — 
 
 “We are so truly sorry not to be able to 
 see you on Tuesday, but I have ventured a 
 little note of friendly explanation, which I am 
 sure you will take in the same kind spirit 
 with which it is dictated. The fact is, dear 
 Captain Benson, that Forton and myself, after 
 the most careful consideration, have come to 
 the conclusion that we ought to ask you to 
 release Emilia from her engagement. Your 
 friend Dawley’s extravagancies have im- 
 poverished us all, and I am sure you, as a 
 man of honour, would not like to deprive 
 poor Milly of the comforts to which she has 
 always been accustomed. I think, too, that 
 she herself is now beginning to see the truth 
 of these remarks, and with great regret, 
 
 “ Believe me, dear Captain Benson, 
 
 “ Yours faithfully, . 
 
 “ Caroline Forton.” 
 
 The upshot of this was that Captain 
 Benson drove straight off to Forton House, 
 and desired to see his lordship. The ladies 
 were out. Benson began by producing the 
 letter and asking if it was written with his 
 lordship’s sanction. Forton replied, rather 
 inconsequently, that it was, but he didn’t 
 know what was in it. Then the letter was 
 read. 
 
 “Ah, that’s it !” said Forton. “Don’t you 
 see, you can’t marry Milly if you can’t keep 
 her ? ” 
 
 “ I suppose not,” said Benson. 
 
 “ I mean,” Forton went on, “ that you 
 have no right to deprive her of the comforts 
 and luxuries which she now enjoys.” 
 
 “ She herself is the best judge of that.” 
 
 “ No, no ! Lady Forton and I are the 
 best judges. If Milly marries without my 
 consent, she forfeits what little Dawley has 
 left her.” 
 
 “ Am I to infer from this, Lord Forton, 
 that you will only give . your approval to a 
 rich suitor, and that you would exert your 
 authority under * that will in this arbitrary 
 manner? Would you not consider her happi- 
 ness ? ” 
 
 “ I am consulting her happiness by for- 
 bidding this engagement.” 
 
 “ Why, and, how ?” 
 
 “ I mean to say,” said his lordship, flounder- 
 ing, “ that we do not think the marriage with 
 you would be judicious.” 
 
 “ I will only take my dismissal from her 
 own lips. I don’t believe one word that 
 Lady Forton hints about Milly sharing in 
 your ideas. Her letter of last Saturday was 
 as full of affection as ever.” 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 Lord Forton’s eyes began to glisten. “ It’s 
 an uncommon awkward thing to say you don’t 
 believe what Lady Forton writes.” 
 
 “ For all that,” replied Benson, waxing 
 wroth, “for all that— I repeat it, word for 
 word, I repeat— I don’t believe for one 
 moment that Hilly wants to throw me over. 
 
 I will only take my dismissal from her own 
 lips. Let me see her.” 
 
 « She is out ! and you should not see her if 
 she was in ! I shall deny you admittance 
 too, if you call again.” 
 
 “ Do you mean to tell me,” said the Captain 
 slowly. “ that you will so far forget yourself 
 as a gentleman as to attempt to prevent our 
 meeting again ? ” 
 
 “That’s another very awkward speech, 
 but I’ll be hanged if you shall see her !” 
 
 “ In that case,” said Benson, rising to go, 
 
 “ I shall take another course.” 
 
 “ You know where to find me,” said Forton, 
 bowing him out politely, but white with rage. 
 
 Dawley and Lady Forton found him pacing 
 the room like a caged tiger. “ Shut that door,” 
 he said. “ Where is Hilly ? ” 
 
 “ In the billiard-room with Stonnor,” replied 
 his wife. 
 
 “ Look here ! I’ve had a nice rumpus with 
 Pierce Benson ! ” Then he told them. 
 
 “ Did he say he had heard from her lately?” 
 asked her ladyship. 
 
 “ He said her letter last Saturday was full 
 of affection.” 
 
 “ Dawley,” she said, confronting him 
 solemnly, “ you have been at mischief again. 
 You have been carrying letters. Don’t deny 
 it ! Really there is no shame in you !” 
 
 “No shame!” cried Dawley. “’Pin my 
 sawl, I’m smothered in it ! I haven’t carried 
 a letter or a note. Postman does that.” 
 “That is just what the postman doesn’t do,” 
 she said. “ There is some underhand work 
 somewhere. If it isn’t you it is Hrs. Randall 
 Rawson. But mind ! not one word to 
 Emilia. Leave me to manage it.” 
 
 It was not to be managed so easily. On 
 the morning of the Forton House party I 
 was the innocent carrier of a letter to Emilia 
 from Captain Benson, in which he told her 
 about his interview with Lord Forton and its 
 results. I gave it to her in the billiard-room 
 while we were preparing to play a game. She 
 read it, dropped the cue, and stalked straight 
 into the morning-room. 
 
 “ Why didn’t you tell me that Pierce Ben- 
 son had called to see me ? ” she asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 “ Ah, Dawley has been blabbing, has he ? 
 Just like him,” replied Forton. “ Well, I 
 
 didn’t tell you, because I thought it best you 
 shouldn’t know.” 
 
 “ What right have you to prevent his seeing 
 me, or my seeing him ? ” 
 
 “ Your brother,” put in her ladyship, “ has 
 a legal right to prevent your marriage with 
 Captain Benson.” 
 
 “ Pardon me, Lady Forton. Under the 
 will he has only a legal right to my money if 
 I marry without his consent. But I shall not 
 remain any longer under your roof if I am to 
 be submitted to such insults.” 
 
 “ What’s that you say?” roared Forton in a 
 towering passion^ “ Who dares to say we in- 
 sult you ? I tell you, miss, I’ll bring you to 
 your senses. I’ll lock you up ! I’ll lock you 
 up till Pierce Benson is out of the country, 
 and if he shows his face here again I’ll tell 
 the keepers to shoot him ! ” 
 
 The man was beside himself with rage ; 
 but I can fancy the look of contempt and 
 scorn she gave him. “ She stepped out of 
 the room like that swell. Ristori,” said Dawley 
 to me afterwards. “ ’Pin my sawl, it was the 
 best thing I ever saw in the whole course of 
 my life ! ” 
 
 The following day was all sunshine for 
 their party, but his lordship was as black as 
 thunder. It was as much as Lady Forton 
 could do to prevent him carrying out his 
 threat of locking Emilia in her room. As it 
 was, he actually told his wife and the servants 
 to keep strict watch on her, and bid his 
 lodge-keepers to prevent Captain Benson 
 from entering the park. There was an un- 
 natural calm about her, which was only the 
 lull before the storm. She would not appear 
 at the part}', and the Randall Rawsons, in a 
 huff at Lord Forton’s behaviour to their 
 guest, declined to come. The next morning 
 Emilia appeared at breakfast as placid as 
 ever, and afterwards drove over to the Hall 
 with Lady Forton to complete the ball 
 arrangements. 
 
 Her ladyship was uneasy. “We are in 
 trouble about Hilly and Benson,” she whis- 
 pered to me. “There has been a dreadful 
 scene ! Get her to tell you all about it, 
 while I go and ask your gardener for some 
 flowers.” 
 
 I was alarmed, but the tete-a-tete reassured 
 me. 
 
 ‘■'Dear Mr. Stonnor,” she said sadly, “I 
 feel I have asked too much of you. I never 
 ought to have placed you in such a position ; 
 but this is the very last time I shall ask you to 
 carry a letter for me. What was I to do ? 
 Dawley was not to be trusted, because Lady 
 Forton can draw the simple fellow round her 
 
THE BALL SCANDAL. 
 
 33 
 
 finger. Please, dear Mr. Stonnor, send this 
 and bring me the answer. I assure you it is 
 the very last ! ” 
 
 “ The very last,” I murmured passion- 
 ately. 
 
 “ The very last,” she replied softly. 
 
 I took her hand and kissed it gallantly ; 
 she sighed, and I felt indescribably happy. 
 When I put Lady Forton into her carriage, 
 I said with much meaning, “ I think you 
 may rest content about I'affaire Benson.” 
 
 She squeezed my hand by way of thanks and 
 drove off. 
 
 It was now r but three days to the ball, 
 during which matters quieted down at For- 
 ton House. His lordship was still surly and 
 savage with Emilia, who remained placidly 
 silent, and studiously avoided mentioning 
 Captain Benson’s name. 
 
 The old Hall looked very splendid on 
 the night. It was really a brilliant scene. 
 
 “ On I panted, determined to save her.” 
 
 The light dresses against the dark oak pa- 
 nelling were charmingly picturesque. Lady 
 Forton’s black velvet was the only, sombre 
 dress in the room ; but the Forton diamonds 
 glistened on her like stars. Emilia was 
 simply angelic in white silk and sheeny 
 gauze trimmed with pearls ; she also carried 
 a quaint Persian scarf— one of the gifts 
 of that fellow Benson; certainly she was 
 the belle of the room. For the most part 
 the men wore dress hunting-costume ; Lord 
 Forton and myself wearing our Lieutenants’ 
 uniforms, w T hich may be described as 
 
 Field-Marshals’ uniforms with naval cocked 
 hats. 
 
 It was an early ball, as some of my guests 
 had long distances to travel. About nine 
 o’clock we had taken our places for the 
 Lancers, when Lord Forton’s servant came in 
 and whispered something to him. He turned, 
 white, walked hurriedly up to me, took me 
 by th e arm, and when we got outside said, 
 “ Milly’s gone off with that beast Benson. 
 Don’t lose a second ; there are heaps of car- 
 riages about ; you must come with me — I 
 insist on it. We’ll catch ’em yet ! ” 
 
 3 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STGNNOR, ESQ. 
 
 I was speechless with shame and confusion. 
 
 I remember Forton talking to the servant 
 about the road they had taken, and telling 
 Lady Forton to look after my guests ; then 
 shouting some directions to the postillion, 
 and finally shoving me into the carriage. 
 
 Off we went at a gallop. “ I’ll cut that 
 fellow’s throat ! ” he said as he lit a cigar. 
 In about an hour, just as we were mount- 
 ing the hill to Dortown, the horses began to 
 flag. “ Drive faster. Twenty pounds if you 
 catch ’em ! ” he shouted out of the window. 
 
 “ It’s all right, my lord,” said the postillion, 
 “they are just in front of us. We shall nab 
 them in the town.” 
 
 “ Capital,” said his lordship, lighting an- 
 other cigar. 
 
 The carriage stopped abruptly. 
 
 “ What now ? ” asked Forton. 
 
 “ Carriage in front stopped at cross-roads ; 
 lady getting out,” said the postillion. 
 
 At this we both popped our heads out, 
 and sure enough by the gas-lamp there was 
 Emilia in her white dress and Persian scarf, 
 stepping quickly out of the carriage, with a 
 black hood over her head. 
 
 “ Ah, my lady ! I know your dodge : you 
 are off to the railway-station,” said Forton ; 
 “jump out, Stonnor ; we’ll run her down 
 easy. Postillion ! follow us closely.” 
 
 I found words to say, “Mind, Forton, 
 there must be no violence.” 
 
 “There need be no violence with her. All 
 I shall do is to take her back to Forton 
 House.” 
 
 We could just see her white dress as it 
 passed the gas-lamps towards the station. 
 It occurred to me afterwards that it was 
 rather lucky it was dark, as the appearance 
 of two gentlemen in Field-Marshal’s costumes, 
 with cocked-hats and plumes, chasing a young 
 lady in evening dress, must have been divert- 
 ing. We gained on her rapidly. Then she 
 became aware of the pursuit, and, after a fruit- 
 less endeavour to escape, sank all of a huddle 
 on the dark side of the road. My heart 
 bled for her. “ Mind, Forton ! ” I said, 
 “no violence ; I. will not permit any vio- 
 lence ! ” 
 
 “ Violence be shot ! ” he answered, as we 
 came up to her with the carriage. “Now, 
 Milly,” he said, “ no more of this abominable 
 nonsense ! Into the carriage this moment !” 
 
 Nothing but a shiver and a moan for 
 answer. 
 
 “ Do you hear ? Listen ! I shall settle 
 with Pierce Benson by-and-by ; but if you 
 don’t get in quietly, I tell you I’ll put you 
 in ! ” 
 
 As there was still no answer but sobs, he 
 attempted to lift her, upon which she threw 
 him off with great force and clung to me for 
 protection. I put my arm round her. “Now, 
 Forton,” I said, “you promised me there 
 should be no violence. Let me try to per- 
 suade her to come quietly. Emilia, you must 
 go back with us; don’t create a scene. 
 Believe me, it is your wisest course ; get in 
 with your brother.” 
 
 Forton took his seat and held out his 
 hand. She shrank back from him with 
 loathing, and just whispered faintly in my 
 ear, “ Outside, pray take me outside ! ” 
 
 “ She must go in the rumble with me,” I 
 said ; “ I’ll take care of her. Hurry back to 
 Forton House.” 
 
 With some trouble we seated ourselves and 
 started back. She would not speak, but her 
 sobs were pitiful. Her whole frame shook 
 with emotion. I kept my arm round her, 
 supporting and soothing her to the best 
 of my ability. At last the poor thing 
 dropped to sleep with her head on my 
 shoulder. 
 
 Within a mile or two of Forton House, 
 just as we gained the crest of the hill on the 
 common, she awoke with a start, turned her 
 head about in a dazed sort of way ; then 
 with an unearthly, mad little cry leaped from 
 the seat into the road ! How I managed to 
 follow I don’t know; but when I. found my- 
 self in the road the carriage was disappearing 
 at a brisk trot one way and her white dress 
 the other. The faster I ran, the faster she 
 ran. The poor girl had evidently gone mad, 
 for her eldrich laughter was occasionally 
 wafted back to me on the breeze. On I 
 panted, determined to save her if it cost me 
 my life. At last she paused before the open 
 door of a roadside-inn, then suddenly darted 
 inside. I followed, dreadfully fagged; my 
 cocked-hat was lost and my legs covered with 
 mud. Good heavens, what a sight con- 
 fronted me at the bar of that public-house ! 
 Emilia, my delicate and sensitive Emilia 
 drinking beer out of a common-metal vessel! 
 She drained it to the bottom, and putting it 
 down with a smack turned to me and said, 
 “ ’Pin my sawl, this is one of the best jokes 
 I ever heard of in the whole course of my 
 life ! ” 
 
 It was that wretch Dawley ! He ha d 
 positively been villainous enough to help his 
 sister to elope with Pierce Benson ! Elope ! 
 it was scarcely an elopement after all. He 
 had conducted her unnoticed from the room, 
 and while she was changing her dress con- 
 
35 
 
 THE BALL 
 
 ceived the idea of using the white silk, 
 Persian scarf, and hood by way of personat- 
 ing her, should the pursuit be too keen. He 
 then put her into a carriage that had been 
 standing unobserved among the rest, and in 
 which were seated Captain Benson and Mrs. 
 Randall Rawson ! When we came up with 
 their over-weighted carriage he popped out 
 and misled us, while his sister drove on to 
 the Randall Rawsons. 
 
 She was married to Pierce Benson the next 
 day in the little parish church, where their 
 banns had been cried for the last three Sun- 
 days without the Fortons knowing one word 
 about it ! 
 
 SCANDAL. 
 
 I believe myself that Mrs. R*andall Rawson 
 was at the bottom of it all, and that it was all 
 arranged by her to spite Lady Forton. Her 
 ladyship, however, was too diplomatic to 
 make a quarrel about it. She soothed the 
 matter over so cleverly with her husband, 
 that Dawley was sent abroad and Benson 
 brought his wife to Forton House after the 
 honeymoon. I was afraid that he might 
 feel some disinclination to come to the 
 Hall after his wife’s late tendresse for me, 
 but they both came as if nothing had hap- 
 pened ! 
 
 Truly, as I said before, there is no under- 
 standing the ways of women ! 
 
iy. — Pet House Grange. 
 
 A T the end of a small narrow lane, which 
 leaves the high road about half-a-mile 
 from my lodge gates, you may see a pic- 
 turesque jumble of red roof, chimney, and 
 gable peeping out from the midst of some old 
 elms. This is Pet House Grange. 
 
 It has attracted considerable attention from 
 archaeologists and others interested in county 
 histories. I had a long and somewhat angry 
 
 J^ECOLLECTJONS 
 
 o/^ET^STOKKO^ESQ. 
 
 U fET HOUSE QijANQE. 
 
 correspondence with one of these gentlemen 
 (if I may so call him) who wished to prove that 
 “ Pet House ” was an abbreviation of “ Pest 
 House, ’’and that the Grange had been nothing 
 more than the old parish hospital for infec- 
 tious diseases. I pointed out to him that 
 this was simply impossible, as the Stonnors 
 never would have permitted the contiguity of 
 such a disagreeable establishment. He re- 
 iterated his statement, at the same time 
 implying a doubt as to the Stonnors having a 
 right title to it. I never answered the man’s 
 impertinence, but heard afterwards that he 
 spoke of me to Dr. Pascal as the animated 
 fossil of a feudal manor. Poor fool ! 
 
PET HOUSE GRANGE. 
 
 37 
 
 Pascal, however, loves the place. He will 
 spend hours there, eating ripe Ribston Pip- 
 pins or Jennetings, which he shakes down 
 from the old apple-trees in the orchard, and 
 listening to the ceaseless cawing and chatter- 
 ing of the rooks. 
 
 “Somebody ought to write about these 
 wonderful birds,” he said to me once ; “ and 
 I have half a mind to do it myself. They 
 are just as far above other birds in intellect 
 as we are above monkeys. There is a 
 methodical reasoning in their movements. 
 Why do they seek the vicinity of man, and 
 continue to build, year after year, in the same 
 spot, notwithstanding the periodical slaughter? 
 What do they mean by their perpetual caw- 
 ing ? It can be nothing else but a sort of 
 bird language.” 
 
 “ If that is the case,” I replied, “ depend 
 upon it they are proclaiming the grand deeds 
 of the old Stonnors, and teaching their young 
 the traditions of their family.” 
 
 “ A grand idea that, Stonnor ! And now I 
 can account for the trial, verdict, and execu- 
 tion of one in your park the other day. There 
 he sat, looking very miserable on the ground, 
 surrounded by two or three hundred of his 
 fraternity, all jabbering away, I suppose, 
 about his delinquencies. Presently, with one 
 accord, they set upon him and literally pecked 
 him to death. No doubt he had said 
 something derogatory to the memory of the 
 Stonnors. There is something very like 
 human reasoning both in rooks and bees. I 
 shall tell Morton to write a new book on his 
 bees, and I’ll write on rooks.” 
 
 “ Ah, what about these friends of yours — 
 these Mortons? They have been in the 
 Grange now for a year, and, upon my word, 
 I scarcely know them. Morton himself seems 
 a moody sort of man.” 
 
 “ Perhaps he is ; but for all that he is one 
 of the finest fellows in the world,” said Pas- 
 cal, “and has brains enough for a dozen 
 ordinary men. What a clever dodge that was 
 of his about the bees. He increased his 
 honey enormously by simply turning the hive 
 a degree or two to the east. Then he gets 
 them near white clover, you know, because 
 the bee’s proboscis cannot fathom the red 
 variety, and ” 
 
 “ Never mind about the bees,” I said, 
 interrupting his scientific flight ; “ I want to 
 hear all about these Mortons.” 
 
 “ Well, there is some romance about them. 
 His wife is a French lady, a daughter of a 
 branch of the well-known rich Facon family. 
 I believe he saved her life at the risk of his 
 own in some terrible boat accident. That is 
 
 the romance. At all events, it was purely a 
 love match ; and no couple can be more 
 tenderly attached to each other.” 
 
 “ She is rich, then ? ” 
 
 “She has an annuity of £1,200 a year 
 from the Facon estates, which reverts to her 
 young sister, Mina, at her death. She would 
 only marry Morton on the condition that her 
 life should be heavily insured in his favour.” 
 
 “Why did they come here ?” 
 
 “ Ah, you wiseacres have been accounting 
 for that in many ways, I’ve no doubt. The 
 fact is, I advised them to take the Grange, 
 because I thought it would exactly suit his 
 natural history pursuits and her delicate 
 health.” 
 
 One thing was certain — they were very 
 charitable. Mrs. Randall Rawson (how stout 
 she is growing !) could always depend on 
 their subscriptions to further any of her 
 charitable schemes, and it was through this 
 lady’s intimacy that we learnt all the gossip 
 about them. Indeed, through her, every- 
 body knew about everybody else. She per- 
 vaded every household, and had a finger in 
 everybody’s affairs. She organized Sunday- 
 schools for our vicar, started a lady’s work- 
 ing party to make trousers for the Caffres, 
 and had the honour of being president of 
 the Dorcas Society. My brother wondered 
 they did not elect me, but I stand steadily 
 aloof from all public office. I believe Mrs. 
 Randall Rawson is better known than Lady 
 Forton. She goes everywhere. Not a house 
 to let in the county but she gets an. order to 
 inspect it; and not a sale but she is there, 
 buying old china and other domestic bar- 
 gains. 
 
 .“ The Meet,” as the weekly Caffre work- 
 ing is irreverently called, takes place in the 
 midst of the nicknacks she has picked up ; 
 and my brother says that it is there a per- 
 son’s reputation can be torn in pieces during 
 the making of one pair of trousers. One 
 day the following note came from her : — 
 
 “ Dear Mr. Stonnor, — 
 
 “ Will you take afternoon tea with us 
 to-morrow ? I want to introduce you to an 
 angel ; and then (please don’t be frightened) 
 to have a little chat with you on real business. 
 
 “ Sincerely yours, 
 
 “ Catherine Randall Rawson.” 
 
 This killing of two birds with one stone 
 was quite characteristic of her. I knew very 
 well that the “little chat” was the prime 
 reason for asking me, but yielded to the 
 inducement and found the “ angel ” (who 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 turned out to be Mrs. Morton’s young sister 
 —Mademoiselle Mina Facon) very charming. 
 She was a bright, sparkling little creature, 
 and an English education had not destroyed 
 her demonstrative French manner. Mrs. 
 Rawson was positively gushing in her praises. 
 But this was another of her characteristics 
 —she always made a great fuss over a new 
 acquaintance, and the reaction was generally 
 as strong. Just then, Mina was everything 
 that was delightful ! more perfect than any 
 bit of Dresden in the room ! so natural ! so 
 clever ! She interluded Miss Facon’s song 
 with audible expressions of delight, and 
 finished off by giving her an ostentations 
 kiss loud enough to crack some of her china. 
 Poor young Burton, our organist’s son, who 
 really sings like an artist, was quite . eclipsed 
 and got no thanks at all. I put Miss Mina 
 into her carriage. “ I am going to nurse my 
 sister, Mr. Stonnor,” she said in her naive 
 way ; “ you shall see what a cure I’ll effect. 
 But how sombre, how triste is the Grange ! 
 
 I shall make it gay with bright new chintzes 
 and papers. No wonder she is moping in 
 such dingy rooms ! ” and off she drove, like 
 a rosebud buried in white fur. 
 
 « is she not quite too delightful ? ” said 
 Mrs. Randall Rawson when I returned. 
 
 « Bo you know I can hardly let her out of 
 my sight ! How dull she will be at the 
 Grange ! ” 
 
 “We must try to make it a little more 
 cheerful,” I replied. “Does she make a 
 long stay ? ” . , 
 
 “No one can tell how long, for her sister s 
 house is her only home in England.” 
 
 “ Is Mrs. Morton so very ill ?” 
 
 “ Yes ; Dr. Blundell drove over from Dor- 
 town yesterday, and ordered complete rest. 
 She is to remain in one room for some time, 
 and to move as little as possible. I think 
 myself she wants rousing ; but it is a pity the 
 doctor lives so far away.” 
 
 “ It is only six miles.” 
 
 “ Too far in cases of emergency ! This is 
 the little business, Mr. Stonnor, I wanted to 
 discuss with you. Don’t you think we ought 
 to have a resident doctor nearer ? ’ 
 
 “ Certainly not,” I answered ; “ there never 
 has been one, and I don’t see why we should 
 begin.” 
 
 “ But the place has grown,” she urged, “and 
 there are now fifteen cottages round Dortown 
 Corner alone. I told Lord Forton I should 
 consult you on the subject, and we. thought, 
 perhaps you may assist us in getting some 
 young man from the hospitals to take charge 
 of a dispensary there.” 
 
 She invariably had her own way, sooner 
 or later, in discussions of this kind. As a 
 rule, I do not like making innovations and 
 disturbing the existing order of things round 
 the Hall, but when she insisted on the boon 
 it would be to the. poor, I yielded, on the 
 distinct understanding that I should be con- 
 sulted on the appointment of any medical 
 man. It would never do to allow any one 
 who was not a gentleman to settle in the 
 neighbourhood — I felt this strongly, and it 
 ended in my agreeing to look after some 
 eligible person. I hate advertisements. 
 Pascal was abroad, and my brother not to be 
 trusted. At last I wrote off to Lady Bow- 
 master detailing our wants. Her answer was 
 satisfactory. 
 
 “ Dear Mr. Stonnor, 
 
 “My young friend, Mr. Theophilus 
 Penney, is the very person to suit you. He 
 is dreadfully clever — in fact, quite a genius. 
 He is not anxious for emolument, but would 
 love to be in a neighbourhood where he 
 would mix with gentlemen , and where his 
 talents would be appreciated. He will come 
 and see you any day you may appoint. 
 
 “ I am, sincerely yours, 
 
 “ Brenda Bowmaster.” 
 
 After a few days’ preliminary correspon- 
 dence I met Mr. Penney at the Dortown 
 station. He was a pale young man, with an 
 abundance of tow-like hair, wore spectacles, 
 had a receding chin, and a very affectionate 
 manner. First, as in duty bound, we called 
 on Mrs. Randall Rawson, then inspected 
 the area of his prospective duties, found 
 lodgings, and finally returned to the Hall for 
 a tete-a-tete dinner. 
 
 I shall never forget that dinner. He was, 
 as Lady Bowmaster had said, dreadfully 
 clever, and had, moreover, the most alarming 
 appetite. I never saw a man eat so much. 
 He appreciated the old .Madeira too, and 
 became more communicative and affectionate 
 under its influence. 
 
 “ I like this kind of thing ! ” he said, 
 pouring out the last glass from the decanter, 
 and examining it critically as he lent back in 
 his chair. “ This is what I call Lucullian 
 repose! As to the appointment, I require 
 no locus penitentice — I’ll come at once. .1 
 really envy you, Mr. Stonnor, living in this 
 splendid old place ! What grand ideas you 
 must propound here for the amelioration of 
 mankind ! I suppose your brain is always at 
 work?” 
 
PET HOUSE GRANGE. 
 
 39 
 
 “ A man in my station, Mr. Penney, has 
 always plenty to do. The management of 
 an estate requires thought.” 
 
 “ Ah, there we row in the same boat ! 
 We both advance with science, and guide her 
 discoveries for the good of humanity. Do 
 you vivisect ? ” 
 
 “ My position in the county entails much 
 visiting.” . . . „ . . , 
 
 “ Vivisection ! not visiting”. he cried. 
 
 “ I want you to exert your influence in 
 support of this institution. It is the true 
 rampart against empiricism. What are books 
 and book work ? Nothing, absolutely nothing. 
 
 I suppose you know they plucked me at the 
 College of Surgeons ? ” 
 
 “ Good gracious ! have you no diploma ?” 
 
 “ Oh yes, I have the Hall. But what is 
 a diploma ? absolutely nothing ! It is no 
 criterion of a man’s power. Now what do 
 you think, sir, was the first and in fact only 
 question the idiots asked me at the college?” 
 
 “ I haven’t the slightest idea.” 
 
 “They asked me, ‘Where is Poupart’s 
 ligament ? ’ Poupart’s ligament ! of course 
 I didn’t know, and they sent me back.” 
 
 “ A knowledge of anatomy is surely very 
 necessary ? ” 
 
 “ It is, and it isn’t. If you are too heavily 
 handicapped with anatomical knowledge it 
 makes you fear heroic operations. Poupart’s 
 ligament ! fancy plucking a man for that ! 
 Why didn’t they ask me about nerve tissue 
 and blood corpuscules ? These are my spe- 
 cialities.” 
 
 “ Indeed ! ” . 
 
 “Yes,” he continued, drawing his chair 
 nearer to mine. “ But the difficulty I had 
 at first was to avoid sticking in the quicksand 
 of old experiences ; but after escaping these 
 where do I find myself? I find, sir, my road 
 blocked on the one hand by this walnut, 
 which represents a protoplasmic cell, and on 
 the other by this wine-glass, which represents 
 conservation of energy.” 
 
 “ I don’t quite understand,” I began. 
 “Pardon me, Mr. Stonnor, but a man 
 with your cerebral development understands 
 too much ! My ambition is figuratively to 
 put this walnut into the wine-glass. . I have 
 a theory whereby I would wed this proto- 
 plasmic cell with the conservation of force. 
 Then again,” here he drew his chair close to 
 mine, “ I have established a fair theory 
 about the large white blood corpuscules. 
 They go to build up the nerve tissue, sir, 
 and the nerve action depends upon the action 
 of parasites I ” 
 
 “ How very horrible ! ” 
 
 “ Horrible ! It is lovely ! Your brain, 
 Mr. Stonnor, is' one mass of parasites ! ” 
 
 “ Really, sir,” I said, rising, “ this is going 
 
 too far, I cannot permit 
 
 “ It is the greatest compliment I can pay 
 you,” he said, taking my arm and walking 
 round the room ; “ the more parasites the 
 more brain power. Look at these portraits 
 with their high cerebral development — para- 
 sites, sir, parasites ! ” 
 
 “ Pray come into the drawing-room,” I 
 said, feeling rather sick. 
 
 “ Certainly,” he replied ; “ but, speaking 
 of the cerebrum and cerebellum, I have found 
 most conclusively that the movements of 
 
 a decapitated frog prove ” 
 
 “ Let me beg of you to give me a little 
 music ! ” I said, opening the piano. He 
 played divinely ! I never heard any one be- 
 fore or since who could fill the room with 
 such an even flow of melody. He appeared 
 quite unconscious of his power, and played 
 away till I was fairly entranced. 
 
 “ Music is nothing,” he said, leaving off 
 suddenly; “a mathematical problem and 
 nothing more ! Now (coming affectionately 
 close to me), now as I was going to tell you 
 about the co-ordinative power of cerebellum 
 over the medulla oblongata 
 
 “Mr. Penny!” I interrupted him, “ I won’t 
 have another word spoken on medical subjects. 
 Pray play to me again.” Then he played 
 for a little and again jumped up with some 
 horrible physiological observation. I checked 
 him and down he sat at the piano. Up and 
 down, up a!nd down, till at last, what with 
 medicine, Madeira, and music, I went to. bed 
 ill and woke with the gout. After breakfast 
 Thomas ushered up Mr. Penney to say good- 
 
 Gout ! ” said the young gentleman with 
 a pleased expression. “ Gout ! how very 
 fortunate. Do you know I have my theory 
 about gout and rheumatism. First of all, is 
 it gout ? ” . . 
 
 “ Master is subject to gout, put m 
 Thomas. 
 
 “ What we must do,” he went on, ignoring 
 the remark, “is to extract a little blood and 
 examine the corpuscules. I will take a little 
 blood from you.” 
 
 Here he affectionately opened a lancet. 
 
 “ You will do nothing of the kind, sir, I 
 cried, starting up in spite of the pain. 
 
 “ Merely half-an-ounce for my microscope, 
 
 he persisted. _ *n 
 
 “ Thomas, show Mr. Penney out ! I will 
 not be bled, sir ! The Stonnors are never 
 bled ! ” 
 
40 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 “ I hope I have not offended you,” he 
 said, returning the instrument to its case; 
 “but I thought the inquiry might interest 
 you. I’ll get some medicine made up for 
 you at Dortown. Thank you for such kind 
 hospitality, and I hope to be in my lodgings 
 to-morrow or next day.” 
 
 I was glad to get rid of him, and believe 
 he was at Dortown Corner within two days ; 
 at all events, by the time I had shaken off 
 my. rather bad attack of gout he was quite 
 settled. As to his practice, it turned out 
 
 exactly as I anticipated. Mrs. Randall Raw- 
 son had exaggerated the requirements of the 
 place ; there was no need for a doctor, and 
 though she worried his life by sending for 
 him to attend frivolous cases, he had plenty 
 of leisure for his vivisection, chemistry, and 
 pianoforte playing. You never could count 
 on his playing. Sometimes, when he was 
 really interested in music (as, for instance, 
 when he electrified the Dortown Musical 
 Society by his performance one evening at 
 Stonnor Hall), he would play anything that 
 
 “ He played divinely ! ” 
 
 was asked for, at other times no amount of 
 pressure would induce him to touch the in- 
 strument. Mrs. Randall Rawson’s “ meet ” 
 was now generally followed by a musical 
 party, but before her he would never play. 
 He said she chilled him ; and as she had the 
 reputation of being a brilliant performer, his 
 obstinacy greatly chagrined her. As time 
 went on the little rift of disagreement widened, 
 and by degrees poor Miss Mina got out of 
 favour by espousing Mr. Penney’s cause. 
 
 “ Fancy,” said Mrs. Rawson to me, 
 “fancy Miss Facon (‘Mina’ was often 
 
 dropped now) daring to tell me that I ought 
 not to abuse Mr. Penney behind his back ! 
 I suppose she is setting her cap at him, like 
 she did at Rawson ; but I gave her a pretty 
 strong hint that her French ways would not 
 be tolerated in my house.” 
 
 So it came to pass that these two young 
 people got daily deeper in her black books. 
 She had always some unpleasant thing to say 
 about one or the other, but her chief topic 
 was their continual mismanagement of poor 
 Mrs. Morton. 
 
 Certainly, instead of improving under his 
 
PET HOUSE GRANGE. 
 
 4* 
 
 treatment and Miss Mina’s nursing, the 
 invalid grew worse. The tidying up of Pet 
 House Grange, the bright curtains, new 
 papers, and French upholstery, had done her 
 no good, and even little Mademoiselle her- 
 self sometimes looked fagged and ill. 
 
 One day I met Mrs. Randall Rawson 
 coming from the Grange. 
 
 “ Mrs. Morton is no better,” she said. 
 (l They never let her out of the little room 
 now. I am sure she is mismanaged, and I 
 am greatly displeased with Mr. Penney.” 
 
 “ I am sorry for that,” I replied ; “ but 
 you- ” 
 
 “ Nay, Mr. Stonnor, it was you who took 
 the responsibility of the appointment. It is 
 all very well his going there once or twice a 
 day to flirt with that girl Mina, but he should 
 not neglect his poorer patients.” 
 
 “ Neglect his practice ! I am sure no one 
 can accuse him of that ; why, he is devoted 
 to his profession.” 
 
 “ I assure you, Mr. Stonnor, I have sent 
 for him repeatedly to see some poor case, 
 and he has had the effrontery to say there 
 was nothing the matter and he wouldn’t go ; 
 all the time I knew he was at the Grange ; 
 so I have done my duty and cautioned Miss 
 Facon about him.” 
 
 “At one time you said what a romantic 
 match it would be.” 
 
 “ Ah, that was before I knew them ; and 
 entre nous , I am disappointed with both ! 
 Mina is changed since she has known Mr. 
 Penney ; she won’t hear a word against him 
 now, and her demonstrative French way of 
 defending him is not always in the best 
 taste.” 
 
 “ She does not look well herself.” 
 
 “Ah, no doubt that is her conscience. 
 She feels that she has behaved ill to me in 
 encouraging Mr. Penney, after all I have said 
 to her. I advised Mr. Morton to-day to 
 have further advice.” 
 
 “ This was hardly fair to Mr. Penney ? ” 
 
 “ Quite fair, after his behaviour to me ; 
 but Mr. Morton said he should abide by 
 Mr. Penney’s desire as to calling in another 
 doctor. The fact is, the man is so buried in 
 his bees and moths that he is unfit to conduct 
 a household.” 
 
 It will be seen from this that Mr. Theophi- 
 lus Penney was not quite happy. He was 
 in Mrs. Randall Rawson’s black books ; he 
 was puzzled and uneasy about Mrs. Morton’s 
 obstinate illness, and, moreover, he was in 
 love with pretty Miss Mina, who also was 
 losing her bright spirits and looks. Though 
 I would not go to the length of saying, as 
 
 Dr. Blundell did, that he would sooner trust 
 a case to the management of any old wife in 
 the parish than to Penney’s, I fear he had hadl 
 but little experience. He consulted his 
 books about every case, and frequently con- 
 sulted me. Some of the cases I passed on 
 to Mrs. Randall Rawson ; in others I gave 
 the best advice I could, and it struck me 
 that of all the professions the medical is 
 decidedly the easiest to acquire. In many 
 cases I really acted as the physician. The 
 Grange case baffled us ; it affected Penney’s 
 health. I jokingly used to rally him about 
 his daily visits there ; but the transient blush 
 would soon give place to a look of real dis- 
 tress and anxiety. Mrs. Randall Rawson’s 
 petty persecutions told upon him, and matters 
 were made worse by an unfortunate little 
 contretemps which happened at one of her 
 musical meetings. She had played a new 
 piece by the then fashionable composer 
 “ Theopen,” and afterwards bothered poor 
 Penney about it, badgering and contradicting 
 him so spitefully, till at last he sat down and 
 played the piece as it should be played. 
 She hid her anger pretty well, but unfortu- 
 nately said — 
 
 “ Thank you, Mr. Penney ; but that is not 
 as the composer plays it. I heard him play 
 it in ” 
 
 “ Pray don’t say another word, Mrs. Raw- 
 son,” he said. “ I am Theopen.” 
 
 She was furious. 
 
 “Do you think it a gentleman-like thing,” 
 she said, with a charming disregard of truth, 
 “ to make me play a piece on purpose to 
 humiliate me ? ” 
 
 “ I am sure Theo never could do such 
 a thing as that ! ” said Miss Mina warmly. 
 
 “ Did you know he wrote under the nom 
 de plume of Theopen?” she said, turning 
 savagely to Miss Facon. 
 
 “ Yes, and I never would have told you if 
 he had not.” 
 
 “ Then you are as bad as he. No wonder 
 my poor are neglected, with music-writing 
 and flirting at the Grange ! ” 
 
 This outburst was too much for poor little 
 Mina, who forthwith took refuge in tears. 
 Poor Rawson was greatly distressed at his 
 wife’s ebullition of temper ; but we soothed 
 the matter over in the best way we could. 
 It was an unpleasant evening, and ended 
 rather gloomily by a note from Mr. Morton, 
 asking Mr. Penney to come to the Grange as 
 quickly as possible, as his wife was worse. 
 
 Early the next morning Penney came into 
 my library with red, sleepless eyes, and his 
 towy hair wilder than ever. He closed and 
 
42 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 bolted the two doors carefully, put a book 
 on the table, then, coming close to me, said 
 » mysteriously, tapping the book — 
 
 “ I have found out all about Mrs. Morton’s 
 case.” 
 
 “ What is it ? ” I asked, alarmed at his 
 manner. 
 
 “ Poison ! ” he whispered in my ear. 
 
 « Good heavens ! What do you mean ? ” 
 
 I cried. 
 
 “ Hush ! ” he said, re-examining the doors. 
 Then he came back, drew, his chair close 
 to mine, and continued in a low tone : 
 
 « You know, sir, that Mrs. Morton was an 
 invalid when I first came here. Well, that 
 ailment required nothing but rest, and she 
 mended daily. As fast, however, as she 
 mended another train of symptoms appeared, 
 which we could never account for — some- 
 times pain, sometimes nausea, inflamed eyes 
 and mouth. She would get better, only to 
 fall back worse than ever. Yesterday morn- 
 ing she was better ; at night worse than she 
 has been at all. I don’t know what made 
 me suspect it, but when I got home . I 
 consulted this book, and I am now certain 
 it is poison.” 
 
 “ What poison ? ” I gasped. 
 
 He opened the book and pointed to the 
 top of a page on which was printed “ Arsenic.” 
 
 I felt sick and faint. 
 
 “ Give me some water,” I said. 
 
 « You must not give way, Mr. Stonnor,” 
 he said, giving me the glass, which shook in 
 his hand. “Just now is the time I shall 
 want your calm judgment and advice. I 
 come to you not only for a friend’s help, but 
 also for a magistrate’s.” 
 
 “ What am I to do?” I asked faintly. 
 “ Have you any suspicions ? ” 
 
 “ No ; but it is on this point I wish to take 
 counsel with you; I want your calm advice, 
 for we must advance with caution.” 
 
 “ In the meantime she may die !” I cried. 
 
 “ Oh no ! I have taken every precaution ! 
 Until I return every atom of food and liquid 
 will be given by Mina, who will not leave 
 her sister for one moment. The question 
 now is, who would be benefited by her 
 death ? Let us find a motive.” 
 
 Immediately there flashed across my mind 
 all that Pascal had told me of the Facon 
 property. 
 
 “ This is too horrible ! too dreadful ! ” I 
 ejaculated. 
 
 “ Ah 1 you know something,” said Penney 
 quickly. 
 
 “ I only know what my friend, Dr. Pascal, 
 told me. He said that at Mrs. Morton’s 
 
 death the annuity which she enjoys reverts to 
 her sister, and also ” — here I faltered. 
 
 “ Go on,” said Penney. 
 
 “ Also that her life was heavily insured in 
 her husband’s favour.” 
 
 “ That makes the case very complete,” he 
 said, gleefully rubbing his hands. “ Any- 
 thing more ? ” 
 
 “ I know nothing else ; but if you think a 
 warrant ” 
 
 “No! no! that would spoil eveiything,” 
 he said, rising to go. “ My course is plain. 
 I’ll see you again presently. Do nothing 
 till I return.” 
 
 “What are you going to do,” I asked 
 faintly. 
 
 « Trace the drug ! ” he whispered, and 
 hurriedly left the house. 
 
 A most miserable predicament for me ! 
 A crime of this magnitude on the Stonnor 
 estate was unparalleled. Pascal had known 
 Morton all his life, and had the highest 
 opinion of his honour, yet here he was 
 poisoning his own wife for the sake of a few 
 paltry thousands. I had no doubt of his 
 guilt, and read up my “ County Justice’s Vade- 
 mecum” for guidance. Thomas brought in 
 the papers and evidently saw that something 
 was wrong. 
 
 “ Bad news from the Grange ! ” he said in- 
 quiringly. 
 
 “ What do they say ?” I asked quickly. 
 
 « They say Mrs. Morton has had a sort of 
 a stroke, sir.” 
 
 “ Indeed ! ” I answered as unconcernedly 
 as I could. “ Tell Richard to have the horses 
 in readiness to ride into Dortown presently.” 
 He evidently wanted to say more, but I 
 buried my head in the Times and made a 
 pretence of reading the news. The time 
 passed slowly. About twelve Mrs. Randall 
 Rawson drove up. “ I’ll go to him in the 
 library, Thomas,” I heard her say, and in she 
 sailed. 
 
 “ Please see the doors are closed, Mr. 
 Stonnor,” she said, looking hard at Mr. Pen- 
 ney’s open book on “Poisons,” and my 
 “Vade-mecum for Justices;” “I have some- 
 thing particular to say to you. When we 
 heard that Mrs. Morton was so much worse 
 this morning I drove over to the Grange, but 
 was not allowed to see her. There is some- 
 thing mysterious going on, Mr. Stonnor. 
 Mr. Penney came down and gave me evasive 
 answers. He was almost rude. I insisted 
 on seeing Miss Facon, who is looking half- 
 dead with fright of some kind. I was not to 
 be baffled, and by dint of questioning found 
 that though Mrs. Morton is in no immediate 
 
PET HOUSE GRANGE. 
 
 43 
 
 danger, they don’t leave her for one moment, 
 and that all the food she takes is prepared by 
 them up-stairs. What can it all mean ? ” 
 
 “ I am sure I don’t know,” I faltered. 
 
 “ What are you reading a book on ( Poi- 
 sons’ and a Justice’s Vade-mecum for?” she 
 said severely. 
 
 “Oh, Mrs. Rawson, then you too sus- 
 
 ^“With what I saw and learnt at the 
 Grange, and with what I find here, I am sure 
 of something dreadful. Who is it ? and what 
 is the motive ? ” w , . . 
 
 “ It is a frightful affair. W e both know, 
 Mrs. Rawson, that Mrs. Morton’s life is 
 heavily insured in her husband’s favour.” 
 
 “ Pah 1 I know that, and something more. 
 
 I know,” she continued in a sepulchral voice, j 
 “that the annuity of ,£1,200 a year goes to 
 this wretched girl, Mina, after her sisters 
 
 death.” , . 
 
 “ You don’t for one moment mean to im- 
 ply that this little Mina would-— ” 
 
 “ Now, Mr. Stonnor, what right have we 
 to suspect one more than the other ? I am 
 
 accusing neither, but I say that Mina has a 
 greater interest in her sister’s death than Mr. 
 Morton has ; you don’t know what these 
 
 French girls are capable of.” > 
 
 The horror of the thing quite bewildered 
 me . “ What am I to do ? ” I cried. “ What 
 would you advise ? ” 
 
 “ I’ll go home and tell Randall to be 
 ready to act with you,” she said, “ and in the 
 meantime I would at once send for Dr. Blun- 
 dell.” , , , 
 
 I rang the bell for Thomas, and, as M.rs. 
 Randall Rawson was ushered out, wrote a 
 hasty note ta Blundell. Richard galloped 
 
 off with it; but the sound of his horse’s hoofs 
 had scarcely left my ears before a hurried 
 scrawl came from Mr. Penney, saying that 
 he had sent for Dr. Blundell, and that he 
 wanted me to meet him at the Grange. I 
 walked across the park like a culprit. My 
 mind was morbidly excited, for the rooks 
 about the Grange seemed to be cawing out 
 “ Poison ! ” “ Poison ! ” “ Murder ! ” and then 
 a full chorus would cry out “Stonnor et 
 Honor ! ” “ Stonnor et Honor ! ” 
 
 Dr. Blundell was already there. I waited 
 till he came out. Presently he appeared, all 
 of a bustle. “One moment, Dr. Blundell,” 
 
 I said. “ Is it as we suspect ? ” 
 
 “ Arsenical poisoning without doubt,” he 
 replied. 
 
 “ And the culprit ? ” I gasped, 
 j “ I have him in my pocket,” he said, pro- 
 ducing a slip of green wall-paper; “ there is 
 enough of this round Mrs. Morton’s room to 
 poison half the parish.. She, poor soul, has 
 ! been living in it, and imbibing it night and 
 ' day. We have just moved her, and I have 
 * no doubt about her recovery in time. She 
 is quite free from her old malady. Little 
 Miss Mina has been slightly poisoned too, 
 but change of air will cure them both. What 
 a good fellow Morton is ! Good day,” and 
 off he drove. 
 
 Mrs. Morton made a complete recovery, 
 and within six months, was present at the 
 marriage of her sister with Mr. Penney, who 
 had relinquished the profession of medicine 
 for that of music. 
 
 Mrs. Randall Rawson’s peaceful overtures 
 were civilly received, but they never met 
 again, as file young couple took up their 
 abode in Paris. 
 
person of considerable importance and popu- 
 V, — DawLEy’ S DODGE. larity, holding in his county a similar position 
 
 to what I did in mine. He was a very large 
 r T'HIS is what my brother calls it when he landholder, yet, curiously enough, professed 
 narrates the story to his numerous the same advanced (or more properly speak- 
 admirers. Story! why, there is absolutely j ing, “ eccentric ”) views in politics as my 
 no story at all. and I should never have brother Robert. I cannot attempt to ac- 
 thought of writing about it had it not been count for this, but so it was. There could 
 for his vulgar exaggeration. be no doubt, however, that the “ old Squire,” 
 
 To begin at the beginning, I was surprised as he w r as affectionately termed, was deser- 
 one morning to receive an invitation from | vedly well beloved, and people said he even 
 Mr. Bardett to spend a few days with him took a personal interest in the welfare of 
 at Hunterstone, his plage in Leicestershire, his numerous tenants. His invitation was 
 We had never met, but I knew him to be a couched in very friendly terms : — 
 
DAWLEY’S DODGE. 
 
 45 
 
 “Dear Mr. Stonnor, 
 
 “Will you kindly waive a more ceremo- 
 nious introduction than this, and give me the 
 pleasure of welcoming you at Hunterstone 
 for a few days ? If your engagements would 
 permit your coming here next Tuesday, my 
 carriage will meet you at the Hunterstone 
 station, at four o’clock. I am sorry my old 
 house is so small, but if you can manage 
 without your own valet, I have no doubt my 
 people will make you comfortable. 
 
 “ Yours faithfully, 
 
 “Thomas Bardett. 
 
 “ P.S. — You will meet an old friend.” 
 
 Now it was not only on personal grounds 
 that I wished to make his acquaintance, I 
 was also anxious to show him that my 
 brother’s dangerous principles were not shared 
 by the head of the house. I even thought I 
 might be able to induce him to modify his own 
 views about the land question, so accepted 
 the invitation, and was duly deposited at the 
 Hunterstone station at the time named. A 
 servant in dark-brown livery was waiting for 
 me on the platform. 
 
 “ Master told me to wait upon you, sir, 
 and see that you were quite comfortable,” 
 he said, touching his hat and grinning rather 
 too familiarly, I thought. “ My name is James, 
 sir, and father is here with the carriage.” 
 
 The carriage was a well-appointed mail 
 phaeton, with a pair of dark thoroughbreds. 
 James’s father grinned, too, as I took my seat. 
 
 “ Glad to see you, sir,” he said ; “ master 
 gone hunting to-day with Mr. Dawlish and 
 Dr. Boyd, or he would have come hisself ; 
 but James will see you all comfortable like.” 
 “What Mr. Dawlish is this?” I asked as 
 we drove off. 
 
 “ Oh, a fine young gentleman !” he replied, 
 “ and a fust-rater across country ; goes as 
 straight as a dart, and nothing can stop him. 
 He’s the Honourable Mr. Dawlish, Lord 
 Forton’s brother, from your parts, sir.” 
 
 How my heart sickened as I remembered 
 the ball scandal ! Presently I said, “ What 
 brings him here?” 
 
 “ Oh, the hunting, sir ! He and his friend, 
 Dr. Boyd, are just come from Canada, and 
 master will mount them as long as they like 
 to stop. But I’m thinking Mr. Dawlish ain’t 
 likely to go as long as Miss Clara’s with us.” 
 “ Indeed ! and who is Miss Clara?” 
 
 “Ah, I forgot you was a stranger, sir. 
 Miss Clara is Mrs. Carew’s daughter, and 
 Mrs. Carew is master’s sister. They are 
 paying us a visit, and will be expecting you, 
 I’m sure. Ah, Mr. Dawlish ! he’s a real 
 
 good ’un, he is. Such a free-spoken gent ! 
 He was telling us you was fond of your 
 joke, sir.” 
 
 “ Fond of my joke ! What do you mean?” 
 
 “ Oh ! how he made us laugh about the 
 way you circumvented that conjuring chap ! 
 Then the fun you made at some grand ball ! 
 Eh, James?” 
 
 Here they both went into fits of laughter. 
 Evidently I was being mistaken for my 
 brother Robert. Whether Dawley had pur- 
 posely misled them or not, I cannot say ; but 
 could anything be worse than making an old 
 county family the subject of conversation 
 among menials ? I knew to my cost he was 
 wild, but it never entered my head for one 
 moment that he would dare to hold up any 
 of the Stonnors to ridicule. Not to encour- 
 age any further familiarity, I kept a rigid 
 silence till we reached Hunterstone. It was 
 a long rambling house, which had evidently 
 been added to by various proprietors, and at 
 last made picturesque by the addition of a 
 handsome clock tower. The trees were so 
 near on all sides as to seem to grow out of it, 
 and rooks built and chattered among the 
 branches, as at my Grange. A gentleman- 
 like-looking old man was feeding uve or six 
 peacocks at the front door. 
 
 “ Welcome to Hunterstone, sir,” he said, 
 assisting me to alight. 
 
 “ I am pleased to make your acquaintance, 
 Mr. Bardett,” I replied, shaking his out- 
 stretched hand. 
 
 “ Master will be back directly, sir,” he 
 said ; “I am the butler.” 
 
 Here was another annoyance ! But, as I 
 have often remarked to my brother, what can 
 you expect from an establishment where the 
 pernicious doctrines of liberty and equality 
 are fostered ? The man, too, like those who 
 met me at the station, seemed to put on a 
 curious grin, as if I meant it for a joke. He 
 led me across the hall, and down three steps 
 into the drawing-room. I nearly went head- 
 long down this inconvenient entrance, which 
 Mr. Parsons (so the butler was named) 
 seemed to take as another good joke. The 
 room was low and capacious. It was 
 crammed quite full of books, pictures, water- 
 colour drawings, and old china, and looked 
 very cosy and comfortable, with large wood 
 fires blazing at either end. After a cup of tea 
 from the hands of Mrs. Carew, I felt quite 
 at home. She was a very agreeable person, 
 and though middle-aged, still retained some 
 of her youthful fascinations. Her figure was 
 abundant, but carried with such majestic 
 grace as to be the reverse of unattractive. 
 
46 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 The complexion was singularly beautiful; in- ■ 
 deed, so pink and white that it appeared 
 almost unnatural; the eyes were dark and 
 eloquent; and all crowned by a mass of jet- 
 black hair, without a single grey streak 
 amongst it. 
 
 Miss Carew, who presently appeared 
 dressed for jvalking, was a tall, slim young 
 lady, with her mother’s dark hair and eyes, 
 but without the remarkable complexion. 
 Both ladies dressed with great care and 
 taste; and, at Miss Carew’s suggestion, we 
 started to meet the hunting party. After 
 discussing ordinary topics for a time, the 
 elder lady observed — 
 
 “ I’m afraid you will find Hunterstone 
 rather dull after the gaieties of Stonnor 
 Hall.” 
 
 “ Impossible to feel dull here,” I replied, 
 as gallantly as possible ; “ besides, Stonnor 
 Hall is always dull. I am quite alone.” 
 
 “ But Mr. Dawlish tells us you are so gay ! 
 Balls, tennis parties, and I don’t know what 
 beside. He says you are the life of the 
 county.” 
 
 “ Nay, he must know very well that his 
 brother, Lord Forton, is the principal man 
 in the county. Both he and Lady Forton 
 are very popular, and entertain a great deal.” 
 
 “ Is it true that he has lately had a fortune 
 left him ?” 
 
 “ Quite true ; and I believe it is as much 
 as ^100,000.” 
 
 “ And tell me, Mr. Stonnor, does poor 
 Dawley, as we call him, get none of this? 
 It seems a shame that it should all go to the 
 rich brother.” 
 
 “ The fortune came from the late Lady 
 Bowmaster, so I am pretty sure our friend 
 would not participate. I wish with all my 
 heart he did, for he has nothing but what 
 Lord Forton allows him.” 
 
 “And that is little enough in all con- 
 science ! ” she cried. “ Dawley is an old, 
 old friend of ours, Mr. Stonnor, and I know 
 he is very anxious to get this miserable 
 pittance enlarged. He is going to consult 
 you about it.” 
 
 “ To consult me ! ” 
 
 “ Yes ; what he wants is some mutual 
 friend, some gentleman of position like 
 yourself, to represent his case to Lord 
 Forton. He is very fond of you, Mr. 
 Stonnor, and says you are so good-natured, 
 and amusing. Poor fellow, he has been very 
 low-spirited lately ; in fact, really depressed. 
 We have been a little anxious. He quite 
 looks forward to your visit, and you’ll cheer 
 him up, for he says you are so fond of prac- 
 
 tical jokes that we must all take care of our- 
 selves.” 
 
 “ Upon my word, this is too bad,” I ex- 
 claimed hastily. “ I am flattered by his good 
 feeling for me, but he has misled everybody 
 here. My brother Robert is, I am sorry to 
 say, given to practical joking ; I never joke.” 
 
 “ But you gave a great ball, and there was 
 some joking at that,” said Miss Carew slyly. 
 
 “ Mr. Dawlish told us all about it.” 
 
 “ I certainly gave a ball, but, considering 
 the part Dawlish took in it, I should have 
 thought he would have kept silent on the 
 subject. I must call him to account for so 
 misrepresenting me here.” 
 
 “He always speaks most kindly of you,” 
 she observed demurely, “ and looks upon you 
 as one of his best friends.” 
 
 “ Indeed he does ! ” chimed in the mother ; 
 
 “ and you know, Mr. Stonnor, Dawley’s 
 friends are ours.” 
 
 “ When I say I shall call him to account,” 
 
 I replied, “ I didn’t mean that I am going to 
 quarrel. I like him too well for that. If he 
 consults me I’ve no doubt I can give him 
 some good advice.” 
 
 “ And will you see Lord Forton for him?” 
 asked Mrs. Carew. 
 
 “ Well, that requires great tact and dis- 
 crimination,” I said. “ At the same time, if 
 anybody can manage it, I can. You see, 
 Lady Forton must be approached very deli- 
 cately.” 
 
 “ Good heavens ! ” exclaimed Miss Carew, 
 “ I believe he has met with an accident ! ” 
 
 A sudden turn of the road had confronted 
 us with rather a sad cavalcade. Dawley in a 
 gig, with his head supported by another young 
 gentleman, whom I rightly guessed to be his 
 friend Dr. Boyd, the old Squire riding by his 
 side, and a groom leading two hunters behind. 
 The gentlemen were in scarlet, and it was 
 evident from Dawley’s woebegone look that 
 he had, as Miss Clara feared, met with an 
 accident. 
 
 “ I am very glad indeed to see you, Mr. 
 Stonnor,” said the Squire, riding forward and 
 shaking my hand heartily. He was a tall, dis- 
 tinguished-looking man, reminding one very 
 forcibly of the late Lord Palmerston. “ Our 
 friend Dawley has had a spill. I didn’t see 
 it, but don’t think it is much. He’ll be all 
 right presently.” 
 
 “ ’Pin my sawl, Stonnor, you’ve just come 
 in time to take my corpse home,” said Daw- 
 ley from the gig. Then to Miss Carew — 
 “ Clara, don’t give way.” 
 
 Apparently she had no intention of giving 
 way. She put her handkerchief to her eyes, 
 
DAWLEY’S DODGE. 
 
 47 
 
 and said softly, “ Oh, Dawley ! how did it 
 happen?” 
 
 “ I’ll tell you,” said Dr. Boyd. “ I came to 
 grief at that gap in Three-stone Bottom. Daw- 
 ley was so close to my heels, and the pace so 
 big, that all he could do was to ram his 
 horse at the side fence. I believe he would 
 have got through, if an overhanging bough 
 had not caught him on the head and knocked 
 him clean into the quickset. Saved my life, 
 I believe.” Here he patted Dawley on the 
 back, and put his head in a more comfortable 
 position by way of showing his gratitude. 
 
 “ Dawley’s the only man I know who 
 would have gone for that fence,” said the 
 Squire. “ Come along, Mr. Stonnor. Let us 
 go home. We are half famished ; and after 
 dinner you must tell us the last good joke. 
 Dawley has been quite hipped lately, and 
 you’ll cheer him up. He says you are a 
 capital raconteur , and a first-rate authority on 
 joke-making.” 
 
 Here it was again. Of course I could say 
 nothing to Dawlish just then, but took the 
 opportunity, while we were walking home, of 
 disabusing the Squire’s mind. I did not 
 succeed. He smiled incredulously, and 
 throughout the dinner was continually on the 
 look-out for a joke. Indeed the whole party 
 seemed to expect something funny from me, 
 while all the time the author of the foolish hoax 
 sat opposite me, looking very sorry for him- 
 self, with a silk handkerchief bound round 
 his head. 
 
 The Squire was an admirable host, and 
 Mrs. Carew seemed quite in her right place 
 in assisting him to dispense his profuse hospi- 
 tality. She had the happy knack of making 
 every one feel at home, and of leading the 
 conversation back to agreeable grounds when 
 it strayed into uncongenial channels. 
 
 We got into little differences almost as 
 soon as she and Miss Clara left us. I hap- 
 pened to ask if there were many pheasants in 
 the coverts. 
 
 “ None compared to what you have in 
 your famous Hertford coverts,” he replied. 
 “But then, you know, I don’t preserve.” 
 
 “ You don't preserve! ” I said slowly, 
 scarcely believing my ears. 
 
 “ Ah, it sounds dreadful to you, Mr. 
 Stonnor, but it is nevertheless quite true. I 
 gave it up for two reasons. First, because I 
 didn’t think I ought to flaunt such a tempta- 
 tion before the eyes of gentlemen who are 
 fond of nocturnal rambles ; and, second, be- 
 cause I don’t think there is any sport in 
 your big battues. Do you remember when 
 we shot the home coverts last, Dawley ? ” 
 
 “ Remember!” said Dawley ; “ why, I shall 
 never forget it ! Beastly foggy day. Birds 
 wouldn’t rise. We drove and drove, and 
 at last, if they didn’t all run through the 
 gardens, slap into the kitchen. Cook and 
 servants been in the habit of feeding ’em, 
 you know. ’Pin my sawl, it was one of the 
 best things I ever saw in the whole course of 
 my life ! ” 
 
 “ Well, I gave it up from that day, Mr. 
 Stonnor ; and now my tenants take the shoot- 
 ings with their farms.” 
 
 “ Then you have no game ? no sport for 
 your friends ?” I cried, quite aghast at these 
 disclosures. 
 
 “ I believe there is more game for honest 
 sport than there ever was,” he replied ; “ and, 
 if you are for a day’s shooting, there is not 
 one of my tenants but would be glad to see 
 you. Do you know, I actually rent the 
 shooting of one of my own farms, and the 
 farmer himself looks after it. What do you 
 think of that ? A curious arrangement, isn’t 
 it ? but it works well.” 
 
 “ I should call any such arrangement repre- 
 hensible,” I said, “because it is one that 
 puts too much power in the hands of the 
 tenant. What right has a farmer to go pop- 
 ping about my land with his gun ? Quite 
 enough for him to have an occasional run 
 with the hounds ! ” 
 
 “ Bravo, Stonnor ! Stick up for your 
 rights,” cried Dawley, starting up. “ Bravo ! 
 Yoicks ! yoicks ! tallyho !” 
 
 Having given the view halloo loud enough 
 to set all the glasses on the table ringing, he 
 sank back, holding his bandaged head with 
 both hands. 
 
 “ I’ll tell you what it is, Dawley,” said 
 Dr. Boyd : “ if you don’t keep quiet after 
 that crack on the head, you’ll have an attack 
 of fever.” 
 
 “ In for a penny, in for a pound ! ” Dawley 
 said, tossing off a full bumper of port and 
 refilling his glass. 
 
 “That’s about the worst thing you can 
 take,” said Boyd. 
 
 “ What is it to you, sir, what I take or don’t 
 take ? ” asked Dawley loudly, suddenly facing 
 him. 
 
 “ You got your spill, old man, trying to 
 save me, and I don’t want to see you run 
 the risk of fever — that’s all.” 
 
 “ And I don’t want to be preached to by 
 a Pill ! ” roared Dawley. 
 
 “ My dear Dawley,” I interrupted, “ you 
 must not speak like that. Dr. Boyd is quite 
 right in cautioning you after your accident.” 
 
 He put his hand to his head in a wild sort 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 4"S 
 
 of way, then said—' “ I’m awfully sorry if I lost 
 my temper ! Boyd, old fellow, I beg your 
 pardon. If you’ll excuse me, Bardett, 1 11 
 join the ladies.” 
 
 “ I am glad you seem to have some com- 
 mand over him,” said Dr. Boyd to me when 
 he had gone, “for, to tell you the truth, I’m 
 rather afraid of his head. He has been 
 depressed lately about money and other 
 matters, and that was an ugly crack he got 
 to-day. He ought to keep quiet.” 
 
 He was quiet enough when we entered the 
 drawing-room, seated on a low stool at Miss 
 Clara’s feet; but immediately she com- 
 menced the song we had begged, for, he 
 stopped her abruptly, saying the noise made 
 his head split. Then he became restless, for 
 the rest of the evening, finally at bed-time 
 obstinately refusing to go up-stairs till he 
 had had his cigar. Mrs. Carew. beckoned 
 me out of the room. “ I am anxious about 
 Dawley, Mr. Stonnor,” she whispered on the 
 stairs. “ Please see if you can get him to 
 bed. I am sure he ought not to smoke.” 
 
 “ One cigar won’t hurt him,” said the 
 Squire over the balusters. “Go and join 
 them, Mr. Stonnor ; Parsons will give you a 
 good Cabana.” 
 
 “This way, sir,” said Parsons, who had 
 come behind me while I was wishing them 
 good night. I followed him to a snug little 
 room, hung round with portraits of prize 
 cattle, famous hunters, and county maps, 
 and here I found Dawley smoking in the 
 depths of an easy-chair, his. feet . on the 
 mantel-piece, and Boyd bathing his head. 
 He gave me a wink and a sign as I entered, 
 as much as to say, get him up-stairs if you 
 can. 
 
 “ Bed is the proper place for you, Dawley,” 
 I said. 
 
 “ So Boyd has been saying,” he replied ; 
 “ but I told him I wouldn’t go till I had 
 seen you.” . 
 
 “ Rest is imperative after such an accident,” 
 said Boyd. 
 
 « Well, if you fellows will smoke half a 
 cigar with me, I’ll go.” 
 
 “All right,” and the doctor lit his cigar. 
 
 “ I seldom smoke,” I said excusingly. . 
 
 « Bother it ! ” exclaimed Dawley, jumping 
 up and throwing off the wet rags. “ Every- 
 body seems bent on annoying me. Why 
 can’t you take two or three whiffs ? ” he asked, 
 glaring at me. 
 
 “ Humour him,” whispered Boyd. 
 
 I was on the horns of a dilemma. Smok- 
 ing never agrees with me, but then was it 
 advisable to cross him in his present mood ? 
 
 Of two evils I chose the less, and lighted 
 the Cabana with considerable trepidation. 
 
 “ What good is sleep to do me ? ”. Dawley 
 said, getting more mollified after a time. “ It 
 is only so much time wasted.” 
 
 « The blood circulates slower through the 
 brain during sleep,” said the doctor, “ and so 
 the vessels are relieved. I remember a fellow 
 who got an ugly tumble tobaggoning in 
 Quebec. He wouldn’t keep quiet, and 
 wouldn’t go to sleep. Well, he went as mad 
 as a March hare. He fancied himself a 
 tobaggon and insisted on sliding down every- 
 body’s stairs. — Awful case ! ” 
 
 “I feel slidily inclined myself,” put in 
 Dawley. 
 
 « There was another fellow we trepanned 
 for depression from the kick of a horse. He 
 too wouldn’t keep quiet — went stark staring 
 mad — fancied himself a horse and kicked 
 the bed to pieces.” 
 
 “ I fancy I’m going at that fence again ! ” 
 Dawley burst out, springing up from his seat. 
 
 “ Yoicks forward ! Have at it, my beauty ! ” 
 With that he began jumping . the chairs, 
 knocking them here and there in the most 
 reckless fashion. After some fruitless en- 
 deavours to stop him, Boyd at last lit the 
 candles and said in a low tone to me, 
 “We must get him to bed— see what you 
 can do.” 
 
 He evidently had no power in. managing 
 him. I simply laid my hand on his shoulder 
 and he was quiet in an instant. 
 
 « Come to bed like a good fellow,” I said 
 soothingly. 
 
 “ Yes, I’ll go with you, Stonnor,” he said, 
 taking my arm. “ Give us the lead, Boyd, I'm 
 off to bed.” 
 
 We saw him to his room ; Boyd, who slept 
 next door, saying he would look after him, 
 and give him some morphia if he was. restless. 
 “ You can’t miss your room,” he said as we 
 parted : “ first turning to the left up the little 
 passage.” 
 
 However, I did miss my room. Whether 
 I was thinking too much of Dawley’s troubles 
 or not, I don’t know ; but I not only took the 
 wrong turning, but in attempting to regain 
 Boyd's room, got helplessly lost in a laby- 
 rinth of passages. I never saw such a house 
 for stairs ! The immediate entrance into 
 every room seemed to be up or down two. or 
 three steps. I tried some of the doors, which 
 proved to be locked. At last, in desperation, 
 I knocked cautiously at a room I saw was 
 lighted. 
 
 “ Who’s there ? ” said Mrs. Carew’s voice. 
 “ I beg your pardon,” I began. 
 
DAWLEY’S DODGE. 
 
 49 
 
 “Ah, Mr. Stonnor, something bad has 
 happened to Dawley ! What is it ? ” 
 
 “ Nothing, I assure you. I have only lost 
 my way.” 
 
 There was a little pause, then she said 
 coldly, “ Oh, indeed ; I’ll ring for the house-, 
 keeper.” 
 
 This was very trying ; moreover it was very 
 chilly. I kept pacing up and down that 
 passage thinking the housekeeper would 
 never come. At last James appeared, with 
 the same offensive grin, and led me to my 
 room. “ What on earth is that?” I ex- 
 claimed, starting back at a loud whirring 
 noise close to my ear. 
 
 “ Only the cuckoo-clock, sir,” James 
 laughed. “Good night, sir. You did give 
 Mrs. Carew a fright.” 
 
 I had a bad night. Perhaps the cigar dis- 
 agreed with me. I tossed about for some 
 time, falling asleep at last only to dream that 
 I was assisting Boyd to trepan Dawley. His 
 unearthly scream which awoke me was no- 
 thing but the screech of a peacock which 
 had been roosting on a branch close by nny 
 window. No sleep after that. The noises 
 increased. First there were the quarter 
 chimes and hours from the big clock ; then 
 the rooks began to caw and the peacocks 
 screamed; last, but not least, the cuckoo- 
 clock was continually breaking out with a 
 noise horribly suggestive of somebody with 
 bronchitis. It did not keep time with the 
 big clock, so between one and another the 
 discord was perpetual. So maddening did 
 it become that I determined to put an end 
 to it somehow. I lit my candle, went out- 
 side, managed to stop the pendulum, hut 
 this did not stop the rest of the mechanism. 
 Then I opened the front and touched some 
 wheel, when the whirr and the cuckoo went 
 off simultaneously in the most terrific manner 
 —as if protesting against my interference. In 
 desperation I endeavoured to unhitch it 
 from the wall, when the whole affair came 
 down with a crash. A door opened and the 
 Squire’s head appeared. 
 
 “ What’s the matter, Stonnor? anything 
 
 wrong?” . ... 
 
 “ Couldn’t sleep for the noise, I replied ; 
 “ very sorry, but ” 
 
 “ How stupid of us not to have thought ot 
 that clock ! You were quite right, but I am 
 ashamed you have been so disturbed. Try 
 to get some sleep now, and I’ll send you a 
 cup of tea early.” 
 
 I dozed a little, and when James did bring 
 the tea, determined at all events that he 
 should not see that anything unusual had 
 
 occurred. I put on an ostentatious yawn and 
 stretch as he busied himself about the room, 
 and then asked indifferently what time it was. 
 It was an unfortunate question, and he made 
 his exit with a loud guffaw. Just as I had 
 finished dressing Dr. Boyd knocked. Dawley 
 had had a bad night, and wanted to see me 
 before I went down. 
 
 He’s got something on his mind,” said 
 the doctor, leaving me at the patient’s door, 
 
 “ and it will do him good to unburden himself.^ 
 
 “ Awfully comforting to see you, Stonnor,” 
 said Dawley ; “ sit by my side for a minute 
 or two and let me speak to you. I can tell 
 from Boyd’s face,” he went on, taking my 
 hand, “that he thinks badly of me. He 
 thinks I am going to croak, so before I get 
 worse I want to confide in you as an old 
 friend.” 
 
 “Say what you like, Dawley,” I said, 
 pressing his hand, “ and be sure I’ll respect 
 your confidence.” 
 
 “ Stonnor,” he said solemnly, “ I may have 
 been wild and troublesome, but, believe me, 
 
 I am now an altered man.” 
 
 “ They have all told me you have been 
 hipped lately,” I put in. 
 
 “Yes, that’s true, and I’ll tell you what 
 has done it. It is love, Stonnor ! Before I 
 saw Clara, ’pin my sawl I didn’t know what 
 love was, but now I see what a fool I ve 
 been ! And now the one dear creature that 
 could alter my life for good is cut off from 
 me by the want of paltry money.” 
 
 “ But you’ll soon get better,” I said 
 soothingly, “and then all these matters will 
 look more hopeful.” 
 
 “How can that be?” he said, starting 
 wildly up from his bed, and drawing his 
 finger across his throat. 
 
 “ * How can I cut it without e’er a knife, - - 
 
 And how can I marry without e’er a wile? 
 
 Is that Byron, or is my head wandering ? ” 
 
 “ If I could help you in any way,” I said, 
 rather alarmed. 
 
 “But you can. You are the very man, 
 dear Stonnor. You are as big a swell in the 
 county as Forton. Go to him, tell him Im 
 booked if he doesn’t do something for me— 
 tell him if he will help us Clara and I will 
 bless him for ever.” . . 
 
 Quite overcome he hid his face in the 
 pillow. 
 
 “Now, Dawley,” I said, “if you 11 promise 
 to keep quiet and do as Dr. Boyd advises, 
 I’ll promise to talk it over with Mrs. Carew, 
 and if necessary see Lord Forton.” . # . 
 
 “ God bless you for that!” he said, seizing 
 mv hand. “ Now I can eat my breakfast.” 
 
 4 
 
5 o 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 On the strength of my cheerful report, the 
 Squire insisted on sending him up various 
 dainties from our breakfast-table, anything 
 but fit for an invalid, and afterwards invited 
 Mrs. Carew and myself to walk round the 
 grounds. The flower-gardens, beautifully 
 kept, gradually merged into the rookery ; a 
 path through this led to the kitchen-garden, 
 and still farther on through a large orchard 
 to a bright nest of cottages. 
 
 “ This is what I call the model village,” 
 said Mrs. Carew, “and here my brother’s 
 old dependants end their days. I quite envy 
 some of them. Look what pretty gardens 
 they all have. Some aspire to little conserva- 
 tories too. Parsons lives in the largest house 
 and the gardener’s mother in the next. That 
 old lady cutting roses is James’s grand- 
 mother. They are all well cared for, are they 
 not ? ” 
 
 “ Don’t you think it is going a little too 
 far?” I asked. 
 
 “ Not at all,” said the Squire. “ I get 
 wonderfully well served by my servants, and 
 the least I can do is to look after them in 
 their old age. You see, I have the advantage 
 of you, Mr. Stonnor, in being able to do what 
 I like with my land.” 
 
 “ I don’t catch your drift.” 
 
 “ What I mean is, I ain’t bothered with 
 entail — why, you can’t sell, pawn, or raise 
 any money on your land if you wished it ever 
 so much.” 
 
 “ That’s the very beauty of it,” I answered 
 hotly. “ The law of the land prevents the 
 possibility of our losing the estate, just as the 
 constitution of the country puts it out of 
 the power of an individual to aspire to the 
 Crown.” 
 
 “ Still it is wrong. The land is not yours ; 
 you only hold it in trust. Frequently, too, 
 it makes an enemy of your dearest relative. 
 I should like to see it abolished.” 
 
 “ See it abolished ! ” I cried, horror-struck. 
 “You cannot mean what you say, Mr. Bardett. 
 Such a thing would have the effect of sweep- 
 ing away some of our finest old county 
 families, and these are the strong bulwarks 
 of the constitution. We don’t only live 
 for to - day, sir, but for generations to 
 come.” 
 
 “ I have the greatest respect for old fa- 
 milies and their traditions,” he laughed ; “ but 
 what I say is this ” 
 
 “ Never mind what he says, Mr. Stonnor,” 
 put in Mrs. Carew in her clever way. “ What 
 I say is that I agree with you, and I won’t 
 have any further argument on the subject. 
 Now, Tom, go about your business, for I 
 
 have some private matters to discuss with 
 Mr. Stonnor.” 
 
 “ Well, take care of him,” he laughed as 
 he left us, “ and be ready for a long drive 
 after lunch.” 
 
 • “ Now, Mr. Stonnor, I am dying to hear 
 all that Dawley said to you.” 
 
 After I had told her “ It is quite true,” 
 she said, “ that there is some sort of under- 
 standing between these two young people. 
 Clara has learnt to think for herself, and has, 
 as you may have noticed, a will of her own. 
 But I have put my face against any positive 
 engagement until his prospects are clearer. 
 This is what has depressed him. How kind 
 and good of you to take an interest in 
 them ! ” 
 
 “ A Stonnor never makes light promises, 
 Mrs. Carew. I have promised Dawley to use 
 my influence with his brother, and I shall do 
 so now all the more readily, knowing it will 
 please you and Miss Clara.” 
 
 # “ How noble of you ! — and I shall tell my 
 girl to thank you herself. Now don’t you 
 think — but I only submit it to your better 
 judgment — that a sort of preliminary letter 
 from you would have a good effect with the 
 Fortons ? You are just the man to write a 
 nice letter.” 
 
 “ An excellent idea ; and if you will give 
 me your assistance we will send it by to-day’s 
 post.” 
 
 “And it would be advisable to say nothing 
 whatever at present to my brother, just to 
 have the satisfaction, Mr. Stonnor,” she con- 
 tinued with a meaning smile, “ of managing 
 it entirely ourselves.” 
 
 “ I quite understand you,” I said, returning 
 her look with an affirmative nod. “ You 
 may entirely rely on my discretion.” 
 
 On consideration we agreed that it would 
 be diplomatic to attempt to bring the brothers 
 together. Lord Forton could but sympathize 
 with Dawley’s sufferings, and some satisfac- 
 tory conclusion would be arrived at. The 
 letter was short. I merely said I was visiting 
 Mr. Bardett, that Dawley had met with an 
 accident, and the doctor feared brain 
 fever; that I had seen him, and he had 
 privately expressed a desire to divulge 
 something to Lord Forton before he became 
 worse. 
 
 As the letter was being sealed we saw Miss 
 Clara among the flowers. Mrs. Carew tapped 
 the window. 
 
 “ See here,” she said, holding up the letter 
 as her daughter entered, “ see what Mr. 
 Stonnor has done for you ) Such a nice letter 
 to Forton House ! You must thank him 
 
DAWLEY’S DODGE. 
 
 5 * 
 
 as prettily as you can.” And off she went to 
 put it in the letter-bag herself. 
 
 “I do thank you very, very much, Mr. 
 Stonnor,” said the young lady very collectedly, 
 but devouring me with her black eyes. “ I 
 hope you don’t think Mr. Dawlish very ill ? ” 
 
 “ That letter will be excellent medicine 
 for him,” I said gaily; “and I’m now going 
 up to tell him all about it. Have you any 
 message for him ? ” 
 
 “ You may give him these flowers, and tell 
 him I gathered them for him.” 
 
 “ And not one for me?” I asked. 
 
 She pinned a rosebud in my coat without 
 the slightest hesitation, and up I went to the 
 patient’s room. He was partly dressed, and 
 smoking a cigar with Boyd. A wink from 
 the doctor made me understand he was 
 humouring him. I at once gave the flowers 
 and the message. 
 
 “ Where did you get that rosebud ? ” he 
 asked sharply. 
 
 “ A certain young lady pinned it in her- 
 self,” I replied lightly. 
 
 “ Now, Stonnor,” he said with a frown, 
 “ none of your nonsense ! It would be a 
 shame if you took advantage of my illness 
 to flirt with Clara. I won’t stand it ! ” 
 
 “ I give you my word, Dawley,” I replied 
 impressively, “ you may trust me implicitly. 
 “ My dear fellow, don’t you know our motto, 
 e Stonnor et Honor ’ ? ” 
 
 “ I will trust you,” he said, grasping my 
 hand with some effusion. “But how about 
 Forton House ?” 
 
 Then I told him what we had done. He 
 was evidently relieved, and became so much 
 better during the day that we found him in 
 the drawing-room with Miss Clara when we 
 returned from our drive. He was certainly 
 more docile, though his anxiety for an answer 
 from the Fortons increased daily. Boyd was 
 still uneasy about him. To me, what with 
 an occasional drive to the meet, a picnic at 
 Bradley, and an agreeable dinner-party, the 
 days passed pleasantly enough. The Squire, 
 notwithstanding his political views, was 
 simply delightful; and as for the Carews, 
 they could not make enough of me in return 
 for the little service I had done them. 
 
 Dawley was continually sending for me to 
 know if I had received an answer. He said 
 I did him more good than Boyd. At last 
 the answer came. It was not what we had 
 anticipated. 
 
 “Dear Mr. Stonnor, 
 
 “ Lord Forton is shooting in Hampshire, 
 and as your letter was marked c immediate 
 
 I have opened it. You evidently don’t know 
 Dawley as well as we do. I think he is de- 
 ceiving you. He is scheming for something, 
 and if he had been really ill I am sure Mr. 
 Bardett would have written. 
 
 “Yrs. faithfully, 
 
 “Caroline Forton.” 
 
 Fancy writing to me in this strain ! 
 
 Mrs. Carew’ s eyes flashed ominously. She 
 looked like an enraged Juno. 
 
 “ Disgracefully unfeeling ! ” she said, “ and 
 not treating you with the respect due to your 
 station. Poor Dawley!” 
 
 “ I will have nothing more to say to her,’* 
 
 I said. 
 
 “ Oh, Mr. Stonnor ! what shall we do if. 
 you forsake us ? ” cried Miss Clara. 
 
 “ I won’t do that, Miss Clara ; but perhaps 
 Mr. Bardett should write.” 
 
 “ But we agreed he was to have nothing to 
 do with it,” said Mrs. Carew, coming close to 
 me. “ No ; let us manage it ourselves, Mr. 
 Stonnor, and bring Lady Forton to her senses. 
 Besides, I am sorry to say my brother is 
 obliged to go to London to-night.” 
 
 “ I quite dread the effect the letter will 
 have upon Dawley,” I said. “ Dr. Boyd says 
 he is not so well as he looks.” 
 
 « Ah ! we must take Dr. Boyd into our 
 confidence,” she said, “and see what he 
 advises.” 
 
 Boyd came and counselled telling Dawley 
 at once. “ Nothing could be worse for him 
 than anxiety, and no one was so well able to 
 break the news to him as I. As to Lady 
 Forton, he would write a certificate in proper 
 form which I could enclose in my next 
 letter.” 
 
 “That will be a proper punishment tor 
 her,” said Mrs. Carew ; “ but now please go 
 and get it over with Dawley.” 
 
 He saw there was something wrong directly 
 we entered the room. “You’ve got bad 
 news, Stonnor ; out with it.” 
 
 “ It is not much,” I said. “ Your brother 
 is away, and Lady Forton does not think 
 you are so ill as we tell her.” 
 
 “Just like her,” he said despondmgly. 
 “ That she-dragon has thwarted me all my 
 life. My blood be on her head ! ” With 
 that he got up and stalked towards the dress- 
 ing-table, where his razors were laid out. 
 
 “ Sit down, Dawley, and don’t be an ass, 
 said Boyd, stopping him. 
 
 “If you interfere with me I’ll shoot you 
 like a dog ! ” he cried. 
 
 “ Come, come, Dawley,” I said, “ this won t 
 do. How can you expect us to help you if 
 
52 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 you don’t show more command over your- 
 self?” 
 
 ‘•'But you fellows will help me all you 
 can ? ” he asked piteously, grasping our 
 hands. 
 
 “ Of course we will,” replied Boyd ; “ take 
 your medicine like a good fellow, and after 
 we have written to Lady Forton, I’ll come 
 and sit with you.” 
 
 I wrote again more pressingly, enclosing 
 Dr. Boyd’s certificate, but Dawley became 
 more and more restless, ana Mrs. Carew 
 more and more anxious. She had a long 
 interview with him, coming down afterwards 
 to tell me she had left him happier by giving 
 her consent to his formal engagement with 
 Clara. 
 
 “ Poor boy,” she said, “ he confessed that 
 he was £&oo or ^900 in debt, but he looked 
 so pitiable, I positively had not the heart 
 to refuse. We must hope now for the best.” 
 
 “ I’ll tell you what I will do, Mrs. Carew,” 
 I cried, moved to sudden generosity by her 
 beaming eyes. “ There is Pethouse Grange 
 of mine, all ready furnished ; the young couple 
 shall have it for a year rent free.” 
 
 “ How nobly generous of you, Mr. Ston- 
 nor! Upon my word you are our good 
 angel. Do go and tell Dawley.” 
 
 For all this he became worse. Even the 
 Squire when he returned became alarmed at 
 Dr. Boyd’s account. “ Dawley is in a queer 
 state,” he said to us privately. “I don’t 
 know what to make of him. Why, he wanted 
 me Ij hunt the peacocks with him. Before 
 I go perhaps I had better drop a line to Lord 
 Forton and tell him about it. He is an old 
 friend of mine.” 
 
 “ An old friend of yours, Tom ! ” said 
 Mrs. Carew in alarm. “ Do you mean to say 
 you know the Fortons ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yesq I’ve known them for years. I 
 know Forton better than Dawley. He has 
 stopped here once or twice.” 
 
 She gave me one look and left the room. 
 
 “ Now I must go to London to-night, 
 Stonnor, and hope you’ll make yourself com- 
 fortable till I return. Perhaps I shall see 
 Forton at his Club. Hope to be back to- 
 morrow or the next day at the farthest.” 
 
 I found Mrs. Carew in great agitation, 
 half hysterical, and Miss Clara was stand- 
 ing over her with smelling salts and 
 camphor. “ This is most annoying, Mr. Ston- 
 nor,” she cried ; “ I had no idea that Tom 
 knew the Fortons. Did you tell him you 
 had written ? ” 
 
 “ No,” I replied ; “ for, you remember, we 
 thought it desirable he should not know.” 
 
 “ Very stupid,” she ejaculated with some 
 show of temper. 
 
 Matters got worse. Dawley began to 
 rave about his embarrassments and Clara. 
 Mrs. Carew and Dr. Boyd were continually 
 consulting me about one thing or another. 
 It was late before we got to bed, and before 
 I was up Boyd came to my room. Dawley 
 was worse, and a barber had been sent for 
 to shave his head. The ladies were already 
 in the morning-room when I went down, and 
 we determined to telegraph to Lady Forton 
 at once. We sent the following — “ Dawley 
 worse — head shaved — doctor thinks state is 
 critical.” We breakfasted and waited the 
 result. Presently Dr. Boyd brought down 
 some of the poor fellow’s hair. Dawley 
 wished us each to have a lock. Mrs. Carew 
 was much affected at this touching incident, 
 but Clara kept perfectly calm and collected. 
 She was not demonstrative, but I believe felt 
 the situation keenly in spite of her outward 
 show of reserve. She flushed a little when 
 a telegram came from Lady Forton announc- 
 ing her intention of coming to Hunterstone 
 by the first train. By mid-day her ladyship 
 appeared in propria persona. She was very 
 gracious. Sorry to find Dawley had given 
 so much trouble. Was sure he would soon 
 get better amongst such good Samaritans, 
 and wondered Mr. Bardett had not written. 
 
 “ Gentlemen are such bad correspon- 
 dents,” said Mrs. Carew with a sweet smile, 
 “ and my brother is in London at pre- 
 sent.” 
 
 “ Ah, then he may perhaps see Forton. I 
 telegraphed to him, and he will be there 
 now, ready to come on here if necessary.” 
 
 She then had an interview with Dr. Boyd, 
 who told her if the patient was humoured 
 and his mind put at rest he would get better. 
 “ I’ll tell him you are here,” he added, “ and 
 you can see him when you please.” 
 
 In a few minutes I escorted the ladies to 
 his room. We were confronted with an appal- 
 ling sight — Dawley entirely enveloped in a 
 white sheet was seated in an arm-chair with 
 his little head clean shaven. In one hand 
 he held a large bottle of leeches, and in the 
 other a bunch of peacock’s feathers, with 
 which he tickled his head. One look was 
 enough. As they turned and fled screaming 
 away, up he jumped and chased them down 
 the passage with several ringing view halloos. 
 We got him back, and I went down to find 
 the ladies locked in the drawing-room. After 
 a little parley the door was opened. 
 
 “ This is too awful ! ” began her ladyship, 
 “and I really cannot attempt to see him 
 
DAWLEY’S DODGE. 
 
 53 
 
 “ We were confronted with an appalling sight.” 
 
 again ! You must tell me about it. . What 
 dreadful thing is this he has on his mind ? ” 
 Between us we managed to disclose Daw- 
 ley’s troubles. 
 
 “ Ah,” she said, “ the old story, money, 
 money. Whenever Forton is 'approached 
 about him he always says, ‘ How much this 
 time.’ As to his engagement,” she continued 
 frigidly, “ I can only wonder Mr. Bardett, who 
 is so old a friend, has not apprised us of it.” 
 “ My consent was only given yesterday,” 
 said Mrs. Carew. 
 
 “Oh, indeed!” returned Lady Forton, 
 with an icy smile. “ Miss Carew, you must 
 be a very courageous person to ally yourself 
 with a young man of his antecedents. I hope 
 you may never regret it.” 
 
 “ I am perfectly willing to abide by the 
 result,” said Miss Clara, returning the smile 
 with interest. 
 
 We got a little pleasanter during lunch, 
 and it ended by my being sent up with a 
 kind message to Dawley, saying, that his 
 present troubles would be considered at 
 Forton House. I was much pleased, and 
 thanked Lady Forton heartily as I put her in 
 the carriage. 
 
 “ Now I’ll tell you what I have done, 1 
 said. “I have given the young couple Pet- 
 house Grange rent free for a year.” 
 
 “ You have done whatV ’ she exclaimed 
 in a loud voice. 
 
 “ I have given them the Grange for a 
 year,” I repeated. 
 
 “ Then all I can say is you have done the 
 very worst thing you ever did in the whole 
 course of your life ! You know what Dawley 
 has been to us, and here you choose to bring 
 him to live at our very doors. It is abomin- 
 able ! ” 
 
34 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 “ I assure you, Lady Forton •” 
 
 “ Oh, don’t say another word. To the 
 station,” she cried, and drove off without 
 wishing me good-bye. 
 
 “ This is how she thanked me for my 
 kindness to her brother-in-law ! ” I said after- 
 wards to Mrs. Carew and Dr. Boyd. 
 
 “ She is an ill-bred person,” said Mrs. 
 Carew. 
 
 “Never mind,” said the doctor; “at all 
 events her visit has done Dawley good. I 
 told you he would get better directly his 
 mind was relieved.” 
 
 He was better still after a letter which 
 arrived from Forton House the next day. 
 He was to have a thousand pounds to pay 
 his debts, and a slight increase to his allow- 
 ance, but only on the condition that he lived out 
 of the County of Hertford. 
 
 Not very civil to me, I thought ; but 
 Dawley said afterwards that it was Pethouse 
 Grange that brought them to book so quickly. 
 The Squire saw Lord Forton in London, and 
 
 when he returned had a conversation with 
 Mrs. Carew, which seriously discomposed 
 her. 
 
 “ I am afraid my sister misled you, 
 Stonnor,” he said to me ; “ but the fact is, she 
 is never happy unless she is carrying out 
 some mysterious plan. Now if she had only 
 come frankly to me about this business we 
 should have been spared all the stupid 
 scheming and unpleasantness. Very kind 
 of you to offer the Grange to the young 
 couple, but I intend to give Clara a house 
 and a few acres for her marriage portion. 
 Dawley can amuse himself nicely there with 
 his horse hobby.” 
 
 The patient’s recovery was marvellous. 
 In two days he was down-stairs with a well- 
 made wig on his head. Of course my 
 brother says he was never ill at all, that he 
 never had a tumble, and that the whole 
 affair was planned between himself and Dr. 
 Boyd. In short, he persists in calling it 
 “ Dawley’s Dodge.” 
 
yx. — The Red Berret. 
 
 M Y nephew Charles has lately take -nto 
 himself a wife, and the newly-wedded 
 pair are spending part of their honeymoon 
 with me. A pretty enough tableau they 
 make, sitting there under the large beech ; 
 he lazily smoking his cigarette, and she 
 daintily posed on the seat with a red berre 
 on her head. I must explain that a berret is 
 
 nothing more than a sort of cap, known 
 in Scotland as a Kilmarnock bonnet. 
 This particular one, however, has a 
 history and recalls some unpleasant 
 reminiscences. Being unpleasant you 
 may be sure my brother does not forge 
 them. I am sorry to say, though, that he 
 is not altogether regardful of facts, so I 
 am constrained to write down what really 
 
 dl< Long ago I had promised Charlie a trip on 
 the Continent, but year after year something 
 prevented it. Last spring, however, he was 
 
5 6 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 paying a visit to the Fortons, and drove over 
 to the Hall one morning in an excited condi- 
 tion, full of ecstatic descriptions of the Pyre- 
 nees. He dilated on the splendour of the snow 
 hills, and the quiet beauty of the Val d’Ossau. 
 He would paint the Gave de Pau ; he would 
 ascend the Pic du Midi ; he would cross the 
 Spanish frontier and chase bears and izards 
 in the pine-woods. Then Eaux Bonnes would 
 cure my relaxed throat ! 
 
 Goodness knows what temptations he held 
 out ; and as he is an artist by profession, I 
 was simple enough not to suspect any other 
 motive for these rhapsodies but his love of 
 nature. So it ended by my catching his 
 enthusiasm, and before there was time for 
 thought we were bag and baggage on board a 
 steamer leaving Liverpool basin for Bordeaux. 
 
 I never liked the sea. My only yachting 
 experience ended disastrously ; and this par- 
 ticular steamer seemed especially hateful. The 
 odours were worse, and there was more noise 
 and jostling than I had ever known before. 
 Even I was jostled by a dirty fellow reeking 
 with oil, who never even apologized for his 
 rudeness. Then it became rough. So at 
 last I was forced to go below and take refuge 
 in my berth. 
 
 I was very ill ; Charles came, but there I 
 lay in great suffering, unable to move or take 
 food. Then I -would wonder why he chose 
 this particular vessel. Why not have gone 
 by the proper and respectable route through 
 Paris ? Why insist so much on Pau and Eaux 
 Bonnes ? Then my contemplations would 
 be cut short by another attack of malade de 
 mer. It was terrible ! Not till we were near- 
 ing Paulliac did I crawl out of my berth ; and 
 I don’t think I should have gone even then 
 had it not been for the behaviour of some 
 dreadful person in the adjoining cabin. I 
 was, as I said, very ill. I moaned, and 
 moaned loudly in my misery, when this 
 wretch cried out, “ Confound you, sir ! can’t 
 you be sick like a gentleman ? ” 
 
 This was too much ; it fairly drove me on 
 deck, when, by a stroke of good fortune, I 
 met my old friend and contemporary Dr. 
 Pascal. 
 
 He -was now a man of considerable scien- 
 tific renown. It was nearly six years since we 
 had met, but time had dealt kindly with him, 
 and there he was as handsome and intellec- 
 tual-looking as ever, talking in his old ener- 
 getic way to a group of passengers. He 
 came up to me at once. 
 
 .“Ah, Mr. , Mr. ; don’t tell me 
 
 your name — don’t speak. I forget ; I suffer 
 from aphasia. But, see ! I bring my memory 
 
 back!” So saying he produced a piece of 
 dried meat from his waistcoat-pocket, and 
 proceeded to munch it, holding up one fore- 
 finger to insure my silence, and fixing his 
 eyes upon me in the most eccentric manner. 
 “ I have it ! ” he said at last. “ Your name 
 is Stonnor. See ! I eat and my memory 
 returns! You are Mr. Peter Stonnor, of 
 Stonnor Hall ; and you have a brother who 
 makes jokes. Ah, what was that he told 
 me about your family plate-chest ? ” 
 
 “ Pray spare me any of my brother’s jokes. 
 What good luck brings you here ? ” 
 
 “Ah, I overwork myself. I write too 
 much, and I talk too much. My head gets 
 dizzy and my voice flies away. Then the 
 sea voyage, it clears my head; and* Eaux 
 Bonnes, it brings back my voice, and I lec- 
 ture again.” 
 
 “ How fortunate ! I, too, am going to 
 Eaux Bonnes.” 
 
 “Good ! We have a large party here all 
 eii route for Eaux Bonnes — I, you, and the 
 Brockbucks.” 
 
 “ Brockbuck ! Liverpool people ? ” 
 
 “The same. There they are, and your 
 nephew is their devoted squire. See, he is 
 with them now; he is reading poetry to 
 them. That is Madame with the happy,, 
 good-natured red face ; and that is her pretty 
 daughter with the beautiful brown hair. Let 
 me introduce you.” 
 
 “ Thank you, thank you ; presently. 
 I ” 
 
 “No time like the present. You really 
 should know them ; they are charming.” 
 “Another time, perhaps; just now I 
 am ” 
 
 “ But our little voyage will soon be over,” 
 he said, “and you will miss a grand oppor- 
 tunity of knowing them.” 
 
 “Many thanks; a little later perhaps ” 
 
 “ Oh, just as you please !” 
 
 Here was another annoyance. These 
 Brockbucks were in some sort of trade in 
 Liverpool, and I did not care to be intro- 
 duced. Not by any means on account of 
 their condition in the social scale, for although 
 no Stonnor has ever been in trade, I am not 
 foolish enough to turn up my nose at those 
 who are. My father was intimate with them. 
 As a boy, I remember being taken by him to 
 Liverpool, and being much struck with Brock- 
 buck’s crane. There is a sort of mysterious 
 power about the ponderous, methodical move- 
 ment of a crane which is very impressive. So 
 much so that I thought, if ever I did adopt 
 commercial pursuits, I certainly would have a 
 crane. The elder Brockbuck was one of 
 
THE RED BERRET. 
 
 17 
 
 those bluff, outspoken creatures who indulged 
 in the offensive habit of calling a spade a 
 spade. He was dirty and slovenly in his dress, 
 while my father, to the last year of his life, 
 was scrupulously neat and clean. He took 
 great pride in his personal appearance— 'his 
 clothes always of the latest cut, his boots 
 straight from Paris, and his hair and beard 
 elaborately trimmed every morning. They 
 met just before his death, when this Brock- 
 buck was gauche enough to say, “ Ah! Ston- 
 
 nor, you are having a rare fight with anti- 
 quity.” 
 
 Can it be wondered that after this I did 
 not care to renew the intimacy ? And here 
 I was cooped up in a steamer with some of 
 the family, and my nephew already so much 
 their cavalier as to attract the notice of Dr. 
 Pascal. 
 
 It was extremely annoying ; and the worst 
 of it was, I had to adopt the most stupid 
 expedients to avoid introduction. I feigned 
 
 “ A pretty tableau they make.” 
 
 a return of sickness. I dodged down one 
 ladder if I saw them coming up the other. 
 I sat as far as possible from them in the 
 saloon, and was deeply immersed in my 
 book if they happened to pass. Once I met 
 Mrs. Brockbuck face to face on the com- 
 panion ladder, and returned her slight bow 
 and smile of recognition most awkwardly. 
 All this time, too, Charles would be flirting 
 with the girl under my very nose. 
 
 A horrible idea crossed my mind, that 
 
 ! perhaps she had something to do with his 
 choosing this particular trip. It was a hor- 
 rible idea to me because for some time I had 
 fancied there was a growing attachment 
 between him and the Fortons’ eldest daughter, 
 Adelaide. 
 
 I looked upon it with pleasure. By-and- 
 by he would be master of Stonnor Hall, and 
 it was altogether a most desirable connection. 
 In fact I had set my mind upon it. As to 
 these Brockbucks, I had never even heard 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 him mention their names. Why was he 
 so reticent about them? Surely twenty-four 
 hours could scarcely have established . such 
 an intimacy. Nothing could be said till we 
 reached Paulliac; and here, as the Brock- 
 bucks preferred getting to Bordeaux by rail- 
 way, I had an opportunity of telling him 
 about the old feud as we steamed up the 
 Gironde in the little tug. He was not one 
 bit impressed, laughing it off in his usual 
 airy fashion. “At all events,” I said deci- 
 sively, “ we need not meet. Though we have 
 the same destination we will go to different 
 hotels.” 
 
 He appeared to acquiesce, and in com- 
 pany with Pascal (a most accomplished cice- 
 rone) we saw the lions of Bordeaux. We 
 wasted our money in gloves, photographs, 
 and other useless mementoes ; Charles in- 
 sisting on buying a number of berrets and 
 appropriating a dainty red one to himself. 
 
 That same evening, to my disgust, while 
 we were listening to the band in the Jardin 
 Publique, the Brockbucks appeared. Before 
 I could move he was welcoming them effu- 
 sively. For nearly three-quarters of an hour 
 I waited in a state of ill-concealed irritation, 
 listening to Dr. Pascal’s philosophical maun- 
 derings, all of which seemed to convey some 
 inuendo calculated to increase my annoyance. 
 We returned to the hotel without him, but I 
 had determined on my course of action. In 
 the morning I simply said we would go on 
 to Pau that day, and taxed him with a little 
 want of consideration the previous evening. 
 “My dear uncle,” he said, “I thought I 
 should have been de trop while you and 
 old Pascal were talking philosophy ; but 
 this is a capital move. We will take him 
 with us.” 
 
 So off we went, the Doctor and he in inordi- 
 nately high spirits. I did not enj oy their stupid 
 jests, and must own I went to bed at Pau not 
 in the best of tempers. A change came with 
 the morning. I opened my window, and in 
 came the scent of flowers and the tinkling of 
 oxen-bells. At my feet flowed the Gave de 
 Pau with its serpentine channels ; a quiet 
 village nestled amid the softly-wooded up- 
 lands, and then came the mighty stretch of 
 the purple and white Pyrenees. It was like 
 magic. The warm sun that glorified the 
 snow hills and brought the mist out of the 
 valleys seemed to melt away the Brockbuck 
 worry. I forgot my troubles, regained my 
 appetite, made excursions with Pascal, or 
 read the papers at the English club. 
 
 On the third day we had been to Bettar- 
 ham. We had entertained Mr. Church at 
 
 M. Gardere’s excellent dinner, and had also 
 accompanied him part of the way home, 
 leaving Charles smoking on the Promenade. 
 On our return he was not to be seen. 
 
 “The night is warm,” said Pascal; “let us 
 sit here and observe humanity. Let us watch 
 the lovers gazing at the moon. What is it 
 that the ancients called her?” Here we sat 
 down while he began to munch his bit of 
 meat again. “ Ah ! I have it ! — Mendax. 
 They called the moon Mendax, ‘ the liar/ be- 
 cause the crescent moon is never increasing, 
 so ’tis a fitting emblem for the Turk. Observe 
 these happy lovers approaching. He, too, is 
 swearing by the moon — all moonshine !” 
 
 I turned to the direction he pointed, and 
 was startled by the moonlight flashing on a red 
 berret. Could I have been mistaken? No ; 
 there it was again ; no sort of doubt about 
 it. It was Miss Brockbuck. Even in the 
 moonlight there was no mistaking her lithe 
 figure, and certainly no mistaking the scarlet 
 cap, which I saw in my nephew’s hand at 
 Bordeaux. He too was there, walking by 
 her side, talking earnestly with his head un- 
 necessarily close to hers. Pascal recognised 
 them, and assumed a sort of Mephistophelian 
 grin. 
 
 “ Now, Mr. Stonnor,” he said, “ why 
 will you not know these pleasant people — 
 these Brockbucks ? Why did you run away 
 like a little boy, and not let me introduce 
 you on board the steamer? Look at that 
 couple ! How grand to be young ! Ah ! 
 in spite of all you do, you must know these 
 Brockbucks sooner or later.” 
 
 Here I told him my reason for avoiding 
 them. “Well,” he said, “and what then? 
 Would you quarrel with this red-capped angel 
 because her grandpere made a philosophical 
 remark which he ought to have kept to him- 
 self ? Pray, what has she or her mother to 
 do with it ? ” 
 
 « I think, sir,” I replied, “ I am the best 
 judge whether the acquaintance is desirable 
 or not.” 
 
 “ How can that be, when you do not know 
 them ? No ! this is an instance of your insular 
 pride. Why not be more catholic ? Look at 
 me ! I go to Paris, Madrid, Vienna — here, 
 there, everywhere. I am cosmopolitan. I 
 see the world and cultivate what is beautiful 
 and intellectual, while you — bah ! — you live 
 in your own little shell, and get mouldy under 
 your big, damp trees.” 
 
 “ At all events, sir, you must have resided 
 long enough among us to know that English- 
 gentlemen are somewhat particular in making 
 chance acquaintances.” 
 
THE RED BERRET. 
 
 59 
 
 “Ah! you are afraid to look over your 
 own walls. In England you boast of your 
 liberties, but, after all, I prefer this country. 
 There you are free by law, but slaves by cus- 
 tom ; here we are slaves by law, but free by 
 custom. Now, these nice people, these — ah ! 
 
 I forget their names — pardon my aphasia.” 
 Here he began to gnaw his dried meat, 
 during which the red berret again appeared 
 in sight. The young couple were prome- 
 nading slowly between the Hotel Gassion 
 and the Hotel de France, quite unconscious 
 that they passed within arm’s-length of us each 
 time. “I have it,” he resumed: “Brock- 
 buck — yes, these Brockbucks are in every 
 way desirable friends. Madame — she has a 
 well-cultured mind; she has sympathy for 
 her friends, and money for the poor. Then, 
 mademoiselle, is she not charming ? She is 
 beautiful — an angel ! ” 
 
 “ Mrs. Brockbuck’s virtues, sir,” I replied 
 stiffly, “ are of no moment to me, and I don’t 
 care for her daughter’s beauty.” 
 
 “ Nay, but you do ! — you must !■ — because 
 beauty is so fashionable. It is a fine old 
 Conservative fashion. Was it not so in the 
 days of Helen of Troy ? Have not crowds 
 followed your Gunnings and your Sheridans ? 
 Did not the pit make the lovely Miss McLean 
 come in front of her box that they might 
 bow to her beauty ? Are not your shops full 
 of photographs of Mrs. Langtry and Mrs. 
 West? I believe she with the red berret 
 would outshine them all.” 
 
 “ No doubt she is a pretty enough girl ; 
 but you would not have me cultivate every 
 young lady with good looks ? ” 
 
 “ This particular one I would. Nay, sooner 
 or later you must know her. She will add a 
 grace to your family tree, Mr. Stonnor ! ” 
 
 “ I really must decline discussing these 
 people any more,” I replied, rising to go ; 
 “ and if my nephew annoys me by carrying 
 on this intimacy I shall start back for Eng- 
 land to-morrow ! ” 
 
 “ Ah, Stonnor,” he said as we walked to 
 the hotel, “ was it not your Duchess of 
 Kingston who said, when they told her the 
 end of the world was near, that she would 
 start for China to-morrow ? Good night, my 
 friend, good night; sleep well, and don’t 
 quarrel with your fate.” 
 
 It was too bad— Charles going directly 
 against my wishes, and Pascal impudently 
 presuming to defend him ! Who was he to 
 thrust these people down my throat, I should 
 like to know ? It was abominable. It kept 
 me awake half the night, and I awoke with a 
 bad attack of my old throat ailment. How- 
 
 ever, when Charles came to my bedside I at 
 once told him how distressed I was at his 
 conduct. “ Charles,” I said, taking his hand 
 and speaking tenderly, “see what you brought 
 me to.” 
 
 “ My dear uncle,” he said, “ what do you 
 mean ?” 
 
 “ This foolish flirtation. Of course, I know 
 that boys will be boys and all that sort of 
 thing. Under ordinary circumstances I don’t 
 see much harm in it, but it is different with 
 you. It behoves you to be very circumspect. 
 These sort of things get about.” 
 
 “ I don’t quite see why I am called upon 
 to be so excessively circumspect,” he said, 
 smiling. 
 
 “ My dear Charles, think of the Fortons !” 
 “What of the Fortons ?” 
 
 “ Come, come !” I said, “ there is a certain 
 young lady at Forton House who would be 
 greatly distressed to hear of gallantries paid 
 to any one but herself.” 
 
 “ Do you mean Adie ? I’m quite sure she 
 wouldn’t trouble her head about it — why 
 should she ?” 
 
 “ Why should she ? Because one of these 
 days I hope you two will make a match of it. 
 Both Lord and Lady Forton are very well 
 disposed towards you.” 
 
 “ My dear uncle, what on earth puts such 
 a foolish notion in your head ? She is nothing 
 to me. Why, she is a mere child — barely 
 sixteen.” 
 
 “ She won’t always remain sixteen, Charles. 
 That is an objection which lessens every day. 
 Ah ! my boy, you don’t know how I have set 
 my mind upon it. It is most desirable. One 
 of these days you will be master of Stonnor 
 Hall. Pray think of it.” 
 
 “ I can’t think of it at all,” he replied ; 
 “ the idea is altogether too absurd and pre- 
 posterous.” 
 
 “Surely you can consider me a little?” I 
 asked. 
 
 “ Certainly I will, but ” 
 
 “ Then give up these steam-boat acquaint- 
 ances,” I said. 
 
 “ My dear uncle,” he answered, “ they are 
 old friends of mine. I have known them 
 for years.” 
 
 “And, pray, did you know they were 
 coming this particular trip ? ” 
 
 “ Well, I had reason to suppose I should 
 meet them.” 
 
 So it was out at last ! It was a planned 
 thing from beginning to end ! He had 
 arranged the whole affair with a cunning I 
 did not think him capable of, and had made 
 me, his uncle, Peter Stonnor, of Stonnor 
 
6o 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 Hall, a catspaw ! He had reckoned without 
 his host. “ I shall return to England imme- 
 diately,” I said. 
 
 He winced a little at this, but presently 
 said — 
 
 “ You are scarcely fit to travel with that 
 bad throat. Won’t you see a doctor?” 
 
 “I am not to be baulked from my pur- 
 pose,” I said ; “ but send for Dr. Manes.” 
 
 The doctor came, very pleasant and cheery, 
 examined me thoroughly, and looked grave 
 at the condition of my throat. “ Ah ! ” he 
 said, 44 Eaux Bonnes would cure this throat. 
 Surely monsieur never intended returning to 
 England without trying the waters ? Why, it 
 would be foolish — nay, it would be criminal, 
 in monsieur not to take the cure now he was 
 so near. No, no ! he himself was going to 
 Eaux Bonnes, and monsieur would come too 
 and drink the sulphur waters. Then he 
 would return to England completely and 
 permanently cured.” 
 
 “ Could I not take these waters to England 
 with me?” 
 
 “ Afterwards. But monsieur should com- 
 mence the treatment under medical super- 
 vision. We must regulate the doses and 
 watch their effects.” 
 
 “ Could I travel there to-morrow ? ” 
 
 44 Certainly ; if it is fine and warm the 
 drive would do monsieur good, and he would 
 have the felicity of prescribing for him 
 there.” 
 
 I could not act against this advice. Much 
 as I wished to show my displeasure to my 
 nephew, the radical cure of my throat was, 
 nevertheless, of paramount importance. I 
 gave the matter due consideration, and was 
 scarcely prepared to carry out my threat. At 
 last I came to the conclusion that it was my 
 duty to obey the doctor; so, the day being fine, 
 we went. Pascal’s dissertations on the places 
 we passed fell flat. What did I care for the 
 wonderful recuperative power of the old wine 
 of Jurancon, or for the peculiar flavour of the 
 omelette aux herbes of the Louvie Inn ? I 
 had no appetite for either. Even the sweet- 
 ness of the Yal d’Ossau failed to interest me, 
 and Pascal’s pun about the Valley of the 
 Bear was nothing more than a covert insult. 
 Maybe I was cross. I had a good deal to 
 try me. At all events, there was a growing 
 tension and constraint between us which 
 was unpleasant. It wore off a little at Eaux 
 Bonnes. The Brockbucks’ name was never 
 mentioned. Charles settled down to some 
 landscape work. Pascal and I drank the 
 waters and accomplished the Promenade 
 Horizontal twice a-day. 
 
 We had done this, as usual, and were 
 seated underneath the trees in the little 
 square. “Ah!” he said, “ this suits you 
 English. It is like your London. Take a 
 square out of your ” — a pause here to gnaw 
 his meat — 44 your Brompton ; stick it in a 
 niche in the Pyrenees, and you have Eaux 
 Bonnes. We are in a cul-de-sac here. Here 
 do bears and izards skip about during the 
 winter, for the place is deserted. But lo ! 
 on the i st of June Civilisation lays siege to 
 it, and Bruin and Co. vanish up the Pic de 
 Ger. Then all is made gay and trim. A 
 regiment of chefs de cuisine come from 
 Paris. A contingent of doctors is drafted up 
 the mountain, and then Eaux Bonnes is ready 
 for the patients. Yes, friend Stonnor, we are 
 all patients here, and whether we hail from 
 Russia, Sweden, England, or Spain, we all 
 have something wrong with our respiratory 
 organs. A man is better known here by his 
 cough than by his name. Then we all drink 
 the sulphur waters. Ah ! what a merry 
 gurgling resounds through the establishment ! 
 There you may hear the tenor gargle, and 
 the baritone gargle, and the soprano gargle ; 
 but Dr. Manes informs me that a bass gargle 
 is prognostic of grave disease. We play- 
 fully christen the place 4 La Ville d’Expec- 
 toration.’ But we are happy. We take our 
 little walks ; we eat our little dinners ; we 
 
 listen to our good band ; we But what 
 
 is the matter?” 
 
 What was the matter, forsooth ! The 
 matter was, that on the very next chairs to 
 ours were seated Mrs. Brockbuck and her 
 daughter. The elder lady pretended not to 
 see me, but continued talking to her daugh- 
 ter, who still wore the dreadful red berret. 
 Their presence put a stop to all my enjoy- 
 ment. It turned suddenly chilly ; the band 
 became discordant ; Pascal assumed his re- 
 volting cynical smile and said nothing. I — 
 well — I could not trust myself to speak, so 
 retired quickly to my room. Even there the 
 red berret fascinated me ; I could not take 
 my eyes from it. I saw it from my window, 
 now in one seat and now in another, or 
 promenading round the enclosure with my 
 nephew. It acted on me like the scarlet 
 flag on a Spanish bull ; so at last I pulled 
 down the blind and set to work considering 
 what should be done. Presently a tap at 
 the door, and enter Dr. Manes to pay his 
 usual visit. Here was a chance of getting 
 out of the dilemma. 44 1 was anxious to 
 return home,” I said ; 44 was my throat 
 sufficiently restored for me to take the 
 journey?” 
 
THE RED BERRET. 
 
 Ci 
 
 “ Ah, no,” he replied. “ Monsieur is 
 better — is much better — but the cure will 
 not be thorough unless more time is given 
 to the waters. Ah, what pity not to com- 
 plete the cure ! Has monsieur bad news 
 from home ? ” 
 
 “No; but I was anxious to leave Eaux 
 Bonnes for a little.” 
 
 “ Ah ! that could be managed now. 
 Would monsieur like to rest a little at Eaux 
 Chaudes — a charming place — but five kilo- 
 metres hence ? Madame Baudot of the 
 Hotel would make monsieur so comfortable 
 and so happy. He would feel at home and 
 could take the waters there. Should he give 
 monsieur a letter of introduction to Madame 
 Baudot of Eaux Chaudes ? ” 
 
 The very thing ! I would not procrasti- 
 nate for one moment, so then and there got 
 the letter, and after dinner told Pascal and 
 Charles of my resolve. 
 
 “Your uncle,” said Pascal, “is a psycho- 
 logical study. He has got — ah ! what has he 
 got ?” — (here was a pause for the horrible meat- 
 munching) — “ he has got Exclusiveness on 
 the brain. If he had his way, I believe he 
 would admit none but what you English call 
 the Upper Ten to drink the waters here. You 
 notice he cannot breathe the same air as our 
 friends the Brockbucks.” 
 
 “ Dr. Pascal,” I said emphatically, “ I 
 cannot permit you to make these personal 
 reflections. I surely may be permitted to 
 take my own course in the matter.” 
 
 “ I am not sure, sir,” he replied, “ that I 
 can permit my friends to be slighted.” 
 
 “ Come, come ! you must not quarrel 
 about them,” broke in Charles. “I should 
 like you to know them, uncle ; but if you 
 don’t wish it just now, I have no doubt it 
 will be all right by-and-by.” 
 
 “If you think, sir, that I shall ever be 
 intimate with them, you are mistaken ; I don’t 
 intend to be.” 
 
 “ Ah ! ” said Pascal, “ that is what you 
 grand people would call Firmness or Deter- 
 mination ; with common folks it would be 
 called Obstinacy.” 
 
 “I cannot and will not submit to be 
 insulted,” I said, jumping up; “and as for 
 you, Charles, it comes to this : you must just 
 choose between me and these Brockbucks. 
 You know what you have to expect from me, 
 but if you persist in this intimacy our rela- 
 tions must be changed.” 
 
 “ My dear uncle,” he replied, “ if I were to 
 give up my dear old friends for such consider- 
 ations as you hint, you would be the first to 
 call me a blackguard.” 
 
 “We shall see, sir — we shall see!” And 
 off I went without bidding them good night. 
 Next day it rained, but notwithstanding this 
 I set off before breakfast, leaving my servant 
 to follow with the luggage. He found me 
 moderately comfortable in one of the upper 
 sitting-rooms of the Hotel Baudot, and in the 
 evening Charles and Pascal actually appeared 
 as if nothing had happened ! Of course I 
 was not going to make an open rupture, but 
 contented myself with an attitude of reserve. 
 By tacit consent we avoided the obnoxious 
 topic, taking our meals and making excur- 
 sions together as usual. 
 
 I well remember how we had returned 
 from Gabas rather early, owing to th^ heat. 
 My servant had unpacked the luggage, and 
 there it was lying all about the room, with 
 sundry loose straps and ropes. I had taken 
 my coat off, and was reading the paper when 
 I became aware that my nephew was speak- 
 ing to* some person out of the window. He 
 held a coil of small rope in his hand, one end 
 of which was out of the window, the other on 
 the floor. 
 
 “ Many thanks,” I heard some one say ; 
 “ this is the book I wanted.” 
 
 It was enough; I recognised Miss Brock- 
 buck’s voice ! “ Come away directly, sir ! ” I 
 exclaimed, snatching at the rope and giving 
 it a good tug. There was a scream. 
 
 “ Hillo, uncle!” said Charles, “you have 
 caught her wrist. Hold on while I go and 
 loosen it.” 
 
 He was off like a shot, and when I looked 
 from the window there sure enough was Miss 
 Brockbuck below, vainly endeavouring to re- 
 lease her hand from the slip-knot. I loosened 
 the rope and this made matters worse. Some- 
 how or other it caught round her neck, and 
 in trying to free it I knocked off the red 
 berret and half strangled her. 
 
 Another little scream, and out ran Dr. 
 Pascal and Mrs. Brockbuck. 
 
 “ Good heavens ! ” she cried, putting up 
 her double eye-glasses ; “ what dreadful 
 
 thing is happening ? Is he killing my 
 child?” 
 
 “ I assure madam,” I began solemnly. 
 
 “ Hillo, Stonnor ! are you emulating the 
 Thugs ?” shouted Pascal. 
 
 “ I assure both,” I cried ; but here, horrible 
 to relate, came a chorus of jabbering and 
 laughter from a crowd of muleteers and 
 women who had congregated in front of the 
 hotel. 
 
 “ Ah ! look at him ! ” said one. “ Regard 
 the way in which Les Anglais catch their 
 women.” 
 
6 2 
 
 PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 “ The assassin is strangling her ! ” said 
 another. 
 
 It was a most undignified position — I, in 
 my shirt-sleeves, holding on to the rope ; 
 Miss Brockbuck with disarranged hair, and 
 her book and red berret in the dust ; her 
 mother too much alarmed to do anything 
 but stare, and Pascal grinning with cynical 
 delight. 
 
 To this day I don’t know how I kept up 
 through it all, but when Charles freed her at 
 last I simply fell back into the chair in a 
 dead faint. He dashed into my room. 
 
 “ I say, uncle, what on earth made you 
 jerk the rope like that?” 
 
 “ Why on earth, sir,” I gasped, “ were you 
 at the window ? What were you doing with 
 that rope ?” 
 
 “ Doing? All I did was to let down the 
 Tauchnitz book that Annie wanted, and while 
 she was taking it you nearly dislocated her 
 wrist.” 
 
 “ I believe you will drive me mad, sir,” I 
 said. “ These friends of yours have chased 
 me out of Bordeaux, out of Pau, and out of 
 Eaux Bonnes. I did think I should find 
 rest here; instead of which you come and 
 create a complete fiasco. I am covered with 
 shame and confusion ! I will never forgive 
 you !” 
 
 “Who speaks of forgiving?” And in 
 walked Pascal, looking more like Mephis- 
 topheles than ever. “ It strikes me that 
 Mr. Peter Stonnor is the one to sue for 
 forgiveness.” 
 
 “ Now, once for all, sir,” I cried, starting 
 up, “ I shall not permit you to interfere with 
 my affairs any longer.” 
 
 “Be tranquil, be tranquil!” he replied. 
 “ Let us consider this affair dispassionately. 
 Do not let us show any temper. What is 
 the history of this case ? First of all I wish 
 to introduce you to two charming lady friends 
 of mine and you refuse. This is insult No. i. 
 Then you run away from them. You avoid 
 them pointedly and rudely. This is insult 
 No. 2. Then you see one of them here in 
 her quiet promenade, and you play your 
 practical joke. You catch her with the — 
 ah ! what is it?” (here he actually stopped 
 for his loathsome meat-gnawing) — “yes, sir, 
 you catch her with the noose. You are 
 pleased to practise the old savage custom of 
 capture of women with the lasso — but it 
 won’t do, sir ; and, as a friend of these 
 unprotected ladies, I say you must apolo- 
 gize ” 
 
 “ I shall not do so at your bidding, sir !” 
 
 “Then, sir, I shall expect the satisfaction 
 
 which one gentleman expects from another 
 who has insulted him.” 
 
 “ I am at your service, sir.” 
 
 We bowed, and he stalked grandly out of 
 the room. 
 
 “ For goodness’ sake, uncle,” said Charles, 
 “ don’t get into any ridiculous row ! The 
 whole thing is absurd. I’ll arrange it all.” 
 
 “You will do nothing of the kind, sir. 
 You now see to what a dilemma your con- 
 duct has brought me. I cannot as a gentle- 
 man do otherwise than apologize to Miss 
 Brockbuck ; not at Dr. Pascal’s bidding, but 
 of my own accord. I will do it at once. 
 Where is she ?” 
 
 “ Just crossing the little bridge towards the 
 summer-house.” 
 
 Putting on my coat, I hurried after her. 
 The red berret was a good guide, but what 
 with the late excitement and the pace she 
 walked, the steep ascent was almost too 
 much for me. She went into the summer- 
 house, and, after a pause to recover my 
 breath, I followed. Here, to my misery, I 
 was confronted with Mrs. Brockbuck and 
 Dr. Pascal. My apologies were not made 
 with the ease and readiness I could have 
 wished. The situation was trying. Pascal, 
 however, smoothed matters considerably by 
 promptly coming forward and expressing 
 his sorrow for having caused me any annoy- 
 ance. 
 
 “ But did I not tell you,” he said, “ that 
 you were fighting your fate? Just see what 
 has happened ! You ” 
 
 “ Ah ! never mind what has happened,” 
 said Mrs. Brockbuck. (And it is only fair 
 to state that she spoke with a lady-like 
 grace I was unprepared for.) “ Don’t think 
 any more about it. Really, now one recalls 
 that scene at the window, it was most laugh- 
 able.” 
 
 And they laughed; but I couldn’t. In- 
 deed, after this I felt there would be little 
 more comfort for me in the Pyrenees. 
 
 Again I tried Charles, but might as well 
 have spoken to a stone. When I became 
 more exigent he said, “Remember ‘Stonnor 
 et Honor,’ uncle ; would you have me break 
 my word ? Would you have a Stonnor throw 
 over an engagement for any worldly con- 
 sideration ? ” 
 
 I ha*e this kind of argument, so left him 
 in a sort of huff. His father (to whom I had 
 telegraphed from Paris) was waiting for me 
 when I returned home. I told him all the 
 circumstances. 
 
 “You must interfere peremptorily,” I said. 
 “ You have authority with him, I have none. 
 
THE RED BERRET. 
 
 63 
 
 Write at once — I am certain the Fortons 
 would jump at the match.” 
 
 “ Adelaide Forton is a mere child,” he 
 said. 
 
 “ But she won’t always be a child,” I re- 
 plied ; “ this is just what I pointed out to 
 Charles. With a little tact the affair can be 
 managed.” 
 
 “ If you move a finger in the matter you 
 will be a bigger fool than I took you for,” he 
 said coarsely. “ I shall let Charley do as he 
 likes. The Brockbucks are as good as the 
 Fortons any day.” 
 
 “ How can you compare these Liverpool 
 crane people with the Fortons ! ” I cried, in 
 warmth ; “ but you were always impracticable, 
 and always will be.” 
 
 I then bethought me of our old vicar, 
 Mr. Temple. He held the living from the 
 Stonnors and had been Charles’s tutor. If 
 anybody could influence him it would be he. 
 When I had narrated the case, I said, “ Write 
 to him paternally, Mr. Temple, and prevent 
 his falling into this error. He has an affec- 
 tionate regard for you and will heed your 
 words.” 
 
 “ Even if I did write,” r he rejoined, “ I 
 could not give him the advice you wish — 
 you must forgive me for saying, and mind I 
 speak as an old friend, that I don’t think you 
 are acting quite fairly to him. Charles is a 
 fine young fellow, much beloved here by rich 
 and poor. He is not at all likely to make a 
 bad choice in a wife. I happen to know 
 that the Brockbucks are superior people. I 
 am sure you will think differently about it by- 
 and-by.” 
 
 I left him with frigid courtesy. It was 
 very hard,, this meeting with no sort of 
 sympathy in the matter. It worried me 
 and made me ill. One more letter to 
 Charles and then I shut myself up for some 
 weeks. 
 
 His answer came at last, worded properly 
 enough, but enclosing an invitation from 
 Mrs. Brockbuck to the marriage. 
 
 Here then was an end to all my hope ! 
 While desponding over it the Fortons called. 
 
 “ Come to congratulate you, Stonnor,” 
 began his lordship ; “ only heard of it this 
 morning and drove across directly. Capital 
 thing to get our friend Charley settled ! ” 
 
 “ Altogether a very nice match ! ” chimed 
 in his wife. 
 
 “Well, I’m not quite sure,” I said. 
 
 “ But I am sure,” interrupted Forton. “ I 
 know the girl and you don’t. She is charm- 
 ing, I assure you ; so is her mother.” 
 
 “ You are right, Forton,” said Lady Forton; 
 
 “ they are delightful people, and depend 
 upon it, Mr. Stonnor, when you know them 
 you’ll think the same.” 
 
 “ I cannot look forward to it with 
 much pleasure,” I rejoined ; “ besides, I had 
 hoped •” 
 
 “ What could you look for better or more 
 desirable ? ” she asked. 
 
 “ He might have looked nearer home,” I 
 said meaningly. 
 
 “ I should like to know whom he could 
 have found nearer home,” said Forton. 
 
 “ Ah, there is just one,” I said. 
 
 “Who on earth is it?” asked her lady- 
 ship. 
 
 “Your daughter Adelaide, Lady Forton. 
 You don’t know how I have looked forward 
 to it. It would have been so pleasant.” 
 
 “ Adie ! ” she cried ; “ why, she is a child. 
 I never heard such nonsense.” 
 
 “Pity you haven’t got a nephew for the 
 baby, Stonnor,” said Forton. 
 
 Here they both laughed merrily. 
 
 “ Ah,” said her ladyship presently, “never 
 mind, Mr. Stonnor ; young people are apt to 
 settle these matters for themselves, and per- 
 haps it is right they should.” 
 
 They drove off, but I could not bring my- 
 self to answer the letter and invitation that 
 lay before me. It was wrong and churlish, 
 it was ill-mannered; but I could not bring 
 my mind to it. Day after day, as the wed- 
 ding approached, I felt the matter more 
 keenly, and grieved to think what might 
 have been. 
 
 Two days before the marriage I had a 
 surprise. My butler informed me that a 
 deputation was waiting on me. In the hall 
 I found quite a large party of my tenants, 
 headed by Dawson, the gamekeeper. They 
 had brought with them a handsome silver 
 epergne, which they desired me to convey to 
 Charles and his bride with their good wishes. 
 
 I was quite unprepared for this expression of 
 respect, and, indeed, so touched by their 
 simple words of affection that my whole feel- 
 ings on the matter seemed suddenly to change. 
 My heart was so full I scarcely knew* how I 
 thanked them, but remember saying I would 
 at once convey their gift and good wishes to 
 the bride and bridegroom. An uncontroll- 
 able impulse seized me. I telegraphed an 
 acceptance of the invitation, started to 
 London by the first train, bought there the 
 handsomest set of pearls I could find, and 
 arrived at Aigburth Vale, near Liverpool, in 
 time to present them to the bride before the 
 wedding. 
 
PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF PETER STONNOR, ESQ. 
 
 How happy they all were, and how glad 
 
 to see me ! . , ... , 
 
 As to the wedding it was a beautilui 
 sight, but nothing compared to that when a 
 week or two later the young couple paid me 
 their promised visit. 
 
 Quite a cavalcade met them at the Dor- 
 town station. As I stood anxiously awaiting 
 them at my door, the small birds were sing- 
 ing and the Grange rooks screaming their 
 welcome. 
 
 Presently, when the carriage entered the 
 park gates, the horses were unharnessed, and 
 a dozen willing hands pulled the carriage up 
 the avenue. Then the band struck up, and 
 the bells from Mr. Temple’s church burst 
 into a joyful peal of welcome to the young 
 wife. 
 
 She looked like an angel of light as she 
 stepped out in the glorious sunshine, with the 
 flowers at her feet, and has been the light of 
 my house ever since. 
 
 THE END, 
 
THE EXTRA 
 
 SUMMER NUMBER 
 
 OF 
 
 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. 
 
 CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 CONTAINING THE AMOUNT OE THREE ORDINARY NUMBERS. 
 
 PRICE] 
 
 1882 . 
 
 [SIXPENCE. 
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MRS. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND . 
 
 PAGE 
 . 40 
 
 HELD AT BAY ..... 
 
 . 20 
 
 ALL IN THE DOWNS . 
 
 . 49 
 
 WHEN THE WICKED MAN” . 
 
 . 29 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER . 
 
 . 59 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 By Rosa Mulholland. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 At the foot of a certain street in 
 Innsbruck, right above the famous gold- 
 roofed house, rise the purple walls of the 
 Alps, mountain walls so apparently straight 
 and perpendicular that they seem, accord- 
 ing to the mood of the spectator, either to 
 block the way to heaven, or to lead to it by 
 difficult ascent. On a summer day a young 
 girl who knew all the accessible paths of 
 yonder great stepping-stones to the skies 
 walked down this street in Innsbruck with 
 her back to the golden roof and all the 
 purple glory of the Alps behind and above 
 her. She wore a high-crowned Alpine hat 
 with a silver tassel, and a costume of 
 hunting-green cloth. Her face was round 
 and fair, and her crystal-clear eyes had a 
 look of unusually vivid intelligence. The 
 hair which curled softly and crisply round 
 her temples, and was plaited in thick 
 masses at the back of her head, was of that 
 fairness which is almost white, and is 
 seldom seen except on very young children. 
 Her features were small and softly moulded, 
 and something very like the light of genius 
 was shining from her countenance. 
 
 She walked on with a bright pre-occupied 
 look as if something beautiful which other 
 people could not see had caught her eye 
 and fixed her attention ; and then suddenly 
 turned in at the open door of that curious 
 church, where a strange company of bronze 
 
 men and women occupy for ever the centre 
 of the nave. 
 
 The only living creatures in the church 
 were a few old women in furry head- 
 dresses, at prayer, and a very young man 
 who was standing with folded arms study- 
 ing the bronze statues. The girl made no 
 noise crossing the threshold of the door, 
 but the moment she entered, the young man 
 started electrically and turned to see her 
 coming towards him, a glow of delight on 
 his face as if the sun had suddenly shone 
 out upon it. She came quietly and stood 
 by his side. 
 
 “ Have you gazed enough for to-day % ” 
 she asked with a twinkle of glee in her 
 eyes. “ Come, Max, it is your work I want 
 to see, not these.” 
 
 Max shook his head, but caught the little 
 hand she placed imperatively on his, and 
 followed her out of the shadows of the 
 church into the dazzling summer street, 
 where the sun was glittering on the eaves 
 of the gold-roofed house, and making the 
 huge Alpine walls behind it take a richer 
 purple than before. 
 
 Max was a tall youth, with a square- 
 browed dreamy face, full of a kind of 
 rugged beauty. His eyes had not the 
 vivid light that glanced from the eyes of 
 the girl, but they were full of dreams 
 of glories to come, burning with a 
 latent fire destined yet to give its share 
 towards the warming and lighting-up of the 
 world. He led the way into a small house 
 at the corner of the street, and up a stair- 
 case into a bare room littered with clay, 
 
2 [July 3 , 1882 .] 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 with half-formed images and casts, and 
 where an unfinished statue in clay stood 
 near the window. From the face of this 
 statue he withdrew the cloth, and gazed 
 discontentedly at the face of the creature 
 he had made, a nymph graceful and lovely, 
 with the features of the girl at his side. 
 
 “ It is you, Hilda,” he said, “but with- 
 out your soul in the eyes. When you are 
 not here it is like -you, but when I see 
 
 your face beside it ” 
 
 “Nonsense! you do not want a likeness 
 of me,” said Hilda ; “ you want an ideal 
 being ! It only wants a little tenderness, 
 dear Max. May I touch iU ” 
 
 Max nodded, and Hilda’s little fingers 
 passed over the clay with a few delicate 
 touches, while a curious look of intellectual 
 power grew on her face and changed its 
 character for a moment. After a few 
 minutes she withdrew behind Max, and 
 peeped over his shoulder to see the effect 
 of what she had done. 
 
 Max drew a deep breath and stared in 
 amazement at the change which had been 
 wrought. The statue which had been 
 coldly perfect seemed to breathe. 
 
 “ Your power is supernatural,” he mur- 
 mured; “ the work is now divine.” 
 
 “ You are dreaming,” said Hilda, laugh- 
 ing. “ All the divinity in it is your own ; 
 I but drew forth what you had left slightly 
 veiled.” 
 
 Max shook his head. “ I am too much 
 the artist,” he said, “ not to recognise your 
 gift. But I am not jealous of you, Hilda. 
 With you by my side what may I not hope 
 to accomplish 1 ” 
 
 Hilda laid a hand on his arm and looked 
 into his face with joyful eyes. 
 
 “Do not make me vain,” she said, “but 
 if cooking your dinner and keeping your 
 house in order, doing all that woman can 
 do to make your home happy, and your 
 difficult upward path a little easier ; if all 
 that helps you to accomplish great things, 
 then indeed I shall feel you are the better 
 for me.” 
 
 Max took both her hands in his, and 
 looked down into her eyes with a wondering, 
 worshipping gaze, which troubled almost as 
 much as it delighted her. As if she feared 
 what might be his next change of mood she 
 turned away her head and said gaily : 
 
 “ Come with me now at once. You 
 promised to take holiday to-day. Let us 
 be off to the mountains, and leave this 
 nymph to her solitary thoughts.” 
 
 He put on his hat mechanically, and 
 again followed her whither she would lead 
 
 him. They went out of the town, and took 
 the road to the mountains. The world 
 was exquisite, and Max shook himself out 
 of his dreams to enjoy it. Hilda prattled 
 to him between bursts of laughter about 
 all that had occurred at home, up yonder in 
 the blue, since his last visit there; what 
 droll things the children had said ; what a 
 pleasant dance there had been at a neigh- 
 bour’s wedding ; how Lisbeth had burned 
 a hole in her new dress, and all the trouble 
 there had been to get it nicely mended. 
 People going down to the town passed 
 them and said, “That is Max Edelstein 
 and his betrothed, Hilda.” 
 
 “ What a pity they cannot get married 
 at once,” said one. 
 
 “ They could if they liked, for Hilda has 
 a nice little penny which her father left 
 her.” 
 
 “ It is a pity when people are too clever, 
 you see. Nothing will suit them but going 
 to Rome.” 
 
 “ They will be a long time saving to go 
 to Rome. Who is there to buy his sculp- 
 tures in Innsbruck % Better if he had been 
 content with wood-carving like so many 
 of his friends.” 
 
 The lovers reached the nook of the 
 mountains in which their village nestled. 
 Lisbeth, Hilda’s sister-in-law, was expecting 
 them, and had made a little feast. A table 
 was spread under a tree at her door, and 
 a troop of little sun-burned children came 
 dashing out to meet Hilda and her Max. 
 
 Lisbeth, a good-humoured brown-eyed 
 woman, with a flame-coloured handker- 
 chief twisted round her head, and wearing 
 her holiday jacket of black, embroidered 
 with threads of gold, came out of the 
 house with a baby on one arm, and placed 
 some fruit upon the table. The wooden 
 cMlet was set deep in a cool green cave of 
 boughs, on a platform of rock, and under 
 it, and opposite to it, lay a dazzling land- 
 scape of purple crag, teeming golden 
 valley, and woods of all the richest hues of 
 green. Up a pathway, seemingly made 
 for goats, our lovers climbed, and were 
 welcomed by the motherly Lisbeth. The 
 master of the little home, Lisbeth’s hus- 
 band, Hilda’s brother, wood-carver, hunter, 
 and tiller of the earth, now appeared, and 
 the elders partook of Lisbeth’s feast 
 in the shade, while the little sun-burnt 
 children capered and danced in the sun. 
 
 Max cast off the cloud of dreaminess 
 that often wrapped him up, and talked to 
 Fritz about the crops and the hunts, and 
 all that was interesting in the mountaineer’s 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 3 
 
 life. The artist disappeared for the time, 
 and Max was merely a stalwart youth 
 of the mountains, with an unusually pic- 
 turesque and intellectual face. Hilda took 
 the baby in her arms, and laughter and 
 prattle made the time fly fast, till Lisbeth 
 said : 
 
 “ Ah, Max, have you seen the pre- 
 sent that Hilda has given me 1 She has 
 modelled my little dead Lisa, so that I 
 think I have her back.” 
 
 “ Will not you show it to me, Hilda 1 ” 
 
 “ Yes, if you please ; but it is only in- 
 teresting to Lisbeth, dear Max.” 
 
 The day passed and evening came. 
 Songs were sung, and Hilda accompanied 
 them on the zither. Throwing away her 
 silver-tasselled hat she put on an apron, 
 prepared the supper, and carried it out 
 under the trees. Her fair head gleamed 
 in the sunset as she went and came, and 
 as a wave of warm light suddenly fell 
 across her face and hands, Max thought 
 she looked like a ministering angel de- 
 scended to wait upon them. After supper 
 some young friends came from a little 
 distance, and Fritz strummed the zither 
 while a dance was held on a bit of green 
 close by. Hilda danced with as much 
 glee as any of the children. The moon 
 shone out, the children pulled Hilda’s hair 
 about, till it flowed around her like a gold 
 and silver mantle, and Max would not 
 have it put up again, and danced with her 
 while it streamed about her shoulders. 
 
 “Hilda looks beautiful to-night, does 
 she not 1 ?” said one of her friends. “What a 
 pity she will marry that melancholy Max ! ” 
 
 “ He is not melancholy now when he is 
 dancing.” 
 
 “ He is always strange, and full of the 
 oddest fancies. I would rather marry a 
 man who could make a joke.” 
 
 The dancing was over, the neighbours 
 had gone home, and Max was asking again 
 to see Hilda’s model of Lisbeth’s little 
 angel Lisa. Hilda led him up the narrow 
 stairs, and into her own small chamber, 
 where one of the ruddy little dancers of an 
 hour ago was already asleep in her bed. 
 It was a tiny brown room, where almost 
 the only decoration was the oblong moonlit 
 picture of pine and crag framed by the 
 open window. Hilda struck a light, and 
 lit a hand-lamp, and discovered on a bench 
 the model of the child who was dead. 
 
 Max folded his arms, and gazed at it 
 long and critically. 
 
 “ Hilda ! ” he said, “ I wonder if you 
 know what a genius you possess ! ” 
 
 “ Through my love for you I have 
 learned to dabble a little in clay ; that is 
 all,” said, Hilda. “I have no genius, and 
 
 if I had I do not want it.” 
 
 “ About this going to Rome. It is you 
 who ought to go, not I.” 
 
 “ Max ! where are your wits wandering ? 
 I wish there was money enough for two 
 certainly, then we could go together. But 
 as there is not enough, why I must wait 
 till you can afford to send for me.” 
 
 “ What I mean is this, Hilda,” said Max 
 with the sadness in his eyes deepening to 
 gloom : “ you have a distinct genius of 
 your own, and I ought not to be so selfish 
 as to absorb you into my own life and 
 work. You have money enough to take 
 yourself to Rome, and there you ought to 
 go. Marriage for you will be the ruin of 
 an artist.” 
 
 “ Not the ruin of you, I hope.” 
 
 “No, of yourself.” 
 
 “ Then let me be ruined, dear Max, and 
 let the world lose what it will never have 
 possessed. I belong to you, and not 
 either to art or to the world.” 
 
 “I am a traitor to art to listen to you.” 
 “ Then be a traitor. I shall love you 
 better as a traitor.” 
 
 Max shook his head, and gloomily 
 withdrew the hand which Hilda had touched 
 with her own. 
 
 Hilda uttered a sudden cry, and snatch- 
 ing a hammer which lay near, raised it in 
 her hands as if she would strike the model 
 of the child, and destroy it. 
 
 “ Hilda ! ” cried Max, seizing her wrists 
 and struggling with her. 
 
 “ It shall not part us ! ” she cried 
 passionately. 
 
 “ Hush ! here is Lisbeth,” whispered 
 Max. 
 
 “Is it not lovely 1 ” said Lisbeth, 
 coming in on tip-toe, and speaking softly 
 as if in a sacred place. “ See, dear Max, 
 how Hilda loves my children. One of 
 them sleeps alive in her arms ” — pointing 
 to the bed— “ another sleeps here in death 
 always before our eyes, by the magic of 
 her hands. Ah, what a tender mother 
 our clever Hilda will be ! ” 
 
 Hilda burst into tears, dropped the 
 hammer, and turning abruptly to the 
 window, leaned her arms on the sash, and 
 wept with sobs into the night. 
 
 “ She has never quite got over the 
 death of that child,” murmured Lisbeth. 
 “ Come away, Max, and let her have her 
 cry in peace.” 
 
 An hour later still, Lisbeth was sitting 
 
 =r 
 
4 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 
 spinning at her door in the moonlight, and 
 singing to herself simple songs about little 
 child-angels who sometimes come down for 
 a time, and live in good men’s houses, and 
 lie in fond mothers’ arms, but after a time 
 have to go back to heaven. 
 
 At a little distance Max and Hilda were 
 walking up and down, their faces now 
 gleaming in the shade under the trees, 
 their figures now casting shadows in the 
 light of the moon. Round them lay a 
 great circling abyss of gloomy darkness, 
 fringed with black pine-tops, and crowned 
 by frowning crags ; and a silver veil was 
 hanging over all. 
 
 “ What I mean is this,” Hilda was 
 saying; “you forget that I am a woman, 
 and judge me by yourself. You think 
 because you have taught me to model in 
 clay a little, that I must want to be an 
 artist and conquer the world. But you 
 are my world, and I will conquer no 
 other ! ” 
 
 Max’s clasp tightened on her hand. 
 
 “ You must not deny your own power.” 
 
 “ But I am jealous of it, and I hate it. 
 Whenever it comes before you as to-day, 
 as to-night, a cloud covers your face, 
 and a shadow rises up between us. Though 
 you love the woman, you would banish the 
 artist from your heart ; and therefore, Max, 
 because I love you, I will kill that power 
 that disturbs you in me. Never while I 
 live will I touch clay again.” 
 
 “Then you will make me a murderer, a 
 destroyer of one of Heaven’s best gifts.” 
 
 “ Rather I will save you from being the 
 murderer of my heart. Why, oh, why 
 will you not let me be happy ? I would 
 rather bake your bread and sweep your 
 floor than be owner of the best studio in 
 Rome.” 
 
 “Would we were there side by side, 
 Hilda. Without you my inspiration will 
 be gone ; my works will be dull and 
 dead.” 
 
 “ Because your coffee will not be as 
 good as some I could make for you 1 ” 
 
 “ Because I shall be without your 
 suggestions, your criticism, your touch 
 that calls life into a face. What would 
 I not give to possess that magic touch 1 ” 
 
 “ Me, perhaps,” said Hilda sadly. “ I 
 would die to give it to you — that is, if it 
 has any existence.” 
 
 Max shuddered. 
 
 “ Do not talk of dying,” he said. “If 
 you were to die there is no kind of death 
 so hateful as my life would become.” 
 
 “ Hush !” said Hilda, putting her fingers 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 across his lips ; “ only the good God knows 
 anything about death.” 
 
 Summer deepened, and as the time 
 approached for Max’s departure for Rome 
 he found it more and more difficult to 
 think of tearing himself away from 
 Hilda. 
 
 “You are my inspiration, my soul,” he 
 said. “ Without you I shall fail, and be 
 only half a sculptor.” 
 
 “ Dear Max, I will come to you when- 
 ever you can send for me. Do you think 
 the mountains will not be dreary, and the 
 very children’s voices sad in my ears till 
 I can stand by your side again ? ” 
 
 “Hilda, would you dare — would you 
 venture to come with me 1 ” 
 
 “With you ? ” Hilda’s pale face coloured 
 to the hue of a rose for a moment, and 
 turned paler than before. She trembled 
 and drew her breath hard ; and then she 
 spoke with the gladness of a bird’s song in 
 her voice : “If you will dare it, Max, why 
 so will I.” 
 
 All the shadows disappeared at once 
 from the young man’s face, and his eyes 
 shone. 
 
 “You may have hardships to endure, 
 my darling,” he said, kissing her hands 
 rapturously. 
 
 “ They will be welcome,” laughed Hilda, 
 “ if only to prove how strong I am. You 
 mean to walk across the mountains, Max, 
 and so will I, if you will take me. What 
 an autumn walk it will be ! And once in 
 Rome, why, Max, I will save your money 
 by my economy.” 
 
 “Your money, Hilda !” 
 
 “ Ah, Max, you forget that the Nymph 
 has gone on before us, and that before we 
 get there she may be sold.” 
 
 “Heaven grant it!” cried Max, while 
 a lightning flash crossed his face. “If 1 
 were ambitious before, my Hilda, I am ten 
 times more ambitious now.” 
 
 Hilda was one of those women to whom 
 no personal sacrifice is too great to add, be 
 it never so little, to the happiness of the 
 beloved. She was well aware that . in 
 accompanying Max, hardships and diffi- 
 culties were awaiting her, but she also 
 knew that with her by his side Max would 
 have better courage to cope with and 
 conquer the world. She said to herself 
 that she would eat little, labour hard, patch 
 and mend her clothes and his, do all that 
 lay within her to cover the extra expense 
 of her presence in his home. 
 
 They were married in a little church in 
 their mountains, with a band of children 
 
Charles Dickon*.] 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 smiling round them, and Lisbeth weeping 
 behind their backs. Oh, why had not Max 
 been satisfied to remain a carver of wood 
 at home 1 Then Hilda need not have left 
 her kindred, and might have flourished 
 among them through long and happy days. 
 Why, indeed, good Lisbeth ? Yours is one 
 of those questions which can never be 
 answered. 
 
 The day after their marriage they set 
 out to cross the mountains on foot. A 
 wallet on Max’s shoulder held all their 
 luggage, a purse sewn into Hilda’s dress 
 contained their wealth. Glorious autumn 
 weather reigned over the mountain world. 
 The hollows under the, pines had never 
 looked so purple, the peaks and crags so 
 roseate, the clouds so gold, the firmament 
 so blue as when Max, the sculptor, with 
 his wife by the hand, went trudging along 
 the narrow paths that led the way from 
 Innsbruck up to Trent. 
 
 In this memorable journey they spent 
 their honeymoon. In the morning 
 travelling bravely over the rough roads, 
 climbing rude heights, the while hardly 
 daring to expend their breath in speech ; 
 at noon cooling their tired feet in some 
 running water, and eating their frugal 
 dinner under the deep broad shadow of 
 the pines. At evening saying a prayer at 
 some simple shrine, and afterwards stepping 
 on gaily through the cooler atmosphere, 
 seeing the sunset colours fade along the 
 mountains, and the moonshine come forth 
 to light them upon yet another mile of the 
 way. Nights spent in the rudest ch&lets, 
 a day stolen here and there to explore some 
 town through which they passed; endless 
 happy conversations about their love, their 
 art, their future, the heaven of united 
 life that lay on before them ; so was 
 accomplished the passage of the mountains, 
 not the greatest of the difficulties that lay 
 in their path, by Edelstein and Hilda his 
 wife. 
 
 Through the queer old streets of Verona 
 they walked, and under its lofty arches ; 
 and then away across the Italian plains, 
 dropping like a pair of swallows into art- 
 galleries and churches, but hurrying ever 
 with eager steps towards Rome. And there 
 they stood at last one day, weary, dusty, 
 poor, and friendless, but glad at heart and 
 full of hope. 
 
 A studio and two rooms were hired at 
 once, and Max went to work upon marble 
 and clay. 
 
 The Nymph was not sold, but what of 
 that ] It would do to furnish the studio 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 5 
 
 till other works were created by the 
 sculptor’s hand. Hilda’s ingenuity was 
 exerted to make the vast, almost empty 
 rooms which were their dwelling look 
 homelike and gay. A curtain here, a spray 
 of flowers there, a rude vase of fine form 
 and striking colour in a corner ; trifles like 
 these made a home out of a wilderness. 
 Singing, sewing, tripping in and out on 
 household errands, or standing behind her 
 husband’s shoulder discussing his work 
 with him, Hilda’s days were as happy 
 as a queen’s. They were in Rome, 
 they were together, Max had lost his 
 melancholy, and he had forgotten his 
 strange fancy about that genius of hers 
 which surely never could have existed. If 
 he remembered it at all he but glanced at 
 it pleasantly, and the thought of it passed 
 easily away. If in moments of depression 
 he called her to him and asked her to touch 
 his work, she would answer reproachfully 
 that her hands were full of flour, and that 
 his dinner must spoil were she to soil them 
 with his clay ! 
 
 Winter and spring passed over, the little 
 store of money had diminished sadly, and 
 no work of Max’s had been sold to re- 
 plenish the household purse. Hilda held 
 the said purse, and always spoke cheer- 
 fully of its contents to Max, who, wrapped 
 in his dreams, scarcely realised how the 
 passing days were running away with silver 
 and gold. Neither did he notice that 
 Hilda’s always pale face was growing paler 
 and paler. Accustomed to gazing on faces 
 of marble he was not so struck with her 
 pallor as another might have been, and the 
 look of care always disappeared from her 
 eyes when his were turned upon her. Max 
 in Rome, conscious of growing power, with 
 a brain full of beautiful things as yet un- 
 created, had all he wanted, and noticed 
 nothing wrong. His home was bright and 
 pleasant, and the food he needed was 
 regularly placed before him. The long 
 summer in Rome did not tell upon his 
 strength as it told upon hers, but, as she 
 did not complain, he was not aware that she 
 had become less healthy than of old. 
 
 It was when winter came round again 
 that Hilda took fear to her heart in earnest, 
 and counted the money that was left, with 
 paling lips. How could she tell Max that 
 the funds were so low i She would not 
 tell him. And yet, where could she find 
 money to go on with 1 
 
 Then it was that she broke her resolu- 
 tion never to touch clay again. 
 
 On the chill winter mornings when Max 
 
u — — — * 
 
 6 [July 3, 1882.] A STRANGE LOYE-STORY. [Conducted by 
 
 was sleeping soundly, having got to rest 
 late at night, Hilda would creep into the 
 studio and go to work. What she pro- 
 duced there Max little dreamed of; but 
 from time to time sundry small, graceful, 
 and original figures found their way into 
 shops where such things are sold. They 
 were quickly disposed of, and the money 
 they fetched replenished Hilda’s exhausted 
 purse. She jealously guarded her secret, 
 and Max toiled on, dreaming of glorious 
 works he was to do in the future, and only 
 occasionally waking up to observe that 
 Hilda was a wonderful manager of their 
 slender means. 
 
 He never guessed that she was giving 
 her health, her talents, her life for the 
 pittance that supported them both from 
 one week on to another. 
 
 It was by means of these little figures of 
 Hilda’s that the Nymph came to be sold 
 after all. She was in the habit of going 
 in, on her way to market in the mornings, 
 to speak to the dealer who had her works in 
 charge, and to learn if any orders had been 
 left for her. 
 
 One day an English gentleman was 
 standing in conversation with the dealer 
 when she appeared, and as she entered the 
 shop, she heard the words : 
 
 “ Here, sir, is the lady herself ! ” 
 
 The gentleman was young and of fair 
 complexion, and had a shrewd, sensible, 
 and withal refined and sympathetic face. 
 He bowed to Hilda and made known his 
 business at once. He wanted two other 
 original figures besides those of hers he 
 had already bought. 
 
 Hilda took the order ; and then, with a 
 sudden impulse, said : 
 
 “ If you would kindly come to see me at 
 my home, my husband could show you some- 
 thing more worthy of your attention.” 
 
 The stranger was interested and pro- 
 mised to call as she desired. Then she 
 said with a little embarrassment : 
 
 “ Please do not speak to my husband of 
 these figures of mine. I do not wish him 
 to know of their existence. He would 
 think I fatigued myself.” 
 
 The stranger took in the situation at 
 once, bowed, and assured her he would 
 remember her wishes. He thought she 
 looked thoroughly fatigued indeed, and 
 wondered for a moment how long she 
 would have the power so to exhaust 
 herself. And this was the beginning of 
 the friendship between Max Edelstein and 
 Donald Stewart, which lasted through so 
 many after years. 
 
 That very day Donald paid his first visit 
 to the studio, and bought the Nymph 
 with Hilda’s features, paying for it with a 
 noble sum. 
 
 The patronage of the wealthy English- 
 man, or rather Scotchman, was all that 
 was needed to bring Edelstein’s genius 
 into notice. Money and orders for work 
 flowed upon him, and the crisis of his 
 fortune was past. 
 
 Many new comforts appeared in his 
 home, and Hilda no longer rose in the 
 chill hours to do secret work with her 
 hands in the clay. Her figures were seen 
 no more in the shops, her artistic efforts 
 were all in the past, and on the sweet 
 spring days she lay on a couch at her 
 window, with her eyes fixed steadfastly on 
 the everlasting hills. 
 
 Still Max did not see that she was 
 dying. Donald Stewart did, and to him 
 she spoke of her approaching death, 
 
 “ Do not disturb Max,” she said to this 
 good friend, when he would come from the 
 studio into her little sitting-room to visit 
 her. “He thinks I shall be strong soon, and 
 his thoughts are with his work. One day, 
 I know, he will astonish the world, and in 
 that day he will not so much need me. 
 Nay, I do not mean to doubt his heart. I 
 know he loves me well, and, perhaps, will 
 never love another. But he has passed 
 the point up to which he needed a woman’s 
 devoted love and care.” 
 
 “ When does a man cease to need that?” 
 said Donald Stewart. 
 
 Hilda was gazing wistfully at the purple 
 hills. 
 
 “ During the next twenty years,” she 
 said, “ Max will live in his art alone. His 
 OAvn creations will be his idols, sweetened 
 to him by my memory which will cling 
 around them. His life will pass in the 
 happy throes of work such as his, and he 
 will hardly miss me from his home. After 
 twenty years have passed ” 
 
 She paused, and a look of intense pity 
 and longing settled in her eyes. 
 
 “ Who can look so far ahead as twenty 
 years?” said Stewart, guessing her thought. 
 
 “ At the end of that time he will begin 
 to need me again,” said Hilda. “ The first 
 harvest of life will be won, the desire for a 
 little rest will have begun to awake in him. 
 He will look around and want me at his 
 fireside. Oh, God ! that I then could come 
 back to him ! ” 
 
 Stewart’s eyes filled with tears. 
 
 “ A strange idea ! ” he said softly. “ But 
 I have no doubt or fear but that you will 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A STEANGE LOVE STOEY. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 7 
 
 really be near him. Your spirit will never 
 lose sight of him.” 
 
 Hilda smiled. 
 
 “ Never ! ” she said. “ Never, as God 
 is good ! But oh, I meant more than that. 
 If the Creator would but grant me my 
 heaven in letting me return, even years 
 hence, to this world to Max ! ” 
 
 Donald’s heart was shaken by the 
 pathetic cry in her voice; but he knew 
 not what to answer to so startling a 
 speech. 
 
 “ Do not be shocked at me, Mr. Stewart,” 
 she said, turning to him with one of her 
 old smiles ; ‘ ‘ but this is an idea that at 
 times charms away my pain. And if I 
 come,” she added playfully, laying her 
 little palms together like a child at prayer, 
 “ I will come without the talent which I 
 believe was the only flaw that Max could 
 ever see in me. Anything of genius I may 
 have I hereby solemnly bequeath to my 
 husband. If I come again from heaven, I 
 come without it.” 
 
 In the flush of the Eoman spring she 
 slipped away from them almost unawares 
 one morning; and covered with Italian 
 wild flowers she was laid in her grave. 
 
 Max took her death in a way that sur- 
 prised even Donald Stewart. He appeared 
 stunned, and unable to realise what had 
 happened. So happy had he been in their 
 late good fortune that this sudden and un- 
 foreseen ending of all their joy seemed to 
 unhinge his mind. He became dull, absent, 
 almost stupid, absorbed in the memory of 
 Hilda, whose presence was still around 
 him, and whom he could not let go into 
 the past. He did not hear when spoken 
 to, took no part in the life around him, 
 neglected his work and forgot to enter his 
 studio. Orders remained unfinished, and 
 people began to say that the promising 
 young sculptor had got softening of the 
 brain. He would not stir from Eome that 
 summer, nor leave the rooms where Hilda’s 
 dresses and little ornaments and possessions 
 still held their place as if they might be 
 needed at any moment. Through all the 
 dangers of that hot season in Eome Donald 
 stuck fast by his side ; and when at last 
 Max fell ill of a terrible fever, Donald took 
 the place of a nurse by his bed. 
 
 Thanks to his friend’s unwearied efforts, 
 Max arose out of this sickness, but pale, 
 and cadaverous like the living skeleton of 
 himself. His mind seemed clearer now, 
 and, on the first occasion, when sitting in 
 Hilda’s chair at the window, he spoke to 
 Stewart of his wife, he wept like a child 
 
 over his vanished happiness. He blamed 
 himself bitterly for his conduct to her in 
 many ways. Having learned from the 
 dealer who had sold her wonderful little 
 figures, how hard she had worked to 
 produce and dispose of them unknown to 
 him, he made a misery of this proof of her 
 unselfish devotion to him. 
 
 “I knew she had distinct genius,” he 
 said, “ and if I had insisted on her deve- 
 loping it she might have been alive to-day. 
 She denied herself sleep, and suffered 
 cold and weariness to provide the money 
 which I was stupid enough not to perceive 
 she must have earned.” 
 
 “ Her love was indeed limitless,” said 
 Stewart consolingly, “ but you need not 
 blame yourself. She had no wish to 
 develope a separate genius from yours. 
 
 She said to me ” 
 
 “ What % ” said Edelstein. “ Anything 
 that she said I must hear.” 
 
 “ That if she could come back to you, 
 she would come without that talent which 
 she thought you magnified, and which she 
 did not love in herself.” 
 
 “ Come back?” 
 
 “ Yes ; it was an odd thing to say, but 
 another proof of her devotion to you. It 
 grew out of a conversation I had with her 
 one day.” 
 
 “ When I was wrapped up in my selfish 
 work. When you saw what was coming 
 and I would not.” 
 
 “ That was her comfort. She dreaded a 
 lingering trial for you.” 
 
 “ If she could come back ! Did she say 
 that, Donald ? ” 
 
 “ She said — I think there is no harm 
 in my repeating to you her tender and 
 fantastic thought — she said she could 
 wish that God would give her her heaven 
 by allowing her to come back to you in 
 twenty years hence.” 
 
 “ Twenty years hence 1” 
 
 “ She thought for twenty years you could 
 live absorbed in the splendid labours that 
 
 are around and before you. After that ” 
 
 “ Aye V ’ 
 
 “ After that you would want her more. 
 I understood her to mean that if she could 
 return to you then, as young and sweet as 
 she was a year ago, then, when your 
 genius had slaked' its thirst for work, and, 
 a little tired, you might look round for 
 companionship and human love, that so to 
 come would be the desire of her soul.” 
 
 A strange light came on Edelstein’s 
 face, brightening steadily into a glow of 
 exultation. 
 

 8 [July 3, 1882.] A STRANGE LO^E STORY. [Conducted by 
 
 “ Do you think she will come, Donald ?” 
 
 Stewart started and stared. He felt a 
 qualm of fear that he had been unwise in 
 speaking as he had done, while his friend’s 
 brain might be still in a delicate state. 
 
 “ I think, dear old fellow,” he said gently, 
 “ that such a fancy of hers only assures 
 you that she will watch and wait for you 
 in eternity. Who can count on living 
 twenty years? And two like you will he 
 sure to clasp hands when you at last have 
 also passed the verge of the grave.” 
 
 “But that was not what she meant,” 
 said Max almost querulously. “Since I 
 have survived her death I may live to be 
 a hundred. And she spoke of twenty 
 years. Mark me, Donald, she will come ! 
 I must get on with my work, and be ready 
 to receive her.” 
 
 Stewart was pained and puzzled by the 
 strange manner in which Max fastened on 
 this fanciful idea. He said no more then, 
 but could not fail to notice how this con- 
 versation formed a sort of turning-point in 
 his friend’s convalescence. Max began to 
 recover in earnest, and now worried him- 
 self because his weakness prevented his 
 returning to work at once. A little more 
 alarmed for his friend’s mind than for 
 his bodily health, Stewart determined 
 to leave no effort unmade to restore the 
 poor fellow to his normal state of health 
 and strength ; and, being himself a rich 
 man, he saw his way easily to providing 
 the necessary care and change for the 
 invalid who interested him so much. He 
 wrote and ordered his yacht to come 
 to meet them in the Mediterranean ; and 
 packing up Max he carried him away for 
 a summer’s cruise across the world. 
 
 This voyage was a great success, and 
 Edelstein was, or appeared to be, com- 
 pletely restored to health of body and 
 mind. He no longer talked despondingly, 
 and ceased altogether to speak of his dead 
 wife. Donald was almost inclined to blame 
 him for this, and said to himself that after 
 all, those who sorrow most wildly for be- 
 , reavement are apt to be those who forget 
 the soonest. Edelstein did not return to 
 Rome, but set up a studio in Paris. After 
 that the star of his fortunes rose higher 
 and higher. Stewart had married and 
 settled down on his Scottish estate, and only 
 occasionally saw or heard of his friend 
 during a few days spent from time to time 
 in the French capital, or by a short 
 but affectionate letter penned in moments 
 of weariness by the great sculptor to his 
 friend. And so the years went over; 
 
 and the name of Max Edelstein was of 
 European fame. 
 
 Twenty years passed away. Edelstein 
 had been established long in London, and 
 many of his most beautiful works had 
 been created for and prized by Englishmen. 
 Unbounded success was his, and the 
 utmost admiration and adulation had been 
 poured out upon him. Nevertheless, he 
 had never allowed himself to be made a 
 lion of. He lived in his work alone, had 
 few friends, took long walks with his 
 pipe for sole companion, and was never to 
 be seen in large social gatherings. His only 
 society was that of one or two friends who 
 sometimes dined with him in his perfectly- 
 appointed house. In women he felt no 
 interest whatever, and would not have their 
 company, no matter how flatteringly it might 
 be offered to him. Invitations from great 
 ladies dropped into his hands, but they failed 
 to bring him captive into even the most 
 charming drawing-rooms. People said it 
 was affectation, moroseness, conceit which 
 made him live the life of a recluse in the 
 heyday of his fame. But Edelstein did not 
 hear, or did not heed what they had to 
 say. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 On a certain hot night in the end of 
 June, Max Edelstein sat at his lonely 
 dinner-table with wine before him which 
 he did not drink. His eyes were fixed on 
 the opposite wall with a strange look in 
 them of intense expectation mingled with 
 longing. From time to time a slight frown 
 of impatience contracted his brows, his 
 fingers moved restlessly, lifted the glass of 
 wine, but set it down again untasted ; and 
 then again the nerves of his face relaxed, 
 and, as if obedient to a familiar self-control, 
 the whole man dropped back into a quies- 
 cent state of thought. 
 
 Twenty years had made a great change 
 in the youthful sculptor of Innsbruck. His 
 dark locks had changed to silver- white, but 
 waving and plentiful as they were, this 
 peculiarity only enhanced the beauty of a 
 singularly vigorous and noble countenance. 
 His dark eyes burned under a brow 
 on which intellectual power sat en- 
 throned. The dreamy sadness which 
 lurked in some of the lines of the face had 
 no weakening effect on its general expres- 
 sion, but just tempered the overwhelming 
 force that was visible in every feature and 
 every movement of the head. After sitting 
 for an hour wrapped in his reverie he 
 got up, and leaving the room, walked 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] A STRANGE LOVE STORY. [July 3, 1882.] 9 
 
 down a long passage to his studio which 
 was at the back of the house. 
 
 Here a lamp burned low, and he did not 
 turn the flame to a fuller height, but paced 
 up and down the large room, till by degrees 
 the white figures around him became quite 
 visible to his eyes in the semi-darkness. 
 With folded arms and head sunk on his 
 breast, he continued thus to give himself 
 up to his thoughts or dreams, and at last 
 paused before a statue at the feet of which 
 burned the lamp which gave its dim light to 
 the place. It was the statue of the Nymph 
 which bore Hilda’s features, and which 
 had been touched to greater tenderness 
 of expression by her fingers in the days 
 of their betrothal and in the spring of 
 their lives. The first work of his, that 
 sold to Donald Stewart had brought him 
 gold and fame, it had been returned to 
 him by that faithful friend after Hilda’s 
 death, and for it he had substituted a work 
 of equal beauty which held a high place of 
 honour in the Scotchman’s home. 
 
 As Edelstein stood gazing at the features, 
 dimly seen, but kissed to warmth by 
 the red light of the lamp, a knock came on 
 the door, and before the owner of the studio 
 had time to express impatience at being 
 interrupted, the door opened and somebody 
 came in. 
 
 “ Max ! ” 
 
 Edelstein uttered a kind of cry, strange 
 to hear from the lips of such a man. 
 
 “ You, Donald 1” he said after a moment’s 
 struggle with some violent emotion. “ I 
 thought — it was someone else.” 
 
 “ Are you not going to welcome me, old 
 fellow ? ” said Stewart, struck by something 
 strange in his friend. “ And why are you 
 mooning here alone in the dark ? ” 
 
 “ We artists have ways of our own of 
 going on,” said Edelstein with a short 
 laugh. “ But you are welcome, indeed, my 
 friend.” And he seized Donald’s hand in 
 both his own, and almost crushed it with 
 the energy of his grip. “ When were you 
 not welcome ? ” 
 
 “ All right, old fellow ! Get some 
 more light, that I may see how you are 
 thriving.” 
 
 Edelstein struck a match, and applied it 
 to a large lamp on a bracket. 
 
 “ I never let servants in here if I can 
 help it,” he said ; offered a box of cigars to 
 his friend, lit his own pipe, and the two 
 smoked for a few minutes in silence. 
 
 Stewart watched his friend’s face as it 
 settled back into its habitual lines, and 
 something that he saw there and did not 
 
 like, something indescribable which he had 
 seen there before on occasions, but never 
 so plainly as now, disturbed him. 
 
 He scarcely knew how to begin a con- 
 versation, so full was his mind of something 
 he did not venture to mention ; but Max 
 saved him the trouble of starting a 
 subject. 
 
 “ Donald,” he said suddenly, “ do you • 
 remember what night this is ? ” 
 
 “Ah !” said Stewart. 
 
 “ This night twenty years I held Hilda 
 dead in my arms.” 
 
 “ My dear friend ” began Stewart. 
 
 “ And some months later you told me 
 of something she said.” 
 
 “Said?” 
 
 “ About coming back.” 
 
 “ Max ! ” 
 
 “ Stewart, I am expecting her. Thai is 
 why I started when you came in at the 
 door. I thought it was she.” 
 
 “ Good Heaven, Edelstein ! are you in 
 earnest ? ” 
 
 “ Earnest ? ” said Edelstein, laying down 
 his pipe. “ Am I a man to jest, and on such 
 a subject?” 
 
 “ Are those we love allowed to come 
 back ? ” Stewart said gently, trying to con- 
 trol his uneasiness and to speak naturally. 
 
 “Of that I know nothing. She never 
 broke a promise, and her love was perfect. 
 That is all I know.” 
 
 “I do not believe in ghosts,” said 
 Stewart gravely. 
 
 “ Ghosts 1 Nor I ; she will not come as 
 a ghost, Donald. She will come as my 
 wife, real as herself, to live with me and 
 comfort me for the rest of my life.” 
 
 Stewart was silent. The words fell 
 heavily on his heart. Max had over- 
 worked himself, and his friend remembered 
 painfully how, many long years ago, cer- 
 tain fears for his friend had troubled his 
 own mind. 
 
 “ Max, old fellow,” he said, “ if Provi- 
 dence should alter the usual order of 
 Nature’s laws to comfort a heart so noble 
 as yours, I, for one, will rejoice, as I think 
 you know. In the meantime come out of 
 this place for a while. You work too 
 hard, and live too much alone.” 
 
 “ Where shall I go ? ” 
 
 “ Take my advice for once, and let me 
 take you, not for a solitary ramble, but 
 into a crowd. Believe me, old friend, you 
 have been doing yourself harm. Strange 
 ideas are getting into your brain. There 
 can be nothing like a complete change for 
 putting you straight.” 
 
10 [July 3, 1882.] A STRANGE LOVE STORY. Conducted by 
 
 Max passed his hand over his head. 
 
 “ I believe you are right, Stewart. I want 
 a change. I will do anything you bid me.” 
 
 “First of all then, before we make 
 further plans, come off with me now to 
 
 Lady B -’s. I am intimate with her, and 
 
 she will be only too proud to receive you.” 
 
 Edelstein winced. 
 
 “ I cannot bear a ball-room,” he said. 
 u The sight of dancing has a curious effect 
 upon me. I think of whirling dervishes. 
 
 Now our dancing in the mountains ” 
 
 He stopped, as a vision, clear and vivid as 
 if only seen yesterday, arose before his eye, 
 of Hilda and himself dancing among the 
 children and neighbours, in the light of 
 the sinking sun, under the shadow of the 
 purple hills. 
 
 “ There will be no dancing. It is only 
 a solemn reception. There will be a 
 brilliant crowd, and we will just walk 
 through. You need not speak unless you 
 like, and we will come away any moment 
 you please.” 
 
 “It is sorely against the grain,” said Max; 
 “ but I will go to please you.” He rose, and 
 made a weary movement of hand to head. 
 “You will wait a few minutes while I dress. 
 Stewart,” he added, suddenly turning with 
 his hand on the door, and making a 
 step towards his friend, “ forgive me if I 
 seem ungracious. I am going not only to 
 please you, but to escape from myself. 
 These rooms have begun to seem haunted 
 to me. Something has been going wrong. 
 I will shake off a weakness.” 
 
 “All right,” said Stewart. “Blues 
 from over-work, and over-concentration of 
 thought in one spot. I know all about it, 
 though I am not a worker.” 
 
 Half an hour afterwards they entered a 
 brilliantly-lighted house in St. James’s, 
 and were soon moving through a crowd 
 composed of many of the most dis- 
 tinguished men and women in London. 
 The hostess, who had seen Edelstein’s 
 noble face before, in his own studio, was 
 gratified at his appearance in her rooms, 
 and received him with flattering kindness. 
 At a whispered word from Stewart, how- 
 ever, she allowed him to pass on into the 
 crowd where few knew him by sight, owing 
 to the extremely retired life which he had 
 hitherto led. 
 
 “ He is not very well,” Donald said to 
 
 LadyB ,“and I have coaxed him out for 
 
 once. But we must not frighten him. If 
 a fuss is made about him he will go back 
 into his shell.” 
 
 And tact being one of Lady B ’s 
 
 virtues, she took no further notice of the 
 famous sculptor. 
 
 Out of one magnificent room into 
 another the friends sauntered, keeping to- 
 gether, till at last Stewart paused to talk 
 to some friends who greeted him warmly 
 and held him fast, and Edelstein, straying 
 on alone, found his way into a drawing-' 
 room smaller than the others, with walls 
 panelled in faint gold-coloured silk, upon 
 which a few rare deep-toned pictures were 
 shown to the fullest advantage. There he 
 took up his position at a corner of the tall 
 carven mantelpiece, and looked abstractedly 
 round the place, with the air and with the 
 feeling of a man who has no part in the 
 lives of the people by whom he finds him- 
 self surrounded. Suddenly his eye became 
 fixed, and an extraordinary change passed 
 over his countenance. 
 
 A shifting of the groups of people who 
 occupied the centre of the room took place, 
 and an opening in the crowd showed 
 him the figure of a woman dressed in 
 white, sitting against the corner of an 
 antique cabinet, and looking like a picture 
 of St. Barbara with her tower rising straight 
 behind her. She was a girl about twenty, 
 exceedingly fair and pale, with a quantity 
 of that faint-gold hair which belongs to 
 babes, and which near the delicate yellow 
 in the silken panels looked strangely ap- 
 proaching to silver. Although womanly 
 in figure there was a certain snowily 
 ethereal look about her, the only deep 
 touch of colour lying in the depths of her 
 blue and crystal-clear eyes. She had a 
 lonely look, and the air of awaiting some- 
 one whom she expected to come for her, 
 and she seemed as little belonging to the 
 crowd as Edelstein himself. She was 
 gazing through the doorway near, yet as if 
 seeing nothing, utter unconsciousness of 
 self in her face and attitude. 
 
 It is said that if one human being looks 
 long and intently at another, the person so 
 observed will soon feel the effect of the 
 unseen gaze, and be constrained to meet it. 
 However that may be, the fair-haired 
 girl turned her graceful head after some 
 time, and looked straight across the 
 room at Edelstein, who was gazing at her 
 with Heaven knows what expression of 
 recognition and rapture in his eyes. A 
 shock of surprise passed over her, 'and then 
 a puzzled look crossed her face as if she 
 thought she ought to know the distin- 
 guished-looking person who thus seemed 
 to claim her acquaintance, and was em- 
 barrassed at not remembering his identity. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 11 
 
 At this moment Stewart reached the 
 room and stood by his friend’s side, who 
 did not see him, but started at hearing the 
 Scotchman’s voice at his ear. 
 
 “ Look, Donald, there she is,” said Edel- 
 stein in a low voice thrilling with emotion, 
 and without removing his eager gaze from 
 the white- clad girl at the other side of the 
 room. 
 
 “ She ! Who ? ” asked Donald, startled 
 by his tone and manner. 
 
 “ Hilda — my wife,” murmured Max in 
 a voice in which, low as was the utterance, 
 an agony of joy and amazement spoke. 
 
 “ Max, are you aware of how oddly you 
 are looking at that lady, who is a perfect 
 stranger to you f ” said Stewart, and passed 
 his hand through his friend’s arm, trying 
 to draw him away. 
 
 “Stranger!” said Edelstein with a little 
 laugh of joy. “ Do you mean to say, man, 
 that you do not recognise her ? ” 
 
 “I do indeed see a curious likeness, 
 Edelstein, but surely I need hardly say to 
 you, be yourself, and do not give way to 
 hallucination.” 
 
 Max did not appear to hear him. 
 
 “ See how she looks at me ! ” he mut- 
 tered, as the girl once more turned her 
 fascinated eyes, half frightened, half 
 attracted, on his. “ Donald, do not hold 
 me back. I must go and claim her. Oh, 
 Heaven! how strange to meet in such a 
 place as this !” 
 
 Stewart was shocked and agitated at 
 this unexpected result of his attempt to 
 cure his friend of a monomania. Amazed 
 himself at the extraordinary resemblance 
 in the girl before him to the long-lost 
 Hilda, who slept in her Italian grave, he 
 could only think of one way of cutting 
 short so painful a moment as this, and 
 strove to induce Edelstein to quit the room 
 with him. 
 
 But another glance at Max told him he 
 must humour the great sculptor as he 
 would humour a madman. 
 
 “Listen to me, Edelstein,” he said. 
 “ Even if it be she, there are certain rules 
 of etiquette to be observed. We must ask 
 our hostess to introduce you to her.” 
 
 “ What, to my own wife 1 ” 
 
 “Yes. No one here knows that she is 
 your wife, except yourself, and you would 
 not appear to be rude to a lady 1 ” 
 
 “ You are right, Donald — always 
 right.” 
 
 “ Come, then, and let us lose no time.” 
 
 Stewart had hoped to make his friend 
 forget this craze, and tried to lead him 
 
 into other rooms, to interest him in the 
 sculptures of an old and richly-decorated 
 mansion ; but he found that such a hope 
 was vain, for Edelstein dragged him straight 
 
 to Lady B ’s presence, and obliged him 
 
 to ask for the desired introduction. 
 
 “ Lady B , my friend Mr. Edelstein 
 
 wishes to be introduced to a certain young 
 lady in white in the yellow drawing-room. 
 Can you kindly gratify his wish ? ” 
 
 “ I can guess who she is,” said Lady 
 
 B , pleased at the interest shown by 
 
 the great artist, usually so indifferent, in a 
 favourite of her own. “She is Miss Tre- 
 velyan, a peculiarly beautiful and striking 
 girl.” 
 
 Max smiled a strange smile at Stewart, 
 as if to say : “We will humour this 
 amiable woman, and keep our own secret 
 for the present,” and then both men fol- 
 lowed their hostess as she moved towards 
 the yellow drawing-room. 
 
 The introduction was made, Lady 
 
 B returned to the friends who required 
 
 her presence elsewhere, and Edelstein stood 
 by the girl in white, trying to frame a 
 sentence with his trembling lips. 
 
 Stewart also stood by, having been intro- 
 duced to the lady, and endeavoured, by his 
 matter-of-fact remarks, to restore equanimity 
 to two evidently embarrassed people. An 
 acquaintance coming up claimed his atten- 
 tion for a few minutes ; he was obliged to 
 stand aside to let some ladies pass ; in the 
 crowd he drifted to some distance. When 
 he was once more disengaged, he turned 
 to look for his friend, but Edelstein and 
 the lady were gone. 
 
 With a misgiving which he could not 
 smother, Donald Stewart set out to 
 search the rooms for his friend. After 
 an interval of half an hour, and when 
 he was almost thinking of returning to 
 Edelstein’s house, to seek him there, 
 he at last discovered the sculptor and 
 the white lady sitting in a retired nook 
 half behind a curtain, and at an open 
 window, beyond which the lighted tower 
 of Westminster was seen to loom and burn 
 in the purple-dark midnight sky. 
 
 The sculptor’s fine head was in relief 
 against the sky, and he was gazing in his 
 companion’s face with an intensity of love 
 and joy which no words could express. 
 What he was saying Donald could not 
 hear, but he was pouring forth rapid words 
 in a low impassioned voice. The girl was 
 pale as death, and sat listening like a person 
 who strives to remember, her eyes fixed on 
 Edelstein’s face. A look of awe was on 
 
1 2 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 her broad white brow, and with a strange, 
 almost supernatural feeling which he could 
 not account for, Stewart felt shocked at 
 her amazing likeness to the long dead and 
 buried Hilda. 
 
 “ Edelstein,” said Stewart, “ excuse me, 
 but I think you said you were anxious to 
 leave this place early, and it is now about 
 half-past twelve.” 
 
 Max looked up at him with a smile. 
 Without noticing his words, he turned to 
 the lady, and taking her hand, laid it in 
 Stewart's, saying : 
 
 “ Hilda, this is our dear good friend 
 Donald. You remember Donald, my 
 Hilda 1 ” 
 
 The girl suffered her hand to rest in 
 Stewart’s, and murmured dreamily : 
 
 ‘•'Yes, I remember; he seems quite 
 familiar to me.” 
 
 “Good Heavens!” thought Stewart, 
 “has my madman met with a madwoman 
 to complete his ruin ? or has she found out 
 that he is mad, and is she humouring his 
 whim through fear 1 ” 
 
 “ Miss Trevelyan,” he said, relinquishing 
 her hand, “ I must beg you to excuse the 
 peculiarity of my friend’s conduct in 
 addressing you so, and by a name that is 
 not yours. He has not been well, and I 
 see that he is hardly himself.” 
 
 “ They call me Hilda,” said the girl, 
 looking strangely and reproachfully at 
 Stewart. “Why should he address me by 
 another name 1 ” 
 
 Then she turned her face again towards 
 Max, who seemed at once to forget 
 Donald’s presence ; and they continued 
 their low-voiced communing as though he 
 had not been there. 
 
 Amazed and pained Stewart turned 
 away, and, uncertain how to act, found 
 
 himself in the room with Lady B , his 
 
 hostess. 
 
 “ Lady B ,” he said, “ my friend 
 
 Edelstein is greatly taken with your 
 friend Miss Trevelyan, By the way, what 
 is her christian-name i ” 
 
 “ Hilda. Why do you ask 'l ” 
 
 “I have a fancy in lady’s names.” 
 
 “ ’Tis a pretty name. And, by the way, 
 a story is told of a curious dream her 
 mother had which was the cause of her 
 being so called. They are Cornish people, 
 and the girl is full of romance. So was 
 the mother, who is dead.” 
 
 “ You interest me greatly,” said Donald. 
 “ My friend seems wonderfully taken with 
 her.” 
 
 “ Don’t let him put his heart into the 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 matter,” said Lady B , laughing, “ for 
 
 the child is already engaged. It is a long 
 story, and she has been very troublesome. 
 Were I to tell you the whole you would 
 understand why I call her romantic.” 
 
 Lady B turned away to answer a 
 
 question asked from another side, and 
 Stewart stood musing perplexedly over the 
 information he had received. 
 
 “ Already engaged ! And Max calls her 
 his wife 1 ” he reflected. “ The girl is full of 
 romance ; and to me she seemed quite ready 
 to obey his thought. There is a storm of 
 trouble in the air, if I cannot get Max out 
 of England by to-morrow night. And yet 
 he may forget all this to-morrow morning, 
 if he be the madman I fear I must take 
 him to be.” 
 
 After some time spent very uneasily, 
 Stewart went back to the window where 
 he had left his friend with the lady he had 
 called his wife. Both were gone. 
 
 Five minutes afterwards he met Edel- 
 stein coming through the crowd to meet 
 him with a beaming countenance. 
 
 “ They took her away,” he said with a 
 slight laugh, “the people who are her 
 friends. I could not object, of course, and 
 we are parted for the present. But think 
 of it, Stewart, letting my own wife go 
 away with strangers ! But I shall see her 
 to-morrow, and explain everything to her 
 father.” 
 
 Donald felt sick at heart. He was too 
 much perplexed and troubled to try to 
 reason with his friend, and besides, he 
 feared to quarrel with a madman. He 
 accompanied Edelstein home, and went 
 with him into his studio. 
 
 As they stood before the statue, whose 
 face had been modelled from Hilda’s, 
 Max raised the lamp till the red light fell 
 full on the marble features. 
 
 “ Look, Donald, look ! she has not 
 changed one atom ! ” 
 
 The likeness was indeed marvellous. 
 Even Stewart acknowledged that the two 
 Hildas were, outwardly at least, the 
 same. 
 
 “ My dear fellow,” he said, “ I acknow- 
 ledge that there is a startling resemblance ; 
 but go to sleep on this, and to-morrow 
 your thoughts will be more clear. You 
 must not make people talk about Miss 
 Trevelyan.” 
 
 Max smiled a peculiar smile. 
 
 “You think I am mad, Stewart,” he 
 said ; “ I know you think I am mad. But 
 can she be mad too ? That would be too 
 singular a coincidence.” 
 
d: : 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 
 [July 3 , 1882 .] 13 
 
 “ Do you mean to tell me that the 
 young lady you met for the first time 
 to-night has declared that she knows her- 
 self to be your dead wife, returned to this 
 world to be with you 1 ” 
 
 “You have put it into excellent 
 words, good Donald. Knowing your 
 sceptical mind, I almost shrank from 
 stating the facts to you so plainly.” 
 
 “ My poor Max ! ” 
 
 “ Tush, Donald ! don’t put me in a 
 passion. Did you yourself not solemnly 
 convey to me her promise ? ” 
 
 “ She made no promise, Max. It was 
 the fond and futile wish of a dying 
 woman that I unfortunately repeated to 
 you. Your wife was too sensible, too 
 religious a woman to believe that such 
 return from the dead could ever be.” 
 
 “ There is nothing in religion to forbid 
 such belief,” said Max doggedly. “ She has 
 returned out of her heaven by the force 
 of her all-powerful love. She was re-born 
 into this world the very year after she 
 quitted it.” 
 
 “ I wish you would go to bed, Edelstein, 
 and sleep upon it.” 
 
 Max smiled. 
 
 “After twenty years of silence I have 
 talked with my wife to-night,” said he, 
 “and I have much to think over before I 
 can sleep. But, dear old friend, I would 
 not keep you here wrangling with me. 
 When I have a little recovered from the 
 shock of this wonderful happiness I shall 
 be able to thank you for being the bearer, 
 a second time, of a blessing into my life. 
 Meantime take your rest. When you have 
 a little got over your natural surprise you 
 will wake up and recognise my Hilda.” 
 Donald left his friend, feeling half- 
 stunned with ’amazement at the occurrences 
 of the night. That Max, whom he believed 
 to be mad, should reason with him pity- 
 ingly, as if his were the weaker mind, 
 seemed to finish the extreme oddity of the 
 whole situation. His only hope for Edel- 
 stein lay now in the likelihood that the 
 girl might lead the way out of the confu 
 sion of this hour. If indeed she had been 
 subject to some spell while in Edelstein’s 
 presence, perhaps when no longer under 
 his personal influence she might be roused 
 to see the folly of the position in which she 
 placed him as well as herself. Before 
 laying his head on his pillow that night 
 Stewart resolved to go in the morning, as 
 early as might be, and to ask an interview 
 with the woman whom Edelstein claimed 
 as his wife. 
 
 The next morning, however, Donald re- 
 membered that he must go to Lady B — — 
 for Miss Trevelyan’s address, and on his 
 way to that lady he decided on opening his 
 mind to her at once as Miss Trevelyan’s 
 friend ; at least in as far as he dared. He 
 
 was fortunate in finding Lady B at 
 
 home. 
 
 “ I have come to you on a curious 
 errand,” he said ; “I want you to give me 
 some account of Miss Trevelyan’s charac- 
 ter, disposition, and circumstances. I am 
 prompted by no idle curiosity.” 
 
 “ You come in the interest of your 
 friend the sculptor,” said the lady, “ who 
 evidently fell in love with her last night. 
 If her father had been here he would 
 hardly have been pleased, for I think I 
 mentioned to you he has already promised 
 her to another man.” 
 
 “ He has promised her 1 ” 
 
 “ Well, that is the way to put it. The 
 girl is, as I told you, full of romance. She 
 has been brought up in a gloomy old house 
 on a wild Cornish coast, without a mother 
 and without youthful friends and com- 
 panions. She is dreamy and sentimental, 
 and has fancies about herself.” 
 
 “ Every woman has a right to a little of 
 that kind of thing,” said Stewart, who had 
 married his own wife for love ; “ Heaven 
 knows there are enough women of a 
 different type. I suppose the man her 
 father has chosen is rich 1 ” 
 
 “Enormously wealthy, and very much in 
 love with her. ’Tis true he is neither 
 young nor good-looking. He is a City 
 banker; and Mr. Trevelyan is a needy, 
 almost a ruined man.” 
 
 “You mean that there is not a glimpse 
 of hope for my friend Edelstein 1 ” 
 
 “ I think there is none.” 
 
 “ But if she herself should prefer him ? 
 He is not poor, and he is a distinguished 
 man. And he is probably younger than 
 the person of her father’s choice.” 
 
 “Considerably so I should say, and a 
 thousand times more fascinating, I am sure. 
 In every way more desirable, I believe. 
 Nevertheless, his suit is hopeless.” 
 
 “ Lady B , I will confide in you 
 
 wholly. My friend is no common man. 
 Early in life he married a wife whom he 
 tenderly loved, and whose untimely death 
 almost unhinged his brain. Miss Trevelyan 
 bears an extraordinary resemblance to the 
 dead Hilda.” 
 
 “Hilda! How odd!” 
 
 “Yes; the case is full of peculiarities. 
 Now I greatly fear that if Edelstein should 
 
 * 
 
 F 
 
A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 cS ..= = 
 
 14 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 continue to see Miss Trevelyan, and after- 
 wards lose her, the total wreck of his mind 
 may be the consequence. Believe me I am 
 not over-stating the truth. I appeal to you 
 to ascertain immediately whether there is 
 hope for him or not, and, if not, to remove 
 Miss Trevelyan out of his path.” 
 
 “You make a strange demand, my friend. 
 Why should not Mr. Edelstein be able to 
 take care of himself ; or his friends be able 
 t© take care of him h Why should the 
 girl’s movements be interfered with 1 She 
 is enjoying her first season in London, 
 and it is only half over. Her father is in 
 Parliament, and it does not suit him .to 
 move about just now. How can I ask him 
 to take his daughter out of Mr. Edelstein’s 
 way ? ” 
 
 “ Dear Lady B — , for the sake of our 
 
 old friendship I ask you to see what can be 
 done. I myself will do my best to get 
 Max out of London. For the present I 
 will only ask you to see Miss Trevelyan 
 and learn her mind, and appeal to her not 
 to encourage Edelstein.” 
 
 “ There I am all with you. I will see the 
 child at once. Though I cannot but think, 
 friend Donald, that you take an exaggerated 
 view of the situation, and allow your own 
 turn for romance to run away with your 
 judgment.” 
 
 Late that afternoon Lady B took 
 
 her way to the lodging in St. James’s 
 where Mr. Trevelyan and his daughter had 
 taken up their abode for the season. The 
 house and its appointments bore out Lady 
 
 B ’s assertion that Mr. Trevelyan was a 
 
 needy if not a ruined gentleman. 
 
 She was shown into a rather dingy draw- 
 ing-room, and in a few minutes the pale girl 
 of the night before, the second Hilda, came 
 into the room with a radiant countenance. 
 She was dressed in a soft white woollen 
 gown with crimson roses at her throat. 
 Her clear blue eyes were dilated with 
 joy, her face was paler than ever, her fair 
 hair, which shone like mixed gold and 
 silver, glittered softly on her temples, and 
 fell back in a heavy plait on her shoulders. 
 She extended her hands to her friend with 
 a happy, eager movement. 
 
 “ Why, Hilda, how glorified you look ! I 
 am glad to see you looking so happy, my 
 dear.” 
 
 “Yes, I am happy,” said Hilda quietly, 
 and stole her arms round her friend’s 
 neck. 
 
 “Yet you were rather naughty last 
 night, Hilda, talking so much to that Mr. 
 Edelstein in the absence of your fiancA” 
 
 The girl withdrew from her friend’s em- 
 brace, and sat down by her side. 
 
 “ You do not understand,” she said, 
 “ and how can I tell you ] Mr. Edelstein 
 and I are no new friends.” 
 
 “ Indeed ! You surprise me extremely.” 
 “ I am sure I do. And I fear I shall also 
 surprise others who love me. But Max has 
 the first and highest claim.” 
 
 “ My dear Hilda, can anything be the 
 matter with my ears f ” 
 
 “ You seem to hear me pretty well.” 
 “Hilda, I am angry with you. You 
 mean to tell me that you have thrown over 
 your betrothed, set your father’s will at 
 naught, and all for a stranger % ” 
 
 “ Not for a stranger, LadyB . I am 
 
 Max Edelstein’s wife.” 
 
 Lady B uttered a cry, and then sat 
 
 still, gazing at the girl before her. 
 
 “You are either quite mad,” she said at 
 last, “or you are a double-dealing and 
 unworthy woman.” 
 
 Hilda smiled mysteriously, and putting 
 her hands on her friend’s shoulders kissed 
 her tenderly. 
 
 “Do not be angry,” she said, “till you 
 hear my story,” and then she sat down at 
 
 Lady B ’s feet, and began to speak at 
 
 length, while her friend listened patiently 
 to her tale. The burthen of what she had 
 to say was the same as that reiterated by 
 Edelstein to Stewart. She was the Hilda 
 of Innsbruck. She had died and had 
 promised to return. They had recognised 
 each other on the instant they had met. 
 They were husband and wife, and no 
 strangers of a day. Nobody should dare 
 to part them. 
 
 Looking at her innocent, ingenuous face, 
 
 Lady B seized her hands and sighed 
 
 heavily. Here was a mind gone astray. 
 How sad, how incomprehensible ! A lonely 
 unnatural bringing-up had induced eccen- 
 tricity, a romantic incident had inflamed 
 her imagination, and reason was over- 
 turned at a blow. What could be done for 
 this unfortunate girl 1 
 
 “My friend Stewart knew something of 
 this,” she reflected, “ and that is why he so 
 urgently desired that they should not meet 
 again. Now, which is the lunatic here 2 
 An d is lunacy catching, like the measles ? ” 
 
 When Lady B reached home again 
 
 she found Stewart awaiting her return. 
 As she entered her own drawing-room 
 with a scared pale face, Donald came to 
 meet her. She sank into a chair, and 
 Stewart waited impatiently till she was 
 able to speak. 
 
^3 
 
 
 Charles Dickens.] A STRANGE LOVE STORY. [July 3, 1882.] 15 
 
 &ZB 
 
 “Your friend is a madman,” she said at 
 last. 
 
 “ That is what I dread,” said Stewart 
 sadly. “ My only hope for him rested upon 
 the lady. From your manner I conclude 
 that my worst fears are realised.” 
 
 “ What are your worst fears 1 ” 
 
 “ That she shares his delusion.” 
 
 “ What is his delusion j ” 
 
 “ That his dead wife has fulfilled a pro- 
 mise he fancies she made, and has returned 
 to this world to be near him.” 
 
 “ He has communicated his mania to 
 her.” 
 
 “ What does she say about herself ?” 
 
 “ That she has always been followed by 
 indistinct memories of a former life. That 
 the moment she saw him she recognised 
 him. That everything he told her of the 
 past she instantly recollected. That Heaven 
 has granted them both the boon of her 
 return. That she belongs, and will belong, 
 to no one else but him ; and that nothing 
 shall part them but death.” 
 
 “ It seems too strange a coincidence. 
 Yet an imaginative girl might be in- 
 fluenced by a mind like Edelstein’s.” 
 
 “My friend, what shall we do with them? ” 
 “If they could marry they might possibly 
 be happy.” 
 
 “ It can never be, I believe. I, for one, do 
 not like to open the matter to her father. 
 Yet I think he ought to be told.” 
 
 The next day Lady B wrote a care- 
 
 fully-worded letter to Mr. Trevelyan, and 
 by night had a short note from him in 
 answer. It said : 
 
 “ That madman Edelstein has been here, 
 and Hilda and he have told me their ridi- 
 culous story. I have given him my mind; 
 and to-morrow Hilda goes away to friends. 
 Even to you I will not tell where I have 
 sent her. Let her be lost to the world 
 till she has returned to her senses.” 
 
 The next day Lady B handed this 
 
 note to Mr. Stewart, and Donald at once 
 went off to Edelstein, whom he found lost 
 in grief, having just returned from the 
 Trevelyans’ lodgings where he had learned 
 that the young lady was gone. 
 
 Stewart tried to rouse him up. 
 
 “Come, come'.” he said, “be a man and 
 shake this madness off ! Think of your 
 wife in heaven, and leave this girl to the 
 disposal of her father. She is already 
 pledged to another man.” 
 
 “ Against her will, ” said Edelstein 
 calmly. “ She herself had given no pledge. 
 How could she, being already my wife ? 
 
 But do not torture me, Donald. She is gone, 
 it is true ; but I shall find her again.” 
 
 “ Be it so, old friend. All that I can do 
 to help you I will do. In the meantime, 
 while we are all at fault, come with me to my 
 Scotch mountain side. There you can get 
 up your strength, and consider what further 
 steps to take.” 
 
 After much persuasion Edelstein con- 
 sented to accompany his friend. All his 
 attempts to hear further tidings of Hilda 
 had proved vain, and, as no letter came 
 from her to him, he concluded that she was 
 closely watched. Donald hoped, on the 
 contrary, that she had only returned to 
 her senses. 
 
 On a lovely J une evening the two friends 
 arrived at the gate leading into Stewart’s 
 private grounds in a lovely part of 
 Scotland, and leaving their carriage with 
 the servants, walked up a winding by-path 
 which tacked along a garden-wreathed 
 mountain-side. At their feet lay the sea, 
 guarded by cliffs which were low here and 
 high there, and at one part formed them- 
 selves into a sort of lofty bridge leading 
 from Stewart’s charming dwelling above 
 on the upper heights to the sand-strewn 
 and rock-bound shore beneath. 
 
 At one point they stood still to admire 
 the magnificent view, their gaze resting on 
 the violet-tipped peaks in the clouds, and 
 then falling and following the golden light 
 that ran “ along the smooth wave towards 
 the golden west ; ” and Edelstein raised his 
 hat with a gesture of reverent delight. 
 
 “ Colour is hardly a sculptor’s province,” 
 he said with a smile ; “but I. could almost 
 wish at this moment to be a painter.” 
 
 Donald was delighted. 
 
 “ I think I can make you happy here,” 
 he said, “ for a week at least. You can go 
 when you are tired of us.” 
 
 Edelstein smiled his answer. His 
 
 thoughts had been carried away to the 
 Alps — to the Roman hills. That delicate 
 violet on these lovely mountains had 
 coloured his imagination with their own 
 suggestions. His soul was away with Hilda 
 on the Alps. 
 
 They continued their walk, still climb- 
 ing, and presently here and there, between 
 bush and scaur, glimpses of Donald’s home 
 came into view. One steep path of a few 
 yards remained to be travelled, and at the 
 top of it a figure in white appeared with 
 one arm thrown round a young ash tree, a 
 figure leaning forward as if watching for 
 their approach. A few more steps and 
 they were face to face with Hilda. 
 
 j 
 
 
16 [July 3, 1882.1 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 = t 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ Good Heavens ! ” cried Donald. “ Miss 
 Trevelyan — how have you come here % ” 
 
 She had slipped her hand through 
 Edelstein’s arm, and, looking at Stewart, 
 frankly said : 
 
 “ Ah, Mr. Stewart, what an unkind wel- 
 come ! How often in the old days have 
 you hoped I should come here ! ” 
 
 Donald turned to his friend. 
 
 “ What does this mean, Max % ” he said. 
 
 “ Has it been a preconcerted plan % ” 
 
 “If a plan at all, a plan of Providence,” 
 said Edelstein, whose face was shining 
 with satisfaction. “ The same Power that 
 has sent Hilda back into the world has 
 been able to place her feet upon your hills. 
 That is all I have to say. Hilda will tell 
 us the rest. As for me, I have felt that, 
 turn where I might, I should meet her 
 again. ” 
 
 “ My father sent me here,” said Hilda, 
 
 “ Indirectly he sent me here. He placed 
 me with his friends a mile away, and Mrs. 
 Stewart met me with them, and invited me 
 to spend a few days with her. I have felt, 
 like Max, that our parting would not be 
 for long. This morning Mrs. Stewart said 
 to me, ‘ My husband arrives this evening, 
 and he brings with him his old friend, the 
 sculptor Edelstein.’ And I was not the 
 least surprised to hear it.” 
 
 Then they turned away, hand in hand, 
 just as Hilda and Max used to saunter 
 together on the Alps long ago, and Donald, 
 amazed and troubled, went in at his own 
 door and retired to take counsel with his 
 wife. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart was greatly astonished at 
 the tale her husband had to tell. 
 
 “ I took a fancy to the girl,” she said. 
 “ There is something so uncommon about 
 her. It was but natural to ask her to come 
 here. The people she was with are stiff 
 and hard in their way and she seemed so 
 pleased to get away from them.” 
 
 “It was very natural, Jeanie,” said her 
 husband. “ And it was also natural in me 
 to bring poor Edelstein here. The coinci- 
 dence is the part of it that takes away my 
 breath.” 
 
 “ I think we can hardly be to blame,” 
 said Mrs. Stewart. 
 
 “ If Trevelyan had been acquainted with 
 me it could not have happened,” said 
 Donald. “But he knows nothing of me 
 and I know little of him. The only thing 
 for me to do now is to write to him stating 
 the case as it stands; and meantime, if 
 possible, to get Edelstein away with me on 
 an excursion somewhere.” 
 
 The evening passed quietly away. The 
 host and hostess, secretly ill at ease, 
 exerted themselves to appear as if nothing 
 was wrong. At dinner-time Edelstein 
 talked brilliantly and was so transformed 
 that Donald, his friend of years, scarcely 
 knew him. Hilda appeared in the rich 
 dress of pure white in which he had met 
 her in London, and her face was shining 
 with tranquil happiness. There were no 
 other guests. 
 
 As the hours passed by, Mrs. Stewart, 
 who could not detect symptoms of mad- 
 ness in either of her guests, reflected that it 
 was a thousand pities that these two must 
 be parted. Later in the evening Hilda 
 sang Scotch and German ballads — sang the 
 songs that the other Hilda had sung twenty 
 years ago before the door of her Alpiue 
 home. Edelstein sat by her side, gazing at 
 her with looks of worship. 
 
 After the ladies had retired to rest 
 Stewart put his arm through that of his 
 friend, and drew him out on the terrace 
 overlooking the sea. 
 
 “My dear fellow,” lie said, “fortune 
 has been playing curiously into your hands, 
 
 I admit ; but, you see, I cannot allow this 
 sort of thing to go on. Miss Trevelyan is 
 here by a strange accident. Now, until 
 her father comes or sends to remove her, 
 you must take yourself away. I will go 
 with you on an excursion round the coast 
 — anywhere you like, so that you get out 
 of this house for a time.” 
 
 Edelstein smiled. 
 
 “Donald,” he said, “you are the soul 
 of honour, and always were. You would 
 sacrifice even the happiness of your old 
 friend to your idea of honour. I respect 
 you. I feel with you where any other 
 matter than this is concerned. But when 
 you speak of Miss Trevelyan, you forget 
 that you speak of Max Edelstein’s wife. 
 That is the one point which I cannot keep 
 before you.” 
 
 “ Man, man ! ” cried Donald, out of all 
 patience, “ will you not give up this unholy 
 craze 1 Does Providence work miracles for 
 you alone 1 Come, come, old friend, do not 
 exasperate me ! ” 
 
 “ The world is full of miracles, Donald, 
 only we do not perceive them. I will not 
 believe that you do not recognise Hilda.” 
 
 “ I see a startling likeness, but that does 
 not overturn my reason. I see a likeness 
 in person, but many differences in character. 
 The first Hilda had a noble mind, strong 
 clear common-sense — nay, she had genius, 
 which is not always allied with the other 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A STRANGE LOVE STORY. 
 
 [July 3 , 1882 .] 1 7 
 
 quality. Miss Trevelyan is weak, imagi- 
 lative, and without any strength of 
 character. ” 
 
 “I have thought of some differences, 
 md they only strengthen my belief — if, 
 indeed, it needed strengthening. In the 
 irst place, you wrong the lady you are 
 pleased to call Miss Trevelyan (and Miss 
 frevelyan I am willing you should call her 
 ;ill our marriage can be solemnised again). 
 3he is not weak in character, as you 
 
 Delieve. She is feminine, believing In 
 
 short, she knows what you will not admit. 
 A.s for the genius that once distinguished 
 lier — ah, Donald, do you forget what you 
 sold me she said when promising to return 
 so me, if she could ? 4 If I come,’ she said, 
 
 I will come without the talent which I 
 believe was the only flaw that Max could 
 3ver see in me.’ She was wrong there. I 
 saw no flaw in her, and by her talent and 
 levotion she carried me over the worst, 
 she hardest bit of my career ; but she 
 shought it. Anything of genius I may 
 aossess,’ she continued, ‘ I hereby solemnly 
 bequeath to Max.’ And herein lies the 
 secret of my later complete success. ‘ If 
 [ come again,’ she said, ‘ I will come 
 without it.’ ” 
 
 He drew a little pocket-book out of his 
 jreast, and read over again the words in 
 Stewart’s writing. 
 
 “ Do you forget jotting this down,” he 
 said, “ and afterwards giving it, at my 
 request, to me 1 I have never parted with 
 it for a moment since you put it in my 
 hands.” 
 
 “ And so have driven yourself mad on one 
 point,” said Stewart, aghast at this result 
 of his own well-meant action. 
 
 “I am not mad, Donald,” said Max 
 quietly, putting the book back in its 
 resting-place ; “ but these are among the 
 things that are beyond our ken.” 
 
 “ There is no use in battling with a 
 madman,” said Stewart to his wife that 
 night. “I cannot bring him to reason, 
 and the girl seems as much astray as he. 
 I have communicated with her father 
 already ; in the morning I will write 
 him a fuller account of the unexpected 
 meeting here; and this is all I can do.” 
 
 “ I cannot see that either is mad,” said 
 Mrs. Stewart, “ and to me it seems like 
 sin to meddle between them. Why can 
 they not marry and be happy in their 
 touching delusion, if delusion it be 1 ” 
 
 “ ‘ If delusion it be ! ’ ” said Stewart. 
 “ My dear, are you losing your senses tool” 
 
 “ I hope not, Donald. I have always 
 
 been called matter-of-fact ; but I would 
 rather not dwell on this point. I take my 
 stand simply on this — that I would like to 
 see so interesting a pair married and 
 happy.” 
 
 “ There I heartily agree with you ; but 
 I am not her father, nor are you her 
 mother ; and her father must have his voice 
 in the matter.” 
 
 Nothing more was said, but early in the 
 morning Stewart rose and went to his study 
 to write his letter to Hilda’s father. This 
 written and despatched, he went out to the 
 garden, to wait for the summons to break- 
 fast. Returning to the house, he met his 
 wife coming down the path. 
 
 “ Neither Mr. Edelstein nor Hilda is to 
 be found,” she said hurriedly. 
 
 “ Good Heavens ! ” said Stewart, “ has 
 no one seen them!” 
 
 “The gardener saw them about six 
 o’clock this morning.” 
 
 “ Where 1 ” 
 
 “ Here in the garden. When he arrived 
 to begin his work he met Mr. Edelstein 
 walking about, and looking as if he had 
 not slept all night. Presently Miss Tre- 
 velyan appeared, fresh and bright after 
 her sleep, and walked among the roses, 
 gathering them as she went, and splashing 
 herself with dew. She seemed surprised 
 to see Mr. Edelstein. They spoke together 
 for some time, never seeming to notice the 
 presence of the gardener. At last Mr. 
 Edelstein said, ‘ Come, then ! ’ and took 
 her by the hand, and they walked away 
 together hand-in-hand ; and then the sun 
 rose high, suddenly, and he could not see 
 where they went for the blaze of light. 
 He thinks they went down towards the 
 cliffs.” 
 
 “Perhaps they have only gone for a 
 walk,” said Stewart, but with a face of 
 anxiety. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart shook her head. 
 
 “ I think,” she said, “ that you will never 
 see them again till they are indeed man and 
 wife. Hasty marriages are easily made in 
 this country, remember.” 
 
 “ And all your sympathies are with the 
 crafty pair,” said Stewart almost angrily. 
 “You do not think of the trouble that I 
 shall get into with her friends.” 
 
 Even while the husband and wife talked 
 in the garden, the sky darkened, and great 
 drops of rain began to fall. The wind rose, 
 and there was every sign of a storm. 
 
 Stewart, nothing daunted by the weather, 
 set off post-haste in a carriage with a pair 
 of horses to follow in the track of his friend. 
 
18 [July 3, 1882.] A STRANGE LOVE STORY. [Conducted by 
 
 He felt a conviction that his wife’s words 
 were true — that Edelstein had taken the 
 matter into his own hands, and would 
 make Hilda his wife before friends or 
 enemies could interfere. 
 
 The route he followed ran along by the 
 sea, and after an hour’s driving through 
 the storm he arrived at a small fishing sea- 
 port, where he made enquiries among the 
 people. He soon learned that his fears 
 were realised. A lady and gentleman 
 had presented themselves that morning to 
 the clergyman of the place, and had 
 been married. Immediately afterwards 
 they had hired a hooker to carry them, 
 some said to France, some said to Ireland. 
 Half an hour after they left the pier the 
 storm began to rise ; many had watched 
 the hooker through a glass with some 
 anxiety, but it had seemed to hold on its 
 way steadily enough, and was now out of 
 sight. 
 
 “ Ireland or France ! ” said Mr. Stewart 
 impatiently. “ Surely some one knows 
 where they are gone. Who would take 
 them in a hooker from here to France % ” 
 
 “ Ah weel, mon,” said a brawny fisher- 
 man ; “ our hookers will do better work 
 than ye think. But I maun say I heard 
 them talk about Ireland.” 
 
 Mr. Stewart was in despair. It did not 
 matter, after all, towards what country the 
 husband and wife had set their faces. He 
 
 thought bitterly of Lady B and her 
 
 friend, Mr. Trevelyan, and wished im- 
 patiently that this extraordinary elopement 
 had taken place from under any roof rather 
 than his own. Of Edelstein’s happiness he 
 could not then even think, so vexatious 
 were the circumstances in which he found 
 himself unexpectedly placed. 
 
 Stamping up and down the pier while he 
 made his reflections he scarcely noticed that 
 the storm was becoming wilder every 
 moment, till suddenly a furious gust, almost 
 sweeping him from his foothold, startled 
 him out of his musing, and changed his 
 feeling of anger against the runaway pair 
 into anxious fears for their safety. 
 
 Gazing round him after a long look at 
 the now raging sea, he was aware of a 
 group of solemn weather-beaten faces 
 scanning his features with sympathy, and 
 he immediately questioned the men as to 
 the amount of danger to be apprehended 
 from the storm. 
 
 “ It’s a bad day, and it’ll be a waur 
 night,” said one who made himself spokes- 
 man for the rest. “A wad rather yer 
 friens had ta’en their flight by land.” 
 
 Sick at heart now, Stewart pressed the 
 seafaring men with questions. Their fear 
 was that the hooker would be run upon 
 some of the rocks along the coast. Donald 
 took his way to the inn of the village, 
 where his horses were put up, and decided 
 on sending a message to his wife, and 
 remaining in this place for the night. It 
 did not appear to him that he could effect 
 much good by doing so, yet he felt more 
 within reach of news on this spot than he 
 should have felt in his drawing-room at 
 home. 
 
 Towards evening the tempest swelled 
 into a hurricane. One or two houses were 
 flung down in the little town, slates and 
 chimneys from all sides clattered into the 
 street, and the bells from the various points 
 of danger on the rocky coast clanged and 
 tolled the black night through. Stewart 
 walked his room hour after hour, and tried 
 to check his gloomy thoughts by recurring 
 to the suggestion of one of the sailors, that 
 after all the hooker might have put in 
 somewhere along the coast, before the 
 storm became so furious. This was the 
 only hope that presented itself in the midst 
 of horror, and he clung to it with all his 
 might. Nevertheless, as he left his room 
 in the wild scared light of the morning, and 
 went out to look about, he felt a dread 
 at heart that some unforeseen catastrophe 
 had ended the curious drama in which 
 he had been obliged, unwillingly, to take 
 a part. 
 
 About twelve o’clock the storm went 
 down, but the weather remained bleak and 
 sullen. Stewart ordered his carriage, and 
 set off by the coast road, stopping at all the 
 dwellings and villages as he went along, 
 asking if a hooker had been harboured or 
 wrecked in the neighbourhood. His search 
 was vain, the answer to questions as to 
 harbour generally was, “No hooker could 
 live in such a hurricane as that of last 
 night.” 
 
 When it was quite evening, he at last 
 met a man upon the road who had 
 some little news to give him, having 
 heard of people who had been washed in 
 that morning near a village some miles 
 further on by the shore. Yes, there was a 
 man, and there was a woman. The woman 
 was a lady; and had been taken into some- 
 body’s house. 
 
 Stewart now drove as fast as his horses 
 could carry him, and arrived at the place 
 where the sea had given up its prey. 
 “ Oh, aye ! ” said the folks he met ; a sailor- 
 boy and a lady had been washed in alive ; 
 
 
A STRANGE LOVE STORY 
 
 [July 8, 1882.) 19 
 
 cS= 
 
 Charles ickens.] 
 
 a gentleman and one or two others had 
 been drowned. Then a revulsion of feeling 
 swept over Donald Stewart, and his heart 
 cried out for the faithful friend of so many 
 bygone years. If one must be taken, why 
 could it not have been the woman who had 
 so lent her weakness to help a great mind 
 to its ruin 1 He forgot the father who would 
 hold him, Donald Stewart, accountable 
 for the fate of a child ; and thought only 
 of his own irreparable loss. 
 
 He was taken into a humble fisherman’s 
 house, and there, by the fire, sat the sailor- 
 lad who had survived the wreck. 
 
 In a few strong words he told the story 
 of the night’s catastrophe. The gentleman 
 was as brave as a lion, he said. He lashed 
 the lady to the mast, and that was how she 
 was saved. For himself the gentleman 
 counted surely on his swimming. He was 
 a powerful swimmer, and must have been 
 dashed upon the rocks and stunned. He 
 (the lad saved) could not swim a stroke. 
 These things were well known to be all 
 chance or fate. The waves which had killed 
 the skilful swimmer had but tossed the 
 helpless boy roughly in their embrace, and 
 hurled him safe upon the sand. 
 
 In an inner room Hilda was lying upon 
 a bed. She did not speak, but fixed one 
 long, strange look upon Donald Stewart, 
 and then turned away her face to the wall. 
 Stewart sent for his wife immediately, and 
 that kind woman nursed the girl through 
 what proved to be a dangerous illness. 
 When she was sufficiently restored they 
 carried her home to their house, where her 
 father had arrived to meet her. 
 
 A rather narrow-minded, unsympathetic 
 man, Mr Trevelyan was unable to take any 
 lenient view of his daughter’s conduct. 
 While she lay in peril of death his grief 
 was extreme, but once she was out of 
 danger his anger rose high again, and he 
 resolved that, as soon as she was able to 
 bear them, his reproaches should be equal 
 to her deserts. 
 
 However, when he saw her sit listening 
 to his hard words with an absent, 
 unmoved expression of face, as if she 
 hardly heard, or did not understand him, 
 his eloquence failed, and he felt more fear 
 than wrath stirring within him. 
 
 “ What do you think of her ? ” he asked 
 timorously of Mrs. Stewart. 
 
 “ I know what you mean,” she said, “ but 
 I do not find any flaw in her brain ; she is 
 simply overwhelmed by a depth of agony 
 which you and I cannot fathom.” 
 
 “ But how can she feel such grief for a 
 
 man of whom she knew so little 1 You 
 surely do not believe her story that she lived 
 a former existence and was Edelstein’s 
 wife ? ” 
 
 “I cannot tell you exactly what I believe,” 
 said Mrs. Stewart with a troubled look. 
 “Perhaps I am a little over-tired myself 
 with anxiety and nursing, but I haye been 
 powerfully impressed by the strength and 
 vividness of her own conviction on this 
 subject. Her ravings were most strange. 
 She does not speak about the matter 
 now.” 
 
 “ Try to get her to speak,” said the father, 
 who was softening every moment towards 
 his child. 
 
 Mrs. Stewart tried to lead her to open 
 her mind on the strange subject which en- 
 grossed it. Hilda sat at the window, her 
 fair, almost silvery head set in a framework 
 of roses, her face deadly pale, her eyes 
 darkened with their habitual shadow of 
 grief. Stewart, looking at her, was startled 
 afresh by her extraordinary resemblance to 
 the dying Hilda, who, sitting thus at a 
 window looking out at the Roman hills, 
 had spoken to him those fatal words which 
 he had too faithfully recorded and repeated 
 to her husband. Overwhelmed by an almost 
 supernatural feeling that forced him against 
 his will to share momentarily the delusion 
 of his lamented friend, and to imagine that 
 he saw the Hilda of Rome in the flesh 
 before him, he arose hastily and went out 
 of the room. 
 
 “ My dear,” said Mrs. Stewart, struck 
 with something in the girl’s eyes which 
 had suddenly turned on her, “ will you 
 not speak to me a little, if only to ease 
 your poor heart ? ” 
 
 “ What can I say % ” said Hilda with a 
 wan smile. “ There is one thought ever in 
 my mind ; and who can share it with me 1 
 I rashly asked to have my heaven in 
 returning to the earth to him. My prayer 
 was granted — not for my heaven, but for 
 my purgatory.” 
 
 “ Dear child ! ” 
 
 “And my punishment I shall have to 
 endure. I am not going to die as you all 
 seem to fear. I shall live many years in 
 my purgatory ; and I shall not be allowed 
 to be idle in my pain. Work will be 
 found for me to do.” 
 
 As soon as she was sufficiently restored 
 to health her father took her away to her 
 old home in Cornwall, where she lived with 
 him as a dutiful and tender daughter till 
 his death, which occurred a few years 
 after these events. But there was always 
 
20 [July 3 , 1882 .] HELD AT BAY. [Conducted by 
 
 something in her face which seemed to mark 
 her as different from other girls ; and no 
 man dared ask her to be his wife. 
 
 After her father’s death she went abroad, 
 and joined the devoted ranks of the Sisters 
 of Charity. Further we cannot follow her ; 
 but she is living still. 
 
 HELD AT BAY. 
 
 THE TALE OF A TOURIST. 
 
 By W. \Y. Fenn. 
 
 “Mind,” said the friend to whom we 
 are indebted for the following narrative, 
 
 “ I cannot pledge my word for the accuracy 
 of every minute detail, for although the 
 leading facts are indelibly fixed in my 
 memory, many years have passed since 
 they happened, and as I have never 
 visited the place since, and as I had only 
 a casual acquaintance with it at the time, 
 the exact lie of the land, the precise 
 distances, etc., may not always be geo- 
 graphically correct as I describe them. 
 Still I think they will be sufficiently 
 so to enable me to tell the adventure 
 with tolerable circumstantiality, and if 
 I can, I fancy its somewhat startling 
 character will justify the attempt. Why 
 I have never done so in print before does 
 not signify here, but I may say there were 
 several reasons, the chief perhaps being 
 that I did not wish to get myself or others 
 entangled as prosecutors or witnesses in 
 the complicated intricacies of the Italian 
 criminal law, as I should have stood a good 
 chance of doing had I drawn down upon my- 
 self, at the time, the notoriety which might 
 have been consequent upon my posing as 
 the hero of a striking romance. I, or let 
 me say we, preferred maintaining our 
 privacy to having our names dragged 
 into the fierce light which would have 
 been sure in those days, when travelling was 
 not so universal as it has since become, 
 to beat on anyone happening to meet with 
 an unusual adventure. There being no 
 fear now, however, of this contingency 
 following upon the publication of my story, 
 I will proceed with it as fast as maybe. 
 So turning up an old note-book, dated 
 1854, to aid my memory, I find among 
 other odds and ends, and rough jottings 
 with pen and pencil, the following entry : 
 ‘“June 10th. — Lago Maggiore, Baveno. 
 Ascent of Monterone and strange descent. 
 A narrow squeak on all hands; an un- 
 common experience I should think, at 
 
 ^ ■ ^ 
 
 least in North Italy; it is to be hoped so. 
 They seem to be pleasant people in spite 
 of their rather stand-offish manner; per- 
 haps it is only because they are so very 
 English and unprotected. It is funny to 
 see how it has altered since this affair. 
 Girl certainly very pretty.’ 
 
 “ Well do I remember idly writing these 
 words in the seclusion of my own room 
 in the hotel at midnight. And such 
 a midnight as it was too, and with such a 
 moon shining in at the open French 
 window and flooding the chamber with a 
 light which quite dimmed th§ candle and 
 made the outlook over the lovely lake like a 
 scene in fairy-land ! Yes, I can see it all 
 vividly. That old note-book with its dis- 
 jointed entries acts like a talisman upon 
 my memory, and revives much that has 
 been long, long forgotten. Yes; by its 
 aid I shall be able, for a while at least, to 
 put the clock back in imagination five or 
 six and twenty years, and, by giving the 
 reins to my fancy, act over again the doings 
 of that memorable day which had then 
 just closed. Yes ; it is all strangely fresh 
 before me again. Let me then take 
 advantage of this eerie spirit’s prompting, 
 and try and set some of my recollections 
 down. 
 
 “ I had come in company with two 
 artist friends leisurely through Switzerland 
 over the St. Gothard to Bellinzona, striking 
 the lake at Locano, and eventually drifting 
 along itto Pallanza, the Borromean Islands, 
 and finally halting with the intention of 
 making a long stay at Baveno. My friends 
 accepted my companionship, on the con- 
 dition that I would undertake to amuse 
 myself and not interfere with their work. 
 This I was quite content to do, for I used 
 rather to like wandering alone, so long as 
 I could ensure congenial society in the 
 evening. Foreign travel was new to me 
 in those days, and I had no difficulty in 
 filling up my time with exploring, sketch- 
 ing, walking, and wondering at the never- 
 ending grandeur and beauty around. Not 
 a professed mountaineer, but still a good 
 climber by reason of considerable expe- 
 rience among the crags and fells of my 
 native Westmoreland, I always made a 
 point of taking in the general aspect of the 
 country by ascending to some high point 
 whence a comprehensive survey could be 
 obtained. Thus, of course, the beautiful 
 and lofty hill, for it is little more, called 
 Monterone, lying just behind Baveno, and 
 there separating the lakes of Maggiore and 
 Orta, and about which of course everybody 
 
a 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 HELD AT BAY. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 21 
 
 was eloquent, was naturally ‘ a thing to be 
 done/ one, from all I could hear, exactly 
 after my own heart. 
 
 “ Therefore, immediately breakfast was 
 over, within a day or two of our arrival, I 
 started away up the thickly-wooded zigzag 
 path, or narrow road, at the back of the 
 hotel, which I was told would lead me to 
 the summit. I disdained the proffered 
 assistance of any of the troublesome vaga- 
 bonds who hung about the hotel, offer- 
 ing themselves as guides, and eventually 
 shaking myself clear of their pertinacity 
 soon found myself alone a long way up 
 among the dense chestnut woods on the 
 first spurs of the hill. I say alone, for 
 beyond the squalid children playing round 
 an odd chalet or two dotted here and there 
 on the hillside, or now and then a few 
 equally squalid women washing linen in 
 the pretty, rocky, fern-embosomed stream 
 for ever tumbling down towards the lake 
 in close proximity to the path, there were 
 no people about, and the higher I went 
 the fewer became even these signs of 
 human life. 
 
 “It is true that more than once, as I 
 paused to gaze around at the glorious view 
 which ever and anon kept bursting upon 
 my sight through gaps in the foliage, I 
 caught a glimpse of a rough-looking man 
 in a blue blouse, slowly making his way 
 by short cuts, up the slope ; but I had no 
 notion that he was thinking more of me 
 than I of him, nor did I then observe him 
 very closely, for he was far below me. So 
 on I went placidly enjoying the beauty of 
 the weather and the scenery, the former a 
 trifle too hot and stuffy perhaps under the 
 trees, notwithstanding the grateful shade 
 they offered, the latter growing at every 
 upward yard more extensive and alluring. 
 I am not going to dwell upon its rare 
 attractions, because since that period the 
 whole region has become so familiar to 
 thousands that many words of mine would 
 prove irksome and gratuitous. 
 
 “ There is considerable similarity in these 
 zigzag ways among the woods clothing the 
 lower slopes of the mountainous hills 
 which shut in the Italian lakes. Too broad 
 to be called mere footpaths, and yet not 
 wide enough to be called roads, they 
 present a most agreeable means of ascent 
 from level to level and ledge to ledge. 
 They are the connecting links between 
 those groups of picturesque cottages, tiny 
 churches, shrines, and campaniles which, 
 perched on apparently inaccessible knolls 
 or embosomed in the sombre foliage, glitter 
 
 and sparkle like jewels in a rich setting 
 when we glance up at them from the level 
 of the lake. 
 
 “ By the time I was getting clear of the 
 woods, and had passed the last of the 
 dilapidated tawdry little shrines or stations, 
 with their weather-stained, gaudy-coloured, 
 ill- drawn frescoes, and grotesque and be- 
 tinselled figures of the Madonnas or saints, 
 which constantly confront the mountain- 
 explorer in these parts, it was nearly noon. 
 The breeze at this height, in spite of a 
 blazing sun, was most refreshing, and I 
 sat down to inhale it on the first available 
 bit of open. 
 
 “ So far, as I have said, I seemed to have 
 had the walk pretty well to myself, for ex- 
 cepting an old priest coming out of a little 
 chapel, and a boy driving two pack-saddled 
 donkeys fearfully overladen with freshly- 
 cut grass, I had not met or seen a creature 
 for more than an hour. Clearly there were 
 not many tourists on the move. It was 
 early in the year for travelling, and my 
 two brethren of the brush had carried me 
 off at the beginning of June in order that 
 we might escape the crowds and turmoil 
 which, as far back as 1854, made the 
 regular tourist season a less agreeable time 
 for wandering over the beaten tracks than 
 any other. There was plenty of room in 
 the steamboats, diligences, and hotels, and 
 we had even marked this fact particularly 
 the previous evening, and had congratu- 
 lated ourselves on the comparatively 
 deserted table d’hote. 
 
 “ The solitude of my elevated resting- 
 place was very agreeable, and save for the 
 faint tinkling of a distant cow or goat bell, 
 the occasional chime from one of the cam- 
 paniles below, and the constant whirr of 
 the grasshoppers which drowned the hum 
 of all other insect life, the silence was 
 complete. 
 
 “ Whilst in the full enjoyment of it and 
 of the marvellous panorama of lake, and 
 hill, and alp stretched out in front and 
 right and left of me, I caught the sound of 
 voices coming up the way I had come, 
 Presently, as they came nearer and 
 nearer, I could tell that one was that 
 of a man and the other two those of 
 women. When still nearer it was easy 
 to distinguish that these latter were 
 English voices, occasionally speaking Italian 
 but more frequently their own tongue. 
 Soon they were so close that I could make 
 out now and again what they said. Evi- 
 dently the man was urging on some 
 donkeys, on which in all probability the 
 
 3 f 
 
H - ■■■= -=^ 
 
 22 [July 3, 1882.] HELD AT BAY., [Conducted by 
 
 two ladies, for such I opined them to be 
 by their speech, were making the ascent, 
 according to the common practice.. This 
 surmise was borne out in a few minutes, 
 when the party emerged from the gra- 
 dually thinning trees and brushwood. . As 
 they came clearly into view I recognised 
 the ladies as two whom I had remarked at 
 dinner in the hotel the night before. The 
 old man, who carried one of their small 
 haversacks on his * arm, was simply the 
 owner of the animals, and was trudging on 
 in their wake. 
 
 “ These people had set me specu- 
 lating a little about them in the salle-a- 
 manger, and I had come to the conclusion 
 that they were probably aunt and niece 
 travelling alone in a quiet unosten- 
 tatious fashion as is frequently the case 
 with some ladies. The younger was 
 
 strikingly pretty, and the elder, though 
 not old, but too old to be the other’s sister, 
 bore a strong family likeness to her com- 
 panion. As they passed within a few 
 yards of me, I ventured, in the most 
 deferential manner, just to raise my hat in 
 compliance with the foreign custom. But 
 having on suddenly seeing me fallen into 
 complete silence, they now looked straight 
 to their front, not in the least acknow- 
 ledging my civility, although I could tell 
 that the younger certainly observed it. 
 
 “‘ Thoroughly British,’ I said to myself; 
 ‘stern, strong-minded, uncompromising. 
 Never mind ! no doubt they are right to 
 keep strangers at a distance. Still, the aunt 
 need not have looked so dreadfully severe.’ 
 
 “ I watched them winding away over the 
 ever-rising ground, and noticed that they 
 were dressed alike, thoroughly well and 
 appropriately. Broad-brimmed, becoming 
 brown hats with dark-blue veils, grey 
 homespun gowns, with short jackets to 
 match, and hanging over the elder lady’s 
 shoulder was a handy little leather wallet 
 similar to that carried by the man. 
 
 “Presently I arose to pursue my walk in 
 the same direction. Turning for a fare- 
 well look at the lake behind me, ere.it 
 should be shut out for awhile by the in- 
 tervening knolls, crags, and twists of the 
 mountain, I suddenly saw the man in the 
 blue blouse whom I had observed ascend- 
 ing earlier in the day, but he was now 
 sitting beneath the shelter of some shrubs 
 within a dozen yards of me, and evidently 
 eyeing me narrowly. He was a young, 
 strongly-built fellow, with a most sinister 
 expression of countenance of the worst 
 Italian type, coal-black hair and eyes, 
 
 bushy moustache and stubbly beard, sallow 
 complexion, irregular features, and mon- 
 strous ears which stuck out from his head 
 like a wolf’s. He wore a low crowned 
 shabby sort of wide-awake, around which 
 buzzed a little cloud of wasps and flies, 
 the dirty bluish blouse aforesaid, and grey 
 trousers — altogether a very unprepossessing 
 personage, and not at all the sort of fellow 
 you would care to meet in a lonely lane at 
 midnight, or, for the matter of that, on a 
 mountain side in mid-day. 
 
 “ Seeing me scrutinising him closely, he 
 rose after a minute, and with a slinking 
 gait which also suggested something of 
 the wolf, he began ascending the hill with 
 the same sort of disregard to the regular 
 path which I had noticed when I saw him 
 before far below. By adopting this course 
 he kept quite clear of me, and soon dis- 
 appeared over the hill, and behind some 
 low brushwood. 
 
 “ ‘ Satisfactory for those ladies, at any 
 rate,’ I thought, ‘ that he doesn’t seem to 
 be bound in the direction they took — yes, 
 and satisfactory for myself too.’ 
 
 “I do not pretend to describe exactly 
 all the ins and outs, the dips, ridges, 
 turns, and undulations over which the 
 way lay. I only recollect it was far 
 longer than I expected; that it was not 
 always very clear which was the precise 
 direction I ought to take; that it grew 
 wilder, steeper, less defined, and more 
 open, the higher I got; and that the higher 
 I got, the more constantly did it seem that 
 there was a still greater height to be 
 reached ere there was any likelihood of 
 my attaining the actual top. ‘ Excelsior ’ 
 was, however, of course my motto, not- 
 withstanding that I carried no banner. 
 Nor had the ‘ pine-tree’s withered branch,’ 
 or the ‘ awful avalanche,’ any terrors for 
 me, for the simple reason that they did 
 not exist, for I had already got pretty 
 well clear of the pine-woods, which had 
 for a while straggled out in ever-thinning 
 groups on to the open when the chestnuts 
 were finished, and I had not yet come to 
 the region of snow ; again, because there 
 was no snow to come to. Monterone, 
 lofty as it is, lies not within that terrible 
 region. 
 
 “I had long passed all human habita- 
 tions, and, as I have said, all signs of 
 humanity, by the time I caught sight of 
 what really was the highest point of the 
 mountain. Well, there it was at last, 
 then, as I imagined, just coming into 
 view with positively nothing above it — 
 
 — 
 
HELD AT BAY. 
 
 [July S, 1882.1 23 
 
 d - 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 the object of my walk was nearly accom- 
 plished. . When, twenty minutes or 
 so later, it was actually accomplished, 
 and I stood gazing in rapt admiration at 
 the splendour of the now complete scene 
 which I had gradually been opening, I felt 
 a little astonished that I was doing so alone. 
 As far as I could make out, there was not 
 a creature in sight, so I concluded that the 
 two ladies were merely crossing the moun- 
 tain on their way to Orta, that lovely 
 shimmering stretch of silver lying far 
 down there below in the bosom of the 
 hills — the island of St. Giulio, with its 
 white campanile and tiny houses, standing 
 out clear and defined like a rough but 
 glittering diamond or opal in the midst of 
 its bright untarnished setting. Again, I 
 will not pause to dilate on this spectacle ; 
 the view is well known, and seems to me 
 of its kind unique in its infinite variety, 
 embracing as it does a vast expanse of 
 country, from the snowy range of Alpine 
 peaks on the north, to the plains of Lom- 
 bardy, as far as Milan and even Venice, in 
 the south. 
 
 “ Passing round by-and-by to a little 
 hollow into which from its situation I 
 could not see from the broad ridge or 
 plateau where I had been standing, I 
 beheld, to my surprise, the two ladies, in 
 the act, apparently, of settling up accounts 
 with their donkey-driver. The wind, I 
 suppose, had carried their voices away 
 from me, and I still could not hear although 
 I could see them plainly, they then being 
 not more than forty paces off. The old 
 man seemed extremely well satisfied with 
 his bargain, for as he received the last 
 coin which the elder lady was counting 
 into his outstretched hand, he profoundly 
 doffed his hat with many gesticulations of 
 gratitude. Then he hustled up together 
 the donkeys that were browsing close by, 
 drove them round the slope of the brow, 
 and with more salutes and gestures took 
 his leave and disappeared by the way he 
 had come, leaving the ladies alone. They 
 evidently had been picniciug in a small 
 way, and the younger was now seated 
 gazing at the view in front of her, and 
 pointing downwards in the direction of 
 Orta, whilst the other began gathering up 
 some trifling articles and repacking one 
 of their wallets, both of which were lying 
 beside them on the ground. I observed 
 that she also put into it the purse or foreign- 
 looking money-bag, from which she had 
 been discharging her debt. 
 
 “ Yes ; obviously these tourists were on 
 
 the tramp, and having availed themselves 
 of the donkeys to get up one side of the 
 hill, were going, as I had guessed, to walk 
 down the other — a very customary excur- 
 sion. I remained unnoticed, and as 
 I strolled away it occurred to me that 
 delightful as doubtless it was for strong- 
 minded ladies to hold themselves indepen- 
 dent of the protection of man, this was not 
 altogether a very safe exploit for them to 
 undertake by themselves. There they were 
 on a lonely mountain, with plenty of money 
 in their pockets, and supposing, I thought, 
 that instead of me, that rough-looking 
 customer in the blouse had been the unob- 
 served spectator of their doings, what was 
 to prevent him from taking possession of 
 knapsacks, purses — anything he pleased 1 
 Unless his looks belied him, he was not a 
 gentleman to scruple about trifles, and I 
 confess I should not have liked to have 
 seen anyone belonging to me exposed to 
 such a risk. However, it was no affair of 
 mine, and my fears were probably ground- 
 less. Still I could not get the thought of 
 that wolfish ruffian, prowling about in 
 the neighbourhood, out of my head. But 
 as there was no one in sight, I strove to 
 dismiss the idea as foolish, and after dawd- 
 ling round about the huge crest of the hill 
 for some time, I slowly bent my steps 
 downwards again. Soon I took another 
 rest on the rugged slope, for it was early 
 in the afternoon, and there was no reason 
 for hurrying home. 
 
 “ While leisurely filling a pipe I was 
 startled by a faint cry as from a woman far 
 up behind me, and then another nearer. 
 Rising and looking back and upwards, I 
 saw the figure of a man clear against the 
 sky running helter-skelter down the hill at 
 a breakneck pace straight towards where I 
 was standing. For a moment, although 
 he was close upon me, I did not recognise 
 him, coming as he did so dark against the 
 bright light behind him. But in another 
 second the blue blouse caught my eye, and 
 I knew who it was. Starting up suddenly 
 as I had done from under the shelter of 
 the broken ground, he did not see me until 
 he was almost upon me ; no sooner, how- 
 ever, did he behold me in his path than he 
 tried to check himself, but he had so much 
 way on him that this was very difficult — 
 nay, almost impossible — and the most he 
 could do was to swerve, or double as it 
 were, away to his left. Impelled at first I 
 hardly know by what idea, and without 
 stopping to think, I made after him and 
 tried to cut him off in his attempt to reach 
 
24 [July 3 , 1882.] 
 
 HELD AT BAY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 a lower level diagonally. Seeming to guess 
 my purpose and seeing that I should in all 
 probability succeed in it, he diverged still 
 farther to the left. The mere fact of his 
 thus unmistakably attempting to avoid me 
 was sufficient to confirm the instantaneous 
 suspicion which had been aroused 
 although what that was I could hardly have 
 told at the moment. I scarcely suppose I 
 should have acted with this energy and 
 promptitude, or have given chase very far, 
 but that simultaneously there had appeared 
 coming over the brow one of the ladies 
 aforesaid, running at the top of her speed, 
 and calling out as she pointed to the man : 
 
 “ ‘ Stop him ! stop him !’ 
 
 “Then I knew that my apprehensions 
 about the risk they were exposed . to had 
 been only too well founded, and without a 
 moment’s hesitation therefore I kept up 
 the pursuit. And here began the most 
 exciting, difficult, and extraordinary hunt 
 conceivable. It almost baffles description. 
 The craggy irregular ground, interspersed 
 with low brushwood, little dips and hol- 
 lows, sudden declivities, and equally sudden 
 mounds and ridges, with only here and 
 there anything like smooth grass, and the 
 whole lying on a steep slope and stretching 
 away downwards, and in places being lost 
 behind the ragged fringe of woods — all this 
 must be imagined and taken for granted. 
 Also how at times I entirely missed my 
 quarry among the undulations, although 
 he was not a dozen yards ahead of me ; 
 how he kept trying to get down towards 
 the trees, and how I kept trying to drive 
 him upwards on to the open ; how once 
 he stumbled and fell, and how I did the 
 same more than once ; how sometimes 
 the pace increased and then decreased to a 
 mere scramble ; how I heard and occa- 
 sionally saw one or other of the ladies a 
 little way above us following and watching, 
 and how I observed that the fellow was 
 carrying half hidden under his arm one of 
 the ladies’ wallets, and how this circum- 
 stance of course told me what the rascal 
 had been up to— all this, I repeat, must 
 also be taken for granted. 
 
 “ Forward I went, however, somehow, 
 panting, sliding, and running as best I 
 could, but never losing sight for more than 
 a minute or two of the blouse as its wearer 
 doubled and dodged to and fro, for ever 
 making downwards a little, but never 
 being able to get as low as the woods, and 
 never being able to put much more space 
 than a dozen or twenty yards between us. 
 In this way we had been gradually heading 
 
 northwards, that is, away from that side of 
 the hill overhanging Baveno, and at length 
 I observed that we were nearing a more 
 than ordinarily steep part, which I knew 
 ended among the trees in very broken 
 ground, if not sheer-down precipices. 
 
 “ I was determined the scoundrel should 
 not escape me, and as he received a check 
 from an unexpected ledge suddenly open- 
 ing before him, and which he finally 
 jumped, I was all but upon him and very 
 nearly had hold of the strap of the haver- 
 sack dangling loose from his arm. I 
 remember this little fact very vividly, for 
 I recollect thinking, ‘ Suppose he shows 
 fight and turns upon me with a knife.’ 
 But my blood was thoroughly up by this 
 time and I disregarded the danger — a 
 danger, by - the - bye, which was only 
 deferred. His jump saved me from it just 
 then and enabled him to get a longer start 
 of me than he had yet had. Yes, I can 
 see him now, as I write, scampering across 
 a short bit of clean smooth slope and dis- 
 appearing in amongst a steep shelving mass 
 of bent and twisted pines. 
 
 “ ‘ Gone, by Jove ! ’ I cried aloud. But 
 as in a minute or two I likewise scrambled 
 into the wood exactly on his track, and saw 
 the blouse some way below, hope revived. 
 Then, getting lower and lower, the fellow 
 disappeared once more. The ground was 
 awfully steep here and the going most 
 difficult, whilst the trees at each step 
 became thicker and thicker. A trifle 
 puzzled as to what course to take, I had 
 almost come to a standstill, when, as good 
 luck would have it, what should I see 
 hanging on a projecting branch of a tree 
 just below me but that strap of the wallet. 
 Evidently it had got caught and torn off 
 in the fugitive’s headlong descent. I 
 secured it, and with it, of course, a clue to 
 the way he had taken. But, my word ! I 
 was getting into a regular hobble here, for 
 not ten yards lower down, the wood ended 
 suddenly on the verge of one of the 
 precipices I guessed to he somewhere in 
 this direction. To edge along this, keep- 
 ing as far off it as I could, was of course 
 all that was to be done, for I knew that 
 what stopped me would stop him. So, 
 pushing on, I at last again caught sight of 
 my friend, and a few paces more showed 
 me that he had been brought to a complete 
 standstill by another impossible sheer-down 
 descent on his left. 
 
 “He was some way beneath me, but hear- 
 ing me crash through the undergrowth, 
 looked round with a most villainously 
 
A 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 HELD AT BAY. 
 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 25 
 
 diabolical expression on his sufficiently 
 diabolical face. I was nearly abreast of him 
 now, so to speak — that is, exactly over 
 him, and there we stood, hunter and hunted, 
 panting and glaring at each other, both 
 utterly spent and brought to bay. In a 
 minute I made a step downward. He did 
 the same, and holding on to the bough of 
 a tree, thus placed himself close to the 
 verge of the cliff. I made another slight 
 advance, but he could go no farther. No, 
 neither one way nor the other, whilst to 
 come up again was as well-nigh impossible 
 as to go on. He was gettings what is called 
 in the north crag- bound, and so was I. 
 Now, really, had I had time to consider, 
 this was altogether a most gratuitous, 
 dangerous, quixotic bit of business ; but I 
 had been let into the trap so unawares, 
 and had so little foreseen the fix into which 
 I was drifting, that I was in it almost 
 before I had time to realise the peril. 
 
 “ What had become of the ladies I knew 
 not, of course, and it was quite out of the 
 question that they should have followed 
 the chase to within even a thousand yards 
 of this point. I confess to one or two 
 nasty qualms and regrets, but I was in for 
 it, and must go through with it now to the 
 end somehow. I did not much fear the 
 fellow himself. Strong as he looked, I was 
 stronger, I knew, and on a fair bit of 
 ground could have made short work of 
 him ; but here, in such a place, a false 
 
 step or struggle Ugh ! it does not 
 
 bear thinking of, even now after all these 
 long years ! 
 
 “ In front, through the trees, one could 
 see that the drop was terrific, and the 
 great open view of woody crag, fell, and 
 ridge, far below, seemed unbounded, save 
 by the snow-peaks of the Simplon, miles 
 away above Domo D’Ossola, or there- 
 abouts. 
 
 “You may be sure at the time I hadn’t 
 much thought of its grandeur, but still I 
 recall it as part of this hazardous exploit. 
 
 “Should I try what a parley would do % I 
 considered. My Italian was shaky, but 
 at last I cried out in the best I could 
 muster : 
 
 “ ‘Give up that bag and I’ll let you off. 
 Here, now, hand it over.’ 
 
 “ And I went a foot lower down, holding 
 on by the root of a tree just above and 
 beside me, for the slope was as steep as 
 the roof of a house, and roots and branches 
 were mixed up together. 
 
 “ He replied with a look and an oath, and 
 I hardly know which was the worse of the 
 
 two. With the wallet still under one arm, 
 and clinging by the other to the stem of a 
 tree, he seemed trying to let himself down 
 to its roots, which clustered and projected 
 some way over the edge, as if he thought they 
 would give foot and hand hold on the face 
 of the cliff. Very slowly he shuffled lower 
 and lower, bit by bit, till he suddenly 
 slipped ; the wallet dropped from his grip, 
 but caught in a tangle of brushwood, and 
 hung poised almost over the precipice. At 
 first I thought he was gone, but he just 
 managed to seize that cluster of roots, and 
 make good his hold by clasping his arms 
 tight round one of the largest, and by 
 digging his toes into the crumbling crag. 
 His position was just simply frightful, and 
 I shuddered at the sight of his danger. 
 As the wallet, so was he — poised almost in 
 mid-air, with I know not what awful 
 depths below. He was sideways towards 
 me, and kept watching with upturned eyes 
 for my next move, like a fierce rat in a 
 trap. 
 
 “ Thus we remained, how long I cannot 
 remember, but never, as long as I live, 
 will the glare of those eyes, or the malice 
 and terror combined overspreading his 
 face, be forgotten. Hideous and horrible 
 as the spectacle was, it is not likely to fade 
 from my mind in a hurry. Still at the 
 time I felt some compunction for the brute, 
 and determined, if I could but secure the 
 wallet — well, to leave him, perhaps, where 
 he was, to get out of his scrape by himself, 
 if he could. 
 
 “Ido notsuppose justthen thatlweighed 
 this matter much. My point was to recover 
 his plunder. This in itself was no easy 
 task, and required all the climbing skill 
 and nerve I possessed. Yet, being only 
 about three yards below me, I was not 
 going to lose it for want of an effort. That 
 part of my quarry at least should be cap- 
 tured after the hunt I had had. Gently 
 creeping and wriggling, half sitting, half 
 standing, and never letting go of bough or 
 root till I made good some sort of foothold, 
 I by degrees at last approached almost to 
 within arm’s-length of the coveted object. 
 It was literally held by a twig, one side of 
 it resting on the sheer crag, out from and 
 over which shot the roots to which the 
 fellow was clinging. He divined my inten- 
 tion, M course, and almost as I had the 
 bag in my hand, the savage fool, with a 
 writhe and a plunge — I hardly know how 
 — made a grab at it, and flung it over the 
 cliff! 
 
 “ Enraged beyond measure, I felt inclined 
 
 F 
 
cfi= 
 
 26 [July ?, 1882.] 
 
 HELD AT BAY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 to send him flying after it, as I could have 
 done, for I was supporting myself by the 
 same tree to the roots of which he was 
 holding, and my feet being on a level with 
 his hands, by a kick I might have made 
 him let go. He thought I was going to 
 give him one, for, quick as lightning, he 
 contrived to draw a knife from his breast, 
 and actually made a stab at my leg. But 
 I let drive with my foot just in time, and 
 dealt him a frightful kick with my heavy 
 nailed boot on his disengaged wrist. He 
 dropped the knife with a shriek, and his 
 arm fell helpless beside him. . He raised it 
 again in an instant, but his hand was 
 disabled. He could grasp nothing with it, 
 and his position was now only maintained 
 by his toes in the crumbling earth at the 
 top of the cliff, and his left arm wound 
 through the roots. His agony stifled the 
 volley of oaths he was uttering, for, as I 
 knew afterwards, my kick had broken abone. 
 
 I saw he could no longer attack me, but 
 the advantage I had was not worth much, 
 considering how precarious was my own 
 situation. I could hardly move any more 
 than he could, and again we remained 
 glaring at each other. 
 
 “ A sudden thought struck me. I guessed 
 that, partly crag-bound though I was, I 
 should in the end be able by degrees to 
 climb back. If I left him alone, it was 
 just possible he too might do the same in 
 time, disabled though he was, and so get 
 off scot-free. This my temper would not 
 brook, so I drew that strap of the haver- 
 sack out of my pocket, stooped and knelt 
 carefully down, and after a minute con- 
 trived just to wind it twice round his left 
 wrist and the firmest root through which 
 it was bent. Like a wild cat or wolf that 
 he was, he tried to bite my hands, but, 
 avoiding his jagged teeth, I dexterously 
 slipped the tongue through the buckle, 
 drew it tight, and had him fast— literally 
 ‘ held at bay.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Stop there, my fine fellow,’ I cried, 
 ‘till I fetch a gendarme to lend you a 
 hand.’ 
 
 “ Then I turned and clambered and 
 scrambled up the declivity, foot by foot, 
 painfully, carefully, slowly, the while the 
 wretch howled with despair, mingling 
 appeals, imprecations, and yells like the 
 venomous vermin he was. 
 
 “No one can tell what a difficult task lay 
 before me. The earth broke and scattered 
 at every advance — roots and boughs gave 
 way or were torn up under my grasp, for 
 the season was dry and the slope was so 
 
 4 
 
 steep that there seemed no depth of soil 
 for the herbage to grow in. Everything 
 appeared to be clinging like myself to the 
 mere surface, and just beneath the slaty 
 rock broke off in great slabs and wedges 
 almost at a touch. Still, by degrees, and 
 with many a rest, I got higher and higher, 
 the cries of my prisoner growing fainter 
 and fainter. When at last I dared to look 
 downwards he was hidden by the swelling 
 and irregular ridge over which I had come. 
 For a time I gave him little thought, my 
 ydiole attention and energy were bent on 
 the perilous climb, for had I slipped and 
 rolled but . a yard, the chances are my 
 weight would have swept all before it, and 
 I must have crashed down again to the 
 edge of that fearful cliff and gone over like 
 a stone. That I am here to tell the tale, 
 however, is enough to show that in the 
 end I emerged safe, if not very sound, on 
 to the fringe of the copse, much about 
 where I first entered. Beyond bruises 
 and scratches no harm had happened 
 to me, and this assurance I could 
 honestly give in reply to the anxious 
 enquiries with which I was met by the 
 ladies when after awhile they descried me. 
 Perplexed and distracted, they had scarcely 
 known what to do when they saw the 
 blouse and myself disappear into the hanging 
 wood. They could not even approach to 
 within yards of its edge, so slippery and 
 steep was the ground. 
 
 “‘We are extremely indebted to you, I 
 am sure,’ said the elder, when after joining 
 them I had briefly recounted the end of 
 the hunt, ‘ and I am sorry, so very sorry, 
 you should have taken such trouble, and 
 gone through some danger, I fancy. It 
 was most kind, and we cannot thank you 
 enough.’ 
 
 ‘ “ There is nothing to thank me for, 
 unluckily,” I answered, “for your haver- 
 sack is gone irretrievably, I am afraid. 
 But we will see if it cannot be got at from 
 below.’ 
 
 “ ‘ I should not so much care,’ she went 
 on, ‘but it contains all our money. Im- 
 prudently I put my purse into it only a 
 few minutes before that horrible man ran 
 off with it. He must have been watching 
 us from behind some of the hillocks or 
 mounds on the top, for we had no idea 
 there was any one near. We were enjoy- 
 ing the view and did not see him till he 
 was close behind us. I happened to turn 
 just in time to see him snatch up the bag. 
 We had wandered some little distance from 
 it and the rest of our belongings, and he 
 
Chari -s Dickens.] 
 
 HELD AT BAY. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 
 27 
 
 must have crept along as softly as a 
 mouse.’ 
 
 tu Or rather a cat,’ I replied ; ‘ but I 
 think he won’t escape in a hurry, and I 
 must — we ought — to go down at once and 
 inform the police. I suppose there are 
 some at Stresa, if not at Baveno.’ 
 
 “‘ Oh dear, oh dear, what is to be done?’ 
 .exclaimed the poor lady, wringing her 
 hands, as the awkwardness of her situation 
 seemed suddenly to burst upon her in full 
 force, all her hauteur and British stand-off- 
 ishness having long disappeared. 
 
 “ ‘Pray don’t distress yourself,’ I rejoined, 
 ‘ all may yet be set right. Come, let us 
 hasten down. Here, now, let me carry 
 your cloak and your other haversack,’ I 
 said to the niece ; ‘ you must be tired, 
 but I am afraid there is nothing for it but 
 'for you to return to Baveno. Without you 
 I may not be believed.’ 
 
 “With this sort of running colloquy going 
 on we made the best of our way back. 
 During it we interchanged names and 
 addresses, and otherwise became in a 
 measure confidential. Ho one, - however, 
 being concerned with all this, I need not 
 go into details beyond adding that my 
 surmise was correct — the ladies were aunt 
 &nd niece. 
 
 “ The excitement and fuss which ensued 
 when *our story was told, beggars des- 
 cription. The landlord of the hotel, who 
 luckily spoke English, went off post-haste 
 for the authorities, and the little scattered 
 community went off its head. 
 
 “ ‘ Santa Maria ! was ever such a thing 
 heard of 1 Who could the brigand be ? 
 In a blue blouse, did I say ? Ah, then, he 
 was a Swiss, the caitiff ! — those Swiss were 
 the curse of the place. Why could they 
 not keep to their own side of the Alps 1 
 This fellow was no Italian, I might be very 
 sure. The Italians are better behaved than 
 to do such things as this. Holy Mother!’ 
 
 “Amidst a tremendous hubbub I at length, 
 as evening was coming on, began my second 
 ascent of Monterone, accompanied now by 
 three or four of the fiercest-looking Austrian 
 gendarmerie imaginable, for Austria’s sway 
 in those days extended from the Adriatic 
 to the Alps. 
 
 “Long and tedious by comparison with 
 my morning’s walk seemed the road this 
 time, my inability to converse freely with 
 the escort adding not a little to the tedium. 
 At first the officials were voluble with their 
 questions as to the distance off of the place 
 we were bound for. But when they found 
 they could not understand my attempts at 
 
 description, and that the most to be got 
 out of me was the oft-repeated assurance 
 that I would show them the spot, they fell 
 to talking and grumbling among themselves. 
 The landlord had excused himself from 
 making one of the party on the plea of 
 business, but really I believe because of his 
 rotund figure and consequent shortness of 
 breath. A little crowd of natives, however, 
 straggled a long way up the hill-side with 
 us, and it was not until we reached the 
 end of the woods that their numbers were 
 materially reduced. The hope of beholding 
 the capture was very alluring, but when it 
 was seen that I was still going on and on, 
 for I led the way, expressions of disappoint- 
 ment and even disbelief broke forth at 
 intervals alike from my lay and official 
 companions. When, too, I began to diverge 
 across the rough ground, where my hunt 
 first commenced, and it became obvious 
 that the route would be lengthy and 
 troublesome, the number of followers still 
 further diminished, and only two young 
 men kept up with the guard. More than 
 once the sergeant halted and questioned 
 again and again, doubting me more and 
 more, I could see ; but by dint of gestures 
 and pointing and vehement assurances, I 
 got the fellows on, after a while, to the 
 edge of the straggling copse. 
 
 “ ‘ What, was it down there ? Impos- 
 sible ! No one could get down such a 
 steep place as that and through such a 
 dense thicket. The signor was playing off 
 a joke, but he must understand that it was 
 a elumsy one and that this was no time to 
 indulge in such fun ! ’ 
 
 “Such I made out to be the pith of what 
 was said on their part, but when I showed 
 them unmistakable evidences here and there 
 in the crushed bracken and undergrowth, 
 broken boughs, and the like that more than 
 one person had lately been down, their 
 confidence seemed to revive, and they 
 followed more willingly. Despite the 
 growing gloom of the wood, the thicker it 
 became the more easy to find was the trail 
 of my former footsteps, and by degrees I 
 approached the critical spot. 
 
 “ ‘Ah, then, if it was lower still, the 
 signor would have to go alone; they would 
 not risk their necks on the edge of that 
 cliff.’ 
 
 “With this the fellows made a determined 
 halt for awhile, until encouraged by my 
 perseverance one by one they cautiously 
 crept after me. Not a little difficult was 
 it at first to make sure of the precise tree 
 beneath which I had secured my prisoner, 
 
28 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 HELD AT BAY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 and but for the light which the open space 
 beyond the precipice afforded, one might 
 easily have missed it. 
 
 “ ‘But ah ! at last, behold ! There — 
 see!’ I cried in triumph, in a jumble of 
 English and Italian ; ‘ see ! there he is ! 
 where I left him, as I told you. 5 , 
 
 “ Somewhat to my dismay, however, he 
 was quite motionless, with his head droop- 
 ing over his shoulder. 
 
 “ ‘ Good heavens,’ I thought, ‘ if he 
 should be dead !’ and as the tragical idea 
 passed through my brain, with it came 
 that element of the comic, so sure to 
 accompany most of the serious situations 
 in life. The half timorous way m which 
 the gendarmes and the young natives were 
 peering down over the cliff as they clung 
 like grim death to the tree stems and 
 roots, had something especially ludicrous 
 in it. For a minute they would not 
 believe me, as, not being so near the edge of 
 the cliff as I was, they had not caught sight 
 of the man. But when they did their 
 exclamations and cries of astonishment 
 echoed again through the silence and 
 solitude. The noise and the clatter of 
 tongues, the excitement and gesticulating, 
 were again most comic. 
 
 “ ( How was the caitiff to be got at ] Who 
 was to approach such a perilous place % 5 
 
 “ Foreseeing this difficulty I had fortu- 
 nately suggested at starting that a stout 
 rope should be carried by one of the men, 
 and this was now brought into requisition. 
 It is not necessary to describe minutely 
 how we managed our troublesome task. 
 By dint of lowering one end of the rope 
 with a large loop in it over the fellow’s 
 head and under his disabled arm, myself 
 and one of the young Italians, who being 
 unencumbered by military accoutrements 
 was more available for the work than the 
 gendarmes, finally secured the rascal. 
 Then, when I had unbuckled the strap, we 
 hauled him up slowly and carefully among 
 the trees. I had soon found that his 
 quiescence was only due to exhaustion, 
 and the moment he saw’ rescue at hand he 
 began to show signs of truculence again, 
 but when the gendarmes had once got 
 charge of him they very soon suppressed 
 all that, and immediately began dragging 
 him ruthlessly, step by step, higher and 
 higher, over that difficult slope. 
 
 “ While the party were thus toiling away 
 above me I drew the young native’s atten- 
 tion to the possibility of recovering the 
 haversack, and then we both began 
 cautiously peering down into the depths 
 
 beneath the precipice. Upon examina- 
 tion, this proved to be of far less extent 
 than I supposed. The sheer down of it 
 was not more than twenty or thirty feet, 
 when the ground again assumed a character 
 similar to that above the cliff, and, like it, 
 was partially covered by undergrowth and 
 trees. Nevertheless, it would have been a 
 fatal place to tumble over, although an 
 agile, desperate, and daring man might 
 possibly have let himself down from the 
 oft- quoted roots at the top and then have 
 dropped, trusting to the chance of being 
 able to bring himself up among the wood 
 on the more gradual slope. This very 
 likely is what the brigand of Baveno, as I 
 have ever since called him, would have 
 done, but for his disabled arm and my 
 precaution in securing the other. 
 
 “ This by the way, however. The knap- 
 sack or wallet containing all the poor ladies’ 
 money was what I had then to think of, 
 and the recovery of which virtually 
 finishes my story. It sounds like an easy 
 way out of the difficulty, and one that 
 could only be evolved out of the inner 
 consciousness of the professed story-teller 
 to say that, notwithstanding the now 
 swiftly approaching shades of evening, 
 after a little scrutiny we did actually 
 descry the missing wallet. Nevertheless, 
 such is the fact, and truth as usual is 
 proved to be stranger than fiction. 
 The young Italian was the first to see 
 the coveted object. 
 
 “ ‘ Ecco ! eccolo ! signor,’ he suddenly 
 cried with a shout of exuberant joy, as 
 squatting at the edge of the cliff with one 
 arm clasped tightly round the stem of a 
 friendly tree, he pointed eagerly to some 
 bushes below. And there it was, sure 
 enough, brought up in its fall fortunately 
 by the undergrowth, as a man might have 
 been. 
 
 “ ‘ The rope, the rope,’ I called out 
 to the people above, who were still using 
 it as a lever upon their prisoner. 
 When after much squabbling I succeeded 
 in getting it again, to make one end of it 
 fast round the firmest tree and hang the 
 other over the cliff was the work of a 
 moment. To my surprise the young 
 native eagerly volunteered the descent, 
 though I had intended to make it myself. 
 But as he was half my weight I willingly 
 allowed him to go, and in a few minutes 
 he had nimbly let himself down and 
 secured the prize. 1 was careful to watch 
 that he did not open it; but I did him 
 injustice, he had no such intention. Like 
 
WHEN" THE WICKED MAN/ 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 29 
 
 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 a clever fellow, moreover, he foresaw that 
 encumbered with that under his arm he 
 could not easily re-climb the rope, so he 
 fastened the end of it round the bag, and I 
 hauled it up. In a few minutes more he 
 too was again by my side, and we marched 
 off, or rather scrambled off, in triumph. 
 
 “ As I said, here is really the end of my 
 story, although the vivid remembrance I 
 have of what followed impels me yat to 
 add a few sentences more. 
 
 “ ‘ The brigand of Baveno ’ was destined 
 to give us still a good deal of trouble, 
 which indeed might have proved endless 
 but for the course we adopted. He was 
 taken to Stresa, and there locked up, 
 whilst we were bound over with an amount 
 of official red-tapism which makes our 
 English legalities quite white by comparison, 
 to appear against him in ten days’ time at 
 Milan. Long before that period, however, had 
 elapsed, we — for the ladies, I may say, and 
 myself have scarce parted company since — 
 were safe back in Paris. We laid our 
 heads together (how close to one of them 
 mine came does not matter), and after 
 much consultation, in which the landlord 
 took part, decided simply to make a bolt 
 of it. 
 
 “Two evenings later, just as the full 
 moon, in conjunction with a certain pair of 
 eyes, was shedding on all around such a 
 radiant ' light that one might have 
 expected 
 
 “That birds would sing and think it were not night, 
 
 ‘ three travellers might have been seen 
 wending their way’ in a hired carriage 
 along the road from Baveno to Domo 
 D’Ossola, and later on over the grand and 
 stupendous pass of the Simplon. Their 
 flight was conducted with the greatest 
 secrecy, and not until they had crossed the 
 frontier at Iselle, and their passports had 
 satisfied the scrutiny of the Austrian 
 authorities, did they breathe freely. Seeing 
 that they were distinctly evading the law, 
 their conduct and sensations, indeed, might 
 have led to the supposition that they were 
 brigands themselves, rather than three 
 simple English tourists making the best of 
 their way back to their own country. That 
 they did so successfully goes without say- 
 ing. What happened at Baveno after their 
 departure must for ever remain a mystery as 
 far as they are concerned, for my two 
 artist friends likewise beat a hasty retreat 
 before the official time was up for our 
 appearance at Milan. 
 
 “ Again, what became of the brigand is 
 unknown. What he had righteously 
 received in the way of punishment was 
 more than sufficient to satisfy us, remember- 
 ing how he had brought it upon himself. 
 
 “That my young Italian colleague did not 
 go unrewarded for the service he rendered, 
 also may go without saying, but weighing 
 one circumstance against another we got so 
 well out of the adventure ourselves that 
 we have thought it wise to give the Lago 
 Maggiore a wide berth ever since, and 
 to hold our tongues until the present 
 moment.” 
 
 “WHEN THE WICKED MAN.” 
 
 By “ Bit a.” 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 “ ‘ When the wicked man ’ ” 
 
 The Bev. Christopher Eyre, as he stood 
 at the reading-desk and repeated that 
 familiar formula with which he had opened 
 morning and evening service for a good 
 ten years past, was suddenly conscious of 
 a very secular interruption to the elevated 
 and serious tenor of his own thoughts. 
 
 It was a warm summer evening, the light 
 was streaming in through the stained glass 
 windows of the beautiful old church in the 
 remote and somewhat uninteresting parish 
 of St. Mary Thorpe. The choir — a recent 
 innovation of the Bev. Christophers — were 
 all in their places, clean, rosy- cheeked, 
 robed in spotless garments, and full of 
 rustic importance ; the old verger, who 
 combined the duties of sexton as well, was 
 moving slowly and heavily up the aisle, and 
 following him was the secular object who 
 was responsible for the Bev. Christopher’s 
 momentary confusion of mind. 
 
 He was holding his head well up and 
 looking straight down and over the well- 
 filled church ; for the Bev. Christopher 
 was a popular minister of St. Mary Thorpe; 
 and as the familiar words left his lips he 
 met the clear, sad gaze of a woman, advanc- 
 ing with a peculiar graceful motion to the 
 pew whither the old verger was leading 
 the way. 
 
 The hesitation between the beginning and 
 continuation of that sentence was so slight 
 that few if any of the congregation noticed 
 it, accustomed as the feminine portion were 
 to hang on the words, looks, gestures, and 
 manners of the handsome curate. 
 
 As a rule curates always are adored by 
 the female members of their flocks. To 
 
— — — I s 
 
 30 [July 3, 1882.] “WHEN THE WICKED MAN.” [Conducted by 
 
 this rule the Rev. Christopher was no 
 exception. He had received a surfeit of 
 it in his time, notwithstanding that he 
 was inclined to take an ascetic view of life ; 
 that he dilated on the obligation of celi- 
 bacy for the clergy; and was an earnest and 
 somewhat stern-minded man who looked 
 upon women as very weak vessels indeed. 
 
 The service meanwhile went on. The 
 red and gold and purple lights of the 
 windows were thrown in fitful gleams 
 across the faces of the congregation, but to 
 the Rev. Christopher it seemed as if all 
 the light and glory of the place centred 
 on one drooping head, and lit up the 
 sorrowful wonder of two deep, soft eyes 
 which had rested in startled recognition 
 on his own. Stern zealot and disciplinarian 
 as he was, the curate found it hard work to 
 keep his gaze from that pale sweet face — to 
 concentrate his thoughts on the service which 
 time had rendered so easy of remembrance 
 that the lips and mind scarce needed to 
 move in unison. Wrong it was undoubtedly, 
 and wrong he felt it to be, but the feeling 
 in no way rendered the combat easier. 
 
 Something had stirred his memory to 
 quick pain; something had stolen across 
 the slumberous calm of his life; and as 
 the soft dusk dimmed the old church 
 windows and the pale evening light showed 
 him the upturned earnest faces, they all 
 seemed to fuse and melt into one vivid 
 glow of remembrance, and then fade and 
 pass away, leaving him face to face with a 
 great trouble and a fierce unrest. 
 
 The rich deep tones of his voice 
 had not once faltered or quivered. 
 Steadily, earnestly, had the service been 
 carried through. Now he crossed the 
 
 space from the altar to the pulpit, and 
 mounted the stairs, and so stood for a 
 moment looking far away over the heads 
 that were bowed in waiting reverence for 
 the prayer that trembled on his lips. 
 
 As it ceased, as the stir and flutter sub- 
 sided, as the attentive faces turned to him, 
 eager for the words of his text — prepared 
 to revel in the eloquence that was as 
 natural to him as the commonest speech is 
 to most men — the same strange hesitation 
 seized him. His sermons were always 
 ' extempore, but he usually thought out and 
 considered his subject first. He had done 
 so to-day, but, now, all ideas of the sermon he 
 had intended to preach fled away and grew 
 misty and confused. He opened the Bible 
 before him and one golden ray of light fell 
 like a thread of flame across the page, and 
 in the lambent glittering circle he saw 
 
 these words again : “ When the wicked man 
 turneth away from the wickedness that he 
 hath committed, and doeth that which is 
 lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.” 
 
 With a sudden inspiration that swept 
 away all doubt as a blast of wind might 
 sweep a feather, he seized the thought and 
 the words and read out the prophet’s 
 declaration as the subject-matter of his 
 own intended discourse. 
 
 Once decided upon, the subject grew 
 and grouped itself before him in those 
 changing forms and colours which mind lends 
 to a single thought if that mind be in any 
 way intellectual. Full of poetic imagination; . 
 of deep feeling, like a torrent unloosed; the 
 eloquence of this man burst out upon his 
 listeners. Beauty of thought, superb elo- 
 cution, intense earnestness, these would 
 have swayed minds far stronger, hearts far 
 more callous, intellects far more calculating, 
 instincts far less scrupulous, than those to 
 which he appealed. The man’s own earnest- 
 ness and own belief in what he uttered 
 — that most potent spell of all oratory, 
 whatever its nature — was like a current 
 carrying the opinions of the listeners 
 along with it as mere tributary streams. 
 
 There were tears in many eyes, there 
 were new and strange emotions stirring 
 in many hearts, as the thrilling voice 
 painted with soul -felt earnestness the 
 horrors of sin, the deadly perils of life, 
 the agony, shame, misery, remorse, which 
 bears the erring soul along to that saving 
 portal of penitence by which Hope stands, 
 through whose bars the golden gleam of 
 the Great City comes radiant and pure, 
 and rich with every promise. 
 
 Presently the voice sank and ceased, 
 passing as it were into the closing dusk of 
 the evening shadows ; dying like a chord of 
 music that softly haunts its own lingering 
 echoes. 
 
 There came a pause, a hush, a prayer ; 
 then the sound of the organ broke across 
 the twilight stillness, and two dim wet eyes 
 looked up at a white-robed figure as it 
 passed and was lost to sight. 
 
 The scattered groups passed out through 
 the quiet churchyard, and made their 
 several ways homeward. The last notes 
 of the organ died away, the light in the 
 vestry was extinguished ; then the little 
 side door opened, and the tall figure of 
 the curate came out. He looked round as 
 if expectantly. Standing under the heavy 
 shadows of a great yew-tree was a woman — 
 the woman whose late entrance into church 
 
 - - - — — =r 
 
‘ WHEN THE WICKED MAN.” 
 
 [July 3, 1882. 
 
 1/ (reacted his attention and distracted 
 hik* ''thoughts. 
 
 She stood quite motionless, her hands 
 clasped together, her face lifted, and 
 with an earnest expectant look upon it. 
 He came straight towards her, and stretched 
 out his hand in greeting. 
 
 “ It is long since we met,” he said 
 quietly ; “ but I have not forgotten you, 
 and you — you have not forgotten me.” 
 
 She gave him her hand, as readily as he 
 had extended his own. 
 
 “No,” she said, “I have not forgotten 
 you. I was surprised to see you here. 
 Chance has brought me thither. I know 
 no one — not a soul in the place; it all 
 seemed so strange, so cold, so unfriendly, 
 till I looked up and saw — you.” 
 
 His heart gave one quick throb, but his 
 face was calm and unmoved. The earnest- 
 ness and friendliness of his regard seemed 
 to comfort her with that wordless sym- 
 pathy which is so sweet to feel, and which 
 needs no outward expression. 
 
 “ Are you alone, then ? ” he asked her 
 gently. 
 
 A deep hot flush coloured her pale 
 cheeks ; her lips quivered. 
 
 “ I am alone — alone and in heavy sor- 
 row. That is why I am glad to see you. 
 You are a clergyman, and you are a good 
 man, I know, and you were so kind to me 
 once. Will you let me tell you of my 
 trouble ? Believe me I would not ask it 
 of you if I knew that I had one other 
 human creature on the face of this wide 
 earth to whom I could turn. But I am 
 quite helpless and quite alone.” 
 
 The rich, beautiful voice broke as with 
 a sound of tears. His eyes looked at hers 
 with deep pity and earnest feeling. 
 
 “ Tell me whatever you wish,” he said, 
 
 “ I will walk home with you, and you shall 
 speak to me as we go.” 
 
 “Home!” The awful bitterness and 
 ■despair of that word as it left her lips 
 startled him. “I have no home,” she 
 -said “ I have left my husband ! ” 
 
 The sudden flush on the curate’s hand- 
 some face was vivid as that which a 
 moment before had lit her own. They had 
 moved on as she spoke, and he was walk- 
 ing by her side. He was too startled to 
 speak, and after a moment’s silence she 
 went on rapidly, and with an uncertain 
 impulsive utterance which made her story 
 somewhat disconnected, or would have 
 made it so to anyone who followed it 
 without, that clue to her nature and her 
 past which this man possessed. 1 
 
 “ When you met me in Switzerland, 
 and saved my life among those awful 
 mountains, you told me of the folly of 
 what I was about to do. You said there 
 were bounds even to a daughter’s obe- 
 dience, and that I would assuredly repent 
 what I told you I had resolved upon. I 
 was obstinate, you thought, I would not 
 listen — no matter now. I could not tell 
 my reasons to you, and — well, can a man 
 and a woman ever look at the same thing 
 in quite the same light ? I think not. 
 You were right — of course you were right. 
 
 I was bitterly unhappy, but I bore my life 
 as best I could and lived on. The years 
 have come and gone — ah me ! is it a life- 
 time, or but four years, I have lived ? 
 Time says the one; my heart” — she laid her 
 hand upon her bosom with a wild and 
 passionate gesture — “ my heart tells me it 
 is the other. I did my best. I tried to 
 see in duty what was forbidden by all 
 softer feelings, to school myself to patience, 
 forbearance. Alas ! I had another lesson 
 to learn, and it taught me in one month 
 what all the years before had never taught, 
 and what all the years to come can never 
 teach again.” 
 
 Her voice broke suddenly. She covered 
 her face with her hands, and stood trembling 
 with an agitation which threatened to 
 overpower her self-control at any moment. 
 
 He laid his hand upon her arm, and his 
 voice came calm, and gentle, and sym- 
 pathising to her ear. j 
 
 “I can guess what you mean, do not 
 trouble to tell me.” 
 
 . She dropped her hands and looked up at 
 his face. Her eyes saw nqthing there but 
 kindly sympathy. They could not read 
 the agony of the soul — the awakened 
 memories — the anguish of a long struggle — 
 the futile thought that a victory once won 
 had proved a fallacy, that all the old weary 
 battle must be fought over again. 
 
 “.You can guess the rest,” she said, and 
 again that flush of scarlet burnt itself upon 
 the white clear skin, like a fiery shame. 
 
 “ I was unhappy. Friendship had so sweet 
 a sound for my ears. How could I tell 
 the evil it veiled, the dangers it concealed? 
 
 I learnt both at the cost of ” 
 
 She had been looking at his face; the 
 sudden whiteness that blanched both cheek 
 and lip startled her. She hesitated, but 
 the cold sternness of his voice compelled 
 her to continue. 
 
 “ The cost of — what ? Tell me all.” 
 
 Her head drooped. 
 
 “ My life’s peace,” she said wearily ; “my 
 
 T 
 
32 [My s, 1882.] “WHEN THE WICKED MAN.” 
 
 [Conttu 
 
 own good name, and my husband’s belief 
 in me. He turned me from his doors. 
 I was innocent of the ill he imputed. But 
 he would only believe the v^orst, and I was 
 too proud to insist upon rights which the 
 law might respect more than the man who 
 owed them.” 
 
 “ And he — the other % ” asked the cold, 
 stern voice. 
 
 A wonderful softness and warmth stole 
 over her face. Her very voice changed. 
 “ He knows nothing, save that I have fled. 
 You — you surely do not suppose ” 
 
 He interrupted her with impatience. 
 “ You have acted very foolishly. You have 
 lost all. What could have induced you to 
 take such a step 1 ” 
 
 “ I was mad — desperate. I do not know 
 what I did or thought.” 
 
 “ But your mother ; at least you might 
 have gone to her.” 
 
 “ My mother ! ” 
 
 Let us pity any human soul — any 
 woman’s soul, from whose depths bursts 
 that word with such an awful mockery of 
 all that should be most sacred and most 
 dear ! 
 
 “ You forget,” she said after an instant’s 
 silence, “ it was she who sold me to 
 him.” 
 
 “ And what do you mean to do ? ” he 
 asked involuntarily. 
 
 ‘‘Work, I suppose,” she answered with 
 a bitter laugh, a laugh strange to hear from 
 lips so sweet and soft, from lips with such 
 girlish tender curves, such mobile touching 
 beauty — a beauty that seemed only made 
 for smiles and happiness, and now wore so 
 pathetic a sorrow in repose. “ I was so 
 glad when I saw you,” she went on timidly; 
 “ you are a good man, and you will not be 
 uncharitable.” 
 
 “ G-od forbid ! ” he murmured. 
 
 “ And you will help me,” she continued. 
 “ For I must do something, if only to drown 
 thought and keep myself from growing 
 quite desperate.” 
 
 “ I will help you,” he said earnestly, 
 “ with all my heart and soul.” 
 
 “ May Heaven bless you ! ” she said, and 
 her eyes grew dim, as once before they had 
 grown when his words had reached her 
 ears and touched her heart in the solemn 
 peace and twilight hush of the old grey 
 church beyond. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The complex mechanism of a woman’s 
 nature is rarely if ever understood by a man. 
 It needs a sympathy so great, a patience so 
 
 vast, a love so tender, a long-suffering N\ 
 infinite, that no man’s heart can combine 
 all these qualities, and yet hold with them 
 that comprehension of weakness and that 
 strength to rule and support it, which dis- 
 plays a mastery which is not tyrannous, 
 and wields a power that is rooted in 
 respect. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Eyre knew little of women, 
 but he had long known that one woman 
 had wound herself into his very heart’s 
 depths. Even when her name had become 
 but a memory, that memory had been the 
 sole joy of his cold and barren life. The 
 memory had suddenly faded and paled 
 before the bright, living rapture of her 
 actual presence, and now, in the long night 
 watches he knelt wrestling with the old 
 trouble — the old trouble which he had 
 thought he had vanquished and laid to rest 
 in the grave of a four years’ silence. 
 
 That night brought no sense of victory 
 to the weary wrestler in the quiet vicarage. 
 Here, thrust into his very presence, appeal- 
 ing to him for aid, for comfort, for protec- 
 tion, was the one woman in all the world 
 whose presence held for him an untold 
 danger, in whose every glance and word 
 lurked a temptation against which the whole 
 strength and purity and integrity of his 
 manhood and his calling were weak as river- 
 reeds that sway to the rush of a current. 
 Was the world not wide enough but that 
 fate should have directed her steps to this 
 little, unfrequented Devonshire village, 
 where he had buried himself, and sought 
 oblivion, and almost hoped that what he 
 sought had been found 1 
 
 It seemed hard — terribly hard. And he 
 knew too that no sign of his own weakness 
 must betray itself — that the sternest and 
 most rigid self-control would be necessary 
 in her presence — that be his sympathy, 
 his grief, his pity ever $o great, they must 
 be expressed with a reticence almost cold 
 in comparison to what he felt. Yes, the 
 task would be a hard one, a very hard one, 
 and when the dawn broke and he threw 
 himself at last on his couch to try and get 
 an hour’s slumber, his face looked haggard 
 and worn, as if with years of suffering 
 instead of only the conflict of one night. 
 
 At noon that day he went to her, as he 
 had promised. She had taken two rooms 
 in a little cottage on the outskirts of 
 St. Mary Thorpe, and as she came in and 
 greeted him, the contrast between herself 
 and her surroundings, between his past 
 memories of her and the luxuries and 
 extravagances of her then life, struck him 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ‘ WHEN THE WICKED MAN.” 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 33 
 
 with a curious sense of unreality — a pas- 
 sionate anger at her own folly, and yet a 
 : compassion for the weakness and impul- 
 
 siveness of the nature he had read and 
 loved in those past years. 
 
 “I have been thinking what is best to 
 do for you,” he said, when their first greet- 
 ing was over. “But it is not an easy matter 
 to decide. You told me of your accom- 
 plishments last night, but in a little out-of- 
 the-world place like this I scarcely see to 
 what use you can turn them. And, deeply 
 as I feel for you, I cannot conscientiously 
 say that you have done a right thing 
 in leaving your husband’s roof and pro- 
 tection. You have placed yourself in a 
 false position — you must see that. You 
 wish, I suppose, to represent yourself as a 
 widow 1 ” 
 
 She only bowed, and he continued with 
 evident embarrassment : 
 
 “ There is an obstacle in the first in- 
 I stance. Men will deem you free, and — 
 pardon my frankness — you are too beautiful 
 to be unnoticed and unpersecuted by at- 
 tentions which your own position will not 
 seem to forbid.” 
 
 ji “You could say I was separated from 
 my husband, could you not?” she said 
 faintly and hesitatingly. 
 
 “ I could say so, certainly ; but do you 
 think you would then have any chance of 
 being accepted in the position of a teacher 
 for young girls ? I fear not.” 
 
 “I thought I might teach music,” she 
 ! said, looking at him with those sadly- 
 earnest eyes, whose gaze he dared not trust 
 himself to meet. “ You know I play and 
 sing well enough for that. And at least 
 for a month or two I can live without doing 
 anything. I have a little money of my 
 own — only fifty pounds, it is true, but fifty 
 pounds will go a long way here, and in the 
 meantime I might look about.” 
 
 “ Teach music ! ” exclaimed the curate, 
 as if struck by a sudden thought. “ Ah ! 
 that reminds me. Our organist left us a 
 month ago, and we have only had a deputy’s 
 services since. The rector, Mr. Moreton, 
 is away just now, taking a summer holiday. 
 He gave me permission to select, in his 
 absence, an organist if I found any one 
 suitable for the appointment. The salary 
 is small, only sixty pounds,” he had 
 added another ten to the actual sum, “but 
 there is the chance of teaching at the Hall, 
 and one or two good families in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Would this suit you 1” 
 
 “ But I know so little of the organ,” she 
 said, colouring faintly. 
 
 4 
 
 “ Your musical talents are very great, I 
 remember,” said Mr. Eyre, “ and I could 
 give you some lessons. I learnt the organ 
 long ago, and have always kept up my 
 practice. I think there will be no diffi- 
 culty about that, if only you would 
 care ” 
 
 “ Care ! ” she interrupted hastily. “ I 
 would do anything — anything ! I only want 
 to earn my own bread honourably, to be 
 free, and untroubled, and at peace, if that 
 is possible for me now. How can I thank 
 you enough ? ” 
 
 “No thanks are necessary,” he said 
 almost coldly. “ I am only too happy 
 to be of any service to you. Well, may we 
 consider the matter settled ? After all, it 
 is better than the governess scheme. You 
 will be more independent, and the vexed 
 question of references may be unheeded. 
 You shall have your first lesson this after- 
 noon, if you like to come to the church at 
 four o’clock.” 
 
 He rose somewhat hurriedly. He did 
 not want to hear her thanks, to read the 
 gratitude and relief in her face ; but when 
 she gave him her hand, and in low, broken 
 words tried to thank him, his self-com- 
 mand was sorely tried. Brusquely, almost 
 roughly, he stopped her, and muttering 
 something about parish business took up 
 his hat and left the cottage. 
 
 Hilary Laughton stood by the open 
 window and watched him as he walked 
 rapidly down the narrow gravelled path 
 bordered with cloves, carnations, and many, 
 coloured pinks, whose scents reached her 
 where she stood. 
 
 “ What a good man he is,” she said to her- 
 self with a heavy sigh. “ Oh, if I had only 
 listened to him years ago, how different 
 my life might be now J ” 
 
 It is an awful thing, that looking back 
 on life, and seeing what is by the light of 
 what might have been. An awful thing 
 to think that we have made one grand 
 mistake of it all, and that never, never 
 again can we rectify the error, or change 
 the lot we once blindly and wilfully chose 
 as best. 
 
 This was the case with Hilary Laughton 
 now. Her life had lain before her bright, 
 smiling, prosperous — now, she found her- 
 self friendless and alone, an outcast from 
 the society where she had reigned, sus- 
 pected by her husband, banished from 
 her luxurious home with no bright pros- 
 pects of any kind to gladden her dark lot, 
 and with no hope to ameliorate the bitter- 
 ness of her position. 
 
- ■ Sb 
 
 34 [July B, 1882.] “ WHEN THE WICKED MAN.” [Conducted by 
 
 Certainly she had only herself to blame, I 
 but that made the trouble no easier to-! 
 bear — it never does, I think, to the bearers 
 — though people seem to take a peculiar 
 pleasure in impressing them with the fact 
 as though it held untold consolation. 
 
 “I think I should like to go into a 
 sisterhood,” murmured Hilary vaguely as 
 she still stood looking wistfully out at the 
 cottage garden. “ I know there are such 
 things now without turning Roman Catholic. 
 
 I wonder if Mr. Eyre would know. But 
 then, I suppose, one would want money 
 again. Oh, the wretched blank dreariness 
 of my life now ; and to think that all the 
 future will be like this, all the 4 to-morrows 
 as to-day !’ Heaven help me, how am I to 
 bear it ? ” 
 
 She sank on the chair by the window, 
 and bowed her face on her hands. Her 
 thoughts went back — just for the scene 
 of one year — to a summer-time like 
 this. It was a very pretty scene they 
 showed her : a garden-party at Chiswick, a 
 crowd of fashion and beauty, and rank and 
 wealth, and moving amidst it all she saw 
 herself surrounded by a crowd of flatterers 
 and idlers, accepting their attentions in 
 her usual cold, listless fashion, and then a 
 voice asking permission to introduce some- 
 one, and her own careless assent. 
 
 She had scarcely looked up, she had felt 
 no interest. What was one man more than 
 another to her now? But somehow the 
 new comer had established himself by her 
 side, and gradually succeeded in thawing 
 her indifference. After awhile she began j 
 to wonder at her own interest in his 
 conversation, at her own participation in 
 the jests and remarks that came so readily j 
 to his lips. He had been in the army ; he j 
 had travelled much ; he knew life in many j. 
 phases ; he was well-informed, quick-witted, ; 
 agreeable. All this she told herself when : 
 she left him — all this, alas ! was the begin- 
 ning of an end she could not have ! 
 even imagined to have been within the 
 bounds of possibility then. 
 
 After a time meetings had grown more fre- 
 quent, and friendship become an established 
 word between them — that treacherous 
 friendship which some writer has declared ! 
 an impossibility between a man and a 
 woman, unless they are threescore years 
 of age, because one is sure to give more j 
 than the other, and the bargain is sure to j 
 fall through. 
 
 This bargain had fallen through most ! 
 lamentably. Hilary had awakened to the i 
 fact that she loved Eustace Keene with all 
 
 her heart and soul, and he — well, he 
 had been attracted the moment his eyes 
 rested on the beautiful pale face which 
 looked so weary and so tired, even amidst 
 the brilliance and gaiety of the scene 
 around. He had watched her from a 
 distance, though he knew that she was 
 not free. The fact had not troubled him 
 much at first; not till that face began 
 to haunt him ; not till the woman who 
 owned it came between him and all the 
 amusements and occupations of his life; not 
 till the sympathy and compassion he had 
 felt for her, when he saw how her husband 
 neglected and slighted her in every possible 
 way, merged into one fierce impulsive 
 longing to aid, or save her from her misery ; 
 not till he knew how helpless he was to do 
 either one or the other. 
 
 He was not a particularly good man, nor 
 for the matter of that a particularly bad man. 
 As a rule strongly-marked and strongly- 
 developed characters in men or women are 
 much more rare than novelists would have 
 us believe. Most human beings, that is to 
 say most of those we meet in the everyday 
 intercourse of everyday life, are not very 
 wise, or very virtuous, or very heroic. They, 
 have their good qualities and their bad. 
 They are all more or less selfish, foolish, 
 good-natured, exacting, and the rest, and' 
 Eustace Keene was not by any means a hero, 
 though he was brave and. courteous, fairly 
 intelligent, and tolerably unselfish as men go. 
 But Hilary saw him as only a woman who 
 loves sees the man she loves. Certainly 
 the contrast to her husband was very great, 
 and that might in a measure have helped* 
 the glamour of his attraction for her, but 
 she had placed him on a very high pedestal 
 indeed, when he flung himself from it 
 to her feet, and there confessed his own folly 
 and showed her hers. 
 
 The hands drop from her face now as she 
 remembers that scene. 
 
 She had done her best;, she had been 
 brave, even though her heart seemed break- 
 ing, but she could not deny that she loved 
 him, and though she had forbidden such 
 words from his lips, they met again and yet 
 again with that fatal secret in their throb- 
 bing hearts. Then at last the promise she 
 had exacted was forgotten, and the witness 
 to that passionate interview, the hearer 
 of those wild words, had been her own 
 husband. 
 
 Then the terrible climax came. Mad- 
 dened by his accusations, enraged by his 
 threats, she left his roof — the world said 
 with her lover, but she alone knew that the 
 
e ft- -- - — 
 
 Charles Dickens.] “WHEN THE WTCKED MAN.” [July 3, 1882.] 35 
 
 last man who would hear of her action, or 
 ever learn her present whereabouts, was 
 the man who had brought this sea of 
 troubles upon her life. 
 
 She dreaded with an inexpressible dread 
 that she might, some day, see him again. A 
 fierce intolerable shame consumed her at 
 the thought of him, of her love for him, 
 and his for her. Nothing could alter these 
 facts — that she knew only too well — but 
 she prayed, with her whole soul in the 
 prayer, that never again might they meet, 
 never again might the fascination of his 
 presence come with its force of tempting 
 to her poor broken heart. 
 
 The scent of the roses stole softly to her 
 now as the summer wind stirred among the 
 bushes. She heard far up in the clear bright 
 air the glad music of a lark’s sweet song, 
 but she only covered lier face with her 
 hands and cowered back, faint and sick, and 
 weary of life, and hating all the loveliness 
 and music of the summer-time as all sad 
 heavy-laden hearts do hate that which is 
 too bright and glad in contrast with them- 
 selves. 
 
 “If only I could die now ! ” she prayed, 
 as the hot tears trickled through her 
 clasped fingers. 
 
 And the scent of the roses, and the song 
 of the bird which soared to the cloudless 
 summer sky, had no sweetness and no 
 rapture, nor any memory for her save one 
 of pain which nothing seemed to ease — to 
 which nothing promised comfort. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Time moved on, and its passage was 
 marked by nothing of much interest to 
 Hilary Laughton. 
 
 The organ lessons had been given daily, 
 and she was thankful enough for any 
 occupation which took her out of herself 
 and her own sad thoughts. Quick and apt 
 at most things, and possessed of great 
 musical abilities, she made rapid progress 
 in her study of the instrument, and spent 
 long hours in practice. 
 
 Christopher Eyre knew that his rector 
 would have no fault to find with her 
 proficiency by the time he returned, and 
 encouraged her devotion to the art as much 
 as he possibly could. 
 
 For him, alas ! these lessons and his 
 constant intercourse with this woman were 
 producing fatal results. Human nature is 
 human still under the garb of priesthood. 
 He had told himself that his bride was the 
 Church, that the weakness of love should 
 never enter into his heart and drive from 
 
 thence the lofty desires, the high com- 
 munings, the soul-felt ecstasies of a faith 
 which was felt and worshipped as divine. 
 The shackles of that body he had been wont 
 to disregard now clasped like bonds of 
 fire around him — the fetters of the flesh 
 were chaining him in a sure captivity, and 
 he groaned in spirit as he thought of it, 
 and marvelled what could be done to save 
 or rescue him from temptation. Avoid 
 her ; flee from her presence ; that was all ! 
 But circumstances declared all that to be im- 
 possible. He could not give up his curacy 
 without due notice or satisfactory reason. 
 He was a favourite in the parish, a 
 favourite with his rector, who had even 
 insisted upon his sharing the vicarage with 
 him, and for five years he had lived there 
 busy, happy, and content. And now, all 
 this was over, because the fatal spell of a 
 woman’s presence had come between him 
 and his work — between him and his God, he 
 told himself bitterly. 
 
 Of all these feelings, however, Hilary 
 was serenely unconscious. Love makes 
 egotists of most people, and she was too 
 much engrossed with her own sorrows to 
 give more than an occasional grateful 
 thought to this man, whose life, although 
 she knew it not, was becoming wrapped up 
 in her own. 
 
 So one month of the summer-time passed 
 on and another began, and Mr. Eyre began 
 to notice, with a pang sharp as inward pain 
 could make it, that Hilary’s face grew 
 whiter and thinner day by day, that the 
 anguish of the spirit was preying on the 
 flesh ; that, try as she might to fulfil her 
 duties, to be cheerful in his presence, the 
 shadows of suffering grew heavier and 
 more distinct. It wrung his heart as he 
 noted it, and with all his knowledge of that 
 soul-sickness, that rebellion under affliction 
 which his almost daily experience of life 
 and death had taught him, he braced up 
 his energies to soothe and comfort her. It 
 was terrible work he soon found, for sorrow 
 had made her reckless and often bitter, 
 and she turned away with a shudder from 
 his words of a possible peace to be found, 
 of a higher purer life to be lived, of this 
 world not being the “be-all and end-all” 
 of our existence. 
 
 “I am not a good woman,” she once 
 said passionately. “ Do not preach to me 
 unless you wish me to hate you. I am 
 weak and sinful, I know. You cannot tell 
 me that more plainly than I tell it to 
 myself ; but I cannot help it. My life has 
 been unhappy, almost always. How can I 
 
 
36 [July 3, 1882.1 
 
 “WHEN THE WICKED MAN.” 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 think it fair or just, or for the best, as you 
 say 1 Oh, it is so easy to talk — so easy ! 
 But when your heart is breaking, when 
 you look out on life and see nothing but a 
 blank, bitter desolation, how can you think 
 it best 1 What I feel I say. However 
 shocked you are, I am telling you the 
 plain truth. I could not deceive you, any 
 more than I could cheat myself.” 
 
 “1 know it is hard, terribly hard,” he 
 answered in that low rich voice of his that 
 sympathy filled with even sweeter music 
 than nature had bestowed. “All life is 
 that, more or less. But the pain would 
 grow less sharp, believe me, if you would 
 bend to the rod, not rebel against it.” 
 
 “ It will never grow less sharp,” she 
 said with a sudden sob in her throat. 
 “ Because I have done this, do you think 
 I am not in my heart longing, longing 
 always, that I had not ] ” ... 
 
 “ Don’t say that, for Heaven’s sake,” he 
 entreated. “ You little know what it is to 
 me.” 
 
 “Because you are so good,” she said 
 unconsciously. “ Ah yes ! I knew it long 
 ago. You had better hear my confession,” 
 she went on with sudden bitterness. 
 “ The thoughts I nurse and cherish in 
 my own heart are black and dangerous ; 
 those I speak out seem in some way a 
 safety-valve for my wickedness. Do you 
 know I often think of that sermon you 
 preached the first night I went into the 
 church here; how you pointed out that 
 the wicked, the most sinful, the most 
 depraved might yet turn away and do what 
 is * lawful and right.’ What would be 
 lawful and right for me to do ? Can you 
 tell me that ? ” 
 
 “Yes,” he answered simply; “to go 
 back to your husband, to confess your 
 fault — for you have been in fault, you know 
 —and live your life out bravely, unflinch- 
 ingly, for duty’s sake.” 
 
 She paused suddenly in the midst of the 
 cornfield through which they had been walk- 
 ing, and faced him as if in utter amazement. 
 
 “ What ? Do that ! Co back to him 
 after what he said — after what he believes S 
 Impossible ! I could not.” 
 
 “ You asked me what you ought to do,” 
 answered Mr. Eyre, “I have told you. 
 You parted in hot anger — he misjudged 
 you, that is true enough. But can you 
 blame him so very much ? He loved you 
 very dearly once. I know that by what I 
 saw in Switzerland, and you — you married 
 him without a thought or care, save only 
 that of passive indifference. Of course ‘ 
 
 you were not quite a free agent in the 
 matter — that I know — and of your subse- 
 quent married life I can say nothing. It 
 could not have been happy, I am only too 
 sure; but you should have remembered 
 that you vowed truth and honour and 
 obedience to him, and ” 
 
 “Oh, for pity’s sake, hush!” she cried 
 wildly. “You talk as if I were an auto- 
 maton — a machine to be regulated, not a 
 creature of flesh and blood, to feel, and 
 love, and suffer. Oh, God ! if you only for 
 one moment knew what it was to love as 
 I have done, to be tempted as I have 
 been ” 
 
 .Her voice broke ; she covered her face 
 with her hands and shuddered from head to 
 foot. 
 
 Mr. Eyre drew his breath sharply ; his 
 face grew deadly white. For one second 
 his eyes flashed on her with a look that 
 would have betrayed his secret had she met 
 it. But she did not, and after an instant’s 
 silence his voice seemed cold and quiet as 
 ever as he went on speaking. 
 
 “ No human being is quite capable of 
 judging another,” he said gently. “ None 
 of us are aught but imperfect, weak, erring 
 creatures. There, calm yourself, I will 
 say no more on this subject to-day. I seem 
 to be always lecturing you, and indeed it 
 is not my wish. Perhaps in your place I 
 should have acted just the same as you have 
 done. Who knows 1 ” 
 
 She looked up at him then, with that look 
 of anguish in her eyes that he so dreaded 
 to see. He knew the conflict it foretold. 
 
 “ Thank you,” she murmured softly. 
 “ Yes ; I think you have said enough for 
 to-day. Let me go home and think 
 oyer it.” 
 
 She gave him her hand, and he clasped 
 it with gentle friendliness — with no out- 
 ward display of the emotion that was 
 throbbing in his heart at that light touch. 
 
 “ God be with you,” he said, using the 
 oldest and truest form of that “ Good-bye” 
 we utter so carelessly. 
 
 And he left her there among the golden 
 sheaves, with the rays of sunset turning her 
 hair to gold, and making yet more beautiful 
 the beauty of her face. 
 
 She walked on, her eyes on the ground, 
 her mind busy with the words she had 
 just heard. 
 
 “ Go back to him ! ” she said to herself 
 again and again. “ Oh, I could not do that; 
 it is impossible.” 
 
 She came out of the cornfields at last, 
 
» tfc 
 
 Charles Dickens.] “WHEN THE WICKED ] MAN.” [July 3, 1882.] 37 
 
 and took a field -path skirting the high-road. 
 The sun was slowly sinking now, and an 
 intense stillness reigned around. The 
 sound of horses’ hoofs on the hard white 
 road almost startled her, by the sudden life 
 and reality they brought into the dreamy 
 peace of air and scene. 
 
 She glanced up as the riding party went 
 by. She supposed they were from the 
 Hall, and the fact had little interest for 
 her. Yet the next instant her face had 
 grown white as death ; she started as if a 
 pistol-shot had struck her, for, bending 
 down to speak to the girl by whose side he 
 rode, she saw Eustace Keene. The start, 
 the stifled cry she gave, attracted his notice. 
 He looked, and saw her. 
 
 The party rode on. Hilary staggered 
 back against the low hedge, sick and cold 
 with the sudden shock of that unexpected 
 meeting. 
 
 The moments whirled along. Were 
 they many or few ? She could not tell. 
 Then the dull quick beat of horse-hoofs 
 sounded again — one rider this time, and 
 coming straight towards herself. She had 
 scarcely time to master that thought, ere it 
 was stifled under the mad wild joy of an 
 actual presence, and time and place, and 
 earth and sky, seemed merged into one hazy 
 dimness, out of whose shadows looked back 
 to her own the face of the man she loved. 
 
 “Is it you — really you ? ” 
 
 That was all he said, having thrown him- 
 self off his horse, and reached her side, and 
 now, standing there before her, held her 
 hands in his, and looked down at her face 
 with eager, wondering eyes. 
 
 “ Yes,” she answered below her breath. 
 “ How did you come here ? ” 
 
 “ How ? Fate, I suppose. Good Heaven ! 
 to think of meeting you again ! Do you 
 know what you did to me by going off like 
 that ? Do you know what you gave me 
 to bear ? How I have searched for you? 
 Tell me, Hilary, why you went off in that 
 mysterious fashion. Did you want to ruin 
 yourself entirely ? ” 
 
 ? “ I — I hardly know,” she said faintly. 
 
 1 “I had an explanation with your — with 
 
 Mr. Laughton,” he went on rapidly. “ I 
 don’t suppose he believed me, but at least 
 I convinced him that I, like himself, was 
 
 j totally ignorant of your whereabouts, and 
 when he cooled down he gave out that you 
 had gone to your mother. I have tried 
 all sorts of means to trace you, and all in 
 vain, and now to think that, when I least 
 expected it, I should have stumbled across 
 you here ! ” 
 
 1 
 
 = 
 
 Something in the tone, in the altered 
 manner, brought the blood back to 
 Hilary’s cheeks. She raised her head 
 proudly. 
 
 “ I left my husband because he insulted 
 me,” she said ; “ I think he knows that well 
 enough.” 
 
 “ It was all my fault,” went on Eustace 
 Keene rapidly ; “ I had no right to draw 
 you into such a scrape. I was selfish. I 
 forgot myself. I would give everything in 
 the world now to atone for the wrong. 
 Can I — is there any way in which I can 
 help you ? ” 
 
 Hilary’s heart had grown colder and 
 colder as he went on. It felt heavy as a 
 stone in her breast now. Where were the 
 love, the ardour, the passion of this man, 
 who had knelt at her feet a brief while 
 before and declared he could not live his 
 life without her? 
 
 Ah ! there is a crueller pain than to lose 
 what we love by death. It is to see that 
 love in naked cruel reality, as it is, stripped 
 of the glamour of romance with which we 
 have invested it— an ideal no longer, but 
 a living reality that mocks us with the 
 attributes our fancy gave it once, and puts 
 to shame all our fond beliefs. 
 
 Such an experience as this came to 
 Hilary Laughton at this moment. As by a 
 lightning flash she saw revealed to her the 
 man she had worshipped with all her foolish 
 passionate heart ; saw him as he was, 
 not as she had pictured him. The sacrifice 
 she had made, the sufferings she had borne, 
 all these were as nothing in comparison 
 with that revelation. She could almost 
 have laughed at her own blindness, her 
 utter folly. Did he realise — ever so 
 faintly — what he had been to her, this 
 man who now offered her the insult of help, 
 the. pretence of compassion for all the 
 wrong he had himself inflicted ? Love had 
 stolen upon her unawares. In the weari- 
 ness and wretchedness of her life she had 
 been beguiled to believe in happiness such 
 as had filled the dreams of her girlhood, 
 such as could never visit her again. And 
 her love — wrong in one sense — had yet 
 been a sentiment holy and pure, debased 
 by no selfishness of passion, deep rooted 
 and full of trust, and this love was cast 
 back at her feet, with no warning, with no 
 subtleties of excuse. The blow hit straight 
 to the very roots of her nature. It made 
 her hard and cold as iron, but it could not 
 still the bitterness of shame and disappoint- 
 ment, the inward agony which throbbed in 
 every vein. 
 
 — ^ 
 
==^ ^-.=^ S3 
 
 38 [July 3, 1882.] “ WFIEN THE WICKED MAH.*’ [Conducted by 
 
 “ You are very kind/’ she said, answering 
 him at last, and drawing herself up 
 with haughty composure. “ I need no 
 help. I am very well and — happy.” 
 
 “ But what do you intend — why have 
 you chosen to act like this ? ” he said, some- 
 what confusedly. “ Surely you must know 
 that a position so equivocal can only produce 
 evil results in the future. If you had only 
 told me — ” 
 
 “ You ! ” There was a scorn so bitter 
 and intense in her voice, that it cut short 
 his words. “ Why should I have told you 
 anything, Mr. Keene % I think you scarcely 
 know what you are saying.” 
 
 “ Have you forgotten ? ” he said hurriedly, 
 and his eyes looked back to hers with the 
 caressing tenderness of old. She shuddered, 
 and turned yet paler. 
 
 “ Stop ! ” she said, “ the past is over and 
 done with. Do not allude to it again. 
 There is no excuse for my folly — for my 
 sin. Do not shame me further still. We 
 made a great mistake once. That you 
 know as well as I. For the future our 
 paths will lie far enough apart. From this 
 hour, if we meet at all, it must be as 
 strangers.” 
 
 “ Strangers !”he said, and a momentary 
 flash lit his eyes. “ Absurd ! we can 
 never be strangers, you and I. Were 
 you any other woman, you would have 
 come to me and trusted me, not made 
 me look like a fool, and placed your- 
 self in a position so equivocal. Now 
 the world gives you all the credit for doing 
 what you seem to have done, and I — I 
 have no power to refute its accusations 
 or to shield you.” 
 
 A cold smile came to her lips. 
 
 “ You are indeed most generous,” she 
 said, “ but I fail to see that you could 
 have ‘shielded’ me as you say. In any case 
 you should be thankful that I have to bear 
 the folly you speak of alone and at my 
 own cost. Now I think there is no 
 further need for us to discuss the subject. 
 Will you not rejoin your friends 'l ” 
 
 He looked thoroughly confused and em- 
 barrassed. What a strange creature this 
 woman was, he thought. Why had she 
 not been like anybody else 1 The absurdity 
 of giving up husband and lover both, and 
 burying herself in obscurity ; of taking 
 all the blame and none of the consolation, 
 all the bitter and none of the sweet; struck 
 him afresh as the most hopeless piece of 
 idiotcy. He had loved her very dearly, 
 very madly, but when she had cast him off 
 in her imperious fashion, and called his 
 
 love by its true name, what was left for 
 him to do ? A month of absence, and he 
 had begun to think that it would have 
 been a terrible scandal, and congratulated 
 himself on an escape. A false step is irre- 
 trievable. He had just been saved from one, 
 and though he felt ashamed and angry before 
 her, though some faint remnants of the 
 old sweet days remained in his memory 
 and sprang up at her presence, those feel- 
 ings were but evanescent as the faint light 
 of a dying ember that flickers into sudden 
 flame at a breath, and then sinks back to 
 blackness and expires. 
 
 There is a wide difference between a 
 man’s love and a woman’s. Indeed it is 
 difficult to judge of either, without a 
 thorough knowledge of its nature and its 
 inner workings. Eustace Keene had not 
 meant to be selfish. He had been pre- 
 pared to make the greatest possible sacri- 
 fice for the woman he loved, but she had 
 ignored his generous intentions, and passed 
 out of his life as suddenly, as inexplicably, 
 as if she had had no place or part in it. 
 
 Wounded pride, anger, jealousy, and 
 inability to comprehend her motives or 
 herself, all these had worked upon his 
 nature and his heart, and common-sense 
 had bade him listen to the warnings of pru- 
 dence, and had placed beside all the good 
 things he would have lost, the worries and 
 troubles he would have to encounter, the 
 poor fragile reward of a woman’s love. 
 Only a woman after all ! Was the game 
 worth the^candle — the toy worth the cost ? 
 In love, as in any other emotion, when 
 reason begins to argue against impulse, 
 the end is not far off. 
 
 Eustace Keene was only an ordinary 
 man ; there was nothing very bad, or very 
 good, or very noble about him, as I have 
 said before. Only a foolish woman had 
 glorified him into a hero, and worshipped 
 him with all her tender, passionate, loving 
 heart. 
 
 Of course she was to blame, and of 
 course she richly deserved all her suffering, 
 and of course she had behaved like a per- 
 fect idiot. I am not taking her part, or 
 excusing her for a single moment, but as 
 long as human nature is weak, and erring, 
 and imperfect, these mistakes of sentiment 
 and impulse will wreck and ruin lives. 
 We are not machines to be regulated and 
 set to a certain routine of thought and 
 action, and the undisciplined, fiery, passion- 
 ate enthusiasts — the people who want to 
 live their lives, not merely stagnate, to 
 revel in extremes of joy, and drink the 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 “WHEN THE WICKED MAN.” 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 39 
 
 cup of bliss as fate holds it to their eager 
 lips — these are they who will suffer most, 
 err most, and perhaps repent most. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 They parted. , Calm and cold, strangely 
 calm indeed, Hilary Laughton took her own 
 way homeward. What had come to her % 
 she wondered mechanically. A sort of 
 numbness was upon her now; every emotion 
 seemed dumb and paralysed — it was a 
 sensation utterly new and utterly strange. 
 She was not angry or grieved, or even very 
 much troubled ; she only felt cold and 
 passive, as if a long race were over, a long 
 battle won, and even the consciousness of 
 victory were powerless to gratify the weary 
 conqueror. 
 
 She walked up the cottage-garden, and 
 into her own little sitting-room, and 
 then became conscious of a tall dark figure 
 advancing to meet her. 
 
 “ I am so sorry, but I forgot to tell you 
 this afternoon that the choir practice has 
 been postponed till ■” 
 
 The voice broke suddenly off. 
 
 “ Good God ! what has happened V’ cried 
 Mr. Eyre, startled out of all self-control as 
 his eyes rested on the white face, the 
 strange, blank, unseeing eyes. 
 
 She put her hands to her head in a dizzy 
 bewildered fashion, and sank back into the 
 chair by the window. 
 
 “I am not quite well, I think,” she said 
 faintly. Then a sharp, odd little laugh 
 left her lips. “ I have met a friend since 
 I left you,” she continued. “ It was a 
 surprise.” 
 
 He faced her, his cold stern gaze bent 
 on her with a compelling force that made 
 her own answer it. 
 
 “ You have seen that man V’ he inter- 
 rogated. 
 
 She did not answer, but neither did she 
 deny, so he took silence for consent, and 
 went on rapidly : 
 
 “ Has he dared to follow — to per- 
 secute ” 
 
 “ Oh no,” she interrupted hastily. “ It 
 was quite accidental, I assure you. One 
 of those meetings in which you good 
 people see the workings of Providence, and 
 we bad ones, the mischief of fate !” 
 
 “ Do not speak like that,” he said 
 roughly, almost harshly. “ Why are you 
 trifling with wrong in this foolish manner, 
 after what you have told me of this man — 
 of your own feelings ” 
 
 “ I don’t know what I have told you,” 
 she went on in the same listless, strange 
 
 way. “But please forget it all, as 
 you might do any other poor penitent’s 
 confession. Everything is at an end. I — 
 I have seen the error of my ways. Are 
 you not glad 'l You ought to be. I re- 
 member you said, ‘ When the wicked man 
 turneth away from the iniquity he hath 
 committed;’ well, would it not hold good in 
 the case of the ‘ wicked woman’ also 1 ?” 
 
 A little hysterical laugh escaped her 
 lips. Then Christopher Eyre saw only a 
 white, still form lying back on the chair, 
 and the blood rushed back to his heart for 
 an instant of agonised fear — an instant the 
 like of which he had never known, and 
 never would know again in all his life. 
 
 Emotional and excitable women cannot 
 indulge in such excesses of feeling — cannot 
 live through days and weeks of such intense 
 mental suffering as had been Hilary Laugh- 
 ton’s fate, without Nature exacting some 
 payment in return. 
 
 Physical prostration of the most abject 
 kind followed the ordeal through which 
 she had struggled, and from which she 
 had come out an infinitely sadder and 
 wiser woman. How the days passed and 
 lengthened into weeks she never knew. 
 She was very ill, but even of that she was 
 scarcely conscious, neither could she tell 
 how, in the languor of returning reason, 
 she seemed to recognise a face and voice 
 which she had never thought to see or hear 
 again. Was it really her husband, or was 
 she only dreaming 1 This man had so gentle 
 a touch, so kind a voice. She could not 
 understand it at all. Then her fancies 
 would grow hazy and indistinct again. All 
 would become dark and strange once more. 
 
 It was quite dark one evening, when 
 she seemed at last to wake to full, calm 
 consciousness. She felt strangely weak, 
 but calm and at peace, as she had not felt 
 for many a weary year. A fire was burning- 
 in the little grate, and sitting there beside 
 it was the same shadowy figure which had 
 puzzled and haunted her so often. 
 
 Impulsively she raised herself and held 
 out her hand. 
 
 “ Arthur, is it you 1 ” 
 
 The figure rose and came towards her. 
 i “ Yes, Hilary,” said a voice — a voice 
 | which seemed struggling between shame 
 ! and grief and penitence. 
 
 I “ How came you here ? ” she asked 
 faintly. 
 
 “Mr. Eyre sent for me,” he answered. 
 “ I — upon my soul, Hilary, I don’t know 
 
40 [July 3, 1882.'] 
 
 MRS. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 how to put it — I did not think you would 
 have taken our quarrel so seriously. Of 
 course I know you were not altogether in 
 the right, but I was a brute to accuse you 
 as I did. I suppose you can’t ever forgive 
 me after all this, and all that you have 
 gone through. I have heard of it all from 
 Eyre, and it makes me ashamed of myself, 
 and I ” 
 
 u What — what are you saying 1 ” she 
 asked, bewildered by his words, his strange 
 agitation. 
 
 “ I am asking you to forgive me if you 
 can,” he said humbly. 
 
 “ To forgive you ! But it was I who 
 was in the wrong, I who was so foolish 
 and wicked.” 
 
 “You were nothing of the sort,” he 
 answered. “'Even if you had been, I 
 deserved it. I was a very bad husband to 
 you, I know, and you were so young and 
 beautiful, and exposed to such temptations, 
 
 I could not blame you now had you 
 
 There, I have said my say. I am a rough 
 fellow, and not good at speechifying. 
 Shall bygones be bygones, and will you 
 try to — forget ? ” 
 
 She laid her hand in his, and the tears 
 rolled down her thin white cheeks. 
 
 “ Heaven bless you for your generous 
 pardon,” she said. 
 
 “ I have fought the fight out to the bitter 
 end,” said Christopher Eyre one grey chill 
 autumn day, as he stood bareheaded at 
 the vicarage gates, and watched the rolling 
 wheels of a fast-disappearing carriage from 
 which a woman’s face had looked out in a 
 last farewell. “ They are reconciled. They 
 will be better friends in the future. He 
 will understand her, and she — she will be 
 more tolerant and patient with him. Have 
 I done well 1 She asked what was ‘ lawful 
 and right,’ and it seemed only — this. . . . 
 As for me ” 
 
 MRS. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND. 
 
 By Dutton Cook. 
 
 i. 
 
 A street accident, that was all. Quite 
 a commonplace sort of occurrence. But 
 the inevitable London crowd had assembled, 
 and the usual tall policeman had appeared 
 at last to deal as best he could with the 
 congested traffic. He could be seen 
 towering above the throng ; his injunctions 
 
 to move on were plainly audible, although 
 not immediately obeyed. 
 
 A man had been knocked down by a 
 carriage driven rapidly round the corner of 
 a street. He had been crossing the road, 
 or had tripped on the kerbstone and fallen 
 almost at the horses’ feet. Some said he 
 had seemed to throw himself in the way of 
 the carriage. Was he drunk then 1 Was 
 he mad ? None could say. No one knew. 
 There was more questioning than answer- 
 ing among the crowd. What sort of man 
 was he 1 Old or young 1 Was he a gentle- 
 man 1 It seemed to be agreed that he was 
 a shabbily-dressed man of middle age; 
 that his features were large, and that the 
 beard covering the lower part of his face 
 was of a rusty iron-grey hue. A notion 
 prevailed that he might be a foreigner. 
 
 It was more important to enquire whether 
 he was much hurt. A greengrocer’s bpy, 
 who, after the custom of his class, carried 
 his empty circular basket upon his head, 
 half covering his countenance in the 
 manner of an over large hat, but just tilted 
 back so as to allow him to look a little 
 about him, became an object of general 
 interest, because of the information he 
 possessed upon the subject. The curious 
 projected their inquisitive faces in his 
 direction. The boy had not seen the whole 
 of it, he said. But he had seen the man 
 down, and the horses’ hoofs trampling upon 
 him. Was not sure whether the wheels 
 had gone over him or not ; rather thought 
 they had. When he was picked up or 
 dragged out of the road, he was white as a 
 sheet, he was covered with mud, and there 
 was blood upon his face. The boy was 
 quite sure about that. The man had been 
 carried into the chemist’s shop close by. 
 No, he wasn’t dead. At least the boy did 
 not think he was dead. He had only 
 fainted, perhaps, and the chemist was 
 bringing him to, and strapping up his 
 wounds. 
 
 The crowd pressed towards the chemist’s 
 shop. It was necessary to lock the 
 door to avoid an irruption of unnecessary 
 spectators. There was much peeping 
 through the glass of the door, with 
 much struggling to obtain a glimpse of 
 what was happening within the shop. No 
 one seemed to be in a hurry to quit the 
 scene. In London there are always 
 apparently so very many blessed or banned 
 with leisure, and with plenty of time to 
 spare. And those who have clearly been 
 sent upon errands, shop-boys, messengers, 
 the carriers of parcels, and the like, appear 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 to be specially privileged to tarry and 
 loiter when and where they list. 
 
 There were critics among the crowd, of 
 course. The critic is always with us. 
 Much fault was found with those concerned 
 in the accident. The man ought to have 
 been more careful. People were very 
 reckless in crossing the roads, and did not 
 look where they were going, or heed what 
 they were doing. Then the coachman was 
 accused of furious driving. Really, it was 
 urged, there should be a little more regard 
 for the safety of foot-passengers and the 
 sanctity of human life. The coachman 
 was indeed charged with incompetence, and 
 openly taunted with being the gardener in 
 disguise, an accusation which clearly was of 
 an irritating character. But generally the 
 sympathies of the crowd were with the 
 victim of the accident, while a disposition 
 prevailed to view his misfortune through 
 the medium of class or political prejudice. 
 Many declared that this was but another 
 instance of the anxiety of the rich to ride 
 down the poor, to oppress and grind them. 
 Various proletaries delivered discourses 
 upon that text. 
 
 A lady, wrapped in velvet and furs, had 
 been sitting alone in the carriage. She 
 uttered a cry of alarm when she perceived 
 that an accident had occurred, but she 
 learnt of it chiefly from the shouts of 
 the passers-by. The coachman had im- 
 mediately reined in his horses. When the 
 man who had been knocked down was 
 carried into the chemist’s shop, the lady 
 had descended from her carriage. She had 
 expressed her regret, her alarm and anxiety, 
 in becoming terms. Even the most severe 
 judges in the crowd could not find fault 
 with her speech or her demeanour. A 
 handsome woman, all agreed, although not 
 quite so young as she had been ; very 
 pale, and with what some described as a 
 set expression when she entered the 
 chemist’s shop. When she left it she was 
 paler still, it was noticed, and she wore a 
 curiously distressed and frightened look. 
 
 She did all that could be done in the 
 painful circumstances of the case. She 
 was urgent that the sufferer should want 
 for nothing, should have the best medical 
 assistance. She left money for his benefit 
 with the chemist. She gave her card to 
 the policeman. She did not re-enter her 
 carriage until she had satisfied herself that 
 the man had received no very serious 
 injury. Shaken and bruised he might be, 
 with an ugly cut upon his forehead, but no 
 bones were broken ; there was, indeed, no 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 41 
 
 reason for taking an alarming view of his 
 case. The lady did not depart until she 
 was fully assured in that respect. As she 
 drove off the eyes of the crowd followed 
 her, still regarding her unfavourably. She 
 was typical of the upper classes in their 
 pre-disposition to tyrannise over the lower. 
 Her carriage had knocked down a poor 
 man in the street. Surely that was offence 
 enough. It was all very well to call it an 
 accident. There had been a great deal too 
 many such accidents. 
 
 II. 
 
 The card handed to the policeman bore 
 the name of Mrs. Bertram, and the address 
 of Curzon Street, Mayfair. 
 
 Mrs. Bertram was understood to be the 
 widow of an East Indian merchant, who 
 had bequeathed her a large fortune. In 
 addition to the small but elegantly equipped 
 house in Curzon Street, she possessed a 
 picturesque riverside villa at Walton. 
 
 She returned home in a very nervous 
 and troubled state. 
 
 “Bring me the sal volatile, Morris,” she 
 said to her maid hurriedly. “ Don’t stare. 
 There’s nothing the matter. I am not ill ; 
 only a little upset. A street accident. A 
 man was nearly run over.” 
 
 “The man was much hurt, ma’am ?” 
 enquired Morris the maid presently. 
 
 “Not so very much, I think. But — 
 something must be done for him, of course. 
 I left my address with the police. The 
 man will call, no doubt. He will be sure 
 to call, and I must see Iiim.” 
 
 “Was he a gentleman, ma’am ? ” 
 
 “ No,” Mrs. Bertram answered vaguely, 
 “ I suppose not. He was not what would 
 be generally considered a gentleman. With 
 a gashed face, and mud upon his clothes, 
 he certainly did not look much like a 
 gentleman. Yet he might, perhaps, have 
 been a gentleman once. But that would 
 be long ago, of course. He will come to- 
 night, I dare say, and I must see him. I 
 shall not go to Lady Vansittart’s; I am not 
 equal to it, after what has happened. This 
 sort of thing is too trying to one’s nerves. 
 I will write a note of apology to Lady 
 Vansittart. James can take it round at 
 once.” 
 
 Mrs. Bertram spoke so strangely, so 
 incoherently, with such an abstracted, 
 bewildered manner, that Morris stood 
 silently with wide-open eyes viewing her 
 mistress wonderingly. 
 
 “ Why don’t you say something, Morris?” 
 Mrs. Bertram asked with sudden sharpness. 
 
 MRS. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND. 
 
12 [July s, 1882.] MRS. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “Yes, ma’am, certainly, ma’am,” began 
 the startled Morris. “I was thinking, 
 ma’am, that, if the man called, and you 
 seemed to think that he was sure to call 
 to-night ” 
 
 “Yes, I think he will call to-night.” 
 
 “ Whether,” continued Morris, “ I should 
 show him into the drawing-room or not ? ” 
 “ What does it matter 1 Why not the 
 drawing-room 1 I must see him somewhere, j 
 I suppose.” 
 
 “Yes, ma’am, but I was thinking that 
 as you know so little of the man, and he’s, j 
 as you say, not a gentleman now, whatever j 
 he may once have been, and as there’s so i 
 many nice things — valuable things I mean j 
 — about in the drawing-room, I was think- 
 ing it might be safer ” 
 
 “ I’ll see him in the drawing-room,” j 
 interposed Mrs. Bertram; “that will do. 
 
 I will write the note for James to take to j 
 Lady Vansittart’s. There’s no answer | 
 required, and, Morris, if Sir Jasper should ! 
 call here to-night — very likely he will call i 
 when he finds I am not at Lady Vansittart’s, 
 and learns that illness has prevented my 
 going there — I will not see him. You under- 
 stand 1 You will tell him that I have 
 retired for the night, that after what has 
 happened — the accident in the street, I 
 mean — I found myself so unstrung alto- 
 gether, so distressed and disturbed, that I 
 could see nobody, do nothing. At the 
 same time you will let him know that I am 
 not ill — not really ill. That it is nothing 
 serious. That a little rest and quiet will 
 put me right. You understand, Morris ? ” j 
 “ Yes, ma’am, and that if he comes to- | 
 morrow ” 
 
 “ You need say nothing about to- 
 morrow, Morris.” 
 
 I 
 
 m. 
 
 Mrs. Bertram was assuredly a beauti- 
 ful woman, although there were some who 1 
 preferred to hold that her beauty was | 
 rather of the past than of the present. 
 The years had dealt kindly with her, how- 
 ever. If the bloom of youth had gone, the 
 canker of age had not yet arrived. There 
 was no wrinkle upon her forehead, no 
 silver thread was traceable among her 
 abundant golden-brown tresses. A certain 
 sad wearied look about her eyes there 
 might be, with a compression of the lips, 
 an occasional contraction of the nostrils ; 
 indications of experience of life, of suffering, 
 of a history. It was said of Mrs. Bertram 
 that her existence had not always been of i 
 so tranquil and prosperous a nature as it 
 
 now was or seemed to be. Perhaps her face 
 admitted as much. 
 
 Still she was beautiful. She was dressed, 
 it must be admitted, in a fashion of the 
 past, for the events here narrated are not 
 to be accepted as of very recent occurrence, 
 and to many the fashions that are a little 
 bygone seem to be almost contemptible. 
 Beauty is not seen at its best, the world 
 opines, in the dress of yesterday or the day 
 before. Fashions, of course, have their 
 importance. Still, whatever clothes it may 
 decide to put on or take off, and whatever 
 the pattern and texture of these may be, 
 whether it decides to wear its tresses 
 towering aloft or trailing below, its skirts 
 full or scanty, its sleeves tight or loose, 
 Beauty is Beauty still. 
 
 The drawing-room was rather dimly 
 lighted by a shaded lamp. Mrs. Bertram, 
 in a dress of dark velvet, with a scarf of 
 black lace lightly wound about her neck, 
 sat waiting for the man who had been 
 knocked down by her carriage. She waited 
 some hours. Then she heard a ring at the 
 bell. The man had not presumed to knock. 
 He was admitted, and shown into the 
 drawing-room. He was very pallid, and 
 there was a star formed of strips of plaister 
 upon his forehead ; but he walked firmly 
 enough, and seemed, in truth, to be little 
 the worse for the accident. 
 
 “ I have come,” he said, his eyes glancing 
 about the room before they rested upon 
 its mistress. “You expected me, I 
 suppose ? ” 
 
 “ I expected you. Were you much hurt ? ” 
 
 “ Not much. It was my own fault. I 
 was taken by surprise. I recognised you, 
 and before I had time to recover myself, 
 somehow I found myself at j^our horses’ 
 feet. You knew me % ” 
 
 “ Not at first. But I did afterwards 
 when I saw you in the chemist’s shop. It 
 was most unfortunate,” she said with rather 
 an absent air. 
 
 “It could not be helped. It was an 
 accident. I might have been killed ; but, 
 as it happens, I am not much damaged. It 
 would have been better perhaps if I had 
 been killed.” 
 
 Mrs. Bertram was silent. 
 
 “ I should have died universally un- 
 regretted,” her visitor said grimly. “ A 
 brief report in the newspapers, an inquest 
 upon the body of a man unknown acci- 
 dentally knocked down and run over in 
 the streets, a pauper’s funeral at the 
 expense of the parish — that would have 
 been all. Not another word could have 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MRS. BERTRAMS HUSBAND. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 43 
 
 been said upon the subject. It’s a pity 
 things won’t happen as we would have 
 them happen.” 
 
 He waited as though expecting that she 
 would say something. But she remained 
 silent. 
 
 “ You are not glad to see me ? ” he said 
 presently. 
 
 “ Why should I be glad to see you ? ” 
 she asked in her turn. 
 
 “ You wish that we had never met 1 ” 
 
 “ Heaven knows I do.” 
 
 “ You thought me dead ? ” 
 
 “ Indeed I did ; dead long since.” 
 
 “ I say again ” — he laughed bitterly as he 
 spoke — “ it’s a pity things won’t happen as 
 we would have them happen.” 
 
 “ And now,” she said, “ what is to 
 be done ? What is to be done ? What 
 would you have me do ? Do you need 
 help at my hands ? ” 
 
 “ You are rich, it seems. It’s pleasant to 
 be rich. I have had money in my time, 
 and spent it. This is your house : these 
 pretty knick-knacks, china, and pictures, 
 glass, gilding, and rubbish, all your 
 property ? ” 
 
 “ All my property,” she repeated wearily. 
 “ You’re welcome to it. I am not in 
 want of such things as I see about me.” 
 
 “ What is it that you do want ? ” 
 
 “ Suppose I were to say that I want 
 you ? ” 
 
 “ I should not believe you,” she answered 
 bluntly. 
 
 “ And yet, Gertrude, I never saw you 
 look so handsome as you look to-night.” 
 
 “ You did not come here to-night merely 
 to pay me idle compliments.” 
 
 “It was no idle compliment — if compli- 
 ments are ever idle. It seems to me that 
 much can be done by means of compli- 
 ments skilfully administered. And surely 
 a husband may be permitted to pay a 
 compliment, idle or not, to a wife he 
 has not seen for very many years, whom 
 he meets at last most unexpectedly. It 
 was hard, though, to be knocked down 
 by your carriage - horses and nearly run 
 over by your wheels. I shall carry to 
 my grave an ugly scar upon my forehead 
 by way of memento of the event.” 
 
 “ You describe yourself as my husband, 
 you speak of me as your wife, as though 
 nothing had occurred in the past to separate 
 us, to render you as dead to me for ever.” 
 
 “ What can sunder those whom God hath 
 joined together ? ” he asked with an arti- 
 ficial air, stretching forth his hand as 
 though he would grasp hers. 
 
 “Don’t touch me,” she said sternly. 
 “ You must be strangely forgetful if you 
 think that we can meet again as though 
 nothing had happened during the long 
 interval of our separation; or have you 
 forgotten what separated us i ” 
 
 “I know what separated us. I know 
 that much has happened since we 
 separated. I have forgotten nothing. For 
 
 what I did in the past ” 
 
 “ The crime you committed,” she 
 interposed. 
 
 “ Call it crime if you like,” he continued 
 carelessly. “It was an act of justice to 
 my thinking. At any rate I held myself 
 entitled to do what I did. I borrowed the 
 money, I did not steal it. At least, I did 
 not intend to steal it. And, after all, it 
 was really mine.” 
 
 “ You committed a forgery upon the 
 Bank of England. There was a sum of 
 money invested in Bank stock and stand- 
 ing in the names of trustees in the Bank- 
 books. You were only entitled to the 
 interest of the money. You forged the 
 signatures of the trustees to a power of 
 attorney, which enabled you to secure 
 possession of the principal. You were 
 tried at the Old Bailey for the forgery and 
 sentenced to transportation for life.” 
 
 “ I see you have all the facts at your 
 fingers’ ends,” he said with cynical calm- 
 ness. “But I paid the penalty for what 
 I did innocently enough, in ignorance of 
 the law.” 
 
 “ Do yourself more justice,” she ex- 
 claimed. “You were not innocent, nor 
 ignorant. You knew the law well enough, 
 and you outraged it wilfully.” 
 
 “ And haven’t I suffered for what I did? 
 Haven’t I been punished for my crime, as 
 you call it, over and over again ? Haven’t 
 I undergone long years of punishment? 
 But you don’t know what transportation 
 means. It’s a mere word to you. To me 
 — well, I won’t speak of it. I can’t bear 
 to think of it. Every morning I prayed 
 that I might not live through the day. 
 Every night I prayed that I might not live 
 to see another sunrise. It’s a wonder I 
 never laid hands upon myself, beat my 
 brains out against my prison wall.” 
 
 “ You loved yourself too dearly,” she 
 said with scorn. 
 
 “It’s easy for you to say that. What 
 suffering have you known ? All has been 
 made smooth and easy for you. The 
 sun has always shone upon you. You have 
 ! always had money in your pocket. You 
 I have never lacked for friends, admirers, 
 
44 [July 3, 1832.] MRS. BERTRAM'S HUSBAND. [Conducted by 
 
 lovers, to whom your lightest wish has 
 been law. In truth your lines have fallen 
 in very pleasant places.” 
 
 “ Liar ! ” she began impetuously, then 
 checked herself, and continued in a calmer 
 tone : “ But you were always that. I 
 
 have not suffered, you say 1 Was I not 
 your wife ? Fool that I was, did I not 
 listen to your false words, your flattery, 
 your promises and protestations 1 You 
 persuaded me, or I persuaded myself, that 
 you, adventurer, impostor, cheat, were a 
 hero, chivalrous, devoted, self-sacrificing, 
 noble. I was a weak, credulous, romantic 
 girl. It is not surprising that I was duped. 
 Yours was a grand triumph. You married 
 me for my money, which you squandered 
 at the gaming-table or on the turf. Then 
 came a long course of neglect, ill-treatment, 
 cruelty.” 
 
 “We had our misunderstandings, cer- 
 tainly.” 
 
 “ You struck me ” 
 
 “ Did I strike you ” he asked. “ I d 
 forgotten that.” 
 
 “ Do I not bear upon my body, even yet, 
 the marks of your blows 1 ” 
 
 “ I was wrong, of course. But I lost my 
 temper, or I was not sober, and you 
 provoked me. You could be very pro- 
 voking when you chose. Still I did not 
 mean really to hurt you.” 
 
 She seemed to brush away this explana- 
 tion with an abrupt movement of her hand. 
 
 “Then you neglected, abandoned me, 
 left me at last penniless to starve, with 
 my child.” 
 
 “ Really I'd forgotten the child. It died, 
 didn’t it ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, thank Heaven ! ” she said with 
 strange fervour. 
 
 “ It was as well, perhaps. But I could 
 not help leaving you, you must bear in 
 mind. I was arrested upon a criminal 
 charge, and brought to trial. I was power- 
 less. I often thought of you, but I really 
 could do nothing to help you. What can 
 a man do when he’s locked up 1 Then I 
 was sent to New South Wales. You may 
 call it abandoning you, but I had really no 
 choice in the matter, and after all you did 
 not do so badly. Women, young and 
 good-looking as you were then, as you are 
 now for the matter of that, rarely fail to 
 find friends. You found one, and some- 
 thing more. After a while you married 
 again. Married the gentleman whose 
 service you had entered as governess to his 
 children. You see, I know something of 
 your history.” 
 
 “It is true. I married Mr. Bertram. 
 Many years had elapsed ; no news of you 
 came to me. I was entitled to believe you 
 dead. Mr. Bertram knew my story ; I 
 concealed nothing from him. He loved 
 me sincerely ; he behaved to me with 
 exemplary kindness and generosity. I 
 owe everything to him; but for him I 
 might have been wholly lost. I had the 
 truest affection for him, and now that he 
 is no more I venerate his memory. He 
 was the truest, the kindest, the noblest of 
 men.” 
 
 “ That will do,” he said rather morosely. 
 “I don’t care to listen to the singing of 
 Bertram’s praises. After all, he wasn’t 
 really your husband. You are aware, I 
 suppose, that you committed bigamy when 
 you married him 1 The law might have 
 something to say to you on that subject. 
 I am your real husband ; and perhaps you 
 don’t understand that all this property of 
 yours — I mean the land and money, goods 
 and chattels, left you by Mr. Bertram’s 
 will— really belongs to me as your lawful 
 husband if I choose to claim it.” 
 
 “ And you mean to claim it 1 ” 
 
 “That depends. I have come back to 
 the old country to end my days in peace. 
 Why should I not find a comfortable home 
 in my wife’s house % Why should I not, 
 after all I have undergone, secure a refuge 
 here, share in my wife’s prosperity, ask her 
 forgiveness, beg her to bestow her love 
 upon me once more, and take me to her 
 arms again 1 Really, Gertrude, we might 
 live happily together ‘ ever afterwards,’ as 
 people do in the fairy tales.” 
 
 “ So that is your plan, is it, Godfrey 
 Wenham % ” she began. 
 
 “ Hush !” he interrupted. “ Not my real 
 name, please. There’s danger in the sound 
 of it. I shiver when I hear it. Call me 
 George Harvey ; that’s how I am known 
 now.” 
 
 “ George Harvey or Godfrey Wenham, I 
 care not how you are known or called, listen 
 to me.” She rose as she spoke and stood con- 
 fronting him. “ Take heed what you do. 
 You are not dealing now with the silly girl 
 you duped so easily in the past. You have 
 cruelly -wronged me, but I have drawn 
 strength from my injuries. My sufferings 
 and experiences have given me courage. I 
 do not fear you in the least. I know that 
 you dare not treat me again as you 
 treated me in the past. I am not to be 
 frightened now by scowls and threats, 
 oaths and abuse ; and if you strike me — 
 but you know better — you dare not! You 
 
JL 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MRS. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND. 
 
 [July 3 , 1882 .] 45 
 
 say that you can claim this property of 
 mine. Prove your claim to it, prove 
 
 yourself my husband, and you prove 
 that I am not Mr. Bertram’s widow — that 
 I am not entitled to the property he has 
 bequeathed to me ; it will revert there- 
 fore to the surviving members, of his 
 family, it will become part of his general 
 estate. And more than that. Come 
 
 forward in your own name to claim 
 possession of my property, and to declare 
 yourself my husband, and what follows 1 
 You own yourself Godfrey Wenham, a 
 convict transported for life to New South 
 Wales. Who gave you leave to return to 
 England 1 let me ask you, and what is the 
 penalty for returning to England without 
 leave h Do you happen to know, Godfrey 
 Wenham 1 It used to be death. Perhaps 
 it’s death still. You should know, Godfrey 
 Wenham — none should know better than 
 you.” 
 
 The man had turned very pale. “ Do 
 you mean to betray me h ” he asked huskily, 
 with an oath. 
 
 “ I mean to do what seems good to me 
 to do. My conduct shall be ruled by 
 yours. If I betray you, you will know 
 the reason why. I give you fair warning, 
 Godfrey Wenham. And now go.” 
 
 He stood irresolutely for a moment or 
 two, gnawing his lip. 
 
 “ You may get the worst of this,” he said. 
 “ I’ll take my chance. I know what the 
 wmrst is. I’ll risk it.” 
 
 “ I thought we might be friends.” 
 
 “Make no mistake upon that head. 
 We are foes. Keep apart from me. 
 You’ll find that’s your better course.” 
 
 “ I may see you again % I may write to 
 you ‘ " 
 
 2 ” 
 
 “ Well,” she answered with some hesi- 
 tation, “ I do not forbid you. But you 
 will be careful what you write. No 
 threats, mind. No insolence, no rudeness. 
 Quite make up your mind that I do not 
 fear you in the least ; that if you venture 
 to annoy or offend me in the slightest 
 degree, I at once place myself under the 
 protection of the police. Now go. I 
 wish to hear nothing further. Yet stay — 
 there is money for you.” She took from 
 her purse a bank-note and tossed it to him. 
 “You will understand that I give it you, 
 by no means because I fear you, but 
 because you look so utterly broken-down 
 and wretched, and because my contempt 
 for you is so great.” 
 
 The man seemed fairly awed ; her tone 
 and manner were so commanding. He 
 
 slunk away scowling, but cowed and beaten. 
 Mrs. Bertram rang the bell. 
 
 “ Has he gone, Morris 1 ” she asked. 
 
 “He has gone, ma’am. If he should 
 come again 1 ” 
 
 “ I do not think he will come again ; not 
 just yet at any rate. Besides, to-morrow 
 morning I shall start for Walton, early. 
 I must have change. There is something 
 stifling about this London house. You will 
 pack everything to-night so that we shall be 
 able to start early to-morrow.” 
 
 “ Indeed, ma’am, you don’t look very 
 well.” 
 
 “ I’m tired, and I feel a little faint.” 
 
 “ And if Sir Jasper should call to- 
 morrow 1” 
 
 “ I will leave a note for Sir Jasper.” 
 
 “ He will be amazed to find you have 
 left town so suddenly.” 
 
 “ He must be amazed, then,” said Mrs. 
 Bertram coldly. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sir Jasper Davenport, a west-country 
 baronet of middle age, was very much in 
 love with Mrs. Bertram. It is a mistake 
 to imagine that the victims of the tender 
 passion are especially to be discovered 
 among the youthful. In the mature bosom 
 love often strikes deep roots, thrives, grows 
 and strengthens, finds itself in a congenial 
 soil, puts forth more and more branches, 
 becomes firmly fixed beyond all possibility 
 of extirpation. The young are often too 
 devoted to themselves to love others very 
 constantly or wholly. 
 
 Middle-aged Sir Jasper was a most 
 ardent and absolute lover. The inheritor 
 of numberless acres and a prodigious rent- 
 roll, he had as a young man served in the 
 army with some distinction. Afterwards 
 he had sat in Parliament as member for his 
 county. He had the reputation of being 
 an excellent man of business — calm, shrewd, 
 hard-headed. He had never married. 
 Some dim story floated in the air to the 
 effect that very early in life some disap- 
 pointment had befallen him, but nobody 
 paid particular heed to it. The same kind 
 of story was whispered about so many 
 men. There might be no sort of truth in 
 it. At any rate it referred to something 
 that must have happened a long time ago, 
 to ancient history in fact. And no one 
 could be. supposed to care about ancient 
 history and the things that had happened 
 a long time ago. 
 
 It was very clear now that the baronet 
 was deeply in love with the beautiful 
 
46 [July 3 , 1882.] 
 
 MRS. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 widow of his old friend, Mr. Bertram. He 
 was a handsome gentleman, of pleasant 
 address ; he was of a generous and tender 
 nature. He bore himself towards her with 
 a sort of chivalrous devotion. She could 
 not mistake the extent of his admiration 
 or the genuineness. So when at last his 
 love found expression in words, and he 
 tendered her his heart and hand, he found 
 his suit accepted. Sir Jasper Davenport 
 and Mrs. Bertram were engaged to be 
 married. 
 
 And now, suddenly and unexpectedly, 
 Mrs. Bertram’s first husband, Godfrey 
 Wenham, a convict returned illegally from 
 transportation, had appeared upon .the 
 scene. 
 
 Sir Jasper knew little, cared to know 
 little, of his wife’s early history. He was 
 aware that before her marriage with Mr. 
 Bertram she had filled the post of gover- 
 ness in his family. Something too he had 
 learnt to the effect that previously she had 
 suffered from poverty and from family 
 distress. He had not ascertained the 
 particulars of her trials and sorrows, how- 
 ever. He was by no means of an inquisi- 
 tive, a doubting, or a suspicious nature. 
 Sufficient for him was the evil or the good 
 of the day. It was enough for him to 
 know that as the wife of an old husband, 
 Mrs. Bertram had behaved perfectly, that 
 she was a refined, intelligent, and accom- 
 plished lady ; that she was very beautiful, 
 that he loved her with all his heart and 
 soul, and that she had accepted his suit. 
 The future was full of interest to him ; he 
 was absorbed in contemplation of it. He 
 had no thought to bestow upon the past. 
 It was gone. Let it go. What w~as it to 
 him now ] 
 
 Not meeting Mrs. Bertram at Lady 
 Yansittart’s, Sir J asper had called in Curzon 
 Street, late though it was, to enquire con- 
 cerning his affianced wife. He was dis- 
 tressed to # learn from Morris that Mrs. 
 Bertram had received a shock, that she was 
 not very well, that she had retired early to 
 rest, that there had been an accident with 
 the carriage, a man nearly run over, etc., 
 etc. In the morning Sir Jasper called 
 again. He was dismayed to find that Mrs. 
 Bertram had left London suddenly for her 
 house at Walton. There was a note for 
 him, however. 
 
 “ Dear Sir Jasper, — I am not ill, but 
 something has occurred greatly to distress 
 me. Rest and retirement are absolutely 
 necessary to me. Leave me to myself for 
 a little while. You shall know all — but 
 
 not yet. I cannot now bring myself to 
 write fully of my troubles 3 but I will do 
 so presently. Trust me; do not blame 
 me, even if I have to tell you by-and-by 
 very cruel news. — Believe me, always yours 
 affectionately, Gertrude.” 
 
 He read, and re-read this note. It per- 
 plexed him greatly. What could have 
 happened % he asked himself again and 
 again. What was he to do 1 What was 
 the meaning of it all 1 Was he to lose her 1 
 Was that the meaning of her note '? What 
 “ cruel news ” could she have to com- 
 municate 1 
 
 His first impulse was to hurry down to 
 her at Walton forthwith. But had she not 
 asked him to leave her to herself for a little 
 while 1 Could he ignore that request or 
 act in defiance of it 1 
 He wrote to her : 
 
 “ Dearest, — Your note has caused me 
 much uneasiness. I cannot bear to think 
 that you are distressed, and that I may not 
 be by your side to help and comfort you, 
 or at least to try to do so. I will en- 
 deavour to obey you ; I will, as you say, 
 leave you to yourself for a while. But you 
 do not know how hard I find it to keep 
 away from you. My heart, my hopes, my 
 love, my life, are all in your keeping. Do 
 not fear that I shall ever blame you, how- 
 ever cruel may be the news that you have 
 to tell me ; only please do not keep me 
 any longer than can be avoided in suspense 
 or in ignorance of what has happened. In 
 my turn I ask you to trust me. Be assured 
 that I love you most dearly. — Your own 
 * Jasper.” 
 
 He waited some days for an answer. A 
 very brief note came at last : 
 
 “ Dear Sir Jasper,— I dare not hope 
 that you will forgive me. I would that 
 you could forget me. Our marriage may 
 not — cannot be. I know this will be to 
 you a cruel disappointment. If you can find 
 any consolation in accusing me of. caprice, 
 of heartlessness, of wantonly trifling with 
 your affections, let it be so. I may not 
 merit all that may be said of my conduct, 
 yet some punishment I do deserve. Believe 
 me I shall suffer much in losing your 
 esteem. But it must be as I have said. I 
 will ask you not to seek to know more — 
 not to attempt to see me again. Treat me 
 as though I were dead — as one who has for 
 ever passed out of your life ; yet as one 
 who sincerely respected and loved you, and 
 is pained, indeed, to write these few last 
 lines to you knowing how keenly they will 
 I afflict you. Gertrude.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MRS. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 47 
 
 Sir Jasper turned pale as he read, his 
 hands trembled as he held the note. But 
 he felt that he could not accept his dis- 
 missal on the instant ; that he could not, 
 without an effort, resign the most cherished 
 hopes of his life. 
 
 “ At least I must know more,” he said. 
 “ I will not intrude upon her. She shall 
 know nothing of my presence ; but I will 
 be near her — I will watch over her. 
 Perhaps I may be able to assist her even in 
 spite of herself. Perhaps in spite of all 
 there may be happiness in store for us 
 both. My poor Gertrude ! she does not 
 yet know how much I love her.” 
 
 Sir Jasper quietly left London for 
 Walton. 
 
 v. 
 
 Sir Jasper had been much given to 
 boating in his youth, and even now was a 
 competent oarsman. He obtained lodgings 
 at The Angler’s Retreat, a river-side 
 hostelry beyond Chertsey. He hired a 
 boat, and was to be seen now and then 
 sculling rather idly up and down stream 
 in the neighbourhood. He rarely started 
 until towards sunset, to avoid the heat, 
 as he said. But a notion prevailed that 
 he was engaged in the City, and could 
 only appear on the water after office hours. 
 His face was a good deal shadowed by the 
 wide brim of his hat. 
 
 The sun had gone down, and the moon 
 was rising through an evening mist which 
 much obscured its brightness. It was 
 indeed something later than dusk when 
 Sir Jasper thrust his boat under the shadow 
 of an over-hanging willow, made it fast 
 there, and landed. He waited, listening, 
 then he advanced cautiously over a moist 
 and rather clayey lawn into which hi «, feet 
 sank an inch or two. He was approaching 
 a picturesque ivy-clad house, raised upon 
 a terrace, with French windows and a 
 verandah. 
 
 He stopped suddenly, for he perceived 
 in front of him the figure of a man. Sir 
 J asper crouched behind a thicket of rose- 
 bushes. . He dabbed his moist forehead 
 with his handkerchief ; his heart beat 
 noisily ; he clenched his teeth and closed 
 his fists. He was anxious, suspicious, 
 angry. “ There is another, then,” he 
 whispered to himself, and he continued to 
 watch the man in front of him. But the 
 mist was thickening, it was becoming dif- 
 ficult to see things that were only a few feet 
 distant. Cautiously Sir Jasper crept from ! 
 behind the thicket of rose-bushes and drew I 
 
 nearer to the terrace. The man had quietly 
 mounted the steps, and was standing by 
 the verandah. Sir Jasper peered at him 
 through the balustrade of the terrace. 
 
 .“Is the man the reason why I am for- 
 bidden to approach her 1 ” he asked him- 
 self. Then he added presently : “ No, 
 this man is not a lover ; he is a thief.” 
 
 The man had been trying the windows 
 one by one. All were closed. Then he 
 drew a knife from his pocket, and tried, 
 by inserting it beneath the locks of the 
 windows, to lift the latch that held them 
 fast within. 
 
 In a moment Sir Jasper’s strong hands 
 clutched his throat and held him as in a 
 vice. The man uttered a scream like a 
 wounded hare. Not that he was much 
 hurt, but he was extremely frightened. 
 
 “ Don’t kill me,” he cried in a weak 
 scared voice. 
 
 “ Villain, what are you doing here ? You 
 would rob the house ! Hush ! no noise.” 
 The man was Godfrey Wenham. A 
 moment, and he had recovered himself. 
 He shook himself free. 
 
 “ Hands off ! ” he said. “ You mistake 
 me. I am no thief. Are you one ? It 
 looks like it.” 
 
 “ You were trying to force those win- 
 dows.” 
 
 “Iam not answerable to you for what I 
 did or tried to do.” 
 
 “ You are a trespasser.” 
 
 “ And what are you ? What is your 
 right to be here ? Take care what you 
 do. Stand away from me.” 
 
 “At any rate, I will know who you 
 are.” 
 
 “ You shall know what I choose to tell 
 you— no more, no less. Take care, I say 
 again. I am armed, and I’ll fire upon you 
 if you venture to lay hands upon me again.” 
 As he spoke, he drew a pistol from his 
 breast, and pointed it towards Sir Jasper. 
 
 “ is my turn now,” said Godfrey 
 Wenham. “ Who and what are you ] 
 Why are you here ? What is your name ? 
 Are you Mrs. Bertram’s lover % ” 
 
 As he. spoke, his pistol was suddenly 
 thrust aside, Sir J asper’s hands were upon 
 his throat again, and he found himself 
 shaken like a mouse in the jaws of a cat. 
 
 “ V illain,. tell me who you are, or I’ll 
 wring the life out of you.” 
 
 “ If you must know, I am Mrs. Bertram’s 
 husband,” he gasped. 
 
 u Liar !” cried Sir Jasper, and he flung 
 the man away from him, and could hear 
 his body crash against the balustrade of 
 
48 [July 3, 1882.1 
 
 MES. BERTRAM’S HUSBAND. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 the terrace, but he could scarcely see him, The Angler’s Retreat by the road ; the 
 the mist from the river was now so dense, j river was unsafe because of the mist. The 
 Godfrey Wenham staggered to his feet ; j servants had been roused and measures 
 then came the flash and the report of a taken to meet the unlikely event of the 
 
 pistol. 
 
 Sir Jasper felt himself hit, or, or least, 
 sharply grazed by a bullet. There was a 
 burning sensation in his shoulder, and he 
 
 return of Godfrey Wenham to effect an 
 unlawful entry into the house. The police 
 had been informed that an attempt at 
 burglary had been made at Mrs. Bertram’s 
 
 could feel the blood lightly trickling down, house by the river. Lastly, Sir Jasper 
 Godfrey Wenham had leaped or fallen sought the help of a surgeon, and had his 
 from the terrace. His footsteps could be ' wound dressed. It was not serious, the 
 heard heavily moving about the dew- surgeon pronounced, but, as Sir Jasper 
 sodden lawn. But he seemed to move as declared, it was certainly unpleasant, 
 though uncertain of his path, now turning j 
 
 this way, now that. The moon was wholly ^ L 
 
 hidden. The mist was so thick that even Presently an inquest was held upon 
 the river was invisible. Suddenly a heavy the body of a man found in the Thames, 
 splashing noise was heard. entangled in weeds and rushes, at some 
 
 “ God help the man ! he must have j distance from Walton. The proceedings 
 fallen into the river,” said Sir Jasper. ; were brief enough. 
 
 One of the French windows was opened, 
 and Mrs. Bertram, bearing a lamp, 
 appeared. She was very pale ; there was 
 a look of absolute terror upon her face. 
 
 “ What has happened ? Is it you, 
 Jasper? — and wounded?” she screamed, 
 for the blood had run down his sleeve and 
 was crimsoning his hand. 
 
 “It is a scratch only,” he explained. 
 
 “ The scoundrel’s bullet just grazed my 
 shoulder. My poor Gertrude, I am afraid 
 all this has alarmed you terribly ; and do 
 you know, my darling, you look very, very 
 ill.” ‘ ; 
 
 “ Jasper, I have suffered so much,” she 
 said ; and then she gave way, burst into 
 tears, and hid her face in his bosom. 
 
 He kissed and caressed her tenderly. 
 Presently she started and shuddered. 
 
 “ This must not be,” she cried. “ But 
 you shall know all, Jasper. I ought to 
 have told you all long ago. Indeed, I 
 always meant to tell you all before I 
 allowed myself to call you husband. But 
 it was a painful story to tell. Do not 
 blame me that I tried to keep it from you 
 as long as I could.” 
 
 “ Let us not speak of this now. You 
 have gone through so much. You look 
 worn out with fright and fatigue. But 
 
 The man was apparently of middle age ; 
 he was tall, large-featured, with an iron- 
 grey beard. It was thought that he might 
 be a foreigner. He was shabbily dressed, 
 but there was some money in his pocket, 
 with a knife, a horse-pistol, unloaded, a 
 chisel, and a bunch of keys. 
 
 The police had no knowledge of the 
 man ; the body was not claimed. 
 
 Sir Jasper Davenport tendered his 
 evidence. He narrated how he had stepped 
 from his boat on to the lawn fronting Mrs. 
 Bertram’s house. (It was whispered in 
 court that Sir Jasper was engaged to be 
 married to Mrs. Bertram, but the coroner 
 asked no questions on that head.) He 
 had found a man trying to effect an 
 entrance through one of the windows. A 
 struggle had ensued, and the man had 
 fired a pistol. Sir Jasper had been 
 wounded, but not seriously. He identified 
 the body. The evening was dark, and a 
 thick mist had come over, but Sir J asper 
 had no doubt whatever on the subject. It 
 was the body of the man with whom 
 he had struggled before Mrs. Bertram’s 
 window. Sir Jasper had been face to face 
 with the man, and would have known him 
 j again anywhere. 
 
 Mrs. Bertram was not called as a witness. 
 
 one word only. That villain declared The coroner said he supposed the jury 
 himself your husband.” were satisfied; there seemed no occasion for 
 
 “ It was the truth, Jasper.” i further evidence, even if further evidence 
 
 “ My poor Gertrude ! ” j had been forthcoming, and it was not. 
 
 Then she told him all. Her story did The jury returned a verdict of “Found 
 not quench his love for her in the slightest I Drowned.” The general opinion was to 
 degree ; indeed, perhaps he now loved her j the effect that a burglar had met his death 
 more than ever. His sorrow and pity for by misadventure, that it served him right, 
 her came to increase the sum of his affec- 1 and was altogether a good riddance, 
 tion. He left her at last, and returned to * A little while after the inquest, Mrs. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ALL IN THE DOWNS 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 49 
 
 Bertram made the baronet very happy, 
 gave him her hand, and became Lady 
 Davenport. They kept their own counsel 
 as to the story of her husband, his unex- 
 pected return, and sudden death ; but they 
 gave up the house at Walton. They declared 
 it to be damp ; and her ladyship had been 
 heard to say that she could never bring 
 herself to live there again after that foggy 
 night when the burglar met his death. 
 
 “ALL IN THE DOWNS.” 
 
 By Theo. Gift. 
 
 CHAPTER I. HOW NANCY’S ROSES 
 BLOSSOMED IN APRIL. 
 
 A broad expanse of low, flat country, 
 green with the fresh, first greenness of spring, 
 tufted over with clumps of gorse whose cups 
 of flaming honey-scented gold might set 
 the strongest eyes a-winking, backed by 
 the South Downs rising in broad undulating 
 curves against the dazzling blue of an 
 April sky ; and stretching away to the line 
 of rough brown shingle which alone divides 
 it from the tumbling foam-capped waves, 
 blue as the sky, sparkling in the sunbeams, 
 and striped brown, green, and purple from 
 the shifting shadows of every wind-blown 
 cloud. 
 
 A land altogether treeless, uncultivated, 
 monotonous, revelling in sea and sunshine 
 and pure salt breezes, nothing else. 
 
 Here and there are patches of marsh 
 fringed with tall bronze-green rushes, and 
 dotted over with the floating snow-white 
 blossoms of the water-crowfoot ; here and 
 there little shallow pools glittering in the 
 sunbeams like the scattered sapphires of a 
 giant necklace; here and there flocks of 
 sheep, some cropping busily at the short 
 juicy grass, others lying under the shelter of 
 the furze bushes, or making languid resist- 
 ance to the greedy buttings of lambkins, 
 riotous with the hungry vitality of youth. 
 There is no shepherd with them and very 
 little sign of human neighbourhood at all, 
 save and excepting the glint of a passing sail 
 on the horizon ; or now and again a fisher- 
 man’s hut, built perchance of some old boat, 
 tarred and weather-beaten and sorely 
 battered with many a struggle with wind 
 and wave on winter nights in the Channel ; 
 or, at still more distant intervals, the low 
 stone cottage, glittering with recent white- 
 wash, and sporting at the smallest provo- 
 cation the gaudy red and blue of the Union 
 Jack, which fluttering above its slated roof, 
 
 proclaimed it to passing coasting vessels as 
 the local depdt of the coastguard service. 
 
 The April sun was shining gaily on one 
 of these buildings on a morning some 
 yearn ago when this story begins, lending 
 a brighter tint to the worn old bit of 
 bunting aloft, and a still ruddier hue to 
 the equally worn old cheek of one of its 
 valiant defenders, who, with the sleeves of 
 his blue shirt rolled up high on his arms, 
 was engaged in the peaceful occupation 
 of washing greens in an earthenware crock 
 outside one of the half-hatch doors. The 
 same door being partly open, afforded a 
 stinted glimpse of a second mariner too 
 actively employed in struggling with a 
 flat iron and a coarsely resistant shirt to 
 turn his face to the sunbeams ; and by- 
 and-by another little door opened, and a 
 young man, holding something half-covered 
 with a silk handkerchief in one hand, 
 came briskly out, glanced back at the row 
 of little latticed windows behind him as if 
 to see if he had any observers ; and then, 
 with one steady look at the revenue cutter 
 as she lay lopping easily among the waves 
 just outside the line of surf, started off at 
 a stride across the flats with the air of one 
 who has an errand on hand which he is 
 half eager, half ashamed to accomplish. 
 
 He did not look like a man to whom 
 shame was a familiar word. He was 
 tall and broad - shouldered, wearing the 
 undress uniform of an officer; not hand- 
 some or even good-looking, but with a 
 pleasant frank ugliness which might have 
 a charm of its own in some eyes, and with 
 a glorious brown beard, which hid the 
 lower part of his face altogether and 
 glittered, like gold in the sunbeams, on his 
 broad chest. There were shop-girls and 
 fishermen’s daughters at Pevensey who 
 looked admiringly after Dick Charteris for 
 nothing, else but that fine beard of his, 
 and built hopes which were not so pre- 
 sumptuous as they may seem on his 
 pleasant glance; for the coastguard ser- 
 vice was not usually officered from the 
 upper classes in those days, and everybody 
 knew that Lieutenant Charteris’s father 
 was nothing more than bailiff on a certain 
 nobleman’s home-farm. 
 
 The young man recked very little of such 
 admiration, however. There were eyes, to 
 win one kindly glance from which he 
 would have perilled life and limb with 
 gladness. But they were not given to 
 looking admiringly on him at any time ; 
 and now, when he was on his way to sun 
 himself in their perilous radiance, the mere 
 
JJ-. 
 
 50 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 ALL IN THE DOWNS. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 thought of them made his heart beat so 
 fast that he was fain to stop every now and 
 then and take a glance at the burden he 
 carried, as if in it, and not his own manly 
 presence, lay the little hope he had of a 
 welcome. 
 
 It was only a bunch of wild flowers 
 after all— fresh delicate things, forming an 
 almost pathetic contrast to the brown 
 muscular hand which carried them, and 
 massed together in rough male . fashion, 
 sturdy tufts of golden gorse tearing with 
 their sharp green spines the paler prim- 
 rose blossoms, long wet trails of water- 
 crowfoot, mixed up with buttercups and 
 bluebells, and tied together with a stout 
 piece of new fishing-line. 
 
 They reached their destination at last, 
 though not the hand they were intended 
 for. A brisk walk of two miles ended at 
 alow stone cottage, grey and lichen-covered, 
 and nestling under the massive green 
 shoulder of the lower line of downs. It 
 was there Nancy Blake lived with her 
 mother, the widow of a long-deceased 
 merchant captain, who had done better for 
 the whisky trade than for himself in the 
 world, and had left his wife and child 
 somewhat sparely dowered in consequence. 
 
 The latter might have been a queen, 
 from the reverence with which Dick 
 Charteris regarded her. His strong step 
 was faltering before ever he came in sight 
 of the patch of dark red wall - flowers 
 and green currant bushes which separated 
 the humble cottage from the waste, and 
 with his hand on the garden gate he 
 hesitated and went on a few steps ; then 
 laughed at himself for his cowardice, wiped 
 the drops from his hot forehead, and turned 
 resolutely back again. 
 
 Yet even this time he chose to go round 
 by the back of the house so as to give 
 himself time to cool, and by thus doing he 
 was greeted by a vision which performed 
 that office as effectually as a shower-bath 
 would have done, and brought him to a 
 sudden standstill. 
 
 Just within one of the* little latticed 
 casements, which, at the back of the house, 
 opened frankly on the downs without any 
 division of yard or garden, a very lovely 
 girl was standing. Her face was turned 
 from him, but not sp much but that he 
 could see the delicate curve of the cheek, 
 the little rosy ear, and a few soft tendrils 
 of hair, dark and shining as floss-silk, 
 which, escaping from the broad hat which 
 covered her head, flickered tenderly about 
 her brow and her soft, round throat. 
 
 Standing there, indeed, in the half-shadow, 
 with her head thrown back against the little 
 yellow curtain of the window, one stray 
 gleam of sunlight glinting on her white 
 kerchief, and the nobly-moulded arm lifted 
 in the, act of fastening a rose among her 
 dark tresses, she would have made a fair 
 study for any artist’s eye, let alone that of a 
 lover ; yet for once the beauty he loved won 
 no admiring glance from Dick Charteris ; 
 rather his face paled as if in sudden pain or 
 wrath, and his right hand opened and 
 clenched itself again with a convulsive 
 gesture which dropped half his cherished „ 
 flowers unheeded to the ground. 
 
 On the window-sill, just at the girl’s 
 elbow, lay a magnificent bouquet of yellow 
 roses ; not common garden flowers (for 
 indeed April is over early for them in this 
 clime) but choice greenhouse blossoms, 
 framed in delicate fronds of maiden-hair 
 fern and tied with a broad ribbon of soft 
 and sheeny texture which matched the 
 pale blue tint of the girl’s simple linen 
 gown, and might have been chosen to go 
 with it. 
 
 Involuntarily Dick groaned — a low groan, 
 but a bitter one. He had risen at day- 
 break to seek out and gather that bunch 
 of wild flowers for the girl he loved, and 
 what were they worth now beside yonder 
 costly bouquet ? He looked down at them 
 wistfully. They had got a little faded from 
 their long imprisonment in his warm hand. 
 The campions were drooping their rosy 
 heads, the frailer white wood-sorrel had 
 folded its veined petals altogether and 
 looked pale and shrivelled, while the wet 
 brown leaves of the water-crowfoot hung 
 down like draggled weed. With a feeling 
 of angry contempt for their insignifi- 
 cance and his own folly he flung them 
 down in a heap on the grass, and was 
 turning on his heel to leave the place when 
 the girl moved her head and saw him. 
 His mood changed on the instant. The 
 first glimpse of that lovely face, rosy with 
 confusion at being thus surprised, banished 
 all his own shamefaced humility, and he 
 came straight up to her and spoke, eyes 
 and tone still sharp with jealous pain: 
 
 “ Good-morning to you, Miss Nancy. 
 How smart you are making yourself l” 
 
 Nancy’s cheeks deepened in colour ; but 
 there was something in his accent or the 
 word “ smart ” which irritated her, and she 
 answered saucily : 
 
 “Who wouldn’t with roses like these to 
 dress oneself with ! But you shouldn’t come 
 spying in at folks’ windows, Dick, and 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ALL IN THE DOWNS. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 51 
 
 startling them. I was nigh crushing this 
 flower/’ and the slender brown fingers 
 lifted a second yellow bud from the sill, and 
 proceeded to nestle it among the folds of 
 her white kerchief with conscious provoca- 
 tion. 
 
 Dick’s sunburnt face turned white. 
 
 “ I wasn’t spying,” he said. “ ’Tis your 
 parlour window, and sure anyone may look 
 that way without sin. I came over,” with 
 a gulp, “ to see you ; but maybe you’re 
 better engaged.” 
 
 Her look fell on the roses and she blushed 
 again. 
 
 “Well, I was— I had just been making 
 
 ready to go out ” she began when Dick 
 
 interrupted her. 
 
 “Were you ? Then let me go with you. 
 ’Tis a lovely morning for walking, and talk 
 is just as pleasant out o’ doors as in.” 
 
 “Nay, I should think you’d had walk 
 enough ; and I don’t mind waiting awhile ; 
 besides, mother’s always fain to see you,” 
 said Nancy blandly, but with a slight 
 hesitation which was quite enough for a 
 jealous lover. 
 
 “Oh dear no!” he answered. “Til not 
 think of keeping you, more especially if 
 you’re wanted elsewhere.” 
 
 “ And who said I was 1 ” she retorted 
 defiantly. 
 
 “No one ; but I have walked along with 
 you on your errands many a time afore this ; 
 aye and gone them for you without either 
 you or I troubling about distance ; but new 
 friends bring new manners.” 
 
 “ Better ones, I hope,” retorted Nancy, 
 “and I’m sorry to have been so selfish 
 before I got them.” 
 
 “You weren’t selfish. You were your 
 own self, which is as good as saying that you 
 were as sweet as a wood-dove and as natural 
 as the daisies on the downs yonder.” 
 
 “ And if I’m neither now, I wondsr folks 
 come to see me,” said Nancy coolly. 
 
 “I never said you weren’t; though 
 indeed you don’t trouble yourself to be 
 sweet to me, and you’re not your natural 
 self either,” said the poor fellow sadly; 
 “ but ’tis not you I blame for it even so, 
 ’tis others.” 
 
 Nancy went like a rose instantly. 
 
 “Blame me if you like, but let others 
 alone,” she said with her head high. 
 “ They’re nothing to you.” 
 
 “No, that’s true enough. A rough 
 sailor like me hasn’t much to do with your 
 white-handed townified dandies who can 
 send bouquets like yon to young women.” 
 
 “ I like white hands,” said Nancy boldly, 
 
 “ and for the matter of the flowers, you’ve 
 often brought me bunches and bunches 
 yourself.” 
 
 “ Not hot -house ones,” Dick answered 
 grimly. “Maybe, if I could ha’ done, 
 you’d have put them in your bosom as 
 you did that one just now. Nancy,” 
 with a sudden break in his strong voice, 
 “ I’m a man as cares as much for his limbs 
 as any other, but I’d lay down an arm 
 this moment, and right gladly, to be able 
 to think I’d ever seen you putting a 
 flower o’ mine where yon rose-bud is.” 
 
 “ But you never did, never. You know 
 you didn’t,” she said eagerly. 
 
 “ You’re right there, I do know it,” he 
 answered with slow bitterness. 
 
 « Then why do you quarrel with me for 
 not doing now what I’ve never done before ? 
 Look here, Dick, I don’t want to seem 
 rude, but if you won’t come in — though 
 indeed mother would be glad to see 
 you •” 
 
 “Gladder than her daughter, maybe; 
 but you mean I am keeping you. Well, 
 I’ll not do so any longer, and I’ll not force 
 my company on your walk either, so you’d 
 tell me one thing before I tramp home 
 again.” 
 
 “ And what’s that ? ” asked Nancy, 
 frankly relieved. 
 
 “ That you’re not going — I don’t believe 
 you would, but ’t would make me glad to 
 hear you say it — not going to meet the man 
 who sent you those 1 ” 
 
 He flung out his hand with a gesture 
 intended merely to indicate the gift in 
 question ; but the action was more violent 
 than he imagined, and, before he even 
 knew what he had done, the luckless roses 
 were swept to the ground.. 
 
 Nancy stooped and picked them up, 
 cheeks and eyes aflame. 
 
 “I’ll tell you no such thing. It is him 
 I’m going to meet, and why not when, if 
 all goes well, we’re to be married before 
 next spring ] Yes, I didn’t mean to tell 
 you, for- you’ve no right to know aught 
 about my affairs ; but it is so, and if I were 
 a man, Dick Charteris,” trying to steady 
 the indignant quiver in her lips by pressing 
 them against the roses, an action which in 
 its unconscious tenderness cut deeper to 
 her lover’s heart than aught else, “I 
 would be above thrusting myself on a 
 woman who did not care about me, or 
 knocking about a poor little bunch of 
 flowers because the one she did care for 
 had given them ” 
 
 But Dick Charteris had disappeared 
 
52 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 ALL IN THE DOWNS. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 -to 
 
 before she could finish her sentence 3 and 
 when Nancy found it out she stopped 
 short, and laughed at herself for her burst 
 of passion ; then kissed her flowers ten- 
 derly and said it “ served him right,” 
 with a second laugh harder than the 
 first. 
 
 Yet when she started for her walk and, 
 passing where Dick had been, saw the 
 pretty blue-bells and primroses all scattered 
 about on the ground, her mood softened ; 
 for she guessed in a moment that he had 
 gathered them for her, and love that is 
 happy is quick to comprehend love that is 
 the reverse. She would not pick them up, 
 but she eyed them sadly and said, “ Poor 
 things — poor fellow ! ” and even stayed her 
 steps to gather a handful of long feathery 
 grass and throw it lightly over the fading 
 flowers. 
 
 Ten minutes later, and she was standing 
 knee-deep in golden gorse, in a deep green 
 dell between the silent downs, with her 
 head on her lover’s shoulder, and her 
 lover’s arm round her waist, and her two 
 soft sunburnt hands clasped in the slender 
 white fingers Dick had contemned. A very 
 different lover this from the coastguards- 
 man, a slight fair young fellow scarcely 
 over her own height (but Nancy was a tall, 
 grandly-built young woman, a true daughter 
 of our first Danish conquerors), and with a 
 face and voice as softly beautiful as those of a 
 girl. Yet he was not as soft with her as was 
 poor Dick, unless when fired by jealousy ; 
 and she, who had been so fierce awhile ago, 
 stood meekly as a child while he scolded 
 her for being late and for wasting his time, 
 and then crept gratefully to his arms when, 
 melted by the sight of her beauty, he 
 relented and took her into them. 
 
 “ Only when a fellow comes three parts 
 of the way from Hastings to meet you, he 
 doesn’t like being left to kick his heels 
 alone,” Mr. Peveril said with a tone of 
 complaint even then, and Nancy answered 
 humbly : 
 
 “ I’m very sorry, dear ; but indeed I 
 couldn’t help it, and ’tis such a lovely day 
 I wouldn’t mind waiting any time for you 
 in it. Don’t scold me now.” 
 
 “ You’ve kept me waiting on worse days 
 before this, Nancy, and for nothing, for you 
 never came at all.” 
 
 “ That was before you let me tell 
 mother. She has always spared me since 
 she knew we were engaged. Indeed, God- 
 frey, she’s wonderful good to me, and if I 
 didn’t mean to be as good to her when I’m 
 
 your wife, I’d take shame to be idling 
 here while she’s working for me at 
 present.” 
 
 Godfrey Peveril laughed lightly. 
 
 “ Don't talk of working,” he said. “ It 
 is a queen’s part to be idle and to be wor- 
 shipped. You are my queen, Nancy, and if 
 you want me to worship you you must 
 hold your state royally.” 
 
 And he was right, though he spoke in 
 jest. Nancy had been shy and hard to 
 win at first, and in the very hardness lay a 
 charm which her present yielding went a 
 little way to dispel. Yet standing there 
 among the golden gorse, with her cheek 
 upon his breast, and his roses upon hers, 
 and the glamour of her beauty about her 
 like a cloud, she was a queen to him still, 
 and for a little while he was fain to worship 
 her as one. 
 
 CHAPTER II. AND HOW THEY DIED IN 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 “ Nancy child, you’ve not sat down 
 since dawn 0’ day. Do’ee rest, dear; 
 you’ll be worn out afore ever he comes.” 
 
 “ Oh no, mother, I won’t. I only just 
 went in to see that the flowers in the 
 parlour looked fresh. I wish it was not 
 such a hot day for a journey. Do you 
 think he’ll be very tired when he gets 
 here, mother — too tired to enjoy himself, 
 I mean? - Oh, I hope not.” 
 
 “ How can I say, child ? Anyhow I wish 
 he’d get here quick, tired or no. He’s 
 spoilt our dinner already wi’ waiting for 
 him, so ’tis to be hoped he won’t spoil our 
 tea.” 
 
 Mrs. Blake spoke fretfully. She had 
 got on her Sunday gown of black silk, 
 which with her meant an enforced absten- 
 tion from any occupation more arduous 
 than knitting ; and there were the plums 
 on the south wall of the cottage rotting 
 from ripeness, till the hot luscious scent of 
 them cried out for the preserving-pot. 
 
 “You’re sure he will come to-day? When 
 did he write last and mention it ? ” 
 
 Nancy hesitated a little ; but her answer 
 was as frank as usual : “ Well, mother, ’tis 
 more than a fortnight since he wrote, and 
 that was only a line scribbled in a hurry ; 
 but he said in it he would keep all news 
 till we met ; so I’ve just been waiting for 
 his coming ever since. He always said he 
 would be here for my birthday, you know ; 
 that we might keep it together. He pro- 
 mised that in June, when he wrote to say 
 he was prevented coming then, and now 
 it is my birthday, and there’s been no word 
 
Charles Dickens.] ALL IN THE DOWNS. [July 3, 1882 .] 53 
 
 from him to hint at his not coming. Oh, 
 he’s sure to be here to-day.” 
 
 Nancy spoke with that over-insistance 
 which betrays that the speaker is less 
 certain of a fact than she would have her 
 hearer to be, and with her large sweet 
 eyes fixed appealingly on her mother. But 
 Mrs. Blake was put out and only grunted, 
 her own eyes fixed provokingly on the 
 clock as if to see how much of the birthday 
 there was yet to run. 
 
 Nancy’s lip quivered a little and she 
 went away and stood outside, shading her 
 eyes from the low red rays of the sinking 
 sun, as she looked across the long level line 
 of blossoming moor, golden in the evening 
 light and perfumed with scents of wild 
 thyme and meadow-sweet, gazing in the 
 direction from which she knew her lover 
 must come. 
 
 There was no sign of him. The sun 
 sank lower and lower. The red light faded 
 from the girl’s face to her breast, and slip- 
 ping downward clasped first her knees and 
 then her feet in its rosy embrace. The 
 shadows of the furze bushes stretched 
 longer and blacker across the gold-green 
 sward. The waves glowed like a purple 
 shield crossed by a sword of flame whose 
 glittering hilt seemed to touch the western 
 horizon. Then, all of a sudden, the sun 
 dipped and sank behind the sea, a cooler 
 breeze stirred the crimson asters in the 
 garden, the sky flamed up into rose and 
 violet, and Nancy went indoors and began 
 to set the tea-things without a word. 
 
 Mrs. Blake had recovered from her brief 
 touch of temper and looked at her compas- 
 sionately. 
 
 “ Isn’t he coming, dearie ? I don’t mind 
 waiting a bit, if you think there’s a chance 
 of him yet,” she said kindly, but Nancy 
 shook her head. 
 
 “ Nay, mother, you’ve done that long 
 enough. Coming % Oh, of course he’ll come 
 in time ; but I expect ’twill be by a late 
 train. I forgot that he wouldn’t be like to 
 travel in all the heat and dust of the day. 
 He’ll be here in time for a bit of supper, 
 and I’ll tell the girl to make up the kitchen 
 fire in readiness, before she goes home. 
 He doesn’t like to hear of me cooking ; 
 but I think he’ll forgive me if it’s for him 
 —eh, mother % ” 
 
 She went out into the kitchen with a 
 brisk step as she spoke ; but Mrs. Blake 
 shook her head rather sadly. 
 
 “I doubt ’twill be fire wasted, and coals 
 are dear this year,” she said to herself. 
 “ The lad is not meaning to keep this birth- 
 
 day with her at any rate, or he’d have been 
 here afore now.” 
 
 She was right. Night fell and darkened, 
 and bed-time came. Nancy had sat out- 
 side the cottage door all the evening, partly 
 to avoid conversation, partly to watch that 
 path across the flats ; but Godfrey Peveril 
 never came ; and when it was plain that 
 there was no farther hope of him, the girl 
 came in gravely and silently as she had 
 done before. Doors were fastened betimes 
 in that lonely part, and her mother liked to 
 be early abed. Nancy went through all 
 her usual duties without a word, only when 
 her mother attempted to say something by 
 way of comfort, but which implied blame 
 of Godfrey, she threw out her hands with 
 a pitiful little cry which stopped her on the 
 instant. 
 
 “ Oh, mother, don’t ! How do you know 
 that he has not met with an accident or is 
 ill ? If you only knew him as I do you’d 
 be certain that nothing else would have 
 kept him away.” And when Mrs. Blake, 
 silenced in her sympathy, had retired to 
 rest, the girl slipped away to sit by her 
 chamber-window and listen to the dull roll 
 of the sea, or watch the cloud shadows 
 gliding over the moonlit turf, while she con- 
 jured up every species of terrible accident 
 which could have befallen her lover by 
 rail, road, or assassin, and waited with 
 blanching cheek and glistening eye for the 
 news, good or bad, which she felt sure the 
 morrow would bring of him. He had 
 promised to be with her on her birthday, 
 had vowed it by word and by letter ; and 
 judging by the measure of her love for him 
 — -that love which counted every hour of 
 parting and magnified it to a year, yet 
 which Godfrey was always accusing of 
 being cold and shallow compared with his 
 — she would have staked her life freely on 
 the certainty that only some grievous 
 trouble could have held him from her side. 
 
 It is these hours of waiting and watch- 
 ing which rob the roses from women’s 
 cheeks, and bring lines to the fairest 
 brows. Nancy looked a year older on the 
 following morning . than she had done on 
 the previous day when she was dressing 
 the tiny parlour with yellow tiger-lilies 
 and purple clematis and sprays of ivy and 
 sweet-briar in honour of her. lover’s coming. 
 And there was no comfort for her, no letter 
 to say why it was delayed. She could 
 only write herself, and then wait again and 
 watch for the post, and wring her hands 
 when she was alone because of the terrible 
 thing it is to be a woman and helpless. 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 54 [July 3, 1882.] ALL IN THE DOWNS. 
 
 When, three days later, there came a 
 note from Godfrey, excusing his non- 
 appearance and silence on the score of 
 illness, the girl, worn and unstrung by 
 anxiety, could see nothing in the brief, 
 almost petulant apology, but the weakness 
 and incoherence of fever, read physical 
 suffering in every hastily-scrawled word, 
 and made up her mind that he was dying, 
 and that unless she were allowed to go and 
 nurse him, they might never meet again. 
 
 “It is nothing of a journey, mother. 
 Aunt Matthias has often told us so when 
 she has been urging me to pay her a visit 
 at Islington,” she pleaded, standing before 
 her mother with clasped hands and wet 
 eyes, and no blush on her cheeks in her 
 great earnestness and simplicity. “ She 
 wanted me to go this summer, and if I had 
 been there now, and had known he was 
 sick, wouldn’t I have hastened to him as a 
 matter of course 3 Think q£ him, mother — 
 ill and alone ; for you know he has told 
 us he lives all by himself since his mother 
 married again. Poor fellow ! maybe he’s 
 lying on his bed without a soul he cares 
 for to say a kind word to him, wanting 
 me and wishing for me, and yet almost too 
 weak and fevered to write and say how 
 bad he is. Why, I never had a letter like 
 that from him before; never since we’ve 
 known one another. See how short and 
 queerly it’s worded, and look at the blots. 
 Oh, he must have been very ill when he 
 wrote that. Mother, mother, do let me 
 write and tell Aunt Matthias that I’m 
 coming to her at once — to-morrow. She’ll 
 be gay and glad to see me ; and I know 
 she’ll take me to him, so that there’s no 
 fear of my losing my way. Dear mother, 
 think, he may be dying ! Let me go.” 
 
 And Mrs. Blake was fain to consent. 
 She always had given in to Nancy since 
 the latter was a wee child ; and, besides, 
 she Lad great trust in her sister Matthias. 
 If the lad was sick and she saw no harm 
 in the girl going to him, why ’twere well 
 to let her ; and, accordingly, Nancy wrote 
 her letter and started on the morning after, 
 taking with her, not, only her mother’s 
 blessing, but a basket filled with fresh 
 flowers, new-laid eggs, golden honey, 
 fragrant as that of Hymettus, from 
 the thyme over which the big brown bees 
 kept up a ceaseless buzzing, and purple 
 luscious plums shielded in a nest of cool 
 green leaves from the rays of the sun. 
 The girl had six miles to walk to the rail- 
 way-station, and had had nothing but a 
 cup of milk and a slice of bread before start- 
 
 ing but she trod the turf like one who 
 walks on air, and with steps that quickened 
 as they went. Was not Godfrey at the 
 end of her journey — Godfrey, sick and 
 longing for her 1 
 
 Three days later she came home again. 
 Her mother was sitting darning stockings 
 and chatting with Dick Charteris outside 
 the cottage door, when the sailor’s bright 
 eyes caught sight of a tall figure slowly 
 moving towards them across the flats, and 
 his startled exclamation, “Why, Mrs. 
 Blake, ’tis Nancy!” brought the old 
 woman all of a tremble to her feet. 
 Nancy ! What could have brought her 
 back so soon ? She had gone for a week 
 or ten days. Had anything happened'? 
 Was Godfrey — and while the question was 
 still shaping itself in the slow brain of 
 age, Nancy stood before her, and it got 
 spoken in words : 
 
 “ Nancy child, you ! The Lord save us ! 
 Is he — dead 1 ” 
 
 Nancy looked at her. She was very 
 pale. They hardly knew her. Her clothes 
 were dusty, her lips parched, her eyes large 
 and bright, but she answered at once : 
 
 “No, mother, he is not dead, but he 
 does not want me, and so — so I came 
 home. Will you come into the house with 
 me 1 I am very tired.” 
 
 She staggered a little as she said it, as if 
 she would have fallen, and Dick Charteris 
 made a step forward to catch her, but 
 she did not seem to see him. Her eyes 
 had the same dazed look, and she leant one 
 hand on her mother’s shoulder pressing 
 her to the door. 
 
 “ Don’t be frightened, dear,” she said 
 with a strange hoarse tone in her usually 
 sweet voice ; “ I’m not ill, but I made a 
 mistake. I got out of the train too early, 
 and I’ve walked a long, long way. I am 
 only tired.” 
 
 Dick crept quietly away. He saw she 
 was not even aware of his presence, and 
 something told him that the best thing he 
 could do for her then was to shield her 
 from the knowledge of it. Yet he did not 
 go far, only out of sight of the cottage 
 windows, and there he flung himself down 
 on the turf, and clenched his right hand 
 with an oath deep and bitter enough to 
 have startled Mr. Godfrey Peveril, if curses 
 could have reached him. 
 
 And meanwhile Nancy was telling the 
 story of her visit to London, telling it 
 sitting at her mother’s feet, with that child- 
 like simplicity which was one of her chief 
 characteristics, and which always contrasted 
 
ALL IN THE DOWNS. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 55 
 
 A 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 so strangely with the almost majestic type of 
 her beauty, the grand womanly lines of her 
 noble figure. 
 
 “We went together,’’ she said, “Aunt 
 Matthias and I. It was to a grand house, 
 the ' one he always wrote from, in a street 
 called Pall Mall. Aunt said ’twas a place 
 where gentlemen go to spend their days, 
 and she didn’t think he could live there ; 
 but I was sure he did, for he’d never given 
 me any other address, and he often wrote, 
 oh, at ever such a late hour at night, hours 
 when folks would surely be at home.” 
 
 “ Decent God-fearing folks, maybe,” said 
 Mrs. Blake. A conviction of wrong-doing 
 somewhere was pressing sharply on her, and 
 she hastened to put in her protest. Nancy 
 paid no attention, did not seem to hear. 
 
 “ But aunt was right. It was a terrible 
 fine place, like a palace, naught else, and 
 there were gentlemen going in and out 
 who stared at us rudely enough ; at least 
 aunt said so, but I didn’t heed them, I was 
 too full of him, Godfrey; and I thought 
 maybe they were friends who had come to 
 enquire after him. I did ask one of them 
 for him, but he just pointed to a man in a 
 kind of box and said, ‘ Speak to the porter. 
 He’ll tell you anything you want to know,’ 
 and so I went off there straight. 
 
 “ Mother, that porter was a bad, horrid 
 man. He told us roughly that we’d no 
 business there ; that the house was a club, 
 and that Godfrey was a member of it ; but 
 he didn’t live there, and he -wasn’t there 
 then; and he laughed out in a vile rude 
 way when I asked if he would give me 
 Mr. Peveril’s address, or let me wait in the 
 hall awhile for the chance of seeing him, 
 for indeed I knew he’d be glad to see me. 
 He said no, certainly not, and bid aunt 
 and me be off as soon as possible. If I 
 wanted to write to Mr. Peveril, I could 
 do so as I’d done before ; but gentlemen 
 didn’t want women of my sort coming 
 after them to their clubs. . . . Of my sort ! 
 Mother,” clutching the worn band she held 
 tighter in two hot feverish palms, “ do you 
 think — Aunt Matthias said ’twas so, but I 
 couldn’t take it in — do you think he could 
 have thought I was a — bad woman $ Oh, 
 mother, say he couldn’t have dared think 
 that ! ” 
 
 “ God knows, my poor child ! Ill men 
 will think ill of anything; but — ah, ’tis 
 me to blame for letting you go among 
 them. And did you not see Mr. Peveril 
 after all, theni Couldn’t you find him 1 
 Tell me, love.” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Nancy slowly, “ I saw him. 
 
 Aunt was that hot and angry, that I had 
 enough to do to make her come away 
 quietly; and then my heart was aching 
 sorely, not only for the shame and disap- 
 pointment of it all, but because of having 
 to wait till I could write and tell him I was 
 in London, and all the while there was the 
 basket on my arm, and the flowers half- 
 faded already, and the eggs that wouldn’t 
 be new-laid at all when he got them ; so 
 when we came to a green place full of 
 trees and flowers, and with benches where 
 folks might sit, I made her come in and 
 rest there a bit before we went home. It 
 was then I saw him, quite suddenly. I 
 did not think it could be he at first. It 
 did not seem real. He was quite, close to 
 me, leaning over some rails, talking to a 
 lady in a pony-carriage on the other side. 
 She was very beautiful and beautifully 
 dressed, and he leant there laughing and 
 looking up in her eyes just as he used — 
 oh, mother, mother ! as he used to look in 
 mine. He looked quite well, too, better 
 than I’d ever seen him, and I heard them 
 speak of some party they had both been at 
 a few nights before— the night of my birth- 
 day — and he said ’twas the happiest in his 
 life, he should never.forget .it; and then 
 he whispered something which made her 
 laugh, and blush very much, and turn away 
 her head. It was then she caught sight of us, 
 and, perhaps, because she didn’t want him 
 to see her blushing, she said something 
 about ‘ country-woman ’ and a ‘pretty face.’ 
 He turned his head, too, and so our eyes 
 met. It was only for a second, but it 
 seemed like an hour to me, for he never 
 smiled or spoke, but his face went red all 
 over, and before I could get on my feet he 
 looked away, said something all in a hurry 
 to her about an appointment, and next 
 minute had jumped on his horse, which a 
 groom was holding for him close by, and 
 had ridden off as fast as he could. He 
 never glanced towards me again, or gave 
 me one word.” 
 
 “God punish him for a villain !” cried 
 the mother fiercely; but Nancy threw her 
 arms round the bent trembling figure, and 
 laid her head upon the stiff knees. 
 
 “ Nay, dear, nay; let him be. Can’t you 
 see how it is 1 He’s a fine gentleman who 
 didn’t mind whiling away a spring day by 
 making love to me when he’d naught else 
 to do ; and then would ha’ gone away and 
 let me alone for good if I had been willing 
 to let him, and hadn’t been so obstinate in 
 believing in him. Oh, mother, . mother. 
 [ hush ! Don’t say bitter words. I’ve been 
 
56 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 ALL IN THE DOWNS. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 a fool, and he a liar; but, maybe, those 
 later lies were wrote to save me pain and 
 let me down by degrees ; and, anyhow, I 
 can’t bear to hear you curse him, no, I 
 can’t, though I’m well-nigh doing it in 
 my own heart, for he’s spoilt all my life, 
 and I can never see him more ; never any 
 more.” 
 
 And then at last she broke down, and 
 burst into weary sorrowful weeping, and 
 her mother held her close and comforted 
 her, while night closed dark and softly 
 round their clinging figures. 
 
 CHAPTER III. HOW GODFREY PEVERIL 
 WAS RESCUED FROM THE IMP’S DYKE. 
 NANCY’S ENDING. 
 
 A dark dull day in early February. 
 Patches of snow still lingering in nooks and 
 crannies among the downs; no wind to stir 
 the withered reeds, or part the cloud of 
 grey-blue vapour which hung like a pall 
 over the moaning sea ; no blossoms on the 
 gorse, no song-birds in the hedges; only a 
 few shivering sheep huddling together for 
 shelter in the narrow glens or dykes among 
 the downs, or trying to crop a sparse meal 
 from the brown and scanty herbage on 
 the slopes above, along which a man and 
 woman were plodding soberly on one of the 
 narrow chalky paths which wind like a 
 thin white ribbon along the summit of the 
 hill-land. Presently the woman stopped, 
 standing across the pathway and facing 
 her companion, so as to bar his further 
 progress. 
 
 “No, Dick, no ! Take a plain word in a 
 plain and kindly way, and let me go. ’Tis 
 for your own good I say it, and I’ve said it 
 all along. Why should I change now ? ” 
 
 “ You’ve changed in other matters, 
 Nancy dear ; can’t you do so in this 1 
 You talk of my good, but all the good I 
 have is loving you, and all the good I crave 
 is just your love in return ; not much, only 
 just what you can spare out of your 
 kind generous heart for a man who would 
 lay down his life this minute to make 
 yours happy.” 
 
 “ That wouldn’t do it, Dick.” 
 
 “ Would it make you unhappy, Nancy 1 ” 
 “ What, to lose an old friend — the best, I 
 sometimes think, mother and I have left to 
 us ! Don’t talk nonsense, Dick.” 
 
 “ Then if I am your best friend — and 
 Heaven bless you, dear, for saying so, let 
 me be a better one still, the best a woman 
 can have — your husband, Nancy. By God’s 
 help I’d be a good one to you.” 
 
 For a moment the girl faced him in 
 
 silence, her face changing from red to white, 
 her lips quivering strangely. Then she spoke, 
 putting out one hand to him, which clasped 
 and yet put him away from her with a 
 decision which there was no mistaking. 
 
 “ Yes, Dick, I know it; but ’tis I would 
 not be a good wife to you, and so — and so 
 I will not be a wife at all. When I wrote 
 to him last summer, and told him he need 
 not come nigh me any more, for I had 
 found out his falseness and my own folly, I 
 shut the door on all that sort of thing for 
 good, and if I were to open it again ’twould 
 be no use, there’s nothing behind it. Look 
 here, lad, and take the truth if it will cure 
 you. I’ve loved one man so much, I’ve no 
 love left for another; and though I hate 
 him now as bitter as ever I loved him, the 
 hatred fills my heart as full as ever the love 
 did ; and at this moment ’tis his voice I 
 hear pleading with me, not yours, and his 
 face that comes to me in my dreams, and 
 haunts me as no honest man’s wife should 
 ever be haunted. There, you’ve made me 
 blush enough, so go away quickly, or I shall 
 be hating you too. Good-bye.” 
 
 She dropped his hand and turned quickly, 
 almost fiercely, away, and the sailor had 
 the sense not to answer or follow her. 
 Instinctively he felt that there was truth 
 as well as passion in her last words, and 
 that to urge his cause further just then 
 would be to lose it. Yet her rejection had 
 been final enough as it was, and he felt it 
 the more because a little while before he 
 had been more hopeful than he had ever 
 before allowed himself to be. 
 
 For Nancy had been much gentler to 
 him of late. The pitiful ending to 
 her own love-story, and the treachery 
 of her lover, seemed to have softened 
 instead of hardening her, and though at 
 times, when Dick noted the settled pallor 
 and gravity which seemed to have crept 
 over her face, and the slow soft accent of 
 the voice which used to be so blithe and 
 saucy, he could almost have welcomed one 
 of her old gibing sarcasms for the sake of 
 the careless gaiety from which they sprang, 
 there were other moments when he revelled 
 in the new softness and submissiveness of 
 her whole manner, and drew happy omens 
 from it for the success of the suit which he 
 longed to broach, and had he not dreaded 
 to offend her by over haste in so doing. 
 
 Now, after six months’ patient waiting, 
 he had tried his fate again, with what 
 result we have seen. 
 
 And meanwhile Nancy was hurrying 
 along the bleak exposed path, crying as 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ALL IN TIIE DOWNS. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 57 
 
 she went like a beaten child, aye, with sobs 
 which seemed to rend her bosom, and 
 obliged her at last to sit down on a stone 
 by the wayside, and, regardless of cold or 
 damp, suffer the paroxysm to exhaust itself 
 before proceeding on her journey. . 
 
 She reached her destination in time. It 
 was a lonely farm owned by a cousin of her 
 mother’s, who was also their landlord ; 
 and her errand was to request that a man 
 might be sent to mend the thatch of the 
 cottage, and to bring back with her some 
 fresh butter and eggs for her mother, who 
 was ailing ; but when she had discharged 
 this mission her kindly hosts insisted on 
 regaling her with tea and hot buttered 
 cakes, and but for her resolute refusals 
 would have compelled her to “ stay and 
 bide the evening. There was room enough 
 in one of the other girl’s beds for her. 
 
 “ Aye, Nancy lass, ye’d better do ’t,” 
 said the farmer, who had just come in 
 and joined the group ; “ there’s a sea fret 
 creepin’ up o’er the downs, an’ ’twill be as 
 thick as night in half an hour.” 
 
 “ Oh, do stay, Nancy. You’ll be lost. 
 You’ll miss your way, and get frozen before 
 you find it again.” 
 
 “Do stay the night,” was the general 
 outcry, but Nancy only smiled and shook 
 her head. 
 
 “I lose my way ! Why, there’s not an 
 inch of it between here and home I 
 couldn’t walk blindfold. And what would 
 mother think, poor dear, if I wasn’t to 
 turn up all night 1 Nay, I must hurry 
 back, or if she sees the fret coming she’ll 
 be getting anxious as it is. I wouldn’t 
 have stayed so long if I had known the 
 day was changing.” 
 
 Indeed, the already gloomy aspect of 
 the weather had altered very considerably 
 for the worse since she parted from Dick. 
 Then, though grey and airless, it had not 
 been very cold, and at times there was 
 a faint yellow gleam in that quarter of the 
 sky where the sun might be supposed to 
 be, while the deep musical cry of a pack of 
 hounds from the lowlands below, and a 
 brief glimpse of sundry scarlet dots 
 glancing across a distant pasture, had given 
 her a pleasant sense of human companion- 
 ship and helped to dry her tears more 
 -effectually than any resolution of her own. 
 But now the sky was leaden, not grey, and 
 a cold wind had sprung up, blowing off 
 the Channel and driving before it rolls of 
 dense white vapour, which had already 
 blotted out the sea and the low-lying flats 
 between it and the downs, and was now 
 
 marching up the latter with such rapid 
 strides that already it stretched its thin 
 cold arms to embrace her, and reaching on, 
 crept down the further side of the hill. It 
 walked faster than she did too. Soon she 
 could scarcely see a dozen yards along the 
 path she was traversing, and before many 
 minutes even this was impossible. The 
 fog, or “ fret,” as Sussex folks call it, closed 
 around her, before, behind, and on every 
 side, like a dense but impalpable blanket 
 of white wool, cold and clammy, and so 
 shutting out every sight and sound as to 
 make even the roll and moan of the 
 invisible sea sound like the murmur of a 
 dream. 
 
 To many people such a situation might 
 have been perilous as well as unpleasant ; 
 but the dwellers along our Sussex coasts 
 are so used to these frets, which come on 
 and disappear with equal rapidity, that 
 Nancy was not in the least alarmed, even 
 when overtaken by one late on a February 
 afternoon. As she had said, she knew 
 every inch of the way, and only pausing 
 occasionally to wipe the chilly dew from 
 her eyelashes, or muffle her mouth more 
 warmly in the folds of her thick cloak, she 
 walked on at a brisk pace, which she cal- 
 culated would bring her in less than an 
 hour to her own door. 
 
 Suddenly, however, the girl stopped, 
 dropped the cloak from her mouth, and 
 stared with fixedness into the fog on her 
 left. 
 
 A faint shrill cry had pierced it, coming, 
 as it seemed, from far below, and, as she 
 stopped, it was repeated : 
 
 “ Help 1 ” 
 
 Nancy drew a long breath and stood 
 listening. Was it really that word she had 
 heard, or was it only the engine-whistle 
 from a passing train ? The dreary silence 
 which succeeded it inclined her to the 
 latter belief, and she was about to resume 
 her walk when once again the cry was 
 repeated : 
 
 “ Help ! help ! ” 
 
 Without a pause for thought, Nancy 
 answered it by a strong healthy shout, 
 sweet and vigorous enough to carry cheer- 
 ing to the unluckiest of wayfarers. The 
 next instant she had set out in search of 
 him, looking about her as well as she 
 could and almost feeling her way 
 for, once off the path, every tuft of gorse 
 and hummock of grass were so much alike 
 that it was no easy matter to find it again 
 — when she nearly stumbled against a rough 
 conical stone and exclaimed aloud : 
 
n : — — — 
 
 kb 
 
 
 58 [July 3, 1882.] ALL IN THE DOWNS. Conducted by 
 
 
 “ I thought so. I’m just at the top of 
 the Imp’s Dyke, and that’s where the voice 
 came from.” 
 
 At the same moment, as if to prove her 
 words, the wind, which had been blowing 
 from the south-east, shifted suddenly to 
 the northward, parting the fog-drifts 
 and giving her a brief view of her 
 surroundings. 
 
 She was standing almost on the 
 brink of one of those deep clefts or 
 “ dykes” which have been hewn by 
 the hand of Nature out of the steep 
 sides of the downs, and which, opening 
 out at the lower end on to a gentle down- 
 ward slope, afford a welcome shelter from 
 midsummer suns or October gales for the 
 sheep of the lowland pastures. In summer, 
 indeed, there is something pleasantly pic- 
 turesque in the almost precipitous sides of 
 these deep gaps, smooth as if polished by 
 hand, and clothed with short green grass ; 
 but, as Nancy saw them through the mist 
 at present, dark, steep, and naked, with 
 only an occasional tuft of withered broom 
 to break their slippery surface, they looked 
 gloomy and dangerous enough. It was 
 with a thrill of alarm that she perceived, 
 rather lower on the hill and close to the 
 broken and trampled edge of the dyke, a 
 horse, riderless indeed, but with the saddle 
 twisted round under its belly, its reins 
 broken, one side covered with mud, and its 
 whole body flecked with foam and quiver- 
 ing from the struggle which had enabled it 
 to regain a secure footing on the hill-side 
 after the stumble which had thrown its 
 rider into the depth below. 
 
 The wind shifted again, and the fog 
 closed round her ; but in that glimpse 
 Nancy guessed at the whole story. 
 
 One of the fox-hunters returning home, 
 and possibly ignorant of the country, had 
 tried a short cut, got lost in the fog, and 
 had been thrown down the Imp’s Dyke, at 
 the bottom of which he was then in all 
 probability lying. 
 
 Aye, but alive or dead T There had been 
 no cry since her answering shout, and now, 
 though she called again, she met with no 
 response, only a dull silence. 
 
 Nancy’s mind was made up at once. To 
 a healthy, kind-hearted girl, hardy enough 
 not to mind a little exposure to damp or 
 cold, the idea of leaving a fellow-creature 
 to suffering, perhaps death, was simply 
 impossible ; and slowly and carefully she 
 began to descend the hill, keeping as 
 closely as she could with safety to the side 
 of the dyke until the lessening slope 
 
 enabled her to descend into it, and make 
 her way upwards along the muddy bottom. 
 She went on so for a dozen yards, and 
 then sprang backwards with a thrill of such 
 utter sickness as forced a cry from her. 
 
 At her very feet, lying huddled up in a 
 distorted position, with one arm bent un- 5 
 naturally under him, and his scarlet coat 
 all torn and earth-stained, was a man ; and 
 as Nancy knelt down to look nearer at the 
 ghastly, upturned face, spotted with blood, 
 and smeared with clay, she saw that it 
 was that of Godfrey Peveril. 
 
 The sight almost stunned her. But an 
 hour back she had been speaking of him, 
 vowing that she hated him, recalling with 
 passionate bitterness the injury he had 
 done her. Now, he lay there before her, 
 crushed, mangled, dead as it seemed ; and 
 all she recollected was that he was her 
 lover — her first love, the only man who 
 had ever held her in his arms or kissed 
 her ; whose delicate beauty had once 
 seemed to her like that of an angel, whose 
 love, while she believed in it, had given her a 
 joy keener than she had ever known ; and 
 heedless of all else she cast herself down 
 by him, taking the poor disfigured head 
 upon her knees, and showering hot tears 
 and kisses on the clustering curls, while 
 she sobbed out : 
 
 “ Godfrey ! Oh, my poor, poor Godfrey, 
 my love ! And I did — I did love you so.” 
 
 A groan answered her. He was not dead 
 after all ; only fainting from pain and ex- 
 haustion ; and as in the shock of the dis- 
 covery, she started and jarred the injured 
 limb, he moaned again, and opened his eyes 
 murmuring : 
 
 “My arm! You are hurting me.” Then, 
 as she still bent over him, hei lovely 
 face nearly touching his in her anxiety : 
 
 “ Nancy ! Good Heaven ! Is it possible ? 
 You here ! ” 
 
 His head was on her bosom. Her arms 
 were round him. With a great effort she 
 steadied her quivering lips, and answered 
 him : 
 
 “ Hush ! Yes, it is Nancy. I was pass- 
 ing, and heard you call. You have been 
 thrown and your arm is broken, I think. 
 Let me move it a little. I will try — indeed 
 I will try not to hurt you much.” 
 
 “ It is torture,” he said huskily ; but the 
 effort to lift the crushed limb from under 
 him must have been worse, for he fainted 
 again the moment she touched it ; and it 
 was only by a mighty effort of resolution 
 that she continued the task. Fortunately, 
 however, it was a simple fracture. The 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 ALL IN THE DOWNS. 
 
 [July 8, 1882.] 59 
 
 arm was broken between the wrist and 
 elbow, and Nancy remembered to have 
 once seen a doctor set and bandage, a limb 
 similarly injured. She did not think she 
 could do it like him ; but she went a few 
 steps away, took off her under petti- 
 coat, tore it into strips, and returning, 
 straightened the arm till the bones fitted 
 into their proper position ; and then, using 
 the handle of his hunting-whip for a splint 
 bandaged it up as skilfully as she could, and 
 bound it against his breast with a sling 
 made of the same material. His conscious- 
 ness came back while she was finishing 
 her work, and he was able to thank her 
 and murmur something about a “ great 
 relief,” “ sweet hands,” but so feebly that 
 she was relieved when he added : 
 
 “My flask. It was in my pocket. Please 
 look.” 
 
 It was not there then, having fallen into 
 a mud hole, and before she could find it 
 he fainted again ; but a very few drops of 
 the brandy in it revived him, and he was 
 even able to sit up, and to call her his 
 “good angel, sent from heaven to save 
 him,” and answer her anxious enquiries 
 as to whether he was hurt elsewhere. 
 
 “ Only bruised and shaken, I think,” he 
 answered, and tried to rise ; but he had 
 strained the sinews of one leg in falling, 
 and the attempt was so painful that he 
 was forced to sit down again and lean his 
 head upon her bosom, his face so white 
 that she made haste to give him more 
 brandy. 
 
 That did him good ; but the question 
 was, what to do afterwards 1 Nancy knew 
 of no house nearer than her mother’s, and 
 that was nearly two miles off. It was 
 palpable that Godfrey could not walk it ; 
 neither did she like to leave him while she 
 went for assistance, he looked so white 
 and suffering. The wind, after chopping 
 about awhile, had shifted decidedly north, 
 blowing the fret seawards again, so 
 that they could see each other as clearly 
 as the greyness of a February twilight 
 permitted ; but welcome as this change was 
 it brought another that was less so, for 
 a sharp frost was setting in, and the cold 
 made Godfrey shiver from head to foot. 
 
 Nancy took off her thick cloak and 
 wrapped it round him ; then a knitted 
 woollen-jacket she wore underneath, and 
 folded it about his wounded arm, the 
 pain in which was increased by the 
 frost. Godfrey tried hard to prevent her, 
 and burst out- into passionate invectives 
 against his own helplessness, stretching out 
 
 his hand to draw her to him as he 
 exclaimed : 
 
 “My Nancy, my own darling! To 
 do all this for me, and I so unworthy 
 of you! But, Nancy, one thing. Indeed, 
 
 I did not mean to cut you that day. Before 
 Heaven, I did not.” 
 
 Nancy’s face flushed scarlet, as though 
 someone had struck her. 
 
 “Hush!” she said; “don’t talk about 
 that — this is no time for it.” 
 
 “ But I must. Do you think I have not 
 been cursing myself for my conduct to you 1 ? 
 Nancy dearest, you were unjust, though. 
 That girl ... I never cared for her as 
 you thought. Cared ! . Why, she was not 
 worthy to be named with you in my heart. 
 A fickle, frivolous ” 
 
 “ Godfrey, please, I don’t want to hear 
 about her. That is all done with. Let 
 me go, that I may get help the sooner. 
 
 “ Not without your cloak, Nancy.” 
 
 “ Oh, I shall not feel cold. I shall run 
 all the way. Godfrey, pray let me go.” 
 
 « Then kiss me and forgive me first. Ah, 
 my sweet, you have forgiven me already, 
 
 I know, for I felt your dear lips on me 
 when I lay there half fainting. Nancy, I 
 am come back to you for good. I was 
 coming back in any case. Kiss me again 
 once!” 
 
 But Nancy was too active for him, and 
 slipping from his grasp, started off at a 
 pace which soon took her beyond sight and 
 hearing. 
 
 She returned in far less time than he 
 expected, for she had met a labourer .on 
 the way, leading Godfrey’s horse, which 
 he had captured, and between them the 
 crippled fox-hunter was assisted into the 
 saddle and conveyed to Mrs. Blake’s 
 cottage, at the door of which the old 
 woman was waiting anxiously for her 
 ■daughter’s return. 
 
 He lay there a fortnight, A skilful 
 surgeon came from Hastings to attend 
 him ; the grand friends with whom he had 
 been staying drove oyer every other day 
 with fruit and delicacies ; and Mrs. Blake, 
 assisted by a woman hired for the purpose, 
 nursed him assiduously ; but Nancy never 
 entered the room, nor from the hour that 
 he took his hand from her supporting 
 shoulder at the cottage door had he ever 
 caught sight of her, and Godfrey’s heart 
 burned hotly within him at the deprivation. 
 He was so sure of her love ; he had so 
 counted on her nursing him; he wanted 
 her so badly. Pretty Lady Fanny had 
 paid him in his own coin, and jilted him 
 
60 July 3, 1882.] THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. [Conducted by 
 
 six weeks after she sat and smiled at him 
 in her pony-carriage, and though he had 
 not thought of Nancy then, an odd sense 
 that they were fellow-sufferers made his 
 heart turn more fondly to her at present. 
 How lovely she was, too ! What sweet 
 shining eyes those were which had looked 
 so tenderly on his pain ! What a glorious 
 arm, soft as well as strong ! What a glorious 
 figure, as, having cast off her wraps for his 
 sake, she stood on that dark hill-side re- 
 vealed against the grey February sky ! 
 Why, she would make a queenly wife, and 
 such a loving, faithful one ! Yet, in answer 
 to all his anxious enquiries as to her health 
 and whereabouts, Mrs. Blake only answered 
 that she was at home and well — nothing 
 more. 
 
 “ But won’t she come and speak to me ?” 
 said Godfrey piteously. “Mrs. Blake, you 
 are very cruel. We love one another, and 
 you keep her away.” 
 
 “ Aye, sir, and I would to Heaven I had 
 done so always,” said the old woman with 
 dignity. “ But you are mistaken ; my 
 daughter has no love for you now.” 
 
 “You say so,” said Godfrey bitterly, 
 “ but if you thought it you wouldn’t keep 
 us apart. She is gentler than you, and she 
 knows I have repented. I am ready to 
 marry her to-morrow if she will have me.” 
 
 His voice must have been louder than 
 he thought, for he spoke with a passionate 
 eagerness which reached Nancy outside, 
 and she came into the room at once, and 
 stood by the couch, one hand resting on 
 her mother’s shoulder, her beautiful face 
 looking gravely and calmly down on him. 
 
 “ Aye, Godfrey, but I would not have 
 you, and you had better know it. Mother 
 is right. I loved you once dearly — dearly. 
 I was proud as a queen to think you loved 
 me ; but that was when I thought you an 
 honest man, and now that I know you for 
 a coward, and one who tells falsehoods, I 
 do not love you any longer. That was 
 why I kissed you when I found you lying 
 there in yonder dyke. I had been hating 
 you bitterly, and hating myself too for 
 having believed in you, and when I 
 saw your face, cold, white, and dead, 
 as I thought, it seemed to me as if 
 my passion had struck you down, and 
 my heart felt like to break for pity of our 
 two lives spoilt for nothing. But the first 
 word you opened your lips with was a lie. 
 You swore you never meant to cut me that 
 day, yet if that were true you’d have said 
 so when I wrote to tell you I had found 
 you out, and how. You never did. You 
 
 never answered me by word or line ; you 
 were too glad to be quit of me so easily, 
 and now you think so low of me that you 
 sneer at — her, to please me! No, lad, 
 I’m sorry for you ; I forgive you. I hadn’t 
 meant to say one bitter word, only you’ve 
 forced it from me, and I’d do anything for 
 you if you were sick or needy ; but that’s 
 all there can ever be between us now, and 
 when you go from here, I hope ’twill be 
 for good. Good-bye ! ” 
 
 She walked straight out of the room, 
 and Godfrey never saw her again. He left 
 next day. 
 
 The old cottage is gone now. Its golden 
 lichened roof has fallen in. Its ruins, green 
 with moss, and buried in wild honeysuckle, 
 hide the spot where Nancy’s garden once 
 grew, and where still a crimson aster or 
 freckled tiger-lily waves its blossomed head 
 above the wilderness of grass, and weeds, 
 and tangled wild things around. But 
 down by the beach the old red flag still 
 flies over the coastguard station, and in the 
 doorway, gazing out on the purple waves 
 as they rush up and break in ripples of 
 snow-white foam upon the sand, sits Nancy 
 Charteris, with the sunlight on her silver 
 hair, and with eyes as sweet and cheek as 
 blooming still as the little grandchild on 
 her knee. Dick and she made it up long, 
 long ago, but how or when would pass the 
 limit of a summer’s tale to tell, and maybe 
 mine is over-long already. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. 
 
 By R. E. Francillon. 
 
 I. 
 
 “ The pier is the most important adjunct 
 to the town, as it is to it that Ryde owes 
 all its prosperity. Before its erection in 
 1814, the place was an insignificant 
 village ; now it is a municipal borough, 
 with a resident population of fourteen or 
 fifteen thousand souls, to say nothing of 
 the visitors who annually flock to its 
 shores. The pier was at first only one 
 thousand seven hundred and forty feet 
 long, but in 1824 and 1833 it was increased 
 to its present length of about half a 
 mile.” 
 
 So says the guide-book; and to the 
 ordinary reader the depth of romance 
 contained in these dry statistics and 
 skeleton details may not readily appear. 
 I do not allude to the singular fact that 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 61 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. 
 
 Ryde, according to the guide-book, is in- 
 habited by thousands of disembodied 
 souls ; though a town of ghosts is certainly 
 singular enough to make an annual flock 
 of curious visitors inevitable in these days 
 of spiritual enquiry. I do not allude . to 
 this for the simple reason that, judging 
 from my own experience, Ryde contains 
 exactly as many bodies as souls. And, 
 as the guide-book determines to say 
 nothing of the visitors, I shall do the 
 same, though no doubt every visitor has, 
 or has had, or will have, a romance of his 
 or her own. The point to which I draw 
 special attention is this : that in the year 
 1823, Ryde Pier was only five hundred 
 and eighty yards long ; in 1833 the length 
 had grown to about eight hundred and 
 eighty yards. Now the difference be- 
 tween five hundred and eighty and eight 
 hundred and eighty is precisely three 
 hundred ; and precisely upon those . addi- 
 tional three hundred yards of planking is 
 built the history of two human lives. 
 If the authorities of the municipal borough 
 had stopped at one thousand seven hun- 
 dred and forty feet, Ryde Pier would 
 have been three hundred yards shorter, 
 and I — but it is idle to speculate upon 
 what might have been. 
 
 I might have been an Englishman, a 
 Welshman, an Irishman, a Manxman, or 
 a Channel Islander. Happily, I am none 
 of these. And, being no native of Ryde, 
 my soul and body were born together, and 
 they had the wisdom to be born at Drum- 
 ferlie, a parish which (in proportion to the 
 number of its population, and to the ex- 
 tent of their opportunities) has produced 
 a greater number of distinguished men 
 than any in the rest of the world. It was 
 mainly, if not altogether, inhabited by my 
 own relations, both on the father’s and 
 the mother’s side ; nor can I call to mind 
 one who has not worthily reached excep- 
 tional and not seldom extraordinary dis- 
 tinction. The fame of my uncle Archie, 
 as a poet only second, if second, to Robert 
 Burns, reached from one end of the parish 
 to the other, and even into the next. 
 There was not a man or woman in the 
 family who had not more faith in the 
 natural medical skill of my paternal grand- 
 mother, than in that of all the faculty in 
 Edinburgh, and justly so, for scarcely one 
 of us ever ailed, or died under the full 
 term of three score and ten. The sermons 
 of my kinsman, who was for forty years 
 minister of Drumferlie, were just the 
 longest and the deepest of any that I ever 
 
 heard ; and as to my father, if he hadn’t 
 had the good luck to be a Drumferlie man, 
 he must have had the bad one to be a 
 Cabinet minister, for he was the wisest 
 man I ever knew, and just flowing over 
 with philosophy. But I needn’t go through 
 my pedigree. As for myself, I’ll say 
 nothing. But it’s my hope to do well 
 enough to be worthy of having my bones 
 laid in the dear old town when my turn 
 comes to die. One comfort is, do what I 
 will, I can’t unmake myself a Drumferlie 
 man — a Plackless of Drumferlie. And 
 that alone is more than happens to men 
 who are born elsewhere with other names. 
 
 I was an only son, and learned Latin, 
 English, and mathematics at the common 
 school, and I don’t find that I know them 
 the worse for not having been at Eton. 
 One might think, considering that I had 
 the blood of a poet in me, and that Drum- 
 ferlie is unquestionably the most beautiful 
 as well as the least frequented parish in 
 the county, that I should have inherited 
 a rag or two of Uncle Archie’s mantle. 
 But the numbers in which I lisped were of a 
 more practical kind, and better adapted for 
 charming open the world’s oyster-shell. I 
 have already shown that I have a statistical 
 turn, and I believe could put two and two 
 together before Nature had done it for me 
 on my fourth birthday. 
 
 “ But you mustn’t be imagining, J ames,” 
 said my father when I was setting out for 
 college, “that increase always comes, by 
 addition ; no, nor even by multiplication, 
 when addition means marrying, and multi- 
 plication a family. It’s true I took your 
 mother without a penny, and not done 
 ill thereby ; but then that’s because your 
 mother’s your mother, with nobody else 
 to match her in all Drumferlie. Stick 
 tight to the books, lad, till you see your 
 way clear, and don’t let me live to see my 
 James wrestling the world with some feck- 
 less lass pulling down his hands, and a 
 basketful of bairns at the bare back of him. 
 To put multum in parvo, J ames, God bless 
 you, and whatever you are, don’t be a 
 fool.” 
 
 “ Indeed I won’t,” said I, a little sur- 
 prised at the nature of my father’s parting 
 advice, for I had never looked twice at a 
 girl, and indeed regarded the whole sex 
 as made to inspire rather an awkward 
 sort of awe than any sort of attraction. 
 But, oddly enough, my mother was in the 
 same song. 
 
 “Ye’ll light on better-favoured lasses 
 where ye’re going, than any that are growing 
 
N : : = — ^ 
 
 62 [July 3, 1882,] THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. [Conducted by 
 
 up just now in Drumferlie,” said she. 
 
 “ And they’ll have eyes in their heads for 
 a well-looking lad, and maybe ye’ll find a 
 blink or two in your own for them. But 
 haste’s no speed ; take your own time. 
 ’Tis true I took your father without a 
 penny, and not done that ill ; but then 
 your father’s your father, with nobody else 
 to match him in all Drumferlie.” She 
 suddenly stopped and turned away. “ Don’t 
 think I’m crying because ye’re going where 
 it’s good for ye to be,” said she sharply. 
 
 “ I’ve had a bad cold for days, but ’twill be 
 well when ye’re home.” 
 
 I don’t suppose that it was owing to the 
 advice of my parents that I acted, when out 
 in the world, in the strictest accordance 
 with their most unreasonable desires. Not 
 even in the great city of Aberdeen did I 
 meet with one who appeared either by 
 nature or by dowry fit to become Mistress 
 James Plackless of Drumferlie. My father 
 was right. There was nobody like my 
 mother, even in Aberdeen. I studied with 
 fair industry and success, and grew up 
 into a big callant with five feet eleven 
 inches of length, a due proportion of breadth 
 and girth, a decently furnished head, and 
 plenty of muscle and bone. I hadn’t fully 
 made up my mind what I was going to 
 be ; sometimes I was fixed with an ambi- 
 tion to fill a professor’s chair, another time 
 I was fascinated by medicine, another time 
 by law, and then again London and letters 
 drew me with the magnet that has proved 
 to so many of my-fellow countrymen an 
 irresistible charm. Indeed, my ancestors 
 had distinguished themselves in so many 
 different and opposite directions, that some 
 new drop of hereditary blood seemed to 
 speak out in me every new day. Business 
 alone had no attraction for me, doubtless 
 owing to the fact that commerce is the 
 one department of life in which no Plack- 
 less — so far as I was then aware — had 
 ever reached distinction. On the whole, 
 however, the desire to be a soldier took 
 more and more hold of me until it bade 
 fair to extinguish every other. Only the 
 purchase money of a commission was out 
 of the question, and the days were past 
 when the ranks of foreign services opened 
 a fitting career for a Scottish scholar and 
 gentleman. 
 
 And so things were floating and drifting, 
 as they will for a while in most lives, when 
 my father, while we were one morning 
 strolling together round the toun-croft, as 
 our bit of a farm was called, presently sat 
 down upon a top bar of a gate, pulled out 
 
 
 
 his pipe, filled, and lighted it, and having 
 taken a very deliberate puff or two, began : 
 
 “ James, ye’ve never heard of my first 
 cousin, Andrew Reid ] ” 
 
 “ Never. Have we any cousins whom I 
 don’t know ? ” 
 
 “I’ve told ye — Andrew Reid. His mother 
 was Euphemia Plackless, that was my 
 aunt, and would be your own great aunt 
 if she was alive ; but she wasn’t spoken of 
 in the family, - because she went off with 
 William Reid; it was an ugly story, and 
 the less we say of that chapter of it the 
 better. However, Andrew Reid’s their 
 son, and, in spite of his name, he seems to 
 have turned out as good a Plackless as 
 ye’ll find even here in Drumferlie — except 
 that he’s made enough money out in the 
 colonies to buy up the whole town. Ye’re 
 listening, J ames f ” 
 
 I was certainly listening — -rich relations 
 were not heard of every day. 
 
 “ And he must be his mother’s own son; 
 for I, as the head of the family, had a 
 letter from him about the time you first 
 went to Aberdeen, saying it was her last 
 dying wish that her son should become 
 friends with her own people. Only the 
 lad hadn’t liked to write sooner, because he 
 wouldn’t come back like a beggar to the 
 folk that had turned her out of doors, or 
 while one of them that had treated her 
 that gait was alive. It was a good, stout- 
 hearted, honest, decent letter, James, like 
 a man would write to a man ; and I felt 
 my fist stretching out to him all the way 
 to Canada— for that’s where the Reids had 
 gone. But as a man of the world, I made 
 enquiries ; and I’m bound to say the lad 
 had made his fortune, and his letter was all 
 as true as it seemed. Since then I wrote, 
 and then he wrote again; and though 
 we’ve never set eyes on each other yet, 
 we’re good cousins and friends. And well 
 we may be, for we’re his only kith and 
 kin, and we’ve some wrong to see undone, 
 
 I fear — it can’t be much, seeing that we’re 
 Placklesses of Drumferlie, but still some.” 
 
 “ I’m glad to have heard that story,” 
 said I. “ I should like to see my cousin, 
 Andrew Reid, who, for his dying mother’s 
 sake, gave up his pride.” 
 
 “Yes,” said my father, “I should like 
 ye to be acquainted with him too. And as 
 he’s come from Canada, I think ’twould 
 be the right thing to meet him, and give 
 him a welcome home, and bring him down 
 with ye to Drumferlie, if ye find him not too 
 fine for our homely ways. And, James, 
 it’s but fair to tell ye he’s got one daughter 
 
 — s 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. [July 3, 1882.] 63 
 
 — just one, who’ll come in for all his money, 
 and who’s the apple of his eye. And,. J ames, 
 it’s Andrew Reid’s self that has written to 
 me: ‘What if your James and my Effie 
 take it into their heads to heal the old 
 feud in the surest way of all ] ’ ” My father 
 blew a long slow cloud, and did not even 
 look at me. 
 
 If he had, he would have seen me turn 
 as red as fire— though for no deeper cause 
 than that a woman’s name should be 
 coupled with mine. 
 
 Whether, my father went the right .way 
 to work in order to bring about a marriage, 
 upon which, as I could easily see, he had 
 set his heart, may be questioned. When 
 I have told this story, I have heard it urged 
 that the way to set young people against 
 one another is to arrange a marriage 
 between them in royal fashion, and that 
 the way to bring them together is just to 
 let them take their chance, with an under- 
 standing that the banns shall be forbidden. 
 But my father’s policy was invariably that 
 which is popularly ascribed to the German 
 Chancellor. He always went to his point 
 as straight as he could go, and got there 
 rather more often than otherwise. Of 
 course I did not for a moment suppose 
 that his suggestion was made for senti- 
 mental reasons ; and yet my instinct told 
 me that without those sentimental reasons 
 it would never have been made. He 
 wanted to bring money into the house of 
 Plackless, and also felt that the gold, in 
 this case, would bring with it the blessing 
 promised to peace-makers, so that, for 
 once, profit and brotherly love went hand 
 in hand. And wherefore no ? 
 
 Now I understood why, just at the time 
 of my departure from Aberdeen, both my 
 father and mother had been so anxious 
 to save me from the nets of strange 
 women. Was I glad to hear of this plan, 
 accepted as it was by both the high con- 
 tracting parties, or no? No ; I was not 
 glad. But, on the other hand, I was not 
 sorry. I had no affairs of the heart — I 
 had never had one of the slightest kind. 
 I had no perverse prejudice against the 
 idea of marrying. I knew the need 
 of money at Drumferlie, and I saw a 
 coveted, hitherto hopeless,- pair of epau- 
 lettes glittering before me in the air. More- 
 over, I had been touched by the story of 
 Euphemia Reid and her son ; and I had no 
 fear of not making a tolerably good husband, 
 as husbands go, with my father’s example 
 before me. As for the girl herself — but 
 that time alone could show. I did not even 
 
 ask myself if sh^ were likely to prove 
 pretty or plain. And even now, I am not 
 sure that, if I were looking for a wife, I 
 should be particularly fastidious in the 
 matter of beauty. I had a very high 
 opinion of my own sense, as acquired at 
 Drumferlie and cultivated at Aberdeen ; 
 and a sensible marriage, concluded on both 
 advantageous and honourable grounds, 
 was hardly more to my father’s liking — at 
 least in theory — than my own. 
 
 “ Where are they ? ” asked I. 
 
 “Ye’re a good lad, James,” said my 
 father, looking me over approvingly. “ I 
 was sure ye’d never let yourself be caught 
 by any of those daughters of Heth in Aber- 
 deen. Effie Reid, ye see, is a Drumferlie 
 girl, on her grandmother’s side — and 
 ‘ Marry over the midden ’ is an old word 
 and a true. They’re at a place in the 
 south, called Ryde. It’s a long way out 
 into the world ; but it’s not as if ye hadn’t 
 been out into the world before. Ye’ll 
 go V' 
 
 My mother said not a word about either 
 the fact of my journey or its object, but I 
 could see, nevertheless, that my father had 
 not that object at heart more than she. 
 We were simple people, after our fashion, 
 and, in spite of Uncle Archie’s poetry, 
 were ignorant that it is the bounden duty 
 of every man and of every woman to live 
 and die unmarried unless he or she is 
 capable of a grand, poetical, romantic, 
 artistic passion. And as not one in ten 
 millions is capable of such a thing, it is 
 clear that upon the practical adoption of 
 our sordid and prosaic creed the continu- 
 ance of the human race depends. Indeed, 
 I sometimes almost suspect that passion 
 and sentiment (out of books) are impos- 
 tures and shams. And I should more 
 
 than only almost suspect it if But 
 
 “ if ” is the longest word in any language, 
 and I cannot leap over it at a single 
 bound. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The sun shone gloriously as I stepped 
 upon the seaward head of Ryde Pier. 
 That is, indeed, a long leap at a single 
 bound — all the way from Drumferlie to 
 Ryde. It was, indeed, by far the longest 
 journey I had ever made in my life, and I 
 had run through the whole length . of 
 England at a swoop on the very first occasion 
 of my crossing the Tweed. It was a more 
 novel experience to me than an American’s 
 first visit to Paris ; for, to tell the truth, 
 my views of South Britain were a good 
 
 : r 
 
64 [July 3, 1882.] THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. [Conducted by 
 
 deal coloured by very old-fashioned pre- 
 judices and ancient tradition. Neverthe- 
 less, many of my beliefs had been amply 
 confirmed. Certainly not at Drumferlie, 
 and not even in the midst of the extra- 
 vagance and luxury of Aberdeen, had my 
 not over well-stocked purse received so 
 many calls as it had been obliged to 
 answer in the comparatively hours between 
 Berwick-upon-Tweed and Stokes Bay. And 
 now, so soon as I landed, what with porters 
 and pier dues, “bang went sixpence 
 again ! ” 
 
 But, as I have said, the sun shone as, I 
 am bound in fairness to allow, it very 
 seldom shone even at Drumferlie, where the 
 sun is famous for shining, without doing it 
 often enough to detract from the fame of 
 the thing by making it over common. 
 The sea was laughing all over with blue 
 and light, and there was a delicious summer 
 breeze, warm, but still salt, and fresh, and 
 appetising. Not that I was hungry, for I 
 had fed amply on the road, and was more- 
 over far too much excited with the novelty 
 of things to think of dinner. How long 
 ago, how far away, Drumferlie seemed ! I 
 seemed to have been away a month, and 
 to have travelled a thousand miles — and 
 yet I was not home-sick ; I had survived 
 all that nonsense in my first few college 
 days. I was fairly out in the world now 
 — aye, and seeking my fortune with a ven- 
 geance, and a wife as well. And now, I 
 own, I did begin to wonder about what 
 Miss Effie Reid would turn out to be. I 
 knew she was young, but that tells one 
 nothing. I had never even seen her 
 photograph; such things were less common 
 then than now ; and if I had, I should even 
 then have had too much sense to trust an 
 artist so extravagantly incapable of truth 
 as the sun. So much for what I should 
 think, when I saw her, of Effie Reid. But 
 ah ! what would Effie Reid think, on her 
 side, of me 1 It was wonderful to think I 
 had been so bold and confident a wooer at 
 Drumferlie, when, in the Isle of Wight, my 
 courage had already oozed as far as the 
 tips of my fingers. Was any left in the end 
 of my tongue h I felt instinctively that 
 neither mathematics nor metaphysics, nor 
 even the weather and the crops, would be 
 subjects likely to win a lady’s ear; and 
 when I compared my apparel with that of 
 the fine gentlemen lounging up and down, 
 I felt, for the first time of my life, distrust- 
 ful of the skill of MacKail, our town 
 tailor, though he and his forefathers had 
 clothed me and mine for over eighty years. 
 
 At home, I always felt dressed with the 
 best; here, on the contrary, my sleeves 
 felt quarrelling with my elbows, and my 
 trousers shrunken ; I felt raw-boned, and 
 ill at ease. My boots, too, suddenly 
 seemed to grow in size and weight, and the 
 same feeling came over my ungloved hands. 
 I can confess it now, without a pang — I 
 felt exactly what I am sure I must have 
 looked : a raw, rough, ungainly, shy, awk- 
 ward Scots lad, as much out of place among 
 the disembodied residents and the annually 
 flocking visitors as most of these would 
 have been if pitched down in Mie middle 
 of Eerie Moss in a mist at three o’clock of 
 a wintry morning. 
 
 However, faint heart never won fair 
 lady, nor her fair fortune either, and it is 
 not your raw, rough, ungainly, shy, awk- 
 ward Scots lad, wherever he may be pitched 
 by fate, who is given to fail. I certainly 
 was not going to put the tail of a Plackless 
 of Drumferlie between his legs ; and just 
 then the band at the pier-head struck up a 
 tune. I don’t know what it was, but it 
 was a lively crash, and seemed to suit with 
 the soft yet fresh blow of the breeze and 
 the laughing sea. So I gave my portman- 
 teau in charge to be taken to the town end 
 of the pier, and set out to walk, thinking, 
 to the tune of the band, what I should 
 think of Effie, and what Effie would think 
 of me. And then — then I saw my whole 
 life unrolling itself before me like a 
 vision: Lieutenant in the Black Watch, 
 captain, major, lieutenant-colonel, general, 
 baronet, field-marshal, and Gr.C.B., finally, 
 Laird of Drumferlie, and restorer of the 
 House of Plackless to all generations. And 
 I’d never forget whose silver had bought 
 me my first steps, and I’d be a true and 
 grateful husband to the silver lady. 
 
 “ My hat — oh, my hat ! ” cried a vqice ; 
 “ oh, it’s gone ! ” and before my face, 
 almost into my eyes, flew a thing of 
 feathers and lace, the sight of which would 
 have startled my mother even more than 
 it did me. I made a plunge after it, and 
 was just in time to save it from the sea. 
 As it was, I was nearly into the sea myself, 
 for I had to double myself over the rails, 
 and reach down till, in spite of the length 
 of my legs, my toes were nearly off the 
 floor. 
 
 “ Thank you so much ! ” said the voice 
 again, with a little laugh that suggested, in 
 a curious manner, brightness and freshness 
 of the sea’s sparkling smile. I have said 
 that I had never looked at a woman twice, 
 but I had several times done so once, and, 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 65 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. 
 
 as I returned the hat, not much the 
 worse for its attempted flight, I looked 
 once at the owner. She arranged it as 
 well as she could without a looking-glass, 
 and did not seem to see or heed whether 
 I looked at her or no ; so I looked again. 
 
 And so would you have looked a second, 
 or, if you had the chance, a third time. 
 She was just the daintiest little creature 
 I had ever seen — not higher than my 
 shoulder, hat, hair, and all, and prettier 
 than the sunshine, like a princess out of a 
 fairy tale. My uncle Archie could have 
 knocked her off in a stanza, I dare say, but 
 I can only swear that I’d never seen eyes, 
 nor cheeks, nor hair, nor lips, nor anything 
 before. And I can tell you, without a rag 
 of Uncle Archie’s mantle, that her eyes 
 were of a wonderful sort of deep blue, and 
 her hair an equally wonderful sort of 
 brown, and her colour as bright and glow- 
 ing as a sunrise at home. But above all, 
 there was a winsome look about her, half 
 saucy, half gentle and tender, that seemed 
 
 to Reader, I have spent twenty-six 
 
 minutes trying to find words wherewith 
 to express what it seemed to do, and the 
 more I try the more I fail. Even her 
 dress was something wonderful, and as if 
 it had been made by Titania’s court dress- 
 maker. I’d not seen many well-dressed girls 
 then, it’s true ; but I’ve seen plenty since, 
 and I still hold to my first opinion, that 
 not one of them is fit to be named with 
 that girl even in the matter of clothes, and 
 all the while she’d have looked like a fairy 
 princess if she’d chosen to dress like Cin- 
 derella after the clock struck twelve. If 
 Effle Reid was to look like this, there was 
 only one thing to be done — to run back 
 again from Ryde to Drumferlie as fast as 
 steam could carry me, and never to think 
 of a pair of epaulettes again. Ask a girl 
 like that to marry me ! I wouldn’t dare to 
 ask her shoe. 
 
 I suppose I look like a gowk ; I know I 
 felt like one. 
 
 “ Thank you very much,” said she again, 
 when her hat was quite arranged. And 
 then, with a bow, she turned to go.. 
 
 I lingered to see if she was with any 
 friends, and also to see her walk ; for that 
 also was a graceful thing to see. And on 
 my honour I believed myself to be simply 
 and soberly admiring some beautiful work 
 of Nature in a foreign land, as if she were 
 a lake or a waterfall. It was even a relief 
 to think that neither Effle Reid, nor any 
 other girl, could approach this one in 
 beauty, and that, having seen the best, it 
 
 would be easier to deal with her inferiors. 
 
 I believe that girl was the first work of 
 creation that, out of Drumferlie, I had ever 
 consciously admired. Perhaps I had. a 
 dull sort of a heart, which wanted, for its 
 waking into life, something beyond the 
 common. Anyhow, I knew that not only 
 had I never seen eyes or lips, but that I 
 had never seen a woman, till now ; and. for 
 the first time, as they came into my mind, 
 
 I understood Uncle Archie’s immortal 
 lines : 
 
 O lassie wi’ the lily bree 
 An’ een sae blithe an’ blue, 
 
 Or e’er I leart to lilt o’ thee 
 Nae aucht I lilted true. 
 
 The rose o’ lowe, the rose o’ sn&w 
 I sang — but, bonnie Bell, 
 
 Nocht but her name I’d kent ava, 
 
 Noo haith, I’ve seen hersel’ ? 
 
 And Bell, according to the family tra- 
 dition, was but a cotter’s daughter, with 
 nothing of the rose about her excepting in 
 her hair, whom Uncle Archie had made 
 famous because her name was rich in 
 rhymes. If he had seen this girl— -where 
 would Burns have been 1 Archibald 
 Plackless would have played first fiddle, 
 Robert Burns would have been a good 
 second, and everybody else — nowhere. 
 
 The girl joined no friends, but stood by 
 herself, looking at the sea and listening to 
 the band. I often hum to myself that tune, 
 even now, and would not know its name 
 for the world. But presently I saw her 
 speak to a porter, waiting for jobs from the 
 boats, and, though I could not hear her 
 words, I could hear his, and learned that 
 she was in some luggage trouble. 
 
 Should I have interfered, had this utter 
 stranger been old, ugly, and everything 
 that nobody could call her 1 I hope so — 
 but I cannot say that my hope reaches 
 faith in this matter. At any rate I did in- 
 terfere ; and I learned that she also had 
 been a passenger in one of the boats from 
 Southampton, that she was waiting to see 
 and claim her luggage, and that it had 
 vanished half an hour ago. 
 
 Suddenly I remembered that my own 
 portmanteau, when I had sent it off before 
 me to the pier gates, had been accom- 
 panied by a large trunk, not my own, but 
 bearing my own initals, J. P., similarly 
 painted in large white letters upon a black 
 cover. 
 
 “ And so I’m afraid I’ve carried off your 
 luggage as well as my own,” said I. “ It s 
 a curious coincidence that our initials should 
 be the same.” 
 
 “Yes, it must have been mine — Miss 
 Jessie Pennant. I have to thank you 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 66 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. 
 
 twice, now ; once for my hat, and once for 
 my luggage.” 
 
 “ Which you would not, but for me, 
 have lost at all,” said I, as politely as I 
 could, and welcoming the accident which, 
 without an introduction, had put me in 
 possession of her name. Somehow I should 
 never have taken her for a Jessie, because 
 there was a Jessie in Drumferlie, a good 
 old body from whom I had drawn my ideas 
 of Jessies in general, but now the name 
 seemed to spell itself differently, and to 
 fit its new bearer as well as her gloves, or 
 her voice, or her eyes. 
 
 “ It will be waiting for us at the gate,” 
 said I. “ Shall I go and see if it’s safe ? 
 Or what shall I do 1 ” 
 
 “ I think I’d better see to it myself ; it 
 might not be there after all. Oh, I’m 
 neither so weak nor so lazy that I can’t 
 walk the length of the pier.” 
 
 Had I then known more of men and 
 manners, I should have seen at once that 
 Miss Pennant had been something of a 
 traveller, from the easy matter-of-course 
 manner in which she accepted the casual 
 civility of a chance stranger, without 
 thinking it necessary to assert the strict- 
 ness of her insular propriety by snubbing 
 him on the one hand, or, on the other, 
 letting him feel any consciousness on her 
 part of anything special or unusual in the 
 relation of a young man and a young 
 woman merely because accident throws 
 them into company for some passing ten 
 minutes in their lives. She was a traveller 
 who had missed her trunk — I a traveller 
 who could put her in the way of getting 
 it again — that was all. She could not 
 have started on that walk with the least 
 difference of manner had I been three 
 times my age and ten times the gowk 
 that now more than ever I felt myself to 
 be. But if she found nothing out of the 
 common course of travelling in walking 
 some eight hundred and odd yards with a 
 fellow-passenger whom she had never seen 
 before, and would probably never see 
 again, there was a great deal out of the 
 common course of life to me. I could not 
 help feeling myself the observed of all 
 observers as I walked beside this dainty 
 little creature, as if we were beauty and the 
 beast out for a stroll ; and I became filled 
 with a kind of clumsy pride — a little 
 glorious in fact, as though I had been 
 taking a third tumbler of my father’s 
 famous Highland Dew. Nothing would 
 havet given me greater pleasure than for 
 one .of the biggest of those dandified loons 
 
 to come up and insult Miss J essie Pennant 
 in order that I might have the pleasure of 
 knocking him down. 
 
 It never came into my head, however, 
 to say a word ; I was even spared the 
 brain-beating that ensues when we want 
 to say something and can’t, for the life of 
 us, find anything to say, for the simple 
 reason that the need of speech was as far 
 from my thoughts as its possibility. But 
 I suppose that when a man can’t or won’t 
 speak, a woman must, if it’s only to find 
 out if he’s dumb. 
 
 “It’s a pleasant day for travelling, 
 especially on the water,” said she, as easily 
 as if speaking were the simplest thing in 
 the world. 
 
 “ It’s just heavenly weather,” said I, 
 finding it simple enough now. “ I suppose 
 you’ll have come from far ? ” for I really 
 could not suppose that she came from an 
 everyday world. 
 
 “ Only from Southampton,” said Miss 
 Pennant. “ How well the town and the 
 sea and the trees look from here ! But I 
 suppose it must look all very poor and 
 tame to you who know the Scotch lakes 
 and hills.” 
 
 “ Why, you must be a witch !” exclaimed 
 I in surprise. “How on earth can you 
 tell I come from Scotland? It’s a fact, 
 though — I never crossed the Border till 
 to-day.” 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 “ It doesn’t need a witch to tell when 
 anybody hails from bonnie Scotland,” 
 said she. 
 
 “ It’s true I wouldn’t have the English 
 accent,” said I, “and it happens I come 
 from Drumferlie, which is famous for 
 speaking the language in its ancient 
 purity. When you next go to Scotland 
 you should go to Drumferlie. It’s grand.” 
 
 “ I’ve never been in Scotland,” said 
 she. 
 
 “ And I’d never been in England — now 
 isn’t that strange? And that we’ve both 
 met at the same place on the same 
 day.” 
 
 “ It would have been even stranger if 
 we had met at different places on different 
 days. This is a very long pier. Is it far 
 to the end ? ” 
 
 “ I hope so — that is, I mean it doesn’t 
 seem such a very long pier.” 
 
 “ I suppose you have longer ones — per- 
 haps at Drumferlie ? ” 
 
 “Not exactly at Drumferlie. In fact at 
 Drumferlie there isn’t a pier at all. We’re 
 just at the top of one hill and the bottom 
 
. Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 67 
 
 of another. You don’t live, then, at this 
 place — Ryde?” 
 
 “I’ve never been here before.” 
 
 “Why, there’s a coincidence for every 
 board in the pier — nor have I. And I 
 suppose youre not staying here very 
 long 1 ?” 
 
 I could not help a sigh, too deep to be 
 heard ; for it is of the nature of such 
 meetings with such people that they should 
 be brief, and should come but once, and 
 never more. Perhaps if I had been less 
 absorbed in the thought, I should never 
 have asked a question that just overstepped 
 the line between civil speech and curious 
 questioning. But I’ve since observed 
 that, under certain circumstances, it’s very 
 hard to keep both feet fairly on the right 
 side of the line, without at least a toe 
 lapping over to the wrong. 
 
 “For a day or two,” said Miss Pennant 
 — just as I supposed ; and yet, somehow, 
 a hope died, so to speak, without having 
 been born. 
 
 I felt my heart going out of me towards 
 a strange girl, on whom I had not set eyes 
 till some ten minutes ago — of whom I 
 knew nothing but the name. Don’t say 
 yet that she might be a mere adventuress, 
 or worse, for anything I could tell — that 
 her account of her luggage might be a 
 fiction, or anything else of that kind that 
 may, and no doubt will, occur to you. I 
 don't think anything of ^ that kind would 
 have occurred to you while under the im- 
 mediate influence of her voice and her 
 eyes. But, apart from this, here was I, a 
 cool-headed, cold-hearted, altogether canny 
 young fellow, from the land of long heads 
 well screwed on, letting myself go down 
 before a girl of whom, to say the least of 
 it, I knew absolutely nothing at all — if no 
 ill, certainly no good either. Has every 
 man a fate 1 Certainly not, though I have 
 heard hopeless idiots say so. Had I met 
 mine ? Were the hopeless idiots right 
 after all 1 
 
 III. 
 
 I should think we. must have reached the 
 middle of the pier when a man — I suppose 
 I must, for distinction’s sake, call him a 
 gentleman — came into sight, and advanced 
 towards us with a bow and a smile. 
 
 I hated him from the first moment 
 I set eyes on him. And yet I could not 
 deny that he was a fine-looking fellow, 
 between whose appearance and my own no 
 comparison, except in his favour, could 
 possibly be made. He was handsome in 
 
 the Italian style, with a grand figure, a 
 clear brown face, regular features, a fine 
 heavy black moustache, and was dressed 
 to perfection. He made me feel rougher 
 and more raw-boned than ever : apd, for 
 the first time, I was seized with an uncom- 
 fortable suspicion that Miss Jessie Pennant 
 had been drawing me out and making me 
 talk and look, as well as feel, like a fool. 
 At any rate, the manner in which she met 
 this unexpected friend was irritating to an 
 extreme degree. Serious interest, a tender 
 gravity, took the place of her bright smile 
 as she held out her hand, and allowed it to 
 be grasped warmly and held long. She 
 let him hold it while I could, slowly and 
 deliberately, count five. 
 
 Well — what was it to me ? Had I 
 supposed that a girl like that would be 
 without a hundred desperate adorers 1 And 
 who was I, that a ten minutes’ acquaintance 
 should give me the smallest right to feel 
 hurt even if she had come to Ryde to be 
 married to-morrow ? Absurd ! And Miss 
 Pennant had forgotten my existence as 
 clearly as if I were one of the invisible 
 residents of Ryde. I lounged off to the 
 side of the pier, so that I might let the 
 friends — lovers — acquaintances — betrothed 
 — whatever they were, continue their con- 
 versation undisturbed. I even placed my- 
 self at such a distance, behind the corner of 
 some wooden edifice or other, that I could 
 not overhear a single word of their con- 
 versation, even if I tried. And of course 
 my ears, ip-^pite of my firm determination 
 that they should hear nothing, strained 
 themselves all the more. 
 
 How long was the interview going to last 1 
 One hour — two hours — three ? I thought 
 gloomily of finishing the remaining planks 
 of the pier by myself, seeing about the 
 luggage, and leaving some porter in charge 
 of Miss Pennant’s trunk till she came to 
 claim it with more congenial and efficient 
 aid than mine *had been. But I could not 
 contrive to move ; I hovered about like 
 the proverbial moth who courts the candle. 
 The voices became yet more earnest and yet 
 more low. They approached my corner ; I 
 was bound to hear something, whether I 
 would or no. But it did not signify. 
 They were speaking Italian — and though I 
 don’t know Italian, thank Heaven, I was 
 Latinist enough to recognise Amor and 
 A ru m a, — Love and Soul. 
 
 A minute afterwards, Miss Pennant was 
 proceeding on her way slowly, and alone. 
 I lounged up to her, with an air of having 
 been humbly waiting her commands and 
 
68 [July 3, 1882.] THE ROMANCE 
 
 her convenience, and walked silently by her 
 side. 
 
 “Oh ! ” she exclaimed, the light coming 
 back into her face, “ how rude I have been ! 
 But I had no idea that you had been 
 waiting — of course I thought you would 
 have gone on to the gates. Well, I must 
 do my best by helping you to make up for 
 lost time.” And she quickened her speed, 
 at the same time I slackened mine, and 
 so the balance soon became even again. 
 
 “ This really is a very long pier ! ” she 
 said. “ It’s long enough to act out a whole 
 story while one’s walking the length of it 
 — beginning, middle, and end.” 
 
 “No doubt — if one stops long enough in 
 the middle,” said I sullenly. 
 
 “ Now that is not kind — to remind me of 
 my misdeeds. But really I don’t know why 
 you should have waited.” 
 
 “ No. After all, your friend could have 
 recovered your luggage just as well as I. 
 A great deal better, I dare say.” 
 
 “I really think we had better hurry 
 on.” 
 
 “ Oh, I’m in no hurry at all. I haven’t 
 got to catch a train and my business will 
 keep — very well indeed.” 
 
 “ Then there’s not much harm done. If 
 I thought you had been only waiting to 
 
 enjoy the sunshine ” 
 
 “ Sunshine ? I don’t call this sunshine. 
 We call a day like this cloudy at Drumferlie.” 
 “I haven’t noticed any change. The 
 gentleman who spoke to me just now was 
 saying that he had never seen lovelier 
 
 weather away from Naples ” 
 
 “ Oh — he is Italian, then ! ” 
 
 “ An Italian count ” 
 
 “ Oh — then that accounts for it. They 
 always do.” 
 
 “ Who ^always do what? ” asked she. 
 
 “ Always say that everything’s the 
 loveliest they ever saw. I mean counts 
 always do — I mean Italians,” 
 
 “ I suppose you had a large experience 
 of Italians at — Drumferlie? ” 
 
 “ No, I haven’t — thank Heaven ! ” 
 
 “ Might not the thanks be mutual ? I’m 
 
 afraid Drumferlie must be ” 
 
 “ What ? ” I asked, rather fiercely I am 
 afraid. 
 
 “Just a little prejudiced — just the least 
 little bit in the world.” 
 
 It was astounding. I had not traversed 
 three quarters of Ryde Pier by the time 
 that I, hitherto guiltless of the smallest, 
 flirtation, had met my fate, had fallen in 
 love, had plunged into the agonies of 
 jealousy, and was now in the middle of a 
 
 OF RYDE PIER. [Conducted by 
 
 sharp quarrel. How on earth had it all 
 happened ? And yet there had been 
 nothing forced, nothing unnatural, nothing 
 improbable even, though it mostly takes a 
 month to get through as much life as I had 
 lived in no time. 
 
 But suddenly she smiled. 
 
 “And I like prejudice,” said she, “so 
 long as it’s thorough-going — every sort and 
 kind. One does get so little — everybody 
 seems to care for nothing but what he 
 hasn’t got and can’t get; after all, I 
 wouldn’t give a straw for anybody who 
 doesn’t believe in his own nest first, what- 
 ever it may be.” 
 
 Were we to be friends again? So it 
 seemed. The Italian count still blotted 
 out the sunshine, but her smile came like 
 at least a stray beam through the cloud. 
 Alas ! friends for five minutes more, and 
 then — good-bye. 
 
 “And your own nest, what is that ? ” 
 asked I, “ and where ? In — in — Italy ? ” 
 
 “ In a sort of Italy.” 
 
 “ A sort of Italy ? I never heard of a 
 sort of Italy.” 
 
 “ Oh, there’s an Italy in Europe, and an 
 Italy in England, too. I happen to have 
 an aunt who married a singing-master — 
 that very gentleman who was talking to 
 me just now — and I’ve been living with 
 them this last year. They never speak 
 English, and never eat anything English, 
 and have no English friends. That’s what 
 I mean by a sort of Italy.” 
 
 “Then he — that count — is your uncle 
 by marriage ? ” 
 
 “ Of course.” 
 
 Out came the sun again, brighter, for a 
 moment, than when he had first shone. 
 But the pier gates were growing nearer 
 and nearer now. And could I, a man with 
 a heart and a will, make myself such a 
 slave to the accidents of time and space 
 as to let myself slip adrift from Jessie 
 Pennant, without such an effort as a man 
 might make to keep the first thing that he 
 had ever found worth keeping ? Beyond 
 those nearing gates we should part; the 
 meshes of family life would irrevocably 
 and inevitably close me round, and she 
 would be swept off from Ryde, and flutter 
 away down the wind, out of the world. 
 There were Italians and Italians ; and 
 though one might be her uncle, another 
 might become what I would give all I 
 was worth to be. Not that I was worth 
 much ; but had I been a Dives instead of 
 a Plackless it would have been the same. 
 
 And yet, even then, with those gates in 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. 
 
 [July 3, 1882.] 69 
 
 sight that must lead me forth from Eden, 
 I could scarcely forbear questioning my 
 own prudence, or rather how my state of 
 mind would look in other eyes. Suppose 
 I 'could so manage matters that this should 
 not be my last as well as my first interview 
 with Jessie, for so alone my heart called 
 her now, forgetting her other name. Sup- 
 pose that she could learn to like me a 
 thousandth part as much as I liked her ; 
 and a thousandth part would be enough, 
 seeing the difference between a fairy and a 
 bear. What, if all went as I was desperate 
 enough to dream, what would my father, 
 what would every Plackless in Drumferlie 
 say, when I proposed to bring home a 
 foreign girl, half an Italian — perhaps a 
 Papist into the bargain — with at least 
 twenty guineas on her back and on her 
 head, and most likely not a penny any- 
 where else about her ? It was a bewilder- 
 ing and an awful thought for a man who 
 had never felt or thought otherwise than 
 as a Plackless of Drumferlie since he was 
 born. But 
 
 I have before been brought up hard by 
 an “if” — “but.” brings me up harder. 
 Suppose her clothes were her whole fortune, 
 I couldn’t but believe in the girl’s good- 
 ness and honesty ; I couldn’t help seeing 
 in her a lady born, who would bring grace 
 and manners into a home which now seemed 
 to me to monopolise such things less com- 
 pletely than some eleven minutes ago. 
 Perhaps there were just a few prejudices 
 in Drumferlie, after all. And if she were 
 even a Papist, a very short course of the 
 sermons of my cousin the minister would be 
 enough to satisfy the Pope himself, and two 
 or three would be quite as many as the most 
 obstinate of opponents would want to hear. 
 It doesn’t take the time for stepping over 
 a single plank to think what would take a 
 week for writing. And all at once it was 
 borne in upon me : what was I, after all, 
 but a base, mean, fortune-hunting, mer- 
 cenary adventurer, who wanted to buy a 
 commission with a girl’s money, and was 
 going to catch her for a wife because he 
 couldn’t get the money without the girl 1 
 
 But supposing I were, what then ? I 
 vowed I wouldn’t even say a civil word to 
 Effie Reid; but that wouldn’t bring me a step 
 nearer to Jessie. I had dreamed my dream 
 out ; it was time to wake now. And I’d 
 wake before we reached those gates in 
 front of us. 
 
 “ So,” I said, “ you’re not going to be 
 long in this town ? ” 
 
 There must have been something odd 
 
 about either my question or my way of 
 asking it, for she looked at me quickly, 
 with a sort of surprise. 
 
 “ No,” said she. “ Not many hours, I 
 have just heard.” 
 
 Then we could never meet again. 
 
 “ Then I’m just in the same boat myself,” 
 said I. ‘ ‘ I’ve only just come to see — the 
 pier ; and then I’m going home, this very 
 day.” 
 
 “ How strange ! You have come all the 
 way from Scotland to the Isle of Wight 
 only to see Ryde Pier ? Is it one of the 
 seven wonders of the world h ” 
 
 “ It’s not one of them ; it’s all of them 
 in one. I suppose you think you’ve been 
 walking all this while with a madman, to 
 hear me talk like that of a few sticks and 
 boards, with a band at one end and a port- 
 manteau at the other. If I’d known you a 
 year, Miss Pennant, I’d have a right to say 
 something or other, and I don’t see why I 
 wouldn’t, because one can’t take twelve 
 months to walk from end to end, try as 
 slow as we can.” 
 
 “ Suppose, then, we try a little faster 1 ” 
 said she. 
 
 “ Then you do think I’m dangerous,” 
 said I. 
 
 “ Oh no ; not at all. ” But she quickened 
 her pace all the same. 
 
 “ Lunatic, I mean. Never mind ; think 
 it, if you must. But I want to say some- 
 thing now, because I’ll never say it again 
 to anybody, anywhere ; and I’d like to 
 say it once, to one, before I die. It won’t 
 hurt you, when you think of this place, 
 and it may be fun, to remember that a 
 hard-hearted Drumferlie man couldn’t walk 
 with you from the band to the portmanteau 
 without finding out he’d got a heart as well 
 as a head, and giving you both of them to 
 carry away with you wherever you go.” 
 
 I don’t know how most women would 
 receive such a declaration under such cir- 
 cumstances, though no doubt many of them 
 can decide offhand, and yet correctly, 
 whether the declaration were an insult, an 
 act of lunacy, or an honest impulse fairly 
 resulting from their own invincible fascina- 
 tion. Miss Pennant certainly flushed up 
 and stared at me, but she otherwise 
 betrayed neither fear nor confusion, nor 
 lost an atom of her dignity. 
 
 “ This is very extraordinary behaviour,” 
 said she. “ I don’t even know your name.” 
 I could not even make out whether she was 
 angry — her face, though certainly flushed, 
 told me nothing at all. 
 
 “Very,” echoed I. “But it isn’t half 
 
 r 
 
 
THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 70 [July 5, 1882.] 
 
 so extraordinary as what I feel. If you 
 were to bid me jump over into the sea and 
 never come out again I’d do it gladly. But 
 I can’t undo what has been done, and if I 
 could I wouldn’t. What does it matter 
 what I say when in another minute you 
 will be gone, and I shall never see you 
 again ? So I’ll speak my heart out, just 
 for once, before I crush it down for the rest 
 of my days. My name’s James Plackless, 
 the only son of a small Scotch farmer ; I’m 
 of no profession at present, and I’m 
 a Master of Arts of Aberdeen. I’ve 
 got no fortune of my own, and no 
 particular prospects except the farm at 
 Drumferlie, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever 
 have that if I were to marry against my 
 father’s views, and I don’t know that it’s 
 much worth having. But you can see for 
 yourself I’m big enough to make my own 
 way in the world and the way of any 
 woman who’d trust me, and no Plackless, 
 though he mostly wants money, ever 
 wanted brains. I don’t think I’ve ever 
 done a really wrong thing, except one — 
 and that’s coming to Byde to court a second 
 cousin, Euphemia Reid by name, that I’ve 
 never seen, just because she’s rich and I’m 
 poor. That’s bad ; but I gave it up ages 
 ago, before we got beyond the middle of 
 the pier. And now you know me as well 
 as I know myself; and if there was the 
 least bit of a chance to win you for a wife 
 I’d do anything on earth that a Plackless 
 of Drumferlie may, and wait for you as 
 long as you please, so it’s on this side of 
 for ever.” 
 
 “Really I don’t know whether to be 
 angry or to laugh,” said she. “ I can’t 
 help believing that you’re a gentleman, 
 though a strange kind of one. You 
 clearly are not in the habit of waiting for 
 the grass to grow on your farm. Do you 
 know that we never met in our lives till 
 some fifteen minutes ago % ” 
 
 “ I’m quite sure I’ve known you fifteen 
 hundred years ; though it was not fifteen 
 minutes, it was only twelve.” 
 
 “ And that, though I now know who you 
 are, you have learned nothing, in all those 
 fifteen hundred years, of me 'l ” 
 
 “ I know all 1 want,” said I. 
 
 “Now listen to me, Mr. Plackless, and 
 believe that, though I’m young, and have 
 never been at Drumferlie, I know some- 
 thing of the world. I do know enough of 
 you — in twelve minutes — to feel that I 
 may speak to you like a — like a mother. 
 Your father, you say, is a farmer in a small 
 way in a place — well, in Drumferlie. I can 
 
 see the whole picture as if it were before 
 my eyes. What would he say if the only 
 son whom he intends to make the fortune 
 of the family, whom he has kept at college, 
 and all the rest — what would he say if he 
 heard that you had thrown yourself 
 away ” 
 
 “ Thrown myself away ! ” 
 
 “ I can hear him say it — thrown yourself 
 away upon a foreigner, an actress, a stroll- 
 ing woman who has nothing a week but a 
 trifle she can earn in a playhouse 1 I know 
 what he would say ! ” 
 
 And so did I ! And I know what I 
 should have said myself thirteen minutes 
 ago. 
 
 “ Why, a good honest sheep-dog might 
 as well ask a butterfly to marry him.” 
 
 “ He might ; and he does,” said I. 
 
 “ You are really a remarkable young 
 man. And the sheep-dog thinks that the 
 butterfly would care to give up — well, 
 whatever butterflies think worth having — 
 to milk the cows and bake the cakes in a 
 Scotch farm, with no eyes to admire her 
 but yours 1 You think the bargain would 
 be fair 1 ” 
 
 “ No, I don’t,” said I, growing dogged 
 and stubborn. “ For your sake I would 
 give up even Drumferlie. I’d work ; and 
 there are some things won’t let a man fail 
 when he works for them. I’d win them — 
 you’d have all I could give you, and I’d 
 have you.” 
 
 “ And your father 1 And have you no 
 mother % Yes— a man like you is sure to 
 have a mother. What of them 1 ” 
 
 « They’d be put out at first ; but they 
 married without a fortune, and they’ve not 
 done ill. It wouldn’t take them a year to 
 come round, when they saw me making a 
 fortune, and found out why, and what a 
 prize I’d won, fortune or no.” 
 
 “ And what prize am I to have ? 
 Your’ 
 
 “ I’m not much to look at, I own, but if 
 you want a better husband than I’ll be to 
 the only woman I’ll ever love, you’ll have 
 to wait long and go far.” 
 
 “ Ah, farther than the length of a pier 1 
 And you — you would let your wife act in 
 plays ? ” 
 
 “ No, I wouldn’t.” 
 
 “ If she insisted 1 ” 
 
 “ Oh, but she wouldn’t. When there’s 
 a difference of opinion, you know, it’s for 
 the husband to decide — that’s clear.” 
 “You are really an extraordinary young 
 man. I think — I think you had better 
 see Miss — what was the name 1 — : Miss 
 
— 
 Charles Dickens.] THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. [July 3, 1882.] 71 
 
 Euphemia Reid. You haven’t by any 
 means a bad idea of love-making, for a first 
 attempt. I’ve seen far worse action on the 
 stage. Only, the next time, don’t tell the 
 lady beforehand that you’re not going to 
 let her have her own way. Of course it’s 
 nothing to me, but it might lose you the 
 heart, as well as the fortune, of Miss 
 Euphemia Reid.” 
 
 “ Hang Miss Euphemia Reid 1 ” lam 
 not sure that my imprecation was not 
 stronger still. “And hang her fortune 
 too! I’m not going to say, even for the 
 sake of winning you, that I won’t be master 
 in my own house, for that I will ; but I’ll 
 win you for a wife — you or none.” 
 
 “T really believe you mean it,” said she. 
 
 “ I — I believe I’m safe in doing an extra- 
 ordinary thing — M’i extraordinary as — 
 
 as ” She paused. “ After all, the great 
 
 thing is not for you to know me, but for 
 me to know you, and you’ve let me see 
 through you and know you as clearly as if 
 you were made of glass unstained — of 
 crystal. ... You are as prejudiced as 
 you’re high ; you are honest at heart, and 
 if you once get an idea fairly into your 
 head, nobody and nothing would get it out 
 again ; and you haven’t paid me a single 
 compliment — not one. I don’t believe you 
 
 know how. I think Ah ! we are 
 
 very near our luggage now.” 
 
 “And I won’t pass that gate till I know 
 if you’ll let me love you — not that you can 
 help it — but with hope. With or without, 
 which is it to be 1 Will you ever be the 
 wife of the man who’ll love you and live 
 for you better than anybody else ever 
 - can ” 
 
 “ And rule me 1 Then — yes ; I will.” 
 
 IV. 
 
 The suddenness of such an unexpected 
 ending to my day-dream, and of such 
 a beginning to my life’s waking, fairly 
 took my breath away. Whatever she 
 was, there was, nevertheless, nothing un- 
 maidenly in her manner of accepting my 
 desperate offer. That she could return 
 my love was impossible, but her answer 
 to it was as frank, straightforward, and 
 natural as was evidently her nature, and 
 I could feel that she had weighed all the 
 circumstances, had decided by some sort 
 of insight in my favour, and was content 
 to trust me with her life and happiness. 
 Still, as you may well suppose, it was no 
 common surprise, and I hardly knew, for 
 joy and amazement, whether I were on my 
 head or on my heels. 
 
 ' ■ :.rr: — 
 
 And so, between the pier-head and the 
 gates, I had gone through a whole court- 
 ship — admiration, liking, love, jealousy, 
 quarrel, reconciliation, proposal, rejection, 
 persistence, and final acceptance ; and all, 
 save the last, in the most regular and 
 natural way. I had landed a free man, 
 bent on securing an heiress ; I reached the 
 gate engaged to a penniless actress whom 
 I had never seen before. 
 
 The situation was too public to admit of 
 more than a clasp of hands. We reached 
 the gate at last. 
 
 “And now,” asked I, “when shall I see 
 you again 1 ” 
 
 “ I have to make a call before I return, 
 but I shall be going back by the next boat 
 to Southampton.” 
 
 “And so will I.” 
 
 As if in a dream, our mixed luggage 
 was divided, and she was driven off in 
 some glorified chariot called a fly. 
 
 “ Anyhow, they won’t be able to say at 
 home,” I thought proudly, “ that she 
 married me for my money, and as for my 
 rank, the position of a Plackless doesn’t 
 seem to be altogether understood south of 
 the Tweed.” Of course I would write to 
 my father that very hour, and make a 
 clean breast of things ; and when he 
 and my mother once saw Jessie they 
 would be sure to come round. Indeed I 
 could not keep myself from going into a 
 stationer’s shop then and there, and 
 writing my letter, which I carried back 
 to post upon the pier while waiting upon 
 those glorified boards for Jessie’s return 
 from her call : but my wits must have 
 been wool gathering, for I had not 
 gone many yards when a gentleman 
 came up to me holding* my letter in his 
 hand. 
 
 “ You have dropped this, I believe,” said 
 he, “ and it is strange that I should be the 
 one to return it to you. Excuse me for 
 saying so, but it is directed to Donald 
 Plackless, Esquire, Drumferlie, N.B. A 
 kinsman of my own.” 
 
 “ And my father,” said I. 
 
 “ Your father 1 Impossible 1 ” 
 
 Adventures that day seemed likely to 
 have no end. 
 
 “It is certainly not impossible,” said I, 
 “for it is true. But if you are a kins- 
 man ” 
 
 “If? Is it possible you have never heard 
 of Andrew Reid ? A strange meeting, 
 indeed ! But I — I always understood that 
 your father had but one child, James, and 
 that he ” 
 
72 [July 3, 1882.] 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF RYDE PIER. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “I am James Plackless,” said I, “and 
 my father’s only child.” 
 
 It did not prove so cordial a meeting as 
 might be supposed. I would have given 
 a good many shillings not to have met 
 Andrew Reid, and he appeared . to be 
 strangely surprised, and not particularly 
 pleased at seeing me. But still we were 
 kinsmen — first cousins but once removed 
 — and when he asked me to walk back 
 with him to his hotel to be introduced to 
 his womankind, my cousins, I could not, 
 for decency’s sake, refuse. Blood is thicker 
 than water, but I vowed that all the blood 
 of all the Reids and all the Placklesses 
 should not keep me long from the waterside. 
 
 I should see my Cousin Effie— I was 
 ashamed to think of her remembering what 
 my intentions had been, and, innocent as 
 she was, my own shame made me hate her 
 very name. 
 
 I did not take much note or heed ol .my 
 cousin Andrew, and answered questions 
 about home without attending to them. I 
 wanted to be alone. We reached the hotel, 
 and a little girl, about six years old, ran 
 out at the door, and leaped into Andrew 
 Reid’s arms. 
 
 “Papa— papa,” she cried out; “shes 
 come : she’s here.” . 
 
 “ Who’s come, Effie ? Who s here 'l This 
 is my little one, my Euphemia. Effie, kiss 
 your Cousin James,” he said rather dole- 
 fully, holding out the little one to me. 
 
 “ This my cousin Effie V’ asked I. “Why, 
 I understood she was nearly as old as I.” 
 
 « And I— I thought you were nearly as 
 young as she ! ” said Andrew Reid. . Your 
 father always wrote of you as his wee 
 Jamie, and I thought— I fancied— but never 
 mind now. Ah, Jessie, so you’ve come m 
 time. Cousin J ames, this is my step- 
 daughter Jessie, my wife’s child; my wife 
 was a widow, you know, and Jessie has 
 been at school in Germany and Italy and 
 France and England, and everywhere 
 Jessie, this is James Plackless, your second 
 cousin-in-law. We’re all off. to Southampton 
 by the next boat. Come in.” 
 
 What else he said, I know not. For 
 there stood my Jessie, regarding me with a 
 curious smile. 
 
 to tell but a stray scrap of a long talk that 
 I had with Jessie on board the Vectis, 
 bound for Southampton. 
 
 “ I suppose what I did was bold ? ” said 
 she, “ but I pretty well knew who you were 
 from the beginning, and if I hadn’t seen in 
 five minutes what sort of a — never mind 
 what — you are, I should have been blind. 
 
 I saw all those fatherly mistakes, too. I 
 didn’t fall in love with you, don’t think 
 that ; perhaps that may take some time. 
 But, to tell you a secret, I’ve no sentiment 
 in my nature, not a grain. I’m the most 
 sensible girl I ever knew. I saw you’d 
 make the very husband I always meant to 
 have, if I ever had any — a man with a 
 straight heart, and a straight mind, whom 
 I could trust and who’d trust me. 
 
 “ Luive, if ever luive sail graw, 
 
 Will last betwixt us twa, 
 
 as Archie Plackless sings. I’m not alto- 
 gether an un-Drumferlie woman, you see. 
 But if I’d said no, we should never 
 have met again till you’d found out I 
 was a rich woman, Cousin James, and then, 
 if you’d asked me, I should never have got 
 it out of my head that you were treating 
 me as you meant to treat my little sister 
 Effie. For shame, to lay plots for an heiress 
 not seven years old ! But I may say now 
 that I’m my poor mother’s only child, and 
 she was a rich woman, and all she had was 
 mine. I’m afraid my good step-father is a 
 little put out, but your father won’t take a 
 year to come round ; I rather fancy not so 
 long as it took us to walk along Ryde Pier. 
 So I said yes, like a sensible girl as I am.” 
 “You told me you were an actress, 
 
 Jessie ! And that count, your uncle ” 
 
 “ Oh, the count is my mother’s sister’s 
 husband ; that was all right enough. But 
 I never said I was an actress.” 
 
 “Jessie !” 
 
 “No — never! I only asked you what 
 your father would say if I were.” 
 
 My story is told, and I have nothing left 
 
 On the anniversary of that summer day 
 I, Major Plackless, of Drumferlie, solemnly 
 and gratefully drink to him, whoever he 
 was, who had the first inspiration of adding 
 three hundred yards to the original length 
 of Ryde Pier, and who thus made me the 
 husband of the best and dearest wife in the 
 world, aye, and in all Drumferlie. 
 
 The Bight of Translating any of the Articles contained in this Number is reserved by the Authors. 
 
 F 
 
 
 Published at the Office, 26, Wellington Steet, Strand. Printed by CHAKMS WOMBS * Etahs, 24, Great New Street. E.C. 
 
J. 
 
 THE EXTRA 
 
 SUMMER NUMBER 
 
 OF 
 
 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. 
 
 CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 CONTAINING THE AMOUNT OF THREE ORDINARY NUMBERS. 
 
 PRICE] 
 
 1883. 
 
 [SIXPENCE. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 PAGE 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
 A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE 
 THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE 
 IN THE NICK OF TIME 
 OUTGROWN IT . 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
 By “Rita.” 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Though you loved then— 
 
 Though I love now. 
 
 The old church was set high on a hill, 
 that sloped down to the valley below, in 
 which a little village nestled. 
 
 The valley, indeed, was surrounded on 
 all sides by hills, some towering and lofty, 
 others small and insignificant, but all 
 seeming to shelter the little green nook, 
 with its winding river and low, level fields 
 in a sort of loving and protecting fashion. 
 
 Here and there a wood broke the 
 monotony of the scene, the dark foliage of 
 firs standing out in rich relief against the 
 paler tints of larch, and oak, and ivy. 
 Above the sloping hills, the glowing hues 
 of the sky spread themselves in a hundred 
 gradations of colour, and the flush of 
 sunset rested warm and bright on the old 
 grey tower of the church, and the time- 
 worn headstones that marked the quiet 
 resting-places of the dead. 
 
 Quaint, restful, still — with that stillness 
 that only the country gathers to itself in 
 the hush of eventide — so the little church- 
 yard lay in the spring sunset ; and a man 
 wandering listlessly through the yew- 
 shaded paths, paused suddenly and lifted 
 his hat, and standing there bareheaded in 
 the fading light, looked upwards to the 
 old tower as if some long thought held 
 him in a spell of silence and abstraction. 
 
 The beautiful dusky glow faded slowly 
 into the clear, pearly grey of twilight, before 
 he seemed to remember where he was, or 
 rouse himself from that absorbed contem- 
 plation. Then, with a start and a sigh, he 
 replaced his hat and moved on again along 
 the path, stopping here and there to read 
 some quaint epitaph, or half-obliterated 
 inscription. 
 
 Curious enough some of them were, 
 bringing a faint smile to the worn hand- 
 some face of the reader. A face where 
 smiles looked almost out of place, so stern 
 was the expression of brow and lips. 
 
 The light was getting less distinct as he 
 strolled on to the low boundary-wall and 
 stood leaning there, while his eyes dwelt 
 lingeringly on the dark range of hills that 
 shut in the little sleepy village. The river 
 wound in and out like a silver ribbon. 
 There was no sign of life anywhere, nor 
 any sound, except a faint bleat from some 
 stray lamb, or the rustle of the young 
 leaves as a faint wind touched the budding 
 trees. 
 
 The peace and beauty seemed to soothe 
 him, in that inexplicable way of which 
 Nature alone holds the secret. His face 
 grew less stern, the hard look seemed to 
 leave it, and, though . a sigh escaped his 
 lips, it was more of relief than of pain. 
 
 Marston Dare had had a hard and 
 troubled life for almost all the thirty years 
 that it had numbered. But it never had 
 seemed so hard as when the seal of a 
 woman’s treachery had set itself upon that 
 toilful and poverty-stricken existence, and 
 
2 [June 18, 1883,] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 made him curse the fate that brought him 
 face to face with her beauty and her worth- 
 lessness. And she was worthless, he told 
 himself. But it is a hard thing to kill love, 
 when once it takes root in these strong, 
 steadfast natures, and Dare had not killed it 
 yet, despite his struggles, his sufferings, and 
 his broken faith. 
 
 Even work, that panacea for most 
 troubles, had failed to drive away a 
 memory he hated as well as loved. He 
 had only taxed a willing brain to its 
 utmost, and found physical strength in- 
 capable of answering to his demands. 
 With fame and honours at his feet, he 
 had been obliged to relinquish the efforts 
 made to win them. 
 
 “Perfect rest and change of scene. 
 Nothing else will do you any good/' said 
 the fashionable physician he had consulted. 
 
 And something within him — that same 
 complicated mechanism whose nerves and 
 forces he had overtaxed so ruthlessly — told 
 him that the advice was true and the 
 change and rest necessary. 
 
 Chance alone had brought him to this 
 spot. He had fixed upon Shropshire 
 for a change, and travelling on to where 
 its boundaries almost touched the hills 
 of Wales, found himself in a quaint 
 little old-world nook, as beautiful in 
 its way as many a tourist-haunted spot 
 of guide-book celebrity. Standing there 
 to-night, with the soft spring air fanning 
 his brow, and the peace and beauty of the 
 country all around, such a feeling of rest 
 came to brain and heart as had long been 
 strange to both. 
 
 He still leaned against the low brown 
 wall, but his eyes had left the dusky hills, 
 and came back to the old church-tower, 
 and again from there roved to where those 
 dim grey headstones had faced the sun 
 and shadow of many centuries. Coming 
 back from that long pause of quiet thought, 
 he turned away as if to leave the church- 
 yard. The moon had risen now, and the 
 sky seemed full of clear and brilliant light, 
 not cold or glittering, but filled with a soft 
 transparence, against which the towering 
 hills and dusky woods looked like dim, 
 soft shapes. 
 
 One long quivering ray of silver fell 
 through the branches of a giant oak, and, 
 so falling, showed beneath the great wide 
 boughs a single stone that gleamed marble- 
 white among the shadows. Curiosity, 
 impulse, idleness — what matters by what 
 name we call those apparently reason- 
 less motives which now and then prompt 
 
 our actions ? — one or all of these made 
 Marston Dare pause, and read the single 
 line that lay graven black, and deep, and 
 strangely distinct upon that smooth white 
 surface. 
 
 Not much to read, indeed ; but enough, 
 so it seemed, to draw a look of puzzled 
 wonder to his eyes ; enough to demand a 
 re-perusal of itself ; enough to make him 
 thoughtful again as he leant against the 
 old oak boughs and gazed at that strange 
 inscription : 
 
 “Dorothy, wife of 
 
 That was all, except a date. 
 
 No other record of the woman in whose 
 memory it had been raised. 
 
 The stone looked almost new, but from 
 its position was not likely to attract much 
 observation. Marston Dare might have 
 passed it again and again without noticing 
 it, but that ray of moonlight seemed to 
 bring it out in strong, almost startling 
 distinctness. There seemed to the young 
 man something almost ghastly in the clear 
 white and gleaming black of that significant 
 announcement — something that seemed to 
 startle the peace and holiness of its sur- 
 roundings by an air of mystery as weird as 
 it was unaccountable. 
 
 Bending still closer, he perceived to his 
 astonishment that there had been other 
 words following those already quoted, but 
 that these had been purposely effaced from 
 the stone, and a black stroke painted in 
 their place. 
 
 “ What can be the meaning of it 1 ” he 
 asked himself, turning away at last. He 
 resolved to ask at his inn for some infor- 
 mation about this mysterious “Dorothy.” 
 It seemed to him that the grave was com- 
 paratively new, and surely something 
 must be known of the woman whom it 
 held. 
 
 He left the churchyard and went down 
 the solitary straggling street which repre- 
 sented the village. It was innocent as yet 
 of gaslight, but the rare clearness of the 
 atmosphere compensated for that deficiency 
 on the present occasion. 
 
 Just as he reached the inn the sound of 
 wheels made him look round. 
 
 He saw a smart-looking trap dashing 
 along, driven by a lady. Behind her sat a 
 man in livery. As she passed the inn-door 
 her glance fell on the solitary figure stand- 
 ing there. With an audible exclamation 
 of amazement she checked the horse and 
 drew up beside him. 
 
 “You here ! ” she exclaimed. 
 
 His face paled somewhat, but eye and 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
 voice were sufficiently under command to 
 answer her. 
 
 “ As you see/’ he answered quietly. “ I 
 have come down to ruralise, by medical 
 orders. And you 1 ” 
 
 “I V f she murmured in some confusion. 
 “ Did you not know 1 I live here. At 
 least, for the present. One of Sir Andrew’s 
 places is Tedsmere, four miles from this 
 village.” 
 
 “ Indeed,” he said quietly. “ No, I did 
 not know. How should 1 % ” 
 
 Whatever his words reminded her of, 
 the shamed blush on her cheek deepened, 
 and her voice was anything but steady as 
 she said faintly : 
 
 “ Of course you could not. I forgot. 
 
 Only when I saw you ” 
 
 He interrupted her almost fiercely : 
 “You surely do not suppose I should 
 have come here had I known 1 ” 
 
 “ No ; I dare say not. You — I mean I 
 could hardly expect you would forgive.” 
 
 “ Forgive ! ” he cried passionately. 
 Then, checking himself, with a glance at 
 her groom : “I beg your pardon, Lady 
 Lynne ; I am. detaining you, I fear.” 
 
 “ Not at all,” she said hurriedly. “ May 
 I hope you will call and see me — us, I 
 mean — as you are so near % It must be so 
 dull for you here, and Sir Andrew could 
 
 offer you some fishing ” 
 
 A bitter smile curved his lips. 
 
 “I like dulness, thank you,” he said 
 very quietly, “ and I could not think of 
 trespassing on Sir Andrew’s time and 
 attention, even if I liked fishing — which 
 I don’t.” 
 
 Her eyes met his own, but their appeal 
 read no response. She knew that her 
 power was over, and the knowledge 
 incensed her. It seemed so hard that he 
 should refuse her anything — he who had 
 once been abject as a slave at her mercy. 
 
 It always is hard for a woman to believe 
 that her influence is a thing of the past — 
 hard to credit that the more abject a man’s 
 subjection, the more complete also is his 
 defection, when once his passion is spent 
 or slain. 
 
 Marston Dare’s had been so slain by the 
 woman who now looked back into his 
 stern cold eyes — slain utterly and for ever, 
 even though its memory had power to 
 sting him still : 
 
 Like a dreaming snake 
 Drowsily lifting itself fold by fold. 
 
 But there was almost hatred in his heart 
 now, as he looked at her fair face and heard 
 her voice speaking out that insult to his 
 
 ’ ==■ -= = 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 3 
 
 own poverty, which lay in her changed 
 position, and which had been gained by her 
 own baseness and treachery. 
 
 The memory of that old delirious wor- 
 ship seemed to madden him as he stood 
 there by her side, controlling voice and 
 face to his will, for fear that one sign of 
 weakness should yield her another triumph. 
 He succeeded better than he imagined : so 
 well, indeed, that his cold smile and scorn- 
 ful glance smote her with such pain as he 
 never dreamt of— so well, that as her lips 
 dropped conventional phrases, her heart 
 ached as never it had ached before — so 
 well, that even in the fulness of her 
 triumph at this parade of wealth, she felt 
 she would have given anything to feel his 
 arms around her once again, only to know 
 the old love held him hers as once she 
 knew it had done. 
 
 His curt replies, his cool self-possession, 
 roused a passion of anger and misery 
 within her breast, all the more so because 
 she knew her acting to be inferior to his 
 own ; because, try as she would for sign of 
 relenting, or softening of voice or look, 
 she met none. 
 
 She went on her way baffled and 
 defeated, and all the glory of the sweet 
 spring night seemed to thrill and pain her 
 with its memories of that face she loved — 
 that passion she had roused and fanned, 
 and then had rejected. 
 
 “What a fool I was,” she thought to 
 herself, as she lashed the horse with a 
 sudden impatient anger, that sent him 
 flying along the steep and stony road; 
 “ what a fool ! But the temptation was 
 too strong. I could not have been a 
 poor man’s wife. And yet how paltry and 
 insignificant everything looked to-night 
 when I met his eyes, and read in them 
 how he scorned me ! Can his love have 
 changed like that in twelve short months 1 
 Can he have forgotten, and I — not ?” 
 
 The man of whom she thought sat by 
 the window of the inn parlour, the lines 
 of pain gathering once more around his 
 eyes and on his brow. 
 
 “ Rest — peace — have I dreamt of them 
 for this to break the charm 1 ” he muttered 
 below his breath. “What weak, con- 
 temptible creatures we are ! Bah ! why do 
 I think of her 1 Love was wasted on 
 a woman like that, who cares for nothing 
 save what ministers to her comfort and 
 ambition. • She thought to flaunt her 
 honours before my eyes, did she ] Nay, 
 my lady, I have not yet sunk low enough 
 
4 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF 
 
 to accept your friendship — or that of the 
 man to whom you sold yourself for the 
 gold I lacked.’’ 
 
 Then he turned from the window as the 
 landlady of the little inn entered with 
 candles and the refreshments he had 
 ordered. 
 
 Bringing back his disturbed thoughts 
 by a great effort, he began to chat to the 
 rosy-faced, pleasant-looking little widow 
 who owned The Admiral Nelson. 
 
 He spoke of the church and his visit 
 there ; and then remembering the strange 
 headstone which had so puzzled him, asked 
 the woman if she knew anything of its 
 history. 
 
 He was surprised to see her ruddy face 
 grow * pale and alarmed. She began to 
 fidget restlessly with her apron. 
 
 “ IPs a queer thing, sir,” she said, with 
 a nervous glance at the door, “ and we 
 don’t like much to talk of it. There is a 
 mystery, as you say, about that grave- 
 stone. That name has been struck out by 
 no mortal hands.” 
 
 “ What ! ” laughed Marston Dare, look- 
 ing up at her alarmed face. “ Whose 
 hands, then, performed the mysterious 
 office ] 
 
 “ That’s more nor anyone can tell you,” 
 she answered solemnly ; then, sinking her 
 voice even more mysteriously : “ Only, sir, 
 folks do say that ’tis Mistress Dorothy’s 
 ghost as walks still.” 
 
 « ‘ A ghost ! ” smiled her listener. ‘ ‘ Better 
 and better. You don’t mean to say you 
 have a ghost here ] Pray who was Mistress 
 Dorothy]” 
 
 “ That’s a long story, sir. I ” 
 
 “ No matter,” he interrupted ; “ sit down 
 and tell it me over a glass of your own 
 good ale. I’m fond of hearing stories.” 
 
 With one more apprehensive glance 
 over her shoulder, as if she feared the ghost 
 would assert itself in person, Mrs. Pugh 
 took the seat her guest proffered, and pro- 
 ceeded to tell her tale. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A sense of mystery the spirit daunted. 
 
 “ You see, sir,” began Mrs. Pugh, “ the 
 Hursts, of Hurst Hall, have been squires 
 of Weirbrook for many and many a gene- 
 ration back. Perhaps you’ve seen the old 
 Hall as you came through the village. 
 No] Well, it’s a place one might miss 
 as soon as see, it’s so shut in by woods. 
 They were strange people, the Hursts, 
 and not over much liked, specially the old 
 squire and his son. It’s the son I’m going 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 to tell you about, he who married Mistress 
 Dorothy. None of the Hursts, so folks 
 say, ever seemed to care to live at the 
 Hall, and yet ’tis a fine old place, and 
 has cost a power o’ money in its time. 
 Mr. Anthony was the only son of the 
 old squire, but he and his father never 
 seemed to agree welL You see Mr. 
 Anthony was a bit wild, and had the true 
 Hurst temper — violent and overbearing — 
 and he and the old man used to quarrel 
 terribly ; so Mr. Anthony oftener than not 
 stayed in London or travelled in foreign 
 parts, when the old squire was at the Hall. 
 Well, the old man died very sudden 
 (all the Hursts mostly do die like that), 
 and Mr. Anthony came back from wherever 
 he was, for the funeral, and when it was all 
 over and things were a bit settled, we 
 thought he’d be leaving the place as usual, 
 for he never made a secret of how he hated 
 it, and how dull he thought it. But this 
 time he did not seem in such a hurry to 
 leave, and yet he had none of his fine 
 friends down from London, nor seemed to 
 do anything to make the time pass more 
 lively. At last a story gob whispered about 
 the place as to how Mr. Anthony had 
 found some attraction to keep him at Hurst. 
 You must know, sir, that about five 
 miles from the old Hall, on the other side 
 of the Hurst property, is a queer old 
 tumbledown-looking place called Weir- 
 hurst, the property of two old maiden 
 ladies of the name of Clyffe. They had 
 living with them at that time a niece, the 
 child of their only brother, who had been 
 killed in the Indian Mutiny. She was a 
 beautiful young lady, and so sweet and 
 good, and they just idolised her. Well, 
 Mr. Anthony had met her somehow, in 
 one of her walks or rides, and made friends 
 with her, and then with the old ladies; 
 and, to make a long story short, we heard 
 he was to be married to Miss Dorothy. 
 Of course every one thought it would 
 be a fine thing for quite a penniless girl 
 like she was, to be mistress of the Hall and 
 lady of Hurst; but somehow it seemed 
 we were all wrong. They were married 
 in London quite privately, and the only 
 time they came to the Hall was about a 
 year after their wedding, and then they 
 only stayed a month, and Mistress Dorothy 
 went nowhere except to see the old ladies 
 at Weirhurst; and one or two that saw 
 her said she was sadly altered, and had 
 quite lost her good looks. After that we 
 saw and heard no more of her till she 
 came back one dreary winter’s night — not 
 
i — 
 
 Charles Dickens.] DOROTHY, WIFE OF . [June 18, 1883.] 5 
 
 to the JIall, where by rights she should 
 have come — but to her old home at Weir- 
 hurst. And there she died.” 
 
 Mrs. Pugh here refreshed herself with a 
 glass of ale, and then proceeded, dropping 
 her voice to a mysterious whisper : 
 
 “ Folks do say Mr. Anthony just broke 
 her heart ; and since her death he’s been 
 wilder and worse than ever. He came 
 down to the funeral, and ’twas he had her 
 buried in that quiet place, not in the vault 
 of the Hursts. And now comes the strangest 
 part of all. That stone for the grave came 
 down from London, and was put up about 
 a month after her death. ’Tis very simple, 
 as you saw, sir ; only a cross, and on it 
 was written ‘Dorothy, wife of Anthony 
 Hurst. * The night after that was fixed was 
 a very wild and stormy one. Next day some 
 lad of the village who’d been up to the 
 churchyard, came back saying that Mistress 
 Dorothy’s stone had had the name struck 
 out. We didn’t believe it at first ; but first 
 one and then another went to see, and true 
 enough the stone was as it is now. There 
 was a great stir and fuss about it, and the 
 clergyman, he wrote to Mr. Anthony, but 
 he had left London again and gone abroad. 
 At last he sent word to let it alone, and so 
 it has remained ever since.” 
 
 “ And what is the general belief about 
 the mystery ! ” enquired Marston Dare, 
 as the story closed, and he looked half 
 amusedly across at his companion’s grave 
 face. 
 
 “ The general belief is, sir, that no mortal 
 hands have struck out that poor lady’s name,” 
 she answered solemnly. “ Perhaps there 
 was some foul play about her death — 
 perhaps her spirit can’t rest in peace ; as 
 his wife, perhaps ” 
 
 “ My good woman,” interrupted Marston 
 Dare with a laugh, “ spirits or ghosts, or 
 whatever you like to call them, can’t use 
 tools, or do mason’s work. Nonsense ! the 
 mystery is connected with some flesh-and- 
 blood apparition of a very material descrip- 
 tion. Only no one has had the pluck to 
 watch and fathom it.” 
 
 Mrs. Pugh shook her head in respectful 
 difference to her guest’s opinions. It was 
 not likely they could change her own, 
 which had been the growth of many years 
 and steady prejudice, and that bovine ob- 
 stinacy which seems indigenous to country- 
 folk. 
 
 There was silence between them for a 
 few moments. Then Marston Dare lifted 
 his thoughtful face, and looked at her. 
 
 “ What has become of the old ladies — 
 
 the aunts!” he asked. “Do they still 
 live at Weirhurst 1 ” 
 
 “One of them does,” she answered — 
 “ the youngest, Mistress Alice Clyffe. 
 The eldest is dead. They were very 
 stately, old-fashioned ladies, and always 
 liked to be called Mistress Clyffe and 
 Mistress Alice. ’Twas the same, too, with 
 Miss Dorothy. Poor young lady ! She 
 was so fair, and so young, and so innocent — 
 it seems cruel to think that she should 
 have had such a fate. And only three- 
 and-twenty when she died ! ” 
 
 “The best thing that could have hap- 
 pened to her, it seems to me,” said Dare 
 gloomily. 
 
 Mrs. Pugh now rose from her chair, and 
 stood twisting the corner of her apron in 
 her plump white fingers. 
 
 “ Is there anything more you would wish 
 for, sir ! ” she enquired, intent once more 
 upon her duties as a hostess. 
 
 “ Nothing, thank you,” he said cour- 
 teously. “ I am much obliged for your 
 story, though — it has interested me 
 greatly.” 
 
 “ You’re quite welcome, I’m sure, sir.” 
 
 She retreated to the door, held it open 
 a moment, cast one hesitating glance at 
 the tall grave figure standing by the table, 
 then came back a step or two. 
 
 “ You don’t believe it was a ghost, then, 
 sir ! ” she said hesitatingly. 
 
 “I do not,” he answered quickly. “I 
 should say it was the work of some mis- 
 chievous, ill-natured person, or ” 
 
 “ Or what, sir 1 ” she asked eagerly. 
 
 “ Or was done by the orders of Mistress 
 Dorothy herself.” 
 
 Mrs. Pugh shook her head and sighed. 
 Her experience of matrimony had taught 
 her that it was never wise to argue with 
 a man. The conviction in her own mind 
 remained unshaken, despite her guest’s 
 opinion; so she deemed it best to retreat 
 and leave him to his own view of the subject, 
 and with an elaborate curtsy she withdrew, 
 leaving Marston Dare to the solitude of the 
 best parlour and the comfort of a cigar. 
 
 He threw open the window and drew 
 the most comfortable chair he could find 
 up to it, and sat there watching the pale 
 rings of smoke float out to the quiet night. 
 
 “ Strange,” he thought to himself, 
 “ strange, to come to an out-of-the-world 
 corner like this, and find myself beset by 
 two disturbing reflections as soon as I 
 arrive ! I wonder why that story has taken 
 such hold on me. It is not half so singular 
 a one, after all, as many I have read, or 
 
6 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 imagined for my books, and yet I cant 
 forget it. Poor, pretty Mistress Dorothy ! 
 
 I wonder what type of woman she was h 
 Something far different, no doubt, to 
 my Lady Lynne. My Lady Lynne ! 
 To-day I wondered that I could have cared 
 for her. Cared ! It was not that — it was 
 a slavish worship of her beauty that held 
 me to her side. But the beauty cannot 
 charm me now that I know the false soul 
 beneath. Pshaw ! she is not worth even a 
 thought. I will go to bed, and sleep, and 
 — forget ! ” 
 
 He threw away the burnt-out cigar, lit 
 his candle, and went up to his room. 
 
 The long journey had fatigued him. The 
 emotional excitement he had experienced, 
 at sight of the woman who had been so 
 dear to him once, now revenged, itself on 
 his physical weakness for its previous stern 
 repression. A pale haggard face looked 
 back to him from the glass on his toilet- 
 table, and almost startled him in its unlike- 
 ness to what it had been a year ago. 
 
 “ No wonder that I lost her love,” he said 
 bitterly. “What a very plain ungilded 
 pill to offer her dainty ladyship. And yet, 
 if she had loved me ” 
 
 He cut short the thought with a con- 
 temptuous laugh. 
 
 “ Shall I dream to-night % ” he muttered, 
 as he blew out the candle, and took one 
 last look at the sloping hills, above which 
 the young moon sailed in tender beauty, 
 From there his eyes turned to the church, 
 standing dusk and solemn above the village 
 street. He could see the dark yew-trees 
 and the low red wall, and the great oak 
 that sheltered that quiet corner with its 
 mystery and its sorrows, crowned by the 
 disfigured cross. 
 
 He dropped the blind abruptly. It 
 seemed almost as if he saw before him the 
 gleaming marble, and the black letters, and 
 the long dark mark that blotted out the 
 name of Anthony Hurst. His last thought, 
 ere sleep sealed his tired eyes and brain, 
 was of the woman whose history he had 
 first traced in that brief record, “Dorothy, 
 wife of ” 
 
 CHAPTER III; 
 
 Veiled loves that shifted shapes and shafts, and 
 gave 
 
 Laughing, strange gifts to hands that durst not 
 crave. 
 
 Day after day drifted on, and the glory 
 of the springtime lay on field and meadow, 
 and wooed the tender buds and blossoms 
 into life, and the dreamy delicious mono- 
 tony of the days as they came and went, 
 
 seemed to lull Marston Dare into a restful 
 content. 
 
 He was too true a lover of Nature not to 
 be charmed with the surroundings whither 
 chance had led him, and he p*ew to love 
 this quiet nook, shut in by hills and dark 
 with woods, and sweet with all the scents 
 of springtime. 
 
 “ Why should I not stay here for a time V } 
 he thought to himself. “I can work as 
 well here as in London.” 
 
 The idea took root in his mind and 
 pleased him. He thought he would see 
 about putting it into execution. He would 
 
 give up his rooms in town, he would 
 
 A sudden thought arrested him. He 
 remembered what Lady Lynne had said 
 about one of her husband’s country-seats 
 being in the neighbourhood. They might 
 meet— in all probability they would meet. 
 What would she think 1 Naturally that 
 it was for her sake he was remaining. 
 He did not feel inclined to minister to her 
 vanity, nor did he desire to renew the 
 old intimacy, whose results had been so 
 disastrous. Yet, on the other hand, why 
 should he sacrifice himself for her sake ? 
 Why turn his back on a spot that had 
 chained his fancy and soothed his restless 
 nature, simply because there was a chance 
 of meeting the woman who had almost 
 broken his heart once 1 
 
 That time seemed far away now — far 
 away, as he looked at his changed face, and 
 thought of his changed feelings. 
 
 He said to himself : “ There is no fear 
 now — I am cured.” And he was right. . 
 
 Acting upon that belief, and the growing 
 attraction that this place had for him, he 
 hesitated no longer. He gave up his 
 London rooms and took two at a farm- 
 house he had discovered in one of his 
 rambles. 
 
 It was a roomy picturesque old place ; 
 one part of the grounds sloped down to the 
 river ; and, as the farmer had a boat, he 
 was able to make long excursions by water 
 as well as by land. The place had another 
 interest for him also. /It almost touched 
 the borders of Weirhurst, and through the 
 thickly-grown trees he could catch a glimpse 
 of the old house with its quaint, red-tiled 
 roof and ivy-covered gables. 
 
 It interested him strangely, this spot, 
 where that sad little romance had had its 
 birth and death. His thoughts were for 
 ever speculating on Mistress Dorothy. But 
 the old house betrayed no signs of life, nor 
 did he ever see a living creature in the 
 grounds. It seemed given over to the 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 7 
 
 ; 5=d 
 
 desolation of age and death. He questioned 
 the old farmer and his wife about the 
 inmates of Weirhurst, but learnt little more 
 than the landlady of The Nelson had told 
 him. The solitary old lady lived there 
 still — seeing no one, going nowhere, and 
 attended only by two old and faithful 
 servants, who had lived there from the 
 time of their youth. With this information 
 he had to be content. He wondered some- 
 times that he was not content ; that his 
 always restless mind had fixed itself with 
 strange pertinacity on the mystery of the 
 tombstone, and, travelling from thence, 
 dwelt with daily increasing interest on the 
 gloomy old house with which that mystery 
 was concerned. He could not account for 
 the interest, but there it was. 
 
 Like many of those psychological pro- 
 blems which defy reason, yet seem to take 
 stronger root in the mind by force of that 
 very defiance, this problem puzzled and 
 haunted Marston Dare. He never looked 
 at the house, with the dense shadows of 
 the woods covering it in so jealously, but 
 he thought also of that evening in the 
 churchyard, and saw again that mutilated 
 inscription. He never floated idly in his 
 boat beneath the drooping willows that 
 fringed the Weirhurst grounds, but he found 
 himself wondering and wondering about 
 the young sad life of the girl whose home 
 had been there. 
 
 He grew a little intolerant at last of the 
 persistence with which this fancy haunted 
 him. He told himself it was a sign of 
 weakness — of want of tone, of mental 
 depression. He tried to shake it off by 
 reading, by exercise, by return to his 
 literary labours. 
 
 In vain. 
 
 Try as he might he could not forget the 
 history he had heard, or prevent himself 
 from haunting the grounds of Weirhurst. 
 
 He gave up the effort at last. He found 
 it too hopeless to combat. He formed 
 instead a new resolve. He would try and 
 fathom the mystery of the tombstone for 
 himself. He would discover why the dead 
 wife had disowned the name of the living 
 husband. 
 
 He formed the resolution suddenly and 
 decidedly ; he formed it, and with it came 
 no terror of fear, no warning of what that 
 decision might bring to him as he groped 
 his way along the road that, led to the 
 mystery. 
 
 A week previously he had known 
 nothing of the woman whose history he 
 had determined to fathom — nothing of the 
 
 character, or story, or object, all of which 
 had leaped into living reality before him — 
 nothing of the shadowy presence which 
 seemed to beckon him through a sea of 
 fathomless mystery to some far-off shore, 
 where he would find — what ? 
 
 The first thing to be done, he told him- 
 self, was to get speech of one of the inmates 
 of Weirhurst itself. From all he could 
 ascertain there were three — the old maiden 
 lady, who was its owner, and the two 
 servants who attended on her. 
 
 Servants as a rule are easily managed. 
 Bribery goes a long way as a persuasive to 
 confidence. 
 
 Should he try bribery ] 
 
 There seemed something mean in the 
 idea as he looked at the stately, solitary 
 old place. He dismissed the thought 
 reluctantly. There was another course to 
 be followed. He might go straight to the 
 fountain-head. He might call on Miss 
 Clyffe herself. True, he would require an 
 excuse, but he had already framed several. 
 From Miss Clyffe he might gain some 
 clue to the mystery. She was old, and 
 doubtless timid and easily persuaded. 
 
 At this juncture a sudden qualm of con- 
 science interposed. It looked to him some- 
 what ignoble to descend to treachery and 
 subterfuge only for the purpose of satisfy- 
 ing his own idle curiosity. What concern 
 of his was this mystery, or why should he 
 seek to push his way into a family secret % 
 
 That was just the question he could not 
 answer ; it only brought him back to the 
 starting-point from whence that curiosity 
 sprang, only showed him through its un- 
 reasoning motives a strange set purpose he 
 could not disguise or resist. In after years 
 he could look back upon this time with a 
 wonder almost fearful, and could see in these 
 fancies and impressions a purpose resolute 
 and defined. He could trace in that self- 
 imposed task the finger of Fate, and see 
 it pointing relentlessly on— on — to the 
 shadowy future — on through doubt, fear, 
 pain, joy, and treachery — onto that brighter 
 and fairer day which spoke out the truth 
 at last. 
 
 While Marston Dare was arguing in his 
 own mind the various pretexts by which 
 he could procure an introduction to Weir- 
 hurst, he was walking along a somewhat 
 unfrequented road, and one which he had 
 never yet travelled. In this new and 
 absorbing interest which had taken posses- 
 sion of him, he had completely forgotten 
 his chances of another rencontre with Lady 
 
 
\ 
 
 :JL 
 
 8 [June 18 , 1883 .] DOROTHY, WIFE OF — . [Conducted by 
 
 Lynne. It was brought suddenly before 
 him, however, by the appearance of that 
 very personage. She was driving a low 
 basket-carriage, and checked her ponies 
 immediately at sight of him. 
 
 Politeness compelled him to speak to 
 her, and her interest and wonder in his 
 prolonged stay roused some secret amuse- 
 ment in his mind. 
 
 “I am bent on a very unpleasant 
 mission,” she said presently. “ Sir Andrew 
 has learnt through some secret source that 
 Weirhurst is in the market, and he wants 
 to purchase it. He has commissioned me 
 to call on the old lady who lives there, and 
 make her a private offer. I don’t like the 
 task. I believe she is half-mad, or ” 
 
 The abrupt stop and the change in her 
 voice were occasioned by the sudden 
 alteration in Marston Dare’s listless face 
 and manner. He raised his head; his eyes 
 grew bright and anxious ; a sudden flush 
 dyed his brow. 
 
 “ You are going to— Weirhurst % ” he 
 said. 
 
 “ Yes ; is there anything very wonderful 
 in that?” she answered slowly, and looking 
 searchingly at him. “ Do you know Miss 
 Clyffe?” 
 
 “ N o,” he said abruptly. “ But — but I 
 have a great desire to see Weirhurst.. It 
 is a — a somewhat remarkable place, is it 
 not » ” 
 
 He was conscious of the lameness of his 
 excuse even before her light laugh fell on 
 his ear. 
 
 “ Remarkable 1 Well, if dust, and cob- 
 webs, and neglect are remarkable, it certainly 
 can boast of possessing them. I never 
 heard of any other claim to interest in the 
 old ramshackle place.” 
 
 “It is not everyone,” said Marston 
 Dare pointedly, “ who finds interest in.red 
 bricks, and modern artifices of floricul- 
 ture.” 
 
 As Lynne Court was of the most modern 
 fashion the shot told. The beautiful 
 mistress blushed hotly, and looked indigna- 
 tion personified, but the calm impertur- 
 bable face beside her never changed. She 
 began to wonder if she were mistaken — 
 perhaps the shot had only been a random 
 one. 
 
 “ And so you are anxious to see Weir- 
 hurst ? ” she resumed. 
 
 Something in her glance, in her tone, 
 told him his wish might be gratified by a 
 word. Something also in that glance told 
 of danger lurking in his consent, warned 
 him from using as a tool the woman who 
 
 had once been queen and mistress of his 
 heart. 
 
 To the warniug he gave no heed ; to 
 the temptation of setting at rest his 
 doubts — of making at least one step for- 
 ward on the road marked out by his own 
 will — he listened. 
 
 His eyes met hers, and saw them sink 
 before his own, but now no throb of heart, 
 no quickening of pulse, no thrill of joy, 
 responded to that sign of tenderness. 
 
 “Yes, most anxious,” he said quickly. 
 
 She moved a little on one side, and 
 pointed to the vacant seat. 
 
 “Will you come with — me 1 ” she said 
 softly. 
 
 An instant’s hesitation — a struggle with 
 himself, but then the purpose he had 
 resolved to follow set aside all scruples as 
 it had set aside all attempts at reason. 
 
 “Yes, if you will allow me,” he said 
 calmly. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 For the old love’s love-sake dead and buried . . . 
 
 They drove along almost in silence. 
 Lady Lynne was not in the least troubled 
 with scruples. She did not care who saw 
 her with this man, but she did care and 
 would have given a great deal to know his 
 motives for accompanying her. 
 
 And yet what motive could there be, 
 she told herself — but one ? 
 
 He could not forget her. Her power 
 was unchanged, and a thrill of guilty 
 triumph ran through her veins as she stole 
 a lingering glance at the pale, grave face 
 by her side. 
 
 He seemed somewhat absent. His eyes 
 looked straight before him, in an absorbed, 
 dreamy fashion, that might, or might not, 
 be flattering to herself. She chose to think 
 it was. 
 
 As they reached the gates of Weirhurst, 
 and he sprang out to hold them open for 
 her, she noted a change in his face that 
 surprised her. For an instant he stood 
 there half in, half out of the entrance, 
 looking up the gloomy, grass-grown avenue 
 as if debating some question with himself. 
 
 She checked the ponies, and looked back 
 at him. “ Are you not coming 1 ” she 
 asked in wonder. 
 
 Her voice seemed to rouse him. He let 
 the gate fall back, and once more took his 
 seat in the pony-carriage. 
 
 “How strange you looked,” she said 
 laughingly. “What were you debating with 
 yourself all that time ? The question of 
 propriety ? ” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 9 
 
 “ Yes,” he said with an odd little smile. 
 
 “ What else could it have been 1 ” 
 
 “ And you have decided in my favour 1 ” 
 
 Her voice was very soft and low, but he 
 caught only the sense of the words — his 
 ears were deaf now to gradations of tone. 
 
 “ In your favour,” he echoed somewhat 
 abruptly. “ Oh yes, of course.” 
 
 They were soon at the house, and she 
 drew up the ponies abruptly. The place 
 looked desolate in the extreme. The walks 
 were neglected, the lawn had long been 
 unmown, and everywhere the dense growth 
 of trees darkened and shut out all bright- 
 ness or life, like a wall of silence. 
 
 As he rang the bell it sounded strangely 
 harsh and loud. The summons was 
 answered by an old white-haired woman. 
 It seemed to Marston Dare that she looked 
 more terrified than startled by the advent 
 of visitors. 
 
 He asked her quietly if her mistress was 
 at home. j 
 
 “ My mistress sees no one,” she answered, 
 glancing nervously from his face to the figure 
 seated in the pony-carriage. “ She is a great 
 invalid.” 
 
 “But this is a matter of importance,” said 
 Dare, staying Lady Lynne’s words with a 
 glance. “I think your mistress would 
 make an exception in favour of this lady. 
 Will you take in her card and see 1 ” 
 
 He handed in the morsel of cardboard 
 which Lady Lynne gave him. 
 
 “Say the call is connected with Weir- 
 hurst,” he added. 
 
 The old woman took the card with 
 evident reluctance, and leaving the door 
 ajar, she went back into the house. 
 
 “ Ugh ! what a place. It is like a grave- 
 yard,” said Lady Lynne with a shiver. “ I 
 am sorry I came. I dare say the old lady 
 won’t see me either. She is insolent or 
 eccentric enough for anything.” 
 
 Her companion was silent. His ears were 
 strained, and his heart was beating with an 
 anxiety that astonished himself. Would 
 they be admitted ? 
 
 Slowly and heavily the footsteps had 
 retreated, slowly and heavily they echoed 
 back, as if that same reluctance weighted 
 them. 
 
 The door was opened a little wider. 
 “ My mistress will see the lady,” said the 
 woman grimly. 
 
 Marston Dare started. It was not the 
 consent that surprised him, it was the 
 check to himself. He was evidently not 
 expected to enter the mysterious mansion 
 also. To all intents and purposes he was 
 
 as far off as ever from the object he had in 
 view. 
 
 Lady Lynne, however, rose to the occa- 
 sion in a manner that did her credit. 
 
 “Is there no one who can hold my 
 ponies 1 ” she said so haughtily, that the 
 woman, mindful, perhaps, of better days, 
 and what was due to rank and station, 
 muttered a hasty apology, and summoned 
 her husband. 
 
 A man, grey and ancient as herself, 
 hobbled into sight, and stood at the ponies’ 
 heads. Then Lady Lynne made a sign 
 to Dare to follow her, and they entered 
 the gloomy old house. The hall was very 
 dark, and the room opening out of it, and 
 into which they were conducted, was just 
 as dark, for the blinds were drawn as if 
 to keep out the sunlight, and hangings 
 and furniture were alike of the most 
 sombre hue. Seated by the fireplace, with 
 her back to the light, and shrouded, so it 
 seemed, in nun-like draperies, was the 
 figure of a woman. 
 
 It was some time before Marston Dare’s 
 eyes grew accustomed to the obscurity, 
 but when they did, he only saw a pale 
 face, framed in by bands of snowy hair, and 
 surmounted by some arrangement of cloudy 
 black lace that effectually disguised both 
 head and features. The hands, that were 
 folded on her lap, were covered with 
 mittens, and his eyes, as they wandered 
 from the shrouded face to the shrouded 
 hands, noted that the fingers were beauti- 
 fully white and slender, and that they 
 clasped and unclasped each other nervously 
 as she spoke. 
 
 She made no attempt to rise at their 
 entrance, only bowed in stately and 
 somewhat distant fashion, and glanced 
 at the card in her hand as if awaiting 
 explanation. 
 
 Lady Lynne looked somewhat em- 
 barrassed. 
 
 “ Miss Clyffe, I presume 1 ” she interro- 
 gated. 
 
 Another bow answered in the affirma- 
 tive. 
 
 Lady Lynne resented the strange 
 reception by assuming her haughtiest and 
 most freezing manner. She stated the 
 reason for her call in as few words as 
 possible, and to Marston Dare her tone 
 seemed almost insolent. 
 
 The old lady’s eyes were concealed by 
 spectacles ; she never once raised them to 
 her visitor’s face ; only the slender fingers 
 clasped and unclasped themselves from 
 time to time. Dare felt indignant at his 
 
10 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 DOEOTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 companion’s manner — doubly indignant, 
 because he feared that only stress of 
 poverty was inducing the old lady to part 
 with her home, and he felt instinctively 
 that she was suffering pain and humilia- 
 tion at this cool bargaining. He inter- 
 posed now between Lady Lynne’s expla- 
 nation and the answer it required. He 
 explained the matter in words more deli- 
 cate, and infinitely more explicit. Miss 
 Clyffe listened to him as she had done 
 to her other visitor, only, as his voice 
 ceased, she gave one quick glance at his 
 face, and her own seemed warmed by a 
 faint flush, it might have been of anger, 
 or surprise, or indignation. Marston Dare 
 could not tell. 
 
 “ Your husband, I presume % ” she said, 
 turning her head in the direction of Lady 
 Lynne. 
 
 The surprise of her words was not so 
 great or so embarrassing to Marston Dare 
 as the sound of her voice. It was a 
 singular voice, very low, very sad, and her 
 words dropped in a slow deliberate fashion 
 that told of great self-restraint, or 
 
 That other suggestion, flashing in swift 
 startling fashion to Marston Dare’s brain, 
 held him almost breathless for an instant. 
 In that instant Lady Lynne’s crimson 
 face had been averted — it was her voice 
 that roused him. 
 
 “Oh no, only a friend staying in the 
 village.” 
 
 “ You are staying in the village,” said 
 the old lady in the same deliberate 
 manner. “You are a stranger here 
 then ? ” 
 
 “ Yes,” he answered quickly, and trying 
 in vain to meet her eyes. 
 
 “ Do you stay long ? ” she asked again. 
 
 This curiosity as to himself, and the 
 complete ignoring of Lady Lynne’s ex- 
 planation of her visit, struck Dare as 
 being very strange. 
 
 But everything around and about Weir- 
 hurst was that. Why should he expect 
 the mistress to be different from her sur- 
 roundings 1 
 
 “I am thinking of staying all the 
 summer,” he said quietly. “The place is 
 beautiful, and it interests me.” 
 
 “ I should not have thought there was 
 much to interest any stranger in Weir- 
 hurst or its neighbourhood,” she said. * Her 
 vcrice was less deliberate. To Dare it 
 seemed as if the low, even tones were 
 shaken and unsteady. Yet what had he 
 said to agitate her 1 
 
 An impatient movement from Lady 
 
 Lynne recalled him to the object of their 
 visit. 
 
 “ Am I at liberty to inform Sir Andrew 
 that you accept his offer 1 ” she asked 
 haughtily. . 
 
 The old lady started as if her thoughts 
 were far away from the subject. 
 
 “ I — I scarcely know. I mean I must 
 have time to consider,” she said hesitat- 
 ingly. 
 
 Lady Lynne looked at her with sublime 
 contempt. 
 
 “We have no wish to hurry you,” she 
 said coolly, “ only Sir Andrew thought 
 that it might be more agreeable to settle 
 the matter privately, and I scarcely fancy 
 you will better his offer.” 
 
 At the insolent words Marston Dare’s 
 eyes flashed with indignation. He felt he 
 hated the one woman as much as he pitied 
 the other. As he looked at that “ other,” 
 he saw a scarlet flush leap from chin to 
 brow, he saw the head draw itself up in 
 sudden stately pride, and over the quiet 
 face glowed a defiance beyond all words. 
 
 But sudden as was the change, sudden 
 also was its suppression. With a quiet 
 bow the mistress of Weirhurst laid her 
 hand on the bell, and dismissed her visitors 
 by two words — “ Good-morning.” 
 
 Marston Dare followed his companion to 
 the door, more enraged and indignant than 
 he had ever felt in his life. Whatever 
 hopes he had cherished, whatever object 
 he had set before him as he obeyed the 
 impulse that had bid him accompany Lady 
 Lynne, he knew that he had gained neither 
 — that he left Weirhurst more dissatisfied, 
 more bewildered than he had entered it. 
 
 In silence he took his seat and dropped 
 a crown intp the palm of the grey old 
 servitor ; in silence he listened to his com- 
 panion’s indignant complaints of incivility; 
 in silence he opened the gates and saw the 
 carriage pass through and on to the shady 
 road beyond. 
 
 Then he raised his hat, and echoing only 
 the two words that had spoken their recent 
 dismissal, he turned on his heel and walked 
 across a field that skirted the woods of 
 Weirhurst, leaving his companion gazing 
 after him in astonishment. 
 
 “He has gone crazy, surely,” she ex- 
 claimed, watching with angry eyes the 
 retreating figure. “ The air of that place 
 must have affected his brain.” 
 
 Perhaps it had. 
 
 In any case he felt that her presence 
 maddened him at that moment, and with- 
 out excuse or warning he left her. 
 
1 
 
 t- 
 
 ■ fc, 
 
 Charles Dickens.] DOKOTHY, WIFE OF . [June 18, 1883.] 11 
 
 It was early noon when Marston Dare 
 quitted Weirhurst; it was late evening 
 when he once again found himself haunt- 
 ing its precincts. He had taken the little 
 boat and rowed down to that part of the 
 grounds which bordered on the river. 
 
 The air was very still ; the sky held all 
 the pale rose and primrose tints of fading 
 sunset. 
 
 Under the drooping willow-boughs it 
 was dark almost as night, and Dare ceased 
 rowing, and fastening his boat to an over- 
 hanging branch, leant idly back, looking 
 up through the thick plantation that hid 
 the house. 
 
 Now that he could look calmly back on 
 the events of the morning and weigh the 
 impulse that had sent him to Weirhurst, 
 his action looked somewhat irrational. 
 What had he expected to gain ? He could 
 not tell. What had he gained ? Simply 
 nothing. 
 
 The little boat lay idly in the shadows, 
 and the eyes of its occupant wandered as 
 idly over the shining waters and turned 
 from thence to the half-hidden path which 
 the trees seemed doing their best to hide. 
 Suddenly their glance was arrested by 
 some movement beyond. Dare could not 
 quite say what it was ; it might have been 
 the flutter of a garment. He at first had 
 thought so, but it disappeared so rapidly 
 that he could not be sure. His eyes, now 
 intent and anxious, watched the path with 
 a new interest. Again, and nearer now, 
 came the same flutter among the shrouding 
 leaves ; dim as was the light, Dare could 
 see a figure walking rapidly along — a 
 woman’s figure in draperies of flowing 
 black ; a figure with nothing of the decre- 
 pitude of age in its rapid movements, and 
 yet one that bore some strange resem- 
 blance to that of the woman whom he had 
 seen that morning in the old oak parlour 
 at Weirhurst. 
 
 Startled and breathless Dare leant 
 forward. The branches hid him from 
 sight; the unconscious figure came on, 
 unwitting that the solitude of this most 
 solitary place held an intruder. On, still 
 on, and Dare saw that his surmise had been 
 correct. The form and figure were those 
 of Mistress Clyffe. He saw the white 
 hair, the shrouding laces ; but he saw too 
 with a thrill of something like fear, that 
 while the woman in the parlour had borne 
 every appearance of extreme age, this 
 woman, who bore her likeness, had yet 
 no resemblance to the feeble and decrepit 
 figure he remembered. The walk, the 
 
 rapid movements, the gestures which 
 dashed stormily aside every obstacle made 
 by clinging creeper, or outstretched bough, 
 were those of youth. 
 
 Youth ! And yet from all accounts the 
 mistress of Weirhurst must be full three- 
 score years. The woman he had taken for 
 the mistress of Weirhurst that morning 
 had been so to all appearance. Who, then, 
 was this 1 
 
 Her rapid movements had brought her 
 close to the river, before his startled senses 
 had fully grasped the fact of her identity. 
 
 Keeping perfectly still he watched her 
 with an intentness that took in every 
 detail of her face and figure, and — disguise. 
 Yes, disguise ; for, with the rapidity of 
 lightning, the truth rushed to his mind. 
 There must be two inmates of Weirhurst, 
 and one of these evidently concealed her 
 existence and her name for some purpose 
 of her own. 
 
 Had that concealment anything to do 
 with the mystery of the tombstone ? Had 
 
 it % He paused. The woman was still 
 
 standing looking at the river. The sombre 
 figure, the gleam of the white hair, had in 
 them something weird and strange that 
 repelled — chilled — and yet attracted him. 
 
 For an instant looking at the silent 
 woman with her pale set face and down- 
 cast eyes, he thought of Mrs. Pugh’s 
 words : “ No mortal hand struck out that 
 name, ’twas Mistress Dorothy’s ghost.” 
 
 A little chill wind crept up, and along 
 the banks, and rustled among the willow- 
 boughs with an eerie, mournful sound. The 
 chill seemed to steal into Marston Dare’s 
 veins. He shuddered and drew his hand 
 across his eyes. When his hand dropped 
 — when he looked again at the spot where 
 the woman had stood, no one was there. 
 
 Too startled by that sudden disappear- 
 ance to move or utter a sound, Marston 
 Dare remained staring in a bewilderment 
 that was almost ludicrous. As soon as he 
 came to himself he released his boat, and 
 with a few rapid strokes reached the 
 place. 
 
 No one was there. No sign of human 
 presence or of human life. No sound of 
 retreating feet — nothing but the faint sigh 
 of the wind, and the plash of the water 
 against the bank. 
 
 “ Am I dreaming — or mad 1 ” he mut- 
 tered to himself. 
 
 He could not shake off this strange feel- 
 ing, that was not fear, and yet not fearless ; 
 he could not forget that sombre figure, 
 that white, wild face looking down into the 
 
 J 
 
 r 
 
c£ 
 
 12 [June 18, 188B.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 dark waters. Sceptic as he was in all 
 matters supernatural, there was something 
 about this meeting that awed and puzzled 
 him. 
 
 Rousing himself at last he took his way 
 homewards. The mystery was deepening, 
 but more than ever did he resolve to 
 fathom it. The idea that had flashed into 
 his mind as he saw that second woman 
 with her likeness to the first, only 
 deepened and strengthened the more he 
 thought of it. 
 
 “ I shall find it out if I stay here all 
 my life / 7 he muttered with the firmness of 
 baffled reason, and the doggedness of a 
 sure resolve. 
 
 All his life ! 
 
 Ah, one day how those words would 
 haunt him, how their bitterness and im- 
 potence would mock the strength that 
 now he thought so sure ! 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 Born out of hope toward what shall yet be done, 
 
 Ere hate or love remember or forget. 
 
 A few days passed on uneventfully. 
 
 Lady Lynne had apparently been for- 
 giving enough to excuse Dare’s rudeness at 
 their last meeting, for she sent him an 
 invitation to dinner, and he, from sheer 
 want of a feasible excuse, accepted it. 
 Besides, he wanted to hear if there had 
 been any further negotiations respecting 
 Weirhurst. 
 
 He therefore went to the red-brick, pre- 
 tentious - looking structure which Lady 
 Lynne had termed “ one of Sir Andrew’s 
 places,” and was regaled with a magnifi- 
 cence that amused, but failed to impress him 
 at all favourably with the giver of the feast. 
 
 It was all show, and glitter, and hollow- 
 ness, he felt. Sir Andrew was a short, 
 stout, loud-voiced man, one of that new 
 order of knights, who gain their honours 
 from amazing wealth, or force of circum- 
 stance. He had a vast notion of the ; power 
 of money, and but a poor opinion of 
 people who devoted their brains to any 
 other object than that of amassing it. 
 However, there was little in common 
 between himself and his guest. 
 
 When the long, stately meal was over, 
 Lady Lynne played and sang to them in 
 the great glittering drawing-room. Her 
 guest listened abstractedly — her husband 
 dozed in his chair. At last she left the 
 piano and came over to one of the windows 
 opening on the terrace. 
 
 4 ‘Would you like to come out 1 ?” she 
 asked her guest. 
 
 He answered readily in the affirmative. 
 She caught up some light fleecy shawl 
 lying on one of the lounges, and throwing 
 it over her head and shoulders, stepped 
 out on to the terrace with him. 
 
 The night was balmy as summer. The 
 moon gleamed like silver over the trees 
 and smooth green leaves and quaint 
 flower-beds. It was a time and season for 
 sentiment had Marston Dare been dis- 
 posed for it, but he was not. Every time 
 tie saw this woman he grew more and more 
 disenchanted. He began to see, like most 
 people, that sublime as love is, it is a very 
 blindfolding passion after all. 
 
 Yet there is something pathetic about 
 that very blindness. With what simplicity 
 and faith we worship our clay idols, believ- 
 ing them to be the very purest gold. The 
 wisest and best of us are helpless at such 
 times, nor can argument or reason assure 
 us of our own amazing folly. 
 
 In vain Lady Lynne laid traps for 
 tender reminiscences — in vain her voice 
 sank to its sweetest and most seductive 
 tones. The man by her side was proof 
 against all her wiles. He felt cold and un- 
 touched now, and marvelled at himself. 
 
 It was with some difficulty he approached 
 the real object of his visit, for he had to 
 bear with Lady Lynne’s reproaches at his 
 desertion of her on that morning, and 
 invent excuses for it. He learnt at last, 
 however, that nothing had yet been settled. 
 Miss Clyffe was ill, and could not make up 
 her mind as to whether she would part 
 with it or not. He felt reassured by 
 this information. Perhaps he showed his 
 relief in some way, for Lady Lynne said 
 laughingly : 
 
 “ One would think there was some 
 beautiful damsel immured in that dreary 
 old habitation, you take such an interest 
 in it.” 
 
 On his way home he thought of those 
 words, and thought, too, how strangely 
 they fitted in with that dim suspicion 
 floating in his mind. 
 
 He had insisted on walking, despite all 
 offers of a conveyance on the part of his 
 host and hostess. 
 
 The cool air refreshed him ; the scents 
 of the flowering hedgerows and fragrant 
 meadows seemed strangely sweet. 
 
 One night Dare shut up his books and 
 left the farm for a stroll. He had been 
 working hard, and felt disinclined for bed. 
 He looked at his watch ; it was half-past 
 eleven. 
 
 “I should have time to walk to the 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 13 
 
 village,” he thought, and then wondered 
 why he had thought it. 
 
 He walked on. Though he had said 
 “the village,” he knew it was not only 
 to the village his mind led the way, and 
 his feet were speeding. He knew even 
 before the old grey church met his eyes, 
 standing silent as the silent night, with its 
 dark square tower outlined against the 
 quiet sky. He had unlatched the gate and 
 walked across the soft greensward ere ever 
 he asked himself what purpose had led 
 him here. The sloping path by which he 
 entered faced the entrance to the church. 
 From where he stood, half the churchyard 
 only was in view. The other half — where 
 lay that mysterious grave — was not visible 
 unless he walked round the church. He 
 stood for a moment, looking, as once before 
 he had looked, at the quiet village, the 
 sloping hills, the dark curve of the woods. 
 
 A cloud obscured the moon, and for a 
 moment or two the whole place lay in 
 shadow. It was at that moment that the 
 clock in the tower struck the hour of 
 midnight. 
 
 As the last stroke echoed dull and long 
 over the stillness which reigned in that 
 region of death, Marston Dare stepped out 
 from the shadow, and skirting the church, 
 found himself facing the spot he knew so 
 well, and which held for him so strange 
 an attraction. 
 
 The moon was still hidden, and the old 
 oak boughs spread themselves in sheltering 
 care over the marble cross. Between him 
 and it lay a gravel path, and beyond that 
 
 path, and bending over the grave, was 
 
 A shadow ? No, not a shadow. At first 
 he had thought so, as he had stopped, 
 startled and dismayed. But he saw it was 
 a woman’s figure — a black, motionless 
 form, with face turned from him — the 
 figure of a woman, alone and unprotected, 
 standing here at this lonely midnight hour 
 beside this lonely grave. 
 
 Gifted with nerves as strong as most 
 men possess, yet Dare felt a strange 
 shuddering awe creep over him as he stood 
 and watched her. 
 
 For the life of him he could not move a 
 step forward. It seemed as if the very 
 springs of his life were chilled by this fear 
 — this expectance of something — he could 
 not tell what. He only knew he stood 
 there waiting — waiting for what seemed 
 to him long hours of strange and chill 
 dismay. 
 
 The woman had her back turned to him. 
 His footsteps had made no sound on the 
 
 soft turf. She was quite unconscious that 
 she was not alone. Suddenly a low half- 
 stifled cry escaped her ; she sank upon her 
 knees beside the grave, and laid her head 
 on the turf that covered it. 
 
 “ Oh, my dear, my dear ! ” she wailed. 
 
 “ Oh, to be at rest with you — to be at rest 
 with you!” 
 
 The cry faltered and sank low ; but, 
 distressing as it was, it came like an abso- 
 lute relief to Marston Dare. It seemed to 
 release him from that paralysis of thought 
 and action, which had held him chained 
 inertly by the ivied wall. 
 
 He crossed the space; he reached the 
 grave; he neared the crouching figure, 
 with its downcast head and sweeping 
 sombre garments. But then he stopped, 
 arrested less by that low faint cry of 
 deadly terror than by sight of the face 
 uplifted to him in its ghastly fear in the 
 white gleaming moonlight. 
 
 He knew then what his suspicion had 
 been. He knew then how far he had 
 followed it. But he had never dreamed 
 how base and unmanly a thing it would 
 look, even in his own sight, till he saw the 
 fear change to defiance in those dark 
 startled eyes — till he found himself con- 
 fronted by a woman like and yet unlike 
 the woman he had thought to find. 
 
 “ What do you want ? ” she asked 
 abruptly. 
 
 The question was so unexpected, so un- 
 answerable, that he only stood there look- 
 ing at her in bewildered silence. 
 
 “I — I beg your pardon for disturbing 
 you,” he stammered at last. The sound 
 of his voice gave him courage. “ The 
 churchyard is free to all, I believe,” he 
 added. 
 
 “ At this time, at this hour,” she mut- 
 tered. “ You — you came here with some 
 purpose. You followed me.” 
 
 “ Why should you think I am a spy ?” 
 he asked gently. 
 
 He was looking at her in ever-increasing 
 wonder — wonder at the beauty of the 
 white wasted face, so young and yet so 
 sorrowful ; wonder at the dainty, slender 
 stature, the great, frightened, sombre eyes. 
 Who was she 1 
 
 Her glance fell. Her fingers trembled 
 as she clasped them together ; her breath 
 came and went in stormy pants that bespoke 
 terrible agitation. 
 
 That fear appealed to all that was 
 noblest and manliest in Marston Dare. He 
 put aside his intense curiosity, he crushed 
 his voice to a quietness and composure 
 
1 4 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 that surprised even himself and insensibly 
 quieted her. 
 
 “ I regret that I have startled you,” he 
 said. “The night was so warm and 
 fine it tempted me to take a stroll. This 
 churchyard is a favourite place of mine. 
 I came here. That is all my explana- 
 tion.” 
 
 “ A singular taste to come to a church- 
 yard at midnight,” she said. 
 
 “Yet a taste you seem to share in 
 common with myself.” 
 
 Her eyes looked down at the grave at 
 her feet. 
 
 “ Someone I loved very dearly is buried 
 there,” she said simply. 
 
 Dare started visibly. 
 
 Did she mean — was it really Dorothy 
 Clyffe who lay there under the sod ? or was 
 this neither the woman he had supposed, 
 nor the ostensible mistress of Weirhurst ? 
 
 Her eyes travelled back from the grave 
 to his face, and rested there earnestly and 
 long. 
 
 “ You are quite a stranger here, I think 
 you said ? ” she murmured dreamily. 
 
 He had not said it to her, so he sup- 
 posed, but he did not deny the fact. He 
 assented to it, and added something of 
 the interest awakened in him by the 
 inscription on the tombstone whose secret 
 she shared. 
 
 As he mentioned it a scarlet flush burned 
 in her face, making it young and beautiful 
 as a girl’s. 
 
 “You thought it strange,” she echoed 
 nervously, twisting and untwisting the 
 fingers of her ungloved hands as she spoke. 
 “ Why should you ? ” 
 
 “It must appear singular, you will 
 admit, that an inscription to a wife’s 
 memory should have her husband’s name 
 struck out, and that the mystery has never 
 been solved,” he answered. 
 
 A little bitter laugh left her lips. She 
 gathered up her cloudy draperies, and 
 turned as if to go. 
 
 “ May I not see you on your way ? ” 
 pleaded Dare eagerly. “ The hour is very 
 late and the roads lonely.” 
 
 “ I am not afraid of late hours or lonely 
 roads,” she said mournfully. “ No one 
 molests the — dead.” 
 
 “ The dead ! ” he echoed. And again 
 that chill and tremor crept over his frame, 
 and he thought of the mysterious figure he 
 had seen by the river-bank. 
 
 His words seemed to shock her. She 
 hesitated and looked back. 
 
 “ Did I say that ? ” she asked timidly. 
 
 “ I forgot. I am so much alone ; I am not 
 used to strangers. But you — oh, sir, you 
 look kind ! You look as if a woman might 
 trust you. Don’t force yourself on me ; 
 don’t follow me ; don’t ” — and she came 
 near and laid her cold hands on his arm, 
 “don’t tell any one you have seen me. 
 Promise that.” 
 
 “I promise you,” he answered slowly. 
 “ I promise you all the more readily 
 because I have not the faintest idea myself 
 whom — I — have — seen.” 
 
 She drew a sudden quick breath of 
 relief. Her eyes looked up to him grate- 
 fully, wonderingly, and was it regretfully? 
 
 He almost thought so. 
 
 “ I — I think I can trust you,” she said 
 softly. 
 
 For all answer he laid his hand upon 
 the marble cross by which they stood. 
 
 “I swear by this,” he said solemnly, 
 “ by this memory of — Dorothy Clyffe— that 
 I will never reveal what I have learnt 
 to-night until she permits.” 
 
 “ Until — she — permits,” faltered his 
 companion. “Do you forget? Do you 
 not know that Dorothy Clyffe is ” 
 
 “ Hush ! ” he said solemnly. “ What 
 others believe has nothing to do with us 
 from this night forth. I know, and so do 
 you, that for some reason of her own she 
 has died to the world, to her friends, to 
 her husband.” 
 
 A low wild cry cut short his words. 
 
 “You know — you know!” she gasped, 
 and sank at his feet and hid her face in 
 her shuddering hands — down, down upon 
 the dewy turf that told to all the world — 
 a lie ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 As love might rule over death. 
 
 The old church clock had struck the 
 hour of midnight as Marston Dare stepped 
 out from the shadows and stood beside the 
 mysterious grave. The same clock struck 
 the first hour of a new day as he left the 
 churchyard with the woman, whom by that 
 grave he had met. 
 
 He had entered that churchyard with no 
 very definite purpose, and with an un- 
 reasonable curiosity burning in his veins ; 
 he left it with a life changed and set to 
 one end. And yet he knew that to explain 
 this change in himself would have been 
 well-nigh impossible. Even to his own 
 mind it looked quixotic, foolish, unnecessary, 
 but the bias of the mind is an argument in 
 itself, and one strong enough, as a rule, to 
 overthrow all the rules of logic. He had 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 not been able to reason himself out of that 
 resolve to fathom the mystery of the tomb- 
 stone. He was not able to reason himself 
 out of this determination to guard the 
 secret and protect the life of the woman 
 whose story had been told to him by her 
 own lips, beside her own grave. 
 
 His own suspicions had been far enough 
 from the reality ; his own idea had been 
 that Dorothy Clyffe was living at Weir- 
 hurst, under the protection of her aunt. 
 But he had learnt from Dorothy Clyffe’s 
 own lips that she had simply changed places 
 with the supposed mistress of Weirhurst. 
 While Alice Dorothy Clyffe, the aunt, lay 
 buried under the oak shadows, Dorothy 
 Clyffe, the niece, had assumed her identity, 
 and was living at the old house unsuspected 
 and unknown save by the two old faithful 
 servants who shared and preserved her 
 secret. j 
 
 And the reason 1 
 
 Ah ! That reason it was, with its strange 
 history of shame and sorrow and despair, 
 that had aroused in Marston Dare’s breast 
 an indignation so fierce, a chivalry so 
 ardent, a pity so great, for this friendless, 
 lonely woman. 
 
 He had looked at the worn face, 
 with all its lovely youth stamped by sorrow 
 and suffering. He had heard the broken 
 voice, sweet as no woman’s voice had ever 
 seemed to him, breathing out its tale of 
 wrong, its burden of dread, and he had 
 been ready enough to acknowledge that 
 her concealment and deception had been 
 after all but an outcome of fear that had 
 snatched at any excuse for safety. In her 
 own words the story had reached his ears — 
 in her own words it lives on these pages. 
 
 “ Don’t betray me,” she had gasped when 
 the terrible fear of his words had struck 
 her almost senseless at his feet. “Oh, 
 don’t — don’t betray me. I don’t know 
 who you are. I don’t know how you came 
 to know me, but promise me you won’t 
 give me up to him. I would sooner face 
 death — nay, I would sooner force death 
 than live through such days as those from 
 which — this — saved me.” 
 
 She pointed to the cross by which they 
 stood, and great tears gathered in her 
 eyes and fell one by one down the white 
 wasted cheeks. Those tears unmanned 
 Dare. He could not bear the sight of her 
 weakness — her distress. He besought her 
 to say no more, to believe that her secret 
 was safe with him; but she checked her 
 emotion, and wiped the tears from her 
 eyes, and facing him there, with her hand 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 15 
 
 on the marble cross, told him the story of 
 her ruined life. 
 
 “ If you have heard of me at all,” she 
 said, “ you have heard of my marriage— my 
 grand marriage, but you could never have 
 heard how in one year of that life I grew 
 to envy the poorest, weariest creature 
 begging her bread in the. London streets, 
 who was free. I married, believing myself 
 in love, ready to give duty, honour, 
 reverence, to the man I called husband. I 
 found — oh, Heaven, pardon him ! — I found 
 myself tied to a drunkard, a rou6, a man 
 with a life of vice behind him which he 
 unfolded triumphantly before my shrinking 
 eyes — with neither self-respect, nor honour, 
 nor conscience, and this man ! — I, a girl 
 of seventeen, reared in country innocence, 
 and purity, and simplicity — this man I was 
 bound to live with for life. 
 
 “I cannot tell you — I could not even tell 
 myself now — what those two years of 
 marriage were to me. I felt myself steeped 
 in moral degradation. I grew to abhor 
 myself as well as the man to whose 
 brief passion I owed my position. In 
 a month he had wearied of me — in a 
 month I was no more to him than any of 
 the poor victim# whose hearts and lives he 
 had ruined. I kept my misery to myself. 
 My aunts believed me happy. It would 
 have broken their tender hearts to know 
 the truth. At last I think I was well-nigh 
 mad. Mind and body were giving way 
 beneath the strain. I was not a woman of 
 the world, remember. I knew absolutely 
 nothing of life and its sins and follies and 
 recklessness — such life as was daily 
 before my eyes. We were constantly 
 travelling about, sometimes in Paris, some- 
 times in Vienna, sometimes in Rome, some- 
 times in London. It was in Rome, I 
 think, that the knowledge of my real 
 position burst upon me, that the baseness 
 and treachery of Anthony Hurst was 
 revealed. It was winter, and the city was 
 very gay, and my husband was always 
 away from home, and rarely if ever took 
 me with him. Rumours reached me 
 sometimes of some beautiful foreign woman 
 with whom he was always seen, but I 
 cared little for that ; I dreaded his 
 presence, and was almost thankful for any 
 attraction that left me free from his 
 brutality and insults. But one day, with- 
 out word or warning, he left Rome and he 
 left me. 
 
 “ I think I went mad for a time. I know 
 I dismissed my servants, and took what 
 money there was left, and came alone, 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
1 6 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 unprotected, back to England, nor ever 
 rested, day or night, till I found myself once 
 more in my childhood’s home. Bat that 
 was changed too, and only one face and 
 voice greeted me, instead of the two dear 
 ones I had left. Aunt Marian had died, 
 and Aunt Alice was so old and feeble that 
 the shock of seeing me so changed threw 
 her into a dangerous illness. But of that 
 I knew nothing. From the time of my 
 arrival at Weirhurst all is a blank for the 
 space of two weeks.. After that I seemed 
 to wake quite suddenly, as one wakes after 
 a very long sleep. It was dusk, I re- 
 member, and I lay with my eyes open for 
 some time, trying dreamily to remember 
 Inhere I was. Then a strange sort of 
 oppression seemed to weigh on me. I 
 tried to move my limbs, but they seemed 
 swathed in tight wrappings. A scent of 
 flowers was heavy on the air. My bed — 
 oh, shall I ever forget the horror of that 
 moment ! — my bed was so narrow and hard 
 that I could not even turn. With a struggle 
 I raised myself to a sitting position. Oppo- 
 site me was a mirror, and as I met my 
 own reflection there, I saw a ghastly 
 face bound in strange white folds. I saw 
 the scattered flowers upon my breast fall 
 on the bare oak floor. I saw the face of a 
 living woman looking at me from the 
 coffin where a dead woman had been 
 laid. 
 
 “ I wonder now I did not die then, in the 
 fear and shock of that discovery. I rose, 
 how I cannot tell; I dragged my feeble 
 limbs across the room. I tore off the 
 hideous bands and folds around my head. 
 I stood there, with my hair streaming 
 wildly round me, and my scared white 
 face looking at me with a horrible unlike- 
 ness to the face I knew as mine, and while 
 I so stood the door opened, and on the 
 threshold stood — my aunt. 
 
 “ Heaven knows what my own fear had 
 been, but what must have been hers ! I 
 heard one wild shriek pealing through the 
 silent house, and I caught in my arms the 
 strengthless, lifeless form of the only 
 friend I had in the world. 
 
 “ Need I say" more 1 Can you guess 
 now the sequel that leads to our meeting 
 to - night ; that explains why Dorothy 
 Clyffe lives, yet is to all intents and 
 purposes dead. 
 
 “ The shock killed my aunt, but it was I 
 who was supposed to be dead ; I for whom 
 the certificate had been made out ; I who 
 was laid at rest here. When I could 
 
 convince the old and terrified servants of 
 my identity, of my being really alive, I heard 
 of my strange illness ; of my long insensi- 
 bility that had been mistaken for death, 
 and of my aunt’s grief and despair. And 
 then — then came into my mind the scheme 
 which I have followed. I was believed to 
 be dead. I knew my cruel husband could 
 never molest me more. Do you wonder 
 that I snatched at such a chance I might 
 live on here as Alice Clyffe, and no one 
 would suspect me. I had simply to dis- 
 guise myself and dress myself as my aunt ; 
 the old servants loved me too well ever to 
 betray my secret, and as Alice Clyffe I have 
 lived unknown and unsuspected up to this 
 time.” 
 
 Her voice ceased, her story was ended. 
 
 In the silence that followed she looked 
 up at her companion’s face with sad and 
 pleading eyes. 
 
 “ Say you are sorry for me ; you will 
 be my friend; you will not betray me,” 
 she implored, and held out^ her hands to 
 him. 
 
 For all answer he took the small, cold, 
 outstretched hands in his own, and touched 
 them earnestly with his lips. 
 
 “ I pity you with all my soul,” he said. 
 “ Your friend, you said — may I be that 1 ” 
 
 “ If — if you will,” she faltered. 
 
 “ Thank you,” he said simply, and placed 
 the little hand on his arm, and went with 
 her, slowly, reverently, through the quiet 
 paths, while above their heads the morning 
 star shone clear and bright, as the dawn 
 broke over the dusky hills. 
 
 A new day was breaking — a new day 
 that marked for Marston Dare a new 
 interest in his hard and lonely life. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Sweet for a little, even to fear, and sweet, 
 
 Oh Love, to lay down fear at Love’s fair feet. 
 
 Marston Dare left his companion at 
 her own gates, but left her after a promise 
 that she would receive him the next day if 
 he called. 
 
 He went home then, and let himself into 
 the farmhouse, and threw himself down 
 on his bed in a state of bewilderment that 
 defied all calm consideration. 
 
 What had he done ? What had he learnt 1 
 How had the whole aspect of his life 
 changed so utterly and suddenly 1 
 
 He thought of that evening when he 
 had wandered idly into the churchyard, 
 when his eyes had rested on that strange 
 inscription. He had not asked his strange 
 companion why she had chosen to deface 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF . 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 17 
 
 the name it bore, but he could guess the 
 reason well enough. Some morbid feeling 
 — some impulsive horror of that printed lie 
 must have seized her, and forced her in an 
 indignant moment to strike out from sight 
 of men the name she hated. Of the risk 
 she ran, the curiosity such an action 
 would excite, she never thought. The one 
 man to whom alone belonged the right of 
 replacing it had treated the matter with 
 utter indifference. The defaced tomb- 
 stone stood alone, bearing its silent witness 
 to the tale of sorrow and despair that 
 Marston Dare had learnt that night. 
 
 In his own mind he never for one 
 instant blamed the woman who had acted 
 thus. Chance had thrown in her way a 
 prospect of release from her bondage. 
 She had seized it, and no living soul ever 
 suspected the truth. 
 
 It puzzled Marston Dare not a little 
 why he, a stranger, should have been so 
 interested in it — why he had been so bent 
 on discovering the mystery ; why he now 
 felt so strong and tender an interest in 
 this woman’s fate, and bound himself to be 
 her friend and protector if needed. 
 
 Perhaps that element of romance lurking 
 in his soul which had fashioned him into a 
 novelist and left him half a poet, was to 
 blame. Perhaps the mystery and sadness of 
 this story appealed to him more powerfully 
 than it would have done to a man of more 
 material nature. Perhaps this woman, 
 with her wasted youth, her strange 
 beauty, her tragic history, moved him with 
 a sympathy too deep for words to explain, 
 for thought or pen to reach. He could not 
 explain it to himself, he only knew it was 
 there. Had he been wise he would have 
 known that no interest so powerful or so 
 inexplicable could spring into life at a 
 woman’s presence, and there— end. He 
 would have known that such an interest 
 would but gain fresh strength with every 
 day that came, with every night that died. 
 He would have known that the vision of his 
 own fancy and the ideal he had formed for 
 himself in years long past, had sprung into 
 life, a vivid reality. That, this presence, 
 mysterious, fateful, unfamiliar as it was, 
 would yet haunt him henceforward, with 
 that strange mingling of pain and sweet- 
 ness that is all we know of earthly love. 
 
 It is the favoured privilege of the historian 
 to skip over years as if their passage were of 
 no account to the dramatis personae who 
 fill his pages ; in like manner it is the privi- 
 lege of the reader to skip over pages which 
 
 appear dry and uninteresting, though the 
 writer may deem them essential. 
 
 Consider then that two years have passed 
 since Marston Dare came to the little 
 Shropshire village, and that in those two 
 years he has lingered on in the same place, 
 working hard as one who loves his work 
 and reaps its benefits in fame and success 
 — faithful still to that promise made in the 
 old churchyard — the friend, adviser, and 
 helper of the lonely woman who still lived 
 on at Weirhurst. 
 
 He had counselled her not to risk selling 
 the old house, as she had once determined 
 to do. It would court notice ; it .would 
 necessitate legal proceedings ; her disguise 
 might be penetrated ) and she, leaning 
 only too willingly on the strength and 
 wits at her service, was guided by his 
 wishes, and remained. 
 
 If people gossiped about the strange 
 interest the new comer seemed to feel for 
 the old lady at Weirhurst, or the many 
 times during the course of the week in 
 which he was seen entering or leaving the 
 gates, the gossip never reached him or her. 
 
 Those two tranquil happy years were 
 the sweetest her life had known, though 
 they were leading that life on to a sorrow 
 and an evil she never suspected. 
 
 There was one person who watched 
 Marston Dare’s proceedings, and learnt of 
 his actions, with a jealous and spiteful 
 wonder. The utter indifference displayed 
 to herself had piqued Lady Lynne more 
 than she liked to acknowledge, even to 
 herself. 
 
 To find out the reason was a task to 
 which she bent all her energies, and when 
 a woman, and a jealous woman, is bent on 
 such a task, she generally manages to 
 accomplish it. 
 
 Her spies told her of Dare’s constant 
 visits to Weirhurst. Her own instincts 
 told her that no man would be so zealous 
 and devoted to an old, decrepit, half-mad 
 woman, as she always termed Mistress 
 Alice Clyffe. She determined to watch 
 him, and find out who lived at Weirhurst 
 besides its mistress. 
 
 With the fall of the summer dusk, Dare 
 used always to go to the old house. He 
 had become used to dropping in after his 
 day’s work was over — used, to sitting in 
 the dim oak parlour, or strolling about the 
 quiet glades with this pale-faced, sweet- 
 voiced woman, whom he, unconsciously, had 
 grown to care for beyond and above all 
 other cares and interests of his life. She 
 was unconscious, too, of the feelings she 
 
18 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 DOROTHY, WIFE OF — 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 had awakened. Dear as this friendship 
 was, it yet seemed to her nothing more, 
 for the bondage of her miserable marriage 
 held her in chains too sure for forgetful- 
 ness. 
 
 One summer night — a night so hot and 
 windless that Dorothy had listened to 
 Dare’s persuasions, and come out into the 
 grounds without the usual drapery of lace 
 that veiled her hair and features — the 
 two were strolling together, and directed 
 their steps to the riverside. 
 
 It was on this night that Lady Lynne 
 had entered the grounds unobserved, and 
 followed them at a safe distance. Hidden 
 behind the thick screen of bushes, she saw 
 them pause by the shadowed waters where 
 the willows fringed the banks. She heard 
 Dare’s voice, low and earnest, telling his 
 companion of that other evening when he 
 had seen her from his boat, and she heard 
 the woman’s voice, in its sweet, low accents, 
 replying to him. Still, even then no sus- 
 picion of the real truth entered Lady 
 Lynne’s mind. She had heard of Dorothy 
 Hurst, but had felt little interest in the 
 tale, and now her idea still was that this 
 was a companion of old Mistress Clyffe, 
 and that Dare was making love to her. 
 
 She watched them for some time, and 
 then retreated unobserved, her heart full 
 of rage and bitterness against the woman 
 she deemed her rival. 
 
 Her spite took a very foolish form. She 
 wrote an anonymous letter to Mistress 
 Alice Clyffe, informing her of the shameful 
 behaviour of her “companion,” who was 
 trying to entrap a gentleman into an undue 
 intimacy, which could bode no good to that 
 bold young damsel. 
 
 This letter amazed and frightened 
 Dorothy. 
 
 Already something of her long-guarded 
 secret must be known, and this was the 
 result. 
 
 She waited in grievous alarm for Dare’s 
 usual visit, and then showed him the 
 letter. 
 
 lie read it straight through without a 
 word, and then 
 
 Well, then, as he turned to her, his face 
 betrayed him. 
 
 His secret leapt into life and knowledge, 
 and above and beyond the poor pretence 
 of friendship, each saw and read the truth. 
 
 It was a terrible moment — terrible in its 
 pain, its weakness, its desolating fears, its 
 hopeless picture of that long blank future 
 whose every hour would be one of loneli- 
 ness and dread. 
 
 “ Heaven help me ! ” groaned Marston 
 Dare. “In all my thought of you, I 
 never thought of this ! My friendship has 
 done you more harm than good.” 
 
 He crushed the letter in his hand. 
 
 “ I ought to leave you, and at once,” he 
 muttered. “It is the only way I can allay 
 that woman’s suspicions.” 
 
 “ You know, then, who has done this ? ” 
 she questioned eagerly. 
 
 A dusky shame-born flush crept over his 
 face. His eyes sank before her own. 
 
 “ Yes,” he said. 
 
 There was a long, long silence. He could 
 hear his heart beating stormily and fast ; 
 he knew only too well what anguish lay 
 in the thought of that parting he had 
 decreed. She had become so much to him, 
 how could he tear himself from her pre- 
 sence ? Was love always to meet him as a 
 foe to combat % 
 
 For a brief space some secret and subtle 
 tempting held him there by her side ; for a 
 brief space his eyes lingered on her face 
 that of late had grown so beautiful in 
 its serene peace and its new-born happi- 
 ness. Then she looked up and met his 
 eyes, and in another instant was sobbing 
 on his breast. 
 
 “ Don’t go ! ” she cried. “ Oh, don’t 
 go!” 
 
 He made no attempt to soothe her ; he 
 could not have spoken, so he felt, without 
 adding to her shame, and the burden of 
 misery she already bore. 
 
 Only when the sobs ceased, when spent 
 and weak as a child she lay in his arms, did 
 he venture to speak at last. 
 
 “ My darling,” he said sorrowfully. “ Is 
 it so much to you 1 ” 
 
 His words recalled her to herself, and 
 knowing what was right, she roused her- 
 self to meet this new trouble with some- 
 thing of his own brave fortitude. 
 
 “I was so friendless,” she said sadly, 
 “ and I had hoped ” 
 
 Again her voice broke. The ordeal was 
 too terrible. 
 
 What she had hoped — what she had 
 looked forward to, were things innocent 
 enough, and yet she dared not speak of 
 them now. 
 
 Again silence fell upon them. She had 
 sunk into a low chair, but he was still 
 standing, and before them on the dark oak- 
 floor lay the letter which had come to part 
 them. 
 
 In the silence during which Dare was 
 fighting out that inward battle which holds 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 19 
 
 honour for its watch-cry, there came across 
 the still night air a strange dull sound. 
 It was the bell of the old church, and it 
 rang the death-knell of some ended life. 
 
 They both started at the sound. Per- 
 haps its warning helped them to that 
 sacrifice which right and duty demanded. 
 Perhaps before the majesty and mystery 
 of death even the anguish of such an hour 
 as this looked less blank, less bitter. 
 
 Summoning up all his strength Dare 
 bent towards the slender figure, and touched 
 the trembling hands. 
 
 “I can’t bear to say good-bye,” he whis- 
 pered hoarsely. “ It seems too hard, 
 although the same world holds us both ; 
 but I must go now — it is better for both 
 our sakes. I will write to you to-morrow. 
 I will try to think what is best.” 
 
 His voice broke. He saw the anguish in 
 her tearless eyes, he saw the quiver of the 
 sad young mouth. He caught her to his 
 heart and kissed her with the passion of 
 despair that spoke of an ended hope. Then 
 he left her. 
 
 of that sort, in Switzerland. Was picked 
 up dead. They’re sending the body home 
 to be laid here.” 
 
 The night seemed full of reeling shadows. 
 The silver haze of moonlight turned black 
 before Dare’s dizzy eyes. He clutched at 
 the marble cross for support. 
 
 The old man passed on unheeding. He 
 had other people to tell the news to, and 
 he was a personage of importance just 
 then. 
 
 And Dare, alone and glad-hearted beyond 
 all words, fell on his knees beside that 
 fateful grave, and while tears of joy and 
 thankfulness dimmed his eyes, cried out : 
 “Thank God, she is mine now. Mine, 
 without sin, without fear; never to be 
 lonely or friendless any more.” 
 
 And the clear, soft moonbeams fell 
 through the old oak boughs, and showed 
 him once again that name, “ Dorothy, wife 
 of .” 
 
 My readers, can you add the rest 1 
 
 Again and again the death-bell pealed 
 out on the summer air. 
 
 Why had he gone to the village ? 
 Why had his wild and reckless steps led 
 him to the churchyard % Why did the 
 sullen strokes of that tolling bell madden 
 him as ever and again their echoes fell 
 across the stillness ? Marston Dare found 
 himself asking these questions, yet never 
 answering them, hurrying wildly on as if 
 to stifle thought— where, he never looked 
 nor cared. 
 
 Yes, he was once more in the old grey 
 churchyard, and once more looking at the 
 gleaming black and white of those fatal 
 letters, and once more asking . himself 
 helplessly why he had meddled with Fate, 
 since to mortals Fate is always so cruel 
 and merciless a thing. 
 
 He heard steps on the gravel path, and 
 looked round. It was the old sexton 
 leaving the belfry-tower. He saw the 
 quiet figure by the grave, and came 
 forward, touching his hat. 
 
 “ A sad thing, sir, and suddin,” he said, 
 as if taking for granted the stranger’s 
 knowledge of his news. 
 
 “ What is it 1” asked Dare mechanically. 
 The springs of his life seemed frozen. Of 
 what interest to him were life, or death, or 
 burial? 
 
 “ ’Tis Sir Anthony Hurst, sir,” said the 
 old man. “ The news came to-night. He 
 fell over a mountain or glazier, or summat 
 
 A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 By Paul Blake. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 When a young poet has written a song, 
 tie takes a keen pleasure in hearing it 
 mentioned by his friends. Should he 
 listen to one of them singing it, he is 
 ready to accept the compliment as a 
 flattering one. But it touches him more 
 nearly, a great deal, if the singer is a 
 stranger. 
 
 No wonder, then, that Ellis Field, as 
 he wandered through a deserted portion 
 of Regent’s Park one summer afternoon, 
 felt his heart thrill with unaccustomed 
 delight, as he heard a fresh young voice 
 singing softly the words : 
 
 Bright shone the sun, ’twas summer weather, 
 
 When first we roamed across the heather, 
 
 You and I. 
 
 The lines formed part of one of his own 
 songs. 
 
 The singer was seated on the grass with 
 her back towards Ellis. She did not hear 
 his approach ; he hesitated a moment, 
 partly not to interrupt her, partly from the 
 feeling that he would like to hear her png 
 the rest. Then half involuntarily he joined 
 in the refrain in a low voice. 
 
 Not so low but that Carrie Miller turned 
 quickly round, ceasing to png at the same 
 moment. Ellis found himself nearer to 
 
— 
 
 20 [June 18, 1883.] A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. [Conducted by 
 
 her than he was aware. He felt in a 
 sufficiently awkward position. 
 
 “ I beg your pardon,” he said, lifting his 
 hat ; “ I did not mean to interrupt 
 
 you.” 
 
 The young lady smiled, there was not 
 a trace of embarrassment visible on her 
 countenance. 
 
 “ I did not know it was arranged as a 
 duet,” she said. 
 
 “Yes; it has just been published in both 
 forms.” 
 
 “Is it ? I have only a manuscript 
 copy.” 
 
 “ Will you permit me ? ” 
 
 Ellis stopped suddenly ; he was on the 
 point of asking permission to present her 
 with a printed copy of the song, but it 
 struck him that the terms of their acquain- 
 tance scarcely warranted him in making 
 such a request. He wondered at his own 
 audacity.; he seemed to be already on 
 intimate terms with this charming young 
 lady. It was almost a shock to recollect 
 that he was a stranger. 
 
 “ I know what you are going to say,” 
 said Miss Miller ; “ yes, you may let me 
 have a copy if you have one. Mr. Drys- 
 dale promised to send me some as soon as 
 they were published. I suppose he has 
 forgotten. It’s charming music — isn’t it?” 
 
 “ Very,” replied Ellis, more vexed than 
 he cared to confess, that she had confined 
 her eulogy to the music ; he envied 
 Drysdale. 
 
 “ How do you like the words ? ” he 
 asked. 
 
 “ Very much ; they are really pretty.” 
 
 “Pretty ” was not quite the word Ellis 
 wished for ; but, pronounced in a charm- 
 ing way by a pair of rosy lips, it went far 
 to satisfy him. 
 
 Before this, Miss Miller had risen, and 
 they were walking slowly together across 
 the grass. She still seemed quite uncon- 
 scious that there was anything in the 
 slightest degree unusual in her conduct, 
 and Ellis felt very charmed. He congratu- 
 lated himself on the slight adventure. 
 Whatever might be its upshot, he resolved 
 to enjoy it for the present. 
 
 “ By the way,” continued his companion, 
 “how do you happen to know it so well?” 
 
 Ellis looked guilty. 
 
 “ I know ! ” she exclaimed with a quick 
 little laugh. “ You wrote the words.” 
 
 “ How did you find that out ? ” he 
 asked wonderingly. 
 
 “ Instinct, I suppose. Do you think it 
 was very clever of me ? ” 
 
 “Yes, very, and more than clever — it 
 showed a sympathetic nature.” 
 
 “ Oh no ; I’m not in the least poetical,” 
 was the reply ; “at least, not often, and 
 only when I’m alone, and I don’t encourage 
 myself then. I don’t think life is very 
 romantic ; I find it intensely practical.” 
 
 “ Do you call this part of it romantic or 
 practical ? ” Ellis asked with a smile. 
 
 “Romantic, I suppose, as far as it is 
 either. But romance seems out of place 
 in a London park. I hope I’m not taking 
 you out of your way ? ” she ended rather 
 suddenly. 
 
 “Oh no, not in the least. I have no 
 engagement of any kind, and besides, we 
 are walking towards my rooms. May I 
 accompany you as far as our paths lie 
 together ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yeSj if you wish ; I shall be glad 
 of a companion.” 
 
 In the mouths of most young ladies this 
 speech would have appeared very forward. 
 Ellis felt that it would have been sufficient 
 to determine him to take another direction 
 very soon. But, as Miss Miller said it, it 
 had a totally opposite effect. There was 
 nothing flattering in her tone ; it was 
 simply one of civility and candour. 
 
 They walked together for some distance, 
 talking easily and naturally as if they had 
 been acquainted for years. 
 
 On coming to a seat near Gloucester 
 Gate, Miss Miller suggested they should 
 rest a few moments. 
 
 “ This is the last seat we shall pass,” she 
 said. 
 
 “ Don’t mention anything that suggests 
 the end of our walk,” said Ellis. 
 
 “Why not? It must come to an end 
 soon, fori live only five minutes farther.” 
 
 “ It shall last till then, at any rate,” was 
 his reply, “ if you will allow me to see you 
 home.” 
 
 “ Oh yes, if you like. It is in Fairlight 
 Terrace.” 
 
 Ellis started slightly. 
 
 “We are neighbours in that case,” he 
 said ; “ I live at Number Eight.” 
 
 It was Miss Miller’s turn to be sur- 
 prised. 
 
 “ At Number Eight ? that is where we 
 live, too.” 
 
 “ Is it possible ? ” he exclaimed. “ I 
 have never seen you before to-day.” 
 
 “No, I dare say not; we only moved 
 there yesterday. We are on the top 
 floor.” 
 
 “ I am on the ground-floor. May I ask 
 who ‘ we ’ are ? ” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 21 
 
 “ My sister Florrie and I. She is only 
 a child.” 
 
 “ As we are such near neighbours, I 
 hope we may have the opportunity of 
 meeting frequently,” said Ellis, conscious 
 that he was scarcely carrying out his prin- 
 ciples on the subject of proper behaviour 
 to unprotected young ladies. But then it 
 was absurd to think of Miss Miller as un- 
 protected. He had not been in her com- 
 pany a minute before he was quite certain 
 that she was well able to take care of 
 herself. He half wished he was equally 
 sure of himself. 
 
 “We are sure to see each other some- 
 times,” she remarked. “ You are fond of 
 music ? ” 
 
 “Passionately.” 
 
 “ Then you must come up and see us 
 sometimes ; we have a piano, and Florrie 
 plays very well indeed for a child.” 
 
 “ And you ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t play much, I sing. I am study- 
 ing at present.” 
 
 Ellis thought he had discovered every- 
 thing now. His companion must be a 
 musical enthusiast come to London to 
 study, and bold enough to live without a 
 chaperon. Yet it seemed something more 
 than bold to invite a bachelor to come to 
 her rooms. He had not had much expe- 
 rience of Bohemian etiquette, but he could 
 not help thinking that its rules must be con- 
 siderably more lax than those of society to 
 permit such a proceeding. 
 
 “I shall be most happy to hear you 
 sing,” he replied, “ if ” 
 
 “ If what ? ” 
 
 Ellis did not like to explain. *He wished 
 he had not hinted at the existence of any 
 obstacle. The only way out of the difficulty 
 was to be plain. 
 
 “ I don’t know whether you are aware 
 that I am living by myself.” 
 
 “I supposed so; what of it?” she asked. 
 “ Is there any harm in your coming to see 
 me ?” 
 
 “ Not the least in the world,” he replied 
 warmly. “ I was only afraid that possibly 
 you might think so.” 
 
 Miss Miller gave one of her musical 
 little laughs. 
 
 “ I should not have asked you in that 
 case,” she said. “ I’m afraid you don’t 
 quite understand me yet; you have not 
 had much time, it is true. What do you 
 think I am ? I should like to know. ” 
 
 “I think you are a very charming 
 young lady,” was Ellis’s somewhat gauche 
 reply. 
 
 “ Thank you, but I didn’t mean that. I 
 may as well tell you once for all that 
 pretty speeches are thrown away on me.” 
 
 “ Ah, you hear them so often.” 
 
 “Yes, and they mean so little.” 
 
 Ellis was conscious of an annoyance ; he 
 did not like to hear her acquiesce so easily 
 in his statement. 
 
 “ Sometimes they mean something,” he 
 said. “Do you never try and distin- 
 guish between the true and false in 
 compliments ? ” 
 
 “You are wandering from the point,” 
 she replied. “What do you think I 
 am?” 
 
 “ A young lady who has come to 
 London to study singing.” 
 
 “As a profession ? ” 
 
 Possibly.” 
 
 “You are partly right, but I must 
 correct your statement in one point. I 
 am not a lady.” 
 
 Ellis was again conscious of a disap- 
 pointment. He was obliged to confess 
 that he had never known a young lady 
 like Miss Miller, but he was quite willing 
 to include her in the category, even if 
 it necessitated an enlargement of his 
 definition. 
 
 He waited for her to go on. 
 
 “ I am the daughter of a very small boot- 
 maker in the country. I was taught to curtsy 
 to the parson’s wife when I was small.” 
 “Birth is not everything,” sententiously 
 remarked Ellis. 
 
 “No, fortunately,” was Miss Miller’s 
 reply as she gave another little laugh. “ I 
 was sent to a good school, and then became 
 nursery-governess at Lord Leveston’s ; 
 that was when I was fifteen. I was there 
 three years, and I learned a great deal 
 more than I taught. I made friends with 
 the regular governess, who was a Parisian, 
 and she taught me to speak French, and 
 how to dress, and I used to watch the 
 visitors and Lady Leveston till I knew 
 how to behave as well as any of them. 
 Then I had to leave, the children grew too 
 old for me, so I went back to my home.” 
 
 “ That must have been a great change 
 for you,” said Ellis, scarcely knowing what 
 to say. 
 
 “Much too great to please me. I 
 couldn’t stand it. Madame had told me I 
 had a voice and ought to study, so I came 
 to London four months ago.” 
 
 “ I’m sure I hope you will be success- 
 ful,” said Ellis earnestly ; “ you have great 
 courage to come up to fight your way 
 alone.” 
 
22 [June 18, 1883.] A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. [Conducted by 
 
 “ I don’t deserve much credit,” was the 
 reply; “it would have required much 
 more courage to have stayed at home. 
 Here we are at last.” 
 
 They had walked together to Fairlight 
 Terrace. Ellis opened the door with his 
 latchkey. 
 
 “ Will you come into my room, and let 
 me give you a cup of tea ? ” he asked. 
 
 “ No, thank you, not now ; Florrie is 
 waiting for me upstairs. Don’t forget to 
 come and see us soon.” 
 
 “ I am not likely to forget it,” was his 
 reply. 
 
 “ Any afternoon will do. I am always 
 out in the evening. Good-bye.” 
 
 She held out her daintily-gloved little 
 hand. Ellis pressed it, and a moment after- 
 wards she disappeared up the stairs. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Instead of going into his room, Ellis 
 opened the front door again, and went out. 
 He usually had his dinner at a restaurant 
 in the Euston Road when he happened to 
 be in the neighbourhood ; on this occasion 
 he made his way there half-mechanically, 
 not being in the mood to care about think- 
 ing where he should go. 
 
 The events of the last hour and a half 
 had affected him more than he liked to 
 acknowledge to himself. He was peculiarly 
 susceptible in some points, though he did 
 not pass amongst his friends for a man who 
 eared much for ladies’ society. He did not as 
 a rule ; the ordinary young lady had small 
 attractions for him. But Miss Miller was 
 very far from being an ordinary young 
 lady, though that alone would not have 
 been sufficient to have caused his present 
 sensations. 
 
 “I mustn’t be a fool,” was the prevailing 
 thought in his mind as he made his way 
 along the far from attractive Hampstead 
 Road ; by which he meant that he must not 
 fall in love. Rather a strange resolve for 
 a poet. 
 
 After all, the poetic was only one side 
 of his nature ; although he had thrown up 
 business, and taken literature as his calling, 
 he was not able to nullify the effects of 
 his education and training. Business has 
 too powerful a hold over those devoted to 
 it for some years, even against their will, 
 to loose its grasp at onee. Ellis deter- 
 mined when he became a Bohemian, that 
 one of the sacrifices he must make was 
 the acceptance of the impossibility of his 
 marrying except after an indefinite number 
 of years. 
 
 He had a private income of about one 
 hundred and twenty pounds ; this he found 
 himself able to supplement to the extent 
 of fifty pounds by his pen. On the 
 modest total he did not find it difficult to 
 exist ; his tastes were not expensive, and 
 as his action was the result of his own 
 wishes, he did not complain of the loss of 
 various luxuries to which he had always 
 been accustomed. 
 
 “ She’s a charming girl,” he thought as 
 he sat waiting for his cut from the joint. 
 “ That is the word which best suits her. 
 She is pretty and clever, and a dozen other 
 things, but one is scarcely conscious of 
 them when she is present ; one only feels 
 a general sort of satisfaction, dependent 
 on nothing in particular, but on her 
 presence generally.” 
 
 He was not able to keep his thoughts 
 entirely under control during his dinner ; 
 they continually reverted to the same 
 subject. “I wonder what she lives on,” 
 he found himself thinking. “ She can’t 
 have saved much, and it must cost some- 
 thing to study singing. There’s her sister, 
 too. Well, that is a subject I can’t 
 question her upon. Perhaps she’ll tell me 
 to-morrow.” 
 
 He did not feel inclined after he finished 
 his dinner to return to his room. He had 
 some work to do, it is true, but he was 
 not in the mood to finish it. He resolved 
 to call on Drysdale, who had set his song 
 to music. He remembered that Miss 
 Miller knew him; perhaps he might find 
 out from him something about her. 
 
 “ Is Mr. Drysdale in ? ” he asked of a 
 rather dirty servant who opened the door. 
 
 “ I think he’s just going out, sir.” 
 
 Ellis ran up the stairs, and found his 
 friend in the last stage of despairing haste. 
 
 “ What do you want, my boy 1 Can’t 
 spare you a moment. Got anything to do 
 to-night 1 ? No 1 Then come and see our 
 opera at the Varieties. I’m conducting 
 there. Where’s my hat gone ? Show them 
 this card ; they’ll pass you into the circle 
 or somewhere. Look me up at the stage- 
 door between the acts.” 
 
 Drysdale was gone before Ellis had time 
 to thank him. On the whole he was rather 
 glad that he had something definite to do. 
 An hour orTiWO spent in listening to pretty 
 music 'might divert his thoughts a little. 
 He strolled down to the theatre, arriving 
 in the middle of the first act. 
 
 His seat was at the back of the circle, in 
 deep shade ; he made himself comfortable, 
 and settled down to lazily enjoy himself. 
 
■ ■ ■ ■ ■ : ■■ - n 
 
 Charles Dickens.] A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. [June 18, 1883.] 23 
 
 Soon he found himself thinking how 
 very much better it would be for the piece 
 if they could get a girl like Carrie to play 
 the leading part. The principal performer 
 irritated him beyond measure; there was 
 such obtrusive consciousness pervading her 
 every movement. 
 
 The chorus entered, and he began 
 comparing each individual with the actress 
 who so irritated him. Yes, there was one 
 there who would have been better suited 
 in the title-r61e. It was Miss Miller. 
 
 Her image was so constantly in Ellis’s 
 mind that he experienced scarcely any 
 surprise when he recognised her. However, 
 he involuntarily shrank back still farther 
 into the shade, afraid that she would see 
 him, and imagine he had discovered she 
 was an actress and had come with the 
 intention of seeing her on the stage. If 
 she had wished him to come she would 
 have told him where she was playing. 
 
 He waited with impatience for the act 
 to end. Directly it was over he went round 
 to the stage-door, where Drysdale soon 
 joined him. 
 
 “ Pretty, isn’t it 1 ” said the conductor. 
 “Wants backbone though — too Frenchy, 
 and no more plot than a farce. How did 
 you like it ? ” 
 
 “ Tolerably well; the dresses are nice.” 
 
 “ Oh yes, it’s very well put on.” 
 
 “ Who was that brown-haired girl in the 
 chorus with the gold braid round her hat ? ” 
 asked Ellis, feeling that he had rushed into 
 the subject without much grace. 
 
 “ Do you mean Miss Vincent ? ” 
 
 “ I think her name’s Miller. Vincent 
 may be her stage name, though.” 
 
 “ I expect it’s the same. She’s the sort 
 of girl who would catch the eye of you 
 poetic chaps. She’s a sort of mystery to 
 me. She’s a treasure in the chorus, I can 
 tell you. She ought to be a principal, and 
 will one day.” 
 
 “Do you know why she sings in the 
 chorus ? ” asked Ellis, feeling that he was 
 going at least as far as delicacy would 
 permit. 
 
 “ I believe Lord Leveston gave her an in- 
 troduction to the manager. Leveston is part 
 owner of the theatre, you know. By 
 J ove ! I must hurry back. Come round 
 again, if you care to, after the next act.” 
 
 Ellis did not find himself in a much 
 happier frame of mind for the information 
 he had received. He sat out the next act 
 impatiently. This time Drysdale did not 
 make his appearance ; he was detained in 
 the theatre. Ellis returned to his seat and 
 
 watched the remaining act, not feeling 
 much interest in those portions from which 
 the chorus was absent. 
 
 He made up his mind that he would 
 accept the situation. Since he was at the 
 theatre and had seen Carrie, he would 
 wait for her at the stage-door and see her 
 home. She would think it very strange if 
 she happened to discover he had been 
 there and not fulfilled the ordinary duties 
 of civility. Besides, he wanted to see her 
 again. 
 
 It was a beautiful summer evening, and 
 at Ellis’s suggestion, they determined to 
 walk home instead of taking the over- 
 crowded last omnibus. 
 
 “I hope I shall have a carriage of my 
 own some day,” said Carrie, taking his 
 proffered arm without hesitation or even 
 thanks. They did not seem needed ; the 
 action was so natural. 
 
 “You are hopeful,” was Ellis’s uncom- 
 plimentary reply. 
 
 “Why not? I am a great deal better 
 than that woman who spoils the principal 
 part, and she gets twenty pounds a week. 
 I only get thirty shillings. Isn’t it a 
 shame 1 ” 
 
 “ Yes, it is. But can’t you get a better 
 part ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t want one. I want to keep 
 quite unknown for the present. I’m only 
 singing in the chorus to get something to 
 live on. I don’t mean to work my way up 
 the ladder gradually. I’m going to study 
 for a little longer, and then make a grand 
 rush for fame.” 
 
 “ But can you get the opportunity ? ” 
 queried Ellis. “ I’ve heard it isn’t easy to 
 make a name on the stage.” 
 
 “Oh, Lord Leveston has promised to 
 manage all that for me.” 
 
 Ellis did not say anything, but he 
 unconsciously relaxed his slight pressure 
 of the little arm resting on his. As if in 
 reply she continued : 
 
 “ He’s been very kind to me, and he 
 would be a good deal kinder if I would let 
 him. He wanted to pay for my studies, 
 but I told him that all I wanted was a 
 chance. I didn’t want to depend on 
 anything but my abilities, and then I 
 should know if I was really worth any thing 
 or not.” 
 
 “ I am very glad to hear it,” said Ellis 
 warmly. “ I think you have made a very 
 brave and courageous resolve.” 
 
 “I’m glad you think so,” she replied, 
 looking up at his face. “ It’s hard work 
 sometimes.” 
 
24 [June 18, 1883.] A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. [Conducted by 
 
 “ I wish I could make it easier for you,” 
 he murmured. 
 
 “ You do ? It was very kind of you to 
 come and see me home to-night. I 
 generally have to go alone. I don’t mind 
 it much, but I much prefer this.” 
 
 “Yes, it is decidedly pleasanter than 
 being alone,” acquiesced Ellis. “ It’s often 
 struck me what a pity it is that one is 
 unable to take advantage of the numberless 
 opportunities for doing kindnesses that 
 lie around us ; one scarcely thinks of their 
 existence.” 
 
 He was going on in a rambling half- 
 unconscious way when he became aware 
 that his companion was laughing her light 
 musical laugh. He stopped. 
 
 “Do you often tell young ladies that 
 you are doing them a kindness in escorting 
 them home 'i ” she enquired. 
 
 Ellis laughed too. “Just the opposite. I 
 was applying the case to myself. I should 
 have had a weary walk to-night had it not 
 been for you.” 
 
 “ That’s much nicer,” said Carrie. 
 
 Ellis found the walk even pleasanter 
 than he had anticipated. He determined 
 to try an experiment ; instead of taking 
 the street that led straight towards Fair- 
 light Terrace, he turned down one that 
 would make their walk rather longer. He 
 thought his experiment was successful; 
 apparently she did not notice the ma- 
 noeuvre. Emboldened by his success, he 
 tried it once more. 
 
 “ Once is enough,” said Carrie quietly, 
 turning in the proper direction. 
 
 “ There is a precedent for repeating it.” 
 
 “No, I must go back ; that child persists 
 in sitting up till I return.” 
 
 “ I don’t think she is more anxious to 
 have you near her than I am.” 
 
 Ellis scarcely meant to say so much ; yet 
 he was somewhat relieved to hear Carrie 
 laugh. 
 
 “ It is time I returned. I’m quite sure 
 of it now,” she said. 
 
 He did not urge the matter further. 
 They were nearly silent the remainder of 
 the walk. When they entered the house 
 the narrow hall was dark. Ellis struck a 
 match and lit a bedroom-candle standing 
 on the window-ledge. 
 
 “ I suppose we must say good-night,” he 
 said. 
 
 “ Don’t say it if it is so sad,” she replied 
 half mockingly. “ There, don’t mind what 
 I say,” she continued quickly ; “ it is a 
 sad word, and I don’t want to make fun of 
 you, but when you speak like that I am 
 
 obliged to laugh at you or I should feel the 
 same as you do.” 
 
 She unclasped her cloak and held out 
 her hand. Ellis took it. 
 
 “ What a magnificent rose,” he said, look- 
 ing at a large Marshal Niel fastened by 
 her brooch. ' 
 
 “It was a present,” said Carrie half 
 defiantly. 
 
 “ A very charming one,” remarked Ellis 
 as carelessly as he could. 
 
 He found to his surprise that he was still 
 holding her hand. 
 
 “ Good-night, once more,” he said. 
 
 “ Good-night.” 
 
 She withdrew her hand, but instead of 
 going upstairs she unfastened her brooch. 
 Ellis watched her eagerly. 
 
 “ Would you like to have it 1 ” She 
 held out the rose. 
 
 “May IT’ 
 
 “ Why not 1 Lord Leveston would not 
 object if that is what you are thinking 
 of. He told me to take it home to my 
 sister.” 
 
 Ellis drew the flower from her hand. It 
 had some slips of maiden-hair fastened 
 to its stem with wire ; a small strip 
 of buff tissue-paper bound the whole 
 together. 
 
 « I shall keep this,” he said earnestly, 
 “ as long as — - — ” 
 
 “ As you live, I suppose 1 ” 
 
 “ No ; as long as you wish.” 
 
 “It is the same thing,” was Carrie’s 
 reply as she turned away. 
 
 Ellis stood silent, pressing the rose to 
 his lips. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The afternoon of the next day, Ellis 
 took advantage of his invitation and pene- 
 trated to the upper regions of the house. 
 He knocked at the half-open door and was 
 admitted by Carrie. 
 
 “This is very kind of you,” she said 
 cordially ; “ it is a long way up here.” 
 
 “ I did not find it so,” was his reply. 
 
 “ I wish I could think of nice things like 
 that to say.” 
 
 “You say them without thinking.’ . 
 
 “ There’s another,” Carrie exclaimed 
 with a musical little laugh. “Florrie, 
 come and shake hands with Mr. Field.” 
 
 Florrie obeyed rather shyly, and Ellis 
 found himself in the sufficiently unusual 
 position of being an afternoon-caller on 
 two chaperonless young ladies. 
 
 Carrie was if anything more self-possessed 
 than usual. It had been Ellis’s hope to be 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 [June 18 , 1883 .] 25 
 
 A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 able to take up his acquaintance with her 
 from the point it had attained on the 
 previous evening, but he soon was obliged 
 to acknowledge that the hope was fallacious. 
 He must begin all over again. Carrie’s 
 behaviour was free from the least touch of 
 sentimentality, she was once again the cool 
 collected young lady who had received his 
 first advances so calmly. 
 
 “ Come, Florrie, you must play us your 
 last piece,” said Carrie, just as Ellis was 
 hoping that she was beginning to show a 
 little feeling. 
 
 Florrie obeyed immediately, going to the 
 piano in a manner that showed she was 
 not accustomed to delay fulfilling . her 
 sister’s wishes. Ellis listened as attentively 
 as he could, though his eyes were fixed on 
 Carrie, who was leaning over her little 
 sister. 
 
 “ We were both of us fools last night,” 
 '♦thought Ellis rather bitterly, “and she 
 means to make me feel it. It’s all my 
 fault ; she behaved splendidly till I went 
 too far. I ought to be ashamed of myself. 
 Yet I don’t know. Is there anything to 
 be ashamed of in falling in love ? I will 
 not be the first to draw back, at any 
 rate ; if she encourages me, I will give 
 the reins to my feelings, and chance the 
 result.” 
 
 But the encouragement did not come.. 
 Ellis was aware that he carried in his 
 breast-pocket the rose she gave him, but 
 had it not been there he would have 
 scarcely been able to believe that the scene 
 of the previous night had ever taken place. 
 It was simply impossible to say a word 
 bearing a tender interpretation to this 
 friendly, charming young hostess. Ellis 
 gave up trying, and talked the most ordi- 
 nary small-talk. 
 
 “ I had good news this morning,” said 
 Carrie, just as Ellis rose to go. 
 
 “ I am very glad to hear it,” he said. 
 
 “ Yes. I saw Lady Leveston just now ; 
 they only went away ten minutes before 
 you came — didn’t you see them 1 ” 
 
 “ I only came in just before I came up,” 
 replied Ellis, bewildered. “You know 
 Lady Leveston 1 ” 
 
 “ Of course I do ; didn’t I tell you I 
 lived with them three years 1 I am quite 
 a prot6g6e of hers. The stage manager 
 at our theatre is going to have a benefit, 
 and I am to sing two songs in the second 
 part — it’s partly miscellaneous, you know. 
 If I make a success ” 
 
 “ You are sure to do that.” 
 
 “ I think so,” she acknowledged candidly. 
 
 “In that case I shall be engaged by 
 Stevenson for two years. You know 
 Stevenson ? he gets up all the good concert- 
 tours.” 
 
 Carrie tried hard not to let her exul- 
 tation be visible, but could not entirely 
 succeed. Ellis listened whilst she expa- 
 tiated on the career which was opening 
 before her. 
 
 “ Stevenson heard me sing a week ago, 
 but he did not say anything, and I thought 
 he didn’t care about my style. . It seems 
 he thinks I shall make a hit. Lady 
 Leveston talked to him about it. Of 
 course I shall sing under a fresh name. 
 They will ask me to their house, I expect ; 
 they always have the new stars of every 
 sort. Perhaps I may see you there some 
 day.” 
 
 There was a touch of tenderness at the 
 end of her speech, as if she felt she had 
 been too selfishly enlarging on her own 
 happiness. 
 
 “I shall be a star of the fourteenth 
 magnitude* you of the first,” he replied, 
 holding out his hand. “ When do you 
 make your appearance 1 ” 
 
 “On the 15th, Tuesday week. You 
 really must come.” 
 
 “Yes, I will come. Good-bye.” 
 
 “ Good-afternoon. Don’t let this be 
 your last visit to us.” 
 
 “ You are very kind.” 
 
 He was not able to say more. He did 
 not think he should ever find himself in 
 that little room again. 
 
 However, when a week had gone by, 
 and he had seen nothing of Carrie except 
 when by chance he met her in the little 
 hall, he thought that civility demanded 
 that he should not break off so suddenly 
 the acquaintance begun even more so. 
 He mounted the numerous stairs, and 
 knocked at the well-remembered door. 
 There was no response ; both sisters were 
 out. 
 
 He left his card sticking between the 
 panel and frame of the shrunken door, 
 and resolved that that should be the last 
 time he would pay them a visit.. 
 
 “ I’m only boring her,” he said to him- 
 self. “ She cares for me about as much as 
 she does for Drysdale, who is forty and 
 bald as an egg. She would let the Levestons 
 go if she were taken up by a duchess. 
 It’s time I went back to business. I was 
 never meant for this sort of thing.” 
 
 Two days afterwards he found a note on 
 his table. 
 
 B 
 
26 [June 18, 1883. J 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ Dear Mr. Field, — We were very- 
 sorry we were out when you called. You 
 will be glad to hear I am engaged by Mr. 
 Stevenson for a year in any case. We 
 leave here to-morrow, so I am afraid we 
 may not meet again. Try and come on 
 Tuesday. I’m sorry I can’t offer you any 
 tickets, as it is a benefit affair. — Yours very 
 sincerely, Carrie Miller.” 
 
 Ellis read the note twice, then put his 
 hand to his pocket and drew out his rose. 
 He seemed for a moment as if about to 
 throw it into the fireplace, but he did not. 
 He replaced it carefully. 
 
 “ She manages to live down the senti- 
 mental part of her nature pretty success- 
 fully,” he muttered, as he thought of what 
 she 'said at their first interview. “ It took 
 her a day to get over our bit of folly. I 
 wonder how long it will take me % ” 
 
 The stage-manager’s benefit was a great 
 success. The critics were there in force, 
 for there was a new play to be performed, 
 and rumours (due to the kindness of the 
 Levestons) were thick about the capa- 
 bilities of the new singer. There was no 
 doubt of her triumph. She sang her first 
 song admirably ; her second superbly. A 
 shower of bouquets testified to the delight 
 of the audience, who would not be satis- 
 fied without an encore. 
 
 There was some little delay about the 
 music, and the audience began to be slightly 
 impatient. But when the song began they 
 forgot everything in listening, and at its 
 conclusion there was a storm of applause. 
 The composer appeared leading on Carrie ; 
 it was Drysdale. 
 
 The shower of bouquets was ended, 
 Carrie was making her last bow, when 
 there was seen fluttering down from the 
 gallery a single flower. The petals flew 
 hither and thither as it fell, till when it 
 reached the stage little was left of it but 
 the stem, bound with buff tissue-paper and 
 wire. Carrie saw it fall, she recognised it 
 instantly, hesitated a moment, and then 
 stooped to pick it up. But she did not 
 glance towards the gallery. 
 
 “ Withered and dead,” thought Ellis as 
 he stumbled down the dark stairs ; “ fit 
 emblem of our short-lived romance.” 
 
 Yet involuntarily the refrain of the song 
 he had just heard recurred to his memory, 
 and he smiled as he thought of the first 
 time he had heard Carrie sing the words : 
 
 Bright shone the sun, ’twas summer weather, 
 When first we roamed across the heather, 
 
 You and I. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 A STORY OF STORIES. 
 
 By W. W. FENN. 
 
 It was as far back as June, 1843, and I 
 was proposing to myself a wandering tour 
 in Cornwall. Though London was already 
 hot and dusty, I did not intend to go just 
 then, but I was collecting all the informa- 
 tion I could about that remote district, so 
 far away as it was in those days from 
 railroads and our present notions of 
 civilisation. 
 
 Passing Arthur Pengarth’s lodgings in 
 Newman Street I recollected the old 
 saying : 
 
 By Tre, Pol, and Pen, 
 
 You shall know the Cornishmen ; 
 and thinking to myself that he might 
 possibly put me up to a wrinkle or two, I 
 turned in. 
 
 “ Pen,” as he was usually called, was an 
 artist — a figure man, but he had an eye for 
 landscape also, and seemed to invest it 
 with something of the human interest 
 of his rather fanciful pictures of his- 
 torical and legendary romance. There was 
 always a story in Pen’s work. His quota- 
 tions really had something to do with his 
 subjects, and were not put in to merely 
 catch the eye, and make a break in the 
 Exhibition catalogues. 
 
 I found him looking at a water-colour 
 drawing already screwed into a packing- 
 case of more than usual solidity. It was 
 a scene of singular beauty. Taken from 
 the top of a cliff, the high horizon of blue- 
 green sea ran almost entirely across the 
 picture, melting away into the opalesque 
 sky, with hardly a perceptible line of 
 demarcation. Where it cut and touched 
 the land at the nearer points, its vivid 
 transparent intensity shamed the grass 
 into looking brown, even in the spring- 
 like tufts that showed themselves among 
 the primroses that grew in profusion over 
 the graves; for, characteristically enough, 
 Pengarth’s foreground was an ancient 
 churchyard. One crumbling buttress of 
 the weather-beaten church itself, moss- 
 grown and lichen-clad, framed the picture 
 to the right by its massive lines and solid 
 texture, thus making the distance, if 
 possible, more ethereal, and forming a 
 contrast to the faraway lighthouse that 
 rose like a ghost in the extreme horizon. 
 
 “ What a lovely spot ! Is that in 
 Cornwall 1” I asked. 
 
 “Yes,” replied the artist; “it is over 
 against a little fishing-village called Pol 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 27 
 
 Coed/' and he cast a regretful farewell look 
 on the picture, as he took up the lid of the 
 packing-case, whereon I read the following 
 address : 
 
 “ Mr. Reuben Tregarvon, God’s Provi- 
 dence, near London, Canada West.” 
 
 “And who may Mr. Reuben Tregarvon 
 be 1 ” I enquired, “ and how do you come 
 to be sending him this, and what is your 
 motto here 1 ” I went on, stooping to 
 examine a tablet on the frame more 
 closely. 
 
 Then I read the words, “I am the 
 Resurrection and the Life ; ” underneath 
 which was also engraved, “ Those whom 
 God hath joined together, let not man put 
 asunder.” 
 
 “ The frame was carved by the Rev. 
 Stephen Allan, pastor of Pol Coed,” broke 
 in my friend ; “ and it is a wedding-present 
 on his part to Mr. Reuben Tregarvon, 
 about whom, by the way, there is a very 
 startling story. I did the drawing, as. my 
 gift to the young fellow, and here is a 
 sketch of him in propria persona,” he added, 
 as moving the packing-case for the greater 
 convenience of screwing the lid down, he 
 brought into view from behind it a crayon 
 sketch of a man’s head. 
 
 Never had I seen so beautiful a face. To 
 describe it would be as impossible as to 
 convey the scent of primroses by words to 
 one who had never seen the flower. Clear- 
 cut, delicate features, dark silky beard and 
 moustache that defined rather than hid the 
 curves of lips too thin for the classical 
 ideal of beauty, yet conveying an impres- 
 sion of indomitable strength. And such a 
 pair of blue eyes ! Out of the dark face 
 they shone like the glimpse of a faraway 
 sky, and they were so unexpected ! for the 
 type of face would have recalled what may 
 be seen in the very early Byzantine 
 manuscripts, had it not been for those 
 glorious blue eyes. 
 
 “What a face! Is that your work 
 also ] ” I exclaimed. 
 
 “Yes, it is ; but by Jove ! 1 must be 
 
 off,” cried Pen, looking at his watch ; “it 
 is half-past eleven now, and I have hot a 
 minute to lose. I must take this case to 
 the Euston Square terminus before twelve, 
 and start it off to Birmingham on its way 
 to Liverpool myself. I say, old fellow, 
 just finish screwing the lid down for me, 
 while I change my coat. And don’t run 
 away, stay till I come back ; I shall 
 not be gone half an hour. There’s a 
 whole portfolio full of Cornish sketches in 
 the corner ; light a pipe and look at them, 
 
 they will tell you more about the land of 
 the West, and the sort of scenery you will 
 find there, than any words of mine will. 
 Painters are not good talkers, they can 
 better describe with their brush than their 
 tongue. Here’s the screw-driver, fire 
 away ! ” 
 
 I took it from his hand, and finished the 
 packing of the case for him, whilst he 
 dived into a drawer for his gloves, which 
 were, apparently, the last things he was 
 likely to find in such a medley as its 
 contents presented. 
 
 “ Hullo ! ” he suddenly burst out, as he 
 rummaged about with his hands, and pro- 
 duced a roll of MS., “here’s the story of 
 Reuben Tregarvon, that I mentioned just 
 now ; you might like to read it — I wrote 
 it down for Tom— poor Tom, you remember 
 him 1 ” and his tone softened as he recalled 
 the crippled brother, in memory of whom 
 he was now wearing the black coat he had 
 just put on. “We always said at home 
 that Tom ought to write a novel, and I 
 was to give him my experiences from time 
 to time — so I sent him Reuben Tregarvon’s 
 story, as Mr. Allan told it to me. There it 
 is, if you care to see it, only I must be off j ” 
 and throwing me the manuscript, he seized 
 hold of the packing-case, which was now 
 ready, and hurried out of the room. 
 
 Left alone, I first proceeded to examine 
 the folio of sketches. If the rest of Corn- 
 wall were like Pol Coed, and its inhabitants 
 resembled Reuben Tregarvon, it would 
 be indeed a region worth visiting. I was 
 longing to get all the information I could 
 about it, therefore I settled myself in Pen- 
 garth’s favourite chair (it deserved his 
 regard), lighted a pipe, and went through 
 his drawings carefully one by one. When 
 I had finished looking at them I turned my 
 attention to the manuscript, and soon 
 became even more absorbed in it than I had 
 been in the sketches. The artist hardly did 
 himself justice when he said he was better in 
 describing with his brush than by words — 
 at least, so I thought ; whether others will 
 agree with me, it is not for me to suggest. 
 
 The wondrous blue eyes of the portrait 
 seemed fixed on mine whenever I looked 
 up from the page, and the roar of the 
 neighbouring thoroughfare sounded like 
 the distant waves of the western sea, 
 whilst for half an hour I sat deeply 
 interested in 
 
 THE STORY OF REUBEN TREGARVON. 
 
 After a walk of ten miles from Bodmin, 
 I had at last arrived at the church on the 
 
28 [June 18, 1883.] THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. [Conducted by 
 
 cliff, above the little village of Pol Coed, 
 which was, I hoped, to afford me good sketch- 
 ing material. I had heard that the interior 
 of this church was especially interesting. 
 As I approached the door, it was evident 
 that service was going on, and of an 
 unusual kind, for the building was so 
 crowded that part of the congregation 
 were seated in the porch, and even on 
 the grass mounds that covered the last 
 resting-places of former inhabitants of the 
 village. 
 
 On seeing a stranger, a woman whom I 
 guessed to be a sort of pew-opener, ad- 
 vanced and enquired my business, “for,” 
 she added, “if it’s with the rector, sir, you 
 cannot see him till Reuben Tregarvon is 
 married— him, you know, sir,” she went 
 on, “as was like to be hanged, _ but the 
 rector said he never could believe it — 
 and now he has married her, and they are 
 going to Canada, where his brother has gone 
 before him ; and they will be a loss to Pol 
 Coed, though some of them have had pretty 
 rough tempers, for the Tregarvons have been 
 a credit to the place since the time of Adam, 
 and we are glad Reuben was not hanged 
 for his father’s sake, let alone that he is as 
 honest a fellow as ever trod on shoe- 
 leather. But here he comes, and his wife — 
 God bless them !— and the rector too, sir, 
 if you are wishing to speak with him.” 
 
 What was the woman talking about 1 
 was she out of her mind % She did not 
 look so ; she spoke in the simple tone of 
 one who stated facts that could not be 
 contradicted, but it was impossible to con- 
 nect the ignominious idea of hanging with 
 the bridegroom’s face. I have made a 
 sketch of it, so I will not describe it here. 
 Still, there was something curiously un- 
 bridal about the pair ; perhaps it was that 
 the girl’s dress was plain even to roughness, 
 with none of that pretty coquettishness 
 about it which every woman displays on 
 that one morning, at least, of her life. Hers 
 was a sweet little face, with very short, 
 curly hair, and appealing brown eyes. 
 The two walked gravely to the corner of 
 the churchyard nearest the cliff, and, not 
 in wedding procession, down to the 
 village, the little crowd meanwhile evi- 
 dently respecting their desire for privacy. 
 Only the rector followed them, leaving his 
 surplice in the care of the woman who had 
 spoken to me. 
 
 Again and again, as the crowd dispersed, 
 did I hear the words “ hanged,” “ hang- 
 ing,” “ murder,” ever repeated. I was 
 determined to get another look at the face I 
 
 whose beauty outweighed all possible in- 
 terest in the church, curious as that 
 appeared to be from the casual glimpse I 
 got of it through the open doors. I went 
 round so as to come, at a fitting distance, 
 opposite to the group that so keenly 
 interested me. The bride was bending 
 over a grave to gather some of the late 
 primroses. The bridegroom held the 
 rector’s hand in a long close grasp, and 
 the spring breeze brought to my ear the 
 words : 
 
 “Good-bye, God in heaven bless 
 you. I little thought I should ever hear 
 the marriage service from your lips a 
 second time.” The bride shuddered, and 
 clung to her husband. The rector replied : 
 
 “ Tregarvon, I would not have you forget 
 God’s goodness to you, but I would have 
 you think and speak as little as possible 
 of the details of the past. May God prosper 
 you and your wife in your new home. 
 Let me hear from you, but take my 
 counsel and lock up in your heart the 
 strange experiences you have passed 
 through. A new home and a strange 
 people will help you to this ; here, the 
 dealings of Providence with your soul 
 would become a winter’s tale to be told on 
 every stormy evening. Good-bye, and may 
 Heaven’s blessing rest on you and yours.” 
 The man sank on his knees beside the 
 grave and kissed the stone. “ Have no 
 fear for that,” continued the rector; “whilst 
 I am here I will take care of your father’s 
 
 grave.” 
 
 The young wife meanwhile was gazing 
 at the scene as if to imprint it for ever on 
 her memory. The man rose, and taking 
 her hand, turned in silence from the spot, 
 and the pair took the now-deserted path 
 towards the village. 
 
 The rector gazed after them ; he was a 
 young man, barely thirty, and his fair hair 
 and complexion were in strong contrast to 
 his almost Spanish-looking parishioners. 
 I waited for a few moments, and then ad- 
 vancing and raising my hat, I said to him : 
 
 “ Pray excuse me, sir, but can you tell 
 me where I can find that man who has 
 just left you 1 I am an artist,” I added in 
 explanation, “ and I would give anything 
 if he would sit to me for an hour or so, for I 
 never saw so uncommon a type of face.” 
 
 “ Nor so uncommon a type of man, if 
 you knew all,” answered the rector good- 
 naturedly. 
 
 “ I gathered from the talk outside the 
 church that there was something un- 
 usual,” I remarked hesitatingly. 
 
J ■■ ■ ■ - 
 
 Charles Dickens.] THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. [June 18, 1883.] 29 
 
 “ You may well say so ; it is the strangest 
 affair. You see that lighthouse out 
 yonder 1 Tregarvon’s family have been 
 keepers there ever since it was built. I do 
 not wonder that he wants to get away 
 from the neighbourhood ; but it is a long 
 story. I shall weary you with it, if I 
 once begin. ” 
 
 “ Indeed, if it is the story of the man 
 you have just married, I should be most 
 interested. I repeat, I never saw so remark- 
 able a face. If it would not be trespassing 
 on your time, I beg you will tell it me. 
 Can you do so here, now 1 we might sit in 
 the church-porch, perhaps.” 
 
 “ Certainly, by all means ; it would be 
 a very fitting place. The fact is,” he 
 added frankly, “my mind is so full of it, and 
 I am so alone here, in this retired part of 
 the world, that it would be really a relief 
 to me to talk about it to a person of 
 education. I should like to see how it 
 strikes a stranger. I must write it out, 
 I think, some day, but my eyes will not 
 serve me for more work of that kind than 
 is absolutely necessary. So, if you care to 
 listen, before you begin to make the 
 sketch of the landscape I see you are pre- 
 paring for — I used to sketch once myself,” 
 he added with a sigh — “ I will relate to 
 you this rustic drama.” 
 
 Gossiping in this fashion, we strolled 
 away from the grave near the edge of the 
 cliff, and sat down, according to my pro- 
 position, in the church-porch. The door 
 was closed, and we had the place now all 
 to ourselves. The silence and the beauty 
 of the outlook across the broad expanse of 
 ocean were very enticing, for it was one 
 of those calm spring days which come so 
 refreshingly after the long, dreary, boisterous 
 bout of winter which we Englishmen have 
 to endure. The sound of the sea upon 
 the rock-girdled shore below us was 
 reduced to a gentle murmur, whilst an 
 odd young jackdaw or two, cawing quaintly 
 at intervals in the grey tower above our 
 heads, made the solitude, by gentle con- 
 trast as it were, only the more evident. 
 Short of the ingle-nook on a winter’s 
 night, there could be no more fitting 
 place in the world for one to listen to such 
 a tale, nay, for the matter of that, seeing 
 that the lighthouse, towards which we 
 were looking, and the neighbouring village 
 formed the actual background to the drama, 
 it was certainly the very best place in which 
 to hear about its incidents. 
 
 “You must know,” began the clergy- 
 
 man, “that I came here just before 
 Christmas last. I had been overworked, 
 they said, in London, and my eyes began 
 to fail, so the doctors fell back upon their 
 usual stronghold, and decreed that I must 
 have a rest and change in fresh country 
 air. Just then, fortunately, a friend, a 
 brother parson, had this living presented 
 to him, and he, earnestly desiring London 
 work, we effected an exchange, and I came 
 here. Included in the parish is the light- 
 house on that jagged group of rocks you 
 see some six miles out yonder, and the 
 thought of the life led by the guardians 
 of such places round this storm-beaten 
 coast, had always had a curious fascination 
 in it for me. 
 
 “ Strangely enough, the first sight I had 
 of my people was connected with this far- 
 off beacon. On walking up the village, 
 after getting out of the chaise which 
 brought me over from Bodmin, I met a 
 small crowd escorting this man Tregarvon 
 down the street, and his face struck me on the 
 instant, as it has you, I perceive. Asking the 
 cause* of the excitement, I was told that 
 his father, old Reuben Tregarvon, had 
 been suddenly stricken with paralysis, and, 
 as it was his turn that night, together 
 with his son, young Reuben Tregarvon, to 
 relieve the men in charge, the young man 
 took the elder’s place, providing a substi- 
 tute for himself in the person of a lad, 
 said to have come the day before from 
 Falmouth. 
 
 “ I took but little notice of this at the 
 time. Afterwards I found that this boy 
 had been picked up by old Tregarvon, and 
 promised a permanent place as light-boy 
 at the lighthouse, as old Tregarvon’s sons 
 were all outgrowing the place, and the old 
 man’s temper had such an evil reputation 
 that no lad from Pol -Coed could be per- 
 suaded to go with him to solitary confine- 
 ment in the island pharos. But, on the 
 very morning that old Tregarvon was due 
 at the lighthouse, he was stricken down, 
 and his son took his place. 
 
 “You may remember what an awful 
 Christmas we had, and what fearful storms 
 raged far into February. The watch at 
 the light is changed every three weeks, but 
 at the expiration of that time — that is, 
 young Tregarvon’s time, you understand — 
 the weather was worse than ever. Storm 
 succeeded storm, with scarce an interval of 
 abatement, and any hope of communication 
 with the light was abandoned as soon as 
 conceived. Thus the three weeks became 
 six, and the six nearly nine. 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 30 [June is, 1883.] THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE, 
 
 “ ‘ Reuben and the boy will be starved/ 
 said Michael Tregarvon, thinking of his 
 brother, ‘They have but six weeks’ 
 provisions there at the most ; but to 
 attempt to reach the light would be certain 
 death.’ 
 
 “Still, they were not starved yet, for 
 there the beacon shone, as we could see, 
 save on the very thickest nights ; but as far 
 as communication with it was concerned, it 
 might have been on the other side of the 
 world. 
 
 “ At last, as all things come to an end, 
 the storms came to an end, the wind sud- 
 denly dropped to a moderate breeze off the 
 land, and the boat put off with food and the 
 relief-men who were to replace Tregarvon 
 and his young companion. The hours of 
 watching and suspense that followed were 
 passed by me in mingling with the knots 
 of wild, excitable, half-fisher-folk, half- 
 farmers, composing the small population of 
 Pol Coed, who were gathered together 
 near the landing-place, and I was amazed 
 to find how quick and ready they were to 
 imagine the very worst. 
 
 “ Surrounded by some of the most vehe- 
 ment, I stood on the little pier when the boat 
 came back. You may imagine the horror 
 when it was seen that, beside her crew 
 of four men, but one— only one— passenger 
 was there — Reuben Tregarvon alone ! 
 
 “ A wild cry of anxiety rose from the 
 crowd. Where was the boy 1 Had he 
 died from exhaustion — from starvation 1 
 It seemed more than likely. Or was it 
 possible that ? 
 
 “I do not know, sir,” went on the 
 rector after a pause at this point in his 
 narrative, “ whether you are acquainted 
 with the character of the Cornish people. 
 If you are not, and do not understand 
 their imaginative superstitious natures and 
 their wild, sometimes almost savage ten- 
 dencies, you may not think it possible that 
 such an idea as that which then succeeded 
 could have arisen in their minds. 
 
 “ As the boat neared the landing-place 
 and the features of its occupants became 
 visible, the expression on Tregarvon’s 
 handsome features seemed to suggest . to 
 the people’s imaginations the accusation 
 which they were about to hurl at him. At 
 first by a whispered word, and then by 
 louder exclamations, which gradually rose 
 to a shout, they charged him with murder. 
 
 • “ ‘ He has murdered the boy,’ they cried, 
 < for food— for the sake of his flesh. Down 
 with him ! down with him D 
 
 “I thought of the reputation for violence 
 
 the Tregarvon family bore in the village, 
 and how unpopular it had made some of 
 its members. I shuddered lest the accu- 
 sation should be true, and trembled lest 
 the crowd should do wild justice on the 
 criminal then and there before my eyes — 
 they seemed quite capable of it. I 
 beckoned to our solitary constable, who 
 was standing amongst the crowd — a man 
 formerly in the London police-force, and 
 whose present post I had obtained for him 
 — and got as near the landing-place as I 
 could. 
 
 “ ‘ Where is the boy 1 ’ I demanded as 
 soon as the boat came within hailing dis- 
 tance. There was a ghastly pause for a 
 moment, and the answer came back, 
 
 ‘ Dead — drowned ! ’ 
 
 “ * He has murdered him,’ reiterated the 
 assembled people. 
 
 “ ‘ Stand back, all of you/ I shouted ; 
 
 ‘ it is by the laws of his country he must 
 be judged, not by you. Constable, arrest 
 Reuben Tregarvon on suspicion.’ 
 
 “ The constable was prompt, and saw as 
 clearly as I did, that innocent or guilty, it 
 was the best thing to do to save him from 
 the wrath of his fellow-villagers. So, 
 advancing to the stairs, as Reuben Tregar- 
 von came up them, he laid his hand on his 
 shoulder, and arrested him in the usual 
 form. I, standing just above, had a full 
 sight of the supposed culprit’s face, as it 
 was upturned. Haggard with famine and 
 anxiety, to my intense surprise a look of 
 the greatest relief passed over his features 
 when he heard the constable’s words. 
 Instead of seeming appalled or resentful, 
 he looked like a man who has heard the 
 solution of a sore, pressing difficulty, 
 like a man who saw his way out of some 
 dire strait. 
 
 “ ‘ It is well/ he said simply, and pre- 
 pared to follow the constable up the 
 narrow street. The multitude who, a few 
 moments before, had been ripe to shed his 
 blood, shrank away as he passed, and 
 gathered round the boatmen, who, however 
 willing, were unable to afford any more 
 information than that already gleaned. 
 They had found Tregarvon alone in the 
 lighthouse. The boy was gone, and 
 
 Tregarvon offered no explanation but 
 those two words : ‘ He is dead S Drowned ! ’ 
 
 “My first care on getting Tregarvon 
 to the little room in the small house 
 that served as a lock-up, was to provide 
 him with food. It was evident that the 
 man was dazed from famine. I cautioned 
 him, and told him that anything he 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE KOMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. [Juneis.iss^ 31 
 
 might say would be used against him. 
 He remained silent, save for one question : 
 
 ‘ My father — how is he 1 ’ 
 
 “ ‘ He is dead; he knew no one after you 
 left/ I replied. 
 
 “ ‘ Thank Heaven ! ’ said Tregarvon ; ‘ he 
 will never know what he has done/ 
 
 “I thought the words had misplaced 
 themselves, as those of an overstrained 
 mind are apt to do; but I remembered 
 them afterwards, and then understood 
 fully what had prompted them. 
 
 “ The question at present was, How 
 should I act 1 I was, myself, the only justice 
 of the peace within miles. Much as I dis- 
 approve of the union of spiritual and 
 legal functions, I had had no choice, for, 
 with the exception of the Squire of Pol 
 Coed House, there was no one approaching 
 a gentleman or a man of education within 
 a good ten miles. 
 
 “Meanwhile, food had been brought, and 
 I heard with surprise the familiar words of 
 thanksgiving, ‘For what we are about to 
 receive J repeated ; and as soon as the 
 much-needed nutriment was taken, Tregar- 
 von lay down on the hard bench and 
 composed himself to a sleep as tranquil as 
 a baby’s, but soon to be interrupted. 
 
 “ A hoarse roar came up the street ; the 
 constable rushed to the outer door oi the 
 little house, and made it fast only just in 
 time. The crowd demanded Tregarvon, 
 and would, no doubt, have done summary 
 justice on him had he fallen within their 
 clutches. 
 
 “I never rightly learned what had actually 
 stirred them up to this renewed outburst 
 of indignation. I imagine, however, it 
 was simply due to a fermentation of the 
 horrible idea which had taken possession 
 of them — a fermentation stimulated, no 
 doubt, by the constantly-recurring com- 
 ments of the most talkative amongst them. 
 But, whatever was the cause of the tumult, 
 it was evident we could not keep Tregarvon 
 at so insecure a lock-up. 
 
 “Therefore, assisted by the constable, 
 more versed in the ways of the law than 
 myself, I, as a magistrate, went through 
 the form, after a brief examination, in the 
 prisoner’s presence, of the boatmen who 
 had fetched Tregarvon from the lighthouse, 
 of committing him for trial on a charge of 
 murder at the Bodmin assizes, then fortu- 
 nately going on. Determining to lose no 
 time when this was done, I announced to 
 the people that it was my intention to 
 take the prisoner over to Bodmin myself 
 that afternoon. This appeared fully to 
 
 satisfy them, especially as I also insisted 
 on the four boatmen going with me as the 
 witnesses against him. A conveyance — 
 the only one in the place, half-omnibus, 
 half-van — was procured, and late that 
 evening, to my great relief, I handed over 
 my strange charge to the care of the 
 Bodmin constabulary. 
 
 “ On leaving Pol Coed, I should observe 
 that, as we turned inland, Tregarvon took 
 a long look at the sea, as one might look 
 the last on a beloved face, but he never 
 put off the impenetrable veil of silence in 
 which he persistently wrapped himself. I 
 slept in the town that night, or, rather, I 
 took a bed at the principal inn ; but the 
 events of the day crowded in upon my 
 mind with such never-ending and perplex- 
 ing confusion that sleep was out of the 
 question. 
 
 “ I should here pause to say that, hastily 
 as I may have seemed to act in judging, 
 or even suspecting Tregarvon to be guilty 
 of the accusation brought against him by 
 the people, I had no choice. Had I not 
 done as I did, and myself ordered his 
 arrest and carried it through, his life would 
 to a certainty have fallen a sacrifice to the 
 wild lawlessness of the villagers. Their 
 fierce wreckers’ blood was up. I had not 
 had them under my influence long enough 
 to hold them in check, for, as I have 
 hinted before, they are not an easy com- 
 munity to manage, and the mysterious and 
 unaccountably strange bearing of Tre- 
 garvon himself was not easy to under- 
 stand, even for me, and to them it must 
 have appeared like a tacit admission of his 
 guilt. I confess I did not know what to 
 make of it. 
 
 The assize - list was not a heavy one, 
 and to my satisfaction I found the next 
 morning that Tregarvon could actually be 
 put on his trial in the afternoon. He 
 refused even to see a solicitor for the 
 purpose of conducting his case, and whilst 
 I was talking with him in the prison, he 
 asked for pen, ink, and paper. ‘ How,’ I 
 thought, ‘he is going to write out some 
 explanation or confession.’ But no ; it 
 was only a short note to his brother 
 Michael, and placing with it a small book 
 which he took from his breast-pocket, lie 
 begged to know if it were possible for him 
 to see his brother. Compliance with this 
 request was rendered the more easy as 
 Michael was known to have come over 
 that morning for the purpose of an inter- 
 view, and soon afterwards the brothers 
 stood in presence of each other. Neither 
 
' V Oj 
 
 32 June 18 , 1883 .] THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. [Conducted by 
 
 spoke for a long while. At last Michael 
 exclaimed passionately : ‘ Oh, Reuben, 
 
 Reuben, what will come of this 1 
 
 “ ‘ Michael, I beg your pardon, it is hard 
 upon you/ was the strange answer ; ‘ but 
 you always wished to go to Canada, you 
 
 know, and you had better sail before ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Before what ] ’ thought I to myself. 
 “There was again a long silence — indeed, 
 very little or nothing more was said on either 
 hand ; and when the painful scene termin- 
 ated, I was left more puzzled than ever. 
 
 “Arraigned at length, Reuben Tregarvon 
 stood in the dock before the assembled 
 court, and to the formal question of whether 
 he was guilty or not of the murder of 
 Sidney Cathcart at the Pol Coed lighthouse 
 came the startling answer, ‘ Guilty ! ^ 
 
 “ ‘ Does the prisoner know what is the 
 effect of pleading guilty to a charge of 
 murder 1 ’ enquired the judge. 
 
 “ ‘ I do, my lord/ replied Tregarvon with 
 a calmness that, even from him, surprised 
 me. 
 
 “Until that moment I had not realised 
 what might be the result of the trial. 
 In spite of appearances I had never 
 for a moment doubted that Tregarvon 
 would somehow prove his innocence. 
 The whole place swam before my eyes, 
 and though I am partly conscious of the 
 judge assuming the black cap, I heard 
 nothing clearly till the concluding words: 
 ‘And may God hav« mercy upon your 
 soul/ To which Tregarvon replied : 
 ‘ Amen, God’s will be done ; 7 and I saw 
 him look up as if the heavens had opened 
 above him. 
 
 « The man who had just been sentenced 
 to death as a murderer only recalled to 
 my mind the Proto-martyr. 
 
 “ ‘ Hold up, sir ! 7 whispered my faithful 
 friend the constable, in my ear ; ‘ here is 
 a glass of water. I could not disturb the 
 court to get you one before. It always 
 upsets a man the first time he hears those 
 words: “God have mercy!” Poor fellow, 
 it’s a pity it was not manslaughter.’ 
 
 “The excitement and heat of the crowded 
 court had so affected me in my then weak 
 state of health, that in spite of the glass of 
 water, I had to lie down for some hours 
 before I could walk to the gaol again to see 
 Tregarvon. When I arrived there, he was 
 already in the condemned cell. He was 
 kneeling by the pallet which served as a bed. 
 His lips moved, he was engaged in prayer, 
 and the words seemed to break from him 
 involuntarily. Never shall I hearagain such 
 a rapture of repentance, of faith, of joy, even. 
 
 The door was locked on me; I had no 
 choice but to listen. God had heard his 
 prayer, he was murmuring, his expiation 
 was to be on earth — the Almighty had 
 ordained a merciful punishment before 
 taking him home : home to a union with 
 God, and a reunion with his dearly-loved. 
 The most profound repentance breathed in 
 every word; but there was no acknow- 
 ledgment of the special crime for which he 
 was to suffer. I drew back; I had no 
 services to offer. I could not intrude 
 between this soul and its Maker ; this soul, 
 condemned for a cruel and atrocious crime, 
 owning the justice of the sentence. I could 
 only wait and learn. Was it possible that 
 such a man as this could be guilty of the 
 criminality he took upon himself 1 I was 
 more perplexed, shocked, and astounded 
 than ever. 
 
 “During the ensuing days, his demeanour 
 was unchanged. Obedient to all regula- 
 tions, he seemed to accept everything as a 
 matter of course. His brother came to bid 
 him good-bye, and then learnt that the 
 end had not been unforeseen by Tregarvon. 
 His last act as a free man had been to 
 endow his brother with his savings, to 
 enable him to go to Canada with his 
 family. Indeed, the only shadow of regret 
 seemed to be the disgrace that would fall 
 on others. 
 
 “There was no time to forward a petition 
 to the Home Secretary, far-off as we are 
 from London, even had Tregarvon per- 
 mitted one to be sent. I waited for some — 
 for any account of those terrible days in 
 the lighthouse, but none came, urge him 
 as I would to make a full confession of all, 
 how it had fallen out, and what had tempted 
 him. 
 
 “ Once he said to me with a shudder : 
 
 “ ‘ It does not take long, does it 1 ’ 
 
 “ The day drew on. I found the hilly 
 ten miles between here and Bodmin only 
 too short for mental communing. I went 
 every day, for the rector of Bodmin was 
 absent, and his temporary substitute wil- 
 lingly yielded to me the charge of my 
 parishioner. The more I thought of the 
 case, the more mysterious I felt it to be. 
 I longed to penetrate the veil of silence. 
 Each morning I felt sure that during that 
 day Tregarvon would give some history of 
 the death-struggle, of his motive — whether 
 it had been in a momentary fit of passion, 
 or whether he had yielded to the terrible 
 temptation born of ravenous hunger. Each 
 evening I returned unsatisfied as regarded 
 any details, but more convinced that the 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE EOMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 33 
 
 foul stain of murder could not cling to 
 that man, even in the teeth of his own 
 admission. 
 
 “ I took him books, for when he had been 
 made to assume the prison garb, he had 
 taken two books from his pocket, and 
 asked if he might keep them. They were 
 a Bible, and a Thomas a Kempis. Guided 
 by this indication, I supplied him with the 
 works of the Mystical School, now in its 
 new strength ; and I was astonished at the 
 avidity with which he devoured them. 
 
 “ On the evening of the last day before 
 that fixed for the execution, he and his 
 brother together received the communion 
 for the dying. Then he shook hands with 
 Michael, and entreated him not to try to 
 see him again ; but he begged me to come 
 to him by six o’clock on the following, the 
 fatal morning. 
 
 “ There was something in his manner that 
 overawed us; his requests were as com- 
 mands to all. 
 
 “ His gaolers told me, when I arrived true 
 to the appointed hour the next morning, 
 that he had slept quite quietly with a 
 smile on his face all night. He was dressed 
 when I entered the cell, and he drew me 
 to the farthest corner, while the warder, as 
 he had evidently been requested to do, 
 moved away from us as far as he could. 
 
 “ * I asked you to come early, Mr. Allan,’ 
 Tregarvon said with some hesitation, 
 ‘ because — because I want you to do me a 
 great — a last favour — here — now, to read 
 to me the marriage ^service this morning — 
 before — before I die.’ 
 
 “ ‘ The marriage service ! ’ I gasped, 
 overcome by surprise. ‘It — it is — it is 
 
 the ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Yes, I know ; you will read my funeral 
 service later,’ he said quietly. ‘ Mr. Allan, 
 you have been very good to me. I am 
 afraid this will try you.’ 
 
 “ ‘ I will read you whatever you like,’ I 
 said, dominated as usual by the power of 
 the man ; and in that condemned cell, to 
 one whose scaffold was already erected, 
 and who was to die in two hours’ time, I 
 began reading the marriage service. 
 
 “ He knelt down with that same strange 
 rapt expression of face that had become 
 almost habitual to him, until I came to the 
 marriage vow, when he rose — as if more 
 conscious of some unseen presence than of 
 mine, and put out his hand, repeating the 
 words after me. 
 
 “At this moment a hasty knock washeard 
 at the door. ‘ Mr. Allan, Mr. Allan,’ said 
 the voice of the chief warder — then there 
 
 was a moment’s pause broken at length by 
 another voice — that of a woman, crying 
 out, in an entreating tone : ‘ Let me in, let 
 me in, for God’s sake ! I am Sidney — 
 Sidney Cathcart ; indeed, indeed I am ! ’ 
 
 •“Eeuben Tregarvon turned deadly pale. 
 * It is her ghost,’ he cried, and he made a 
 step forward. 
 
 “ Pushing the warder aside with irre- 
 sistible force, a girl dashed into the room, 
 and threw herself into Tregarvon’s arms. 
 
 “ ‘ I am Sidney, I am alive,’ she cried. 
 
 ‘ Oh, Eeuben, they picked me up at sea 
 — hold me, I’m drowning,’ and she fainted 
 before Tregarvon could lay her on the 
 narrow bed. Suddenly the truth broke in 
 upon me, the mystery of his conduct was 
 solved. 
 
 “He bent over her with loving words, as 
 she returned to life, and to a bewildered 
 consciousness of where she was. ‘ But 
 they told me,’ she said presently, still half 
 bewildered, ‘ that you were— were to — 
 be ’ and she shuddered. 
 
 “ ‘ Ah, not now, not now,’ cried Tre- 
 garvon, with a sudden touch of human 
 feeling ; ‘oh, Mr. Allan, save me ! I can 
 tell all now ! ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Is this really Sidney Cathcart, the sup- 
 posed boy, who was with you in the light- 
 house 1 ’ I asked. 
 
 “ ‘ Yes, indeed it is,’ replied Tregarvon, 
 ‘ and none other — and— one day during the 
 heavy weather, we were out on the rocks 
 — and — and — she was reproaching me, 
 when her foot slipped. In an instant she 
 was swept into deep water, and carried 
 beyond my reach. I was about to plunge 
 in after her when I suddenly remembered 
 the light. I dared not run the risk, for, if 
 I were drowned, there would be no one left 
 to tend the lamp, and then who could say 
 what disaster might nob happen, what 
 number of lives might not be sacrificed, 
 if a storm-beaten vessel, with no light to 
 warn her, should be driven on the rocks ! ’ 
 
 “ He broke down here, and dropped his 
 head upon the girl’s shoulder, as she stood 
 clinging to him. Eecovering his voice 
 after a minute, he went on : 
 
 “‘I thought God was very good to let 
 me die, as perhaps I deserved, and thus 
 expiate my sin to her ; and perhaps, after 
 long years, to join her in heaven. But now, 
 oh, Mr. Allan, save me, I cannot die now ! ’ 
 and he strained the almost insensible form 
 to his heart. 
 
 “Trying to rally my senses after this 
 startling revelation of the truth, I ex- 
 claimed : 
 
34 [June 18, 1883.] THE BOMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ ‘ You cannot be hanged for the murder 
 of a boy— of a person who is still living ! ’ 
 The words sounded almost brutal in their 
 commonplaceness. 
 
 “ The warders had grasped the situation 
 more rapidly than I had done, and had 
 already sent a post-haste message to the 
 sheriff, who soon appeared on the scene. 
 
 “Fortunately, Michael Tregarvon had 
 lingered in the town, in hopes that his 
 brother might relent, and see him again. 
 He at once identified Sidney Oathcart, 
 who, when requested by the sheriff to put 
 on a lad’s cap, looked so like a boy that no 
 one present could be surprised that her sex 
 had never been suspected. By degrees we 
 gathered her story, told with shame and 
 contrition, and afterwards verified by 
 thoroughly reliable evidence. 
 
 “She had, she said, a very unhappy home. 
 Her mother had married a second time, 
 and the step-father was a bad man. Her 
 twin-brother had gone to sea, and she was 
 very lonely. Her step-father would not 
 let her go to service, as she saved him the 
 wages of a servant, but was not nearly so 
 well treated as if she had been one. 
 
 “ At last one day things came to a climax, 
 and she determined to run away. Opening 
 a drawer of her brother’s to take with her 
 some memento of her own father, she came 
 upon the boy’s thick winter suit, and the 
 idea entered her head that she could easier 
 get away if dressed in boy’s clothes. ‘ And 
 somehow it seemed as if Jim would . be 
 taking care of me,’ she said in her child- 
 like voice. She wished to go to Cornwall, 
 for her grandmother had been a Cornish 
 woman ; but on reaching Falmouth and 
 making enquiry, she had found all her 
 relations dead. A threat of the poor- 
 house had alarmed her, and she wandered 
 along the coast until she came to 
 Pol Coed. Here on the outskirts of the 
 place, she chanced upon old Tregarvon, and 
 had asked him if he knew of any work. 
 He said a boy was wanted for the Pol Coed 
 lighthouse, and offered to take him there 
 on trial for three weeks, his turn for duty 
 coming on that same night. 
 
 “ Encouraged by the old man’s evident 
 respectability, she had been tempted by the 
 high wages to accept the offer, and agreed 
 to join him at the pier that evening at four 
 o’clock. She went to the little inn, and 
 having only twopence in her pocket r had 
 not very wisely ordered a pint of ale, which, 
 with the long walk, and keen sea-air, had 
 thrown her into a heavy sleep, from which 
 she only awoke in time to run down 
 
 hastily to the pier. Enquiring as she had 
 been told to do for Eeuben Tregarvon, she 
 was hurried into a boat, and it had pushed 
 off from the land before she discovered 
 that accident had substituted for the grey- 
 haired old man she had agreed with, his 
 son. 
 
 “This, then, was the key to Tregarvon’s 
 bitter passionate repentance. Now the 
 petition for pardon, the longing for atone- 
 ment, were explained to me at least ; none 
 other knew of those communings with God 
 and his own soul. 
 
 “ ‘ But how were you rescued after you 
 slipped off the rocks 1 ’ at last asked the 
 sheriff. 
 
 ‘“I do not know. We were together, 
 and I slipped ; the sea was very rough. He 
 was just going to jump in, and then I saw 
 him look at the lighthouse ; he rushed into 
 the building for a moment, and returning 
 to the rocks, threw me a life-buoy. I clung 
 to that, and the tide was going out, and I 
 did not know any more till I found myself 
 on board a French fishing-boat. I could 
 not make the men understand me ; they 
 were very kind, and when we landed at 
 Nantes they took me to the consul, who 
 helped me to get back to England — to 
 Falmouth — and I have walked all the way,’ 
 she concluded, with a not unnatural burst 
 of tears. 
 
 “ It was clear she really was the missing 
 Sidney Catheart. I hqard no more, as I 
 was summoned back to Tregarvon. The 
 long strain, and its most unexpected termi- 
 nation, had produced the natural result. 
 
 “ It seemed that the almost superhuman 
 self-command had been retained until the 
 clock had begun to strike eight. This 
 now unmarked hour was the one on which 
 his thoughts had been fixed for days, and 
 by the time I reached the cell, violent 
 delirium had set in, and the strength of 
 three warders was tasked to hold the man 
 who hitherto had obeyed their slightest 
 word. His ravings betrayed the working 
 of his mind more intimately than he would 
 ever have permitted any sane words to do ; 
 for Eeuben Tregarvon being of an intensely 
 religious, highly-wrought nature, the sin 
 against the poor helpless Sidney was the 
 sin that to him so sorely needed repen- 
 tance. The horrible doubt whether he 
 had really done his duty in staying by the 
 beacon, rather than in trying to rescue her, 
 had rendered the remaining time he had 
 to pass alone in the lighthouse a veritable 
 
- - - tt. 
 
 3 
 
 sn 
 
 f 
 
 Charles Dickens.] THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. [June 18, 1883.1 35 
 
 hell. Too religious to seek refuge in 
 suicide, he hailed the idea of capital 
 punishment as his only real relief ; he 
 courted death, and had looked forward to 
 it, for by this means it was that he hoped 
 to escape future retribution. ‘A life for 
 a life/ he kept on repeating. He had acted 
 for the best ; he had sinned, and he had 
 repented, and God was coming to the 
 rescue with his great gift of death. That 
 it was an ignominious death — death by 
 the hangman’s hands — did not trouble 
 him. It was the gate into the future, the 
 answer to the enigma of life, that by a 
 willing surrender here he might hope for 
 pardon hereafter. He had dreaded a 
 prolonged existence with the eternal ques- 
 tion for ever ringing in his ears : ‘Was I 
 right ? Might I have saved her ? ’ 
 
 “ Sidney never had any doubt. ‘ He 
 could have done nothing else/ she said. 
 
 ‘ If he had been lost the light would have 
 gone out, and there might have been many 
 lives lost in those storms. Oh, I hope it 
 is not bad for him that I have lived ! I 
 will try and make him a good wife, though 
 I am sure I never shall be good enough for 
 him. If only he lives ! If only he lives ! ’ 
 she cried again and again in the terribly 
 anxious weeks that followed, when, for my 
 own part, I dreaded life more than death, 
 lest the brain should never recover the 
 awful shock it had borne. 
 
 “The poor girl behaved beautifully all 
 through those dreary days, developing 
 from the silly heedless child, whose 
 thoughtless escapade had nearly ended in 
 so terrible a tragedy, into a thoughtful 
 woman — devoted, watchful, and intelli- 
 gent. It was mainly due to her nursing 
 that Tregarvon recovered, which he did, 
 slowly but completely, from that strange 
 land of delirium where the hapless patient 
 wandered so far away from his anxious 
 watchers — where only phantoms are real. 
 
 “ Again and again did he hold my hand 
 and entreat me, as the executioner, not 
 to let him suffer more than was needful, 
 or he would thank me, believing me to be 
 the warder. 
 
 “ ‘ He has youth and strength on his 
 side/ said the doctor. And truly they 
 asserted themselves as he slowly struggled 
 back to health. 
 
 “ In proportion as he revived Sidney 
 shrank more and more into herself, look- 
 ing each day more ill and depressed. I also 
 noticed that she had several times sent 
 letters to the post, and at length she 
 took courage and opened her heart to me. 
 
 “ ‘Would it not be much better for him/ 
 she said, ‘ if I went away, and left him to 
 marry another wife? For you see, sir, I 
 have been brought up so differently. We 
 did go to church on wet Sundays when 
 we could not go out in the cart, but it 
 was only because we had nothing else to 
 do, and liked to look at the bonnets and the 
 ladies’ dresses. I wrote to mother as soon as 
 I got time, because he never knew I had a 
 mother. Somehow he seemed to think I 
 could not have run away if she were 1 
 living, and I did not like to tell him ; but 
 mother says she will never have me back 
 again, but that I may go to a Home ; and 
 I would go there rather than do him any 
 harm/ she continued, handing me a letter 
 ill-written and badly spelt. 
 
 “ I am sorry to think such a letter ever 
 came from a woman’s pen — from a mother 
 to a daughter — it showed the hard, nar- 
 row selfishness of a woman without charity, 
 and only used to accumulating petty gains. 
 
 I have no doubt that much was dictated 
 by the step-father, but the coward-fear of 
 the world, the dread of disgrace, rather 
 than love for the daughter, showed through 
 it clearly. It did much to justify Sidney 
 in my eyes. 
 
 “ ‘ Tell me what is right to do, sir/ she 
 said. I confess I had had fears that she 
 was morally far inferior to Tregarvon, 
 and many doubts as to how the marriage 
 would answer, but these simple words 
 removed them. Sidney Cathcart had 
 probably never in her life before asked 
 ‘ what was right/ She was beginning by 
 truthfulness, repentance, and self-sacrifice, 
 and was feeling after the higher life. 
 
 “ ‘ You have done well, so far at least/ I 
 said ; ‘ for the rest I think you had better 
 ask Tregarvon.’ 
 
 “ By the scene you have witnessed here 
 at this . hurch-porch,” continued the clergy- 
 man, after another pause, “and yonder by 
 the old man’s grave this morning, you 
 know what Beuben Tregarvon’s answer 
 was, but I happened to overhear his actual 
 words. Coming into the condemned cell 
 — for we had not been able to move him — 
 indeed I suppose during the earlier part of 
 his illness he was still a prisoner, and I 
 cannot tell the exact date of the arrival of 
 the young Queen’s pardon, as it had come 
 when no earthly voice, even the Queen’s, 
 could pierce his ear. 
 
 “Coming into the cell for the last time, I 
 say — as he was to be removed that even- 
 ing, I saw Sidney on her knees by the bed, 
 too far for the bes#eching hands to reach 
 
 
 u 
 
36 [June 18, 1883.] THE ROMANCE OF A LIGHTHOUSE. [Conducted by 
 
 her. I could guess the tenor of the 
 faltering words which permitted no inter- 
 ruption till what she had set herself to say 
 was ended. Tregarvon waited till she 
 paused, and then with a great effort drew 
 her close to him. He tried no argument, 
 he denied none of her words; his only 
 reply as he threw his arms around her 
 was : 
 
 “‘My darling, my wife, I love you ! ’ 
 
 Sidney never doubted any more. W eak, 
 erring, imperfect as she was, Tregarvon 
 loved her, and it was enough. 
 
 “Only one thing remains to be told. A 
 few days after Tregarvon’s conduct had 
 become publicly known, a man in a rough 
 pea-coat, and with the evident bearing of 
 a sea-captain, called upon me, enquired 
 after Reuben Tregarvon, and what his 
 future plans were. I said I had no doubt he 
 would accompany his brother to Canada. 
 
 “ ‘ Then,’ said the captain, ‘ my brother 
 has just died, and left me a house and 
 three hundred acres allotment-land out 
 at a new place there, they call London. 
 My ship, the Vesta, was one that 
 weathered the storm, thanks to the Pol 
 Coed beacon, in February last. If the 
 man who kept the lamp alight likes to go 
 and work my land on half-profits he may ; 
 for,’ added he, with a falter in his voice, 
 
 ‘ I had my wife on board (although it was 
 all against rules) that voyage, and if we 
 had struck on the reef, I should have had 
 to save the passengers first, and we had 
 only two boats, and one hundred and fifty 
 souls on board ! So Heaven bless Reuben 
 Tregarvon ! It was my wife’s thought,’ 
 he added : ‘ there’s the papers, just look, 
 sir, and see that they are all right ; ’ and he 
 hurried from the room. Tregarvon is like 
 many here, as I pointed out to you before, 
 half farmer, half fisherman, and will, no 
 doubt, succeed well ” 
 
 “Thank you, indeed,” I said, as Mr. 
 Allan concluded his narrative, and we rose 
 from our seat in the porch. “ I never 
 heard a stranger story ; I am more set 
 than ever on having Tregarvon’s head.” 
 
 “Well, your best chance is to go to 
 Falmouth this evening. They lodge for 
 one night at the little waterside inn, The 
 May Flower, and you might get a sitting.” 
 
 I did go to The May Flower, and pre- 
 vailed on Tregarvon to give me an hour, 
 bribing him with a promise of a sketch of 
 his father’s grave, but we neither of us 
 referred to what the rector had been telling 
 
 me of the way in which his marriage had 
 come about. 
 
 Here ended Pengarth’s manuscript, and 
 in a few minutes I heard my friend return. 
 He had something of the Cornish gift of 
 silence about him, for he asked no ques- 
 tions as to how the story had struck me. 
 He merely went to the folio of sketches, and 
 we were soon immersed in practical details 
 of roads, inns, and conveyances.. Only, 
 when I was obliged to go, he said : “ If 
 you go straight to Pol Coed, I will get you 
 to take this to the rector ; ” and he showed 
 me a sketch of St. Stephen, with the 
 features of Tregarvon, and the words under 
 it were : “He that seeketh his life shall lose 
 it, but he that loseth his life shall find it.” 
 
 In a little over a month’s time, I was 
 at Pol Coed, and climbing the hill to the 
 churchyard and the rectory. There before 
 me lay the subject of Pengarth’s water- 
 colour drawing, not in the tender greyish 
 tints of early spring, but in the flush and 
 beauty of midsummer, verging upon early 
 autumn. The corn rustled ripely, ready 
 for the sickle; the poppies flamed; the 
 cry of the sea-birds came mingled with the 
 low monotone of the waves ; the grass- 
 hoppers chirped. I breathed the pure air, 
 and thanked Heaven for the mere gift of 
 life in such a scene. 
 
 I took no warning from the dead beneath 
 my feet. I only noticed the little village 
 of Pol Coed, to think how charming it 
 would be to spend one’s days there. I did 
 not observe that the blinds of the rectory 
 were drawn down; in such heat it was 
 nothing remarkable. But the door bell, 
 when I rang it, sounded with a strange 
 hollow sound, and the woman who 
 answered it was weeping bitterly. 
 
 “ He’s dead, sir,” she sobbed, in reply 
 to my enquiries for the Rev. Stephen 
 Allan; “he’s dead of the fever; it has 
 been raging down there these two months 
 past,” and she pointed to the smiling 
 village under the cliff, “ and he has been 
 nursing and teaching every one, and there 
 have been no new cases since he’s been 
 took ; perhaps he is taken for all of them, 
 sinners that we are never to have heeded 
 his words before. No, sir, you must not 
 go in ; his last words were, when he was 
 stricken for death, that no one was to come 
 near him, living or dead, and we were to 
 close the coffin at once, and he’s to be 
 buried this evening ;” and she added, with a 
 fresh outbreak of weeping, “ we shall never 
 see the like of him again.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 37 
 
 Yes, the smiling village was a pest-hole 
 of typhoid fever. Mr. Allan’s vigorous 
 measures and sanitary knowledge had 
 stayed the plague, but the shepherd had 
 laid down his life for his sheep. 
 
 The friend with whom he had made the 
 exchange of livings came that evening to 
 read the funeral service, amidst the sobs of 
 the crowd of parishioners that encircled 
 the grave. 
 
 Into his hands I gave Pengarth’s sketch 
 of St. Stephen, and he placed it in the 
 church over the tablet “ To the Memory 
 of Stephen Allan, Clerk,” where the gilt 
 aureole and elaborate vestments are much 
 admired by the congregation ; but none 
 have discovered in the saint the features 
 of Reuben TregarvoD. 
 
 “It was sent there by the painting 
 gentleman,” is now always the explanation 
 to visitors to Pol Coed church; “because 
 you see, sir, as how the rector’s first name 
 was Stephen.” 
 
 Truly, all callings have their possibilities 
 of martyrdom ! 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 
 
 By Mary Seymour. 
 
 I. 
 
 The bell of Wincombe parish church 
 had stopped, the little building was full of 
 its usual Sunday worshippers, and the 
 Rev. Roland Halliwell had begun the 
 exhortation in his most clerical tones 
 when a sudden whirl and bustle dis- 
 turbed the attention of both pastor and 
 congregation. It is difficult to say which 
 of their organs was most strongly affected : 
 the clatter of high -heeled shoes, the 
 rustle of silken gowns, the combined 
 odours of patchouli and white-rose, and the 
 various hues of many-coloured raiment all 
 broke at once upon the astonished church- 
 goers, and were welcomed by the younger 
 portion as heralding the arrival of the 
 ladies staying at Hillside, and thus afford- 
 ing the excitement of guessing their ages 
 and position. 
 
 The curate, startled by the sound of their 
 entry, so different from the clatter of the 
 children, or the shuffle of the old women, 
 looked up for a moment, and then dropped 
 his eyes upon his book with a feeling of 
 indignation. Why did such people come 
 in late and disturb the congregation 1 It 
 would have been more respectful if they had 
 
 stayed away altogether ; their way of dress- 
 ing their hair was sufficient to destroy the 
 effects of a year at least of careful Sunday- 
 school teaching, and he was convinced that 
 before a week was over all the most 
 promising girls would have cut and curled 
 their front locks and spent the greater 
 part of their time in trimming hats in 
 emulation of the elaborate head-gear of 
 the new-comers. 
 
 There was nothing in their appearance 
 to justify the young clergyman’s wrath ; 
 both were pretty women under five-and- 
 twenty, and both behaved during the 
 service with extreme decorum, although 
 one of them giggled a little in her pocket- 
 handkerchief when a small boy inadver- 
 tently scattered four peppermint-drops and 
 one halfpenny broadcast in the aisle. The 
 accident did not disturb the rest of the 
 congregation in the least, the younger 
 members were engrossed in a struggle to 
 keep their places in the Psalms, whilst the 
 elder ones were in that condition of 
 passive receptivity to which a quarter of 
 an hour’s attendance at church reduces the 
 average rustic mind. They used neither 
 hymn nor prayer book, they joined neither 
 in responses nor singing, but they solemnly 
 rose up and sat down at the proper places 
 with their eyes fixed upon some point in 
 the chancel without betraying either interest 
 or weariness by the movement of a muscle. 
 The sermon permitting them to remain 
 physically quiescent for a time was acknow- 
 ledged by them to be soothing, but the 
 curate’s eloquence was not so much admired 
 as the vicar’s. This latter’s unsparing de- 
 nunciations of modern free thought and 
 of the dangers of cultivating an intel- 
 lectual cynicism were very pleasing to his 
 hearers, both as proving his earnestness 
 and their own superiority. His four- 
 syllable words and involved sentences 
 were far more popular than the somewhat 
 ostentatiously simple addresses of the 
 curate. 
 
 “ What a solemn young parson he is,” 
 said one of the two girls who had startled 
 him into indignation; “I would give some- 
 thing to see if he could laugh.” 
 
 Church was over, and they had left the 
 village behind them, and were climbing up 
 the hill which led to their lonely little 
 cottage ; the sun was shining with July 
 heat, the dust was blowing along the un- 
 frequented road, and neither of the ladies 
 was feeling particularly edified by the 
 morning’s experience. 
 
 “I think,” went on the one who had 
 
38 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 first spoken, “ we were a couple of donkeys 
 to come to such a quiet place ; we might 
 have had no end of fun if we had gone 
 with the others.” 
 
 “ And spent no end of money,” put in 
 the other, who was the younger of the 
 two. “ You know very well, Nelly, we 
 shall live for just a quarter of the money 
 we should have spent at a big hotel.” 
 
 “ And a fine saving it will be,” retorted 
 Nelly with a good-humoured laugh, “ if 
 we die of dulness, and have to pay that 
 solemn young parson to bury us. He will 
 give me the blues if he does.” 
 
 “ Don't let him have the chance, then. I 
 don’t mean to give it him, I can tell you.” 
 The villagers of Wincombe were a little 
 divided in opinion as to the social position 
 of the two visitors at Mrs. Thornton's — the 
 number and variety of their dresses, the 
 unpractical nature of their boots, and their 
 views about the hours and character of 
 their meals, seemed to prove them to be 
 great ladies ; but the supporters of this 
 theory had to acknowledge that money was 
 not too plentiful or friends too numerous 
 at Hillside. Finally, Mrs. West, of The 
 Castle of Comfort, soon decided the question 
 in a few words. 
 
 “ Real ladies ! Bless you, no. Where’s 
 their livery footman ? ” 
 
 Roland Halliwell had felt no doubt as to 
 their social position from the moment they 
 had rustled into church. 
 
 “ Very respectable people, doubtless,” he 
 mused to himself as he strode over the hills 
 on theW ednesday after he had first seen them. 
 “But I wish they had gone anywhere else. 
 Grace Martin and Mary Dykes are not the 
 only girls who will take to high-heels and 
 tight-lacing as a consequence of their visit. 
 Their influence will be most pernicious.” 
 
 He sighed heavily. He had just been 
 solemnly interviewed by the village school- 
 mistress on the subject of the misdeeds of 
 . Grace and Mary, and he held, besides, the 
 fashionably strong views on the sanitary 
 aspects of dress. 
 
 His meditations were interrupted by a 
 woman's voice, and a cry of “ Do stop ! ” 
 made him turn abruptly round. One of 
 the very persons then occupying his 
 thoughts was running and shouting — 
 could she be running and shouting after 
 him? — down the slope behind him. He 
 stopped stiffly, indignant protest at the im- 
 pertinence expressed in attitude and look. 
 
 “ Oh, how fast you do go, and why 
 did you not hear me 1 ” began the young 
 woman, quite regardless of his severe air of 
 
 reproof, which she considered to be the 
 usual professional badge of his class, and 
 by no means understood to be intended as 
 a rebuke for her own misdeeds. “ I thought 
 I should never catch you up.” 
 
 Roland grew stiffer than before, and 
 then lifting his hat asked if he could be of 
 any use. 
 
 “ Of any use 1 Of course you can. Do 
 you think I should have run up hill and 
 down dale for the fun of trying to catch 
 you ?” Anyone less wrathful than Roland 
 must have smiled at the association of two 
 such incongruous ideas as himself in this 
 mood of icy repression and fun, but he did 
 not smile for a moment, and his companion 
 went on : “ Nelly — that is my friend — has 
 put the heel of her boot through a hole in 
 the plank over the stream. She cannot get 
 the heel out, but she has taken the boot off, 
 or rather ” — with a burst of laughter, the 
 motive for which lay deeper than he knew — 
 
 “ she has taken her foot out of the boot, 
 and there it sticks — the boot, I mean ! ” 
 Roland listened to the speaker without 
 allowing himself to betray a gleam of intelli- 
 gence ; a slightly mocking look arose in her 
 eyes as she went on. 
 
 “ If you have a knife and will dig it out 
 for her, I shall be much obliged ; other- 
 wise, she must hop home.” 
 
 Roland was doubly disgusted at her 
 flippancy. He felt in his pocket, drew out 
 a tolerably substantial pen-knife, and an- 
 nounced his readiness to follow her, in a 
 tone of rigid courtesy. The two walked 
 side by side without speaking a word, 
 Maggie Lyndhurst secretly enjoying the 
 situation, and rehearsing a reproduction on 
 some future occasion of the curate’s manner 
 and walk. The enjoyment was limited to 
 herself. Mr. Halliwell was not at all 
 pleased with the situation or with the 
 young lady, and was very thankful when 
 he saw an immediate prospect of relieving 
 himself from both. 
 
 “ All right, Nelly,” cried his companion, 
 “I have found someone.” 
 
 If Roland had felt his dignity insulted 
 by the individual nature of the first appeal, 
 he did not find it soothed by this classifica- 
 tion of himself as “ someone.” The sight of 
 a young lady, seated on a grassy bank by a 
 stream, and ruefully regarding her boot 
 securely fastened by its heel to a hole in 
 the plank over the river, was a sufficiently 
 comical spectacle to have overcome any 
 feelings but those of injured dignity, but it 
 did not tempt him to smile ; on the con- 
 trary, his consciousness of the growing 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 " - r S=c 
 
 THE OTHEE SIDE. [June 18, 1883.] 39 
 
 absurdity of the situation froze him into 
 greater stiffness of demeanour. 
 
 The removal of the little boot, firmly 
 fixed by its French heel, was a matter of 
 some difficulty, but he accomplished it 
 after a few minutes, and restored it to its 
 owner with a bow. The thing was a use- 
 less little absurdity, pretty in spite of its 
 defiance of all natural laws, because, like 
 its wearer, it showed traces of such ex- 
 quisite finish and daintiness. She was 
 older than her companion, Eoland saw at 
 a glance, and the striking contrast nature 
 had formed between her pale complexion 
 and dark eyebrows seemed to have been 
 helped out by the aid of art. 
 
 “ Thank you very much,” she said, look- 
 ing up at him with a pair of dark eyes full 
 of drollery and mischief. “lam awfully 
 sorry to have given you so much trouble. 
 I am afraid you may have spoilt your 
 knife.” 
 
 “ Not at all ; can I be of any further 
 use 1 ” with what Nelly afterwards charac- 
 terised as the politeness of a Polar-bear. 
 
 ‘‘I think not, thank you. Can he, 
 Maggie 1 ” 
 
 “ No ; unless,” and the wickeder and 
 prettier of his tormentors actually laughed 
 again ; then added with a pretty appearance 
 of hesitation, “unless you can lend us a 
 button-hook.” 
 
 The gentleman hardly regretted that he 
 did not possess such a thing, he only stated 
 the fact, and then wishing them good- 
 morning, strode over the hills again at a 
 rate which showed that he did not intend 
 to be again overtaken. 
 
 The girls waited until he was out of sight, 
 but never stopped to think whether he was 
 out of hearing, before they gave way to a 
 fit of uncontrolled laughter. 
 
 ii. 
 
 It was the noon of an oppressive 
 August day, Mrs. Thornton’s two lodgers 
 were sitting at the open window of one of 
 the upper rooms, and trying to fancy that 
 they could feel a little breeze coming up 
 from the west. 
 
 “ I wish we were down by the sea-shore,” 
 said the younger a little petulantly. “ Nelly, 
 feel how hot my head is ; do you think 
 there is going to be a storm 1 ” 
 
 “Can’t say, my dear, but I am sorry 
 your head aches. I am afraid it has been 
 running about after my packing ; you are 
 such a dear good-natured little thing, it 
 does seem a shame to ask you to do any- 
 
 thing more, but no one can trim a bonnet 
 as you can, and if you wouldn’t mind ” 
 
 The other moved her head restlessly to 
 and fro in her armchair, but seemed 
 relieved at the notion of employment. 
 
 “Give me the shape and the lace then; 
 only remember you are to make them all 
 believe it comes from Paris. I should 
 enjoy taking in that sly Louie.” 
 
 Nelly agreed to the condition, and the 
 work began. The heat and oppression 
 were forgotten, even the headache seemed 
 of little importance as the artist proceeded 
 with her work ; but when it was finished 
 the poor little girl drew her hand across 
 her eyes and said : 
 
 “ I am sure there is going to be a storm, 
 the lightning hurts my eyes before it 
 comes.” 
 
 “There is a funny light in the sky,” 
 said the other, who was trying on her 
 bonnet, and looking in the glass. “ I look 
 a perfect fright,” here she arranged one or 
 two straying curls upon her forehead, with 
 an expression which showed how deeply 
 she appreciated the importance of her 
 operations, “ and you don’t look much 
 better, Maggie. I tell you what,” 
 suddenly wheeling round and facing her 
 friend, “ I shall stop at the doctor’s as I 
 drive through the village, and ask him to 
 come and see you. I wish I wasn’t going 
 to leave you, but I am afraid I must, I am 
 due at Liverpool to-morrow.” 
 
 “Never mind,” said Maggie Lyndhurst 
 bravely, though the tears unaccountably 
 rose to her eyes ; “I shall be all right 
 to-morrow, dear.” 
 
 “ I am sure I hope you will, we both 
 look perfectly awful. After all, I need not 
 have been afraid of sunburn. I almost 
 wish,” with a sigh over her neglected 
 opportunities, “I had gone out once or 
 twice without a veil ; I hate a pasty 
 face.” 
 
 She was still looking in the glass, or 
 Maggie might have felt the remark a 
 personal one ; for her own face was white 
 and drawn, and her eyes were heavy with 
 weariness. 
 
 “Good-bye, my dear, I shall send the 
 doctor, and mind you write and say how 
 you are,” and Nelly kissed her friend 
 effusively as the two parted. 
 
 Maggie promised to write, but it was 
 many a long day before the little actress 
 could put pen to paper, or let any one 
 know how weary were her sleepless nights 
 and restless days. 
 
 “I say, Halliwell,” said Dr. Brown, 
 
40 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 
 pulling up his horse abruptly one day as he 
 passed the curate, “ I do wish you’d go up 
 to Hillside and see that poor little thing 
 who is ill there. She has been laid up 
 with low fever for a fortnight, and has no 
 one to speak to but Mrs. Thornton. She 
 is a patient little thing, but I fancy she is 
 frightened out of her wits about herself. 
 I suspect you can do more good than I 
 can.” 
 
 The Rev. Roland’s face assumed a some- 
 what set expression. 
 
 “ If you think I can be of any use, I will 
 certainly go.” 
 
 “You will be useful enough,” said the 
 doctor dryly, “ if you will help her to be a 
 little more reasonable ; ” and then as he 
 drove on he muttered : “ What airs that 
 solemn young prig does give himself ! Well, 
 there is one comfort, he is the more likely 
 to make a woman believe in him.” 
 
 Roland might be a prig, but nothing 
 save a strong sense of duty could have in- 
 duced him to face the mocking eyes and 
 generally impertinent demeanour of- the 
 young actress. 
 
 Mr. Prendergast, the vicar, was away, 
 and likely to be away for some weeks ; it 
 was obviously the curate’s duty in his 
 absence to attend to the sick and suffering 
 whatever might be his personal feeling 
 towards the individual. 
 
 He arranged his sentences in solemn 
 order, and arrayed himself in a triple 
 armour of stiffness and conventionality, but 
 he found all his fine schemes set at nought 
 when he was admitted into the little 
 sitting-room, where she lay upon the sofa. 
 
 Whiter than her dressing-gown, with all 
 her soft fair hair brushed back from her pale 
 face, with large dark circles round her blue 
 eyes heavy with unshed tears, it was 
 absurd, useless, cruel to approach her with 
 the stiff greeting which he had composed 
 as a happy mixture of courtesy and 
 defiance. 
 
 He came up to her instead, and took her 
 hand very kindly, all his better nature as 
 well as his professional instincts aroused at 
 the sight of suffering. 
 
 “Iam sorry to hear that you have been 
 ill, but I hope you are getting better 
 now.” 
 
 There was no answer for a minute, and 
 then, to his surprise and horror, she turned 
 her head aside, and burst into an uncon- 
 trolled fit of weeping. Long hours of sick- 
 ness and terror had left her at the mercy 
 of each passing impulse, never held under 
 the strict control of high-breeding. 
 
 Roland walked to the window, walked 
 back again, and patted the sofa-cushion as 
 a kind of compromise between coldness 
 and familiarity. 
 
 His repeated appeals, “ Don’t cry, don’t 
 cry, please don’t,” were not very success- 
 ful ; but at last her fit of weeping wore 
 itself out, and she lifted her head from the 
 sofa-cushion where she had buried it, to 
 say, through her sobs : 
 
 “ I am very sorry, indeed I am ; but I 
 have been so ill, and so frightened.” 
 
 “You must not be frightened though; 
 you are getting better now.” 
 
 She looked at him with enquiring eyes ; 
 he could not resist the mute appeal for 
 help and comfort, and the last faint shadow 
 of resentment vanished from his soul. 
 
 He sat down beside her and began to 
 speak to her in the low clear tones which 
 had made him mere popular in the cottage 
 than the pulpit, and she listened with a 
 sense of rest and consolation in the pre- 
 sence and sympathy of a human being who 
 was so obviously better able than herself 
 to comprehend and face the terrible 
 realities of life, sickness, and death with 
 which her mind had lately been filled. 
 
 “ Will you tell me one thing 1 ” she 
 asked, as he rose to go, and she timidly 
 laid her white hand on his black coat- 
 sleeve, as if she derived some strength 
 from the contact. “ Please tell me the 
 truth.” 
 
 “ I will tell you nothing but the truth, 
 certainly.” 
 
 “ Am I going to die ? ” 
 
 She whispered the words in a low awe- 
 struck tone as if she were afraid of them, 
 but she never moved her watchful eyes 
 from his face. She felt as if the question of 
 life or death hung upon his answer; the 
 confusion of the offices of priest and 
 prophet is characteristic of an elementary 
 stage of intellectual development. 
 
 “ Certainly not, at least not now in this 
 illness ; you are getting steadily better.” 
 
 “ But I am quite sure Dr. Brown sent 
 you to me ! I know he did because he 
 thought I was dying.” 
 
 She was on the very verge of tears 
 again, but stopped as Roland answered her 
 quietly : 
 
 “You talk as if I were an undertaker; I 
 assure you I am not.” 
 
 The tears changed to a smile, and then 
 youth triumphed over the severity of his 
 professional demeanour, and her terror of 
 the unknown and awe of him, and the two 
 laughed in a pleasant duet. 
 
 rssp 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 41 
 
 “ I will send you some books, then,” he 
 said, as he bade her good-bye. “ And you 
 must not think too much about yourself, 
 but read, and get strong quickly.” 
 
 “ Thank you,” she faltered, not daring to 
 protest against the books, but foreseeing 
 the arrival of a large supply of tracts. “ I 
 suppose you could not come and see me 
 again i You see,” with hesitating entreaty, 
 “ there is no one but Mrs. Thornton to 
 speak to, for I am quite a stranger to 
 every one in the village.” 
 
 Roland's mind was an ill-regulated one in 
 spite of his Oxford training, or else why 
 should he suddenly connect this poor little 
 actress with a certain man who went down 
 to Jericho and fell among thieves] The 
 ladies of Wincombe would have smiled at 
 his comparison of them with the priest and 
 Levite of old, for, after all, as his vicar 
 always said, “ One must never forget the 
 danger of any attempt at the practical 
 application in everyday life of the theoretic 
 teaching of abstract truth.” 
 
 in. 
 
 If Maggie Lyndhurst had begun her 
 acquaintance with Mr. Halliwell by be- 
 traying a discourteous want of respect for 
 himself and his office, she made up for it 
 subsequently by cherishing an almost 
 superstitious degree of veneration for 
 both. 
 
 Admiration, good fellowship, friendship, 
 she had received in plenty during the 
 course of her twenty-two years ; but she 
 had never before known anything like the 
 constant companionship of a man both 
 by nature and training her intellectual 
 superior. Had she been in her usual health 
 and spirits, she would have probably 
 resented the slightly condescending air of 
 kindliness with which he treated her ; but 
 then, had she been her usual self, full of 
 fun, defiance, and impudence, he certainly 
 would not have climbed up to Hillside 
 every other day to bring her fresh books, 
 and to chat to her for half an hour. 
 
 She was lonely and depressed, his visits 
 cheered the weary hours of convalescence ; 
 she was ignorant and frightened, he 
 taught, counselled, and consoled her. It 
 was not strange if she began to count up 
 the hours between his visits, and to watch 
 for the first sight of his tall black figure 
 striding over the moors towards the 
 cottage. 
 
 She recalled with shame the mimic 
 scene she had enacted to Nelly, in the 
 
 very room where she now sat longing for 
 his coming. 
 
 What would he think of her if he knew 
 that she had imitated his stiff demeanour 
 and severely formal tones ; he who had 
 been so kind and friendly. She blushed a 
 little at the bare idea, and, jumping up, re- 
 arranged the chairs and tables, though she 
 was so weak that the lightest of them was 
 a heavy weight to her tired arms ; yet any 
 fatigue was better than being reminded of 
 that dreadful occasion by the unchanged 
 appearance of the room, and the set 
 arrangement of the furniture. 
 
 Then she resumed her seat in the arm- 
 chair, a little out of breath with her exer- 
 tions, and began to watch again for his 
 coming. 
 
 “ Such a religious man. A clergyman, 
 too ! ” she thought to herself naively ; “and 
 yet so good-natured and kind. There he 
 is, with a heap more books. I do hope he 
 will stop a long time.” 
 
 The conversation between these two, 
 who could not be supposed to have very 
 much in common, never flagged or grew 
 tiresome ; but it was generally Roland 
 who talked, and Maggie who listened. 
 They discussed the books he lent her, 
 which were not at all of the nature of 
 tracts, but concerning which he naturally 
 had more defined opinions than she, and 
 often touched upon more solemn subjects 
 suggested by her reading or her half- 
 childish terror of illness or death. 
 
 It was very satisfactory, he felt, to see 
 that she was really growing to understand 
 such matters, and shaking off her some- 
 what heathenish views of serious things. 
 He was really thankful that he had taken 
 Dr. Brown’s hint and visited her. Who 
 knew but that this illness might become 
 a source of benefit to her during her whole 
 future life. 
 
 But their talk was not limited to such 
 grave matters only. Roland professed the 
 many-sided interests which are supposed 
 to be the badge of a higher culture, and 
 was quite ready to descend to a lower level 
 of conversation than the one which Maggie 
 thought natural to him. 
 
 The two actually discovered that they 
 must have been within a mile of one 
 another on the occasion of one University 
 boat-race, and this striking coincidence 
 afforded both of them a considerable 
 amount of pleasure. Of theatrical matters, 
 and of her own life, Maggie spoke very 
 little ; she had an instinctive feeling that 
 the ground was dangerous to enter upon, 
 
42 [June 18, 1883.1 THE OTHER SIDE. [Conducted by 
 
 and yet she might have told him every 
 detail of her past without arousing in his 
 mind any other feelings than those of 
 surprise and admiration. Surprise at the 
 amount of hard work necessary in the 
 pursuit of a profession generally associated 
 in the public mind with the wearing of 
 smart clothes and the lavish frittering of a 
 too easily earned salary, and admiration at 
 the courage and endurance the lonely little 
 woman had shown in facing the fatigues 
 and disappointments of her life. 
 
 Maggie recovered her health slowly, but 
 steadily, and Dr. Brown and Mrs. Thornton 
 each attributed her returning colour and 
 her renewed appetite to successful medical 
 treatment and the delicious air of Hillside 
 respectively. 
 
 The patient was grateful to both, and 
 was not too careful to enquire the cause. 
 One day, about a fortnight after his first 
 visit, Roland found her busily employed in 
 trimming a hat, her cheeks rosy, and her 
 fair hair restored to its former curly 
 arrangement on her forehead. 
 
 Roland noted the fact with a grave 
 disapproval quite disproportioned to the 
 offence, but he sat down and began to talk 
 as usual. 
 
 “What do you think of my hat?” 
 Maggie asked with a simple confidence 
 that every human being must be interested 
 in so vital a question. “ Ought the feather 
 to go in on the right or left side ? I have 
 looked in the glass, and asked Mrs. Thornton 
 ever so many times, but I can’t make up 
 my mind.” 
 
 She put it on her head and looked at 
 him with solemn eyes. No man could 
 appreciate the full importance of the 
 question, but it was certainly desirable to 
 secure some advice superior to purblind 
 Mrs. Thornton’s. 
 
 Roland did not answer. 
 
 “ You don’t like it,” she went on quickly ; 
 “ I see you don’t ; and yet I made it all 
 myself, and thought it very pretty.” 
 
 “ The hat is very well,” with an almost 
 unconscious accent on the noun. 
 
 Maggie sprang up and looked in the 
 glass. 
 
 “ Then my hair is out of curl. No, it 
 isn’t. What do you mean ? ” 
 
 “ I can’t think why you wear that thing, 
 you look very much better without it,” 
 Roland made answer, apparently unconscious 
 of the impertinence of his remark. 
 
 “ Look better without it ? ” in accents of 
 extremest incredulity. “ Oh, I never heard 
 such a thing; I should be a perfect fright.” 
 
 But when Roland paid his next call, 
 Maggie’s curls had disappeared, and her 
 pretty white forehead was again visible. 
 
 After all it was not worth while to take 
 the trouble to curl one’s hair, when people 
 liked one better with it smooth. 
 
 IV. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Mr. 
 Halliwell’s visits to Hillside passed without 
 notice or comment from the neighbours, 
 and it is quite possible that he himself 
 might have been startled into discontinuing 
 them had it not been for the friendly in- 
 terposition of the squire’s wife. Lady Laura 
 Greenhill was possessed in a high degree 
 of two qualities, neither of them distinctly 
 mischievous in themselves : a keen sense of 
 her own powers of management, and an 
 ardent desire to benefit her fellow-creatures. 
 Taken singly, each of these attributes 
 would have been merely amiable weak- 
 nesses, but when held in combination, the 
 result was to make her ladyship the most 
 meddlesome and mischievous woman within 
 ten miles. 
 
 When she pulled up her ponies and 
 called Mr. Halliwell to the side of her 
 pony-carriage, he suspected an unpleasant 
 interview, though her first words were 
 amiable enough. 
 
 “Oh, Mr. Halliwell, I wanted to ask 
 you when Mr. Prendergast is coming 
 home; I feel so very anxious that he 
 should return— for your sake.” 
 
 “ You are extremely kind, Lady Laura, 
 but I have not been feeling the double 
 work at all a heavy burden, I assure 
 you.” 
 
 “ It was not the work I was thinking of, 
 Mr. Halliwell, young men ought to work, 
 but the visiting of that young person at 
 Hillside; it would be much better if the 
 vicar were here to do it.” 
 
 Roland bowed stiffly. 
 
 “ I do not mean to say that such persons 
 ought never to receive spiritual comfort 
 and advice ; ” but if Lady Laura did not 
 mean to say this, her emphasis certainly 
 left no doubt as to her feelings on the 
 subject ; “ but you are quite young, and 
 I think it only fair to warn you that people 
 are really saying very ill-natured things • 
 about you.” 
 
 Roland controlled his voice to say stiffly 
 that he trusted he should never be turned 
 aside from an obvious duty by any dread 
 of slanderous tongues; and then deli- 
 berately set his face towards Hillside, 
 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE OTHER SIDE. 
 
 [June 18 , 1883 .] 43 
 
 which he had resolved not to visit until 
 the next day. Lady Laura frequently had 
 occasion to congratulate herself on the 
 success of her interference. 
 
 “I had a letter this morning, 5 ' said 
 Maggie to Mr. Halliwell one lovely morn- 
 ing in September, “ a letter from Nelly — 
 you remember her 1 She has had such a 
 nice time, and I am going to see her next 
 week for a little, before the theatre opens. 55 
 
 “ You seem quite glad to be going away, 55 
 said Roland gloomily. Why should he 
 wish her to be sorry ? 
 
 She looked up at him, her heart beat 
 faster for a moment with pleasure as she 
 recognised the reproach in his tones. Then 
 she felt a sudden sadness seize her as she 
 saw that he was displeased. 
 
 “Indeed I am not glad; you know — 
 you know I am very sorry. 55 
 
 Her voice said more than her words, her 
 look of pleading affection met his eyes, and 
 then Maggie, startled by her own tone, and 
 frightened at her self-betrayal, drooped her 
 head upon the table and hid her face, rosy 
 with sudden shame, in her right hand. 
 When Roland saw two tears rolling down 
 between the fingers, and falling unheeded 
 upon the table, it was only natural that he 
 should take the trembling left hand in his 
 own and whisper some words of comfort. 
 Then they were both silent for a time with 
 that delicious sense of perfect bliss which 
 no later happiness can equal, no subsequent 
 misery can destroy. 
 
 It was Maggie who broke the silence ; 
 snatching up the first book which came to 
 hand, she asked him nervously if he had 
 ever seen her photographs, and turned over 
 the leaves without seeing any of the pic- 
 tures very distinctly. She talked fast and 
 eagerly to hide her confusion, and Roland 
 felt as if he were in a dream, looking at 
 the theatrical celebrities, and hearing her 
 remarks. 
 
 “And this, 55 she said, pausing before a 
 large cabinet-sized photograph, “is me. 55 . 
 
 There was a certain innocent triumph in 
 her air ; the dress had been considered such 
 a success — she had been so much compli- 
 mented upon it. She could not imagine 
 the sudden cold horror which seized Roland 
 at the sight of the picture, or the terrible 
 awakening it brought about from the 
 dreamy happiness of the last few minutes. 
 He stared with desperate eyes at the pretty 
 face and the quaint cap, at the smart 
 doublet and hose, at the dainty boots. 
 
 “I was one of the four, all dressed alike 
 as to cut, but different as to colour ; pages, 
 
 one in yellow, one in pale-green, one in 
 blue. I was in crimson-brown ; I have a 
 picture of us all somewhere, 55 
 
 She eagerly turned over the pages of the 
 book, but she could not shut out the 
 picture from Roland’s mind. In the midst 
 of his confusion and despair he recalled 
 a letter he had received that morning from 
 his most intimate friend, enclosing the 
 likeness of the woman he was about to 
 marry. He laughed aloud as he thought 
 of the two pictures, but there was no 
 laughter in his heart. 
 
 Somehow or other he got out of the 
 room and out of the house ; he had walked 
 for miles before he was able to pursue 
 any connected plan of thought, but when 
 he flung himself upon the grass, exhausted 
 with physical exertion, he knew that the 
 struggle was over. He foresaw that he 
 must suffer, but the suffering caused by the 
 subordination of mere feeling to a higher 
 law of self-sacrifice is full of consolation 
 and promise. 
 
 It was when he was trying to embody 
 this idea in a sermon that, evening that his 
 landlady brought him a note. He easily 
 guessed from whom, and the severe manner 
 of the bearer would have enlightened him, 
 had he been dull of sense. It contained 
 only a few words. 
 
 “ Dear Mr. Halliwell,— I am so much 
 better that I am going home to-morrow. 
 Thank you very much for all your kindness 
 and the books ; I have left the last six you 
 lent me with Mrs. Thornton. M. L. 
 
 “ P.S. — I shall be acting at the Prince’s 
 next month. 55 
 
 Poor little Maggie ! No well-brought- 
 up and properly-chaperoned young lady 
 could have been more conscious of the pro- 
 priety of running home and leaving her 
 lover to follow her when he pleased. 
 
 Roland read the note through twice, and 
 then tore it into tiny fragments ; when he 
 had thrown these into his waste-paper 
 basket, he resolutely returned to the 
 writing of his sermon. 
 
 It is needless to say that the stage-door 
 keeper at the Prince s was never scandal- 
 ised by any enquiry from a clergyman after 
 Miss Lyndhurst, or that Maggie watched 
 each post without gaining anything but a 
 heart sickness and despair which she had 
 never before imagined that life could 
 hold. 
 
 Roland has never heard of her since. 
 He has carefully avoided any chance of 
 
ii [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 IN THE NICK OF TIME. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 meeting her again, and he still shudders as 
 he thinks of his narrow escape. If he were 
 to hear that she has grown somewhat more 
 reckless of public opinion, more incredulous 
 of the reality of religion, more eager in 
 her search after all forms of excitement, 
 he would express regret but no surprise. 
 
 IN THE NICK OF TIME. 
 
 By Miss E. Mulley. 
 
 PROLOGUE. 
 
 sun-steeped place, then, knew its storms 
 and winter after all ! I could not 
 relinquish my dream without a sigh. My 
 new acquaintance looked at me in- 
 quisitively. 
 
 “You are a stranger. But be pleased 
 to come inside and rest, and if you care, 
 to hear all about it.” 
 
 Of course I did. And here is the tale 
 the old woman told me — not precisely as 
 it fell from her lips, for it was to the 
 principal actors themselves that I became 
 afterwards indebted for the completeness 
 of my story. 
 
 When I first saw Torre Grange, some 
 three years ago, the charm of a summer’s 
 day lay over it. As I looked on the 
 pleasant old house with its cheerful face 
 and caught sight of bright home-like rooms 
 through its open doors and windows, I — 
 fresh from the dust and turmoil of a city — 
 drew an envious breath. 
 
 How calm and restful it all was ! How 
 shut out from the great world and all its 
 troubles ! As my eyes wandered over its 
 smooth-shaven lawns, its gay flower-beds, 
 as I saw it all bright in the morning sun- 
 shine, winter, with its grey skies, bare 
 earth, and sunless days, its storms and 
 desolation, seemed to my imagination so 
 far away that I could not picture it as ever 
 reigning here. In like manner sorrow and 
 sickness, death and disappointment, seemed 
 to me to belong to a world outside. Here 
 surely, I told myself, nothing but sunshine, 
 life, and happiness could find a place ! 
 
 As I looked, a figure came out of the 
 house, the figure of a little old lady with 
 withered cheeks and bright sparkling eyes, 
 a cap all white satin ribbons upon her head. 
 She stood a moment listening, an eager 
 smile upon her face. 
 
 Suddenly the bells from a tower that 
 must have been close by broke out into a 
 joyous peal. The old woman nodded her 
 white-ribboned head over and over again 
 as they came pealing out ; then, catching 
 sight of me for the first time, smiled and 
 curtsied to me. 
 
 “ Good-morning. You seem all sun- 
 shine and marriage-bells here,” I said, 
 advancing and smiling too. 
 
 “ Yes,” said the old lady, evidently 
 pleased to be addressed ; “ the wedding is 
 this morning, but not here — away up in 
 London. Ah deary me, things have come 
 right at last, and they’d need to ! ” 
 
 At her words my theory of a moment 
 ago seemed swept away. The peaceful 
 
 CHAPTER I. OUSTED. 
 
 Although J onathan Hardstaff had been 
 the owner of Torre Grange for the last 
 twenty years of his life, and to the country- 
 side he had become at once by right the 
 squire, to Torreton, that claimed him by 
 right of birth and bringing-up, and that 
 could, moreover, talk pleasantly of his 
 great-grandfather, if only in a legendary 
 sort of way, the dingy red-brick house and 
 office in the High Street stood long before 
 the country seat, and Lawyer Hardstaff he 
 remained to the end of the chapter. The 
 end of the chapter came with an awful 
 suddenness. 
 
 It was the house in the High Street, 
 which had seen him almost daily all his 
 life, where up to middle-age his life had 
 indeed been wholly passed, which saw the 
 last of him. 
 
 There were no leave-takings, no good- 
 byes, no last wishes, no commands. The 
 old man of many friends died alone in his 
 easy-chair, and his lips were closed for 
 ever. 
 
 They carried him from the dark silent 
 house to the church close by, and then a 
 whisper went through Torreton that all 
 search had proved unavailing, and no sign 
 nor token of a will had been discovered. 
 The days went by, spring was at hand ; 
 the squire, or old Lawyer Hardstaff, as 
 Torreton "preferred to call him, had been 
 some time dead and quietly resting by 
 the side of the wife from whom twenty 
 years of death and silence had separated 
 him, under a slab in the centre aisle of the 
 parish church for the last two months, and 
 still no vestige of the sought-for document. 
 
 The Grange, the house and office in the 
 High Street had all been ransacked ; 
 bereaux and desks, every available article, 
 had alike been rifled, but in vain. Not 
 that this affected public opinion in the 
 least. Outsiders might choose to question 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN THE NICK OF TIME. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 45 
 
 “ the last will and testament of Jonathan 
 Hardstaff, Esquire,” having ever existed, 
 but Torreton would listen to no such 
 heretical surmises. 
 
 Not that this helped matters much, and 
 as time went on, and brought no solution 
 of the mystery, even the most eager in 
 the affair were at last compelled to admit 
 that there was nothing more to be done — 
 nothing, that is, but for the next-of-kin to 
 step in and take possession, which in due 
 time he did. 
 
 Now this, as all Torreton boldly declared, 
 was the very last thing in the world the 
 old lawyer had ever intended, and calcu- 
 lated, if ever affairs mundane could pene- 
 trate where he had gone, not only to make 
 the poor gentleman turn in his grave, but, 
 furthermore, to lift up that slab in the 
 centre aisle and step forth to set matters 
 right for himself ; for if there had been 
 anyone for whom Jonathan Hardstaff had, 
 while in the flesh, professed a hatred and 
 a loathing, who had never been allowed 
 even to enter his doors, it was his faraway 
 cousin and only relative, George Whymper, 
 the man who now stepped into his empty 
 shoes — and very comfortable ones they 
 were — sat master at the table he had never 
 been allowed to approach, and — or so said 
 rumour — drank long and deep of the 
 wines their late owner would sooner have 
 seen emptied into the streets than have 
 given him. 
 
 As for poor Dick Charlton, the dead 
 man’s dearly-loved step-son and boldly- 
 declared heir to it all, he went out from 
 the home he had been taught to look upon 
 as his own, come what might, heartbroken 
 and almost penniless. 
 
 The usual course of school and college, 
 followed by a run round the world, was 
 all the preparation the young fellow had 
 known for battling with it. He had been 
 brought up to no business or profession ; 
 he had picked up something of farming, 
 and at the Grange was his step-father’s 
 lieutenant and right-hand man, and it gave 
 him interest and occupation enough. But 
 that, like Othello’s, now was gone, and 
 poor homeless Dick felt that his ruin was 
 indeed complete. To crown its bitterness, 
 he had been on the eve of marriage when 
 the blow fell, for, as I have said, the old 
 lawyer’s death had been sudden and 
 unlooked-for. 
 
 The girl he loved only held him the 
 dearer for his troubles, it is true, and clung 
 faithfully to him in those days of bewilder- 
 ing misery, doing her best to win him back 
 
 to hope and courage ; but to poor, crushed, 
 ruined Dick it seemed that even her love 
 and faith could bring no comfort. The 
 blow that had shattered his happiness and 
 hers, that had robbed him of his home, 
 and, as it seemed to him, had made his 
 very life another’s, had been too sudden 
 for even his brave heart. By what myste- 
 rious chance it had all befallen him he 
 knew not; he only knew that an awful 
 wrong, never intended, had been done 
 him, and that he was powerless as the 
 dead to set it right. 
 
 CHAPTER II. “POOR DICK.” 
 
 Time wore on ; the two months just 
 spoken of lengthened themselves out to 
 twelve, and the mystery of the missing 
 will was a mystery still. It no longer 
 formed the principal subject of Torreton 
 gossip, it is true, but it was not forgotten, 
 nor likely to be so long as Dick Charlton’s 
 name was remembered in the place, or the 
 old house that had been his home sheltered 
 the stranger who had ousted him. The 
 man had a right there — though there were 
 a few bold enough to question even that — 
 but the world is apt to judge more by 
 feeling than by reason, and the world — 
 the little world of Torreton — could not 
 forgive him. Not that he was much the 
 worse for it, or troubled himself at all 
 about either his neighbours or their 
 opinions. 
 
 He had made the acquaintance of some 
 of the least respectable characters in the 
 place, and these, save for certain other 
 kindred spirits, old friends, some of whom 
 were always to be found staying in the 
 house, were the only ones who crossed its 
 threshold. 
 
 George Whymper had been one of the 
 most eager in the search for the missing 
 document ; that, no one of those most set 
 against him could deny. 
 
 “If it is to be found, find it,” he had 
 said with many oaths. “ Don’t let me have 
 the confounded” — only he used a much 
 stronger term — “ thing turning up when I 
 am comfortably settled down, and have got 
 used to looking upon the place as my own, 
 to say nothing of as much money as I can 
 spend, and more wine than I can drink ; ” 
 at which red-faced George would chuckle, 
 and Torreton had to confess that he was 
 right. 
 
 But what was not right, and what 
 Torreton could not forgive, was that no 
 offer was made to share the good fortune 
 that had so unexpectedly fallen to his lot 
 
SIC 
 
 46 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 IN THE NICK OF TIME. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 with the unfortunate man who had so 
 unexpectedly lost it. 
 
 “ He must make over something to poor 
 Dick,” the onlookers declared, “ something 
 handsome it ought to be, considering what 
 a hard case it is, and. all he has got. If not 
 that, he will surely give him something to 
 begin the world with.” 
 
 But no, no offer of help, small or great, 
 ever reached Bichard Charlton,, and as 
 “poor Dick ” he went out into the world, to 
 make his way in it as best he might. Kind 
 hearts followed him, and good wishes in 
 plenty ; something more substantial, too, 
 might have been his, but he could not 
 bring himself to take that which he might 
 never be able to pay back. 
 
 So Dick went forth into the great world 
 free from debt, free from everything but 
 the necessity of earning every crust he 
 ate. He did his best, but there seemed so 
 little, to be done, so many to do it. Still 
 he struggled bravely on through the weary 
 months. But to what end 1 The crust to 
 eat, the roof to shelter him had been his, 
 and that was about all. He found himself 
 no nearer success, no farther on the road 
 to wife and home. 
 
 “I give it up !” he said one day at the 
 twelvemonth’s end, to the girl who was 
 waiting patiently, and with the ever- 
 springing hope of love and faith, for 
 brighter days to dawn. “ I give it up. 
 There is no room for me here, Fan, my 
 dear. I must try elsewhere. There is 
 room and work, too, * the other side.’ What 
 do you say, Fan h You won’t be afraid to 
 come to me when I have made a home 
 fhere ? It mayn’t be just yet, and it won’t 
 be a palace, I dare say,” poor Dick added, a 
 little bitterly. 
 
 “It will be home, Dick, if you are 
 there,”* said Fan, with a happy laugh — 
 there were tears, too, in her eyes — “ and I 
 will wait for you, oh, any time, till I am 
 old and grey, dear — and you don’t want 
 me ! ” 
 
 Then Dick laughed too, and kissed away 
 the tears that Fan pretended were not there 
 at all. 
 
 The two were sitting in the little school- 
 room of Frances Langley’s home in a 
 highly respectable though decidedly un 
 fashionable quarter of London. 
 
 A clerk in a Government office, with the 
 magnificent salary consequent thereon, and 
 a baker’s dozen in the way of offspring — 
 and such was John Langley, our Fan’s 
 father — scarcely looks, however genteelly 
 he may be connected, to settling down in 
 
 the sacred precincts of May fair. Neither when 
 one, and that, moreover, the head and front 
 of the aforesaid “ baker’s dozen,” proposes 
 to reduce the number of mouths to be fed 
 and backs to be clothed, and begin the 
 world on her own account, is she likely, 
 though tears may be shed, and loving 
 hearts may long to keep her, to meet with 
 much opposition. 
 
 SoBichard Charlton and Frances Langley 
 made the most of the stray half-hour they 
 had managed to secure to themselves, and 
 discussed their future and made their plans 
 without any fear of being called upon 
 materially to alter or change them by 
 anyone outside. 
 
 “ And so in a fortnight I shall be off,” 
 said Dick, rising, as the supper-bell sent 
 out its summons for the second time. “ I 
 know something of farming if I don’t know 
 much of anything else, and that hundred 
 pounds is still standing in my name in the 
 Torreton Bank. I made up my mind not 
 to touch a penny of it till I wanted it for 
 some such thing as this. Oh, I shall do,” 
 Dick went on, “ never fear ; and perhaps 
 by this time next year you may be coming 
 out to me. I couldn’t leave the farm, you 
 know, Fan.” 
 
 “Oh, Dick!” laughed Fan, “you are 
 second Martin Chuzzlewit or Mr. 
 Micawber.” 
 
 Never mind,” said Dick, who had 
 talked himself out of the ‘ blues.’ “You 
 wait and see. Next week I am off to 
 Torreton to say good-bye to old friends, 
 and to break the bank by the withdrawal 
 of my capital. And, then, farewell to the 
 old country.” 
 
 “And I,” said Fan, “shall at once put 
 myself in training for a squatter’s — I believe 
 that is the word — wife. There is a cow 
 somewhere in this neighbourhood that lives 
 in a cellar. I shall take lessons in milking.” 
 
 CHAPTER III. A LAST LOOK. 
 
 Bichard Charlton’s adieux in Torre- 
 ton were all said ; he had withdrawn his 
 hundred pounds from the_ bank, and was 
 making ready for the return journey, when 
 he suddenly decided to do that which he 
 had told himself all along that he would 
 not do. But at the last his purpose failed 
 him. He found that he could not bring 
 himself to leave without a sight of the old 
 place — a farewell look at the old home 
 that, save in dreams, he should never see 
 again. 
 
 He had been a couple of days in the 
 place as it was, a few hours’ delay in leaving 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN THE NICK OF TIME. [June 18, 1883.] 47 
 
 it could be of little consequence. There 
 was a train which left for London about 
 midnight. It was the early days of rail- 
 ways, and Torreton had only achieved a 
 station and direct communication with the 
 outer world since he left. He would take 
 his hand-bag there and leave it till his 
 return, three or four hours’ later, in time to 
 catch the “mail.” 
 
 The December day had drawn to a close, 
 and darkness fallen. Dick had said his 
 last good-bye, deposited his bag at the 
 station, and was well on the road to the 
 Grange by the time the town clocks were 
 striking six. In another hour he had 
 reached the lodge-gates. But though he 
 stepped manfully out, his stout heart was 
 failing him. The familiar road, every tree 
 and shrub distinct in the clear cold light of 
 the now risen moon, was opening the old 
 wounds with each step he took. The pain 
 was so sharp he more than half regretted 
 his changed purpose. But he went on. 
 
 “I must see the old house,” he told 
 himself, “ at any cost. I wonder if Mrs. 
 Miles is still there % I never thought to 
 ask. I must see her too.” 
 
 Presently he stood before it. How cold, 
 silent, desolate the place looked to him. 
 Not a stray gleam of light about it any- 
 where visible ; not a sign of life about it. 
 And yet it was home, or had been ever 
 since he could well remember. He had 
 known no other, and now he came to it 
 like a thief in the night — the home that 
 had been his, that should be still, that 
 would be even now, he almost cried aloud, 
 if only the dead could speak — if only the 
 dead could speak ! 
 
 Poor ousted Dick ! a great ball climbed 
 up into his throat and nearly choked him. 
 He gave one more look at the dark deso- 
 late-looking place, and then found his 
 way round to the back door and knocked. 
 A young girl came at his summons, but 
 she was a stranger to him. 
 
 “ Is Mrs. Miles in 1 ” said Dick, hazard- 
 ing the question. 
 
 “ Yes, sir; will you please to walk in 1 ” 
 
 “ No, thank you,” Dick answered ; “ but 
 if you will just ask her to come here to me 
 one moment, I shall be obliged.” 
 
 The girl hesitated. 
 
 “ Say an old friend wants to see her,” 
 said Dick, and then the girl, carefully 
 shutting the door upon him, left him 
 standing there. 
 
 He had not long to wait. Presently the 
 door was opened once more, and Mrs. 
 Miles herself stood peering at him. 
 
 “ Don’t you know who I am, Mrs. Miles 1 ” 
 Dick asked. 
 
 At the first sound of his voice Mrs. Miles 
 started. 
 
 “ Lawks-a-mussy, if it isn’t Master 
 Richard ! Oh, Master Dick, my dear, dear 
 boy, come in ! ” 
 
 She had caught his two hands in hers, 
 but although Dick returned her eager 
 grasp warmly enough, he did not let her 
 draw him a step nearer. 
 
 “No, no, old woman,” he said gently, 
 “ I can’t do that.” 
 
 “ Oh yes, you can, my dear,” the old 
 woman rejoined. “ He isn’t in, and won’t 
 be for the next hour, he’s off to some 
 races, thank goodness, and my room's 
 my own, and I ask who I like there. You 
 need not go a step further, but there, 
 you’re free and welcome, Master Dick, 
 and there’s a draff here fit to blow one’s 
 head off ! ” 
 
 Whereupon, seeing Master Dick still 
 hesitated, Mrs. Miles gave vent to the 
 most sepulchral of coughs, called up, I 
 must confess, for the occasion. Hearing 
 which Dick was compelled to relent, and 
 forthwith followed the old housekeeper to 
 her own quarters. 
 
 When Richard Charlton found himself 
 once again in the familiar room , he felt as 
 if he had never realised to the full his 
 banishment from all his accustomed sur- 
 roundings until now. 
 
 The flashing fire striking into odd 
 corners, lightening up queer china-laden 
 cupboards, falling on the well-known figure 
 of the old housekeeper herself ; the scene 
 at once so homely and home like, so laden 
 with childish memories, appealed to him 
 as perhaps other and more pretentious 
 quarters of the old house might have failed 
 to do. Old recollections crowded upon 
 him — his wounds bled afresh. 
 
 It was some time before he could do 
 more than answer in monosyllables all the 
 questions with which his old friend plied 
 him. But the history of the past twelve- 
 months, Dick’s plans for the future, did 
 not take long in telling. 
 
 Mrs. Miles shook her head in the 
 strongest disapproval ; as the tale went on 
 the curls of her rusty-brown front swung 
 and danced. 
 
 “ Good Lord, to think it should have 
 come to this ! ” she cried. “ Don’t do it, 
 Master Dick dear, don’t do it ! Never go 
 away from the old place. Listen to what 
 an old woman tells you^never go away.” 
 
 She had left her chair by the fireside, 
 
 F 
 
48 [June 18, 1883.] IN THE NICK OF TIME. [Conducted by 
 
 and was trotting up and down the room in 
 her impatience and irritation. 
 
 “ I think it is the old place that has gone 
 away from me,” said Dick grimly. “ What 
 can it matter where I am? it can never be 
 mine again. If George Whymper died 
 to-morrow it would not the more be 
 mine.” 
 
 “Only wait,” said the old woman ex- 
 citedly, coming up to where Dick sat, and 
 laying her hand upon his arm. “If I did 
 not think and believe you would have your 
 own again, do you think I would have 
 stayed on in the place with him 1 Not for 
 all the George Whympers in the world ! 
 Listen to me, Master Dick,” the woman’s 
 voice sank to a whisper, her lips almost 
 touched the young man’s ear. “ That will 
 is somewhere about, and he knows it.” 
 Richard Charlton turned on her a white 
 startled face, then he broke into a laugh. 
 
 “ No need to look at me like that — no, 
 nor to laugh either. I ain’t out o’ my 
 senses just yet ; but that there will’s to be 
 found, Master Dick, and he could find it. 
 No, I don’t know nothin’ more, but I know 
 that as well as I know my own corns, and 
 I couldn’t know nothin’ better, and if he 
 knew I only knowed that much he’d wring 
 my neck like a sparrer’s. But I can keep 
 my eyes open and my mouth shut, Master 
 Dick, if I can’t do nothin’ else.” 
 
 “ You can do something more for me, 
 now,” said Dick, rising. “Nothing about 
 the will, we must try and forget that ; but 
 there is something I left behind me, and 
 that I have often wished for — it’s nothing 
 more valuable than my old tobacco- jar, 
 but it’s my own ; my father gave it me 
 with my first pipe, and I should like to 
 take it with me wherever I may go, for the 
 sake of old times. It used to stand on the 
 mantelpiece in the little smoking-room.” 
 
 “ I know ; but it isn’t there now,” said 
 Mrs. Miles. “ I know where it is though, 
 it’s on the top shelf in the cupboard in 
 master’s bedroom — not that he’s any 
 master o’ mine — you shall have it in a 
 jiffy, if so be he hasn’t walked off with the 
 key, for he’s precious fond of locking things 
 up, and with reason, I say, Master Dick.” 
 Dick was not left long in doubt. Mrs. 
 Miles was back in a twinkle, the jar 
 triumphantly tucked under her left arm. 
 
 “The key was there,” she said ; “ a sign 
 my gentleman had been at the whisky 
 before he went out.” 
 
 “ Well, we’ll forgive him this once,” 
 Dick laughed; “and now, old woman, 
 good-bye.” 
 
 He stooped down and kissed the soft 
 withered cheek. 
 
 “Is it good-bye — really good-bye, my 
 dear 1 ” she cried. 
 
 “Really good-bye,” Dick echoed, his 
 voice trembling. 
 
 “ You will write ; you will let me know 
 where you are 1 And — and keep up your 
 heart, my dear boy, keep up your heart.” 
 Mrs. Miles herself was crying like a baby. 
 
 “Yes, yes,” said Dick hurriedly, “I 
 promise,” and breaking from her detaining 
 arms, he passed quickly from the room and 
 house, and in another minute was on his 
 lonely way, his back for ever turned upon 
 the place that should have been his home. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. MRS. MILES DREAMS. 
 
 Mrs. Miles stood for a few moments 
 at the open door watching the retreating 
 figure of her young master until the 
 shadows swallowed him up and he was 
 lost to her. Then with a sigh she returned 
 to the comfortable warmth of her “ snug- 
 gery,” as Dick was wont to call it, and 
 drawing up her armchair to the fireside 
 set herself to think. 
 
 There was nothing beyond the falling of 
 a stray cinder to disturb the quiet, and 
 drowsiness soon stole over her. 
 
 Deeper and more regular came her 
 breathing ; then the old woman slept. And 
 then — or according to some — when she 
 was on the point of re-awakening, Mrs. 
 Miles dreamt. 
 
 Richard Charlton was still her com- 
 panion, and the old tobacco- jar stood on 
 the table between them. But they were 
 not alone, her old master stood there too. 
 She felt no surprise at seeing him, she only 
 had the strange feeling that comes to most 
 of us when we dream of the lately dead — 
 a feeling that though he stood there, living, 
 breathing, death had only lent him, as it 
 were, and was even now ready and waiting 
 to claim his own once more. 
 
 Presently the old man spoke ; he was 
 repeating her own words — her words to 
 Dick little more than an hour ago : 
 
 “ Don’t go away,” he was saying ; “ don’t 
 go away from the old place ; open that jar 
 instead. Open the jar, Dick.” 
 
 “What is in it?” asked Dick. “It 
 must be something more potent than 
 tobacco to be of any use to me, sir ! ” 
 
 “Look and see,” said the old man; 
 “look and see,” and rapped the table 
 impatiently with the heavy brass candle- 
 stick that stood near. 
 
 At the sound Mrs. Miles awoke. She 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN THE NICK OP TIME. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 49 
 
 was sitting bolt upright in her chair, and 
 rubbing her eyes, and still the knocking 
 went on. Then it dawned upon her that 
 the hand was at her own door. 
 
 “ Come in!” she cried, and in walked the 
 master of the house. He was trembling 
 all over, his face — usually deep enough in 
 hue — was ashen white. Had he too been 
 dreaming of the dead? the housekeeper 
 asked herself. But he was evidently hold- 
 ing a great restraint over himself, and 
 anxious to hide as much as possible the 
 excitement under which he laboured. He 
 had been drinking — that, too, was evident ; 
 but for that it is more than probable his 
 saner judgment would not have permitted 
 him to go there at all just then. 
 
 As it was, some shock, or what not, had 
 partially sobered him, and he came towards 
 the housekeeper steadily enough. 
 
 “ Sit down, Mrs. Miles, sit down,” he 
 began. “ No ; I’ll stand, thank you. The 
 fact is, I came down here to speak to you, 
 because — a — a — something is gone from 
 my room, since I left it this morning, and 
 I don’t like things to go from my room — 
 I don’t choose things to go from my room, 
 Mrs. Miles.” 
 
 He looked at her with a look half fierce, 
 half frightened. Mrs. Miles herself felt ill 
 at ease. She knew in a moment what had 
 happened ; but she pulled herself together 
 and nerved herself to face it. 
 
 “What is it, sir?” she said; “I will 
 make enquiries.” 
 
 Her hand was on the bell, but he stopped 
 her with an oath. Then he recollected 
 himself. 
 
 “ No need to raise the house,” he said 
 quickly. “It is only a jar — my tobacco- 
 jar, that has been taken from my cupboard. 
 Who has been there, ma’am? that’s what I 
 want to know.” 
 
 Something had got into Mrs. Miles’s 
 throat, and declined to be coughed out of 
 it ; when she managed to speak at last, her 
 voice was very husky, her hands shook and 
 rustled like dry leaves on her lap. 
 
 “ Well, sir, I have been there.” 
 
 # “ Yes, I dare say, Mrs. Miles ; but you 
 didn’t take the jar, I suppose ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, sir, and I took the jar.” It was 
 not the old woman’s hands alone that were 
 shaking now ; but she went on sturdily : 
 “ Mr. Richard has been here to-night — the 
 jar was his, and I gave it him.” 
 
 For the space of twenty seconds there 
 was a horrible silence in the room; the 
 housekeeper heard her own heart beating 
 through it like a clock. 
 
 Then, with an awful oath, George 
 Whymper sprang towards her. There was 
 a choking sound, a crash that echoed 
 through the empty passages beyond the 
 room itself, and, with staring eyes and 
 hands clutched wildly at his throat, the 
 master of the Grange had fallen prone and 
 lifeless at the old woman’s feet. 
 
 CHAPTER V, THE DEAD SPEAK. 
 
 Once more the pair of lovers had the 
 little schoolroom in the unfashionable 
 square to themselves. It was their last 
 meeting. Good-bye must be said to-night, 
 last looks taken, last caresses given, for 
 to-morrow would see them wide asunder — 
 parted for how long ? 
 
 Dick had brought the rescued tobacco- 
 jar with him, and presented it, together 
 with its history, to Fan. 
 
 “ There,” he said with a look of satisfac- 
 tion, as he placed it on the mantelshelf 
 before them, “ it’s just as I left it, tobacco 
 and all. You keep it, Fan, till I come or 
 send for you — my first pipe, with you to 
 fill it, shall be from the old jar.” 
 
 “ Oh, Dick, dear Dick, will it be very 
 long first, I wonder,” and Fan stole a soft 
 loving hand under Dick’s strong arm. 
 
 They were standing side by side, her 
 brown head nestling on Dick’s shoulder. 
 The young man looked tenderly down into 
 the girl’s wistful eyes. 
 
 “ Long ! ” he cried cheerfully, “ not a 
 bit of it ! Why, I shall work like any 
 amount of niggers, and there will be no 
 end of a place ready and waiting for you 
 to come and look after it, before you have 
 got your frocks and things ready.” 
 
 “And you will send for me directly? 
 You won’t wait thinking the home isn’t 
 good enough, or grand enough, or anything 
 of that sort ? No matter how poor the 
 place is, you will send for me, Dick ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, yes,” said Dick stoutly, “ of 
 course I will. How do you think I could 
 live out there without you? And who 
 knows what may happen,” Dick went on 
 glibly ; “ why, there is that old woman of 
 mine down at the Grange, has quite made 
 up her mind to see me back there again 
 some day.” 
 
 “ What ! ” cried Fan eagerly, raising her 
 head from Dick’s stalwart shoulder. 
 
 “ Well, you see, she has got an idea 
 under that wonderful brown front of hers 
 that the will is in existence somewhere, 
 and that the king — meaning Dick Charlton, 
 my dear — will come into his own again 
 
 0 
 
 r 
 
[Conductad by 
 
 IN THE NICK OF TIME. 
 
 50 [June 18, 1883.3 
 
 some day. And what is more, she has 
 made up her venerable mind that the 
 present owner of the Grange, George 
 Whymper, Esquire, to wit, has hidden it, 
 and that she, Martha Miles, is going to 
 find it — some day, as I have said.” 
 
 Fan took her head from off Dick’s shoulder 
 altogether. Her eyes were sparkling, her 
 pretty face was all aglow with excitement. 
 
 “ And she is right, Dick ; mark my 
 words, Dick, she is right.” 
 
 Dick shook his head. 
 
 “It is only an old woman’s fancy, 
 Fan,” he said kindly. “We will try 
 not to think any more about it, dear. 
 Hark ! how time is flying ! ” he cried as 
 the old clock on the stairs gave out the 
 hour with a solemn boom, “ and we have 
 still so much to say to one another.” 
 
 Time was flying, indeed ; it seemed but 
 as if minutes had passed when again the 
 clock’s warning voice was heard. 
 
 “ Ten ! ” cried Dick, “ and I must be 
 going. I start at daybreak, and I have 
 still no end to do.” 
 
 He was speaking cheerfully, even lightly, 
 calling on all the man in him for her dear 
 sake. The sparkle had fled from her eyes, 
 the glow had died from her face, she stood 
 looking at him white, tearless. He caught 
 her in his arms, and held her there as if 
 he could not let her go. Presently she 
 gave a little trembling sob. 
 
 “Good-bye, dear, dear Dick,” she cried 
 softly, and broke from his embrace. 
 
 They had been standing close to the 
 mantelshelf where the old jar stood ; the 
 door was at the side at Dick’s left hand. 
 He thought Fan was leaving him, running 
 away from him, from the good-byes she 
 could not speak, and put out his arms to 
 stay her. And then — it was but the work of 
 a moment — there was a fall, a crash, and 
 the old tobacco- jar lay in fragments between 
 them. 
 
 “ Oh, Dick ! ” cried Fan, and was down 
 on her knees upon the hearth-rug before 
 Dick, dismayed, stupefied, had moved a 
 limb. 
 
 “ Get up, dear,” he said at last, putting 
 out a hand to raise her. “ All the king’s 
 horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put 
 it together again. It isn’t worth troubling 
 about ; let me help you up.” 
 
 But Fan didn’t get up, nor in fact make 
 any effort to do so. She did not even 
 listen to what Dick was saying. She had 
 picked up something from the ruins which 
 was most certainly not tobacco, though 
 plenty of that lay scattered about. 
 
 “What have you there V } Dick asked, 
 finding she did not move ; he bent over 
 her as he spoke, and then he, big sturdy 
 Dick, covered his face with his hands and 
 broke into a great choking sob. 
 
 It was the missing will. It was brief 
 enough, a sheet of ordinary paper held it 
 all, but nothing more was needed. 
 
 Mrs. Miles was right after all, and the 
 king had come into his own again ! There 
 were more loving embraces that wonderful 
 night in the little school-room, followed by 
 hand-shakings innumerable in the family 
 sitting-room below, where supper cooled 
 unnoticed ; but there were no sobs to stifle, 
 no farewells to speak, they were past 
 and gone for ever, and a dozen lines in 
 the old lawyer’s familiar hand had done 
 it all. 
 
 Tidings of what had happened at the 
 Grange after his departure reached 
 Richard Charlton the next day, but, 
 beyond a thought of pity and forgiveness 
 for the wretched man who had so wronged 
 him, they could not affect him. 
 
 That George Whymper had found the 
 missing will — where or how no one now 
 could ever know — and failing courage to 
 destroy it, had hidden it in the old tobacco- 
 jar, the mere fact that the loss of the jar 
 had so dismayed him was sufficient proof. 
 That he had chosen it as a hiding-place 
 not only likely to be safe from prying eyes, 
 but where, if discovered, it could not 
 possibly rise up in judgment against him, 
 as it might have done elsewhere, no one 
 doubted. Still less did any one care to 
 sit in judgment on him. It might be that 
 even he, poor sinner, would some day have 
 found courage to restore to Dick his own, 
 and set a great wrong right. Who could 
 say 1 
 
 And now how little more remains to 
 tell. Richard Charlton went quickly down, 
 and took possession of his own. It was 
 winter then as we know ; it was midsummer 
 when Dick brought home his bride. The 
 place lay steeped in the glory of a June 
 sunshine when happy Mrs. Dick looked 
 upon it for the first time. Trees and 
 hedgerows wore their bravest mantles of 
 greenery, as yet undimmed or scorched. 
 Flower-beds gleamed, the very house itself 
 looked smiling ; all was brightness, warmth, 
 and welcome. 
 
 As they alighted at the open doorway 
 the church-bells rang out their loudest. 
 Mrs. Miles, in a new and unblushing front 
 of rich and youthful bronze, stood ready to 
 receive them, proud, smiling. All she had 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] OUTGROWN IT, [June 18, 1883.] 5 1 
 
 foretold had come to pass, and to crown it 
 all was there not her dream 1 But that, alas ! 
 had most certainly not been received with 
 all the wondering awe, not unmixed with 
 admiration, which she had so fondly and 
 without a doubt allowed herself to look 
 for. It was the very top and pinnacle of 
 her pride. What more could even a J oseph 
 himself have accomplished in the way of a 
 dream ? 
 
 And yet, unkindest cut of all, Master 
 Dick, in whose behalf she had so distin- 
 guished herself, actually from the first 
 declined to see anything at all wonderful 
 in the matter, and furthermore went so far 
 as to declare that it was, under the circum- 
 stances, the most natural dream in the 
 world, and that the only astonishing part 
 of it was that he had not dreamt it 
 himself. 
 
 " I think it is I who was the clever one, 
 Dick,” to this day, whenever the subject is 
 mentioned, laughingly declares Fan. “ To 
 break a tobacco-jar may be nothing so very 
 out of the way, but to break it just ‘ in the 
 nick of time ! 3 that was the talented 
 proceeding ! ” 
 
 OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 By Annie Thomas (Mrs. Pender-Cudlip). 
 
 “You must enjoy the change from over- 
 crowded London streets to the free and 
 open country immensely, Mrs. Nesbitt ? ” 
 
 Mrs. Nesbitt scowled at her interlocutor. 
 He was a suave and amiable gentleman, 
 the rector of the parish, and one of the 
 kindliest and most considerate of men. 
 Yet here, to his dismay, he gathered from 
 the expression of her face that he had 
 ruffled the temper and aggrieved the spirit 
 of his new parishioner at the outset of their 
 intercourse. 
 
 “Why should you take it for granted 
 that my sole acquaintance with the 
 London streets was when they were over- 
 crowded ? ” 
 
 “ To me, a country born and bred man, 
 they are invariably so,” he replied cour- 
 teously, and he was about to set the con- 
 versation moving into another channel, 
 when she brusquely interrupted him. 
 
 “ And as for your ‘ free and open 
 country/ I have found it already a pry- 
 ing, narrow, inquisitorial, rigid, detestable 
 place.” 
 
 “ I should grieve at such a charge being 
 brought against my parish, were it not 
 
 that I feel, when I know you better, I can 
 refute it.” 
 
 “Perhaps you will never know me 
 better ; perhaps I may choose to keep you, 
 as well as the rest of Horrafield, at arm’s 
 length.” 
 
 Again she scowled defiantly at him, and 
 he thought what a pity it was such a 
 “ personable woman ” should possess such 
 a diabolical temper. 
 
 “ I will bide my time,” he said plea- 
 santly ; “in the meantime will you allow 
 me, as a representative resident in this 
 prying, narrow, inquisitorial, rigid, and 
 • detestable place, to offer you, the latest 
 comer to it, the best of my poor services ? 
 If I can be of use to you in any way pray 
 command me.” 
 
 The scowl was superseded by a smile 
 that became her fair face much better. 
 
 “Do forgive me for laughing at you, 
 but I can’t help it. What can you pos- 
 sibly do for me that I haven’t already done 
 for myself? I’ve a roof to cover me— a 
 servant to cook for me — enough money to 
 buy the necessaries of life in Horrafield. 
 In fact I’ve amply provided for all my 
 possible wants.” 
 
 “You may want sympathy and a friend 
 one day ; if you should do so ” 
 
 “I may send for you, I suppose you 
 would add ; that’s the right conventional 
 thing for you, as parson of the parish, to say 
 to any stranger. Well, the kindliest thing 
 you can do for me is to let me alone. I 
 came here for peace and quiet. Let me 
 have them.” 
 
 She was so openly anxious for him to be 
 gone, that Mr. Lyne felt there was but 
 one course open to him. He took it, and 
 departed. As he closed the garden wicket, 
 he looked back at the little cottage which 
 Mrs. Nesbitt had recently taken and fur- 
 nished. The windows were all closely 
 draped with Madras muslin and soft Indian 
 silks. 
 
 “What whim has brought a woman 
 with the means of surrounding herself 
 with such luxuries, to such an out-of-the- 
 way corner of the world ? ” he asked him- 
 self. Then, still brooding over the subject, 
 he took his way across the fields to dine 
 with his cousin the squire, Clement Lyne 
 of The Hall. 
 
 Mr. Lyne had come into the property 
 three years before this, but he had only 
 taken up his abode at The Hall about two 
 months before Mrs. Nesbitt came to puzzle 
 his cousin the rector. The squire had 
 been abroad a good deal, and in London a 
 
52 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 little. Now he was coming down to live 
 like a real country gentleman on his own 
 estate, and there was. a rumour that he 
 would shortly be married. 
 
 He was a good-looking, agreeable 
 man, and from the way in which he had 
 begun ordering and arranging his house- 
 hold it was fairly assumed that he meant 
 to live in a liberal style, and keep up the 
 traditions of the Lynes of The Hall, who 
 were valued exactly at the price of what 
 they spent in the place. 
 
 His good looks were not of the order to 
 cause any flutter in the female heart had 
 he not been possessed of a good property. 
 A short man, he was saved from being in- 
 significant by his broad shoulders and erect, 
 military bearing. His face was open and 
 honest, and his eyes were a good grey— a 
 colour through which a deceitful or un- 
 truthful soul rarely looks. But his nose 
 was a decided snub with a marked want of 
 bridge about it. 
 
 For the rest, he had a self-possessed 
 pleasant manner, and dressed excellently. 
 The neighbourhood was in doubt yet as to 
 his sporting qualities, for he came to The 
 Hall first in May. He rode a spirited 
 horse quietly, which looked well, "but still 
 was not a sufficient guarantee of his being 
 good after hounds. And he had a couple 
 of favourite dogs, but as one was a 
 big St. Bernard, and the other a little 
 Dachshund, they gave no hint as to his 
 sporting proclivities. So the neighbour- 
 hood had to wait till hunting and sport- 
 ing began, to see what manner of man he 
 was. 
 
 At The Hall all things remained m the 
 same order as in the days of his prede- 
 cessor. He made no additions to the fur- 
 niture, and no alterations in the disposition 
 of it. The same staff of servants who had 
 served his uncle, the late squire, served 
 him now in the same orderly way. The 
 same quaint old - fashioned flowers and 
 arrangements were maintained in the 
 gardens. In fact, the only difference to 
 be observed at The Hall was that the 
 master was young instead of old. 
 
 Horrafield was not a remote village or 
 townlet by any means. It was surrounded 
 by waving cornfields, leafy woods, and 
 rippling rivers it is true, and it was primi- 
 tive in many of its habits and customs. 
 As, for instance, it regarded its squire as a 
 king of the place, and submitted to the 
 unwritten law which declared his circle of 
 friends *and acquaintances to be the highest 
 or court circle, into which it must neces- 
 
 sarily be the ambition of one and all to be 
 admitted. It read with a sense of almost 
 personal and pardonable pride that its 
 county members had been at the Prime 
 Minister’s reception, the Home Secretary’s 
 dinner, or the Prince of Wales’s lev6e. . It 
 revelled in every accurate little report in a 
 local journal of the dress worn by either 
 of the aforesaid county members’ wives at 
 Her Majesty’s drawing-room. It believed 
 in the superior flavour of its own trout 
 over those of any other trout caught in 
 known and civilised streams. It rather 
 despised and pitied you if you didnt 
 happen to have made the acquaintance of 
 its Horradown-fed mutton. It liked to 
 know the best and the worst, and, indeed, 
 all the indifferent things too, that could.be 
 known about everyone who came to reside 
 within its borders. But for all this it was 
 not a remote or isolated village by any 
 means, for it was within two hours of 
 London, and had quite an attractive- 
 looking little station at its southern 
 extremity. 
 
 Mrs. Nesbitt had taken her little house 
 from a London house-agent. She had 
 furnished it from a London furnishing 
 firm. She had come down alone, and 
 stayed at the Horrafield Hotel for a few 
 days, while her house was being arranged, 
 during which time she had ingratiated 
 herself so with the landlady as to induce 
 the latter to secure one capable general 
 servant for the strange lady. As this 
 servant, in other respects a most superior 
 person, could neither read nor write, Mrs. 
 Nesbitt’s correspondence were sealed books 
 to her, therefore her interpretation of them 
 revealed nothing to Horrafield. 
 
 “Her little house was a picture,” the 
 servant said, but no one had a chance of 
 verifying the statement by a surreptitious 
 inspection of any part ot it except the 
 kitchen ; for when Mrs. Nesbitt went out 
 she locked the doors of her sitting-rooms 
 and bedroom, and put the keys beyond 
 Mary’s ken. Now this was a “ way'’ for 
 which no place that liked to have all 
 things clear and above-board could have 
 toleration. 
 
 When it was seen that she “ looked and 
 spoke quite like a lady,” and discovered 
 that there were no other means of finding 
 out anything about her, all the upper ten 
 of Horrafield called on her. But Mr. 
 Lyne, the rector, was the only one who 
 made the attempt successfully. The rest 
 were baffled and beaten back from the 
 door by the information either that she 
 
and couldn t see any one. 
 
 Meanwhile the rumour grew in the 
 village that Clement Lyne was about to be 
 married to some lady unknown to Horra- 
 field. Presently this rumour merged 
 gradually into another and more definite 
 one — he was to be married to little Miss 
 Etherington, the only child of the rich 
 City merchant who had lately bought and 
 beautified an old mansion in the neigh- 
 bourhood. 
 
 This last rumour had its birth in the 
 fact of Mr. Lyne having told his gardener 
 to go over to Holmlea (Mr. Etherington’s 
 place), to see some carpet - gardening 
 arrangement which Mr. Etherington had 
 much commended to his notice, and of his 
 having dined twice with the new people. 
 
 “ I think I’ve looked at her twice and 
 spoken to her once,” Clement Lyne said 
 when his cousin told him of the rumour ; 
 
 “ but I’m rather obliged to my neighbours 
 for putting the idea in my head. She’s 
 not exactly what one would call pretty or 
 remarkably prepossessing; but she has 
 an amiable expression, and is very quiet 
 -and unpretentious. That in a girl who’ll 
 have the pile of money she’ll have is some 
 thing.” 
 
 “ It’s not much by way of enthusiasm as 
 regards marrying her,” the rector remarked. 
 
 “ No, you’re right, Arthur,” his cousin 
 replied coolly; ‘‘but I exhausted all the 
 enthusiasm I had on that subject many 
 years ago, and I’m much obliged to gossip 
 for once for having suggested little Miss 
 Etherington to me.” 
 
 To this the rector, having no suitable 
 reply to make, made none, and the subject 
 dropped between the two men for a time. 
 But one evening when they were dining 
 together, as was their frequent custom, 
 Clement, who was the rector’s guest on 
 this occasion, observed : 
 
 “ What a pretty crib you have here, old 
 boy ; better arranged and appointed in 
 every way than The Hall. The only thing 
 wanting to make it perfect is a mistress. 
 How is it you’ve never given it one ? ” 
 
 “ I thought of doing so in my curate 
 days, but my uncle distinctly gave me to 
 understand that if I married the lady I 
 wanted to marry he would never give me 
 this living. I didn’t heed the threat a bit, 
 but the lady did. She sent me about my 
 business, and married a man who had 
 patented a poker, or a pill, or something, 
 and made a colossal fortune. Two or three 
 years ago she wrote and asked me to take 
 
 two of her boys as pupils ; ‘ the sum paid 
 for their tuition might supplement my 
 income agreeably,’ she remarked. I 
 declined to take the boys, and ceased to 
 regret the woman. Try that trout ; 
 they’re out of your own stream, but my 
 cook manages them much better than 
 yours.” 
 
 The abrupt change in the conversation 
 was due to the appearance of the rector’s 
 man. He was never oppressively present 
 in the dining-room. Still there were 
 moments when he felt that it behoved him 
 as a man and a butler to change the plates, 
 and fill the glasses. 
 
 When he vanished again for a brief 
 period Clement Lyne said : “So my uncle 
 dabbled and worked mischief in your 
 affairs, too, with his idle interfering hands, 
 did he 1 He did in mine to my awful 
 discomfiture for years. My disappoint- 
 ment was put in with fiery colours ; it’s 
 all paled and faded now, and I can’t tell 
 what has brought the memory of it back 
 upon me vividly to-day ; but it has been 
 brought back, either by some sight or some 
 sound — I can’t tell which.” 
 
 He paused, and his host looked politely 
 interested. 
 
 “ I’ll tell you about it by-and-by, 
 Arthur ; I can’t while Withers keeps 
 popping in and out,” the squire resumed 
 animatedly. And so later in the evening 
 he told his tale briefly. 
 
 “ I was quartered at Knightsbridge, you 
 know, the year before my uncle and I 
 quarrelled, j^d he cut off my allowance, 
 and so obliged me to sell out. And while 
 I was there I went to a Sunday afternoon 
 and evening entertainment at an establish- 
 ment a famous actor and his wife had set 
 up at Richmond. There was a queer 
 mixture altogether of the aristocracy, art, 
 literature, theatrical people, and military 
 men, and I enjoyed it immensely, and lost 
 the whole of my head and the best of my 
 heart to a girl whom I thought very 
 charming then, and think more charming 
 now, when I recall her, and remember 
 what she was. 
 
 “ She was a bright, brilliant, well-bred 
 girl, an evident favourite with the vast 
 number of people who seemed to know her 
 well, and beautiful with the beauty of 
 youth, cleverness, vivacity, and goodness. 
 I soon found out that she was an actress, a 
 genuine, persevering, clever girl, who won 
 every step she gained honestly by intelli- 
 gence and assiduous study. Not a very 
 rapidly rising or largely remunerated one, 
 
 Charles Dickens.] OUTGROWN IT. [June 18, 1883.] 53 
 
 was not at home, or that she was engaged 
 
54 [June 18, 1883.] OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 but one who could take every farthing she 
 made back to her mother, the widow with 
 whom she lived, with a clear 'conscience 
 and unblushing brow. 
 
 “She was of good family, of one that 
 could hold its head well above my own 
 with ease, and she led a merry, happy, 
 double life, one with the swell relations 
 who were rather fonder of her for relieving 
 them of the onus of helping her and her 
 mother, than they had been before she 
 went on the boards, and the other the 
 stage life and its inevitable associations and 
 intimacies. She lived them both exqui- 
 sitely, and I was the happiest fellow in the 
 world the day I got her to promise to 
 marry me. 
 
 “ Then I wrote to my uncle in perfect 
 confidence and hope. I knew I was de- 
 pendent on him, but it never occurred to 
 me as being within the bounds of possi- 
 bility that an ignorant old provincial who 
 knew little or nothing beyond the bounds 
 of his own estate, who had difficul- 
 ties with the English, and knew nothing 
 of any other language, could £ object ’ to 
 my marriage. I was mistaken. In an 
 idiotic, ill-spelt letter he forbade me /to 
 entertain the idea of marrying a girl who 
 had been a ‘play-actress/ If I did, he 
 vowed he would leave this place to the 
 least deserving charity he could think of. 
 I was fool enough to show it to Olive’s 
 mother, and to my horror I saw the 
 moment after that the old lady’s faith was 
 shaken in me. 
 
 “However, I thought I couH put that 
 right directly I saw Olive. was so 
 thoroughly my set purpose to disregard the 
 tyrannical, stupid old fellow’s injunctions 
 and threats, that I never thought of how 
 they might goad and gall sensitive refined 
 gentlewomen like Olive and her mother. 
 By Jove ! old boy, the speaking about 
 these things makes them seem as if they 
 only happened a few weeks ago ; but it’s 
 seventeen years since I last saw Olive 
 Vanthorne ! 
 
 “I called several times, and always 
 heard that the ‘ ladies were«g0&t at home.’ 
 I wrote to Olive, and my letters were not 
 answered. I went to the theatre at which 
 she was playing, and was told that by 
 order of the manager * none of the ladies’ 
 names or addresses were to be given to 
 enquirers at the door.’ Then I fell into a 
 jealous fit of fury for a time, and ceased 
 from my efforts to meet her, and teach 
 her to treat my uncle’s letter with the same 
 indifference I did. 
 
 “ One day, after about three months of 
 this sort of work, I met Mrs. Yanthorne in 
 Regent Street. She was crossing the 
 pavement from Jay’s to a brougham, and 
 she couldn’t evade me. She looked 
 awfully distressed when she saw I was 
 determined to speak to her, but I didn’t 
 care for that. ‘ Where is Olive V I asked, 
 taking off my hat, ‘ and why haven’t 
 you let me see her all this time, Mrs. 
 Yanthorne 1 ’ 
 
 “The poor old lady seemed to crumble 
 away as I asked these questions savagely, 
 but she fetched up a smile from some 
 diplomatic recess, and said : 
 
 “ ‘ My daughter is quite well — very 
 well, indeed, and very happy, Mr. Lyne. 
 You know, of course,' that she is mar- 
 ried ! ’ 
 
 “With that she tried to step into 
 the brougham, but I wouldn’t let her do 
 that. 
 
 “ ‘ Make an appointment with me, and 
 give me an explanation, or I’ll find your 
 daughter, and get one from her,’ I said. 
 And she, unwillingly enough, made an 
 appointment — and kept it ! She wouldn’t 
 have done this last if she hadn’t been afraid 
 that I would have followed her daughter 
 up and wrung one from her. 
 
 “ She had to tell me the truth, for I was 
 dangerously keen on the track of it. Her 
 own pride, and her pride in her daughter, 
 had been woefully wounded by that letter, 
 and so she had concealed from poor Olive 
 the fact of my even having ever called, and 
 had intercepted my letters. In short, she 
 had made Olive believe that I had given 
 her up, and had stung her child into pro- 
 mising that she would have nothing more 
 to do with me. All these things she had 
 done out of mistaken motherly zeal and 
 affection, and she asked for my sympathy 
 and pardon on the plea that Olive had 
 married comfortably and happily. 
 
 “ I knew she loved her daughter, and I 
 believe she felt sorry for me when she saw 
 what a cut it was to me to hear all this. 
 So I shook hands, and told her I believed 
 she had done it all for the best. But I 
 went away from the house a miserable, 
 care-for-nought, -reckless fellow, Arthur, 
 and I remained the same for many a 
 day. 
 
 “ It’s such an old story now, that I’m 
 surprised at myself for telling it so well as 
 I have told it to-night. Why, it’s sixteen 
 or seventeen years since I saw Olive ! She 
 must be nearly forty now; probably she 
 has grown bulky and grey, and has 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 June 18, 1883.] 55 
 
 altogether forgotten that little summer 
 romance of ours. I shall do a sensible 
 thing in thinking of Miss Etherington.” 
 
 “ I think you will do well in being on 
 with a new love, since you’ve been off 
 with the old for so many years,” the rector 
 agreed. Then their thoughts veered round 
 entirely to the present, and Clement Lyne 
 was amazed by his cousin’s account of the 
 current mystery and topic of Horrafield — 
 the stranger, Mrs. Nesbitt. 
 
 • “I think, from your description of her, 
 
 I must have seen her to-day. I met a 
 ladylike woman in the lane that leads 
 from the village to The Hall gardens. An 
 unusual place to meet a stranger in, and 
 an unusual face to see in Horrafield, I 
 thought.” 
 
 “ An unusual woman altogether, in 
 fact,” Arthur Lyne replied. Then he told 
 his cousin the manner of his own reception 
 by Mrs. Nesbitt, and confessed that he 
 would be shy of encountering a second 
 edition of it. 
 
 One day soon after this, when Clement 
 Lyne had ridden over to Holmlea in pur- 
 suance of that plan of his of cultivating 
 Miss Etherington with the view of asking 
 her to be his wife, an unexpected visitor 
 appeared at The Hall and enquired for the 
 housekeeper. It was Mrs. Nesbitt — the 
 lady whose quiet life in Horrafield was 
 making her the object of greater curiosity 
 and suspicion than she would have called 
 forth if she had recklessly risked boring 
 herself to death by plunging into all of 
 frivolity and gaiety that the neighbour- 
 hood afforded. 
 
 As a stranger in the place, she had 
 taken the liberty of calling to ask to be 
 allowed to see The Hall ; she understood 
 there were some very fine pictures. 
 
 The housekeeper bridled with satisfac- 
 tion, and replied : 
 
 “ As for showing the house, that had 
 never been the custom; but if the lady 
 liked to walk through and glance at the 
 pictures, she was welcome to do it.” 
 
 Mrs. Nesbitt did like to do it, and so 
 walked in. 
 
 The pictures were very average ones, 
 dubious Lelys, very “Young Pretenders” 
 to the honoured names of Vandyke and 
 Gainsborough. Mrs. Nesbitt looked at 
 them critically, and cautiously concealed 
 her opinion from the housekeeper, who 
 was as jealous of their reputation as if she 
 had painted them herself. 
 
 There was no picture - gallery. The 
 pictures hung unpretentiously in the 
 
 drawing and dining rooms and in the big 
 entrance-hall. When they had made the 
 tour of these, the housekeeper said : 
 
 “There’s master’s own room I haven’t 
 shown you ; if you’d like to walk in and 
 look round, you’re welcome.” 
 
 With a faint flush on her fair face, Mrs. 
 Nesbitt availed herself of the desired 
 permission, and went into the room, half 
 study, half smoking-room, where Mr. Lyne 
 chiefly sat. 
 
 “ It has the look of a bachelor’s house 
 altogether; it will be altered greatly, no 
 doubt, when Mr. Lyne marries,” Mrs. 
 Nesbitt remarked, and the housekeeper 
 replied : 
 
 “ The master need be in no hurry ; he’s 
 a well-looking man as you’ll see anywhere. 
 Still, there is a talk about Miss Etherington 
 coming here ; may be there’s something in 
 it, for master goes to Holmlea a great deal, 
 but we all fancy this stands in the way.” 
 
 As she spoke she drew back a velvet 
 curtain, and displayed the portrait of a 
 beautiful young woman, at sight of which 
 Mrs. Nesbitt flushed still more deeply, 
 and rearranged her veil. 
 
 “ It seems to speak to you, don’t it 1 ” 
 the housekeeper said admiringly. 
 
 “ It’s enlarged from a photograph, I see,” 
 Mrs. Nesbitt said. Then she went over 
 and looked steadily and closely at the 
 likeness which had been taken seventeen 
 years before of — herself ! 
 
 It gave her a shock to look at what she 
 knew she had been then, and to think of 
 the difference in her now. Time had 
 crept on, and the changes had been so 
 gradual, that she had never realised till 
 this moment how completely she was 
 metamorphosed from the glowing beauty 
 of that day into the merely graceful, nice- 
 looking woman of this. 
 
 It was a revelation. And it made her 
 long for another. 
 
 “ Has he changed, too, I wonder V 1 she 
 thought. “ How handsome he was then ! 
 No ! men wear better than women ; his 
 were not the kind of good looks that go 
 soon. At forty a man is at his best, while 
 a woman can only look back then upon her 
 prime.” 
 
 Then she asked the housekeeper if there 
 was a photograph of the squire himself 
 anywhere about, and was shown one with 
 complacent pride by that dame. 
 
 Was this the slim, supple, ardent soldier- 
 lover of her youth 1 ? Impossible! Here 
 was a massive little man, with a broad 
 good-humoured face, and a contented 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 cfi -— — 
 
 56 [June 18,1883.] OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 commonplace expression ! She put the 
 photograph down with a quick sigh. All 
 through these seventeen years, though she 
 had been an exemplary wife and mother, 
 she had nursed the memory of the lover 
 she had left. And he had never changed ! 
 Her realised ideal, for that he had been in 
 those happy engaged days, had always 
 remained the same gallant-looking, hand- 
 some young fellow who had exchanged 
 love for love with her on that first day of 
 their meeting at Richmond. 
 
 The change in him shocked her more 
 even than the one in herself had done. 
 She went away back to the little house 
 which she had adorned with such taste, 
 and admitted to herself that she need take 
 no further precautions to keep herself 
 undiscovered by him. All the little 
 elaborate fabric of romance which she had 
 been building up was dashed to pieces in 
 a moment. 
 
 It had been her purpose to come to 
 Horrafield, and find out whether her old 
 lover was either married or thinking of 
 marriage. If he were neither, she had 
 intended gently to reveal herself to him 
 one day. But the rumour about Miss 
 Etherington had first made her defer her 
 purpose. And now the sight of herself as 
 she had been, and of him as he was, made 
 her relinquish it. 
 
 After the first shock of these discoveries 
 had passed over, Mrs. Nesbitt speedily 
 recovered, and was able to laugh at 
 herself for having felt them so keenly. 
 Her two daughters were coming down to 
 her soon, fresh from their school near Paris. 
 It had been in her mind that they might 
 have the surprise of hearing they were to 
 have a step-father and a home at The Hall. 
 But this design was changed now. She 
 would only give them the benefit of the 
 fresh country air for a few weeks, make 
 herself known to and have a chat with 
 Clement Lyne, for auld lang syne’s sake, 
 and then leave Horrafield and the old 
 romance for ever behind her. 
 
 What a fool she had been ! This was 
 the reflection that would keep on recurring. 
 Ten years ago, when her husband had died, 
 leaving her well off, and with two tiny 
 daughters, she had made a resolution — 
 she had almost vowed a vow — that nothing 
 should ever tempt her to give her girls a 
 step-father. That resolution was made when 
 she was still young enough to look upon 
 the making of it as a merit. That resolu- 
 tion was made when she was still pretty 
 enough to make it more than probable 
 
 that men would endeavour to make her 
 break it. 
 
 But the memory of her good, kind, 
 indulgent husband had been very fresh 
 in her mind, and the memory of Clement 
 Lyne, of whom she had heard nothing for 
 seven years, had paled. And so she had 
 been very sensible S 
 
 But just a few months ago thoughts of 
 old times had been strongly stirred within 
 her by seeing in some newspaper that 
 Clement Lyne, late of Her Majesty’s 
 — th Regiment, had succeeded to the 
 estates of his late uncle, Arthur Lyne, of 
 Horrafield Hall, Middleshire. 
 
 She happened to be very much 
 disengaged at the time; her daughters 
 had just gone back to school ; London 
 was emptying itself ; there was no special 
 call made upon her to move in any other 
 direction; and, acting on an impulse at 
 which she was very much inclined to 
 laugh now, she had come down to Horra- 
 field with the intention of taking quiet 
 observations of her old lover, and seeing 
 what manner of man he had growD. 
 
 She had done this without any defined 
 ultimate object. It had occurred to her 
 ‘ that it would be pleasant if he recognised 
 her without aid, and they two should hold 
 friendly converse together again. The 
 name of Nesbitt would be no clue to 
 him ; her husband had been Graves when 
 she married him, and had changed his 
 name to Nesbitt on succeeding to some 
 property. 
 
 But when once she found herself in 
 Horrafield, she found that she could only 
 hope to meet with a genuine recognition 
 from him by guarding against the inquisi- 
 tiveness of the village. If Horrafield, in > 
 its eagerness to find out who she was and 
 where she came from, and why she was 
 there, lighted upon anything that might 
 reveal her to him before her own time for 
 doing so, or rather before he spontaneously 
 remembered her, then she would be 
 disappointed and disgusted. Thinking 
 this she shut herself up rigorously, as we 
 have seen — ostrich-like, believing that if 
 she wouldn’t see anybody, nobody would 
 see her. 
 
 Now the futility of this proceeding made 
 itself painfully manifest to her ; he might 
 meet her face to face and not recognise 
 her, for there was nothing visible left of 
 the beautiful girl she had been, in the 
 pleasant-faced woman merely which she 
 had become, 
 
 She decided at last to lose no more 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 [June 18 , 1883 .] 57 
 
 time in bringing about just one friendly 
 meeting with him, and then in leaving 
 Horrafield. Towards this end she sent for 
 the rector. 
 
 “You see I want a friend sooner than I 
 thought I should/’ she said, receiving him 
 very graciously. 
 
 “ And your face tells me that you want 
 one for some agreeable object,” he replied. 
 
 “ I am at your service, Mrs. Nesbitt ; pray 
 command me.” 
 
 “Bring your cousin, the great man of 
 the village, to call upon me.” 
 
 “ I will do so with pleasure if I can 
 catch him in an hour of freedom. But he’s 
 scarcely his own master just now ; he has 
 got engaged to a lady, who monopolises a 
 good deal of his time.” 
 
 She could not help colouring a little 
 when she heard this ; not that she wanted 
 him herself, but — it is never nothing to a 
 woman to learn that a man who might 
 have been her property once had she 
 willed it, has bestowed himself upon 
 another woman now. 
 
 “ Indeed ! I suppose it’s a subject of 
 local rejoicing that The Hall is to have a 
 mistress ] ” 
 
 “It is, especially such a one as Miss 
 Etherington will be. She’s very wealthy 
 and very liberal, and Horrafield looks 
 forward hopefully to there being lavish 
 expenditure at The Hall, and a. great 
 impetus being given to trade in the 
 village.” 
 
 “ I should like to see Clement before he 
 marries,” she said absently, and the rector 
 looked up quickly. 
 
 “You have known my cousin ?” 
 
 She smiled and nodded. 
 
 “ You haven’t seen him for many years ?” 
 “ Not for more than seventeen.” 
 
 “ Your name was Olive Yanstone, if I’m 
 not much mistaken ? ” 
 
 “ Then he has spoken to you of me % ” 
 she asked eagerly ; “did he speak kindly ? 
 has he lost all feeling of anger against me 
 for having let myself be wax in my poor 
 mother’s hands ? ” 
 
 “ He’s a prosaic middle-aged man, you 
 must remember, Mrs. Nesbitt,” the rector 
 said, with a vivid recollection of Miss 
 Etherington and her claims. 
 
 “ And I am a prosaic middle-aged 
 woman,” she answered promptly ; “ but I 
 am capable of feeling anger still if I think 
 I have been unfairly treated, and he had 
 good reason for thinking that I treated him 
 unfairly in those bygone days. He didn’t 
 know how my poor mother pressed me ; 
 
 he didn’t know that I was made to believe 
 for a long time that he was as ready to 
 relinquish me as his uncle could desire.” 
 “And now such knowledge can do no 
 good, and may do harm,” the rector urged. 
 
 “ He has got engaged to this young girl 
 now ; don’t you think you had better 
 leave her in undisturbed possession ? ” 
 
 She smiled and shook her head. 
 
 “ I haven’t the vanity to suppose for an 
 instant that I could upset her claims ; she 
 has youth on her side, remember.” 
 
 “ Many men prefer the second summer 
 to the first,” he said gallantly. 
 
 “ Then many men have very bad taste. 
 No, Mr. Lyne, you need be under no 
 apprehension concerning your cousin’s 
 fidelity to his new vows. I only want to 
 see him and shake hands with him before I 
 leave Horrafield.” 
 
 “ If you’ll only permit me to try and 
 make Horrafield a little more agreeable to 
 you, perhaps you might be induced to stay 
 longer,” Mr. Lyne said earnestly. “I’ve 
 grown so accustomed to the look of the 
 outside of this house under your treat- 
 ment that it will be quite a blow to me 
 to see other people’s cruder curtains and 
 blinds.” 
 
 “ There’s a veiled reproach in that 
 remark of yours,” she said gaily ; “ you’ve 
 grown so accustomed to the look of the 
 outside of the house ! Well, in future, 
 while I stay here, I hope you’ll grow 
 accustomed to the look of the inside of it 
 also.” 
 
 “You’ll find that I take you at your 
 word ; and now tell me why have you, 
 who are so unsuited to the part' of a 
 recluse, been playing it all this time ? ” 
 
 “ I wanted to meet Clement accidentally, 
 and be recognised by him without an intro- 
 duction ; but the other day the fallacy of 
 entertaining such a hope was shown me. 
 I went up to The Hall as an ordinary 
 British sight-seer, and the housekeeper 
 took me to look at a portrait of Olive 
 Yanstone seventeen years ago.” 
 
 “ That’s the likeness of the lovely girl 
 he has in his study?” 
 
 “Yes,” she laughed; “and even after 
 hearing one story from him, and now 
 hearing it from me, you’ve never associated 
 me with that portrait till the present 
 moment ; now have you, confess ? ” 
 
 “Well, I hardly ” 
 
 “You hardly like to tell the truth about 
 the matter. I am changed indeed ! ” 
 
 “ And so is Clement.” 
 
 “ Oh, he’s altered terribly,” Mrs. 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 58 [June 18, 1883.] OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 Nesbitt cried heartily. Then she added 
 “ You and he are not a bit alike.” 
 
 “ When we were boys together we were 
 thought to be so by some people.” 
 
 “ Boys together ! Why, Clement must 
 be years and years older than you.” 
 
 “ I am his junior by a year only,” said 
 Mr. Arthur Lyne, blushing a little. He 
 was an extremely good man, with very 
 little of the thoroughly manly attribute of 
 vanity about him. Still, it gave him 
 agreeable sensations to hear an attractive 
 woman speak of him as years and years 
 younger-looking than his cousin. 
 
 Meanwhile, Clement Lyne had fully 
 committed himself in the eyes of all men 
 to marry Miss Etherington. 
 
 The lady was, as the rector had said of 
 her, “quite young;” but, somehow or 
 other, “ youthfulness” was not what a sight 
 of her or a knowledge of her suggested. 
 She was, as Clement Lyne had said once, 
 “ quiet and unpretentious,” and she was 
 these things to a really remarkable degree. 
 In society she always appeared to shrink 
 from notice, and her gentle retiring ways 
 won her a good deal of approbation from 
 people who thought her temptations to be 
 arrogant and assertive must be strong 
 indeed. 
 
 But the fact was the great heiress 
 laboured under the mortifying conviction 
 that she was only of value in the world as the 
 future owner of vast riches. She was keenly 
 conscious of having no peculiar personal 
 or mental merits, and she was always 
 trying to picture the different kind of 
 treatment she would receive from mankind 
 and the world at large, if she should sud- 
 denly have to pose as a pauper before 
 them. She had, during the brief period 
 which had elapsed since her “coming out,” 
 received several offers of marriage, and all 
 these she had refused with promptitude 
 and decision, firmly believing that it was 
 her money and not herself that they 
 wanted. 
 
 But when Clement Lyne came in his 
 prosaic semi-paternal way, she found her- 
 self strongly moved towards him. It was 
 borne in upon her that here was an honest 
 sincere man who really thought that she 
 could make him happy, and who valued 
 that happiness more than he did her 
 money-bags. In a plain, straightforward 
 way he asked her to be his wife, telling 
 her that her fresh, unsullied, unhackneyed 
 youth was her greatest charm in his eyes, 
 and frankly avowing that he knew himself 
 to be too old to win anything like ardent 
 
 love from her in return. But little Miss 
 Etherington, though she answered him 
 very quietly and undemonstratively, felt 
 that she was quite prepared to give him 
 all this which he said he could never 
 expect. 
 
 She had grown to have such a nervous 
 dread of being married for her money, 
 that the sight of his genuine indifference 
 to the settlements was a source of pro- 
 found satisfaction to her. For himself, he 
 had quite enough, and for the rest, “ tie it 
 up tightly on herself and her children,” he 
 said to his future father-in-law, who obeyed 
 him to the letter. 
 
 He came back one evening to dine with 
 his cousin Arthur, after having spent 
 several hours with his quiet little be- 
 trothed and her parents, settling some of 
 the arrangements that had to be made for 
 their wedding-day, and the gentle timidity 
 of her character had never been so apparent 
 to him before. 
 
 “ She’s as restful as twilight,” he said to 
 his cousin. “ I feel that she will make 
 my life a very peaceful and happy one ; in 
 fact she’s exactly the sort of woman that’s 
 best suited to me ; time was when I 
 thought very differently,” and he smiled 
 at a recollection of brilliant, vivacious 
 Olive Yanstone. 
 
 Here was the opportunity which the 
 rector almost persuaded himself he had 
 been waiting for, for several days. 
 
 “ Do you think you would like to know 
 Mrs. Nesbitt ? ” he asked rather con- 
 strainedly, leaning over the arm of his 
 chair, and playing with his dog as he 
 spoke, so that the expression of his face 
 was concealed from his cousin. 
 
 “ Who, I ? yes, I don’t care about it ; 
 
 but if you’ll introduce me By the way, 
 
 Arthur, isn’t this rather a sudden change ? 
 The lady and you haven’t been on visiting 
 terms, have you ? ” 
 
 “ No ; but she sent for me the other day 
 to do her a trifling favour, and in the 
 course of conversation she said she would 
 like to see you ; in fact I promised to take 
 you there. What do you say to calling this 
 evening 'l ” 
 
 “ Rather late, isn’t it, for a stranger to 
 call ! ” 
 
 “ I don’t think you’ll find she’ll treat 
 you as a stranger,” Arthur Lyne said in 
 some embarrassment. He had made no 
 promise to Mrs. Nesbitt not to reveal her 
 to his cousin, and yet he could not bring 
 himself to do it. He staved off what he 
 thought an evil discovery till the last 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 59 
 
 moment, and altogether felt strangely 
 averse to playing the part of medium 
 which Mrs. Nesbitt had assigned him. 
 
 By-and-by they strolled down through 
 the village to Mrs. Nesbitt’s door, Clement 
 all the while expatiating on the twilight 
 charm which there was about his bride- 
 elect, and Arthur praying fervently that no 
 cloud might arise out of to-night’s meeting 
 to obliterate that twilight charm. 
 
 “ Why couldn’t she have let well alone 
 till he was safely married % ” the rector 
 thought, and he felt aggrieved with Mrs. 
 Nesbitt for her want of patience.. 
 
 The blind was up and the window was 
 open when they went into the little sitting- 
 room. But a lamp stood on a small table, 
 and full in the light of this lamp Mrs. 
 Nesbitt was seated, with a couple of young 
 girls on low stools at her feet. 
 
 What the two gentlemen saw was a very 
 winsome woman, distinctly u no longer 
 young,” Clement Lyne thought. “ A fair 
 presence to have in a h(5use,” thought his 
 cousin. 
 
 She had not expected to see them this 
 evening, and her newly-arrived and much- 
 grown young daughters were engrossing all 
 her mind and thoughts. In her anxiety to 
 show her children to him, Mrs. Nesbitt 
 quite forgot that her former lover was 
 utterly unprepared to meet her. 
 
 “ I’m so glad to see you again, Clement,” 
 she said, rising up and stretching out a 
 hand in hearty greeting over the bright 
 heads of her children ; “ so glad to see you, 
 especially to-night. My little girls came 
 home yesterday, and I want you to know 
 them.” 
 
 He took the hand she held out to him, 
 and gazed into her face in amazement. 
 Something in the fair face, something in 
 the sudden bright sparkle of the blue eyes, 
 something in the sweet influence of the 
 voice, recalled “someone” to him. But 
 who that “ someone ” was he could not 
 determine immediately. 
 
 She realised that he had utterly forgotten 
 her, in an instant, and did not feel offended, 
 or even hurt. One little bit of effect she 
 could not resist attempting. 
 
 “ Get up, Olive,” she said to the elder of 
 the two young girls at her feet ; “ perhaps 
 you will recall me to Mr. Lyne’s recollec- 
 tion more successfully than I have been 
 able to. do it myself.” 
 
 Then, as the young girl sprang laugh- 
 ingly to her feet, and confronted him, Time 
 seemed to have stood still ; little twilight 
 Miss Etherington was forgotten, and he 
 
 thought he was looking on his own old love 
 again. 
 
 As the days went by, the two who had 
 been so much to one another once, and who 
 had so utterly outgrown all softer feeling for 
 one another now, found the renewal of their 
 intercourse a very pleasant thing. 
 
 The squire came to the widow’s house 
 constantly, always accompanied by his 
 cousin, the rector, who soon ceased to feel 
 anxious as to the result, as far as 
 Mrs. Nesbitt was concerned. The engaged 
 man was able to face the widow — his own 
 old love — and feel conscience-free ; and she 
 in her turn merely marvelled at herself 
 for having so thoroughly outgrown the 
 Dassion and romance of her youth. But 
 iow about Olive, the younger 1 
 
 Now that she saw him daily, Mrs. Nesbitt 
 was fain to confess that she had done 
 Clement Lyne injustice, in looking upon 
 him as a mere massive, uninteresting, 
 commonplace little man. He had nothing 
 Apollo-like about him, but he had that 
 perfect bearing, that thoroughbred, ex- 
 quisitely-balanced manner, which runs the 
 Apollos hard. No wonder that, young as 
 she was, little Miss Etherington had been 
 taken by such a man ! 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Nesbitt would have 
 thought more about little Miss Ethering- 
 ton’s publicly-proclaimed rights, and have 
 been a little more observant of her old 
 lover, if all this time his cousin had not 
 been engrossing so much of her attention. 
 As it was, with soft, half-shamed blushes, 
 she was obliged to confess to herself that 
 she was going through the same phase of 
 feeling now for Arthur which she had once 
 long ago gone through for Clement, and 
 she felt thankful indeed that, before they 
 had met, Clement had bound himself to 
 little Miss Etherington. 
 
 “ It will end in your going to the 
 rectory, I see that,” her eldest daughter 
 said to her laughingly one day, when Mr. 
 Lyne had been spending a couple, of hours, 
 on the weakest pretences, in their sitting- 
 room ; and this speech was another reve- 
 lation to Mrs. Nesbitt. Her daughter had 
 reached the age when the idea of matri- 
 mony for themselves or others becomes 
 familiar to the mind. 
 
 “ You child ! don’t talk of things you 
 don’t understand. Mr. Lyne is a very 
 good friend of mine ” 
 
 “Don’t I understand?” Olive inter- 
 rupted. “ In your wisdom, mother dear, 
 don’t overlook the fact that you are a very 
 much more attractive woman than can be 
 
60 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 OUTGROWN IT. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 found in all the region round. Clement 
 Lyne has told me that over and over 
 again. How nice he is, mother — so fond 
 of you too. He says to see me growing 
 more like what you were every day is the 
 greatest pleasure he has in life.” 
 
 “ x Clement ’ Lyne ! The greatest plea- 
 sure he has is to see you growing 
 more like me ! My dear child, let me 
 collect my startled senses, and tell you 
 that you mustn’t speak of a man old 
 enough to be your father ” — she shivered 
 a little as she said it — “ by his christian- 
 name. Like him and revere him as much 
 as you like, but please — please, my Olive, 
 don’t take up the tone of the day, and 
 speak in a free-and-easy, jaunty kind of 
 way of a man so much your senior — a 
 man, too, who is shortly to be married.” 
 Olive’s impressionable soul was quick to 
 mark a change of feeling on her face. 
 
 “ Mother, mother dear, you don’t think 
 him so very old, do you ? and I’m not 
 quite sure that he is going to be married 
 to Miss Etherington, after all. They’re 
 both beginning to feel that they’ve made a 
 mistake. People do sometimes in love- 
 affairs, you know, mother. There’s an 
 amount of simpleness about her that 
 almost amounts to silliness, I should think, 
 from what he says.” 
 
 “I’ll speak to him; I’ll tell him he 
 mustn’t speak to the child about his future 
 wife. Olive is so young that no mischief 
 can have been done yet,” the mother 
 thought. 
 
 Then she reproached herself for having 
 suffered that autumnal dream of hers to 
 interfere with her strict supervision of her 
 daughter. 
 
 But when Mrs. Nesbitt, acting under 
 advice from the rector, did begin to mildly 
 reprove and softly upbraid Clement Lyne 
 for having talked nonsense to her child, 
 he astonished her by saying : 
 
 “ It’s the best sense I’ve talked for 
 seventeen years. It has made Olive care 
 for me, and Olive is too much like her 
 mother not to have a heart worth winning 
 and keeping. It’s a strange end to our 
 story that you should marry my cousin, 
 and that I should marry your daughter ; 
 but it is to be, Mrs. Nesbitt.” 
 
 “ And what about Miss Etherington 'i ” 
 she faltered. 
 
 This sudden re-disposition of affairs, 
 though not exactly displeasing, was dis- 
 tinctly startling to her. 
 
 “Miss Etherington is one of the best 
 little creatures that ever lived. She will 
 
 give me her hand and wish me God-speed 
 in my wooing of Olive, as you will do 
 presently.” 
 
 A fine colour came into Mrs. Nesbitt’s 
 face as he said this. For the world she 
 would not have reminded him that he had 
 spoken the same words about herself to 
 her mother long ago. Her delicacy was 
 spared something in that he evidently did 
 not remember it. Her pride compelled 
 her to say : 
 
 “ Until you can come a free man, you 
 mustn’t see Olive, you mustn’t come here. 
 
 I shall reproach myself always with having 
 brought sorrow upon Miss Etherington.” 
 
 “ Ah,” he said with unintentional cruelty, 
 “ your daughter is so like what you were, 
 how could I fail to love her 1 Wish me 
 well with her ; rely on me. Miss Ether- 
 ington will not even feel greatly disap- 
 pointed ; she doesn’t feel anything deeply. 
 Hers is a very sweet, but not at all an 
 intense nature. Let me see Olive to-day; 
 let me plead my cause with her.” 
 
 “Not till you can plead it as a free 
 man,” the mother said decidedly. “ Olive 
 is too precious to me to let her be 
 lightly won. When you come as a free 
 man to ask for my child I will give 
 her to you, if she is willing. Meanwhile, 
 act as a man should. Let there be 
 no go-betweens. See Miss Etherington; 
 let no messages pass between you and 
 her. A man is false to his manhood who 
 lets any human being intervene between 
 himself and the woman he loves.” 
 
 That was the only reproach she ever 
 spoke to him, the only rebuke she ever 
 gave him for his having inertly allowed 
 her to slip out of his life. 
 
 “But I don’t love Miss Etherington in 
 that way,” he explained ; and then again 
 he pleaded warmly for a few minutes with 
 Olive. “ Let me be sure of her,” he 
 asked. 
 
 “ No, indeed,” she answered ; “ that 
 you shall never be till she stands at 
 the altar with you. Oh, you are weak ! 
 You let the women you love and the 
 women who love you go with equal 
 facility.” 
 
 “If Olive ever goes from me it will 
 kill me,” he said passionately. 
 
 “ Have the courage to say that to Miss 
 Etherington. If you have the courage to 
 do that I shall not fear to trust Olive to 
 you. Child as she is, she will admire your 
 'pluck.” 
 
 “ Child as she is, she is the one object 
 in the world to me,” he said; “and so 
 
‘ ===:M 
 
 Charlea Dickens.] OUTGKOWN IT. [June 18 , 1883 .] 61 
 
 I shall find the courage to tell Miss 
 Etherington.” 
 
 “Here comes your cousin,” the widow 
 said, relapsing into a gentler mood. And 
 while the rector talked to Mrs. Nesbitt, 
 Clement Lyne made his escape into the 
 little garden behind the house, and admired 
 Olive's, supple grace as she swung herself 
 about in a hammock. 
 
 Little Miss Etherington had got her 
 wedding - garments together, and quite 
 banished that life-long delusion of hers 
 about being married for her money. She 
 had grown, since her engagement to 
 Clement Lyne, to have a far higher opinion 
 of herself than she had ever entertained 
 before. 
 
 He was so absolutely true and sincere 
 in all his dealings, that it was impossible 
 to doubt the flattering fact of his truth 
 and sincerity in loving her for herself — not 
 for that alluring bugbear, her money. If 
 such a man loved her for herself, why then 
 she must indeed be well worth loving. So 
 without growing one whit less gentle 
 or one atom more pretentious, she grew 
 into a more correct appreciation of her- 
 self under the influence of Clement 
 Lyne’s truth, sincerity, and general supe- 
 riority. 
 
 In the first days of the renewal of his 
 acquaintance with Mrs. Nesbitt he had 
 told his betrothed that in that lady he had 
 found an old friend. But, prudently, he 
 had not thought it necessary to add that 
 the old friend and he had once been on 
 the brink of marrying one another. It is 
 always quite as well, perhaps, that men 
 should keep these bygone incidents in the 
 background, and no one can impugn 
 Clement Lyne’s truth and sincerity for 
 doing so on this occasion. 
 
 But when it revealed itself to him that 
 Olive, the younger, was getting dearer to 
 him than her mother had ever been — was 
 getting dangerously dear, then indeed it 
 behoved him either to confess the painful 
 truth to little Miss Etherington, or to cease 
 seeing Olive. 
 
 He did neither. 
 
 At last, when more than a week had 
 passed without his either writing to or 
 seeing Miss Etherington, there came a 
 letter from her which compelled him to be 
 honest at last, and definite. 
 
 Without her having told him so, he 
 knew very well that Olive Nesbitt, the 
 daughter of his first love, had given all 
 her gracious young heart to him, and the 
 
 gift was too precious to him for him to 
 throw, it away. So when little Miss 
 Etherington wrote in her confiding sim- 
 plicity : 
 
 “ I wish you would come over to dine 
 to-night. As we are to be married so soon, 
 my mother thinks we ought to settle 
 definitely where we will go for our trip. 
 Besides, dear Clement, I want to make my 
 wedding-present to you before we are 
 married.” 
 
 In spite of his heart’s desire being given 
 him about Olive, Clement Lyne was a very 
 miserable man as he drove over to Holmlea 
 that day. In spite of what may appear 
 like fickleness, he was a very kind-hearted 
 man, and he did dread the moment when 
 Miss Etherington’s dove-like eyes should 
 be opened to the truth. 
 
 She was walking about on the lawn with 
 her mother when he arrived, and as he 
 went towards them, she came forward with 
 the shy trusting manner that he had found 
 so infinitely touching at first. When she 
 held up her face for him to kiss her, he 
 was sorely tempted to do it, and defer the 
 disagreeable disclosure. But he thought of 
 Olive and refrained, and Miss Etherington 
 drew back, feeling rebuffed and repelled, 
 and strangely hurt. 
 
 “I will leave you in peace,” Mrs. 
 Etherington said, smiling; “don’t shut 
 your ears to the dinner-bell, please.” Then 
 she went in, and the moment was 
 come. 
 
 “ I have a sorrowful confession to make,” 
 he began. She looked at him wistfully, but 
 said nothing, and he had to go on. “ I 
 have to ask you to release me from my 
 promise. You deserve the best love of a 
 man’s heart. The best love of mine is 
 given to a girl whom I have only known 
 since I asked you to be my wife. Forgive 
 me.” 
 
 . She put her hand out, and laid it on 
 his. 
 
 /* Gro to her, my friend,” she said softly ; 
 “ it must have been hard for you to tell 
 me. You shall not see my father and 
 mother yet. When you come back to 
 Horrafield with your wife they shall come 
 with me to see her, and the wedding- 
 present I have shall be given to her — not 
 to you.” 
 
 Then she said good-bye to him, and 
 went in, and he got himself away from 
 Holmlea, feeling out of joint with him- 
 self. 
 
 When, some time after, he brought his 
 
 » 
 
 y 
 
62 [June 18, 1883.2 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 wife home, he found that the Ethering- 
 tons had gone abroad, but little Miss 
 Etherington had left her wedding-present 
 for Olive. 
 
 Mrs. Nesbitt remains in Horrafield, and 
 the rectory is not likely to lack a mistress 
 long. 
 
 THE PUREINGTON TRAGEDY. 
 
 By Dutton Cook. 
 
 Purrington boasted but one police- 
 constable, and, of course, he was very much 
 disturbed : indeed it may. be said of the 
 whole neighbourhood that it was extremely 
 excited : when news suddenly came of the 
 death of Farmer Bickerstaff. He had been 
 found lying prone on the open down nearly 
 two miles away from his own farmhouse. 
 There was an ugly cut across his face, there 
 were several wounds at the back of his 
 head, and it was plain that he had been 
 bleeding profusely. He was quite cold, 
 had been dead many hours, it was said, 
 when some of his own labourers came with 
 a cart to carry the body home. 
 
 It was not surprising that Purrington 
 was so deeply stirred ; such an event had 
 not been known to happen out Purrington 
 way, as people said, within the memory of 
 its oldest inhabitant, who by-the-bye was 
 known to be old Gaffer Grimskaw, an 
 inmate of the poorhouse, and generally 
 reputed to be aged at least one hundred 
 and three years. As a rule, indeed, nothing 
 of much moment ever did happen out 
 Purrington way, and its policeman was 
 wont to have an easy time of it ; for 
 Purrington was but a peaceful little West-of- 
 England village that usually seemed to be 
 curled up and fast asleep in a comfortable 
 hollow of the down country that out- 
 stretched and undulated far and wide 
 thereabout. It claimed to own historical 
 interest, however : the Romans had en- 
 camped on its uplands, and Druidical 
 remains had been discovered in its vale. 
 Moreover, it had been a posting-station in 
 the good old coaching times ; and in its high 
 street a market had formerly been held, 
 bestowing upon it the dignity of a town ; 
 and at one time it had returned a member 
 to Parliament ; but, of course, that was all 
 a long time ago now . 
 
 Mr. Spreadberry, the policeman of Pur- 
 rington, now found himself quite a per- 
 
 sonage. Hitherto he had represented 
 justice only in a small way and in relation 
 to her meaner affairs. He had been called 
 upon to deal merely with what, are known 
 as “ common assaults,” with instances of 
 rude tipsiness outside the taprooms of the 
 village inn ; he had arrested turnip-stealers 
 and trespassers here and there, and been as 
 a scourge to the small boys who. threw 
 stones, broke windows, and otherwise .mis- 
 conducted themselves and vexed society. 
 But here was something very much more 
 serious to occupy him. He had been 
 engaged only in the lighter entertainments 
 of the criminal law ; but the death of 
 Farmer Bickerstaff was in . the nature of 
 real heavy tragedy. The agitated villagers 
 gathered round the policeman, hung upon 
 his words, watched and followed him 
 hither and thither. How had poor old 
 Farmer Bickerstaff come by so dreadful an 
 end ? That was the question. Was it 
 accident ? or was it suicide? or was it 
 murder ? The policeman’s aspect was 
 imposing and portentous, but unsatisfying. 
 He would say little of the farmer’s death ; 
 he simply described it as “a case.’ But to 
 some minds there was consolation even m 
 this brief and narrow account of the matter; 
 a legal leaven and flavour seemed thus 
 Imparted to it. . 
 
 Of course the magistrates of the district 
 had been roused and consulted with, the 
 while a message had been despatched to 
 the coroner for the county. For it was 
 clear there must be an inquest upon the 
 body of the deceased farmer. Mr. Partlett, 
 the general practitioner of Purrington, who 
 had assisted so many of its inhabitants into 
 the world, and at times possibly had 
 hastened the departure thence of some of 
 them, had been summoned to the Abbey 
 Farm to view the remains and testify to 
 the cause of death. It was reported, too, 
 that Dr. Bloomfield of Steepleborough had 
 also been sent for, that a second opinion on 
 the subject might be forthcoming. There 
 were those who hinted that Mr. Partlett 
 was not so young or so sharp as once he 
 had been ; it was even suggested that he 
 was now a trifle gone-bv, that he had not 
 all his wits always about him, but was 
 wont at times to let them go too far a-wool 
 gathering. 
 
 As tenants of Lord Hengistone, of I he 
 Abbey, Purrington West, members of the 
 Bickerstaff family had occupied the Abbey 
 Farm during a long course of years. There 
 had always been a Bickerstaff, it was said, 
 upon the Hengistone estate. The country- 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 63 
 
 side had been rather proud of the Bicker- 
 staffs, and especially of the unfortunate 
 man who was now lying disfigured by his 
 wounds, stark and dead, in his own farm- 
 house. Not that he could have been called 
 popular. He was known to be a man of 
 violent temper, obstinate, opinionated, over- 
 bearing, quarrelsome. It was not only, his 
 neighbours admitted, that he owned a 
 “rough side to his tongue:” he had been wont 
 to follow up hard words with hard blows. 
 He had been brought before the bench of 
 magistrates upon more than one occasion 
 for assaulting sundry of his farm-servants, 
 plying his horsewhip too freely, and in- 
 flicting personal chastisement upon those 
 who had offended him. He was a man to 
 make enemies and was no doubt here and 
 there held in hearty detestation. And yet 
 he was regarded as somehow a credit to 
 the district. He was an excellent agri- 
 culturist, his farm had often been des- 
 cribed as “a perfect picture.” He had 
 been the recipient of many a prize at the 
 county cattle-shows for his ram-lambs or 
 his stock sheep. He rode well to hounds ; 
 he was an admirable shot ; he was skilled 
 in all manly sports and exercises. And 
 then, time out of mind, the Bickerstaffs 
 had possessed great physical advantages. 
 The late farmer had been famed for his tall 
 stature, for his singular muscular strength, 
 for his handsome face and figure. Even at 
 seventy years of age Jasper Bickerstaff with 
 his keen clear blue eyes, his abundant white 
 hair, his ruddy complexion, and his firm 
 and upright bearing, could only have been 
 described as a very comely and picturesque- 
 looking elderly gentleman. 
 
 II. 
 
 The coroner’s jury returned an open 
 verdict. It seemed clear that Mr. Bicker- 
 staff had been thrown from his horse and 
 had fallen very heavily. There was a heap 
 of flints close by ; similar heaps indeed at 
 intervals marked out a bridle-path across 
 the down, the farmer’s shortest way home. 
 It was likely that the horse had shied at 
 the flints, or had stumbled over them, with 
 a suddenness that had unseated the rider. 
 It was late and very dark. Mr. Bicker- 
 staff had been attending Steepleborough 
 Market; had dined at the Farmers’ Club, 
 and remained there some hours playing 
 cards.. It was added, that he had been 
 drinking freely, though no witness ventured 
 to say that he was drunk. The horse was 
 young, and Mr. Bickerstaff was known to 
 
 ride carelessly with a loose rein. He had 
 left Steepleborough alone ; he had not been 
 met on the road home. It was about five 
 miles from the club-house door to the place 
 where the body was found, which was not, 
 perhaps, more than two hundred yards 
 from the highway. There had been a toll- 
 gate formerly standing where the bridle- 
 path joined the broad open road ; but the 
 gate-house had been years since converted 
 into a labourer’s cottage, the toll having 
 been abolished, and the turnpike trust 
 brought to an end. In the cottage dwelt 
 with his mother, one Jacob Haggard, a 
 carter in the employ of Farmer Bickerstaff. 
 On the night in question Jacob Haggard, it 
 was shown, was up at the Abbey Farm, 
 busied in the stables, attending upon one 
 of the horses in his charge — the animal had 
 gone dead lame in the course of the after- 
 noon. It was Jacob who found the farmer’s 
 nag, much cut about the knees, shivering 
 and scared, with a staring coat, standing 
 riderless without the porch of the Abbey 
 farmhouse. It was Jacob who started 
 with a lantern across the down, along the 
 bridle-path, in search of the missing farmer. 
 To J acob it was plain, from the condition 
 of the nag, that something had happened 
 to his master. It was Jacob who, having 
 found the farmer’s body, hurried in a very 
 unnerved and tremulous state to rouse 
 certain of his fellow farm-servants, to pre- 
 pare and bring forth one of the farm- 
 carts, and to convey the dead man to his 
 home. 
 
 The evidence of the medical witnesses 
 was thought to be rather vague and un- 
 satisfactory. The doctors seemed unwilling 
 to commit themselves to any very distinct 
 opinion. Was an accidental fall the main 
 cause of the farmer’s death % That might 
 be so. Or had the deceased been seized 
 with apoplexy? It was possible; Mr. 
 Bickerstaff had suffered from something 
 like an apoplectic attack some few years 
 ago, when Mr. Partlett had prescribed for 
 him. The wounds on the face were not 
 sufficient to account for the farmer’s death. 
 They were caused apparently by violent 
 contact with the sharp edges of the flints. 
 Supposing the farmer to have been sud- 
 denly thrown from his horse upon the heap 
 of sharp jagged flints, the medical witnesses 
 would have expected to find just such 
 wounds upon his face. No; suicide was 
 out of the question ; the witnesses were 
 quite agreed and confident as to that. As 
 it was clear from the cuts upon its knees 
 that the nag had stumbled and gone down, 
 
= =* 3 
 
 64 [June is, 1883.1 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. [CondneW by 
 
 it might be assumed that the farmer had I 
 lost his seat and been thrown. At the j 
 same time there was nothing to account for ] 
 the wounds on the back of his head. The i 
 scull was severely fractured. It was as : 
 though it had been battered in by some 
 heavy blunt instrument. They were not 
 incised wounds; they differed from the 
 wounds on the face. They could hardly 
 have been effected by a heavy fall on the 
 flints, even supposing that the farmer had 
 fallen on the back of his head. Did they 
 think then that Mr. Bickerstaff had been 
 murdered ? The witnesses would not take 
 upon themselves to say that in their opinion 
 Mr. Bickerstaff had been murdered. Still 
 he might have been murdered? Yes; 
 assuredly he might have been murdered. 
 The wounds on the back of his head could 
 not have been self-inflicted ? No ; the 
 witnesses thought that such wounds could 
 not have been self-inflicted. 
 
 The inquest had been held in the large 
 upper room of The King’s Head Inn, Pur- 
 rington, the jury having been driven over 
 in an omnibus to view the body of the 
 deceased at the Abbey Farm. The excite- 
 ment at Purrington was very great through- 
 out these proceedings. There was much 
 hurrying to and fro, riding and driving 
 hither and thither. There was a line of 
 dog-carts and pony-chaises ranged in front 
 of The King’s Head, and the stables of that 
 establishment were subjected to excessive 
 crowding. 
 
 An open verdict was, perhaps, un- 
 avoidable, especially as the coroner, an 
 elderly gentleman who lived many miles 
 away and was very anxious to return home 
 in good time, afforded the jury but little 
 guidance or assistance in the matter, but 
 chiefly concerned himself with abbreviating 
 the proceedings. An open verdict satisfies 
 no one, however. It was felt generally 
 that the coroner’s jury had left the case 
 very much where they found it, and that 
 something further ought to be done. There 
 were many who said in plain terms that 
 Farmer Bickerstaff had been murdered and 
 that it behoved the authorities to look 
 alive, to discover and punish his murderer. 
 A feeling that there had been in some sort 
 a failure of justice was even visited upon 
 the Purrington policeman, who now found 
 himself, in his character of representative 
 of the law, somewhat discredited and 
 under-estimated. The Purrington people 
 seemed to hold that they knew quite as 
 much about the case of Farmer Bickerstaf 
 as did Mr. Spreadberry ; some even judged 
 
 that they knew more about it than lie did, 
 ind were ready to taunt him with his 
 inertness, to accuse him of lack of sagacity 
 and perception. Sometimes he was plainly 
 asked why he did not arrest somebody ? 
 
 To this enquiry, which was not perhaps 
 one of much fairness or soundness, Mr. 
 Spreadberry could return no satisfactory 
 answer. 
 
 It was understood that the magistrates 
 of the district had sat in conclave upon the 
 case and had been in receipt of communi- 
 cations from the Home Secretary. A 
 rumour prevailed that the bench had been 
 stirred up and called to account by that 
 member of the Government. It was not 
 clear, however, that the justices had not 
 been the first to move in the matter and of 
 their own accord sought the aid of the 
 Secretary. 
 
 ill. 
 
 The arrival of a stranger was always an 
 event in Purrington ; but when it was 
 known that the stranger could be described 
 as “an emissary from Scotland Yard,” the 
 interest originally taken in his visit 
 gradually rose to excitement. Presently 
 he stood confessed as Mr. Dawkins, of the 
 detective police — a middle-sized, middle- 
 aged man, portly of form and good- 
 humoured of facial expression, with little 
 crescent-shaped patches of whisker defining 
 the position of his cheek-bones. He came 
 over unexpectedly in a fly from Steeple- 
 borough, bringing little luggage with him, 
 and avoiding the more pretentious King s 
 Head, contented himself with the inferior 
 accommodation obtained at The Barley 
 Mow public-house. He first appeared in a 
 tall hat and a long brown overcoat, but 
 speedily discarding these, he was found 
 arrayed in a grey suit, with a “ pot . hat, 
 and had the air of an innocent excursionist 
 quietly enjoying the fresh breezes blowing 
 from the downs about Steepleborough. 
 
 Mr. Dawkins, however, was a very dis- 
 tinguished officer of police. He had 
 
 acquired signal fame by his adroit dealing 
 with such criminal cases of note as the 
 great forgeries upon the Royal Bank of 
 , Sark, the Peckham Rye murder, the extra- 
 ordinary kidnapping at Romney Marsh, 
 the robbery of Lord Beamish’s gold plate 
 , and Lady Belzize’s jewels, etc. Undoubtedly 
 [ Mr. Dawkins had displayed great judg- 
 , ment, courage, and enterprise on many 
 3 important occasions. 
 
 F The London officer soon made the 
 
 l acquaintance of Purrington’s only con- 
 
 — i 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 — fa 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRA.GEDY. [June is, ms.] 65 
 
 stable, and treated him with much cor- 
 diality. While disposed to hold that the 
 metropolitan police generally were perhaps 
 rather an over-valued and somewhat arro- 
 gant body — “bumptious,” he termed it — 
 Mr. Spreadberry freely admitted that Mr. 
 Dawkins was a pleasant man, of affable 
 address, and very good company. Mr. 
 Dawkins was welcomed to Mr. Spread- 
 berry’s lodgings, and was there made very 
 comfortable with a pipe of the church- 
 warden pattern and a tumbler of whisky- 
 and-water, cold. Mr. Dawkins was a man 
 of much conversation, many topics ; he by 
 no means confined himself to discussing 
 the case of Farmer Bickerstaff, though 
 he now and then, as it were, dropped 
 into that in an accidental manner and 
 increased his stock of knowledge concern- 
 ing it. 
 
 He was London - born himself, Mr. 
 Dawkins confessed, but he owned relations 
 on his mother’s side who were Norfolk 
 people. Perhaps it was to that fact his 
 interest in agricultural matters was attri- 
 butable ; for he loved the country. He 
 enjoyed nothing so much as “an outing” 
 among green trees, and hills, and lanes ; 
 had always from a boy taken a sort of 
 interest in farming operations, and often 
 wished he had been brought up to be a 
 farmer. They farmed in Norfolk upon a 
 different system to that prevailing about 
 Purrington : he knew that much. Yet he 
 thought the crops about Purrington — take 
 the barley on Farmer Bickerstaff’s land, for 
 instance — wonderfully promising; he could 
 see that with half an eye, Londoner though 
 he was. Farmer Bickerstaff was no doubt 
 very well served by his labourers. Only 
 pretty well 1 Mr. Dawkins would have 
 thought such a man had been particularly 
 well served. Not so very popular ? Wasn’t 
 he now. Not considered a good master ? 
 Mr. Dawkins was surprised. “Hard- 
 mouthed, cold-hearted, and close-fisted.” 
 Was that what they said of him 1 ? Well, 
 every man had his enemies, deservedly 
 or undeservedly, that was Mr. Dawkins’s 
 experience. And no doubt, from what Mr. 
 Spreadberry had said, there might be some 
 not unwilling to do Farmer Bickerstaff a 
 bad turn, supposing an opportunity were 
 offered them. 
 
 “ You had an advantage, you see,” Mr. 
 Dawkins observed to the country constable, 
 “ in attending the inquest. As a general 
 rule we don’t think much of inquests; 
 they’re apt to be muddles, are inquests. 
 The coroner don’t know what to do, the 
 
 jury don’t know what to say, and the 
 witnesses don’t know where they are. The 
 right questions are not asked, the wrong 
 questions are asked, and the evidence isn’t 
 what is wanted. No ; give me a police- 
 court. I may be thought prejudiced, per- 
 haps, but to my thinking there’s nothing 
 like a police-court. I prefer a police- 
 court, if you’ll believe me, even to the 
 Central Criminal ; though, mind you, there 
 have been some fine things done at the 
 Central Criminal. Now at this inquest at 
 The King’s Head it came out that Jacob 
 Haggard was the first to find the body at, 
 it might be, eleven o’clock, he says, or 
 perhaps a little before. Well, I have 
 nothing to say against Jacob Haggard. 
 But it did not come out at the inquest who 
 it was that was the last to see Farmer 
 Bickerstaff alive V 
 
 “ As a matter of fact,” Mr. Spreadberry 
 explained, “ it was Jacob’s mother, old 
 Keziah Haggard, who was the last to see 
 the farmer alive. She was at what we call 
 the toll-gate cottage in the Steepleborough 
 ' road. He had stopped at the cottage to 
 ask for a drink ; it was before ten by her 
 clock, she says. She wasn’t called at the 
 inquest ; she’s old, crippled with the 
 rheumatism, and terribly hard of hearing. 
 She’s pretty nearly past work, but she 
 won’t go into the House. She does a bit 
 of washing and mending for folks now 
 and then, and she’s equal to a bit of field 
 labour at times. It’s not so long since I 
 saw her hoeing turnips on the uplands 
 over against the Abbey farmhouse.” 
 
 “I’ve seen Mrs. Keziah Haggard,” Mr. 
 Dawkins admitted. “ Nice tidy old body ; 
 well-spoken woman ; I had an aunt once 
 who was the very moral of her. Rather 
 a nut-cracker order of face, but been good- 
 looking in her younger days, dear old 
 soul, I shouldn’t wonder. Dropped into 
 her cottage, quite by chance, as it were, 
 and sat by the fireside, it might be, for 
 half an hour, while the bacon and greens 
 was a boiling; uncommon good to eat, I 
 dare say, but strong-smelling all the same ; 
 and we talked over the case of Farmer 
 Bickerstaff. She says there was a gun 
 fired that night in the abbey preserves. 
 She was standing at her door looking down 
 the road for Jacob, and, deaf as she is, she 
 heard the report, she tells me, plain as 
 plain.” 
 
 “ She’s quite right. There was a gun 
 fired. The keepers all heard it. A bit 
 of poaching, they suppose, but they weren’t 
 clear about it. But it couldn’t have 
 
66 [June 18, 1883.1 THE PUKEINGTON TEAGEDY. [Conducted by 
 
 anything to do with Farmer Bickerstaff s 
 death.” 
 
 “ I suppose not. Yet Keziah Haggard 
 thought it worth while to mention it. She 
 was right, I dare say. It was odd that a 
 gun should be fired just about the time the 
 farmer met with his death. There might 
 be no connection between the two inci- 
 dents, and yet they might be connected. 
 Did she wish us to think they were 
 connected *? Mind, I don’t say she did. 
 The farmer did not die of a gun-shot 
 wound. Yet he might have been fired at 
 before his head was beaten in. It’s 
 curious when you come to think of it, 
 although I don’t say that there is really 
 anything in it, still it’s curious that the 
 first person to see the farmer dead should 
 be Jacob Haggard, and the last person to 
 see him alive Keziah Haggard — mother and 
 son. It looks almost like a family arrange- 
 ment.” 
 
 Mr. Spreadberry shook his head. The 
 Haggards could have had no motive for 
 murdering the farmer. 
 
 “ It’s very well to look for a motive,” 
 said Mr. Dawkins ; “ but a motive isn’t 
 everything. Sometimes great crimes are 
 committed for very small motives. And 
 sometimes a murder’s committed with a 
 certain object, which is abandoned through 
 fear, or nervousness, or confusion, or 
 interruption, or what not, at the last 
 moment.” 
 
 “ The motive wasn’t robbery at any 
 rate,” observed Mr. Spreadberry. 
 
 “ Are you sure *? You mean that money 
 was found in his pockets ? But was it 
 proved that all the money was found upon 
 him that he was bringing home from the 
 market 2 I don’t think that came out at 
 the inquest. And if there was no robbery 
 it doesn’t follow that the man wasn’t 
 murdered with a design to rob him — a 
 design abandoned after the murder; for 
 you know murder is an upsetting sort of 
 thing to the murderer, who isn’t generally 
 a very courageous sort of person.” 
 
 Mr. Spreadberry shook his head again. 
 He thought that, as a rule, murder was 
 rather more upsetting to the murdered than 
 to the murderer. He could not believe in 
 the guilt of the Haggards. “ It was not 
 likely,” he said. 
 
 “We have to consider first what is 
 possible ; we shall get in that way at what 
 is likely,” said Mr. Dawkins. “ But, mind 
 you, I am not suspecting, still less accusing, 
 this old woman and her son. Only we 
 can’t leave them altogether out of the 
 
 calculation. They may be but small 
 figures in the sum, of trifling account 
 enough, but they need to be added in. 
 And then,” he added suddenly, “ there’s 
 Mr. Stephen Lambert, of Bostock Farm. 
 
 I wonder why he wasn’t called at the 
 inquest 1 ” 
 
 “ Mr. Stephen Lambert ! What could 
 he know about it 
 
 “ Well, it didn’t come out at the inquest, 
 yet, you know, it’s rather curious when you 
 come to think of it : young Mr. Stephen 
 Lambert had words with Mr. Bickerstaff 
 in Steepleborough market-place only a fev§ 
 hours before Mr. Bickerstaff was found 
 dead on the down. And they tell me that 
 Mr. Bickerstaff lost hi3 temper, and even 
 went so far as to strike Mr. Stephen 
 Lambert in the face. And then it’s odd 
 too, when you come to think about it, that 
 Mr. Stephen Lambert’s way home to 
 Bostock was Mr. Bickerstaff s way home to 
 the Abbey Farm, only, of course, Bostock’s 
 a mile or two farther on over the hill. 
 It’s clear that Mr. Stephen Lambert rode 
 along the bridle-path, and passed the heap 
 of flints but a little while before Mr. 
 Bickerstaff was found there with his head 
 battered in, dead as a door-nail.” 
 
 It was clear from Mr. Spreadberry’s 
 manner that he held it waste of time to 
 suspect Mr. Stephen Lambert. Decidedly 
 Mr. Spreadberry was of opinion that Mr. 
 Dawkins’s reputation for cleverness was 
 in excess of his merits, that he was 
 indeed too clever by half. 
 
 “ And now I think I’ll take a little rural 
 walk,” said Mr. Dawkins, “and I shouldn’t 
 wonder if I found myself near the toll-gate 
 cottage; I may even step in and have 
 another little gossip with Mrs. Keziah 
 Haggard while she boils her bacon and 
 greens or what not. She is a pleasant old 
 soul to talk to is old Mrs. Haggard, and 
 knows a deal about the neighbourhood. 
 From her cottage window she can see 
 everyone that passes up or downthe Steeple - 
 borough road ; and people are apt to look 
 in as they pass, and to tell her any bit 
 of news that’s stirring. Perhaps. — who 
 knows 1 ? — Jacob Haggard may give his 
 mother a look in— for his dinner, I 
 shouldn’t wonder — and I may have a 
 pleasant bit of chat with him too; not 
 that Jacob has anything like what I may 
 call the conversational powers of his mother, 
 nor her good temper.” 
 
 “ He’s shy, is Jacob, and not one to talk 
 much,” explained Mr. Spreadberry ; “ but 
 there’s no harm in Jacob, not a morsel.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. [June 18, 1883.] 67 
 
 “That’s as it may be,” observed the 
 London policeman. “ To my thinking 
 there’s harm in every man, and you’re 
 sure to find it, if you only know when and 
 where to look for it.” 
 
 IV. 
 
 For some time Mr. Dawkins may be 
 said to have pervaded and possessed the 
 Purrington district generally. He was 
 constantly to be found sitting on stiles or 
 leaning over gates, much interested in 
 agricultural pursuits, watching the field- 
 labourers, talking to them, examining the 
 various instruments and machines em- 
 ployed in farming operations. He visited 
 various of the cottages upon the Abbey 
 Farm, and was often found conversing 
 with old Keziah Haggard at the old toll- 
 gate. And many a pipe he smoked with 
 Mr. Spreadberry at his lodgings, refreshing 
 himself there with many a tumbler of 
 whisky-and-water, cold. 
 
 Soon Purrington and its neighbourhood 
 had new cause for excitement and amaze- 
 ment. It was known that Mr. Dawkins 
 had applied for a warrant for the arrest of 
 young Mr. Stephen Lambert of Bostock 
 Farm, charged with the wilful murder of 
 Farmer BickerstafF. 
 
 In Mr. Spreadberry’s opinion Mr. 
 Dawkins was quite mad to think of 
 taking such a step. 
 
 V. 
 
 There was a very full attendance of 
 magistrates, who it was clear heard the 
 case with some reluctance, and whose 
 sympathies were entirely with the accused. 
 It was understood to be a Government 
 prosecution, however; counsel had come 
 down from London to conduct the charge 
 and secure the committal for trial of Mr. 
 Stephen Lambert. Mr. Biffin of the Old 
 Bailey appeared in almost all Government 
 prosecutions. It was admitted that the 
 case was at present one of strong suspicion 
 only, dependent entirely upon circum- 
 stantial evidence. 
 
 Mr. Stephen Lambert was a young man 
 enjoying an excellent reputation. He had 
 succeeded his father as tenant of Bostock 
 Farm. There was nothing to be said 
 against his private character. He was 
 thought to be decidedly steady, and clever 
 as a farmer, and was supposed to have 
 made money by his industry and enterprise. 
 He was at work early and late upon his 
 
 farm ; he was an excellent flock-master, and 
 had been successful with his sheep when 
 others had been most unfortunate. It 
 might be good luck or it might be good 
 management ; but there the fact was. 
 
 Stephen Lambert was a handsome-look- 
 ing young man of some six-and-twenty 
 years or so. He looked pale and anxious 
 when brought before the magistrates, it was 
 thought, and his manner was certainly 
 agitated. But that was only natural, the 
 very serious nature of the charge brought 
 against him being considered. He was 
 defended by Mr. Ritson, the well-known 
 Steepleborough solicitor. 
 
 What was the evidence against Stephen 
 Lambert 1 Mr. Ritson was eager to pooh- 
 pooh it even before it was forthcoming, 
 and dropped hints about a malicious 
 prosecution and a trumped-up case. 
 
 Mr. Biffin, after a brief address to the 
 bench, called witnesses to show that there 
 had been for some time ill-blood between 
 the deceased and the accused; that they 
 were not on speaking terms ; that they had 
 quarrelled, and that Stephen Lambert had 
 been forbidden to show himself at the 
 Abbey Farm. This was a matter that 
 was well known in the neighbourhood. 
 Stephen Lambert had been a suitor for the 
 hand of Rachel, the youngest and only 
 surviving daughter of Farmer BickerstafF. 
 The young people, Mr. Biffin informed the 
 bench, had come to an understanding 
 with each other, but the deceased had 
 strenuously opposed their union. He could 
 not spare his daughter, he had been heard 
 to say, and he did not think Stephen 
 Lambert good enough for her. Farmer 
 BickerstafF had been a widower many 
 years, and his daughter Rachel kept house 
 for him. 
 
 Certain of the neighbouring farmers 
 were called to describe the altercation in 
 Steepleborough market-place between the 
 accused and the deceased, which occurred 
 in the morning of the day on which late 
 at night the body of the farmer was dis- 
 covered some mile or two away from his 
 farm. 
 
 “It was the affair of a moment,” said 
 the witnesses. “Farmer BickerstafF was 
 flushed and angry ; he had been drink- 
 ing; and he could not get the price he 
 wanted for some barley he was offering for 
 sale. He held a sample of it in his hand, 
 when turning sharply to the right he struck 
 against the accused, who chanced to be 
 standing by, and the sample was upset, the 
 corn being scattered over the floor of the 
 
68 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 market-place. The farmer quite lost his 
 temper, and swore loudly. ‘Clumsy clown, 
 you are always in the way,’ he said to the 
 accused. ‘Clumsy yourself, Mr. Bicker- 
 staff,’ Stephen Lambert answered. There- 
 upon Farmer Bickerstaff struck him on the 
 mouth sharply so as to make his lip bleed. 
 Mr. Lambert raised his hand as though 
 about to return the blow, then suddenly 
 checked himself, and stepped back a pace 
 or two. ‘ You’ll be sorry for this treatment 
 of me some day,’ said Mr. Lambert. And 
 that was all.” 
 
 “ Did you understand him to say that as 
 a threat 1 ” asked Mr. Biffin. 
 
 “ I didn’t understand it at all,” answered 
 the witness. “ I don’t understand a man’s 
 receiving a blow and not hitting back 
 again.” 
 
 Mr. Lambert complained bitterly to 
 certain of his friends of the treatment he 
 had experienced at the hands of Farmer 
 Bickerstaff. It was shameful, it was cruel, 
 it was most insulting, it was more than he 
 could bear, he had been heard to say. 
 There were limits to his forbearance ; 
 Farmer Bickerstaff had better not try it 
 on again ; there were things no man could 
 bear twice. He had never been so tried 
 before. And to think that such a thing 
 should happen in the sight of the whole 
 market ! It was evident that he was 
 extremely agitated and distressed. He had 
 expressed an intention of speaking to 
 Farmer Bickerstaff, of expostulating with 
 him, and demanding some apology from 
 him. He had remained in Steepleborough 
 presumably with this intention, when, as 
 though tired of waiting, he had rather 
 suddenly mounted his horse and departed 
 on his way home. Meanwhile the deceased 
 had been smoking, drinking, and playing 
 cards at the club-house. It was six o’clock 
 when Stephen Lambert left Steepleborough 
 to ride back to Bostock. At what time 
 did he reach home h It was odd : accord- 
 ing to the evidence of his own servants he 
 did not arrive home until nearly eleven 
 o’clock. His own groom stated that it was 
 about that time when he took his master’s 
 horse to the stable. Mr. Lambert did not 
 say a word to him as to its being late, or 
 as to where he had been. 
 
 Where, indeed, had Mr. Stephen Lam- 
 bert been between six and eleven 1 Lying 
 in wait to murder, and afterwards murder- 
 ing Mr. Bickerstaff, suggested Mr. Biffin. 
 Mr. Ritson quietly intimated that he had 
 a complete answer to that portion of the 
 case. 
 
 The evidence adduced at the inquest was 
 forthcoming anew. The doctors reappeared . 
 in the witness-box, described again the con- 
 dition of the deceased’s body, the wounds 
 he had received, and were still reluctant to 
 state distinctly their opinion as to the cause 
 of death. Jacob Haggard recounted his 
 story of the finding of the body, and his 
 fellow - labourers stated how, upon the 
 summons of Jacob, they made ready a 
 farm-cart, and conveyed the dead man 
 home to his farm. 
 
 Mrs. Keziah Haggard, the mother of 
 Jacob, was a new witness — a sun-burnt, 
 weather-beaten old countrywoman, with 
 an abundant cap-frill shadowing her tanned 
 and wrinkled face. She had shapely features, 
 keen sparkling eyes, with thick iron-grey 
 hair neatly braided; her voice was firm 
 and strong, and her manner was energetic. 
 She was sixty-five, she said, but she was 
 crippled with rheumatism and “hard of 
 hearing.” Her gnarled brown hand was 
 constantly raised and curled round her ear, 
 after the manner usually adopted by the 
 deaf, and she certainly looked older than 
 she professed to be. A peasant’s life, how- 
 ever, with its exposure to sun and wind, 
 its hard labour in the open fields, brings 
 about a certain premature aspect of age. 
 She was rather a picturesque-looking old 
 woman in her tidy print dress, with a red- 
 and -white spotted cotton handkerchief 
 neatly folded and pinned shawl- wise across 
 her shoulders. 
 
 She had lived many years at the toll- 
 gate cottage. She was born in those parts. 
 She had often worked on the Abbey Farm. 
 She remembered the night when Mr. 
 Bickerstaff was found dead upon the down. 
 It was dark, but she had been standing at 
 her door expecting her son to come 
 down, when she saw some one on horse- 
 back coming along the road. As he drew 
 near he called out to her, but she couldn’t 
 make out “for sartin” what he said.. He 
 stopped at the cottage-door, and said he 
 was “main dr ou thy.” He asked for a drink. 
 She had nothing in the house but some 
 small-beer. He had been drinking, he was 
 a bit muddled, but he could sit upright on 
 his horse. He could always do that, she 
 thought, however much he might have been 
 drinking. Had often seen him come home 
 from market the worse for drink. He 
 seemed terrible cross. He had always been 
 a “ rudderish ” kind of man. He was given to 
 swearing, and he swore at her that night. 
 She brought him out a “ dubbin o’ drenk ” 
 — a mug of beer. He drank some; then 
 
Oharlea Dickens.] 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. [June is, isss.] 69 
 
 he said it was “ main hash,” and he threw 
 the rest away. The beer might have been 
 a bit sour. He was in a temper. He swore 
 at her again, and called her evil names. 
 She had often before seen him “ in a pelt,” 
 and she didn’t heed his “ saace.” He struck 
 his nag a good “ powlt ” on the head, and 
 then he rode off. She didn’t see him again 
 alive. When she heard from her son of 
 what had happened, she crawled out and 
 saw the dead body in the cart. 
 
 It was between nine and ten when 
 Farmer Bickerstaff stopped at her door. 
 It was soon after he had gone that she had 
 heard the report of a gun. Did not think 
 much about it; thought it might be poachers 
 or the keepers. Many passed her cottage 
 on market nights on their way home to 
 Purrington, and the villages beyond. Few 
 turned off by the bridle path. Who had 
 gone that way before Farmer Bickerstaff? 
 Mr. Stephen Lambert. What time was it 
 when he passed the toll-gate cottage ? 
 It had gone nine. He had stopped for a 
 minute and spoken to her. He looked 
 pale and seemed in a to-do. He asked if 
 Mr. Bickerstaff had passed yet. She said 
 no. He said that he had missed Mr. Bicker- 
 staff; that he had a word to say to Mr. 
 Bickerstaff. He added that he was in good 
 time then. Witness did not clearly under- 
 stand him. Did he say anything more 1 Yes ; 
 he asked if the witness had seen anything 
 of Miss Rachel Bickerstaff. It was true that 
 Miss Bickerstaff often came to the toll-gate 
 cottage. She was a sweet and kind young 
 lady, and had been very good to the 
 witness, who understood that Mr. Stephen 
 Lambert and Miss Rachel were a-courting. 
 They had sometimes met, by appointment 
 as she thought, at her cottage. 
 
 Asked if she had heard any cries, or the 
 noise of any conflict or struggle, after 
 Farmer Bickerstaff had gone from her 
 cottage-door, the witness answered that she 
 thought once that she did hear voices 
 talking at a little distance, but she could 
 not be sure. Her hearing was bad ; some- 
 times she fancied she heard things ; at 
 other times she could hear nothing at all. 
 Her hearing was not worse that night than 
 on other nights so far as she knew . 
 
 Mr. Biffin, the counsel for the prosecu- 
 tion, applied for a remand. That was all 
 the evidence he could offer upon that occa- 
 sion. Mr. Ritson, for the prisoner, opposed 
 the application. There was really no 
 evidence against the accused. The state- 
 ments of the last witness amounted to 
 nothing. The magistrates hesitated. They 
 
 were impressed by the fact that Mr. Biffin 
 had come down expressly from London to 
 prosecute. They had rarely been addressed 
 by a barrister from the Central Criminal 
 Court ; they were disposed to think there 
 must be a remand. 
 
 But of course they would hear any 
 witnesses that Mr. Ritson might choose 
 to call. 
 
 “ Call Miss Bickerstaff,” said Mr. Ritson 
 promptly. 
 
 There was some commotion in the court- 
 house upon the entrance of Miss Rachel 
 Bickerstaff. She was dressed in deep 
 mourning for her father ; her face was very 
 pallid, and she advanced with trembling 
 steps. It could be seen, however, that she 
 possessed rare beauty of the Saxon type — 
 profuse light-brown hair, large limpid blue 
 eyes, and a fair clear complexion. She 
 was tall, graceful of movement, with a 
 figure of noble proportions. She spoke in 
 subdued tones, but with musical distinct- 
 ness. 
 
 Mr. Ritson stated that he had but one 
 or two questions to ask. 
 
 She was the only daughter of Mr. Bicker- 
 staff. She remembered the night of her 
 father’s death. She had been at home the 
 whole evening. She had been sitting in 
 the drawing-room. She had not been 
 alone. Who had been with her between 
 seven o’clock and half-past ten or a quarter 
 to eleven 1 Mr. Stephen Lambert. She 
 was quite certain about the time 1 She 
 was quite certain. 
 
 Mr. Ritson asked whether, in the face of 
 Miss Bickerstaff’s evidence, the magistrates 
 would keep the accused any longer . in 
 custody. But Mr. Biffin had a question 
 or two to ask. 
 
 The accused had been forbidden Mr. 
 Bickerstaff’s house. There had been a 
 quarrel between Mr. Bickerstaff and the 
 prisoner. Mr. Biffin did not wish to give 
 pain, but he supposed he might take it, as 
 a matter of fact, that any visits paid by 
 the prisoner to the Abbey Farm after that 
 quarrel had been of a clandestine sort 1 
 The witness admitted as much. On the 
 night in question, then, the prisoner’s visit 
 was clandestine'? His presence in the 
 house was unknown to the servants ? He 
 entered by the garden. The drawing-room 
 windows opened on to the lawn. He had 
 paid many such visits. He had been 
 accustomed to tie up his horse in the 
 orchard, and then to steal through the 
 garden to the house, remaining there some 
 hours. 
 
 
70 [June 18, i.883.] 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ He came, then, in point of fact, as 
 your lover ? ” said Mr. Biffin with some 
 insolence of manner. 
 
 “ God forgive me ! ” cried the witness, 
 bursting into tears ; “ he came as my 
 husband — my own true, lawful husband ! 
 Gentlemen, he did not do this thing ; he 
 is incapable of it. You heard how, when 
 he was struck in the open market-place, 
 he would not strike back again. And 
 why? Because it was my father who 
 struck him, and because he is my husband, 
 and he loves me. Speak to me, Stephen. 
 Gentlemen, indeed, indeed he is innocent. 
 How can he be guilty ? He was with me 
 — I swear it — at the time this murder was 
 committed. I loved my father dearly. 
 He had his faults, but it is not for his child 
 to take count of them, least of all at such 
 a time as this. I would not screen his 
 murderer. Stephen is not his murderer. 
 My husband was with me alone at the 
 farm at the time they charge him with 
 committing this dreadful crime.” 
 
 “Do you mean, Miss Bickerstaff, that 
 the prisoner is really your husband ? ” 
 asked the senior magistrate. 
 
 She took from her bosom a folded paper 
 and handed it to the bench. She then 
 staggered, and uttering a feeble moan, 
 fainted away. The paper certified that 
 at a London parish church, some few 
 months back, Rachel Bickerstaff had 
 become the wife of Stephen Lambert. 
 
 “It is clear that we cannot listen to 
 this witness,” said the senior magistrate. 
 “ She can neither give evidence for 
 or against the prisoner. She is his 
 wife.” . „ 
 
 “I own myself taken by surprise, 
 observed Mr. Ritson. 
 
 Mr. Biffin wore something of an air of 
 triumph. 
 
 The prisoner was remanded. 
 
 “ You don’t really think as he’s guilty ? ” 
 said Mr. Spreadberry to Mr. Dawkins as 
 they left the court-house together. 
 
 “ If- you put it to me point-blank,” con- 
 fessed Mr. Dawkins, “ I don’t think he is.” 
 “ There’s almost as much of a case 
 against old Keziah Haggard.” 
 
 “ Oh, you’ve come to that way of think 
 ing, have you ? But just look here. By 
 charging young Lambert with the murder, 
 we get Mrs. Haggard to open her mouth 
 as a witness, and that’s just what we 
 wanted. Now, if we’d charged Keziah 
 Haggard, we should have simply shut her 
 mouth, and that wouldn’t have done at all. 
 It was particularly necessary that - she 
 
 should tell her story in her own way. 
 Sometimes, but not always, it’s a good 
 plan to give a woman her head, and let 
 her run on till she’s tired. It takes time, 
 no doubt, but it has its advantages all the 
 same.” 
 
 VI. 
 
 Old Keziah Haggard was sitting over her 
 fire rocking herself to and fro. She wore 
 her red-worsted shawl over her head, and 
 she shivered from time to time. She was 
 pale, the light had gone from her eyes, and 
 she seemed altogether weak, ill, and suffer- 
 ing. She explained as she coughed and 
 struck herself upon the chest, that it was 
 “along of going avore the magistrates;” 
 she had “taken a chill, and it had 
 pitched.” 
 
 “ You’re a very wicked woman, Keziah,” 
 said Rachel, Farmer Bickerstaff’s daughter, 
 as she entered the toll-gate cottage. 
 
 “ May be,” asserted Keziah. “ We’re all 
 wicked at times. No one knows it better 
 than I do. I am a sinful old woman. There, 
 I own it ; a sinful and a sad. But, God 
 knows, I’m sick and sorry too. And this 
 cough’s worrying me into my grave. And 
 the sooner the better perhaps. The grave’s 
 the only place for a poor old woman like 
 me. One’s out of harm’s way in the 
 grave.” 
 
 11 You didn’t tell the truth to the magis- 
 trates about my husband.” 
 
 “ Did I know he was your husband ? 
 God knows I didn’t. To think of your 
 having a husband. My poor Miss Rachel, 
 I’ve known you ever since you were born, 
 and loved you dearly, my lamb, if I may 
 say so. I wouldn’t have spoken a word 
 against your husband if I had only known 
 he was your husband. I thought you liked 
 him, and he’s a fine sprack young man is 
 Stephen Lambert ; but I never reckoned as 
 you’d married him. May be I was wrong, 
 or my clock wasn’t going. May be he 
 passed hours before your father, and could 
 have had no hand in killing him. But it 
 wasn’t much I said ; and they lawyers do 
 worry a body so, one can’t be sure what 
 one says. But I didn’t say enough to hang 
 him ? You don’t think that of me, Miss 
 Rachel? They’ll never hang the poor 
 young man.” 
 
 “ You’re a very wicked woman,” Rachel 
 repeated, “and to the last day I live 111 
 not forgive you. I hate you, Keziah, I 
 hate you ! ” 
 
 “ Don’tee say that of me, Miss Rachel* 
 don’tee now. I didn’t mean to harm the 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 71 
 
 young man; I didn’t indeed. It was to 
 save myself I spoke.” 
 
 “ To save yourself, Keziah ? ” 
 
 “ One has to think of oneself, you know, 
 Miss Rachel; and that lawyer chap was 
 trying to wind a net round me, he was ; 
 and that policeman from London, what 
 they call a detective, if you please, Miss 
 Rachel, he’s been sneaking and speering 
 about the place seeking to catch me 
 tripping, the villain. Would you mind 
 giving me some of that cough-mixture 
 yonder, Miss Rachel, in the bottle on the 
 chimley-piece ? There’s ‘ loddy ’ in it, they 
 tell me, and it’s wonderful soothing to the 
 chest. Thank you kindly, Miss Rachel. 
 Not that it matters much what happens to 
 a poor body like me — old and wore out, 
 and well-nigh bent double. Still, one 
 doesn’t want to be hanged, however old 
 and wore out one may be.” 
 
 “ What do you mean, Keziah ? Who’s 
 been talking of hanging you 1 ” 
 
 “ Murder’s a hanging matter, you know, 
 Miss Rachel. If they were to bring it in 
 as I’d murdered him, they’d hang me, sure 
 as sure.” 
 
 “Murdered him'? Murdered whom 1 ? 
 What ! Do you mean that you murdered 
 my father 1” 
 
 “No, miss. Don’ tee now — don’tee take 
 on so. ’Twasn’t I as murdered him ; not 
 to say murdered him. Though God knows 
 he had given me cause to wish him dead 
 times and times.” 
 
 “ What do you mean, Keziah ? Are 
 you dreaming ? Rouse yourself, woman. 
 Speak. What harm had my father ever 
 done to you that you should wish him 
 dead ? ” 
 
 “ Don’tee scold me, Miss Rachel. It’s the 
 ‘loddy’ in that cough-mixture as makes 
 me so drowsy, I’m thinking. I’ve been 
 taking of it, off and on, all day long, and 
 it’s done me a power of good. Yet it’s 
 wonderful deadening too. It works like a 
 charm. I seem quieted off to sleep like a 
 babe in arms.” 
 
 “ What cause had my father given you 
 to wish him dead ? ” Rachel repeated 
 fiercely. 
 
 “I hated the master. I’ve hated the 
 master this many a long year,” the woman 
 murmured in somnolent tones, as though 
 hardly conscious of what she said or to 
 whom she was saying it. “ Why did I 
 hate him ? He did me the cruellest wrong 
 that man could do to woman. It is an 
 old story now. Of course, of course. But 
 it’s not the story as a woman ever forgets 
 
 or can ever forgive. But what did he care 
 whether I ever forgot or forgave ? He was 
 insolent and tyrannical, wicked and cruel to 
 the last. He’d a bad black heart of his 
 own. I wrong him? My dear, I knew 
 your father before you did years and years. 
 
 I know him better than you do. He’d a 
 lying tongue and a bad black heart, for all 
 his good looks and his fine words. Don’t 
 tell me I wrong him. Who should know 
 him if I don’t? He’s my boy Jacob’s 
 father, worst luck. It’s all four-and-forty 
 years ago, or more, but I feel the shame 
 on it still. My face burns, my blood 
 tingles, and my fingers grip when I think 
 on it. It was your father as brought 
 disgrace upon me, and taught me deceit, 
 and put wickedness into my heart; and 
 then he’d have left me to rot and starve, to 
 die in a ditch — he didn’t care where, he 
 has said as much times and times. But I . 
 lived. The thought that some day I’d be 
 even with him kept me from dying, I 
 think. Else, God knows I’ve had reason 
 enough to die a many times over. The 
 chance was long a-coming, but it came at 
 last. And when I saw him tumble head- 
 long from his horse, pitched face forward 
 on to those flints, I saw that God had 
 given him into my hands ! He didn’t 
 move ; but he was breathing still. I took 
 my hammer down from my shelf, and 
 I went and finished him. I went on 
 beating at his head until he seemed to 
 be stone-killed, past praying for. Then 
 I left him. I hid the hammer in the 
 thatch over the doorway. It’s there 
 now. I didn’t rob him. I thought of 
 robbing him, but I put the thought away 
 from me. I couldn’t stoop to robbing 
 him.” 
 
 “ You had murdered him, wretch ! ” cried 
 Rachel. 
 
 “ Not to say murdered him, my dear. 
 Maybe if I had never struck a blow he’d 
 never have stood again. He seemed nigh 
 dead before ever I touched him. But seeing 
 him down helpless and senseless — him as I 
 had known so fierce, and proud, and strong, 
 and cruel, I felt as the chance I had 
 waited for so long and prayed for had come 
 at last, and I couldn’t help it. I struck at 
 him hard as might be, until I knew as his 
 skull was beaten in by my blows. And I 
 laughed as I struck him to think he was 
 in my power, poor helpless old woman as 
 he thought me, and it was my turn to be 
 wicked and merciless with him as he had 
 been with me. The debt I owed him was 
 an old debt forty-four years or more ; but 
 
72 
 
 THE PURRINGTON TRAGEDY. 
 
 [June 18, 1883.] 
 
 ’twas paid at last. We were quits— me 
 and Farmer Bickerstaflf.” 
 
 “ My poor father,” moaned Rachel, and 
 aghast she stepped back some paces gazing 
 with terrified eyes at the murderess. 
 
 “A kind word would have turned me, 
 maybe,” continued the old woman. “ I 
 don’t say as I’d have forgiven him ; but I 
 wouldn’t have struck at him not so hard, 
 I wouldn’t. If he’d only been a bit civil 
 to me, I wouldn’t have done it. At least 
 I don’t think as I’d have done it. But he 
 come in in his old bullying driving way. 
 He got down from his horse. I didn’t tell 
 the lawyer chap that, but it’s true. He 
 was his own bad self, wicked self, all over. 
 He swore, and slashed about the cottage 
 with his whip ; he pretty nigh killed my 
 poor cat there, that had never done him no 
 harm whatsoever ; and when he found as 
 the small beer wasn’t to his liking, and 
 ’twas a bit ‘ mothery ’ I own, he chucked 
 it in my face. That was your father, Miss 
 Rachel ; that was Farmer Bickerstaff. And 
 when I told him how poor I was, how I’d 
 need of this and that, he called me names, 
 and bade me go to the workhouse. Me ! 
 the mother of his son ; for Jacob’s his own 
 son, though he’d never give the lad ever 
 so little of a helping hand or a civil word. 
 He’s a good lad though dull, and he works 
 hard, and I’ve done my duty to him, let 
 who will say I haven’t. He knows nought 
 of what I’ve told you, miss, and if you’ll 
 
 kindly believe me, I’ve never spoken in 
 Jacob’s hearing a word against the man 
 that was his father. I’ve never let out to 
 the lad who his father was, nor the manner 
 of man he was, nor how cruel bad he has 
 been from first to last. I’ve been true and 
 faithful so far. I’ve kept my shame and 
 sorrow to myself. But it’s all over now.” 
 
 “ Very nearly so,” said some one, entering 
 the cottage suddenly. “About as pretty 
 a confession of a crime as I think I ever 
 listened to, or had the pleasure of taking 
 down in writing. Easy does it, my dear. 
 That’s right. Now we are all tidy and 
 comfortable. I’ve the warrant in my 
 pocket, and we shall soon be having a 
 pleasant little ride together in a tax-cart 
 to Salisbury Gaol.” 
 
 As he spoke Mr. Dawkins slipped a pair 
 of handcuffs over Keziah Haggard’s wrists. 
 
 She stared at him wildly, uttered a 
 strange scream, threw up her fettered arms, 
 tottered a few paces, and then fell heavily 
 in a disordered heap at his feet. 
 
 She never moved or spoke again. But 
 she had furnished an explanation of the 
 Purrington Tragedy. There was now a 
 very complete answer to the charge against 
 Stephen Lambert. Mr. Spreadberry, how- 
 ever, was never quite clear in his own 
 mind as to how far Mr. Dawkins’s success 
 in dealing with the case was due to his 
 own skill, or how much might be attributed 
 to mere accident. 
 
 The Right of Translating any of the Articles contained in this Number is reserved by the Authors. 
 
 Now Publishing in the Current Number of ALL THE YEAR ROUND ( Commenced May 26), 
 
 JENIFER, 
 
 A NEW SERIAL STORY BY ANNIE THOMAS (MRS. PENDER-CUDLIP). 
 
 In Preparation , 
 
 A.N AL IBI AND ITS PRICE, 
 
 A SHORT STORY BY THEO GIFT, 
 
 AND 
 
 A. DRAWN GrAJME, 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF “LOVE THE DEBT.” 
 
 Published at the Office, 26, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by CHARLES BlOKEKS & EVAES, 24, Great New Street, J3.C. 
 
A GLORIOUS FORTUNE 
 
 By WALTER BESANT, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," "The Revolt of Man,’ "Let Nothing You Dismay;” 
 
 AND JOINT AUTHOR OF 
 
 "Ready-Money Mortiboy,” 
 WITH THE SAILOR, 
 
 The Golden Butterfly,” "The Chaplain of the Fleet,” "Over the Sea 
 "When The Ship Comes Home,” "The Captain’s Room,” etc., etc. 
 
 THE EXTRA CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND. 
 
 CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Containing the amount of THREE ORDINARY NUMBERS. 
 
 PRIOB 
 
 6d. 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1883. 
 
 PBICB 
 
 6d. 
 
 CHAPTER I. JOHNNY OF OREGON. 
 
 The road, which is little more than a 
 rough track— in the open parts, during the 
 summer, dust ; in the winter, mud — runs 
 at this place through the virgin forest, un- 
 touched, for the most part, by axe, and 
 almost untrodden by foot of man. It is a 
 very remote and untrodden track ; it has 
 not yet even advanced, like a young plough- 
 boy, to the dignity of corduroy ; it runs 
 along slopes of hills and across the 
 valleys between them. When the way 
 is clear of trees, which is not often, one 
 gets a view of the blue Pacific far away 
 in the west ; every evening the snn sinks 
 into it, making a glorious double rose of 
 evening in the sky above and the sea 
 beneath. Yet every half-dozen miles or 
 so one may, perhaps — or may not, perhaps 
 — come across a clearing or farm cut 
 out of the solid forest, the stumps of the 
 trees still sticking dolefully out of the 
 ground, and the fields divided and staked 
 out by rough snake-fences. In a few years, 
 when the stumps have quite disappeared, 
 and beautiful green things have grown 
 over the ugly fences, this farm, with its 
 backing of wood and hill, will be as per- 
 fectly beautiful as it is now unkempt, 
 ragged, and unsightly. 
 
 You never meet anybody walking along 
 this road, for it runs straight up into 
 the hills, where it i,s presently lost; but 
 in the fields and upon the new farms 
 you may sometimes see a man at 
 work. It is, in fact, on the other side 
 of the Rocky Mountains, which seems a 
 great way off to all except those philoso- 
 phers who find the world so small ; in the 
 land of Oregon, on the borders of the 
 great Pacific, where, as yet, men are scarce. 
 
 The most untidy, most uncared-for clearing 
 along this road was one in the wildest and 
 most solitary part of it, high up among the 
 slopes of the hills. It seemed as if the 
 settler had begun with immense energy, 
 stubbing up brushwood, sowing timothy- 
 grass, hewing the fir trunks, and laying 
 down log-fences, as if he intended to live 
 a thousand years there, but had then lost 
 heart, and so suffered the weeds to grow, 
 stubbed up no more brushwood, and left 
 his fences unfinished. 
 
 The house belonging to the farm was 
 nothing but a little log cabin, grey-coloured 
 and weather-beaten, with two windows and 
 a door in the middle opening to a narrow 
 stoop or verandah. A little beyond the hut 
 there ran babbling and sparkling in the 
 sun (where it was not overhung with alder, 
 wild-cherry, and syringa), quite the most 
 beautiful little brook in the world. At the 
 back of the house rose steeply a great hill 
 covered with oak, maple, hemlock, and fir ; 
 where the trees had been cut down, but 
 the ground not further cleared, there grew 
 every kind of underwood, bush, briar, and 
 climbing-plant ; the wild cucumber trailing 
 its long shoots; blackberries as big as 
 English mulberries; huckleberries ; thimble- 
 berries ; yellow salmon berries ; and sweet 
 sal-lal ; for this is the country where 
 the King of Berry-land holds his court. 
 
 Under the trees, and wherever there is a 
 glade or opening, there are huge ferns : it 
 is a land of greenery and sunshine ; a land 
 where everywhere trickling streams make 
 carpets of spongy moss, and the air is soft 
 like unto the air of England. On the 
 right hand, looking east, are the great 
 mountains, and on the left, if you can see 
 it, the broad Pacific. 
 
 High up among the hills at this time 
 
4 = 
 
 2 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 of year, which is autumn (or else the 
 berries would not be ripe), the farmers and 
 their families camp out— the girls sleeping 
 in tents and the boys in the open - ; they 
 shoot, fish, gather berries, and make jam — 
 buckets of jam, casks of jam, hogsheads of 
 jam — breathe as sweet and pure an air as 
 there is anywhere in the world (except, of 
 course, Dartmoor, Hexham Common, and 
 the top of Malvern Hill), and presently go 
 home again, ready for the winter’s dances, 
 flirtations and sledging and skating and fun. 
 Also on the slopes of those mountains 
 live herdsmen, mostly eremites or soli- 
 taries, who doubtless meditate on things 
 holy and spiritual among their cattle ; and, 
 just as the holy men of old were con- 
 tinually troubled by devils permitted to 
 assume the forms of men or women— espe- 
 cially the latter — so these herdsmen are 
 hindered in their spiritual musings by bears, 
 grey wolves, and coyotes. And they do not 
 go away in the winter like the campers-out, 
 but abide upon the hills and endure hard- 
 ness and frost, snow and hail, rain and 
 wind, in their season. 
 
 The clearing and cabin of which I 
 speak stood quite alone, and at least 
 ten miles from any other, farm.. In 
 Europe a man would be afraid to live in 
 so solitary a fashion ; in Oregon, loneliness 
 is not so much felt, because there is nothing 
 to be afraid of. Very few of these hermits 
 in log huts have got anything to lose, and 
 if they had there would be no one to rob 
 them. Wayfarers by day are few. and far 
 between ; wayfarers by night exist not ; 
 while as for ghosts, phantoms, wraiths, 
 dames blanches , and spectres, they belong 
 to old settled places, and have not yet 
 had time to get farther west than New 
 England ; and have their . origin in. what 
 we fondly call the Romance of History, 
 meaning the murders, robberies, piracies, 
 cruelties, tortures, abductions, fratricides, 
 revenges, wraths, and violences of which, 
 in a new country, there have been as yet 
 comparatively few. In the matter of 
 ghosts, the county of Northumberland, 
 little though it be, would, I am convinced, 
 prove a match for the whole of the United 
 States taken together (with Canada thrown 
 in), excepting only Alaska, which is a 
 grisly and a creepy country, and haunted 
 by troops of devils, in honour of whom the 
 belles of Alaska blacken their faces — a 
 thing done in no other country, and a com- 
 pliment which must be received as at once 
 delicate and unexpected. 
 
 It was a warm afternoon in late Sep- 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 tember ; there was a feeling in the air as 
 if, after four months— nay, six — of splendid 
 sunshine, one ought to be satisfied and con- 
 tented. Even of warmth and clear skies, 
 there cometh satiety in the end, and certain 
 hymns which speak hopefully concerning 
 everlasting sunshine were written by poets 
 imperfectly acquainted with human wants, 
 and ignorant of the tropics. I believe an 
 expurgated edition of the hymn-book has 
 been prepared, in which a Paradise with 
 occasional clouds is dwelt upon, for the use , 
 of our equatorial brethren. Nature, in fact, 
 was saying as plainly as she could speak : 
 
 “ I could now, thank you, enjoy a little 
 coolness, with clouds and rain, in order to 
 turn my green leaves into red, and crimson 
 and gold, for the delight of humans. After 
 that I will trouble you for the customary 
 frost and snow; but all in moderation.” 
 Everybody who can hear the voice of Nature 
 should immediately make haste to be in 
 harmony with her. Then they will be strong 
 and sturdy in the winter ; hopeful in the 
 spring, and brimming over with love for 
 everybody, especially for those who. are still 
 young and beautiful ; in the summer, they 
 will be meditative, drowsy, and slumberous ; 
 and in the autumn, whether or no a man 
 wears that blue ribbon about which they 
 make nowadays such a coil, he should feel 
 the vinous mystery of the season, and grow 
 drunk, if only in imagination, upon the 
 fruits and harvest of the year. 
 
 There were two men outside that log-hut 
 on the shady side, which was the front; 
 between them was a table (home-made), 
 on which were cards, tobacco, a pannikin, 
 and a whiskey-bottle. One had a chair ; 
 the other sat on an empty keg turned 
 bottom upwards. The man on the keg was 
 the squire or owner of the clearing, and 
 lived alone in the hut. A man of five-and- 
 forty, or perhaps fifty, about the middle 
 height, and spare ; he wore a long beard, 
 and his hair was long. Both beard and 
 hair were brown, touched with grey ; he 
 had regular features, which had been once, 
 probably, handsome, but weak ; and blue 
 eyes, which wandered as he spoke, and 
 were unsteady. His fingers were long 
 and delicate ; and somehow at the very 
 first sight of him, one thought that here 
 was a poor, weak creature, whose opinions 
 mattered nothing, and who was perfectly 
 certain never to get on in the world. He 
 had a pipe in his mouth, and continually 
 he turned upon the whiskey-bottle eyes of 
 affection. 
 
 On the other side of the table sat his 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
Charles Dickers. ] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 3 
 
 companion, a man of much, the same height 
 and figure, with eyes of the same colour, 
 only of a darker blue, steadier, not to say 
 keener, in their look ; his hair and beard 
 were quite grey; his hands were strong 
 and square ; at sight of him the inex- 
 perienced, thinking of certain stories, 
 would have said that here was a strong, 
 brave man, one of Nature’s noblemen, 
 turned out ready-made, uneducated and 
 ignorant, never, maybe, having read a 
 single book; rude and rough of speech, 
 coarse of manners ; yet chivalrous as a true 
 Castilian, honourable as an English gentle- 
 man, and as full of noble sentiments and 
 lofty aspirations as the most cultivated 
 Dean. 
 
 We know very well, and feel ashamed 
 of it, that such a man cannot be found 
 in this country of ours. He does not 
 grow in the same soil as an enslaving 
 aristocracy, whether of birth, education, 
 genius, or knowledge. This man, then, 
 would have appeared at first sight, and to 
 persons of limited experience and unlimited 
 imagination, a true nobleman of Nature’s 
 making. But there were about him certain 
 outward signs and tokens, which spoke 
 volumes to such as had wisdom, and could 
 interpret small facts of evidence, and were 
 not too eager to believe in the perfection 
 of the human race. For instance, among 
 other signs, his hands were white, which, 
 in such a country, bodes ill ; his eye was 
 restless, his clothes were good; therefore, 
 whenever wise (and therefore suspicious) 
 persons met this man, or any like unto 
 him, they would edge away from him, 
 avoid him, and whisper to each other such 
 words as “sportsman,” “gang,” “sharper,” 
 “ cheat and rogue,” or their equivalents, 
 whether in Bostonian, Virginian, Ken- 
 tuckian, Californian, orOregonese; pleasant 
 languages, every one, full of local colouring, 
 and all remarkably like modern English. 
 
 This man had a cigar in his mouth, and 
 sat on a chair — the only chair — tilted up 
 against the door-posts. His feet were on 
 the table; it is a graceful, easy, con- 
 venient, well-bred attitude, and was based 
 by the original inventor on consideration 
 for the comfort of others. 
 
 “Go on, Johnny,” he said encourag- 
 ingly. Note, that when one man calls 
 another, without first asking his Christian- 
 name, Johnny, this single fact saves the 
 historian whole pages of character- drawing. 
 Many a novel of “ analysis of character ” 
 would vanish altogether if the hero were 
 at the outset simply named Johnny. But 
 
 then that novel would never get written. 
 Pity ; but then, again, perhaps no one ever 
 wanted it to be written. And, again, when 
 one man, not knowing another man’s 
 Christian or surname, addresses that man, 
 from the outset, as Colonel, that also is a 
 fact which speaks volumes. 
 
 “I was talking, Colonel,” replied the 
 other, “ about the old days, and my wife 
 and the little one, wasn’t 1 ” he asked with 
 some doubt, as if he might have been 
 talking state politics, and had, perhaps, 
 forgotten the thread of his argument. 
 
 “You never talk about anything else, 
 Johnny,” said the man in the chair. 
 
 “Why, no, Colonel — p’raps not. You 
 see, mate, when you’ve been four years and 
 more mostly alone, and a stranger comes 
 along and stays a week, you naturally talk 
 about what’s in your mind ; don’t you 
 now 1 I don’t know who you are, Colonel, 
 nor where you come from, but you’re good 
 company, and I thank you for staying. 
 Make it another week.” 
 
 “ Go on, Johnny ! Don’t get drunk till 
 the evening, or I shall have no one to play 
 poker with.” For Johnny’s hand was 
 wandering feebly and tentatively in the 
 direction of the bottle. 
 
 “ The little maid must be growing a tall 
 girl now,” Johnny went on. “It is nigh 
 twenty years since I saw her last, and 
 then she was only a babe of four months. 
 Quite a tall girl she must be growing— 
 almost a woman now.” 
 
 “ Almost, indeed ! ” 
 
 “ A surprising baby she was, with a 
 beautiful voice already. I was sorry to 
 come away for her sake, I remember.” 
 
 “ What did you do, Johnny ? ” The 
 Colonel asked this question without the 
 least hesitation or apology, though it is a 
 most improper and embarrassing question 
 to put anywhere in America or Australia 
 to a gentleman of European birth and 
 slender luck. “What did you do, J ohnny ? ” 
 “ Nothing,” replied the other man. 
 
 “ Nothing *1 Not any little difficulty with 
 accounts or trust-money — eh 1 ” 
 
 “ No,” he said, not at all offended by an 
 insinuation which would have made some 
 sensitive brothers wince and kick. “ No ; 
 I was always for straight ways.” 
 
 “ Drink, I suppose 1 ” 
 
 “ Not in those days, Colonel. I’ve only 
 been used to drink since I came to the 
 Land o’ Freedom.” 
 
 “ What did you come over for, then 1 ” 
 “Well, it’s a strange story. Some 
 wouldn’t believe it. You see, I had a wife.” 
 
4 [November 13, 18S3.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ So you’ve told me before.” 
 
 “Yes, I was married. Why I got 
 married the Lord knows ; but I did. And I 
 had a berth in a good House at three quid 
 a- week — more than ever I’ve had since. We 
 lived at Hackney Wick then. Quite a nice 
 house we had, with two sittin’-rooms and 
 three bedrooms, furnished and genteel ; 
 and for a bit my Matilda — that was her 
 name — was as contented a woman as you’d 
 come across, in spite of my ridiculous 
 Ohristian-name. ” 
 
 “ What was your Christian-name % ” 
 
 “ Never mind, Colonel. That hasn’t come 
 across the Atlantic, at any rate. It was a 
 beast of a name. The boys at school 
 made nicknames out of it; they called 
 me the Lord Mayor and his lordship 
 and — never mind. The clerks in the 
 House found it out, and made my life 
 miserable about it. A man ought to be 
 able to bring an action against his god- 
 fathers and godmothers for libel ; but I 
 suppose the lawyers would get all the 
 money, because it would have to be done 
 under age. Don’t you worry about my 
 Christian-name, because you won’t learn it. 
 My Christian-name ! When I came away, 
 it was a comfort to think that I’d left that 
 behind. The boys have had their fun out 
 of me over here, you bet, because I won’t 
 shoot nor fight ; but they never found that 
 out. No, no ! ” 
 
 “Well, go on; one may just as well 
 listen to your story as go to sleep. Go on, 
 Johnny.” 
 
 “We got on very well for a spell — about a 
 year and a half it was — Matilda happy and 
 contented, and feeling quite the lady. We 
 had two seats in a pew at church, and the 
 clergyman called more than once. And 
 then a dreadful misfortune happened, 
 though we thought it was grandeur. For 
 Matilda’s younger sister, P’leena, did a 
 great deal better than herself, and married 
 into carriage company and the wholesale 
 line, at Hornsey. After that, nothing went 
 well, and every time her sister P’leena 
 drove over to call on Matilda — which was 
 oftener than was necessary between married 
 sisters, and meant display — in her own 
 carriage, Matilda turned yellow, and had to 
 go to bed. Then nothing would do but I 
 must have ambition. I must rise — I must 
 soar ; she threw in my teeth, as if it were 
 a disgrace, that I was only a clerk. Why 
 not a clerk 1 My father was a clerk ; so 
 was hers ; so were her cousins, and her 
 brothers, and her friends ; so were all mine. 
 She ought to have thought of it before she 
 
 married me. I didn't want to soar. I 
 wanted my pipe of an evening, and be left 
 alone; soaring would have made me un- 
 comfortable. The nagging, especially the 
 day after P’leena had called, was more than I 
 could bear. So I came away, and I think 
 I’ve made my Fortune and done pretty well, 
 at last.” His eye ran slowly round his 
 weedy fields, and unfinished fences, and 
 at last rested lovingly upon the whiskey- 
 bottle. “ Pretty well — though I had a 
 good spell of waiting.” 
 
 “ You call thi3 pretty well, do you ? 
 Then, Johnny, you are easily pleased.” 
 
 “ This is a sweet spot, Colonel, for a man 
 to rest in ; there’s a pig or two in the sty, 
 there’s a barrel of pork in the house ; 
 there’s plenty of game and birds on the 
 hills ; there’s oats and grass to be traded for 
 whiskey and things. As for the wife, she’s 
 gone, and the little maid don’t feel she 
 wanted me, and I’d be ungrateful to 
 up and out sticks and leave this place. 
 Besides, it fell into my hands providential 
 — quite providential, which a man should 
 think upon.” 
 
 “ How did it fall into your hands 1 ” 
 
 “ This way it was. I was going along, 
 four years ago, alone and down on my 
 luck, as, in those days, I generally was. 
 Suddenly, at the turn of the road, I 
 came upon this very clearin’, and on this 
 same identical house. The door was open 
 and I walked in. No one in the house, but 
 a whiskey-bottle on the table, so that I took 
 a drink. Then I went out and looked 
 around. Presently, I saw, lyin’ under a 
 tree, a dead man. He was quite dead ; but 
 he hadn’t been dead very long, and must 
 ha’ dropped, bein’ neither knifed nor shot. 
 First, I buried him under that tree there ; 
 yes, that’s his grave ; then I stayed here ; 
 then I came to feel as if I’d inherited the 
 shanty and the clearin’, the pigs and the 
 oats. If there had been any money,” he 
 added slowly, “I should have inherited 
 that as well ; but there was not any. No, 
 there was no money, Colonel.” 
 
 “ Did anybody ever accuse you of mur- 
 dering that man, Johnny i ” 
 
 “Nobody.” 
 
 “Lucky for you.” The Colonel yawned. 
 “ And now I suppose you mean to stay till 
 you send in your checks ? ” 
 
 “ I think that is so,” he replied, looking 
 about him contentedly. The sun was 
 sloping westward now, and the hills and 
 forests were lying in a splendid golden 
 bath. “ Why should I move on 1 What 
 could I get anywhere better than this ? I 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 5 
 
 am boss. I’ve never been boss before. I 
 get up when I like, I work no harder than 
 I like. Before, I had to work as it pleased 
 other people ; here I work for myself : all 
 the wages are my own. As for company, 
 I don’t want any but my own, seeing that 
 most of the company in this country is 
 fighting and quarrelling, and screechin’ 
 mad with drink.” 
 
 “ Don’t you want to see your wife and 
 daughter, then ? ” 
 
 “ As for my wife I shall see her quite 
 soon enough, because, I tell you, she’s 
 dead ; therefore there’s no hurry respecting 
 her. As for my little maid, I should like — 
 yes, I really should like to set eyes on that 
 child again.” He made a determined 
 effort, grasped the whiskey - bottle, and 
 resolutely filled half the pannikin, which 
 he drank off. “ A beautiful voice she had.” 
 His eyes grew softer and weaker, and he 
 rambled in his talk, and began feebly to 
 repeat himself. “ Her mother wanted to 
 be proud of her husband, but couldn’t, she 
 said, because he was nothing but an insig- 
 nificant clerk, and contented with that and 
 his low friends. So how could she ? Lord ! 
 I was always the most contented of men. 
 Give me my pipe, I say, and my drop of 
 beer in the evening, with a talk and a 
 friend or two ; what more does any man 
 want? And pay? Why, they would 
 have advanced me to five pounds a week 
 in time ; more than ever I’ve had since she 
 nagged me into running away.” 
 
 “ Then you did pluck up spirit to run 
 away ? ” 
 
 fi I did. One evening, when she’d been 
 going on worse than usual, I put on my 
 hat and coat, and wropped up my throat 
 with a comforter on account of the east 
 wind, and I said, * Very well, Matilda, I’m 
 off.’ That’s all I said. ‘ I’m off, Matilda.’ 
 All she said was ‘Good-bye,’ and my 
 Christian-name, which she never used but 
 for purposes of nagging.” 
 
 “ So you came away, and left your wife 
 on the parish ? ” 
 
 “No, Colonel, I didn’t” — he said this 
 without the least indignation at this 
 charge — “no. Matilda had her own 
 money, left to her and invested in houses. 
 Now she’s dead, the little maid has it, no 
 doubt. A hundred and twenty pounds a 
 year the money was. Perhaps it is more 
 by this time.” 
 
 “Was it settled upon her ? ” 
 
 “ Why ? ” He took another drink out 
 of the pannikin. “ Don’t I tell you it was 
 her money ? ” 
 
 “ What is the wife’s is the husband’s.” 
 
 “You wouldn’t say that, Colonel, if 
 you’d known Matilda. You wouldn’t, 
 indeed.” 
 
 “ Well, you ran away ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, I ran away.” He laughed gently. 
 “ I thought I would surprise Matilda, so I 
 took my passage that same day for New 
 York. When I got there I wrote to 
 Matilda. I said she’d be glad to find her 
 husband was a man of spirit ; that I was 
 bound to make my Fortune before I came 
 home again; and I told her where a letter 
 would find me. She replied that she 
 should think the better of me for the 
 future, and as regards the Fortune I was to 
 send it home bit by bit, as I made it, 
 because she didn’t believe, if I knew how 
 to make it, that I had the pluck to 
 keep it. 
 
 “ I don’t think,” he went on after a 
 pause, “that any man’s Fortune was so 
 slow of coming as mine. I tried it clerk- 
 ing in a store, I tried it as a book-agent, 
 and a bogus auctioneer’s help, and a 
 traveller in clocks and reaping-machines, 
 and a conjuror’s confederate, and an actor, 
 and a schoolmaster, and Lord knows what. 
 Except a preacher, I think I’ve been most 
 everything. Just before the Fortune came 
 — I mean this little clearin’, and the 
 house — I had the hardest job of all, for I 
 hitched on to a plough-gang.” 
 
 “ Yes, I suppose you must have always 
 have been a pretty useless galoot. There’s 
 lots like you, Johnny.” 
 
 “ Matilda,” Johnny went on, heedless of 
 these contemptuous words, “ didn’t quite 
 know all that happened. No, sir, the 
 letters I sent home would have done credit 
 to Mr. Vanderbilt ; for I told her that the 
 dollars were running in so thick ’twas 
 impossible to count them, but I couldn’t 
 send them home because they had all to 
 be invested again. She wasn’t so grateful 
 for the news as she might have been, 
 wanting all the time to take a better posi- 
 tion, as she said, and if I was making all 
 this money, why was she starving on a 
 hundred and twenty pounds a year ? W ell, 
 poor thing, perhaps she would have found 
 out the truth, because she was threatening 
 to come out after the dollars, but she was 
 taken ill and died — all pure vexation 
 because I wouldn’t send any of it home. 
 After that the little maid wrote instead, 
 and I kept on, just to please her, pilin’ it 
 up about my Glorious Fortune. But, 
 somehow, what with this unexpected 
 Fortune and the whiskey, I’ve forgotten to 
 
— 
 
 6 [November 13, 1883.] A GLOEIOUS 
 
 U 
 
 FOETUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 a 
 
 change the post-town and the State, and I \ 
 guess she must have left off writing.” 
 
 “ So,” said the other man, “ you’ve got a 
 daughter at home, and you’ve done nothing 
 to prevent your showing your face again, 
 and there’s money waiting for you, and yet 
 you stay here in this cursed lonely place 
 without a friend”— Johnny embraced the 
 whiskey-bottle — “or a man to speak 
 to.” 
 
 “You’ve been with me for a week, 
 Colonel,” said Johnny, 
 
 “ And no money ” 
 
 “ Enough to buy whiskey and notions,” 
 he interrupted. 
 
 “And nothing to expect.” 
 
 “I expect,” said Johnny, “to go on 
 living here for a thousand years. What do 
 I want with change? I’ve been driven 
 around long enough. Land o’ Freedom, is 
 it ? I’ve never come across any freedom. 
 What’s it like, your freedom ? Show me a 
 bit of it. All I’ve seen in this country is a 
 boss at one end of a bit of work and a 
 beefsteak at the other. As for you, 
 Colonel, you’ve had a bally fine time, 
 I guess. Euchre?” 
 
 The other nodded. 
 
 “Monty?” 
 
 He nodded again. ? 
 
 “ Poker ? I thought so, and a difficulty 
 now and then ? Quite so. I thought once 
 of going into the sporting line myself, but 
 I concluded ’twas unwholesome for delicate 
 constitutions. I dare say, Colonel, you’ve 
 shot your man before now ? Yes, I 
 thought so. You look like it. P’raps you 
 wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve never even 
 carried a revolver, and never had a fight. 
 Born in England, Colonel ? Said so, 
 
 moment I set eyes on you. In London, 
 most likely. They all come from London. 
 Some trouble, no doubt ? J es’ so. As is 
 most often the case, and no need to ask 
 further. For there’s more deserves the 
 trouble than gets it, and if the jury was to 
 change place with the prisoner, very often 
 more justice would be done.” ^ 
 
 Johnny went on rambling in this discur- 
 sive way, with an occasional sip at the 
 pannikin, his guest paying little heed. 
 
 Presently he got up, and said rather 
 thickly that it was close on sunset, and he 
 must go and fix up the supper. 
 
 Two or three hours later the two men 
 were within the hut, sitting with the table 
 between them. On the table were a petro- 
 leum lamp, the whiskey-bottle, and a pack 
 of cards. But unhappily J ohnny had over- 
 estimated his strength of head, which 
 
 now lay on the table among the cards. In 
 other words, he was drunk. 
 
 The Colonel, who seemed sober, sat per- 
 fectly still. Presently he rose and softly 
 went into the open-air. It was a cloudless 
 night, there was a perfect stillness in the 
 air, but the Colonel looked round him with 
 restless and uneasy eyes. 
 
 “What is it?” he murmured. “ I 
 haven’t felt like this for fifteen years 
 or more. Why, I see and feel London 
 again. I am to give one of them a dinner 
 at the Caf6 Eoyale. We are going to the 
 theatre afterwards. It is all just as it used 
 to be before the smash. By this time I 
 suppose they have got old, and there’s a 
 new lot, but they are exactly like their 
 predecessors, and the old games go on just 
 the same.” 
 
 “Oh!” he heaved a long, deep sigh. 
 “ But it is without me. I am out of it — 
 for ever.” 
 
 He sighed again, and began to walk back- 
 wards and forwards, swinging his arms and 
 cracking his fingers. He was living over 
 again the old life. The rambling talk of 
 his companion had touched some chord 
 which awakened old memories, and these 
 for the time maddened him. He was at 
 Newmarket, at Doncaster, at Epsom; he 
 was singing and drinking after a great 
 supper ; he was gambling at a baccarat- 
 table ; he was riding a steeplechase ; he 
 was acting with a troupe of amateurs ; he 
 was dancing ; he was love-making. 
 
 “ If I had money,” he said, “I could go 
 back to all of it. As for the old set, I sup- 
 pose they are alive. They would welcome 
 any one back again who had money to go 
 the pace. Even if I had no money,” he 
 went on, “I might go home and pretend 
 I had. Lots of men get on without money. 
 Why not ?” 
 
 For two hours and more he remained 
 outside, while, within the hut, the drunken 
 man still lay asleep, breathing heavily, his 
 head upon the table. 
 
 Presently a chill breeze sprang up from 
 the sea, and the dreamer returned to the 
 hut shivering. 
 
 “ Ugh !” he groaned, looking round the 
 bare planks and comfortless room, his head 
 full of memories of Club-land. 
 
 The lamp was burning low — he trimmed 
 it. Then he took a drink from the 
 whiskey-pannikin, then he sat down again 
 with the cards and began to shuffle, deal, 
 cut, combine, arrange, and sort the cards 
 with deft fingers, all the time looking an 
 imaginary partner in the face, so that when 
 
 
 n — — ’ 
 
 I 
 
' ■ '• ' fl -. 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Novemlier 13. 1883.] 7 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 the game should be finished, the stakes 
 would be handed over to himself without a 
 suspicion or any diminution of confidence. 
 He alone is the perfect sportsman who can 
 always land the money and never be sus- 
 pected. But there are, alas ! few of these. 
 
 Presently he got tired of his game of 
 dummy pigeon, and began to think that he 
 was tired, and might as well turn in. Now 
 his host, in offering him hospitality during 
 the last week, had naturally reserved for 
 himself his own bed, giving his guest & 
 shake-down of skins and blankets, and it 
 occurred to the Colonel that, Johnny being 
 so very drunk, he himself might just as 
 well take the bed, which would be easier 
 than the shake-down on the floor. A 
 drunken man does not mind a hard bed. 
 
 The bed-place was a kind of bunk, in 
 which blankets were spread on straw. The 
 Colonel began to beat up the straw and 
 arrange the blankets. Now while he was 
 thoughtfully preparing a pillow, a very 
 strange thing happened. At the head of 
 the bed he found a small recess, contrived, 
 no doubt, by the builder of the house, for 
 a safe receptacle of valuable things. It 
 was, in fact, a secret cupboard ; no one 
 would suspect such a thing in a log-hut, 
 and, least of all, at the head of the bed- 
 place. Secret cupboards belong to old 
 manor-houses, granges, baronial halls, and 
 castles, not to wooden cabins in Western 
 States ; yet here was such a hiding-place. 
 The Colonel, with considerable curiosity, 
 pulled out the contents and brought them 
 to the table. First, there were three or 
 four little bundles of letters, tied up with 
 string ; they were frayed at the edges and 
 soiled, because they had been a good deal 
 carried about in the pocket. The drunken 
 man still lay motionless and sleeping 
 heavily. The colonel untied the string 
 and turned over the letters. Some were 
 signed “ Your affectionate wife.” He read 
 two or three of them, and smiled. J ohnny, 
 therefore, had told the truth; he had 
 really run away from a nagging wife. He 
 deceived her as to his success in the New 
 World; she nagged him still by letter. 
 The others, of which there were a good 
 many, were written, first in a school-girl's 
 unformed hand, but afterwards in a firm 
 round writing, clear and strong. They 
 began “My dear father,” and ended 
 “Your affectionate daughter, Hilly Mon- 
 toro.” 
 
 “ So,” said the colonel, “ I thought the 
 man was lying. He’s a poor helpless crea- 
 ture. Can’t even lie. His name is Montoro. 
 
 How the devil do these clerks and beggars 
 get such names ? And his daughter’s name 
 isMilly. What is Milly ? Emily? Matilda? 
 What’s in this bundle ? More letters, I 
 suppose.” 
 
 The last bundle was tied up with the 
 greatest care, and wrapped in an oilskin 
 cloth. The colonel opened it, and changed 
 colour, turning suddenly quite white ; for 
 the bundle was nothing else than a packet 
 of English bank-notes — ten-pound notes, 
 eighty of them — eight hundred pounds ! 
 He counted them three times over. Eight 
 hundred pounds ! 
 
 As he counted them and gazed upon 
 them, his eyes flashed and his lips 
 trembled. Then he thought they might 
 be forged notes. What on earth could a 
 man want with good English notes in a 
 log-cabin ? He held them up to the light 
 and examined their edges and looked at 
 the numbers. No ; they were good notes. 
 
 Then he remembered how the man he 
 called Johnny — the Montoro man — had 
 alluded to money. “If there had been 
 any,” he said, “I should have inherited 
 that as well.” He could lie, then, after all, 
 this mean creature ; and he had lied. 
 
 Eight hundred pounds in notes ! And 
 still the drunken man lay, head on table, 
 snoring heavily. 
 
 Eight hundred pounds ! What could 
 not be done with eight hundred pounds ? 
 
 You may invest it in the Three per 
 Cents, and get twenty-four pounds a year 
 for it, which is not much more than 
 a soldier’s pension of a shilling a day ; 
 you may buy the stock and good-will 
 of a genteel shop, such as a tobacconist’s 
 or a fancy-shop with Berlin work ; you 
 may buy a lodging-house furnished ; you 
 may publish two or three novels with it ; 
 you may have your portrait painted ; you 
 may buy a really beautiful blue vase with 
 it — you may do quantities of useful things 
 with eight hundred pounds ; but the 
 Colonel thought not of these. His fancy 
 quickly turned to London and the West 
 End. 
 
 He stood there for half an hour and 
 more with the notes in his hand, irresolute, 
 listening to the voice of the Tempter. 
 
 Now the Tempter whispered this and 
 that, but always came back to the same 
 point, which was that with eight hundred 
 pounds for capital a man who knew how 
 to play might do very well in London. 
 Why, when he — not the Tempter, but the 
 Colonel — was a youngster he lost his whole 
 fortune because he played with such men 
 
8 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 as he himself had since become. Eight 
 hundred pounds ! Why with two hundred 
 he could go back to that old life and begin 
 again. Nobody knew anything when he 
 came away except that he was stone broke. 
 Yes, he could go back again. He was 
 fifty, and he had grown quite grey. That 
 could be remedied. It was fifteen years 
 since he disappeared from the West End — 
 and now he could go back again if he liked. 
 Heavens ! how he should enjoy once more 
 the glad following of the rosy hours ! 
 Besides, as the honest and virtuous 
 Tempter said, it was not Johnny’s money 
 at all He had lied. He said there was 
 no money ; it was quite certainly the 
 money of the dead man. Serve Johnny 
 right to punish him for lying and to 
 take away his money. 
 
 It grew late. The drunken man slept on. 
 There are never any clocks in log-huts until 
 the agent in clocks has called. But I think 
 it must have been midnight when the 
 Tempter said his last word, and the Colonel, 
 without listening to that other voice, which 
 said that though he had done a good many 
 tolerably bad things, he had never done 
 anything half so bad as what he was now 
 going to do, and did he think that he 
 could ever after it consider himself worthy 
 of any respect or consideration at alH 
 For to swagger and captain it around, to 
 cheat and bully with those who cheat and 
 bully — ready at a moment to fight for 
 your life — to be a ruffian, open and con- 
 fessed, hath in it something of bravery 
 which commands a little admiration; but 
 to be a mean, secret thief — to reward 
 hospitality with robbery — this, indeed, 
 is different. But this voice was a small 
 voice, and the other was loud and persua- 
 sive. Therefore the Colonel put on his hat, 
 turned down the lamp, stuffed the bundles, 
 notes, letters, and all, into his pocket, and 
 stepped out stealthily and disappeared. 
 
 An hour or so afterwards, Johnny moved 
 uneasily, moaned and grunted in his sleep, 
 discovered that the edge of the table was 
 sharp, and his neck stiff ; then he opened 
 his eyes, and lifted his head, feeling a little 
 cold and somewhat cramped from the 
 position in which he had been lying. 
 
 Pretty well awake now, he slowly rose 
 and tried to shake himself together. Then 
 he remembered something. 
 
 “ Colonel ! ” he said hoarsely. 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 “ Colonel’s asleep,” he whispered. “ Less 
 go to bed.” 
 
 He threw himself into the bunk and 
 drew the blankets over him, without the 
 usual preliminary of undressing. As soon 
 as he was quite comfortable, he addressed 
 himself to sleep, but first, as a matter of 
 custom, he felt in the right-hand corner for 
 the recess in which he kept his bundles. 
 Very odd ; he could not find them. They 
 were not there. 
 
 In a moment, he was broad awake, and 
 perfectly sober. On his knees he began to 
 fumble and feel everywhere for his trea- 
 sures. Then he sprang out of bed, crying, 
 “ Colonel! Colonel! wake up !” and groped 
 about for his matches. When he had 
 found them, still wondering why the Colonel 
 slept so heavily, he lit the lamp, and 
 searched again for his packets. But in 
 vain. They were gone. Then he looked 
 for his guest, and he was gone too. 
 
 Then he understood what had happened, 
 and seizing his gun with a loud cry, the 
 robbed man ran wildly out into the road, 
 and rushed along the track southward. 
 That was a great pity, because the Colonel, 
 who felt quite safe and easy in his mind, 
 and was not making any violent effort to 
 cover the ground quickly, was marching 
 due north. 
 
 CHAPTER II. ON THE RIVER LEA. 
 
 The River Lea is honourably known 
 among fellows of the Royal Geographical 
 Society, schoolboys who go in for their 
 prize, and the makers of maps, as forming 
 the eastern boundary of Middlesex. It is 
 not, however, a river which goes into 
 society, like a certain other river which 
 runs along the south of the same county. 
 This is to be accounted for in several ways : 
 first, because society is a good long way 
 off; next, because you cannot get at the 
 East of London except from Broad Street, 
 which is not a society station ; next, on 
 account of what may be called the personal 
 character of the river. Its mouth is respect- 
 able, but homely, and a good deal en- 
 cumbered, though of a lordly breadth at 
 high-tide, with barges, lighters, works, and 
 wharves. Higher up, it shows a sad want 
 of directness and purpose ; it winds about 
 among the low meadows and marshes 
 without ever making a bold push among 
 such unresisting material; it continually 
 goes off into three or four channels ; for a 
 large part of its course the prospect on one 
 bank at least always terminates with a row 
 of low cottages, built of grey brick with 
 red roofs. Even the Thames at Cliveden 
 could not maintain its dignity against that 
 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1833.] 9 
 
 mean endless row of small grey houses and 
 red roofs. 
 
 Yet the river is regarded with passionate 
 fondness by all who dwell between Strat- 
 ford and Hertford. For you may fish in it 
 all the year round ; and you may now row 
 upon it for nine months in the year ; you 
 may bathe in it for three months in the 
 year ; and you may get drowned in it, and 
 very often do, if you happen to be upset 
 and cannot swim. On half-holidays and on 
 summer evenings, there are as many boats 
 upon it as on the Thames at Richmond. 
 There is also to be found upon its banks 
 the Riverside Jack, a creature whom, at 
 first, it seems incongruous to meet so far 
 east. The ignorant traveller would as soon 
 expect a salmon in the River Lea as a J ack 
 like him of Putney, Richmond, Chertsey, 
 and Kingston, upon its banks. Yet here he 
 is ; using his favourite language with the 
 one favourite adjective which goes with 
 everything, like the Spanish onion, or 
 curry-powder, or Soyer’s Universal Sauce ; 
 patriotically drinking the national bever- 
 age ; loafing about among the boats ; always 
 pretending to be extremely busy ,. yet never 
 doing anything, and still a waiter— “ he 
 also serves, who only stands and waits - 
 upon Providence for the casual tip ; his 
 expectations being pitched lower than 
 those of his Richmond cousins. The Lea 
 River Jack has a cottage upon the bank, 
 green with damp in the winter and pictu- 
 resque with dirt in the summer; behind 
 the cottage is a garden in which lie grows 
 the most gigantic Jerusalem artichokes — 
 perhaps that vegetable, in some subtle, 
 unknown way, appeals to a poetic side, 
 hitherto unsuspected, in his nature j here 
 and there he has a ferry-boat, in which he 
 will take you across for a penny. Whether 
 business is brisk or slack, he always has a 
 rod or two in the water, and as he goes 
 about his chores, he still keeps one eye upon 
 the float, ready at a moment’s notice to 
 strike the silver roach. 
 
 If you were to ascend the river from the 
 mouth, where it is called Bow Creek, beside 
 the East India Dock, you would pass,, on 
 your left, wharves, gasworks, and mankind, 
 all the way by Bromley, Bow, and Strat- 
 ford, till you came to Clapton ; and all the 
 way upon the right you would have a broad 
 and dreary flat, which has many names, but 
 is one swamp — the Great Dismal Swamp — 
 once, I believe, and up to the days, of 
 Henry the Eighth, who loved hunting 
 in Epping and Hainault, and thereabout, 
 full of alligators, snapping turtles, and 
 
 Wantley Dragons, or at least the Sussex 
 kind, which were smaller. No one 
 must contemplate this swamp too long, or 
 on many days, except when there is a 
 sunny sky above, with a west wind driving 
 light clouds about, making alternations of 
 light and shade. 
 
 It is not, I think, until one gets, to 
 Clapton that the stream becomes possible 
 for those who are affected by their 
 surroundings ; above that point it is a real 
 river, which may be rowed upon or fished 
 in, and enjoyed as much as any other river 
 in Eagland, though with more moderate 
 raptures. It is not so picturesque as the 
 Wye, for instance; nor so bright as the 
 southern Avon ; nor so dashing as the 
 Usk ; nor so pleasing as the Tyne ; nor so 
 lovely as the Coquet ; but yet it pleases. 
 
 It was on the evening of Thursday, 
 the 28th of June in the present year 
 of grace, 1883, that among other boats 
 upon the River Lea, was one — the only one 
 with which we are concerned — containing 
 two persons. Had these two persons been 
 old, or even middle-aged, nobody would 
 have noticed them ; but as they were both 
 young, and one was not only young, but 
 very pleasing for the eye to rest upon, 
 people on the bank looked after them as 
 the boat sped on her way. As for the 
 evening, it was exactly the sort of evening 
 which this homely river wants to set off its 
 simple beauty ; the wind was from the west 
 and blew in gusts, but not too heavily; 
 the clouds scudded across the sky, the air 
 was clear ; there was a lively ripple in the 
 water, and a pleasant lapping and plashing 
 of the water among the tall rank grass 
 which serves the Lea at this part in place of 
 reeds and water-lilies. The river was quite 
 full and brimming over, but the girl who 
 sat in the stern and held the rudder-strings 
 could not see the flat marshy fields, because 
 of this tall grass standing in the red clay of 
 the low bank. When the sun got a chance 
 between the impertinent clouds, the wave- 
 lets were blue and bright, and sparkled and 
 danced merrily, like bubbles in a glass of 
 champagne, or zoedone at the very least ; 
 so that it did one good only to see them. 
 When a flying cloud hid the sun, and the 
 wind came down upon the water, it became 
 inky-black, and the little billows were as 
 threatening as if they had been great waves, 
 and the girl’s eyes fell instinctively upon 
 the young man with her, as if for protec- 
 tion. This was quite natural, because he 
 was her lover. Any girl would have done 
 the same. 
 
t 
 
 10 [November 13, 1883.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 As for her appearance, I declare that 
 there was nothing at all out of the common 
 in her face ; and yet she was very far from 
 being common. Women said of her that 
 she was rather pretty, in their cold and 
 critical way ; young men would have found 
 her charming, but she only knew one or 
 two. I have seen thousands of such 
 pretty, sweet-faced English girls, with the 
 seal of goodness and tenderness on their 
 foreheads ; you may see them in any 
 town of this happy realm wherever girls 
 do congregate, that is to say, in church or 
 at evening parties — whether most they love 
 their prayers or their waltzing is a question 
 which I leave to philosophers — they are as 
 plenty as blackberries, and yet, though 
 so plenty, they are so very precious. This 
 girl, Milly Montoro, was nineteen, or per- 
 haps twenty ; of her beauty it is enough 
 to say that it was entirely conformable 
 to the ideal of this present year, which, 
 among other things, likes its damsels to be 
 tall rather than petites, and perhaps prefers 
 a brunette to a blonde. This evening she 
 was perfectly happy ; she had all she 
 wanted : love, and plenty of it ; youth, 
 health, strength, hope, a modest suffi- 
 ciency — what can girl desire more h She 
 was so happy that she felt in a way 
 ashamed, and afraid of showing her happi- 
 ness too much, lest George should think 
 her silly — which indeed she was not. She 
 was so happy that she did not care much 
 about talking, and would have been con- 
 tented to go on watching river, and sky, 
 and bank, and the face of her lover before 
 her, without a word ; she was so happy, in 
 short, that she felt as if all the rest of the 
 world must needs be as happy as herself; 
 and the golden age with Roger Bontemps ; 
 the Ship which is bound to come home, but 
 is always overdue ; the Home of Plenty ; 
 the Land of Cockaigne; the Garden of 
 Delight, and the Paradise of Sweet Con- 
 tentment, were all come together, most 
 unexpectedly, and had every intention of 
 staying, and never going away again at all ! 
 A blissful dream, truly ! Happy those who 
 fail not of it once in their lives. 
 
 Along the bank there sat rows of 
 anglers. On the Lea they are of all ages. 
 The angler, like the poet and the aesthete, 
 is born, not made ; some upon the bank 
 were old, old men, seventy, eighty, ninety 
 years of age. Charles Lamb, fifty years 
 ago, used to see them in the same place, 
 fishing with the same rod, after the same 
 roach. Others were middle-aged men, 
 whose work in the City, though necessary, 
 
 was irksome, because it kept them from 
 the banks; others were young men, but 
 thoughtful and reflective, who sit every 
 evening, rod in hand, in grave silence and 
 patience, while their frivolous compeers 
 in cruelty collars and tight trousers, go 
 a-mashing ; others, again, were mere boys 
 and striplings yet, already bound for life 
 to the brotherhood, though no oaths or 
 secret mysteries of initiation and reception 
 were offered or required. Milly pitied 
 them a little this evening ; it certainly did 
 seem to her that men at every time of life 
 would be better employed in making love 
 than in fishing. 
 
 “ Oh, George,” she leaned forward and 
 murmured low, “ do the young men never 
 leave the banks and look for some girl, to 
 make her happy ? ” 
 
 “ You would like everybody to be 
 happy,” said her lover, resting on his oars. 
 “ Why, my darling, it is not every girl 
 who can make every man happy. Do you 
 think any other girl in the world would 
 have made me happy 1 ” 
 
 If you think of it there seems a little 
 arrogance and self-conceit in this little 
 speech ; but the young man did not intend 
 it. What he meant was, that not every 
 girl has the power of making the happiness 
 of even an average, ordinary, typical, com- 
 monplace young man such as himself ; he 
 was quite a humble young man in his own 
 estimation. He designed to pay a high 
 compliment to his betrothed, because, so 
 lofty being the ideal woman even in the most 
 commonplace manly bosom, Milly Montoro 
 alone, of all the women he had ever seen, 
 reached this giddy height. She understood 
 him to mean this, and she blushed and 
 lowered her eyes, being afraid for herself 
 lest she might fail in this point or in that, 
 and so have to come down to a lower step, 
 whereby she might imperil the affections 
 she had won. 
 
 The early days of courtship are, to 
 an innocent maid, as the steps of one 
 who walks with trembling feet upon 
 frozen snow, doubting the assurance of the 
 guide who has gone before, and assures her 
 that all is safe ; going delicately, fearfully, 
 pit-a-pat, softly feeling the strength of the 
 treacherous surface, until, quite assured 
 that it is safe indeed, the traveller may 
 walk in ease and happiness. The very 
 peril, however, lends excitement and 
 pleasure to the journey. 
 
 So the girl listened, and her heart 
 glowed within her to hear these words ; 
 and yet she was afraid. Is it not a 
 
Charles Dickens.] A GLORIOU S FORTUNE. [November 13, 1883.1 11 
 
 chin. These are all indications pointing in 
 the same direction. As a boy, when other 
 
 delightful thing to feel, for once in a life, 
 that you are a real angel, wanting nothing 
 but a couple of wings, and bound to play 
 up to the part, and to scorn the little 
 I temperous tiffs, sharp sayings, unworthy 
 thoughts, with which some girls, not yet 
 fully assured that they belong to the holy 
 army of angels, do poison and corrupt their 
 minds ? 
 
 “ Oh, George,” she murmured, “ do not 
 spoil me, or you will be disappointed after- 
 wards. Let us talk of our future.” 
 
 The young man, at the invigorating 
 thought of the future, grasped his sculls 
 with firmer hands, and put his back into 
 half-a-dozen strokes, so that the little craft, 
 astonished, and a little hurt in her feelings 
 and rowlocks, clove the waters at racing speed . 
 
 I am firmly fixed in the opinion, and am 
 prepared to maintain it in open tourney, lance 
 in rest, and buckler (especially buckler) on 
 arm, that the whole hope of the country in 
 the future, its mainstay in the present, its 
 glory in the past, lies, will lie, and has 
 always lain, in those boys who do not 
 distinguish themselves, or show any en- 
 thusiasm over the subjects which we com- 
 monly call liter ce humaniores , or belles' 
 lettres — in other words, who do not “ take 
 to books,” but prefer the carpenter’s-shop, 
 the lathe, the Zoological Gardens, the 
 natural history of birds, beasts, fishes, and 
 men ; who want always to find out how 
 things are done, with what tools and 
 methods, and then are never satisfied 
 until they can see their way to improve 
 those methods; whose heaven upon this 
 earth is a chemical and physical laboratory; 
 who really cannot be made to care for 
 poetry — unless there is a rattling good 
 story in it — or for a story unless it is real, 
 full of adventure, and the fellow who 
 wrote it knew what he was talking about ; 
 who have no feeling for style and no taste 
 for the rhythm of verse, the fine aroma of 
 an essay, the balance of a period, the 
 pointing of an epigram. That those who 
 do — bookish men — exist at all seems to 
 those, who do not, chiefly due to the 
 necessity for keeping . printers occupied. 
 But what a waste of life it appears com- 
 pared with that which is wholly given 
 over to practical contrivances, making easy 
 what has hitherto proved hard, and cheap 
 what has hitherto been dear. . George 
 Ambrose was one of the practical men. 
 Look at him as he handles his sculls, with 
 bare head and up-rolled sleeves. You see 
 that he has a clear steady eye, clean-cut 
 features, a mouth set firm, and a square 
 
 boys read books, he made things, or 
 enquired into causes. When it became 
 time for him to leave school, he requested 
 that he might not be sent into the City, 
 whither all his schoolfellows were bound, 
 but might find a place, if it were only as 
 door-keeper, in some establishment where 
 they made things. His request was 
 granted, because in the lower valley of the 
 Lea such a request is recognised as not 
 only reasonable but as likely to lead 
 unto things substantial. The only difliculty 
 with a young man is to choose, for there are 
 at Stratford, West Ham, Hackney Wick, 
 yea, and at Clapton itself, men running 
 many and divers trades, arts, and indus- 
 tries— those who spin jute, make cigar- 
 boxes, creosote, patent fuel, dye, tanks, 
 crucibles, grease, chicory, drain-pipes ; with 
 workers in glass, iron, leather, stone, lead, 
 gelatine, tin, zinc, and xylonite ; and money 
 to be made in all these trades did one know 
 how to choose the most likely. Young 
 Ambrose made two or three false starts. 
 First, he entered the works of a gas com- 
 pany, but speedily mastered the subject, and 
 despised a thing in which the amount of 
 knowledge required is so limited. Next, 
 he went into a galvanised iron company, but 
 pined for still wider scope, and finally began 
 afresh at the bottom of the ladder in a 
 great chemical company, which had to do 
 with a whole group of things, every one 
 of inexhaustible interest. He was now 
 twenty-six years of age ; he had worked 
 his way up to a good salary and highly 
 responsible work; he had taken his degree 
 in science at the university in Piccadilly ; 
 he was a member of the Chemical Society ; 
 he had written papers and was already 
 known ; and he was so full of ambitions, 
 projects, designs, hopes, and plans, that it 
 was impossible for him to remain any longer 
 alone, but needs must that he take a wife. 
 Whom should he take but the girl he had 
 known for a dozen years, who lived with 
 his own cousin, Reginald Ambler — the best 
 and sweetest of girls, and eke the prettiest 1 
 He, who had thought for ten years of 
 nothing but the laboratory at the works, 
 his experiments, his science, and his read- 
 ing, discovered suddenly that he had 
 always been in love with Milly Montoro, 
 and when he proposed to her, which he 
 did with as much eloquence, yet fear and 
 trembling, as if he had been a poet of the 
 first water, he told her so, and ascribed 
 not to himself, but to her, all the merit. 
 
A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 eft 
 
 12 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 :B=3 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ Milly dear,” he said, after throwing his 
 excitement into the boat, “the house is 
 perfect; no basement, no kitchen below, 
 two rooms on the ground-floor, three above 
 — nobody can want more. It’s only two 
 miles from Stratford and one from the river, 
 where we shall like to take a row now and 
 then. As to the garden, you shall have the 
 front for your flowers, and I shall have the 
 back for peas and beans. On Saturday 
 afternoons I will look after it.” 
 
 “ Yes, George, and I will look after it 
 every day. Go on. You will start every 
 morning at half -past eight. Yes, I know, 
 breakfast at half-past seven ; but you will 
 be home to tea by seven every evening. 
 George, we must make our evenings 
 delightful. Sometimes you shall read to 
 me ; I will play for you ; I will teach you 
 to sing ; you have got a very good voice, 
 sir, only you want to be taught how to 
 keep it in order. On Sundays we will 
 go to church together — no more reading 
 chemistry on Sunday mornings — and after 
 church a little walk, and then dinner, 
 j Think of having you to dinner every 
 Sunday ! After dinner I shall send you 
 for a long walk to shake the cobwebs 
 out of your brain, and you shall come 
 home to tea and supper. Perhaps we 
 may have one or two of the children to 
 tea with us ; and, George, we will furnish 
 the spare room, so as to give a bed to them 
 sometimes, will we not 1 They are as good 
 as my brothers and sisters, you know, 
 and ” 
 
 “ You mean you have been as good as a 
 sister to them, Milly,” he laughed. <f Yes, 
 you shall have your spare room, and put as 
 many of the children into the bed as the 
 bed will hold. My dear, I do not want 
 you to lose your friends.” 
 
 “No, George.” The tears stood in her 
 eyes for a moment, but soon cleared away. 
 “ It is bad enough for them, poor dears, as 
 it is. They have been crying ever since it 
 was fixed for August.” 
 
 George showed no kind of sympathy with 
 these poor sufferers, knowing that their 
 loss was his own gain. This feeling very 
 much helps to harden the heart ; and, 
 besides, he was ready to explain, if neces- 
 sary, that every girl must expect to 
 exchange her home for her husband, and 
 to point out that it was not as if the young 
 Amblers had any real claim upon Milly, who 
 was neither kith nor kin, but had only lived 
 with them for eight years or so ; and the 
 fact that they regarded her as their elder 
 sister did nob make her one, but showed 
 
 only the extraordinary goodness of her 
 disposition, seeing that she could command 
 an amount of affection as can only be wrung 
 from the unsympathetic breasts of the young 
 by extraordinary sacrifice and ceaseless 
 devotion. These thoughts passed through 
 his brain quickly, but without requiring 
 him to put them into words. So he only 
 looked at his fiancee and nodded his head, 
 and she understood just as well as if he 
 had talked a whole yard, or an ell or two, 
 of printed slips. 
 
 Then the young chemist began to talk of 
 his own schemes, which it would be a shame 
 to reveal, because he is in reality another 
 Edison, only as yet his plans have not 
 become patents. He knew all the things 
 which want to be invented or made prac- 
 ticable through being made cheap, with 
 the inventions which want to be converted 
 from toys to practical purposes, and the 
 possibilities of certain scientific facts which 
 are as yet in the limbo of unpractical 
 laboratories. Heavens ! what extended 
 openings, chances, opportunities, and occa- 
 sions there are for the young chemist 
 who has got eyes that look outside his 
 retort and can connect his laboratory with 
 humanity ! 
 
 “You shall find out all the things that 
 have to be found out, George,” cried 
 Milly, as if every woman has the power 
 of conferring genius, insight, conception, 
 and more power to his elbow upon the man 
 she loves. And yet not every woman, my 
 friends ; but unto some women is this power 
 given, and then happy — thrice happy — 
 is he whom that woman loves. The powers 
 of women are as yet imperfectly known, 
 which is one reason why they sometimes 
 try to imitate man ; and I wish I could be 
 born a hundred years hence, when these 
 powers are understood and developed, and 
 be clever, strong, handsome, fresh, and 
 frolic. Then would a great career await 
 me. Perhaps — who knows 1 
 
 “ Oh,” he went on, “ when one thinks of 
 the wonderful world which is opening out 
 all round us ; the instruments which 
 register speech so that it can never be lost 
 — fancy, Milly, all one’s foolish words 
 preserved for ever — the little machine 
 with which a scene is caught in a moment 
 and so never lost; the wire which sends 
 messages, and the wire which whispers 
 words ; the unknown forces which our 
 great men are reducing to order and 
 obedience, so that before many years the 
 reign of steam, and gas, and coal will be at 
 an end. It seems as if there was nothing 
 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 13 
 
 else worth living for, and everything out- 
 side the laboratory was a sham and a delu- 
 sion, except the school which prepares the 
 boys for the workshop.” 
 
 “And me, George,” said Milly jealously. 
 
 “ Am I not worth living for 1 Tell me all 
 that is in your thoughts always. I know 
 nothing of your science, but you shall 
 teach me. Promise that you will tell me 
 everything.” 
 
 “ My dear,” he replied, “ that is the rea- 
 son why I want you to marry me, because 
 I must talk to some one.” 
 
 Again, he did not mean to be selfish, yet 
 he might have seemed so ; but he had 
 never learned the language of compliment, 
 and he meant that to Milly it was an 
 honour that he should think her able to 
 understand and to share his thoughts ; 
 and all, just as before, because he was. a 
 humble youth, who felt himself to be quite 
 of the ordinary kind, but educated, which 
 Milly was not, only that she belonged to 
 the nobler kind of women who could, he 
 thought, understand everything without 
 education. Indeed, one knows hundreds 
 of women who do, and will sit out the most 
 scientific lecture, bristling with hard words, 
 their faces as full of intelligence at the end 
 as at the beginning ; and I do not for a 
 moment believe the wicked calumny which 
 accuses them of abstracting their thoughts 
 at the very beginning, and so remaining 
 during the whole discourse. 
 
 Then he, in his turn, listened while 
 Milly told him her thoughts, but bashfully, 
 being afraid lest, after the great ambition 
 of her lover, her own hopes might seem to 
 him small. Yet they were not, because 
 they were nothing short of an ardent desire 
 to possess her life with ease, love, and hap- 
 piness, and her soul with comfort. No 
 woman can desire more, so that, in fact, 
 Milly was most ambitious. It is true that 
 almost every girl permits herself the same 
 dream. While they talked, the sun went 
 down, and a light mist rose upon the low 
 ground and spread over the river. Then 
 they turned, and George rowed gently 
 down stream, the water plashing at the 
 bows. 
 
 “ George,” said Milly presently, “ I am 
 thinking of my father.” 
 
 '“Why,” he replied, “it is four years 
 since you heard from him. He must be 
 dead, long ago.” 
 
 “ Yes,” she sighed ; “ else he would 
 never have forgotten me. I will show you 
 some of his letters. They are full of love 
 and thought for me. He must be dead — 
 
 my poor father 1 And to think that he 
 never saw me since I was a child in arms. 
 He was only a clerk in the City, you know ; 
 and suddenly he resolved to go abroad and 
 make his fortune, which shows what a 
 courageous spirit he had. But no one 
 ever thought he would have done so 
 splendidly.” 
 
 “No one ever knows,” said George, 
 
 “ what he can do, until he is put upon 
 his mettle. Yet he must have been a 
 determined and clever man. Because, 
 you see, Milly, if fortunes are to be made 
 in America, the Americans are generally 
 sharp enough to keep them in their own 
 hands. At the same time, very, often 
 people do not see what lies at their feet. 
 What did he go away for ? Because I am 
 quite sure a clever man can do quite as 
 well at home.” 
 
 “ Can he ? ” asked Milly. “ I thought 
 that everybody who goes to America makes 
 a great fortune.” 
 
 “ That is what they hope to do before- 
 hand. When they are there, I believe 
 they find life as hard, and money as scarce, 
 as it is at home. There is a clerk in the 
 accountant’s office at the works who 
 remembers your father. Says nobody 
 ever thought much of his cleverness ; 
 says he was a lazy, easy sort of chap, who 
 did his work and went home, and was 
 happy. No one ever could understand 
 why he threw up a good place and went 
 away.” 
 
 “Yet,” said Milly, “my father said once 
 in his letters that America offers such a 
 vast field for a man that his money can be 
 invested as fast as it is made. Sometimes 
 he spoke of millions.” 
 
 “ Why, dear,” said her lover, “ if these 
 millions could be found ! They must be some- 
 where ; but I am afraid they have, got into 
 the wrong hands ; what splendid works 
 we would put up ! Oh, Lord ! ” he sighed 
 heavily. “ What a laboratory we could 
 have with a million to spend on it. Think 
 of the electric batteries ! What experi- 
 ments we could direct, and what an army 
 of workmen we could employ ! ” 
 
 “It would be too delightful, George,” 
 Milly replied, kindling in sympathy. “You 
 should be the greatest man in Stratford. 
 But my poor father is dead, and as for 
 his fortune, that must be all gone and 
 scattered.” 
 
 I think she imagined her father’s fortune 
 to consist of dollars tied up in sacks. But 
 we know otherwise. 
 
 “ If,” he said, “ your father’s money was 
 
g=5- : — — ■■ - 
 
 14 [November 13, 1883.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 invested, the investments must be some- 
 where and the papers in somebody’s 
 hands. Unless, that is, people stole them 
 and forged his signature. There must be 
 all kinds of mortgages, shares, leases, 
 contracts, bonds, all sorts of things. 
 Unless, again — money got easily is as 
 easily lost — the speculations proved 
 disastrous. Come, my dear ; never think 
 of your father’s fortune. We shall never 
 see any of it. Why, with my three hun- 
 dred a year and your hundred and fifty, we 
 shall begin twice as well off as most young 
 married people. And of course I shall get 
 a rise ; not to speak of the great things we 
 shall do presently. And here we are. 
 Steady, steady. Let me get out first.” 
 
 They walked along the lane, between the 
 river and the road. Milly turned back to 
 look at the river when they reached the 
 higher ground. 
 
 The romantic suburb of Upper Clapton 
 stands upon a terrace, like Richmond, 
 and overlooks the broad valley of the 
 Lea; gardens lie on the gentle slope of 
 the low hill, and beyond these you can 
 discern the river winding about among the 
 flat meadows ; beyond the meadows, 
 again, are the hills and wooded inclines of 
 Walthamstow, Woodford, and Chingford ; 
 beyond these (but you cannot see it) is 
 Epping Forest. 
 
 “ See,” said Milly, “ how white and 
 strange the meadows look with the mist 
 upon them, and how shadowy the marshes 
 lie beyond it. And look ! did you ever see 
 a moon so big and dim 1 ” 
 
 “ A sign of rain,” said George the prac- 
 tical. 
 
 “George,” said the girl, shivering, “I 
 feel afraid. Give me your hand. How 
 strong it is ! If there was any danger I 
 should always have this strong hand, 
 shouldn’t I ? ” 
 
 He kissed her — no one was in the lane, 
 and it was twilight and misty beside — he 
 kissed her twice, on her forehead and her 
 lips, saying : 
 
 “ Why, dear, what danger can there be? 
 And if there were ? ” He clenched his fist 
 and his eyes looked dangerous. “ Come, my 
 darling. It is past nine o’clock, and the 
 Great Discoverer will be getting hungry. 
 To say nothing of Kepler, Copernica, and 
 Tycho Brahe.” 
 
 CHAPTER III. IS THE WORLD ROUND ? 
 
 Supper was laid in the dining-room of 
 Veritas Villa waiting for the return of 
 Milly and her lover. I call it the dining- 
 
 room, but it was also the breakfast-room, 
 the sitting-room, the day-nursery, the play- 
 room, the work-room, and my lady’s 
 boudoir ; not because there were not other 
 rooms in this genteel villa, but because 
 the drawing-room was wanted for Mr. 
 Ambler’s maps and books, and the break- 
 fast-room, which opened conveniently upon 
 the garden, for his observatory, his models, 
 his Orrery, his telescope, and his scientific 
 instruments. If you belong to a great man 
 you must be content to let him have the 
 comfort. There are so few great men that 
 this law causes little hardship. Besides, 
 who would not willingly give up two out of 
 three rooms for the pride of being an 
 Ambler ? 
 
 The boys, this evening, were shaping 
 bows — that is to say, they were making 
 things with knives — boys who never have 
 pocket-money are greatly to be envied, 
 because they learn to make so many 
 things for themselves ; and the girls were 
 spinning. That is to say, Copernica 
 Ambler, the only girl in the room, was 
 finishing a frock for her sister Somerville, 
 now in bed and asleep, while her mother, 
 with a great basket beside her, which 
 never grew less in bulk, was looking 
 after the stockings and the socks, darning- 
 needle in hand. Across her face lay the 
 line of care which marks the face of the 
 woman who has to make every shilling do 
 the work of half-a-crown, and contrives, 
 manages, and continually occupies her mind 
 with the maintenance of her children. 
 Who does not know such women by the 
 score ? It seems a waste of life, this giving 
 it all to the boys and girls ; but perhaps it 
 is made up somehow — here or hereafter. 
 
 When Milly came home, followed by her 
 lover, there was a general stir, with the 
 sudden appearance of smiles and revival of 
 cheerfulness, due partly to the immediate 
 prospect of supper, and partly as the toll 
 of affection exacted at all hours by this 
 young person. For the mother looked up 
 and smiled over her pile of stockings ; and 
 Copernica, who was a sharp-featured thin 
 girl of sixteen, who wore spectacles, held 
 up her newly-finished skirt for admiration; 
 and the boys shouted ; and every one called 
 upon Milly for sympathy with his work; 
 and everybody had something to tell her, 
 which was always the way when she came 
 home, whether she had "been away for an 
 hour or a day. 
 
 “You must be hungry, George,” said 
 Mrs. Ambler. “ Tycho, my dear, go call 
 your father.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 15 
 
 Everybody, or nearly everybody, knows 
 Reginald Ambler by reputation; a very 
 large class of humanity, namely, the Editors, 
 know his handwriting, and cruelly toss his 
 communications into the basket unread ; few, 
 
 comparatively, have the advantage of his 
 personal acquaintance. He is a man now 
 about fifty years of age; he is rather tall 
 and thin, his hair, gone grey, lies over his 
 forehead in a great mass, which he is 
 always pushing back; his eyes are large 
 and full ; they are also of a light blue 
 colour, so that his face seems at first fur- 
 nished with too much eye. When he is in 
 repose, the eyes have a far-off look ; when 
 he is talking, they are quick and eager. 
 His lips are nervous and his fingers are 
 restless. Columbus, one thinks, must have 
 been a good deal like Mr. Reginald 
 Ambler. As for his manner, it varies 
 with every hour, ranging from the depth 
 of despondency — when an article has been 
 rejected or a letter treated contemptuously 
 — to the height of confidence, hope, and 
 happiness — when he has begun another 
 or has trapped some unfortunate into a 
 controversy. And he has never been 
 known to engage in any other subject 
 of conversation, or think upon any 
 other matter whatever, except his Great 
 Discovery. 
 
 To-night he came to the supper-table 
 and sat down with a smile of welcome. 
 
 “ Milly, my child,” he said, “ take your 
 place beside me. George, you next to her, 
 of course. Copernica, my dear, this side of 
 me. Galileo, fill George’s glass. Cut some 
 bread, Tycho, my boy. Kepler, some cheese 
 
 for Milly and your sister. So ” He 
 
 rubbed his hands and looked round upon 
 his boys with the simple pride of a father, 
 though he was so great a man. “Ptolemy 
 and Mary Somerville have gone to bed, I 
 suppose? 
 
 “ This day,” he went on, “ will be a 
 remarkable day in my history. I have 
 noted it in the Autobiography. Children, 
 I have now laid down the last of the 
 great voyages round the world completely 
 on the map. It threatened to be trouble- 
 some at first, but it agrees, I find — of 
 course I expected nothing less — with my 
 anticipations in every particular ! ” 
 
 “ Oh, father ! ” Copernica clapped her 
 hands. The wife smiled, her mind being 
 still full of the socks in the basket. Milly 
 nodded and laughed. The boys alone said 
 nothing. Boys, if you come to think of 
 it, never understand a father’s greatness. 
 Many great men have lamented this to me, 
 
 confidentially. “ Oh, father ! ” 
 
 cried Copernica, “ what will they say 
 now ? ” 
 
 “ They will say, my daughter, what they 
 always do say. The Fellows of the Geo- 
 graphical Society will sneer ; the Editors of 
 scientific journals will refuse to listen; 
 comic writers will make jokes upon it; map- 
 makers and globe-makers will try to hide 
 the truth ; and the rest of the world, like 
 George here, will pass it over without 
 paying any attention.” 
 
 “If it were something in the chemical 
 line,” said George, “I would listen; as it 
 is not, I have not time for it.” 
 
 This he said out of subtlety and duplicity, 
 because in his secret soul he jeered at the 
 Great Discovery. 
 
 “ No, no ; and thus it is,” said the Philo- 
 sopher, “ that the greatest discoveries 
 steal upon the world, and those who make 
 them are unheeded. I have now laid down 
 upon the map the route of every great 
 voyager ; my distances, my time, agree 
 with his ! Show me the globe-geographer 
 who has ever attempted the like. ^ Yes, my 
 work is done ; the chain of evidence is 
 complete ; I can at any moment, if I should 
 be called away, leave the work of my life 
 to the judgment of posterity. As for my 
 contemporaries*, they may, if they choose, 
 continue to class me with the crack- 
 brained enthusiasts — ” 
 
 “ Oh, father,” said Copernica. 
 
 “ — who think they can square the circle, 
 find out the site of Paradise — ” 
 
 “ I wish I could go and look in at the 
 gate,” said Milly. * 
 
 “ — and transmute metals.” 
 
 “That would be only changing the 
 currency,” said George. 
 
 The boys were steadily eating. They 
 had heard this talk before.. 
 
 “As for meeting me on a platform,” 
 Mr. Ambler continued, “they remember 
 the victory over Bagshott, and tremble.” 
 Bagshott was a Baptist minister who once 
 ventured on a public controversy with Mr. 
 Ambler, and had his head knocked into a 
 cocked hat, a thing quite improper for a 
 minister of the Gospel to wear, and 
 recanted, and was now a fervent disciple. 
 
 “ As for admitting at once and peacefully 
 that I am right, and they themselves, there- 
 fore, wrong, that is, I suppose, too much to 
 expect of anyone, especially of men who 
 live by the propagation of error.” 
 
 “ A great deal too much,” said George. 
 The boys went on with their supper 
 and said nothing. The two elder lads, 
 
cS: 
 
 =IL 
 
 16 [November 13, 1883.1 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 Tycho Brahe and Kepler, arrived at the 
 dignity of clerkery, had long since plainly 
 understood, and now made no secret of 
 their opinion, that a Great Discovery may 
 be a most calamitous thing for a family. 
 Palissy, himself, did not bring a more 
 rooted antipathy to fame into his home- 
 circle than their father. Honour and glory 
 are very fine things indeed ; meantime, 
 when they are abstract qualities, and there- 
 fore unproductive, and the heels of your 
 boots are down, they might be sold, if there 
 were any purchaser, for whatever they 
 would fetch in the rough. 
 
 “Better, far better,” thought Tycho, 
 
 “ for my father to care nothing at all about 
 honour, but a good deal about making 
 money, and saving it or using it to push his 
 boys.” 
 
 Such a father he would have desired, red 
 of cheek, important in his bearing, pompous 
 in his talk, as might be seen every day on 
 Stamford Hill ; a father who could put his 
 sons into good houses, buy them partner- 
 ships, give them holidays at the seaside, 
 with — oh, all the things for which these 
 lads vainly longed. 
 
 Reginald Ambler is nothing less, if you 
 please, than the Discoverer of the great 
 truth that the world, so far from being a 
 round ball, thoughtfully flattened at the 
 north and south, so as to prevent the ice 
 from slipping down and spoiling the 
 equator, is really, as can be demonstrated 
 with ease, a great flat circular disc of 
 unknown thickness. What we call the 
 Arctic Pole, believing that the world 
 twirls perpetually and ignominiously round 
 it, like a fat goose upon the spit, is in fact 
 a central circle of ice and snow, the origin 
 and cause of which must be left for the 
 discovery of future philosophers ; round it 
 is the temperate zone; beyond 'This the 
 torrid zone; beyond this again another 
 great temperate circle, in which Australia, 
 the Cape of Good Hope, and New Zealand 
 are comfortably placed ; “ neither het nor 
 cauld,” as the Scot said. Outside this vast 
 temperate zone, the ocean lies, a tract of 
 sea indeed, immeasurable, desolate, with- 
 out land or saiL Spread round in another, 
 and the last, great circle, beyond the 
 ocean at the outer-edge is a Rim, ledge, 
 hedge, barrier, frontier-mark, boundary- 
 wali, or whatever the inadequacy of 
 language permits us to call it, of thick, 
 solid, mountainous ice. How broad is this 
 Rim, whether it stretches out for ever into 
 boundless space, whether it is narrow, so 
 that perhaps some day the voyager may 
 
 hope to reach its limit, and to peep over 
 into infinity, no one can at present say. 
 From time to time ships, which have sailed 
 south, have reported cliff’s, rocks, and 
 mountains, ice-bound, covered with snow, 
 inaccessible, inhospitable, without life. 
 Nothing lives in this boundary Rim except, 
 upon the edge of it, a few seals, walruses, 
 narwhals, sword-fish, polar bears, whales, 
 and such sea monsters, who do not know 
 how miserable they are. As for men there 
 are none at all, and will be none till time 
 shall be no more. 
 
 “What is beyond the Rim,” said Reginald 
 modestly, “I cannot say any more than 
 the globe-professors can tell you what is 
 beyond the farthest star.” 
 
 This improved kind of earth requires an 
 entirely new disposition of the heavens. 
 
 Reginald, quite early in the history of 
 his Discovery, remembered this, and con- 
 structed, with infinite pains, a beautiful 
 Orrery. In this,' the sun, no longer an 
 immense globe of fire ninety millions of 
 miles away, or thereabouts, but a comfort- 
 able little fireplace, so to speak, half-a- 
 dozen miles above the world, went round 
 and round above the great circle of the 
 torrid zone, wobbling to north or south so 
 as to produce summer and winter. He 
 pulled a string, and you saw the 
 daily and the annual motion most 
 clearly set forth. The moon and planets 
 in the same way went on what seemed 
 to be recklessly independent and dangerous 
 paths of their own, and the fixed stars 
 went round the polar star continually. By 
 an ingenious adjustment of bars, eccen- 
 trics, and curves, he accounted for all the 
 natural phenomena — except one. This ex- 
 ception came home to him sometimes in the 
 dead of night, and took the conceit out of 
 him. He had never been able to account for 
 lunar eclipses. Why not lunar eclipses ] It is 
 too much to say that his faith ever wavered, 
 but he was worried and rendered unhappy 
 when he remembered that his Orrery would 
 account for everything except a lunar eclipse. 
 But those moments, happily, were rare. 
 Mostly he was content to gaze upon his 
 model with a perfect satisfaction, to show 
 enquirers over and over again how, upon 
 a flat and stationary earth, all the natural 
 phenomena, morning, noon, and evening, 
 with the four seasons, the phases of the 
 moon, the winter’s downward slope, and the 
 summer’s elevation of the sun, can all be 
 explained and accounted for. 
 
 Naturally he became one of the bug- 
 bears — there are always half-a-dozen living 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 & 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 17 
 
 at the same time — of the scientific world. 
 He wrote to all the papers, journals, trans- 
 actions, and reports of the learned bodies ; 
 he offered to lecture, he asked for an hour — 
 only one short hour ; he sent his name 
 with the offers of a paper, to the British 
 Association, to the Social Science Congress, 
 to the Balloon Society, to the Church 
 Congress, to the Oriental Congress, to the 
 Congress of Librarians, to the Congress 
 of Head-masters, to the Geographical 
 Society, the Geologists, the Society of Arts, 
 the Physical Society, the Royal Astrono- 
 mical Society, the Young Men’s Christian 
 Institute, the Sunday School Union, the 
 Church Missionary Society, the Open-Air 
 Mission, the Salvation Army, the Eleusis 
 Club, the Grand Lodge of Freemasons, and 
 the Congress of Cathedral Vergers, not 
 once, but every year, offering to read a 
 paper, show his maps and models, and re- 
 construct the geography and shape of the 
 world. It is sad to relate that no one 
 paid the least attention to these proposals, 
 and, being now fifty years of age, and with 
 many years’ experience, he had ceased to 
 expect a hearing from these learned bodies, 
 any more than he expected admission 
 into the Times, Standard, Daily News, 
 Morning Post, Daily Telegraph, and Daily 
 Chronicle, of the letters which he regularly 
 sent them all once every year, after six 
 months of preparation. As for the 
 monthly, weekly, and quarterly journals, 
 he had tried them all. They would have 
 none of him. And as for eminent men of 
 science, there was not a single mathema- 
 tician at Cambridge, or a professor of 
 science in any university or college of the 
 United Kingdom to whom he did not pro- 
 pose a meeting, public or private, to discuss 
 his theories. The signal victory already 
 alluded to, which he achieved over the 
 Rev. Mr. Bagshott, Baptist minister of 
 Hackney Wick, in a public discussion held 
 at the chapel, was an abiding proof of his 
 strength in adtocacy and the goodness of his 
 cause. 
 
 The school is small — it consists really of 
 two, the Prophet himself and Bagshott, but 
 it is full of zeal. They have an office, and 
 an office-boy, in Chiswell Street. The 
 office is a second-pair back ; the office-boy, 
 whose hours are from nine to six, spends 
 his time chiefly in the street surveying 
 mankind ; the publications — tracts and 
 maps — of the society are on sale there, but 
 no one has ever bought a copy except a 
 journalist, who once saw his way to a scoff- 
 ing article on the subject, and so bought 
 
 everything there was, and put the things in 
 his pocket-book and went away, and pre- 
 sently forgot all about it. In fact, there 
 exists a general conspiracy against the 
 Truth. 
 
 “ Astronomers,” said Mr. Ambler, 
 “ tremble at mention of my name for fear, 
 but pretend to smile in scorn. They hope 
 their system will last at least their own 
 time, forgetting that to be found out after 
 death will be more fatal to their reputa- 
 tion than to yield in life. In my auto- 
 biography will be found not only the ‘ Short 
 Reasons’ but also the ‘Argument at Length,’ 
 and the ‘ Questions ’ which I have sent to 
 every one of them demanding a reply, a 
 platform, a public discussion, or an oppor- 
 tunity to state my views. Not one of them 
 has given me either. It will, indeed,” he 
 added, with a lofty sneer, “ be greatly to 
 the credit of the Universities, in the next 
 century, that they refused even to let me 
 speak.” 
 
 It was in this house that Milly was 
 placed when the death of her mother left 
 her alone at ten years of age. The reasons 
 why Mr. Reginald Ambler was chosen for 
 her guardian were unusual, but not without 
 precedent. He had a cousin — many people 
 have cousins ; this cousin, Richard Ambler, 
 a practical Ambler, an unimaginative 
 Ambler, was a solicitor. Richard Ambler, 
 therefore, on being asked by the child’s 
 relations — they were unnatural relations, 
 descended by the parent’s side from a certain 
 illustrious uncle of two — who wanted to put 
 the burden of the little girl on somebody 
 else’s shoulders, and to find a home and a 
 guardian for a child whom nobody wanted, 
 naturally considered first of all which of 
 his own friends would find the money most 
 useful, and seeing that among all his friends 
 and cousins no one was, so perfectly hope- 
 less, impecunious, and unpractical as 
 Reginald the Discoverer, and few so 
 poor, sent her to him ; not for any fitness 
 or special aptitude which Reginald 
 possessed for the task of guardian, but 
 wholly and solely that the child’s money, 
 which now amounted to a hundred and 
 eighty pounds a year — house property 
 having gone up — might be paid yearly to 
 Reginald for the good of himself and his 
 household. They were kind-hearted people, 
 and as Milly was a willing, clever kind of 
 child, they were easily, though gradually, 
 persuaded to let her become governess, 
 nurse, assistant-housekeeper, maker of 
 puddings and pies, milliner, dressmaker, 
 chaplain, adviser, counsellor, and eldest 
 
«± 
 
 18 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 sister to the family. “And, oh, my 
 dear,” said Mrs. Ambler, when Milly’s 
 engagement began, “what we should have 
 done without you nobody knows ; and 
 what we are going to do without you 
 nobody can tell.” 
 
 Milly’s life was so busy that she never 
 understood how dull it would seem to. any 
 one outside the house, for there were in it 
 no amusements, no sights, no theatre, no 
 concerts, no opera, no pictures, and even 
 very few novels ; nor perceived that she 
 ought to have been treated differently, nor 
 comprehended that her guardian .was 
 regarded by everybody as a lunatic with a 
 harmless craze; nor knew or suspected that 
 there were any enjoyments to be had in 
 life other than those within her reach, 
 namely, the children in good temper and 
 looking nice, the Sunday, church, a summer 
 evening walk, and the daily cup of tea. She 
 was, however, distinguished above all her 
 contemporaries of Clapton Common by the 
 possession of a romantic history. She was 
 the daughter of a man who had made a 
 most Glorious Fortune. Everybody knew 
 so much. Nobody knew what the Fortune 
 actually was, either in amount or in form, 
 whether it was silver, oil, hogs, or rail- 
 ways; whether it had been acquired, by 
 rings and comers, by bulling and bearing, 
 by lying, treachery, and deceit, by contracts, 
 by plunder and pillage of the public 
 money, or in any of the many ways in 
 which many tempt fortune and a few 
 succeed, winning thereby the universal 
 respect of their fellow-creatures. Mr. 
 Montoro — no one ever spoke of him with- 
 out the honourable prefix— had been once 
 a clerk in the City. Somewhere about 
 twenty years ago he threw up his place and 
 went away to seek his Fortune. And he 
 found it. Matter of common knowledge that 
 he found it ; that he had sent none of it 
 home was also known; and that for four, or 
 five years his daughter had heard nothing 
 from him, whence it might be concluded 
 that he was dead. And the great Fortune 
 — where was that h Why, the United 
 States of America being so big, one might 
 as well look for a lost needle in Hyde 
 Park as for a lost fortune in a country 
 popularly believed to consist entirely of 
 men who have made enormous fortunes. 
 No doubt it was lying somewhere packed 
 up, and would be lost for want of someone 
 to claim it. So that Milly was not regarded 
 as an heiress so much as the daughter 
 of a man who had distinguished himself. 
 But still there was always the chance 
 
 that her father might turn up, his Fortune 
 in his hand. The thought that her father 
 might be still alive and might yet return 
 never left the girl. She had his letters in 
 her desk, which she read until she know 
 them by heart, both those to her mother and 
 those to herself. The former were curiously 
 cold and constrained. . He was prospering 
 exceedingly, but he did not explain how. 
 He was richer already than any of the 
 people they had known at home ; he 
 was waiting an opportunity to realise some 
 of his gains and enable her to keep her 
 carriage ; and so on. To herself the letters 
 were full of affection and tenderness, speak- 
 ing of a time when he would either go home 
 or have his daughter with him. He spoke of 
 his continued success, but without the least 
 hint of his occupation, and his address was 
 always changing ; so that whatever it was, 
 his work took him from one fetate to 
 another. 
 
 The girl constructed her ideal father 
 from the letters. He must be a gentle 
 and quiet creature because her mother had 
 always spoken of him as a peaceful man 
 who gave no offence to any, and loved 
 tranquility ; yet he must be a man of great 
 courage thus to have forced his way to the 
 front, in a strange country, with no friends 
 to help him. He must be a man. of fine 
 manner and noble mind, because his letters 
 were full of the most admirable sentiments, 
 and he must be a father whom any girl 
 would be too ready, to love, so full of 
 tenderness was he himself. The letters 
 which this poor English waif and stray 
 wrote twice or three times every year to his 
 daughter were in fact to him, though they 
 were loaded with falsehoods, the one thing 
 which kept up his soul. He consorted 
 with gangs of the roughest ; his work was 
 the lowest ; yet he had to console him the 
 letters of his child, fresh, innocent, con- 
 fiding ; and he had, to lift himself out of 
 the mire, to make up in reply some answer 
 which should make the girl happy about 
 him ; and in order to do that he. was 
 forced to imagine himself back in civilised 
 life, a gentleman. If you come to think 
 of it, there wants a good deal of imagina- 
 tion for an unsuccessful emigrant, sunk as 
 low as can well be, to make people at 
 home believe that he is rolling in pros- 
 perity. It grew harder every year for the 
 poor man, but still he persevered, until he 
 fell in with his great stroke of luck, and 
 became a landowner in Oregon. Then, 
 his life being now easy, and even assured, 
 and the whiskey-bottle always handy, his 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 1 9 
 
 brain began to deteriorate, and he wrote 
 no more letters. While he was a vagrant 
 journeyman, ready to do anything,, he 
 would imagine, conceive, and describe. 
 The moment he became settled, the foun- 
 tain of fancy dried up, and he could 
 picture no more. Therefore, the drop 
 being too great from a millionaire to a 
 settler in a half -cleared plot of forest- 
 ground, with a log-hut and a couple of 
 blankets, he ceased to send any more 
 letters. He was one of those who have 
 been ruined by prosperity. Had he still 
 continued one of a plough-gang, or a herds- 
 man, or a hand on a steamer, or a picker- 
 up of odd jobs, his daughter would have 
 continued to receive those letters which 
 for so many years had been the chief 
 happiness of her life. 
 
 But he would come home some day, she 
 said — he would come home. 
 
 Thus she grew up a sweet and natural 
 girl, careless of her own beauty, because she 
 was always thinking about the children, 
 till she was past nineteen years of age, and 
 then love came to her in the shape of a 
 brave young fellow— strong, ambitious, 
 obstinately resolved to get on, and quite 
 certain to expect of her in return as much 
 as he would give to her. Then, the prac- 
 tical business of life thus suddenly opened 
 out before her, she left off dreaming about 
 her father, finding henceforth no room for 
 anyone in her dreams except her sweetheart. 
 To be sure, she had known him ever since 
 she had joined the Ambler household, 
 because he was a cousin of Reginald 
 Ambler; but then to see a young fellow 
 occasionally in the house, and to be wooed 
 by him, are very different things. And 
 how that love gradually came about, I am 
 not going to tell, because it is so simple a 
 process that all the world may imagine it. 
 Besides, as the princess said to the one- 
 eyed Calendar, “This is not a common 
 love-story/’ 
 
 Now, on this evening, the supper was, 
 as has been indicated, a meal of unusually 
 cheerful character, not on account of 
 George’s presence, because he was there 
 nearly every evening, but for certain 
 unknown and inscrutable reasons which 
 act upon the family atmosphere, and can 
 only be judged by their effects, and make 
 it, in fact, like the climate of this country, 
 variable — sometimes cloudy, sometimes 
 misty, and always impossible to be fore- 
 told. Everyone who belongs to a large 
 family must know the uncertainty of the 
 general temper, however that of the indi- 
 
 vidual (meaning oneself) may be depended 
 upon. This evening the dining-room of 
 Veritas Villa seemed a little heaven of 
 cheerfulness. Even the two elder boys 
 — Kepler, who was eighteen, and Tycho, 
 who was sixteen — listened to their father 
 without open scorn or impatience, though 
 they had the firmest belief that his talk 
 was unmitigated nonsense. If anyone had 
 held a curved hand to his ear he would 
 probably have heard distinctly a kind of 
 purr of satisfaction and content. Perhaps 
 on a really fine evening in June, when it is 
 light at nine o’clock, and the windows can 
 be kept open, and the roses are already in 
 blossom, everyone ought to be in a good 
 temper. But then fine weather does not 
 always make fine tempers. 
 
 “ I have never,” the Discoverer went on 
 — he had been talking ever since the 
 last remark of his, quoted a few columns 
 back, but we had other things to talk about 
 and have not followed him — “ I have 
 never,” he was saying, “ thought less of a 
 man for being wrong, so long as his mind 
 is open to truth, and he has the courage of 
 his opinions. Thus, I have named the 
 children after those who were my fore- 
 runners, though they did not, it is true, 
 prepare the way for my discoveries, but 
 quite the contrary. Ptolemy, Kepler, 
 Tycho Brahe, Galileo, Copernicus, are 
 names which will always be held in honour, 
 long, long after that of Reginald Ambler 
 has been elevated to the highest place in 
 the roll of honour. This, my children, 
 may not be till after I am dead and gone ; 
 yet it will come in the lifetime of some 
 among you. I say no more, but that three 
 letters of enquiry have been received at the 
 Society’s offices this week. Already the 
 cause spreads rapidly ; but nothing, nothing 
 to the wildfire speed with which it will be 
 taken up when once the people have been 
 allowed to see and judge for themselves.” 
 
 He drank off a whole glass of beer, 
 paused, meditated for a few moments, with 
 his finger to his forehead, pushed back his 
 hair, and was about to proceed, when 
 there were sounds of wheels in the road, 
 and a ring at the bell of the outer gate. 
 And this was so rare an event — indeed an 
 event hitherto unheard-of— that everybody 
 jumped in his chair and looked at each other. 
 
 “ It is perhaps another anxious enquirer,” 
 said the philosopher. “ Can one of the 
 Cambridge professors be going to accept 
 the challenge 1 ” 
 
 “ It is the Parcels Delivery Company,” 
 said Kepler. 
 
& ...==x: 
 
 20 [November 13, 1883.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 “ It is Milly’s great Fortune,” said Coper- 
 nica, “ coming home from America in a 
 box.” 
 
 “ Jt is ” began another, but stopped, 
 
 because the door opened and the servant — 
 they had but one— put in her head. 
 
 “ Please, m’m,” she said, “there’s a 
 gentleman wants to see Miss Milly.” 
 
 They looked at each other in something 
 like consternation. A gentleman wanting 
 Milly ! What gentleman % Who could 
 it be 1 
 
 Milly turned very pale, and took George’s 
 hand. 
 
 “ Come with me, George,” she said. 
 
 “If it is— if it is ” Mrs. Ambler 
 
 could not say “ your father.” “Whoever 
 it is, I think, Reginald, as Milly’s guardian, 
 you or both of us ought to go with her 
 too.” 
 
 “ Certainly,” said Mr. Ambler. “ Shall 
 we show him into the map-room 1 The 
 contemplation of the charts may lead him 
 round ” 
 
 “ He shall come in here,” said the mother, 
 looking round. “ Whoever it is, he shall 
 see Milly in the ordinary way, with the 
 children round her, bless her! Kepler, 
 my dear, ask the gentleman to come in.” 
 
 It was now nearly ten. Outside it was 
 still twilight, but in the room there was a 
 pleasant obscurity. Milly stood at the 
 table, her back to the window, George 
 beside her, holding her hand. Every- 
 body had risen in expectation. The tears 
 were already in Copernica’s eyes, and 
 making her spectacles dim out of pure 
 sympathy. The family atmosphere was 
 changed. Calm and serenity were vanished ; 
 in their place the beating heart, the 
 quickened pulse, the agitation and oppres- 
 sion which fill the mind before a thunder- 
 storm. 
 
 Then the “gentleman” came into the 
 room. In the dim twilight Milly saw a 
 tall figure in the doorway. 
 
 “ Is there here,” he said, “ a young lady 
 named Milly Montoro 1 ” 
 
 “ I am her guardian,” replied Mr. 
 Ambler. “ My name is Reginald Ambler. 
 
 I am, as you may be aware, the Discoverer, 
 under Providence, of the true astronomy. 
 Miss Montoro is here. Have you any 
 message or parcel, or — or anything for 
 her 1 ” 
 
 “ If you will light your gas,” said the 
 stranger, “ I will tell you.” 
 
 One of the boys lit the burners. They 
 saw now a gentleman with a heavy brown 
 moustache, no beard or whiskers, strongly 
 
 ^ :: . ■ ■ ■•= 
 
 marked features, and eyes very keen, hard, 
 and bright. He was well dressed, and 
 looked as if he was, in City language, a 
 substantial, or “ warm ” man, yet not in the 
 least like any City man they had ever 
 encountered. He looked round the room, 
 resting his eye first for a moment on 
 Copernica, but, as if dissatisfied with the 
 spectacles, he turned to Milly. Then he 
 stepped forward and held out his hand, 
 saying coldly, “I suppose you are my 
 daughter ! ” 
 
 She sprang forward, and fell into his 
 arms with a cry of surprise and joy. Her 
 father at last ! 
 
 Her father ! Then her Fortune had come 
 home. The boys looked straight before 
 them, with tightness in their throats. 
 Copernica wept silently; the mother wept 
 loudly. Only George seemed discon- 
 tented. 
 
 “My daughter,” the stranger repeated 
 coldly, and disengaging himself from her 
 arms without so much as kissing her. 
 “Yes, it is natural after all these years. I 
 suppose I might have expected to be 
 hugged. That will do, Milly. I suppose 
 I must call you Milly. Of course. I was 
 hardly prepared, I must own, Mr. Ab — - 
 Ambler, for such a — in fact I could not 
 have believed that you were so well-grown 
 a girl. However — yes, my dear, it is your 
 father. You did not expect to see me, 
 perhaps 1 ” 
 
 “You have been silent for four long 
 years,” she replied. “ How could I ” 
 
 “True, true; we will talk of that 
 another time. You have been living here, 
 
 I suppose. And this is Mr. Ambler ; and — 
 ah !— Mrs. Ambler ; and— ah !— the family 
 Amblers.” 
 
 “These,” said Milly, “are the kind 
 friends, and the boys and girls I have 
 told you of in my letters so often.” 
 
 “You have, my — my dear.” Strange 
 that the adjective should seem so hard to 
 say. “You certainly have. Your letters 
 are all in my pocket at this moment. They 
 have never left me, I assure you.” 
 
 “ Oh, father ! ” 
 
 “ Never, my — ahem ! — my dear. I 
 have read some of them — ahem ! — more 
 than once.” 
 
 Between having letters always in your 
 pocket and reading them more than ofice 
 there seems a wide gap. 
 
 Milly’s eyes dropped. 
 
 “ Well, my daughter ? ” He hesitated 
 and looked round. “ As it is evening, and 
 a little late, and I have to get back to the 
 
 ==% 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 21 
 
 West End, and — and — is there anything 
 you wish to say before I go ? Of course 
 we shall meet again to-morrow or next 
 day, or — or — in fact, you will study your 
 own convenience. As regards future 
 
 arrangements, I do not suppose that I shall 
 go back to America for a few weeks ; but 
 of that we can speak afterwards. So, for 
 ; ;he present ” 
 
 “ Stay, father, one moment ! ” The girl 
 took George’s hand, while the rest looked 
 at each other bewildered. Was this the 
 kind of meeting one would dream of 
 between father and daughter after twenty 
 years’ separation 1 “This,” said Milly, 
 
 “is George Ambrose, my lover. We are 
 going to be married.” 
 
 Mr. Montoro slowly put up a pair of 
 eye-glasses, and looked at George from head 
 to foot. 
 
 “ Not so fast,” he said, “ not so fast. 
 
 You have a father, whose permission 
 
 May I ask you, sir, what is your profes- 
 sion ? ” 
 
 “I am at present a clerk in a chemical 
 works,” said George, hot and red. 
 
 “ A clerk — a mere clerk ! My — ahem ! 
 — my daughter, we will speak of this 
 afterwards.” 
 
 “*You were a clerk yourself once,” said 
 George in a quiet rage, while the two 
 elder boys murmured, because they too 
 were clerks. 
 
 “ What the devil do you mean by 
 that 1 ” asked Mr. Montoro fiercely. “ How 
 dare you say that I was once a clerk ? ” 
 
 “ If you are ashamed of it,” said George, 
 “ I shall certainly not remind you of the 
 fact again. I am not ashamed of begin- 
 ning as a clerk. Perhaps I shall rise out 
 of it.” 
 
 Here was a pretty beginning. Milly 
 looked in consternation from her father to 
 her lover. Why did her father fall into 
 such sudden and violent wrath ? Every- 
 body knew he had been a clerk, and had 
 gone away and made his Fortune. How- 
 ever, he recovered as quickly, and deigning 
 no further reply to the unlucky lover 
 turned to bis daughter. 
 
 “We will talk, Milly,” he said with a 
 coldness of voice which fell upon her heart 
 like ice — “we will talk of these things 
 another time. Meantime I have found out 
 where you live, which is a disgusting 
 distance from anywhere. I shall probably 
 call here again to-morrow afternoon. Mean- 
 time — ah ! — good night.” 
 
 He gave her his hand without offering to 
 kiss her, and retired without another word. 
 
 Mr. Ambler had the presence of mind to 
 follow him and catch him by the arm. 
 
 “Pardon me, sir, one word, if only to 
 satisfy the neighbours. Your Glorious 
 Fortune, of which we have heard so 
 much, is it — is it safe 1 Is all well 
 with it ? ” 
 
 “ Quite safe,” Mr. Montoro replied. “ It 
 is,” he added with a grin, “just exactly as 
 safe as it always has been — on as sound a 
 basis, and as gigantic. I thought you would 
 want to know first thing about the Fortune. 
 And as to neighbours, be good enough to 
 tell them that I don’t want to know ’em, 
 and I won’t know ’em, and I won’t see ’em. 
 What I am going to do about Milly I 
 cannot just yet tell you; perhaps I have 
 not made up my mind. But hark ye, Mr. 
 Addlepate, or whatever your name is ” 
 
 “Ambler, sir — Beginald Ambler, the 
 Discoverer of ” 
 
 “ Remember, I will have no neighbours 
 here. Perhaps I may have been a clerk my- 
 self in the old days. Perhaps I am not too 
 anxious to have them recalled. Keep them 
 out of my way, do you hear 1 ” 
 
 He opened the door, walked noisily down 
 the gravel, got into his cab, and drove 
 away. 
 
 “ Oh, good gracious ! ” cried Mrs. Ambler. 
 “My poor — poor child ! Did anyone ever 
 hear or see such a thing ? ” 
 
 . “ Oh, poor Milly ! ” said Copernica, 
 kissing her until the spectacles scratched 
 her cheek. 
 
 “ But the letters he used to write ! ” said 
 Milly. “I cannot understand it. What 
 has changed him 1 Not one kind word ! 
 and the letters so full of sweet things ! 
 And — oh, George ! ” 
 
 “Never mind me, dear,” said George 
 hoarsely. 
 
 “But I must mind you. You are to 
 come first, not my father. He must not 
 upset my life. Yes, I know about the fifth 
 commandment, but that can’t be meant for 
 fathers who stay away twenty years.” She 
 looked determined. “ Go now, George, 
 it is getting late. Go, dear, and trust 
 me.” 
 
 “I wish,” said Mr. Ambler, “I do wish 
 that he had been shown first into the map- 
 room. If he had understood, even a little, 
 under what a roof his daughter has been 
 brought up, he would have approached the 
 question of — of George — with a little more 
 feeling. I say nothing about the Truth. 
 That may, or may not, come afterwards. 
 He looked as if he might become an 
 Enquirer. But we should have impressed 
 
22 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 him first. We did wrong. We should 
 have impressed him first of all, with the 
 maps, the charts, and the working models.” 
 
 CHAPTER IV. A WARM WELCOME. 
 
 An interval of fifteen years for moral 
 refreshment is a good spell. Unfortunately, 
 whether the time be passed in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Weymouth, or on Dartmoor, 
 or in the new world, the patient, on his 
 return to society, generally finds that his 
 finer qualities, to remember which has 
 probably been his chief comfort in exile, 
 are all clean forgotten, and only those little 
 episodes which necessitated his departure 
 are now remembered. 
 
 The extraordinary vitality of disagreeable 
 things has never yet been treated seriously. 
 
 A man shall be your most delightful com- 
 panion for years, your bosom friend and 
 confidant; he then, perhaps, forges your 
 name — only once ; steals your money — is 
 only found out once ; cheats at cards— and 
 is only once detected ; embezzles his em- 
 ployer’s money — but is only once dis- 
 covered, and therefore is compelled to seek 
 retirement for a while. On his return it 
 is excessively annoying to find that nothing 
 is remembered except the misfortune which 
 separated him from his friends. 
 
 In a better state of things the patient 
 will be welcomed back as one who has 
 been suffering from some brain disorder, 
 the treatment of which is understood. He 
 will be considered perfectly recovered, 
 and be even ostentatiously trusted with 
 cheques payable to order, bags of gold, 
 and heaps of postal orders; he will be 
 invited to play cards in the most highly 
 moral circles; he will be begged to take 
 care of money belonging to the church, or 
 the neediest widow, or the most helpless 
 orphans, and in every way be made to feel 
 that his disease was completely cured. 
 
 This, I am sorry to say, was not the 
 treatment received by the Colonel on his 
 return to England, which followed very 
 shortly after his departure from Oregon. 
 He was in a somewhat delicate position, 
 because he was unable to know how far 
 the reasons of his exile were understood by 
 his old associates. Now, if a man simply 
 disappears and remains a “ vanished hand 
 for a period of years, society has certainly 
 no right to question that man’s own version 
 of his story, or to entertain injurious 
 suspicions, or to spread malicious reports. 
 There are many instances on record of 
 such re-appearances, and I have never 
 heard that the adventures related by the 
 
 man supposed to have gone under for good 
 have been seriously doubted, whether he 
 declares that he was wrecked on a desert 
 island, married to an Amazon in the heart 
 of the Dark Continent, carried off by 
 friendly gorillas, or compelled to wander 
 among Patagonians, Guachos, and Aztecs. 
 But things are different where . nasty 
 stories survive, as the Colonel experienced. 
 
 His name, while he was yet in English 
 society, was Percival Brooke W est ; he was 
 a gentleman by birth, and the only son of 
 his mother, who was a widow. By what 
 extravagances, selfish indulgences, wanton 
 wastings, profligacies, and prodigal-son busi- 
 ness, he ran through his patrimony ; har- 
 dened his heart ; deadened his conscience ; 
 lost his taste for any pleasures which were 
 not highly flavoured, peppered, and cabob- 
 curried ; destroyed the sense of honour, and 
 converted himself into a man-eating tiger, 
 it needs not here to relate, nor need we 
 here even indicate the path by which a 
 plunging youth becomes a^rofligate and 
 ruined man. Nor need we pause to 
 tell the story of what he did. He “ did 
 something” many times, but at the last 
 he was discovered. And then he retired 
 — disappeared, became the “ vanished 
 hand” at the card-table, and the “voice that 
 is still” in the smoking-room. The world 
 went on without him, and, for fifteen years, 
 the racecourse, the club, the streets of the 
 West End knew him no longer, and without 
 him the old game went on merrily— the 
 young fellows on the “ unlimited chuck,” 
 the hawks hovering over the pigeons, and 
 ever and anon another young fellow. “ doing 
 something ” and speedily disappearing. 
 
 Then he returned. 
 
 Before Mr. Percival Brooke West showed 
 himself in the old haunts— before, in fact, 
 he took passage from New York, he cut 
 off his beard, dyed his hair and moustache 
 brown, and dressed himself in raiment as 
 youthful as a man near fifty, who wishes to 
 pass for five-and-thirty, can venture upon. 
 He took up his quarters in a good Bond 
 Street hotel, and he then considered which 
 of his old friends he should first attempt. 
 Naturally he chose the ones who had been 
 in the same “swim” with himself— that 
 plunging, headlong, exhilarating swim 
 down the rapids, with the beautiful whirl- 
 pool at the end, reported to have sucked 
 many a stout swimmer beneath its boiling 
 waters. Had not he himself — — ? 
 
 He remembered seven or eight of the 
 old set and sat down to write to them. 
 The letters were really models. No polite 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLOEIOUS FOETUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 23 
 
 letter-writer could have taught him more 
 artfully to convey the strength and enduring 
 warmth of his old friendship, his own joy 
 at his return, and his eager looking for- 
 ward to another meeting. He also con- 
 trived to let it be understood that his 
 financial position was extraordinarily sound, 
 and that feasting, would come into fashion 
 again. 
 
 He forgot that in fifteen years such a set 
 as his would most certainly have fallen all 
 to pieces — first because the pace could not 
 continue, and secondly because many of 
 the men, younger than himself, would 
 leave it in order to enter seriously upon 
 the pursuit of a career. There are really 
 very few who continue in the resolute pur- 
 suit of pleasure until past middle life, even 
 though the ashes of the Dead Sea apples 
 have got into their throats and made them 
 cough and choke. 
 
 The letters despatched, he walked about 
 the streets waiting for answers. The dear 
 old streets. Heavens ! How delightful 
 to be back again among them, even with so 
 moderate a sum as eight hundred pounds 
 to spend ! But it would be enough, perhaps, 
 to procure him readmission into the old 
 circles, with such share in the riot of the 
 Fool's Paradise as a man of fifty may look 
 for. 
 
 After two days he got one answer — the 
 first and the only one. It was from a dear 
 and old friend, and a follower of his 
 own way of thinking. The writer said 
 that he rejoiced to receive so friendly 
 a letter, because he had long thought 
 he had no friends left at all ; that he 
 had been for a good while quite down 
 on his luck, and was now stone broke. 
 But that he had a wife and family to 
 support, and in these his wretched and 
 impoverished circumstances, he knew not 
 where to look even for food for them; 
 that he was ill, moreover, and like to die — 
 with a good deal more to the same effect, 
 concluding with the remark that they had 
 both had misfortunes of the same kind, 
 and ought to feel for each other. (“ What 
 the deuce does he mean V’ asked the reader.) 
 Wherefore a temporary advance would 
 be most thankfully accepted, and a reply 
 to this note would be expected with the 
 fullest confidence and hope. 
 
 I am obliged to own that Mr. Brooke 
 West tore this letter up in a rage. 
 
 “ Confound the fellow ! What did he 
 mean by the ‘ same misfortune ’ ? Stone 
 broke, was he ? Let him starve ! ” 
 
 But there came no more answers to his 
 
 letters. Therefore he resolved upon calling 
 on his old friends, though with some mis- 
 givings. 
 
 “ * The same misfortune.’ What did the 
 impudent beggar and pauper mean 1 ” 
 
 One of the old set was a partner in a 
 City house ; another was a barrister ; a 
 third, a fourth, and a fifth had once been 
 officers in the army, and so on. He would 
 call. He would find out if they intended to 
 be nasty about a thing now fifteen years 
 old, if, indeed, they knew of it. 
 
 The results of his visits illustrated in a 
 very surprising manner the tendency which 
 I have already deplored. That is to say, 
 no one was in the least disposed to forget 
 that thing, which they knew perfectly well, 
 and coupled with his memory as indelibly 
 as the sailor associates an anchor with the 
 skin of his arm. And yet remark that 
 he, the man chiefly concerned, was as 
 willing to bury it and have done with it, 
 as the Eed Indians are, in time of peace, 
 to bury a tomahawk ! 
 
 I have often wondered if that tomahawk 
 was always expended in the funeral service 
 or whether it was sometimes dug up by a 
 Eesurrection brave and traded away for 
 what it would fetch in whiskey. 
 
 It is a dreadful story of outrage and 
 humiliation. 
 
 First, Mr. Brooke West went to call 
 upon his old friend the partner in the 
 City house. No one in his younger days 
 had carried on the game with greater eager- 
 ness than the frolicsome young merchant 
 adventurer. Surely this man, at least, 
 would be glad to welcome his old friend. 
 
 Was he glad Not at all. On the con- 
 trary it appeared that he was very sorry. 
 When he got Mr. Brooke West’s card, 
 which was sent in to him, this merchant, 
 no longer frolicsome, but now quite sober 
 and dignified, turned very red in the 
 cheeks — they were most respectable cheeks 
 now, as ready to blush at wickedness 
 as the cheek of the young person, and 
 regularly seen every Sunday at church 
 — said strong things about the unqualified 
 impudence of disgraced swindlers, and 
 sent out word that if the caller and owner 
 of the card did not instantly leav9 that 
 office, he was without delay to be driven 
 and kicked down the stairs by the united 
 efforts of the clerks. 
 
 Mr. Brooke West received this message, 
 delivered in its integrity, without making 
 any reply ‘or attempt at justification. For 
 a moment his eyes flashed and he clenched 
 his fists, so that the clerk, who glibly 
 
24 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 delivered the reply, quailed and turned 
 pale. Then, without a word, he walked 
 away. It is the worst of such a situation 
 that a man cannot afford the luxury of a 
 row, else he would have gone for that 
 irreproachable merchant. 
 
 Next he went, but with much less 
 confidence, to call upon another old pal, a 
 barrister in the Temple. He was a man 
 who had got on in his profession, thought 
 of taking silk, gambled no more, had for- 
 gotten the ways of iniquity and its wages, 
 was married and lived on Campden Hill, 
 and the memory of his younger days, when 
 it came back to him, was no longer a thing 
 he loved to dwell upon. 
 
 He, too, on receiving the card, jumped 
 in his chair, used strong words, tore up 
 the card, and sent an insulting message 
 that he had nothing whatever to say to 
 Mr. Brooke West, and refused to see him. 
 
 Again the Colonel walked away without 
 reply. But, I think that, had he got that 
 respectable merchant and that successful 
 lawyer on the Embankment in the evening, 
 two distinct flops or splashes would have 
 been presently heard in the river ; or had 
 he met either of them on a lonely heath 
 after dark there would have been a lively 
 dance, with steps not described in the 
 books. 
 
 Next, he went to his old club, where he 
 found a new hall-porter, who did not know 
 him. First, he asked for his old friend 
 Captain Pacer 1 Alas ! the gallant captain 
 was dead this many a long year. Then 
 for Major Fauchelevent, another of the 
 glorious band of revellers ? Why, the 
 major had left the club a long time ; had 
 been, in fact, expelled from it. Then he 
 asked for Colonel Cassade ? This member, 
 now General Cassade, was actually in the 
 club at that moment. Mr. Brooke West 
 sent up his card, and waited with pale face, 
 and lips that trembled a little. In two 
 minutes the general himself came down 
 the stairs, leaning heavily on his stick, 
 grey -haired, red-faced, gouty. And as for 
 greeting, friendly smile, hand-shaking, and a 
 cordial welcome home ! — when the returned 
 prodigal held out his hand, advancing with 
 a genial smile, though an uncertain eye, 
 and said with hearty smile, “ Old fellow ! 
 
 . How goes it ? ” the gallant officer, standing 
 in the middle of the hall, banged his stick 
 on the floor, so that the panes in the 
 windows shook for fear, and every pair of 
 tongs jumped, and most of the glasses in 
 the house fell into small fragments; and 
 asked with purple cheeks and furious eyes, 
 
 and a stentorian voice, what m the name 
 of this, and of that — words which find their 
 fittest home on the banks of the silver 
 Thames, and especially at Richmond, or 
 beside the stalls of Billingsgate — what he 
 meant by his confounded impudence ? A 
 fellow who was expelled — actually expelled 
 that very same club, daring to send up his 
 impudent card, to call upon him, the 
 general ! 
 
 “ Turn him out, hall-porter, do you 
 hear 'i ” he cried. “ Turn him out into the 
 street ! Knock him down if he ventures 
 to call again ! Turn him out, I say 1 ” 
 
 This last blow left no room for hope. 
 That part of the world — after all a very 
 small one — was closed. As a matter of 
 fact, Mr. Brooke West did not know until 
 then that he had been expelled the club. 
 He thought that perhaps a kindly inter- 
 pretation of certain fishy transactions, 
 which had led to his exile, might have been 
 laid before the committee. Well, that was 
 done ; he must try something else. As 
 for making a scene or having a row, that 
 was out of the question. He changed his 
 hotel ; he went to the Langham, where 
 there are generally more Americans than 
 English. There was little fear that any- 
 body there would recognise him for what 
 he had been in the Southern and Western 
 States. He was now the English gentle- 
 man, who had travelled and lost some of 
 the national prejudice and reserve. And 
 here he stayed for six months and more. 
 He began to make acquaintances, and 
 presently forced his way to certain places 
 where play — good, honest, high play — is to 
 be had, whether baccarat, napoleon, hazard, 
 mont6, euchre, poker, or the simple roulette. 
 He found there were still plenty of hawks 
 about, and pigeons harder than ever to 
 catch and pluck. But he did pretty well. 
 
 I do not know how or when it was 
 that he first thought of Montoro’s daughter. 
 By accident he carried off her letters 
 with the bank-notes. Now and then 
 he turned them over in his portmanteau. 
 “My dearest Father,” they began, and 
 after eight pages at least of gossip, they 
 ended, “Your most affectionate and loving 
 daughter, Milly Montoro.” There was 
 property — she spoke about “the houses;” 
 the poor creature, her father, had spoken of 
 certain houses. Gradually he came to think 
 upon this property more and more. It 
 was almost certainly her father’s property ; 
 it was not likely that it was settled upon 
 the girl. Could not he get that property ? 
 It was a little thing, but it might be of 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLOEIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 25 
 
 immense service to him. And the thought 
 came to fill his brain, as the thought of 
 Naboth’s vineyard filled the brain of Ahab. 
 But there was only one way to get it; 
 only one way to get that property — viz., 
 boldly to assume the name of the man he 
 had robbed ; to see as little as possible of 
 the girl and her relatives ; and to sell the 
 property for what it would fetch, put the 
 money in his own pocket, and go away with 
 it. As for the girl, she would find some- 
 thing to do ; young people can always 
 work. And houses worth a hundred and 
 fifty pounds a year can be sold for some- 
 thing — two thousand pounds, or perhaps 
 more. Two thousand pounds ! But, then, 
 to become a Claimant — to assume another 
 man’s personality ! 
 
 The longer he pondered over this idea 
 the more it pleased him. As for difficulties, 
 there were, so far as he could see, few, so 
 long as he kept out of the way of Montoro’s 
 cousins and relations ; he could show an 
 exact knowledge of the life led by the girl 
 who had told her father everything ; he 
 had her letters ; he knew the scrambling 
 household, the enthusiast and visionary, 
 the sons who had no chance at home and 
 longed for one abroad— everything. He 
 
 knew, or guessed, what kind of letters the 
 man who had made so enormous a fortune 
 sent to his daughter; they were vague 
 letters, full of splendours and hazy glories, 
 about which he could build any structure 
 he pleased. Everything was ready to his 
 hand, provided only there was no one to 
 swear that he could not be the lost 
 Montoro. Here again he was helped, 
 though he admitted to himself that it was 
 the one serious risk. The girl’s relations 
 neglected her altogether. They never made 
 any enquiry about her ; her father’s people, 
 who belonged to quite the lower class of 
 clerks, were scattered and dispersed, and 
 too much occupied with their own troubles 
 to ask what had become of Charles’s girl ; 
 her mother’s sister, she who had married 
 into “ carriage company,” had gone, on up 
 the hill of fortune, and was now, with her 
 husband, so rich that she had a great house 
 at Wimbledon, with more than one carriage, 
 and contented herself with writing to her 
 niece once a year or. so. The very people 
 in whose house she lived knew nothing of 
 her father ; nothing was wanted to carry 
 through the business but swiftness and 
 courage — a rush and a bold front. If, in 
 the interval, which must be brief, between 
 the first appearance and the last,. cousins 
 should offer to renew cousinly acquaintance, 
 
 those cousins must be insulted and snubbed. 
 The thing could be done safely if it were 
 done quickly. And though it was impos- 
 sible to foresee all the difficulties which 
 might arise, he could provide against most. 
 Freedom and skill in lying, it seemed to 
 him, were the first essentials. And so far 
 he was the equal of any living man. 
 
 You have seen how he made his first ap- 
 pearance. It was after dark; if, perad venture, 
 there was any one who might have known 
 Montoro in the old days, then was there 
 time to prepare that person. for a change in 
 appearance, manner, and voice ; he did not 
 assume the manner of the affectionate and 
 tender parent ; he could not, in the first 
 place, and in the next, it was better for his 
 purposes to be the hard and stern father. 
 He was astonished, certainly, at his 
 daughter’s embrace, having forgotten that 
 girls do kiss their fathers ; but on the 
 whole he was satisfied. So far he had been 
 accepted without the slightest suspicion. 
 
 The next day he drove to Veritas Villa 
 in the afternoon. His daughter came to 
 him, but on this occasion she did not offer 
 to throw herself into his arms ; he held out 
 his hand coldly, and she took it as coldly, 
 though she had been crying all the night 
 over this disappointment of a father. Many 
 a woman cries over a disappointing son, but 
 few have to lament that a father does not 
 turn out as he had been expected. Perhaps 
 she had allowed her imagination too much 
 freedom. All she had to go upon were his 
 letters, and these spoke to her of a.writer 
 very different from this cold man with the 
 hard eyes. 
 
 “Let us talk,” he said. “There is a 
 good deal to say. Let me see, Milly is 
 your name, is it not 1 Yes — Milly, to be 
 sure — Milly.” He wondered if it was 
 
 Emily, Amelia, Millicent, Matilda, or some- 
 thing else. “ It is strange, at first, talking 
 to my own daughter.” 
 
 “You did not find it strange writing to 
 her.” 
 
 “ No, that was different. Hid you expect 
 to find your father what he is 1 ” 
 
 “ I did not,” said Milly truthfully. . 
 
 “ You took me at your mother’s estimate. 
 I believe she told you I was a meek and 
 gentle nature. Perhaps, in those days, I was. 
 If a man wants to get on, over there, mind 
 you, he must get rid of his meekness. So, 
 that is the first thing I have to say. Next, 
 I am accustomed to have my own way. 
 Please remember that. Perhaps you 
 thought when I came home you would 
 
 B 
 
rJ 
 
 a 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 
 26 [November IB, 1883.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 £3 
 
 have it all your way. Not so fast, young 
 lady.” 
 
 Milly said nothing ; but a red flush on 
 either cheek might have told him, had he 
 remembered Matilda, that she was her 
 mother’s daughter. 
 
 “When your mother died, you left 
 Hackney Wick. Lord ! what a place to live 
 in ! Where was it that you lived in 
 Hackney Wick 1 ” 
 
 “ Why,” said the girl, surprised, “ in the 
 old house, of course, where you lived until 
 you went away.” 
 
 “ To be sure — the old house ; the old 
 house in Hackney Wick. And then you 
 came here ? ” 
 
 “ Mr. Richard Ambler, who managed the 
 houses, suggested his cousin to my aunt, 
 when they wanted some one to take care 
 of me.” 
 
 “ Richard — Richard Ambler,” he stroked 
 his chin. “ Do I remember him ? ” 
 
 “ No, I should think not. He told me 
 once he had never seen you.” 
 
 “Good. I will go to see him then. 
 Write down his address. He manages the 
 houses, does he? We will walk round 
 some day and see the old place. Are there 
 any of my old friends left to see you 
 sometimes ? ” 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 “I think I have never seen any of your 
 old friends or relations at all. I do not 
 know where they are.” 
 
 “ Nor do I,” he said, with perfect truth. 
 “ We shall not trouble ourselves much to 
 find them, that is very certain. And your 
 mother’s people ? ” 
 
 “They now live at Wimbledon, a long 
 way off ; and I seldom see my aunt 
 Paulina or my cousins. I do not think 
 anybody cares very much about me, except 
 the Amblers here.” 
 
 “ Very good,” her father replied. “ They 
 keep away from you so long as you are poor, 
 do they ? Then we will keep away from 
 them now that we are rich. As for me, 
 remember that I refuse to see cousins of 
 this kind. Absolutely refuse, mind ! ” 
 
 He looked so fierce — so needlessly fierce 
 —that Milly was frightened. Certainly 
 this new father of hers was not one to be 
 crossed. 
 
 “ When I went away,” he said presently, 
 “ when I gave up the post I held in the 
 
 firm of What the devil now was the 
 
 name of the people 1 ” 
 
 Milly shook her head. She did not know. 
 
 “ I think the least you could have done,” 
 he replied angrily, “ was to make yourself 
 
 acquainted with the history of your own 
 father. Never mind. What did you care 
 about your father 1 When I went away 
 your mother had about a hundred and 
 
 fifty pounds a year — some trifle ” 
 
 “ She lived upon it, trifle though you 
 call it, until she died, since you sent her 
 nothing, and I have lived upon it since,” 
 said Milly quickly. 
 
 “Yes, yes — I know. What is it worth 
 now ?” 
 
 “ The houses are all let, and they pro- 
 duce, I believe, after allowing for repairs, 
 about a hundred and eighty pounds a year. 
 This is all paid to Mr. Ambler for my 
 maintenance, education, and dress.” 
 
 “ A very handsome sum, upon my word ! 
 
 A hundred and eighty pounds a year ! It 
 should have been eighty, that would have 
 been quite enough, and the rest saved for 
 me.” 
 
 “ For you ? But the property was my 
 mother’s, who left it to me ! ” 
 
 “ Did she make any will ? ” 
 
 “No; there was no need. Nobody else 
 could take her property.” 
 
 “You forget — her husband. There were 
 no settlements;” he did not at all know 
 whether there were any or not, but he 
 assumed that there were none. “ All your 
 mother’s effects were therefore, and are 
 still, mine.” 
 
 His ! Milly trembled — was she to lose 
 her little property — the property which 
 was going to do so much for the home 
 when she married George ? 
 
 “Fortunately,” she said timidly, “you 
 are so rich that you do not want it ! ” 
 
 “ Rich ! yes ; but no man refuses money, 
 or can afford to throw it away. As for 
 those houses — see, girl,” he rose and 
 walked to the window, “ it is as well to 
 understand at once — I have come over here 
 at great loss of time and money, leaving- 
 enormous affairs — affairs of the very greatest 
 importance, in the hands of people I only 
 half trust, for you. I cannot stay long, there 
 is nothing for me to do here ; I have got 
 no friends in England ; I am out of the 
 world ; and there is no getting back to the 
 old life.” 
 
 “ Getting back to the old life ! ” Milly 
 stared and gasped. She pretty well knew 
 what the old life was, with penniless 
 brother-clerks for companions, and the 
 bar-parlour for club; “the old life ! ” 
 
 “ Of course ; when I said the old life, I 
 mean the old friends.” 
 
 “ Would you care to meet them again — 
 those old friends of yours ? ” 
 
 n 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, ' 
 
 3.] 27 
 
 Milly remembered her mother’s lamen- 
 tations over the memory of those old 
 friends who took her husband from his 
 home, led him into taverns, drank with 
 him, and made him smoke too much 
 tobacco ; initiated him into the Orders and 
 Brotherhoods of Ancient Buffaloes, Druids, 
 Shepherds, Odd-Fellows, or even Free and 
 Accepted Masons. Her husband’s love of 
 low life, she said, coupled with his lack of 
 ambition, was the bane of her married life. 
 Perhaps she exaggerated. 
 
 “ As for the friends,” her father replied, 
 
 “ if they have gone on in the old way, I 
 don’t want to meet them. When a man 
 gets up in the world, the first thing he 
 should do is to kick away the ladder, and 
 not know one of ’em. As for the old life, 
 
 I don’t suppose I ever want to hear about 
 that again. Why I was a clerk in the City ; 
 
 I had to go and write all day. A pretty 
 kind of life mine was : at a desk all day, 
 and your mother’s tongue in the evening. 
 Very well, then. Don’t interrupt. There is 
 nothing to keep me here. I shall sell the 
 property, and we will go back together ; 
 father and daughter ought not to be 
 separated ; I suppose there is no particular 
 reason why you should stay here, is 
 there ] ” 
 
 “ There is George,” she replied. 
 
 “ Your sweetheart ] The chemist’s clerk] 
 You may leave me to settle with him. 
 About this Ambler fellow, this jackass with 
 the Discovery, has he got any money, or 
 do you keep him and all his family, too 1 ” 
 
 “ He has a small fortune ; I know what 
 it is because I have heard over and over 
 again. He has five thousand pounds in the 
 Three per Cents.” 
 
 “Of course, then, he is mighty fond of 
 you with your hundred and eighty. Why, 
 it is as good as doubling his income. Go 
 tell him, if he is in the house, that I want 
 to see him.” 
 
 “Father,” said Milly, standing before 
 him, and looking him straight in the face, 
 “there is one thing in which you must 
 please understand me at once. I can never 
 give up George.” 
 
 “Not even to go back with me — your 
 own father ] ” 
 
 “ Not even that. I do not think, in any 
 case, even without George, I could go back 
 with you.” 
 
 “Why not, pray]” 
 
 “Because,” she was a perfectly truth f ul 
 girl, and she therefore spoke exactly what 
 was in her mind, “ because I am afraid of 
 you. Your letters prepared me for some- 
 
 thing very different. You are cold and 
 harsh; you begin with taking away my 
 property — my own, although you are so 
 rich that you despise it for being such a very 
 little property. I cannot prevent you, I 
 suppose. But I will not go back to 
 America with you, and I will not give up 
 Geo ” 
 
 She broke down, her voice choked ; she 
 fled because she would not let this hard 
 father of hers see that he had made her cry. 
 
 ‘ It is rather more serious work than I 
 anticipated,” said the Claimant to himself. 
 “ It makes a man respect the stage-father. 
 
 I suppose she expected to be kissed and 
 cuddled and made much of. Well — I can’t 
 do it. As for George, I think it is a deuced 
 lucky thing there is a George, because she’s 
 a creature with a will of her own, not like 
 her fool of a father, and she certainly will 
 not give up her lover for a dozen fathers. 
 So much the better for me. Because now 
 I can sell up the property, and go away 
 openly without concerning myself about 
 an undutiful child who prefers to remain 
 with her George. It is better than 
 running away. I am really very pleased 
 there is a George. Bless them both ! 
 Suppose she had thrown herself upon my 
 bosom and swore never to leave her fond 
 and faithful father ! ” 
 
 At supper that evening, Mr. Ambler 
 could talk of nothing but Mr. Montoro, who 
 had spent two hours with him in the map- 
 room, and had been most affable and kind. 
 
 “Before speaking of the business in 
 hand, which was, of course, you, Milly, my 
 dear, he engaged in conversation concern- 
 ing the Great Discovery. I found in him 
 one of those candid intellects, keen, in- 
 cisive, logical, and open to conviction. 
 Nothing of prejudice about Mr. Montoro. 
 He has been brought up, he confesses, in 
 the old exploded school, and has always 
 been taught that the earth was round ; he 
 was, indeed, greatly surprised to learn that 
 it is, on the other hand, flat, with a 
 surrounding Rim of ice. I begged him 
 not to take^ my simple word for it, but to 
 listen, first* to the arguments. Well, he 
 sat down. First, I gave him nry Plain 
 Reasons — r these shook him. Then be 
 answered, one after another, my Siinpl 
 Questions, and I flatter mjself conviction 
 was growing in. Then I read him the 
 Refutation, which he put in his pocket, 
 and promised to see me again upon the 
 matter. 
 
 “ Then he began to. talk about his own 
 
28 [November 13, 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 affairs. Milly, he is immensely rich, he is 
 a millionaire over and over again. I can 
 hardly tell you what he has ; there are 
 mines, cattle-runs, farms, houses — one 
 whole town belongs to him, he says. 
 Think of it. What a glorious country it 
 must be for a man in less than twenty 
 years to accumulate such wealth ! I think I 
 have made a Recruit of the very first water 
 — a Croesus among Recruits. Hitherto, 
 what we lacked in money we made up in 
 logic. Perhaps now we shall get both 
 money and logic. 
 
 “ He spoke, among other things, of a 
 college or university, I forget which, in this 
 city of his. It was built and is owned 
 entirely by himself. He said that among 
 other professional chairs there is a chair of 
 astronomy worth a thousand a year or so, 
 and that it is, by great good luck, at 
 present vacant. He has this appointment 
 in his own gift. If, he added, he is quite 
 satisfied with the new Discovery as to 
 which he was already favourably prepared 
 by his daughter’s letters — thank you, 
 Milly, my dear, you are always our 
 guardian angel ” — Milly looked horribly 
 guilty— “ he sees no reason why I should 
 not fill that chair.” 
 
 “ Oh, Lord ! ” cried George. 
 
 “ Eh, my dear 1— eh, boys ? ” 
 
 “ Where did he say it is ? ” asked George. 
 “ A thousand a year ! In his own gift 1 
 And in America ? ” 
 
 “ He did not say where. We were only 
 discussing preliminaries, and I do think, 
 children, that the name of Professor Ambler 
 — no longer plain Reginald Ambler — on a 
 title-page will carry weight, whether it is 
 the title-page of the Plain Reasons or 
 the Simple Questions.” 
 
 But Milly’s cheeks were burning, because 
 she had never spoken of her guardian’s 
 Discovery with respect in any letter to her 
 father. What did he want to deceive Mr. 
 Ambler for in so trifling a matter ? And 
 with all this wealth, why — why should he 
 desire to take from her the little property 
 which would be so useful to George and 
 herself? Was it to make her an heiress 1 
 “ George,” she said that night when she 
 dismissed him at the garden-gate, “ I do 
 not want his riches ; I wish he would go 
 away and leave me. Oh, George, I do not 
 feel the least speck of love for him '!” 
 
 CHAPTER V. A BEAUTIFUL DREAM. 
 
 So far, things had gone so easily with 
 this Pretender, that he began seriously 
 to wonder why — considering the vast 
 
 number of lost cousins, missing parents, 
 strayed brothers, and wandering uncles, 
 claimants like himself for the family affec- 
 tion, and family funds — family friends do 
 not continually turn up. Perhaps they do. 
 Perhaps there are hundreds among us — 
 unsuspecting innocents — bearing names to 
 which they are not entitled, and enjoying 
 fortunes to which they have no right. 
 What is to prevent a man who knows the 
 circumstances to march into the club of a 
 dead man, for instance, supposing he alone 
 knows that the man is dead, and taking 
 up his membership 1 
 
 Our Claimant went to the villa again 
 next day, and the day after. The girl, 
 who thought she was his daughter, attracted 
 him. She looked so pretty that he could 
 not choose but come. And after fifteen 
 years, the sight of a young and beautiful 
 English girl is something, even to a 
 hardened, selfish old gambler. She be- 
 haved nicely to him, was respectful in her 
 language, and obedient, save in the matter 
 of that young fellow. 
 
 “Milly,” he said at the fourth visit — he 
 was already so far advanced that he called 
 the girl by her Christian-name, and even 
 addressed her as “my dear,” and “my 
 child,” without stammering or hesitation. 
 “ Milly, we are getting on better. Are 
 you still afraid of me ? ” 
 
 “ How can I help being afraid of you ?” 
 she replied truthfully. “You want to 
 take me away from my friends, and from 
 my lover, and you are going to take away 
 what I thought was my property.” 
 
 “ Oh, your property ! Silly child ! Why, 
 across the ocean, for every pound you have 
 here, you shall get a hundred. Your pro- 
 perty ! Why, it is because I want to have 
 done with the place altogether that I wish 
 to sell it. Never heed such a trifle. Now 
 tell me, do you like society 1 ” 
 
 “ I do not know, we have no friends. I 
 believe there is very good society at Stam- 
 ford Hill, but we never go anywhere.” 
 
 “ Do you like theatres 1 ” 
 
 “I do not know; we never go to any.” 
 
 “ Do you like concerts ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes. I have been to a good many 
 concerts, and there are lectures and dis- 
 solving-views.” 
 
 “ Do you like the West End ? ” 
 
 “ I have never been there. You do not 
 know as yet ; we are very quiet people ; 
 we are always at home working for the 
 children.” 
 
 “ Yes,” her father was grown softer in 
 his manner, though he was no whit more 
 
Charles Di kens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 29 
 
 demonstrative or affectionate ; “ ye — yes,” 
 he said, stroking his moustache ; “ all these 
 things you know nothing of, but you would 
 love them if you knew them. Milly, with- 
 out society there is no life ; without amuse- 
 ment there is no life ; without excitement 
 there is no life. You miserable people 
 here do not live ; you sit all together in a 
 room, you breathe and walk in a cage ; 
 you know nothing about the world ; you 
 have no idea of its pleasures. If you 
 marry this young clerk, you will go on 
 breathing and walking in a cage. Why, 
 it fills me with amazement that you can 
 go on contentedly with this suburban life ; 
 and yet there must be millions all living 
 like this.” 
 
 “ Why not ? It is a very pleasant life. 
 
 I think I would rather not have the ex- 
 citement you speak of.” 
 
 “ Come with me, Milly,” said her father, 
 his face actually softening, “ and you shall 
 have a life which shall give you one plea- 
 sure after another — every day crowded 
 and filled up with pleasures.” 
 
 But she shook her head. 
 
 “ I was thankful for George at first,” he 
 said to himself. “ I thought it would rid 
 me of the girl. Now I see I was a fool, 
 for I could do much better with her than 
 without her. BuJ how to persuade her 1 ” 
 
 For by this time another thought was lying 
 in his brain, receiving every day new food 
 and encouragement. He saw, in a kind of 
 ecstatic vision, a salon or drawing-room 
 such as he had read of in the old days 
 when he used to read French novels. It 
 was a beautifully furnished room, with 
 cabinets, china, pictures, a piano, mirrors, 
 and all the pretty things which belong to 
 the life he had abandoned fifteen years 
 ago. He sighed as he thought of such a 
 room. “ I did not know,” he said, “ until I 
 came home, that I cared for it all so much.” 
 The room was full of people ; there were 
 ladies in beautiful toilettes, young men in 
 evening dress. They were sitting, walking, 
 and talking. He was himself a gentleman 
 again to outward show. At the piano sat 
 the girl — he always thought of Milly as 
 the girl — playing and singing, the younger 
 men hovering round her, making their 
 court. Presently she rose, said something, 
 and laughed, and they all sat down to a 
 table covered with green cloth, he at the 
 head. 
 
 Yes, the Colonel was not in imagination 
 returning to paths of virtue, which, 
 whether they led him into pleasant draw- 
 ing-rooms or not, would certainly prove 
 
 monotonous to him. It filled his soul with 
 happiness, however, to think that he could 
 fill a room with people “comme il faut,” 
 through the attractions of his daughter, 
 and do a stroke of business with them 
 afterwards. The perfect gambler can 
 think of nothing as complete, unless there 
 are a pack of cards in it and a green table. 
 
 There was also another dream which 
 much he loved, yet sometimes feared might 
 be difficult to realise. In this dream there 
 was one young man only in the room 
 besides the girl and himself. The young 
 man was often changed, because the even- 
 ing was made expensive for him. And in 
 this dream there was a mirror before the 
 piano in which the girl saw the hand held 
 by the young man when the flirting and 
 singing were over and play began. Then, 
 by a judicious arrangement of chords, she 
 conveyed to her confederate the knowledge 
 of that hand ; or else she got up and looked 
 over his shoulder, while that innocent 
 sheep’s eyes looked up into her artless face. 
 Oh, a beautiful dream ! But before it 
 could become possible two things were 
 necessary : the girl must be across the 
 water, and away from her friends, and she 
 must be made to love a life of luxury and 
 ease. 
 
 “Good Heavens!” he cried, “what a 
 chance there is for me ! They’ve tried it 
 with their painted and ruddled old hacks, 
 their Frenchwomen and their octoroons, 
 but never once, I swear, with a sweet- 
 faced, innocent-looking English girl. They 
 couldn’t get one. As for difficulty, there 
 would be none once across the Atlantic, 
 away from all her friends. As for doing 
 her any harm, that is rubbish. Very likely 
 she would fall in love — many young women 
 do. I could get her off my hands that 
 way without any trouble. And, if not, 
 why, then, when I had made all I want — 
 it isn’t really much — I could tell her every- 
 thing, and pack her off to Johnny in 
 Oregon. She’ll console him for the loss of 
 the money, which wasn’t his any more 
 than mine, and I shouldn’t want her more 
 than a year or two.” 
 
 He forgot that, before you get an honest 
 English girl to act as professional decoy to 
 a card-sharper, there is likely to be a very 
 considerable kind of row. 
 
 This dream remained in his mind so 
 long that it became a purpose with him. 
 He was growing old ; it would be dreadful 
 to give up the comfortable life to which he 
 had returned, and yet what to do when 
 the money went 1 He thought how easy 
 
A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 
 30 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 and pleasant it would be to receive his 
 friends in a real high-toned salon, with a 
 pretty girl to play and sing to them, and 
 help him to cheat them. She should go 
 with him. As for her lover, he must be 
 given up. 
 
 But first it was necessary to win her 
 confidence. This he might have done very 
 easily by the simple show of affection. 
 The man could feign a good deal, but love, 
 the plain and unmistakable love with which 
 many foolish fathers wrap up and surround 
 their daughters, he could not feign. There- 
 fore he sought to win her confidence by 
 dazzling her. 
 
 First, he took her to a splendid restau- 
 rant, and gave her a magnificent dinner, 
 consisting of a dozen courses, served in a 
 great room full of glass, mirrors, and 
 flowers, with champagne, of which Milly 
 had heard, but had never tasted. 
 
 “If you like,” said her father, “you 
 shall dine like this every night. Good 
 Heavens ! how have I longed in America 
 for this kind of thing again — I mean in 
 the first days, you know, before ” 
 
 “ What, could you have known anything 
 of this kind of life in the old days ] ” 
 
 “Perhaps,” he said, after a while, “a 
 clerk may get some knowledge of what a 
 dinner should be by flattening his nose at 
 the window.” 
 
 “But,” she went on, “to waste all this 
 time and money every day in such a 
 tedious 
 
 “ Confound it ! ” he cried in a rage. 
 “ You are not worth such a dinner. After 
 all, how should you understand it A 
 mutton-chop and a potato, I believe, would 
 have pleased you quite as well.” 
 
 Then he took her to a theatre. They 
 sat in a private box, and Milly looked with 
 wonder from the stage to the house, and 
 the house to the stalls. The performance 
 was a burlesque, and a favourite one. It 
 was played partly by actresses dressed as 
 men, and Milly pitied them, though the 
 audience clapped and applauded. She 
 could see nothing to applaud ; you see it 
 wants a little education before a girl, a 
 suburban and East End girl, can really 
 admire the spectacle of women dressed in 
 tights, or the performance of a ballet, or 
 the delivery of bad verses crammed with 
 puns, or the comic business, which seems 
 to them like horseplay. Such a girl does 
 not see anything to laugh at in a pun, or 
 in a funny get-up, or in a man tumbling 
 down — for that matter, she does not want 
 to laugh at all ; she would like rather to 
 
 cry, even, so long as she could see a 
 beautiful story beautifully played. But 
 this her father did not understand, and 
 fell into a rage when he perceived that 
 Milly was only bored with the performance. 
 He thought she was sulking with him on 
 account of his previous harshness. 
 
 “You shall have a private theatre of 
 your own if you like, and a ballet and all, 
 and you shall be manager,” he said. “ You 
 shall act on your stage if you like, only say 
 what you would like.” 
 
 “ I do not want any ballet, thank you,” 
 she replied coldly, “ and I thought theatres 
 were better worth going to.” 
 
 “Oh, very well,” he replied; “if you 
 are resolved to like nothing I do for you, 
 
 I might as well leave off trying to please 
 you.” 
 
 He was now in no hurry about going 
 back. At first he spoke of going back in 
 a few days, but he stayed on. It was a 
 fortnight since he first came to the villa, 
 and now he came every day, though Upper 
 Clapton is not by any means “ handy ” for 
 the Langham Hotel. He saw that the girl 
 disliked him still, but that she was trying 
 to conquer her dislike, and he went on 
 with his plan of conciliation. He had 
 expected suspicion ; there was none in any 
 quarter : he was even Received by Mr. 
 Richard Ambler, on whom he called to ask 
 about his houses, without the least suspicion. 
 What he had not expected, because he 
 would not have reckoned it as a factor of 
 the least importance, was dislike. Now, 
 with this larger scheme in his mind, it was 
 of the first importance that the girl should 
 learn to trust in him and to believe him 
 before getting her to obey him. 
 
 He therefore persisted. Since she did 
 not care for the theatre, he took her to the 
 races. He was rewarded by the con- 
 sciousness that the girl was all day pro- 
 foundly dejected. She did not want to 
 see the horses running; she did not in 
 the least care who won; and she was 
 frightened at the great crowd, in which 
 she felt so entirely out of place. Yet he 
 had got a carriage, a hamper, and a most 
 beautiful lunch, and was mindful of a day 
 long past when, with a similar carriage and 
 hamper, but another companion, he had 
 spent a most enjoyable day at Ascot. 
 
 He drank all the champagne himself — a 
 little too much — and then began telling her 
 stories which terrified her, and made her 
 wonder what manner of life her father 
 must have led before he married, since he 
 was familiar with what seemed to her 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 f November 13, 1883.] 31 
 
 simple mind the most wicked and wasteful 
 profligacy. 
 
 “Do you like no kind of amusement, 
 then 1 ” he asked her. 
 
 She tried to explain to him that there 
 are many other amusements besides feast- 
 ing, drinking, burlesques, racing, betting, 
 and gambling, which might seem to girls 
 pleasing and desirable things. 
 
 “Sometimes,” she said, “on summer 
 evenings I go upon the river with George, 
 or we walk to Tottenham and as far as 
 Hornsey. There are lectures to go to, and 
 a choral society, then we have lawn-tennis, 
 and sometimes there are new books to read, 
 and new music to play.” 
 
 Her father grunted. 
 
 Then he tried her with the shops of 
 Regent Street. No woman, he thought, 
 can withstand the temptation of fine 
 things. He showed her all the beautiful 
 things in the world, or nearly all — dainty 
 costumes, costly with lace, bonnets which 
 were a dream of loveliness, gloves and 
 parasols, ribbons, and what not — such as 
 the girl had never dreamed of possessing. 
 She refused them — she actually refused 
 them. 
 
 “ George,” she said, “ is only a clerk 
 as yet. If I were to go dressed in these 
 beautiful things it would make him ridi- 
 culous.” 
 
 “ George ! What do I know about 
 George 1 Are you not my daughter and 
 my heiress 1 Can’t you remember that ? 
 Sometimes one would think you were 
 going out to America as a pauper. Do you 
 really imagine that my daughter — mine ! — 
 could show herself in New York dressed 
 like ” 
 
 “ Like the daughter and the wife of a 
 clerk. But perhaps the New York people will 
 have no opportunity of giving an opinion.” 
 
 “Was there ever before,” asked her 
 father impatiently, “ a girl who was bound 
 to inherit millions, and preferred — actually 
 preferred to go about as shabby as a shop- 
 girl ] ” 
 
 “George is only a clerk,” she said; “I 
 must dress according to my husband’s 
 station.” 
 
 “ Why, hang it ! are you not my heiress ? 
 Who will have my money if not you 1 One 
 would think you were going out to America 
 to be a governess.” 
 
 “Forgive me,” she said. “I have been 
 so long accustomed to consider your Fortune 
 as a thing which has nothing to do with 
 me, that I cannot suddenly change my 
 mind. If you designed to make me an 
 
 heiress, you should have told me so ten 
 years ago. Then, I dare say, I should 
 have been brought up differently. And, 
 perhaps, I should have liked these things. 
 But I belong to the people whom you now 
 despise — though you were born among 
 them. We live the simple, homely life 
 which you have forgotten. As for these 
 things — your great dinners, your theatres, 
 and all the rest of them, I suppose you 
 enjoy them now. But in the old days you 
 knew nothing of them. Had you not better 
 leave me alone with my friends, just as 
 you always have done ? You do not want 
 me in your new life. Why,” she looked 
 him full in the face with those honest eyes 
 of hers, “ there is something — I know not 
 what — which stands between us. You do 
 not love me as you used to do when you 
 wrote to me, or else you can no longer 
 pretend as you did then — but I cannot 
 believe those letters were all pretence. 
 When I am with you I irritate you, and 
 then you fly into a rage and swear. You 
 try to please me with all kinds of things 
 which I do not want — — ” 
 
 “ What is it you do want 1 ” he asked 
 her. “What can I buy for you 1 Only 
 tell me. See, Milly, I want you to like 
 me. It isn’t a question of money ” — indeed 
 it was not — “I will buy anything you 
 fancy. But you won’t like anything 
 that I can say or do. As for those old 
 letters of mine, bring them to me. Who 
 is to remember what he said ten years 
 ago — writing to a little schoolgirl h ” 
 
 She brought them to him obediently. 
 There were not many — only about twenty, 
 all tied up neatly with green silk and 
 smelling of lavender. He cut the string 
 and read the letters deliberately. Remem- 
 bering the log-hut, and the whiskey-bottle, 
 Johnny’s wandering eyes and rambling 
 speech, his miserable story and his wretched 
 life, he was struck with admiration. The 
 man possessed the first and most essential 
 qualifications of a novelist — he could make 
 those who read his letters believe his 
 statements ; more than this, he could enter 
 into his reader’s mind and understand what 
 she would think of himself; what sort of 
 hero she would construct of her father; 
 and he wrote accordingly. 
 
 “ I was a clever fellow,” he said at length, 
 “when I wrote those letters. Yes, Milly, 
 there are many things in my life of which I 
 may be proud, and many which might have 
 to be explained away. You thought from 
 these letters that it was all sailing before 
 a fair wind. You are mistaken ; it was a 
 
32 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 hard fight all the time with men as keen to 
 get on as I was myself. Would you have 
 liked me to tell you the true history of 
 those years of struggle ? ” 
 
 “I should like,” said Milly, “ my father 
 to be as affectionate and as tender to me 
 in words as he was in writing.” 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 “It can’t be, my child. If you like I 
 could write more letters to you, just the 
 same as these. But I can’t talk like that. 
 Here, take back the things ! ” 
 
 “ I do not want them any more,” she 
 replied sadly. “ To read them now would 
 give me more pain than pleasure. I would 
 rather talk with you than have any more 
 letters from you.” 
 
 “Why, there,” he replied, “that is 
 exactly what I wanted you to say. No 
 more humbugging milk-and-water letters, 
 but good, honest, straightforward talk. 
 You know me now, Milly, for what I am ;” 
 he stood upright and struck his chest; “ a 
 strong, plain man, and perhaps as good- 
 hearted as if I came to you with tears and 
 kisses. I am pleased with you — yes, 
 satisfied and pleased. You are a very 
 pretty, well-set-up girl, good face, good 
 figure, good form. You will do. You 
 don’t pretend to love your father; very 
 well, how should you ? And you are not 
 afraid to tell him so. I like you the 
 better for it. Some day, perhaps, you 
 will like me. Meantime, as you are my 
 daughter, and are going to inherit every- 
 thing, come out with me first to look at 
 your inheritance.” 
 
 Always the same refrain, “Come out 
 with me.” 
 
 He certainly made no pretence at being 
 a mild and peaceful character, and filled 
 the walls of Veritas Villa with tales which 
 fired the blood of the boys, and made them 
 long to rush beyond the reach of civilisation, 
 to ride the half-broken mustang, to shoot at 
 Mexican robbers, to sleep round camp-fires, 
 to wear a red-flannel shirt, a crimson belt, 
 a slouched hat, and great boots. Even 
 Copernica thought that no woman could 
 have a happier Tot than to live in constant 
 danger from scalping Indians and blood- 
 thirsty Mexicans. 
 
 He laid hiiriself out to please everybody 
 except George, whom he treated with cold 
 contempt, insomuch that the lover was 
 fain to keep away from the house when 
 Milly’s father was there, and carried on his 
 courtship in the garden. He conciliated 
 Mrs. Ambler with smooth words and 
 flatteries, assuring her that there was no 
 
 lady in England who would have brought 
 up his daughter with more care and kind- 
 ness than she had shown, and that the 
 boys and girls should always be his sacred 
 care, and he gave them all watches, and to 
 Copernica a gold watch and chain. 
 
 Yet they were afraid of him. 
 
 As for the Discoverer, Mr. Montoro 
 became to him as a god, or pope at least, 
 because he announced his adhesion to the 
 theory, and admitted that he could no 
 longer stand out against the overwhelming 
 arguments in its favour. 
 
 “The world is flat,” he said. “How 
 thick it is, which we should see if we looked 
 beyond the Outer Rim, it is impossible, 
 as you say, for us to surmise. I have never 
 taken any special interest in science, be- 
 cause my work has been of a more practical 
 nature, but I hope I can follow an argu- 
 ment as well as other men ; and your 
 argument, Mr. Ambler, has convinced 
 me.” 
 
 “ To win a Recruit, and such a Recruit,” 
 replied the blushing philosopher, “ by 
 the sheer force of persuasion is indeed a 
 triumph.” 
 
 Mr. Montoro then turned the conversa- 
 tion upon the subject of his college. It 
 was a new college, he said ; there would 
 be, probably, at first, but a small number 
 of students ; the astronomical class would 
 be one of the smallest. Still, it was an 
 opening ; the country was becoming settled 
 and populated ; the college was endowed ; 
 gradually the institution would grow. Would 
 it really be worth Mr. Ambler’s while to 
 leave London and transport himself to a 
 strange country in order to lecture on his 
 own system in his own way 1 
 
 Worth his while ! The Discoverer 
 bounded in his chair. 
 
 “ Then, Mr. Ambler, I shall be pleased 
 to offer you the post. It is my intention 
 to leave this country for America in a few 
 weeks. You can follow as soon after me 
 as is possible for you to wind up your 
 affairs.” 
 
 “ I have no affairs,” replied the Philo- 
 sopher. “ There is the society, to be sure, 
 but I am afraid that there is only one man, 
 my convert Bagshott, who will lament its 
 temporary suspension. Bagshott leaves 
 me the scientific department, and occupies 
 himself with the weekly demonstration 
 from his pulpit that the Discovery is the 
 only way of reconciling revelation with 
 science. The only way, Mr. Montoro ! 
 Such a man is useful to me, and I shall bd 
 sorry to leave him. They say his con- 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 33 
 
 gregation has dwindled to nothing. But 
 the scientific aspect of the question, which 
 is my own special department, demands 
 that such a chance of spreading the Truth 
 should not be neglected. Where, sir, if I 
 may ask, is your college situated ? ” 
 
 “ It is,” said Mr. Montoro, as unblush- 
 ingly a 3 if he had been Johnny of Oregon 
 himself — “it is in Nevada, in the city 
 which has risen on my own ground, sur- 
 rounding my own works. You will not find 
 it on any map, because the city has only 
 been built two or three years. You go 
 
 first to Colorado, and next But no 
 
 matter for these details. They can wait.” 
 It will be seen presently with what object 
 the Colonel was deceiving the unfortunate 
 philosopher. 
 
 “ Children,” he said that evening, “ the 
 way is now clear to me. Should you like 
 to go to Nevada ? ” 
 
 Nevada ! Bret Harte’s books were about 
 Nevada, were they not % Nevada ; where 
 there are rocky mountains, grizzly bears, 
 silver-mines, adventurers, wolves, buffaloes, 
 prairies, rattlesnakes, perils and dangers, 
 wealth, revolvers, bowie-knives, and happi- 
 ness ! Go to Nevada 'l Kepler looked at 
 Tycho Brahe, and gasped. Ptolemy seized 
 Galileo by the hand, and said, “ Oh, oh ! ” 
 slowly, and from his heart. 
 
 “ Where is Nevada 1 ” asked his wife. 
 
 “ It is one of the newest of the States. It 
 is the place where Mr. Montoro made his 
 money. You did not know that, Milly ? ” 
 “No. I have never had any letters 
 from Nevada.” 
 
 “There he has built a city — it is only 
 two years old — on his own grounds, and 
 about his own works ; and in the city is 
 the college. I am offered — definitively and 
 formally offered — the chair of astronomy. 
 Shall I accept the offer 1 ” 
 
 There was a rapturous shout. 
 
 “Well, my children,” he went on, “if it 
 is ordained that I achieve the greatness in 
 America, which Oxford and Cambridge 
 refuse me, I hope that I shall accept it in 
 a becoming spirit. As for you going 
 with me, boys, I am sure that with 
 Mr. Montoro’s glorious example before us, 
 and his patronage at starting, we need 
 have no fear or hesitation.” 
 
 And then there was such joy in the 
 Ambler family as would have done your 
 heart good only to see it, without under- 
 standing what it was about at alL To the 
 elder boys it meant wealth unbounded, 
 like Mr. Montoro’s, but without so much 
 temper; to the younger it meant change 
 
 and fun — no doubt there were no schools 
 in Nevada ; to Copernica it meant justice 
 — tardy, but still justice— to her father; 
 to the good wife it meant relief from tight- 
 ness. Who would not go to Nevada for a 
 thousand pounds a year 1 
 
 Perhaps, too, they all thought there 
 might come a time when there would be 
 less talk about that Grand Discovery which 
 made the family look upon all glory as 
 vanity, so much had it spoiled and wasted 
 the father’s life. 
 
 It was now four weeks since Mr. Montoro’s 
 return. He had partly succeeded in recon- 
 ciling Milly. She did not, it is true, ven- 
 ture again upon the mistake of kissing 
 him, or of expecting any caresses from 
 him ; but she had overcome the repulsion 
 which at first filled her soul with regard to 
 him. Perhaps, if he had behaved more 
 kindly with regard to George, she would 
 have looked upon him with some approach 
 to affection. What he wanted most, how- 
 ever, he had got from her. She trusted 
 him ; she did not in the least suspect him, 
 and she was growing very nicely, and just 
 as he could wish, to feel towards the great 
 Fortune a personal interest. He felt sure 
 that he could manage the rest very easily, 
 once she was away from her friends. You 
 do not, when you go a tempting, approach 
 the subject straight ; you work round it ; 
 you talk about other things ; you prepare 
 the mind for it ; you sap the ground ; you 
 gradually destroy principle; you do not, 
 at last, make the last step till you are 
 perfectly certain of success. The Colonel, 
 who was a veritable serpent for craft and 
 subtlety, knew that it would take time to 
 convert an innocent girl into a rogue, 
 thief, and confederate of cheats ; but he 
 knew what he was about, and he also knew 
 from long experience that there are few so 
 strong as to resist all kinds of temptation. 
 
 He now took his next step. 
 
 “ I must tell you, Milly,” he said with a 
 touch of sorrow in his voice, “ that I am 
 now making my preparations to go back 
 in a week — this day week. I have again 
 seen Mr. Richard Ambler, and I hear that 
 he can find me a purchaser for the houses, 
 and will draw up the necessary papers 
 immediately. You have heard that I have 
 given Mr. Ambler a post in my college. 
 He and his family will therefore start at 
 once. This, if you persist in refusing to 
 accompany me, deprives you of a home.” 
 
 “ I can find one with George.” 
 
 “ I shall not oppose it,” said her father. 
 “I might have looked higher for my 
 

 
 34 [November 13, 1883.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 daughter, but I will no longer oppose your 
 inclinations. You shall marry the man of 
 your choice, and I hope you will be happy. 
 What you will do when you come into 
 your Fortune I do not know. You will 
 not, I fear, either of you, be equal to the 
 position in which you will find yourselves. 
 However, that is, after all, not my business, 
 because I neglected you so long. It is my 
 punishment that I cannot interfere as an 
 ordinary parent might.” 
 
 “ You are very kind to me now,” said 
 Milly. 
 
 “ You mean that I was not always. 
 Perhaps not — perhaps not. I did not 
 know you, Milly, when first I landed, four 
 weeks ago. Forgive me, my daughter ! ” 
 
 She looked at him in surprise. Strange 
 that even when he was at his softest, using 
 words which in other men would have been 
 accompanied by some outward sign of ten- 
 derness, his eyes were as keen and his 
 mouth as hard as if he were contemplating 
 something connected with fight and 
 struggle. 
 
 “Now, Milly, I have been think- 
 ing a good bit over things, and I am 
 prepared to say to you, ‘Go and marry 
 your lover.’ I will not ask you to give him 
 up, and come across the water with me. 
 1 will even make a handsome allowance, 
 which will enable you to live like a lady, 
 if you please.” 
 
 “ Oh ! ” she replied, taking his hand. 
 Rut he withdrew it quickly, as if afraid of 
 her falling upon his neck again. " I did 
 not expect this,” she added. “What am 
 I to say ? How shall I thank you ] ” 
 
 “Nay, I want no thanks. There is only 
 one thing you might do to pleasure your 
 father.” 
 
 “ Why, is there anything, except giving 
 up George, that I would not do 1 ” 
 
 “It is this, Milly: You know I have 
 been a long time from home, but I have 
 never forgotten you ; my letters prove 
 that. Now, it grieves me to go back 
 without even being able to show any of 
 my kith or kin what I have done and the 
 edifice I have raised. It is hard to have 
 no one belonging to you. They will say 
 when I go back, ‘ Colonel ’ — they call me 
 Colonel, out there — ‘how did you find the 
 little maidU — that’s you, Milly — that is 
 you ; and I shall have to tell them in reply 
 that the little maid is grown up into a 
 woman, who doesn’t care about her father 
 — why, how should she 1 it is not in reason 
 that she should — and is going to be married 
 to a lover in a low station of life. And 
 
 there is not a creature in all the world who 
 cares about me. It seems hard, doesn’t ; 
 it ? What is the use of money if it can’t 
 bring me that kind of happiness ? ” 
 
 The tears came into Milly’s eyes as she 
 stood before her father and listened. They ; 
 would have flowed more readily if his own I 
 had showed the least emotion. 
 
 “ Then I thought to myself, suppose j 
 that Milly would come over with me for a 
 year, or two years— not more. Suppose I 
 were to promise her faithfully that after 
 two years, at most, she should go back to 
 her lover, if she pleased. It is not a very 
 long time, two years. Milly is young ; her 
 lover is young. He may very well wait 
 two years. Come, Milly, what do you 
 say 1 A run across the ocean, a ride across 
 the continent. First, Nevada for a year or 
 so ; then we will run over to California;' 
 perhaps go up country tor— to Oregon,” he 
 laughed. “ Yes, I should like to show you 
 Oregon. I know people in Oregon who 
 would interest you very much. And when 
 you were tired of your father, and his great 
 house, and all, you could come straight 
 away back to your lover’s arms. What do 
 you say, Milly ] ” 
 
 She was silent, thinking. Was there 
 ever a more reasonable or more generous 
 offer 'i He would let her do what she 
 pleased, and only suggested, leaving the 
 offer for her consideration, that she should 
 give him two years of her society. 
 
 “ I will consult George about it,” she 
 said at length. 
 
 “Soft! Let it be so. Consult this 
 infallible George. Milly, one word of 
 advice. Don’t let George know that you 
 think him infallible. It spoils a husband. 
 Your mother never spoiled me in that way. 
 Quite the contrary.” 
 
 That evening George and Milly had a 
 long and earnest talk. The proposal made 
 by Mr. Montoro seemed really prompted 
 by affection. After two years she might 
 return to him. Was two years a great 
 deal for a father to ask of his daughter ? 
 And then — one need not be quixotic, 
 although one is a clerk in a chemical 
 works, with prospects — there was all this 
 great Fortune. No one doubted the 
 existence of the Fortune, any more than 
 they suspected Mr. Montoro of being 
 somebody else. This Glorious Fortune ! Her 
 father might marry again ; he might leave 
 it away from his daughter; he might do any- 
 thing with it. Surely it was worth a little 
 concession to make that inheritance safe. 
 
 8$ 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 “ I think, dear.” he said at length, “ I 
 think — how can I part with you for two 
 years ? — that you ought to go.” 
 
 “I think so, too, George. But I am 
 afraid of him. I do not know why, but I am 
 afraid of him. The Amblers will be with 
 us. It is a great thing that Copernica 
 is going. But I am afraid of him.” 
 
 CHAPTER VI. JOHNNY AGAIN. 
 
 Milly must go, then. For two years 
 she would be her father’s companion. It 
 was quite right and just ; the proposal was 
 put so generously that it was impossible to 
 refuse. Yet George came away that night 
 from Veritas Villa in great sadness and 
 despondency. Milly was afraid of her 
 father. Would he suffer her to return 
 after two years ? He was afraid of the 
 man, too. He knew not why, but he 
 was ; the sight of Mr. Montoro filled him 
 with a kind of rage. What business had 
 such a man with such a daughter ? Some 
 wise men hold that daughters do take 
 after, and resemble, more the father bhan 
 the mother, which is an admirable thing 
 when the character of the father is worth 
 preserving and copying. But in what 
 single respect did Milly resemble her 
 father ? 
 
 Filled with these thoughts he did not 
 at first perceive that there was a man 
 wandering about in the middle of the road 
 with unsteady gait, apparently the worse 
 for drink, and looking for something. 
 Presently this man made for him in a devious 
 and zig-zag course, and accosted him. His 
 voice was a little thick, but he was not too 
 drunk to express himself. He knew what 
 he wanted. 
 
 ‘‘Sir,” he said — in fact, he did say 
 “shir,” and he ran his words together 
 a little, and missed a syllable here and 
 there, and omitted many of the minor 
 words, pronouns, conjunctions, auxiliary 
 verbs, and so forth. Let us hide these 
 proofs of human frailty as much as possible, 
 and print what he meant to say without 
 dwelling too much on how he said it. 
 We are all human, only some are more 
 human than others. “Sir,” he said, 
 “can you tell me which is the house of 
 Mr. Ambler?” 
 
 “Mr. Ambler’s house?” George stared. 
 “ What do you want with Mr. Ambler ? 
 It is half-past ten, and they are all gone to 
 bed. Come, you must wait to see Mr. 
 Ambler till to-morrow. Do you want to 
 prove that the world is square ? ” 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 [November IS, 1883.] 35 
 
 “ Must get up for me. Haven’t seen her 
 nigh twenty years.” 
 
 “ Seen whom ? ” 
 
 “ Seen the little maid ? ” 
 
 “ What little maid ? ” 
 
 “My little maid — my daughter — Milly 
 Montoro. 
 
 “What?” 
 
 “ My little maid — my dear little maid,” 
 this strange person went on repeating. 
 
 Why, it was like the burden of Milly’s 
 father’s letters. They were . full of “ my 
 little maid, my dear little maid ? ” 
 
 “Who are you, then?” George seized 
 him by the shoulder. “ Stand up,” he said, 
 “try to be sober. Pretend to be sober, 
 man. Who the devil are you, then ? ” 
 
 “ I’m — I’m — her father : the little 
 
 maid’s father — Milly’s father.” 
 
 “ Her father ? What is your name, 
 man ? ” 
 
 “ My name is Montoro. The Colonel 
 called me Johnny. Real Christiamname 
 — baptised name — is a fool of a name — 
 Worshipful Charles.” 
 
 “ Good Lord !” cried George. “ But you 
 are drunk. Where do you come from ? ” 
 
 “ The Commercial Docks, Rotherhithe. 
 Came over from Quebec in timber-ship. 
 Was ship’s cook.” 
 
 “ Look here,” said George. “ Whoever 
 you are, you cannot go to the house to- 
 night, because you are drunk, and because 
 it is late. You must, therefore, come with 
 me.” 
 
 He took the man by the arm, and led 
 him unresisting to his own lodgings, which 
 were not far off. 
 
 “ Now,” he said, turning up the gas in 
 the sitting-room, “ let me look at you.” 
 He did look, and he trembled. 
 
 The man was dressed in an old and ill- 
 fitting suit of black cloth. I do not think 
 there is any kind of dress in which a man 
 may look so fearfully shabby as a suit of 
 black. This is partly due to the fact that 
 it is evening dress, and should suggest 
 social cheerfulness. In the same way, no 
 one could possibly look more melancholy 
 than a clown by daylight outside his show 
 and in official dress. A dress-coat, too, 
 when it has grown old, and has seen long 
 service in some third-class restaurant, falls 
 into curves, lines, and folds which seem to 
 debase and degrade the figure of man 
 beneath. This man’s whole suit, again, 
 was disgracefully and deplorably dirty, 
 and covered with streaks of grease. 
 Everything was to match ; he wore no 
 collar, but had a red handkerchief tied 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
36 [November IB, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 5=3 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 about his neck, and a grey flannel shirt in 
 rags ; his hat was a slouched felt of the 
 commonest description. He took off the 
 hat and stood in the light, a little sobered, 
 but his eyes were heavy with drink. 
 They were light blue eyes, unsteady and 
 weak. He wore a long greyish beard, but 
 his hair was brown and silky. And the 
 reason why George trembled was not 
 because his clothes were so shabby, but 
 because his face was like unto the face of 
 his sweetheart, and his eyes like her eyes, 
 though different in expression. The 
 daughter was like the father, and he knew 
 — he was perfectly certain — that before 
 him stood the man whom the other 
 pretended to be. 
 
 “ Once more— who do you say you 
 are 1 ” 
 
 “ Worshipful Charles Montoro is my 
 name.” 
 
 “ Where do you come from 1 ” 
 
 “ From Oregon, last,” he replied, partly 
 sobered by this young man’s earnestness.” 
 “I came from Quebec in a timber vessel; 
 shipped as cook.” 
 
 “You came over here as cook ? Where 
 is all your money then % ” 
 
 The man shook his hea i. 
 
 “ I haven’t got any money,” he replied. 
 “ There was some in the bunk ; the Colonel 
 stole it.” 
 
 “ Where is your Fortune then 1 ” 
 
 “ I haven’t got any Fortune. How should 
 I have any 1 ” 
 
 “What did you mean then by your 
 letters ? ” 
 
 “ My letters ] Oh ! ” Then he put his 
 hand to his head in a feeble way, trying to 
 understand. Then he sat down looking 
 bewildered. And presently, while George 
 waited for further explanation, his head 
 fell back and his eyes closed. He was 
 asleep. And while he slept he looked still 
 more like Milly. 
 
 The man slept all through the night; 
 George mounting guard over him lest he 
 should wake up and slip away. By the 
 morning light he looked more disreputable 
 than ever. When he awoke at seven, 
 George took him into his own bedroom, 
 and gave him, to begin with, a completely 
 new rig-out, in which, at all events, he 
 presented a respectable appearance. The 
 man was very much subdued, and asked 
 no questions, taking what was offered 
 him, and doing what he was told. 
 Apparently a gentle and amenable person. 
 Then George gave him breakfast, and 
 after breakfast bade him tell his story. 
 
 .1 suppose there never was a man, since 
 gift of speech was first granted to humanity, 
 who rambled in his talk so much as Johnny 
 of Oregon ; what he had to tell we already 
 know, but George did not. He got at 
 last, and after a thousand twistings and 
 turnings, to the point at which the Colonel 
 came, stayed with him a week, proved 
 excellent company, and finally made off 
 with the money and the letters. Then he 
 went on : 
 
 “ When the Colonel stole that money, 
 and the letters as well, and I could not 
 come up with him, nor hear of him any- 
 wheres, I hadn’t the heart to go back to 
 the clearin’, and hung around a bit doin’ 
 odd jobs, as many are ready to do all over 
 the States. And so somehow I worked 
 my way back again to the east, and in 
 the spring got to Quebec. Now when you 
 stand on the hill at Quebec and look across 
 to the east, it seems as if you can see all 
 the way across the water to London. 
 Curious that, isn’t it ? And what with 
 havin’ none of her letters to read, and 
 lookin’ across the water, and thinking I 
 was gazing upon Hackney Wick, I fell to 
 dreamin’ about the little maid, and longin’ 
 to see her again.” 
 
 “ So you came home, and got drunk 1 ” 
 
 “Yes, sir; that is so. Oh, I knew very 
 well I should have to own up ! And I 
 knew what they would say ; particularly 
 Matilda’s sister, P’leena, who married very 
 well, and now keeps carriage company. It 
 would be rough on the little maid at first 
 to see her father such a disgraceful old 
 pauper, and a shame to a respectable 
 terrace to be seen loafin’ around, after 
 all I’d told her, too. First I thought I 
 would just look over the palings like, 
 and go away ; somebody would tell me 
 which of them she was ; perhaps I’d beg 
 a copper to. carry away and remember her 
 by. Then I thought how would it be 
 if I made a clean breast and begged her 
 pardon humble, and so went away again. 
 All the journey across the ocean in that 
 timber ship I thought about it, and what I 
 should do. And when I got across to 
 Poplar only this morning, I tell you, sir, 
 I’d no more notion of what was best to be 
 done than when I started.” 
 
 “ Perhaps you never have had any 
 notion in all your life of what was best to 
 be done.” 
 
 “ Perhaps not, sir. Men who see clear 
 get on in the world. I never saw farther 
 than the end of the job.” 
 
 “ But why did you get drunk ? ” 
 
[November 13, 1833.] 37 
 
 Charles Dickens. 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 “Well, t wasn’t right ; but think of it. 
 
 I hadn’t seen a public-house for nineteen 
 years. They haven’t got any where I’ve 
 been. They’ve got bars, but if you want 
 a comfortable drink with a pipe and a 
 friend to talk to, you must come to England. 
 
 I don’t quite know how many public-houses 
 there are on the straight road between this 
 and Poplar, but I tried the drink at most, 
 with a pipe here and a pipe there, feelin’ 
 comfortable because I was workin’ my 
 way, you see, with the little maid at the 
 end of the way.” 
 
 “ And so you got disgracefully drunk. 
 Yes — I see.” There seemed no possibility 
 of doubting or disputing the man’s state- 
 ments. They were told too naturally for 
 deception. But what was to be done 
 next ? 
 
 “ What is the Colonel like I ” 
 
 Johnny described the man who had 
 repaid his hospitality by stealing his 
 money. He described him so exactly that 
 there was little doubt in George’s mind 
 who was the personator, in spite of the 
 discrepancies of beard and moustache. 
 
 “ As for his profession, he’s a sportsman,”' 
 continued his informer. “ He sometimes 
 plays alone, and sometimes he’s one of a 
 gang. Sometimes he travels and plays in 
 the cars ; sometimes he goes to bars, and 
 sometimes he keeps a gaming - saloon. 
 There’s thousands like him in the countries 
 where I’ve been. Very good company they 
 are when there’s no plunderin’ and cheatin’ 
 around. If there’s a quarrel, which there 
 mostly is, it’s wild cats. I was a peaceful 
 man, I was, and nobody never drew bead 
 on me ; but I’ve seen many a fight over 
 the cards, and now and then a quiet man 
 like myself got hit when the firin’ begun. 
 The best way is to roll over and lie on the 
 floor till it’s over. I remember now, once, 
 down to ” 
 
 “ Never mind that. Let us get on.” 
 “I’m a peaceful man,” he continued, 
 repeating himself as usual ; “ yet if I had 
 come across the Colonel after he stole my 
 money, I’d have shot him. Yes, if I hanged 
 for it. Seems now as if I don’t care much 
 about it any more. I never had any money 
 before I found that roll of notes in the 
 empKy cabin, and I’m no worse off than I 
 was taen. P’raps I shall go back to 
 Oregon, and live in the cabin again by 
 myself wb>n I’ve seen the little maid. It’s 
 quiet living all by yourself. When you go 
 about in gangs there’s no such things as 
 getting an hour’s quiet, and a peaceful man 
 loves to be quiet. Lord ! if you’d heard 
 
 the language I had to hear every day, 
 you’d like a few years’ quiet. No; I don’t 
 care so much about the money, and of 
 course the Colonel has lost it all by this 
 time.” 
 
 “ You want to see your daughter. I will 
 help you, but on conditions. First, I must 
 tell you that I am going to marry her.’’ 
 
 “ You are going to marry my little 
 maid 1 ” He stared in great amazement. 
 
 “ Why, she can’t ” 
 
 “ I am sure,” said George, “ that she has 
 not remained a baby in arms for nineteen 
 years. Yes ; I am going to marry her. 
 And it seems to me that the sooner I do it 
 the better.” 
 
 “ Well, sir, it’s real friendly of you, and 
 I hope she’ll make a good wife, and that 
 you’ll treat her kindly. But I do assure 
 you, sir, that it is not my wish nor my 
 intention to disgrace my daughter by stay- 
 ing at home. No, sir, a clerk I was once, 
 with three pound a week, and therefore a 
 gentleman. But I’ve had that knocked 
 out of me long ago, and now I’m only a 
 common loafer and tramp, except when 
 I’m on my clearin’ in Oregon, and the 
 whiskey-bottle’s most always too much for 
 me. She sha’n’t blush for her father, sir. 
 Not after the first go-off, after I’ve had. to 
 own up. Tell me, sir, does she think 
 much about the Fortune 1 Does she want 
 money sent home to her to keep up her 
 position like her poor mother 1 ” 
 
 “No, she does not. She believes — or 
 did believe until the other day — that 
 you are dead, and your Fortune all lost, or 
 fallen into wrong hands. The loss of 
 what she did not expect will certainly not 
 grieve her much — not half so much as to 
 learn that her father, of whom she has 
 learnt to think so tenderly, is a man who 
 — finds a whiskey-bottle most always too 
 much for him.” 
 
 The man hung his head like a school- 
 boy receiving reproof. 
 
 “Yes,” he said, “I mustn’t stay at 
 home. That’s a fact. Can’t I go over 
 this morning and have it out with her, 
 and go away again 1 ” 
 
 “No,” George replied with energy, 
 “ you cannot. It is one of the conditions 
 I make with you. You are to stay here 
 quietly, for a week if necessary ; you must 
 not go out unless I go with you. You 
 must not make any attempt at all to speak 
 with her. Do you promise ? ” 
 
 The man hesitated. 
 
 “If you will not,” said George, “ I will 
 make you put on again those disgraceful 
 
38 [November 13, 1888.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 clothes — I will give you a bottle of whiskey, 
 and turn you into the road ; you can then 
 drink yourself blind drunk, and stagger 
 off to find your daughter, and make her 
 have you marched off to the station as a 
 drunken vagabond.” 
 
 The man shuddered and trembled. 
 
 “ I will do,” he replied, “ whatever you 
 tell me.” 
 
 “ Very well then. Stay at home — here 
 — until I come back. You may smoke a 
 pipe all day long if you like, but there is 
 no drink. Do you promise 1 ” 
 
 “Yes, sir ; I will do what you order. 
 I wouldn’t shame the little maid.” 
 
 “ Very good. But just tell me what you 
 did it for] What was the good of 
 deceiving her about your success ] ” 
 
 “Well, now” — he had grafted a kind 
 of American drawl upon a full and rich 
 cockney twang, the result of which gave 
 a peculiar flavour to his speech — “well, 
 now,” he said slowly, “ put it to yourself. 
 Here’s a child at home taught to believe 
 her father a lazy and idle fellow with no 
 smartness. Her mother taught her that, 
 likely. Here’s a father a good many miles 
 away who wants that child to stick out 
 her chin like girls who have pride in their 
 parents, as some do, not only in Stamford 
 Hill, but also Tottenham, and many other 
 places. Nothin’ makes a girl proud and 
 haughty, and therefore happy, as being 
 sure she’s got a great and noble father. I 
 remember them in church on a Sunday 
 morning, their father being perhaps an 
 alderman, and perhaps a common- council- 
 man. What does that father do 1 Twice 
 a year he borrows a sheet of paper, and on 
 the Sabbath when the rest are asleep or 
 playin’ monty, he sits and writes to that 
 daughter letters which shall make her 
 proud and happy. Do you call that, sir, 
 doin’ of a parent’s duty, or do you not 1 ” 
 
 George did a very unusual thing that 
 morning. He asked for a week’s holiday, 
 and was granted it. 
 
 He began his week by a very busy and 
 important morning. First, he had a long 
 conference with Mr. Richard Ambler, in 
 which many things of interest were con- 
 sidered and action resolved upon. 
 
 “Remember,” said the solicitor, “you 
 have to protect Milly against the real man 
 as well as against the pretender. And sup- 
 pose the real man wants to sell her houses 
 and pocket the money ] ” 
 
 “ He will not,” said George. 
 
 “I do not know. Perhaps he will not 
 
 be tempted. As for Reginald, leave him to 
 me. Professor of Astronomy indeed ! But 
 what is the use of fooling poor Reginald ] 
 And to think that not one of us suspected 
 the fellow ! Now go, and lose no time. 
 We have the rogue safe enough, but I do 
 not know yet if we can proceed against 
 him criminally.” 
 
 “At all events, he stole the notes.” 
 
 “Yes, yes, but it was in Oregon, and 
 perhaps they might ask to whom these notes 
 belonged ; on the whole, it is a tangled 
 business. He has attempted to defraud in 
 instructing me to sell the property, but in 
 doing this he injures not me nor his 
 daughter, but the rightful owner, who is 
 this man, Montoro himself, and from your 
 account I should say he would not be a 
 likely man to become a prosecutor or give 
 good evidence.” 
 
 “ The limpest weed of a man you ever 
 saw,” said George. 
 
 In the evening George came home. His 
 prisoner had been asleep most of the day, 
 and had obediently kept within the bouse. 
 
 “Very good,” said George, “ I will now 
 reward you.” 
 
 He took him out, and walked in the 
 direction of Veritas Villa. At this time, 
 in these summer evenings, the Discoverer’s 
 family were generally in the garden playing 
 lawn-tennis. This evening they were all 
 on the lawn together, Milly with them, 
 playing. There was only a low wooden 
 paling over which one could easily look 
 without the appearance of curiosity or 
 impertinence. 
 
 “ There,” said George, “is your daughter. 
 Not the little girl with the glasses ; she is 
 only fifteen, and Mr. Ambler’s daughter. 
 The taller girl. Look at her well. In a 
 day or two you shall speak to her.” 
 
 The man looked his best. When 
 George, a few minutes later, drew him 
 away, the tears were running down his 
 face. 
 
 “ I see,” said George, “ that your story 
 is true. You are really Milly ’s father. But 
 I was certain of it from the beginning.” 
 
 CHAPTER VII. TILL TO-MORROW. 
 
 The next morning George gr-atly 
 astonished the inhabitants of Verita^Villa, 
 by paying them a visit in the mining, a 
 thing never known before. He explained 
 that, as he had a holiday, he thought he 
 would just look round and sec them His 
 cousin Reginald was in the map-roon 1 He 
 would go there. 
 
B. — 
 
 Charles Dickens. 1 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [November 13, 1883.] 39 
 
 He found the Discoverer, aided by Coper- 
 nica, spectacles on nose, busily engaged 
 in cataloguing books, looking through 
 letters, rolling up maps, and between these 
 labours making notes for that great 
 inaugural lecture which was to revolutionise 
 astronomical research, in America first, and 
 the old world next. It was already a 
 voluminous mass of notes — the Philosopher 
 belonging to the school which thinks that 
 the longer they make their utterances the 
 more likely they are to be listened to. 
 In the same way the scholars of. the 
 Renaissance used to believe that the bigger 
 their books the more certain would be 
 their immortality. And there are not 
 wanting poets of this very century who 
 also believe that the more they write the 
 better they will be loved and preserved, 
 and their memory kept green. As for 
 novelists, they do not count, because no- 
 body ever supposes that a picture of life 
 can be thought worthy of preservation — 
 lucky those who get read by their own 
 generation. 
 
 “Come in, come in, George,” cried 
 Reginald cheerily. “Here we are, hard at 
 work — hard at work. I expect we shall 
 have to sail in a week or two— as soon, that 
 is, as we can sell off our sticks and get rid 
 of the house. I am writing my inaugural 
 lecture. This, George,” he added with 
 great seriousness, “ is the most important 
 piece of work, I am convinced, that I have 
 ever yet been called upon to do. In it I 
 have to strike a note, such a note as shall 
 be at once an alarm and a message of 
 Truth, and an echo ” — he’did not explain 
 how an alarm could be all these — “ yes, and 
 shall re-echo through the length and breadth 
 of the land, from the North Pole to the — 
 to the mysterious ice caverns of the Outer 
 Rim. A college class, George, is a very 
 serious thing, it is a sacred thing. I may 
 regard my own as a collection of empty 
 vessels waiting to be filled, or as so many 
 canals which have to irrigate a thirsty 
 country, or as so many springs of Truth. 
 Ought we not, myself and Oopernica, who 
 shall be my assistant lecturer, to consider 
 ourselves as instruments appointed for the 
 spreading of Truth, or even prophets 1 ” 
 
 Copernica blushed and gasped, and 
 adjusted her glasses. 
 
 “ Ought we not, I say ” 
 
 “You certainly ought,” George replied, 
 rudely interrupting. “ But, Reginald — I 
 will not stop your work many minutes — 
 are you quite sure that it is wise to build 
 upon this offer, to jump at the conclusion 
 
 that you ought to accept it, to be so certain 
 of going ? ” 
 
 “ Why, George,” the Discoverer smiled, 
 
 “ as regards the wisdom of the step, I may 
 be allowed to be the best judge ; as regards 
 the certainty of going, I have already 
 accepted the offer.” 
 
 “ Yes, yes ; but, Reginald, are you quite 
 sure ” — here George looked confused — 
 
 “ that it is a genuine offer 1 ” 
 
 “ Genuine offer ! What do you mean, 
 George 1 The offer is made by Mr. 
 Montoro himself— by Milly’s own father. 
 Surely I can trust Milly’s father 1 ” 
 
 “Yes, I believe you can trust Milly’s 
 father.” 
 
 George could not help saying this. 
 
 “ When he offers me such a post, what 
 can I do but accept with gratitude % ” 
 
 “ Why,” George replied, “it is ungracious 
 to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I 
 think, if I were you, I would first find out 
 where the college is.” 
 
 “It is in Nevada, near the city of 
 Colorado. I know where it is.” 
 
 “In Nevada. Yes, yes. That is a long way 
 off. Would it not be prudent first to get the 
 prospectus, papers, calendar, or whatever 
 the college has got to prove its existence 1 ?” 
 
 “ Now, George.” Mr. Ambler was really 
 annoyed at this appearance of distrust. 
 
 “ In Milly’s father’s hands I am quite safe. 
 
 ‘ He is bound to us,’ he kindly says, ‘ by 
 bonds of gratitude,’ though Heaven knows 
 Milly has done ten times as much for us 
 as we have done for her. It is all quite 
 settled. I have told Cousin Dick to have 
 my Funds sold out, and placed to my 
 credit in the bank. When we get out, 
 
 Mr. Montoro is going to invest the money 
 for us at ten or twelve per cent. Think 
 of that, after a beggarly three ! Milly is 
 going with us.” George started. He had 
 not quite realised what this meant. 
 
 “ Going too. We shall be quite a family- 
 party. George ! What are you swearing 
 for 1 and what are you banging the table 
 for]” Because George suddenly remem- 
 bered that he had only the night before 
 agreed to entrust Milly to this villain’s care 
 for two years. 
 
 “George,” said Copernica, frightened, 
 
 “ don’t look like that. What is the 
 matter ? Because Milly is to go away for 
 two years 1 Oh, for shame 1 ” 
 
 He made a desperate effort, and con- 
 trolled himself. 
 
 “ I want you seriously, Reginald,” he 
 said, speaking calmly, “ to consider the 
 possibility of your not going at all.” 
 
 — ■ 8? 
 
40 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 “I cannot.” 
 
 “Oh, George,” said Copernica, “when he 
 has got the chance at last of spreading the 
 Truth all over the world.” 
 
 “ He can spread the Truth just as well — 
 better even — from Veritas Villa,” replied 
 George cruelly. “ Reginald,” he repeated, 
 “you must renounce this project.” 
 
 “ What ! and give up my professor- 
 ship ? ” 
 
 “ Why, George 1 ” asked Copernica. 
 “ Why is he to renounce the project ? ” 
 “Because — because there is a very good 
 reason, but I cannot tell you to-day.” 
 
 “ If there is a good reason,” Copernica 
 insisted, “ all the more reason for telling it 
 at once.” 
 
 “ No. But think, Reginald, what would 
 the place be to you even if it were all 
 that has been represented to you 1 ? An 
 obscure college, in a new, far-off American 
 town, a place where your voice would not 
 reach beyond the walls of the lecture-room 
 with its half-dozen students. Call that 
 an opening 1 Why, here in London you 
 address the whole world. Everybody 
 looks to London. Things said and written 
 in London go over the whole world. You 
 are at the head of a society, growing ” — 
 here he stammered, but held on bravely — 
 “ growing daily and rapidly in importance. 
 You know that they are afraid of you 
 at the universities. If you were in America 
 you would be out of their way ; they would 
 fear you no longer. They ask for nothing 
 better than your removal. Mr. Montoro 
 is playing into their hands. As for your 
 society it would fall to pieces, and your 
 theories would be set aside, and speedily 
 forgotten, while you were eating out your 
 heart in obscurity. It would be exactly 
 as if you had never lived, while, after 
 your death, some one would take up your 
 ideas and steal them, and bring them over 
 here and pretend that they were his own. 
 But here you live like a king — like a 
 king,” he repeated mendaciously. “You 
 control the scientific world, you keep your 
 trembling opponents in perpetual terror ; 
 they are obliged to have recourse to every 
 kind of disreputable dodge which you 
 defeat ; they try to close one avenue, you 
 open another. This incessant activity 
 frightens them; it confounds them; they 
 never know on what side they are next 
 to be attacked. Consider this, my dear 
 Reginald.” 
 
 “ George,” murmured the girl, “ you 
 don’t mean it. You have never talked 
 like this before. If only you meant it, 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 you would be a Recruit, and the best we 
 have ever had.” 
 
 “ I mean every word,” he replied, though 
 he felt that his name ought to have been 
 written Ananias — “ every word I have 
 said. And as for you, Copernica, instead 
 of crying out upon me for being unkind, 
 you ought to be backing your father up, 
 and making him feel that his right place 
 is where he is sitting, in his wooden chair 
 in the map-room at Veritas Villa, ready to 
 fight with all comers.” 
 
 “ But what does it mean % ” asked Regi- 
 nald blankly. “Tell us only what you 
 mean.” 
 
 “ I cannot to-day. But I will tell you to- 
 morrow morning. Meantime, for Heaven’s 
 sake cease to build your hopes upon this 
 project ! ” 
 
 “As for the honour of Mr. Montoro ” 
 
 Reginald began, but stopped short, because, 
 to his amazement, George began to clench 
 his fist, grind his teeth, jump about the room, 
 and show all the external signs of a wrath 
 which can be only appeased and satisfied 
 by the kicking?, whackings, and free fights 
 of the good old times. 
 
 Some day — we may not live to see it — we 
 shall return to that excellent method of 
 our ancestors. There are many men with 
 whom one would like to have it out “ en 
 champ clos.” I should, myself, enormously 
 enjoy contemplating my enemy after I had 
 taken the conceit out of him with a 
 battle-axe. 
 
 This entanglement with Reginald 
 Ambler was difficult to understand. What 
 did the man want % To get them all out 
 in America away from their friends, and to 
 rob them % It must be that. Or was it 
 possibly pure devilry and wanton mischief ? 
 Not the latter, certainly. The Colonel was 
 not at all the man to perpetrate such a 
 gigantic hoax. One may imagine Theodore 
 Hook doing such a thing if he had got the 
 chance and it occurred to him ; and how he 
 would have made a song about it, and how 
 they would all have laughed over their 
 punch in the delicate and feeling manner 
 of their time at the fine situation of the 
 broken-hearted enthusiast. But not the 
 Colonal ; he did not desire to laugh — had 
 not laughed, in fact, for something like 
 twenty years, that is to say, ever since he 
 began to live on his wits. Those savages 
 of Ceylon, who never laugh, and only 
 begin to smile when they are defunct and 
 ghosts, live on their wits, which accounts 
 for their melancholy. What the Colonel 
 was contriving was pure rascality and 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 41 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 robbery. In order to set up his gaming- 
 saloon in the best style he wanted as much 
 money to begin with as he could command. 
 And he saw his way to getting a good 
 large haul out of Reginald Ambler. How- 
 ever, George said no more, but left them 
 abruptly. Then Copemica burst into tears, 
 and threw herself into her father’s arms. 
 
 “ Oh, papa dear, what is it 1 what does 
 he mean 1 ” 
 
 “ I do not know, child. How should I 
 know ? Is George gone mad 1 ” 
 
 No ; she shook her head. George was 
 certainly not gone mad. 
 
 “ There is something behind,” she cried ; 
 
 “ George does not talk at random. Oh, 
 what is it ? ” 
 
 “ I would stake my life,” said her father 
 shortly, ‘ ‘ on Mr. Montoro’s honour . Why — 
 is George silly ? Here comes home a man 
 who has been so busy for twenty years 
 making a great Fortune that he has never 
 even had time to come home before ; he is 
 changed, of course. No one expected in a 
 rich millionaire the manner of a clerk, 
 which he was before he went out. Every- 
 body says he was once a very meek and 
 humble creature. He isn’t now. But so 
 rich and successful a man can afford to be 
 a little overbearing. He comes home, 
 then ” 
 
 “ Father,” said Copernica desperately, 
 “ we may go on talking till to-morrow 
 morning, when George is to tell us what he 
 means. Talk as much as we like, we shall 
 get no further forward. Shall we try and 
 make believe that the whole thing is a 
 dream, and that we shall not go out at all, 
 so that we shall feel the blow less % ” 
 
 “ I can’t, my dear,” her father replied. 
 “I think I must go out to America or 
 somewhere else and have my say, or choke. 
 Here no one will listen to me.” 
 
 “ They wouldn’t listen to Galileo.” 
 
 “I wish they never had. But as for 
 me, I must speak. And this is my only 
 chance.” 
 
 “To-morrow morning — let us wait till 
 to-morrow morning. At any rate, papa 
 dear, if the worst were to happen — that is 
 to say, if we could not go — we should be 
 exactly the same as we were before Mr. 
 Montoro came. But, oh, it is impossible ! ” 
 “It is impossible,” said her father, try- 
 ing to feel the confidence of his words ; 
 “ George has got a bee in his bonnet. 
 Many chemists get bees in their bonnets. 
 Let us go on with our work, Copernica. 
 Let us lose no time. The college must 
 find us prepared.” 
 
 But his hand shook, and his brain was 
 troubled. 
 
 For there was a thing which he had not 
 told. 
 
 On the morning before, Mr. Montoro 
 had held with him a last conference on the 
 subject of the college and the chair ; he 
 gave him a paper of instructions howto get 
 to Colorado, showing what would be the 
 cost of the journey, the time taken, and 
 the best way there. It was a paper 
 calculated to carry conviction to the mind 
 of the most suspicious, even a Yankee 
 lawyer. In fact, there is nothing which 
 one man cannot persuade another to believe 
 if he gets him quiet and away from his 
 fellow-creatures. In the smoking-room of 
 a club, for instance, nobody believes any- 
 body. In the retirement of the Discoverer’s 
 map-room, the Colonel’s lies, ingeniously 
 constructed, were accepted without the 
 least suspicion. 
 
 “And now, my dear friend,” said Mr. 
 Montoro finally, “ I think we have settled 
 everything. I cannot tell you with what 
 satisfaction I look upon the fact that we 
 have secured you for our new college. The 
 possession of genius in our Professorial 
 Chairs is, above all, the great thing wanted 
 for a new Institution. Oh yes, to be sure, 
 I had almost forgotten. About your own 
 money matters. Have you arranged 
 them ? ” 
 
 “I have written to my cousin, who 
 manages my affairs, to sell out my stock 
 and pay the amount to my account in the 
 bank.” 
 
 “Yes; that is well. We can get you 
 better interest across the water. How are 
 you going to bring it with you 1 ” 
 
 “ I do not quite know,” replied the 
 Philosopher, who had thought of tying it 
 up in gold, and so bringing it in his 
 pocket. 
 
 “ Let me advise you,” said Mr. Montoro. 
 “If you are sure you can quite trust me — 
 actually trust me — I will pay it into my 
 own acoount, giving you a note or receipt 
 for it, which will make you quite safe. 
 You can give me a cheque payable to 
 bearer, and I will save you all further 
 trouble about it.” 
 
 This was a perfectly faithful promise. 
 He fully intended to save Mr. Ambler and 
 his family all trouble about the money for 
 the future. 
 
 He then sat down and calculated the 
 cost of the journey, with a margin ; he was 
 very particular about the margin, so as to 
 allow ample room, he said, for possible 
 
— - — — — — — — 
 
 42 [November 13, 1888.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 emergencies. This done, he subtracted 
 the total amount from the sum lying to 
 Mr. Ambler’s credit. 
 
 “ There,” he said pleasantly, “ it is a 
 real comfort for me to be of a little assist- 
 ance as a practical man to a Genius and a 
 Philosopher. Draw me the cheque, payable 
 to bearer — so. When did you order the 
 sale of the stock ? Yes, I do not think 
 the money will be paid to your credit till 
 the day after to-morrow. Then I should 
 think — but that matters nothing to 
 you. So, sign the cheque — Reginald 
 Ambler. Shake hands, my dear friend. 
 I believe firmly that you will always con- 
 sider this as the very luckiest day in all 
 your life. Courage 1 The way of glory 
 lies plain and clear before you. Of glory 1 
 Ay, and of wealth and success to your 
 ' boys. For I shall take care of them all. 
 Yes, I charge myself with them.” 
 
 It was the memory of this cheque and 
 what it might mean, because the poor man 
 knew nothing about stopping cheques, that 
 lay on the Discoverer’s conscience as heavy 
 as lead. 
 
 George sought Milly, who was, if one 
 may confess a thing whichjj should not be a 
 cause of shame, in the kitchen making 
 gooseberry jam. This is a conserve favour- 
 ably regarded by the youthful palate, and is 
 cheap. To the adult who is picksome, the 
 jelly of Siberian crab, which is soft and 
 silky to the palate — as they sayjof claret 
 and of tea — is preferable, and so is the pre- 
 serve made of blackberries, which is full- 
 flavoured and fragrant, yet fresh from the 
 wood. 
 
 “Milly, my dear,” he said cheerfully, 
 though he was oppressed with the thing he 
 had to face, “you look delightful in a 
 white apron, and your fingers are so sticky 
 that you are defenceless.” 
 
 “George,” she said demurely, “did you 
 stay away from business on purpose to kiss 
 me 1 ” 
 
 “ Not quite, dear child. On the con- 
 trary, I have a great deal to say to you. 
 First of all, I have made my cousin Reginald 
 miserable, and Oopernica as well.” 
 
 “ Oh ! But why ? ” 
 
 “ Next, I am going to make you, not 
 miserable, but full of wonder. My dear 
 Milly, a very strange and most unexpected 
 thing has happened. I do not think I 
 ought to tell you to-day what that is. 
 Indeed, you must not hint or let fall the 
 slightest suspicion that anything at all has 
 happened.” 
 
 ft 
 
 “ Has it anything to do, George, with— 
 with — with my father ? ” 
 
 “ A good deal, Milly. But ask me no 
 more.” 
 
 “ Yes, tell me ; is it anything against 
 him 1 I told you, George, that I do not 
 love him as I ought to love my father, 
 but——” 
 
 “But his honour is a sacred thing, 
 Milly. There is nothing against your 
 father’s honour that I know of. Yet re- 
 member that Mr. Montoro does not know 
 that, and must not be told, or allowed for 
 a moment to suspect, until to-morrow.” 
 
 “ It looks like conspiring against one’s 
 own father ; but I do not expect that he 
 will come here to-day'” 
 
 “ It is not that, Milly, as you will see 
 to-morrow. It is conspiring for him.” 
 
 “ George, I do not understand in the 
 least. To-morrow ! Why, he is coming here 
 to-morrow, to meet Mr. Richard about the 
 sale of the houses. Oh, my poor houses ! 
 
 I am so sorry they are to be sold.” 
 
 “I don’t think they will be sold,” said 
 George. 
 
 “And to-morrow I am to drive about 
 London, to buy fine things for my outfit.” 
 
 “ Perhaps you will not take that drive,” 
 said George mysteriously. 
 
 “And I had a letter to-day from my 
 aunt Paulina. She has not seen me for 
 four years, but I told her, when I wrote 
 last, that my father had returned, and she 
 is coming here to-morrow to see him. 
 
 ‘ Congratulate him,’ she says, ‘ on his 
 splendid success, and we shall always be 
 pleased to see him, and you with him, at 
 Wimbledon.’” 
 
 George laughed. 
 
 “I am glad your aunt is coming. It 
 will be another agreeable surprise for your 
 father. Does he know 1 ” 
 
 “ No, he does not. I only got the letter 
 this morning. He has always declared 
 that he does not desire to see any of his 
 relations.” 
 
 “ Shall you send him the letter ? ” 
 
 “Why,” said Milly, “my father has 
 never even told me where he is staying.” 
 
 “I can tell you that, if you want to 
 know. Stay, I will tell you to morrow.” 
 “George, you are most mysterious. 
 
 Tell me, is this a bad thing that has ” 
 
 “ No, not a bad thing. It is such a 
 good thing, Milly, that had it not happened” 
 
 — his face darkened — “I would have 
 wished you lying dead and buried in the 
 graveyard, and myself beside you. Oh, 
 my dear,” again he clenched his fist, and 
 
 n 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 43 
 
 looked like one who thirsts for another 
 man’s blood, “it is such a good thing that 
 we shall have to go in humble gratitude 
 for it all the rest of our lives.” 
 
 “And I shall leave it to-morrow 1 Why, 
 George, what can it be ? It is not money — 
 nothing to do with money would make you 
 wish me dead. And you say that it does not 
 affect my father’s honour. Why, what 
 can it be ? ” 
 
 “You shall learn it to-morrow. But for 
 to-day, Milly, can you trust me 1 ” 
 
 “ Why, GeorgeMear,” she said, throwing 
 her arm round his neck — it was not true 
 that her fingers were sticky — “ George, if 
 I cannot trust you, whom am I to trust 1 ” 
 “Then, my darling, obey me for exactly 
 four-and-twenty hours, and I will obey you 
 for all my life to come. Listen, my dear.” 
 He whispered. 
 
 The effect of that whisper could .not be 
 equalled even by the gallery in St. 
 Paul’s Cathedral. Milly blushed, and then 
 turned pale ; first her eyes looked startled 
 and frightened ; next, they became soft; 
 first she opened her mouth, and gasped ; 
 then her lips trembled, and gradually 
 settled into a smile. 
 
 “George,” she said, “do you mean 
 this h ” 
 
 For reply he drew out a document and 
 showed it to her. She read it through 
 and blushed again. It was a formal docu- 
 ment, the nature of which became evident 
 to her after the first few words of preamble. 
 “ But I sail the day after to-morrow.” 
 
 “ Do you think, my dear, that I am 
 going to let you go 1 ” 
 
 “ But what am I to say 1 ? Oh, George, 
 what will my father say 1 ” 
 
 “ He will approve — he will consent ; and 
 yet you will not go to America with him.” 
 “ Oh, I am in a dream ! ” 
 
 “ Do you consent, then, my dear 1 ” 
 
 She gave him both her hands. 
 
 “ Yes, George, only tell me what to do.” 
 “You have only to come to my rooms 
 to-morrow morning at ten. Bring Copernica 
 — poor little maid!— with you, and say 
 nothing — not one word — to any one, my 
 dear. I cannot rest for thinking that you 
 are not yet under my protection. Only 
 one day more to wait. You cannot be 
 carried off in one day.” 
 
 “ Who is to carry me off, George ? ” 
 
 “ There is only one man, my dear, who 
 would try, but he is possessed of many 
 devils. Kiss me, and trust me, and say 
 nothing.” 
 
 All that day there was a restraint at 
 
 Veritas Villa, and an uneasy feeling that 
 something or other was going to happen. 
 Copernica went on with her task of cata- 
 loguing, but without heart; the Discoverer 
 continued to sit before the notes of his 
 inaugural lecture, but somehow his en- 
 thusiasm was, for the moment, quenched. 
 He even fell into one of those fits of 
 despondency which sometimes, but rarely, 
 filled his mind with the blackness of despair, 
 because at those times a mocking voice 
 asked him how it was that he could never 
 account for a lunar eclipse. What should 
 he say, when his class asked him how, on 
 his system, he could produce an eclipse of 
 the moon 1 
 
 “Father,” said Copernica at length, 
 “it is no use trying to work. George 
 meant something — he never talks idly ; 
 but let us put the things away and go for 
 a walk.” She took her father to the banks 
 of the river, where they wandered in a 
 mood of settled gloom. The child tried to 
 raise her father’s spirits by pointing out the 
 many proofs of the earth’s flatness which 
 could be gathered from the prospect around 
 them. In fact anyone who contemplates 
 the Wanstead Marshes long enough cannot 
 fail of arriving at the conclusion that the 
 earth is as flat as a pancake. But the 
 Discoverer remained dejected. .Was the 
 cup to be dashed away from his lips at the 
 very moment of fruition 1 W as he really to 
 go on in the old half-hearted way, making a 
 Recruit now and then, courting contempt, 
 being held up to ridicule ] And then — the 
 recollection of that cheque lay at his heart. 
 Yet if one could not trust Milly ’s father, 
 in whom was trust to be placed ? 
 
 To-morrow — to-morrow he was to know. 
 
 One person remained to be prepared. 
 This was the unfortunate Johnny. George 
 took him in the afternoon to see his old 
 haunts. They visited together the places 
 which he had known in the old days : the 
 cottage where he brought home his young 
 wife, and was happy before the sister 
 married into carriage company, and the 
 baneful passion of envy was aroused ; the 
 church where he once held part of a pew ; 
 the tavern, where there had been a club, 
 to which he went once a week, when there 
 was a sing-song. Johnny — whom it is 
 
 impossible to call Mr. Montoro — shed tears 
 in thinking of that weekly sing-song. Then 
 they took train — in the old days it was an 
 omnibus — to the City, and gazed at the 
 exterior of the house where he had once 
 been a clerk. When the man’s heart was 
 
44 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 thus softened with the past, George began 
 to prepare him for the morrow. 
 
 “I have kept you a prisoner all this 
 time,” he said, “ partly for your own sake. 
 Tell me, what would happen if you had met 
 the Colonel in America ? ” 
 
 “ I should have shot him,” he replied. 
 “ Oh yes 1 I know I should have shot him; 
 I felt exactly like shooting him.” 
 
 “ If you were to meet him here in 
 England, what would you do ? ” 
 
 “There would be a fight,” he said 
 courageously. “ Yes, I think — I’m most 
 sure there’d be a fight, because I’m bound 
 to call him a thief, and the Colonel is not 
 a man likely to stand that — you lay your 
 last dollar he isn’t. So there must be a 
 fight, you see.” 
 
 “ It would be a poor sort of a fight,” said 
 George. “ Well, suppose you heard that 
 the Colonel was calling himself by your 
 name ” 
 
 “ What’d he do that for ? ” 
 
 “ Suppose he went to Mr. Ambler’s house 
 and said he was Mr. Montoro, and that 
 Milly was his daughter, and sold her 
 houses, and told her to go over to America 
 with him.” 
 
 “With him ! Go with him ! ” The 
 man became pale, and trembled in all his 
 limbs. “ The little maid go with him ! ” 
 
 “ That is exactly what he has done.” 
 Then Johnny began to swear. Mild as 
 he was, he had learned to swear after the 
 manner of the American rough and rowdy. 
 He swore at the Colonel so terribly that 
 George thought he would have some kind 
 of fit. He swore so long that George 
 thought he would never finish. 
 
 “Come,” he said at length, “if you 
 hadn’t already sworn enough for ten men, 
 I would ask you to say it all over again for 
 me. Now, I warn you, to-morrow you will 
 meet that identical villain. What are you 
 going to do ?” 
 
 “ Why,” Johnny replied slowly, “ he 
 hasn’t got the little maid, has he ? ’Twould 
 be very different if he had. And he hasn’t 
 got the money for them houses, has he? 
 So, mister, I think, as I’m a peaceful man, 
 I shall kind o’ let him go. The Colonel’s a 
 terrible man to fight. It’s a great thing to 
 be peaceful — kind o’ gets a man on in the 
 world.” 
 
 “ Yes,” said George, “ you are a beautiful 
 example, are you not ? ” 
 
 “ But,” said Johnny, “ about them notes. 
 Yes, I am afraid there may be a fight.” 
 Poor Milly ! Her luck in fathers was 
 very bad. George wondered which of the 
 
 twain, on the whole, was the most un- 
 desirable. Difficult to honour either of 
 them — and there is an old-world prejudice 
 that it is better to be a sturdy rogue than a 
 coward. If the Colonel was a rogue he was 
 sturdy. If Johnny was indifferent honest, 
 he was a most dreadful coward. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. WHO GIVETH AWAY THIS 
 WOMAN ? 
 
 “ I KNEW,” said Copernica, when Milly 
 asked her to put on her hat and go for a 
 walk with her, “I knew that something 
 would happen to-day, and I knew it would 
 be something to do with you, because 
 George was in it. And it will be some- 
 thing to do with Mr. Montoro, because 
 papa is in it. Yes, Milly dear, I will be 
 ready in a minute. As for poor papa, he 
 has not slept a wink all night, but walked 
 about groaning, and this morning he is 
 sitting all of a heap-like among the boxes. 
 And, oh, good gracious, Milly 1 you’ve got 
 on your white frock and white gloves. 
 What in the world ” 
 
 “ Come,” said Milly, smiling ; “ you shall 
 know in half an hour as much as I know 
 myself. Why, dear, as to what it all 
 means, I know no more than you. But 
 something has happened — something which 
 is to make us grateful all our days, George 
 says, and to-day we shall learn what it is.” 
 
 “But, why white frock and white 
 gloves ? ” Copernica persisted. “ It is like 
 a wedding.” 
 
 “ Yes, dear, ’’Milly blushed, “ it is terribly 
 like a wedding, is it not ? ” 
 
 First, they went to George’s lodgings. 
 This was in itself a remarkable thing, 
 because George should have been at his 
 business. But he was not, he was stand- 
 ing at the garden-gate waiting for them. 
 With him were two gentlemen — one of 
 them Copernica’s cousin, Mr. Richard ; 
 the other, a strange man — not a gentleman, 
 exactly, to judge by his look, which was 
 downcast and shy, as if he was dressed in a 
 suit of clothes too good for him; and 
 really, when Copernica, who was sharp of 
 observation, brought her eyes to bear upon 
 that stranger’s dress, she became conscious 
 that he was dressed in George’s clothes, 
 which made her feel as if she was in a 
 dream. She was certain of it — quite cer- 
 tain of it — she knew the pattern and re- 
 cognised the cut. Who was this strange 
 man, who must needs borrow a suit of 
 George’s clothes ? Had he turned up with 
 nothing to wear ? And when he lifted his 
 head and looked round him — in a furtive, 
 
Charles Dickens.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [November 13 , 1883 .] 45 
 
 ashamed kind of way — the child’s brain 
 became suddenly troubled, because he re- 
 minded her of somebody — she knew not, 
 for the moment, who it could be. This 
 more than ever made her feel like being 
 in a dream. 
 
 This uncanny ghost-like feeling may 
 be arrived at any day by walking about 
 the streets of London at twilight, when 
 you just catch a glimpse — no more — 
 of the faces as they pass, and find your 
 mind presently filled with odd fancies 
 and vague, sorrowful suggestions. You 
 have seen — you remember when they have 
 passed you — faces which reminded you of 
 dead friends. The procession of London 
 faces is endless ; as one grows older the 
 streets become more and more filled with 
 the faces of the dead ; so that one thinks 
 sometimes that this marching in procession 
 beside the living may be one form of pur- 
 gatory ; and one trembles to think that if 
 we were to grow very old indeed, the pro- 
 cession of faces in a crowded street would 
 be wholly composed of dead men. To this 
 girl, the face of the strange man suggested 
 likeness to some one, a feeling of having 
 seen it before somewhere ; and it made 
 her uncomfortable. George did not in- 
 troduce him to them ; took no notice of 
 him ; and merely nodded to him when he 
 said that it wa3 time to be moving. 
 
 They formed a little procession. George 
 and Milly went first ; Mr. Richard and 
 Copernica came next ; and the stranger 
 followed behind, saying nothing, but hang- 
 ing his head with every appearance of 
 great dejection. 
 
 It was only a part of the general mystery 
 and strangeness, and, therefore, it did not 
 in the least surprise Copernica that they 
 walked all the way to Hackney Church, 
 and went up the steps, observing the same 
 order. 
 
 But in the porch of that great square 
 Saratoga, or travelling-trunk, which does 
 duty for a parish church, George stopped 
 and said : 
 
 “ Milly dear, I thought you would like 
 to be married in the same church as your 
 father and mother.” 
 
 “ Aye,” said the stranger in a low voice, 
 “ it was in this very same church, twenty- 
 one years ago. And Matilda in pink.” ^ 
 
 Then Milly was going to be married. 
 That was one of the things. But why 1 
 And where was her father 1 And George 
 looking as serious as if he was going to a 
 funeral. At weddings people ought to 
 laugh and be happy, she thought, being as 
 
 yet young and ignorant, and not thinking 
 that from weddings spring most of the ills 
 which do afflict humanity; such as a 
 lean purse, a nagging tongue, household 
 troubles, sick children, bad sons, disap- 
 pointing daughters, distraction of peace, 
 abolition of comfort, and many others. 
 It is true that there is the chance of 
 
 great blessings ; such as But they are 
 
 known to everybody, and at the outset we all 
 expect them, and mean to have them, and 
 shape our course accordingly. But what, 
 Copernica wondered, what in the world 
 did this mysterious person mean by saying; 
 “ Matilda in pink”? Who was Matilda 1 
 
 Then they went into the church. There 
 were already assembled the People, repre- 
 sented — as is the way with the People on 
 state occasions, because they are all busy 
 outside, toiling and moiling — by their 
 elected and trusted functionaries, the verger 
 and the pew-opener. And a curate was in 
 the vestry putting on his robes of office. 
 
 They walked up the aisle and stood 
 before the altar, and presently the clergy- 
 man came out of the vestry,' and took his 
 place, book in hand, and began the service. 
 The words echoed mockingly in the great 
 empty church. Copernica would have cried 
 had not at the very beginning the stranger 
 dressed in George’s clothes begun to 
 snuffle and to shed tears, which made her 
 ashamed of being in his company. Why 
 should he cry 1 What business had he 
 with the wedding at all 'l She would 
 have liked to whisper her opinion of 
 this conduct to her cousin Dick Ambler, 
 but he looked as serious as George, and 
 bore himself as if weeping strangers 
 in other people’s clothes belonged to 
 every wedding, like the dreadful old 
 skeleton which was always present at the 
 feast, though it was good manners to take 
 no manner of notice of it. 
 
 Another wonderful thing. When the 
 clergyman asked, “Who giveth away this 
 woman ? ” the stranger it was who officiously 
 stepped forward and performed this duty 
 which Cousin Dick should have done, and 
 he did it, too, with a most indecent choke 
 and gulp, murmuring irreverently, “You 
 bet I do,” which is not in the prayer-book. 
 And then to the end of the service he 
 never took his eyes from the bride, who 
 regarded him not at all, and seemed not 
 to know that he was present, being wholly 
 occupied with the overwhelming fact that 
 she was being swiftly converted into a 
 wife. She had her heart’s desire — not 
 quite in the way she had expected, which 
 
46 [November 13, 1883.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 was a way of festivity and good wishes, 
 but she had her desire. Therefore she 
 ought to have been happy. But, oh, what 
 would her father say 1 And what about 
 that promise to go with him for two 
 years'? "Set George assured her that her 
 father would actually consent. Why, how 
 could that be 1 But she was married, the 
 ring was on her finger, and the words 
 were said ; yet she was afraid — a girl on 
 such an occasion wants to have her spirits 
 kept up by the gathering of her friends ; 
 no one likes to be married in an absolutely 
 empty church ; it was like some uncared- 
 for creature to be married with no one to 
 support her except Copernica, and even 
 her own father not present. 
 
 When they went to the vestry to sign 
 the strange man came with them, and 
 signed his name after the bride, but she 
 did not read his signature. 
 
 Then the ceremony was complete, and 
 Copernica fell into the bride’s arms and 
 kissed and hugged her. 
 
 “ Oh, Milly, Milly,” she said, “ what 
 does it mean ? Are you to stay while we 
 go away without you ? And what will your 
 father say, and what will he do 1 Will he 
 take you away with him just the same 1 ” 
 
 “ What should he do ? ” interposed the 
 stranger huskily. “ It isn’t for the likes 
 of him to carry sweet maids away to 
 America. Don’t you take on, miss. He 
 never meant it. Not for one minute did 
 he think of doing such a thing.” 
 
 “ Come, Milly dear,” said George ; “ you 
 have got to listen to a little story before 
 you go home — I mean, before you go back 
 to your old home. Your home is with me 
 now, thank Heaven ! You will come too, 
 Copernica. It is a strange story, not very 
 terrible, but it might have been.’’ 
 
 So they all went back again. There 
 was no wedding-breakfast prepared, no 
 champagne or drinking of healths, or 
 wishing of joy, or throwing of rice, or 
 looking up of old shoes. Not at all. They 
 went silently into George’s room, and stood 
 looking at each other, and especially at 
 the stranger, whose face betokened the 
 most painful shame and confusion. 
 
 “ Now,” Mr. Richard said to him, “ you 
 have got something to tell us and some- 
 thing to confess. Try to tell your story 
 straight through if you can. You had 
 better begin at once. Milly, sit down and 
 listen. We will all sit down.” 
 
 They did so, leaving the unfortunate 
 man standing before them just like a culprit 
 schoolboy. 
 
 “ I s’pose I must begin somewheres,” he 
 said feebly. 
 
 When this man was a clerk in the City 
 he used not to say “ somewheres,” but 
 “ somewhere.” He had lost, among other 
 things, the art of speaking correctly, and 
 now spoke as his companions for so many 
 years habitually spoke. It is terrifying to 
 think that any one of us, under similar 
 conditions, would probably experience the 
 same losses, and come, in time, to speak 
 like a Cockney coster or a Californian 
 rough. 
 
 In spite of the respectable clothes he 
 wore — Milly herself now perceived with 
 wonder that they were borrowed plumes — 
 the poor man had so dejected and hang- 
 dog a look that one felt sorry for him. 
 But by this time she quite understood that 
 something more unexpected even than her 
 own wedding was to happen, and now she 
 connected this walking Mystery in George’s 
 tweeds with the unexpected, than which, 
 as we know, nothing is more certain. 
 
 “ When I went away,” this mysterious 
 person began slowly, and as if feeling for 
 his facts, “I thought, being a fool and 
 inexperienced, that if you wanted money 
 all you had to do was to go to America, 
 where you would be sure to find it. 
 Everybody, I thought, got rich in the 
 States. It was only the trouble of going 
 there and pickin’ up the dollars. Lord ! 
 what a fool I was ! Don’t none of you 
 believe it. America’s the biggest fraud 
 out. If anybody gets rich, it’s the Americans 
 themselves. You’ve got to work there 
 harder than at home. If there’s any easy 
 places they’re grabbed by the natives. 
 Look at me. I gave up three pound a 
 week to go out and make a Fortune. Did 
 I ever get that three pound a week again ? 
 Did I ever get another easy place 1 Don’t 
 you think it.” 
 
 “ Isn’t this,” asked Mr. Richard un- 
 feelingly, “ rather a roundabout way of 
 beginning 1 ” 
 
 Copernica looked from Milly to the 
 speaker, and back again. Strange, he was 
 like Milly ! 
 
 “Thank you, sir,” the man replied 
 humbly. “I’m cornin’ round to what I 
 want to say. Lemme go my own way, if 
 you please. Though if you’ve a better 
 way, tell me that way, and I will go that 
 way.” 
 
 “ You shall go any way you please,” said 
 George, “ if only you’ll get to the end 
 somehow.” 
 
 “ Thank you, sir,” he replied, “ you are 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 47 
 
 the only man as has said a kind word to 
 me for twenty years, and I’m bound to 
 please that man if I can ” — he kept looking 
 at Milly furtively — “especially since he’s 
 husband of the little maid.” Milly started. 
 “ Very well, then. Hard berths I got, not 
 easy at Ml. Sometimes it would be porter’s 
 work at a store. Did I expect when I gave 
 up a most gentlemanly desk to go rolling 
 casks of treacle 1 Did I expect to load the 
 steamboats with wood ? Did I go out there 
 to do odd chores around, a day’s work here, 
 and another there, with a spade and a hoe, 
 or a crowbar and a hammer ? I’ve been a 
 navvy on a railway ; I’ve dug graves for a 
 cemetery; I’ve cut wood and stacked it. 
 All the hard jobs I had to do, while the 
 natives spread themselves out around the 
 stoves and put up their feet. That’s the 
 way they reward a man who gives up 
 three pound a week to go out to them ; 
 that’s the kind of Fortune they let him 
 make ; that’s the kind of friend America 
 is — a dollar and a hef a day and leave it 
 if you don’t like it : there’s plenty of 
 tramps on the road will take it ; that’s 
 what I gave up my berth for ; that’s what 
 Matilda ” — Milly started — “ my wife, 
 Matilda, sent me out for — said I was 
 bound to be ambitious. Told me I ought 
 to soar.” 
 
 “ George,” said Milly quickly, “ who is 
 this man % ” 
 
 “ Wait a moment, dear. Go on, if you 
 can,” he said to the speaker. “ I suppose 
 we shall get to something in time. 
 Patience, Milly dear.” 
 
 “I know who he is,” said Copernica, 
 nodding her head. “I am sure I know. 
 He gave her away. Oh, I see now ! ” 
 
 “ Well,” he continued, “ at first I thought 
 this was only the beginning — kind of a 
 rough, hearty, free and easy welcome to 
 new comers ; presently I should get the 
 hang of things, and then I should begin to 
 make that Fortune. By this time I was as 
 ambitious as Matilda could ha’ wished, 
 because I wanted badly to get back that 
 three pound a week with store clothes and 
 a stove-pipe hat. Then, I concluded she’d 
 be the least mite anxious about me, and so 
 I wrote her a letter. And just to make 
 her mind easy and to prevent her from 
 falling into one of her tempers, which she 
 certainly would have done if she’d known 
 I was just then rollin’ molasses, tyin’ up 
 sugar, heavin’ logs, and countin’ candles, 
 I just told her I was soarin’ already to 
 unexpected heights, and the dollars cornin’ 
 in wonderful. No country, I wrote, like 
 
 America. She wrote back, by return post, 
 that I was to send all the money home as 
 fast as I made it. I said ’twas all wanted 
 for the big business I was carrying on, 
 and bounced the more because I saw she 
 was ashamed of having thought me such 
 a poor weak creature. The more I bounced, 
 the more she was ashamed, and kept a 
 wantin’ to come out, and bring the little 
 maid with her.” 
 
 “George,” cried Milly again, “who is 
 this man? ” But George made no reply. 
 
 “ I know who he is,” repeated Coper- 
 nica ; “ I am certain I know. ‘ Matilda was 
 in pink.’ Oh, I know.” 
 
 “When a man begins to lie, it seems kind 
 of impossible to go back on himself ; so I 
 kept it up, and when Matilda died, I carried 
 on the same tale with the little maid, who 
 I can’t believe to be grown up so tall and 
 handsome, and married before my very 
 eyes.” 
 
 “ George,” cried Milly for the third time, 
 and springing to her feet, “tell me, who 
 is he ? ” 
 
 “ My dear, he is your father — not the 
 other man at all. This is your father.” 
 “Yes, my dear,” the man repeated 
 humbly, “your father, and you are the 
 little maid as I’ve written so many letters 
 to, and told so many lies about the Glorious 
 Fortune.” 
 
 “I said I knew,” Copernica murmured. 
 “ Her father ; but I wonder who the other 
 is. You can’t have two fathers.” 
 
 “ My father ! ” A month before Milly 
 would have jumped into his arms first, and 
 remarked his hang-dog look and poverty- 
 stricken appearance afterwards. But I sup- 
 pose there is only a limited amount of 
 what may be called the impulse of affection 
 in the human heart. At all events, her 
 own did not leap up at all, nor did she 
 show any signs of joy, but held her hus- 
 band’s hand more tightly, looking at this 
 colossal American failure, the man who 
 had been twenty years wriggling at the 
 lowest depths, and could never wriggle any 
 higher, and she repeated with much more 
 wonder than joy : “ My father ! ” 
 
 “ I am, indeed,” he said. “ I would 
 have liked to come home in silks and 
 satins and gold rings, but I never had any 
 luck. I would have sent the little maid 
 all the money she could wish if I’d had it. 
 But I hadn’t got any to send. ” 
 
 “George,” cried Milly, “if this is my 
 father, who is — the other ? ” 
 
 “The other, my dear, is a what 
 
 you shall presently learn.” 
 
48 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ Bat — but I have kissed him, and I was 
 going away with him.” 
 
 “ You were,” replied Mr. Richard, who, 
 to his honour be it said, had been witness- 
 ing the proceedings with more than pro- 
 fessional interest, though the morning’s 
 work would certainly be charged in the 
 bill. “If it had not been for this dis- 
 covery you would have gone with him. 
 Fortunately we are in time to save not 
 only you from this danger, but also your 
 fortune from destruction.” 
 
 “ He must be a rogue and a cheat,” 
 Copernica said in a low voice. “ Then all 
 he told us and all he promised us were 
 Bes. 0 — h ! But I knew who this one 
 was directly he began to speak. And this 
 is what we were to learn this morning. 
 And George knew it yesterday.” 
 
 “ My darling,” said George, taking his 
 wife’s hand, “ you understand now why I 
 wanted to marry you at once. If it rains 
 fathers they cannot harm you now or take 
 you from me. As for this one, I think he 
 will not try to barm you. He is very 
 different from the other. To begin with, 
 he quite understands ’’—George shook his 
 left forefinger in the direction of the man 
 as if he were a lecturer in a show and pro- 
 nouncing a discourse upon a giant, a dwarf, 
 or a monster — “ he quite understands that, 
 after the life he has led, the way he 
 came home, the habits — the habits, I 
 say ” — the stranger groaned and nodded 
 gloomily — “he has contracted, the com- 
 panions he has been among, the very 
 language he has learned, and — and— and 
 everything, it can no longer be considered 
 reasonable that you either owe him any 
 obedience or that he has any claim upon 
 your affection. Besides, he has practised a 
 most cruel and heartless deception upon 
 you.” The returned Fortune-hunter shook 
 his head in the deepest self-reproach. “ The 
 most he can ask of you will be your for- 
 giveness. As for staying on here, that, of 
 course, is out of the question ” 
 
 “ Quite,” said Johnny. “ Oh, quite ! I 
 know it.” 
 
 “ He has been among rough and common 
 people so long that he would feel unhappy 
 in a respectable English house.” 
 
 “ That is so,” said Johnny. 
 
 “He has got, he tells me, a very com- 
 fortable clearing out in the Western States 
 somewhere, with a house upon it, and — 
 and, I suppose, what is wanted to live 
 comfortably.” _ 
 
 “ Don’t forget there’s a whiskey-bottle,’ 
 said Johnny, not boastfully, but as one 
 
 who wishes to make a completely clean 
 breast. 
 
 “ You see,” George went on, that one 
 fact illustrating the manner and customs 
 of the man, without need of further revela- 
 tions, “he has a whiskey-bottle.” 
 
 “ When you’ve got that,” said J ohnny, 
 “you don’t want anything else,” again, not 
 boastfully or ostentatiously, but meaning 
 to deliver himself of his own sentiments, 
 and show himself to his daughter, in one 
 full confession, the man he really was. . 
 
 “ Oh, good gracious ! ” said Copernica ; 
 
 “ nothing else ! ” 
 
 « So that,” George continued, “ he has 
 agreed and promised me, in point of fact, 
 to go away at once— this very day— and 
 get back to his cabin and his clearing, in 
 Oregon, as fast as he can. I do not think 
 he can get away much farther from us than 
 Oregon, which is on the other side of the 
 Rocky Mountains. And when he is really 
 back again in his own clearing, we shall be 
 very glad to hear from him — occasionally. 
 But Milly’s heart softened. 
 
 “ If you are really my father,” she said, 
 holding out both her hands, “who used 
 to write me such loving letters, you should 
 have something more to say to me, now, 
 but farewell 1. ” 
 
 He took her hand, and then timidly bent 
 and kissed her forehead. 
 
 “ My pretty,” he murmured, “ I’m not 
 fit to be your father. I doubt whether you 
 ought to ha’ let me kiss you. I’m only 
 what your husband says I am. But I 
 meant well. I did indeed. And they were 
 u great comfort to me — them letters. 
 
 He said no more, but his eyes — those 
 foolish, helpless, and wandering eyes— filled 
 with tears and ran over. This natural 
 emotion was sufficient excuse to his 
 daughter for his shambling speech and un- 
 grammatical expressions. When had the 
 other man shown the least emotion 1 
 
 “ Milly,” said Copernica in her quick 
 way, “ I suppose you’ll come home with 
 me if it is only to break the news and help 
 unpack the maps again. How my poor 
 father will ever get over it, I don’t know. 
 Mother will be pleased, I think. She never 
 greatly took to the plan, and I think she 11 
 be pleased to stay. But there, mother, you 
 see, doesn’t much believe in my fathers 
 wonderful discoveries. As for the boys, 
 they must just stay where they are— poor 
 fellows ! Well, I should be sorry to think 
 that poor Tycho was going out to roll 
 molasses tubs, and Kepler to load up a 
 steamboat with wood. As to the people,” she 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 49 
 
 added vindictively, turning her glasses full 
 on the people referred to, “ who go abroad 
 and come home again without the common 
 decency of being rich” — the returned pauper 
 blushed — “all I can say is that they’re 
 quite as bad as other people who come 
 home and pretend to have colleges, and 
 not half so pleasant, while they last. 
 What,” she snapped at him so fiercely that 
 he jumped, “ what did you go away at 
 all for, then ? ” 
 
 CHAPTER IX. HIS CHRISTIAN-NAME. 
 
 The map -room of Veritas Villa was 
 stripped of everything. The maps and 
 charts were rolled up, the sections showing 
 the Polar Sea and the confines of the great 
 Outer Rim, the drawings, drawn from the 
 Scriptural accounts, the pictures made up 
 from travellers’ accounts, the books, all of 
 which were astronomical, were taken down 
 and packed in black boxes, locked up, 
 "fastened with rope, the Professor’s name 
 on them in white — Professor Ambler, 
 Passenger for Colorado, via New York. 
 Only the notes for the inaugural lecture 
 remained, because the Discoverer intended 
 to touch up, beautify, and make perfect 
 the inaugural lecture during the journey. 
 The notes were therefore neatly stitched 
 together and placed in a little portfolio 
 made on purpose for them by Copernica, 
 out of millboard and white silk, the title 
 being in crimson and gold, and the sun, 
 moon, and stars, which floated on the 
 cover, being in blue. It was beautiful and 
 soul-inspiring even to look at that white 
 silk portfolio, and to feel what an Evangel 
 of Astronomical Truth it contained, and how 
 fortunate were the Americans of Colorado 
 State in getting such a Discoverer to reveal 
 such a discovery. He sat — the Philosopher 
 — among the boxes. He should have been 
 triumphant, because he was going to get 
 what he had prayed for all his life; but 
 there was a cloud upon his brow ; he was 
 anxious. George’s warning words weighed 
 upon him still. 
 
 His wife sat with him. To her this 
 breaking up of the old home, where her 
 children had been born, where they had all 
 been so happy, so anxious, so full of love, 
 fear, hope, joy, sorrow — all the things 
 which go to make life a thing always felt, 
 if not always enjoyed, made her profoundly 
 dejected. To be sure she could not believe 
 that they were really going. 
 
 “ Reginald,” she said presently, and after 
 a long silence, “is it real? Are we to 
 have an income of a thousand a year ? ” 
 
 
 
 “ You doubt still, my dear. To be sure, 
 you have doubted always.” 
 
 “ Not your cleverness, Reginald ; but I 
 could not understand how you alone could 
 be right, and all the wise men wroDg. 
 Forgive me, husband.” 
 
 “ It matters nothing,” he replied grandly; 
 “ the faith of the whole world will 
 strengthen your faith too.” 
 
 “But, George, my dear — what did George 
 mean ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t know what he meant. What 
 he said was silly. Why, he tried to make 
 out that I should do better by staying 
 here. Staying here, where I have had to 
 undergo every kind of contempt ! What 
 does George think about that ? It seems 
 to him a light thing for a man to be held 
 up as a laughing-stock. They have called 
 me a madman, they won’t answer my 
 letters, they quote me as one of the 
 enthusiasts who ought to be locked up, 
 they whisper if I get into a train ; and if I 
 
 go to church 
 
 “ You never do, dear.” 
 
 “ No ; because when I do I hear them 
 whispering as I walk up the aisle : * There 
 is the madman, or the fool, or the ass, 
 who teaches that the earth is flat.’ Do 
 you think that is pleasant for me to hear ? 
 And then the Society does not increase. 
 Bagshott is very good, he talks about Truth 
 prevailing; but Truth doesn’t make a start. 
 The office-boy says that no one has called 
 for six months, and there have been no 
 letters for three. The office might as well 
 be shut. Bagshott says he will remain at 
 home and circulate the journal, which I 
 shall be able to fill once I get a hearing. 
 Why, out there, oh, wife, I shall have 
 a hearing at last ! ” 
 
 He sprang from his chair and walked 
 about, swinging his arms and sending his 
 coat-tails flying — a sure sign of the deepest 
 emotion. 
 
 His wife threw her arms round his neck. 
 “ My dear,” she said, “it is sad to me 
 that our home should be broken up. But 
 what matters anything if only you get the 
 recognition which is your due 1 ” 
 
 “Ah,” he continued, “we shall begin a 
 new life with an honourable position, 
 an official and recognised position which 
 must command — I say, my dear, command; 
 hitherto we have begged — the attention 
 even of old-fashioned astronomers. Oh, 
 wife, do you not think I have felt the 
 ignominy of my life which I thought was 
 going to be so glorious ? Fifty years old 
 next birthday, and nearly thirty given to 
 
 0 
 
 r 
 
H — 
 
 50 [November 13, 1883.] A GLORIOUS 
 
 i FORTUNE. [Conducted by 
 
 the Great Discovery, and Error still taught 
 in every school, though I have never ceased 
 to lift up my voice. Here, what hope have 
 1 1 But there ! — oh, there ! with young 
 and generous hearts, unprejudiced, open to 
 reason, what future awaits me there 1 ” 
 
 He stopped, clapped his hand to his 
 eyes as one who is dazzled by the prospect, 
 and sat down. His wife listened and sighed. 
 She had never before, perhaps, so fully 
 realised her husband’s position and enthu- 
 siasm ; she sighed because the thought 
 would intrude itself that something safe in 
 the City would have been worth all the 
 glory that science can confer. This is the 
 way with mothers who have a large family 
 and a small income ; they would at any 
 moment actually sacrifice all the immor- 
 tality about to be conferred by a grateful 
 posterity on their husbands in return for a 
 solid income ; they think that there is 
 nothing in the world like domestic ease, 
 comfort, and a good house allowance; 
 nothing like bringing up the boys and 
 girls well, and giving them a good start in 
 life. If that great man, their father, cannot 
 do that, why, a thousand pities that 
 glory and an income do not go together ! 
 Perhaps the reason why the children of 
 great men do not often become themselves 
 great is that the family income would not 
 allow of the first elements of greatness 
 being properly taught. 
 
 “ The boys like the prospect,” said their 
 mother dubiously. “We could not go 
 
 without them, but Tycho is getting on so 
 well ; and we have such good reports about 
 Kepler.” 
 
 “They will get on better, under Mr. 
 Montoro’s patronage. Everybody gets on 
 in America ; the Americans welcome 
 Englishmen ; they give them their best 
 things ; they smooth the way for them to 
 get on. Mr. Montoro says so, and he 
 ought to know. Look at his example. 
 My dear, I have always been a republican, 
 I believe. It will be a congenial atmo- 
 sphere.” He threw out his arms as if to 
 breathe the stimulating and bracing air of 
 a Republic. “It is only under such a 
 government that Prejudice vanishes and 
 Truth can win her way. You will see 
 very clearly that in astronomy the great 
 heart of the American people will soon 
 beat true and sound.” 
 
 Just then Oopernica appeared. She was 
 returned from the wedding. Her cheeks 
 were flushed, her eyes red, and the traces 
 of tears lay upon her spectacles. She 
 stole in like a guilty criminal, and sank 
 
 upon one of the boxes in a fine unstudied 
 attitude of despair. 
 
 “Papa,” she said, “we may begin to 
 unpack our boxes at once.” She jumped 
 up and began to untie the cords with 
 feverish haste. “ Let us put back the 
 maps and books, and go on as we used to. 
 There will be no going to America.” 
 
 “ Copernica, are you mad ? ” i 
 
 The Discoverer turned pale and trembled. 
 
 “I am not mad,” she replied. “In a 
 little while you will hear all. It is enough 
 to make one mad, but I am in my senses.” 
 
 At this moment the Benefactor himself 
 appeared with a white rosebud in his 
 button-hole, a white waistcoat, and brand- 
 new hat and lavender gloves. No one 
 could look richer than Mr. Montoro. 
 Perhaps he overdid the part. Yery rich 
 men, if I may generalise from a limited 
 field of observation, generally wear shabby 
 hats and are careless about their gloves. 
 
 But at Veritas Villa they were not close - 
 observers. At sight of him, so glossy, so 
 well groomed, so prosperous and sleek, so 
 confident and so brave, the Philosopher 
 recovered heart. 
 
 But his wife caught Copernica by the 
 hand, and watched, her suspicions fully 
 aroused. 
 
 “I shall not keep you long, Professor,” 
 he said, smiling. “ All goes well with the 
 preparations ? The day after to-morrow, 
 Milly and I shall be on salt water. Your 
 cousin is coming here at twelve to com- 
 plete the sale of my little property. He 
 told you?” v 
 
 “Yes, yes,” the Professor wiped his 
 brow — all would be well, surely. “Yes, 
 Dick said I was to be in the way. To be 
 sure, I am always at home.” 
 
 “It is a bore,” said Mr. Montoro, “ that 
 one cannot take a house and sell it as one 
 sells a horse. The affair has been dragging 
 for three weeks, and every week means loss 
 when one’s concerns are so vast as mine. 
 Money, my friend, even the richest of 
 us cannot afford to lose, and yet I believe 
 I have lost more by the delay than if I 
 had given the houses away. Milly will 
 come with me, after we have finished, to 
 complete her outfit in Regent Street.” 
 
 “Why,” said the Professor, “ this little 
 girl of mine came running in five minutes 
 ago, crying that we should not go to 
 America at all.” 
 
 “Nor more we sha’n’t,” said Copernica 
 doggedly and idiomatically. 
 
 Mr. Montoro’s eyes flashed. 
 
 “ What does the girl mean ? ” he asked. 
 
 — — — - K 
 

 Charles Dickens.] A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. [November 13, 1883.] 51 
 
 “ We shall not go to America,” she 
 repeated. 
 
 Mr. Montoro hesitated. What did she 
 mean 1 It puzzled him. At this moment 
 he had not the slightest fear or suspicion of 
 danger, yet the girl’s words troubled him. 
 What did she mean ? In his pocket was 
 the cheque for the whole of his victim’s 
 fortune. In a few moments he was to 
 receive the produce of the sale of his 
 houses which were not his to sell. In 
 another day he was to start for America, 
 taking with him the girl whom he proposed 
 to employ as a confederate and a decoy. 
 
 The moralist may pause to remark that 
 the whole of this villainous scheme had 
 grown up bit by bit from the robbery of 
 the notes and the letters. Thus does one 
 ill weed produce another, till the whole 
 garden is overrun. 
 
 “Of course you will please yourselves 
 about coming out. But I thought you had 
 accepted my offer, Mr. Ambler.” 
 
 The coldness of his tone frightened the 
 Astronomer. 
 
 “ Of course I have accepted,” he 
 hastened to make submission ; “of course 
 I have accepted. Why, the child is mad ! 
 I do not know what has possessed her 
 this morning. Don’t be offended, Mr. 
 Montoro.” 
 
 “And yet we shall not go,” repeated 
 this amazing girl. 
 
 Just then, at the stroke of twelve, 
 Mr. Richard Ambler arrived, bearing his 
 bundle of papers. With him were Milly 
 and George. 
 
 It was remarked by Mrs. Ambler that 
 Milly bestowed no greeting upon her 
 father. She, too, exhibited outward and 
 visible signs that something had happened. 
 Her father, however, seemed to observe 
 nothing. 
 
 “Now,” he said, “let us finish the 
 business.” 
 
 “Your business,” replied the solicitor, 
 “ shall be settled in a very few moments.” 
 
 He stood at the table, the papers in his 
 hand, at the right of the Discoverer, who 
 sat in his wooden chair, looking on with 
 troubled eyes, because things were going 
 on which he understood not. On his left 
 stood Mr. Montoro. Behind the solicitor 
 was Milly, George standing beside her, and 
 in the window Copernica and her mother. 
 Then there was a hush while Mr. Richard 
 read over his papers. 
 
 “I must trouble you, Mr. — ah! — Mr. 
 Montoro,” he said, “ with a little business 
 first. I have received your rents for a 
 
 good many years. I have here a complete 
 statement, with vouchers of the receipts 
 and disbursements for years.” 
 
 “ I don’t want to see it,” Mr. Montoro 
 replied. “ I really have not the time to 
 look into these trifles.” 
 
 “ A hundred and eighty pounds a year, 
 or thereabouts,” said Mr. Richard, “ is not 
 a trifle. But if you will not examine the 
 account, you will not perhaps object to 
 give me a discharge in full of all claims. 
 My cousin, as you know, has received 
 the whole income, after paying ground- 
 rents, repairs, and my own charges, for 
 the maintenance and education of Mis3 
 Montoro.” 
 
 “ Let us sign this discharge and get on,” 
 said his client. 
 
 He took the paper offered him and wrote 
 his name at the end of the form — “ Charles 
 Montoro.” 
 
 “ Thank you,” said Mr. Richard. “ Only, 
 pardon me, in legal documents it is neces- 
 sary to sign the name in full. Is this your 
 only Christian-name 1 ” 
 
 The effect of these words was wonderful. 
 For suddenly the man remembered the 
 rambling talk of Johnny in his cabin about 
 his ridiculous Christian-name. He had 
 forgotten to find out what it was. He 
 changed colour and glanced round him 
 like a wild creature at bay. In the grave 
 face of the solicitor, the angry looks of 
 George Ambrose, and the cold eyes of 
 Milly he saw that the game, somehow, 
 was up. 
 
 “'We will have both your Christian- 
 names, Mr. — ah ! — Mr. Montoro.” 
 
 “ Both my names ? ” He seized the pen 
 again. “ Give me the paper back. I am 
 to sign here, am I — and in full? Very 
 good. Milly, my dear, were you ever told 
 your father’s ridiculous Christian-name 1 ” 
 Milly made no reply. “ Do you know it, 
 Mr. Ambler ? I think I would bet you 
 five dollars that you do not know it.” 
 
 “I do know it,” said Mr. Richard. 
 “ The point is, that you do not.” 
 
 Mr. Montoro threw down the pen and 
 tore the paper across, with a remark about 
 the Christian-name which is generally 
 expressed by a long black line. 
 
 “ Tell me, if you please, what this 
 means 1 ” 
 
 “ It means many things. But, first of 
 all, is it not an unusual thing for a man to 
 forget his Christian-name ? You may learn 
 yours by looking at the register in Hackney 
 Church, where you were christened and 
 married. You are welcome to that infor- 
 
 — : = 
 
52 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 mation. Did you ever know a case in 
 which a man forgot his Christian-name 1 ” 
 
 “ This is a most extraordinary proceed- 
 ing/’ said Mr. Montoro, recovering his 
 coolness. “Is there anything more to 
 
 follow 1 Milly, are you ” She turned 
 
 her head and made no sign of hearing. 
 “Is this a conspiracy, in which my own 
 daughter is concerned % Are you in it, too, 
 you drivelling old idiot 1 ” He looked so 
 fierce as he addressed the Discoverer, who 
 jumped in his chair, and was seized with a 
 mighty terror. 
 
 “ We are all in it, except Mr. Ambler,” 
 said George. 
 
 “ In that case,” Mr. Montoro replied 
 with dignity, “ there is nothing for it but 
 to set the law at work. You, sir,” he 
 addressed Mr. Diehard, “ will have to give 
 an account of your management ; part of 
 the plot, I suppose, was to say nothing 
 about it. Your share,” he addressed 
 George, “was the house property. Yours,” 
 he addressed Milly, “ was to aid and abet 
 your lover. An ungrateful and unnatural 
 daughter ! ” 
 
 “Go on,” said George; “my turn will 
 come directly.” 
 
 “I have nothing more to say,” Mr. 
 Montoro replied, taking his hat. “ So far 
 as I am concerned this is the last time I 
 shall speak with anybody in this room. 
 The law shall take its course.” 
 
 “By all means,” said Mr. Diehard. 
 “First, however, George, you wished to 
 tell the man what we know about him.” 
 
 “I will tell Deginald in his presence,” 
 said George. He took up his position at 
 the door, as if to bar escape. “ This man, 
 Deginald, is not Charles Montoro at all— — 
 he is an impostor and a pretender — his 
 real name is Percival Brooke West ; he was 
 once a gentleman, and in the army, but 
 sold out many years ago, after the Crimean 
 War ; he then lived about town, gambling 
 and throwing away his money. Fifteen 
 years ago he got into a mess, and did 
 something — I know not what— something 
 disgraceful. Then he was obliged to fly, 
 and was expelled his club. He went to 
 America, and has lived on his wits, that is 
 to say by cheating and gambling in various 
 forms. He met Milly ’s father in Oregon, 
 robbed him of his money and his daughter’s 
 letters, and came to London. He now lives 
 at the Langham Hotel under his own name. 
 No, sir, you stay until I have finished. If 
 you try to get out before we let you go, 
 you will have to fight me.” 
 
 The Claimant folded his arms, and tried to 
 
 look unconcerned, but he failed, because he 
 was totally unprepared for this. How on 
 earth had they found it out 1 As regards the 
 Christian-name, that was an accident caused 
 by his own carelessness ; he ought to have 
 foreseen this danger ; it was a most foolish 
 thing to forget. But the array of facts — 
 how had they got hold of them ] And he 
 remembered, too late, what he had at the 
 very outset proposed to himself, namely, 
 to rush the thing through, and be off 
 before any questions could arise. Better, 
 far better, had he not been tempted by 
 this dream of gambling in its higher 
 branches, with a beautiful woman to help 
 him. Better had he been contented with 
 the plunder of Milly’s houses, and made 
 no attempt upon the poor astronomer. 
 But he had his cheque in his pocket that 
 moment. When he got away he would 
 drive straight to the bank : perhaps it 
 would not be too late. 
 
 “ You see,” George concluded, “ you are 
 known.” 
 
 “ I see,” he replied, “ that you have 
 conspired together to make up a. story. 
 Now, if you please, we will conclude this 
 scene. But do not imagine that I am 
 going to let you have my property.” 
 
 “ One moment. We shall not keep you 
 much longer.” George opened the door, 
 and admitted the lawful owner of the 
 name of Montoro. “ You know this man, 
 perhaps.” 
 
 “ Oh,” said the Colonel, “ you have got 
 hold of Johnny, have you ! That explains 
 it. So you made your way home, J ohnny, 
 did you 1 Now I understand it all, and I 
 suppose the game is up.” 
 
 “ Colonel,” said Johnny, with a show of 
 courage, “ give me back my money and my 
 letters.” 
 
 “ As for the letters,” the colonel took 
 out his pocket-book ; “ here they are ; 
 I have no longer any use for them. As for 
 the money, it was no more yours than mine. 
 You have now got your cabin and your 
 clearing. Be content with it, unless you 
 prefer to stay at home with the most 
 dutiful daughter in the world, and the 
 most delightful son-in-law. They will be as 
 charmed with your personal habits as you 
 will be with the young man’s manners. You 
 were made for each other.” 
 
 He tossed the letters across the table. 
 Johnny seized them, and crammed them 
 into his pockets. 
 
 “ Can you tell me your Christian-name 
 before we break up this meeting ? ” 
 
 “ They baptised me Worshipful Charles,” 
 
A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 3 — — 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 said Johnny. “Colonel, don’t keep all the 
 money.” 
 
 “Worshipful Charles!” the Colonel re- 
 peated. “ Now, Mr. Richard Ambler, 
 could any one guess such a fool of a name 
 as that? Worshipful Charles! It’s enough 
 to turn any man into such a Johnny as 
 this poor creature. Milly, you will learn 
 to love your new father more and more 
 the longer you know him. He is as 
 brave as he is truthful ; he is as war- 
 like as he is clear-sighted ; he is as 
 temperate as he is resolute ; he hates 
 whiskey as he hates the sin of falsehood ; 
 and he is as rich as I am myself. As for 
 the houses ” 
 
 “ Matilda’s houses,” said Johnny ; 
 “they’re the little maid’s now, not mine 
 at all. Colonel, don’t be hard on a man. 
 I’m a peaceful man, but don’t keep all 
 them notes.” 
 
 “ Peaceful ! Good Lord ! ” cried George. 
 “ Is there a single kick in the whole man ? 
 He robs you of your money, he tries to rob 
 you of your daughter, he has almost robbed 
 her of her little fortune, and you call your- 
 self a peaceful man.” 
 
 “It pays best,” Johnny replied. “I’ve 
 got through life comfortably through being 
 peaceful, with lots of fighting men, stickers 
 and shooters, around all the time. Colonel, 
 say you won’t keep it all. ” 
 
 “ Good Heavens ! ” cried George again, 
 “ why, you ought to give him in charge. 
 You should follow him to his hotel, and go 
 with him wherever he goes until he gives 
 you back the money.” 
 
 “ That is what you would do, my fine 
 fellow,” said the Colonel. “ I wish I had 
 you out in the West, I would make you 
 dance, my cocky little clerk with the 
 bantam crow.” 
 
 “ And I, Mr. Brooke West, would make 
 you hang.” 
 
 “ Hush ! You don’t know,” said 
 Johnny. “ Oh, you don’t guess what it is 
 to fight sl man like the Colonel. No, no, 
 speak him fair. You will find him very 
 good company, too,” he added without 
 much fitness as far as anyone could tell. 
 But doubtless in his mind there was some 
 sort of connection. 
 
 “There are difficulties, Mr. Ambrose,” 
 the Colonel went on. He was quite easy 
 and comfortable in his manner now, having 
 made up his mind that it was quite useless 
 to carry on the game any longer. “ There 
 are difficulties which you do not understand. 
 Our gallant and daring friend Johnny, or 
 Worshipful Charles, claims some money. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 53 
 
 He must first prove that he lost that 
 money ; next, that I took that money ; and 
 thirdly, that it was his money.” 
 
 “ I found it,” said Johnny. 
 
 “ A very likely story. Now, is there 
 anything more you wish to say, Mr. 
 Ambrose, or any of you ? ” 
 
 At this point the Great Discoverer, who 
 had been listening in an abject state of 
 confusion, bewilderment, and terror, began 
 to realise something of the situation. 
 
 “ George,” he pointed to the new comer, 
 “ who, after all, is this gentleman ? ” 
 
 “ This is Milly’s father, Reginald. Do 
 you not understand ? ” 
 
 “ The place in his college has been 
 offered to me. He knows that, I suppose? ” 
 “ Oh, papa,” cried Copernica, “ there is 
 no college — there is no Fortune. This poor 
 man is a beggar and a pauper; all that 
 was said about the Fortune was false, 
 wasn’t it, you Mr. Montoro ? ” 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 “ All lies,” he replied. 
 
 “ Oh ! ” the Discoverer sprang from his 
 chair and literally hurled himself upon the 
 Colonel. He was not a fighting man, but 
 his whole thought was not to let him go ; 
 therefore, he threw his arms round his neck 
 and hung on. “ Hold him — keep him from 
 running away!” he screamed. “ He has got 
 a cheque for all my money — all my money 
 — in his pocket — all my money ! ” he really 
 shrieked in his agony, thinking that he 
 had made his wife and children penniless. 
 
 “ Let him go, Reginald,” said his cousin ; 
 “ let him go. Your money is safe.” They 
 dragged him, crying out for his money, 
 from his enemy. “Your money is quite 
 safe. You see, cousin, I naturally thought 
 when you sent me instructions to sell out, 
 that you were up to some foolishness, 
 so I took the liberty of delaying the 
 business. Your stock, my poor cousin, 
 still stands to your name, and your cheque 
 is worthless.” 
 
 “ Richard,” said Mrs. Ambler, who had 
 been looking on with an earnest desire for 
 all to go away, so that she could begin to 
 make things as they used to be — “ Richard, 
 I shall be grateful to you for my whole 
 life,” 
 
 “ In that case,” said the Colonel, 
 adjusting his rosebud, which had been 
 slightly bruised in the struggle, “ in that 
 case, let us tear it up.” He took it out 
 of his pocket-book and did so. “ And 
 now, I am afraid there remains nothing 
 but to unpack your boxes and put up your 
 maps again. But you have my free 
 
 r 
 
54 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 permission to quote my case as that of a 
 Recruit won over by force of reason and 
 argument. If I can flatten the earth a 
 little more for you in any part of it, I shall 
 willingly do so. Nothing more, I think ? ” 
 
 “ Richard,” said Mrs. Ambler, “ please 
 make Reginald’s money so that he can 
 never touch any of it again.” 
 
 “Except a criminal prosecution for con- 
 spiring to obtain money under false 
 pretences,” said Mr. Richard. 
 
 “ Yes, that I fully expect. This witness,” 
 he pointed to Johnny, “ will be invaluable 
 to you, will he not ? Good-bye, Milly ; I 
 wish you, for your husband’s sake, your 
 mother’s temper — good-bye.” 
 
 “ Good Heavens ! ” said Mrs. Ambler, 
 
 “ we were within a day of being beggars. 
 Oh, Copernica 1 ” 
 
 He put on his hat and was about to 
 go, when the door opened and a lady of 
 middle-age, very stout, and . extremely 
 dignified in her bearing, dressed in gorgeous 
 silks, appeared. 
 
 “Where,” she said, looking round the 
 room, “is my brother-in-law, Charles 
 Montoro ? ” 
 
 “Your brother-in-law, madam ?” asked 
 the Colonel. “ Is Worshipful Charles your 
 brother-in-law ? Do you mean the rich, 
 the successful— the enormously rich and 
 successful Worshipful Charles Montoro ? ” 
 “Certainly I do. Milly, my dear, is 
 this gentleman your father ? He does not 
 look ” 
 
 “Behold him! Come, Johnny.” The 
 Colonel seized the man of peace, who had 
 shown, at sight of the new comer, a desire 
 to hide himself behind Mr. Richard, and 
 dragged him forward. “Your sister-in- 
 law — perhaps Matilda’s sister, who married 
 into carriage company.” 
 
 “ Oh, Lord ! It is P’leena,” said Johnny, 
 looking horribly guilty. 
 
 “My dear Aunt Paulina,” Milly stepped 
 forward, “there has been a very great 
 mistake. My father has not made the 
 great Fortune we all thought he had. He 
 has failed and is very poor, in fact he is 
 going back to America, where he has a 
 small farm. All our plans are changed, 
 and I was married this morning to George 
 Ambrose.” 
 
 “ No Fortune ? No money made ? You 
 a pauper, Charles?” the lady grew very 
 red. “ Explain this deception, pray. Milly, 
 I demand an explanation.” 
 
 “ It is P’leena ! ” Johnny repeated. 
 “There is none to make, aunt, except 
 what I have told you — my father is not rich.” 
 
 “I have driven all the way from 
 Wimbledon to be confronted with a 
 Pauper ! ” said this amiable lady, “ after 
 what I have been given to understand. 
 And you, Milly, have actually married 
 without consulting me, your only respect- 
 able relation ! Pray, what is your husband ? ” 
 
 “I am a clerk,” said George unblush- 
 ingly. 
 
 “ Henceforth, Milly,” said the outraged 
 lady, “go your own way. You have no 
 more ambition than your father. A 
 Pauper !” She withered the luckless 
 Johnny. “ It is enough to make my poor 
 deceived, unfortunate sister Matilda turn 
 in the grave into which you have worried 
 her. After all that has been done for you, 
 Milly, you marry a clerk ! ” 
 
 She walked out, and the next moment 
 they heard the wheels of her carriage 
 driving her away. 
 
 “ This is very amusing,” said the Colonel. 
 “I congratulate you, Johnny, on your 
 reception by your friends. Nothing like 
 the domestic affections, is there ? Now I 
 am going. My cab is outside. Would 
 you like a lift to town, Johnny, just to 
 talk about those notes? We shall agree 
 very well together, once we get away 
 from mischievous pettifoggers and greedy 
 clerks.” 
 
 Johnny followed unresisting .. He could 
 not resist the Colonel. He did not even 
 say good-bye to his daughter, but went 
 without a word. 
 
 Milly expected her father to return that 
 day, and the next, and the day after. Then 
 George went to the Langham and enquired. 
 Mr. Brooke West was gone, and nothing 
 was known of any Mr. Montoro. What 
 happened was very simple. The Colonel 
 drove his friend Johnny to Wapping, or 
 the neighbourhood. There he gave him 
 dinner, with copious whiskey. He then 
 found out a steamer going to sail to New 
 York the next day. He persuaded J ohnny, 
 without the least difficulty, that his only 
 chance was to get back to Oregon 
 with all speed, lest somebody should 
 take possession of his clearing, and that 
 ten pounds, as an advance, would quite 
 cover any claims he might have on account 
 of that bundle of notes. He nursed 
 Johnny all that day, keeping, him happy 
 with whiskey and amused with continual 
 talk. In the morning he took him on 
 board, and did not leave him until the last 
 bell rang and the last visitor had to 
 descend the companion. In fact, he was 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A GLORIOUS FORTUNE. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 5 5 
 
 the last, and as he went down, Johnny 
 was feebly hanging over the bulwarks, 
 waving his hat in a friendly farewell. 
 Never was such a Johnny known. 
 
 I believe that he is now sitting by him- 
 self in the shade beside his cabin, listening 
 contentedly to the murmur of the stream, 
 and regarding through the door with sen- 
 timental admiration a distant view of the 
 whiskey -bottle on the table. 
 
 As for the Astronomer, it took him 
 many days to recover even ' the semblance 
 of dignity and self - respect. He was 
 crushed ; he did not dare to face the boys, 
 who were reduced to mere rags of despair 
 and wrath. Copernica took her father to 
 i the seaside at Walton-on-Naze, where 
 I he amused himself by considering the 
 flatness of the ocean, and so gradually 
 pulled round. He has now entirely 
 recovered, because he has made converts 
 of two ladies — sisters — with money. They 
 are convinced that he is not only right 
 and a very great Discoverer indeed, but 
 also that he is mentioned in Prophecy, 
 and will be connected with the end of the 
 world. They talk of leaving him all their 
 money for the purpose of disseminating 
 the truth. He has begun a new chapter 
 on the Flatness of the Earth, and has 
 promised a Speculation on the Outer Rim. 
 Sometimes, however, the healed wound 
 breaks out afresh, and he remembers 
 with shame and sorrow how he was 
 cajoled and deceived, and how he was 
 ready to part with the whole of his 
 fortune to an unscrupulous adventurer and 
 cheat. 
 
 I ought to leave the Colonel to his own 
 devices. In novels he would have gone 
 back to America, there to lose all his ill- 
 gotten money on euchre and a black 
 bottle; after this he would have become 
 once more adventurer, sportsman, and 
 card-sharper ; and he would have been 
 finally hanged for horse-stealing, or shot 
 for cheating at monty. I beg to explain 
 that Mr. Percival Brooke West did nothing 
 of the kind. 
 
 Johnny dispatched, he sat down to 
 think. 
 
 First of all he had not done so badly 
 since he had managed to get into his little 
 gambling circle. The stolen eight hundred 
 pounds had increased to more than a 
 thousand, without deducing his personal 
 expenses. And he felt that he could not 
 possibly return to the old life. And then 
 
 he remembered that he had a mother and 
 sisters. 
 
 They lived by the seaside in a pretty 
 cottage — a widow woman and two elderly 
 daughters. They are quite well-to-do 
 people, and until the autumn of this year 
 of grace, eighteen hundred and eighty- 
 three, they lamented continually the 
 absence of the son and brother who had 
 turned out so badly, and been so “ extrava- 
 gant ” — that is how they put it ; but though 
 they knew nothing for certain, they were 
 aware that there had been more than 
 extravagance. 
 
 One morning in September the prodigal 
 came home. 
 
 ‘‘Mother,” he said, “let us have no 
 talk of the past. I have had time to 
 
 sow my wild oats. 1 have saved, at the 
 
 expense of many privations and great 
 resolution, a small sum of money to come 
 home with. Let me stay a little while 
 with you and my sisters before I go back 
 to the struggle.” He had grown his grey 
 beard again, looked quite gentle and 
 humble, and spoke so kindly that their 
 hearts were melted. 
 
 Let him stay 1 Will they ever let him 
 go ? And if a tiger be well fed, regularly 
 fed, and kept warm, and given all that he 
 wants, that tiger, in course of time, will 
 become, if you please, a mere tame cat. 
 He will undergo this transformation with- 
 out any repentance, tears, remorse, sorrow, 
 self-reproach, penitence, or lamentations of 
 a sinner, but comfortably, gradually, and 
 smoothly. In course of time, Mr. Percival 
 Brooke West will, I dare say, inherit his 
 mother’s property. He will not return to 
 town, where his late reception inspired 
 him with a dislike for Clubland, but will 
 remain in the country, and will become an 
 authority on whist; he will be popular 
 among many as he grows older, on account 
 of his strange experiences and his varied 
 stories of travel and adventure; and 
 though in course of time there may come 
 into the country rumours of wild youth and 
 excesses, followed by trouble, no one will 
 believe that he was ever anything but an 
 honourable gentleman, with as fair a 
 record as falls to the lot of most, though 
 perhaps he lost his money, and had to go 
 abroad for a time to make more. 
 
 But Milly and her husband abide by 
 the banks of the gentle river Lea, and are 
 contented, and he hopes to do sueh great 
 things in the future as will lead him to 
 the gate of honour and the way of wealth. 
 
 END OF “ A GLORIOUS FORTUNE.” 
 
n S 
 
 
 tM- 
 
 E 
 
 56 [November 13 , 1883 .) WHY THEY KEPT HOLYDAY. [Conducted by 
 
 WHY THEY KEPT HOLYDAY. 
 
 By Susan K. Phillips, 
 
 Hark, how the bells are clashing overhead ! 
 
 They never rang so joyously afore ; 
 
 And every bark has got her colours spread, 
 
 And every coble’s dancing to the shore ; 
 
 For all the birds are telling of the shoal 
 
 Laid rank and ready out by Huntcliff height, 
 
 I know the fisher-lads, and not a soul 
 Will tak’ his lines over the bar to-night. 
 
 Look yonder— you can see them over there, 
 
 With all the barefoot childer gathered round ; 
 
 I reckon that they make a likely pair, 
 
 The dead that has come back, the lost that’s 
 found ; 
 
 To think the hands that meet so frank and free, 
 
 Last parted just as murder touched on strife ! 
 
 Come and I’ll tell thee— sit aside of me — 
 
 Why we keep holyday in Hagalythe. 
 
 Them two, twelve years back, wer’ two reckless boys, 
 With twenty summers dancing in their blood, 
 Playing with life and time, like bairns with toys, 
 And hot as fire with each changing mood. 
 
 Sin’ Eve first touched the apple in the Book, 
 
 A woman’s in all mischieves that I know, 
 
 And ’twas a lass’s idle word and look 
 
 That brought them two to harm— it’s always so. 
 
 She wer’ a bonnie maid too ! her blue eyes, 
 
 First on the one and then the other lit, 
 
 As bright and changeful as the April, skies, 
 
 Nor ever meant a wrong or shame in it ; 
 
 But old men watched the lads go glowering past, 
 And heard the muttered threat and sullen oath, 
 And said, ’twer’ pity if the fit should last, 
 
 Summat would come on it, to one or both. 
 
 It wer’ a wild March morning ; I had been 
 Looking for wreckage out by Kindlin Bay, 
 
 And up by Saltwick, where the wind blew keen, 
 
 I, with my load, wer’ toiling on my way ; 
 Bursting across the hauf I met our J ack, 
 
 All white and scared he wer’, and hunted like ; 
 And, as I hailed him, started sudden back, 
 
 And raised an angry hand, as if to strike. 
 
 “ What ails thee, lad ?” I said, and down he dropped, 
 And hid his face among the clustered heather ; 
 
 I cannot tell thee now how long we stopped, 
 
 Nor all we said, out in the fierce March weather. 
 I loved the lad, aye, and he knew it well ; 
 
 And so at last, I heard the heavy tale, 
 
 And I was sore to hark, as he to tell, 
 
 And ever round us roared the rising gale. 
 
 ’Twas all about a silly scarlet knot 
 Polly had gi’en to one of ’em, you see ; 
 
 I lay the lass hersel’ had clean forgot, 
 
 Before they all had parted company, 
 
 Up there at Runswick feast ; but so it was, 
 
 And they two came to words about the thing, 
 
 Up by the High Lights, where the short slape 
 grass 
 
 Beneath the flying foam was glistering. 
 
 Poor Jack ! he sobbed out that he scarcelins knew 
 Who struck the first blow, but they grappled 
 then, 
 
 And close and closer to the edge they drew 
 Of the steep cliff, the furious struggling men ; 
 And then a shout, a slip, a desperate clutch, 
 
 At the witch-elm that ’mid the boulders sprung ; 
 A single fragile stem it wer’, not such 
 As fit to bear what to its branches clung. 
 
 It swayed and bent ; three hundred feet beneath 
 | The "angry breakers crashed upon the shore ; 
 
 It swayed and strained ; a swift and headlong 
 death 
 
 Was waiting for them in the hungry roar ; 
 
 It swayed and parted with the double weight, 
 
 And Will — I had to stoop to hear Jack tell 
 Just smiled and said, “ Be good to Polly.mate, 
 Good-bye,” and loosed his hold, and fell, and tell. 
 
 The lightened boughs swung upwards ; blind and 
 
 Jack struggled back to land. He looked, he said, 
 Once down, just once, and then, like some thing 
 
 Over the bare blank down he turned and fled ; 
 Then, as if stung anew, he broke my holch . 
 
 “ Tell her I’m gone— gone like another Oam, 
 
 And she may curse me when thy tale is told, 
 
 And dashed away into the wind and ram. 
 
 I brought my heavy tidings to the town, 
 
 With looks that spoke of doom before my speech, 
 And many a day they searched the dreary down, 
 And many a day they roamed along the beach ; 
 
 And by the hearth our Polly wept her fill. 
 
 While gossips mourned, or sought their bits ot 
 black ; 
 
 But the wild sea had no account of VV ill, 
 
 And the wild moor gave us no word of Jack. 
 
 But time went by ; fast fills each vacant place. 
 
 I reckon life’s too short to cherish sorrow ; 
 
 And folk that sink to rest with woe-struck face, 
 
 Rise up and go to work in peace to-morrow ; 
 
 And ere another March came roaring in, 
 
 Polly was wedded to an inland chap ; _ 
 
 They said she wer’ in luck such bien to win, 
 
 I’stead of a rough fisher’s hut— mayhap ! 
 
 But I, who loved the lads, for many a year, 
 
 I’d come and stand beside that ragged stem. 
 
 And while the blast swept o’er the moorland drear, 
 Stare out across the sea, and think on them ; 
 
 And ofens as I stood and thought, I d pray 
 That the poor boy I saw that bitter night, 
 
 As quiet in some stranger churchgarth lay, 
 
 As t’other, where the great waves crashed to 
 white. 
 
 It was but vester-eve that down our street, 
 
 Two tall" bronzed chaps came with a steady 
 
 With a broad smile for all they chanced to meet ; 
 
 We stood and stared— sudden a woman cried, 
 
 A wild shrill cry— and, staggering up to Will, 
 Clings round his neck as fit the man to smother; 
 And Jack puts back the crowd, and, grave and still, 
 He says, “There’s none to ken me, lse no 
 mother.” 
 
 Thou ’It hear them tell their tale theirsens. A boat 
 Picked Will up, drifting, dead-like, with the 
 
 ’Twas war-time then— once on high seas afloat 
 A likely lad was sure enough to bide ! 
 
 “I’se glad they pressed me now,” he says, and 
 shakes . ^ . 
 
 A heavy purse ; he’s boatswain of the Jdawk, 
 And how she swoops upon each prize she makes 
 He’ll tell you, when you get him free 1 talk. 
 
 Jack met the soldiers, as in his despair 
 He hung upon the bridge at Castleton, 
 
 And reckless what he did, he ’listed there. 
 
 Lord ! where the lad has been, and what he s 
 
 He is a sergeant now, and loves his trade, 
 
 And wears his stripes— I scarce know what they 
 are ! 
 
 But, an’ he goes a-wooing, not a maid 
 Among us, ’ull say “ Nay ” to the Hussar. 
 
 You should ha’ seen how Polly laughed and cried, 
 Over her butter, up there at the Cross, 
 
 When them two went to greet her, side by side, 
 Happy and fortenate spite love and loss ; 
 
 She’ll bring her master up the town to-night j 
 For we may well make feast — not oft 1 life 
 The dead come back, the lost stand full i’ sight, 
 
 As our two lads to-day in Hagalythe ! 
 
 3S— — — — — ™ 
 
 U 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MISS JONES. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 :S=E 
 
 57 
 
 MISS JONES. 
 
 By Madge Hepworth Dixon. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 There are incidents in one’s life which 
 seem oddly bitten into one’s memory. 
 Often enough a stray sentence in child- 
 hood, or the physiognomy of some chance 
 acquaintance in an out-of-the-way corner 
 of the world, take hold of one’s recollec- 
 tion with a vitality out of all relation 
 to their intrinsic importance. The incon- 
 gruity of these haphazard memories often 
 strikes one as flagrant; but their very lack 
 of proportion serves to rivet the attention 
 like a bit of bad draughtsmanship in a 
 tenderly-conceived picture. It is as if some 
 impressions, for no very evident cause, 
 were drawn in a biting acid on the retina 
 of that strange bundle of incongruities 
 called a mind, while others are merely 
 sketched in pencil and easily blurred and 
 effaced. 
 
 There must have been something of the 
 former process in connection with an 
 incident which happened some six or seven 
 years ago at Bordighera. I am, I may safely 
 say, the least sentimental of mortals, and 
 laugh when all right-minded persons are 
 supposed to be what is called “ touched ” ; 
 but I still experience an odd sensation 
 when I see a solitary steamer diminishing 
 on a broad expanse of sea. 
 
 I found myself in Mentone the other 
 day, and ran over to Bordighera for a 
 couple of hours. Sauntering along the 
 terrace to the left of the long flight of steps 
 which leads from the quaint and tortuous 
 streets of the old town, I again saw the 
 half forgotten scene of years before. There 
 was a time when I almost knew the stones. 
 Up above in the narrow turnings of the old 
 town the burping sun can only penetrate at 
 noon-day; but here, overlooking the spread- 
 ing palm-gardens and the exquisite sapphire 
 sea, the world is glad with the radiant 
 golden sunshine. The long, straight, dusty 
 road to Ventimiglia lies from this height 
 like a silver thread upon the delicate green 
 of the olive growth, and, facing towards San 
 Remo, the tiny white villages nestle on the 
 mountains like sea-gulls on a rock. But 
 I hardly saw these things. I was carried 
 back in recollection six or seven years to a 
 somewhat dreary little episode in which 
 there figured a young English girl. I never 
 remember hearing her Christian-name ; her 
 surname was Jones. 
 
 I well remember the day she came to the 
 
 pension below. It was one teeming after- 
 noon in December in the year 187 — . 
 
 There was an air of rigid if mildewed 
 respectability about the Villa Clementine. 
 It had a look of gathering up its skirts 
 and retiring behind a couple of shabby 
 laurestinus-trees to shut out the cruel 
 proximity of the rectangular telegraph- 
 wires topping the railway, to say nothing 
 of the sideway view across the bridge of 
 a dilapidated restaurant and a newly- 
 opened shop, labelled “Marbres,” where 
 head-stones were carved for the glorifi- 
 cation of those unlucky enough to require 
 such commodities. The Villa Clementine 
 (Pension) as was touchingly bracketed on 
 the board facing the road, had, like some 
 of its inmates, seen better days. It had 
 been built by an English family, had even, 
 in its heyday, been tenanted by a countess 
 in her own right, a fact not infrequently 
 whispered in confidence by Madame 
 Pleyel on the occasions when she visited 
 her lady-boarders in their respective bed- 
 rooms. The villa had fallen on evil days, 
 and seemed to resent its misfortunes 
 in a certain gloomy aloofness which it 
 held from its surroundings. The build- 
 ing had decidedly an air of not being on 
 speaking terms with the rest of the 
 straggling street in which it lay. The 
 garden, trimmed by a hired gardener every 
 few weeks, in front of the best boarder’s 
 windows, ran wild in untidy confusion at 
 the back and side of the house, and even 
 extended its green arms in the shape of 
 moss and mildew along the lower portions 
 of the once stately marble steps. 
 
 It was at the portal of this somewhat 
 dreary establishment that a hired carriage 
 stopped one teeming wet day in December. 
 The rare southern rain had fallen since sun- 
 rise, so that the dusty roads of the day before 
 were transformed into rivers of liquid mud. 
 The villa presented the smudged and 
 streaked appearance of a half-washed urchin 
 as the rain trickled down its stucco surface, 
 and the top of the portico drained its con- 
 tents of water in monotonous thuds upon 
 the steps below. It even coursed from the 
 rim of the waterproof hat down the nose 
 of the surly coachman, who at last, obeying 
 the repeated cries of a somewhat shrill, 
 though youthful voice from the interior of 
 the cab, reined in his steaming horse at the 
 Villa Clementine. Then a slim girl’s figure, 
 muffled about the mouth and struggling 
 with a half-opened umbrella, descended 
 from the cab, and, mounting the steps, 
 which had become small water-courses, 
 
MISS JONES. 
 
 58 [November IB, 1883.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 assailed the door-hell. After a few minutes 
 the door was opened cautiously by Madame 
 Pleyel, who.dressed in a shabby brown dress 
 with a large fancy hair-brooch, looked out 
 and smiled a half- timid and half-mechanical 
 smile as she ushered the stranger in. 
 
 Mademoiselle wanted a room 1 Madame 
 had a large airy room to the north, more 
 strictly speaking to the north-west, which 
 she could let upon advantageous terms. 
 Mademoiselle must remember that it was 
 the beginning of the season. Madame’s 
 rooms to the south were occupied. In 
 a fortnight mademoiselle should have 
 her choice — did I not know the formula 1 
 at present there was the bedroom looking 
 on the garden. The table was excellent, 
 madame affirmed, and the r6unions in the 
 drawing-room every evening charming. 
 The room was lighted with wax candles, 
 and Madame Pleyel — for it was the mistress 
 of the establishment who thus condescended 
 to extol the advantages of the Villa 
 Clementine — drew herself up to her proud 
 height of four feet eleven inches, with the 
 air of saying that neither art nor luxury 
 could demand more. The small stranger 
 faintly demurred on the ground of economy 
 and the northern aspect, but, on finding the 
 bedroom large, and furnished with a balcony 
 and a view of the mountains and palm- 
 gardens, took off her hat and sent out for 
 her one modest trunk in token of con- 
 cluding the bargain. 
 
 The face and head, thus denuded of 
 covering, proclaimed the new comer to be 
 an English girl of no very unordinary type. 
 The features, which I had afterwards an 
 opportunity of studying, were small and 
 regular, without being of the flashy order 
 of beauty which may be said to beg admi- 
 j ration. The brows were broad, the nose 
 delicate, with deeply-cut nostrils, while the 
 lips, when compressed in thought, were 
 thin, the under one especially, at times 
 assuming the mere breadth of a line. The 
 eyes, under the straight pencilling of the 
 eyebrows, were deep-set, but piercingly 
 and singularly bright, while on the girl s 
 high cheek-bones blazed what Heine, with 
 one of his touches of profound pathos, 
 called the red northern lights of consump- 
 tion. The figure was slender and a trifle 
 flat, and the line of shoulder, too square for 
 absolute beauty, was thrown into greater 
 prominence by the slight stoop and com- 
 pressed chest not unusual with sufferers 
 j from pulmonary disease. The. unusual 
 j whiteness of her skin, which just now 
 j gathered the green reflections from the 
 
 garden outside, and the thin, small hands 
 with their prominent blue veins, gave a 
 singularly fragile, almost an unearthly look, 
 to this solitary little figure. 
 
 I happened to be passing at the time and 
 saw her. 
 
 Madame Pleyel, a discreet lady, who 
 rarely thought it incumbent on herself . to 
 make unnecessary enquiries concerning 
 boarders with whom she had made a 
 satisfactory bargain, shut the bedroom- 
 door with a puzzled look. She indulged 
 her feminine curiosity to the extent of 
 wondering why so delicate a young lady 
 travelled alone; and on paying the cab- 
 man, and ordering Jules, the one breatn- 
 less and overworked gar<jon of the pension, 
 to bring in the trunk, permitted herself to 
 master the name of the owner written on 
 the label. The name, which Madame 
 Pleyel, despite her Gallic origin, remem- 
 bered to have heard, was Jones. Miss 
 Jones, Clapham, was printed, in what 
 looked like a schoolboy’s handwriting, on 
 the label attached with a piece of red-tape 
 to one of the trunk-handles. ' . J ones ! 
 Madame remembered having a pensionnaire 
 of the name some two years back, and 
 made a mental note of the coincidence as a 
 topic for future conversation. 
 
 The curiosity of the other boarders in 
 the Pension Clementine was no less stirring. 
 There was one of those pauses when 
 feminine excitement actually expresses 
 itself in silence, as Miss Jones, dressed in a 
 plain black frock and broad white wrist- 
 bands, slipped timidly into her place at the 
 six o’clock dinner. 
 
 Two courses, one of soupe maigre and 
 another of fresh sardines, had tardily come 
 and clatteringly gone before Miss Jones 
 permitted herself to raise her. eyes to her 
 dinner companions. It is possible she was 
 in a measure prepared for some eccentricities 
 in her fellow-boarders. Bordighera is not 
 Clapham, and Miss Jones may. have 
 expected something of novelty in the 
 demeanour of such Russians, Swedes, or 
 Poles as might happen to find themselves 
 that winter in the south. But evidently, 
 it was not the foreigners at this foreign 
 table who aroused her astonishment. 
 Miss Jones had not yet learnt that her 
 own countrymen are the most independent 
 and therefore the most eccentric persons 
 to be seen amid the heterogeneous crowd 
 found wandering in search of sunshine. 
 
 Among the twenty or twenty-five persons 
 collected round the table, the two figures 
 which first arrested her attention were 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MISS JONES. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 59 
 
 Englishwomen. To her right, heading the 
 table with an important air, sat a lady 
 with a large drab-coloured face and such 
 a wondrous superstructure of pale yellow 
 hair, set about with gold pins, as gave the 
 top of her head the look of being a gigantic 
 pin-cushion. The flesh hung loose about 
 her small, sharp, blue eyes, which assumed 
 a piercing and querulous expression as 
 each successive dish was offered her. She 
 wore a profusion of showy jewellery, and 
 a liberal proportion of lace on a dress 
 already given over to a feminine super- 
 abundance of gimp and bugles. Her con- 
 versation consisted of grumbling, half to 
 herself and half to the table in general, 
 while she carried on a sort of rambling 
 soliloquy in an authoritative voice to what 
 seemed to be an invisible person under the 
 table, but who was afterwards discovered 
 to be a large over-fed Scotch terrier, tied to 
 the leg of her chair. This extraordinary 
 lady went by the name of Madame Toto 
 at the Villa Clementine. She had, in fact, 
 assumed, along with rather obtrusive 
 coronets on her pocket-handkerchiefs, an 
 air of being some distinguished person in 
 exile, and, as a means of keeping up her 
 incognito, had declined to give her name. 
 But the instinct of nomenclature is nearly 
 as universal as language itself ; and in this 
 instance the would-be mysterious stranger 
 simply passed by the name of her dog. 
 
 Besides this doubtful representative of 
 Great Britain, there was a thin wiry woman 
 with a hard but uneasy eye, who imparted 
 her convictions with an obstinacy terrible 
 to the other, and conversationally weaker, 
 sex. Miss Manns, the lady in question, 
 was both a linguist and a traveller, and 
 was imparting some recent experiences in 
 Asia Minor in a deep-toned but singu- 
 larly penetrating voice to a small sallow- 
 faced French professor, who sat nearly 
 opposite to her at table. He did not 
 appear to thoroughly understand her, 
 but from time to time smiled in a polite 
 but evasive way. It was not unusual 
 to find an empty chair on either side 
 of this talented lady, but her conver- 
 sational powers made her independent of 
 such conventional restraints as are sup- 
 posed to restrict a woman’s attention to 
 her immediate neighbours. Not a diner 
 in the pension but was in his time 
 brought within range of her tongue, 
 or hail of her inflexible eye. She had, 
 besides the gift of tongues, an extra- 
 ordinary talent for organising excursions 
 in the neighbourhood, which gave her a sort 
 
 of authority in the pensions in which she 
 generally found herself. The rest of the 
 boarders were less eccentric types. A 
 couple of respectable bourgeois from a 
 place near Toulon sat near Madame Toto. 
 They said little, retired early, always 
 wore mufflers and woollen shawls, and 
 took beef-tea at the table d’hdte dinner. 
 At the other end of the table, over 
 against Miss Manns, sat a large com- 
 placent Parisian, who decorously pro- 
 claimed her widowhood in black bomba- 
 zine, and a profusion of fanciful jet orna- 
 ments. She was less artificial than most 
 inmates of the gay capital, but had still 
 the practice of too frequently using a smile 
 that had perhaps done good work in its 
 youth. Its owner at present confined 
 herself to eating prodigious meals, 
 with a philosophic disregard to the 
 clatter of dishes and babel of tongues 
 around her, and punctually played cards 
 with an ex-priest, who appeared every 
 evening in the drawing-room after dinner. 
 The sterner portion of creation were 
 always in a minority at the Villa Clemen- 
 tine. Besides the small professor who 
 suffered from dyspepsia and Miss Manns’s 
 volubility, there were only at that time at 
 the pension a stout, florid young author 
 of the ultra-realistic school, who was, it 
 was rumoured, a frequent contributor 
 to Gil Bias, and who talked a great 
 deal about “La Femme,” and a pale 
 young German naval officer, who occu- 
 pied the chair next to Miss J ones. I could 
 not help noticing what a pretty couple 
 they made, sitting together : she, with 
 her smooth dark braids and transparent 
 skin ; he, with his fair northern hair and 
 broad shoulders. They seemed, however, 
 too shy to speak to each other, and the 
 dinner dragged on as usual, amid the 
 grumbling of Madame Toto, the clatter of 
 dishes, and the distant but resonant solution 
 of the Eastern Question from Miss Manns’s 
 quarter of the table. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Not a drop of rain had fallen for over 
 five weeks. The old year had gone and 
 the new year come, but visitors sauntered 
 along under their blue-lined umbrellas, or 
 crept under the shade of the gigantic 
 olive-trees. Those accustomed to dreary 
 northern skies can hardly realise that 
 Christmas passes with an accompaniment 
 of brilliant sunshine, with the roses bloom- 
 ing at your windows, and the fervent, 
 cloudless blue overhead. The spirit of the 
 
60 [November 13, 188$.] 
 
 MISS JONES. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 sleepy southern life soon takes possession 
 of the idler who sits under the palm-trees 
 and watches the sea-gulls skim along the 
 surface of the tideless sea. There was just 
 a line of foam fringing the sapphire tint of 
 the little bay at my feet that morning, 
 while the gleaming white of a cross-sailed 
 boat, which lay gently swerving on the 
 waters, blended with the pearly horizon. 
 
 It is an enchanted land, like the realisation 
 of a childish dream of fairyland. Are 
 there, indeed, one begins to think, such 
 evils as chilling fogs and gloomy skies? 
 Do cold, and hunger, and. misery really 
 exist, or is not the whole idea like some 
 miserable nightmare that one has, as it 
 were, put off with the mornings light ? . 
 
 Once give way to the subtle seduction 
 of this land of perpetual summer, and it 
 is the sad pale-coloured north which 
 alone seems unreal. Why, I ask myself, 
 being free, have I coughed and shivered in 
 England when in a day and a night I 
 might have been basking in the southern 
 sun? There is a richness here, in the 
 south in the very earth on which you 
 tread — Nature is generous, and gives with 
 both her hands. The warmth . of a 
 thousand summers seems to run in the 
 veins of the dark-eyed peasants who loiter 
 by the sea, or doze against the high wall 
 of the luxurious palm-gardens, looking 
 towards San Remo. 
 
 I was beginning to feel as lazy as they as 
 I watched the little white-sailed boat weigh 
 anchor and glide out to sea, and the sea- 
 gulls gather and float on the face of the water 
 off the next jut of land beyond the bay. 
 
 “ What a beautiful thing is repose,” 
 I thought to myself for the hundredth 
 time, when my ear caught the rustle of a 
 silk dress, and the shrill snap of a terrier. 
 There was no need to look, I knew my doom 
 was certain and near. Madame Toto, never 
 a disciple of the joy of calm, was upon me. 
 
 “ Ah, good-morning ! good-morning ! ” I 
 heard the old querulous voice say, and the 
 would-be young face approached mine as 
 Madame Toto, to my annoyance, spread 
 herself out and took a seat next to me on 
 the wooden bench. Her skin looked more 
 withered and pasty than ever in the 
 strong morning light, in spite, or perhaps in 
 consequence, of the black-and-white spotted 
 veil that she wore and the wondrous 
 superstructure of hair, tulle, and artificial 
 roses which, as usual, crowned her head. 
 Her arms were covered with bracelets, and 
 her cloak with fringe. There was never 
 about this woman a spot where the eye 
 
 could rest gratefully on a plain surface, or 
 a simple fold. The theory that a woman’s 
 peculiar identity — I mean that special 
 something which makos every breathing 
 human being distinct and separate from 
 her fellow — is often expressed in dress, 
 was amply demonstrated in Madame Toto. 
 There was what the new school of. Ameri- 
 can novelists would call a lack of simplicity 
 about this lady’s mind. Her brain, in 
 truth, seemed to be flounced and frilled 
 with such a wondrous collection of whims, 
 conceits, and preconceptions as made even 
 the attempt at rational conversation im- 
 possible. I had, indeed, long since given 
 up the idea, and resigned myself to her 
 society with the patience with which we 
 nearly always accept the inevitable. 
 
 “ Did you ever see such a wretched set 
 of people in a pension ? For my part, I 
 can’t imagine where they come from, ’ 
 began Madame Toto. 
 
 The dog again snapped and was caressed 
 before I answered. 
 
 ‘‘You are alluding to the Pension 
 Clementine ? ” I asked stiffly, for I was even 
 afraid of being ordinarily civil, for fear of 
 being asked to travel back to England, or 
 share her sitting-room in the evening. 
 
 I have no fear, personally, of her evil 
 tongue, but dread excessively her over- 
 tures of intimacy, which she insists on 
 proffering with the Graphic and the 
 Illustrated London News, whenever she 
 happens to be in a good temper. 
 
 “ The idea of people taking their beef- 
 tea in the dining-room ! ” she proceeded. 
 “ It positively makes me sick ! Do you 
 see those French people every day ? I 
 should say people might stay in their bed- 
 rooms. I know I shouldn’t disgust people 
 by taking beef-tea in the dining-room. 
 Then there’s Miss Manns. I’m sure she’s 
 no better than a Turk. She actually said 
 last night that a Mussulman was cleaner 
 and more religious than a Christian. Did 
 you ever hear of such a thing ? I call it 
 sacrilege — nothing short of sacrilege.” 
 
 Although Madame Toto paused here for 
 a reply, I thought it what a Frenchman 
 calls a “golden opportunity for holding 
 my tongue.” I was not in the slightest 
 degree anxious to enlighten her ignorance 
 as to the tenets of the Mahommedan 
 religion, knowing her to be one of those 
 ladies who cling to their preconceived ideas 
 in preference to the most conclusive facts 
 which may be demonstrated to them. 
 
 I merely, therefore, evaded the subject, 
 and called her attention to the beauty of 
 
Chaules Dickens.] 
 
 MISS JONES. 
 
 [November 13,1883.] 61 
 
 the scene. I made some cursory remark 
 about the sea being blue, or the palm-trees 
 green — -I forget which. I like, if possible, 
 to avoid personalities, especially about 
 people with whom one has to sit down to 
 dinner. But Madame Toto was not a 
 woman to be silenced when she meant to 
 talk. She would have neither sea nor palm- 
 trees. She never, even for conversational 
 purposes, pretended to like scenery, and to 
 abuse her fellow-creatures was to her one of 
 the dearest privileges of the gift of speech. 
 
 “ Now, there's that queer little thing — 
 Miss Jones, they call her,” proceeded 
 Madame Toto. “ Strange thing for a girl 
 to be out here by herself, don't you think ? 
 
 I call it remarkably odd. ” 
 
 “The poor girl is consumptive,” I said, 
 “and her people can’t all afford to leave 
 England, I hear.” 
 
 “Oh, some young governess, somebody 
 in that cl 1*3 of life,” continued my com- 
 panion, of whose complaints and snobbish- 
 ness I was beginning to get heartily tired. 
 “ Of course girls of that sort are not looked 
 after as we, probably, have been. I was 
 never let go three yards without my maid ; 
 but then, to be sure, I was a most attractive 
 girl at that age. I’m sure the compli- 
 ments I had paid me were quite absurd ! 
 But if that girl is an invalid, it’s odd she 
 should always be running about with young 
 men — very odd, I should say ! She is 
 always with that German officer. They 
 do say- ” 
 
 “ I really must be turning back,” I could 
 not help saying rather abruptly ; there are 
 times when one’s human nature gets the 
 better of mere politeness ; and I rose and 
 turned back down the long flight of steps 
 to the lower new town. 
 
 The same afternoon, Miss Manns, who, 
 as I have already mentioned, was one of 
 those indefatigable ladies who not only go 
 expeditions themselves, but must, perforce, 
 carry everybody else with them, had 
 arranged an excursion on the mountains. 
 A few hours later, therefore, found us 
 climbing one of those charming valleys, 
 rich with olive woods, and shady cool places, 
 thick with maiden-hair fern and pale violets, 
 where the tiny streams pour down from 
 the heights to. the Mediterranean. It is 
 pretty to hear the almost fearful silence of 
 these mountain-passes broken with their 
 child-like babble. 
 
 But beside the prattle of the mountain 
 stream, there was the merry talk that day 
 of our young couple from the pension. I 
 was glad to have them with us, for I like to 
 
 see happy, handsome young people about. 
 It reminds me of the time when I, now a 
 grey-haired woman with little but my 
 crotchets and my regrets left, first tasted 
 what is called the folly of follies, when the 
 eye brightens and the voice softens for 
 someone, who may be less than a stranger, 
 but who is at any rate more than a friend. 
 We call it a folly, this eternal and sublime 
 dream of youth ; but not, I have generally 
 noticed, until we are too old to evoke, it. 
 Love, as well as every other indiscretion, 
 may be laughed at when the temptation is 
 over; but even wiseacres, as a modern 
 writer has acutely pointed out, regret their 
 youth more than their imprudences, and 
 most of us would brave temptation if we 
 had a chance of regaining our teens. 
 
 In the present instance, I had never seen 
 little Miss Jones look prettier ; her eyes 
 danced with pleasure as she tripped up the 
 steep path in front of us, turning round 
 ever and anon to encourage our more 
 sedate footsteps. The young lieutenant, 
 too, looked radiant in a novel way— I 
 mean, he seemed suddenly to have gained 
 that extra touch of animation and man- 
 liness which a young man seldom fails to 
 exhibit when he is talking to the woman 
 he loves. And yet, except for the gossip 
 of the pension, to which, as a rule, I paid 
 little attention, I had no particular reason 
 to suppose these young people were any- 
 thing to each other. The fact that he sat 
 next to her at table, and offered her the 
 salt and the salad, was not to me, as it 
 appeared to the elder ladies at the Villa 
 Clementine, convincing proof that he would 
 also offer her what is called the devotion. of 
 a life. I am not given to the wild imagin- 
 ings common to ladies who find themselves 
 without either much occupation or amuse- 
 ment, and had supposed that the young 
 German, who seemed endowed with excel- 
 lent sense, and was known to be suffering 
 from consumption, would have restricted 
 his attentions to a purely ornamental 
 character. 
 
 But somehow, the foolish words of 
 Madame Toto came back, whether I would 
 or no. Did this silly old woman speak 
 truth in this instance, and were they likely 
 to be more than friends? It is strange 
 how the little speck or flaw which consti- 
 tutes the tit-bit of a scandal, has the habit 
 of lingering in the mind of the hearer, even 
 when he has honestly and indignantly 
 rejected it in the first instance. 
 
 As we came home the same evening, 
 an untoward accident occurred, which gave 
 
 r 
 
62 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 MISS JONES. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 C» 
 
 full force not only to my fancies, but 
 unfortunately point and zest to what I felt 
 to be the unjust suspicions of the morning. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 There is little or no twilight in the 
 south. The tender gloaming of northern 
 shores has no counterpart in this radiant 
 land of burning earth and sky, where the 
 night is upon you the moment the sun 
 drops behind the pine-crowned heights. 
 
 We had lingered longer than usual that 
 afternoon on the mountains, so that the 
 darkness overtook us while we were still 
 making our way down one of the pre- 
 cipitous and stony tracks which, rough as 
 water-courses, and intricate and narrow as 
 a maze, are to be found in many parts of 
 the Maritime Alps. 
 
 It is in the nature of things that a 
 young couple should drop behind in 
 returning home, so that I hardly noticed 
 the absence of Miss Jones and our young 
 officer, until the sudden night made us not 
 really lose our way, but hesitate in the 
 choice of a path. We had arrived at a 
 fork in the road, and Miss Manns imme- 
 diately employed her excellent lungs in 
 shouting for advice from the loiterers. 
 But no sort of reply came in return. 
 Shout as we would, there came only the 
 echo of our own voices from the woods, 
 and as my companion overruled my sugges- 
 tion of returning to look for the missing 
 ones, and the darkness gathered, we were 
 glad to make our way home. 
 
 The path we had chosen turned out to 
 be the right one, so that we were in plenty 
 of time to change our things before the six 
 o’clock dinner. We were, however, surprised 
 to learn that our young friends had not 
 arrived, the idea having occurred to both of 
 us that they had simply taken another 
 and probably shorter way back to the town. 
 
 Our suspicions increased as the evening 
 advanced without their being heard of. 
 
 What could have become of them? 
 Many speculations were hazarded at the 
 dinner-table, but the conviction the most 
 popular among the lady-boarders was un- 
 deniably that Miss Jones had sprained her 
 ankle or had a fit on the top of a moun- 
 tain, and was waiting for a litter to carry 
 her back. 
 
 This dramatic aspect of things seemed 
 to tickle the prevailing flutter of curiosity 
 and mystification, and add that zest and 
 flavour to the conversation which any 
 accident, however painful, gives to ladies 
 Gf what is called “ a certain age.” 
 
 It is curious that when Miss Jones, tired 
 and footsore, but otherwise in bodily 
 health, appeared on the scene as we were 
 about to leave the drawing-room two hours 
 afterwards, a reaction set in. 
 
 She had not been hurt, after all. It 
 was strange that a young lady who had 
 neither sprained her foot or had a fit, as 
 had been arranged, should stay out in the 
 dark with a young man. Lost their way ? 
 Oh yes. Those who had invented and 
 clung to the fit and ankle theory were now 
 the first to see something singularly light 
 in the conduct of a young woman who 
 would lose herself with naval officers. 
 
 The poor child had run into the room 
 to report herself to me and explain how 
 they had taken a wrong turning, which 
 eventually led them to a village some five 
 miles off. There she had felt so ill as to 
 be unable to move until the young German 
 had returned for a donkey, there being no 
 road for carriages. She was evidently 
 frightened and scared by the black looks 
 of the very women who had been so sym- 
 pathetic in theory a few minutes before. 
 
 Her reception was certainly discouraging. 
 Miss Manns paused in the middle of 
 what the scientists would call an “ex 
 haustive ” description of the neighbouring 
 Saracenic villages, to which, however, 
 through some inadvertency, no one seemed 
 to be especially listening. I have described 
 her eye as hard, but at the same time 
 uneasy ; it now assumed a glare directed 
 at a spot just above Miss Jones’s head 
 which was little short of terrible to behold. 
 There had been something of what diplo- 
 matists call a coalition or rapprochement 
 that evening. That is to say, Madame 
 Toto and Miss Manns, who were not 
 generally on speaking terms, had exchanged 
 civilities in the drawing-room over poor 
 little Miss Jones’s misdemeanour. At the 
 same moment, therefore, Madame Toto rose 
 majestically, and gathering up her skirts 
 and talking loudly to her dog, left the 
 room. The invalid couple, too, whispered 
 together, and putting on what seemed 
 even an extra number of shawls, tottered 
 after her. 
 
 Poor little Miss Jones ! it remained 
 only for the realistic French author, who 
 seldom appeared in the drawing-room, but 
 who at that moment was passing the open 
 door, to give her a singularly open and 
 admiring stare. He had hardly looked at 
 her before during the weeks she had been 
 at the pension; but the unfortunate episode 
 of the evening had evidently raised her in 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 MISS JONES. 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 63 
 
 this gentleman’s estimation as a worthy 
 example of “ La Femme.” 
 
 The next morning I was called away by 
 some friends at Nice, and having some busi- 
 ness in that town was detained several days. 
 
 I was surprised to learn on my return 
 to the Villa Clementine that Miss Jones 
 was leaving the pension that day. What 
 could her departure mean ) I knew she 
 had had the intention of remaining the 
 winter. Was it possible that they were 
 actually driving her away % 
 
 I went at once to Miss J ones’s door, and 
 nearly fell over two or three officious 
 servants who, in view of a departure, were 
 fussily proffering their services. Jules was 
 already carrying her box to the door. 
 
 “ You are going away 1 ” I asked. The 
 poor girl looked paler, smaller, and more 
 transparent than ever, as she stood in the 
 north light in her straight black clothes. 
 
 “ Yes, yes,” she answered in a tone of 
 deep mortification. There was on her face 
 an expression of pained bewilderment, a 
 grievously hurt look, which I have not for- 
 gotten, although some six or seven years 
 have passed since then. 
 
 I cannot explain why my heart went out 
 in this strange way to a stranger. I knew 
 nothing of her, the solitary facts I had 
 gathered were that her father was in 
 reduced circumstances, and that her sister 
 had died of consumption. There was little 
 I could do now at the last minute except 
 give her my hand. 
 
 “ Will you let me see you off f” I asked, 
 thinking that the protection of an elder 
 woman’s presence might be some small 
 comfort to her. 
 
 “ It is very good of you,” she answered 
 simply, and then explained that she was 
 going by the boat to Nice, where, it seems, 
 there was some old school-mistress of hers, 
 and that a cab would be at the door in a 
 minute to take her down to the shore. 
 
 The drive was not long, but I had time 
 to learn that Madame Toto had been in- 
 strumental in forcing Miss Jones’s depar- 
 ture. It seems that she had represented 
 to Madame Pleyel that not only she, but 
 all the ladies in the pension, would leave 
 unless the heroine of the mountain excursion 
 was requested to go. 
 
 The result was inevitable. Facts are 
 painfully prosaic in real life, and will not 
 bend in aid of the weak and the lonely. 
 
 There seemed something almost ironical 
 in the radiant sunshine and the gorgeous 
 scene about us that afternoon. In the midst 
 
 of this bounteous Nature, where the orange 
 and myrtle fringe the sea, and the fervent 
 blue of the skies shines through the olive- 
 groves on to violet and rose, they were 
 banishing this wretched little consumptive. 
 They were sending her out broadcast, as it 
 were, into the great busy world, which is 
 called callous because it has little time to 
 give to strangers. 
 
 The steamer was already in sight, 
 heaving gently on the broad swell of the 
 glistening sapphire sea. Near inshore, in 
 the fringe of surf which seems to kiss the 
 orange-trees, the lazy brown-eyed sailors 
 were waiting with a little boat to take up 
 passengers for the larger vessel. I re- 
 member the small jokes they made in their 
 strange mongrel tongue. 
 
 “ Good-bye” — “ good-bye,” is all we said, 
 and the small black figure stepped into 
 the row-boat a minute before it pushed 
 off. Just a glance from the small sad face, 
 a flutter of a pocket-handkerchief, and I 
 saw no more. 
 
 I think I said that some memories are as 
 a part of ourselves,, and for reasons which 
 we cannot reason with. Why should I 
 remember some seven years after that a 
 stranger in an indifferent pension took on 
 one particular day the steamer for Nice 1 
 Moreover, why should the circumstance 
 affect me ? I had already arrived at that 
 comfortable stage in middle life when we 
 are inclined to bear our neighbours’ ills 
 with philosophic fortitude. And this of 
 all virtues is the one which grows with 
 advancing years. 
 
 Why, then, did I experience a ridiculous 
 sensation in the throat as I climbed the 
 steps seven years ago, and how is it I 
 remember so exactly the spot where I stood 
 to see the last trail of smoke from the 
 vanishing steamer 1 
 
 I think it is because that trail of smoke, 
 in some strange way, has become associated 
 in mymindwith all thevague, the unwritten, 
 the unfinished acts of which life is full. 
 
 Is there not something pathetic in an 
 unfinished story, when the hand is stilled 
 while the page is still unwritten % The 
 same feeling takes possession of me as, 
 looking back, I think of that little solitary 
 figure going out unknown and unfriended 
 on that wide expanse of sea. Poor little 
 Miss Jones I have neither seen nor heard 
 of since. As the smoke of the steamer 
 died out faintly on the glowing sky-line, 
 so she, too, vanished from that day. 
 
 What has become of that young girl, 
 whose face seemed to come back with its 
 
 
n . — 0 
 
 ZE 
 
 «*. — ^ 
 
 64 [November 13, 1883.) WHAT WAS HE ? [Conducted by 
 
 one pathetic glance, as I watched the faint 
 speck disappear on the pearly horizon 1 
 What indeed ! Is she alive or dead — is 
 she well and happy, or have they laid her, 
 some other winter, under the palms by the 
 tideless sea ? Has she forgotten her 
 injuries, poor little girl, and has she for- 
 gotten Bordighera in the vague, unknown 
 land to which she has gone 1 
 
 last fact naturally made them even more the 
 central objects of observation and curiosity 
 than they might otherwise have been ; but, 
 indeed, the young wife was pretty and in- 
 nocent enough to attract notice anywhere, 
 fresh from the convent-school, where she 
 had passed all her young life, naive as a 
 babe and playful as a kitten, with big black 
 eyes, most childishly round and liquid, 
 a little head covered with short soft curls, 
 and a complexion of milk and roses. 
 
 The husband, however, was even more 
 remarkable for beauty : tall and slenderly 
 made, with a perfectly oval face, long 
 waving hair of a rich auburn colour, with 
 pointed beard and moustache slightly 
 deeper in tint, and eyes the like of which 
 I had never seen before. They were 
 indeed the chief feature in his face, and 
 though I could not call them beautiful, as 
 some did, they would have marked the 
 man among a hundred others after years 
 of forgetfulness. 
 
 If some of you think that this is an after 
 fancy of mine, not existent at the time, but 
 created by later impressions, you are 
 wrong. What I say of them now I thought 
 then, and even described them in a letter 
 which is still extant. “ Eyes not large, but 
 looking so from a singular power of dilation 
 in the pupil produced by any intensity of 
 feeling, pleasant or the reverse; whites 
 very convex, and with the dazzlingly 
 opaque brilliancy of porcelain ; iris of a 
 bright golden colour, surrounded by an 
 outer ring of deep greenish grey ; the whole 
 shaded, and made additionally noticeable 
 by the straight, sharply-pencilled brows, 
 inky-black, and slightly depressed towards 
 the nose, a peculiarity which became in- 
 tensified whenever their owner was excited 
 to either irony or vexation, and which lent 
 a curious and, to me, somewhat unplea- 
 sant expression to his face.” 
 
 The other ladies voted him as handsome 
 as an archangel. Mr. Hume, our clergyman, 
 suggested, half-laughingly, “ a fallen one!” 
 but, whatever our opinions might be, they 
 mattered very little to the subject of them. 
 Those weirdly-brilliant eyes of his, with 
 their orange-tawny light — a light which 
 seemed to come from within, like those of 
 the leopard and night-hawk— had vision for 
 nothing but the charming face of his wife, 
 while her innocent gaze seemed to lose itself 
 in wondering admiration as it rested on him. 
 
 They were ridiculously in love with one 
 ■ another. We had been talking about the 
 , glaciers one day at table d’hote. He had 
 ; often been in Switzerland before, and was 
 
 WHAT WAS HE? 
 
 By Theo Gift. 
 
 THE FIRST TIME. 
 
 I think it was in the second week of 
 August, 1868, that it happened. I may 
 not be quite right about the time of the 
 month or the month itself ; but I am 
 almost sure it was in August ; and I know 
 it was that summer, the summer of 1868, 
 that I spent in Switzerland. 
 
 We were staying at a pension kept by 
 a Madame Vambery, just outside the little 
 town of Abondance, among the Swiss Alps. 
 It was a charming place— a sort of big, 
 rambling chalet, built on the wooded slope 
 of a steep hill, commanding a glorious 
 view of the snowy mountains which framed 
 us in on all sides but one; and looking 
 straight down on the little town, with its 
 picturesque jumble of red roofs and twisted 
 chimneys, and the narrow, rock-bound river. 
 
 We were a lively enough party at the 
 chalet; Madame Yamb^ry being a pleasant 
 woman, and having a knack of getting 
 together young and pleasant inmates. I 
 don’t remember all of them, for they went 
 and came, but I can recall a nice little 
 Irish doctor ; a handsome High Church 
 clergyman and his sister, who went down 
 to early mass regularly every morning, in 
 the town below ; a French marquise, 
 middle-aged, but fascinating; a newly- 
 married couple, also French ; and Helen 
 Joyce, with whom I was travelling. I was 
 then six-and-twenty, in high health and 
 spirits, and unmarried ; while she was still 
 wearing her widow's weeds. Indeed it 
 was as a help to recovering her spirits, 
 which had been sorely tried by her hus- 
 band’s death, that I had agreed to spend 
 the year in travelling with her. 
 
 Unquestionably, the most fascinating 
 members of our party were the newly- 
 married couple. They were both very 
 young (she could scarcely have been 
 eighteen), deliciously good-looking, over 
 head and ears in love with one another, 
 and had only been married a week ! This 
 
 
 U 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WHAT WAS HE? 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 65 
 
 describing some of his feats in Alpine 
 climbing the while his girl-wife listened 
 delightedly, and now and then put in a 
 whisper to one of us. 
 
 “ N’est ce pas qu’il est tout a fait mon- 
 tagnard, mon mari ? ” 
 
 Later in the evening, I happened to be 
 out in the garden. It was not a large one, 
 but had the effect of being so from being 
 laid out in a succession of terraces cut out 
 of the steep hillside, and planted thickly 
 with all manner of flowering shrubs and 
 fragrant, bright-hued blossoms. Strolling 
 along the upper of these terraces, I was 
 gazing out to where the great white moun- 
 tains showed forth against a sapphire sky, 
 set thick with golden star-gleams, and 
 inhaling the delicious fragrance of the 
 pine-woods on the other side of the little 
 river at our feet, when I became aware of 
 the presence of our young lovers on the 
 path below me. They were chatting in a 
 little nook formed by a bench and the 
 angle of the wall ; he half kneeling on the 
 former, and supporting her as she sat on 
 the wall, her little feet crossed and 
 hanging down in front of her, her slender 
 childish figure pressed against his shoulder. 
 She had on a black lace frock, cut so as to 
 leave the neck and arms bare ; and her 
 pretty shoulders, charmingly white and 
 dimpled, gleamed like soft mounds of snow 
 in the moonlight. 
 
 “Eh bien, mon ch6ri,” I could hear her 
 saying in her clear little child-voice, 
 “ to-morrow, then, thou wilt take me up to 
 the mountains, and show me where to pick 
 the ‘ edelweiss ’ to show my mother when 
 we return % ” 
 
 “ If we can find a guide,” the husband 
 answered ; “ but they say one ought to 
 engage them the day before, there are so 
 many excursionists here at present.” 
 
 The little bride pouted, and struck him 
 a playful blow on the mouth with a bunch 
 of heliotrope which she held in her hand. 
 The perfume crushed against his lips rose 
 up to me in a sweet, sharp puff. 
 
 “ Guides ! What do we want with guides ? 
 Have you not told me how well you know 
 these mountains, and how often you have 
 been over them alone ? You shall be my 
 guide, Henri. I want no others, point 
 dAtrangers.” 
 
 “ But suppose any accident should happen 
 to you, petite ange 1 ” 
 
 “ Accident 1 What accident? We are 
 not going up Mont Blanc, and the * pasteur 
 Anglais ’ takes his sister always with him. 
 Est-ce que tu me crois poltronne, moi ? ” 
 
 “ Je te crois tout k fait adorable,” he 
 answered, and, stooping down, lifted her 
 little sandalled shoe and kissed it. I 
 thought it time to retire, and did so ; 
 but there had been no vulgar curiosity in 
 my staying so long. They did their love- 
 making perfectly openly, and there were 
 several others besides me enjoying the 
 perfumed air on those terraced walks. 
 
 Next evening, when we came home from 
 our drive, we found the whole pension in 
 a state of the greatest excitement and con- 
 fusion. The marquise was in hysterics, 
 Miss Hume’s maid crying bitterly in the 
 hall, while Madame, pale as death, and 
 with her hair all limp and unfrizzled, was 
 giving distracted orders to half-a-dozen 
 servants at once. She could only answer 
 our questions in incoherent ejaculations. 
 
 “ The most frightful accident — our dear 
 young bride and bridegroom. Alas 1 that 
 poor man. No, no, it was not he. It was 
 his wife ; that charming, fresh, all-adorable 
 child. She had ventured too near a cre- 
 vasse to pluck a flower. The piece of 
 snow on which she stood, loosened by the 
 late rains, had slipped and she had fallen. 
 Heaven preserve us, it was too horrible to 
 think of. Some one had heard the cries 
 of the poor husband, and had come to the 
 rescue, but it was too late. She was dead 
 — dead ! They were bringing her body 
 home now. And the poor husband 1 H61as! 
 why ask ? They said he had tried to kill 
 himself, too. The guides who lifted her 
 from the crevasse had to restrain him by 
 force from flinging himself in.” 
 
 It was too true. 
 
 That same night Miss Hume and I went 
 in to see the body. It had been laid out 
 in a lower room, and hearing that the poor 
 child’s mother had been telegraphed for, 
 we had gathered all the white flowers we 
 could find to strew round the corpse, and so 
 soften the sorrowful sight to those to whom 
 it must have been agony to gaze upon it. 
 
 It was a far more terrible one to us than 
 we had expected. Not that there were any 
 horrible facial wounds or disfigurement. 
 Curiously enough, as the servants had 
 already told us, there was not a broken 
 bone or a bruise on the whole body. Indeed 
 it must have been the mere shock of falling 
 from such a giddy height that killed her, 
 for she was found, quite uninjured out- 
 wardly, lying on a bed of soft snow at the 
 bottom of the crevasse. But to look on the 
 expression of her young face one would 
 have thought she had died in the most 
 awful agony, so ghastly .was the look 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 
 66 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 WHAT WAS HE 1 
 
 
 frozen there in death — a look, not of pain, 
 but of unutterable, indescribable fear, of 
 frenzied horror and repulsion ; while the 
 tiny waxen hands which some pious soul 
 had tried to bind together cross-wise on 
 the breast, were bent backwards, with the 
 stiffened fingers curving towards the palm, 
 as though warding off some sudden unima- 
 ginable horror. 
 
 Miss Hume could hardly bear the sight. 
 She put her hand over the contorted 
 features, and said faintly : 
 
 “ Oh, would not one think there was no 
 loving God behind death when a little girl 
 can meet is so 1 Fancy a mother having 
 only that look to remember her child’s face 
 by ! Has no one a veil to cover it ? ” 
 
 I said I had, and sending her away, for 
 she was quite unnerved, went to get it. 
 
 When I returned I forgot to bring a 
 candle with me, and found the room in 
 darkness, save for a broad stripe of moon- 
 light falling through a window at one end 
 of it upon the bier, with its slender white- 
 robed occupant, which stood in the centre 
 of the floor. Not thinking that there was 
 anyone else in the room, I was going in 
 softly, when I stepped back, shocked and 
 startled at finding myself in the presence 
 of the widower. He had not seen me. 
 He was standing on the farther side of the 
 bier, his tall figure slightly bent over it, 
 his arms raised high above his head, with 
 the hands wreathed together and waving 
 to and fro, as if in utterance of some 
 prayer or malediction against the woe 
 which had fallen on him; while, though 
 the spot where he stood was all the darker 
 for being just outside that one ray of light, 
 I could see his eyes dilated to double their 
 usual size, and blazing like two unearthly 
 lamps with a ghastly yellow glare, which 
 seemed to positively irradiate the dark and 
 tortured face beneath them. 
 
 Fully believing that the man had gone 
 out of his mind with grief, I fled, pale and 
 terrified, to my room, where I found 
 Helen’s maid was already packing our 
 things for going. She said that, consider- 
 ing the state of her mistress’s health and 
 spirits, she had persuaded her not to 
 remain in a house with death so soon after 
 her own sad loss, and that, after some 
 discussion, Helen had agreed to leave on 
 the morrow. I was not sorry to hear it. 
 
 THE SECOND TIME. 
 
 “ Well, be sure and call me if I can be 
 of any use, Mrs. Critchett.” 
 
 “ I will, ma’am, thank you ; and glad I 
 
 should be to do so if it were in the night, 
 and the nurse not here. They have 
 engaged one. I made .a point of it when 
 I let ’em the rooms ; seeing as how that 
 was a thing I could not feel called on for, 
 with my other lodgers to see to and all. 
 But from what she says now, I shouldn’t 
 be a bit surprised if it was before the time.” 
 “ Has she no mother, Mrs. Critchett 1 ” 
 “She has not, ma’am, which is maybe 
 the reason I feel for her, being young too, 
 as I said, and more ignorant of the world 
 and its wickedness than nine out o’ ten 
 gurls nowadays. A most pious and godly 
 a young creetur as ever I see ; an’ not over 
 strong. Sits there doing her bits of sewing 
 for the baby as is coming, with her Bible 
 on her knee all day long, and sleeps with it 
 under her piiler at night. Even my 
 ’usband, he says it’s as good as reading a 
 chapter to hear her talk ; which no offence 
 to you, ma’am, all the same, as of course she 
 is nothing but a Quaker, which nat’rally 
 you, being a clergyman’s wife, might objec’ 
 to have any think to do with.” 
 
 “I should object to myself very much, 
 Mrs. Critchett, if I had any such feeling, 
 or my husband either ; so don’t forget to 
 mention to your young lodger that if she 
 feels nervous or ailing, there is a lady up- 
 stairs who will be very glad to come and 
 see her, or help her in any way.” 
 
 It was the winter of 1875. I had been 
 married nearly six years, and John and I 
 were living in lodgings in Guildford Street, 
 Bloomsbury. I should have preferred a 
 house of my own; but circumstances made 
 lodgings more practicable to us just then ; 
 and these were very clean and comfort- 
 able, and kept by an exceedingly worthy 
 woman. We had the drawing-rooms and 
 the best bedrooms above ; and besides us 
 there were in the house three other lodgers : 
 a clerk in some City house and his wife, 
 who occupied the dining-rooms, and a queer 
 old bachelor, who lived in one room at the 
 top of the house, and whom we had never 
 yet seen, though he was an older resident 
 than ourselves, and we had lived with Mrs. 
 Critchett for over three years. As for the 
 couple downstairs, they had only been 
 there for three months ; and all I knew of 
 them was that I used to get a glimpse of 
 him now and then going into the City of 
 a morning, a stoutish, thick-set young man, 
 with light hair and a florid complexion ; 
 that he and his wife had not been married 
 long ; and that she was understood to be 
 in a delicate state of health. 
 
 Probably for that reason she went out 
 
 Tf= 
 
 u 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WHAT WAS HE? 
 
 November 13, 1883.1 67 
 
 very seldom, except after dusk, and leaning 
 on her husband’s arm ; and though I had 
 passed her two or three times on the stair- 
 case, or at the door of her room, I had no 
 very distinct impression of her, save of a 
 fair, slenderly-made young woman, with a 
 very good, pure-looking face, to which her 
 simple dove-coloured gowns and muslin 
 caps lent a certain soft attractiveness. 
 
 My offer to be of any service to her in 
 her trouble, however, had not come a day 
 too soon, for that very night the summons 
 arrived. About nine o’clock Mrs. Critchett 
 came running to tell me that “poor Mrs. 
 Page was took bad. Her husband had 
 gone for the nurse and doctor, and would 
 I mind stepping down and comforting her 
 a bit ? ” Of course I went. There was not 
 very much for me to do, however, though 
 my inclination to do it was enhanced 
 now that I had time to appreciate more 
 thoroughly the absolute beauty of holiness 
 shining from the pale young face which I 
 found lying so patiently on its pillows 
 below. She was very weak, and suffering 
 a great deal, but she made no complaint or 
 fuss, and indeed hardly spoke. When the 
 doctor arrived, he said all was going on as 
 well as possible ; and, indeed, a very few 
 minutes after Mr. Page returned with the 
 nurse (who lived at the other side of 
 London, and who had not expected to be 
 wanted so soon), everything was over, and 
 there was a tiny citizen the more in the 
 world. 
 
 I had gone back to my own rooms by 
 then, not wishing to be in the way, and 
 thinking that between husband, nurse, 
 doctor, and landlady, those very small 
 apartments downstairs would be sufficiently 
 tenanted. Indeed I was in the act of telling 
 John, who had just come in, all about it, 
 and what a nice gentle creature the young 
 Quaker wife seemed to be, when the still- 
 ness which had followed pleasantly on the 
 late bustle and upset in the house, was 
 broken by a sudden hoarse shriek ; then 
 an opening and shutting of doors, and the 
 sound of footsteps hurrying to and fro ; 
 
 “ Something is wrong. What can it be, 
 John?” I said, getting up, and looking 
 apprehensively at my husband, and almost 
 in the same moment Mrs. Critchett’s maid 
 came to the door with a breathless message : 
 
 “Oh, if you please, ma’am, missis says 
 could you come at once. She thinks Mrs. 
 Page is going.” 
 
 “ Going ! ” By the time I had got from 
 my room to hers, it was plain that she was 
 so far gone that the eyes into which mine 
 
 looked would never know me or any earthly 
 thing again on this side of the grave. In 
 sober truth, I hardly knew her ! The 
 apartment had been tidied and put straight. 
 There was a pleasant glow of fire and lamp- 
 light in it, the latter carefully shaded from 
 the face which lay back upon its pillows 
 just as I had left it barely an hour ago. 
 But during that short time such a change 
 had come over the features as no mere 
 womanish pain or distress had had power 
 to bring into them before ; and beneath 
 which all that exquisite, calm trustfulness, 
 which had been their principal character- 
 istic before, was blotted out as completely 
 as though a livid and alien mask had been 
 pressed down upon them. And such a 
 mask ! Such a ghastly presentment of 
 unutterable woe, horror, and repulsion — 
 agonised, terror-stricken repulsion, as I had 
 never, in all my life, seen on any human 
 face before, save once — the face of that girl- 
 bride who had perished in the Swiss Alps. 
 
 I had forgotten her. The whole incident 
 had slipped from my mind until recalled to 
 it now, seven years afterwards, by that 
 never-to-be-forgotten look of mortal, un- 
 endurable terror, repeated even in the very 
 pose of the poor hands which, damp and 
 clammy in death’s closing grasp, were yet 
 lifted up with the palm turned outwards 
 and the fingers slightly curved, as though 
 in a last effort to thrust from her some 
 thing, or some vision, too horrible to see 
 and live. 
 
 She was not quite dead, however, 
 though the only sign of life was a faint 
 convulsive shivering of the limbs and lips ; 
 and both the nurse and landlady vied with 
 me in striving, by applications of ice, 
 brandy, etc., to recall the fast-ebbing sands 
 of existence, the while the last-named 
 woman answered as well as she could my 
 horror-stricken enquiries as to the cause of 
 the terrible change before me. 
 
 “Ma’am, she was going on as well as 
 possible. Very weak, but nothing in the 
 world wrong ; though the baby, poor thing, 
 is but a measly bit of a creature and not 
 like to live, the doctor says. He had done 
 all as was needed, and was in a hurry to 
 get off to another case he had, so after 
 he’d spoke to Mr. Page, and told him he 
 might go in and see his wife (as was asking 
 for him), off he went. I let him out myself, 
 and then went into the little back room 
 there to nurse, who was ’tending to the baby. 
 She told me she’d just shown the gentle- 
 man in here, and bid him be careful not to 
 excite his good lady ; but that, indeed, there 
 
 IF 
 
W- — — - — — — — = — — 
 
 68 [November 13, 1883.] WHAT WAS HE 1 [Conducted by 
 
 
 seemed no fear of, for he went in as 
 soft and quiet as a mouse, while she was 
 lying smiling on her bed like any angel, so 
 calm and still. 
 
 “ ‘ And an angel she’s been all through,’ 
 
 I said, when the words were hardly out of 
 my mouth but there came a shriek from 
 this room as you might have heard up- 
 stairs, and as hardly sounded like her 
 voice, though we knew it couldn’t be no 
 other. Nurse and me we rushed in, and 
 there she was sitting bolt upright in bed 
 with her arms lifted up and her face like 
 it is now, and him — Mr. Page, I mean — 
 trying to lay her down and soothe her. 
 
 “ We put her back almost by force like, 
 for she seemed quite unconscious and stiff 
 as if she was in a fit ; and he began 
 telling us as he’d hardly said a word when 
 a donkey, as was kept in a yard near by, 
 suddenly brayed out loud, and so startled 
 her that she sprang up in bed with the 
 scream we heard, when nurse here she 
 stopped him in his story and bid him run for 
 dear life after the doctor and fetch him back. 
 
 “ ‘ Never mind what frightened her,’ said 
 she, ‘but go this minnit. She’s dying 
 now, an’ if you don’t catch up with him 
 she’ll be gone before you get back.’ ” 
 
 There was a knock at the door at that 
 instant, and with the exclamation, “ There 
 he is !” Mrs. Critchett broke off in her 
 narrative and hurried out. A second later 
 and we heard her opening the front door, 
 and speaking volubly to some one there ; 
 then steps coming along the corridor, and 
 another voice — a voice which somehow sent 
 a cold, strange thrill through me, though 
 I had no recollection of ever having heard 
 it before — asking in tones which, low as 
 they were, penetrated clearly to where I 
 stood, “ Is she still alive 1 ” 
 
 Someone else heard the question besides 
 me — the dying woman. I was holding 
 her, supported on my arm ; and at the first 
 sound of that voice I felt a sharp swift 
 shiver run through her entire frame, while 
 for one instant the secret horror hidden 
 behind those glazed and staring eyeballs 
 flashed into sudden life. The white lips 
 met with a sharp, hissing gasp, and then 
 dropped apart. The hands fell heavily at 
 her side, the eyelids closed. 
 
 She had died — died while her husband 
 was still asking if she lived. 
 
 Involuntarily I sank down upon my 
 knees and bowed my head upon the bed- 
 clothes. At such a moment — the moment 
 when a soul is suddenly torn away from 
 earth and set before the judgment-seat of 
 
 4 — 
 
 God — prayer seems the fittest and only 
 attitude for those called on to witness the 
 solemn change. Another step had, how- 
 ever, already entered the room, and as it 
 slowly advanced to the foot of the bed I 
 looked up, meaning to say such poor words 
 of sympathy or comfort as might come to 
 my lips to aid the man so terribly stricken in 
 the first recognition of his bereavement. 
 
 They were never uttered ! Instead, I 
 found myself staggering dumbly to my 
 feet, with eyes fixed and staring, and a 
 sudden icy coldness at my heart, as though 
 every drop of blood there had been jerked 
 violently upwards to my confused and 
 startled brain. Where — where and when 
 had I seen before — not this man now 
 facing me, this plain, dull-browed, sandy- 
 haired English clerk, with whose back- 
 view only I had hitherto been familiar — 
 not him ; but his eyes ! eyes unlike in shape 
 and colour every other feature in his face, 
 dark and sinister, with abnormally dilated 
 pupils, black, sharply-lined brows, with a 
 deep depression towards the centre of the 
 nose, and irises of a lurid orange hue which 
 seemed to glow and scintillate as with 
 some inward flame ! 
 
 I have no remembrance of how I left 
 the room. 
 
 Next morning, before I was up, John 
 spoke very seriously to me, warning me 
 never to say to anyone else what I had 
 told him the previous night, and blaming 
 me for letting my imagination (as he called 
 it) affect my nerves and moral judgment 
 in the way it had done. He pointed out 
 to me that sudden death might not 
 unnaturally leave a more painful expression 
 on the face than a gentle or lingering one, 
 and that it was the recollections suddenly 
 recalled to me by this one when I was 
 tired and over-excited, and not any real 
 resemblance, which had induced me to 
 fancy a likeness between our fellow-lodger 
 and the handsome young Frenchman of 
 seven years back. 
 
 He told me also that he had seen the 
 former several times, and could not detect 
 anything weird or unusual in his eyes save 
 that they, as well as the brows, were rather 
 darker than the general tone of his colouring 
 warranted ; and that from what he heard 
 from the nurse and doctor, he was of 
 opinion that the poor young woman’s death 
 resulted from perfectly natural causes, and 
 such as would most probably be induced in 
 a nervous woman in her condition by any 
 sudden fright or strain to the system. He 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WHAT WAS HE % 
 
 [November 13 1883.] 69 
 
 said this and a good deal more, and I 
 listened and was silent. I even tried to 
 believe that he was right, and did not ask : 
 
 “ But was she a nervous woman, or one 
 peculiarly the reverse, and why should I, 
 on whose strength and common-sense you 
 have relied for six years, and who has 
 stood by you beside many and many a 
 death-bed, and helped you to comfort all 
 sorts and conditions of mourners, turn sud- 
 denly, and without any cause, nervous and 
 fanciful also ? ” 
 
 That evening Mrs. Critchett came to tell 
 me that baby was dead, and that the 
 widower had given her notice, saying that 
 he could not bear to stay in the house. 
 She added : 
 
 “Not that a day-old child can make much 
 difference to him, poor man ; and for my 
 part, I think it’s better out of the way. It 
 was miserably delicate from the first, and 
 had the queerest eyes, black and uncanny 
 as a little imp’s. For that matter there’s 
 something about the father’s — Heaven for- 
 give me for saying it of him, poor soul ! — 
 which always makes me feel a bit creepy. 
 Did you ever notice them, ma’am ?” 
 
 THE THIRD TIME. 
 
 What follows is taken from my last 
 year’s note-book, the Christmas week of 
 1882. I copy it just as it stands, without 
 any alteration whatever, save as regards 
 the actual names of the town and people 
 concerned in it. As I am still living in the 
 former, and my husband is rector of the 
 parish, it might possibly be injurious to him 
 or others were I to omit this one caution. 
 
 Nov. 25th. — Just a month to Christmas, 
 our first Christmas at the rectory ! What 
 a stately, comfortable sound it has, and 
 how well it suits John ! He seems actually 
 growing stouter to fit it. Martha tells me 
 that the house adjoining ours is let at last. 
 I am glad of it, for it is a serious drawback 
 to our pretty, cheerful home to be obliged 
 to look out on those desolate, weed-grown 
 gardens, those rows of gaunt and shuttered 
 windows. It is a large house too, and one 
 of the oldest in the place. They say one 
 wing dates back nearly two hundred years, 
 but it belongs to a family who do not live 
 there, and it has been unlet for a long 
 time. I believe there is some talk of its 
 being haunted, and that tenants will not 
 stay in it. I hope the new ones will prove 
 exceptions to the rule. It is quite cheering 
 even to see the huge iron gates standing 
 open, and painters and glaziers already 
 hard at work all over the premises. 
 
 Nov. 30th. — I have been listening to a 
 terrible story to-day, a ghost story, too, of 
 all things in the world for a sober rector’s 
 wife to give ear to ; but as it relates to 
 the Priory (the name by which the house 
 adjoining ours is known), and explains 
 the horror with which even the school- 
 children regard that mansion, I thought I 
 might be excused for letting the old woman 
 who comes to mend my carpets give me her 
 version of the legend in question. I need 
 hardly say that she believes in it most 
 implicitly. 
 
 It seems that about a hundred years ago 
 it belonged to a member of the Thorpe 
 family, who had made a very unfortunate 
 marriage. That is to say, he had married 
 a very young and lovely girl who had all 
 the outward semblances of purity and 
 innocence, and who, nevertheless, turned 
 out to be as shamelessly wicked as what 
 old Mrs. Luton calls, “ the baddest lot in 
 the town.” Not content with being false 
 to her husband, she used his absence in 
 America, on diplomatic business connected 
 with our ratification of the lately-fought- 
 out independence of the colonies there, to 
 turn the dignified old Priory into a pande- 
 monium of such reckless license and dissi- 
 pation, as filled the whole county with the 
 scandal of the doings there, and caused her 
 dissolute companions to be publicly hooted 
 in the streets of the little town. 
 
 It is surmised that she and one of them 
 had planned an elopement to take place 
 before the return of the injured husband 
 from abroad, and so place her in safety 
 from his wrath ; but if so, her scheme was 
 frustrated. Major Thorpe returned three 
 weeks sooner than had been expected, and 
 was met on landing by an old servant who 
 had left the Priory in disgust at the scenes 
 enacted there, and lost no time in acquaint- 
 ing his master with them. 
 
 The scene which followed must have 
 been a terrible one. At first, indeed, Major 
 Thorpe said nothing, but struck down and 
 went nigh to murder the man who had 
 dared to blacken his wife’s fame to him ; 
 but when convinced of the truth of his 
 story, he lifted his two arms to heaven and 
 swore so terrible an oath of vengeance as 
 curdled the very blood of the listener, 
 offering himself to perish everlastingly 
 if for those dishonoured seven months 
 of his absence he might be allowed, not 
 only to punish her who had polluted them, 
 but once in seven years to wreak such 
 residue of his wrongs as her mere death 
 could not atone for, on some other woman 
 
70 [November 13 , 1883 .] WHAT WAS HE? [Coveted by 
 
 young and pure and innocent as she had 
 seemed to be, and so satisfy his tortured 
 soul for the worse torture that first woman 
 had inflicted on him. 
 
 Next day, it was rumoured among some 
 in the town that Major Thorpe had been 
 seen in the neighbourhood ; and one old 
 gardener even swore to having seen a 
 figure which he recognised as his master’s 
 lurking among the shrubs in the Priory 
 garden ; but no hint of this reached the 
 guilty revellers within, or perhaps they 
 might even then have escaped the doom 
 hanging over them. 
 
 That same night, a sudden cry of “ Fire !” 
 was raised in the quiet old town ; and 
 folks, roused from their sleep and rushing 
 to the spot, saw flames pouring from the 
 lower windows of that part of the Priory 
 which Mrs. Thorpe inhabited. The 
 servants, who slept in another wing, were 
 already awakened, and had made good 
 their escape; but all their attempts at 
 rescuing their mistress proved futile, the 
 door opening from the great hall to her 
 suite of apartments being found to be 
 locked and barred ; while through crack 
 and keyhole poured a crimson glow which 
 showed that all within was already a sea 
 of roaring flame. 
 
 And then, while the shrieks of the victims 
 within and of the crowd without rent the air 
 — and while some ran for water and some 
 for ladders, and some fled hiding their eyes 
 for very fear and horror — there was seen 
 at one of the upper windows an awful 
 sight ; for there, during the space of one 
 minute, there appeared, as if painted against 
 a curtain of lurid red and framed in wreaths 
 of smoke, three figures — a man and woman, 
 and between them Major Thorpe, holding 
 a hand of each, clasped together in the iron 
 clutch of one of his, while with the other 
 he levelled a pistol menacingly at the head 
 of the man, whose left arm hung, evidently 
 broken, at his side ; the while the woman 
 writhed and shrieked and clung to him 
 with vain cries for mercy. 
 
 For one second, I say, this was visible. 
 The next, there came an awful crash, as 
 though a magazine had exploded at their 
 feet, and in a breath the whole front of the 
 house, roof, windows, walls and. all, dis- 
 appeared and crumbled away in a vast 
 sheet of white flame which shot high into 
 the air and sank down, carrying those 
 three figures with it. 
 
 No portion of their bodies were found 
 when the ruins came to be searched 
 afterwards; and in course of time, the 
 
 Thorpe family rebuilt the house as it now 
 stands, and announced it as to let ; but 
 already an evil name had accrued to it. 
 People spoke of cries issuing from the 
 empty rooms, and of a shadowy male form 
 seen prowling along the galleries of the 
 one wing of the ancient building still re- 
 maining, or in the deserted garden ; and 
 though tenants came, it was only to go 
 again the more quickly. 
 
 It remains to be seen if the new people 
 — an Indian colonel and his wife — will be 
 braver. 
 
 But I am half ashamed to have listened 
 to such a farrago of romance and super- 
 stition after all. I hope no one will 
 whisper a word of it to my little J oe. He 
 is fond of making his way into that garden 
 and playing there. 
 
 Dec. 15. — They are come, and I have 
 seen them ; that is, I have had a distant 
 view of them from my bedroom window, 
 as they stood on their lawn together — he, a 
 tall, white-haired, soldierly-looking man, 
 with a long moustache ; she, a singularly 
 slender, graceful woman, in black, with a 
 large silver cross round her neck, and 
 seemingly much the younger of the two. 
 People who have met them tell me they are 
 both delightful, and the greatest acquisi- 
 tions to the place that it has had for years; 
 but I fear we are not fated to know 
 much of them. Colonel Thorpe (he is 
 a distant cousin of the owners of the 
 house) is an avowed Freethinker, and his 
 beautiful wife — what sounds far worse in 
 the ears of our good townsfolk — -a Roman 
 Catholic ! “ A most devout one too,” Lady 
 
 Fanshawe, our patron’s wife, told me. 
 “ Had set her heart on going into a con- 
 vent when Colonel Thorpe met her and 
 fell so in love with her that he persuaded 
 her to marry him instead. A sweet 
 creature, with a delicious nun-like un- 
 worldliness added to her new matronhood, 
 which makes me quite in love with her 
 myself. You mustn’t call there, however. 
 That bad colonel hates parsons, and swears 
 he won’t have anyone from a parson’s house 
 inside his. Isn’t it dreadful of him \ ” 
 
 “ And his wife 1 ” I said. 
 
 “ Oh, my dear, didn’t I tell you she was 
 a Romanist, and you know the ill-feeling 
 here against the late rector for his ritualistic 
 tendencies. It would never do for yon or 
 ; your husband to seem to run after her. 
 Your parishioners would be in arms against 
 you at once.” 
 
 Dec. 23rd. — Something has happened 
 i I which has upset me terribly. I do not know 
 
 P 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 WHAT WAS HE 1 
 
 
 what to think of it, whether I am under a 
 delusion, or am not so strong as I was ; or 
 what it portends, if indeed it portends any- 
 thing. If John were only here ! but he 
 left yesterday for Dullminster on a visit to 
 the bishop, and will not be back till this 
 afternoon. Perhaps, too, he would only 
 laugh at me. Once before, that time in 
 Bloomsbury, he said it was imagination ; 
 
 and now Bat I had better write it all 
 
 down. Perhaps if it looks ridiculous on 
 paper, I may be able to feel the foolishness 
 of it in myself. 
 
 I was going down to the church yesterday 
 afternoon to see about the decorations. 
 There is a narrow lane dividing the Priory 
 grounds from the churchyard, which makes 
 a short cut from our house to the latter ; 
 and along this I was hurrying, when, mid- 
 way in it, I encountered Colonel Thorpe. 
 He was carrying a leather hand-bag, as if 
 bound on a journey, and as it was the first 
 time I had had an opportunity of seeing 
 him close, I naturally slackened my pace a 
 little, so as to get a better view of him. 
 Believe me when I say it, I had no other 
 thought in my mind, no other motive than 
 the natural womanly curiosity to look at 
 one who was not only our nearest neighbour, 
 but a man of good position in the county ; 
 and my first glance at the tall erect figure, 
 the white locks, and long grey moustache 
 gave me a distinct feeling of admiration. 
 In the same moment, however, I was con- 
 scious of a change coming over me; a kind of 
 coldness, mingled with a nervous thrill, which 
 quickened as he drew nearer. Instinctively 
 I hung back, a sort of chilled expectancy, 
 though of what I knew not, clogging my 
 steps ; while by contrary impulse, dread, 
 blended with desire, drew my eyes 
 more eagerly to his. A double wave of 
 memory seemed to sweep over me — sharp 
 peaks of dazzling snow rising against a 
 sapphire sky, the scent of heaped white 
 flowers on a silent form ; and anon a close 
 sick-room, cold clutching hands, and the 
 wail of a babe near by. A mist was 
 gathering over my gaze, my hands felt 
 cold, my head giddy ; and instead of the 
 man before me, I seemed to see the outline 
 of a window filled with lurid flame, and 
 gleaming out of it a pair of eyes, fierce, 
 dark, with hugely dilated pupils, and irises 
 of a tawny yello\y, glowing like two hellish 
 coals with inward fire; the very eyes — 
 Heaven help me now, as I speak the truth ! 
 — which seven years before had met mine 
 over the lifeless body of the City clerk’s 
 young wife, which once again, seven years 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 71 
 
 before that, had lit with such a wild and 
 ghastly glare the dark face of the young 
 Frenchman in the Swiss chalet. And 
 then, in the same moment, the mist 
 cleared, and I saw the eyes only, and 
 knew that they were in Colonel Thorpe’s 
 face, and that they recognised me ! 
 
 Aye, believe it or not, they did ; and I 
 knew it, not by any process which I could 
 describe to you, but by that nameless 
 sympathetic flash and thrill, that upleaping 
 ‘something’ in the gaze, which says to 
 you, and everyone meeting it, whether 
 they can answer it or not, “I know you ! ” 
 
 There was no syllable spoken, no pause 
 on either side. We met, and passed, and 
 I went on to the church, but in such a 
 tumult of feeling as I pray that I may never 
 experience again — shaken, and filled by 
 such an overpowering sense of some terrible 
 impending calamity, which shook me to my 
 very centre with impotent terror and anxiety. 
 
 For what could I do, or say, that would 
 not proclaim me a hopeless maniac, were I 
 to strive to avert an evil, which even in my 
 madness (if madness it was) I could not 
 dare to put into words, could I find 
 words, to put it in, and which all the time 
 I feel myself helplessly powerless to avert % 
 Was I to call at the Priory, to intrude on 
 its stately young mistress, and implore her 
 to fly from her home and seek shelter with 
 a stranger like me, from her own natural 
 protector, the husband for whose love she 
 had given up her own holiest hopes and 
 ambitions 1 And yet it was over her head 
 that I knew the doom to be impending ; 
 and, hour by hour, as I sat trying to work 
 or read in my own peaceful house, I felt it 
 coming nearer and nearer to the ill-fated 
 one adjoining us, and saw again the mock- 
 ing pitiless gleam of those eyes defying. me to 
 war against the lost soul behind them. 
 
 And it only wanted two days to Christ- 
 mas. Everything else looked so gay, so 
 tranquil. I even caught a glimpse of her 
 during the day speaking to a couple of 
 poor tramps at the gate, and bringing 
 them bread and meat in her own hands. 
 
 I must hurry on. 
 
 When night came I could not sleep. I 
 had felt better and more cheerful during 
 the evening. In fact I had taken the 
 trouble to ascertain that Colonel Thorpe 
 had really been starting for London when 
 I saw him that afternoon, and would not 
 return tiil next day. The doom, then, 
 whatever it might be, was not to fall imme- 
 diately on its innocent victim. Providence 
 might even yet show me some means for 
 
72 
 
 WHAT WAS HE % 
 
 [November 13, 1883.] 
 
 warding it off, and directly I felt this my 
 spirits rose, and I even felt able to laugh at 
 myself for my forebodings, and to feel glad 
 John was not at home to scold me for them. 
 
 But after I was in bed sleep would not 
 come to me. I was not ill or feverish, my 
 head did not ache. There was nothing 
 the matter with me except that, try as I 
 might, my eyes would not close in slumber. 
 
 I remained wide awake for a couple, of 
 hours or more, and at last, wearied of lying 
 thus, got up and went to the window, 
 meaning to look out at the night before 
 lighting a candle and trying to read myself 
 to sleep. 
 
 It was then just on the stroke of 
 one. The whole town was asleep and 
 over everything reigned perfect stillness. 
 Opposite me was the Priory, shuttered 
 and silent too, and its gardens white with 
 frost and bathed in the full rays of the 
 moon, save where a belt of trees or 
 shrubbery cast darkly-waving shadows on 
 the silvered surface. 
 
 I was still gazing, when suddenly one of 
 these shadows seem to detach itself from 
 the rest, and glide forward with a motion 
 suggestive of some crouching creature 
 unwilling to be seen. Involuntarily the 
 old woman’s story of the Priory ghost 
 flashed back upon my mind, and I leant 
 forward to see better ; but in the same 
 moment the moon had passed behind a 
 cloud, and the shade disappeared, sucked 
 back into the general obscurity of the 
 shrubs through which it had seemed to be 
 creeping; only for an instant, however. 
 The next, the full silver orb rode out 
 again calm and bright as ever upon the 
 blue expanse, and as it did so the bushes 
 swayed and parted, and out from among 
 them stepped a tall black figure, which 
 stood erect in the moonbeams — no ghost, 
 but a man, and the man I had thought of 
 at that moment as far and safely away — 
 Colonel Thorpe ! 
 
 There was no mistaking him ; no possi- 
 bility of delusion. For two full seconds he 
 stood there in the white moonlight, dressed 
 as I had seen him earlier in the day, with 
 his blanched hair and long curved mous- 
 tache glittering in the silver rays, and 
 then plunged again into the shadow, and 
 disappeared in the direction of the house. 
 
 January 30, 1883 — It is. many weeks 
 since I have written in my diary. I have 
 been ill for almost the first time in my 
 life — very ill. They would not even let 
 
 me write letters for some time, but now 
 that I am well and feeling strong again I 
 must add a few words. 
 
 I think it was about mid-day on Christ- 
 mas Eve that the news reached us that 
 young Mrs. Thorpe was dead. The lady’s- 
 maid had found her bed unslept in in the 
 morning, and on search being made she 
 was discovered in the library (a room in the 
 older part of the house) on her knees, and 
 stone dead. It seemed that she had told 
 the maid on the previous evening not to 
 wait up for her, as she had promised to do 
 some copying for the colonel, which might 
 keep her up late ; and from her position, 
 combined with the papers on the table and 
 an overturned chair behind her, it was 
 surmised that she had been suddenly 
 startled from her occupation by some sight 
 or sound — though what none could say — 
 and had actually died of fright. 
 
 Colonel Thorpe was away in London at 
 the time, but by a curious chance had left 
 for home before the telegram summoning 
 him arrived, and appeared among the 
 bewildered and terrified servants within 
 half an hour of their discovery of his wife’s 
 body. One of them told me afterwards it 
 was a sight to make the bravest shudder — 
 he standing there gazing at her as if turned 
 into stone, and she, his wife, stretched at 
 his feet with that awful look of terror— 
 the terror that had killed her— still staring 
 dumbly from her dead face, and the silver 
 cross she generally wore held stiffly up in 
 both the poor cold hands, as if in mute 
 appeal to Heaven. 
 
 The husband has gone abroad again now, 
 and the Priory is once more untenanted. 
 They say it will be pulled down. After 
 what has happened this time no one will 
 ever live in it again. 
 
 With this fragment from my diary, my 
 story ends. I have nothing more to say, 
 and no arguments to put forward. If 
 indeed such a thing be possible as that 
 the curse of a lost and reckless soul should 
 be allowed to take actual form and shape, 
 and by the mere revelation for one instant 
 of its infernal personality, crush out in- 
 stantaneously and irremediably the spark 
 of life in its hapless victims, it is not for 
 me to say, nor is this the place for the 
 discussion of such suggestions. All I can 
 do is to state the facts as they occurred. 
 If to other minds they offer an easier 
 explanation, I am glad of it. 
 
 The Bight of Translating any of the Articles contained in this Number is reserved by the Authors . 
 
 Published at the Office, 26, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by Charles Dickens & Evans, 24, Great New Street, E.C. 
 
THE EXTRA 
 
 SUMMER NUMBER 
 
 OF 
 
 AT.T. THE YEAR ROUND. 
 
 CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 CONTAINING THE AMOUNT OF THREE ORDINARY NUMBERS. 
 
 PRICE] 
 
 1884. 
 
 [SIXPENCE. 
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF EROS 
 
 . 1 
 
 TOLD IN FLANDERS .... 
 
 
 JABEZ GAUNT’S TESTAMENT . 
 
 . 12 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE . 
 
 
 LUCY GREY 
 
 . 19 
 
 THE OLD STORY OF NARISHAL CHASE 
 
 . . .48 
 
 A HOLIDAY MYSTERY 
 
 . 30 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN 
 
 . 56 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION . 
 
 63 
 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF EROS. 
 
 By B. Dempster. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 “ A MAN and a woman went up to the 
 Temple of Eros to pay their vows. And 
 as they went, hand-in-hand, the man 
 looked round him and saw all the beautiful 
 things that lay on either side of them ; but 
 the woman looked at nothing — save at him, 
 and the gold and marble of the temple 
 gleaming in the distance. So they reached 
 it at last, and waited there for the god, for 
 though the spirit of his presence always 
 reigned in its courts, he himself was not 
 always to be seen by mortal eyes. 
 
 “ Then, as the time was long while they 
 waited, the man beguiled it by thinking 
 upon all the things he had seen on his way 
 up, and his thoughts amused him ; but the 
 woman, who had seen nothing but him, 
 wearied, and as she had only him to amuse 
 her, she demanded all his thoughts and 
 desires. But when she saw that he had 
 given some to the other things, she was 
 hurt — then angry ; then, at last, broke out 
 into jealous passion, driving him, with 
 bitter words, from her side. Then she went 
 away, and hid herself in the temple. So 
 when Eros at last appeared to receive the 
 offerings of vows and roses, he found her 
 alone weeping, and to him she poured out 
 her sorrows. The great god listened 
 patiently, for true love is ever patient in 
 its strength. 
 
 “ ‘ Foolish woman,’ he said, * not to 
 know that your world is full of sights and 
 sounds, and that she who listens for the 
 music of love alone, can only hear it broken 
 in upon by discords. Nay, the very roses 
 you bring me as offerings — your best and 
 your choicest — have thorns. In your 
 world the man is the wiser.’ 
 
 “ ‘ But in yours V she asked wonderingly, 
 raising her tear-wet face to his, for she was 
 still crying. 
 
 “‘In minel’ and her eyes fell at the 
 glorious beauty of his presence, as he stood 
 before her. ‘ In my world there are no 
 discords, for it is love itself, and into it 
 are gathered all things— duties, ambitions, 
 knowledge, honour — and they become one 
 —love. And it is but a shaft of light from 
 that land, piercing the darkness of yours, 
 that makes the beautiful thing you call 
 love. Only a shadow cast by the glory of 
 mine.’ 
 
 “ Then the woman veiled her eyes, and 
 broke out into a cry of longing and awe. 
 
 “ ‘ Take me to that land, that I may look 
 on love in its completeness, and my heart 
 will ache no more.’ 
 
 “ ‘ I cannot yet — for ’ ” 
 
 Then there was a silence, and the man 
 who had been speaking the allegory, hi 
 a ]pw, soft voice, his eyes fixed dreamily 
 upon the face of the old sundial, against 
 which he leant, flushed faintly, as if half- 
 ashamed of his fanciful speech. 
 
 “ For its way lies through the gates of 
 
2 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 death,” another voice, that of the woman 
 standing at the other side of the dial, 
 finished for him. 
 
 She had been slowly pulling a rose to 
 pieces as he spoke. After her first look 
 of puzzled wonder at him, as he began 
 the quaint allegory, she had never once 
 raised her' eyes from the rose, till he 
 stopped as suddenly as he had begun. 
 Then, still without looking, she ended the 
 story for him. 
 
 There was a second’s pause. The young 
 man passed his hand carelessly over the 
 face of the sundial, brushing off a leaf that 
 had fallen on it. But the colour which had 
 so suddenly come into his face had not 
 died out, though it was so faint, and the 
 woman’s eyes were so full of shadows cast 
 by her own thoughts, that she did not 
 notice it. 
 
 Then she tossed all that remained of the 
 rose out of her hand, and turned quickly 
 upon him. 
 
 “ Why did you tell me that story ? ’’ she 
 asked, her eyes, with a curious bright light 
 in them, looking keenly at him. “ Was it 
 my life that suggested it to you 1 ” 
 
 He shifted his position slightly, letting 
 his hand fall to his side. 
 
 “ Was it, Douglas ?” she asked again 
 impatiently, as he did not answer. 
 
 “I can’t say — it might have been, or 
 perhaps it was a picture I saw once in the 
 English Academy — a lot of people going up 
 to the Temple of Eros.” He spoke reflec- 
 tively, gazing at the rose-trees before him. “I 
 rather liked the picture. The legend was, 
 ‘ Some have the roses, and some have the 
 thorns.’ I felt sorry for some of the poor 
 beggars, you know.” 
 
 “ Those that had the thorns, for in- 
 stance 'i But didn’t you see that most of 
 the people had them 'l ” she answered with 
 a short little laugh. 
 
 “ Some had the roses,” he repeated in 
 the same slow, almost drawling manner; 
 and he stepped across the narrow gravel- 
 path separating them from the rose-trees, 
 and gathered one of the roses. 
 
 She watched him with the same half- 
 bitter, half-impatient smile. 
 
 “Take my advice/’ she said as he joined 
 her again. “ Don’t go up to the Temple of 
 Eros, or you too may find that there are 
 more thorns than roses.” 
 
 He was too much occupied pinning 
 the rose in his coat to answer for a 
 second. 
 
 Then he looked up and at her, his eyes 
 as keen as her own. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “I am a man,” he answered, his voice, 
 clear and steady, quickened out of its usual 
 drawl. 
 
 She made a little impatient movement 
 of her head and shoulders. 
 
 “ What did the woman do after the god 
 had left her 1 ” she asked abruptly, after a 
 second’s pause. 
 
 “ I don’t know,” he answered as lazily 
 as before. “ History doesn’t say. I should 
 imagine ” 
 
 “Yes,” with quick, bitter scorn, “I 
 know what you would imagine — what all 
 men would imagine — she went back to her 
 husband, and was satisfied with the love he 
 gave, and made up the blanks with dress- 
 ing, and dancing, and amusing herself 
 generally— she who loved him so perfectly, 
 so dearly, that she counted all else well 
 lost for his sake ! You ought to be glad 
 you are not a woman, Douglas.” ^ — ' 
 
 “ So I am, if I couldn’t look about me a 
 little, too. The god was right. In the 
 nature of things, it can’t be all love in this 
 life while — men are men. It is too great 
 a thing for them altogether, and they tire 
 of trying to understand it.” 
 
 She put up her hand to her eyes, as if 
 the dazzling sunlight hurt her. 
 
 “ Ah, but you would like to have some 
 share in your husband’s life — some part in 
 his hopes, his ambitions, his works. If 
 only Walter would let me be his wife— not 
 a petted child, a mere plaything, to be 
 treasured up because it is delicate and 
 fragile ! I don’t want to be left alone for 
 days, for weeks, for months, while his time 
 is absorbed in work and ambitions in 
 which he will give me no part, though I 
 can understand and think too.” 
 
 She had broken out into a passionate 
 outcry, her fair face flushed, her eyes full 
 of pain. 
 
 She had come a step nearer her cousin 
 in her troubled excitement. 
 
 He looked down into the beautiful moved 
 face. 
 
 “You ought not to have married a rising 
 and ambitious man, Lettice,” he said 
 lightly, “if you are jealous of his ambi- 
 tions.” 
 
 “Jealous of his ambitions ! Is it jealous 
 to wish to share them 1 I cannot be con- 
 tented with what he gives me, any more 
 than the woman you spoke of. Surely, if 
 her husband had taken the trouble to point 
 out those things to her, she would have 
 looked and understood. Oh, Douglas” 
 — she laid her hand suddenly on his arm 
 and looked up into his face, “do you 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF EBOS. 
 
Charles Dickens. THE TEMPLE OF EROS. [June 17 , 1884. 3 
 
 think I made a mistake when I married 
 Walter ; that ” 
 
 “ No.” He met steadily the gaze of her 
 upturned eyes, smiling a little as he spoke, 
 though his lips were paler than before, 
 as if her emotion had stirred even his 
 indolence. “ No.” 
 
 “ No, no ! I am sure that I did not. 
 If only ” 
 
 Then her mood changed swiftly as the 
 thought of the emptiness of her life came 
 back to her. 
 
 Three years ago she had married the 
 man she loved, looking forward to a life 
 in which she should share his ambitions, 
 his hopes, his disappointments, his sorrows; 
 glorying in the thought of becoming to 
 him what he was to her. She had married 
 to find herself as completely shut out from 
 his soul’s life as if a granite wall had risen 
 up between them. 
 
 He loved her, was tender and faithful to 
 her ; gratified, when in his power, her every 
 fancy; but as to making her a sharer in the 
 life of action and ambitions that he led 
 outside their home - circle, he would as 
 soon have thought of sharing his plans, 
 his fears, his aims, with a petted child. 
 
 Strong, self-contained himself, love, as a 
 power, had never made itself .felt in 
 Walter Drew’s life. For two years Lettice 
 had borne in silence the bitterness of her 
 disappointment, the emptiness of the days 
 she would so gladly have filled with her 
 husband’s hopes and toils. 
 
 But lately people had begun to notice a 
 change in her — not for the better— and 
 thi£ afternoon she confirmed, to one of 
 those who had suspected it, this falling off 
 from the submissive patience which had first 
 distinguished her married life. 
 
 It was this man who had suddenly 
 broken out into the fanciful story of the 
 Temple of Love. 
 
 “He is going away to-morrow for six 
 months to look after his business and poli- 
 tical interests in the West. You would have 
 been amused, Douglas, if you had heard 
 me pleading to go with him — for all the 
 world like a newly-married wife. Even he 
 laughed at me at last, and said I was a 
 goose; that the long journeys would be 
 uncomfortable ; that there would be dangers 
 as well as discomforts, for he would have 
 to travel through rough, unsettled country ; 
 that I should be happier at home with my 
 balls, and parties, and new dresses, while 
 he may be shot, or sick to death, hundreds 
 of miles away from my side.” 
 
 Even the pale quiet of Douglas Montfort’s 
 
 face was slightly moved by her mocking 
 bitterness. 
 
 He looked down at her, a faint dis- 
 approval in his eyes. 
 
 “ There, I have shocked even you, at 
 last,” she laughed in light mockery. 
 “But it has been coming to this for a long 
 time. I think the Lettice you used to 
 know is dead. I shall build a monument 
 over her, with the epitaph : ‘ She wanted 
 life, and they gave her balls and parties.’ 
 By-the-bye, that reminds me, you will go 
 to the Jarrolds’ to-night 1 Walter is going 
 to some meeting. I suppose it is very im- 
 portant, as it takes him away the last 
 evening — when he leaves to-morrow for six 
 months. I wanted to go and listen to him — 
 you see he leaves to-morrow — but he says 
 women are better at balls and parties, so I 
 shall go to the Jarrolds’. You will dine 
 with us as usual, and go on with me 
 afterwards. ” 
 
 “ But, Lettice ! ” There was decided dis- 
 approval now. 
 
 “ You think I ought not to go after what 
 you told me, but I am going. They amuse 
 me, and Walter doesn’t object.” 
 
 “ He doesn’t know what sort of people 
 they are.” 
 
 “But, you see, he doesn’t think it 
 necessary to go and find out. I think 
 it must be nearly three months since he 
 went anywhere with me. One gets so tired 
 of the usual run of people to be met with at 
 ordinary houses. I want a new experience, 
 and he leaves everything to my own dis- 
 cretion. After all, it is a freedom in 
 married life for which I ought to be grate- 
 ful. Now I am going in. We shall see 
 you at dinner 1 ” 
 
 With the same brilliant, mocking smile, 
 that changed so completely in the eyes of 
 the man looking at her, the sweet girl-face 
 he had known almost all her life, she 
 turned and went up the path. 
 
 He stood watching her, till the dainty 
 white dress disappeared behind the hedge 
 of roses. 
 
 Then he passed his hand slowly down 
 the back of his head — a trick of his. 
 
 “ Had she made a mistake 1 Queer that 
 I should have had to answer that question. 
 Queerer still that she should have 
 asked it me,” he murmured to himself 
 with a slight smile, though his lips had 
 grown strangely pale, for, as he stood lean- 
 ing against the old sundial looking after 
 her, a vision of what that question had 
 meant to him rose up before him. 
 
 As long almost as he could remember, 
 
4 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF EROS. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 Lettice had been to him the best part of 
 his life. She had been the companion 
 of his boyhood, as she had become the 
 guiding star of his manhood, and while he 
 toiled and waited, not speaking till he 
 should have gained a home of his own 
 to offer her, this other man, a stranger 
 hitherto to her whole life, had stepped in 
 and won her. 
 
 “ Yes, it was very strange,” he said, after 
 another long pause, during which he did 
 not stir ; “ odd things do happen in this 
 life, but I hope nothing so curious will 
 happen to me again. I don’t think I could 
 repeat that ‘ No.’ ” 
 
 It was some time before Montfort could 
 leave the silence and quietness of the 
 rose - garden, but when at last he did, 
 and stepped out into the hot, dusty road 
 beyond, leading back into the town, he 
 was able to greet a passing acquaintance 
 with the languor — almost affected— which 
 was habitual to him. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Lettice Drew and Montfort were 
 rather late arriving at Mrs. Jarrold’s that 
 evening. Her rooms were already crowded 
 when they entered. Lettice, in a mar- 
 vellous costume of Worth’s, had scarcely 
 ever looked more lovely and brilliant, and 
 as she appeared, an almost involuntary 
 murmur of admiration ran through the 
 rooms. 
 
 Montfort noticed the sensation she 
 excited, but instead of looking pleased, as 
 the escort of the prettiest and best-dressed 
 woman in the room, his eyes took a 
 darker shade, and that shadow deepened 
 as he glanced round at the faces of the 
 guests. They all belonged to the fastest 
 and most dashing set of New York. 
 Lettice was soon surrounded by admirers, 
 who gradually shut her out from Mont- 
 fort. He lingered near a little while, 
 looking on with intense disapproval as she 
 laughed and talked, amusing the men, whom, 
 as he knew, she, in her heart, despised. But 
 he betrayed no outward sign of the pity and 
 disappointment as he kept up a languid 
 conversation with a lady near him. After 
 a little, he strolled listlessly away, and 
 took up his position near the doorway of a 
 conservatory, draped with curtains. He 
 felt so bored, and so generally irritated 
 against the whole roomful of guests, that 
 he was quite glad to find a position where 
 he could escape notice. 
 
 He was suddenly aroused from his list- 
 less depression by hearing Lettice’s name 
 
 mentioned by a man’s voice at the other 
 side of the curtain. 
 
 “Mrs. Drew! Yes, isn’t she lovely? 
 By far the prettiest woman in the room. 
 No, her husband isn’t here. In fact,, he 
 never goes anywhere with her. His time 
 is too much taken up by his country to 
 look after his wife;” the speaker laughed as 
 if amused. “He’s going to be President one 
 of these days, and in the meanwhile she 
 goes about everywhere with an awfully 
 good-looking fellow — a cousin, I believe, 
 the most confounded, stuck-up jackanapes 
 I ever met ! If I were Drew, I would let 
 my country alone, and take care of my 
 own home. People are beginning to talk, 
 and one or two women have hinted to me 
 that their proprieties are being shocked.” 
 
 “ I don’t wonder ! She’s much too 
 pretty, and much too brilliant to be left 
 alone. I say, introduce me, will you. I’m 
 bored to death, and she looks as if she 
 could amuse a fellow.” 
 
 “ All right, only look out for the good- 
 looking cousin ; he acts the part of guar- 
 dian, and might object to his property 
 being monopolised.” 
 
 There was a low, well-bred laugh from 
 the two men, the cool insolence of 
 which .sent the colour in a hot dark wave 
 over Montfort’s pale face, while his hand 
 was clenched with such force that the 
 nails of his fingers went into the palm. 
 
 It had come to this, then ! He had 
 feared that it might, but never suspected 
 that society had already dared discuss her 
 name. His first impulse was to confront 
 the two men. They could not accuse him 
 of listening, for though they had not seen 
 him, they had spoken loudly enough for 
 any of the guests near them to hear. No. 
 It was a fact, these two men — two of the 
 fastest and most objectionable of Mrs. 
 Jarrold’s set — felt themselves perfectly at 
 liberty to discuss Lettice openly like this ! 
 
 The next second told him the folly of 
 doing as he first intended. He could not 
 drag her name into a quarrel with men 
 like these. Nay, he could not even prevent 
 the introduction ! The two men, as he 
 still stood there, white with passion such 
 as rarely moved his cool, collected nature, 
 passed him, and went straight towards 
 Lettice. 
 
 With an exclamation like a smothered 
 groan, he acknowledged to himself the fact 
 that he was powerless to help her. He 
 had no right. He was neither husband 
 nor brother. His very care of her would 
 only bring her fresh insult. For had not 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF EROS. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 5 
 
 the men said it 1 It was horrible ! Only- 
 one thing remained — to take her away as 
 soon as possible from the pollution of the 
 presence of such men as these. He made 
 a quick step forward. But a hand was 
 laid suddenly on his arm, and a lady 
 stopped him. 
 
 “ Ah, Mr. Montfort, you have never 
 come near me to-night. How bored you 
 look ! I have been watching you for 
 a long time. You are always an amusing 
 study to me. You always seem to be 
 trying to make your way through life with 
 the least possible exertion, or outlay to 
 yourself. I often wonder if you are utterly 
 selfish, or utterly negative.” 
 
 He murmured something in reply, feel- 
 ing inwardly a savage anger against Mrs. 
 Carter, though generally they were good 
 friends. But the momentary pause had 
 one good effect. It gave him time to 
 recover the coolness he had so nearly lost. 
 
 “ How well Mrs. Drew looks to-night ! 
 But what a pity it is that her husband 
 leaves her so much alone. I hear he is 
 going away to-morrow for six months, and 
 she is to stay behind. It is such a 
 mistake ! ” 
 
 “ It would be, only it isn’t the* case ! ” 
 He spoke with his most affected drawl, 
 but a sudden, desperate resolve had seized 
 him. ’ 
 
 " What do you mean ? ” she asked rather 
 sharply. “ She isn’t really going with him 1 
 Mrs. Jarrold has just told me.” 
 
 “ I am sorry for Mrs. Jarrold. It is 
 always trying to find that your news isn’t 
 correct, when you have taken the trouble 
 to spread it. Mrs. Drew is going with her 
 husband.” 
 
 Mrs. Carter gave a faint gasp of incredu- 
 lous amazement. Had not the whole 
 matter been discussed at every house of 
 their set that afternoon 1 She gave a quick 
 glance in Lettice’s direction, and half 
 turned. Montfort intercepted both look 
 and movement. He adroitly, though 
 carelessly, slipped in front of her. 
 
 “ Good-night,” he said languidly. “ I 
 am going over to Mrs. Drew. Shall I give 
 her any message 1 ” 
 
 Mrs. Carter, slightly piqued at being 
 baffled, declined his offer ; though, just as 
 she turned to enter the conservatory, she 
 stopped again, and looked up into his face. 
 
 “I am very glad, for her sake,” she said 
 meaningly. In spite of her fashionable 
 follies Mrs. Carter was a kind-hearted 
 woman, and Montfort knew it. But 
 to-night he made no reply. 
 
 He made his way with unusual alacrity 
 to Lettice. She must not contradict the 
 report he had spread. If he could get her 
 away, he would have time to think quietly 
 over the plan that had suddenly flashed 
 into his brain. 
 
 She. had left the place where she had 
 been sitting. In answer to his enquiries, 
 some one told him that she had moved 
 away with Mr. Wilson— the man who had 
 asked for the introduction. She was on 
 the balcony with him. Montfort went 
 straight to it, though he wondered how 
 she would take his request. 
 
 But someone else had made the path 
 easy for him. As he stepped on to the 
 long balcony he met her coming swiftly 
 towards him, while at the farther end, in 
 the shadow of the trailing creeper that 
 covered it in, stood the figure of a man. 
 
 “ Take me home, Douglas, at once ! ” 
 
 Her voice vibrated with the passion of 
 some intense feeling, and as he glanced 
 involuntarily down into her face, he saw 
 that it was dyed scarlet, and her eyes 
 were filled with unutterable shame and 
 scorn. 
 
 She did not speak to him again till he 
 placed her in the carriage, and followed her 
 himself. 
 
 . The brougham rolled off, while she sat 
 rigid and white, every vestige of colour 
 having faded from cheek and lips. Then, 
 suddenly, with a low cry of unutterable 
 loathing and shame, she tore off the glove 
 from her left arm, rending it in the passion 
 of her movement, and tossed it out of the 
 window into the street. 
 
 “ Oh, Douglas, why weren’t you there to 
 help me ? Have I sunk so low as that ! 
 Do you know what that man did? He 
 caught my hand and kissed it ! Do you 
 hear ? Don’t you despise me ? And 
 
 Walter Oh, Douglas, I wish I could 
 
 die!” 
 
 Her. face fell on her hands, and she 
 broke into a storm of sobs that shook her 
 from head to foot, and he could do nothing 
 but sit there and listen. It was bitter as 
 death. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 About one o’clock next day, the tall, 
 well-dressed figure of Montfort appeared, 
 leisurely, making its way down the 
 street in which stood Walter Drew’s 
 office. He was, to all appearances, the 
 languid, bored dandy so well-known in 
 most of the best drawing-rooms in New 
 York. Even in the press and excitement 
 
6 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF EROS. 
 
 of business he was never in a hurry. This 
 morning, having left his own office osten- 
 sibly for lunch, he was more listless than 
 ever. But instead of going to the place 
 where he usually ate his luncheon, he 
 had made his way to Walter Drew’s office. 
 
 No one, seeing him strolling along the 
 busy streets, would have suspected that he 
 was coming on a mission — a mission that 
 had kept him awake the greater part of 
 the night, that had made him pace with 
 restless steps up and down his room, while 
 his face grew white and drawn with the 
 conflict raging in his heart and brain. 
 Perhaps if the vigil of the past night had 
 been watched, people might have accounted 
 for the fact that his eyes looked more than 
 usually sleepy, and suspected that the 
 intense stillness of his manner arose more 
 from exhaustion than indolence. 
 
 In answer to his question, one of the 
 clerks told him that Mr. Drew was in his 
 private room. Montfort made his way to 
 it, and entering, found Mr. Drew on the 
 point of making a hasty lunch off some 
 biscuits and wine, placed on a table strewn 
 with papers. 
 
 “Glad to see you, Montfort,” he said, 
 rising and coming to meet him. “ I was 
 afraid I should have to be off without 
 seeing you, after all, to-day. I’ve been hard 
 at work all the morning, and haven’t even 
 time to go out and lunch decently. I did 
 want to get home to Lettice, as it is the last 
 day, but there is no getting away. There 
 are so many things to look to, going away 
 as I am for some time. Have something 
 with me.” 
 
 Montfort sat down, and Drew went over 
 to the table and filled two glasses. 
 
 Montfort drank his, and then helped 
 himself to another, declining anything to 
 eat. # # . ■ _ _ 
 
 Then as Drew ate his biscuits and drank 
 his wine, talking, in the quick, decided way 
 habitual to him, of the journey he was 
 about to undertake, the arrangements it 
 involved, its political and business issues, 
 Montfort leaned back in his chair, listen- 
 ing to him with a languid appearance of 
 interest. 
 
 “Lettice is dreadfully cut up at my 
 going;” the bright, handsome eyes of Drew 
 darkened a little; “but hard as it is to 
 leave her, I can’t take her with me. She 
 is not at all strong, and ” 
 
 “Ah, that’s really what I came about,” 
 and Montfort, with an apparent effort, 
 roused himself enough to speak. “ I think 
 it would be better if you took her.” 
 
 Drew stared at him in amazement— an 
 amazement caused almost as much at the 
 advice, as at the fact of Montfort, of all 
 people, attempting to give it. Intimate as the 
 two men were, as far as meeting and seeing 
 each other almost daily was concerned, 
 they were in reality as completely separated 
 as two men, with not a thought in common, 
 could be. 
 
 In his heart Drew rather despised Mont- 
 fort, as a man who might make his mark, 
 but preferred to fritter away his abilities 
 in indolent frivolities. 
 
 “ Take her with me ! My dear Mont- 
 fort ! ” „ 
 
 “I suppose there are drawbacks, 
 answered the other slowly, inspecting, with 
 much apparent interest, a wasp crawling up 
 his wine-glass. “ Still, there are drawbacks 
 on the other side too.” 
 
 “My dear fellow!” exclaimed Drew 
 again, and he laughed; “it shows how 
 little you know about women. Of course 
 she wants to go now, but she would be 
 bored to death in a week.” 
 
 “ She’ll be more bored at home.” 
 
 “ Bored at home ! How can she be, 
 with such heaps of amusements going on 1 
 Just what women delight in. Then she 
 will be going to the country, and she will 
 have all her new dresses to think over. 
 No easy thing with a woman, I assure you. 
 And then you will be here, and you always 
 amuse her. She looks upon you as a 
 brother, and I can always trust you to look 
 well after her.” 
 
 The wasp had succeeded in perching 
 itself on the rim of the glass, and just at 
 this moment slipped with an astonished 
 buzz into the glass itself. Montfort felt 
 evidently for its bewildered, helpless con- 
 dition, for he bent forward and gently 
 tilted the glass to make a way for its 
 escape. Then he answered : 
 
 “ Yes, that is true ; but you see brothers 
 and sisters get tired of amusing each 
 other sometimes. It grows monotonous. 
 She might like a change.” 
 
 “ Really, Montfort, it is no use.” Drew 
 spoke a little irritably. Somehow Mont- 
 fort’s persistence vexed him. “The dis- 
 comfort would be enormous. Besides, it 
 is too late now. I must start to-day, and 
 
 she has nothing ready. She ” . 
 
 “ She would be ready to start this same 
 moment, if you told her.” Montfort spoke 
 with a sudden quickening of the voice, 
 almost amounting to energy. “ I say, Drew, 
 take my advice, and let her go.” 
 
 Walter Drew pushed back his chair, and 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE TEMPLE OF EROS. [June 17, 1884.] 7 
 
 rising, took a hasty turn through the room. 
 He suddenly stopped before Montfort, who 
 had apparently relapsed into his usual con- 
 dition, for he was leaning back in his chair, 
 his eyes completely closed. 
 
 Drew looked down at him, something 
 strange in his own keen, searching eyes. 
 
 Montfort opened his, and, languid and 
 sleepy as they were, they did not once 
 falter before the piercing, questioning gaze 
 of the other man. 
 
 “ Montfort ! You have some reason for 
 speaking like this. Nothing could have 
 induced you to offer me advice upon my 
 domestic affairs unless ” 
 
 “ I thought you would probably imagine 
 that I was impertinent. ,, Montfort rose 
 from his seat. He spoke calmly, though 
 the keen eyes watching him saw that the 
 pale quiet of his face was faintly flushed. 
 “It certainly does sound a little odd, 
 especially when your reasons are so good. 
 I have no doubt that it will be an awful 
 bore — the journey and all that sort of 
 thing. Still, if a woman cares for her 
 husband, she is generally up to a good 
 
 deal, and well, there are drawbacks, 
 
 too, to a town — a town as civilised as 
 New York, for instance, when a woman is 
 young and beautiful, and there are all sorts 
 of people hanging about. Fast men and 
 women who are not too particular, and 
 where every innocent and every good 
 woman — like Lettice, for instance — know- 
 ing nothing of what’s bad, might easily be 
 pained or wounded. You see, there are 
 some cases where this very innocence leads 
 people into unpleasant situations. And 
 Lettice is very young — a child in some 
 
 things, and well, you see, as I said 
 
 before, brothers and sisters can’t go on 
 amusing each other for ever. Besides, I 
 sha’n’t be here all the summer.” 
 
 He spoke in a meditative tone, not 
 looking at Drew, but trying in his coat, as 
 he stood before a little mirror on the wall, 
 the effect of a flower which he had taken 
 out of a vase on the table, Drew — who 
 had a passion for them — always having 
 some near him. It took a little time to 
 arrange, for Montfort was fastidious. He 
 even exchanged it for another, after fasten- 
 ing it in, putting the first one back in the 
 vase. Still Drew did not speak. 
 
 He stood watching Montfort as he 
 adorned himself like the merest fop of 
 a fashionable drawing-room, but he did 
 not really see him, and his face had 
 grown dark and stern, and his keen eyes 
 troubled. 
 
 Those carelessly spoken words had been 
 a revelation to him, as that dandily-dressed 
 man before him had meant them to be. 
 
 Dangers menaced Lettice — dangers and 
 troubles infinitely worse than any she 
 would have to brave in long railway- 
 journeys across lonely country, in far-off 
 Western cities, still rude, and rough, and 
 uncivilised. Uncivilised ! Yes, but what 
 was civilisation when it meant dangers, and 
 traps, and treacherous pitfalls, only all 
 covered over with roses and sweet-scented 
 grasses, tossed there by the hands of men 
 to hide the hideous abyss gaping beneath 
 them? 
 
 Lettice, his beautiful child - wife ; 
 Lettice, innocent and pure, given into 
 his hands to guard, and honour, and pre- 
 serve stainless — not from sin, she could not 
 fail — but from the touch of the evil that 
 goes on beneath the roses of fashionable, 
 civilised life ! As a man of the world he 
 knew what that evil would be. A sudden 
 great revulsion of feeling set in — a hatred 
 and loathing against the society in which 
 a short time before he had urged her to 
 find amusement while he was away. 
 Amusement ! Would he have her forget 
 for one single moment him and his love, in 
 the foolish dissipations, the false excite- 
 ments, of a society life ? 
 
 “ I had better go home at once and tell 
 her to pack up.” He spoke at last in his 
 usual voice, though the quick ears listening 
 detected the strain beneath the tones. But 
 Montfort took no notice. 
 
 “Yes,” he said indifferently. The flower 
 was arranged so satisfactorily that he was 
 able to turn from the mirror. Not another 
 word was needed between them. Neither 
 could have spoken it. They understood, 
 and each knew that the other understood. 
 Neither of them were men to speak easily 
 of things that touched closely their hearts. 
 Walter Drew knew that Montfort would 
 never have spoken at all as he had done, 
 had not some very powerful reason forced 
 him to do so. 
 
 He almost despised him as a dandy, but 
 he knew him to be a gentleman. 
 
 “ I may as well say good-bye,” Montfort 
 said, holding out his hand, after having 
 taken up his hat and cane. “ I sha’n’t see 
 you probably when you return. I am going 
 away from home.” 
 
 “ G-oing away ! Why, I was looking on 
 you as a made man. You had such con- 
 founded good luck getting that post. I 
 suppose, though, you have heard of some- 
 thing better ? ” 
 
8 [June 17, 1884.1 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF EKOS. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 To all outward appearances, they were 
 both again the ordinary men of business. 
 
 « No, I’ve not, but I think I am tired of 
 the place. I have thrown it up, anyway. 
 I shall knock about a little, and probably 
 I sha’n’t be back in New York for some 
 years. I think I’ll try another country 
 for a little — England, perhaps.” 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Lettice was perfectly happy. She and 
 her husband had been away from New 
 York now for a month, and though the 
 curious new tenderness which had shown 
 itself in the first part of their travels 
 had given place to his usual manner, 
 she was with him, and that was quite 
 enough. 
 
 How the wonderful thing had come 
 about she did not know— only that he had 
 returned from his office on that memorable 
 day, and told her to pack up immediately, 
 to be ready to start in a few hours. 
 
 That month had seemed a new honey- 
 moon, thrown so closely as they were into 
 each other’s society. She forgot everything 
 in it— even the rather startling news of 
 Douglas throwing up his splendid appoint- 
 ment in one of the best business houses of 
 New York, for no apparent reason save 
 that of an indolent caprice. Drew forgot 
 him too, as other matters, in the shape of 
 his business and ambitions, pressed them- 
 selves upon him. He was glad he had 
 brought his wife with him. It was a little 
 inconvenient at times, for he could not 
 rough it quite as much as if he had been 
 alone, and necessary rest for her often 
 retarded his journeys. Still, this was better 
 than that she should be troubled or unhappy 
 in New York. 
 
 In the course of their travels they 
 had arrived at one of those cities of 
 the West that, mushroom - like, seem to 
 spring up in a night. A city still 
 in a very primitive condition as to un- 
 finished houses and roads, but boasting of 
 one or two public buildings, and_ a grand 
 new hotel, hastily run up, certainly, but 
 fitted up with all the latest contrivances, 
 though built rather too near the river, 
 whose dark, turbid waters, swollen with 
 the unusually heavy rains of the past year, 
 washed the end of its garden. This stream, 
 modest enough as to size and energy in its 
 ordinary condition, had had some share in 
 the unfinished nature of some of the streets, 
 several of which, in the lower part of the 
 town, had been under water during the 
 past winter, while there had been constant 
 
 floods during the wet spring and early 
 summer. 
 
 Walter Drew and Lettice had been three 
 days in Newbery, and were putting up at 
 the big hotel. Facing it was one of the 
 unfinished streets. They were coming 
 down it this afternoon. The citizens of 
 Newbery were friends of Drew’s, and he 
 was retur nin g from a meeting hastily held 
 in his honour. Lettice had gone to meet 
 him, and they were coming back together. 
 One of the few houses habitable in the 
 road was a large store, opened, in spite of 
 many drawbacks, by one of the enter- 
 prising citizens of Newbery. A man was 
 just coming out of it as Drew andTXettice 
 passed, she listening with amused interest 
 to a light sketch he was giving her of the 
 afternoon’s proceedings — a habit he had 
 fallen into since they left New York. He 
 had begun it first, thinking that, as her 
 usual interests and occupations were taken 
 from her, she might find the time hang 
 heavily in strange places, where she had no 
 friends of her own to speak to, and was 
 gradually, though unconsciously, finding a 
 real pleasure and help in her quick intelli- 
 gence and ready sympathy, her shrewd 
 insight into people and things, which had 
 astonished him at first, so little had he 
 suspected their presence. They were both 
 too much interested in the subject of their 
 conversation to notice the man in the 
 store. Besides, Douglas Montfort would 
 have been the last person they would have 
 expected to meet in that out-of-the-way, 
 half-civilised town. He had only arrived 
 an hour before, and was as startled at 
 seeing them, as they would have been at 
 discovering him. He drew back till they 
 were well past, then he went to the 
 entrance and looked after them. 
 
 “Fate has some spite against me cer- 
 tainly,” he said to himself with a slight 
 smile. “ To think that, after having made 
 such praiseworthy efforts to put miles 
 between us, she should have led me straight 
 across their paths. They did not see me — 
 that is a good thing. I must go away at 
 once — yes, decidedly I must. Something 
 has come over me ; it is humiliating, but I 
 am not as strong as I used to be. I think 
 that last season in New York, seeing her 
 so restless and unhappy, finished me off. 
 It was difficult to see that empty place in 
 her life and not try to fill it up ! ” The 
 faint smile had died away, and he drew in 
 a long breath, like a man tired out by some 
 great strain. 
 
 From where he stood, he could see 
 

 Charles Dickelis.] THE TEMPLE OF EROS. [June 17, 1884.] 9 
 
 clearly the hotel-entrance. The two had 
 stopped before it, and Walter Drew was 
 buying of a woman standing there a great 
 bunch of roses. He put them into Lettice’s 
 hand, and she looked up into his face, 
 laughing. Then, with a little gesture of 
 infinite love and pride, she laid her hand 
 on his arm, and they went up the steps 
 together. 
 
 The man watching them with a curious, 
 bitter-sweet smile in his eyes, waited till 
 they were lost to sight. 
 
 “ It is a curious sort of thing that a 
 mushroom hotel, all gilt and tinsel, should 
 remind me of the Temple of Eros,” he said 
 to himself, as he turned again into the 
 street. “But it does. It was the roses, 
 perhaps. 1 Some have the roses, and 
 some ’ ” 
 
 He did not follow out the train of thought. 
 Perhaps he could not. He made his 
 way to the office, from which started a 
 coach that left the town every evening. 
 H^ found that he had three hours to wait. 
 It troubled him a good deal. But there 
 was nothing to be done. He wandered 
 about, and finding a place where he could 
 dine, he went in and ordered dinner. He 
 ate it, and so managed to get rid of some 
 of the time. Then he went into the 
 billiard-room and had a game with the 
 marker. He lost — for he was not in play- 
 ing form that evening : — but he did not 
 mind, for it helped to while away still more 
 of the time. At last he could start for the 
 coach. As he stepped into the street again 
 he was astonished to find it full of excited, 
 perturbed people, while down the middle 
 of the street ran a rushing stream of red, 
 muddy water. 
 
 “ What’s up 'l ” asked Montfort, stopping 
 and looking at the water, which seemed to 
 widen and spread across the street. 
 
 “ The water’s rising again. We’ll have a 
 worse flood than usual, I’m thinking,” 
 answered the man he had addressed. “ It 
 will be bad for the hotel ; that’s my opinion. 
 It ought never to have been built there. I 
 believe it is undermined as it is. There 
 have been some ugly cracks in the walls 
 lately, only they have patched them up. 
 But one wing has been settling. I told 
 Webber so, but ” 
 
 The sentence was never finished. 
 
 There suddenly broke on the ears of the 
 people, now hurrying through the threatened 
 street, a curious crackling noise ; then a 
 terrific crashing sound, and the earth 
 beneath their feet vibrated and shuddered 
 as if an earthquake had shaken it, while 
 
 the air was suddenly darkened by clouds 
 of dust and mortar. 
 
 “ The hotel I The hotel 1 ” 
 
 A simultaneous cry rose from a hundred 
 excited, frightened voices, and a rush of 
 men took place towards the street in which 
 it stood, while terrified women ran out of 
 their houses, expecting the same fate to 
 befall their own homes. 
 
 Montfort was one of the first men on the 
 spot. 
 
 One wing of what before had been a 
 gorgeous hotel, was a mass of ruins, with 
 only a fractured wall here and there 
 standing, while the rest of the building 
 looked as if in another few minutes it 
 would share the same fate, if the waters, 
 now breaking with lapping, gurgling sounds 
 against the back walls, rose any higher. The 
 fall of the other wing was the result of 
 previous floods, as the tide which had now 
 swept up over the garden had had scarcely 
 time to touch it. But Montfort saw little 
 of the ruins. The excited words of the 
 proprietor, standing outside among the 
 panic-stricked visitors and servants, to the 
 effect that some of the people occupying 
 that part of the building had not succeeded 
 in making their escape, so little time had 
 there been to warn them, drove every 
 other thought from his mind. Beneath 
 that hideous shroud of twisted girders and 
 fallen masonry lay, perhaps, Lettice, with 
 her roses ! 
 
 He looked round. Neither she nor Drew 
 was among the saved, many of whom 
 were mow hurrying off to be out of the way 
 of the approaching waters. 
 
 Heedless of cries for his safety, and 
 warnings that the rest might fall at any 
 moment, he dashed forward into the ruins. 
 He was conscious of nothing — the excited 
 people in the street beyond, rapidly dis- 
 cussing a plan of rescue — the tottering 
 walls and still falling masonry, that struck 
 and bruised him as he passed. 
 
 How he escaped with his life was a 
 marvel. 
 
 But, guided by a voice, faint and suffo- 
 cated, calling for help, that seemed to come 
 from the very centre of one enormous 
 heap of ruins, he — stumbling, falling, 
 forcing his way through narrow gaps, 
 bruised and half-blinded — he went to the 
 rescue of Lettice with her roses. 
 
 How he managed to make a small open- 
 ing in their prison — for it was Walter 
 Drew and Lettice who were there — he did 
 not know. But he succeeded enough to 
 let in some air to the prisoners beneath. 
 
10 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF EROS. 
 
 Conducted by 
 
 v“ Thank God ! ” exclaimed Drew as the 
 light and air fell once more upon them. 
 “She would have been suffocated in another 
 moment.” 
 
 Then, as he caught a glimpse through 
 the opening, at which Montfort was still 
 tearing with wounded, eager hands, an 
 exclamation broke from him : 
 
 “ Montfort ! ” 
 
 “ Never mind,” said the other, his voice 
 sharp with impatience. “There isn’t a 
 moment to lose. Try and get out of this. 
 The men are coming.” 
 
 He did not say that the water, which 
 had only wet his feet as he entered, was 
 now over his ankles, and, where dammed 
 up by huge masses of the falling masonry, 
 was deepening into miniature torrents 
 rushing along the sides of the tottering 
 walls. The flood was rising rapidly. The 
 ruins would not stand much more. 
 
 They would not stand any more. The 
 words were scarcely out of his mouth when 
 there was another terrible crash, drowning 
 the cries and shouts of the terrified crowd 
 outside as they rushed backwards out of 
 the way of the falling masonry. 
 
 There was a moment of intense darkness 
 and stillness. Then Montfort, lying on 
 the ground, unable to move for a beam 
 resting upon his arm, half-stunned, bruised, 
 and bleeding, heard a voice. 
 
 He was a prisoner with Drew and 
 Lettice. The new fall had not only broken 
 up the old prison, but formed another, 
 in which Montfort, as well as the other two, 
 was now imprisoned. 
 
 It was Lettice who spoke. 
 
 “ Thank God, Walter, you are alive ! ” 
 Montfort turned his head in the direc- 
 tion of the voice. 
 
 They seemed to be in a low narrow cell. 
 It was quite dark, save from where a ray 
 of light piercing a tiny opening fell on the 
 farther end, which sloped downwards from 
 where he lay. 
 
 By its light he could see Lettice kneeling 
 by the side of her husband. 
 
 “Yes.” He raised himself a little. “And 
 Douglas % ” 
 
 “ Oh, I had forgotten ! I could only 
 think first of you. Dear Douglas !” 
 
 “I’m all right,” he answered lightly, 
 the darkness hiding the momentary spasm 
 that crossed his face at the pained avowal 
 of her own forgetfulness. Yet it only 
 showed him a little more plainly what he 
 had known all along — that he might have 
 been the veriest stranger in the land when 
 her husband was concerned. “No, don’t 
 
 stir ! ” as they made a movement in his 
 direction, and only struck down some more 
 loose rubbish. “I’m a prisoner here for 
 the moment; but it will be all right. 
 They are coming to rescue us, and I think 
 I hear them now.” 
 
 His steady voice deceived them, and the 
 thought of deliverance coming reassured 
 Drew, who only thought of Lettice. 
 
 The two men shouted as loudly as they 
 could, and, after a little, an answering shout 
 from the rescuing-party told them that they 
 were discovered. 
 
 Then there was nothing to do but wait. 
 Lettice lay still in her husband^sjirms, 
 her head on his breast. 
 
 Montfort, from where he lay, could just 
 see them. The beam across his arm was 
 causing him almost intolerable pain, and 
 he began to fear that his strength would 
 not be able to bear it. Perhaps if Drew 
 moved cautiously, he might come to him 
 and try to lift it away. He called to 
 him. _ • 
 
 But he was speaking to Lettice of the 
 good chance there was for their rescue, and 
 did not hear Montfort’s voice, which had 
 grown low and faint. 
 
 With a pathetic patience, Montfort tried 
 to remove it himself. Then he made a 
 discovery. Their prison walls, so ada- 
 mantine as far as they were concerned, 
 were yet so lightly thrown together, that 
 the beam resting across him, with its 
 weight of timber and masonry, was the 
 keystone to the whole. Its removal would 
 turn the prison into a tomb. Even the 
 slight push he had given it, brought down 
 more bricks. He must have fainted then 
 for a moment or two, for he heard neither 
 the voices of Drew and Lettice, nor the 
 sound of the rescuing-party overhead.. 
 
 He returned to consciousness, with a 
 sense as of cool fingers touching his fore- 
 head. Perhaps it was this touch that 
 revived him. His head had fallen back on 
 the ground, and there was a strange lap- 
 ping sound like whispering voices among 
 the bricks and rubbish round him.. It 
 seemed as if the voices had told him a 
 secret. With a smothered exclamation he 
 raised himself as well as he could, to find 
 that the others, too, had learned the secret 
 of the voices. The water was still rising, 
 and was forcing its way into their prison, 
 and apparently not finding an outlet below, 
 was rising with the curious lapping sound 
 up the sides of their prison walls to search 
 for one above. 
 
 Overhead the rescuing-party had learned 
 
 
 3 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE TEMPLE OF EROS. [June 17, 1884.] U 
 
 it too, for they were working with fierce, 
 feverish energy. 
 
 Montfort turned to the other two to see 
 how they bore the secret of the waters. 
 
 Dr&w was holding Lettice closer to him. 
 
 “Lettice! If only I had not let you 
 come with me ! ” 
 
 The words broke from him in the un- 
 controllable passion of despairing love. 
 
 “ My husband ! Think ! If I had been 
 in New York, and you were now alone, 
 and then the news had come to me, and I 
 knew that you had gone from me without 
 one kiss — one word ! ” 
 
 “But, my darling, this may mean 
 death.” 
 
 “ Death ! Does love fear death ? Does 
 it not go victorious through its very gates 
 as I shall go now with you ? ” 
 
 She put her arms round his neck and 
 kissed him, and there was silence, save for 
 the sound of the rising waters, save for the 
 sounds of the eager efforts of the workers 
 above, while husband and wife sat clasped 
 in each other’s arms, and the other man 
 lay there, still, listening, having, drunk the 
 cup of bitterness to its very dregs. But 
 Walter Drew, as he sat there, looking death 
 in the face, understood at last what love was. 
 Love, as Lettice told him, was the last 
 thing on this side of eternity, as it would 
 be the first to meet them on the other, for 
 it alone might accompany them thither. 
 At this supreme moment, when his am- 
 bitions, his successes, his worldly ad- 
 vantages, had all been swept out of his 
 reach, leaving only love in his hands, he 
 felt as he sat there, his wife’s lips breath- 
 ing close to his, her faithful heart beating 
 against his own, that he had missed some- 
 thing in his past life which this moment of 
 supreme agony held. 
 
 They lost count of the minutes as they 
 went by. The waters, now surging and 
 beating against the mass of masonry out- 
 side, could only force their way in slowly, 
 but they rose surely. 
 
 Montfort’s position on the higher ground 
 gave him an advantage, without which his 
 helpless condition would have soon placed 
 him level with the waters. The brave 
 workers outside never ceased, though every 
 moment added to their own peril as the 
 waters deepened round them. Suddenly a 
 great shout broke from them, and at the 
 same moment part of the rubbish overhead 
 fell in. Drew had not time to draw 
 Lettice away, and something struck her, 
 and she fainted. But as the cloud of dust 
 and mortar cleared away, Montfort and 
 
 Drew saw the opening that had been made 
 overhead, just wide enough for a man to 
 force his way through it. 
 
 “For Heaven’s sake be quick!” shouted 
 a dozen voices. The waters will overflow 
 in a minute. They are all round us 
 now.” 
 
 Drew caught Lettice in his arms, stand- 
 ing up beneath the opening. 
 
 “Make haste, Montfort ! ” he called out 
 in his eager excitement, forgetting what 
 Montfort had told him. 
 
 “ I can’t move ! •” Montfort answered 
 quietly. “ I’m pinned down ! ” 
 
 Eager impatient voices shouted from 
 above as the water began now to rush in 
 more rapidly. But for a second Drew 
 stood still, looking towards Montfort, his 
 face, flushed a moment before, pale now 
 with a strange look. In the light from 
 the opening he could see at last how 
 Montfort was held helpless. 
 
 “ I can’t leave you like that ! ” he ex- 
 claimed, his voice harsh and sharp. “ Why 
 didn’t you tell me before 1 ” 
 
 “ Because it would bring the whole 
 place down on her. For Heaven’s sake 
 don’t stand staring there ! Get her out ! 
 Don’t you see there isn’t a second to 
 loser’ 
 
 There was a sound like a sob in Drew’s 
 throat. Truly he had been learning great 
 lessons in love, for he understood. 
 
 This dandy — this man he had almost 
 despised — must be left to fill up the 
 measure of his self-sacrifice. 
 
 “ I’ll save you if a man can ! ” he said as 
 he turned away to rescue Lettice. 
 
 But there was no answer, for Douglas 
 knew that it was useless. 
 
 He heard the sounds of cheering, followed 
 as quickly by a shout of fear and warning ; 
 then a strange surging noise, like the 
 voice of many waters let loose outside his 
 prison. 
 
 “ ‘ And some have the thorns,’ ” he mur- 
 mured. “ Well, if others have the roses, 
 it is — right ! ” 
 
 Then the murmuring voices grew closer, 
 whispering into his ears, while the water, 
 like the touch of some cool, soft woman’s 
 hand, laved his weary head, and a faint 
 smile parted his lips as he entered into 
 another country — which was that of 
 love. 
 
 So when the earthly hands of his rescuers 
 reached him at last, they found that he 
 had already been lifted up into the 
 Everlasting arms, with such infinite tender- 
 ness and love, that he was still smiling. 
 
12 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 JABEZ GAUNT’S TESTAMENT. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 JABEZ GAUNT’S TESTAMENT. 
 
 By E. Rentoul Esler. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Old Jabez Gaunt lay dying. 
 
 The news had passed from the hill-farm 
 down into the valley as fast as it could be 
 borne from lip to lip, and it was discussed 
 there by women leaning over cottage half- 
 doors, by men resting from the labours of 
 the harvest-field, by lads and lasses who 
 could snatch a moment from the toils 
 of the broiling afternoon to gossip and 
 surmise. 
 
 People had not loved old J abez Gaunt — 
 how could they ? a silent, lonely, unsym- 
 pathetic man, who held the neighbours 
 aloof, and neither asked a service nor 
 rendered one ; a man who had always 
 lived austerely, grinding himself and all 
 who served him down to the narrowest 
 margin of possible existence. 
 
 Bat still, dying ! That one fact altered 
 everything, brought his brotherhood home 
 to them, lifted him out of his common- 
 place surroundings and into their interest 
 and affection. 
 
 Now that he lay there, powerless to 
 repel their overtures or defend himself, 
 they said the best of him : that if hard he 
 was honest ; that no one in the world had 
 suffered tangible wrong at his hands ; that 
 throughout his life he had defrauded, no 
 man, had never taken advantage of a neigh- 
 bour’s extremity to under-buy him. 
 
 A hard man surely, but as merciless to 
 himself as others, asking no assistance 
 when the whirlwind ruined his harvest, 
 uttering no complaint when the pest slew 
 his cattle. 
 
 Uncomplaining endurance appeals, to 
 human nature as nothing else does. Since 
 old Jabez had never asked for pity, 
 there were those who said the best of him : 
 what a good son and brother he had been, 
 how patient and industrious, how neigh- 
 bourly, too, till he met Jessie Dean, and 
 she spoiled life for him. 
 
 Old Jabez with a love-story ! . The 
 young people could not realise that, it was 
 too odd and unnatural in their judgment ; 
 but they drew nearer to him because of 
 the suggestion, and strove to peer at him 
 through the half-open door, as he lay 
 motionless in the old four-post bed, with the 
 face that was like a quaint wood-carving 
 outlined on the hard pillow, and the breath 
 fluttering on his colourless lips. 
 
 There was nothing repulsive in death 
 as it neared old Jabez Gaunt. Sickness 
 had not wasted him, because there had 
 never been anything to waste. Living like 
 an anchorite, and toiling like a slave, even 
 disease had not known where he was 
 vulnerable, till death stepped in and solved 
 the difficulty. He had been labouring that 
 day in the harvest-field with the best of 
 them. Towards noon the stroke of sudden 
 paralysis smote him ; it was not yet 
 evening, and he was dying. 
 
 Jabez Gaunt had not been old. Jabez 
 always, though a moment’s reftectioiTwas 
 needed to bring that thought home to 
 the neighbours. As to the few who 
 had known him once, a well-grown, active 
 man, strong as a lion and tough as hickory, 
 with a certain kind of homely handsome- 
 ness characterising his sunburnt features ; 
 why, those people suffered from a form of 
 mental confusion that made them aware, of 
 two Jabez Gaunts, and kept them wondering 
 where the one ended and the other began. 
 
 It was odd, now that the solitary old 
 man at the hill-farm lay dying, to think of 
 a time when Hiram Gaunt and his wife 
 and sons had lived in comfortable abun- 
 dance under the same roof. Of course that 
 was in the memory of the oldest inhabitants 
 only, but still to recall it even as tradition 
 was odd. The wife had been in her grave 
 for half a century, and Jacob, the favourite 
 son, had turned out amiss, as favourite 
 sons do sometimes, and old Hiram had 
 sunk into his dotage a score of years before, 
 and afterwards out of life ; and J abez was 
 dying silently as he had lived, and there 
 was no one left but Janet, the child who 
 had come there unaccountably, and re- 
 mained unaccounted for, long after surmise 
 and question were over.. ? 
 
 Of course people said she was J acob s 
 child, but, being Jacob’s child, would 
 Jabez have kept her 1 And where was her 
 mother 1 And what did it all mean ] The 
 gossips had fretted against the hill-farm 
 mystery, but without approaching nearer 
 to its solution. Among the solitary rocks 
 and upward-looking tufts of firs, Jabez had 
 learned the secret of keeping his own 
 counsel. 
 
 As to Jacob, through years his name 
 died out of the circle of the hills. He had 
 been bold, and bad, and handsome, and 
 more than one escapade had drawn eyes of 
 censure on the Gaunt household before 
 that last worst freak which led him to 
 enlist in the service of his country and his 
 king. 
 
Charles Dickens.] JABEZ GAUNT’S TESTAMENT. [June 17, 1884.] 13 
 
 “And good enough for him,” the neigh- 
 bours said, in whose eyes military service 
 and barrack-life had assumed no heroic 
 proportions. 
 
 But years passed, and the shame which 
 had swept Jacob Gaunt beyond their ken 
 was forgotten. Troubles at the hill-farm 
 ended, and things fell back into their easy 
 ways, and Jabez had grown to be a man 
 whose word was as good as his bond 3 a man 
 who made few friends, and lived his own life 
 and was respected. As to Hiram, he had 
 grown feeble now, and past work, just obser- 
 vant enough to notice fretfully that prices 
 were lower and harvests worse than in his 
 young days, and to wish impatiently, now 
 and then, that there was a woman in the 
 house who knew more than old Martha, 
 and could be trusted to think. 
 
 Jabez heard his father, and smiled his 
 slow, wise smile. If only some things had 
 been different he would have brought a 
 woman to the hill-farm ere this. There 
 was little Jessie Dean down at the mill 3 
 Jessie, who had the brightest, darkest eyes, 
 and the roundest, pinkest cheeks, and the 
 gayest, sweetest laugh. Oh, it was 
 a long time since solemn Jabez had 
 noticed Jessie Dean, and if only fewer 
 years than half-a-score had yawned be- 
 tween them, he would have tried his luck 
 like other men. But she was far too 
 young, and dainty, and pretty for him. 
 
 There was no vanity in Jabez, nothing 
 of that which in other men passes for a 
 just self-esteem. He knew he was but 
 a rough farmer, silent, and grim, and taci- 
 turn, grown mature prematurely, as men 
 do who have had a joyless youth. It took 
 him a long time to realise that J essie liked 
 him, went out of her way persistently to 
 make friends with him, and cut the foremost 
 of his rivals for his sake 3 but when he did 
 realise it, then the great, silent yeoman 
 brought all he was and hoped to be, and 
 laid it at her feet. 
 
 And Jessie had kissed him, of her own 
 accord 3 she was proud of her conquest, 
 proud to be wooed by Jabez Gaunt. 
 
 He had gone home that night exultant 3 
 she loved him — the girl who was fit for a 
 prince. Never, had the way up the hill 
 seemed so short as beneath his fevered 
 strides 3 never had the landrails cried as 
 musically in the springing corn 3 never had 
 the lights in the valley offered him such a 
 greeting of friendship and good fellowship. 
 
 The mastiff fawned on him as he crossed 
 the paved yard j his father’s voice greeted 
 him as he opened the door : 
 
 “ Jabez— is it Jabez ] 
 
 “Yes, father.” His great form was 
 outlined like a silhouette on the threshold, 
 his deep voice vibrated as he answered. 
 
 “ Then come here. Jacob is back. I am 
 holding his hand here by the hearth.” 
 
 Jabez went up and welcomed the 
 prodigal. 
 
 Such a good-looking prodigal as he was, 
 with the boldest, merriest eyes, and a fore- 
 head as white as a girl’s, and the frankest 
 laugh, and the easiest way of bearing him- 
 self ! Jabez was struck dumb with admira- 
 tion, through which a little surprise ran. 
 If people grew like this through disobe- 
 dience and waywardness, of what use was 
 it to stay at home dutifully, and grow dull 
 as a clod toiling for the old acres and the 
 old roof 1 
 
 But in his wonder there was no germ of 
 envy. He was proud that Jacob had 
 redeemed the past, as he must have done 
 if the tales of high heroism he told were 
 true 3 proud and triumphant, that such a 
 splendid figure as his soldier-brother had 
 entered on the scene of his life at its most 
 dramatic moment. Of course there were 
 bad things in Jacob’s past, but Jabez was 
 not the man to cherish old scores against 
 the repentant. 
 
 Of course he told Jacob all about Jessie, 
 and took him to see her, and introduced 
 him. And Jacob praised her warmly— a 
 little too warmly indeed, but perhaps that 
 was only because Jabez was taciturn and 
 sensitive. 
 
 Jacob had a month’s furlough, and it was 
 harvest-time, and Jabez was busy 3 and so 
 the soldier devoted himself to his brother’s 
 sweetheart, and the sweetheart met the 
 devotion prettily. 
 
 It was the last night of J acob’s stay at 
 home. Jessie had come up to the farm 
 early in the day, and had been in the 
 gayest, merriest mood, flitting here and 
 there like a butterfly, assuming pretty airs 
 of authority in the house, petting old 
 Hiram in a filial way, and bewitching her 
 lover. 
 
 Towards nightfall she spoke of going 
 home, and both brothers volunteered their 
 company. She walked between them, 
 giving her hand to Jabez at rough places, 
 and holding it a little afterwards. 
 
 For once Jacob’s fluent tongue was 
 silent, and Jabez never had much to say, 
 and so the burden of the discourse fell to 
 Jessie, who bore it merrily. Had she 
 seemed once to fail or falter, Jabez could 
 have forgiven her better afterwards. 
 
14 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 JABEZ GAUNT’S TESTAMENT. 
 
 Ik 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 On the way home J acob recovered hia 
 spirits and his tongue, and boasted care- 
 lessly, planting thorns in his brother’s 
 heart that would rankle during a lifetime. 
 
 With the next morning’s dawn, while 
 Jabez was still sleeping the dreamless 
 sleep of weariness, Jacob Gaunt and Jessie 
 Dean were speeding away from him 
 together. 
 
 It took Jabez a long time to realise 
 what had befallen him. To his loyal 
 nature treachery was incomprehensible, 
 and treachery from these two of all the 
 world! Why, they must have been de- 
 ceiving him from the very outset ; she with 
 her pretty blandishments and caresses ; he 
 with his frank, fraternal criticism. And that 
 very walk that he and Jacob had taken to 
 Groomsport but two days before, that was 
 that the traitor might make final arrange- 
 ments for his flight. J abez felt as if they had 
 killed him — killed every kind and human 
 instinct in his breast, and at their door he 
 laid the ruins, of his better self. 
 
 He had no desire to follow them, and 
 avenge himself. As their crime was 
 beyond his comprehension, so their punish- 
 ment was beyond his arm. He left them 
 grimly to Heaven, ready to yield his faith 
 in that too, unless Heaven meted them out 
 a just reward. 
 
 It was after this that Jabez Gaunt grew 
 an old man. He was only thirty, but a 
 dead heart lines the face, and bows the 
 shoulders, and renders a man weary of the 
 sun. 
 
 He had no one to talk to, no one who 
 could lighten his pain in sharing it. Once 
 or twice his father had asked fretfully 
 where Jessie was, and when Jabez had 
 answered briefly that J essie had gone off 
 with Jacob, he had fallen to murmuring 
 to himself of the fine lad J acob was. 
 
 “ But she was my promised wife,” Jabez 
 had burst forth once, in his intolerable 
 pain ; whereat the old man shook his head, 
 and muttered : “ Aye, aye, the Deans were 
 ever treacherous. I could have told thee 
 that always, but it is not the way of the 
 young nowadays to seek counsel of the 
 old ; ” and so muttering had sunk back into 
 the indifference of old age. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Two, three, four years passed without 
 bringing much change to the hill-farm. 
 
 Old Hiram was hopelessly in his dotage 
 now, with the circle of his pleasures 
 narrowed down to basking in the sun in 
 the summer-time, or sitting in a bent and 
 
 drooping attitude by the hearth when 
 wintry blasts shook the casements. 
 
 Martha, who had been the “ help ” at 
 the farm when Jabez was a baby, saw to 
 the butter and cream, and cooked the 
 homely meals, and practised on herself and 
 others the small economies inculcated by 
 long years of scanty earnings and few 
 possessions. 
 
 As to Jabez, he was quite old now — old 
 and indifferent to all but the matters of 
 routine that lent form to his empty days... 
 His face had a withered look, his eye was 
 hollow and cold, and the line of his lips 
 had grown narrow, as it does where the 
 affections are meagre and the sympathies 
 few. 
 
 It was a bleak November morning ; the 
 icy blast like a great sickle swept the hills, 
 and everything that lived cowered back- 
 ward from its reach. Jabez had slept badly 
 that night ; the growling of the mastiff had 
 disturbed him, and the thought of prowlers 
 about had disturbed him more. But it was 
 a bitter night, and this queer, odd man 
 thought that only cruel necessity had set 
 thieves afoot in such weather, and that 
 whatever they could lay their hands on 
 they needed more than he did. So he had 
 lain awake listening and thinking till it 
 was almost morning ; then he got up and 
 unfastened the door to look out; he 
 wanted to see what his pitiful mood had 
 led him to lose. But as his hand lifted 
 the latch, something propped against the 
 door rolled forward and fell at his feet. 
 
 It was too dark for him to distinguish 
 what it was, but as he stooped to lift it, it 
 uttered a cry. 
 
 “A child!” Jabez Gaunt said to him- 
 self, trembling — he could not tell why. 
 
 He struck a light and laid the half- 
 frozen thing on the table, and looked at it. 
 
 A letter, addressed to himself, was 
 pinned to its breast ; then he understood. 
 He detached the letter and secreted it ; 
 then he called old Martha. When she 
 had come he pointed to the child. “ A 
 foundling left to perish,” he said. “ Keep 
 it till we hear further.” Then he went 
 out to feed the cattle. 
 
 All day long the letter lay unread in 
 his pocket, and Martha’s questions were 
 answered indifferently. He had found 
 the child on the threshold, and had 
 carried it in ; after that she knew more 
 than he did. 
 
 “A beggar’s brat,” old Martha sniffed 
 wrathfully. “ I shall send it to the work- 
 house.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 JABEZ GAUNT’S TESTAMENT. 
 
 “Not till I tell you,” Jabez said, and 
 went back to his labours. 
 
 He kept the letter unread for a week, 
 until the child had shown itself good- 
 tempered, and healthy, and pretty, as far 
 as he could judge, and until old Martha 
 had reluctantly admitted that by- and- by 
 it would be less trouble ; then, when its 
 footing was secure, he unfolded the message 
 it brought, and read it with a shudder of 
 repugnance and pain. 
 
 “You need not hate me now,” Jessie 
 Dean wrote. “ I have suffered enough. 
 He left me a year ago. I have tried 
 to feed myself and the child and live 
 honestly, but I can’t, so I bring her to 
 you, and leave her in your hands. 
 Whatever you do with her will be right; 
 you were always just. I have nothing 
 but her, and I give her up to you — 
 it is my punishment.” There was no 
 signature, but none was needed. 
 
 Jabez Gaunt read the blurred lines in 
 silence ; then he flung the paper into the 
 flames. It was years before he remembered 
 that he had destroyed the sole proof, such 
 as it was, of Janet’s identity. 
 
 The child remained on at the farm- 
 house, and existed somehow. Such a poor 
 little child as she was, with a long, sad 
 face, and lank, light hair, and a furtive 
 habit of gliding out of the way when any- 
 one looked at her. No one liked her, no 
 one desired her. To Martha she was a 
 nuisance, one more mouth to feed, one 
 more body to cater for ; to Jabez she was 
 an odious fragment left from the wreck of 
 his fair possibilities ; to old Hiram she 
 was a little torment, constantly making 
 overtures of friendship, constantly needing 
 to be repulsed. 
 
 In all her childhood she never had 
 a playfellow ; in all her youth she never 
 had a companion. No one reasoned about 
 it, but unconsciously they all conspired 
 against the irrepressible vitality that was 
 in her. Life had tyrannised over Jabez, 
 and unwittingly Jabez had become a tyrant 
 in his turn. 
 
 But they could not suppress the activity 
 that sent her scampering across the hills 
 when the wind blew, and gave her the 
 colts and young cattle for friends; and 
 they could not uproot the affections that, 
 strong as ivy, must cling to something. 
 
 It is hard to be fond through repulsion, 
 and aversion, and avoidance; there must 
 have been some adamantine element in 
 Janet’s nature when, in spite of himself, it 
 was possible for her to idealise J abez Gaunt. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 15 
 
 He never suspected it — how could he 1 — 
 but it was to please him that J anet learned 
 to milk, and knit, and spin, to attend the 
 poultry, and dig and hoe in the garden ; 
 to cut potatoes for planting, and to acquit 
 herself so well in the multifarious employ- 
 ments of a farm, that old Martha, in an 
 unguarded moment, let out to Jabez that 
 she was of more value than any hired 
 girl. 
 
 “ Then she shall have the hired girl’s 
 wage,” Jabez said, and called her to him, 
 and put a sovereign in her hand. 
 
 “You shall have that every quarter-day,” 
 he said. 
 
 Janet looked at him, her mouth tremb- 
 ling, and the. tears smarting her eyeballs. 
 He had paid her like a hired girl — actually 
 like a hired girl — and she had thought she 
 was something more, and better. She 
 took the money out to the hay-field, and 
 hid it and herself among the hay, and 
 then cried herself into a lethargy. 
 
 But why should he not pay her 1 What 
 was she better than the hired girl ? Who had 
 told her she was of his race — why had she 
 ever suspected it % 
 
 She thought of this problem all that 
 evening. Next day, when the cattle had 
 gone out to pasture, and her morning’s 
 work was over, Janet started on an enter- 
 prise bolder to her timidity than that of 
 Christopher Columbus. 
 
 The valley below the farm was an un- 
 discovered country to her ; she would not 
 only invade it, but make friends with an 
 inhabitant, and find out why J abez Gaunt 
 had paid her wages. 
 
 Mrs. Brown, of the little cottage just 
 below the farm,' was feeding a brood of 
 young chickens that morning by the fire, 
 when the door opened suddenly, and J abez 
 Gaunt’s foundling came in. Her short 
 skirts were tucked up for rapid running, 
 her light hair was blown backward from her 
 sharp face, and her breath came hurriedly. 
 
 “ Lawk a mussy, child ! ” Mrs. Brown 
 raised her hands in bewilderment. The 
 girl’s presence was alarming, as the unusual 
 always is. 
 
 “ I want to know what Jabez Gaunt is 
 to me ? ” the girl burst forth, eager not to 
 waste a second. 
 
 “ Jabez ! ” 
 
 “ Yes ; am I anything to him, or am I 
 a hired girl like another 1 ” 
 
 “ Sit ye down, deary, and I’ll tell ye all 
 I know,” Mrs. Brown said coaxingly.. It 
 was not often an opportunity, of making a 
 sensation came so easily within her grasp. 
 
16 . [June 17, 1884.] JABEZ GAUNT'S TESTAMENT. [Conducted by 
 
 “I’m in haste,” Janet said doggedly. 
 
 “ Unless you can tell me what I want to 
 know, I must be going,” 
 
 Mrs. Brown was in a difficulty. She 
 knew just as little about Jabez Gaunt and 
 Janet as anyone else ; but then, like all the 
 neighbours, she had a whole treasure-house 
 of opinions and surmises, and the prospect 
 of opening it to this pale, eager girl was 
 delicious. It was dangerous to be too 
 fluent with the name of J abez Gaunt, but 
 the present opportunity, once lost, would 
 be beyond recall ; and then, was it not fair 
 and right that Janet should learn some- 
 thing of herself 1 
 
 “ Why have you come to ask me ? ” she 
 enquired, with suspicion born of her em- 
 barrassment. 
 
 “ Because you were the nearest.” 
 
 “And if I tell you what you don’t 
 like 1 ” 
 
 “ I only ask for the truth.” 
 
 “ I can give you no facts, remember ; 
 only opinions.” 
 
 “ If you tell me all you know, you can 
 do no more.” 
 
 Thus encouraged, Mrs. Brown told her 
 tale of Jabez Gaunt’s wrongs, and her 
 suspicion that Janet was the child of Jacob 
 and Jessie, found by him somehow, and 
 saved because of the pity in him. 
 
 Janet stood by the door listening, 
 and suffering, as only the young can. 
 This was the punishment of her arro- 
 gance, and pride, and impatience— the 
 knowledge that she was the child of 
 traitors, and hurtful and horrible. At best 
 she was but a foundling saved through 
 charity; at worst she was the child of 
 Jabez Gaunt’s enemies. What a dreadful 
 place the world was, since it harboured 
 villains and let traitors go unpunished ! 
 What good was there for her to hate false- 
 hood when the man and woman whose 
 names were a bye-word still were her father 
 and mother 1 Janet felt herself suddenly 
 grown old and hopeless, and found herself 
 stupidly wondering if it was only yester- 
 day that she had raced with the young 
 colt across the common, and sought blue- 
 bottles amid the swaying corn. 
 
 “You’ll not tell what I’ve told you, 
 dear 1 ” Mrs. Brown said, awed by the pale 
 face and wide-open eyes that fronted her. 
 
 “ Of course not.” 
 
 She stirred as though awakened, passed 
 her hand across her eyes, and then, with a 
 word of muttered thanks, turned away. 
 
 It was after this that Janet’s crisp bright- 
 ness deserted her. Like all sensitive 
 
 natures, she was shy at self-justification, 
 and now the consciousness of an inherited 
 misdoing oppressed her. No wonder J abez 
 hated her ; the only wonder was that he 
 could bear her, even as a servant, in his 
 presence. As to her, she only loved him 
 better for his long martyrdom. But she 
 must never show him that ; her approval 
 would be only added pain. 
 
 Jabez saw a change in Janet the 
 months passed. The old hostility between 
 her "and Martha was over, and the old 
 bursts of irrepressible mirth, which had 
 once jarred on him horribly, were silenced. 
 Sorrow had touched Janet somehow. Could 
 it be a love sorrow 1 he asked himself with 
 a heart pang. 
 
 That was the one pain which Jabez re- 
 garded as never-ending, the one pain that 
 was too cruel even for Jacob’s child. Un- 
 consciously to himself, he took to watching 
 her furtively ; unconsciously to himself he 
 learned that Janet’s life was laid on simple 
 lines, and that all her thoughts were 
 noble. 
 
 Old Hiram had been dead many years 
 now ; Martha was ageing fast, and as small 
 duties fell from her relaxing clasp, Janet 
 picked them up, and made them her own, 
 uncomplainingly, willingly, as the merest 
 matter of course. 
 
 Janet’s character appealed to every sym- 
 pathy Jabez had got. It was his own, in 
 its silence, and strength, and self-abne- 
 gation. And yet she was the child of 
 Jacob and Jessie Dean ! Jabez could not 
 understand it, and would not see that the 
 bitter years had given him a blessing in 
 spite of himself. 
 
 At eighteen Janet had been a plain girl ; 
 at five-and-twenty she was a handsome 
 woman, stately, serene, reserved, carrying 
 herself with unconscious pride, and walking 
 with the free step of the hill-women. J abez 
 saw this too, and by-and-by other men saw 
 it as well as Jabez ; and one day young 
 Eben Guthrie, from Brook Farm, stepped 
 up the hillside boldly, and asked her 
 straight out from Jabez as his wife. 
 
 “Let her decide for herself,” Jabez said, 
 turning away with feigned indifference. 
 
 And she did decide— that she would live 
 with Jabez always; that she had no wish 
 for love or marriage ; that she was happy as 
 she was. 
 
 Eben took his dismissal in good part. 
 Where there is no rival, patience becomes 
 easy. Eben was prepared to wait. 
 
 Things went on quietly at the hill-farm, 
 and by-and-by old Martha died, and J anet 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 JABEZ GAUNT’S TESTAMENT. 
 
 [June 17; 1884.] 17 
 
 stepped into her place naturally. She still 
 received her quarterly wage, and she still 
 told herself she was the hired girl ; but she 
 wore a bonnet and a merino gown on 
 Sundays, which no hired girl had ever 
 done, and had trim aprons for the evening, 
 and sat opposite Jabez to do her knitting 
 after sunset. 
 
 Once Jabez, looking at her as she sat 
 working in the firelight, said suddenly : 
 
 “ My mother’s room is empty ; why not 
 use it? It will be handier than the 
 loft.” 
 
 “ So it will,” Janet answered sedately. 
 
 But she trembled as though a sudden 
 caress had touched her. He permitted her 
 to take his mother’s room — then he acknow- 
 ledged her as a relative. 
 
 CHAPTER III. ! 
 
 There were three years of this peaceful 
 life ; three years of busy days and restful 
 evenings ; three years in which a drive to 
 church was an outing, and the harvest- 
 home a festival ; three years in which the 
 only acrid drop was that quarterly payment, 
 made and accepted. 
 
 Jabez liked and needed her, the neigh- 
 bours always spoke of her as his niec8, and 
 Eben Guthrie was faithful. It was the 
 happy time of Janet’s life ; and then, sud- 
 denly, without warning, it was over, and 
 Jabez Gaunt lay dying. 
 
 He had been out in the harvest-field 
 watching the men at work as was his way, 
 admonishing a laggard, directing the un- 
 skilled, proving himself eye, and ear, and 
 judgment, when suddenly annihilation 
 seemed to fall on his small world, and he 
 lay among the sheaves, agonising in im- 
 potent effort and conscious defeat. 
 
 The reapers clustered round him, issuing 
 a hundred conflicting orders, offering a 
 hundred useless suggestions; their slow 
 tongues fluent with comment, and question, 
 and surmise. 
 
 What had befallen him I Was it apo- 
 plexy, was it paralysis, was it death? 
 Had anyone suspected his seizure ? Was 
 anyone prepared for it ? What would J anet 
 say ? As Jabez lay on the stubble, staring 
 with sightless eyes up at the sky, the rustic 
 mind had jumped from that moment to its 
 consequences — the heir-at-law would have 
 the hill-farm, "and what would become of 
 Janet ? 
 
 “ I suppose there is no will ? ” one hope- 
 less person suggested in an awed whisper. 
 
 “ Jabez Gaunt make a will ! Is that all 
 
 you know about him?” was the con- 
 temptuous answer. 
 
 And then the door, for which a mes- 
 senger had been dispatched, was brought, 
 and the old man was laid on it, and with 
 his face turned blankly up to the red sky, 
 he was carried home. 
 
 By-and-by the doctor came and looked 
 at him, and shook his head. There was 
 nothing to be done. 
 
 Neighbour- women came to sit by Janet, 
 and wipe their eyes, and talk in whispers, 
 discussing her and her prospects in her 
 absence. Jabez had never acknowledged 
 her, and there was no will ; what would 
 become of her ? 
 
 “He paid her as a servant; has she 
 saved aught ? ” they asked each other. 
 
 “ Who knows ?— a pound or two, maybe; 
 but it was more like her to put the money he 
 gave her back into the housekeeping. Eh ! 
 but he was a curmudgeon to her always, 
 and if he had been her own father she 
 could not have loved him more.” 
 
 “And to think of all he has going to a 
 shopkeeper in the town, to deck out a lot 
 of dressy lasses, and portion them for 
 marriage.” 
 
 “ An’ the poor lass thinkin’ it a joy to 
 serve him.” 
 
 “ But he brought her up,” one protested 
 faintly. 
 
 “ Aye, but she paid for her keep since 
 she was able to toddle. Don’t I mind her 
 herding the geese out of the corn, when 
 she was just old enough to cross the ridges 
 without falling ? ” 
 
 “ And to think that he never asked him- 
 self what was to become of her after his 
 death.” 
 
 “Maybe he thought no harm could 
 come to a brave heart like Janet.” 
 
 “ Most likely he never thought of her 
 at all.” And then they sighed in concert, 
 shaking their heads. 
 
 That day, towards noon, the heir-at-law 
 came; a burly, prosperous person, with a 
 keen eye to his personal advantage, and a 
 thorough comprehension of the value of 
 the oxen in the sheds, and the corn stacked 
 and standing. He had come on business, 
 to learn the worth of his inheritance, and 
 to make sure that little could be carried off 
 without his knowledge before he came into 
 possession. He went through the house 
 appraising, looking at the linen in the oak 
 presses, at the old silver, at the china in 
 the cupboards ; reckoning the value of the 
 sheep on the hills, and the cattle in the 
 sheds, and computing the developments of 
 
18 [June 17, 1834.] JABEZ GAUNT’S TESTAMENT. [Conducted by 
 
 which his business was capable when the 
 price of Jabez Gaunt’s possessions was 
 poured into it. _ • 
 
 He spoke with friendly condescension to 
 the farm-labourers, and Janet saw scorn- 
 fully how they deferred to him as the 
 coming master. What time-servers they 
 were ! But no heart had ever loved Jabez 
 but her own. And now he was slipping 
 away from her — going out into the dark- 
 ness where her love could not follow him. 
 
 She hated the rotund, rosy person who 
 was to be his successor, she felt his presence 
 in the death-chamber a desecration, as he 
 stood with his hands in his pockets, 
 whistling softly through his shut teeth. 
 In his eyes death was very natural, and 
 the death of an old man who had lived 
 frugally and amassed money, was very 
 beautiful. The heir-at-law meant no dis- 
 respect as he stood by J abez Gaunt’s death- 
 bed, and thought of the future. 
 
 “ I wonder is there any neighbour who 
 would take the land at a fair value,” he 
 said, turning to Janet, and putting the 
 uppermost thought into words. 
 
 He spoke softly, and bore himself deco- 
 rously, and therefore the blazing eyes that 
 she turned on him surprised as much as 
 they startled him. 
 
 “ Let the breath be out of his body 
 before you dispose of his possessions,” she 
 said with a wild burst of tears. 
 
 He looked at her with new interest. 
 
 “ Who are you, my good young woman!” 
 he said condescendingly. 
 
 “ I am nothing ; never mind about me.” 
 “ H’m ! nothing, yet so sorry ! Have 
 you lived here long ] ” 
 
 “ Always — ever since I was a little child. 
 But what does that matter to you ! ” 
 
 Mr. Jewlett stared her all over, traced 
 something of the bearing of old Jabez in 
 her, and drew his own conclusions. For 
 the first time it struck him as very odd 
 that Jabez had made no will. But pos- 
 sibly there was a will. The thought fell 
 on him like a cold rain, and his golden 
 visions seemed to shrink and shrivel. 
 
 But there was no will, never had been, 
 and Jabez Gaunt lay as conscious of that 
 fact, and all its consequences, a3 he had ever 
 been of anything in his life. The acres 
 that he loved with a personal affection 
 would be sold by a stranger ; the household 
 gods would be scattered to the four winds ; 
 and Janet, the one human being who had 
 ever loved him for himself, would be left, not 
 ODly unprovided for, but unacknowledged. 
 His heart was aflame with rage and 
 
 despair; the anguish in him was strong 
 enough to utter itself trumpet-tongued ; 
 passion, like a whirlwind, was battling in 
 his brain ; and all the time he lay inert 
 and dead as a stone, his feeble pulse 
 scarcely stirring in his chill body. Oh, to 
 move, to utter a sound — to speak one 
 sentence ! Too late ! For years he had 
 kept silence, priding himself mr it, and 
 now — now ! 
 
 Where was J acob ] where was J essie ] 
 Why did this smug person call himself his 
 heir, and appraise his possessions, and 
 desire his death] Was his brother dead 
 — the brother who had wronged him 1 — 
 and, if so, how could he tell the world that 
 Janet was Jacob’s child] And even if he 
 told it, and it was disputed, how could he 
 prove it now ] 
 
 He could not utter a sound, but all the 
 time he was crying from the bottom of his 
 heart that Heaven would retard the stroke 
 of his doom, and give him one hour of 
 conscious life again. 
 
 “I have no right to pray; my whole 
 life has been selfish and wrong ; it is for 
 Janet’s sake I crave a boon, as the vilest 
 may. One hour of life for Janet’s sake !” 
 
 If fervour could force itself an utterance, 
 the prayer was heard. The twisted face 
 stirred on the pillow, the heavy eyelids 
 slowly unclosed, and two words came from 
 the stiff lips : 
 
 “ A clergyman ! ” 
 
 With the cry of a reprieved criminal, 
 Janet was at his side. 
 
 “You are better; say you are better, 
 and will live ! ” 
 
 His eyes sought her face in anguish. 
 His tone thrilled with the agony of its 
 entreaty : 
 
 “ A clergyman ! Time is short.” 
 
 He wanted spiritual consolation ; at last 
 his mind was tending towards holy things. 
 In ten seconds a boy was speeding like the 
 wind* down the hillside, and Janet had 
 returned to her vigil by the bed. 
 
 He could not talk — not through pain of 
 body, but through distress of mind. Was 
 there time ! Would someone come to do as 
 he wished ] No one on the hill-farm could 
 write but Janet and the stranger. A will 
 written by Janet in her own favour would 
 be valueless, and how could he trust the 
 man who called himself his heir ] 
 
 “Pray for time,” he whispered laboriously 
 after a long pause. Then again later : 
 “ Who went ] ” 
 
 “Ned.” 
 
 He drew a breath of relief, and his 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 LUCY GREY. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 19 
 
 quickened vision seemed to see the boy 
 scudding like a hare across the country. 
 He saw him approach the parsonage door 
 and knock, and turn away disappointed. 
 Where was the clergyman ] Could he find 
 him 'l Would there be time ? 
 
 “ Pray,” he kept whispering, and she 
 prayed for life for him, for length of days, 
 for pardon if there was aught sinful in his 
 past. And still the moments dragged past, 
 and the big clock in the kitchen ticked 
 remorselessly on, and J abez’s life-sand kept 
 falling — falling. 
 
 The cold perspiration had broken on 
 his forehead, and was trickling like tears 
 on to the pillow ; his weak hands feebly 
 twisted each other as he prayed, and his 
 voice found utterance at intervals, asking 
 in agony for time. And the crowd gathered 
 gaping by the door, wondered what awful 
 secret on Jabez Gaunt’s soul made his 
 parting from the body so bitter. And 
 then suddenly there was a deeper hush in 
 the anteroom, the crowd parted from about 
 the door, and Mr. Lydgate stepped into 
 the old man’s presence. 
 
 “I am here, Mr. Gaunt.” 
 
 “ Yes ; go, Janet.” 
 
 The door closed behind her, and then 
 the sick man’s eyes fixed themselves with 
 magnetical force on the clergyman’s face, 
 and drew him like cords towards him, till 
 the faltering tones became audible : 
 
 “ Pen, paper — write my will.” 
 
 Mr. Lydgate was horribly disappointed. 
 He had half expected to hear the secret of 
 a sin-burdened soul, at any rate to be called 
 on for spiritual consolation ; and old J abez, 
 thinking of earthly things under the cir- 
 cumstances, was downright profane. 
 
 “ I had thought your soul ” he began 
 
 admonishingly. 
 
 And then Jabez made his terrible 
 answer : 
 
 “ I care less for my soul than for justice. 
 Write ! ” 
 
 And Mr. Lydgate did write, after all 
 legal formula : 
 
 “ To my niece, Janet Gaunt, who has lived 
 with me all her life, I bequeath all I possess 
 in the world, personal and chattel pro- 
 perty, stock, crop, money in the bank, in 
 bonds, and in land, for her sole use and 
 benefit.” 
 
 “Now call witnesses and let me sign.” 
 
 The trembling hand clutched the pen, 
 the signature was executed weakly, and 
 then old Jabez Gaunt gave a sigh and fell 
 back on his pillow. 
 
 Dead ! No, not dead, nor likely to die 
 
 for years. The doctor called it a miracle, 
 but doctors are like other people, and 
 sometimes term the unusual miraculous. 
 Jabez seemed to take a new lease of life 
 from the hour that he held Death at bay 
 for Janet’s sake. But he never was the 
 hale man he had been, and, before the toil 
 of the winter came round, it was found 
 needful that a neighbour should assist him 
 in his labour. And what neighbour so 
 willing as Eben Guthrie 1 
 
 The hill-farm and the brook-farm ad- 
 joined, and so it was found expedient to 
 work the two together, and by-and-by, the 
 hill-farm being the bigger, Eben came to 
 live where he was needed most, and in 
 time, he and Jabez having become the best 
 of friends — why, in time Eben married J anet, 
 and all the sad old memories at the farm 
 died out in a sound of wedding-bells. 
 
 LUCY GREY. 
 
 By A. M. Dale. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It was a dark, rainy morning early in 
 November, and I stood at the dining-room 
 window, and looked out at the wet, 
 motionless evergreens, the sodden grass, 
 and the black and leafless trees, to which 
 the fog clung dismally. It was a dreadful, 
 dreary day ! Yet, ought any outward 
 influences, however depressing, to have 
 had the power to depress a bride of only 
 six weeks’ standing — a bride who had 
 come to her new home from her wedding- 
 tour only the day before t And, perhaps, 
 this wretched day did not depress me ; 
 perhaps if it had been a sunny summer’s 
 day, and I had looked out upon leafy trees, 
 and a garden gay with flowers, and lis- 
 tened to the song of birds instead of the 
 splashing of the rain, I should have felt 
 just as miserable as I was feeling now. 
 For I had been married only six weeks, 
 and I already knew that it would have 
 been better for me if I had not been 
 married at all. Better — much better \ 
 for I loved my husband passionately, 
 and I knew to-day that he did not 
 love me, and had never loved me. 
 I thought it all over as I stood by the 
 window and watched the rain, and the 
 memory of the past summer, once so sweet, 
 had lost its sweetness now. And I won- 
 dered at the blindness that had prevented 
 me from seeing that which was so palpable 
 
LUCY GREY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 J rr 
 
 20 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 to all my wakeful, quivering senses now. 
 Of course he did not love me ! How could 
 I ever have deceived myself so far as to 
 suppose he did ? 
 
 He was an artist, and his name was already 
 well-known. He had stayed at our little 
 village on one of his sketching expeditions, 
 and, being slightly known to our vicar, that 
 hospitable gentleman threw open his doors 
 to him, and it was at his house that he — 
 Lionel Prynne — and I first met. He had 
 been educated for a doctor, and had taken 
 his degree, and practised for a few years 
 in a country town; but having a small 
 fortune left him, he gave up his profession, 
 and turned to the one pursuit he really 
 loved — his painting. 
 
 I was only nineteen when he paid his 
 visit to our village, and I was a very un- 
 sophisticated damsel indeed. I lived with 
 a deaf old maiden-aunt, and I had never 
 been away from home in my life except 
 for the two years I had spent at a “ finish- 
 ing” school. I had read many novels, 
 and had worshipped the heroes thereof; 
 but my ideas of the outside world were of 
 the vaguest, and it was no wonder when a 
 real live hero like Lionel Prynne presented 
 himself before me, that I fell down and 
 worshipped him at once. And it was only 
 very ordinary kindness on his part that 
 changed a silly girlish adoration to a 
 woman’s true and abiding love. He was 
 one whom any woman might have loved, 
 for his gentle and courteous ways had even 
 a greater attraction than his somewhat sad 
 but undeniably handsome face. He had 
 dark, waving hair, which he wore rather 
 long, and very large, dark eyes — eyes that 
 seemed capable of expressing the deepest 
 tenderness or strongest passion, but which 
 habitually wore a sad, absent expression 
 which never altered, and he did not seem to 
 be a happy man. I was a merry, sociable 
 girl, and when I got over my first timidity 
 with him, he seemed amused with me, and 
 to like my companionship. And then he 
 asked me to marry him. 
 
 As I stood looking at the wet laurels 
 this morning, I felt I could understand why 
 he had liked me; my merry chatter had 
 diverted his attention, and caused him to 
 forget his troubles sometimes ; and my 
 innocent and unconcealed admiration of 
 all his sayings and doings had naturally 
 won upon his heart, and caused him to find 
 pleasure in my society ; but of the love a 
 man should feel towards the woman he 
 makes his wife, he had none — I could see 
 it plainly now. Even during the days of 
 
 our engagement, he never praised me ; 
 never took any interest in my thoughts 
 or feelings ; never asked a single question 
 about my past life, or anything concerning 
 me, and never once spoke a word of love ! 
 
 My love, however, blinded me to all these 
 shortcomings, and supplied all his de- 
 ficiencies, for I was too happy and proud 
 to notice anything wrong, and I was happy 
 — -oh, so happy, those few short weeks. But, 
 when we were married, I soon began to doubt, 
 for I was taken into his confidence no more 
 than formerly, and his heart and mind 
 remained a sealed book to me. And never 
 in all my lonely life had I really known 
 what loneliness was until I was on my 
 wedding - tour ! I sat by my husband’s 
 side while he sketched, and he was so 
 absorbed in his work that he seemed 
 to forget my very existence. Once or 
 twice I ventured on some show of re- 
 sentment, but I might as well have shown 
 resentment against the waves at my feet, 
 for he never noticed me, and it made no 
 difference to him whether I was silent or 
 gay, and I slowly but surely realised the 
 fact that in all his life there was no need of 
 me. He did not mean to be unkind, and 
 when he remembered me he had always a 
 word and smile for me ; but the effort was 
 so palpable that such notice hurt me worse 
 than his neglect. 
 
 But I determined to act as I thought 
 right, and let no suffering deter me from my 
 rigid duty; and, of course, in my heart there 
 nestled warmly a hope that patience on my 
 part would in time win to me entirely my 
 husband’s heart. And it was in this spirit 
 and with these hopes that I returned to my 
 new home, which was a pretty house, 
 situated on the hilly side of a romantic and 
 picturesque glen in one of the most beautiful 
 counties of England. My husband had 
 bought this little out-of-the-way nook when 
 he gave up his practice and became an 
 artist, and here he had lived alone for one 
 or two years before he married me. 
 
 It was six o’clock on a November evening 
 when we arrived at home, for we had 
 lingered by the sea as long as the weather 
 continued fine, and October had been un- 
 usually beautiful that year ; but when the 
 rain began to fall and colder winds to blow, 
 we returned home at once. We had had a 
 very long journey, and were almost tired 
 out when we reached home, and it was too 
 dark for me to see how beautifully my new 
 home was placed — indeed, the impression 
 made upon my mind was not agreeable — 
 it was of nothing but wet trees tossing in 
 
Charles Dickens.] LUCY GREY. [June 17, 1884.] 21 
 
 the wind and rain. Inside, however, it 
 was bright enough, and I could see how 
 perfect and artistic it all was ; but Lionel 
 said he was too tired to show me round 
 that night, and would do so on the morrow. 
 I also was’ very tired, and went wearily 
 upstairs to change my wet and travel- 
 stained garments, and when I came down 
 into the dining-room again, Lionel was 
 lyiDg asleep on the couch beside the bright 
 fire. A tempting repast was spread upon 
 the table, but I felt unwilling to awaken 
 Lionel, he seemed so soundly asleep. I 
 stood beside him, and looked down into 
 his face, and I thought how sad and care- 
 worn he looked, even in sleep, and with an 
 impulse of pitying love I pushed the dark 
 hair tenderly from his forehead, and bent 
 and kissed him. This did not wake him, 
 but caused him to stir uneasily and utter 
 some low words. I bent down to hear 
 what he said. 
 
 “ Lucy,” he murmured tenderly; “ Lucy.” 
 
 I drew back as if he had struck me a 
 blow. Yet what was there in that tenderly- 
 breathed name to drive the blood from my 
 heart, as if a hand of ice had suddenly 
 grasped it 1 Only this — my name was not 
 Lucy, and no one had ever called me so ! 
 
 How long I stood there in silence I do 
 not know ; but when I unloosed my hands, 
 which I had clasped before me, they were 
 rigid and stiff with long pressure, and I 
 had had time to think of a great many 
 things and to realise it all. Lucy, Lucy ! 
 who was Lucy 1 And why had my gentle 
 touch brought her name to his lips 1 Had 
 she ever touched him so ? At this thought 
 I again drew near my husband, and again 
 smoothed back the wavy hair. He moved 
 again; he evidently made an effort to 
 awaken from some distressing dream. 
 
 “ Lucy, Lucy, come back to me ! ” he 
 groaned, and I bent my head to catch the 
 low, broken words. “ Come back to me or 
 I must die ! Lucy, my darling — Lucy 
 Grey ! ” 
 
 Then he awoke with a start, and stared 
 at me vaguely. 
 
 “ Oh, Marjorie ! ” he said absently. 
 
 “ Yes,” I replied bitterly ; “ Marjorie, 
 
 not ” but I checked myself in time, 
 
 and remembered my good resolutions. 
 
 “ Tea is ready,” I said wearily. 
 
 He arose with a sigh, and took his place 
 at the table. And this first meal in my 
 new home was a very silent one indeed. 
 
 In the morning Lionel showed me round 
 the house ; it was perfect in every way, 
 but this only saddened me the more, for it 
 
 made me feel how happy and blessed I 
 might have been if only I could have 
 known that its beauty and perfection had 
 been prepared for me. 
 
 It was too wet for us to go out of doors, 
 and when we had finished our tour of 
 inspection, Lionel retired to his studio, 
 and I stood looking out at the rain 
 as I have described, and feeling too 
 forlorn, and miserable, and utterly heart- 
 broken for any words to express. And 
 one name seemed written on everything 
 alike — on dreary trees and dreary sky ; and 
 the drip of the rain and the murmur of 
 the fire seemed to say it: Lucy Grey — 
 nothing but Lucy Grey. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 And now a dreary life began for me- 
 My home, though so picturesque and 
 romantic, was lonely in the extreme. No 
 other houses were near us, and the village 
 was a mile away. Had Lionel loved me 
 or made me his companion, I should have 
 wished for nothing different ; but he shut 
 himself up in his studio all day and every 
 day, and as week after week passed he 
 grew less and less mindful of any duty 
 towards me, and left me utterly alone. I 
 had no society at all ; the village was but 
 a cluster of poor cottages, and the only 
 educated people there were the rector and 
 his wife — Mr. and Mrs. Lee — and they 
 were not an exhilarating couple. They 
 called upon us shortly after our return 
 home, and although Mr. Lee seemed a 
 pleasant, kindly-hearted little man, his wife 
 was an appalling woman, and he stood too 
 much in awe of her to be able to assert 
 any individuality of his own when in her 
 presence. She was a tall, large-boned 
 woman, holding herself rigidly erect, and 
 wearing a gloomy and depressing expres- 
 sion of countenance. She seemed to be a 
 firm believer in the total depravity of 
 the human race, and to glory in it. 
 She had evidently the firmest persuasion 
 that all she did was right, and that all 
 anybody else did was wrong, and she had 
 grown sour and embittered from the 
 constant incapability of everybody else to 
 see this patent fact, repeatedly as she put 
 it to the fore. She sighed when she ifras 
 introduced to me, and shook her head 
 solemnly, and when in the course of our 
 conversation I remarked that I feared I 
 should find Glen House lonely, she sighed 
 again, and said : 
 
 “ We have all our trials, Mrs. Prynne, 
 
5" " — =*3 
 
 22 [June 17, 1884.] LUOY GEEY. [Conducted by — 
 
 and should take them as the fitting reward 
 of our sins. No doubt you have been 
 frivolous and fond of society, and this 
 loneliness of which you complain will, 
 
 I trust, have a beneficial effect upon 
 you. You must not expect . to have 
 everything just as you want it in this 
 world, Mrs. Prynne.” _ _ „ 
 
 “ I was not complaining, Mrs. .Lee, I 
 answered in mild surprise ; “ I merely said 
 I feared I might find it a little dull.” 
 
 “ I am not deaf, Mrs. Prynne ; no— -but 
 if I had given myself to the. habit of 
 listening to scandal and idle gossip, perhaps 
 that affliction might have been visited upon 
 me, as it has been upon so many others ; 
 but I never listened to scandal or gossip m 
 my life ; and I am not deaf— I heard quite 
 distinctly what you said.” 
 
 “ You have misunderstood me, neverthe- 
 less,” I remarked. 
 
 “ I beg your pardon, Mrs. Prynne,. bub 
 I never misunderstood anyone in my life 
 and she looked at me calmly, as . if that 
 speech clinched the matter and annihilated 
 
 me. . , 
 
 “ And,” I continued, just to show that 
 I was not annihilated, “ I think deafness 
 does not so often arise from listening to 
 scandal and gossip, as from a neglected 
 cold in the head, or carelessly sitting m 
 draughts.” . . 
 
 Mrs. Lee rose from her chair, and inti- 
 mated to her husband, who was talking to 
 Lionel at the other end of the room, that it 
 was time to go home, and one might have 
 supposed from the tone of. her voice 
 that something very dreadful indeed had 
 happened. 
 
 When they were gone, I told Lionel that 
 I did not like Mrs. Lee. 
 
 “ Indeed,” he answered with his usual 
 indifference ; “ I thought she was a very 
 worthy woman. I know she does a great 
 deal of work for the poor.” 
 
 And I afterwards found that Mrs. Lee 
 was always ready to help in sickness and 
 sorrow ; but she did it in such an ungracious 
 way, and let it be so plainly seen that she 
 did it merely because she considered it her 
 duty, and not from any kindly impulse of 
 her own, that she had every justification 
 for her complaints of the ingratitude and 
 thanklessness of the people she befriended: 
 for those who had received favours from 
 her seemed to dislike her more than, those 
 who had received none, so much did she 
 mix words of bitterness with her otherwise 
 kindly help. So, although she and 1 
 visited one another, and were on civil 
 
 terms, I never grew to like her, and I 
 always preferred loneliness to her society. 
 
 In April my husband and I went up to 
 London for the opening of the Boyal 
 Academy. It was my first visit to London, 
 and I naturally felt_some excitement; but 
 Lionel was absent and apathetic as usual, 
 and seemed rather annoyed with my eager- 
 ness, for, as I had discovered now, he was 
 of a very irritable temper, and easily, put 
 out over very small matters, and sometimes 
 it was impossible to avoid displeasing him, 
 although I studied his slightest wish, 
 feeling, as I always did, that nothing was 
 too great for me to do, or suffer, if only I 
 could have had the reward of seeing 
 him loving and happy. But this reward 
 was never mine. It seemed to me that 
 nothing could please him or make him 
 happy, and sometimes I feared that his 
 gloom and irritability grew greater instead 
 of less. Even the success of his picture 
 seemed to give him no pleasure, and when 
 a nobleman wanted to buy it, he appeared 
 more annoyed than gratified, and refused 
 to sell it, and I had never seen Lionel 
 appear to so little advantage as he did, 
 when they— the Earl and Countess of 
 Chesterville — called to make the offer 
 for it. 
 
 We were in our sitting-room at the hotel, 
 just ready to start for the Academy, when 
 they were announced. I had never been 
 in the presence of a titled personage before, 
 and I felt embarrassed and shy. I knew 
 Lionel was not troubled with embarrass- 
 ment, but, nevertheless, the ungraciousness 
 of his manner amounted almost to dis- 
 courtesy, and I regarded him with surprise, 
 for both our visitors impressed me most 
 favourably, and I saw nothing to account 
 for Lionel’s strange unpleasantness. 
 
 The earl was a courteous, middle-aged 
 gentleman, and he held out his hand to 
 Lionel in quite a friendly way. “Mr. 
 Prynne, I believe 1 ” he said pleasantly. 
 
 Lionel bowed, and either did not or 
 would not see the outstretched hand y and 
 the Earl drew it back and then introduced 
 his wife, Lady Chesterville. 
 
 “ Lady Chesterville has taken a fancy, to 
 your picture in the Academy,” he said ; , 
 
 “ and we have called this morning to know 
 ; if it is for sale.” 
 
 L “It is not for sale,” replied Lionel . 
 
 i coldly, and I looked at him in surprise, for 
 1 he had told me he hoped to get five hundred 
 5 pounds for it. # ■ 
 
 [ “ Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the Earl ; 
 
 l “ I have been misinformed.” 
 
 = ■ — C 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 LUCY GKEY. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 23 
 
 Lionel did not speak, and, to cover his 
 incivility, I pushed a chair towards the 
 Earl. 
 
 “ Pray be^ seated, Lord Chester ville,” I 
 said. 
 
 . He turned to me with a pleasant smile. 
 
 “ Thank you, my dear,” he said ; and 
 turning to Lionel again, continued : “ Your 
 wife, I presume 1 ” 
 
 “ Yes,” answered Lionel stiffly. 
 
 I now offered Lady Chesterville a chair, 
 but she did not take any notice. She was 
 not friendly, like her husband, but I thought 
 she had the most beautiful face I had ever 
 seen — a face perfect in all but its expres- 
 sion, which was so haughtily cold that 
 it made the face seem as if cut out of 
 stone. She was much younger than her 
 husband, and did not look more than five- 
 and-twenty; but her manners were as 
 stonily cold as her beautiful face. She 
 took no notice of me throughout the inter- 
 view ; after a first cold glance, she never 
 even looked at me. 
 
 “ If Mr. Prynne does not wish to sell 
 his picture,” she said to her husband, 
 “ there is no need for us to stay.” 
 
 “ No, my dear— of course not,” replied 
 the Earl, evidently feeling rebuffed ; “ but 
 I should have liked the picture. Are you 
 quite sure you will not sell it 1 ” to Lionel. 
 
 “ Quite sure,” answered Lionel. 
 
 The Earl turned to his wife. 
 
 “Then, my dear, I cannot gratify you,” 
 he remarked ; “ you must do without the 
 picture.” 
 
 “I do not want the picture,” said her 
 ladyship sharply and haughtily ; “ I never 
 wanted it ! ” 
 
 Lionel smiled — a most unpleasant smile 
 — and then he bowed them from the 
 room. 
 
 “ Oh, Lionel,” I burst forth as soon as 
 the door had closed upon them, “ how 
 could you treat them so ? And he was so 
 friendly, and she so beautiful ! How could 
 you do it ? ” 
 
 Lionel turned quickly, and looked at 
 me with such furious anger in his eyes 
 that I drew back with a little cry. His 
 right hand was clenched, and it trembled 
 a little as he looked at me. 
 
 I burst into tears. 
 
 “ Oh, Lionel, don’t look at me like that ! ” 
 
 I sobbed piteously. “ I did not mean to 
 vex you ! ” 
 
 “ Don’t be a child,” he answered sternly, 
 
 “ nor provoke me more than I can bear.” 
 
 “I did not mean to provoke you,” Isaid, 
 stifling my sobs as best I could, for I loved | 
 
 him so devotedly, so entirely, that I would 
 have done anything to have won a kind 
 word from him, and an unkind one seemed 
 more than I could bear. I dried my tears 
 as hastily as possible, for I knew how com- 
 plaining on my part angered him, and he 
 walked restlessly up and down the room 
 until my eyes were dry, and I was ready 
 to accompany him to the Academy ; but I 
 knew his restlessness was not caused by 
 any feeling of pity for me. 
 
 We returned home about the end of 
 May, and my lonely, monotonous life began 
 again. During the summer months we 
 travelled about a little for Lionel to sketch, 
 but life, wherever it might be, was all the 
 same to me — lonely and repressed. Lionel 
 was entirely self-absorbed ; he had no need 
 of me, and it never seemed to enter his 
 mind that I had any need of him. He 
 had married me, and provided me with a 
 pretty home, and he seemed to think — if 
 he ever thought about the matter at all — 
 that his duty was done. He knew nothing 
 of the bitter tears I daily shed — and if he 
 had known he would only have been 
 astonished and annoyed ; he would not 
 have tried to comfort me, or make me 
 happier. 
 
 . I often thought about Lucy Grey, for 
 since that first time I had frequently heard 
 Lionel murmuring her name in his sleep. 
 But I had grown to think about her without 
 bitterness, for I had weaved a romance of 
 my own about them — Lionel had loved 
 her, and she had died. I did not see how 
 else it could have been, and so I was able 
 to think tenderly, though very sadly, about 
 them both. I often felt I should like to 
 know the truth beyond all doubt, and 
 indeed hear all about it, but Lionel never 
 mentioned his past life to me, and I never 
 dared to ask him questions. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 In September, when I had been married 
 a year, a cousin of Lionel’s came to stay 
 with us for a few weeks. His name was 
 Geoffrey Hesketh, and he and Lionel had 
 been brought up together, and regarded 
 one another as brothers, and I thought 
 perhaps Geoffrey might some time mention 
 Lucy Grey, and then tell me all about her ; 
 but he had not been with us long before I 
 came to the conclusion that he knew 
 nothing of the matter at all. He, like my 
 husband, had been educated for a doctor, 
 and early in life had obtained a situation 
 I as surgeon on board a ship, where he had 
 
24 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 LUCY GREY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 remained until the ship was wrecked, when 
 he came to us until he got another post ; 
 and he and Lionel had not seen . one 
 another for seven or eight years. Lionel 
 told me, however, that our home must 
 always be Geoffrey’s as long as Geoffrey 
 wanted one. 
 
 I was very much pleased with Geoffrey, 
 and he seemed to bring a new and happier 
 life into our dreary home. In looks he 
 was rather like Lionel, but, instead of 
 Lionel’s languor, his face was expressive of 
 life and energy. He was of a stronger, 
 sturdier build ; his ways were, lively 
 and energetic ; and he had a singular, 
 brusque way of speaking his thoughts out 
 rather unguardedly, but quite innocently, 
 and without any intention of giving offence. 
 He had a ready, merry laugh, and a good- 
 humour that was very infectious ; only, 
 alas ! it never infected Lionel. 
 
 And it never infected Mrs. Lee. She 
 took a dislike to Geoffrey when first she 
 saw him, as she did to everything cheerful 
 or happy, and, as Geoffrey quite recipro- 
 cated her feelings, there was a continual 
 sparring between them whenever they 
 met, which sometimes made me laugh, but 
 oftener made me very uncomfortable, for I 
 was afraid Mr. Lee might be offended on 
 his wife’s behalf, and I had grown to like 
 the friendly, mild little man very much, 
 and did not wish to lose his friendship. 
 On this point, however, I soon grew easy, 
 for I began to perceive that his sympathies 
 were on Geoffrey’s side, and that he was 
 more annoyed at his wife’s persistent 
 unpleasantness than at Geoffrey’s defensive 
 mockery and fun. 
 
 Geoffrey had not been with us more than 
 two days when he asked me what was amiss 
 with Lionel. 
 
 “ I do not know that anything is amiss 
 with him,” I answered in surprise. “ What 
 makes you think there is 1 ” 
 
 ‘‘He is so dismal— so depressed,” said 
 Geoffrey. “ He never laughs. Laughs ! 
 He never even smiles — no, not at my very 
 best jokes ! And he seems to take no 
 interest in anything, and I can’t imagine 
 what on earth has come over him.” 
 
 “Used he to be different ?” I asked 
 wistfully. 
 
 “Oh, very. He was never lively or 
 talkative, but he was cheerful and good- 
 tempered. He was always somewhat full 
 of fads, and a trifle fidgety, but never irri- 
 table like now. Why, he seemed quite put 
 out last night at seeing my dirty boots on 
 the hearthrug.” 
 
 “You must admit that my white 
 hearthrug was not the most suitable 
 place for them,” I remarked with a slight 
 smile. 
 
 “I had takemthem off there, and some- 
 one ought to have taken them away,” said 
 Geoffrey. 
 
 “ I think you want a wife, Geoffrey,” I 
 remarked. 
 
 “ I think so myself, and perhaps, when 
 you have known me a little longer, you 
 will be kind enough to recommend me to 
 one of your bosom friends.”. 
 
 “I have no bosom friends,” I said ; 
 
 “ and if I had, I am not quite sure that I 
 could recommend you to their tender 
 regards.” 
 
 “ Oh, I’ll not leave my boots on the 
 hearthrug again, if that is what you mean,” 
 he answered gravely. 
 
 “I found your meerschaum in my work- 
 basket this morning,” I said calmly. 
 
 “ I’m thankful for that, for I thought I 
 had lo 3 t it. But I remember shoving it 
 in there when the parson’s wife came last 
 night, for, to tell you the truth, the first 
 appearance of that woman startled me. 
 She seems to be searching for your secret 
 sins, and you can’t help feeling that she 
 has found them, and knows all about them, 
 and you feel guilty and uncomfortable all 
 through; and somehow I felt it was a 
 dreadful thing to be smoking a pipe, so I 
 popped it in there. I hope it didn’t burn 
 anything, and, if you have no objection, I 
 will always put it there, and then I shall 
 know where to find it. ‘ A place for every- 
 thing, and everything in its place,’ is a very 
 good motto, you know.” 
 
 “Very. But the place for your meer- 
 schaum shall not be my work-basket, if it 
 is all the same to you. But about Lionel 
 — what do you think has changed him 
 so?” 
 
 “ I cannot tell ; I have not seen him for 
 seven years. You are much more likely to 
 know than I.” 
 
 “ But did he not write to you in those 
 seven years ? Or did you never hear any- 
 thing about him from others ? ” 
 
 “Ah, now you speak about it, I did 
 once hear a tale about him ; but it certainly 
 was not true.” 
 
 “ What was it ? ” I eagerly asked. 
 
 “I don’t remember the particulars. 
 They said a young lady had jilted him, I 
 think.” 
 
 “And why do you say it was not 
 true ? ” 
 
 “ Because I see with my own eyes that 
 
Charles Dickens.] LUCY 
 
 you have not jilted him. — you have married 
 him.” 
 
 He looked at me innocently. It cer- 
 tainly never entered his mind to suppose 
 there had been any other “ young lady” 
 in the case. 
 
 I felt my cheeks flush painfully, and I 
 saw a sudden look of suspicion come into 
 Geoffrey’s eyes — a suspicion that I was, 
 perhaps, the thorn in his cousin’s side. 
 
 “ Lionel is a very good fellow,” he said 
 gravely, “ and I don’t like to see him so 
 miserable.” 
 
 “ Perhaps your visit will cheer him up,” 
 I said with a sigh ; and I felt that when I 
 knew Geoffrey a little better, I would take 
 him into my entire confidence, and see if 
 we could not between us find some way of 
 restoring Lionel to a happier state of 
 mind. 
 
 But I did not know him well enough yet. 
 
 For the next few days I believe Geoffrey 
 watched Lionel and me very closely to see if 
 the cause of Lionel’s irritability and un- 
 happiness did really lie with me; and I 
 think he soon saw that Lionel had nothing 
 to complain of in me. I think he soon 
 saw that Lionel might have been very 
 happy if he only would have been ; and I 
 think he began to view his conduct with 
 strong disapproval, for when Lionel was 
 more than usually irritable, he would meet 
 him with a determined combativeness that 
 made me fear they would come to a down- 
 right quarrel. But Lionel generally gave 
 in, as if it was too much trouble to do 
 anything else. And Geoffrey grew exceed- 
 ingly kind to me, and we became very 
 good friends, and quietly and unobtrusively 
 he made my life happier in many ways. 
 
 A parcel of books came every week 
 from a circulating-library in the nearest 
 town, and although Geoffrey said they 
 were for himself, I knew they were really 
 for me, and he read them to me quite 
 cheerfully in the long evenings when 
 Lionel was shut up as usual in his studio. 
 And Geoffrey always accompanied me on 
 my morning walks to visit the poor, for 
 Mrs. Lee had given me a “ district ” some 
 ten miles in extent,, and I went three 
 mornings a week to read the Bible to a few 
 whining old women, who seemed to think 
 they conferred the favour on me by letting 
 me read, and always took the donation that 
 followed as a little under their proper due. 
 
 Geoffrey never entered the cottages with 
 me, but would sit on a wall or tree some- 
 where near and smoke a quiet pipe. 
 
 “ I wonder Lionel lets you come down 
 
 GREY. [June 17, 1884.] 25 
 
 these lonely lanes and enter these dens all 
 by yourself,” he once remarked. “ I know 
 I should not if I were him.” 
 
 “Oh, Lionel does not mind!” I said 
 cheerfully. 
 
 “He’s a queer fellow,” went on Geoffrey 
 thoughtfully; “and if it would not be im- 
 pertinent, I should really like to know what 
 induced you to marry him.” 
 
 I laughed a little at this — I could not 
 help it. 
 
 “The usual reason, I suppose,” I an- 
 swered quietly. 
 
 “ You don’t mean to say you fell in love 
 with him?” he gasped with an air of 
 sincere amazement. 
 
 “ I believe that must have been the 
 reason,” I said. 
 
 “ Well,” he said slowly, “ if I had been 
 a woman, I don’t think I should — as he is 
 at present, you know.” 
 
 “ Oh,” I exclaimed derisively, “ if ‘ my 
 aunt had been my uncle ’ it is universally 
 admitted that no one knows what wonder- 
 ful things might not have happened, and 
 this seems to me a similar case. But 
 instead of telling me the sort of husband 
 you would not like, tell me the sort of wife 
 you would like, and then, perhaps, I may 
 be able to help you.” 
 
 “ Do you think you could find me a fac- 
 simile of Mrs. Lee 1 ” 
 
 “ I am afraid not. I think she stands 
 alone.” 
 
 “ Then I must remain a bachelor.” 
 
 “Iam grieved to hear this, Geoffrey,” I 
 replied, “fori know several nice girls who 
 would make good wives.” 
 
 “ You would recommend me now, then?” 
 he asked quickly. 
 
 “ Oh yes,” I answered promptly. 
 
 “ Well, at least,” he said with sudden 
 vehemence, “you might safely say that 
 when I get a wife I shall treat her very 
 much better than Lionel treats his ! ” 
 
 I stopped in my walk, and looked at 
 Geoffrey with bitter reproach. 
 
 “ You need not have said that,” I cried 
 with a swelling heart. 
 
 “ I beg your pardon, Marjorie — I beg 
 your pardon ! ” he cried in great distress. 
 “ I did not mean to say it— I did not mean 
 to hurt you ; but sometimes it is hard to 
 keep a silent tongue.” 
 
 I walked on in silence ; I looked straight 
 before me, and if the landscape was some- 
 what dim and blurred, I could not help it. 
 That Geoffrey could have been so unkind ! 
 I was deeply offended with him, and I did 
 not speak again until we reached home, 
 
26 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 LUCY GREY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 and he took my displeasure very humbly, 
 for he knew he deserved it. 
 
 At tea-time Lionel was unusually silent, 
 and after repeated attempts at conversation 
 I asked him if he was ill. 
 
 “ No,” he answered shortly, and looked 
 at me quite angrily. . ' T ' . 
 
 “ Then you are over-tired, I said gently, 
 
 “ and you must not work any more to- 
 night. You must stay down here with 
 me.” 
 
 Lionel went into one of the sudden, un- 
 expected passions that now and again came 
 over him. 
 
 “How dare you interfere with me? 
 he cried, striking the table with his clenched 
 hand. U 1 have told you before that I will 
 not have it, and I will not ! ” 
 
 I felt my face whiten, and I glanced 
 nervously at Geoffrey, but he was considerate 
 enough not to look at me ; indeed, I think 
 he had forgotten me, for he was looking at 
 Lionel with a strange, intent gaze that 
 puzzled me. 
 
 “ By-the-bye,” he said to Lionel, in slow, 
 indifferent tones, “what work is it you are 
 doing that engages you so much ! Can 
 you paint by gas-light ? ” 
 
 Lionel uttered a very bad word, and got 
 up and left the room as if in the deepest 
 anger. And Geoffrey sat for a long, long 
 time as if lost in the deepest thought. And 
 he seemed very absent and preoccupied for 
 the next few days. Then one morning he 
 came into my sewing-room, and said he 
 wanted to speak to me. 
 
 “ Very well, Geoffrey,” I sa\d. “ Sit 
 down.” 
 
 He seated himself by the big, square 
 centre-table, put his elbows on it, and 
 rested his chin in his hands, and looked at 
 me. He looked so grave, so unlike him- 
 self, that I felt slightly alarmed. 
 
 “What is it, Geoffrey?” I asked ner- 
 vously. 
 
 He paused, as if in deep consideration, 
 before he answered, then he said : 
 
 “ You see you and I have not known 
 one another very long, Marjorie, and I 
 hardly know how you will take what I am 
 going to say. I don’t want to frighten you, 
 I don’t want to offend you ; and if you had 
 a father or a brother I should speak to 
 them and not to you; but you are very 
 lonely and unprotected, Marjorie.” 
 
 “ Nay,” I answered with a smile, “ never 
 lonely and unprotected, Geoffrey, while I 
 have Lionel and yon.” 
 
 ‘•'lam -glad you mention me as a pro- 
 testor. Try to imagine I am your brother, 
 
 Marjorie ; and, believe me, no brother 
 could have your welfare more truly at heart 
 than I have.” 
 
 “I know that, Geoffrey,” I answered 
 somewhat f altering!^ ; “ but do say quickly 
 what you have to say, for you are frighten- 
 ing me ! ” 
 
 “I may be mistaken, Marjorie,” he said 
 slowly, “but I do not think I am — and it 
 is my very strong opinion that your hus- 
 band— Lionel — is going out of his mind.” 
 “Going out of his mind, Geoffrey!” I 
 faltered vaguely. 
 
 “ Yes,” answered Geoffrey. 
 
 “ Do you mean going mad ? ” I asked 
 faintly. 
 
 “I am almost inclined to think he is 
 mad already, Marjorie— melancholy mad, 
 and may, perhaps, become violently so. ’ ^ 
 
 “ — your reasons for thinking this ? ” 
 
 “His conduct, and my own experience 
 in such cases. He shuts himself up in his 
 studio all day and every day, and yet he 
 does no work, and when he comes out at 
 meal-times he is morbidly irritable. The 
 very fact of being spoken to annoys him, 
 and a newspaper left on the table, much 
 more mv unlucky pipe, throws him into a 
 state of irritation quite painful to see. 
 And would any man in his' proper senses 
 destroy his happiness as wilfully and 
 blindly as he is doing ? ” 
 
 “ But— going mad ! Oh, I am sure you 
 are mistaken, Geoffrey i ” 
 
 “ Then how do you account for his con- 
 duct ? ” 
 
 My heart sank heavily. 
 
 “ I think, Geoffrey,” I said quietly, , “ that 
 Lionel has some great trouble of his own, 
 of which you and I . know nothing. I 
 think it is a trouble so great that _ it 
 absorbs all his faculties, and renders him 
 quite unable to take an interest in any- 
 thing else.” 
 
 “What trouble can he have? asked 
 Geoffrey with a sudden sharp sound in his 
 voice. “ My aunt left all her money to 
 him, and he is married to you — what more 
 does he want ? ” 
 
 “ I don’t know,” I answered sadly, but 
 all the same I thought I did know. 
 
 Geoffrey walked up and down the room. 
 “I thought when I first came here and 
 found him in this miserable plight that 
 you had something to do with it — had 
 married him for his money, or something 
 of that sort. But it seems to me you love 
 him with all your heart ! ” 
 
 I burst into tears. 
 
 “Oh, Geoffrey,” I sobbed, all barriers 
 
Charles Dickens.] LUCY 
 
 broken down under his unfeigned interest 
 and sympathy ; “ I do— I do, indeed ! And 
 even if it is as you think — even if he went 
 mad and killed me — if before he did it, he 
 would give me one kind word, or one kind 
 look, and say he loved me, I should think 
 it worth it all ! ” 
 
 “ Oh, Marjorie ! ” cried Geoffrey with a 
 sort of sob, “ and he can treat you as he 
 does ! But he is mad — of course he is 
 mad, poor fellow ! ” he added hastily as if 
 to himself. 
 
 I rose up, and seized Geoffrey’s hand in 
 my trembling ones. 
 
 “I have no one to help me but you, 
 Geoffrey — no one but you has ever 
 spoken to me about my troubles ; but 
 since we have spoken so plainly, tell 
 me — oh, tell me, if there is anything I can 
 do — anything you think I can do, to win 
 Lionel’s heart — to make him love me just 
 one little bit ! ” 
 
 “Don’t speak of him as if he were a 
 sane man, Marjorie,” cried Geoffrey vehe- 
 mently ; “ don’t, my dear ! If I thought 
 he was sane I should not stay in his house 
 another hour.” 
 
 “ But what is to become of me if he is 
 mad ? ” I asked in piteous despair. 
 
 “That is what I want to talk to you 
 about,” said Geoffrey gently, and he led me 
 to a chair. 
 
 I sat down mechanically. 
 
 “Well, Geoffrey,” I said, with a hope- 
 less ring in my voice, “ what would you 
 suggest ?” 
 
 “ I have been negotiating to buy the prac- 
 tice of a doctor in London,” began Geoffrey, 
 “ and I thought, if you approved, of trying 
 to persuade Lionel to live in London too. 
 Do you think you would like it ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, indeed I should ! ” I cried eagerly ; 
 “it would be life itself to me, and if you can 
 persuade Lionel to do it, I shall owe you a 
 very great debt of gratitude.” 
 
 “ Don’t you like living here ? ” queried 
 Geoffrey. 
 
 “ Like living here ! ” I cried. “ Can you 
 look out of that window, Geoffrey, and 
 ask me that?” and I pointed to the 
 leaden sky, the falling rain, the leafless 
 trees. 
 
 “ Any country place looks dreary in 
 winter,” he said. “But it is pretty here 
 in summer-time, is it not ? ” 
 
 “It is always dreary, whether summer 
 or winter. And it is so lonely. The 
 village is a mile away, and even there I 
 have only Mr. and Mrs. Lee.” 
 
 “Well,” said Geoffrey, “ we must see 
 
 GREY. [June 17, 1884.] 27 
 
 what Lionel says. And if he will not 
 remove, I think I will stay here a little 
 longer, Marjorie. I do not think you 
 ought to be left alone.” 
 
 “Oh, Geoffrey, I still think you are 
 quite mistaken. But of course we shall be 
 glad for you to stay.” 
 
 “ And we must try to cheer Lionel a 
 bit. You must not be frightened at his 
 temper, but insist on him going out with 
 you, and having more of your society 
 altogether. And you must try again to 
 persuade him to buy you a piano ; music 
 would be good for him, and what objection 
 can he have ? ” 
 
 “ He says he hates music, and does not 
 like women to sing.” 
 
 “ You can both sing and play ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes.” 
 
 “ I should like to hear you sing,” said 
 Geoffrey thoughtfully. 
 
 “ I think I have forgotten how,” I 
 answered with a sigh, and just then the 
 luncheon-bell rang, and we made our way 
 to the dining-room. 
 
 Lionel soon joined us ; he looked round 
 the room frowningly, as if seeking some- 
 thing to find fault about, and then he seated 
 himself at the table in silence, and began 
 carving the cold meat. And the sadness and 
 dulness of spirit that his presence always 
 brought came over me as usual, and I sat 
 in dejected silence. Geoffrey alone tried to 
 be sociable. 
 
 “Aren’t we invited to dine at the 
 parsonage to-night? ” he asked cheerily. 
 
 _ “ Yes,” I answered ; “ it is Mrs. Lee’s 
 birthday, and we must not forget. You 
 will be ready about half-past four, Lionel, 
 will you not ? ” 
 
 “I suppose so,” answered Lionel un- 
 graciously. 
 
 “And as it is so wet,” I went on, “I 
 told John we should need the pony- 
 carriage, and he must put it up at The 
 Golden Bull until we return, for it will not 
 be fit to walk either way.” 
 
 Lionel made no reply, so I knew my 
 arrangements were accepted. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 We arrived at the parsonage about five 
 o’clock. Mrs. Lee received us in the 
 drawing-room, for Mr. Lee had only just 
 returned from visiting a sick parishioner, 
 and he was upstairs changing his, wet 
 clothes. 
 
 As I entered the warm room, I thought 
 what a pleasant contrast it presented to 
 
28 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 LUCY GREY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 the wet night outside. _ But Mrs. Lee 
 seemed uncheered by its comfort, and 
 looked more aggressively austere than 
 usual as Geoffrey shook her hand warmly, 
 and wished her many happy returns of 
 
 the day. . . . ... 
 
 “ I always think it nice to have a jolli- 
 fication on one’s birthday,” he said cheerily, 
 and I really felt vexed with him, for it 
 seemed so very irreverent to speak of a 
 “ iollification ” in connection with Mrs. 
 Lee. . 
 
 The severity of her expression deepened. 
 
 “ I should be sorry,” she said gloomily, 
 
 “ to think of regarding anyone’s birth- 
 day as a time for a jollification— I believe 
 that was the term you used?— but I 
 certainly approve of birthdays being remem- 
 bered.” 
 
 “ Do you really ? ” remarked Geoffrey 
 innocently, but giving me a glance that 
 plainly said he was surprised to hear she 
 approved of anything. 
 
 “ Yes,” she said with her usual sigh; 
 for I think it is well to be reminded 
 that we are one year nearer the grave.” 
 
 “Let us say nearer heaven,” suggested 
 Geoffrey cheerfully. 
 
 But the look on Mrs. Lee’s face said 
 plainly that that was by no means what 
 she meant. And Geoffrey looked in my 
 direction again. 
 
 Mr. Lee now entered the room, and 
 seemed to bring a cheerier atmosphere 
 with him, and after he had shaken hands 
 all round we went in to dinner. 
 
 “I think, my dear,” he said to his wife 
 as we began, “ that I have a piece of news 
 that will interest you.” 
 
 Mrs. Lee looked very grim, but made 
 no reply ; she did not like it to be 
 supposed she was ever interested in any 
 thing. 
 
 “ I saw it in the Times to-day,” the little 
 man said next ; but even this elicited 
 no sign of interest in his spouse ; she 
 merely tasted her soup, as if she sus- 
 pected poison, and paid no attention to her 
 husband. 
 
 I felt sorry for him. 
 
 “ Pray let us hear your news, Mr. Lee,” 
 I said, “for I dare say it will interest us 
 all.” 
 
 “ Oh no, you don’t know the parties ; 
 but we do. My dear,” again addressing 
 his wife, and this time with a ring of 
 triumph in his tone, “the Countess of 
 Chesterville has at last presented her 
 husband with a son ! ” and he looked at 
 the stony face opposite to him as if he 
 
 expected some sign of life must be shown 
 now. 
 
 But he was mistaken. 
 
 “ Why should I be' interested in that ? ” 
 she asked, staring at him with cold, blank 
 
 “ Why, my dear, I always thought you 
 were interested in Miss Grey,” he said 
 mildly. 
 
 “It has occasionally happened, re- 
 marked his wife calmly, “that you have 
 thought wrong.” „ 
 
 “ I know Lady Chesterville,” I cried with 
 eager enthusiasm. “ She and her husband 
 once wanted to buy a picture of Lionel’s — 
 don’t you remember, Lionel ? — and I 
 thought her the most beautiful lady I had 
 ever seen. I should like to see her again. 
 Do they live near here, that you know 
 them?” 
 
 “ Oh no ; they live very far away. But 
 we knew the Countess when she was plain 
 Lucy Grey, and only a governess.” 
 
 My heart gave a sudden, terrible throb, 
 and then seemed to stand still. . I glanced 
 at Lionel, and his white, anguish-stricken 
 face told me that I knew the truth at 
 last. 
 
 “ She was a very beautiful girl, went on 
 Mr. Lee, “but it was said she jilted some 
 young fellow very heartlessly when she had 
 the chance of becoming a countess. But I 
 suspect most women would have done the 
 same in her place — that is,” hastily correct- 
 ing himself as he met his wife’s appalling 
 glare, “some women — not most, and 
 certainly not ” 
 
 “Mrs. Prynne,” interrupted . Mrs. Lee 
 sternly. “ I think, instead of listening to 
 the praises of Lucy Grey, you will be better 
 employed in looking after your husband, 
 for I am of opinion he is ill.” 
 
 Lionel’s face had grown ghastly white, 
 and as Mrs. Lee spoke, he bowed his head 
 on his hands and groaned as if in bodily 
 agony, while a strong shiver shook him 
 from head to foot. 
 
 I was at his side in an instant, and I 
 pressed his head against my breast. 
 
 “ Oh, Lionel, my darling ! ” I whispered 
 passionately as I bent my head to his, 
 “ why need you care for that false and 
 wicked woman ? She never loved you as 
 I do, my darling: — never, never ! ” 
 
 But he pushed me angrily away and 
 stood up. 
 
 “If you will excuse me, Mrs. Lee, he 
 said, “I will go home. I am not fit to 
 stay.” 
 
 Geoffrey rose too. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 LUCY GREY. 
 
 “I will go with you,” he said with 
 promptness and decision. 
 
 “I shall go alone,” said Lionel doggedly. 
 
 “ Oh no, you are not fit to go alone,” 
 answered Geoffrey firmly. 
 
 “I must go too,” I cried, looking 
 anxiously into Geoffrey’s face. 
 
 “You can follow in the pony-chaise,” he 
 answered, without looking at me ; “ Lionel 
 and I will walk — it will do him good.” 
 
 Lionel submitted sullenly and they left 
 at once, and while one of Mrs. Lee’s 
 servants went to fetch the pony- carriage, I 
 finished my dinner with what appetite I 
 had. Mr. Lee was full of sympathy for 
 me, but Mrs. Lee simply remarked that 
 she was afraid I had a deal to answer for. 
 This neither surprised nor offended me, for 
 Mrs. Lee always regarded the troubles of 
 other people as distinct punishments for 
 their sins, while each cross of her own was 
 always trumpeted forth as the very im- 
 mediate forerunner of the crown. But I 
 was glad when the carriage was announced, 
 and I could leave her uncongenial presence. 
 
 Mr. Lee, as in duty bound, accompanied 
 me home to learn how Lionel was, and a 
 wet, windy, and comfortless ride we had 
 through the dark, rugged, winding lanes. 
 Lionel and Geoffrey had not been in many 
 minutes when we arrived, and Lionel 
 seemed surprised and annoyed to see us. 
 
 “ I am not ill that all this fuss should be 
 made,” he said’ irritably, “and there was no 
 need, Marjorie, for either you or Geoffrey 
 to have come home. I am quite well, 
 but,” to Mr. Lee, “ not at all disposed for 
 company, so I hope you will excuse me if 
 I go and do a little work in my studio. ” 
 
 “ You had better stay here and have a 
 pleasant chat with Mr. Lee,” remarked 
 Geoffrey, but Lionel stalked from the 
 room. 
 
 “ I don’t like it,” muttered Geoffrey to 
 himself as we listened to Lionel’s retreat- 
 ing footsteps, and heard him lock himself 
 into his studio. 
 
 “ He looks very queer — what’s -amiss 
 with him 1 ” asked Mr. Lee. 
 
 “ I don’t know,” answered Geoffrey 
 shortly. 
 
 And then we all drew our chairs round 
 the fire and sat in silence for a little 
 while. 
 
 “ Living in this place does not suit him 
 for one thing,” resumed Geoffrey thought- 
 fully, “ and we must try and persuade him 
 to leave it.” 
 
 . “ It is very dull,” agreed Mr. Lee with a 
 sigh, “ and why a man lives here of his 
 
 [June 17 , 1884 .] 29 
 
 own free will passes my comprehension. Do 
 you like it, Mrs. Prynne 1 ” 
 
 “ I hate it!” I said with a nervous shiver. 
 
 “ And also ” Geoffrey was beginning, 
 
 when a terrible silence fell upon us all, for 
 clear through the quiet house rang out the 
 sudden, sharp report of a pistol. We gazed 
 into one another’s faces with a growing 
 horror and comprehension, for the sound 
 had come from the studio. I tried to rise 
 — I tried to speak, but only a low moan or 
 two escaped me, and then a blessed oblivion 
 came. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 When I came to my senses I was lying 
 upon my bed, and Mrs. Lee was sitting 
 beside me, gently bathing my forehead, 
 and one of the servants was moving softly 
 about the room. Memory returned with 
 my senses. 
 
 “ Oh, tell me it is only a horrible dream, 
 Mrs. Lee ! ” I sharply cried. 
 
 “It is not a dream, Mrs. Prynne,” she 
 replied, 'in her own grim tones, although 
 the touch of her hand upon my head was 
 so gentle, and although she had come at 
 once through the stormy night to me in 
 my extremity. 
 
 “Is Lionel— is my husband I 
 
 could say no more. 
 
 “ He is dead,” said Mrs. Lee. 
 
 I closed my eyes ; I prayed to die ; but 
 no relief came to my overwrought senses 
 now — not even tears. 
 
 In a short while Geoffrey entered the 
 room. 
 
 “ Has she spoken ? ” he asked Mrs. Lee 
 in a whisper. 
 
 “ Yes,” answered Mrs. Lee. 
 
 “ Sensibly 1 ” 
 
 “ Yes ; she remembers it all.” 
 
 Geoffrey took the chair Mrs. Lee vacated, 
 and put his hand gently upon my wrist, 
 and I opened my eyes and looked into his, 
 and his, full of the tenderest pity, looked 
 back into mine, but neither of us spoke 
 one word. 
 
 At last he let go my wrist. 
 
 “You must keep very quiet,” he said 
 gently, “ and think as little as possible. 
 Let Mrs. Lee put you to bed ; and you 
 must stay there for many days, and leave 
 everything to me.” 
 
 I obeyed his instructions, for my head 
 felt cold and numb, and I could not think 
 clearly or exercise my will. And thus I 
 was saved much terrible suffering, for 
 Geoffrey and Mr. Lee took everything upon 
 themselves, and I was saved from every 
 
30 [ June 17 , 1884 .] 
 
 A HOLIDAY MYSTERY. 
 
 ondueted by 
 
 horrible detail of that most horrible time. 
 
 On one day only I left my room and saw 
 my husband’s face for the last time. . Oh, 
 very calm and peaceful he looked, with a 
 smile upon his face that had never rested 
 there in life. His death had been instan- 
 taneous, for with skilful, unerring aim, he 
 had shot himself through the heart. Shot 
 himself for the sake of one false woman, 
 while my great love had been powerless to 
 cheer or save him ! 
 
 I was very ill after this ; a doctor came 
 from the nearest town every day, and Mrs. 
 Lee nursed me untiringly, but never gave 
 me one word or look of love or sympathy. 
 
 Many weeks went on, and then _ one 
 day I was able to leave my bed and sit up 
 a little in my room. And Geoffrey came 
 to see me. He came to tell me all that 
 had been done ; and after we had talked a 
 little while, he put a worn-looking pocket- 
 book into my hands, and there was a round 
 
 hole right through it. 
 
 “ Lionel wore it,” he said, “ and 1 was 
 obliged to look into it for evidence ; but I 
 did not think it necessary to make its 
 contents known.” 
 
 I opened it with trembling hands, and 
 took from it a photograph. This, like the 
 pocket-book, had a round hole right 
 through it, but it had not touched the 
 pictured face— its beauty was unimpaired, 
 and it smiled at me brightly— the proud, 
 sweet, beautiful face of Lady Chesterville 
 ■once Lucy Grey ! _ 
 
 “ It is not you, Marjorie } said Geoffrey 
 
 wistfully. . 
 
 “No,” I answered, “it is not I — it 
 never was, Geoffrey ! ” 
 
 “ Can it be true ? ” - 
 
 “What does it matter?” I cried in 
 anguish ; “ it is ended now 1 But burn it, 
 Geoffrey ! Oh, burn that cruel face, and 
 let no one know the evil it has done.” 
 Geoffrey put it into the fire. 
 
 “ I showed it to Mr. and Mrs. Lee, he 
 said ; “ I thought it best to do so.” 
 
 “Oh, you should not I began, when I 
 
 suddenly felt how little anything mattered 
 now ; and, for the first time since Lionel “ 
 death, I sobbed aloud. . 
 
 “ Oh, Geoffrey,” I cried in my desolation, 
 “ I thick my heart is broken ! ” 
 
 And he sat silent and made no attempt 
 to comfort me. And Mrs. Lee came Into 
 the room, and, seeing my tears, very grimly 
 ordered me to bed again. 
 
 But, by-and-by, in spite of myself, 1 
 grew strong and well, and Mrs. Lee gave 
 up her post of nurse, and went back 
 
 to the vicarage ; Geoffrey went to the 
 practice he had bought in London, and I 
 lived on alone in my dreary home. 
 
 But why need I dwell on these lonely 
 days? I have told the love story of my 
 youth and its disastrous ending, and that 
 is all I intended to tell. Sometimes, when 
 I remember how great my desolation was, 
 I wonder that comfort could ever have 
 come, or happiness have been mine again. 
 Yet, when I remember how soon and com- 
 pletely the comfort came, and how perfect 
 my happiness is, I wonder that the misery 
 could ever have been so dark and deep. 
 For I am truly happy now, safe under the 
 care of a faithful love in which there is no 
 sadness, no mystery— no Lucy Grey ! 
 
 A HOLIDAY MYSTERY.' 
 
 By W. W. Fenn. 
 
 Come down and join us ; we are a jolly, 
 albeit a domestic party. Myself and wife, 
 her mother, our two boys, and a brother- 
 brush, Stanwell by name, whom I think 
 you know. The quarters are rather rough, 
 hut thoroughly comfortable, quite suited 
 to our life in these wild regions, and we 
 can get you a snug bedroom in the same 
 house. So say you will come, and speedily. 
 There is plenty of fine stuff— the cliffs and 
 rocks are stupendous, quite up to all that 
 one has heard of them both in form and 
 colour, whilst the seascape is grander than 
 can be imagined. Such breakers— even in 
 the calmest weather— I have never beheld; 
 clear green seas as transparent as glass 
 right up to your feet, for the shell sand is 
 so clean that it does not sully the water in 
 the least. We may truly say that we are 
 ‘ bound in with the triumphant sea, whose 
 rocky shore beats back the envious siege 
 of watery Neptune.’ ” 
 
 This was the paragraph in George 
 Barford’s letter which decided me. It was 
 datedfrom the Lizard, August the 1st, 1 882 ; 
 and George Barford, as may be guessed, is 
 a painter, and an old friend of mine. I 
 was debating where I should spend my 
 month’s holiday; Cornwall was new ground 
 to me; the company would be congenial in 
 all respects ; there would be rest and quiet 
 without dulness, and I should be able to 
 indulge my propensity for, and my 
 amateurish talent in, sketching. I would 
 go, and I wrote and said so. 
 
 The next day I met Ned Dawson, also 
 
— — g 
 
 Charles Dickons.] A HOLIDAY MYSTERY. [June 17, 1884.] 31 
 
 a friend of the Barfords, and a fellow 
 infinitely in accord with our common 
 tastes. He volunteered to accompany me, 
 and also wrote and said so. The reply 
 guaranteed him as hearty a welcome as the 
 invitation had offered me, and in the course 
 of a week, we rendered ourselves at the 
 Paddington terminus, booking through to 
 Penrhyn, the nearest point to the Lizard 
 touched by the Great Western Railway. 
 It was the Bank Holiday, which fell in 
 1882 on Monday the 7th of August, and 
 that evening we found ourselves, a few 
 minutes after eight, swinging along by the 
 mail train towards the far west. 
 
 It had been one of the few really hot 
 and sultry days with which we were 
 favoured during that wet and windy 
 summer, and the evening was equally hot 
 and sultry. I am thus circumstantial, 
 because appoint in what I am going to 
 relate, besides being strictly true, turns in 
 a measure upon these facts, as will be seen 
 hereafter. That particular journey is so 
 familiar, and so comparatively easy, and so 
 like most other railway journeys nowadays, 
 that it needs no record. It is sufficient that 
 we duly reached Truro at six a.m,, quitted 
 the main-line which goes on to Penzance, 
 and got into a carriage on the Falmouth 
 branch. Another hour’s run brought us to 
 Penrhyn, that is to say at seven-fifteen, a 
 quarter of an hour late. 
 
 Here, just outside the station, ensued 
 the usual scrimmage with baggage, pas- 
 sengers, and mail-bags, which latter, espe- 
 cially, are carried on westward by a ram- 
 shackle two-horsed omnibus. There was 
 some delay in getting the cargo on board 
 this inconvenient vehicle. The driver 
 being responsible for time at the post- 
 office, was in a mighty hurry to be off, and 
 would scarcely listen to my protest that 
 our baggage had not been brought out. 
 He was already on his box, with Ned 
 Dawson beside him, I being on the seat 
 behind. We swore we would not go on 
 without our kit, and in order to accelerate 
 its arrival, Ned dismounted, disappeared 
 into ^the station, and presently reappeared 
 with a porter and a truck containing it. 
 All this, together with the hoisting of the 
 luggage on to the roof, making it fast, etc., 
 caused still further delay, so that not only 
 did the down train, from which we had 
 alighted, proceed on its way to Falmouth, 
 whilst we were still waiting outside the 
 station, but the up morning-mail, from that 
 place for London, ran into the shed, and 
 started again before we did. It passed 
 
 n= — ■■ - — - 
 
 out into the pale, watery morning sunlight 
 clear before our eyes, and not a hundred 
 yards . distant. It was going in the same 
 direction in which our horses’ heads were 
 turned for the time, so that we had a good 
 uninterrupted view of it, as it slowly 
 moved on, and we could see the passengers’ 
 faces plainly in several of the carriages. 
 
 I had not left the top of the omnibus, 
 and Ned was by this time again in his 
 seat beside the driver. Whilst we were 
 watching the departing train, and were 
 ourselves also just on the point of start- 
 ing, we both simultaneously and suddenly 
 exclaimed : 
 
 b “Why, look ! There is George Barford 
 himself. Look ! he is waving his hands 
 to us ! What a funny thing ! That’s the 
 London train ; where can he be going l” / 
 
 And, certainly, there was George, stand- 
 ing up and leaning out of a carriage- 
 window without his hat, and signalling to 
 us with his arms, as if he had just caught 
 sight of us. Again we exclaimed almost 
 simultaneously, as we too waved our hands 
 in reply : 
 
 “ Why, what can it mean ? He is never 
 going up to town. Surely he expected us 
 to-day ; he knew we were coming. Good 
 Heavens ! how dangerous it looks ; see, 
 see, he seems to be hanging half out of 
 window. He will fall out if he doesn’t 
 mind.” 
 
 I know not exactly which of U 3 uttered 
 these words or their equivalent, but we 
 were so actuated by the same impulse, so 
 mutually scared by the perilous way in 
 which our friend thrust himself out of the 
 carriage in his frantic efforts to attract our 
 attention, that Ned and I both spoke at 
 once, and clutched hold of each other in a 
 kind of agony as we continued watching 
 the figure in the now fast-receding train. 
 
 “ What an extraordinary thing ! ” we re- 
 peated. “ There ! you can almost see his 
 knees ; he’ll fall out to a dead certainty if 
 he doesn’t take care.” 
 
 The next moment a bend in the railroad 
 hid the train from further observation, and 
 our vehicle began to proceed on its 
 journey. 
 
 “ Well,” said I, “ something serious must 
 have happened to take him off to-day of 
 all days. He had a dark coat on, clearly 
 as if he were going to London. Could 
 you see if his wife was with him, Ned ? ” 
 
 “No,” replied Dawson; “he filled up 
 the whole of the window. I couldn’t tell 
 if anyone was in the carriage besides him- 
 self. It is very extraordinary.’* 
 
32 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 A HOLIDAY MYSTERY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ Very,” I said; “he would never have 
 left on the very day he knew we were 
 coming, except on urgent business. In the 
 letter I had from him yesterday (Monday) 
 morning, he said he would not work to- 
 day, but come and meet us at the place 
 where the omnibus stops at the Lizard 
 village, and that we should be there about 
 twelve.” 
 
 “ Yes, he wrote the same to me, went 
 on Ned ; “ I can’t make it out. Perhaps 
 the old lady or somebody is dead ; there 
 must be some grave reason for his going 
 off so suddenly. Besides, he seemed as if 
 he was on the look-out for us just now, 
 and was wanting to explain to us that he 
 was obliged to go.” . 
 
 “ Precisely what my impression was, 1 
 answered ; “ he appeared so eager that we 
 should see him, and that we should under- 
 stand that he saw us, ? and that he knew 
 we should be puzzled.” 
 
 “Puzzled, indeed,” said Dawson ; il I 
 was never so puzzled in my life.” 
 
 For several minutes we continued inter- 
 changing similar expressions of astonish- 
 ment and speculative remarks as to the 
 cause of this unlooked-for behaviour on the 
 part of our host. We conjured up all sorts 
 of reasons, likely and unlikely, possible 
 and impossible, which could have obliged 
 him to leave so suddenly. A hundred 
 doubts and fears occurred to us, but none 
 led us any nearer the precise truth. Of 
 course, whatever it was it must have been 
 something very unexpected as well as 
 serious which took him away on this 
 particular morning, but beyond this broad 
 conclusion we could not get. Then we 
 began to wonder how he could have started 
 from the Lizard, and reached Falmouth in 
 time to catch the up-train leaving there at 
 seven a.m. 
 
 “Perhaps he came to Penrhyn and was 
 actually waiting in the station for his train 
 when we were getting out of ours, 
 suggested Dawson. 
 
 “ Nay,” I replied, “ that could hardly 
 be ; we should have been sure to see 
 him on the platform; besides, he would 
 have been on the look-out for us, for 
 he knew we were coming by that train. 
 No, he must have started from Fal- 
 mouth, and he must have gone over there 
 yesterday; he could not have^ reached 
 there from the Lizard in time this 
 morning.” „ 
 
 “ But yesterday was the Bank Holiday, 
 said Ned, “ when I expect everything was 
 at a standstill in these parts as elsewhere, 
 
 I don’t believe he could have got over 
 yesterday.” — - 
 
 This discovery introduced another 
 element of wonder which we duly debated. 
 Presently I said to the driver : 
 
 “ How could any one get over to 
 Falmouth from the Lizard yesterday ^ or 
 this morning in time for that up-train % ’ 
 
 “ He couldn’t ha’ done it no how yester- 
 day nor this morning,” returned the man 
 curtly, for he had not yet recovered from 
 the delay our luggage had partly caused, 
 and he kept his eyes sulkily fixed on his 
 horses’ ears. 
 
 “ He might have reached Falmouth on 
 Sunday, I suppose % ” interposed Dawson. 
 
 No reply was vouchsafed to this query. 
 “Yes, but if he had, Ned,” said I, “he 
 would have gone up yesterday morning, 
 and not have waited until to-day, if his 
 business was urgent. Are you quite sure, 
 coachman, there was no way of going from 
 the Lizard to Falmouth yesterday]” I 
 added. 
 
 “He might ha’ took the excursion 
 steamer back last night, perhaps,” replied 
 the man after a sullen pause ; “they comes 
 that way back sometimes on holidays in 
 calm weather.” 
 
 “ Then there was an excursion-boat from 
 Falmouth yesterday ] ” said Ned. , 
 
 “ Yes,” answered the driver, “ and a rare 
 cargo she had. I see’n scores of her people 
 on the rocks about the Lizard all day 
 yesterday.” 
 
 Then we concluded that Barford had 
 adopted this course in his extremity, and 
 that consequently, whatever it was, it 
 must have happened yesterday. 
 
 For a while our attention was here 
 diverted from the subject by the exciting 
 incident of having a third horse attached, 
 to drag us up the steep hill out of the 
 straggling little town of Penrhyn. Arrived 
 at the top, the wild and desolate scenery 
 which now opened before us and all 
 around, still kept us from immediately 
 reverting to Barford. A less populated 
 and more dreary landscape it would be 
 hard to find. A bleak hilly sort of barren 
 moorland, heather-clad, and boulder-strewn, 
 treeless, rugged,! forbidding, with every 
 here and there evidences of deserted mines 
 and quarries, in the shape of ruinous houses 
 or sheds, tail, shattered chimneys and 
 shafts, great wheels and cranes standing 
 gaunt and bare, like misshapen skeletons 
 of giants belonging to an antediluvian 
 epoch. But for the softening influence of 
 the fair, calm, tender-toned sky, studded 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 A HOLIDAY MYSTERY. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 33 
 
 with thin, fleecy, misty clouds, and the 
 distant stretches of quiet, pale, greenish- 
 purple sea appearing on all hands, the 
 aspect of this western land would have 
 been weird indeed. Even as it was, it 
 seemed to justify its legendary, superstition- 
 haunted character, and fully bore out the 
 possibility of any and every tradition one 
 has associated with it ; but, as a country 
 for a painter — well, it was eminently dis- 
 appointing. Still, the actual coast, which 
 is, of course, Dick Tinto’s stronghold, is 
 not visible so far inland as where the road 
 from Penrhyn to Helstone winds its bleak 
 and lonely way, so my companion and 
 myself forbore passing final judgment on 
 Barford’s wisdom in selecting this region 
 for his painting campaign of 1882. 
 
 The mention of our friend’s name once 
 more brought our talk and thoughts back 
 to his unaccountable departure. The 
 coachman had recovered his temper by 
 degrees, as he recovered his time, and had 
 grown fairly conversational, so that when 
 we were again reverting to Barford, I 
 asked the man if he had not observed the 
 gentleman frantically waving his arms to 
 us as the up-train moved out of Penrhyn 
 Station. “ No, he could not say he had, 
 he’d been too busy with his own business 
 to mind the trains or who was in ’em. He 
 only wished they’d keep time better, and 
 not get him into ill- conveniences with the 
 post-office people.” 
 
 There were no other passengers outside 
 the omnibus besides Ned and myself, 
 except an old countrywoman and her 
 little boy, and I did not think of asking 
 her if she had seen the strangely energetic 
 passenger. Dawson and I had seen him 
 with our own eyes at the same moment. 
 There was no doubt about that, and the 
 fact needed no confirmation, but it was, 
 none the less, still a puzzle to us. 
 
 Leaving the high land across which we 
 had been travelling, we began, about half- 
 past eight o’clock, to descend towards the 
 straggling town of Helstone, at the inn 
 in the main street of which we pulled 
 up to breakfast. Ned Dawson devoted 
 himself during that meal to the study of 
 the legend given* ia the guide-book con- 
 cerning the manner in which the place 
 had acquired its significant name, and 
 when we again started on our journey at 
 nine-thirty, and, indeed, until nearly the 
 end of it, our references to George Barford 
 were few and far between. Not until after 
 a further two hours’ travelling over another 
 long dreary stretch of high land, similar 
 
 to the first ten miles, save that it was more 
 cultivated, and divided by low stone walls 
 into a chessboard of ripening cornfields 
 and root -crops, and the lines of white, 
 slate-roofed houses of the Lizard village 
 glittered in the distance under the strength- 
 ening sunlight, did we fall to talking again 
 continuously of our friend. 
 
 But now, as we approached the solution 
 of the problem which had been puzzling us 
 so long, and we felt ourselves on the eve 
 of learning, perhaps, that some terrible 
 disaster or tragedy had suddenly overtaken 
 the Barford household, our excitement and 
 anxiety grew to fever-heat. 
 
 Punctually at three minutes to twelve, 
 we were within sight of the halting-place 
 of the mail-omnibus, as we could tell by 
 the group of idlers waiting to receive us. 
 Of course it was a matter of no surprise 
 that we did not see George Barford 
 amongst the number. We should have 
 been very surprised if we had seen him 
 after what had happened, notwithstanding 
 his promise to meet us at the omnibus- 
 office. But there were his two boys, look- 
 ing as radiant and jolly as if their sole 
 occupation lay with sand — as, doubtless, 
 it had done during the past month — and 
 this, at least, reassured us. Clearly, no 
 terrible tragedy could have happened. 
 
 Making light, therefore, of the affair, 
 we addressed them gaily as “ young 
 shavers,” and, after hoping all were well 
 at home, I was about to enquire what had 
 taken their father away, when Barford, 
 major, startled us by interposing : 
 
 “ Oh yes, all very well, except father. 
 He is rather seedy this morning. We left 
 him asleep on the sofa.” 
 
 Dawson and I looked at each other in 
 blank amazement. 
 
 “ What ! Do you mean to say the 
 governor is here at the Lizard 1 ” was our 
 next query. 
 
 “Yes, of course he is,” said the boy. 
 “ We have been here six weeks, and he 
 has been doing a lot of work, and we have 
 had no end of larks — it’s a jolly place.” 
 
 My companion, who, ever since the 
 beginning of this peculiar experience, 
 seemed to be actuated by precisely the 
 same sensations as myself, was now like- 
 wise so literally dumbfounded that we 
 appeared to be incapable of speech, and we 
 went about getting our traps together, and 
 seeing after their conveyance to the lodg- 
 ings, like men in a dream. I have no 
 recollection of my surroundings until we 
 reached the threshold of the house, where 
 
34 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 A HOLIDAY MYSTERY. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 we were met at the sitting-room door by 
 Mrs. Barford. As she greeted us she 
 added hurriedly, in an undertone, with a 
 finger to her lip, “ George hasn’t been very 
 well this morning, but don’t say anything 
 about it; he is better now.” In proof 
 whereof, the man himself came forward 
 with outstretched hands, but looking 
 ghastly pale, and strangely unlike himself. 
 Somehow, we all appeared to be under the 
 influence of a certain awkward constraint. 
 Husband and wife were far from being at 
 their ease, and our surprise kept Dawson 
 and myself, for a moment or two, com- 
 paratively tongue-tied. A . , 
 
 « I we hardly— hardly expected to find 
 
 you here,” at length stammered Ned; “ in 
 
 fact ” , -p 
 
 “ Not find me here 1 ” interrupted Bar- 
 ford with a sickly smile. “ What do^you 
 mean 1 Where did you think I was % ’ 
 
 “ Well,” replied Dawson, “ we thought 
 you had gone — gone to London or some- 
 where else, for we saw you going away 
 from Penrhyn in the train from Falmouth. 
 
 “What nonsense— ridiculous, impossible ! 
 How could you have seen me there when 
 I am here % ” cried Barford rather sharply, 
 and this time without even the semblance 
 of a smile. 
 
 “Well, then, it was your wraith, for 1 
 never saw any two people so alike in this 
 world. Did you ? ” added Dawson, appeal- 
 ing to me. 
 
 “ Never,” I acquiesced ; “ it was most 
 extraordinary.” „ ^ „ _ 
 
 “Wraith, wraith!” said Barford petu- 
 lantly. “ I don’t know what you mean ; 
 and then after a pause, and with a faint 
 return of the sickly smile : 11 You fellows 
 seem to have taken leave of your wits. 
 But there, I am very glad to see you are 
 all right. Did you have a pleasant 
 
 journey 1” .. _ . 
 
 He said this with such an evident desire 
 to turn the conversation, that for a while 
 we dropped the subject, and. passed on to 
 ordinary topics, although still with some 
 constraint. It was impossible, however, 
 altogether to avoid speaking again, more 
 than once, of the curious manner in which 
 we had been deceived by. the figure in the 
 train at Penrhyn. But whenever we did 
 so, both husband and wife became uneasy, 
 and immediately talked of other things. 
 Remembering Mrs. Barf ord’s wish, we made 
 little or no reference to her husbands 
 indisposition, but presently I said : 
 
 “ You have not been at work then to-day, 
 George 1 It was a splendid morning, though 
 
 rather chilly at first, but it’s warming up 
 now. Don’t leTus waste your time.” 
 
 “ Oh, no, no ! ” he answered languidly 
 as he again stretched himself on the sofa. 
 
 “ I shall not go out now till after dinner. 
 
 I have been rather out of sorts this morn- 
 ing. I had a dip in the briny, and I think 
 it rather upset me,” 
 
 A significant glance from his wife pre- 
 vented both Dawson and myself. from 
 pursuing this subject, and continuing to 
 feel conscious that we had somehow arrived 
 at an inopportune moment, and that there 
 was an atmosphere of mystery hanging 
 about, we rose, and suggested that the boys 
 should show us our rooms. 
 
 Passing into the passage, we encountered 
 Mr. Stanwell, whom we both slightly 
 knew, and who, as Barford had said, 
 formed one of his party. Laden with his 
 sketching apparatus, he was returning to 
 the mid-day meal, and after greeting, us, 
 followed us upstairs. He looked a little 
 preoccupied, and when we had exchanged 
 a few words, came into our room, saying : 
 
 “ I am very glad you have come, for to 
 tell you the truth, I have had a terrible 
 fright this morning about poor Barford. 
 Did they tell you about it 1 ” 
 
 “No,” I answered; “Mrs. Barford and 
 George both seemed very strange and un- 
 comfortable, and only made a ' passing 
 reference to his being unwell. What was 
 the matter 1 ” - - . 
 
 The boys had gone downstairs again, 
 and Stanwell, closing the door with an air 
 of mystery, began his account of what had 
 been going on as follows : 
 
 “ It was a lovely morning,” he said, “ and 
 at six o’clock I routed up Barford and the 
 two boys, and proposed that we should go 
 down to the Cove and have a dip. Our walk 
 lay through barley-fields heavy with dew, 
 and down a narrow gorge, ending in a zig- 
 zag sort of apology for a path, over and 
 among huge granite boulders, on to the 
 sandy shore then left clear by the ebb. 
 We were soon all careering amongst the 
 big breakers, which always come tumbling 
 in round the Lizard Point as the tide 
 flows. The boys had enough of it very 
 soon, being too small to stand much 
 knocking about from such waves, and 
 they were nearly dressed, when their 
 father followed them out of the water, 
 and began his toilet. I, being the best 
 swimmer, could not refrain from having 
 another plunge, but had not turned my 
 face seaward for more than a minute 
 or two, before I heard a peculiar noise 
 
trjl ~ ■ : 
 
 Charlo3 Sickens.] 
 
 as of heavy groaning proceeding from 
 the shore. Instantly looking back, I saw 
 that Barford had fallen forward, face down- 
 wards, from the rock where his clothes 
 were lying, and was struggling and writhing 
 on the smooth patch of sand. I rushed to 
 him as quickly as possible, and placing him 
 on his back, raised his head a little with 
 my arm. He was violently convulsed, and 
 his face became purple. I immediately 
 began rubbing the region of his heart 
 with sand, and used all the means I could 
 think of to restore him. In a short time 
 he opened his eyes, and then as suddenly 
 was seized with another and similar con- 
 vulsive fit. I hastened to slip on my 
 flannel shirt, and to secure both our friend 
 and his clothes from the fast-advancing 
 tide. The boys were now dressed, and 
 looking on in a greatly excited state. I 
 dispatched them at once to the house, 
 which was nearly a mile off, telling them 
 to break the news that their father was ill 
 to their mother, as gently as possible, and 
 to bring her down with some brandy, and 
 such restoratives as she might possess. 
 Then, having hurriedly huddled on some 
 more garments, I repeated the opera- 
 tion of rubbing the heart and body, and 
 after a somewhat longer period, life seemed 
 gradually to be restored. I say life, 
 because for a time there seemed little left ; 
 in fact, for several minutes I thought he 
 was dead.” 
 
 “ What time was this, do you think ? ” 
 asked Dawson, interrupting the narrator. 
 
 “ Just about half-past seven,” answered 
 Stan well ; “I happened to look at my watch 
 as I was putting it into my pocket a 
 moment before.” 
 
 “ The very hour,” I muttered to Dawson. 
 
 ' He nodded significantly, as Stanwell pro- 
 ceeded : 
 
 “ After a period of the greatest anxiety 
 I have ever experienced, I at last saw, to 
 my infinite relief, Mrs. Barford and the 
 boys hurrying down the steep path through 
 the ravine, and by the time they reached 
 me, I was thankful to have the poor 
 sufferer in a more presentable state than he 
 had been in hitherto. We proceeded to 
 complete his dressing as well as we could, 
 and to administer brandy, and in a little 
 ^ while began lifting and half carrying him 
 ; up over the rocks. 
 
 [ “ The sun by this time had risen con- 
 
 siderably, and was beating down fiercely 
 upon our backs as we ascended the gorge, 
 adding not a little to the difficulty of our 
 task. Happily for all, the patient now 
 
 [Jime 17, 1884.] 35 
 
 rapidly gained strength, and assisted us 
 by endeavouring to walk a little, although 
 he did not appear capable of saying more 
 than a muttered word now and then. 
 At length, when we reached the heathery 
 top of the cliffs, and we all sat down pretty 
 well exhausted, we felt most thankful that 
 we had got so far, at least, safely. By 
 degrees, and after a further toilsome walk, 
 we eventually reached home, and here, 
 putting our poor friend upon the sofa, we 
 were gratified by seeing him fall into a 
 quiet sleep.” 
 
 As Mr. Stanwell paused, Dawson and I 
 looked at each other, and we then rapidly 
 told him what had happened to us at that 
 precise hour. His astonishment was no 
 less than ours. 
 
 “Most remarkable indeed,” he said 
 curtly ; “a most remarkable coincidence.” 
 
 Remarkable coincidence indeed ! — that 
 seemed no word for it to us. Finally, 
 after much confabulation, before going 
 downstairs, we all three determined that, 
 at any rate for the present, we had better 
 say nothing more about our strange expe- 
 rience to Mr. and Mrs. Barford. It would 
 be better to pass it over, together with his 
 illness, in silence. Evidently they did not 
 like to have it referred to, and as he very 
 speedily appeared to be pretty well himself 
 again, we refrained, as far as possible, from 
 reverting to the matter. We often longed 
 to ask him what his sensations were at the 
 moment he was attacked, and whether 
 any thought of us two journeying down 
 towards him then crossed his mind. Once or 
 twice, as I have hinted, during our stay at 
 the Lizard, we approached the subject with 
 this end, but he always displayed such an 
 uneasy dislike to it, and so immediately 
 changed the conversation, that we were 
 forced to respect his prejudice, and have 
 never directly spoken again about our 
 perplexity and its cause. It would have 
 been but natural, perhaps — it certainly 
 would have advanced the story a stage — if 
 we had been told that a momentary vision 
 of us had presented itself to him at that 
 critical moment ; but knowing the man as 
 I do — how utterly unimaginative and 
 matter-of-fact he is — -I am of opinion that 
 he never gave us a thought. Yet if this 
 was so, why should he have been so indig- 
 nant with us for speaking of his wraith, 
 and have accused us pettishly of having 
 taken leave of our wits 1 It is all past 
 comprehension, and throughout our month’s 
 sojourn at the Lizard, none of us appeared 
 thoroughly at our ease ; but, on the whole, 
 
 A HOLIDAY MYSTERY. 
 
36 June 17, 1884.] 
 
 TOLD IN FLANDERS. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 we had a pleasant time, and all returned 
 to London together, without anything 
 more occurring worthy of mention. 
 
 Here then is the story as far as it goes, 
 absolutely true in all respects save in the 
 names of the parties concerned. What is 
 to be made of it] It is vouched for by 
 unimpeachable witnesses. The writer and 
 his friend, Mr. Dawson, are gentlemen of 
 the highest integrity, and, like Barford, 
 are straightforward, clear-sighted, clear- 
 thinking, rational beings, with plenty of 
 common - sense, and inclined to look . at 
 everything from a matter-of-fact point 
 of view rather than from the romantic, 
 sentimental, or imaginative. Their im- 
 pressions are identical in this case, and we 
 have two pairs of eyes simultaneously im- 
 pressed in the same way by the same 
 object. Could they both have been 
 deceived ] Could they both at the same 
 moment have jumped to one conclusion 
 as to the identity of the figure in the 
 carriage, unless it had been such as 
 would have convinced a dozen pairs of eyes 
 that they were looking on Mr. Barford ] 
 Any number of persons, one may suppose, 
 might have seen what they saw, and 
 would have argued as they did, under the 
 same circumstances. There was no par- 
 ticular tie or unusual bond of friendship 
 between them and Barford to account for 
 it on the principle of the Corsican Brothers, 
 — that typical story of premonition and 
 warning. What then is to be made of 
 it alii Nothing more has come . of it. 
 Mr. Barford soon recovered, and is now 
 apparently in as good health as he ever 
 was ; but had he died, it would hardly 
 have strengthened or increased the strange- 
 ness of the circumstance. It certainly 
 would not have altered it, for there can be 
 little doubt but that for a while his life 
 did hang in the balance. Was it during 
 that little while that his released, or 
 partially released, spirit was capable of 
 reproducing his bodily presentment and 
 impressing it on the optic nerves of his 
 two friends ] The time corresponded 
 precisely, as testified by Mr. Stanwell. But 
 then, why should that bodily presentment 
 have been reproduced to them in the 
 railway-carriage, so that it gave the idea 
 of his going away to London] Why 
 should it not have appeared on the road — in 
 the omnibus — anywhere] Or was the 
 whole affair one of mere coincidence, 
 after all — the person in the railway- 
 carriage merely accidentally closely 
 
 resembling Barford, and that person, 
 further, • mistaking the two gentlemen 
 seated on the omnibus for friends of 
 his own] If this be the true solution, 
 surely it makes it but little less strange. By 
 some, such stories will always be laughed 
 at ; by others, they will be considered to be 
 fraught with the gravest importance and 
 consequences. One thing only remains 
 pretty certain, they will ever appeal to that 
 vein of superstition ineradicable from, and 
 inherent in, human nature, and in this 
 way they will always afford valuable stock- 
 in-trade to the story-teller and writer of 
 imaginative fiction. In this capacity it is 
 that I have become possessed of the above 
 manuscript. 
 
 TOLD IN FLANDERS. 
 
 May, 1660. 
 
 By S. K. Phillips. 
 
 What ! they have called the Stuart back again, 
 
 To put the yoke upon the necks we freed j 
 And all the. blood that watered English fields 
 Was spilt for naught— well, I nor know nor 
 heed. 
 
 Mine is no single story of life spoilt, 
 
 And hope laid waste, for either cause or king ; 
 
 Or Charles, or Cromwell— one might laugh, one 
 frown, i • , 
 
 But either held a heart a useless thing ! 
 
 The Stuart back again ! and but for her, 
 
 He might be lying still enow I wot ; • 
 
 And round the head they crown the earth-worm s 
 trail, . , , 
 
 And in the heart they trust my errant shot. 
 
 Dost know the tale ? How one October eve, 
 
 I, with my troop, was close upon his track. 
 
 This man, this king— how the old war-cry calls, 
 
 The fiery past and all its memories back ! 
 
 Well, listen, boy, and gather from my lot, 
 
 Lessons, the first girl that you meet will scatter 
 To the four winds— for you will dree your weird, 
 And spend your best for love — ’tis no great 
 matter ! . 
 
 Aye — we were camping out by Droitwich town, 
 And tidings came Charles Stuart lay concealed, 
 In Hindley Castle, a malignant Hold, 
 
 Whose master led his band to Worcester field. 
 
 Some chance had spared his head, and still he kept, 
 A sorry state in that grey tower of his 
 My Mabel’s father— mine— whose rosy lips 
 Erewhile had met mine in betrothal lass ; 
 
 Then civil war had struck our hands apart, 
 
 Though love held fast, albeit sorely tried ; 
 
 She prized the white rose that she proudly wore, 
 And duty held me close to Cromwell s side. 
 
 Well, a scout beat my quarters up that day— 
 
 My curse upon him and his lying tongue ! 
 
 And said, at nightfall— ’twas a likely tale 
 
 For the sky lowered, and the moon was young 
 Charles Stuart from the postern-gate would pass, 
 
 On Mabel’s palfrey white, in woman s weed, 
 While in the forest trusty posts were set, 
 
 On to the seaboard, safe his flight to speed. 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE. [June 17. ism.] 37 
 
 I knew the postern— outi old tryst was there — 
 
 I knew the palfrey I was wont to guide, 
 
 Through many a happy idle summer noon, 
 
 In the great forest, down the grassy ride ; 
 
 And with ambitious pulses throbbing high, 
 
 I laid my ambush, planned the sure surprise, 
 
 And thought how I could buy her father’s grace, 
 And win my darling with my royal prize. 
 
 You see I deemed my Mabel far away, 
 
 Close in her convent walls, in sunny France, 
 
 So set my springe in peace, and would not fear 
 Of doom from her quick lip or angry glance ; 
 
 I knew her father, crippled limb and purse 
 At Worcester fight, his threshold might not cross, 
 And thought to strike my stroke and win my 
 game, 
 
 And in my triumph heal both wrath and loss. 
 
 She would forgive, for love will pardon ah 
 Done for love’s sake, and we’d entreat him well. 
 How slow they lagged away, the weary hours ! 
 
 How slow the shades of night around us fell ! 
 
 As in the thicket with my troopers round, 
 
 With hungry eyes we watched the winding road ; 
 The pheasant’s whirring wing our pulses thrilled ; 
 The hare’s shy footfall echoed as it trode. 
 
 At last, at last, through the dim shadows loomed, 
 The woman’s figure, and the snow-white horse ; 
 “Stand, or we shoot!” clear rang the challenge 
 out, 
 
 We saw him start, yet hold upon his course ; 
 
 Once more the warning — reckless on he pressed, 
 Urging with whip and spur the desperate flight, 
 And then, the sharp ring of my pistol woke 
 The thousand echoes of the forest night ! 
 
 He staggered, reeled, and from the saddle fell, 
 
 And bursting through the brushwood with a shout, 
 We rushed to seize him, just as from the clouds 
 With a wild ghastly gleam the moon looked out. 
 Him ! On no swarthy Stuart locks and brows, 
 Glared that wild light. The iron soldiers round 
 Would shudder, telling of the cry I gave, 
 
 Falling, as death-struck, by Her, on the ground. 
 
 My darling, my lost darling ! nine long years 
 Have wearied by me since that night accurst, 
 
 Yet as I tell it, the old anguish wakes, 
 
 And throbs and burns as fiercely as at first. 
 
 My darling, with my bullet in her side, 
 
 Who looked up at me with such pitying eyes. 
 
 As my stunned senses woke to agony, 
 
 On the stained turf, beneath the cruel skies. 
 
 She whispered, with the ghost of the old smile, 
 
 At the old jest, “ For you, and for the king ! ” 
 She laid my hand upon her bleeding breast, 
 
 And there, and there, oh, God !— I felt my ring ! 
 Murmured some fluttering words of love and faith 
 To hush the ravings of my mad despair, 
 
 And drew me to her for a last, long kiss, 
 
 And then she went, and left me lonely there. 
 
 What chanced the next ? I scarcely know or care. 
 
 They said my fatal shot a warning gave, 
 
 My troopers found the lair— the prey was flown ; 
 
 So not in vain my love had died to save. 
 
 ’Twas on that loyal errand she was bound, 
 
 The blundering spy had hit but half the truth ; 
 
 So in the great State whirlpool sank the bark, 
 
 That held the golden promise of our youth. 
 
 I would not tread the path her blood had dyed, 
 Flung my commission back in Cromwell’s face, 
 And while brows bent and hilts were clutched 
 around, 
 
 I broke my sword across, and left the place ; 
 
 Over the seas I found a refuge here 
 Where men had scarcely heard an English name, 
 And tidings from the land that held her grave, 
 
 To stir my sullen memory rarely came. 
 
 Love, is my penance almost over now? 
 
 Is the wrong cancelled, and the hand washed 
 white? 
 
 Will the grey hairs and weary lines of pain, 
 
 Change in the radiance of the heavenly light ? 
 
 Do priests speak sooth? and shall we meet again, 
 Happy, and young, and trusting ? meet, we two, 
 Just as we did on the sweet summer eves, 
 
 In the green forest, where— I murdered you ? 
 
 By God’s good grace we may— how long — how long! 
 
 And war, and woe, and states, and laws, and kings, 
 And all the stir we make about them here, 
 
 Will show to us as very little things. 
 
 Only I’m tired— something snapped I think, 
 
 Just as I fired that pistol, in my brain ; 
 
 I’ll try and sleep, one should not wake the past. 
 And so— they’ve got Charles Stuart back again ! 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE. 
 
 A Romance oe 1881. 
 
 By Paul Challinor. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 “ You are the very man we want,” said 
 Milner. 
 
 “ Because I hate the sea with more than 
 classic hatred, don’t know one end of a yacht 
 from another, or the name of a single rope 
 or spar, and inevitably get in the way and 
 give occasion for wrath whenever anything 
 critical has to be done to a sail 1 ” I 
 enquired with gentle satire. 
 
 “ Only for a fortnight,” Milner pleaded. 
 
 “ Don’t I know what that means on 
 board a sailing yacht ! Didn’t I start 
 once from Cowes for the Hebrides, take 
 six weeks getting round the Land’s End, 
 and come home ignominiously by train 
 from Bristol at last % If you must take 
 me to Scotland, why not invite me to 
 a Pullman car? I should know then 
 exactly how much suffering to expect.” 
 
 Milner looked cast down. 
 
 “ Well, Everett, if you won’t come, you 
 won’t. I knew you were the laziest beggar 
 living, but lying about a deck reading 
 novels in the sunshine is the extent of the 
 exertion required of you — you needn’t even 
 talk, there’ll be plenty to do that without 
 you — and if you don’t feel equal to it, I 
 have no more to say. I didn’t think it 
 was much use asking you, somehow. Nora 
 settled it.” 
 
 “ My dear fellow, why couldn’t you have 
 said so at first % If Mrs. Milner gives an 
 order, I know it’s for my good, even 
 though its wisdom be not apparent to my 
 limited vision, and forthwith obey with 
 simple, unquestioning faith. When do we 
 start 1 ” 
 
 “ Next Tuesday. But you are to dine 
 
38 [June 17, 1884.] THE SAILING- OF 
 
 with us to-morrow, to talk over matters and 
 meet Desmond Heron.” 
 
 “ The Irish M.P. — the Home Ruler ? Is 
 he of your party ? ” I groaned. 
 
 “Of course he is. If you had listened 
 to . a single word I have been saying, you 
 would have heard that the cruise is under- 
 taken solely on his account. He has been 
 ordered by the doctors to strike work for 
 some time, and above all to keep clear of 
 the House — not an easy order to obey just 
 now. Poor fellow ! he has had a good deal 
 to try him.” 
 
 “Didn’t Kilmainham agree with him? ” 
 
 I asked innocently. 
 
 “Don’t be such an idiot, Everett. The 
 Queen has not a more loyal subject than 
 Heron. Kilmainham I ” 
 
 “I beg your pardon,” I said humbly. 
 
 “ The last time I read a speech of his he 
 seemed on the road there — that was all.” 
 
 “ He has stood by his party like a man, 
 and gone as far with them as he could 
 with honour, and they have rewarded him 
 as is the nature of the animal to do. But 
 remember, not a word of Ireland to-morrow, 
 or of politics of any description, if you 
 can help it. Don’t forget. To-morrow, 
 Wednesday, the 27 th. Can you undertake 
 to recollect so much ? ” 
 
 “ On my head be it. Eight o’clock, I 
 suppose ? ” 
 
 I did remember, and was more than 
 punctual. Eight had not struck by the 
 “ grandfather’s clock ” on Milner’s staircase 
 when I entered the pretty drawing-room 
 in Cromwell Road. It was perfect in its 
 way, like its mistress, charming according 
 to no particular rules of art, but bright, 
 quaint, altogether satisfying, full of traces 
 of a thousand whims and fancies indulged 
 to the full, as they well may be by a young 
 couple happy in the possession of a full 
 purse and empty nursery. I sighed to 
 think for what all this was going to be 
 exchanged : for one room the size of an 
 inferior butler’s pantry, a deck scorching 
 or slippery as the case might be, the 
 chances of wind and wave, and deliberate 
 exile from half the comforts of everyday life. 
 
 Mrs. Milner, unconscious of my presence, 
 was idling gracefully about the room, a slim, 
 girlish figure in golden-brown draperies, 
 touching her pretty possessions as if she 
 loved them, adjusting an artistic arrange- 
 ment of dandelions and dock-leaves in a 
 brown kitchen-pot, turning the easel with 
 Milner’s last acquisition in water-colours a 
 trifle more to the light, redraping the folds 
 of a brocade portiere. I came up just as 
 
 THE PSAMATHK [Conducted by 
 
 she was lightly touching the white shoulders 
 of a marble /nymph with a peacock plume. 
 
 “ You dirty girl,” I heard her say. 
 
 “ And you will leave her for weeks and 
 weeks to the mercy of housemaids,” I 
 murmured reproachfully. 
 
 She turned round on me. laughing 
 merrily. She always was laughing, except 
 when she was talking, or eating, or drink- 
 ing. I never in my life saw Mrs. Milner 
 working, or reading, or listening, and can’t 
 imagine her asleep. 
 
 “ It will do her no harm to wear her 
 holland pinafore for a month. So you are 
 coming ? Walter was really pleased when 
 you accepted, under protest. You see, we 
 particularly want a pleasant party, for poor 
 Desmond Heron’s sake.” 
 
 “Why ‘ poor,’ and what can I do to 
 comfort an Obstructionist ? ” 
 
 “ A heartbroken man ! ” she said softly, 
 sinking into a chair. “ Don’t you know 
 he was shot at the last time he went down 
 to his own home? He, who always believed 
 that, come what might, his people would 
 stand by him 1 The disappointment is 
 crushing him. Then he has been denounced 
 as a traitor by his party, because . he 
 supports Government on the Land Question. 
 Yes, I know how infinitely absurd it must 
 appear to you for a man to be affected by 
 anything not relating to his own personal 
 welfare, and to distress himself because a 
 few thousand of his fellow-creatures are 
 letting themselves be led blindly to their 
 own destruction, but some men are so 
 constituted, and Desmond Heron is one. 
 Love of his country is the one passion of 
 his life, I believe.” 
 
 “ Unrequited, it appears,” I gently sug- 
 gested. 
 
 Mrs. Milner gave me a scornful look, as 
 she well knows how to do. She is a happy, 
 innocent-faced creature, as full of play as a 
 kitten, and as ready to scratch on occasion. 
 I adore her, and she knows it, and Milner 
 knows it, and we are none of us any the 
 worse for the fact. I gave in, and hastily 
 petitioned for details. 
 
 “You should hear Walter tell Desmond 
 Heron’s story,” she said, “and of his first 
 visit to Corrig Diarmid. Desmond had 
 just come into the property unexpectedly, 
 by the death of a distant cousin. He 
 didn’t want it, a young officer in a crack 
 regiment with a handsome income of his 
 own ; but he was Irish, and patriot above 
 all, and started to take possession in 
 high glee, little thinking what awaited 
 him, poor fellow ! It was the famine year, 
 
Tr==rrrrr - fa 
 
 Charles Dickens.] THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE. June 17, 1884.] 39 
 
 and Walter says their journey to the west 
 haunts him stili like a bad dream. The 
 last man had been an absentee, and no one 
 in Dublin had been able to tell them any- 
 thing about the place. They found their 
 way to it through awful scenes of de- 
 solation ; through wide green valleys, with 
 great, solemn hills around rising to the 
 sky, and not a human voice or sound to 
 break the silence, only the scream of the 
 wild-fowl, until once, as they passed a 
 cluster of ruined-looking smokeless hovels, 
 he heard, for the first time, the ‘ keen 7 
 over the dead. ‘But it’s past keening 
 they are, the craturs, 7 said the driver. 
 
 ‘ Not a decent burying, let alone a wake, 
 since Eather Moriarty was down. 7 Dead and 
 dying everywhere, all the young and strong 
 gone to seek their fortunes abroad. It was 
 terrible. When they got to the shut-up, 
 dilapidated old house, they found the news 
 ^of their coming had somehow got wind, and 
 there was a little crowd to welcome them. 
 Poor, starved tatterdemalions ! They 
 crowded round the car, and tried a feeble 
 little shout of ‘Long life to the young 
 masther ! 7 ‘ Long life to reign over us ! 7 
 
 And then, Walter says, Desmond fairly 
 broke down, and cried like a child. He 
 grew years older in those days, and rose to 
 the work that lay before him like a man ; 
 but he had the evils of three generations to 
 undo. He sold every acre he had in England, 
 and gave himself and his to his Irish people. 
 I saw nothing of the place till five years 
 ago, when we spent our honeymoon there. 
 Such a lovely spot, like a scene in a 
 romance, with Desmond and his wife for 
 hero and heroine ! 77 
 
 “ He is married % 77 
 
 “ She died soon after our visit. She was 
 the only descendant of the old family. 
 There was a poetical fitness in the marriage, 
 you see ; and a perfect wife she was— a 
 typical Irish beauty, witty and winning 
 beyond all English imagining, and devoted 
 heart and soul to her husband’s work. He 
 was almost indignant at the extent of her 
 personal influence with the people. When 
 they had driven him past all patience by 
 obstinately persisting in some pernicious 
 old practice, or by refusing even to try 
 some new labour-saving device, all at once 
 they would give in, “to oblige the mis- 
 thress an utterly wrong principle. Not 
 a bit of the place was like an English 
 model farm ; nothing half so hideous ; but 
 the farmhouses were comfortable, some 
 handsome, and the labourers 7 cottages tidy 
 and cosy. There were schools, with 
 
 rosy, barefooted children trotting in and 
 out; and at the chapel on Sundays as 
 well-to-do-looking a congregation as you 
 could meet anywhere. Poor Aileen ! she 
 was like a young queen among them ; and 
 they broke her heart at last ! Hush ! 
 Why, Walter, how late you are ! And 
 where can Desmond Heron be ? 77 
 
 I was interested in the man by this 
 time, though predisposed to detest him. 
 Didn’t she call him “Desmond, 77 while I 
 am always “ Mr. Everett 77 ? 
 
 Here he was at last. Quite an old fogy, 
 grey-haired and bright-eyed, with an arm 
 in a sling ; a tall, rather bent figure, and a 
 singularly soft, sweet voice. Inoffensive, at 
 any rate. And here was dinner. 
 
 We were a gay little party. The Milners 7 
 new yacht, their pet and plaything, the 
 Psamathe, of course engrossed the conver- 
 sation. Her rig, her behaviour generally, 
 her stores, were all exhaustively discussed, 
 and the three weeks at Walter’s disposal 
 were to include more than the mind of 
 yachtsman had ever conceived. The ori- 
 ginal scheme, to which we eventually 
 reverted, was to sail up the east coast as 
 far as we could for a week, and then 
 — weather permitting — return as we 
 
 came. 
 
 “ Don’t leave Ernescliffe out,” said Mrs. 
 Milner. “ Remember I shall want a whole 
 day with Madge, and you all may go 
 fishing the while. 77 
 
 Madge was Mrs. Milner’s elder sister, 
 married to a Yorkshire vicar, whom we 
 were to visit in passing. 
 
 Heron talked little and ate less. He 
 brightened up whenever Mrs. Milner 
 addressed him, but sank again directly 
 into moody silence. 
 
 When she left the room, he turned to 
 Milner, saying very gently : 
 
 “Will you and your wife forgive me, 
 Milner, if I beg you to leave me out of 
 this ? 77 
 
 “ Why, what’s the matter 1 Your hand 
 isn’t worse 1 77 asked Milner anxiously. 
 
 “ On the contrary, I am to be allowed to 
 use it a little in a few days. It’s not that ; 
 but being better, I ought to be in my 
 place.” 
 
 “The Bill will have gone up to the 
 Lords by that time,” returned Milner; 
 “and what good will you be doing in the 
 House? I’ll promise to get papers at 
 Yarmouth, Scarborough — anywhere we can, 
 all the way— and if you’re wanted, which 
 you won’t be, you can get back by train. 
 Now, on your honour, are you not under 
 
40 [June 17, 1884.] ' 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 THE SAILING OF 
 
 orders to try a cruise to the South Sea 
 Islands, as the only way of refitting % ” 
 
 “ Something of the sort ; but life’s too 
 short to waste in the experiment.” 
 
 “I’ll tell you what it is, Heron. If you 
 won’t behave with ordinary common-sense, 
 you’ll break down utterly. Your nerves 
 are going, and your brain will go after 
 them. Rather costly sacrifices in the 
 interests of your precious countrymen. 
 They’ll be the death of you yet.” 
 
 “They will,” said Heron in an emphatic 
 undertone. “ And let them, and welcome !” 
 he flashed out suddenly. “They have 
 taken from me all that I lived for — my 
 home, my wife, my belief in the future of 
 my country — all gone ! I gave them the 
 best I had in my life, and they drive me 
 from them now, a crippled pauper 1 ” And 
 he brought his left hand down with a force 
 that made Milner’s Venetian glass ring, 
 and then covered his eyes for a moment 
 with it. 
 
 I objected strongly to such a public 
 display of feeling, but when, .as if in 
 extenuation, he tossed a dirty little note 
 over to me, saying, “That came to me at 
 the House this morning,” I felt somewhat 
 hot and indignant as I read. 
 
 “ To the Tyrant of Corrig Diarmid ! ” 
 it ran. “ Tyrants beware ! Remember 
 Leitrim and Mountmorres 1 You’ve had 
 your warning. Send Sinclair back where 
 
 he came from, or ” 
 
 It was too hideously foul to repeat in 
 full. 
 
 “ Sinclair is my agent,” he explained ; 
 
 “ an honest fellow, who won’t be terrified 
 out of the country. I must stand by him 
 at all risk ; but, Milner,” his voice dropped 
 and quivered, “ do you know when I was 
 shot at, my servant, who was with me, 
 would not sjir a step in pursuit of the 
 man. I followed him as far as I could, 
 and then just managed to creep to one of 
 my own labourers’ cottages, and the wife 
 would hardly admit me!” 
 
 “ The blackguards ! ” growled Milner. 
 “ All the more reason for getting away 
 from them.” 
 
 Heron shook his head. 
 
 “ I’m a doomed man, Milner. I feel it. 
 Keep from me, if you love me, as if I 
 were plague-smitten ! Let this be our 
 parting.” 
 
 “ Do you think we daren’t stand by a 
 friend in trouble ! ” said an indignant voice 
 from the door. “Do you think we’re 
 Irish conspirators V’ and Mrs. Milner, in. a 
 pretty little flash of generous wrath, laid 
 
 THE PSAMATHE. 
 
 her hand protectingly on Heron’s shoulder. 
 
 “Give me ; this fortnight, it is all I ask, 
 and then we part, if you will, for ever.” 
 
 He took the pretty fingers and kissed 
 them with infinite tenderness and chivalry, 
 and gave in, as I always did, and everyone 
 else too. 
 
 Gravesend, in a bright little gleam, of 
 sunshine at high tide, is an exhilarating 
 sight. I felt almost reconciled to my 
 doom as I watched the Psamathe dancing 
 at her moorings from the window of the 
 Falcon,^ where we four had just dined. 
 
 Milner and Heron were going to and fro, 
 transporting their possessions on board. 
 
 Mine had been duly stowed away, and I 
 was left to take charge of Mrs. Milner and 
 an enormous hamper of flowers which 
 Heron had brought down, and which she 
 insisted on repacking on a plan of her own 
 for preservation for an indefinite number 
 of days. 
 
 “ More moss, if you please, and damper. 
 Thanks, these buds needn’t blow for a 
 week to come. You little country beauties, 
 how I love you ! Apropos, do you know 
 Venetia Dennistoun ]” w 
 
 “Apropos of rosebuds, do you ask?” I 
 
 replied. “I» suppose, in common with 
 some hundreds of my fellow-countrymen, 
 
 I am pretty well acquainted with the young 
 lady.” ' . , 
 
 “ Now, that speech is meant for a veiled 
 sneer, and I am not sharp enough to find 
 it out,” mused Mrs. Milner. “ I was think- 
 ing of country beauties, everything fresh 
 and sweet. Please explain.” 
 
 “ Well, when one knows how a girl looks 
 in a swing, drinking tea, cuddling a kitten, 
 making eyes at society over a big muff, or 
 swinging her legs perched on a table- 
 
 corner, and reads once a week what she 
 has been wearing wherever she went, with 
 whom she has ridden, danced, flirted, one 
 may say that one knows her — slightly.” 
 
 I stopped. Mrs. Milner was in real 
 anger. 
 
 “Do you happen to know in addition to c 
 all this that she is my most intimate 
 friend, and is to join us this evening— and 
 that the greater part of what you have 
 been saying is — is ” 
 
 “ Lies, I suppose,” I suggested humbly ; 
 
 “ but, you see, I believed them. I am very 
 sorry ; what can I say to make you forgive 
 me ] ” 
 
 “ Just suspend your prejudices one fort- 
 night — no, a week, a day, an hour ! That 
 is all I ask; but first admit that you 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE ESAMATHE. (June 17, 1884.] 41 
 
 never, in a photograph or out, saw Yenetia 
 looking anything but a lady.” 
 
 “ N — no, perhaps I haven’t; but one sees 
 her exhibited amongst the goodly company 
 of professional beauties, and hasn’t time to 
 discriminate amongst their various ways 
 and manners.” 
 
 “ I know Venetia’s portrait has been 
 everywhere. It’s too lovely to suppress, 
 and she can’t help those society papers 
 romancing about her doings. I met her 
 last night and told her our plans. She 
 asked if we wouldn’t take her in. She is 
 invited to some place in Scotland for 
 August. I couldn’t refuse her, even to 
 oblige you.” 
 
 I hadn’t time to reply, for, turning round, 
 I saw standing near us a young lady very 
 quietly dressed, with a big, shady hat, and 
 the sweetest face I ever beheld looking 
 from under it ; and I could not help think- 
 ing that she must have heard a good deal 
 of our conversation. 
 
 I was glad to bury myself in the hamper 
 during the greeting that ensued ; but 
 though Mrs. Milner’s blue eyes danced 
 with mischief as she introduced us, Miss 
 Dennistoun’s face was impenetrable in its 
 gracious calm. Happily the Psamathe’s 
 gig appeared nearing the shore. The 
 hamper was finished in a scramble ; wraps, 
 books, and small packages collected, 
 and in a few minutes more we were on 
 board. I made myself as useful as a land- 
 lubber could during the transit, being 
 honestly anxious to earn my pardon ; but 
 Miss Dennistoun received all my atten- 
 tions with exactly the same sweet civility 
 that she bestowed on the steward, and left 
 me in doubt whether, after all, she did not 
 consider my opinion of her of exactly as 
 much importance as his. 
 
 The Psamathe looked “ a picture ” that 
 evening, Mrs. Milner said. I suppose she 
 did, but I modestly refrain from attempting 
 to describe it. Miss Dennistoun was equal 
 to the occasion, and admired and criticised 
 with a zest and knowledge of things nau- 
 tical that bewitched Milner completely. 
 
 “A big, bouncing, chattering, brainless 
 school-girl,” was my mental verdict. 
 
 Handsome she was. Handsome enough 
 to take one’s breath away, even in these 
 days of beautiful women, with a tall, strong, 
 graceful figure, and the bearing of a young 
 princess. I understood Mrs. Milner’s wrath 
 at my confounding her with the ordinary 
 professional beauty. At her most auda- 
 cious she looked like royalty on a frolic, 
 dignified in spite of herself. 
 
 f ■ 
 
 So we glided swiftly past the low-lying 
 green shores to the sea, through the linger- 
 ing sunlight. 
 
 “A fair beginning,” said Mrs. Milner to 
 me; “ will it last, I wonder 1 ” 
 
 So did I. 
 
 I awoke next morning brimful of good 
 resolutions. I was going to be as nautically 
 jolly as I knew how; I would fall in 
 love with Miss Dennistoun as madly and 
 hopelessly as she could require ; and I 
 wouldn’t mention Liverpool or dynamite 
 in the Home Ruler’s hearing as, impelled by 
 some cruel fatality, I did whenever I was 
 short of small-talk. A yachting romance 
 by a master of the subject lay ready to my 
 hand, and there in the cold, grey, morning 
 hours did I conscientiously strive to get 
 myself into the appropriate frame of mind 
 for the situation. 
 
 When I got on deck I found a day to 
 try one’s philosophy to the full. Soft, 
 steady rain was falling, a dim mist drifting 
 about us, cutting off all sight of the shore, 
 or of anything but a few square yards of 
 murky water, dimpled by falling drops. 
 Miss Dennistoun, looking bigger and hand- 
 somer than ever in a white mackintosh, 
 and Milner, were on deck. Heron followed 
 me, excusing his late appearance by ex- 
 plaining that this was his first attempt 
 at dressing without a servant, and exulting in 
 his success. He felt quite happy, he declared, 
 to think how completely his one-handed- 
 ness exonerated him from any obligation to 
 bear a hand in anything, pulling, or hauling, 
 or belaying, or splicing the mainbrace, or 
 shivering his timbers, or any other nautical 
 manoeuvres. 
 
 Breakfast and Mrs. Milner awaited us, 
 after which Milner carried me off to unpack 
 and arrange certain stores. This accom- 
 plished, we joined the rest. Weather the 
 same as before, and everyone rather 
 astonished to find it. only eleven o’clock. 
 However, we were persistently cheery, and 
 luncheon came at last. After luncheon — a 
 blank. Some wind sprang up, I don’t 
 know from what quarter, but it served to 
 amuse Milner. Heron had letters to write, _ 
 to be posted at Yarmouth, and Mrs. Milner 
 insisted on acting as his secretary. Miss 
 Dennistoun and I were left in possession of 
 the deck. 
 
 “ Smoke if you like,” she said coolly, “ I 
 want to read. It’s a pity to expend con- 
 versation; we shall want it all before we 
 see land.” 
 
 “ By all means,” I replied, and withdrew 
 from the neighbourhood of the umbrella, 
 
4 ~= ^=— i -==^— . 83 
 
 42 [June 17, 1884.] THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE. [Conducted by 
 
 thinking that good resolution Number Two 
 might as well go overboard. 
 
 I couldn’t help looking at her now and 
 then, she made such a pretty bit of colour 
 against the dark umbrella, with her knot 
 of red-brown hair, soft pink cheeks, and 
 long, dusky eyelashes slanting downwards. 
 I was glad to see that the book evidently 
 bored her immensely. She tried again at 
 a page, looked back to the last one, then 
 on to the end of the volume, then gave it 
 up and glanced at me, and then looked 
 straight out to sea again into the haze. I 
 began to pace the deck, stopping with 
 ostentatious caution just short of her seat. 
 Backwards and forwards I went, with eyes 
 carefully averted, wondering how long Heron 
 could have the assurance to keep Mrs. 
 Milner immersed in his correspondence. 
 I think half an hour passed in this amuse- 
 ment, and then I took a surreptitious peep 
 under the umbrella. Miss Dennistoun’s 
 head had fallen against the taffrail; she 
 was fast asleep. I took a mean revenge 
 for all snubs, for I descended and procured 
 a big Shetland wrap, which I dropped 
 lightly over her, and then securing the 
 umbrella, which was struggling from her 
 grasp, sat down and awaited events. I 
 looked at her once or twice, and was struck 
 by the extreme youthfulness of her face. She 
 was dreaming evidently, and unhappily, for 
 her lips curved like a grieved child’s, and 
 presently the soft, curly lashes grew wet 
 with more than spray, and a big tear 
 rolled over the Shetland wrap, and splashed 
 down on to my ungloved hand. I sat 
 looking at it in comical amaze, not caring 
 to brush it off somehow ; till I found her 
 eyes wide open, fixed on me, 
 
 “ Have I been crying ? ” she asked. 
 “ And — and — who put this over me % ” 
 
 Our eyes met, and we broke into a 
 hearty laugh, infinitely cheering and in- 
 vigorating in the grey gloom. 
 
 “ Why didn’t you come and talk to me, 
 and keep me awake 1 ” 
 
 “ Because I thought you wanted me, and 
 I might never again get such a chance of 
 disobliging you.” 
 
 Then we laughed again, but she seemed 
 cramped and chilly, so I descended in search 
 of tea, bringing back the information that 
 Heron and his private secretary “ weren’t 
 half through their work.” 
 
 “ How mean and despicable to keep us 
 out of the cabin this wretched day,” said 
 Miss Dennistoun discontentedly. “ I’m 
 sure I could have written those letters for 
 him in half the time.” 
 
 We tobk to walking the deck smartly. 
 
 “ Three o’clock,” I observed presently. 
 “You needn’t mention it,” was the 
 reply. Up and down, up and down. 
 Miss Dennistoun’s fine flow of spirits 
 seemed in abeyance. “Your watch must 
 have stopped,” she observed presently. 
 
 “ Three fifteen exactly,” I returned. 
 
 Then we both sat down and gazed at the 
 cabin skylight, in which, to complete our 
 disgust, a light now glowed. 
 
 “ I hope Heron’s speech on the Amend- 
 ments is getting on prosperously,” I 
 observed viciously. 
 
 “A precious lot of help Nora Milner 
 will be able to give him,” said the fair 
 Yenetia spitefully. 
 
 Silence, and another turn or two. 
 
 “ Where are we now ? ” 
 
 “Off the coast of Holland,- I should 
 imagine,” I replied cheerfully. “I don’t 
 know, and I don’t suppose anyone else does 
 — least of all Milner.” 
 
 Silence again, and a surreptitious glance 
 at my watch. Three forty-five ! Up and 
 down, up and down. It was a trifle lighter 
 now, and the rain stopped by degrees. 
 
 “ The rain ceased, the decks dried, the 
 air became full of warmth and colour, and 
 the shore broke out in all sorts of atmo- 
 spheric effects,” said Miss Dennistoun, 
 evidently quoting from memory. “ What 
 impostors yachting novelists are. I should 
 like to review some of them.” 
 
 “ Perhaps we shall find all that in Scot- 
 land,” I suggested. 
 
 “ Scotland 1 Do you think we shall ever 
 see Scarborough % — I don’t.” 
 
 “Miss Dennistoun, why did you come ?” 
 
 “ Mr. Everett, why did you % ” 
 
 “I? I’m a pressed man, but you’re a 
 volunteer.” 
 
 “Well, I suppose I was led away by 
 these deluders,” she said, extracting a 
 volume from each pocket ; “ I thought some 
 of it must be true.” 
 
 I recognised the author whom I had 
 been blindly consulting as an oracle that 
 very morning. 
 
 “ But,” I hazarded, “ you know you 
 ought to sing — no, hum songs all day ; 
 not beginnings or ends — only middles.” 
 
 “ And you,” she retorted, “ ought to tell 
 anecdotes; they needn’t be new, you 
 know. No one remembers last year’s 
 Punch.*’ 
 
 “ Wait till we get to Scotland,” ■ we 
 remarked, simultaneously. 
 
 “ Why, it’s past four,” I added jovially. 
 Some thrilling moments followed. Milner 
 
 ft 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 43 
 
 appeared, shouting, “Nora! Heron! 
 Mick ! Look out ! ” Up they rushed, 
 and we too. 
 
 “ The Leith steamer ! Over there ! ” and 
 we all contemplated with wild excitement 
 a big, splashing monster that took shape 
 lor a brief moment, and then became one 
 with the mist again. “ And . they’ll 
 be at their journey’s end on Friday,” I 
 sighed. 
 
 Next day rose fair and bright, the per- 
 fection of yachting weather ; a calm sea 
 and a fair wind. Heron’s speech, or 
 whatever it was, being happily disposed of, 
 Mrs. Milner was free to make herself 
 charming in other quarters, and he looked 
 absolutely gay and careless, lying on the 
 deck reading Tennyson to Miss Dennis- 
 toun, who had appeared in a striking and 
 distractingly becoming get-up of white 
 serge and red stockings and fisher- 
 cap. 
 
 We reached Yarmouth that afternoon, 
 and sent a boat off for letters and papers. 
 Heron sent his share, when it reached him, 
 away, “ not to spoil a holiday,” but Milner 
 and I threw ourselves with avidity on the 
 newspapers, and Miss Dennistoun sat on 
 the deck, and opened envelope after enve- 
 lope, till she was fairly snowed-up in a 
 heap of invitation-notes and At Home 
 cards. 
 
 “ What a foolish girl you were to give 
 up all this, Venetia,” said Mrs. Milner. 
 “ Aren’t you sorry you came ? ” 
 
 Miss Dennistoun looked up, smiling 
 brightly. 
 
 “ Sorry ! Do you think I ever want to 
 see another London season? I’m glad to 
 have had my day, but, oh, so much more 
 glad that it’s done ! ” 
 
 “ Bless the girl ! what next ? ” 
 
 “A sisterhood, maybe. I’ve thought 
 of that often, unless I can do better. 
 Heigho ! ” she ended with a sigh that set 
 me pondering. 
 
 A calm, bright evening. The future 
 “sister” appeared gorgeous in Venetian 
 brocade and velvet at dinner. We ordered 
 coffee on deck, but, before joining the 
 ladies, Heron opened his parcel of letters. 
 He gave an impatient half-laugh, half-sigh, 
 as he turned them over and spread them 
 out on the table. 
 
 “ Look at them, Milner — Everett. Aren’t 
 they just heartbreaking? Sinclair, my 
 agent, writes that he is boycotted, of 
 course, and has had threatening letters 
 sent him. A shot was fired at Mrs. 
 Sinclair through the dairy-window, but he 
 
 thinks that was only done to terrify them. 
 Peter Mahon, the old herdsman, has been 
 badly beaten, and lies in a critical state, 
 for driving Mr. Sinclair’s cows to market. 
 Poor old Peter ! I must get back, Milner. 
 Listen ! 1 The Floyds have had their ricks 
 
 fired, and the Learys’ team were driven 
 into the lake and drowned. None of the 
 following have paid rent, alleging that 
 their lives wouldn’t be safe for an hour if 
 they dared’ — a shabby excuse, nothing 
 more — ‘and a notice has been stuck up, 
 calling upon all honest men to rise against 
 landlordism, and to begin with the traitor, 
 Desmond Heron.’ Here’s something 
 politer — a notice from the Land League, 
 calling on me to evict at once Denis 
 Conran, and reinstate the sons of Mary 
 O’Shea in their holding. Their father 
 died two years ago, leaving three years’ 
 rent unpaid, and his land gone to the bad. 
 I let the widow and her sons take what 
 they could away with them, and paid 
 their passage to America. There, there, 
 what use in going over it all? It’s sick 
 to the heart I am. I’m almost beat, 
 Milner.” 
 
 He crumpled the papers up and thrust 
 them into his writing-case. One unopened 
 remained on the table. 
 
 “ What’s this ? ” 
 
 His face grew white and set. He put it 
 down and looked from me to Milner with 
 terrified gaze. 
 
 “ I must go ! Can you put me on shore 
 at once — to-night ? Look here ! ” 
 
 “ You’re a dead man. The width of the 
 seas won’t save you ; you’ll never see land 
 again,” was the purport, stripped of its 
 garnish of hideous expressions. 
 
 “ A last attempt to frighten you. Put 
 you on shore ! Not a bit of it,” said 
 Milner. “ The villains had your address 
 at Yarmouth, but that’s all they can do by 
 post, so let them. And now listen ! ” 
 
 A strong, beautiful contralto voice began 
 to sing a little Irish ballad, and we with 
 one consent kept silence during a verse. 
 Then it stopped. 
 
 “ Is that right, Mr. Everett ? ” laughed 
 Miss Dennistoun, “or might I go right 
 through just for once ? ” 
 
 Heron dropped the letter and his cares 
 simultaneously, it seemed, for he was on 
 deck in a moment, begging for some more 
 of the song. 
 
 “ Oh, bold Rory O’More ! ” carolled 
 Venetia. “Come and prompt me with 
 the brogue.” And she sang to us like a 
 throstle till etfffee came. 
 
44 [June 17, 1884.} THE SAILING OF 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I found her alone on deck next morn- 
 ing. 
 
 “ I want you particularly, Mr. Everett. 
 Look at what blew into my cabin last 
 night.” And she held out the note that 
 had so disturbed us all. “What does it 
 mean 1 ” 
 
 Her face was white, with dark shades 
 under her eyes, and two anxious lines 
 dented her white forehead. 
 
 “Nothing to be alarmed at, I assure 
 you. That sort of thing arrives as regu- 
 larly as the daily papers. Heron is quite 
 accustomed to it. Threatened men live 
 long, you know.” 
 
 “ I don’t know it, and I don’t believe 
 it,” she said impatiently. “ I’m frightened. 
 Others have been murdered for no better 
 reason. Oh, why — why didn’t he try the 
 South Sea Islands 1 They couldn’t have 
 reached him there.” 
 
 “And they can’t reach him here, either,” 
 put in Milner, who had been listening 
 unobserved. “I’ll put him in irons if he 
 attempts to go on shore. He’ll be safe for 
 a fortnight, at any rate, and the troubles 
 will have blown over by that time.” 
 
 “ But — but ” She hesitated, glancing 
 
 round and lowering her voice. “ Are you 
 sure no one can come on board unobserved, 
 and hide 1 ” 
 
 “ Not unless he’s packed in the ice — 
 that is the only corner Everett and I did 
 not overhaul yesterday morning.” 
 
 “ And your men 1 ” she said, only half 
 assured. 
 
 “Well, you shall satisfy yourself on 
 that point, too,” said Milner with admirable 
 patience. “You know Beckwith ^ He was 
 with the Psamathe when Lord Sedgewick 
 had her, and so were Webster and 
 Murdoch — not one of them has the 
 slightest interest in the Irish question 
 that I can discover. Hannigan is a friend 
 of Murdoch’s, I believe. He brought him, 
 and Beckwith engaged and approved him, 
 and Hannigan brought Lowry, and that’s 
 the history of the whole crew.” 
 
 “ Which is Hannigan ? That’s an Irish 
 name. And where did Murdoch get 
 him 1 ” she asked suspiciously. 
 
 “ He’s not Irish though, and Beckwith 
 says is steady enough, if not over bright. 
 I’ll point them out to you presently. 
 Now do make yourself happy, like a good 
 girl. If you’re afraid of being in Heron’s 
 company ” „ 
 
 For all answer she tore the letter into a 
 
 THE PSAMATHE. [Conducted by 
 
 shower of small pieces, and scattered 
 them on the water. 
 
 “ There, that’s an end of the subject. 
 Now for breakfast.” 
 
 For all the girl’s bright looks and gay 
 chatter that day, I could see that the 
 morning’s scare had left an impression on 
 her not easily to be shaken off. I saw her 
 start at every unexpected noise, and found 
 her deep in conversation with Beckwith, 
 much to that important personage’s grati- 
 fication. She was always watching the 
 men at their work, especially “O’Donovan” 
 and “ Rossa,” as Milner persisted in calling 
 them, and, as if in defiance of Milner’s 
 suggestion of cowardice, kept as close as 
 she unobtrusively could to Heron, at 
 whom I saw her gazing once or twice with 
 a curious intensity of expression that 
 made me think it was rather a fine thing 
 to be a man with a Doom. 
 
 Scarborough came in due course. To 
 go ashore or not 1 
 
 “Who wants to see Scarborough in 
 July ? ” said Yenetia contemptuously, but 
 it appeared everybody did. 
 
 “ Only for a few hours,” I said to her, 
 “ and I promise you I’ll not lose sight of 
 Heron for a moment.” 
 
 She gave me a kind little look, blush- 
 ing rosy red the while, and ashore we 
 went. 
 
 The party divided, Mrs. Milner being 
 on shopping bent, and we met at dinner at 
 the hotel. I brought my Home Ruler 
 back in safety, and expected at least a 
 look of recognition, but Yenetia was 
 absent and tired, and anxious to get afloat 
 again; so we bade farewell to Scarborough 
 in the grey twilight, and set sail for 
 Ernescliffe and Hie Madge who began to 
 figure prominently in Mrs. Milner’s con- 
 versation just now. 
 
 When Heron opened his letters that 
 evening the Irish correspondence had 
 dwindled to a report from his agent, 
 neither better nor worse than the previous 
 one, while the “ literature of assassina- 
 tion ” was conspicuous by its absence. 
 
 “They’ve lost the trail at last,” said 
 Milner triumphantly. “ I told you so.” 
 
 We felt as if the moral atmosphere of 
 our party had suddenly lightened. Heron 
 looked ten years younger; Milner and Miss 
 Dennistoun were wild with light-hearted- 
 ness ; Mrs. Milner, the only one who had 
 never been depressed, was the only one not 
 unduly elated. Yenetia sang for us, and 
 appeared in resplendent toilettes, and 
 declared she didn’t care how much time 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 45 
 
 we expended creeping up the never-ending 
 line of the Yorkshire coast. 
 
 I remember being rather startled by one 
 of her pranks. It was the only summer 
 day of all our holiday, a dead calm and 
 a bright July sun. We were idly 
 rocking on the water opposite a long line 
 of bold black cliffs, with indentations here 
 and there forming tiny bays of warm, 
 brown, boulder-strewn sand. Not a sign 
 of human life was visible on the wild 
 lonely shore, and I turned away from the 
 contemplation thereof, and descended in 
 quest of light literature. I entered the 
 cabin suddenly, eliciting a startled little 
 shriek from Mrs. Milner, who was absorbed 
 in the contemplation of a dazzling vision. 
 
 Miss Dennistoun in an amazing dress of 
 white, crimson, and orange, tunicked, 
 trousered, and cross-gartered, with her 
 hair tucked away under a jaunty little cap 
 bedecked with a rosette of the same colour. 
 She was not in the least disconcerted, but 
 drew herself up to her full height, her 
 hands on either side of her striped belt, and 
 laughed at me. 
 
 “Isn’t it a pretty fancy dress?” she 
 asked. “Just help me on with my ulster, 
 please;” and she pocketed the cap, replacing 
 it by a shady straw hat, and ran lightly 
 up on deck. 
 
 “She is going to get old Webster to 
 take her for a swim,” Mrs. Milner ex- 
 plained. “ You’ll see something pretty 
 presently.” 
 
 So I did when I got on deck. The 
 crimson cap was dancing about on the 
 waves between us and the shore — diving, 
 reappearing, floating quietly, shooting 
 ahead at a tremendous rate ; finally it 
 made for some rocks, up one of which a 
 white figure scrambled and disappeared. 
 
 “She’s like a water-dog,” said Milner. 
 “ I believe she got a Humane Society’s 
 medal once for some plucky feat.” 
 
 Webster had beached the boat, and was 
 serenely smoking on a boulder. After an 
 interval I saw him returning, with a 
 dignified young lady in a neat and proper 
 serge costume steering ; the bathing-dress 
 lying like a moist, unpleasant body all of a 
 heap at his feet. 
 
 “ I felt inclined to swim back to you,” 
 she said. “ I know I could have done it. 
 Getting on board was the difficulty.” 
 
 “You won’t get another chance of 
 astonishing us,” I replied; “the wind is 
 rising. We shall anchor in Ernescliffe Bay 
 to-night.” 
 
 She grew suddenly grave. 
 
 “ Ernescliffe l Do you know what 
 happened at Scarborough, Mr. Everett? 
 Nora was so long over her purchases that 
 I got tired, and went off for a ramble 
 through the old town. I lost my way, and 
 asked a man who was loitering under a 
 shed full of fish-baskets to direct me. He 
 said he couldn’t. I didn’t like his looks 
 and went on, but as I passed I was sure 
 I saw Lowry’s face looking out of the 
 shadow behind him, and heard some one 
 say ‘ Ernescliffe ’ just as I came up. 
 Beckwith declares no one went ashore that 
 day but himself and Webster. I wish we 
 were rid of those men, or safe in Cromarty 
 Firth. No one gets shot in Scotland.” 
 
 We dropped anchor about midnight, and 
 next morning were hailed by a boat from 
 the shore containing Madge and her vicar, 
 the Rev. Eustace Sandys. Mrs. Sandys was 
 very like her sister grown stout and 
 matronly. 
 
 We went on shore, of course. Ernescliffe 
 consists of a row of fishermen’s cottages at 
 the foot of a tall cliff, on the top of which 
 the church is perched. A rough pier runs 
 out to sea on the north side of the little 
 bay, and close by is the vicarage, an em- 
 bellished farmhouse. The parish extends 
 miles inland, we were told, with a scanty, 
 scattered population. 
 
 We strolled about on the vicarage lawn 
 that evening, watching the little fleet of 
 fishing-boats depart. 
 
 “ The fish are in shoals out there to- 
 night,” said the vicar, joining us, fresh from 
 his parochial round. “ Everything that 
 can swim has gone out. There isn’t a boat 
 except your own left in the place, or a man 
 to pull it.” 
 
 “Beckwith has asked leave to go out 
 fishing,” said Milner, “ so I suppose I 
 ought to go on board. When shall you be 
 ready, Nora ? ” The sisters looked blank. 
 
 “ I thought you all were going to stay 
 here all night,” said Mrs. Sandys in dismay. 
 
 “ I can leave Nora and Yenetia if they 
 like,” said Milner. “ I’ll send the boat for 
 them to-morrow.” 
 
 So it was settled, and we three departed. 
 
 The Psamathe looked very forlorn and 
 empty when we reached her after the bright 
 little vicarage. We missed the two fair 
 faces and gay voices unspeakably. Milner 
 fell asleep. Heron actually produced a 
 blue-book, and fell-to making extracts, and 
 I, in solitary possession of the deck, leant 
 over the side watching three figures pacing 
 up and down under the verandah of the 
 vicarage till it grew too dark to distinguish 
 
46 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE. 
 
 Venetia’s dark gown from the two .white- 
 robed sisters. I smoked, and meditated, 
 and watched the movements of the nearest 
 fishing-smacks with languid curiosity. We 
 were about a mile inshore of them, and 
 nearly as far from the end of the pier. The 
 moon was getting up, bright and clear, and 
 lights were moving about in the vicarage 
 windows. 
 
 jt Ten o’clock. Bedtime, I suppose, m 
 these primitive regions,” I yawned. “ No, 
 there’s some one coming out on the lawn 
 again. Miss Dennistoun ! ” 
 
 A dark figure sped across the grass and 
 disappeared down a flight of rocky steps 
 that led to the pier, which was in deep 
 shadow except the extreme end, which just 
 caught the moonlight. The dark figure 
 emerged from the blackness, became at once 
 & white one, and scrambled rapidly down a 
 ladder at the end of the pier. 
 
 “Going for a moonlight swim, by Jove ! 
 Extraordinary young person she is 1” I was 
 indiscreet enough to use my glass, and 
 could make out the red cap presently 
 coming out in our direction. “ She can’t 
 mean to swim to us. What will she do 
 when she gets here, and how will she ever 
 get back again f ” I speculated in amaze- 
 ment, while stroke by stroke the dark 
 speck on the water drew nearer. “ Shall 
 I call Milner 1 No. Better not say any- 
 thing about the escapade. She’s, sinking ! 
 No, only resting. Confound it ! Why 
 don’t I know how to get a boat round and 
 go to meet her 1 It’ll kill her this cold 
 night. I will try and get the dingey. It’s 
 not there ! What can I dol” I gazed 
 distractedly at the red cap, becoming every 
 moment more distinct, wind and tide 
 helping her along. She must have seen 
 me, for she waved a white arm as a signal 
 —of what % “She is being carried out by 
 the current,” flashed across my mind, and 
 I was on the point of calling for help, when 
 I saw that she was making steadily for the 
 Psamathe. Up she came at last, and seized 
 one of the side-ladders. I helped her up, 
 for she was utterly exhausted. I shall 
 never forget her standing, tall and white, 
 in the moonshine, the water streaming 
 down her, and the hand imperiously 
 raised to check all remark or question. 
 
 “Send Walter Milner to me at once,” 
 she gasped. 
 
 I threw a big cloak over her shoulders 
 in silence, and obeyed. He came up 
 wondering. 
 
 “ You must leave the yacht directly ! 
 Every man of you ! ” 
 
 “Are you mad, Yenetia? How on 
 earth did you cornel ” 
 
 “ Don’t stop to ask me. Every moment 
 
 brings you nearer to Oh, Walter, 
 
 in pity believe me ! Those men I 
 
 knew it. Oh, where is Desmond Heron V 
 “Come down below and I’ll listen to 
 you,” he said. . n 
 
 • “ I shall spoil your velvet cushions, 
 she said with a hysteric laugh as her pretty 
 feet splashed in the pool of water on the 
 
 I rushed down in advance, turned up the 
 cabin stove, and put on the kettle and had 
 routed out brandy and a tumbler before 
 Heron raised his eyes from his notes. 
 
 “ Yenetia !.” I heard him exclaim. 
 
 She had regained her breath and compo- 
 sure, and spoke quietly and convincingly. 
 
 “You must leave the Psamathe at once. 
 Before midnight not one of us will be left 
 to tell the tale. I heard Hannigan boast 
 of it. He is on shore now, with Lowry. 
 Go and see, if you disbelieve me.” 
 
 Milner stood looking doubtful. Did he_ 
 mean to drive the girl crazy % 
 
 “I believe you, Miss Dennistoun, I 
 said. “ We’ll do whatever you order. It 
 isn’t eleven yet.” 
 
 She gave me a grateful look. 
 
 “ It has driven me frantic to think that 
 perhaps, after all, you would only laugh at 
 me. If you had heard those men and seen 
 their faces ! I can’t tell you all they said, 
 but it meant murder ! Oh, why are we 
 wasting time ? ” ■ . 
 
 “ Where’s Eustace Sandys 1 said Milner; 
 “ and how did you come % ” 
 
 “ Called away to a sick person. I came 
 as I could. Walter— Walter, do believe 
 me ! I was sitting down among the rocks 
 there, Nora and Madge had gone in, when 
 I saw the boat coming, and stayed to meet 
 it ; but when I saw Lowry’s face I don t 
 know why— I waited; and instead of going 
 to the pier, they beached it just by where 
 I was standing, and then I crept near and 
 heard them.” 
 
 Milner hurried off, and Heron, who had 
 been standing by the table listening, with 
 a face as white as Yenetia’s, sank into his 
 chair with a groan. 
 
 “ Come,” she said imperiously, “ every 
 moment is worth a life.” But he shook his 
 head hopelessly. 
 
 “ Best leave me. I knew it would over- 
 take me at last; but you ” He sprang 
 
 up again suddenly. “ What are you going 
 to do 1 ? Get her away, Everett, Has 
 Milner gone to get the boat • ” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 [June It, 1884.] 47 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE PSAMATHE. 
 
 “Boats ! They are all gone,” I replied, and 
 then the full meaning of my words rushed 
 upon my mind and I stopped aghast. 
 
 X ' “Gan you not return as you came 1 ” I 
 asked Yenetia. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 “ I couldn’t do it again, and I would 
 not. Whatever comes I will meet it here.” 
 
 Her hand dropped as if unconsciously on 
 Heron’s crippled arm. 
 
 “ Everett ! What are you saying ? ” 
 Heron cried wildly. “ What does it all 
 mean ? ” 
 
 “Death !” said Yenetia solemnly, turn- 
 ing and laying her cold right hand in his. 
 
 I turned away and rushed up the cabin 
 stairs. 
 
 “ Hullo ! ” shouted Milner. “ They’re 
 off, sure enough, and the dingey.” 
 
 “ What are you going to do ? ” 
 
 “ Slip the cable, of course, get up the 
 jib, and run her alongside that smack over 
 there. Come and lend a hand, and tell 
 those two to get their goods together if 
 they really mean to clear out. Yenetia, 
 will you go and get some dry clothes on ! 
 If you’d make her drink that hot grog, 
 Heron, instead of kissing her hands, it 
 would be more to the purpose.” 
 
 I must be excused from relating what I 
 did that night under Milner’s orders. We 
 did slip the cable, and we did get up sail 
 enough to carry us out to the smack, and I 
 suppose my efforts contributed to the result, 
 but I am quite unaware how. Milner kept 
 up a grumbling soliloquy of incredulity the 
 whole time. “Just a mad freak of the 
 girl’s, and I’m a big fool for minding her. 
 Glad Beckwith isn’t here. He wouldn’t 
 have been moved so easily. Wonder what 
 those two rascals really are up to. Perhaps 
 you had better go below and bring off 
 anything you care about. What’s the 
 time — half-past eleven? Nice fools we 
 shall look going on board to-morrow,” and 
 so forth. 
 
 When I returned with my portmanteau, 
 I found the smack alongside, and the fisher- 
 men helping Milner to transfer the more 
 valuable of his and Nora’s possessions from 
 the Psamathe, while Yenetia stood leaning 
 on Heron’s arm, white with impatience. 
 When we were safe on the fishing-boat, I 
 noticed that she clung to a bundle of papers 
 which she declined to relinquish to me, 
 but which Heron took into his own keep- 
 ing presently. 
 
 “My dear girl,” I heard him say, “did 
 you think of them ? ” And if they weren’t 
 his notes and his precious old blue-book ! 
 
 We stood off some distance from the 
 Psamathe, and watched her swaying to and 
 fro on the wavelets, a graceful black out- 
 line against the moonlit sea. 
 
 “ Poor thing ! ” I heard Milner say, “ it’s 
 a dirty trick to leave you. I’ve half a 
 mind to go back. I wonder where Beck- 
 with is ? I wouldn’t be you, Yenetia, when 
 we tell the tale to-morrow ! ” 
 
 A crash, not loud, but sharp ; a wave 
 that lifted the smack and pitched her over 
 on her side. When she righted, we looked 
 for the Psamathe. 
 
 Gone ! 
 
 There was a foaming eddy in the water, 
 a few black fragments tossing here and there 
 — that was all. Some spars and shattered 
 pieces of timber came ashore by the 
 morning’s tide, the only relics of Mr. 
 Milner’s beautiful pet and plaything, the 
 Psamathe. 
 
 We were a doleful little party on the 
 vicarage lawn next morning. Mrs. Milner 
 was still tearful and trembling at the 
 thoughts of her husband’s peril, Heron 
 remorseful, and Miss Dennistoun meek 
 and shy beyond all comprehension. The 
 vicar had gone early, to set the county 
 constabulary on the track of the two 
 sailors, with small hopes of success. 
 
 “ They’re in Liverpool by this time,” he 
 said. “ We shall hear of them in New 
 York, hailed as heroes and patriots by the 
 ‘dynamite faction,’ and most likely pre- 
 sented with an address and testimonial 
 from the ‘Skirmishing Fund.’ Why, 
 the feat, if it had been successful, would 
 almost have guaranteed Hannigan’s return 
 to Parliament one of these days.” 
 
 Desmond Heron turned away. I saw 
 the vicar’s pleasantries cut deeply. 
 
 “Don’t mind it. It’s only nonsense,” 
 whispered Yenetia eagerly. 
 
 “ It’s the Truth in it that stings,” he said. 
 
 “Remember your promise,” she mur- 
 mured in a lower tone. “Let it all go. 
 You have done no good by standing by 
 your people. Let them take their own 
 way now. The day will come when they 
 will welcome you back, and know their 
 true friends from their false leaders. You 
 will go away, and wait for the good time 
 coming,” she pleaded. 
 
 “My good time will have begun, my 
 darling, if you, come with me.” 
 
 I withdrew in haste. I had thought I 
 was only listening to a political discussion. 
 As usual I turned for refuge and consola- 
 tion to my fair liege lady, Mrs. Milner, 
 
 “ You brought me here,” I complained. 
 
48 [June 17, f884.] THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL CHASE, [Contacted by 
 
 “My affections have been tampered with, 
 my luggage lost, my holiday spoilt. You 
 have the insurance to console you. The 
 two yonder don’t seem to need any con- 
 solation ; but what remains for me ] ” 
 
 “Go and win fame and fortune by 
 making a magazine story of it all,” was her 
 reply, and now, as always, I have obeyed. 
 
 THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL 
 CHASE. 
 
 By Maria L. Jenkin. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 No one could be more surprised than 
 we were ourselves when we were told that 
 father was heir to Harishal Chase. The 
 news came one morning when mother, and 
 he, and I, their only child, sat at breakfast. 
 
 A village doctor does not look for many 
 letters, not such a village doctor as father 
 was, at least, for I verily believe he had 
 no interest whatever beyond the village. 
 
 However, the news was a fact, and our 
 simple life became what was to me a grand 
 one. So many new things came to be done, 
 that in my ignorance I wondered fifty 
 times a day to see how calmly mother 
 took it all. The fact was, she never 
 changed at all. She talked to the Earl and 
 the Countess, the Duke and the Duchess, in 
 just the same sweet way as she had talked 
 to the untitled folks of Warbury. 
 
 She rather disconcerted me one day by 
 saying she was sorry so much grandeur 
 had come to us. She was bound to accept 
 facts, she said, but she thought law had 
 travelled a long way round to arrive at 
 such a distant offshoot as my father, and 
 to find in him the heir of the Payntons. 
 To “hark back,” so to speak, for four 
 generations, and then to toil forward to a 
 village — for Warbury, if it called itself a 
 town, was scarcely more than a village — and 
 then to alight upon him, Thomas Warton, 
 it was strange. 
 
 However, no thought or desire of hers 
 could change what the law decreed, so 
 father gave his practice to Cousin Horace, 
 who had been studying under him, and 
 one day we drove away from Warbury, and 
 arrived at the Chase. 
 
 Such a dear old place ! Sunset in 
 early spring brought out all the beauties 
 of it, I remember, when we drove up 
 the long avenue to the great portico. 
 The avenue was of limes, and on one 
 
 side you could see between their trunks 
 over the vague distance of the park, 
 while on the left came the thickness of a 
 copse. So far, Harishal Chase was well 
 known to me; had I not been familiar 
 with all that could be seen of it from the 
 lodge-gates below the avenue % But of 
 what came behind the portico I knew 
 nothing. 
 
 Ever since I had been old enough to sit 
 securely in the seat by father as he drove 
 on his rounds, I had known the place, and 
 the big gates with the curious winged 
 animal in stone on the supporting pillars. 
 
 But to be within — to be the young 
 mistress of all — to learn the name of 
 the winged monster, to see him carved 
 over doorways, to see him on the 
 liveries of the servants, and to know that 
 he belonged to me ! 
 
 Father said he was a griffin rampant 
 regardant — that was Greek to me, but it 
 sounded grand. 
 
 One thing more he told me I did not 
 like so well— to be Millicent Warton was 
 all very well, but to be turned into Millicent 
 War ton-Pay nton I did not like. 
 
 Now I think mother rather liked this 
 part of the business. 
 
 Anyway it had to be done. The title 
 of the Payntons “ lapsed,” she told me, 
 but the old name must be kept up. Another 
 point I discovered soon after that she liked 
 also, and this was that the old Harishal 
 property, which had dwindled a good deal, 
 was to be built up by father’s wealth, and 
 by her wealth. 
 
 We had been such simple folk that 
 though L was seventeen at this time I had 
 never grasped the idea of wealth £ts concern- 
 ing ourselves at all. I did not in the least 
 comprehend one speech mother made 
 on the day I was packing up my private 
 treasures at Warbury. 
 
 “Quite a burden for these shoulders, 
 Milsie dear,” she had cried. 
 
 “ Burden, mother ! I am equal to it.” 
 I lifted my untidy head proudly, for I felt 
 every inch a Harishal dame at that 
 moment. . 
 
 “The heir and the heiress in one.” 
 Mother’s voice was gay, but suddenly she 
 was grave. “ It is a foolish speech, dear ; 
 forget it.” 
 
 Which I did directly after, but somehow 
 it cropped back into my brain, puzzling it. 
 
 Life became supremely delightful at one 
 bound. Even supposing no one had.come 
 to see us, the dear old house was a mine of 
 pleasure. I got the old housekeeper to take 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL CHASE. fJune 17, 1884.] 49 
 
 Hie into every hole and corner, and in a 
 wefck I knew the history of every Paynton 
 who stood pictured within the old frames 
 round the dining-room. One was of a 
 young girl kneeling on the ground, with 
 her arm round a fawn’s neck. 
 
 “Ah, she is pretty ! ” I cried. 
 
 “You think so, miss 1 ” and the old 
 woman looked oddly at me, I thought. 
 “You see that other one 1 ” she pointed to 
 another, where again a young girl was 
 pictured. This second stood erect, and she 
 looked both proud and sad. 
 
 “ Yes,” I answered. 
 
 “ The minnit as I set eyes on you, miss, 
 
 I said there’s no mistake about the old 
 blood ; she’s like the picture without the 
 name.” 
 
 “ Who was like, do you mean ? ” 
 
 “ Who but yourself, miss ! ” 
 
 “ Me ? ” 
 
 “ Aye, just that. Them two, you see, 
 have no name, for they are the same.” 
 
 “ The same ? ” I echoed. One was a 
 playing child, and one was a stately 
 maiden. 
 
 “Aye;” she nodded her head wisely. 
 “She was Lady Diana, we all knew that, 
 and grief took her somehow. Grief or 
 sin — who knows ? They blotted out her 
 name nigh a hundred year ago, and 
 they two pictures only come, down from 
 the loft through some mistaken order of 
 the late lord’s. Being down they need not 
 go up again, he said.” 
 
 Now, what girl of seventeen is not ripe 
 for mystery ? I made the old woman’s life 
 a burden to her for the next week trying 
 to learn the story, but she could not tell it 
 to me for the best of all reasons — she did 
 not know it. 
 
 However, by persistent questionings I 
 learnt what ghostly traditions hung about 
 the place. There had been a ghost, of 
 course, but she could give no reliable 
 history of its being seen in the ken of 
 living man. There was a ghost, too, 
 belonging to the laurel path — a path that 
 led away from the copse to a waste 
 of uncultivated land called the heath. 
 She — that was a she-ghost — had been 
 seen. 
 
 “When some one is going to die, of 
 course,” I irreverently ejaculated. 
 
 “ No, miss ; it comes *at a birth. If the 
 babe is to have a good life, it — she — dances; 
 but, if not, the creature falls to weeping and 
 wringing its hands.” 
 
 “Is that all?” 
 
 “ Enough, too.” 
 
 “ And no secret passages, or trap-doors, 
 or ” 
 
 “ Hist ! ” the old dame stopped me. 
 
 “Ah, there is something!” I sprang 
 forward and seized her hands. “ Tell me.” 
 
 “ There beant nought to tell, as I knows 
 of,” and her mouth shut with a jerk. 
 
 “ Then why did you bid me ‘ hist ’ ? ” I 
 urged. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 “ I suppose I was getting a bit worried, 
 miss,” she said with the most simple 
 manner ; “ it’s all a folly to me, this 
 sort of thing. We han’t no call that I see 
 to ferret out the ways of folks who’d 
 nothing but the Dark Ages to live in, and 
 all the rooms are done up most fashionable, 
 and as to cleanliness, none’ll beat Harishal 
 Chase at that, I know, though the maids 
 are set up nowadays.” 
 
 I could get nothing out of her. But in 
 my own mind I was convinced that the 
 Chase held some secret, some hidden room, 
 or passage, or cupboard — who could say 
 what ? I was determined to hunt up every 
 likely and unlikely place, and to make the 
 discovery for myself. 
 
 This was in the first week of our being 
 in the house, and though for another full 
 week I held my purpose clearly and firmly 
 before my eyes, yet there was no chance 
 thrown in my way of carrying it out. 
 Every obstacle was rather set against it. 
 
 Now all the world knows that the most 
 adamantine obstacles are those which 
 appear soft, and yielding, and pleasant, 
 which must account, I suppose, for my 
 never surmounting any of them. I was 
 seemingly beset with pleasure and enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 In the old life atWarbury, to be seventeen 
 was a charming fact, but it did not bring 
 of itself a marked change of existence. 
 Now, for the daughter of Harishal Chase 
 to be seventeen, meant that she was not 
 only a girl with the delight of youth about 
 her, with her new lovely home, too, but 
 she must be launched at once into society. 
 No more schoolroom days for her ! 
 
 But I must nat say so much of my own 
 story — I must travel on. 
 
 Three weeks in my dear Harishal Chase, 
 then we went up for the season, just a 
 short season, to London. 
 
 I forgot my search after the mysterious 
 — utterly and entirely forgot it. But I did 
 not forget my sudden love for the Chase. 
 If it was a love at first sight, it was also a 
 continuing love, and perhaps it was, as 
 Mrs. Marley, the housekeeper, had once 
 
 C 
 
50 [June 17, 1884.] THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL CHASE. 
 
 * [Conducted by 
 
 said, “ the old blood ” in my veins, which 
 so strongly made me take the place to my 
 heart, and so entirely to weave the fibres 
 of my being round every stone of it. 
 
 London' was lovely ! Do not laugh at 
 my word, to me everything was “ lovely.” 
 Certainly I was childlike enough. Once, 
 when I put on a new hat which, in its 
 modern way, copied the old fashion of that 
 unnamed girl’s portrait, I saw myself just 
 like her — like the girl who played with the 
 fawn. And I laughed at myself, wonder- 
 ing how it would ever be possible that I 
 should also look like the second portrait, 
 the grave, sad maiden. 
 
 There was but one trouble in that 
 delightful time. 
 
 It all came from my being unluckily 
 both “heir and heiress.” I was Miss 
 Paynton of Harishal. I cried angrily when 
 I saw how I was, so to speak, ticketed 
 and labelled in this fashion. Actually, 
 people came and made love to me ! 
 And lovers, too, that I could never dream 
 of marrying. One was a grey-headed 
 man, and another was a boy with a 
 lisp — but he was an earl’s son. 
 
 “ You are quite sure, Milsie 1 ” my father 
 said in his easy, kindly way. 
 
 “ Sure ! I should think I was,” retorted 
 I, giving much more of my attention to 
 Toby, my pug, than to the subject of 
 lovers. 
 
 “ I cannot say I am sorry, child.” He 
 evidently was relieved, and turned his 
 newspaper as if he had now every inten- 
 tion of enjoying it undisturbed. “ An evil 
 of the future, my love,” he said to my 
 mother ; the future, not the present.” 
 
 “ An evil and a good at once,” came the 
 answer, in mother’s calm, gentle way. “ She 
 is a child now.” 
 
 “ Dear mother, I am seventeen ! ” and I 
 tweaked my dog’s ear. 
 
 “ Yes. Some day you will understand, 
 Milsie — I hope you will understand,” she 
 went on quietly. “ But there is no 
 hurry.” 
 
 “ That old fossil presuming ” I 
 
 began. 
 
 “ Sir Gerard Milnes ! Ha, ha ! ” and my 
 father laughed. “I knew him in petti- 
 coats. I’ll tell him what you call him.” 
 
 “ Do,” and I laughed with him. 
 
 “ There is time,” mother went on, half 
 to herself. “ Only we will hope for a wise 
 love when the love does come — a wise and 
 a suitable love.” 
 
 “That is because I am labelled ‘Hari- 
 shal Chase ! ’ I felt my face hot, and I 
 
 drew up my tall self. “ I have a great 
 mind to say I will never marry. I half 
 wish the Chase had gone to someone else 1 
 No,” and I hugged my fat Toby, “ no ; I 
 don’t mean that ! ” 
 
 On the evening of that very day we 
 were at a ball, and a certain Mr. Dacre 
 danced with me. All my other partners 
 had a title of some sort, so, having a per- 
 sistency in my character by which I held 
 to my wild and ignorant rebellion of 
 the morning, I snubbed all these, and 
 talked comfortably only with the said Mr. 
 Dacre. 
 
 The day after, he, with the rest, slipped 
 out of my thoughts, from the simple reason 
 that I was obliged by the very force of 
 circumstances to go to other entertain- 
 ments, and to see quite another set of 
 people. 
 
 At last we went home, and I was full of 
 delight at the country, and often said I 
 should be content never to leave my dear 
 old Chase again. 
 
 When the shooting began we had visitors, 
 and some of the tiresome London people 
 came — tiresome only to me. But I — I 
 suppose time naturally brought it to me 
 — did hot trouble so much about these 
 things. I think I could make myself quite 
 as haughty when I chose as any one of the 
 former maidens of Harishal Chase had 
 done. 
 
 In November came an event. I should 
 be eighteen on the twenty- sixth, and I 
 was to have a ball. Everybody came. 
 Last, but not least, came many officers from 
 the Warford Barracks. And amongst them 
 came a — my — Mr. Dacre. Only a lieutenant; 
 only a man of no family at all; only a 
 penniless young soldier. 
 
 I saw him a few times after the ball — 
 only a few times. Then he absented him- 
 self. Duty kept him at Warford, but it 
 was not regimental duty which kept him 
 studiously away from any of the roads 
 leading from that town towards Harishal. 
 
 Shall I ever forget the day when, after 
 calling on mother, he met me along the 
 avenue of limes 'i 
 
 Early December may be as warm as 
 summer — that day was so. The earth 
 was moist, and the aromatic, pungent smell 
 of the prone leafage and bracken filled the 
 air. The low yellow light of the day was 
 reddened by the westering crimson sun; 
 along the path of his rays danced a million 
 radiant motes on a misty floor — “Good- 
 bye ” was the word it all carried to 
 me. 
 
Charles Dickens. 
 
 THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL CHASE. [June 17, mm.] 
 
 And why ? Just because I was heiress 
 of Harishal Chase, and he — he — was 
 nothing. 
 
 I dallied till the twilight came, and 
 then, passing the door of the big drawing- 
 room where we had danced together, I 
 turned in and paced it alone. 
 
 I had forgotten mysteries and ghosts, I 
 cared naught for the darkness. 
 
 I went to a corner window, and I 
 looked out — so looking my feet must have 
 kicked impatiently. They lifted a corner 
 of the heavy carpet, they got entangled, 
 or rather, by some sudden wakefulness of 
 my brain, I knew that one foot touched 
 iron and neither the carpet nor the wood 
 of the floor beneath it. 
 
 I started. There was an iron rusted 
 ring fastened on to a plank of the floor — 
 nay, it lay in a carefully made groove cut 
 in the wood. The circling crevices were 
 filled with dust and flue, and all was so 
 close and compact that a hundred feet 
 might have passed over it and never have 
 felt a variety of level. 
 
 I all at once remembered the house- 
 keeper’s half-terrified “ Hist ! ” 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Was I likely to let my discovery slip ? 
 By no means. 
 
 All the household was told of it ; and, 
 behold ! my news fell flat, for all the 
 household knew of it. Instead of curiosity, 
 I met shrinking. No man or maid had 
 the least desire to see if that old ring 
 would move. 
 
 My father laughed at me ; but mother — 
 I should never have given her credit for 
 it ! — really flushed, and was, for her, quite 
 excited. She so entirely identified herself 
 with the ownership of the Chase, you see, 
 and being of a county family herself, no 
 doubt made her the more ready to magnify 
 the importance of the old histories of the 
 place. Sweet, good mother ! if there were 
 anything in her composition which bor- 
 dered upon the nature of a fault, it was 
 this pride of family. For the honour and 
 glory of one’s family our sacrifices should 
 be unmeasured. 
 
 Ah me! I am writing this with the 
 knowledge and experience of a few years 
 behind me. 
 
 The first of those years might be said to 
 begin at this time. 
 
 I had given away my love. And my 
 lover — he was so proud— could not declare 
 himself. The others who came I flung 
 
 aside as one dashes away gnats on a sum- 
 mer day. 
 
 And I said I would solve the mystery of 
 that iron ring. Though I was growing a 
 little sad at heart, I made much show of 
 gaiety, and scorning lovers, talked of this 
 purpose of mine. 
 
 It was strange, but I could get no 
 workman to help me. 
 
 So time went on, and the obstacles grew 
 stronger than my fading spirits. You see, 
 I hoped and hoped for what could not 
 come. I could not unmake my heiress- 
 ship, neither could I make Paul Dacre a 
 noble. 
 
 A winter and a spring passed over my 
 head, and I was changed. To take Mrs. 
 Marley’s verdict, I was just a copy of the 
 Lady Diana. “ More’s the pity! For 
 your face, miss, is prettier, with the 
 smiles.” 
 
 I did not pay much heed to her. I had 
 too much to think of. 
 
 Then, in the summer. Sir Gerard Milnes 
 presented himself again, and my father 
 had to give me his message. Now, Sir 
 Gerard had the finest property in the 
 county, and mother had set her heart 
 on my marrying him. My kind, easy 
 father would not force me; but mother’s 
 persuasions, and, I think, her very tender- 
 ness and ambition for me, conquered my 
 utter carelessness. 
 
 Yes, I had grown utterly careless, and 
 had changed from a child Milsie to a proud 
 Millicent. 
 
 I said I would try — he might come. 
 
 He was a noble and a worthy man. He 
 did come to me out on the terrace, and I 
 had to listen. 
 
 How my heart and soul rebelled! All 
 the fire which had seemed quenched in 
 me rose into hotter flames. How I 
 vexed him with my wild, laughing 
 words, and would neither say “Yes” or 
 “No.” 
 
 “ I am tired,” I cried ; and, turning 
 from him, I went straight into the drawing- 
 room by one of its long windows. 
 
 My dignity had entirely left me for the 
 nonce, and as I sprang in my foot caught 
 the very corner of carpet it had once before 
 caught. 
 
 There was the mysterious iron ring in 
 the floor once more uncovered. 
 
 “ There is a trial for you, if you are a 
 chivalrous knight,” I cried. 
 
 I knew Sir Gerard was close behind 
 me. 
 
 “For my lady, no trial is too great.” 
 
52 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL CHASE. [Conducted by 
 
 He caught my humour. “ What is it 1 I 
 conquer it, and come for ” 
 
 There he stopped, and looked at me 
 with his brave, true eyes. 
 
 “For the prize, the guerdon!” I was 
 wild, and yet even on that warm J une day 
 I suddenly grew chill. “ Give me the 
 secret, and I give you myself ! I am not 
 worth the taking.” 
 
 At the moment I cared for nothing. 
 
 “ Worth much to me,” he said gravely, 
 and, before I knew, he had lifted my hand 
 and kissed it. 
 
 How, no Harishal man would obey him 
 for this work, so he sent for London men 
 to do it. 
 
 Such a little thing, after all — only to 
 soften the rust, to lift the ring, to press 
 and to shake, and to use just a man’s 
 natural force. A neatly-fitted plank moved, 
 and, being lifted, showed a space full of 
 dirt and rubbish ; then some groping, and 
 a tin box came to light. Anything more ? 
 
 Only a bundle of papers, with a faded 
 ribbon tied round them. 
 
 “ My T ” exclaimed Mrs. Marley, who, of 
 course, was present. “ The ribbon is like 
 what ties the fan in Lady Diana’s picture ! 
 I never ! ” 
 
 The tin box father opened, and found 
 some old jewels — rare ones, and valuable, 
 and of antique fashion. He laughed and 
 he gave them to me, saying : 
 
 “ Finders must be keepers.” 
 
 The papers mother read. 
 
 And my promise — my promise ! How 
 could I ever keep it ? 
 
 Here is what the papers told. 
 
 At the top was written : 
 
 “ THIS IS THE TRUTH. 
 
 “Ho one knows the whole truth of 
 what I, Diana Paynton, have done. Some- 
 one will, perchance, open the secret 
 hiding-place. They will brave the curse 
 set upon the opener, but the curse will be 
 powerless then, for I am the first who has 
 opened it. The curse of an unknown 
 ancestor is naught to me, for did not my 
 own father set his curse upon me last 
 night ? 
 
 “ But my heart will not tremble under 
 it — no ! Only this morning, too, I read 
 that ‘ The curse causeless shall not fall,’ 
 and I have done no wrong. If to me love 
 stands before wealth, who shall say that is 
 wrong ? 
 
 “ I am ordered to my room ; I am a 
 prisoner, but freedom will come. While I 
 wait, I write. 
 
 “ In a sense I am dead. Oh, that there 
 could be love and trust between father and 
 child ! I have never known the day when 
 aught but fear came into my soul when I 
 was carried into the stern presence of my 
 father. 
 
 “Perhaps he was proud of me. How 
 that I am dead there is no heiress to 
 Harishal Chase, and it will go to his 
 nephew’s son. Stay — the future may cure 
 the past. 
 
 “ It has all happened in so short a time. 
 “We were in London. We, like the 
 rest of the quality, must go once a year, 
 though it is such a weary journey. Father 
 must be in his place at the House, and 
 aunt and I must go to routs and assemblies, 
 and give the same ourselves. Our house 
 by the river and by the Chelsea fields is 
 happily on the outskirts of the noisy town. 
 
 “It was Lady Betty Carew’s drum. 
 How, Lady Betty is not to my taste. She 
 belongs to the past days, when dames of 
 fashion used language we think coarse and 
 rude now. But aunt affects her, I suppose 
 because the two are so exactly opposite. 
 Poor weak auntie must surely be under 
 some fascination of strong Lady Betty. 
 
 “For some reason, her ladyship can 
 command the first society. One is sure of 
 meeting people of ton there. Men, too, 
 give up other things for her, and at one of 
 her drums you are sure to meet what she 
 is pleased to call 4 the sprightliest blades 
 about town.’ 
 
 “ She -fell upon aunt and me that day 
 with her loudest laugh. 
 
 “ ‘ Glad to see you, Han Paynton ! ’ she 
 cried. ‘ And my Lady Diana looking her 
 freshest. Who would not be a Paynton 
 to live outside the smoke ? What did it 
 cost your father to build his mansion? 
 But there, it is no use talking, I’ve lost 
 too many guineas lately to think of 
 building ! Besides, I’m hardened to the 
 smoke and din of my quarters. I call 
 my chair, and I’m in the Strand in two 
 minutes. Who here is strange to you? 
 Hone, I believe.’ 
 
 “ ‘ I see Mistress Delaney,’ aunt put in. 
 ‘ 1 have been dying to ask her how she 
 succeeds with her new silk work.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Silk work ? Ah, she’ll tell you. I 
 never was good at such things ! ’ Then 
 some one else was announced, and Lady 
 Betty went off. 
 
 “I sat down and talked, and looked 
 about me. There was but one stranger 
 in the room. A tall, dark young man. 
 How can I describe him ? He was hand- 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL CHASE [June 17, 1884.] 53 
 
 some, and he bore himself with a cool 
 dignity. Certainly he was a gentleman, 
 and he was dressed in perfect fashion, 
 though there was something about him 
 totally unlike the foppish or rakish look 
 of the men Lady Betty affected. His 
 dress was of a dark sombre hue, and the 
 cambric of his exquisitely set shirt-frill 
 was of the finest. I did not think I was 
 noticing him as pointedly as I must have 
 been doing. 
 
 “I was shocked by a laugh of Lady 
 Betty’s. 
 
 “‘Ha, ha, ha! My dainty Diana is 
 amazed ! And well she may be. Now, 
 my friends all, I have bid you here just 
 to make you acquainted with a star — a 
 star, and my friend, Signor Paolo ! ’ The 
 stranger flushed, but he bowed quietly. 
 He must have been accustomed to many 
 ways of this varied world. 
 
 “ ‘ He’s no signor, though we have 
 settled that a foreign name tickles folk’s 
 ears ; he is English to the backbone. He 
 has already taken the town by storm. 
 You have heard of him ? ’ 
 
 “ I had certainly heard of a celebrated 
 musician who had played at Court. One 
 or two said as much. 
 
 “ ‘ Ah well, that is one thing. He 
 means, and I mean too, that he shall line 
 his pockets well with gold before he goes 
 off to Italy. Spoil the Egyptians, I call 
 it.' 
 
 “ A quiet smile crossed his face. 
 
 “ ‘ You, my Lady Bruton, and you, Nan 
 Paynton — that means you, Diana,’ came 
 in an aside, ‘ are leaders of fashion.’ 
 She jerked her hawk-like face in another 
 direction and shook her fan at some 
 young officers. ‘ And you, gentlemen, 
 you’ll give your military concerts, and 
 you’ll have a civilian to fiddle for you till 
 you grow white with envy.’ 
 
 “ ‘ By all means, Lady Betty ; by all 
 means ! ’ laughed one. ‘ May we ask 
 Mr.— Mr. ’ 
 
 “ ‘ Signor Paolo/ she supplied. 
 
 “‘The signor to play us a measure 
 now 1 ’ 
 
 “ Such playing I had never heard. It 
 carried my very soul away with it. 
 
 “ Presently, when aunt and I were 
 taking leave — we had had the good 
 fortune to exchange a few words with 
 the stranger — Lady Betty pulled her back 
 by the sleeve. 
 
 “ She nodded her head at me, and her 
 sharp old eyes twinkled. 
 
 “ ‘ You’ll take him up, Di ; you can 
 
 do it. Nothing like a girl with manners 
 to back a man who wants to rise. I’ll 
 back you when it comes to the permission 
 of Paynton for your concert.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Thank you.’ 
 
 “ ‘ Don’t go in for meekness, Diana. 
 Speak out. But,’ she actually winked, 
 did this disagreeable old woman, ‘ so far 
 and no farther. You know ! No philan- 
 dering, mind ; nothing of that sort. No 
 philandering ! ’ 
 
 “I would not answer this, was it not 
 beneath me? I saw, too, that the stranger 
 was close by. I grew scarlet at the thought 
 that he might have overheard Lady Betty’s 
 coarseness. 
 
 “He it was who, with a deep bow, led 
 aunt and me to our coach. 
 
 “ Signor Paolo became the rage, no 
 assembly was complete without him. People 
 said that his engagements, as the first 
 violinist of the day, were so numerous that 
 not half of those who invited him could 
 secure him. That was not my experience. 
 To me he seemed to be everywhere. 
 
 “ Now I am proud to know the reason 
 of this. He always knew where I would 
 be. Soon he spoke bravely and openly to 
 me, and I saw no shame in aiding his 
 desire to meet me. If rank of one sort 
 was mine, he held rank by his great genius. 
 Besides, though I wished no such decla- 
 ration on his part, he insisted on telling 
 me his family history. He comes of a good 
 south-country family — aye, he bears a name 
 as good as my own. Soon it will be my 
 own. 
 
 “We left London before my father did, 
 and we, aunt and I, were glad to accept 
 the escort of Signor Paolo — I call him by 
 the name the world knows him by — and 
 of Sir Harry Milton, our neighbour. The 
 roads are too insecure for ladies to travel 
 in assurance, even though our servants are 
 trusty and brave. 
 
 “ Both gentlemen rode by our coach the 
 whole way down, and whether by their 
 valiant bearing, or to the fact of the 
 northern road being deserted for the nonce 
 by the gentlemen of the road, we suffered 
 no molestation, and reached the Chase 
 safely. 
 
 “ The dear place ! Shall I never see it 
 again ? To leave it is surely like leaving 
 one’s mother. I never knew mine ; but 
 still, for love one is willing, aye, and glad, 
 to leave even father and mother ! 
 
 “Being the guest of our neighbour, 
 Paul — I am weary of the foreign name— 
 was at the Chase nigh upon every day. 
 
54 [June 17, 1884.] THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL CHASE. [Conducted by 
 
 “ A week hence my father came home. 
 
 “ He came upon us suddenly. He had ! 
 chosen to dismount at the lodge and to walk 
 up the avenue of limes. Aunt was garden- 
 ing, with Sir Harry in attendance. How 
 kind he was 1 Paul and I sat on a bench 
 under a reddening beech-tree. 
 
 “ Our story was in our eyes. 
 
 “ Shame is upon me when I recall my 
 father’s words. I cannot write them down, 
 
 I only know that he, a gentleman, called 
 another gentleman a ‘ cur,’ and threatened 
 to ‘horsewhip him off his land.’ 
 
 “Paul rose quietly, and answered as 
 quietly, that ‘ No man should touch him. 
 But I obey the Lady Diana,’ said he. 
 
 “ ‘ Go, go ! ’ I cried. 
 
 “ He turned white. 
 
 “ No, no, I could not really have him go, 
 and I seized his hand. He bent his head 
 low over my two hands, lifting them and 
 kissing them with a noble reverence. 
 
 “ * The spinney, to-night,’ I whispered. 
 
 “Was this unmaidenly 1 I hope not. 
 
 I knew my father, and could I bear that 
 Paul should go without some softening of 
 that cruel scorn and disdain 1 
 
 “ Two days have gone by — only two 
 days, and I know that I shall never again 
 see the golden Harishal fields, or wander 
 again in the grand Harishal woods. But 
 I am glad — so glad. The rich harvest is 
 blessing the land, and it seems to me that 
 all my growing life is perfected in my 
 great harvest of love. 
 
 “ There is nothing more to say. I have 
 untied the tansy ribbon from my fan ready 
 to roll round my papers. 
 
 “ Last night father cursed me. 
 
 “ To-night I am a prisoner in my room, 
 but I can pass by an inner door into the 
 ante-chamber, and so out on to the passage 
 which leads to the back stairs, then through 
 the still-room and the buttery — it is the 
 only way — to aunt’s parlour and the 
 drawing-room. There I will hide my story, 
 
 and then Then I shall have my dark 
 
 hood on, and a brown muffler about my 
 face, and I shall fly like the wind, down 
 the lime avenue, across the spinney, and 
 on to the open heath; horses will be 
 there, and Paul will be there.” 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 “ The future may cure the past ! ” 
 
 How those slight words of the old story 
 clung to my brain ! 
 
 Mother read it to us ; she cried a little 
 once, at which I wondered, for I was flush- 
 
 ing with my own sympathy for Lady 
 Diana. Whether it was so or not, I felt 
 that now there was more alike in our two 
 selves than old Mrs. Marley had discovered. 
 
 I built a vast edifice of romance about 
 the love of Mr. Dacre and myself. 
 
 Of late I had not seen him at all, so 
 there we were unlike Lady Diana and her 
 signor. Paul, I was sure, would be too 
 proud — I think also I should be too proud 
 myself — to run away. But, you see, neither 
 running away, nor an open marriage, came 
 within my questioning, for Mr. Dacre would 
 not declare himself to my father. 
 
 My lover surely was a most noble 
 man ; he held my promise, but though I 
 saw him during the whole time of the 
 discovery, and the consequent excitement ; 
 though I heard his words about the Lady 
 Diana; though he stood by me as we 
 looked with a new and a sad interest at 
 her two pictures ; though he said in his 
 courteous way, that though he saw the 
 likeness which I bore to the paintings, yet 
 they were as a shadow to the substance ; 
 still — he never claimed my promise. 
 
 It seemed to me that he was waiting for 
 a sign from me. And I could not give it. 
 I was* hot with rebellion and cold with 
 despondency at the same time. 
 
 On the morning after we had read the 
 old story I wandered out beyond the copse 
 to the open heath; I fancied I would 
 tread over again the very path which Lady 
 Diana’s feet had trod that autumn night. 
 
 Again it was the same grand and glorious 
 autumn, young autumn, when the richest 
 wealth of fruit, and corn, and radiant colour 
 is poured on the earth by teeming Nature ; 
 an August sun burned over the purple 
 heather, and caught flashes of golden light 
 from the patches of gorse which are always 
 to be seen all the year round. I had gone 
 there thinking I would dream and see the 
 moonlight and the lovers of that olden 
 time — I could picture nothing at all of it. 
 
 I only thought of myself, and though 
 they could not possibly have any connection 
 with me and my troubles, those words of 
 the story that “ the future might cure the 
 past ” came ringing in my ears. 
 
 When noon made the sun too hot to 
 bear, I sauntered back through the shady 
 copse and lime avenue. 
 
 My father and Sir Gerard Milnes, with 
 another gentleman, Mr. Bright, the lawyer 
 from Warbury, were standing under the 
 great portico talking — and talking gravely. 
 Sir Gerard saw me first. 
 
 He took my hand. 
 

 Charles Dickens.] THE OLD STORY OF HARISHAL CHASE. [June 17, 1884.1 55 
 
 “ Am I to have my reward to-day ? ” he 
 asked in a low voice. 
 
 “ Oh ! ” I exclaimed ; I am sure my 
 manner was not gracious. “ I cannot break 
 my word,” I answered after recollecting 
 myself. “Father must answer for me.” 
 
 “ Milsie, Milsie ! That is what I cannot 
 do,” his face shadowed. 
 
 A flash of my wild humour crossed me. 
 
 “ Who will, then ? ” I cried. “ Will you, 
 Mr. Bright ? I cannot answer for myself 
 — not as people seem to wish, at least.” 
 “Have you heard, child? Why do 
 you refer to Bright ? ” asked my father 
 hurriedly. 
 
 “Simply because he happened to be 
 here.” 
 
 “ The discovery of last night, my young 
 
 friend, entails ” began the lawyer in 
 
 what was, I suppose, his business manner. 
 
 “Entails naught in this matter,” Sir 
 Gerard stopped him. 
 
 “ Nay — nay, let her know.” 
 
 “ Another mystery,” I cried, holding my 
 gayest manner as a sort of mask to my 
 real feelings. 
 
 We do not know. If so, it is one 
 which we must disentangle at once, I hope 
 in such a way as to keep things in their 
 present happy and — yes, Mr. Paynton, I 
 must add — most suitable condition.” 
 
 “We don’t know — we don’t know,” 
 hurried my father. “ Milsie, do you un- 
 derstand how it is that Harishal came to 
 me ? ” 
 
 “Simply because Lord Paynton died 
 without children or grandchildren, or 
 nephews or nieces.” 
 
 “Just so. But, child, I am a des- 
 cendant of that nephew’s son to whom the 
 property fell by the loss or death of that 
 Lady Diana whose story you found.” 
 
 “ Then, as she did not die, and very 
 likely had sons, and grandsons, and all the 
 rest of it, Harishal is not ours, but 
 theirs ! ” 
 
 “You seem glad, child.” 
 
 So I was — so I was ! Ah, if the heiress- 
 ship were to slip from my shoulders ! But 
 I was ashamed almost of my gladness so 
 plainly declaring itself. 
 
 “ I shall hate — yes, hate to leave Hari- 
 shal ! The dear place ! ” 
 
 This impulse of mine was as real as the 
 other. I buried my face in my hands. 
 
 “ I must have it all well searched out, 
 Bright,” said my father, ignoring me. 
 “ Lose no time, and spare no trouble. What 
 was the signor fellow’s name ? ” 
 
 “ At present I do not know. I am 
 
 ignorant of the men who, at that time, 
 were the fashion in the musical world. 
 But we have the date, and the name will 
 be found in a trice. An Englishman, we 
 know. But these musicians, or more truly 
 their families, often drop down in the 
 social scale. I should be sorry to see 
 Harishal go in such a way.” 
 
 So the search began. 
 
 It must have been difficult to trace, for 
 some weeks passed before we knew all. 
 
 Can you imagine the truth ? 
 
 We had no guests for the shooting that 
 September, and time went slowly. Rest- 
 fully and peacefully to me, though, for I 
 had father on my side, and he would not 
 have me marry Sir Gerard Milnes as 
 heiress of Harishal, when probably I was 
 nothing but what he laughingly called “ an 
 old village doctor’s daughter.” 
 
 Sir Gerard submitted, but we all knew it 
 was no heiress he sought, but just a girl to 
 whom he had given his love. 
 
 In the brisk September air I loved to 
 scour the country on my pony. One 
 morning I came in, and throwing the reins 
 to a servant, held up my habit with one 
 hand, and with the other brushed back the 
 wisps of curly hair which, like so much 
 wind-blown tow, were flying over my eyes, 
 and tickling my nose. 
 
 “ Will you go into the library, miss ? ” I 
 was asked. 
 
 I went, and who should be there but — 
 I took no heed of my father or of Sir 
 Gerard, or mother, or Mr. Bright — but, 
 Mr. Dacre ! 
 
 “ Ah ! ” I exclaimed, and my face burned 
 like fire, and then, I am sure, went white 
 like ashes. 
 
 “ This is my daughter ” father began. 
 
 “We are old friends,” was the answer. 
 
 “ Ah yes. You’ve been our guest ; blit, 
 my good sir, can I be expected to remember 
 all the faces who came that night ? Thank 
 goodness, I shall have no more of that !” 
 
 There was a deprecating gesture for 
 answer. 
 
 “ No, no. No sorrow, and no regrets. 
 You are far more the man for it than I am. 
 We’ll come and see you — always supposing 
 you invite us ! ” he ended in his cheery, 
 easy way. 
 
 “ Miss Payn — Miss Millicent,” said the 
 little lawyer, “this is the heir.” 
 
 What I looked like, none can tell. 
 
 “Who shall tell the story of the heir- 
 ship?” he looked to Mr. Dacre. “Will you, 
 or shall I?” 
 
56 [June 17, 1884,] 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ You,” my old friend nodded. 
 
 “ Lady Diana Paynton, or rather, Lady 
 Diana Dacre, had a son. Like her hus- 
 band, he was Paul, and a musician. Wealth 
 grew, and ambition was fostered by the 
 mother. That son had a son, also Paul ; but 
 by his grandmother’s will he was sent to 
 college, and was made a clergyman of. 
 You follow me ? ” 
 
 “ Yes,” I gasped. 
 
 “ That clergyman, the Rev. Paul Dacre, 
 died four years ago, leaving one son and 
 three daughters — here is the son, again a 
 Paul Dacre. I never saw so clear a 
 business ! ” Mr. Bright rubbed his hands 
 in glee. 
 
 “ I remember my great-grandmother, I 
 think,” mused Mr. Dacre ; “ she was far 
 past ninety when she died ; but I clearly 
 remember a tall old lady, who awed me 
 very much, putting her hand upon my 
 head. It is a dim, but I believe a sure 
 memory. I must have been no more than 
 three years old. I am twenty-five now — 
 still I can remember it.” 
 
 They talked together a little longer, 
 those four men. 
 
 Mother thought I was troubled, and 
 slipped her hand within my arm. I was 
 not one whit troubled. 
 
 Then she whispered one little word. 
 
 It was like a flash of lightning to me. 
 It illumined everything — all I had under- 
 stood, and all I had failed to understand. 
 By this last I mean that not for one 
 moment had I felt I was not still, as society 
 would say, “ above how I hate the word ! 
 — Paul Dacre. 
 
 I saw now. He was owner of Harishal, 
 and I was — nothing. I drew myself up, 
 and I slipped away from mother’s touch. 
 Her ambition for me, that tender, loving 
 ambition, stung me ! 
 
 “ I am myself,” I cried. 
 
 My eyes sought no one, but Sir Gerard’s 
 pained face struck me. I could not help a 
 low cry bursting from me, and I threw 
 myself on my knees before him. 
 
 “Forgive me — forgive me ! ” I cried. 
 
 His hand lifted me. 
 
 “ Nay,” said he, “ there is nothing to for- 
 give. We — I — made a mistake. War ton,” 
 he turned to my father, and somehow that 
 giving of the old name seemed to bring back 
 the old times, “ you will forget our talks 
 — our talks about ” 
 
 Mother’s face flushed, and I thought she 
 almost looked angry, but, you see, she 
 could not understand, knowing nothing. 
 
 “ About Milsie 1 ” blundered father. 
 
 Sir Gerard left me, and laid his hand on 
 father’s shoulder. 
 
 “Let us wait, my friend. I am called 
 abroad for a few weeks.” 
 
 I think Paul must have understood the 
 whole matter at a glance. I should have 
 done so had I been in his place. 
 
 He flushed slightly. But in the presence 
 of all he tpld the other secret — his and my 
 secret which we had thought to hide 
 away. 
 
 Sir Gerard did go away, but not for long, 
 because both mother and Paul wrote to 
 him, and asked him to be sure and be at 
 the Chase one morning in October. 
 
 That morning was our wedding-morning. 
 You see, I never left the Chase. Father 
 built a house on the edge of the park, and 
 he says he is happier there. I only half 
 believe him, because every day he comes 
 sauntering in to Paul and me. 
 
 The likenesses of Lady Diana are put in 
 the place of honour now. I wonder whether 
 she knows how “ the future has cured the 
 past”? 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN. 
 
 By F. Talbot. 
 
 Haze and darkness hung about the river- 
 mouth* while a lurid patch of light, where 
 the sun was invisibly setting, brought into 
 sudden prominence the little low-lying spit 
 of land with the tall masts of the ships of 
 war; the old hulks sullen and motionless i 
 the cluster of houses, with the gaunt-looking 
 forts, and the cloud of white steam from 
 the funnels of the great armour-clad 
 Terrible, as she lay slowly forging ahead 
 against the incoming tide. Every pulse in 
 the huge leviathan had begun to throb, the 
 men were at their stations, the engines 
 slowly moving \ but still it seemed as if 
 the great ship were hesitating to plunge 
 into the cold sea mist and the rising surges 
 that were before her. 
 
 A group, composed of women chiefly, 
 with an old boatman or two among them, 
 were gathered at the pier - head, and 
 watched every movement on board the 
 ship with interest, recognising every now 
 and then some familiar form among the 
 group of seamen gathered on the fore- 
 castle. 
 
 “There’s Jack— bless him! Tommy, 
 shake your hand at daddy. He sees us — 
 bless his heart ! ” And Tommy was almost 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 dropped into the water, in his mother’s 
 anxiety that he should be well in evidence 
 before the crew of the Terrible. Why the 
 ship thus dallied over the parting, so 
 painful to m.any both on board and ashore, 
 was quite evident to the onlookers. The 
 captain’s gig still lay by the stairs, bobbing, 
 rolling, and ducking in the unquiet waters, 
 while the smart man-o’-war’s men who 
 manned her, lounged easily on their seats. 
 They, as it happened, all hailed from 
 distant parts, and had no friends or re- 
 lations on shore with whom to exchange 
 last words. All but the coxswain, that is, 
 a dark, handsome young fellow, who was 
 standing under the lee of the round-house 
 on the pier, a little apart from the rest. 
 
 Tom Brettle, the coxswain of the captain’s 
 gig, was as nearly unmanned as such a fine 
 manly fellow could be. He was holding 
 his wife’s two hands in a firm and fervid 
 grasp, as in tones which he tried hard, but 
 not very successfully, to make firm and 
 coherent, he poured into her ears his last 
 parting words. The pair had not been long 
 married, and Tom thought it the hardest 
 thing in the world that he should have to 
 leave his little wife, on whom he looked 
 with an almost reverent affection. Her 
 cleverness, her pretty ways, her organising 
 power, were to him a matter of perpetual 
 wonder and admiration. And now they 
 would not meet again perhaps for years, 
 and who could say what might not happen 
 in the interval 1 As for the wife — who 
 was young and rather good-looking, with 
 features of a sharp vivacious cast — although 
 there were tears in her eyes, and her face 
 was white and wan, yet she retained more 
 composure than her husband. 
 
 “Now you must write to me every week, 
 Tom,” she said, “ and the time won’t seem 
 so long after all, perhaps.” 
 
 “ It feels like for ever, Penny,” groaned 
 Tom. “ My girl, I can’t bear it ! I shall 
 desert at the first port we touch at, and 
 come back to thee.” 
 
 “ Don’t talk nonsense, Tom !” rejoined his 
 wife; “you don’t mean it.” 
 
 In another moment Tom had given his 
 wife a hurried, passionate embrace, and 
 had leaped into his place in the captain’s 
 ig. The captain himself was to be seen 
 urrying towards the pier - head, and 
 presently he took his seat, and the 
 boat rapidly cut through the rough water 
 till she reached the ship, when in a few 
 moments she seemed to become absorbed in 
 the great mass, swinging quietly on her 
 davits, out of the way. Penelope could 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 57 
 
 make out her husband’s figure for a moment 
 as he appeared in the rigging. Then a few 
 wafts of white smoke rolled from the dark 
 sides of the ship, and before the echo of the 
 roar of the great guns had died away in 
 the distance, the Terrible was steaming 
 away on her voyage, and was presently lost 
 to sight in the gathering mists. 
 
 Penelope turned away with a shiver and 
 a sigh, and as the group of spectators melted 
 away, she followed in the wake of them 
 towards the town. Just then the dockyard- 
 bell began to ring, and the dull, quiet 
 street, with its long dead walls, its guard- 
 houses and grog-shops, was all of a sudden 
 occupied by a dark and sombre-looking 
 mass of workmen, who tramped along in a 
 dense unbroken column, that seemed to 
 have no end. There was no escape from 
 this army on the march, for the way, lying 
 over military bridges and between jealously 
 guarded bastions, was single and undivisible, 
 else Penelope, with swollen eyes and white, 
 sad face, would gladly have escaped obser- 
 vation. Presently she was overtaken by 
 a middle-aged workman, who unceremo- 
 niously nudged her elbow. 
 
 “Hallo! what, he’s gone then? Well, 
 you see what comes of marrying a sailor.” 
 
 “ Oh, it’s you, Mr. Ames, is it,” rejoined 
 Penelope, who had turned round sharply at 
 the brusque address. 
 
 But this was Tom’s brother-in-law, the 
 husband of his sister Mary, with whom the 
 young couple had taken up their quarters. 
 And William Ames was an easy-going, good- 
 tempered man, whom Penelope rather 
 liked, although, secretly, she despised him 
 a little for giving way to his wife in 
 everything. Now, between Mrs. Ames and 
 Penelope there was very little love lost. 
 
 In former days, when Tom was a 
 bachelor, in his sailor-like, free-hearted 
 way he had been very generous to his 
 sister and her household. Coming home 
 from foreign service with three or four 
 years’ pay to draw, and finding his sister 
 Mary a good deal behindhand and over- 
 burdened with a lot of young children, 
 Tom had come to the rescue with his 
 spare cash. The youngsters had all been 
 re-clothed in the smartest sailor - suits, 
 whose melancholy remains still clung about 
 the youngest of the family, and the little 
 shop, whose profits were supposed to eke 
 out the wages of the dockyardsman, was 
 put on a more satisfactory footing. 
 
 Tom had no thought of marrying at this 
 time ; “a sailor’s wife should be his ship,” 
 he used to say; besides, as a proud and 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN. 
 
58 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 rather sensitive young fellow, he was not 
 attracted by the young women who are to 
 be found among the resorts of seamen. 
 And then, one day, having taken a letter 
 from his captain to the port-admiral, he 
 had seen Penelope, who was the orphan 
 daughter of an old quartermaster who had 
 long served with Admiral Blake. 
 
 Now, Penelope had been brought up in 
 the Admiral’s family, a friend and com- 
 panion rather than a mere servant, and 
 Tom really thought that she was one of the 
 ladies of the house when he handed her his 
 despatch. But Penelope placed herself on 
 a proper footing with him so prettily and 
 gracefully, and was so kind and pleasant, 
 that Tom fell over head and ears in love at 
 this first interview ; while so handsome 
 and genteel was Tom in his smart dress, 
 and with his dark, expressive eyes, that 
 Penelope could think of nothing else but 
 his good looks till she saw him again. 
 
 Very soon Penelope demurely apprised 
 the Admiral that she was going to be 
 married ; upon which her master flew into 
 a great rage. Of all ungrateful and thank- 
 less hussies he declared Penelope to be the 
 worst. She had grown essential to his 
 comfort, had come to know all his ways, 
 and now, after all the trouble of bringing 
 her up, she would abandon the family 
 to marry a seaman. Lady Blake and the 
 girls were more reasonable, but they were 
 sadly grieved to lose a girl who could 
 make and alter dresses so nicely, and was 
 always useful without being presuming. 
 
 The Admiral did not relent ; he could be 
 generous enough to those immediately 
 about him ; but when it came to deserting 
 the ship, as he termed it, he had no for- 
 giveness for the culprit. In his position 
 he might have helped the young couple by 
 pushing Tom along the thorny road of pro- 
 motion, or have got him some appoint- 
 ment that would keep him ashore. But 
 no ; he took no more notice of Penelope, 
 and meeting her one day, soon after her 
 marriage, he looked sternly over her head 
 and passed on. 
 
 But in spite of all this Penelope had 
 been happy enough, for it was so much to 
 feel that she had somebody to care for her, 
 somebody whose life was wrapped up in 
 hers, for Tom was almost foolish in his 
 adoration of his little wife. And they had 
 a pleasant room all to themselves at Mrs. 
 Ames’s house — an upper room, from which 
 they had a glimpse of the harbour and 
 dockyards, and the broad river with its 
 busy traffic. Tom had told her, in the 
 
 last days they were together, that he 
 should picture her to himself sitting in that 
 little room, and watching for the ships as 
 they rounded the headland, and that one 
 day she would see the Terrible poking her 
 black nose round the corner, and would 
 hurry off to the wharf to welcome him 
 home. But in this matter Tom had 
 reckoned without his sister, for as Penelope 
 and Mr. Ames reached the little house in 
 Trueblue Street — they were all little houses 
 at Chatness, many of them wooden and 
 weatherboarded, but too insignificant to be 
 picturesque; well, behold over the door 
 was a big card, “ Lodgings to let with a 
 full view of the sea.” 
 
 “ Hallo ! ” cried Mr. Ames, “ Mary’s 
 been sharp ! ” And, indeed, on reaching 
 her old room Penelope found all her things 
 cleared away, and the room in that state 
 of rigid discomfort which showed that it 
 was prepared for visitors. And on the 
 stairs was Sister Mary herself, ready to do 
 battle, for it could never be said that she 
 shrank from the combat. There was her 
 least defect. But Penelope did not feel 
 equal to the occasion, but terribly sad 
 and lonely, and only anxious to hide her- 
 self somewhere to give way to her grief. 
 
 “ Yes, Mrs. Brettle,” began the other, 
 “I’ve had your things put in the top room, 
 seeing as I can’t afford to stand out of my 
 lettings any longer for the best room.” 
 
 Now, Tom’s notion had been that, in 
 consideration of the money his sister had 
 received from him at various times, amount- 
 ing to fifty pounds or so, she would keep 
 that room for his wife till other arrange- 
 ments could be made. And when Tom 
 had suggested this to his sister, she had 
 appeared to acquiesce. And now the 
 moment that Tom was out of the way, 
 this was how she treated her guest. For 
 the upstairs room was a miserable garret 
 under the tiles, reached by a step-ladder. 
 However, Penelope gallantly climbed her 
 ladder and hid herself in the little cock- 
 loft, and did not appear any more to 
 human eyes that day. 
 
 But next morning Penelope was able to 
 face the situation. She had felt from the 
 first that her position with the Ames 
 family was quite untenable. It had cheered 
 Tom’s last moments on shore to be per- 
 suaded that his wife’s immediate future 
 was provided for. But with poor, struggling 
 people like the Ames family, it was hardly 
 likely that they would care to keep an 
 unprofitable lodger, even to cancel a long- 
 forgotten debt. And if Tom’s fifty pounds 
 
Charles Dickens.] THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN. [June 17, 1884.] 59 
 
 had ever been put into the business, it 
 certainly was not there now. Indeed, the 
 business seemed to Penelope to be little 
 more than the ghost of one. When there 
 was a customer in the shop, Mrs. Ames 
 would be chasing her children. When 
 these last were unable to go to school by 
 reason of their ragged garments, “ How 
 can I mend their things when there is that 
 shop always to be attended to 1 ” Mrs. Ames 
 would demand in an aggrieved manner. 
 
 And yet to set up for herself on the 
 small monthly pittance that came from her 
 husband’s pay, Penelope felt would be a 
 dangerous experiment. What kind of 
 people would she be thrown amongst in 
 her poverty among the cheap lodging- 
 houses of a seaport town ? Her innate 
 delicacy of mind recoiled from such 
 contact, and yet what better prospect was 
 there before her 1 But, anyhow, the cock- 
 loft with the accompaniment of Sister 
 Mary’s constant reproaches would soon 
 be unendurable. And then what could 
 Penelope do ? 
 
 The day was fine, and to avoid Mrs. 
 Ames’s tongue and the deafening noise and 
 quarrels of the children, Penelope made 
 her way to the beach— there is a seashore 
 at Chatness, a narrow strip between a fort 
 and a sea-wall, where shells are sometimes 
 picked up, that may possibly have been 
 washed ashore from the ocean, or may be 
 simply the shells of periwinkles cast over- 
 board by steamboat excursionists. Any- 
 how, there is the beach, with its half-dozen 
 bathing-machines, its row of benches, and 
 its wooden shanty called the bazaar, which 
 does a fitful trade in buckets and spades for 
 small people. But beyond the little strip 
 of beach, there is a long range of sandy 
 dunes covered with wiry vegetation ; and 
 here the Naval Brigade had set up targets, 
 and the sailors from the ships in port were 
 marched down to practise with carbine or 
 rifle. 
 
 The sound of firing in that direction 
 attracted Penelope’s attention, and she 
 wandered on, hoping to see some of the 
 blue-jackets, with whom she felt as among 
 her own clan. She came upon the firing- 
 party rather suddenly, the men lying 
 down concealed by some low hillocks, and 
 waiting for some adjustment of the targets; 
 while the naval lieutenant in charge re- 
 clined indolently against some sand-bags 
 screened off in a little nook where the 
 targets were visible, but not the men 
 below — while he smoked a cigarette and 
 read a novel. 
 
 But next moment cigarette and novel 
 were thrown aside. 
 
 “ My dear old Penny ! ” cried the young 
 officer, and in the enthusiasm of the moment 
 he put his arm round the young woman’s 
 waist and kissed her. 
 
 “You should not do that, Mr. Paul,” 
 said Penelope with a glance of dignified 
 reproach. “ You are getting beyond such 
 childish things now, you know.” 
 
 But Paul Blake, the Admiral’s son, be 
 it known, and an old playfellow of Pene- 
 lope’s, did not take much notice of her new 
 and dignified manner. 
 
 “ My dear Penny,” he cried, “ the sight 
 of you makes me young again. Come, let 
 me be a child once more.” 
 
 “Ah, Mr. Paul,” rejoined Penelope, 
 turning away from him, “if you knew 
 what trouble I am in, you would not be so 
 unfeeling.” 
 
 Lieutenant Blake, seeing that his old 
 friend was really in trouble, was serious in 
 a moment. What had happened 1 Her 
 husband gone away on active service? Oh, 
 how he envied him ! Here he was losing 
 his time at home because his mother was 
 too nervous to be left alone, for the 
 Admiral had gone away that very day. He 
 had obtained a command in the Mediter- 
 ranean ; but his wife had only permitted 
 him to accept it on condition that Paul 
 should be left her. 
 
 “But, oh,” cried Paul, “if you would go 
 back to her, Penny, I am sure she would 
 not mind being left.” 
 
 “ Oh, I couldn’t,” said Penelope proudly, 
 “ after what the master said, and his 
 never taking the least notice of- me ; and 
 then I am sure he would be dreadfully 
 angry.” 
 
 “ He need never know ! ” cried Paul. 
 “ Oh, come back to-night with me, Pene- 
 lope dear, and you’ll fill poor mother’s 
 heart with joy. You know how ill she 
 has been, delirious at times, and then she 
 would call out for you ; and she was very 
 good to you, Penny.” 
 
 Yes, that was true ; Lady Blake had been 
 very good to her, Penelope acknowledged, 
 and was more than three-parts persuaded 
 to go back. Indeed, before the targets 
 were arranged, and the seamen had begun 
 to fire, she had promised to meet young 
 Blake at the station, and go back with him 
 to her old place. Only she must keep it 
 from Tom, because he would be dreadfully 
 hurt at the thought of his wife going into 
 service again. 
 
 “Well, I am going to leave you, Mary,” 
 
60 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 said Penelope when she got back to Mrs. 
 Ames’s house. “ I can see you don’t want 
 me, and so I’ve made up my mind to earn 
 my own living.” 
 
 Mrs. Ames was a good deal put out at 
 this intimation. Her brother would indeed 
 be angry if he heard that his wife had 
 been driven away from her home. 
 
 “ Well,” she rejoined tentatively, “ you’ll 
 have fine tales to tell Tom about me, I 
 suppose V* 
 
 “Not unless you want me to, Mary,” 
 replied Penelope, who here saw a capital 
 chance of arranging matters as she wished. 
 
 “ I don’t want to bother Tom with our 
 falling out. Why should he know any- 
 thing about it ? ” 
 
 “ Ah, why ! ” said Mrs. Ames, who here 
 saw a course open to her that could not 
 possibly harm her, and might prove to her 
 advantage. “ I’m not such a scribe that I 
 should be writing off to tell him this and 
 the other.” 
 
 And thus it was agreed between the two 
 women that nothing at all should be 
 written to Tom on the subject. But Mrs. 
 Ames was very curious as to Penelope’s 
 future plans, about which Penelope gave 
 her very little enlightenment. But that 
 same afternoon Penelope drove off with all 
 her belongings, and Mrs. Ames dispatched 
 her eldest boy with instructions to keep 
 his eye on Aunt Penelope till the train 
 went off, but without letting her see him. 
 
 “ And, mother,” reported the boy on his 
 return, “she was met by a young swell — 
 an officer he looked like. And he was 
 awfully kind to her ; and he put her into 
 the train, and went off by it himself, only 
 he went first, and she went third.” 
 
 “ I expect that was a blind,” said Mrs. 
 Ames, repeating the story to her husband 
 that night. But she was very well con- 
 tent to be relieved of her unprofitable 
 inmate. 
 
 The Terrible had a boisterous run across 
 the Bay of Biscay, cutting through the 
 cold Atlantic billows, and then after bask- 
 ing in the sunshine for a day or two at 
 Gibraltar, she ran on to Malta, where 
 orders awaited her to join the squadron in 
 Egyptian waters. At Malta Tom found a 
 letter from his wife, not saying much about 
 herself, except that she was well and 
 happy, but with some loving words that 
 sent Tom about his duties with a light 
 heart. But after that he did not get a 
 letter for nearly a month, while the 
 Terrible was still lying at Alexandria, 
 and something low-spirited in the tone of 
 
 the letter made Tom vaguely uneasy. All 
 the voyage out Tom had mooned a good 
 deal, and indulged in more sentiment than 
 you might have expected. In his watches 
 at night, as the moon shone splendidly over 
 the placid Mediterranean, Tom had fancied 
 he could see his little wife sitting at her 
 window and watching the same moonbeams 
 silvering the wide roadstead of Chatness, 
 and thinking of him who was away over 
 the wide sea. And now that there was a 
 certain amount of liberty ashore, Tom 
 hardly cared to take advantage of it. 
 Messmates who had remembered Tom in 
 other days, the laughing, reckless, impetuous 
 seaman, declared that he was bewitched. 
 And so he was — under the spell of a 
 woman, and quite helpless in the matter. 
 But the passion which had hitherto been a 
 source of pure, unmixed delight, now began 
 to torment him. How could he expect 
 that this girl, young, pretty, and so much 
 superior to him, and who had known him 
 but a short time after all — how could he 
 expect her to go on remembering him 
 always, and keeping faithful to the memory 1 ? 
 He had not the art to express all he felt in 
 writing, but he sent his wife a homely, 
 touching letter, begging her not to forget 
 him, or to let her thoughts of him grow 
 cold for want of some visible token of his 
 love. And Penelope’s next letter was 
 written in a more cheerful strain. He was 
 not to think any nonsense about her for- 
 getting him. But as it cost money for 
 postage, he was not to grumble if letters 
 were few and far between. 
 
 Tom tried to believe that everything 
 was as it should be ; and then he had not 
 much time for evil forebodings. All c>f a 
 sudden there had been an access of activity 
 both afloat and ashore ; signals were con- 
 stantly exchanged between the half-dozen 
 men-of-war ; boats went to and fro ; stores 
 were landed and embarked; and of all this 
 work Tom had his full share, and perhaps 
 more. Once or twice he had seen Admiral 
 Blake, who was now on the station, but he 
 did not suppose that the Admiral noticed 
 him ; if he did, he made no sign. 
 
 But after the Terrible had been lying at 
 Alexandria for some months, with only an 
 occasional short cruise to relieve the mono- 
 tony of existence, one of her lieutenants 
 was invalided home, and the vacancy on 
 her books was filled up by the appointment 
 of Lieutenant Paul Blake. Tom did not 
 attach much importance to the event. At 
 one time, indeed, during the period of his 
 courtship of Penelope, Tom had been 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 madly jealous of Paul, on account of his 
 easy, affectionate manner to Tom’s sweet- 
 heart. But all that had passed over; 
 neither Penelope nor he were likely to 
 have anything to do with the Blakes again, 
 and Tom rather avoided the young officer, 
 although the latter took every opportunity 
 of showing a friendly disposition. 
 
 Then Tom’s watch was changed, and he 
 fell into Lieutenant Blake’s, and the very 
 first night they were on duty together, 
 Blake sent for Tom to speak to him on the 
 quarter-deck. Tom followed the messenger 
 rather reluctantly. He thought that Mr. 
 Blake intended to make some enquiries 
 after Penelope, and Tom had received no 
 letter for six weeks now, and was becoming 
 horribly uneasy. But he did not intend 
 to let Mr. Blake see anything of this. 
 He would reply, to any enquiries, that 
 Penelope was all right, and that he had 
 heard from her by the last mail. 
 
 As it happened, however, Lieutenant 
 Blake did not ask any questions. He 
 seemed rather embarrassed, stammered and 
 coloured, for, with the best intentions, 
 Lieutenant Blake was puzzled what to say. 
 He was forbidden to say that Penelope was 
 with his mother, and yet he wanted to 
 encourage Tom, whose gloomy, preoccu- 
 pied looks he- had taken notice of more 
 than once. 
 
 “ Oh, Brettle,” said Blake at last, after 
 an awkward pause, during which Tom 
 stood silent and respectful in manner before 
 his officer. “ Ah, I saw your wife not long 
 before I left home. She was looking very 
 well — prettier than ever, I think — and she 
 sent her love to you.” 
 
 Tom received the information gloomily 
 enough. How should his wife have come 
 to have aught to say to one of the Blakes 1 
 he wondered. But he was not in a posi- 
 tion to cross-examine his officer about the 
 matter. 
 
 “ Is there anything else, sir ? ” he asked 
 coldly enough ; and Blake, who was a 
 generous young fellow, and knew that, as 
 far as he and the majority of sailors were 
 concerned, gloom of countenance generally 
 proceeded from empty pockets, thought he 
 would cheer Tom up a little. 
 
 ‘‘Well, yes, Brettle,” said the lieutenant 
 in reply to Tom’s question, drawing his purse 
 from his pocket ; “ she has sent you a little 
 money, just a trifle — a couple of sovereigns.” 
 
 Tom’s face suddenly lighted up with a 
 glare of rage, but he repressed his emotion 
 with a strong effort. 
 
 “ My wife has sent me money ! ” he 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 61 
 
 repeated slowly, in a constrained voice ; 
 “a trifle of a couple of sovereigns ! 
 Sovereigns are not a trifle to sailors and 
 their honest wives. Why, sir, she keeps me 
 without news of her for weeks, to save a few 
 pence. There must be some mistake.” 
 
 Lieutenant Blake saw that he had made 
 a mistake, but did not mend matters in his 
 efforts to explain that the money was a 
 present Penelope had received, that she 
 wished to share with her husband. Tom 
 firmly refused to touch the money, put his 
 hands behind him when the lieutenant 
 tried to force it upon him, so that the 
 sovereigns fell, and rolled about the deck. 
 
 Lieutenant Blake stamped with indigna- 
 tion, as he called one of the ship’s boys to 
 pick up the money ; and he dismissed Tom 
 with a haughty wave of the hand. 
 
 And yet, with all his jealous fears, Tom 
 had, in his heart, no real suspicion of his 
 wife. It was strange she had never 
 mentioned meeting Lieutenant Blake. If 
 he could only have had a reassuring, 
 explanatory letter ! But none came ; not a 
 pcrap of paper or a line to tell him of 
 Penelope’s welfare. Tom was almost out 
 of his mind with fear and suspense, and 
 even thought of deserting and concealing 
 himself on board some steamer bound for 
 England, that he might satisfy himself as 
 to what had happened to Penelope. 
 
 But at this juncture the Terrible was 
 ordered into the Bed Sea, after embarking 
 a strong force of marines. It was expected 
 there would be fighting, and the whole 
 ship was in a buzz of pleased excitement. 
 Tom felt he could not run away then. 
 When the Terrible had disembarked her 
 marines at Suakim, a certain number of 
 seamen were called for to do duty on shore, 
 and Tom eagerly volunteered to be of 
 the number. But his captain would not 
 let him go. Lieutenant Blake went in 
 charge of the party ; and presently news 
 came to the ship of a big fight in the desert, 
 in which the Arab hordes had been almost 
 destroyed. 
 
 Tom was sadly disappointed to think 
 that the fighting was all over now, and 
 that probably the Terrible would go back 
 to her dull, monotonous duty at Alexandria 
 without a chance of seeing more service. 
 But things turned out differently as it 
 happened. For one day the captain sent 
 for Tom, and told him that he, the captain, 
 had been placed in command of a naval 
 brigade to co-operate with the troops on 
 shore ; and that he wanted to take some of 
 his best men. Tom would go, of course. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN. 
 
62 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 THE CAPTAIN’S COXSWAIN. 
 
 [Conducted l>y 
 
 And it was at his captain’s right hand 
 that Tom marched across the hills towards 
 Osman Digna’s camp. And when the 
 troops halted for the night, Tom shared 
 the captain’s frugal meal of biscuits and 
 preserved meat as they lay sheltered on the 
 ground, while the rattle of distant musketry 
 sounded in their ears. 
 
 As for what might happen on the morrow, 
 Tom felt utterly reckless and careless. It 
 would be a mercy, he thought, if he 
 were knocked on the head, and an end put 
 to all the doubts and troubles that beset 
 him. Blake lay near him, stretched on the 
 same hard couch of Mother Earth ; but 
 the two did not exchange a word. “A 
 sullen brute,” was Blake’s thought of 
 Tom ; while Tom, on his part, was full of 
 dark suspicions of the lieutenant. 
 
 The night wore on without any striking 
 incident, and then at the first blush of 
 dawn the troops were under arms. . There 
 was a strange, overpowering excitement 
 about the march, with horsemen galloping 
 about, and everybody on the look-out for 
 the enemy. As generally happens in such 
 cases, they came at a moment when they 
 were not quite expected. There was a 
 shout from those in front, and then the open 
 ground was covered with a mass of dark 
 forms rushing upon them. It was difficult 
 to tell what happened just then, but in the 
 end Tom found himself in a crush and press 
 of men, something like the crowd that is 
 trying to get into the pit of a theatre 
 only in this case the crowd were digging 
 into each other with spears, bayonets, butt- 
 ends of rifies, cutlasses, or anything that 
 came to hand in the moment. The sailors, 
 however, were forced back by. sheer 
 pressure of numbers. Tom lost sight of 
 his captain, who had been hitting out right 
 and left at the savages with the instinct of 
 a practised bruiser ; and then he found 
 himself lying on the ground, but unhurt, 
 while in front of him were scattered 
 groups, struggling and falling. On the 
 ground, near one of the Gatling guns 
 which the sailors had been driven from, 
 lay a naval officer, apparently wounded and 
 insensible, while a couple of Arabs., with 
 their murderous spears, were, making in 
 his direction with the evident intention of 
 putting an end to him. Tom sprang, to 
 his feet and rushed at the Arabs,, dealing 
 one of them a blow with his carbine that 
 brought him to the ground. Next moment, 
 Tom saw his captain by his side, who dealt 
 the other savage a tremendous left-hander 
 that stretched him senseless beside his 
 
 companion. And then Tom saw that the 
 wounded officer was Lieutenant Blake. 
 
 “ Catch hold of the other end of him,” 
 cried the captain, “ and we’ll run him into 
 the square.” 
 
 And Tom grasped the lieutenant by the 
 upper part of his uniform, when a letter 
 tumbled out of his pocket. 
 
 In all the turmoil and confusion of the 
 time, the sight of that letter seemed to 
 burn itself into Tom’s brain, for there was 
 Penelope’s handwriting plainly to be read 
 on the address, “Lieutenant Paul Blake, 
 R.N.” — that handwriting for a sight of 
 which he had been hungering for so long. 
 
 “ Look out, Tom ! ” cried the captain, 
 seeing a rush of savages coming in their 
 direction. 
 
 Tom let go the lieutenant’s head and 
 turned upon the foe. 
 
 “ Come on, you beggars ! ” he cried, will- 
 ing to die rather than live under such torture. 
 
 And next moment he was rolling on the 
 ground, transfixed by a spear. 
 
 Tom was not killed, after all, but had a 
 -narrow shave for it. But although he did 
 not die, neither did he get well. Fever 
 came en, and the wound refused to heal. 
 Tom had npt strength to rally, and the 
 doctors, to give him a chance, ordered him 
 home, thinking the voyage would either 
 kill or cure him. But it did neither. 
 Tom was landed at Chatness and carried 
 on a stretcher to the hospital, more dead 
 than alive. None of his friends knew of 
 his coming, so there was nobody to visit 
 him. But before long it was found that 
 Tom was a Chatness man, and a note was 
 sent to Mrs. Ames, who lost no time in 
 coming to see her brother. 
 
 All through that troubled time of pain 
 and delirium, one tormenting trouble, 
 which he could not define or bring to any 
 form or shape, weighed upon him like an 
 ugly nightmare. Tom had talked and 
 raved incessantly about Penelope, some- 
 times adjuring her in the most loving 
 terms, at others full of menace and re- 
 proach. But in his lucid moments he was 
 altogether silent and morose, trying, to fit 
 things together in his fevered brain, and 
 make out what was really the trouble that 
 overwhelmed him. 
 
 But when Tom saw his sister sitting by 
 his bedside he had the clue ; everything 
 came back to him in a moment. 
 
 “ Where is she ? ” he cried, struggling to 
 sit up. Mrs. Ames shook her head in a 
 most dolorous manner. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 fa 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION. [June 17, mm.] 63 
 
 “ I really don’t know nothing about her, 
 Tom,” was Mrs. Ames’s raven-like strain. 
 “ The moment you was out of port she left 
 me, and where she’s been since I don’t 
 wish to know. She never came near me, 
 not except once a month when she came 
 to draw your pay. Then she’d look in as 
 bold as brass — * Just come over for Tom’s 
 money,’ she’d say. ‘ Oh, are you 1 ’ said I, 
 just like that. I never said more than 
 that — it wasn’t my place, you know.” 
 
 Tom groaned a sad, hopeless sigh. 
 
 “ Well, it’s all over with me, Mary. I 
 sha’n’t get over this.” 
 
 Mrs. Ames sighed dolefully. She could 
 not gainsay him. Tom looked so worn 
 and grey, that she felt sure his last hour 
 had come. 
 
 “You’ll tell her,” faltered Tom; “tell 
 her I loved her to the last, and wouldn’t 
 have lived any longer if I could.” 
 
 “ Oh yes, I’ll tell her,” said Mrs. Ames. 
 “ But your bits of things, Tom — your kit, 
 and all that, and what bit of money there 
 might be due. You wouldn’t like her to 
 have that, dear 1 ” 
 
 “Oh yes, I should,” rejoined Tom; 
 “ she has had all of me — body and soul — 
 and she may have that as well.” 
 
 After that Tom fell into a deep sleep, 
 and his sister stole gently away. She 
 thought there would be ho harm in having 
 a little paper drawn up for him to sign, 
 for he wouldn’t in his calm senses think of 
 leaving what he had to that woman. 
 
 When Tom woke again, he felt some- 
 how revived and refreshed ; his pillow was 
 smooth and comfortable ; there was a soft 
 perfume of delicate flowers, and a cool, 
 soft hand parted the locks on his forehead. 
 Tom opened his eyes in a gentle delirium 
 of delight. There sat Penelope by his 
 side, looking brighter and prettier than 
 ever, and with a look of love and pity on 
 her face that seemed to Tom quite angelic.. 
 
 Tom feebly opened his arms. 
 
 “ One word,” said Penelope, laying her 
 face against his ; “I have heard what your 
 sister Mary has said of me. Do you 
 believe it 1 ” 
 
 “ No, ” cried Tom fervently. “ By 
 Heaven, I don’t ! ” 
 
 After that embrace, Tom’s face clouded 
 again. 
 
 “ But you might have written to me, 
 Penny,” he whispered ; “never a Hne nor 
 a word.” 
 
 “I did write to you, Tom,” said Pene- 
 lope, “ two long letters, telling you all I 
 was doing, for I would not keep you in the 
 
 dark any longer. But I sent them under 
 cover to Lieutenant Blake to save postage.” 
 Tom muttered something disrespectful 
 about postage. Penelope laughed. 
 
 “ Dear Tom,” she said demurely, “ you 
 are getting quite your old self again.” 
 
 “ I shall never be that, Penny,” said 
 Tom. “No, Penny, I feel I am going to 
 die, and I am glad of it. Yes, for I should 
 never be fit for service again, and I should 
 only drag you down into poverty. N o, don’t 
 pray for me to get better, Penny ; pray 
 that I may die now, happy in your arms.” 
 “ Nonsense, Tom ! ” cried Penelope ; 
 “ you’re not going to die. The doctor told 
 me just now that he was sure it was some 
 trouble on your mind that was keeping you 
 back; and now you have got me, Tom, 
 you will be all right. And look here, even 
 if you are not fit for service, we shall not 
 starve. You say I’m stingy, Tom, about 
 postages, and so on, but for whose sake is 
 it, I should like to know. Now here’s a 
 little book, Tom, I’ve kept since you have 
 been away. Every month, you see, here’s a 
 month’s wages that I got from Lady Blake, 
 and every month, too, your month’s pay. 
 And the two together, and with interest, 
 what do they come to i — a little over fifty 
 pounds, you see, and we can have our own 
 little home, Tom.” 
 
 Tom actually sat up in bed and shouted, 
 “ I shall get better now.” 
 
 But here the hospital-orderly interfered, 
 and bade Tom lie still, or he would fetch the 
 assistant-surgeon to him. 
 
 However, there is no doubt that Tom did 
 get better — in fact, recovered so completely 
 that he was able to remain in the service, 
 gaining promotion for his gallantry, and the 
 rank of a warrant-officer. And Penelope 
 has her pretty little cottage in the environs 
 of Chatness, and lets lodgings in the summer- 
 time to visitors; and anyone would be 
 lucky who chanced to take up his quarters 
 with her and her husband, even though the 
 shore at Chatness is not unlimited, and the 
 sandy dunes not particularly inviting. 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION. 
 
 By Mary Seymour. 
 
 i. 
 
 It is probable that few sufferers from an 
 accident could give any clear idea as to the 
 exact nature of the misfortune which befell 
 them. Certainly, Gilbert Drayton, when 
 he was knocked down and run over in the 
 
64 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 neighbourhood of the London Docks, was 
 unconscious of anything hut a sudden 
 shock, which roused him from his reverie, 
 and then robbed him of all power of 
 thought before he had time to wonder as 
 to its cause. 
 
 The driver of the van, who clambered 
 off his perch with dismay and anxiety in 
 his face, was quite unable to guess how 
 the collision came about. Of one point 
 only was he certain — he had not been 
 asleep, a statement which the police 
 received with an incredulity they did not 
 consider it necessary to conceal. But 
 
 protestations, explanations, and con- 
 
 temptuous silence were alike unheeded by 
 the victim, around whose motionless form 
 a crowd soon gathered. 
 
 A dim sensation of blue overhead and 
 around him slowly crept in upon Gilbert's 
 consciousness. He was swimming in the 
 sea, which had closed over his head, and 
 shut him iu at a great depth. As he 
 struggled to the surface, he gradually 
 became aware that the blue of the ocean 
 was broken here and there by patches of 
 white, at which he gazed dreamily, until a 
 sudden sharp pang aroused him to a full 
 consciousness that he was looking at the 
 blue-checked curtains and canopy of a 
 bed. 
 
 “ There ! that is all right ! ” he heard ; 
 and before he could protest alike against 
 the sentiment and the tone in which it was 
 uttered, he became unconscious again, and 
 nurse and surgeon were uninterrupted in 
 their work and their sense of satisfac- 
 
 As soon as Mr. Drayton recovered him- 
 self sufficiently to consider his position, 
 two dominant ideas kept recurring to his 
 mind, the first being that he had shown 
 considerable folly in leaving the safe end of 
 town merely to see off a friend who was 
 sailing for Australia. The second thought, 
 which was a more satisfactory one, and had 
 even a flavour of self-congratulation about 
 it, was that if he was fated to be laid up 
 in an East End hospital, he could not have 
 chosen a more convenient time than the 
 Easter vacation, when everyone was out of 
 London. _ „ _ , , 
 
 “Thank you, I want nobody, he had 
 replied to the surgeon’s offer of sending 
 for a friend. “ I have plenty to see and to 
 interest me here. In fact, instead of 
 apologising for having no private room you 
 can offer me, you ought to congratulate me 
 on the fact.” 
 
 As may be imagined, it was some time 
 
 before the patient was able to make so long 
 and so rational a speech. There were 
 weary hours of pain when he lay in a half- 
 stupor, and even more suffering nights 
 when he moved his head half deliriously to 
 and fro, intent on finding the square root 
 of eighty-three, or constructing an island 
 in the Mediterranean out of three unequal- 
 sized pieces of stick. 
 
 He could never tell at what point of his 
 recovery, whether in real delirium or in a 
 broken dream, that he first began to asso- 
 ciate ease from pain, and a pervading sense 
 of happiness with the presence of the sister 
 in charge of the ward. 
 
 At first he attributed his longing for her 
 to a desire for a drink of water or a re- 
 arrangement of his pillows \ but as the 
 fever left him and he could think clearly, 
 he constructed a fanciful theory that she 
 exercised a subtle mesmeric influence over 
 him, and he used to long for her coming in 
 order to test the existence of the power he 
 suspected. _ • 
 
 She was by no means the ideal nurse of 
 fiction— a pale, fragile girl, with large dark 
 eyes and delicate, wasted hands on the 
 contrary, Sister Mansell was a tall, well- 
 grown-woman of thirty, with a pair of rosy 
 cheeks, which reminded her patients of the 
 pleasant country, and a smile which made 
 sick men and women feel as if life were 
 something worth struggling for, after all. 
 The grey gown fitted her badly, Gilbert 
 soon noticed, and her cap was hideously 
 ugly. He thought it all the uglier because 
 it hid a quantity of brown hair, which was 
 plaited closely away, as if its owner’s only 
 care was to put it out of sight. Plentiful 
 as it was, Gilbert once saw two grey hairs 
 on one side of the narrow parting as she 
 bent down to pick up something he had 
 dropped, and he took a malicious pleasure 
 in noticing them and looking for them 
 again. After all, she had not the 
 secret of perpetual youth amidst the 
 suffering and anguish around her. His 
 mind revolted from the idea of such un- 
 fairness, and he consoled himself by think- 
 ing that she, too, would grow old, and that ; 
 they two — he and she — would be equals 
 some day. She was only five years his 
 junior now, but he knew in his heart, as 
 he watched her passing to and fro with her 
 quick step and bright eyes, that no lapse 
 of years could ever bring them to a level. 
 
 It was a pleasure to see her move, and every 
 day as he watched her he became con- 
 vinced more firmly than before that there 
 were deeper truths in mesmerism than he 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 had ever believed possible, for he was 
 restless and miserable until she came, 
 whilst her presence gave him calm and 
 contentment. 
 
 But after a time he found the magic 
 fail, for as he improved in health, and every 
 day brought fresh cases, and too often 
 serious ones, into the ward, the sister 
 lingered longer and oftener by other beds 
 than by his ; and as he waited with all a 
 sick man’s impatience for her coming, he 
 became more critical than before as to the 
 fit of her dress and the set of her cap, 
 although all the old sense of healing re- 
 turned for a time when she stood by his 
 side, and he could surreptitiously take hold 
 of a fold of her grey gown. 
 
 There were about thirty beds in the 
 ward — Gilbert counted them once, and 
 then calculated to an exact fraction the 
 portion of Sister Mansell’s time that fell 
 to his share. Like a usurer exacting his 
 dues, he watched the minutes she gave 
 him, and raged inwardly when she 
 deprived him of his just amount. At 
 last — it must be remembered that he 
 was still very ill — he hit upon a 
 happy expedient for detaining her; he 
 obstinately refused to allow her to carry 
 out the surgeon’s directions. She looked 
 at him a little anxiously to see whether he 
 were feverish, laid her hand an instant on 
 his pulse, and then finding the result of 
 her investigations satisfactory, began to 
 coax him to be good. But he would not 
 be persuaded, possibly he could not be, 
 for it is strange how soon in illness a 
 scheme of action begun voluntarily passes 
 beyond control; and, perceiving that he had 
 reached this stage, she left him to attend 
 to her other patients. 
 
 It only needed a few minutes of silence 
 and want of opposition to convince him 
 of the nature of his conduct, and when 
 the sister returned, he not only submitted 
 to her wishes, but apologised for the 
 trouble he had caused her. 
 
 “ Oh, it did not matter,” she made reply ; 
 “only it seems a pity to waste any time.” 
 
 Waste any time ! He had not delayed 
 her five minutes. Why, he knew dozens 
 of men, and of women too, to whom minutes 
 and hours were too often burdens which 
 seemed intolerable. She had not in- 
 tended to do more than utter the barest 
 truism by her statement, but no sermon 
 ever sunk into Gilbert’s heart as did those 
 simple words. What had he done with his 
 time — with six-and-thirty years of life? 
 That question recurred to him over 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 65 
 
 and over again as he lay silent and 
 motionless during the long hours of conva- 
 lescence. That absence of active wrong- 
 doing, which constitutes the sole claim to 
 a merciful judgment of some lives, seems 
 to lose its potency when brought into con- 
 tact with the active principle of good which 
 animates others. 
 
 “ I am afraid you must find these Sun- 
 day afternoons very tiresome,” said Sister 
 Mansell, coming up to him as she saw the 
 puzzled, anxious look upon his face. He 
 was only revolving the question of the 
 difference between his life and hers, but she 
 thought he was in pain. 
 
 He smiled for answer, hoping to detain 
 her a little longer ; he knew that she could 
 only stay a minute, for the ward was full 
 of the patients’ friends, and the nurse in 
 charge had to answer innumerable en- 
 quiries, to say nothing of keeping a careful 
 watch upon the visitors, who, in a spirit of 
 cruel kindness, would smuggle in all kinds 
 of forbidden luxuries. 
 
 “ No, indeed,” he answered at last ; “ I 
 have so much to see and to hear ; perhaps 
 the room is a little close, but there is a 
 great deal of reality here.” . 
 
 She hardly understood him, for life had 
 never been anything but real to her, but 
 she was glad that he was contented. The 
 situation did not seem a very happy one. 
 On his left a woman was relating volubly 
 to a convalescent how her youngest son 
 had made her flesh creep by falling into the 
 water-butt, whilst on his right a young 
 wife was sitting as silent and almost as 
 motionless as the figure on the bed which 
 she was watching with eyes full of her 
 unspoken anguish. 
 
 “ Can one do anything to help ? ” asked 
 Gilbert suddenly, remembering with a 
 pang of remorse how often he had grudged 
 the hours which Sister Mansell had given 
 to his neighbour. 
 
 “Do you mean by giving money? Oh 
 no,” was the answer ; “ but I cannot 
 help hoping still.” 
 
 She left him and went up to the silent 
 watcher. Gilbert could not hear what she 
 said; but he could see the look on her face, 
 which, reflected back from the other, 
 seemed to brighten it like a ray of sunshine. 
 It was as if Hope itself, in a grey gown and 
 a large apron, had descended into the ward. 
 
 “ She’s a right good sort,” said one of the 
 convalescent patients, when, the visitors 
 being gone, he hobbled to the side of 
 Gilbert’s bed ; “ and she’s got pluck enough 
 for anything. Why, there was a poor 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION. 
 
— .sp 
 
 66 [June 17, 1884.] AN EASTER VACATION. [Conducted by j 
 
 crittur, mad from drink, got away from the ] 
 nurse and p’liceman who was watching : 
 him upstairs — it must ha’ been just before ] 
 you come in — and he come screaming 
 through the ward with a poker in his hand ; 
 it was two o’clock in the morning, and the 
 night-nurse, she give one shriek and was 
 off before you could say Jack Robinson, 
 but the sister, she was in the ward just as 
 soon, and she walked up to him as he stood 
 in yonder corner a-muttering and a-cussing 
 awful. She walked right up to him, spoke 
 to him very gentle-like, and took the poker 
 out of ’is ’and, and when the p’liceman 
 came in, the poor crittur was as quiet as a 
 lamb. I can tell you the bobby looked 
 small.” 
 
 The narrator laughed as he remembered 
 the discomfiture of the policeman ; possibly 
 he had his own reasons for viewing the 
 individual and the race with distrust. But 
 Gilbert was not thinking of the speaker; 
 everything he heard and saw of the sister 
 made him wonder more and more whether 
 she was an ordinary specimen of a class 
 which he had never before met, or whether 
 she was as distinct from all other members 
 of her profession as she was from every 
 woman he had ever known. 
 
 It was a perfect day of May, the sun was 
 as warm and bright as if it were July, only 
 out in the fields and on the river-reaches 
 the trees and bushes werefull of that sweet 
 promise which July forgets, or only fulfils 
 in part. In East London, only the heat of 
 the sun and the chill of the wind mark the 
 changes of the season, and St. Nicholas is 
 not lucky enough to be a fashionable 
 hospital patronised by royalty, and gay 
 throughout the year with gifts of flowers. 
 
 “ It is a lovely day, is it not? ” said the 
 sister as she paused by Gilbert for a few 
 moments ; he was nearly well, and did not 
 need her for longer now. “ It makes one 
 think how lovely the wild hyacinths must 
 be in the country.” 
 
 It was the first semblance of a personal 
 feeling she had ever expressed, and even in 
 that she did not utter a wish. Gilbert 
 thought with a pang how much joy those 
 flowers, which were blooming round his 
 country home, might bring to lives barren 
 of colour and sweetness, and as soon as he 
 was allowed paper and ink, he wrote home 
 directions which were to be immediately 
 carried out. When the basket arrived, he 
 would not unpack it himself, but waiting 
 for a spare moment of the sister’s time, 
 told her the contents were for her. He 
 emphasised the pronoun, but he might 
 
 have spared himself the trouble, for she 
 made them all — hyacinths, wood anemones, 
 late primroses, golden cowslips — common 
 property at once. The whole ward was 
 bright and sweet with the woodland spoils, 
 and everyone had a little special nosegay 
 to admire — everyone except the sister. 
 
 “ You have got none for yourself,” 
 said Gilbert with the privileged petulance 
 of a sick man. “I want you to have 
 one.” 
 
 She gratified his whim, and fastened a 
 bunch of flowers in her buttonhole, but 
 next time he saw her they were gone. One 
 of the servants had admired the nosegay, 
 and the wearer had given it away at once. 
 There are natures like that, which cannot 
 have or know any sweet or precious thing 
 without giving it away, careless of what 
 they themselves may lose. 
 
 The last day of Gilbert’s stay came : 
 most people about him had wondered at 
 the patience with which he had borne his 
 detention, but he felt himself that the time 
 had been all too short for him to learn 
 half the lessons which might have made 
 him a different man. 
 
 “ And to-morrow you will be at the sea,” 
 said tlie sister, smiling kindly at him as he 
 murmured some broken words of thanks. 
 
 “ Oh,” with a great sigh, “ how I wish they 
 were all going ! ” 
 
 It was the only wish he had ever heard 
 her express. ? 
 
 Two days later the secretary of St. 
 Nicholas received a large donation to the 
 funds of the hospital, and a cheque, the 
 proceeds of which were to be employed 
 in sending the inmates of the Mansell 
 Ward to the seaside. 
 
 So the two lives met, touched, and 
 parted. 
 
 ii. 
 
 August was nearly over — an August 
 which had been the hottest month of a 
 hot summer. London was intolerable, so 
 all the world agreed t but Gilbert was 
 surprised to see how many people were 
 not only enduring but enjoying London. 
 The sun had already set, and in the 
 twilight men and women were lounging in 
 their doorways, or chatting in the streets, 
 whilst energetic children were dancing to 
 the strains of a barrel-organ. There was a 
 i faint, half-baked odour from the walls of 
 ; the houses, varied not agreeably by the 
 , smell of fried fish. Two small urchins 
 s were revelling in the delights of watching 
 ; a woman cutting ham at a cook-shop, but 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION. 
 
 they were soon aroused by Gilbert’s 
 enquiry for St. Nicholas. 
 
 “ I can show it yer,” cried the smallest. 
 “ You mean the orspital 1 I’ve seen ladies 
 holding little kids in red shirts at the 
 winder.” 
 
 He proved a faithful guide, and led 
 Gilbert to the iron gates, where a stern 
 porter enquired his business as closely as if 
 the wards of St. Nicholas were a second 
 Paradise, from which Mr. Drayton had 
 been expelled, and to which he desired 
 re-admittance. 
 
 Whilst he was speaking a female figure 
 glided in at the gate. In the dim twilight, 
 with her long cloak and dark veil, the 
 sister looked almost ghost-like, but her 
 voice was as cheerful as of yore : 
 
 “ Mr. Drayton, have you come back to 
 see us 1 That is good of you. Come in 
 with me now.” 
 
 He did not answer, for he could not 
 speak. Quite suddenly, at the sound of 
 her voice and the touch of her hand, all his 
 mysterious longing to get back to London, 
 the irresistible influence which had led 
 him on the evening of his arrival to the 
 East End and to St. Nicholas, were clear to 
 him. He followed her with a dim sense 
 of rebellion against the injustice which 
 during three months — months when he 
 had been wearying for her presence and 
 thinking of her hourly — had made her 
 work on unconscious of his feelings, forget- 
 ful of his very existence. 
 
 She led him through the long corridor 
 and into her little room beside the ward. 
 Then, when she had lighted a candle, she 
 turned and looked at him for the first time. 
 Her quick survey told her all she needed 
 to know : he was well, walked and moved 
 freely, and looked happy and contented. 
 
 “ That is good,” she said, unconscious of 
 his rebellion against the calmness of her 
 look and words. “ It is a great comfort to 
 see you are really well again. Now sit 
 down and tell me what you are doing.” 
 
 He obeyed her and spoke easily of those 
 superficial subjects which a man of the 
 world can always discuss without putting 
 strain on brain or heart, and while he 
 spoke he looked at her with enquiring 
 eyes, wondering whether or not his mind, 
 now that he was strong and healthy again, 
 could criticise her appearance coolly. 
 
 She was not beautiful — he resented the 
 fact hotly, or rather he resented the world’s 
 probable statement of the fact — but surely 
 never before had any face mirrored a soul 
 so perfect and so serene. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 67 
 
 “ You are not changed,” he said abruptly 
 in the midst of an account he was giving 
 of his adventures in Scotland, " and yeti 
 suppose you have been working as hard 
 as ever.” 
 
 “ Oh yes,” she answered, smiling, quite 
 unconscious of the stab she gave him by 
 her speech; “my life has been just the 
 same since you left as it was when you 
 were here ; there has been no change.” 
 “And my next-door neighbour,” he 
 asked, speaking eagerly to cover his dis- 
 appointment, “is he recovered now ? ” 
 
 “ Ford 1 Oh, I am very glad you remem- 
 ber him. I wish you would see him ; he is 
 quite wonderful. Mr. Mackenzie is very 
 proud of him, and his case has been in all 
 the papers. We hope to send him to the 
 seaside in a month. Oh, by the way,” 
 with a sudden light which made her eyes 
 beautiful, “ they never told me, but I 
 could not help guessing that we owe the 
 Mansell convalescent fund to you. We 
 do, don’t we 1 Ah, I thought so ! I wish 
 I could tell you how grateful we are.” 
 
 He would have told her if he dared that 
 every possession he had was hers, and that 
 they were dear to him only because he 
 could so lay them at her feet ; but such 
 words do not come lightly to the lips of a 
 man nearly forty years of age. Besides, if 
 he were to speak them, What could such 
 speech do but startle and pain one whose 
 life was complete without him, and had 
 need neither of his help nor his love 1 
 “ Are you going ? ” she said, as he arose 
 after a little further talk ; “ then I will 
 show you the way to the station. I have 
 to leave a parcel at the post-office — I 
 forgot to take it with me when I went out, 
 and that brought me back quickly. I am 
 glad I came, or I should have missed you.” 
 They walked side by side down the 
 Whitechapel Road, which not even the 
 imagination of a lover could convert into a 
 paradise. Flaring gas-lamps shining on 
 groups of shabby, tired men and women, 
 busy about their Saturday night’s market- 
 ing, cannot compare with the moonlight 
 sleeping on a bank of violets ; and yet by 
 the alchemy of a true love, Gilbert 
 managed to convert these surroundings 
 into fresh reasons for devotion. Empty, 
 barren, miserable, were many of these lives, 
 but how much harder would the burden 
 have been to some but for the woman at 
 his side ! 
 
 “ May I come back and see you again 1 ” 
 “ Indeed, I shall be very glad. Few of 
 our patients come back twice to see us — 
 
 r 
 
68 [June 17, 1884.] AN EASTER VACATION. [Conducted by 
 
 some, of course, do — but most, after one 
 visit, never return.” 
 
 “ I am sorry to be one of so ungrateful a 
 class.” 
 
 “ Oh,” she made answer hurriedly, “ you 
 must not say that. I cannot bear to hear 
 that word. I have never found such a 
 thing as ingratitude, but I have often, very 
 often, been oppressed by a thankfulness I 
 had done nothing to deserve.” 
 
 Her voice dropped a little; certain tender 
 memories filled her eyes with happy tears ; 
 and then she went on in her usual voice : 
 
 “ Besides, you must remember that life 
 is very busy for most of our patients, and 
 old suffering and old memories get pushed 
 on one side by the pressing needs of every 
 day, and it is just as well. A fresh gene- 
 ration of sick people is always entering our 
 walls — imagine what a crowd we should 
 have if, added to these, we had all our old 
 patients coming to see us ! ” 
 
 “ Does that mean that I must not come 1 ” 
 he asked, half smiling — but only half, for 
 his heart was profoundly sad. 
 
 “Nothing of the kind; you are more 
 than a patient. I can never forget,” for 
 one moment her voice thrilled him with a 
 wild sense of joy, as he imagined which of 
 the many happy hours, sacred to him, she 
 would recall; “I can never forget how 
 much some of them owe to you.” 
 
 If his castle fell with a sudden crash, it 
 did not bury his dearest hopes in the ruins ; 
 he had never fancied that she loved him, 
 but had only rejoiced in loving her — for long 
 unconsciously. 
 
 “ Oh yes, you must come back soon ; 
 there are very many who will be glad to 
 see you, for you are an object of interest 
 even to those who did not know you. The 
 history of your accident and stay with us 
 has become a tradition.” 
 
 “I shall come back again,” he said, 
 trying to speak lightly, “ if only to show 
 you that some of your patients can never 
 forget you. Are you going into this post- 
 office 1 May I wait and see you home after- 
 wards 1 It is very nearly dark.” 
 
 She shook her head and laughed. 
 
 “If it were quite dark there would be 
 no occasion for you to take the trouble. 
 People about here are very good-natured. 
 Why, last winter, the cabman driving me 
 home late one foggy night lost his way ; I 
 am afraid he was not quite sober, so as I 
 was a little nervous, I put my head out of 
 window, and asked a man standing near if 
 he knew the way to St. Nicholas. Do you 
 know that the man led the cab-horse all 
 
 the way to the hospital-gates, and never 
 waited even to be thanked h His little 
 girl had been in the children’s ward, he 
 told me, and that was the reason why he 
 saw me safe home. You must not — indeed, 
 you must not think that my patients are 
 ungrateful. I suppose here, as in all parts 
 of the world, one might find some few who 
 remembered only the unkindnesses and 
 forgot the acts of kindness shown them; 
 but here, as elsewhere, it would be the 
 few and not the many who did so.” 
 
 She paused a little, surprised at her own 
 eloquence ; the words had hurried to her 
 lips almost in her own despite, and when 
 she spoke again it was in a different tone 
 and with an altered manner : 
 
 “There, I must leave you. Thank you 
 for coming back to see us. I do not know 
 anything pleasanter than to see those who 
 have been ill and helpless, walking about 
 easily, erect, and happy.” 
 
 Gilbert did rot protest that a man may 
 be nearer happiness when he is a crippled, 
 bedridden invalid, than when he stands 
 strong and upright, but alone. 
 
 He only bade her good-bye, for although 
 he was learning to understand her language, 
 he knew that she had no key by which to 
 interpret his. 
 
 ill. 
 
 As may be guessed, Gilbert did not stay 
 long in London after his pilgrimage to the 
 East, and he hurried away upon a round 
 of visits, and found each house more weari- 
 some than the last, each circle of acquaint- 
 ances more disappointingly shallow. 
 
 “You look bored, Mr. Drayton,” said an 
 old friend to him one evening, “and it is 
 not polite of you to show your feelings so 
 plainly.” 
 
 “I am trying to cultivate a rustic 
 savagery. I feel as if a little honest dis- 
 play of some real feeling, no matter what, 
 would do everyone here good.” 
 
 “ Suppose you choose some other feeling 
 for display then,” she answered quickly. 
 “Love, hate, anger, and jealousy are each 
 and all more interesting than ennui.” 
 “Each of these feelings is already appro- 
 priated by some actor who mimics the 
 reality more or less closely. What I 
 want to reach is not the imitation of 
 feeling, but the reality.” 
 
 “ And by what right,” she said, closing 
 her fan, and looking at him with a pair of 
 intent, dark eyes, “ do you conclude that 
 all feeling is absent from people, who, for a 
 few hours every day, agree to avoid dis- 
 

 
 Charles Dickens.] AN EASTER VACATION. [June 17, 1884.] 69 
 
 plays of emotion? I am afraid you are a 
 shallow observer, after all, Mr. Drayton, if 
 you do not understand the depths of 
 suffering and joy concealed under a calm 
 or even a frivolous exterior.” 
 
 “ I dare say you are right,” he replied 
 with unwonted meekness. “But I was 
 thinking of a life — of lives where there are 
 no concealments and no pretences.” 
 
 He could not rest until he was back 
 again in that purer air, and one day 
 in November found him again at the hos- 
 pital-gate demanding admission. This time 
 no silent, veiled figure glided through the 
 twilight to his side ; on the contrary, he 
 had to make his way alone through the 
 gas-lit passages, and up stone steps to 
 the ward. When he came to the door he 
 paused, his heart beating fast as it had not 
 done for years ; and he smiled at his own 
 excitement as those past youth are apt to 
 do whilst they watch and analyse their 
 own feelings. He did not wait long before 
 opening the door, and then he stood 
 watching the familiar beds, the long tables 
 decorated with a large bunch of chry- 
 santhemums — his gardener had orders to 
 keep the ward supplied with flowers — and 
 the staff of nurses moving quietly about 
 their work. There was no need for him 
 to look closely, he knew by instinct, or by 
 observation so quick as to seem intuition, 
 that the sister was not one of them, but 
 before he could turn to the door of the 
 sister’s room, a sudden, sharp voice startled 
 him. 
 
 “ What are you doing here ? ” exclaimed 
 a short, bustling little woman in a sister’s 
 dress, who had bounded out of her room 
 and asked her question without giving 
 Gilbert time to become aware of her entry. 
 “ You have no business here, and must 
 go away again.” 
 
 “ I beg your pardon, but I came here 
 to see Sister Mansell.” 
 
 “I aui Sister Mansell,” said the lady 
 severely, with her heart, however, softened 
 by Gilbert’s manner and courteous tones, 
 “and I don’t know you.” 
 
 Gilbert’s sense of the ridiculous pre- 
 vented him from expressing the most con- 
 ventional regret at the loss he had sustained 
 from the fact, and he limited himself to 
 explaining the reason of his coming, and 
 the object of his search. Even whilst he 
 spoke he realised with a sudden heart- 
 sickness how much might happen in three 
 months, and how even perfect health 
 might not protect its possessor against the 
 fatigues and dangers of hospital-nursing. 
 
 “ Sister Mansell ! Ob, she is moved. 
 She is down in the children’s ward. Go 
 along the corridor, down two flights of 
 stairs, and then ask your way.” 
 
 The gas was lighted in the children’s 
 ward, and the sister was superintending the 
 children’s tea. Some of them were in 
 blissful enjoyment, some of them in eager 
 anticipation, of their bread-and-butter. 
 Some few were lying still in that patient 
 silence which goes deeper to the watcher’s 
 heart than any moan of.pain. 
 
 “Mr. Drayton, I am glad to see you.” 
 She put down the little convalescent 
 she had in her arms, and held out her 
 hand ; the child clung shyly to the skirts 
 of her gown as if unwilling to let her 
 go. “ How good it is of you to come 
 and see us all! Popsy must be a good 
 girl,” she went on to the little child as 
 she sat her in a high chair at the table, 
 “ and nurse will give her her tea. Now, 
 Mr. Drayton, will you come into my room 
 fora little ; I have a few minutes to spare.” 
 They were alone together for some 
 moments before either spoke. Free as the 
 sister was from all trace of self-conscious- 
 ness, the silence embarrassed her a little, 
 and she began to speak quickly. 
 
 “You see, I have moved my quarters, 
 and you are the first of my old patients to 
 find me out. I like this ward best of all, 
 and it was quite a surprise to me when I 
 was allowed to come back to it.” 
 
 Still he said nothing. A faint suspicion, 
 which the woman would not admit, forced 
 its way into her mind as she looked at him,, 
 and saw his eyes earnest and resolute as 
 her own. 
 
 “Did you have any difficulty in finding 
 the ward ? ” she asked, in order to say 
 something, and to force him to answer her. 
 
 “Yes, I have come back,” he replied, 
 with all the longing of the past months 
 lending tenderness to his tones, hoarse 
 with emotion. “ I have come back to you 
 because I cannot stay away.” 
 
 She put up her hand suddenly. 
 
 “I hear someone calling me; I must 
 go.” Then she paused, her hand upon the 
 door, and recovered her usual composure, 
 her training helping her to subdue all signs 
 of emotion. “ Perhaps you would like to 
 come round the ward with me.” 
 
 If she had hoped to check his feeling 
 for her by showing him how completely 
 she was a nurse, and nothing more — and 
 some such idea was in her mind — she failed 
 as utterly as she deserved to do. For a 
 man who loved her could have found no 
 
 r 
 
70 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 more exquisite pleasure than he enjoyed 
 in seeing the smiling faces grow happier, 
 and the little sad drawn ones lose their 
 look of pain, as she stopped by each bed- 
 side to smooth the children’s hair and tell 
 him some little story about the^ occupant. 
 By one bed a policeman was sitting. 
 
 “That is an accident,” she whispered. 
 
 “ The father has been here some time.” 
 
 She went up to the cot. The man rose 
 respectfully, and saluted. It would have 
 needed a heart of stone not to be touched 
 by the pathos of his stiff, military move- 
 ment, contrasted with the quivering lips 
 which could not form the question he 
 strove to utter. Gilbert turned away his 
 head, but the sister spoke with tones even 
 more gentle than usual : 
 
 “ See how well he is sleeping ! He does 
 not suffer now.” 
 
 The father tried to thank her, but still 
 the words would not come ; only he looked 
 at her, and, meeting that look, with its 
 depth of anguish and gratitude, the sister 
 could hardly force herself to give the smile 
 of encouragement which was sometimes 
 the hardest part of her duty. 
 
 “ Will he get well 1 ” asked Gilbert, as 
 soon as they were alone again, and he had 
 overcome his own inability to speak. 
 
 The sister shook her head. 
 
 “ We must always hope whilst there is 
 life ; children rally wonderfully, and if we 
 gave way we could not do our work.’ 
 
 “It must be very hard for you some- 
 times to see them die.” 
 
 “Oh no,” she made answer simply. 
 
 “ The hard thing sometimes is to see them 
 live. I don’t mean in a case like this, but 
 where the children’s parents are little 
 better than thieves, or are even worse, 
 you cannot tell how gladly one sees the 
 little innocent ones shut their eyes upon a 
 world which seems for them hopelessly 
 full of sin.” . 
 
 “ But when you love them it must be 
 very hard to part with them. 
 
 “ We have not much time for loving 
 people here,” she made answer with a 
 smile ; “we have too much to do for 
 them.” 
 
 She spoke the word simply, and without 
 apparent intention ; but when he looked 
 at her, he could see her cheeks had grown 
 a little paler, and her eyes had drooped 
 upon the ground. 
 
 “But sometimes,” he answered very 
 slowly, and in broken tones, “the best 
 thing you can do for them is to love them. 
 She did not contradict him. She sat 
 
 very still, and gave no sign either of assent 
 or disagreement. 
 
 “ Agatha,” he went on in feverish haste, 
 while even in her own pain she wondered 
 how he had found out her name, “you 
 know why I have come back to you. Are 
 you going to send me away again 1 ” 
 
 He stretched out his arms appealingly 
 across the little table that divided them, 
 careless that as he did so he upset a little 
 basket of bandages, which rolled hither 
 and thither across the floor. At the noise 
 she looked up, and her eyes were wet with 
 tears. 
 
 “I am afraid I must,” she answered. 
 
 At her words his head fell forward 
 upon his arms, and they sat silent together 
 for some time, his face hidden, whilst the 
 tears were rolling down her cheeks. Sud- 
 denly, with an effort, she set herself to 
 collect the rolls of bandages, and to put 
 them back neatly in their place. The occu- 
 pation and movement gave her back her 
 self-control, and touching him lightly upon 
 the arm, she said, much as she had spoken 
 to him in former days, when he was un- 
 reasonable and fretful from pain : 
 
 “I, am deeply sorry to have grieved 
 you. I never meant to do it. I am afraid 
 I was selfish and self-absorbed, one is apt 
 to grow so here ; but you must try and 
 forgive me for the harm I have done you.” 
 Then, as he did not answer, she went on : 
 “ I hope you will soon forget jt. To 
 people of our age,” and she smiled a little, 
 
 “ life has so many other interests than are 
 involved in — love.” 
 
 The last word came out unwillingly. At 
 the sound of it he looked up, his face pale 
 and his brows drawn together. 
 
 “ I should have said that myself a few 
 months ago,” he answered in a voice desti- 
 tute of tone and emotion. “And if it 
 were only love, I should get over it this 
 time, I suppose, as men have done, before ; 
 but I want you, Agatha, not only because 
 I love you, but because your life might 
 make mine better.” 
 
 Something in his speech hurt her. She 
 did not stop to think what it was that 
 pained her, for she would have been un- 
 willing to acknowledge the truth, and yet, 
 woman like, she was wounded at the idea 
 that he could “ get over ” his love for her, 
 or, perhaps, rather that he should speak as 
 one who had already laid aside other and 
 earlier loves. 
 
 “Oh, don’t say that!” she answered 
 hurriedly. “ So many people speak as if 
 our life here was an ideal one, free from 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 71 
 
 all petty meannesses, and all small interests. 
 Here, as everywhere, we give way to our 
 worst feelings sometimes ; here, as every- 
 where, there are temptations which it is 
 difficult to resist. The life is no nobler with 
 us than it is outside.” 
 
 “I was not thinking of the life,” he 
 answered, “ but of what you make of it, 
 and how much you might do with mine. 
 Still,” in a firmer tone, “ if it is not to be, 
 do not let your last memory of me be a 
 painful one. Agatha,” taking both her 
 hands, “ I owe you more than I can ever 
 tell you, or ever hope to pay. Look at 
 me once, dear, and' tell me that you will 
 never think I regret what has happened. 
 I shall try and be worthy of having loved 
 you.” 
 
 It was her tears only which fell when 
 he stooped and kissed the hands that lay 
 in his, and they fell still when he had 
 left her alone. 
 
 IV. 
 
 No one observed any change in the 
 sister for two or three days after Gilbert’s 
 visit, but about the end of the week the 
 matron noticed how pale and worn-out she 
 looked. 
 
 “ I think I should like to go away for a 
 little change,” Agatha said, on being ques- 
 tioned. “ I feel overworked.” , 
 
 It was the first time she had ever 
 uttered such a confession, and it startled 
 those who heard it, for it was spoken with 
 a tremulous lip and moistened eye. 
 
 “You must go down to the country; 
 rest and quiet will soon put you right 
 again.” 
 
 All Agatha had wished for was time to 
 think, but when she found herself back 
 in the country village where she had been 
 born, the November days, short as they 
 were, were all too long for her. She paced 
 up and down the little garden of the house 
 where she was lodging, going over the 
 past again and again, and always with the 
 same feeling of doubt, which grew into 
 despair. Had she wronged the man who 
 loved her ? Could she have done any- 
 thing but send him back without the gift 
 he craved, when he demanded it so sud- 
 denly and so unexpectedly 1 She asked 
 herself these questions so often, that it 
 was inevitable that she should answer them 
 in different ways, according to her mood. 
 At last her strong common-sense came to 
 her aid ; she paused in her restless pacing 
 to and fro. 
 
 “ It is all over now ; I can do nothing in 
 
 the. matter, and I will not think of it 
 again,” so she summed up her conclusion. 
 Four hours later She was back at her post, 
 and no one had occasion to remark upon 
 any change in her appearance. The work j 
 quieted her, but it cost her an effort she 
 had never known before. She blamed her- 
 self for neglecting her duties, and spurred 
 herself on to further exertions ; only to find 
 the strain heavier, and herself less able to 
 endure it. At last, greatly to her own 
 surprise, she sat down in her room, laid her 
 head upon the table where Gilbert had 
 hidden his face, and fainted quietly away. 
 She was very apologetic for her conduct 
 when she recovered consciousness, but she 
 was unable to combat the decision that she 
 must take a long rest, even though she 
 foresaw the mental conflict which lay 
 before her in the long idle hours of 
 convalescence. 
 
 “ I should not like to die before I have 
 seen him again,” she thought to herself in 
 the first dreamy days of enforced quiet : 
 but another and nobler motive woke into 
 life with her returning strength : “ I must 
 try and live so as to be worthy of his high 
 thought of me.” 5 
 
 Gilbert, meantime, was fighting his own 
 battle far away from her, and was by no 
 means as victorious as he fancied himself. 
 Often he imagined that he had trampled 
 out memories, which mocked him by rising 
 again with renewed life ; but the memories 
 he longed to destroy were the memories of 
 certain hopes he had cherished, and were 
 not any reminiscences of the woman he had 
 loved. Every word she had spoken, every 
 smile he had caught, every look of approval, 
 were sacred ; to her he owed every higher 
 aspiration of his life, and he looked back 
 upon the time they had passed together as 
 the holiest season he had ever spent — as 
 the period of self-dedication which should 
 later on bear fruit. But he would never 
 again trouble her calm by any word or look 
 of his ; there was no work he undertook, 
 no help he gave, without some reference 
 m his mind to her who had touched his 
 spirit to finer issues. Yet he was resolved 
 that he would not turn his footsteps to St. 
 Nicholas until he could say to her : “ See 
 the pain is over ; but the joy of having 
 once loved you will remain with me 
 always.” 
 
 It was summer again, grey, cloudy June, 
 with little brightness or gladness in its 
 leaden skies and cold winds; inside the 
 children’s ward., however, there was warmth 
 and comfort — it was three o’clock, and the 
 
72 
 
 AN EASTER VACATION. 
 
 [June 17, 1884.] 
 
 little ones were taking their afternoon 
 sleep, whilst one of the nurses was busy 
 with her needlework. There was a murmur 
 of voices from the sister’s room, although 
 the closed door shut in the sound of 
 distinct words. The sister had visitors— a 
 man and his wife, the man being no other 
 than the John Ford who had lain so long 
 motionless in the bed next Gilbert’s. 
 
 The visit was not a great success, for 
 after the sister had enquired after her old 
 patient’s health, and heard a little about 
 his work and his children, conversation 
 continued in a disconnected way, broken 
 by frequent pauses. At last the couple 
 rose to go, and when they had both shaken 
 hands with their hostess, the wife said m 
 an abrupt way, as if a sudden thought had 
 struck her, and without betraying that 
 these, her parting words, had been the 
 main object of her visit : .. 
 
 “ Oh, by-the-bye, sister, I wonder it 
 you’d like this?” and as she spoke she 
 pulled out of her pocket a photograph upon 
 glass. “ I waited to have it took until he 
 should get back his looks again.” 
 
 The picture was a cheap one in a tawdry 
 frame, but it was easy to see that shillings 
 were very scarce with those who had spared 
 one for this little gift. . , , 
 
 “ I should like you to keep it, said the 
 man gruffly, feeling it his duty to support 
 his wife, and yet distrusting useless words, 
 just to show you didn’t think I could ever 
 forget.” 
 
 “ Thank you very much,” said the sister 
 with a smile as bright, as of old. “I 
 think it is an excellent likeness. 
 
 His hair’s grown again,” said the wile 
 eagerly • “I arranged it so as to hide the 
 scar.” As she spoke her voice trembled, 
 and she put her hand lovingly on her hus- 
 band’s head— he had not risen from his 
 seat. “ It hardly shows at all. Then with 
 a burst of genuine though noisy emotion : 
 “If it had not been for you, the scar, 
 and the hair, and the head, would have 
 been deep down under the earth by 
 now.” 
 
 Her husband quieted her, and led. her 
 out of the room, but she ran back again to 
 kiss the sister’s hands, and to tell her that 
 there never, never was so good a man as 
 the one whose life she owed to St. Nicholas 
 and to the woman whom she blessed from 
 the bottom of her heart. 
 
 It was natural that the thought of 
 Gilbert should recur to Agatha as soon as 
 she was again alone, for he and Ford had 
 been neighbours, and, besides, there had 
 never been an expression of grateful feel- 
 ing from her patients that the sister had 
 not desired his presence to hear the words 
 and to recognise the truth of what she 
 had once told him of the deep and un- 
 merited gratitude she had found on all 
 
 But though he was in her thoughts, it 
 was rather as a memory of the past than 
 as one belonging to her present life, and 
 when she looked up and saw him in the 
 doorway, she started as if some sick man 
 had risen from his bed of death, and stood 
 before her. 
 
 For an instant they gazed at one another 
 in solemn silence ; when Agatha spoke, her 
 tone was very low, but hurried and dis- 
 composed : , 
 
 “ I thought you never would come back 
 again.” 
 
 Gilbert Drayton’s nature had not been a 
 remarkable one, but this woman had 
 brought out all that was highest and most 
 generous in him. With a self-conquest 
 which cost him more than any other effort 
 of his life, he asked very quietly : 
 
 “Do you mean all that your .words seem 
 to say, or shall I go away again ? ” 
 
 She put out her hand to retain him, and 
 he knew the truth, but there was none of 
 the flush and joy of triumphant love about 
 either of them. Both were very pale, as 
 those who look for the first time on a 
 terrible mystery. _ _ 
 
 Then Gilbert took her hand and knelt 
 down before her, not in a lover’s ecstasy, 
 but in silent thankfulness for the best and 
 most beautiful gift of his life. 
 
 The 
 
 Bight of Translating any of the Articles contained in this Number is reserved by the Authors. 
 
 Published at theOfflce, 20, Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by Charles Dickehs & Evahs, 24, Great New Street, ;E.C 
 
IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 By WALTER BESANT, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 “All Sorts and Conditions of Men,” “The Revolt of Man,” “Let Nothing You Dismay;” 
 
 AND JOINT AUTHOR OF 
 
 “Ready-Money Mortiboy,” “The Golden Butterfly,” “ The Chaplain of the Fleet,” “Over the Sea 
 with the Sailor,” “When The Ship Comes Home,” “The Captains’ Room,” etc., etc. 
 
 THE EXTRA CHRISTMAS NUMBER OF ALL THE YEAR ROUND. 
 CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 Containing the amount oe THREE ORDINARY NUMBERS. 
 
 PRICE 
 
 6d. 
 
 CHRISTMAS, 1884. 
 
 PRICE 
 
 6d. 
 
 I. Within Three Weeks 
 II. Fox and Wolf . 
 
 III. Iris the Herald . 
 
 IY. The Wolf at Home 
 Y. As a Brother 
 VI. Cousin Clara . 
 
 VII. On Battersea Terrace 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VIII. The Discovery 39 
 
 IX. Dr. Washington 46 
 
 X. It Is My Cousin 49 
 
 XI. Mr. James Makes Atonement ... 53 
 
 XII. Is This His Photograph? .... 59 
 
 XIII. His Last Chance 63 
 
 XIV, The Hand of Fate 69 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. WITHIN THREE WEEKS. 
 
 If everyone were allowed beforehand to 
 choose and select for himself the most 
 pleasant method of performing this earthly 
 pilgrimage, there would be, I have always 
 thought, an immediate run upon that way 
 of getting to the Delectable Mountains 
 which is known as the Craft and Mystery 
 of Second-hand Bookselling. If, further, 
 one were allowed to select and arrange the 
 minor details — such, for instance, as the 
 “ pitch ” and the character of the shop, it 
 would seem desirable that, as regards the 
 latter, the kind of bookselling should be 
 neither too lofty nor too mean — that is to 
 say, that one’s ambition would not aspire 
 to a great collector’s establishment, such 
 as one or two we might name in Piccadilly, 
 the Haymarket, or New Bond Street : 
 these should be left to those who greatly 
 dare and are prepared to play the games 
 of Speculation and of Patience; nor, on 
 the other hand, would one choose an open 
 cart at the beginning of the Whitechapel 
 Road, or one of the shops in Seven Dials, 
 whose stock-in-trade consists wholly of three 
 or four boxes outside the door filled with 
 odd volumes at twopence apiece. As for 
 “ pitch” or situation, one would wish it to 
 be somewhat retired, but not too much; one 
 would, not, for instance, willingly be thrown 
 away in Hoxton, nor would one languish in 
 the obscurity of Kentish Town ; a second- 
 hand bookseller must not be so far removed 
 
 from the haunts of men as to place him 
 practically beyond the reach of the 
 collector; nor, on the other hand, should 
 he be planted in a busy thoroughfare — the 
 noise of many vehicles, the hurry of quick 
 footsteps, the swift current of anxious 
 humanity are out of harmony with the 
 atmosphere of a second-hand bookshop. 
 Some suggestion of external repose is 
 absolutely necessary ; there must be some 
 stillness in the air; yet the thing itself 
 belongs essentially to the city — no one can 
 imagine a second-hand bookshop beside 
 green fields — so that there should be some 
 murmur and perceptible hum of mankind 
 always present in the ear. Thus there are 
 half-a-dozen bookshops in King William 
 Street, Strand, which seem to enjoy every 
 possible advantage of position, for they are 
 in the very heart of London, but yet are 
 not exposed to the full noise and tumult of 
 that overflowing tide which surges round 
 Charing Cross. Again, there are streets 
 north of Holborn and Oxford Street 
 most pleasantly situated for the second- 
 hand bookseller, and there are streets 
 where he ought not to be, where he has no 
 business, and where his presence jars. 
 Could we, for instance, endure to see the 
 shop of a second-hand bookseller established 
 in Cheapside 1 
 
 Perhaps, however, the most delightful 
 spot in all London for a second-hand book- 
 shop is that occupied by Emblem’s in the 
 King’s Road, Chelsea. 
 
 It stands at the lower end of the road, 
 
2 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 where one begins to realise and thoroughly 
 feel the influences of that ancient and 
 lordly suburb. At this end of the road 
 there are rows of houses with old-fashioned 
 balconies ; right and left of it there are 
 streets which in the summer and early 
 autumn are green, yellow, red, and golden 
 with their masses of creepers; squares 
 which look as if, with the people living 
 in them, they must belong to the year 
 eighteen hundred ; neither a day before nor 
 a day after ; they lie open to the road, with 
 their gardens full of trees. Cheyne Walk 
 and the old church, with its red-brick 
 tower, and the new Embankment, are all so 
 close that they seem part and parcel of the 
 King’s Road. The great Hospital is within 
 five minutes’ walk, and sometimes the honest 
 veterans themselves may be seen wander- 
 ing in the road. The air is heavy with 
 associations and memories. You can 
 actually smell the fragrance of the new- 
 made Chelsea buns, fresh from the oven, 
 just as you would a hundred years ago. 
 You may sit with dainty damsels, all hoops 
 and furbelows, eating custards at the Bun- 
 house ; you may wander among the rare 
 plants of the Botanic Gardens. The old 
 great houses rise, shadowy and magnificent, 
 above the modern terraces ; Don Saltero’s 
 Coffee - House yet opens its hospitable 
 doors ; Sir Thomas More meditates again 
 on Cheyne Walk; at dead of night the 
 ghosts of ancient minuet tunes may be 
 heard from the Rotunda of Ranelagh 
 Gardens, though the new barracks stand 
 upon its site ; and along the modern 
 streets you may fancy that if you saw the 
 ladies with their hoop petticoats, and the 
 gentlemen with their wigs and their three- 
 cornered hats and swords, you would not 
 be in the least astonished. 
 
 Emblem’s is one of two or three shops 
 which stand together, but it differs from its 
 neighbours in many important particulars. 
 For it has no plate-glass, as the others 
 have; nor does it stand like them with 
 open doors ; nor does it flare away gas at 
 night; nor is it bright with gilding and 
 fresh paint ; nor does it seek to attract 
 notice by posters and bills. On the contrary, 
 it retains the old, small, and unpretending 
 panes of glass which it has always had ; in 
 the evening it is dimly lighted, and it closes 
 early ; its door is always shut, and although 
 the name over the shop is dingy, one feels 
 that a coat of paint, while it would 
 certainly freshen up the place, would take 
 something from its character. For a 
 second-hand bookseller who respects him- 
 
 self must present an exterior which has 
 something of faded splendour, of worn 
 paint and shabbiness. Within the shop, 
 books line the walls and cumber the floor. 
 There are an outer and an inner shop ; in 
 the former a small table stands among the 
 books, at which Mr. James, the Assistant, 
 is always at work cataloguing, when he^ is 
 not tying up parcels ; sometimes even with 
 gum and paste repairing the slighter 
 ravages of time — foxed bindings and 
 close-cut margins no man can repair. In 
 the latter, which is Mr. Emblem’s sanctum, 
 there are chairs and a table, also covered 
 with books, a writing-desk, a small safe, 
 and a glass case, wherein are secured the 
 more costly books in stock. Emblem’s, as 
 must be confessed, is no longer quite what 
 it was in former days ; twenty, thirty, or 
 forty years ago that glass case was filled 
 with precious treasures. In those days, if 
 a man wanted a book of county history, or 
 of genealogy, or of heraldry, lie knew 
 where was his best chance of finding it, for 
 Emblem’s, in its prime and heyday, had 
 its speciality. Other books treating on 
 more ftivolous subjects, such as science, 
 belles, lettres, Art, or politics, he would 
 consider, buy, and sell again ; but he took 
 little pride in them. Collectors of county 
 histories, however, and genealogy-hunters 
 and their kind, knew that at Emblem s, 
 where they would be most likely to get 
 what they wanted, they would have to pay 
 the market price for it. 
 
 There is no patience like the patience of 
 a book-collector ; there is no such industry 
 given to any work comparable with the 
 thoughtful and anxious industry with 
 which he peruses the latest catalogues ; 
 there is no care like unto that which rends 
 his mind before the day of auction or 
 while he is still trying to pick up a bargain ; 
 there are no eyes so sharp as those which 
 pry into the contents of a box full of old 
 books, tumbled together, at sixpence 
 apiece. The bookseller himself partakes 
 of the noble enthusiasm of the collector ; 
 he is himself a collector, though he sells his 
 collection ; like the amateur, the profes- 
 sional moves heaven and earth to get a 
 bargain ; like him, he rejoices as much over 
 a book which has been picked up below its 
 price, as over a lost sheep which has re- 
 turned into the fold. But Emblem is now 
 old, and Emblem’s shop is no longer what 
 it* was to the collector of the last genera- 
 tion. 
 
 It was an afternoon in late September, 
 and in this very year of grace, eighteen 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 JL 
 
 3 
 
 hundred and eighty-four. The day was as 
 sunny and warm as any of the days of its 
 predecessor Augustus the Gorgeous, but 
 yet there was an autumnal feeling in the 
 air which made itself felt even in streets 
 where there were no red and yellow Vir- 
 ginia creepers, no square gardens with long 
 trails .of mignonette and banks of flower- 
 ing nasturtiums. In fact, you cannot any- 
 where escape the autumnal feeling, which 
 begins about the middle of September. 
 It makes old people think with sadness 
 that the grasshopper is a burden in the 
 land,^ and that the almond-tree is about to 
 flourish ; but the young it fills with a 
 vinous and intoxicated rejoicing, as if the 
 time of feasting, fruits, harvests, and young 
 wine, strong and fruity, was upon the 
 world. It made Mr. James — his surname 
 has never been ascertained, but man and 
 boy, Mr. James has been at Emblem’s for 
 twenty-five years and more — leave his table 
 where he was preparing the forthcoming 
 catalogue, and go to the open door, where 
 he wasted a good minute and a half in 
 gazing up at the clear sky and down the 
 sunny street. Then he stretched his arms 
 and returned to his work, impelled by the 
 sense of duty rather than by the scourge 
 of necessity, because there was no hurry 
 about the catalogue and most of the books 
 in it were rubbish, and at that season of 
 the year few customers could be expected, 
 and there were no parcels to tie up and 
 send out. He went back to his work, 
 therefore, but he left the door partly open 
 in order to enjoy the sight of the warm 
 sunshine. Now for Emblem’s to have its 
 door open, was much as if Mr. Emblem 
 himself should so far forget his self- 
 respect as to sit in his shirt-sleeves. The 
 shop had been rather dark, the window 
 being full of books, but now through the 
 open door there poured a little stream of 
 sunshine, reflected from some far-off win- 
 dow. It fell upon a row of old eighteenth 
 century volumes, bound in dark and rusty 
 leather, and did so light up and glorify the 
 dingy bindings and faded gold, that they 
 seemed fresh from the binder’s hands, and 
 just ready for the noble purchaser, long 
 since dead and gone, whose book plate 
 they bore. Some of this golden stream 
 fell also upon the head of the Assistant 
 — it was a red head, with fiery red eyes, 
 red eyebrows, bristly and thick, and sharp 
 thin features to match — -and it gave him 
 the look of one who is dragged unwillingly 
 into the sunlight. However, Mr. James 
 took no notice of the sunshine, and went j 
 
 on with his cataloguing almost as if he 
 liked that kind of work. There are many 
 people who seem to like dull work, and 
 they would not be a bit more unhappy if 
 they were made to take the place of 
 Sisyphus, or transformed into the damsels 
 who are condemned to toil continually at 
 the weary work of pouring water into a 
 sieve. Perhaps Sisyphus does not so much 
 mind the continual going up and down hill. 
 “After all,” he might say, “this is better 
 than the lot of poor Ixion. At all events, 
 I have got my limbs free.” Ixion, on the 
 other hand, no doubt, is full of pity for 
 his poor friend Sisyphus. “ I, at least,” 
 he says, “ have no work to do. And the 
 rapid motion of the wheel is in sultry 
 weather sometimes pleasant.” 
 
 Behind the shop, where had been origi- 
 nally the “ back parlour,” in the days when 
 every genteel house in Chelsea had both 
 its front and back parlour — the latter for 
 sitting and living in, the former for the 
 reception of company — sat this afternoon 
 the proprietor, tho man whose name had 
 stood above the shop for fifty years, the 
 original and only Emblem. He was — nay, 
 he is— for you may still find him in his 
 place, and may make his acquaintance over 
 a county history any day in the King’s 
 Boad — he is an old man now, advanced in 
 the seventies, who was born before the 
 battle of Waterloo was fought, and can 
 remember Chelsea when it was full of 
 veterans wounded in battles fought long 
 before the Corsican Attila was let loose 
 upon the world. His face wears the peace- 
 ful and wise expression which belongs 
 peculiarly to his profession. Other call- 
 ings make a man look peaceful, but not 
 all other callings make him look wise. 
 Mr. Emblem was born by nature of a 
 calm temperament— otherwise he would 
 not have been happy in his business; a 
 smile lies generally upon his lips, and his 
 eyes are soft and benign ; his hair is 
 white, and his face, once ruddy, is pale, 
 yet not shrunk and seamed with furrows 
 as happens to so many old men, but round 
 and firm ; like his chin and lips it is clean 
 shaven ; he wears a black coat extraordi- 
 narily shiny in the sleeve, and a black silk 
 stock just as he used to wear in the thirties 
 when he was young, and something of a 
 dandy, and would show himself on a Satur- 
 day evening in the pit of Drury Lane ; and 
 the stock is fastened behind with a silver 
 buckle. He is, in fact, a delightful old 
 gentleman to look at and pleasant to con- 
 verse with, and on his brow everyone who 
 
4 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 can read may see, visibly stamped, the seal 
 of a harmless and honest life. ^ At the 
 contemplation of such a man, one’s opinion 
 of humanity is sensibly raised, and even 
 house-agents, plumbers, and suburban 
 builders, feel that, after all, virtue may 
 bring with it some reward. 
 
 The quiet and warmth of the afternoon, 
 unbroken to his accustomed ear, as it 
 would be to a stranger, by the murmurous 
 roll of London, made him sleepy. In his 
 hand he held a letter which he had been 
 reading for the hundredth time and of 
 which he knew by heart every word ; and 
 as his eyes closed he went back in imagina- 
 tion to a passage in the past which it 
 
 He stood, in imagination, upon the deck 
 of a sailing-ship— an emigrant ship. The 
 year was eighteen hundred and sixty-four, 
 a year when very few were tempted to try 
 their fortunes in a country torn by civil 
 war. With him were his daughter and his 
 son-in-law, and they were come to bid the 
 latter farewell. . 
 
 “ My dear— my dear,” cried the wife, in 
 her husband’s arms, “come what may, I 
 will join you in a year.” 
 
 Her husband shook his head sadly. 
 
 “ They do not want me here,” he said; 
 
 “ the work goes into stronger and rougher 
 hands. Perhaps over there we may get on 
 better, and besides, it seems an opening.” 
 
 If the kind of work which he wanted 
 was given to stronger and rougher hands 
 than his in England, far more would it be 
 the case in young and rough America. It was 
 journalistic work — writing work — that he 
 wanted ; and he was a gentleman, a scholar, 
 and a creature of retired and refined tastes 
 and manners. There are, perhaps, some 
 still living who have survived the tem- 
 pestuous life of the ordinary Fleet Street 
 “ newspaper man ” of twenty or thirty 
 years ago ; perhaps one or two among these 
 remember Claude Aglen — but he was so 
 short a time with them that it is not likely ; 
 those who do remember him will under- 
 stand that the way to success, rough and 
 thorny for all, for such as Aglen was 
 
 But you will think every day of little 
 Iris]” said his wife. “Oh, my dear, if I 
 were only going with you ! And but for me 
 you would be at home with your father, 
 well and happy.” 
 
 Then in his dream, which was also a 
 memory, the old man saw how the young 
 husband kissed and comtorted his wife. 
 
 “My dear,” said Claude, “if it were not 
 
 for you, what happiness could I have in 
 the world] Courage, my wife, courage 
 and hope. I shall think of you and of Iris 
 all day and all night until we meet again.” 
 And so they parted and the ship sailed 
 away. . 
 
 The old man opened his eyes and looked 
 about him. It was a dream. 
 
 “It was twenty years ago,” he said, 
 
 “ and Iris was a baby in arms. . Twenty 
 years ago, and he never saw his wife again. 
 Never again ! Because she died,” he added 
 after a pause ; “ my Alice died.” 
 
 He shed no tears, being so old that the 
 time of tears was well-nigh past — at 
 seventy-five the eyes are drier than at 
 forty, and one 'is no longer surprised or 
 disappointed, and seldom even angry, 
 whatever happens. 
 
 But he opened the letter in his hand 
 and read it again mechanically. It was 
 written on thin foreign paper, and the 
 creases of the folds had become gaping 
 rents. It was dated September, 1866 , 
 just eighteen years back. 
 
 “ When you read these lines,” the 
 letter said, “ I shall be in the silent land, 
 whither Alice, my wife, has gone before me. 
 It would be a strange thing only to think 
 upon this journey which lies before me, and 
 which I must take alone, had I time left 
 for thinking. But I have not. I may 
 last a week, or I may die in a few hours. 
 Therefore, to the point. 
 
 “ In one small thing we deceived you, 
 Alice and I — my name is not Aglen at all ; 
 we took that name for certain reasons. 
 Perhaps we were wrong, but we thought 
 that as we were quite poor, and likely to 
 remain poor, it would be well to keep our 
 secret to ourselves. Forgive us both this 
 suppression of the truth. We were made 
 poor by our own voluntary act and deed, 
 and because I married the only woman I 
 loved. 
 
 “ I was engaged to a girl whom I did not 
 love. We had been brought up like brother 
 and sister together, but I did not love her, 
 though I was engaged to her. In breaking 
 this engagement I angered my father. In 
 marrying Alice I angered him still more. 
 
 “ I now know that he has forgiven me ; 
 he forgave me on his death-bed ; he revoked 
 his former will and made me his sole heir 
 just as if nothing had happened to destroy 
 his old affection— subject to one condition 
 
 viz., that the girl to whom I was first 
 
 engaged should receive the whole income 
 until I, or my heirs, should return to 
 England in order to claim the inheritance. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN' LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 5 
 
 “ It is strange. I die in a wooden shanty, 
 in. a little Western town, the editor of a 
 miserable little country paper. I have 
 not money enough even to bury me, and 
 yet, if I were at home, I might be called a 
 rich man, as men go. My little Iris will 
 be an heiress. At the very moment when 
 I learn that I am my father’s heir, I am 
 struck down by fever ; and now I know 
 that I shall never get up again. 
 
 “It is strange. Yet my father sent me 
 his forgiveness, and my wife is dead, and 
 the wealth that has come is useless to me. 
 Wherefore, nothing now matters much to 
 me, and I know that you will hold my last 
 wishes sacred. 
 
 “ I desire that Iris shall be educated as 
 well and thoroughly as you can afford ; 
 keep her free from rough and rude com- 
 panions ; make her understand that her 
 father was a gentleman of ancient family ; 
 this knowledge will, perhaps, help to give 
 her self-respect. If any misfortune should 
 fall upon you, such as the loss of 
 health or wealth, give the papers enclosed 
 to a trustworthy solicitor, and bid him act 
 as is best in the interests of Iris. If, as I 
 hope, all will go well with you, do not open 
 the papers until my child’s twenty-first 
 birthday ; do not let her know until then 
 that she is going to be rich ; on her twenty- 
 first birthday, open the papers and bid her 
 claim her own. 
 
 “To the woman I wronged — I know 
 not whether she has married or not — 
 bid Iris carry my last message of sorrow 
 at what has happened. I do not regret, 
 and I have never regretted, that I 
 married Alice. But, I gave her pain, 
 for which I have never ceased to grieve. 
 
 I have been punished for this breach of 
 faith. You will find among the papers 
 an account of all the circumstances con- 
 nected with this engagement. There 
 is also in the packet my portrait, taken 
 when I was a lad of sixteen; give her that as 
 well ; there is the certificate of my marriage, 
 myregister of baptism, that of Iris’s baptism, 
 
 my signet ring ” “ His arms ’’—the old 
 
 man interrupted his reading — “his arms 
 were : quarterly : first and fourth, two roses 
 and a boar’s head, erect; second and 
 third, gules and fesse between — between 
 — but I cannot remember what it was 
 
 between ” He went on reading : “ My 
 
 father’s last letter to me ; Alice’s letters, and 
 one or two from yourself. If Iris should 
 unhappily die before her twenty-first birth- 
 day, open these papers, find out from them 
 the owner’s name and address, seek her 
 
 out, and tell her that she will never now be 
 disturbed by any claimants to the estate.” 
 
 The letter ended here abruptly, as if the 
 writer had designed to add more, but was 
 prevented by death. 
 
 For there was a postscript, in another 
 hand, which stated: “Mr. Aglen died 
 November 25th, 1866, and is* buried in the 
 cemetery of Johnson City, 111.” 
 
 The old. man folded the letter carefully, 
 and laid it on the table. Then he rose 
 and walked across the room to the safe, 
 which stood with open door in the corner 
 farthest from the fireplace. Among its 
 contents was a packet sealed and tied up 
 in red tape, endorsed : “ For Iris. To be 
 given to her on her twenty-first birthday. 
 From her father.” 
 
 “ It will be her twenty-first birthday,” 
 he said, “in three weeks. Then I must 
 give her the packet. So— so— with the 
 
 portrait of her father, and his marriage- 
 certificate.” He fell into a fit of musing, 
 with the papers in his hand. “She will 
 be safe, whatever happens to me ; and as 
 for me, if I lose her — of course I shall 
 lose her. Why, what will it matter? 
 Have I not lost all, except Iris ? One 
 must . not be selfish. Oh, Iris, what a 
 surprise — what a surprise I have in store 
 for you ! ” 
 
 He placed the letter he had been read- 
 ing within the tape which fastened the 
 bundle, so that it should form a part of 
 the communication to be made on Iris’s 
 birthday. 
 
 “There,” he said, “now I shall read 
 this letter no more. I wonder how many 
 times I have read it in the last eighteen 
 years, and how often I have wondered 
 what the child’s fortune would be ? In 
 three, weeks — in three short weeks. Oh, 
 Iris, if you only knew ! ” 
 
 He put back the letters and the packet, 
 locked the safe, and resumed his seat. 
 
 The red-eyed Assistant, still gumming 
 and pasting his slips with punctilious 
 regard to duty, had been following his 
 master’s movements with curiosity. 
 
 “ Counting his investments again as 
 usual,” Mr. James murmured. “ Ah, and 
 adding ’em up ! Always at it. Oh, what 
 a trade it must have been once ! ” 
 
 Just then there appeared in the door a 
 gentleman. He was quite shabby, and 
 even ragged in his dress, but he was clearly 
 a. gentleman. He was no longer young; 
 his shoulders were bent, and he had the 
 unmistakable stamp and carriage of a 
 student. 
 
6 November 13, 1884. 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ Guv’nor’s at home,” said the Assistant 
 
 The visitor walked into the sanctum. 
 
 He had under his arm half-a-dozen 
 volumes, which, without a word he laid 
 before Mr. Emblem, and untied the string 
 “ You ougfyt to know this book, he said 
 without further introduction. 
 
 Mr. Emblem looked doubtfully at the 
 
 visitor. „ 
 
 “You sold it to me twenty-five ^ years 
 ago,” he went on, “for five pounds.” 
 
 “I did. And I remember now. You 
 are Mr. Frank Farrar. Why, it is twenty 
 five years ago ! ” . - 
 
 “ I have bought no more books ior 
 twenty years and more,” he replied. 
 
 “ Sad— sad! Dear me— tut, tut! 
 bought no books % And you, Mr. Farrar, 
 once my best customer. And now— you 
 do not mean to say that you are going to 
 sell — that you actually want to sell— this 
 precious book % ” 
 
 “I am selling, one by^ one, all my 
 books,” replied the other with a sigh. “ I 
 am going downhill, Emblem, fast.” 
 
 “Oh, dear, dear, dear !” replied the 
 bookseller. “ This is very sad. One 
 cannot bear to think of the libraries being 
 dispersed and sold off. And now yours 
 Mr. Farrar 1 Really, yours 1 ? Must it 
 
 be 1 ” _ . 1 
 
 ‘ Needs must, 5 55 Mr. Farrar said with a 
 sickly smile, “ needs must _ when the 
 devil drives. I have parted with half my 
 books already. But I thought you might 
 like to have this set, because they were 
 once your own.” 
 
 “So I should”— Mr. Emblem laid a 
 loving hand upon the volumes— so I 
 should, Mr. Farrar, but not from you • not 
 from you, sir. Why, you were almost my 
 best customer— I think almost my very 
 best — thirty years ago, when my trade was 
 better than it is now. Yes, you gave me 
 five pounds — or was it five pounds ten i 
 for this very work. And it is worth twelve 
 pounds now — I assure you it is worth 
 twelve pounds, if it is worth a penny, 
 
 “ Will you give me ten pounds for it, 
 then % ” cried the other eagerly ; “ I want 
 the money badly.” 
 
 “ No, I can’t ; but I will send you to a 
 man who can and will. I do not specu- 
 late now ; I never go to auctions. I am 
 old, you see. Besides, I am poor. I will 
 not buy your book, but I will send you to a 
 man who will give you ten pounds for it, I 
 am sure, and then he will sell it for 
 fifteen.” He wrote the address on a slip 
 
 of paper. “ Why, Mr. Farrar, if an old 
 friend, so to speak, can put the question, 
 
 why in the world ” 
 
 “ The most natural thing,” replied Mr. 
 Farrar with a cold laugh \ “ I am old, as I 
 told you, and the younger men get all the 
 work. That is all. Nobody wants a 
 genealogist and antiquary.” 
 
 “ Dear me, dear me ! Why, Mr. Farrar, 
 
 I remember now ] you used to know my 
 poor son-in-law, who is.dead eighteen years 
 since. I was just reading the last letter he 
 ever wrote me, just before he died. . You 
 used to come here and sit with him in the 
 evening. I remember now. So you did. 
 
 “ Thank you for your good will,” said 
 Mr. Farrar. “Yes, I remember your son 
 in-law. I knew him before his marriage. 5 
 Did you f Before his marriage 1 
 
 Then ” He was going to add, “ Then 
 
 you can tell me his real name,” but he 
 paused, because it is a pity ever to acknow- 
 ledge Ignorance, and especially ignorance 
 in such elementary matters as your son-in- 
 law’s name. 
 
 So Mr. Emblem checked himself. 
 
 “He ought to have been a rich man,” 
 Mr. Farrar continued ; “ but he quarrelled 
 with his father, who cut him off with a 
 shilling, I suppose.” 
 
 Then the poor scholar, who could find 
 no market for his learned papers, tied up 
 his books again and went away with hang- 
 ing head. _ _ , 
 
 “Ugh!” Mr. James, who had been 
 listening, groaned as Mr. Farrar passed 
 through the door. “Ugh! Call that a 
 way of doing business ? Why, if it had 
 been me, I’d have bought the book off ol 
 that old chap for a couple o’ pounds, I 
 would. Aye, or a sov, so seedy he is, and 
 wants money so bad. And I know who d 
 have given twelve pound for it, in the trade 
 too. Call that carrying on business i He 
 may well add up his investments every 
 day, if he can afford to chuck such chances. 
 Ah, but he’ll retire soon.” His fiery eyes 
 brightened, and his face glowed with the 
 joy of anticipation. “ He must retire before 
 
 long.” . . 
 
 There came another visitor. This time 
 it was a lanky boy, with a blue bag over 
 his shoulder and a notebook and pencil- 
 stump in his hand. He nodded to the 
 Assistant as to an old friend with whom 
 one may be at ease, set. down his bag, 
 opened his notebook, and nibbled his stump. 
 Then he read aloud, with a comma or semi- 
 colon between each, a dozen or twenty 
 titles. They were the names of the books 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK 
 
 which his employer wished to pick up. 
 The red-eyed Assistant listened, and shook 
 his head. Then the boy, without another 
 word, shouldered his bag and departed, on 
 his way to the next second-hand book- 
 shop. 
 
 He was followed, at a decent interval, 
 by another caller. This time it was an old 
 gentleman who opened the door, put in 
 his head, and looked about him with quick 
 and suspicious glance. At sight of the 
 Assistant he nodded and smiled in the most 
 friendly way possible, and came in. 
 
 “ Good - morning, Mr. James ; good- 
 morning, my friend. Splendid weather. 
 Pray don’t disturb yourself. I am just 
 having a look round — only a look round, 
 you know. Don’t move, Mr. J ames. ” 
 
 He addressed Mr. James, but he was 
 looking at the shelves as he spoke, and, 
 with the habit of a book-hunter, taking 
 down the volumes, looking at the title- 
 pages and replacing them; under his arm 
 he carried a single volume in old leather 
 binding. 
 
 Mr. James nodded his head, but did 
 disturb himself; in fact, he rose with a 
 scowl upon his face, and followed this polite 
 old gentleman all round the shop, placing 
 himself close to his elbow. One might 
 almost suppose that he suspected him, so 
 close and assiduous was his assistance. 
 But the visitor, accepting these attentions 
 as if they were customary, and the result of 
 high breeding, went slowly round the 
 shelves, taking down book after book, but 
 buying none. Presently he smiled again, 
 and said that he must be moving on, and 
 very politely thanked Mr. James for his 
 kindness. 
 
 “ Nowhere,” he was so good as to say, 
 “ does one get so much personal kindness 
 and attention as at Emblem’s. Good- 
 morning, Mr. James ; good-morning, my 
 friend.” 
 
 Mr. James grunted; and closed the door 
 after him. 
 
 “ Ugh ! ” he said with disgust, “ I know 
 you ; I know your likes. Want to make 
 your set complete — eh Want to sneak 
 
 one of our books to do it with, don’t you % 
 Ah ! ” He looked into the back shop 
 before he returned to his paste and his 
 slips. “That was Mr. Potts, the great 
 Queen Anne collector, sir. Most notorious 
 book-snatcher in all London, and the most 
 barefaced. Wanted our fourth volume of 
 the Athenian Oracle. I saw his eyes 
 reached out this way, and that way, and 
 always resting on that volume. I saw him 
 
 A'f LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 7 
 
 edging along to the shelf. Got another 
 odd volume just like it in his wicked old 
 hand, ready to change it when I wasn’t 
 looking.” 
 
 “Ah,” said Mr. Emblem, waking up 
 from his dream of Iris and her father’s 
 letter ; “ah, they will try it on. Keep 
 your eyes open, James.” 
 
 “No thanks, as usual,” grumbled Mr. 
 J ames as he returned to his gum and his 
 scissors. “ Might as well have left him to 
 snatch the book.” 
 
 Here, however, James was wrong, 
 because it is the first duty of an Assistant 
 to hinder and obstruct the book-snatcher, 
 who carries on his work by methods of 
 crafty and fraudulent exchange rather than 
 by plain theft, which is a mere brutal way. 
 For, first, the book-snatcher marks his 
 prey ; he finds the shop which has a set 
 containing the volume which is missing in 
 his own set; next, he arms himself with a 
 volume which closely resembles the one he 
 covets, and then, on pretence of turning 
 over the leaves, he watches his oppor- 
 tunity to effect an exchange, and goes away 
 rejoicing, his set complete. No collector, 
 as is very well known, whether of books, 
 coins, pictures, medals, fans, scarabs, book- 
 plates, autographs, stamps, or anything else, 
 has any conscience at all. Anybody can cut 
 out slips and make a catalogue, but it 
 requires a sharp Assistant, with eyes all 
 over his head like a spider, to be always 
 on guard against this felonious and un- 
 scrupulous collector. 
 
 Next, there came two schoolboys to- 
 gether, who asked for and bought a crib to 
 Virgil ; and then a girl who wanted some 
 cheap French reading-book. Just as the 
 clock began to strike five, Mr. Emblem lifted 
 his head and looked up. The shop-door 
 opened, and there stepped in, rubbing his 
 shoes on the mat as if he belonged to the 
 house, an elderly gentleman of somewhat 
 singular appearance. He wore a Fez cap, 
 but was otherwise dressed as an English- 
 man — in black frock coat, that is, buttoned 
 up — except that his feet were encased in 
 black cloth shoes, so that he went noise- 
 lessly. His hair was short and white, and 
 he wore a small white beard; his skin 
 was a rather dark brown ; he was, in fact, 
 a Hindoo, and his name was Lala Boy. 
 
 He nodded gravely to Mr. James and 
 walked into the back shop. 
 
 “ It goes well,” he asked, “ with the 
 buying and the selling ? ” 
 
 “ Surely, Lala, surely.” 
 
 “A quiet way of buying and selling; 
 
8 November 13, 1884. 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 a way fit for one who meditates,” said the 
 Hindoo, looking round. “ Tell me, my 
 friend, what ails the child] ^ Is she sick? 
 
 “ The child is well, Lala.” 
 
 “Her mind wandered this morning. 
 She failed to perceive a simple method 
 which I tried to teach her. I feared she 
 might be ill.” _ , . . 
 
 « She is not ill, my friend, but I think 
 her mind is troubled.” 
 
 “ She is a woman. We are men. There 
 is nothing in the world that is able to 
 trouble the mind of the Philosopher. 
 
 “Nothing,” said Mr. Emblem manfully, 
 as if he, too, was a Disciple. “ Nothing ; is 
 there now ] ” 
 
 The stoutness of the assertion was 
 sensibly impaired by the question. 
 
 “ Not poverty, which is a shadow ; nor 
 pain, which passes ; nor the loss of woman’s 
 love, which is a gain ; nor fall from great* 
 n ess— nothing. N evertheless,” his ey es did 
 look anxious in spite of his . philosophy, 
 
 “ this trouble of the child— will it soon be 
 over ] ” 
 
 “ I hope this evening,” said Mr. Emblem. 
 
 “ Indeed I am sure that it will be finished 
 this evening.’ 
 
 “ If the child had a mother, or a brother, 
 or any protectors but ourselves, my friend, 
 we might leave her to them. But she has 
 nobody except you and me. I am glad 
 that she is not ill.” 
 
 He left Mr. Emblem, and passing through 
 the door of communication between house 
 and shop, went noiselessly up the stairs. 
 
 One more visitor— unusual for so many 
 to call on a September afternoon. This 
 time it was a youngish man of thirty or so, 
 who stepped into the shop with an air of 
 business, and, taking no. notice at all of 
 the Assistant, walked swiftly into the back 
 shop and shut the door behind him. 
 
 “I thought so,” murmured Mr. James. 
 “ After he’s been counting up his invest- 
 ments, his lawyer calls. More investments. 
 
 Mr. David Chalker was a solicitor and, 
 according to his friends, who were, proud 
 of him, a sharp practitioner. He was, in fact, 
 one of those members of the profession 
 who, starting with no connection, have to 
 make business for themselves. This, in 
 London, they do by encouraging the 
 county court, setting neighbours by the 
 ears, lending money in small sums, foment- 
 ing quarrels, charging commissions, and 
 generally making themselves a blessing 
 and a boon to the district where they 
 reside. But chiefly Mr. Ohalker occupied 
 himself with lending money. 
 
 “ Now, Mr. Emblem,” he said, not in a 
 menacing tone, but as one who warns; 
 
 “ now, Mr. Emblem.” 
 
 “Now, Mr. Chalker,” the bookseller 
 repeated mildly. 
 
 “ What are you going to do for me ] ” 
 
 “I got your usual notice,” the old book- 
 seller began, hesitating, “ six months, ago.” 
 
 “ Of course you did. Three fifty is the 
 amount. Three fifty, exactly.” 
 
 “Just so. But I am afraid I am not 
 prepared to pay off the Bill of Sale. The 
 interest, as usual, will be ready.” 
 
 “ Of course it will. But this time the 
 principal must be ready too.” 
 
 “Can’t you get another client to find 
 the money ] ” 
 
 “ No, I can’t. Money is tight, and your 
 security, Mr. Emblem, isn’t so good as it was.” 
 
 “ The furniture is there, and so is the 
 stock.” 
 
 “Furniture wears out ; as for the stock 
 — who knows what that is worth] All 
 your books together may not be worth 
 fifty pounds, for what I know.” 
 
 “ Then what am I to do ] ” 
 
 “ Find the money yourself. Come, Mr. 
 Emblem, everybody knows — your grand- 
 son himself told me — all the world knows 
 — you’ve been for years saving up for 
 your granddaughter. You told Joe only 
 six months ago — you can’t deny it — that 
 whatever happened to you she would be 
 well off.” 
 
 Mr. Emblem did not deny the charge. 
 But he ought not to have told this to his 
 grandson, of all people in the world. 
 
 “As for Joe,” Mr. Chalker went on, 
 “ you are going to do nothing for him. I 
 know that. But is it business-like, Mr. 
 Emblem, to waste good money which you 
 might have invested for your grand- 
 daughter ] ” 
 
 “You do not understand, Mr. Chalker. 
 You really do not, and I cannot explain. 
 But about this Bill of Sale— never mind 
 my granddaughter.” _ 
 
 “You the aforesaid Richard Emblem 
 
 Mr. Chalker began to recite, without 
 
 commas — “ have assigned to me David 
 Chalker aforesaid his executors adminis- 
 trators and assigns all and singular the 
 several chattels and things specifically 
 described in the schedule hereto annexed 
 by way of security for the payment of the 
 sum of three hundred and fifty pounds and 
 interest thereon at the rate of eight per 
 cent, per annum.” 
 
 “ Thank you, Mr. Chalker. I know all 
 that.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 9 
 
 “You can’t complain, I’m sure. It is 
 five years since you borrowed the money.” 
 “ It was fifty pounds and a box of old 
 law books out of your office, and I signed 
 a bill for a hundred.” 
 
 “You forget the circumstances.” 
 
 “ No, I do not. My grandson was a 
 rogue. One does not readily forget that 
 circumstance. He was also your friend, I 
 remember.” 
 
 “ And I held my tongue.” 
 
 “ I have had no more money from you, 
 and the sum has become three hundred 
 and fifty.” 
 
 “Of course you don’t understand law, 
 Mr. Emblem. How should you ? But 
 we lawyers don’t work for nothing. How- 
 ever, it isn’t what you got, but what I am 
 to get. Come, my good sir, it’s cutting 
 off your nose to spite your face. Settle 
 and have done with it, even if it does 
 take a little slice off your granddaughter’s 
 fortune ? Now look here ” — his voice 
 became persuasive — “ why not take me 
 into your confidence ? Make a friend of 
 me. You want advice ; let me advise 
 you. I can get you good investments — 
 far better than you know anything of — 
 good and safe investments — at six certain, 
 and sometimes seven and even eight per 
 cent. Make me your man of business — come 
 now. As for this trumpery Bill of Sale — 
 this trifle of three fifty, what is it to you ? 
 Nothing — -nothing. And as for your in- 
 
 tention to enrich your granddaughter, and 
 cut off your grandson with a shilling, why 
 I honour you for it — there, though he was 
 my friend. For Joe deserves it thoroughly. 
 I’ve told him so, mind. You ask him. 
 I’ve told him so a dozen times. I’ve said : 
 
 ‘ The old man’s right, Joe.’ Ask him if I 
 haven’t.” 
 
 This was very expansive, but somehow 
 Mr. Emblem did not respond. 
 
 Presently, however, he lifted his head. 
 
 “ I have three weeks still.” 
 
 “ Three weeks still.” 
 
 “ And if I do not find the money within 
 three weeks ? ” j 
 
 “ Why — but of course you will — but if 
 you do not — I suppose there will be only 
 one thing left to do — realise the security, 
 sell up— sticks and books and all.” 
 
 “ Thank you, Mr. Chalker. I will look 
 round me, and — and — do my best. Good- 
 day, Mr. Chalker.” 
 
 “ The best you can do, Mr. Emblem,” 
 returned the solicitor, “ is to take me as 
 your adviser. You trust David Chalker.” 
 
 “ Thank you. Good-day, Mr. Chalker.” 
 
 On his way out, Mr. Chalker stopped 
 for a moment and looked round the shop. 
 
 “ How’s business ? ” he asked the Assis- 
 tant. 
 
 “Dull, sir,” replied Mr. James. “He 
 throws it all away, and neglects his chances. 
 Naturally, being so rich ” 
 
 “ So rich, indeed,” the solicitor echoed. 
 
 “ It will be bad for his successor,” Mr. 
 James went on, thinking how much he 
 should himself like to be that successor. 
 “ The goodwill won’t be worth half what 
 it ought to be, and the stock is just falling 
 to pieces.” 
 
 Mr. Chalker looked about him again 
 thoughtfully, and opened his mouth as if 
 about to ask a question, but said nothing. 
 He remembered, in time, that the shopman 
 was not likely to know the amount of his 
 master’s capital or investments. 
 
 “ There isn’t a book even in the glass- 
 case that’s worth a five-pound note,” con- 
 tinued Mr. James, whispering, “'and he 
 don’t look about for purchases any more. 
 Seems to have lost his pluck.” 
 
 Mr. Chalker returned to the back-shop. 
 
 “ Within three weeks, Mr. Emblem,” he 
 repeated, and then departed. 
 
 Mr. Emblem sat in his chair. He had 
 to find three hundred and fifty pounds in 
 three weeks. No one knew better than 
 himself that this was impossible. Within 
 three weeks ! But, in three weeks, he 
 would open the packet of letters, and give 
 Iris her inheritance. At least, she would 
 
 not suffer. As for himself He looked 
 
 round the little back shop, and tried to 
 recall the fifty years he had spent there, 
 the books he had bought and sold, the 
 money which had slipped through his 
 fingers, the friends who had come and 
 gone. Why, as for the books, he seemed 
 to remember them every one — his joy in 
 the purchase, his pride in possession, and 
 his grief at letting them go. All the friends 
 gone before him, his trade sunk to nothing. 
 
 “Yet,” he murmured, “I thought it 
 would last my time.” 
 
 But the clock struck six. It was his 
 tea-time. He rose mechanically, and went 
 upstairs to Iris. 
 
 CHAPTER II. FOX AND WOLF. 
 
 Mr. James, left to himself, attempted, 
 in accordance with his daily custom, to 
 commit a dishonourable action. 
 
 That is to say, he first listened carefully 
 to the retreating footsteps of his master, 
 as he went up the stairs ; then he left 
 his table, crept stealthily into the back 
 
10 November IB, 1884.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 shop, and began to pnll the drawers, turn 
 the handle of the safe, and try the desk. 
 Everything was carefully locked. Then he 
 turned over all the papers on the table, 
 but found nothing that contained the 
 information he looked for. It was his 
 daily practice thus to try the locks, in hope 
 that some day the safe, or the drawers, or 
 the desk would be left open by accident, 
 when he might be able to solve a certain 
 problem, the doubt and difficulty of which 
 sore let and hindered him — namely, of what 
 extent, and where placed, were those great 
 treasures, savings, and investments which 
 enabled his master to be careless over his 
 business. It was, further, customary with 
 him to be thus frustrated and disappointed. 
 Having briefly, therefore, also in accor- 
 dance with his usual custom, expressed his 
 disgust at this want of confidence between 
 master and man, Mr. James returned to his 
 paste and scissors. 
 
 About a quarter-past six the shop door 
 was cautiously opened, and a head appeared, 
 which looked round stealthily. Seeing 
 nobody about except Mr. J arnes, the head 
 nodded, and presently, followed by its 
 body, stepped into the shop. 
 
 “Where’s the Admiral, Foxy?” asked 
 the caller. 
 
 “Guv’nor’s upstairs, Mr. Joseph, taking 
 of his tea with Miss Iris,” replied Mr. 
 James, not at all offended by the allusion 
 to his craftiness. Who should resemble 
 the Fox if not the second-hand book- 
 seller] In no trade, perhaps, can the 
 truly admirable qualities of that animal 
 — his patience, his subtlety and craft, his 
 pertinacity, his sagacity — be illustrated 
 more to advantage. Mr. James felt a 
 glow of virtue — would that he could grow 
 daily and hourly, and more and more 
 towards the Perfect Fox. Then, indeed, 
 and not till then would he be able to live 
 truly up to his second-hand books. 
 
 “ Having tea with Iris ; well ” 
 
 The speaker looked as if it required some 
 effort to receive this statement with resig- 
 nation. . , , , 
 
 “He always does at six o clock. Why 
 shouldn’t he]” asked Mr. James. 
 
 “Because, James, he spends the time in 
 cockering up that gal whom he’s ruined 
 and spoiled — him and the old Nigger 
 between them — so that her mind is 
 poisoned against her lawful relations, and 
 nothing will content her but coming into 
 all the old man’s money, instead of going 
 share and share alike, as a cousin should, 
 and especially a she cousin, while there’s a | 
 
 biscuit left in the locker and a drop of rum 
 in the cask.” 
 
 “ Ah !” said Mr. James with a touch of 
 sympathy, called forth, perhaps, by mention 
 of the rum, which is a favourite drink 
 with second-hand booksellers’ Assistants. 
 
 “ Nothing too good for her,” the other 
 went on ; “ the best of education, pianos to 
 play upon, and nobody good enough for her 
 to know. Not on visiting terms, if you 
 please, with her neighbours ; waiting for 
 Duchesses to call upon her. And what is 
 she, after all ] A miserable teacher ! ” 
 
 Mr. Joseph Gallop was a young man 
 somewhere between twenty and thirty, 
 tall, large-limbed, well set-up, and broad- 
 shouldered. A young man who, at first 
 sight, would seem eminently fitted to push 
 his own fortunes. Also, at first sight, a 
 remarkably handsome fellow, with straight, 
 clear-cut features and light, curly hair. 
 Wh6n he swung along the street, his round 
 hat carelessly thrown back, and his hand- 
 some face lit up by the sun, the old women 
 murmured a blessing upon his comely head 
 — as they used to do, a long time ago, upon 
 the comely and curly head of Absalom — 
 and the young women looked meaningly at 
 one another— as was also done in the case 
 of Absalom— and the object of their admira- 
 tion knew that they were saying to each 
 other, in the feminine way, where a look 
 is as good as a whisper, “ There goes a 
 handsome fellow.” Those who knew him 
 better, and had looked more closely into 
 his face, said that his mouth was bad and 
 his eyes shifty. The same opinion was held 
 by the wiser sort as regards his character. 
 For, on the one hand, some averred that 
 to their certain knowledge Joe Gallop had 
 shown himself a monster of ingratitude 
 towards his grandfather, who had paid liis- 
 debts and done all kinds of things for him; 
 on the other hand there were some who 
 thought he had been badly treated ; and 
 some said that no good would ever come 
 of a young fellow who was never able to 
 remain in the same situation more than a 
 month or so ; and others said that he had 
 certainly been unfortunate, but that he 
 was a quick and clever young man, who 
 would some day find the kind of work 
 that suited him, and then he would show 
 everybody of what stuff he was composed. 
 As for us, we have only to judge of him by 
 his actions. 
 
 “Perhaps, Mr. Joseph,” said Mr. James, 
 “ perhaps Miss Iris won’t have all be- 
 queathed to her.” 
 
 “Do you know anything]” Joe asked 
 
Charles Dickens. 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 quickly. “ Has he made a new will 
 lately! ” 
 
 “ Not that I know of. But Mr. Chalker 
 has been here off and on a good bit 
 now.” 
 
 “Ah! Chalker’s a close one, too. Else 
 he’d tell me, his old friend. Look here, 
 Foxy,” he turned a beaming and smiling 
 face upon the Assistant. “ If you should 
 see anything or find anything out, tell 
 me, mind. And, remember, I’ll make it 
 worth your while.” 
 
 Mr. James looked as if he was asking 
 himself how Joseph could make it worth 
 his while, seeing that he got nothing more 
 from his grandfather, and by his own 
 showing never would have anything more. 
 
 “It’s only his will I’m anxious to know 
 about ; that, and where he’s put away all 
 his money. Think what a dreadful thing 
 it would be for his heirs if he were to go 
 and die suddenly, and none of us to know 
 where his investments are. As for the 
 shop, that is already disposed of, as I dare 
 say you know.” 
 
 “ Disposed of ! The shop disposed of ! 
 Oh, Lord ! ” The Assistant turned pale. 
 “Oh, Mr. Joseph,” he asked earnestly, 
 “what will become of the shop! And 
 who is to have it ! ” 
 
 “lam to have it,” Mr. Joseph replied 
 calmly. This was the Lie Absolute, and 
 he invented it very cleverly and at the 
 right moment — a thing which gives strength 
 and life to a Lie, because he already sus- 
 pected the truth and guessed the secret 
 hope and ambition which possesses every 
 ambitious Assistant in this trade — namely, 
 to get the succession. Mr. James looked 
 upon himself as the lawful and rightful 
 heir to the business. But sometimes he 
 entertained grievous doubts, and now 
 indeed his heart sank into his boots. “ I 
 am to have it,” Joe repeated. j 
 
 “ Oh, I didn’t know. You are to have 
 it, then ! Oh ! ” 
 
 If Mr. J ames had been ten years younger, 
 
 I think he would have burst into tears. 
 But at the age of forty weeping no longer 
 presents itself as a form of relief. It is 
 more usual to seek consolation in a swear. 
 He stammered, however, while he turned 
 pale, and then red, and then pale again. 
 
 “Yes, quite proper, Mr. Joseph, I’m 
 sure, and a most beautiful business may be 
 made again here by one who understands 
 the way. Oh, you are a lucky man, 
 Mr. Joseph. You are indeed, sir, to get 
 such a noble chance.” 
 
 “ The shop,” J oe went on, “ was settled 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] H 
 
 — settled upon me, long ago.” The verb 
 “ to settle ” is capable of conveying large 
 and vague impressions. “But after all, 
 what’s the good of this place to a sailor ! ” 
 
 “ The good — the good of this place ! ” 
 Mr. James’s cheek flushed. “Why, to 
 make money, to be sure — to coin money 
 in. If I had this place to myself — why — 
 why, in two years I would be making as 
 much as two hundred a year. I would 
 indeed.” 
 
 “You want to make money. Bah ! 
 That’s all you fellows think of. To sit in 
 the back shop all day long and to sell 
 mouldy books ! We jolly sailor boys 
 know better than that, my lad.” 
 
 There really was something nautical 
 about the look of the man. He wore a 
 black-silk tie, in a sailor’s running knot, the 
 ends loose ; his waistcoat was unbuttoned, 
 and his coat was a kind of jacket ; not to 
 speak of his swinging walk and careless 
 pose. In fact, he had been a sailor; he 
 had made two voyages to India and back 
 as assistant-purser, or purser’s clerk, on 
 board a P. and O. boat, but some disagree- 
 ment with his commanding officer concern- 
 ing negligence, or impudence, or drink, or 
 laziness — he had been charged in different 
 situations and at different times with all 
 these vices, either together or separately- 
 caused him to lose his rating on the ship’s 
 books. However, he brought away from his 
 short nautical experience, and preserved, a 
 certain nautical swagger, which accorded 
 well with his appearance, and gave him a 
 swashbuckler air, which made those who 
 knew him well lament that he had not 
 graced the Elizabethan era, when he might 
 have become a gallant buccaneer, and so 
 got himself shot through the head, or that 
 he had not flourished under the reign of 
 good Queen Anne, when he would pro- 
 bably have turned pirate and been hanged ; 
 or that, being born in the Victorian age, 
 he had not gone to the Far West, where he 
 would, at least, have had the chance of 
 getting shot in a gambling-saloon. 
 
 “ As for me, when I get the business,” 
 he continued, “I shall look about for 
 someone to carry it on until I am able to 
 sell it for what it will fetch. Books at a 
 penny apiece all round, I suppose ” — James 
 gasped — “ shop furniture thrown in ” — 
 James panted — “and the goodwill for a 
 small, lump sum.” James wondered how 
 far his own savings, and what he could 
 borrow, might go towards that lump sum, 
 and how much might “ remain.” “ My 
 grandfather, as you know, of course, is soon 
 
12 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 going to retire from business altogether. 
 This was another Lie Absolute, as Mr.. Em- 
 blem had no intention whatever of retiring. 
 
 “ Soon, Mr. Joseph ] He has never said 
 a word to me about it.” 
 
 t( Very soon, now — sooner than you 
 expect. At seventy-five, and with all his 
 money, why should he go on slaving any 
 longer] Very soon, indeed. Any day.” 
 
 “ Mr. Joseph,” the assistant positively 
 trembled with eagerness and apprehen- 
 sion. 
 
 “What is it, James] Did you really 
 think that a man like me was going to sit 
 in a back shop among these mouldy volumes 
 all day ] Come, that’s too good.. You might 
 have given me credit for being one cut 
 above a counter, too. I am a gentleman, 
 James, if you please ; I am an officer and a 
 gentleman.” 
 
 He then proceeded to explain, in language 
 that smacked something of the sea, that 
 his ideas soared far above trade, which 
 was, at best, a contemptible occupation, 
 and quite unworthy of a gentleman, par- 
 ticularly of an officer and a gentleman ; 
 and that his personal friends would 
 never condescend even to formal acquain- 
 tance, not to speak of friendship, with 
 trade. This discourse may be omitted. 
 When one reads about such a man as Joe 
 Gallop, when we are told how he . looked 
 and what he said and how he said it, with 
 what gestures and in what tone, we. feel as 
 if it would be impossible for the simplest 
 person in the world to be mistaken as to 
 his real character. My friends, especially 
 my young friends, so far from the discern- 
 ment of character being easy, it is, on the 
 contrary, an art most difficult, and very 
 rarely attained. Nature’s indications are 
 a kind of handwriting, the characters 
 in which are known to few, so that, 
 for instance, the quick, enquiring glance 
 of an eye, in which one may easily read 
 — who knows the character — treachery, 
 lying, and deception, just as in the letter 
 Beth was originally easily discerned the 
 effigies of a house, may very easily pass 
 unread by the multitude. The language, or 
 rather the alphabet, is much less complicated 
 than the cuneiform of the Medes and 
 Persians, yet no one studies it, except 
 women, most of whom are profoundly 
 skilled in this lore, which makes them so 
 fearfully and wonderfully wise. Thus it 
 is easy for man to deceive his brother man, 
 but not his sister woman. Again, most of 
 us are glad to take everybody on his own 
 statements ; there are, or may be, we are all 
 
 ready to acknowledge, with sorrow for erring 
 humanity, somewhere else in the world, such 
 things as pretending, swindling, acting a 
 part, and cheating, but they do not and can- 
 not be long to our , own world. Mr. J ames, the 
 Assistant, very well knew that Mr. Emblem s 
 grandson had already, though still young, 
 as bad a record as could be desired by any; 
 that he had been turned out. of one situa- 
 tion after another; that his grandfather 
 had long since refused to help him any 
 more ; that he was always to be found in 
 the Broad Path which leadeth to destruc- 
 tion. When he had money he ran down 
 that path as fast as his legs could carry 
 him ; when he had none, he only walked 
 and wished he could run. But. he never 
 left it, and never wished to leave it. Know- 
 ing all this, the man accepted and believed 
 every word of J oe’s story. J ames believed 
 it, because he hoped it. He listened respect- 
 fully to Joe’s declamation on the mean- 
 ness of trade, and then he rubbed his 
 hands, and said humbly that he ventured 
 to hope, when the sale of the business came 
 on, Mr. Joseph would let him have a 
 chance. 
 
 “ You ] ” asked Joe. “ I never thought 
 of you. But why not ] Why not, I say ] 
 Why not you as well as anybody else ] ’ 
 
 “ Nobody but me, Mr. Joseph, knows 
 what the business is, and how it might be 
 improved ; and I could make arrangements 
 for paying by regular instalments. 
 
 “Well, we’ll talk about it when the 
 time comes. I won’t forget. Sailors, you 
 know, can’t be expected to understand the 
 value of shops. Say, James, what does 
 the Commodore do all day ] ” 
 
 “ Sits in there and adds up his invest- 
 ments.” _ . 
 
 “ Always doing that — eh ] Always 
 adding ’em up ] Ah ! and you’ve never 
 got a chance of looking over his shoulder, 
 I suppose*] ” 
 
 “ Never.” . 
 
 “You may find that chance, one oi 
 these days. I should like to know, if 
 only for curiosity, what they are and 
 where they are. He sits in there and 
 adds ’em up. Yes— I’ve seen . him at it. 
 There must be thousands by this time. 
 
 “ Thousands,” said the Assistant, in the 
 belief that the more you add up a sum the 
 larger it grows. , . , 
 
 Joe walked into the back shop and tried 
 
 the safe. 
 
 “ Where are the keys ] he asked. 
 
 “ Always in his pocket or on the table 
 before him. He don’t leave them about. 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK 
 
 “ Or you’d ha’ known pretty sharp all 
 there is to know — eh, my lad? Well, 
 you’re a Foxy one, you are, if ever there 
 was one. Let’s be pals, you and me. 
 When the old man goes, you want the shop 
 — well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t 
 have the shop. Somebody must have the 
 shop ; and it will be mine to do what I 
 please with. As for his savings, he says 
 they are all for Iris — well, wills have been 
 set aside before this. Do you think now, 
 seriously, do you think, James, that the 
 old man is quite right— eh ? Don’t answer 
 in a hurry. Do you think, now, that he is 
 quite right in his chump ? ” 
 
 James laughed. 
 
 “ He’s right enough, though he throws 
 away his chances.” 
 
 “Throws away his chances. How the 
 deuce can he be all right then ? Did you 
 ever hear of a bookseller in his right mind 
 throwing away his chances ? ” 
 
 “ Why — no — for that matter 
 
 “ Very well, then ; for that matter, don’t 
 forget that you’ve seen him throw away all 
 his chances — all his chances, you said. 
 You are ready to swear to that. Most im- 
 portant evidence, that, James.” James 
 had not said “ all,” but he grunted, and 
 the other man went on : “It may come in 
 useful, this recollection. Keep your eyes 
 wide-open, my red-haired pirate. As for 
 the mouldy old shop, you may consider it 
 as good as your own. Why, I suppose 
 you’ll get somebody else to handle the 
 paste-brush and the scissors, and tie up 
 the parcels, and water the shop — eh? 
 You’ll be too proud to do that for your- 
 self, you will.” 
 
 Mr. James grinned and rubbed his 
 hands. 
 
 “ All your own — eh ? Well, you’ll wake 
 ’em up a bit, won’t you ? ” 
 
 Mr. James grinned again — he continued 
 grinning. 
 
 “ Go on, Mr. Joseph,” he said ; “ go on 
 — I like it.” 
 
 “ Consider the job as settled, then. As 
 for terms, they shall be easy ; I’m not a 
 hard man. And — I say, Foxy, about that 
 safe?” * 
 
 Mr. James suddenly ceased grinning, 
 because he observed a look in his patron’s 
 eyes which alarmed him. 
 
 “ About that safe. You must find out 
 for me where the old man has put his 
 money, and what it is worth. Do you 
 hear ? Or else- ” 
 
 “ How can I find out ? He won’t tell 
 me any more than you.” 
 
 AT LAST, [November IB, 1884.] 13 
 
 “ Or else you must put me in the way 
 of finding out.” Mr. Joseph lowered his 
 voice to a whisper. “ He keeps the keys 
 on the table before him. When a customer 
 takes him out here, he leaves the keys 
 behind him. Do you know the key of the 
 
 dflfp % ” 
 
 “Yes, I know it.” 
 
 “What is to prevent a clever, quick- 
 eyed fellow like you, mate, stepping in 
 with a bit of wax — eh ? While he is talk- 
 ing, you know. You could rush it in a 
 moment.” 
 
 “It’s — it’s dangerous, Mr. Joseph.” 
 
 “ So it is — rather dangerous — not much. 
 What of that?” 
 
 “ I would do anything I could to be of 
 service to you, Mr. J oseph ; but that’s not 
 honest, and it’s dangerous.” 
 
 “ Dangerous ! There’s danger in the 
 briny deep and shipwreck on the blast, if 
 you come to danger. Do we, therefore, 
 jolly mariners afloat, ever think of that? 
 Never. As to honesty, don’t make a man 
 sick.” 
 
 “ Look here, Mr. Joseph. If you’ll give 
 me a promise in writing, that I’m to have 
 the shop, as soon as you get it, at a fair 
 valuation and easy terms — say ten per 
 
 cent, down, and ” 
 
 “Stow it, mate; write what you like, 
 and I’ll sign it. Now about that key ? ” 
 
 “ Supposing you was to get a duplicate 
 key, and supposing you was to get into 
 trouble about it, Mr. Joseph, should you — 
 should you — I only put it to you — should 
 you up and round upon the man as got 
 you that key ? ” 
 
 “ Foxy, you are as suspicious as a China- 
 man. Well, then, do it this way. Send 
 it me in a letter, and then who is to know 
 where the letter came from ? ” 
 
 The Assistant nodded. 
 
 “ Then I think I can do the job, though 
 not, perhaps, your way. But I think I can 
 do it. I won’t promise for a day or two.” 
 “There you spoke like an honest pal 
 and a friendly shipmate. Dangerous ! Of 
 course it is. When the roaring winds do 
 
 blow Hands upon it, brother. Foxy, 
 
 you’ve never done a better day’s work. 
 You are too crafty for any sailor — you are, 
 
 indeed. Here, just for a little key- ” 
 
 “Hush, Mr. Joseph! Oh, pray— pray 
 don’t talk so loud ! You don’t know who 
 may be listening. There’s Mr. Lala Roy. 
 You never hear him coming.” 
 
 “Just for a trifle of a key, you are going 
 to get possession of the best book-shop in 
 all Chelsea. Well, keep your eyes skinned 
 
14 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 and the wax ready, will you 1 And now, 
 James, I’ll be off.” 
 
 “ Oh, I say, Mr. Joseph, wait a moment! ” 
 James was beginning to realise what he had 
 promised. “ If anything dreadful should 
 come of this S I don’t know what is in 
 the safe. There may be money as well as 
 papers.” 
 
 “ James, do you think I would steal 1 
 Do you mean to insinuate that I am a 
 thief, sir 1 Do you dare to suspect that I 
 would take money % ” 
 
 James certainly looked as if he had 
 thought even that possible. 
 
 “ I shall open the safe, take out the 
 papers, read them, and put them back just 
 as I found them. Will that do for you 1 ” 
 He shook hands again, and took himself 
 off. 
 
 At seven o’clock Mr. Emblem came 
 downstairs again. 
 
 “ Has anyone been 1 ” he asked as usual. 
 
 “ Only Mr. Joseph.” 
 
 “ What might Mr. Joseph want % ” 
 
 “ Nothing at all.” 
 
 “Then,” said his grandfather, “Mr. 
 Joseph might just as well have kept away.” 
 
 Let us anticipate a little. J ames spent 
 
 the next day hovering about in the hope 
 that an opportunity would offer of getting 
 the key in his possession for a few moments. 
 There was no opportunity. The bunch of 
 keys lay on the table under the old man’s 
 eyes all day, and when he left the table he 
 carried them with him. But the day after- 
 wards he got his chance. One of the old 
 customers called to talk over past bargains 
 and former prizes. Mr. Emblem came out of 
 the back shop with his visitor, and continued 
 talking with him as far as the door. As 
 he passed the table — James’s table — he 
 rested the hand which carried the keys on 
 it, and left them there. James pounced 
 upon them and slipped them into his 
 pocket noiselessly. Mr. Emblem returned 
 to his own chair and thought nothing of 
 the keys for an hour and a half by the 
 clock, and during this period James was 
 out on business. When Mr. Emblem 
 remembered his keys, he felt for them in 
 their usual place and missed them, and 
 then began searching about and cried out 
 to James that he had lost his bunch of 
 keys. 
 
 “ Why, sir,” said James, bringing them 
 to him, after a little search, and with a 
 very red face, “ here they are ; you must 
 have left them on my table.” 
 
 And in this way the job was done. 
 
 CHAPTER III. IRIS THE HERALD. 
 
 By a somewhat remarkable coincidence • 
 it was on this very evening that Iris first 
 made the acquaintance of her pupil, Mr. 
 Arnold Arbuthnot. These coincidences, I 
 believe, happen oftener in real life than 
 they do even on the stage, where people 
 are always turning up at the very nick of 
 time and the critical moment. 
 
 I need little persuasion to make me 
 believe that the first meeting of Arnold 
 Arbuthnot and Iris, on the very evening 
 when her cousin was opening matters with 
 the Foxy one, was nothing short of Pro- 
 vidential. You shall see, presently, what 
 things might have happened if they had not 
 met. The meeting was, in fact, the second 
 of the three really important events in the 
 life of a girl. The first, which is seldom 
 remembered with the gratitude which it 
 deserves, is her birth ; the second, the first 
 meeting with her future lover ; the third, 
 her wedding-day ; the other events of a 
 woman’s life are interesting, perhaps, but 
 not important. 
 
 Certain circumstances, which will be 
 immediately explained, connected with, this 
 meeting, made it an event of very consider- 
 able interest to Iris, even though she did 
 not suspect its immense importance. So 
 much interest that she thought of nothing 
 else for a week beforehand ; that as the 
 appointed hour drew near she trembled and 
 grew pale ; that when her grandfather 
 came up for his tea, she, who was usually 
 so quick to discern the least sign of care or 
 anxiety in his face, actually did not observe 
 the trouble, plainly written in his drooping 
 head and anxious eyes, which was due to 
 his interview with Mr. David Chalker. 
 
 She poured out the tea, therefore, with- 
 out one word of sympathy. This would 
 have seemed hard if her grandfather had 
 expected any. He did not, however, 
 because he did not know that the trouble 
 showed in his face, and was trying to look 
 as if nothing had happened. Yet in his 
 brain were ringing and resounding the 
 words, “ Within three weeks — within three 
 weeks,” with the regularity of ’a horrid 
 clock at midnight, when one wants to go to 
 
 “ P Oh,” cried Iris, forced, as young 
 people always are, to speak of her own 
 trouble, “oh, grandfather, he is coming 
 to-night.” _ 
 
 “Who is coming to-night, my dear J ’ 
 and then he listened again for the ticking 
 of that clock: “Within three weeks — 
 
Charles Dickens. 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 November 13 , 1884 .] 1 5 
 
 within three weeks.” “Who is coming 
 to-night, my dear ? ” 
 
 He took the cup of tea from her, and 
 sat down with an old man’s deliberation, 
 which springs less from wisdom and the 
 fulness of thought than from respect to 
 rheumatism. 
 
 The iteration of that refrain, “Within 
 three weeks,” made him forget everything, 
 even the trouble of his granddaughter’s 
 mind. 
 
 “ Oh, grandfather, you cannot have for- 
 gotten ! ” 
 
 She spoke with the least possible touch 
 of irritation, because she had been think- 
 ing of this thing for a week past, day 
 and night, and it was a thing of such 
 stupendous interest to her, that it seemed 
 impossible that anyone who knew of it 
 could forget what was coming. 
 
 “No, no.” The old man was stimulated 
 into immediate recollection by the dis- 
 appointment in her eyes. “No, no, my 
 dear, I have not forgotten. Your pupil is 
 coming. Mr. Arbuthnot is coming. But, 
 Iris, child, don’t let that worry you. I will 
 see him for you, if you like.” 
 
 “ No ; I must see him myself. You see, 
 dear, there is the awful deception. Oh, 
 how shall I tell him ? ” 
 
 “ No deception at all,” he said stoutly. 
 “ You advertised in your own initials. 
 He never asked if the initials belonged to 
 a man or to a woman. The other pupils 
 do not know. Why should this one ? 
 What does it matter to him if you have 
 done the work for which he engaged your 
 services ? ” 
 
 “ But, oh, he is so different ! And the 
 others, you know, keep to the subject.” 
 
 “ So should he, then. Why didn’t 
 heU’ 
 
 “ But he hasn’t. And I have been 
 answering him, and he must think that I 
 was drawing him on to tell me more 
 about himself ; and now — oh, what will he 
 think ? I drew him on and on — yet I didn’t 
 mean to — till at last he writes to say that 
 he regards me as the best friend and the 
 wisest adviser he has ever had. What 
 will he think and say? Grandfather, 
 it is dreadful ! ” 
 
 “What did you tell him for, Iris, my 
 dear? Why couldn’t you let things go 
 on? And by telling him you will lose 
 your pupil.” 
 
 “ Yes, of course ; and, worse still, I 
 shall lose his letters. We live so quietly 
 here that his letters have come to me 
 like news of another world. How many 
 
 different worlds are there all round one in 
 London ? It has been pleasant to read of 
 that one in which ladies go about beauti- 
 fully dressed always, and where the people 
 have nothing to do but to amuse them- 
 selves. He has told me about this world 
 in which he lives, and about his own life, 
 so that I know everything he does, and 
 where he goes ; and ” — here she sighed 
 heavily — “ of course it could not go on for 
 ever ; and I should not mind so much if it 
 had not been carried on under false 
 pretences.” 
 
 “ No false pretences at all, my dear. 
 Don’t think it.” 
 
 “ I sent back his last cheque,” she said, 
 trying to find a little consolation for her- 
 self. “But yet ” 
 
 “Well, Iris,” said her grandfather, “he 
 wanted to learn heraldry, and you have 
 taught him.” 
 
 “For the last three months” — the girl 
 blushed as if she was confessing her sins — 
 “ for the last three months there has not 
 been a single word in his letters about 
 heraldry. He tells me that he writes 
 because he is idle, or because he wants to 
 talk, or because he is alone in his studio, 
 or because he wants his unknown friend’s 
 advice. I am his unknown friend, and I 
 have been giving him advice.” 
 
 “ And very good advice, too,” said her 
 grandfather benevolently. “ Who is so 
 wise as my Iris ? ” 
 
 “I have answered all his letters, and 
 never once told him that I am only a 
 girl.” 
 
 “ I am glad you did not tell him, Iris,” 
 said her grandfather ; but he did not say 
 why he was glad. “ And why can’t he go 
 on writing his letters without making any 
 fuss ? ” 
 
 “Because he says he must make the 
 acquaintance of the man — the man, he 
 says — with whom he has been in corre- 
 spondence so long. This is what he says.” 
 
 She opened a letter which lay upon a 
 table covered with papers, but her grand- 
 father stopped her. 
 
 “ Well, my dear, I do not want to know 
 what he says. He wishes to make your 
 acquaintance. Very good, then. You are 
 going to see him, and to tell him who you 
 are. That is enough. But as for deceiv- 
 ing ” — he paused, trying to understand 
 this extreme scrupulosity of conscience — 
 “ if you come to deceiving — well, in a 
 kind of a sort of way you did allow him 
 to think his correspondent a man. I admit 
 that. What harm is done to him ? 
 
1 6 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 None. He won’t be so mean, I suppose, 
 as to ask for his money back again.” 
 
 “ I think he ought to have it all back,” 
 said Iris; “ yes, all from the very beginning. 
 
 I am ashamed that I ever took any money 
 from him. My face burns when I think 
 of it.” 
 
 To this her grandfather made no reply. 
 The returning of money paid for services 
 rendered was, to his commercial mind, too 
 foolish a thing to be even talked about. 
 At the same time, Iris was quite free to 
 manage her own affairs. And then there 
 was that roll of papers in the safe. Why, 
 what matter if she sent away all her 
 pupils ? He changed the subject. 
 
 “ Iris, my dear,” he said, “ about this 
 other world, where the people amuse them- 
 selves ; the world which lives in the 
 squares and in the big houses on the 
 Chelsea Embankment here, you know — 
 how should you like, just for a change, to 
 belong to that world and have no work to 
 do?” 
 
 “ I don’t know,” she replied carelessly, 
 because the question did not interest her. 
 
 “You would have to leave me, of course. 
 You would sever your connection, as they 
 say, with the shop.” 
 
 “Please, don’t let us talk nonsense, 
 grandfather.” 
 
 “ You would have to be ashamed, 
 perhaps, of ever having taught for your 
 living.” 
 
 “Now that I never should be— never, 
 not if they made me a duchess.” 
 
 “ You would go dressed in silk and 
 velvet. My dear, I should like to see you 
 dressed up just for once, as we have 
 seen them at the theatre.” 
 
 “Well, I should like one velvet dress 
 in my life. Only one. And it should be 
 crimson — a beautiful, deep, dark crimson.” 
 “ Very good. And you would drive in 
 a carriage instead of an omnibus ; you 
 would sit in the stalls instead of the upper 
 circle ; you would give quantities of money 
 to poor people ; and you would buy as 
 many second-hand books as you pleased. 
 There are rich people, I believe, ostenta- 
 tious people, who buy new books. But you, 
 my dear, have been better brought up. No 
 books are worth buying till they have 
 stood the criticism of a whole generation 
 at least. Never buy new books, my dear.” 
 “ I won’t,” said Iris. “ But, you dear 
 old man, what have you got in your head 
 to-night ? Why in the world should we 
 talk about getting rich ? ” 
 
 “ I was only thinking,” he said, “ that, 
 
 perhaps, you might be so much 
 lappier ” 
 
 « Happier ? Nonsense ! I am as happy 
 as I can be. Six pupils already. To be 
 sure I have lost one,” she sighed ; “ and 
 the best among them all.” 
 
 When her grandfather left her, Iris 
 placed candles on the writing-table, but 
 did not light them, though it was already 
 pretty dark. She had half an hour to 
 wait; and she wanted to think, and 
 candles are not necessary for meditation. 
 She sat at the open window and suffered 
 her thoughts to ramble where they pleased. 
 This is a restful thing to do, especially if 
 your windows look upon a tolerably busy 
 but not noisy London road. For then, it is 
 almost as good as sitting beside a swiftly- 
 running stream ; the movement of the 
 people below is like the unceasing flow of 
 the current ; the sound of the footsteps is 
 like the whisper of the water along the 
 bank; the echo of the half heard talk 
 strikes your ear like the mysterious voices 
 wafted to the banks from the boats as 
 they go by ; and the lights of the shops 
 and the street presently become spectral 
 and unreal like lights seen upon the river 
 in tlie evening. 
 
 Iris had a good many pupils — six, m 
 fact, as she had boasted ; why, then, was 
 she so strangely disturbed on account of 
 one? 
 
 An old tutor by correspondence may be, 
 and very likely is, indifferent about his 
 pupils, because he has had so many ; but 
 Iris was a young tutor, and had as yet 
 known few. One of her pupils, for 
 instance, was a gentleman in the fruit and 
 potato line, in the Borough. By reason of 
 his early education, which had not been 
 neglected so much as entirely omitted, he 
 was unable to personally conduct his 
 accounts. Now a merchant without his 
 accounts is as helpless as a Tourist 
 without his Cook. So that he desired, 
 in his mature age, to learn book-keeping, 
 compound addition, subtraction, and 
 multiplication. He had no partners, so 
 that he did not want Division. But it is 
 difficult— say, well-nigh impossible— -for a 
 middle-aged merchant, not trained in the 
 graces of letter-writing, to inspire a young 
 lady with personal regard, even though 
 she is privileged to follow the current of 
 his thoughts day by day, and to set him his 
 sums. . 
 
 Next there was a young fellow of nine- 
 teen or twenty, who was beginning life as 
 an assistant-teacher in a commercial school 
 
: X 
 
 Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13 1884.] 17 
 
 at Lower Clapton. This way is a stony 
 and a thorny path to tread ; no one walks 
 upon it willingly ; those who are compelled 
 to enter upon it speedily either run away 
 and enlist, or they go and find a secluded 
 spot in which to hang themselves. The 
 smoother ways of the profession are only 
 to be entered by one who is the possessor of 
 a degree, and it was the determination 
 of this young man to pass the London 
 University Examinations, and obtain the 
 degree of Bachelor. In this way his value 
 in the Educational market would be at 
 once doubled, and he could command a 
 better place and lighter work. He showed 
 himself, in his letters, to be an eminently 
 practical, shrewd, selfish, and thick-skinned 
 young man, who would quite certainly get 
 on in the world, and was resolved to lose 
 no opportunities, and, with that view, he 
 took as much work out of his tutor as he 
 could get for the money. Had he known 
 that the “ I. A.” who took such a wonder- 
 ful amount of trouble with his papers was 
 only a woman, he would certainly have 
 extorted a great deal more work for his 
 money. All this Iris read in his letters 
 and understood. There is no way in 
 which a man more surely and more 
 naturally reveals his true character than in 
 his correspondence, so that after a while, 
 even though the subject of the letters 
 be nothing more interesting than the 
 studies in hand, those who write the letters 
 may learn to know each other if they have 
 but the mother wit to read between the 
 lines. Certainly this young schoolmaster 
 did not know Iris, nor did he desire to 
 discover what she was like, being wholly 
 occupied with the study of himself. Strange 
 and kindly provision of Nature. The less 
 desirable a man actually appears to others, 
 the more fondly he loves and believes in 
 himself. I have heard it whispered that 
 Narcissus was a hunchback. 
 
 Then there was another pupil, a girl 
 who was working her very hardest in order 
 to become, as she hoped, a first-class 
 governess, and who, poor thing ! by 
 reason of natural thickness would never 
 reach even the third rank. Iris would 
 have been sorry for her, because she 
 worked so fiercely, and was so stupid, but 
 there was something hard and un- 
 sympathetic in her nature which forbade 
 pity. She was miserably poor, too, and 
 had an unsuccessful father, no doubt as 
 stupid as herself, and made pitiful excuses 
 for not forwarding the slender fees with 
 regularity. 
 
 Everybody who is poor should be, on 
 that ground alone, worthy of pity and 
 sympathy. But the hardness, and stupidity, 
 and the ill-temper, all combined and clearly 
 shown in her letters, repelled her tutor. 
 Iris, who drew imaginary portraits of her 
 pupils, pictured the girl as plain to look 
 upon, with a dull eye, a leathery, pallid 
 cheek, a forehead without sunshine upon 
 it, and lips which seldom parted with a 
 smile. 
 
 Then there was, besides, a Cambridge 
 undergraduate. He was neither clever, 
 nor industrious, nor very ambitious; he 
 thought that a moderate place was 
 quite good enough for him to aim at, 
 and he found that this unknown and 
 obscure tutor by correspondence was 
 cheap and obliging, and willing to take 
 trouble, and quite as efficacious for his 
 purposes as the most expensive Cambridge 
 coach. Iris presently discovered that he 
 was lazy and luxurious, a deceiver of him- 
 self, a dweller in Fool’s Paradise, and a 
 consistent shirker of work. Therefore, 
 she disliked him. Had she actually known 
 him and talked with him, she might have 
 liked him better in spite of these faults and 
 shortcomings, for he was really a pleasant, 
 easy-going youth, who wallowed in in- 
 tellectual sloth, but loved physical activity; 
 who will presently drop easily, and 
 comfortably, and without an effort or a 
 doubt, into the bosom of the Church, and 
 will develop later on into an admirable 
 country parson, unless they disestablish the 
 Establishment; in which case, I do not 
 know what he will do. 
 
 But this other man, this man who was 
 coming for an explanation, this Mr. Arnold 
 Arbuthnot, was, if you please, a very 
 different kind of pupil. In the first place 
 he was a gentleman, a fact which he dis- 
 played, but not ostentatiously, in every line 
 of his letters ; next, he had come to her 
 for instruction — the only pupil she had in 
 that science, in heraldry, which she loved. 
 It is far more pleasant to be describing a 
 shield and setting questions in the queer 
 old language of this queer old science, 
 than in solving and proposing problems in 
 trigonometry and conic sections. And 
 then — how if your pupil begins to talk 
 round the subject and to wander into other 
 things 1 You cannot very well talk round 
 a branch of mathematics, but heraldry is 
 a subject surrounded by fields, meadows, 
 and lawns, so to speak, all covered with 
 beautiful flowers. Into these the pupil wan- 
 dered, and Iris not unwillingly followed. 
 
 =r 
 
1 8 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 Thus the teaching of heraldry by cor- 
 respondence became the most delightful 
 interchange of letters imaginable, set 
 off and enriched with a curious and 
 strange piquancy, derived from the fact that 
 one of them, supposed to be an elderly 
 man, was a young girl, ignorant of the 
 world except from books, and the advice 
 given her by two old men, who formed all 
 her society. Then, as was natural, what 
 was at first a kind of play, became before 
 long a serious and earnest confidence on 
 the one side, and a hesitating reception on 
 the other. 
 
 Latterly he more than once amused him- 
 self by drawing an imaginary portrait of 
 her ; it was a pleasing portrait, but it made 
 her feel uneasy. 
 
 “I know you,” he said, ‘‘from your 
 letters, but yet I want to know you in per- 
 son. I think you are a man advanced in 
 years.” Poor Iris ! and she not yet twenty- 
 one. “You sit in your study and read; 
 you wear glasses, and your hair is grey ; 
 you have a kind heart and a cheerful 
 voice; you are not rich — you have never 
 tried to make yourself rich ; you are there- 
 fore little versed in the ways of mankind ; 
 you take your ideas chiefly from books; 
 the few friends you have chosen are true 
 and loyal ; you are full of sympathy, and 
 quick to read the thoughts of those in 
 whom you take an interest.” A very fine 
 character, but it made Iris’s cheek to burn 
 and her eyes to drop. To be sure she was 
 not rich, nor did she know the world ; so 
 far her pupil was right, but yet she was 
 not grey nor old. And, again, she was not, 
 as he thought, a man. 
 
 Letter-writing is not extinct, as it is a 
 commonplace to affirm, and as people 
 would have us believe. Letters are written 
 still— the most delightful letters— letters as 
 copious, as charming, as any of the last 
 century ; but men and women no longer 
 write their letters as carefully as they used 
 to do in the old days, because they were 
 then shown about, and very likely read 
 aloud. Our letters, therefore, though their 
 sentences are not so balanced nor their 
 periods so rounded, are more real, more 
 truthful, more spontaneous, and more de- 
 lightful than the laborious productions of 
 our ancestors, who had to weigh every 
 phrase, and to think out their bons mots, 
 epigrams, and smart things for weeks 
 beforehand, so that the letter might appear 
 full of impromptu wit. I should like, for 
 instance, just for once, to rob the Outward 
 or the Homeward Mail, in order to read all 
 
 the delightful letters which go every week 
 backwards and forwards between the folk 
 in India and the folk at 1 home. 
 
 “ I shall lose my letters,” Iris reflected, 
 and her heart sank. Not only did her 
 correspondent begin to draw these 
 imaginary portraits of her, but he pro- 
 ceeded to urge upon her to come out of her 
 concealment, and to grant him an inter- 
 view. This she might have refused in her 
 desire to continue a correspondence which 
 brightened her monotonous life. But there 
 came another thing, and this decided her. 
 He began to give, and to ask, opinions 
 concerning love, marriage, and such topics 
 — and then she perceived it could not 
 possibly be discussed with him, even in 
 dbmino and male disguise. “ As for love,” 
 her pupil wrote, “ I suppose it is a real and 
 not a fancied necessity of life. A man,. I 
 mean, may go on a long time without it, 
 but there will come a time — do not you 
 think so 1 — when he is bound to feel the 
 incompleteness of life without a woman to 
 love. We ought to train our boys and 
 girls from the very beginning to regard 
 love and marriage as the only things really 
 worth having, because without them there 
 is no happiness. Give me your own ex- 
 perience. I am sure you must have been 
 in love at some time or other in your life.” 
 
 Anybody will understand that Iris could 
 not possibly give her own experience in 
 love - matters, nor could she plunge into 
 speculative philosophy of this kind with 
 her pupil. Obviously the thing must come 
 to an end. Therefore she wrote a letter to 
 him, telling him that “I. A.” would meet 
 him, if he pleased, that very evening at the 
 hour of eight. 
 
 It is by this time sufficiently under- 
 stood that Iris Aglen professed to teach 
 — it is an unusual combination — mathe- 
 matics and heraldry ; she might also 
 have taught equally well, had she chosen, 
 sweetness of disposition, goodness of heart, 
 the benefits conferred by pure and lofty 
 thoughts on the expression of a girl’s face, 
 and the way to acquire all the other 
 gracious, maidenly virtues ; but either 
 there is too limited a market for these 
 branches of culture, or— which is perhaps 
 the truer reason— there are so many English 
 girls, not to speak of Americans, who are 
 ready and competent to teach them, and 
 do teach them to their brothers, and their 
 lovers, and to each other, and to their 
 younger sisters all day long. 
 
 As for her heraldry, it was natural that 
 I she should acquire that science, because her 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK 
 
 grandfather knew as much as any Pur- 
 suivant or King-at-Arms, and thought that 
 by teaching the child a science which is 
 nowadays cultivated by so few, he was going 
 to make her fortune. Besides, ever mindful 
 of the secret packet, he thought that an 
 heiress ought to understand heraldry. 
 It was, indeed, as you shall see, in this 
 way that her fortune was made ; but yet 
 not quite in the way he proposed to make 
 it. Nobody ever makes a fortune quite in 
 the way at first intended for him. 
 
 As for her mathematics, it is no wonder 
 that she was good in this science, because 
 she was a pupil of Lala Roy. 
 
 This learned Bengalee condescended to 
 acknowledge the study of mathematics as 
 worthy even of the Indian intellect, and 
 amused himself with them when he was 
 not more usefully engaged in chess. He it 
 was who, being a lodger in the house, taught 
 Iris almost as soon as she could read how 
 letters placed side by side may be made to 
 signify and to accomplish stupendous things, 
 and how they may disguise themost graceful 
 and beautiful curves, and how they may 
 even open a way into boundless space, and 
 there disclose marvels. This wondrous 
 world did the philosopher open to the 
 ready and quick-witted girl ; nor did he 
 ever lead her to believe that it was at all an 
 unusual or an extraordinary thing for a 
 girl to be so quick and apt for science as 
 herself, nor did he tell her that if she went 
 to Newnham or to Girton, extraordinary 
 glories would await her, with the acclama- 
 tions of the multitude in the Senate House 
 and the praise of the Moderators. Iris, 
 therefore, was not proud of her mathe- 
 matics, which seemed part of her very 
 nature. But of her heraldry she was, I 
 fear, extremely proud — proud even to 
 sinfulness. No doubt this was the reason 
 why, through her heraldry, the humiliation 
 of this evening fell upon her. 
 
 “If he is young,” she thought, “if he 
 is young — and he is sure to be young — he 
 will be very angry at having opened his 
 mind to a girl ” — it will be perceived that, 
 although she knew so much mathematics, 
 she was really very ignorant of the 
 opposite sex, not to know that a young 
 man likes nothing so much as the opening 
 of his mind to a young lady. “If he is 
 old, he will be more humiliated still ” — as 
 if any man at any age was ever humiliated 
 by confessing himself to a woman. “ If 
 he is a proud man, he will never forgive 
 me. Indeed, I am sure that he can never 
 forgive me, whatever kind of man he is. 
 
 AT LAST. November 13, 1884.1 19 
 
 But I can do no more than tell him I am 
 sorry. If he will not forgive me then, 
 what more can I say % Oh, if he should 
 be vindictive ! ” 
 
 When the clock began to strike the 
 hour of eight, Iris lighted her candles, 
 and before the pulsation of the last stroke 
 had died away, she heard the ringing of 
 the house-bell. 
 
 The door was opened by her grandfather 
 himself, and she heard his voice. 
 
 “ Yes,” he said, “ you will find your 
 tutor, in the first floor front, alone. If 
 you are inclined to be vindictive, when 
 you hear all, please ring the bell for me.” 
 
 The visitor mounted the stairs, and Iris, 
 hearing his step, began to tremble and 
 to shake for fear. 
 
 When the door opened she did not at 
 first look up. But she knew that her pupil 
 was there, and that he was looking for his 
 tutor. 
 
 “ Pardon me ” — the voice was not 
 unpleasant— “ pardon me. I was directed 
 to this room. I have an appointment with 
 my tutor.” 
 
 “If,” said Iris, rising, for the time for 
 confession had at length arrived, “ if you 
 are Mr. Arnold Arbuthnot, your appoint- 
 ment is, I believe, with me.” 
 
 “ It is with my tutor,” he said. 
 
 “I am your tutor. My initials are 
 I. A.” 
 
 The room was only lighted by two 
 candles, but they showed him the hanging 
 head and the form of a woman, and he 
 thought she looked young, judging by the 
 outline. Her voice was sweet and clear. 
 
 “ My tutor ? You 1 ” 
 
 “ If you really are Mr. Arnold Arbuth- 
 not, the gentleman who has corresponded 
 with I. A. for the last two years on 
 heraldry, and — and other things, I am 
 your tutor.” 
 
 She had made the dreaded confession. 
 The rest would be easy. She even ven- 
 tured to raise her eyes, and she perceived, 
 with a sinking of the heart, that her 
 estimate of her pupil’s age was tolerably 
 correct. He was a young man, apparently 
 not more than five or six and twenty. 
 
 It now remained to be seen if he was 
 vindictive. 
 
 As for the pupil, when he recovered a 
 little from the blow of this announcement, 
 he saw before him a girl, quite young, 
 dressed in a simple grey or drab coloured 
 stuff, which I have reason to believe is 
 called Carmelite. The dress had a crimson 
 kerchief arranged in folds over the front, 
 
20 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 and a lace collar, and at first sight it made 
 the beholder feel that, considered merely 
 as a setting of face and figure, it was 
 remarkably effective. Surely this is the 
 true end and aim of all feminine adorn- 
 ment, apart from the elementary object of 
 keeping one warm. 
 
 “ I— I did not know,” the young man 
 said, after a pause, “ I did not know at all 
 that I was corresponding with a lady.” 
 
 Here she raised her eyes again, and he 
 observed that the eyes were very large and 
 full of light— “ eyes like the fishpools of 
 Heshbon ’—dove’s eyes. 
 
 “I am very sorry,” she said meekly. 
 “It was my fault.” 
 
 He observed other things now, having 
 regained the use of his senses. Thus he 
 saw that she wore her hair, which was of 
 a wonderful chestnut brown colour, parted 
 at the side like a boy’s, and that she had 
 not committed the horrible enormity of 
 cutting it short. He observed, too, that 
 while her lips were quivering and her 
 cheek was blushing, her look was stead- 
 fast. Are dove’s eyes, he asked himself, 
 always steadfast ? 
 
 “I ought to have told you long ago, 
 when you began to write about — about 
 yourself and other things, when I under- 
 stood that you thought I was a man— oh, 
 long ago I ought to have told you the 
 truth ! ” 
 
 “ It is wonderful ! ” said the young man, 
 
 “ it is truly wonderful ! ” He was thinking 
 of the letters— long letters, full of sympathy, 
 and a curious unworldly wisdom, which she 
 had sent him in reply to his own, and he 
 was comparing them with her youthful 
 face, as one involuntarily compares a poet’s 
 appearance with his poetry— generally a 
 disappointing thing to do, and always a 
 foolish thing. 
 
 “ I am very sorry,” she repeated. 
 
 “ Have you many pupils, like myself? ” 
 “ I have several pupils in mathematics. 
 It does not matter to them whether they 
 are taught by a man or a woman. In 
 heraldry I had only one — you.” 
 
 He looked round the room. _ One end 
 was occupied by shelves, filled with books ; 
 in one of the windows was. a table, covered 
 with papers and adorned with a type-writer, 
 by means of which Iris carried on her 
 correspondence. For a moment the un- 
 worthy thought crossed his mind that he 
 had been, perhaps, artfully lured on by a 
 Siren for his destruction. Only for a 
 moment, however, because she raised her 
 face and met his gaze again, with eyes so 
 
 frank and innocent, that he could not 
 doubt them. Besides, there was the clear 
 outline of her face, so truthful and . so 
 honest. The young man was an artist, 
 and therefore believed in outline. Could 
 any sane and intelligent creature doubt 
 those curves of cheek and chin ? 
 
 “I have put together,” she said, “all 
 your letters for you. Here they are. Will 
 you, please, take them back ? I must not 
 keep them any longer.” He took them, 
 and bowed. “I made this appointment, 
 as you desired, to tell you the truth, 
 because I have deceived you too long ; and 
 to beg you to forgive me ; and to say that, 
 of course, there is an end to our correspon- 
 dence ” 
 
 “ Thank you. It shall be as you 
 desire. Exactly,” he repeated, “as you 
 desire.” 
 
 He ought to have gone at once. There 
 was nothing more to say. Yet he lingered, 
 holding the letters in his hand. 
 
 “ To write these letters,” he said, “ has 
 been for a long time one of my greatest 
 pleasures, partly because I felt that I was 
 writing to a friend, and so wrote in full 
 trust and confidence, partly because they 
 procured me a reply- — in the shape of your 
 letters. Must I take back these letters of 
 mine ? ” 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 “ It is hard, is it not, to lose a friend 
 so slowly acquired, thus suddenly and un- 
 expectedly ? ” 
 
 « Yes,” she said, “ it is hard. I am very 
 sorry. It was my fault.” 
 
 “ Perhaps I have said something, in my 
 ignorance — something which ought not to 
 have been said or written — something 
 careless — something which has lowered me 
 
 in your esteem ” 
 
 “ Oh no— no ! ” said Iris quickly. “ You 
 have never said anything that a gentleman 
 should not have said.” 
 
 “ And if you yourself found any pleasure 
 
 in answering my letters ” 
 
 “ Yes,” said Iris with frankness, “it gave 
 me great pleasure to read and to answer 
 your letters, as well as I could.” 
 
 “ I have not brought back your letters. 
 I hope you will allow me to keep them. 
 And, if you will, why should we not con- 
 tinue our correspondence as before ? ” 
 
 But he did not ask the question confi- 
 dently. 
 
 “No,” said Iris decidedly ; “ it can never 
 be continued as before. How could it, 
 when once we have met, and you have 
 learned the truth ? ” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 - 5zd 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 21 
 
 “ Then/’ he continued, “ if we cannot 
 write to each other any more, can we not 
 talk ? ” 
 
 She ought to have informed him on the 
 spot that the thing was quite impossible, 
 and not to be thought of for one moment. 
 She should have said, coldly, but firmly — 
 every right-minded and well-behaved girl 
 would have said, “ Sir, it is not right that 
 you should come alone to a young lady’s 
 study. Such things are not to be permitted. 
 If we meet in society, we may, perhaps, 
 renew our acquaintance.” 
 
 But girls do go on sometimes as if there 
 was no such thing as propriety at all, and 
 such cases are said to be growing more 
 frequent. Besides, Iris was not a girl who 
 was conversant with social convenances. 
 She looked at her pupil thoughtfully and 
 frankly. 
 
 “ Can we ? ” she asked. She who 
 hesitates is lost, a maxim which cannot be 
 too often read, said, and studied. It is 
 one of the very few golden rules omitted 
 from Solomon’s Proverbs. “ Can we ? It 
 would be pleasant.” 
 
 “ If you will permit me,” he blushed and 
 stammered, wondering at her ready ac- 
 quiescence, “ if you will permit me to call 
 upon you sometimes — here, if you will 
 allow me, or anywhere else. You know my 
 name. I am by profession an artist, and I 
 have a studio close at hand in Tite Street.” 
 
 “To call upon me here ? ” she repeated. 
 
 Now, when one is a tutor, and has been 
 reading with a pupil for two years, one 
 regards that pupil with a feeling which 
 may not be exactly parental, but which is 
 unconventional. If Arnold had said, 
 “ Behold me ! May I, being a young man, 
 call upon you, a young woman ? ” she 
 would have replied : “ No, young man, 
 that can never be.” But when he said, 
 “ May I, your pupil, call sometimes upon 
 you, my tutor ? ” a distinction was at once 
 established by which the impossible became 
 possible.. 
 
 “ Yes,” she said, “I think you may call. 
 My grandfather has his tea with me every 
 evening at six. You may call then if it 
 will give you any pleasure.” 
 
 “ You really will let me come here ? ” 
 
 The young man looked as if the per- 
 mission was likely to give him the greatest 
 pleasure. 
 
 “ Yes; if you wish it.” 
 
 She spoke just exactly like an Oxford 
 Don giving an undergraduate permission 
 to take an occasional walk with him, or to 
 call for conversation and advice at certain 
 
 times in his rooms. Arnold noticed the 
 manner, and smiled. 
 
 “ Still,” he said, “as your pupil ? ” 
 
 He meant to set her at her ease con- 
 cerning the propriety of these visits. She 
 thought he meant a continuation of a 
 certain little arrangement as to fees, and 
 blushed. 
 
 “No,” she said; “I must not consider 
 you as a pupil any longer. You have put 
 an end to that yourself.” 
 
 “ I do not mind, if only I continue your 
 friend.” 
 
 “ Oh,” she said, “ but we must not pledge 
 ourselves rashly to friendship. Perhaps 
 you will not like me when you once come 
 to know me.” 
 
 “ Then I remain your disciple.” 
 
 “ Oh no,” she flushed again, “ you must 
 already think me presumptuous enough in 
 venturing to give you advice. I have 
 
 written so many foolish things ” 
 
 “ Indeed, no,” he interrupted ; “ a 
 thousand times no. Let me tell you once 
 for all, if I may, that you have taught 
 me a great deal — far more than you can 
 ever understand, or than I can explain. 
 Where did you get your wisdom? Not 
 from the Book of Human Life. Of that 
 you cannot know much as yet.” 
 
 “ The wisdom is in your imagination, I 
 think. You shall not be my pupil, nor my 
 disciple, but — well — because you have told 
 me so much, and I seem to have known 
 you so long, and, besides, because you must 
 never feel ashamed of having told me so 
 much, you shall come, if you please, as my 
 brother.” 
 
 It was not till afterwards that she 
 reflected on the vast responsibilities she 
 incurred in making this proposal, and on the 
 eagerness with which her pupil accepted it. 
 
 “As your brother?” he cried, offering 
 her his hand. “Why, it is far — far more 
 than I could have ventured to hope. Yes, 
 I will come as your brother. And now, 
 although you know so much about me, 
 you have told me nothing about yourself — 
 not even your name.” 
 
 “My name is Iris Aglen.” 
 
 “ Iris ! It is a pretty name.” 
 
 “It was, I believe, my grandmother’s. 
 But I never saw her, and I do not know who 
 or what my father’s relations are.” 
 
 “Iris Aglen ! ” he repeated. “ Iris was 
 the Herald of the Gods, and the rainbow 
 was constructed on purpose to serve her 
 for a way from Heaven to the Earth.” 
 
 “ Mathematicians do not allow that,” said 
 the girl, smiling. 
 
22 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 “ I don’t know any mathematics. But 
 now I understand in what school you 
 learned your heraldry. You are Queen-at- 
 Arms at least, and Herald to the Gods of 
 Olympus.” 
 
 He wished to add something about the 
 loveliness of Aphrodite, and the wisdom 
 of Athene, but he refrained, which was in 
 good taste. 
 
 “ Thank you, Mr. Arbuthnot,” Iris 
 replied. “I learned my heraldry of my 
 grandfather, who taught himself from the 
 books he sells. And my mathematics 
 I learned of Lala Boy, who is our lodger, 
 and a learned Hindoo gentleman. My 
 father is dead — and my mother as well — 
 and I have n® friends in the world except 
 these two old men, who love me, and have 
 done their best to spoil me.” 
 
 Her eyes grew humid and her voice 
 trembled. 
 
 No other friends in the world ! Strange 
 to say, this young man felt a little sense of 
 relief. No other friends. He ought to 
 have sympathised with the girl’s loneliness ; 
 he might have asked her how she could 
 possibly endure life without companion- 
 ship, but he did not; he only felt that 
 other friends might have been rough and 
 ill-bred ; this girl derived her refinement, 
 not only from nature, but also from separa- 
 tion from the other girls who might in 
 the ordinary course have been her friends 
 and associates. And if no other friends, 
 then no lover. Arnold was only going to 
 visit the young lady as her brother ; but 
 lovers do not generally approve the intro- 
 duction of such novel effects as that caused 
 by the appearance of a brand-new and 
 previously unsuspected brother. He was 
 glad, on the whole, that there was no lover. 
 
 Then he left her, and went home to his 
 studio, where he sat till midnight, sketching 
 a thousand heads one after the other with 
 rapid pencil. They were all girls’ heads, 
 and they all had hair parted on the left 
 side, with a broad, square forehead, full 
 eyes, and straight, clear-cut features. 
 
 “ No,” he said, “ it is no good. I cannot 
 catch the curve of her mouth— nobody 
 could. What a pretty girl ! And I am to 
 be her brother ! What will Clara say ? 
 And how — oh, how in the world can she 
 be, all at the same time, so young, so 
 pretty, so learned, so quick, so sympathetic, 
 and so wise 1 ” 
 
 CHAPTER IV. THE WOLF AT HOME. 
 
 There is a certain music-hall, in a 
 certain street, leading out of a certain road, 
 
 and this is quite clear and definite 
 enough. Its distinctive characteristics, 
 above any of its fellows, is a vulgarity so 
 profound, that the connoisseur or student 
 in that branch of mental culture thinks that 
 here at last he has reached the lowest 
 depths. For this reason one shrinks from 
 actually naming it, because it might become 
 fashionable, and then, if it fondly tried to 
 change its character to suit its changed 
 audience, it might entirely lose its present 
 charm, and become simply commonplace. 
 
 Joe Gallop stood in the doorway of this 
 hall, a few days after the Tempting of Mr. 
 James. It was about ten o’clock, when 
 the entertainments were in full blast. He 
 had a cigarette between his lips, as becomes 
 a young man of fashion, but it had gone 
 out, and he was thinking of something. 
 To judge from the cunning look in his 
 eyes, it was something not immediately 
 connected with the good of his fellow- 
 creatures. Presently the music of the 
 orchestra ceased, and certain female 
 acrobats, who had been “contorting” them- 
 selves fearfully and horribly for a quarter of 
 an hour upon the stage, kissed their hands, 
 which were as hard as ropes, from the 
 nature of their profession, and smiled a 
 fond farewell. There was some applause, 
 but not much, because neither man nor 
 woman cares greatly for female acrobats, 
 and the performers themselves are with 
 difficulty persuaded to learn their art, and 
 generally make haste to “go in ” again as 
 soon as they can, and try henceforward to 
 forget that they have ever done things with 
 ropes and bars. 
 
 Joe, when they left the stage, ceased 
 his meditations, whatever may have been 
 their subject, lit a fresh cigarette, and 
 assumed an air of great expectation, as 
 if something really worth seeing and 
 hearing were now about to appear. And 
 when the Chairman brought down the 
 hammer with the announcement that Miss 
 Carlotta Claradine, the People’s Favourite, 
 would now oblige, it was Joe who loudly 
 led the way for a tumultuous burst of 
 applause. Then the band, which at this 
 establishment, and others like unto it, only 
 plays two tunes, one for acrobats, and one 
 for singers, struck up the second air, and 
 the People’s Favourite appeared. She may 
 have had by nature a sweet and tuneful 
 voice ; perhaps it was in order to please 
 her friends, the People, that she converted 
 it into a harsh and rasping voice, that she 
 delivered her words with even too much 
 gesture, and that she uttered a kind of 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 23 
 
 shriek at the beginning of every verse, 
 which was not in the composer’s original 
 music, but was thrown in to compel atten- 
 tion. She was dressed with great simplicity, 
 in plain frock, apron, and white cap, to 
 represent a fair young Quakeress, and she 
 sang a song about her lover with much 
 “ archness” — a delightful quality in woman. 
 
 “ Splendid, splendid ! Bravo ! ” shouted 
 J oseph at the end of the first verse. “That 
 fetches ’em, don’t it, sir ? Positively drags 
 ’em in, sir.” 
 
 He addressed his words, without turning 
 his head, to a man who had just come in, 
 and was gazing at him with unbounded 
 astonishment. 
 
 “You here, Joe ? ” he said. 
 
 Joe started. 
 
 “ Why, Chalker, wfyo’d have thought to 
 meet you in this music-hall ? ” 
 
 “ It’s a good step, isn’t it ? And what 
 are you doing, Joe 1 I heard you’d left 
 the P. and O. Company.” 
 
 “Had to,” said Joe. “A gentleman 
 has no choice but to resign. Ought never 
 to have gone there. There’s no position, 
 Chalker — no position at all in the service. 
 That is what I felt. Besides, the uniform, 
 for a man of my style, is unbecoming. 
 And the Captain was a Cad.” 
 
 “Humph! and what are you doing 
 then 1 Living on the old man again ? ” 
 
 “ Never you mind, David Chalker,” re- 
 plied Joe with dignity ; “I am not likely 
 to trouble you any more after the last time 
 I called upon you.” 
 
 “ Well, Joe,” said the other, without 
 taking offence, “it is not my business to 
 lend money without security, and all you 
 had to offer was y®ur chance of what your 
 grandfather might leave you — or might 
 not.” 
 
 “And a very good security too, if he 
 does justice to his relations.” 
 
 “ Yes ; but how did I know whether he 
 was going to do justice 1 Come, Joe, don’t 
 be shirty with an old friend.” 
 
 There was a cordiality in the solicitor’s 
 manner which boded well. Joe was pretty 
 certain that Mr. Chalker was not a man to 
 cultivate friendship unless something was 
 to be got out of it. It is only the idle and 
 careless who can waste time over unprofit- 
 able friendships. With most men friend- 
 ship means assisting in each other’s little 
 games, so that every man must become, on 
 occasion, bonnet, confederate, and pal, for 
 his friend, and may expect the same kindly 
 office for himself. : 
 
 If Chalker wished to keep up his old 
 
 acquaintance with Joe Gallop, there must 
 be some good reason. Now the only 
 reason which suggested itself to Joe at 
 that moment was that Chalker had lately 
 drawn a new will for the old man, and 
 that he himself might be in it. Here he 
 was wrong. The only reason of Mr. 
 Chalker’s friendly attitude was curiosity to 
 know what J oe was doing, and how he was 
 living. 
 
 “ Look here, Chalker,” Joe whispered, 
 “ you used to pretend to be a pal. What’s 
 the good of being a pal if you won’t help 
 a fellow ? You see my grandfather once 
 a week or so ; you shut the door and have 
 long talks with him. If you know what 
 he’s going to do with his money, why 
 not tell a fellow ? Let’s make a business 
 matter of it.” 
 
 “ How much do you know, Joe, and what 
 is your business proposal worth ? ” 
 
 “Nothing at all; that’s the honest 
 truth I know nothing. The old man’s 
 as tight as wax. But there’s other busi- 
 ness in the world besides his. Suppose I 
 know of something a precious sight better 
 than his investments, and suppose— just 
 suppose — that I wanted a lawyer to manage 
 it for me.” 
 
 “ Well, Joe U’ 
 
 “ Encore ! Bravo ! Encore ! Bravo !” 
 Joe banged his stick on the floor and 
 shouted because the singer ended her 
 first song. He looked so fierce and big, 
 that all the bystanders made haste to follow 
 his example. 
 
 “ Splendid, isn’t she ? ” he said. 
 
 “ Hang the singer ! What do you mean 
 by other business ? ” 
 
 “Perhaps it’s nothing. Perhaps there 
 will be thousands in it. And perhaps I 
 can get on without you, after all.” 
 
 “ Very well, Joe. Get on without me 
 if you like.” 
 
 “Look here, Chalker,” Joe laid a per- 
 suasive hand on the other’s arm, “can’t 
 we two be friendly ? Why don’t you give 
 a fellow a lift 1 All I want to know is 
 where the old man’s put his money, and 
 how he’s left it.” 
 
 “Suppose I do know,” Mr. Chalker 
 replied, wishing ardently that ho did, “ do 
 you think I am going to betray trust— a 
 solicitor betray trust— and for nothing? 
 But if you want to talk real business, Joe, 
 come to my office. You know where that is. ” 
 
 Joe knew very well; in fact, there had 
 been more than one difficulty which had 
 been adjusted through Mr. Chalker’s not 
 wholly disinterested aid. 
 

 24 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 Then the singer appeared again attired 
 in a new and startling dress, and Joe 
 began once more to applaud again with 
 voice and stick. Mr. Chalker, surprised 
 at this newly-developed enthusiasm for art, 
 left him and walked up the hall, and sat 
 down beside the Chairman, whom he 
 seemed to know. In fact, the Chairman 
 was also the Proprietor of the show, and 
 Mr. Chalker was acting for him in his pro- 
 fessional capacity, much as he had acted 
 for Mr. Emblem. 
 
 Who is your new singer 1 he asked. 
 
 She calls herself Miss Carlotta Clara- 
 dine. She’s a woman, let me tell you, Mr. 
 Chalker, who will get along. Fine figure, 
 plenty of cheek, loud voice, flings herself 
 about, and don’t mind a bit when the 
 words are a leetle strong. That s the kind 
 of singer the people like. Thats her 
 husband, at the far end of the room-the 
 big, good-looking chap with the light 
 moustache and the cigarette mhismouth. 
 
 “Whew!” Mr. Chalker whistled the 
 low note which indicates surprise. “ That’s 
 her husband, is it 1 The husband of Miss 
 Carlotta Claradine, is it 1 Oho ! oho . Her 
 husband! Are you sure he is her 
 
 husband 1” # 
 
 “ Do you know him, then 1 
 “ Yes, I know him. What was the real 
 name of the girll ” . . n , 
 
 “Charlotte Smithers. This is her first 
 appearance on any stage— and we made up 
 the name for her when we first put her on 
 the posters. I made it myself— out of 
 Chlorodyne, you know, which is m the 
 advertisements. Sounds well, don t it (— 
 Carlotta Claradine.” 
 
 “ Very well, indeed. By Jove ! Her 
 
 husband, is he V } . . _ . 
 
 “ And, I suppose,’ said the Chairman, 
 “lives on his wife’s salary. Bless you, 
 Mr. Chalker, there’s a whole _ gang 
 about every theatre and music-hall 
 trving to get hold of the promising girls. 
 It’s a regular profession. Them as have 
 nothing but their good looks may do for 
 the mashers, but these chaps look out for 
 the girls who’ll bring in the money. What s 
 
 a pretty face to them compared with the 
 
 handling of a big salary every week % That s 
 the sort Carlotta’s husband belongs to. 
 “Well, the life will suit him down to 
 
 the ground.” . . -rr 
 
 « And jealous with it, if you please. He 
 comes here every night to applaud and 
 takes her home himsolf. Keeps himself 
 sober on purpose.” . . 
 
 And then the lady appeared again m a 
 
 wonderful costume of blue silk and tights, 
 personating the Lion Masher. It was her 
 third and last song. 
 
 In the applause which followed, Mr. 
 Chalker could discern plainly the stick 
 as well as the voice of his old friend. 
 And he thought how beautiful is the love 
 of husband unto wife, and he smiled, 
 thinking that when J oe came next to 
 see him, he might perhaps hear truths 
 which he had thought unknown, and, 
 for certain reasons, wished to remain 
 unknown. 
 
 Presently he saw the singer pass down 
 the hall, and join her husband, who now, 
 his labours ended, was seeking refreshment 
 at the bar. She was a good-looking girl — 
 still only a girl, and apparently under 
 twenty — quietly drq^sed, yet looking any- 
 thing but quiet. But that might have 
 been due to her fringe, which was, so to 
 speak, a prominent feature in her face. She 
 was tall and well-made, with large features, 
 an ample cheek, a full eye, and a wide 
 mouth. A good-natured looking girl, and 
 though her mouth was wide, it suggested 
 smiles. The husband was exchanging a 
 little^ graceful badinage with the barmaid 
 when she joined him, and perhaps this 
 made her look a little cross. “She’s 
 jealous, too,” said Mr. Chalker, observant; 
 “all the better.” Yet a face which, on 
 the whole, was prepossessing and good- 
 natured, and betokened a disposition to 
 make the best of the world. 
 
 “How long has she been married 1 
 Mr. Chalker asked the Proprietor. 
 
 « Only about a month or so.” 
 
 “Ah!” , . . 
 
 Mr. Chalker proceeded to talk business, 
 and gave no further hint of any interest 
 in the newly-married pair. 
 
 “Now, Joe,” said the singer, with a 
 freezing glance at the barmaid, “ are you 
 going to stand here all night 1 ” 
 
 Joe drank off his glass and followed his 
 wife into the street. They walked side by 
 side in silence, until they reached their 
 lodgings. Then she threw off her hat and 
 jacket, and sat down on the horsehair sofa 
 and said abruptly : , ’ „ 
 
 “ I can’t do it, Joe ; and I won t. bo 
 
 don’t ask me.” 
 
 “ Wait a bit— wait a bit, Lotty, my love. 
 Don’t be in a hurry, now. Don’t say rash 
 things, there’s a good girl.” Joe spoke 
 quite softly, as if he were not the least 
 angry, but, perhaps, a little hurt. “ There s 
 not a bit of a hurry. You needn t decide 
 to-day, nor yet to-morrow.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 25 
 
 “I couldn’t do it,” she said. ‘‘Oh, it’s 
 a dreadful, wicked thing even to ask me. 
 And only five weeks to-morrow since we 
 married ! ” 
 
 “ Lotty, my dear, let us be reasonable.” 
 He still spoke quite softly. “If we are 
 not to go on like other people ; if we are 
 to be continually bothering our heads 
 about honesty, and that rubbish, we shall 
 be always down in the world. How do 
 other people make money and get on ? By 
 humbug, my dear. By humbug. As for 
 you, a little play-acting is nothing.” 
 
 “ But I am not the man’s daughter, and 
 my own father’s alive and well.” 
 
 “Look here, Lotty. You are always 
 grumbling about the music-halls.” 
 
 “Well, and good reason to grumble. 
 If you heard those ballet-girls talk, and 
 see how they go on at the back, you’d 
 
 grumble. As for the music ” She 
 
 laughed, as if against her will. “ If any- 
 body had told me six months ago — me, 
 that used to go to the Cathedral Service 
 every afternoon — that I should be a Lion 
 Masher at a music-hall, and go on dressed 
 iu tights, I should have boxed his ears for 
 impudence.” 
 
 “Why, you don’t mean to tell me, 
 Lotty, that you wish you had stuck to the 
 mouldy old place, and gone on selling 
 music over the counter 1 ” 
 
 “Well, then, perhaps I do.” 
 
 “ No, no, Lotty ; your husband cannot 
 let you say that.” 
 
 “ My husband can laugh and talk with 
 barmaids. That makes him happy.” 
 
 “ Lotty,” he said, “ you are a little fooL 
 And think of the Glory. Posters with 
 your name in letters a foot and a half long 
 — ‘The People’s Favourite.’ Why, don’t 
 they applaud you till their hands drop 
 off?” 
 
 She melted a little. 
 
 “ Applaud ! As if that did any good ! 
 And me in tights ! ” 
 
 “As for the tights,” Joe replied with 
 dignity, “ the only person whom you need 
 consult on that subject is your husband ; 
 and since I do not object, I should like to 
 see the man who does. Show me that 
 man, Lotty, and I’ll straighten him out for 
 you. You have my perfect approval, my 
 dear. I honour you for the tights.” 
 
 “ My husband’s approval ! ” 
 
 She repeated his words again in a manner 
 which had been on other occasions most 
 irritating to him. But to-night he refused 
 to be offended. 
 
 “ Of course,” he went on, “as soon as I 
 
 get a berth on another ship I shall take 
 
 you off the boards. It is the husband’s 
 
 greatest delight, especially if he is a jolly 
 sailor, to brave all dangers for his wife. 
 Think, Lotty, how pleasant it would be not 
 to do any more work.” 
 
 “ I should like to sing sometimes, to sing 
 good music, at the great concerts. That’s 
 what I thought I was going to do.” 
 
 “ You shall ; you shall sing as little or 
 as often as you like. ‘ A sailor’s wife a 
 sailor’s star should be.’ You shall be a 
 
 great lady, Lotty, and you shall just 
 
 command your own line. Wait a bit, and 
 you shall have your own carriage, and 
 your own beautiful house, and go to as 
 many balls as you like among the countesses 
 and the swells.” 
 
 “ Oh, Joe ! ” she laughed. “ Why, if we 
 were as rich as anything, I should never 
 get ladies to call upon me. And as for 
 you, no one would ever take you to be a 
 gentleman, you know.” 
 
 “ Why, what do you call me, now 1 ” 
 
 He laughed, but without much enjoy- 
 ment. No one likes to be told that he is 
 not a gentleman, whatever his own sus- 
 picions on the subject may be. 
 
 “ Never mind. I know a gentleman 
 when I see one. Go on with your non- 
 sense about being rich.” 
 
 “ I shall make you rich, Lotty, whether 
 you like it or not,” he said, still with 
 unwonted sweetness. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 “ Not by wickedness,” she said stoutly. 
 
 “ I’ve got here,” he pulled a bundle of 
 papers out of his pocket, “all the docu- 
 ments wanted to complete the case. All I 
 want now is for the rightful heiress to step 
 forward.” 
 
 “ I’m not the rightful heiress, and I’m 
 not the woman to step forward, Joe ; so 
 don’t you think it.” 
 
 “I’ve been to-day,” Joe continued, “to 
 Doctors’ Commons, and I’ve seen the will. 
 There’s no manner of doubt about it ; and 
 the money — oh, Lord, Lotty, if you only 
 knew how much it is ! ” 
 
 “What does it matter, Joe, how much 
 it is, if it is neither yours nor mine ? ” 
 
 “ It matters this : that it ought all to be 
 mine.” 
 
 “ How can that be, if it was not left to 
 you 1 ” 
 
 Joe was nothing, if not a man of resource. 
 He therefore replied without hesitation or 
 confusion : 
 
 “The money was left to a certain man 
 and to his heirs. That man is dead. His 
 
26 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 heiress should have succeeded, but she was 
 kept out of her rights. She is dead, and I 
 am her cousin, and entitled to all her 
 property, because she made no will. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Is that gospel truth, Joe ? Is she dead 1 
 Are you sure 1 ” 
 
 “Quite sure,” he replied. “Dead as a 
 door-nail.” „ 
 
 “ Is that the way you got the papers ? 
 
 “ That’s the way, Lotty .” 
 
 “Then why not go to a lawyer and 
 make him take up the case for you, and 
 honestly get your own 1 ” 
 
 “ You don’t know law, my dear, or you 
 wouldn’t talk nonsense about lawyers. 
 There are two ways. One is to go myself 
 to the present unlawful possessor and claim 
 the whole. It’s a woman ; she would be 
 certain to refuse, and then we should go to 
 law, and very likely lose it all, although the 
 right is on our side. The other way is for 
 some one — say you — to go to her and say: 
 
 ‘ I am that man’s daughter. Here are my 
 proofs. Here are all his papers. Give me 
 back my own.’ That you could do in the 
 interests of justice, though I own it is not 
 the exact truth.” 
 
 “ And if she refuses then 1 ” 
 
 “ She can’t refuse, with the man’s 
 daughter actually standing before her. 
 She might make a fuss for a bit. But she 
 would have to give in at last. 
 
 “Joe, consider. You have got some 
 papers, whatever they may contain. Suppose 
 that it is all true that you have told 
 me ” 
 
 “Lotty, my dear, when did I ever tell 
 
 you an untruth ?” 
 
 “ When did you ever tell me the truth, 
 my dear ? Don’t talk wild. Suppose it is 
 all true, how are you going to make out 
 where your heiress has been all this time, 
 and what she has been doing ? 
 
 “ Trust me for that.” 
 
 “ I trust you for making up something 
 or other, but— oh, Joe, you little think, you 
 clever people, how seldom you succeed m 
 deceiving any one.” 
 
 “I’ve got such a story for you, Lotty, 
 as would deceive anybody. Listen now. 
 It’s part truth, and part— the other thing. 
 
 Your father ” v „ T ,, 
 
 ‘ ‘ My father, poor dear man, ^ Lotty 
 interrupted, “is minding his music-shop 
 in Gloucester, and little thinking what 
 wickedness his daughter is being asked to 
 do ” 
 
 Hang it ! the girl’s father, then. He 
 died in America, where he went under 
 another name, and you were picked up by 
 
 strangers and reared under that name, in 
 complete ignorance of your own family. 
 All which is true and can be proved.” 
 
 “ Who brought her up ? ” 
 
 “ People in America. I’m one of ’em.” 
 
 “ Who is to prove that 1 ” 
 
 “I am. I am come to England on 
 purpose. I am her guardian.” 
 
 “ Who is to prove that you are the girl’s 
 guardian ? ” 
 
 “ I shall find somebody to prove that. ’ 
 
 His thoughts turned to Mr. Chalker, a 
 gentleman whom he judged capable of 
 proving anything he was paid for. 
 
 “ And suppose they ask me questions ? ” 
 “Don’t answer ’em. You know very little. 
 The papers were only found the other day. 
 You are not expected to know anything.” 
 
 “ Where was the real girl 1 ” 
 
 “ With her grandfather.” 
 
 “ Where was the grandfather ? ” 
 
 “What does that matter?” he replied; “I 
 will tell you afterwards.” 
 
 “ When did the real girl die ? ” 
 
 “ That, too, I will tell you afterwards.” 
 Lotty leaned her cheek upon her hand, 
 and looked at her husband thoughtfully. 
 
 “ Let us be plain, Joe.” 
 
 “You can never be plain, my dear,” he 
 replied with the smile of a lover, not a 
 husband ; “ never in your husband’s eyes 
 not even in tights.” 
 
 But she was not to be won by flattery. 
 “Fine words,” she said, “fine words. 
 What do they amount to ? Oh, Joe, little 
 I thought when you came along with your 
 beautiful promises, what sort of a man I 
 was going to marry.” 
 
 “A very good sort of a man,” he said. 
 
 “ You’ve got a jolly sailor — an officer and 
 a gentleman. Come now, what have you 
 got to say to this ? Can’t you be satisfied 
 with an officer and a gentleman 1 ” 
 
 He drew himself up to his full height. 
 Well, he was a handsome fellow; there 
 was no denying it. 
 
 “ Good looks and fine words,” his wife 
 went on. “Well, and now I’ve got^ to 
 keep you, and if you could make me sing 
 in a dozen halls every night, you would, 
 and spend the money on yourself— joyfully 
 you would.” 
 
 “ We would spend it together, my dear. 
 Don’t turn rusty, Lotty.” 
 
 He was not a bad-tempered man, and 
 this kind of talk did not anger him at all. 
 So long as his wife worked hard and 
 brought in the coin for him to spend, what 
 mattered for a few words now and then 1 
 Besides, he wanted her assistance. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 27 
 
 “ What are you driving at f ” he went on. 
 
 “ I show you a bit of my hand, and you 
 begin talking round and round. Look 
 here, Lotty. Here’s a splendid chance 
 for us. I must have a woman’s help. I 
 would rather have your help than any other 
 woman’s — yes, than any other woman’s in 
 the world. I would indeed. If you won’t 
 help me, why, then, of course, I must go to 
 some other woman.” 
 
 His wife gasped and choked. She knew 
 already, after only five weeks’ experience, 
 how bad a man he was — how unscrupulous, 
 false, and treacherous, how lazy and selfish. 
 But, after a fashion, she loved him ; after 
 a woman’s fashion, she was madly jealous 
 of him. Another woman ! And only the 
 other night she had seen him giving brandy- 
 and-soda to one of the music-hall ballet- 
 girls. Another woman ! 
 
 “ If you do, Joe,” she said ; “ oh, if you 
 do — I will kill her and you too ! ” 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 “ If I do, my dear, you don’t think I 
 shall be such a fool as to tell you who she 
 is. Do you suppose that no woman has 
 ever fallen in love with me before you 1 
 But then, my pretty, you see I don’t talk 
 about them; and do you suppose — oh, 
 Lotfy, are you such a fool as to suppose 
 that you are the first girl I ever fell in love 
 with ? ” 
 
 “ What do you want me to do ? Tell 
 me again.” 
 
 “ I have told you already. I want you 
 to become, for the time, the daughter of 
 the man who died in America ; you will 
 claim your inheritance ; I will provide you 
 with all the papers ; I will stand by you ; 
 I will back you up with such a story as 
 will disarm all suspicion. That is all.” 
 
 “Yes. I understand. Haven’t people 
 been sent to prison for less, Joe 1 ” 
 
 “ Foolish people have. Hot people who 
 are well advised and under good manage- 
 ment. Mind you, this business is under 
 my direction. I am boss.” 
 
 She made no reply, but took her candle 
 and went off to bed. 
 
 In the dead of night she awakened her 
 husband. 
 
 “Joe,” she said, “is it true that you 
 know another girl who would do this for 
 you ? ” 
 
 “ More than one, Lotty,” he replied, this 
 man of resource, although he was only half 
 awake. “ More than one. A great many 
 more. Half-a-dozen, I know, at least.” 
 
 She was silent. Half an hour afterwards 
 she woke him up again. 
 
 “Joe,” she said, “I’ve made up my 
 mind. You sha’n’t say that I refused to 
 do for you what any other girl in the 
 world would have done.” 
 
 As a tempter, it will be seen that Joe 
 was unsurpassed. 
 
 It was now a week since he had received, 
 carefully wrapped in wool, and deposited 
 in a wooden-box dispatched by Post, a 
 key, newly made. It was, also, very nearly 
 a week since he had used that key. It was 
 used during Mr. Emblem’s hour for tea, 
 while James waited and watched outside in 
 an agony of terror. But Joe did not find 
 what he wanted. There were in the safe 
 one or two ledgers, a banker’s book, a 
 cheque-book, and a small quantity of 
 money. But there were not any records at all 
 of monies invested. There were no railway 
 certificates, waterwork shares, transfers, or 
 notes of stocks, mortgages, loans, or any- 
 thing at all. The only thing that he saw 
 was a roll of papers tied up with red tape. 
 On the roll was written: “ For Iris. To be 
 given to her on her twenty-first birthday.” 
 “ What the deuce is this, I wonder ? ” 
 Joe took this out and looked at it sus- 
 piciously. “ Can he be going to give her 
 all his money before he dies 1 Is he going 
 to make her inherit at oncel ” The 
 thought was so exasperating that he 
 slipped the roll into his pocket. “At all 
 events,” he said, “she sha’n’t have them 
 until I have read them first. I dare say 
 they won’t be missed for a day or two.” 
 
 He calculated that he could read and 
 master the contents that night, and put 
 back the papers in the safe in the morning 
 while James was opening the shop. 
 
 “There’s nothing, James,” he whispered 
 as he went out, the safe being locked again. 
 “ There is nothing at all. Look here, my 
 lad, you must try another way of finding 
 out where the money is.” 
 
 “ I wish I was sure that he hasn’t carried 
 off something in his pocket,” James mur- 
 mured. 
 
 Joe spent the whole evening alone, con- 
 trary to his usual practice, which was, as 
 we have seen, to spend it at a certain 
 music-hall. He read the papers over and 
 over again. 
 
 “ I wish,” he said at length, “ I wish 1 
 had known this only two months ago. I 
 wish I had paid more attention to Iris. 
 What a dreadful thing it is to have a grand- 
 father who keeps secrets from his grandson ! 
 What a game we might have had over this 
 job ! What a game we might have still 
 | if ” 
 
28 [November IB, 1884 .] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 And here he stopped, for the first germ 
 or conception of a magnificent coup dawned 
 upon him, and fairly dazzled him so that 
 his eyes saw a bright light and nothing 
 else. 
 
 “ If Lotty would,” he said. “ But I am 
 afraid she won’t hear of it.” He sprang 
 to his feet and caught sight of his own 
 face in the looking-glass over the fireplace. 
 He smiled. “I will try,” he said, “I 
 think I know, by this time, how to get 
 round most of ’em. Once they get to feel 
 there are other women in the world, beside 
 themselves, they’re pretty easy worked. 
 I will try.” 
 
 One has only to add to the revelations 
 already made that Joe paid a second visit 
 to the shop, this time early in the morning. 
 The shutters were only just taken down. 
 James was going about with that remark- 
 able watering-pot only used in shops, which 
 has a little stream running out of it, and 
 Mr. Emblem was upstairs slowly shaving 
 and dressing in his bedroom. He walked 
 in, nodded to his friend the Assistant, 
 opened the safe, and put back the roll. 
 
 “ Now,” he murmured, “ if the old 
 man has really been such a dunder-headed 
 pump as not to open the packet all these 
 years, what the devil can he know ? The 
 name is different ; he hasn’t got any clue 
 to the will ; he hasn’t got the certificate of 
 his daughter’s marriage, or of the child’s 
 baptism — both in the real name. He 
 hasn’t got anything. As for the girl here, 
 Iris, having the same Christian - name, 
 that’s nothing. I suppose there is more 
 than one woman with such a fool of a name 
 as that about in the world.” 
 
 “Foxy,” he said cheerfully, “have you 
 found anything yet about the investments'? 
 Odd, isn’t it? Nothing in the safe at all. 
 You can have your key back.” 
 
 He tossed him the key carelessly and 
 went away. 
 
 The question of his grandfather’s 
 savings was grown insignificant beside 
 this great and splendid prize which lay 
 waiting for him. What could the savings 
 be ? At best a few thousands ; the slowly 
 saved thrift of fifty years ; nobody knew 
 better than Joe himself how much his own 
 profligacies had cost his grandfather ; a 
 few thousands, and those settled on his 
 cousin Iris, so that, to get his share, he 
 would have to try every kind of persuasion 
 unless he could get up a case for law. 
 But the other thing — why, it was nearly 
 all personal estate, so far as he could learn 
 by the will, and he had read it over and 
 
 over again in the room at Somerset House, 
 with the long table in it, and the watchful 
 man who won’t let anybody copy anything. 
 What a shame, he thought, not to let wills 
 be copied ! Personalty sworn under a 
 hundred and twenty thousand, all in Three 
 Per Cents., and devised to a certain young 
 lady, the testator’s ward, in trust, for the 
 testator’s son, or his heirs, when he or they 
 should present themselves. Meantime, 
 the ward was to receive for her own use 
 and benefit, year by year, the whole 
 income. 
 
 “It is unfortunate,” said Joe, “that we 
 can’t come down upon her for arrears. 
 Still, there’s an income, a steady income, 
 of three thousand six hundred a year when 
 the son’s heirs present themselves. I 
 should like to call myself a solicitor, but 
 that kite won’t fly, I’m afraid. Lotty 
 must be the sole heiress. Dressed quiet, 
 without any powder, and her fringe 
 brushed flat, she’d pass for a lady any- 
 where. Perhaps it’s lucky, after all, that 
 I married her, though if I had had the 
 good sense to make up to Iris, who’s a 
 deuced sight prettier, she’d have kept me 
 going almost as well with her pupils, and 
 set me right with the old man, and handed 
 me over this magnificent haul for a finish. 
 If only the old man hasn’t broken the 
 seals and read the papers ! ” 
 
 The old man had not, and Joe’s fears 
 were, therefore, groundless. 
 
 CHAPTER V. AS A BROTHER. 
 
 Arnold immediately began to use the 
 privilege accorded to him with a large and 
 liberal interpretation. If, he argued, a 
 man is to be treated as a brother, there 
 should be the immediate concession of the 
 exchange of christian-names, and he should 
 be allowed to call as often as he pleases. 
 Naturally he began by trying to read the 
 secret of a life self-contained, so dull, and 
 yet so happy, so strange to his experience. 
 
 “ Is this, Iris,” he asked, “ all your life ? 
 Is there nothing more ? ” 
 
 “ No,” she said; “I think you have seen 
 all. In the morning I have my corres- 
 pondence; in the afternoon I do my sewing, 
 I play a little, I read, or I walk, sometimes 
 by myself, and sometimes with Lala Roy; in 
 the evening I play again, or I read again, or 
 I work at the mathematics, while my grand- 
 father and Lala Roy have their chess. We 
 used to go to the theatre sometimes, but 
 of late my grandfather has not gone. At 
 ten we go to bed. That is all my life.” 
 
 “ But, Iris, have you no friends at all, 
 
x — » 
 
 Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13, 1834.] 29 
 
 and no relations ? Are there no girls of 
 : your own age who come to see you 1 ” 
 
 “ No, not one ; I have a cousin, but he 
 is not a good man at all. His father and 
 mother are in Australia. When he comes 
 here, which is very seldom, my grandfather 
 falls ill only with thinking about him and 
 looking at him. But I have no other 
 : relations, because, you see, I do not know 
 who my father's people were.” 
 
 “ Then,” said Arnold, “ you may be 
 countess in your own right; you may 
 have any number of rich people and nice 
 people for your cousins. Do you not some- 
 times think of that ? ” 
 
 “ No,” said Iris ; “ I never think about 
 ; things impossible.” 
 
 “ If I were you, I should go about the 
 streets, and walk round the picture-galleries 
 looking for a face like your own. There 
 cannot be many. Let me draw your face, 
 Iris, and then we will send it to the 
 Grosvenor, and label it, ‘ Wanted, this 
 young lady’s cousins/ You must have 
 cousins, if you could only find them out.” 
 
 “ I suppose I must. But what if they 
 should turn out to be rough and disagree- 
 able people ? ” 
 
 “ Your cousins could not be disagreeable, 
 Iris,” said Arnold. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 “ One thing I should like,” she replied. 
 
 “ It would be to find that my cousins, if I 
 have any, are clever people — astronomers, 
 mathematicians, great philosophers, and 
 writers. But what nonsense it is even to 
 talk of such things; I am quite alone, 
 except for my grandfather and Lala 
 Boy.” 
 
 “ And they are old,” murmured Arnold. 
 “Do not look at me with such pity,” 
 said the girl. “Iam very happy. I have 
 my own occupation ; I am independent ; I 
 have my work to fill my mind; and I have 
 these two old gentlemen to care for and 
 think of. They have taken so much care 
 of me that I ought to think of nothing 
 else but their comfort ; and then there are 
 the books downstairs — thousands of beau- 
 tiful old books always within my reach.” 
 
 “ But you must have some companions, 
 if only to talk and walk with.” 
 
 “ Why, the books are my companions ; 
 and then Lala Boy goes for walks with me; 
 and as for talking, I think it is much more 
 pleasant to think.” 
 
 “ Where do you walk ? ” 
 
 “ There is Battersea Park ; there are 
 the squares ; and if you take an omnibus, 
 there are the Gardens and Hyde Park.” 
 
 k 
 
 “ But never alone, Iris ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes, I am often alone. Why 
 not ? ” 
 
 “ I suppose,” said Arnold, shirking the 
 question, because this is a civilised country, 
 and, in fact, why not ? “I suppose that it 
 is your work which keeps you from feeling 
 life dull and monotonous.” 
 
 “ No life,” she said, looking as wise as 
 Newton, if Newton was ever young and 
 handsome — “no life can be dull when one 
 is thinking about mathematics all day. Do 
 you study mathematics ? ” 
 
 “ No ; I was at Oxford, you know.” 
 
 “ Then perhaps you prefer metaphysics % 
 Though Lala Boy says that the true 
 metaphysics, which he has tried to teach 
 me, can only be reached by the Hindoo 
 intellect.” 
 
 “No, indeed; I have never read any 
 metaphysics whatever. I have only got 
 the English intellect.” This he said with 
 intent satirical, but Iris failed to under- 
 stand it so, and thought it was meant for 
 a commendable humility. 
 
 “ Physical science, perhaps ? ” 
 
 “No, Iris. Philosophy, mathematics, 
 physics, metaphysics, or science of any 
 kind have I never learned, except only the 
 science of Heraldry, which you have taught 
 me, with a few other things.” 
 
 “ Oh ! ” She wondered how a man could 
 exist at all without learning these things. 
 “Not any science at all? How can any 
 one live without some science ? ” 
 
 “I knew very well,” he said, “that as 
 soon as I was found out I should be 
 despised.” 
 
 “ Oh no, not despised. But it seems 
 such a pity ” 
 
 “There is another kind of life, Iris, 
 which you do not know. You must let me 
 teach you. It is the life of Art. If you 
 would only condescend to show the least 
 curiosity about me, Iris, I would try to show 
 you something of the Art life.” 
 
 “ How can I show curiosity about you, 
 Arnold ? I feel none.” 
 
 “ No ; that is just the thing which 
 shames me. I have felt the most lively 
 curiosity about you, and I have asked you 
 thousands of impertinent questions.” 
 
 “ Not impertinent, Arnold. If you want 
 to ask any more, pray do. I dare say you 
 cannot understand my simple life.” 
 
 “ And you ask me nothing at all about 
 myself. It isn’t fair, Iris.” 
 
 “ Why should I ? I know you already.” 
 
 “ You know nothing at all about me.” 
 
 “ Oh yes, I know you very well indeed 
 
 — “ 0- 
 
30 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 I knew you before you came here. You 
 showed me yourself in your letters. You 
 are exactly like the portrait I drew of you. 
 
 I never thought, for instance, that you 
 were an old gentleman, as you thought 
 me.” 
 
 He laughed. It was a new thing to see 
 Iris using, even gently, the dainty weapons 
 of satire. 
 
 “ But you do not know what I am, or 
 what is my profession, or anything at all 
 about me.” 
 
 “ No ; I do not care to know. All that 
 is not part of yourself. It is outside 
 you.” 
 
 “ And because you thought you knew me 
 from those letters, you suffer me to come 
 here and be your disciple still ? Yet you 
 gave me back my letters 1 ” 
 
 “ That was because they were written to 
 me under a wrong impression.” 
 
 “ Will you have them back again ? ” 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 “ I know them all by heart,” she said 
 simply. 
 
 There was not the slightest sign of 
 coquetry or flattery in her voice, or in her 
 eyes, which met his look with clear and 
 steady gaze. 
 
 “ I cannot ask you to read my portrait 
 to me as you drew it from those pictures.” 
 
 “ Why not ? ” She began to read him 
 his portrait as readily as if she were stating 
 the conclusion of a problem. “ I saw that 
 you were young and full of generous 
 thoughts; sometimes you were indignant 
 with things as they are, but generally you 
 laughed at them and accepted them. It is, 
 it seems, the nature of your friends to 
 laugh a great deal at things which they 
 ought to remedy if they could, not laugh 
 at them. I thought that you wanted some 
 strong stimulus to work; anybody could 
 see that you were a man of kindly nature 
 and good-breeding. You were careful not 
 to offend by anything that you wrote, and 
 I was certain that you were a man of 
 honour. I trusted you, Arnold, before I 
 saw your face, because I knew your soul.” 
 
 “ Trust me still, Iris,” he said in rather 
 a husky voice. 
 
 “ Of course I did not know, and never 
 thought, what sort of a man you were to 
 look at. Yet I ought to have known that 
 you were handsome. I should have guessed 
 that from the very tone of your letters. 
 A hunchback or a cripple could not have 
 written in so light-hearted a strain, and I 
 should have discovered, if I had thought 
 of such a thing, that you were very well 
 
 satisfied with your personal appearance. 
 Young men should always be that, at least, 
 if only to give them confidence.” 
 
 “Oh, Iris — oh! Do you really think me 
 conceited ? ” 
 
 “ I did not say that. I only said that 
 you were satisfied with yourself. That, I 
 understand now, was clear, from many 
 little natural touches in your letters.” 
 
 “ What else did you learn % ” 
 
 “ Oh, a great deal — much more than I 
 can tell you. I knew that you go into 
 society, and I learned from you what 
 society means ; and though you tried to be 
 sarcastic, I understood easily that you liked 
 social pleasure.” 
 
 “Was I sarcastic 1 ?” 
 
 “ Was it not sarcastic to tell me how the 
 fine ladies, who affect so much enthusiasm 
 for art, go to see the galleries on the private- 
 view day, and are never seen in them 
 
 again 1 Was it not sarcastic ” 
 
 “ Spare me, Iris. I will never do it 
 again. And knowing so much, do you not 
 desire to know more ? ” 
 
 “No, Arnold. I am not interested in 
 anything else.” 
 
 “But my position, my profession, my 
 people — are you not curious to know 
 them 1 ” 
 
 “No. They are not you. They are 
 accidents of yourself.” 
 
 “Philosopher! But you must know 
 more about me. I told you I was an artist. 
 But you have never enquired whether I 
 was a great artist or a little one.” 
 
 “ You are still a little artist,” she said. 
 “ I know that, without being told. But 
 perhaps you may become great when you 
 learn to work seriously.” 
 
 “ I have been lazy.” he replied with 
 something like a blush, “ but that is all 
 over now. I am going to work. I will 
 give up society. I will take my profession 
 seriously, if only you will encourage me.” 
 Did he mean what he said ? When ho 
 came away he used at this period to ask 
 himself that question, and was astonished 
 at the length he had gone. With any other 
 girl in the world, he would have been 
 taken at his word, and either encouraged 
 to go on, or snubbed on the spot. Bui 
 Iris received these advances as if they wero 
 a confession of weakness. 
 
 “Why do you want me to encourage- 
 you 1 ” she asked. “ I know nothing 
 about Art. Can’t you encourage yourself, 
 Arnold ? ” 
 
 “ Iris, I must tell you something more 
 about myself. Will you listen for a moment? 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 31 
 
 Well, I am the son of a clergyman who now 
 holds a colonial appointment. I have got 
 the usual number of brothers and sisters, 
 who are doing the usual things. I will 
 not bore you with details about them.” 
 “No,” said Iris, “please do not.” 
 
 “I am the adopted son, pr ward, or 
 whatever you please, of a certain cousin. 
 She is a single lady with a great income, 
 which she promises to bequeath to me in 
 the future. In the meantime, I am to have 
 whatever I want. Do you understand the 
 position, Iris ? ” 
 
 “Yes, I think so. It is interesting, 
 because it shows why you will never be a 
 great artist. But it is very sad.” 
 
 “ A man may rise above his conditions, 
 Iris,” said Arnold meekly. 
 
 “No,” she went on ; “ it is only the poor 
 men who do anything good. Lala Roy 
 says so.” 
 
 “ I will pretend to be poor — indeed, I 
 am poor. I have nothing. If it were not 
 for my cousin, I could not even profess to 
 follow Art.” 
 
 “ What a pity,” she said, “ that you are 
 rich ! Lala Roy was rich once.” 
 
 Arnold repressed an inclination to desire 
 that Lala Roy might be kept out of the 
 conversation. 
 
 “ But he gave up all his wealth and has 
 been happy, and a Philosopher, ever 
 since.” 
 
 “ I can’t give up my wealth, Iris, because 
 I haven’t got any — I owe my cousin every- 
 thing. But for her, I should never even 
 have known you.” 
 
 He watched her at her work in the 
 morning when she sat patiently answering 
 questions, working out problems, and 
 making papers. She showed him the 
 letters of her pupils, exacting, excusing, 
 petulant — sometimes dissatisfied and even 
 ill-tempered. He watched her in the 
 afternoon while she sewed or read. In 
 the evening he sat with her while the two 
 old men played their game of chess. 
 Regularly every evening at half -past nine 
 the Bengalee checkmated Mr. Emblem. 
 Up to that hour he amused himself with his 
 opponent, formed ingenious combinations, 
 watched openings, and gradually cleared 
 the board until he found himself as the 
 hour of half -past nine drew near, able to 
 propose a simple problem to his own 
 mind, such as, “White moves first, to 
 mate in three, four, or five moves,” and 
 then he proceeded to solve that problem, 
 and checkmated his adversary. 
 
 No one, not even Iris, knew how Lala 
 
 Roy lived, or what he did in the daytime. 
 
 It was rumoured that he had been seen at 
 Simpson’s in the Strand, but this report 
 wanted confirmation. He had lived in 
 Mr. Emblem’s second floor for twenty 
 years ; he always paid his bills with regu- 
 larity, and his long spare figure and white 
 moustache and fez were as well known in 
 Chelsea as any red-coated lounger among 
 the old veterans of the Hospital. 
 
 “It is quiet for you in the evenings,” 
 said Arnold. 
 
 “I play to them sometimes. They like 
 to hear me play during the game. Look 
 at them.” 
 
 She sat down and played. She had a 
 delicate touch, and played soft music, such 
 as soothes, not excites the soul. Arnold 
 watched her, not the old men. How 
 was it that refinement, grace, self-posses- 
 sion, manners, and the culture of a lady, 
 could be found in one who knew no ladies ? 
 But then Arnold did not know Lala Roy, 
 nor did he understand the old book- 
 seller. 
 
 “ You are always wondering about me,” 
 she said, talking while she played ; “ I see 
 it in your eyes. Can you not take me as 
 I am, without thinking why I am different 
 from other girls % Of course I am different, 
 because I know none of them.” 
 
 “ I wish they were all like you,” he 
 said. 
 
 “ No ; that would be a great pity 
 You want girls who understand your own 
 life, and can enter into your pursuits — 
 you want companions who can talk to 
 you ; go back to them, Arnold, as soon as 
 you are tired of coming here.” 
 
 And yet his instinct was right which told 
 him that the girl was not a coquette. She 
 had no thought — not the least thought — as 
 yet that anything was possible beyond 
 the existing friendship. It was plea- 
 sant, but Arnold would get tired of 
 her, and go back to his own people. Then 
 he would remain in her memory as a 
 Study of Character. This she did not 
 exactly formulate, but she had that feel- 
 ing. Every woman makes a study of 
 character about every man in whom she 
 becomes ever so little interested. But we 
 must not get conceited, my brothers, over 
 this fact. The converse, unhappily, does 
 not hold true. Yery few men ever study 
 the character of a woman at all. Either 
 they fall in love with her before they have 
 had time to make more than a sketch, and 
 do not afterwards pursue the subject, or 
 I they do not fall in love with her at all 3 
 
IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 <4 
 
 
 32 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 and in the latter case it hardly seems worth 
 while to follow up a first rough draft. 
 
 “ Checkmate,” said Lala Eoy. 
 
 The game was finished and the evening 
 over. 
 
 “Would you] like,” he said, another 
 evening, “to see my studio, or do you con- 
 sider my studio outside myself 1 ” 
 
 “ I should very much like to see an 
 artist’s studio,” she replied with her usual 
 frankness, leaving it an open question 
 whether she would not be equally pleased 
 to see any other studio. 
 
 She came, however, accompanied by Lala 
 Eoy, who had never been in a studio before, 
 and indeed had never looked at a picture, 
 except with the contemptuous glance which 
 the Philosopher bestows upon the follies 
 of mankind. Yet he came, because Iris 
 asked him. Arnold’s studio is one of the 
 smallest of those in Tite Street. Of course 
 it is built of red- brick, and of course it has 
 a noble staircase and a beautiful painting- 
 room or studio proper all set about with 
 bits of tapestry, armour, pictures, and 
 china, besides the tools and properties of 
 the craft. He had portfolios full of 
 sketches ; against the wall stood pictures, 
 finished and unfinished ; on an easel was a 
 half-painted picture representing a group 
 taken from a modern novel. Most painters 
 only draw scenes from two novels — the 
 Vicar of Wakefield and Don Quixote ; but 
 Arnold knew more. The central figure 
 was a girl, quite unfinished — in fact, barely 
 sketched in. 
 
 Iris looked at everything with the 
 interest which belongs to the new and 
 unexpected. 
 
 Arnold began to show the pictures in the 
 portfolios. There were sketches of peasant- 
 life in Norway and on the Continent ; there 
 were landscapes, quaint old houses, and 
 castles ; there were ships and ports ; and 
 there were heads — hundreds of heads. 
 
 “I said you might be a great artist,” 
 said Iris. “ I am sure now that you will 
 be if you choose.” 
 
 “Thank you, Iris. It is the greatest 
 compliment you could pay me.” 
 
 “ And what is this 1 ” she was before the 
 easel on which stood the unfinished picture. 
 
 “ It is a scene from a novel. But I can- 
 not get the principal face. None of the 
 models are half good enough. I want a 
 sweet face, a serious face, a face with 
 deep, beautiful eyes. Iris ” — it was a 
 
 sudden impulse, an inspiration — “ let me 
 put your face there. Give me my first 
 commission.” 
 
 . She blushed deeply. All these drawings, 
 the multitudinous faces and heads and 
 figures in the portfolio were a revelation to 
 her. And just at the very moment when 
 she discovered that Arnold was one of 
 those who worship beauty — a thing she 
 had never before understood — he told her 
 that her face was so beautiful that he must 
 put it in his picture. 
 
 “ Oh, Arnold,” she said, “my face would 
 be out of place in that picture.” 
 
 “ Would it % Please sit down, and let 
 me make a sketch.” 
 
 He seized his crayons and began rapidly. 
 
 “ What do you say, Lala Eoy ? ” he 
 asked by way of diversion. 
 
 “ The gifts of the understanding,” said 
 the Sage, “ are the treasures of the Lord ; 
 and He appointeth to every one his 
 portion.” 
 
 “Thank you,” replied Arnold. “Very 
 true and very apt, I’m sure. Iris, please, 
 your face turned just a little. So. Ah, if 
 I can but do some measure of justice to 
 your eyes ! ” 
 
 When Iris went away, there was for the 
 first time the least touch of restraint or self- 
 consciousness in her. Arnold felt it. She 
 showe'd it in her eyes and in the touch of 
 her fingers when he took her hand at part- 
 ing. It was then for the first time also 
 that Arnold discovered a truth of over- 
 whelming importance. Every new fact — 
 everything which cannot be disputed or 
 denied, is, we all know, of the most 
 enormous importance. He discovered no 
 less a truth than that he was in love with 
 Iris. So important is this truth to a young 
 man that it reduces the countless myriads 
 of the world to a single pair— himself and 
 another ; it converts the most arid waste 
 of streets into an Eden ; and it blinds 
 the eyes to ambition, riches, and success. 
 Arnold sat down and reasoned out this 
 truth. He said coldly and “ squarely”: 
 
 “ This is a girl whom I have known 
 only a fortnight or so; she lives over a 
 second-hand bookshop ; she is a teacher by 
 profession; she knows none of the ways 
 of society ; she would doubtless be guilty 
 of all kinds of queer things, if she were 
 suddenly introduced to good people ; pro- 
 bably, she would never learn our manners,” 
 with more to the same effect, which may 
 be reasonably omitted. Then his Con- 
 science woke up, and said quite simply : 
 “Arnold, you are a liar.” Conscience does 
 sometimes call hard names. She is 
 feminine, and therefore privileged to call 
 hard names. Else we should sometimes 
 
JL 
 
 Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK. AT LAST. [November 13, 1884. 33 
 
 for such a man is the only thing It- ft, and 
 
 kick and belabour Conscience. “ Arnold, 
 don’t tell more lies. You have been 
 gradually learning to know Iris, through 
 the wisest and sweetest letters that were 
 ever written, for a whole year. You 
 gradually began to know her, in fact, 
 when you first began to interlard your 
 letters with conceited revelations about 
 yourself. You knew her to be sym- 
 pathetic, quick, and of a most kind and 
 tender heart. You are quite sure, though 
 you try to disguise the fact, that she is as 
 honest as the day, and as true as steel. 
 As for her not being a lady, you ought^ to 
 be ashamed of yourself for even thinking 
 such a thing. Has she not been tenderly 
 brought up by two old men who are full 
 of honour, and truth, and all the simple 
 virtues ? Does she not look, move, and 
 speak like the most gracious lady in 
 the land?” — “Like a goddess,” Arnold 
 confessed. — “ As for the ways and talk 
 of society, what are these worth ? and 
 cannot they be acquired ? And what are 
 her manners save those of the most 
 perfect refinement and purity ? ” Thus 
 far Conscience. Then Arnold, or Arnold’s 
 secret advocatus diaboli , began upon another 
 and quite different line. “ She must have 
 schemed at the outset to get me into her 
 net ; she is a Siren ; she assumes the dis- 
 guise of innocence and ignorance the 
 better to beguile and to deceive. She has 
 gone home to-day elated because she thinks 
 she has landed a gentleman.” 
 
 Conscience said nothing ; there are some 
 things to which Conscience has no reply in 
 words to offer ; yet Conscience pointed to 
 the portrait of the girl, and bade the 
 most unworthy of all lovers look upon 
 even his own poor and meagre representa- 
 tion of her eyes and face, and ask whether 
 such blasphemies could ever be forgiven. 
 
 After a self-abasement, which for shame’s 
 sake we must pass over, the young man 
 felt happier. 
 
 Henry the Second felt much the same 
 satisfaction the morning after his scourging 
 at the hands of the monks, who were as 
 muscular as they were vindictive. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. COUSIN CLARA. 
 
 That man who spends his days in 
 painting a girl’s portrait, in talking to her, 
 and in gazing upon the unfinished portrait 
 when she is not with him, and occupies his 
 thoughts during the watches of the night 
 in thinking about her, is perilously near 
 to taking the last and fatal step. Flight 
 
 he so seldom thinks of flight until it is too 
 late. 
 
 Arnold was at this point. 
 
 “ I am possessed by this girl,” he might 
 have said had he put his thoughts into 
 words. “ I am haunted by her eyes ; her 
 voice lingers on my ears ; I dream of her 
 face ; the touch of her fingers is like 
 the touch of an electric battery.” What 
 symptoms are these, so common that one 
 is almost ashamed to write them down, 
 but the infallible symptoms of love ? And 
 yet he hesitated, not because he doubted 
 himself any longer, but because he was 
 not independent, and such an engagement 
 might deprive him at one stroke of all that 
 he possessed. Might ? It certainly would. 
 Yes ; the new and beautiful studio, all the 
 things in it, all his prospects for the future, 
 would have to be given up. “ She is 
 worth more than that,” said Arnold, “ and 
 I should find work somehow. But yet, to 
 plunge her into poverty — and to make 
 Clara the most unhappy of women ! ” 
 
 The reason why Clara would be made 
 the most unhappy of women, was that 
 Clara was his cousin and his benefactor, 
 to whom he owed everything. She was 
 the kindest of patrons, and she liked 
 nothing so much as the lavishing upon 
 her ward everything that he could desire. 
 But she also, unfortunately, illustrated the 
 truth of Chaucer’s teaching, in that she 
 loved power more than anything else, and 
 had already mapped out Arnold’s life for 
 him. 
 
 It was his custom to call upon her daily, 
 to use her house as his own. When they 
 were separated, they wrote to each other 
 every day ; the relations between them were 
 of the most intimate and affectionate kind. 
 He advised in all her affairs, while she 
 directed his ; it was understood that he was 
 her heir, and though she was not more than 
 five-and-forty or so, and had, apparently, a 
 long life still before her, so that the 
 succession was distant, the prospect gave 
 him importance. She had been out of 
 town, and perhaps the fact of a new 
 acquaintance with so obscure a person as 
 a simple tutor by correspondence, seemed 
 to Arnold not worth mentioning. At all 
 events, he had not mentioned it in his 
 daily letters. 
 
 And now she was coming home ; she was 
 actually arrived; he would see her that 
 evening. Her last letter was lying before 
 him. 
 
 “ I parted from dear Stella yesterday. 
 
34 [November 13* 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 She goes to stay with the Essex Mainwar- 
 ings for a month ; after that, I hope that she 
 will give me a long visit. I do not know 
 where one could find a sweeter girl, or one 
 more eminently calculated to make a man 
 happy. Beautiful, strictly speaking, she 
 is not, perhaps ; but of excellent connec- 
 tions, not without a portion, young, clever, 
 and ambitious. With such a wife, my dear 
 Arnold, a man may aspire to anything.” 
 
 “To anything,” repeated Arnold; “what 
 is her notion of anything 1 She has arrived 
 by this time.” He looked at his watch and 
 found it was past five. “ I ought to have 
 been at the station to meet her. I must 
 go round and see her, and I must dine with 
 her to-night.” He sighed heavily. “ It 
 would be much pleasanter to spend the 
 evening with Iris.” 
 
 Then a carriage stopped at his door. It 
 was his cousin, and the next minute he was 
 receiving and giving the kiss of welcome. 
 For his own part, he felt guilty, because he 
 could put so little heart into that kiss, 
 compared with all previous embraces. She 
 was a stout, hearty little woman, who 
 could never have been in the least beautiful, 
 even when she was young. Now on the 
 middle line, between forty and fifty, she 
 looked as if her face had been chopped out 
 of the marble by a rude but determined 
 artist, one who knew what he wanted and 
 would tolerate no conventional work. So 
 that her face, at all events, was, if not 
 unique, at least unlike any other face one 
 had ever seen. Most faces, we know, can 
 be reduced to certain general types — even 
 Iris’s face might be classified — while of 
 yours, my brother, there are, no doubt, 
 multitudes. Miss Holland, however, had 
 good eyes — bright, clear grey — the eyes of a 
 woman who knows what she wants and 
 means to get it if she can. 
 
 “ Well, my deaf*/’ she said, taking the 
 one comfortable chair in the studio, “lam 
 back again, and I have enjoyed my journey 
 very much ; we will have all the travels 
 this evening. You are looking splendid, 
 Arnold ! ” 
 
 “lam very well indeed. And you, Clara? 
 But I need not ask.” 
 
 “ No, I am always well. I told you 
 about dear Stella, did I not ? I never had 
 a more delightful companion.” 
 
 “ So glad you liked her.” 
 
 “If only, Arnold, you would like her 
 too. But I know” — for Arnold changed 
 colour — “ I know one must not interfere in 
 these matters. But surely one may go so 
 far with a young man one loves as to say, 
 
 ‘ Here is a girl of a million ’ 1 There is 
 not, Arnold, I declare, her equal any- 
 where ; a clearer head I never met, or a 
 better educated girl, or one who knows 
 what a man can do, and how he can be 
 helped to do it.” 
 
 “ Thank you, Clara,” Arnold said coldly; 
 “I dare say I shall discover the young 
 lady’s perfections in time.” 
 
 “ Not, I think, without some help. She 
 is not an ordinary girl. You must draw 
 her out, my dear boy.” 
 
 “ I will,” he said listlessly. “ I will try 
 to draw her out, if you like.” 
 
 “We talked a great deal of you, 
 Arnold,” Clara went on. “ I confided to 
 her some of my hopes and ambitions for 
 you ; and I am free to confess to you that 
 she has greatly modified all my plans and 
 calculations.” 
 
 “ Oh ! ” Arnold was interested in this. 
 “ But, my dear Clara, I have my profes- 
 sion. I must follow my profession.” 
 
 “ Surely — surely ! Listen, Arnold, 
 patiently. Anybody can become an artist 
 — anybody, of course, who has the genius. 
 And all kinds of people, gutter people, 
 have the genius.” 
 
 “ The sun,” said Arnold, just as if he 
 had been Lala Boy, “ shines on all alike.” 
 “Quite so; and there is an immense 
 enthusiasm for Art everywhere ; but there 
 is no Art leader. There is no one man 
 recognised as the man most competent to 
 speak on Art of every kind. Think of that. 
 It is Stella’s idea entirely. This man, when 
 he is found, will sway enormous authority ; 
 he will become, if he has a wife able to 
 assist him, an immense social power.” 
 “And you want me to become that 
 man ? ” 
 
 “Yes, Arnold. I do not see why you 
 should not become that man. Cease 
 to think of becoming President of the 
 Koyal Academy, yet go on painting; prove 
 your genius, so as to command respect ; 
 cultivate the art of public speaking ; and 
 look about for a wife who will be your 
 right hand. Think of this seriously. 
 This is only a rough sketch ; we can fill in 
 the details afterwards. But think of it. 
 Oh, my dear boy ! if I were only a man, and 
 five-and-twenty, with such a chance before 
 me ! What a glorious career is yours, if 
 you choose ! But of course you will 
 choose. Good gracious, Arnold! who is 
 that ? ” 
 
 She pointed to the canvas on the easel, 
 where Iris’s face was like the tale of 
 Cambuscan, half-told. 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 35 
 
 “It is no one you know, Clara.” 
 
 “ One of your models 1 ” She rose and 
 examined it more closely through her 
 glasses. “ The eyes are wonderful, Arnold. 
 They are eyes I know. As if I could ever 
 forget them! They are the same eyes; 
 exactly the same eyes. I have never met 
 with any like them before. They are the 
 eyes of my poor, lost, betrayed Claude 
 Deseret. Where did you pick up this girl, 
 Arnold ? Is she a common model 1 ” 
 
 “ Not at all. She is not a model. She 
 is a young lady who teaches by corre- 
 spondence. She is my tutor — of course I 
 have so often talked to you about her — 
 who taught me the science of Heraldry, 
 and wrote me such charming letters.” 
 
 “ Your tutor ! You said your tutor was 
 an old gentleman.” 
 
 “ So I thought, Clara. But I was 
 wrong. My tutor is a young lady; and 
 this is her portrait, half-finished. It does 
 not do her any kind of justice.” 
 
 “ A young lady ! ” She looked sus- 
 piciously at Arnold, whose tell-tale cheek 
 flushed. “A young lady! Indeed! And 
 you have made her acquaintance.” 
 
 “ As you see, Clara ; and she does me 
 the honour to let me paint her portrait.” 
 
 “ What is her name, Arnold V ’ 
 
 “ She is a Miss Aglen.” 
 
 “Strange. The Deserets once inter- 
 married with the Aglens. I wonder if she 
 is any connection. They were Warwick- 
 shire Aglens. But it is impossible — a 
 teacher by correspondence, a mere private 
 governess ! Who are her people 1 ” 
 
 “She lives with her grandfather. I 
 think her father was a tutor or journalist 
 of some kind, but he is dead ; and her 
 grandfather keeps a second-hand bookshop 
 in the King’s Road close by.” 
 
 “ A bookshop ! But you said, Arnold, 
 that she was a young lady.” 
 
 “ So she is, Clara,” he replied simply. . 
 
 “ Arnold ! ” For the first time in his life 
 Arnold saw his cousin angry with him. 
 She was constantly being angry with other 
 people, but never before had she been 
 angry with him. “ Arnold, spare me this 
 nonsense. If you have been playing with 
 this shop-girl I cannot help it, and I beg 
 that you will tell me no more about it, 
 and do not, to my face, speak of her as a 
 lady.” 
 
 “I have not been playing with her, I 
 think,” said Arnold gravely ; “ I have been 
 very serious with her.” 
 
 “ Everybody nowadays is a young lady. 
 The girl who gives you a cup of tea in a 
 
 shop ; the girl who dances in the ballet ; 
 the girl who makes your dresses.” 
 
 “ In that case, Clara, you need not mind 
 my calling Miss Aglen a young lady.” 
 
 “ There is one word left, at least: women 
 of my class are gentlewomen.” 
 
 “Miss Aglen is a gentlewoman.” 
 
 “ Arnold, look me in the face. My dear 
 boy, tell me, are you mad! Oh, think of 
 my poor unhappy Claude, what he did, 
 and what he must have suffered ! ” 
 
 “ I know what he did. I do not know 
 what he suffered. My case, however, is 
 different from his. I am not engaged to 
 anyone.” 
 
 “Arnold, think of the great scheme of 
 life I have drawn out for you. My dear 
 boy, would you throw that all away % ” 
 
 She laid her hands upon his arm and 
 looked in his eyes with a pitiful gaze. He 
 took her hands in his. 
 
 “My dear, every man must shape his 
 life for himself, or must live out the life 
 shaped for him by his Fate, not by his 
 friends. What if I see a life more de- 
 lightful to me than that of which you 
 dream 1 ” 
 
 “ You talk of a delightful life, Arnold ; 
 
 I spoke of an honourable career.” 
 
 “ Mine will be a life of quiet work and 
 love. Yours, Clara, would be one of noisy 
 and troublesome work without love.” 
 
 “Without love, Arnold! You are in- 
 fatuated.” 
 
 She sank into the chair and buried her 
 face in her hands. First, it was her lover 
 who had deserted her for the sake of a 
 governess, the daughter of some London 
 tradesman ; and now her adopted son, 
 almost the only creature she loved, for 
 whom she had schemed and thought for 
 nearly twenty years, was ready to give up 
 everything for the sake of another governess, 
 also connected with the lower forms of 
 commercial interests. 
 
 “ It is very hard, Arnold,” she said. 
 
 “No, don’t try to persuade me. I am 
 getting an old woman, and it is too late for 
 me to learn that a gentleman can be. happy 
 unless he marries a lady. You might as 
 well ask me to look for happiness with a 
 grocer.” 
 
 “ Not quite,” said Arnold. 
 
 “It is exactly the same thing. Pray, 
 have you proposed to this — this young 
 lady of the second-hand bookshop 1 ” 
 
 “No, I have not.” 
 
 “ You are in love with her, however % ” 
 
 “ I am, Clara.” 
 
 “And you intend to ask her — in the 
 
 = r 
 
eft 
 
 
 
 36 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 shop, I dare say, among the second-hand 
 books — to become your wife 1 ” 
 
 “That is my serious intention, Clara.” 
 
 “ Claude did the same thing. His father 
 remonstrated with him in vain. He took 
 his wife to London, where, for a time, he 
 lived in misery and self-reproach.” 
 
 “Do you know that he reproached 
 himself ? ” 
 
 “I know what must have happened 
 when he found out his mistake. Then he 
 went to America, where he died, no doubt 
 in despair, although his father had forgiven 
 him.” 
 
 “ The cases are hardly parallel,” said 
 Arnold. “ Still, will you permit me to 
 introduce Miss Aglen to you, if she should 
 do me the honour of accepting me ? Be 
 generous, Clara. Do not condemn the 
 poor girl without seeing her.” 
 
 “I condemn no one — I judge no one, 
 not even you, Arnold. But I will not 
 receive that young woman.” 
 
 “Very well, Clai#.” 
 
 “ How shall you live, Arnold 1 ” she 
 asked coldly. 
 
 It was the finishing stroke — the dis- 
 missal. 
 
 “I suppose we shall not marry; but, of 
 
 course, I am talking as if ” 
 
 “ As if she was ready to jump into your 
 arms. Go on.” 
 
 “We shall not marry until I have made 
 some kind of a beginning in my work. 
 Clara, let us have no further explanation. 
 I understand perfectly well. But, my dear 
 Clara,” he laid his arm upon her neck and 
 kissed her, “I shall not let you quarrel 
 with me. I owe you too much, and I love 
 you too well. I am always your most 
 faithful of servants.” 
 
 “ No ; till you are married — then 
 
 Oh, Arnold ! Arnold ! ” 
 
 A less strong-minded woman would 
 have burst into tears. Clara did not. She 
 got into her carriage and drove home. She 
 spent a miserable evening and a sleepless 
 night. But she did not cry. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. ON BATTERSEA TERRACE. 
 
 If a woman were to choose any period 
 of her life which she pleased, for indefinite 
 prolongation, she would certainly select 
 that period which lies between the first per- 
 ception of the first symptoms — when she 
 begins to understand that a man has begun 
 to love her — and the day when he tells 
 her so. 
 
 Yet women who look back to this period 
 with so much fondness and regret forget 
 
 their little tremors and misgivings — the 
 self-distrust, the hopes and fears, the 
 doubts and perplexities, which troubled this 
 time. For although it is acknowledged, 
 and has been taught by all philosophers 
 from King Lemuel and Lao-Kiun down- 
 wards, that no greater prize can be gained 
 by any man than the love of a good 
 woman, which is better than a Peerage — 
 better than a Bonanza mine — better than 
 Name and Fame, Kudos and the newspaper 
 paragraph, and is arrived at by much less 
 exertion, being indeed the special gift of 
 the gods to those they love ; yet all women 
 perfectly understand the other side to this 
 great truth — namely, that no greater 
 happiness can fall to any woman than the 
 love of a good man. So that, in all the 
 multitudinous and delightful courtships 
 which go on around us, and in our midst, 
 there is, on both sides, both with man and 
 with maid, among those who truly reach to 
 the right understanding of what this great 
 thing may mean, a continual distrust of 
 self, with humility and anxiety. And 
 when, as sometimes happens, a girl has 
 been brought up in entire ignorance of 
 love, so that the thought of it has never 
 entered her head, the thing itself, when it 
 falls upon her, is overwhelming, and enfolds 
 her as with a garment from head to foot, 
 and, except to her lover, she becomes as a 
 sealed fountain. I know not how long this 
 season of expectation would have lasted 
 for Iris, but for Arnold’s conversation with 
 his cousin, which persuaded him to speak 
 and bring matters to a final issue. To this 
 girl, living as secluded as if she was in an 
 Oriental Harem, who had never thought of 
 love as a thing possible for herself the 
 consciousness that Arnold loved her was 
 bewildering and astonishing, and she 
 waited, knowing that sooner or later some- 
 thing would be said, but trembling for 
 fear that it should be said. 
 
 After all, it was Lala Boy, and not Clara, 
 who finally determined Arnold to wait no 
 longer. 
 
 He came every day to the studio with 
 Iris when she sat for her portrait. This was 
 in the afternoon. But he now got into 
 the habit of coming in the morning, and 
 would sit in silence looking on. He came 
 partly because he liked the young man, and 
 partly because the painter’s art was new to 
 him, and it amused him to watch a man 
 giving his whole time and intellect to the 
 copying of faces and things on canvas. Also 
 he was well aware by this time that it was 
 not to see Mr. Emblem or himself that 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK 
 
 Arnold spent every evening at the house, 
 and he was amused to watch the progress 
 of an English courtship. In India, we 
 know, they manage matters differently, 
 and so as to give the bridegroom no more 
 trouble than is necessary. This young 
 man, however, took, he observed, the most 
 wonderful pains and the most extraordi- 
 nary trouble to please. 
 
 “ Do you know, Lala Roy,” Arnold said 
 one morning after a silence of three hours 
 or so, “ do you know that this is going to 
 be the portrait of the most beautiful 
 woman in the world, and the best ? ” 
 
 “ It is well,” said the Philosopher, “when 
 a young man desires virtue as well as 
 beauty.” 
 
 “ You have known her all her life. 
 Don’t trouble yourself to speak, Lala. 
 You can nod your head if there isn’t a 
 maxim ready. You began to lodge in the 
 house twenty years ago, and you have seen 
 her every day since. If she is not the best, 
 as well as the most beautiful girl in the 
 world, you ought to know and can con- 
 tradict me. But you do know it.” 
 
 “Happy is the man,” said the Sage, 
 “ who shall call her wife ; happy the 
 children who shall call her mother.” 
 
 “ I suppose, Lala,” Arnold went on with 
 an ingenuous blush, “ I suppose that you 
 have perceived that — that — in fact — I love 
 her.” 
 
 The Philosopher inclined his head. 
 
 “ Do you think — you who know her so 
 well — that she suspects or knows it ? ” 
 
 “ The thoughts of a maiden are secret 
 thoughts. As well may one search for the 
 beginnings of a river as enquire into the 
 mind of a woman. Their ways are not 
 our ways, nor are their thoughts ours, nor 
 have we wit to understand, nor have they 
 tongue to utter, the things they think. I 
 know not whether she suspects.” 
 
 “ Yet you have had experience, Lala 
 Roy ? ” 
 
 A smile stole over the Sage’s features. 
 
 “ In the old days when X was young, I 
 had experience, as all men have. I have 
 had many wives. Yet to me, as to all 
 others, the thoughts of the Harem are 
 unknown.” 
 
 “ Yet, Iris — surely you know the thoughts 
 of Iris, your pupil.” 
 
 “ I know only that her heart is the abode 
 of goodness, and that she knows not any 
 evil thought. Young man, beware. Trouble 
 not the clear fountain.” 
 
 “ Heaven knows,” said Arnold, “ I would 
 not ” And here he stopped. 
 
 AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 37 
 
 “Youth,” said the Sage presently, “is 
 the season for love. Enjoy the present 
 happiness. Woman is made to be loved. 
 Receive with gratitude what Heaven gives. 
 The present moment is your own. Defer 
 not until the evening what you may 
 accomplish at noon.” 
 
 With these words the Oracle became 
 silent, and Arnold sat down and began to 
 think it all over again. 
 
 An hour later he presented himself at 
 the house in the King’s Road. Iris was 
 alone, and she was playing. 
 
 “ You, Arnold 1 It is early for you.” 
 
 “ Forgive me, Iris, for breaking in on 
 your afternoon ; but I thought — it is a fine 
 
 afternoon — I thought that, perhaps 
 
 You have never taken a walk with me.” 
 
 She blushed, I think in sympathy with 
 Arnold, who looked confused and stam- 
 mered, and then she said she would go 
 with him. 
 
 They left the King’s Road by the Royal 
 Avenue, where the leaves were already thin 
 and yellow, and passed through the Hos- 
 pital and its broad grounds down to the 
 river-side ; then they turned to the right, 
 and walked along the Embankment, where 
 are the great new red houses, to Cheyne 
 Walk, and so across the Suspension Bridge. 
 Arnold did not speak one word the whole 
 way. His heart was so full that he could 
 not trust himself to speak. Who would 
 not be four-and-twenty again, even with 
 all the risks and dangers of life before one, 
 the set traps, the gaping holes, and the 
 treacherous quicksands, if it were only to 
 feel once more the overwhelming spirit of 
 the mysterious goddess of the golden 
 cestus 1 In silence they walked side by 
 side over the bridge. Half-way across, 
 they stopped and looked up the river. 
 The tide was running in with a swift 
 current, and the broad river was nearly at 
 the full; the strong September sun fell 
 upon the water, which was broken into 
 little waves under a fresh breeze meeting 
 the current from the north-west. There 
 were lighters and barges majestically creep- 
 ing up stream, some with brown three- 
 cornered sails set in the bows and stern, 
 some slowly moving with the tide, their 
 bows kept steady by long oars, and some, 
 lashed one to the other, forming a long 
 train, and pulled along by a noisy little 
 tug, all paddle-wheel and engine. There 
 was a sculler vigorously practising for his 
 next race, and dreaming, perhaps, of send- 
 ing a challenge to Hanlan ; there were 
 some boys in a rowing-boat, laughing and 
 
[Conducted by 
 
 38 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 splashing each other ; on the north bank 
 there was the garden of the Embankment, 
 with its young trees still green, for the 
 summer lasted into late September this 
 year, and, beyond, the red brick tower of 
 the old Church, with its flagpost on the 
 top. These details are never so carefully 
 marked as when one is anxious, and fully 
 absorbed in things of great importance. 
 Perhaps Arnold had crossed the bridge a 
 hundred times before, but to-day, for the 
 first time, he noticed the common things 
 of the river. One may be an artist, and 
 yet may miss the treasures that lie at the 
 very feet. This is a remark which occurs 
 to one with each new Academy Show. 
 With every tide the boats go up and down 
 with their brown sails, and always the 
 Tower of Chelsea Church rises above the 
 trees, and the broad river never forgets to 
 sparkle and to glow in the sunshine when 
 it gets the chance. Such common things 
 are for the most part unheeded, but, when 
 the mind is anxious and full, they force 
 themselves upon one. Arnold watched 
 boats, and river, and sunshine on the sails, 
 with a strange interest and wonder, as one 
 sees visions in a dream. He had seen all 
 these things before, yet now he noticed 
 them for the first time, and ail the while 
 he was thinking what he should say to Iris, 
 and how he should approach the subject. 
 I know not whether Iris, like him, saw 
 one thing and noticed another. The 
 thoughts of a maiden, as Lala Roy said, 
 are secret thoughts. She looked upon the 
 river from the bridge with Arnold. When 
 he turned, she turned with him, and 
 neither spoke. 
 
 They left the bridge, and passed through 
 the wooden gate at the Battersea end of 
 it, and across the comer where the stone 
 columns lie, like an imitation of Tadmor 
 in the Desert, and so to the broad Terrace 
 overlooking the river. 
 
 There is not, anywhere, a more beautiful 
 Terrace than this of Battersea Park, espe- 
 cially when the tide is high. Before it lies 
 the splendid river, with the barges which 
 Arnold had seen from the bridge. They 
 are broad, and flat, and sometimes squat, 
 and sometimes black with coal, and some- 
 times they go up and down sideways, in 
 lubberly Dutch fashion, but they are 
 always picturesque ; and beyond the river 
 is the Embankment, with its young trees, 
 which will before many years be tall and 
 stately trees ; and behind the trees are the 
 new red palaces ; and above the houses, at 
 this time of the year and day, are the 
 
 flying clouds, already coloured with the 
 light of the sinking sun. Behind the 
 Terrace are the trees and lawns of the 
 best-kept Park in London. 
 
 In the afternoon of a late September 
 day, there are not many who walk in these 
 gardens. Arnold and Iris had the Terrace 
 almost to themselves, save for half-a- 
 dozen girls with children, and two or three 
 old men making the most of the last sum- 
 mer they were ever likely to see, though 
 it would have been cruel to tell them so. 
 
 “ This is your favourite walk, Iris,” said 
 Arnold at last, breaking the silence. 
 
 “Yes; I come here very often. It is 
 my garden. Sometimes in the winter, and 
 when the east wind blows up the river, I 
 have it all to myself.” 
 
 “A quiet life, Iris,” he said, “and a 
 happy life.” 
 
 “ Yes ; a happy life.” 
 
 “ Iris, will you change it for a life which 
 will not be so quiet 1 ” He took her hand, 
 but she made no reply. “ I must tell you, 
 Iris, because I cannot keep it from you 
 any longer. I love you — oh, my dear, I 
 cannot tell you how I love you.” 
 
 “ Oh, Arnold ! ” she whispered. It had 
 come, the thing she feared to hear ! 
 
 “ May I go on 1 I have told you now 
 the most important thing, and the rest 
 matters little. Oh, Iris, may I go on and 
 tell you all 1 ” 
 
 “ Go on,” she said ; “ tell me all.” 
 
 “ As for telling you everything,” he said 
 with a little laugh, “ that is no new thing. 
 I have told you all that is in my mind for 
 a year and more. It seems natural that I 
 should tell you this too, even if it did not 
 concern you at all, but some other girl ; 
 though that would be impossible. I love 
 you, Iris ; I love you — I should like to say 
 nothing more. But I must tell you as well 
 that I am quite a poor man ; I am an abso- 
 lute pauper ; I have nothing at all — no 
 money, no work, nothing. My studio and 
 all must go back to her ; and yet, Iris, in 
 spite of this, I am so selfish as to tell you 
 that I love you. I would give you, if I 
 could, the most delightful palace in the 
 world, and I offer you a share in the un- 
 certain life of an artist, who does not know 
 whether he has any genius, or whether he 
 is fit even to be called an artist.” 
 
 She gave him her hand with the frank- 
 ness which was her chief charm, and with 
 a look in her eyes so full of trust and 
 truth that his heart sank within him for 
 very fear lest he should prove unworthy of 
 so much confidence. 
 
=; 
 
 i .. - a 
 
 s — X 
 
 Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 39 
 
 “Oh, Arnold,” she said, “I think thatl 
 have loved you all along, ever since you 
 began to write to me. And yet I never 
 thought that love would come to me.” 
 
 He led her into that bosky grove set 
 with seats convenient for lovers, which lies 
 romantically close to the Italian Restau- 
 rant, where they sell the cocoa and the 
 ginger-beer. There was no one in the 
 place beside themselves, and here, among 
 the falling leaves, and in a solitude as 
 profound as on the top of a Dartmoor 
 Tor, Arnold told the story of his love 
 again, and with greater coherence, though 
 even more passion. 
 
 “ Oh,” said Iris again, “ how could you 
 love me, Arnold — how could you love any 
 girl so 1 It is a shame, Arnold ; we are 
 not worth so much. Could any woman,” 
 she thought, “ be worth the wealth of pas- 
 sion and devotion which her lover poured 
 out for her 1 ” 
 
 “ My tutor,” he went on, “ if you only 
 knew what things you have taught me, a 
 man of experience ! If I admired you when 
 I thought you must be a man, and pictured 
 an old scholar full of books and wisdom, 
 what could I do when I found that a young 
 girl had written those letters ? You gave 
 mine back to me ; did you think that I 
 would ever part with yours ? And you 
 owned — oh, Iris, what would not the 
 finished woman of the world give to have 
 the secret of your power ? — you owned 
 that you knew all my letters, every one, by 
 heart. And after all, you will love me, 
 your disciple and pupil, and a man who 
 has his way to make from the very be- 
 ginning and first round of the ladder. 
 Think, Iris, first. Is it right to throw 
 away so much upon a man who is worth 
 so little ? ” 
 
 “ But I am glad that you are poor. If 
 you were rich I should have been afraid — 
 oh, not of you, Arnold — never of you, but 
 of your people. And, besides, it is so good 
 — oh, so very good for a young man — a 
 young man of the best kind, not my 
 cousin’s kind — to be poor. Nobody ought 
 ever to be allowed to become rich before 
 he is fifty years of age at the very least. 
 Because now you will have to work in 
 earnest, and you will become a great artist 
 — yes, a truly great artist, and we shall be 
 proud of you.” 
 
 “ You shall make of me what you 
 please, and what you can. For your sake, 
 Iris, I wish I were another Raphael. 
 You are my mistress and my queen. Bid 
 me to die and I will dare — Iris, I swear 
 
 that the words of the extravagant old song 
 are real to me.” 
 
 “ Nay,” she said, “ not your Queen, but 
 your servant always. Surely love cannot 
 command. But, I think,” she added softly, 
 with a tender blush ; “I think — nay, I am 
 sure and certain that it can obey.” 
 
 He stooped and kissed her fingers. 
 
 “ My love,” he murmured ; “ my love — 
 my love !” 
 
 The shadows lengthened and the evening 
 fell ; but those two foolish people sat side 
 by side, and hand in hand, and what they 
 said further we need not write down, be- 
 cause to tell too much of what young 
 lovers whisper to each other is a kind of 
 sacrilege. 
 
 At last] Arnold became aware that the sun 
 was actually set, and he sprang to his feet. 
 
 They walked home again across the 
 Suspension Bridge. In the western sky 
 was hanging a huge bank of cloud all 
 bathed in purple, red, and gold ; the river 
 was ablaze ; the barges floated in a golden 
 haze ; the light shone on their faces, and 
 made them all glorious, like the face of 
 Moses, for they, too, had stood — nay, they 
 were still standing — at the very gates of 
 Heaven. 
 
 “ See, Iris,” said the happy lover, “ the 
 day is done ; your old life is finished ; it 
 has been a happy time, and it sets in glory 
 and splendour. The red light in the west 
 is a happy omen of the day to come.” 
 
 So he took her by the hand and led her 
 over the river, and then to his own studio 
 in Tite Street. There, in the solemn twi- 
 light, he held her in his arms, and renewed 
 the vows of love with kisses and fond 
 caress. 
 
 “ Iris, my dear — my dear — you are mine 
 and I am yours. What have I done to 
 deserve this happy fate 1 ” 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. THE DISCOVERY. 
 
 At nine o’clock that evening, Mr. 
 Emblem looked up from the chess-board. 
 
 “ Where is Mr. Arbuthnot this evening, 
 my dear ? ” he asked. 
 
 It would be significant in some houses 
 when a young man is expected every 
 evening. Iris blushed, and said that 
 perhaps he was not coming. But he was, 
 and his step was on the stair as she 
 spoke. 
 
 “You are late, Mr. Arbuthnot,” said 
 Mr. Emblem reproachfully ; “ you are late, 
 sir, and somehow we get no music now 
 until you come. Play us something, Iris. 
 It is my move, Lala ” 
 
 i 
 
 3 t 
 
40 [November IB, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 Iris opened the piano and Arnold sat 
 down beside her, and their eyes met. 
 There was in each the consciousness of what 
 had passed. 
 
 “I shall speak to him to-night, Iris,” 
 Arnold whispered. “ I have already 
 written to my cousin. Do not be hurt if 
 she does not call upon you.” 
 
 “ Nothing of that sort will hurt me,” 
 Iris said, being ignorant of social ways, and 
 without the least ambition to rise in the 
 world. “ If your cousin does not call upon 
 me I shall not be disappointed. Why 
 should she want to know me 1 But I am 
 sorry, Arnold, that she is angry with 
 you.” 
 
 Lala Roy just then found himself in 
 presence of a most beautiful problem — 
 white to move and checkmate in three 
 moves. Mr. Emblem found the meshes of 
 fate closing round him earlier than usual, 
 and both bent their heads closely over the 
 table. 
 
 “ Checkmate ! ” said Lala Roy. “My 
 friend, you have played badly this evening.” 
 
 “I have played badly,” Mr. Emblem 
 replied, “because to-morrow will be an 
 important day for Iris, and for myself. A 
 day, Iris, that I have been looking forward 
 to for eighteen years, ever since I got your 
 father’s last letter, written upon his death- 
 bed. It seems a long time, but like a life- 
 time,” said the old man of seventy-five, “ it 
 is as nothing when it is gone. Eighteen 
 years, and you were a little thing of three, 
 child!” 
 
 “What is going to happen to me, grand- 
 father, except that I shall be twenty- 
 one?” 
 
 “We shall see to-morrow. Patience, my 
 dear — patience.” 
 
 He spread out his hands and laughed. 
 What was going to happen to himself was 
 a small thing compared with the restoration 
 of Iris to her own. 
 
 “Mr. Emblem,” said Arnold, “I also 
 have something of importance to say.” 
 
 “You, too, Mr. Arbuthnot? Cannot 
 yours wait also until to-morrow ? ” 
 
 “ No ; it is too important. It cannot 
 wait an hour.” 
 
 “Well, sir” — Mr. Emblem pushed up 
 his spectacles and leaned back in his chair 
 — “ well, Mr. Arbuthnot, let us have it.” 
 
 “ I think you may guess what I have to 
 say, Mr. Emblem. I am sure that Lala 
 Roy has already guessed it.” 
 
 The Philosopher inclined his head in 
 assent. 
 
 “It is that I have this afternoon asked 
 
 Iris to marry me, Mr. Emblem. And she 
 has consented.” 
 
 “ Have you consented, Iris, my dear 1 ” 
 said her grandfather. 
 
 She placed her hand in Arnold’s for 
 reply. 
 
 “Do you think you know him well 
 enough, my dear ? ” Mr. Emblem asked 
 gravely, looking at her lover. “ Marriage 
 is a serious thing ; it is a partnership for 
 life. Children, think well before you ven- 
 ture on the happiness or ruin of your whole 
 lives. And you are so young. What a pity — 
 what a thousand pities that people were not 
 ordained to marry, at seventy or so ! ” 
 
 “ We have thought well,” said Arnold. 
 “Iris has faith in me.” 
 
 “ Then, young man, I have nothing to 
 say. Iris will marry to please herself, and 
 I pray that she may be happy. As for you, I 
 like your face and your manners, but I do 
 not know who you are, nor what your 
 means may be. Remember that I am 
 poor — I am so poor — I can tell you all 
 now, that to-morrow we shall — well, 
 patience — to-morrow I shall most likely 
 have my very stock seized and sold.” 
 
 “ Your stock sold ? Oh, grandfather l” 
 cried Iris ; “ and you did not tell me ! 
 And I have been so happy.” 
 
 “ Friend,” said Lala, “ was it well to hide 
 this from me ? ” 
 
 “ Foolish people,” Mr. Emblem went on, 
 “ have spread reports that I am rich, and 
 have saved money for Iris. It is not true, 
 Mr. Arbuthnot. I am not rich. Iris will 
 come to you empty-handed.” 
 
 “ And as for me, I have nothing,” said 
 Arnold, “ except a pair of hands and all 
 the time there is. So we have all to gain 
 and nothing to lose.” 
 
 “ You have your profession,” said Iris, 
 “ and I have mine. Grandfather, do not 
 fear, even though we shall all four become 
 poor together.” 
 
 It seemed natural to include Lala Roy, 
 who had been included with them for 
 twenty years. 
 
 “ As for Iris being empty-handed,” said 
 Arnold, “ how can that ever be 1 Why, she 
 carries in her hands an inexhaustible cornu- 
 copia, full of precious things.” 
 
 “ My dear,” said the old man, holding 
 out his arms to her, “ I could not keep you 
 always. Some day I knew you would 
 leave me ; it is well that you should leave 
 me when I am no longer able to keep a 
 roof over your head.” 
 
 “ But we shall find a roof for you, grand- 
 father, somewhere. We shall never part.” 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 41 
 
 “ The best of girls always,” said Mr. 
 Emblem; “the best of girls. Mr. Arbuthnot, 
 you are a happy man.” 
 
 Then the Sage lifted up his voice and 
 said solemnly : 
 
 “ On her tongue dwelleth music ; the 
 sweetness of honey floweth from her lips ; 
 humility is like a crown of glory about her 
 head ; her eye speaketh softness and love ; 
 her husband putteth his heart in her bosom 
 and findeth joy.” 
 
 “ Oh, you are all too good to me,” 
 murmured Iris. 
 
 “ A friend of mine,” said Mr. Emblem, 
 “ now, like nearly all my friends, beneath 
 the sod, used to say that a good marriage 
 was a happy blending of the finest Wallsend 
 with the most delicate Silkstone. But he 
 was in the coal trade. For my own part 
 I have always thought that it is like the 
 binding of two scarce volumes into one.” 
 
 “ Oh, not second-hand volumes, grand- 
 father,” said Iris. 
 
 “ I don’t know. Certainly not new ones. 
 Not volumes under one-and-twenty, if you 
 please. Mr. Arbuthnot, I am glad ; you 
 will know why very soon. I am very glad 
 that Iris made her choice before her 
 twenty-first birthday. Whatever may 
 happen now, no one can say that either of 
 you were influenced by any expectations. 
 You both think yourselves paupers ; well, 
 I say nothing, because I know nothing. 
 But, children, if a great thing happen to 
 you, and that before four-and-twenty hours 
 have passed, be prepared — be prepared, I 
 say — to receive it with moderate rejoicing.” 
 
 “To-morrow?” Iris asked. “Why to- 
 morrow 1 Why not to-night, if you have 
 a secret to tell us ? ” 
 
 “ Your father enjoined in his last letter 
 to wait till you were twenty-one. The eve 
 of your birthday, however, is the same thing 
 as your birthday. We will open the papers 
 to-night. What I have to tell you, Iris, 
 shall be told in the presence of your lover, 
 whatever it is — good or bad.” 
 
 He led the way downstairs into the back 
 shop. Here he lit the gas, and began to 
 open his case, slowly and cautiously. 
 
 “Eighteen years ago, Iris, my child, I 
 received your father’s last letter, written on 
 his death-bed. This I have already told 
 you. He set down, in that letter, several 
 things which surprised me very much. We 
 shall come to these things presently. He 
 also laid down certain instructions for your 
 bringing up, my dear. I was, first of all, 
 to give you as good an education as I could 
 afford; I was to keep you as much as 
 
 possible separated from companions who 
 might not be thought afterwards fit to be the 
 friends of a young lady. You have had as 
 good an education as Lala Boy and I could 
 devise between us. From him you have 
 learned mathematics, so as to steady your 
 mind and make you exact ; and you have 
 learned the science of Heraldry from me, so 
 that you may at once step into your own 
 place in the polite world, where, no doubt, 
 it is a familiar and a necessary study. You 
 have also learned music, because that is an 
 accomplishment which every one should 
 possess. What more can any girl want for 
 any station ? My dear, I am happy to 
 think that a gentleman is your lover. Let 
 him tell us, now — Lala Boy and me — to 
 our very faces, if he thinks we have, between 
 us, made you a lady.” 
 
 Arnold stooped and kissed her hand. 
 
 “ There is no more perfect lady,” he said, 
 “ in all the land.” 
 
 “ Iris’s father, Mr. Arbuthnot, was a 
 gentleman of honourable and ancient 
 family, and I will tell you, presently, as 
 soon as I find it out myself, his real name. 
 As for his coat-of-arms, he bore Quarterly, 
 first and fourth, two roses and a boar’s 
 head erect; second and third, gules and 
 fesse between — strange, now, that I have 
 forgotten what it was between. Every- 
 body calls himself a gentleman nowadays ; 
 even Mr. Chalker, who is going to sell me 
 up, I suppose; but everybody, if you 
 please, is not armiger. Iris, your father 
 was armiger. I suppose I am a gentleman 
 on Sundays, when I go to church with Iris, 
 and wear a black coat. But your father, 
 my dear, though he married my daughter, 
 was a gentleman by birth. And one 
 who knows Heraldry respects a gentle- 
 man by birth.” He laid his hand now 
 on the handle of the safe, as if the 
 time were nearly come for opening it, but 
 not quite. “He sent me, with this last 
 letter, a small parcel for you,, my dear, not 
 to be opened until you reached the age of 
 twenty-one. As for the person who had 
 succeeded to his inheritance, she was to be 
 left in peaceable possession for a reason 
 which he gave — quite a romantic story, 
 which I will tell you presently — until you 
 came of age. He was very urgent on this 
 point. If, however, any disaster of sick- 
 ness or misfortune fell upon me, I was to 
 act in your interests at once, without 
 waiting for time. Children,” the old man 
 added solemnly, “by the blessing of 
 Heaven — I cannot take it as anything less — 
 I have been spared in health and fortune 
 
 P 
 
42 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 until this day. Now let me depart in peace, 
 for my trust is expired, and my child is 
 safe, her inheritance secured, with a 
 younger and a better protector.’’ He placed 
 the key in the door of the safe. “ I do not 
 know, mind,” he said, still hesitating to 
 take the final step ; “ I do not know the 
 nature of the inheritance ; it may be little 
 or may be great. The letter does not 
 inform me on this point. I do not even 
 know the name of the testator, my son-in- 
 law’s father. Nor do I know the name of 
 my daughter’s husband. I do not even 
 know your true name, Iris, my child. But 
 it is not Aglen.” 
 
 “ Then, have I been going under a false 
 name all my life ? ” 
 
 “ It was the name your father chose to 
 bear for reasons which seemed good and 
 sufficient to him, and these are part of the 
 story which I shall have to tell you. Will 
 you have this story first, or shall we first 
 open the safe and read the contents of the 
 parcel ? ” 
 
 “ First,” said Arnold, ‘‘let us sit down 
 and look in each other’s faces.” 
 
 It was a practical suggestion. But, as it 
 proved, it was an unlucky one, because it 
 deprived them of the story. 
 
 “ Iris,” he said, while they waited, “ this 
 is truly wonderful ! ” 
 
 “ Oh, Arnold ! What am I to do with 
 an inheritance ? ” 
 
 “ That depends on what it is. Perhaps 
 it is a landed estate ; in which case we 
 shall not be much better off, and can go on 
 with our work ; perhaps there will be 
 houses ; perhaps it will be thousands of 
 pounds, and perhaps hundreds. Shall we 
 build a castle in the air to suit our 
 inheritance % ” 
 
 “ Yes ; let us pretend. Oh, grandfather, 
 stop one moment ! Our castle, Arnold, 
 shall be, first of all, the most beautiful 
 studio in the world for you. You shall 
 have tapestry, blue china, armour, lovely 
 glass, soft carpets, carved doors and painted 
 panels, a tall mantelshelf, old wooden 
 cabinets, silver cups, and everything else 
 what one ought to like, and you shall 
 choose everything for yourself, and never 
 get tired of it. But you must go on 
 painting ; you must never stop work- 
 ing, because we must be proud of you. 
 Oh, but I have not done yet. My 
 grandfather is to have two rooms for 
 himself, which he can fill with the books 
 he will spend his time in collecting; 
 Lala Roy will have two more rooms, 
 quite separate, where he can sit by him- 
 
 4 
 
 self whenever he does not choose to sit 
 with me ; I shall have my own study to 
 myself, where I shall go on reading 
 mathematics; and we shall all have, between 
 us, the most beautiful dining-room and 
 drawing-room that you ever saw; and a 
 garden and a fountain ; and — yes — money 
 to give to people who are not so fortunate 
 as ourselves. Will that do, Arnold ? ” 
 “Yes, but you have almost forgotten 
 yourself, dear. There must be carriages 
 for you, and jewels, and dainty things all 
 your own, and a boudoir, and nobody shall 
 think of doing or saying anything in the 
 house at all, except for your pleasure ; will 
 that do, Iris ? ” 
 
 “ I suppose we shall have to give parties 
 of some kind, and to go to them. Perhaps 
 one may get to like society. You will 
 teach me lawn-tennis, Arnold ; and I should 
 like, I think, to learn dancing. I suppose 
 I must leave off making my own dresses, 
 though I know that I shall never be so 
 well dressed if I do. And about the cakes 
 and puddings — but, oh, there is enough 
 pretending.” 
 
 “ It is difficult,” said Lala Roy, “to bear 
 adversity. But to be temperate in pros- 
 perity is the height of wisdom.” 
 
 “ And now suppose, Iris,” said Arnold, 
 “that the inheritance, instead of being 
 thousands a year, is only a few hundreds.” 
 “ Ah, then, Arnold, it will be ever so 
 much simpler. We shall have something 
 to live upon until you begin to make money 
 for us all.” 
 
 “ Yes ; that is very simple. But suppose, 
 again, that the inheritance is nothing but a 
 small sum of money.” 
 
 “ Why, then,” said Iris, “ we will give 
 it all to grandfather, who will pay off his 
 creditor, and we will go on as if nothing had 
 happened.” 
 
 “Child!” said Mr. Emblem, “do you 
 think that I would take your little 
 all ? ” 
 
 “And suppose, again,” Arnold went 
 on, “that the inheritance turns out a 
 delusion, and that there is nothing at 
 all?” 
 
 “That cannot be supposed,” said Mr. 
 Emblem quickly ; “ that is absurd ! ” 
 
 “If it were,” said Iris, “we shall only 
 be, to-morrow, just exactly what we are 
 to-day. I am a teacher by correspondence, 
 with five pupils. Arnold is looking for art- 
 work which will pay ; and between us, my 
 dear grandfather and Lala Roy, we are going 
 to see that you want nothing.” 
 
 Always Lala Roy with her grandfather, as 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 43 
 
 if their interests were identical, and, indeed, 
 he had lived so long with them that Iris 
 could not separate the two old men. 
 
 “ We will all live together,” Iris con- 
 tinued, “ and when our fortune is made we 
 will all live in a palace. And now, grand- 
 father, that we have relieved our feelings, 
 shall we have the story and the opening of 
 the papers in the safe ? ” 
 
 “Which will you have first? ” Mr. Emblem 
 asked again. 
 
 “ Oh, the safe,” said Arnold. “ The story 
 can wait. Let us examine the contents of 
 the safe.” 
 
 “ The story,” said Mr. Emblem, “ is 
 nearly all told in your father’s letter, my 
 dear. But there is a little that I would 
 tell you first, before I read that letter. 
 You know, Iris, that I have never been 
 rich ; my shop has kept me up till now, 
 but I have never been able to put by 
 money. Well — my daughter Alice, your 
 poor mother, my dear, who was as good 
 and clever as you are, was determined 
 to earn her own living, and so she went 
 out as a governess. And one day she 
 came home with her husband; she had 
 been married the day before, and she told 
 me they had very little money, and her 
 husband was a scholar and a gentleman, 
 and wanted to get work by writing. He 
 got some, but not enough, and they were 
 always in a poor way, until one day 
 he got a letter from America — it was while 
 the Civil War was raging — from an old 
 Oxford friend, inviting him to emigrate 
 and try fortune as a journalist out there. 
 He went, and his wife was to join him. 
 But she died, my dear ; your mother died, 
 and a year later I had your father’s last 
 letter, which I am now going to read to 
 you.” 
 
 “ One moment, sir,” said Arnold. 
 “ Before you open the safe and take out 
 the papers, remember that Iris and I can 
 take nothing — nothing at all for ourselves 
 until all your troubles are tided over.” 
 
 “Children — children,” cried Mr. Emblem. 
 
 “ Go, my son, to the Desert,” observed 
 the Sage, standing solemnly upright like 
 a Prophet of Israel. “ Observe the young 
 stork of the wilderness, how he beareth 
 on his wings his aged sire and supplieth 
 him with food. The piety of a child is 
 sweeter than the incense of Persia offered 
 to the sun ; yea, more delicious is it than 
 the odours from a field of Arabian spice.” 
 
 “ Thank you, Lala,” said Mr. Emblem. 
 “ And now, children, we will discover the 
 mystery.” 
 
 He unlocked the safe and threw it open 
 with somewhat of a theatrical air. “ The 
 roll of papers.” He took it out. “‘For Iris, 
 to be opened on her twenty-first birthday.’ 
 And this is the eve of it. But where 
 is the letter ? I tied the letter round it, 
 with a piece of tape. Very strange. I 
 am sure I tied the letter with a piece of 
 
 tape. Perhaps it was Where is the 
 
 letter ? ” 
 
 He peered about in the safe ; there was 
 nothing else in it except a few old account- 
 books ; but he could not find the letter t 
 Where could it be ? 
 
 “I remember,” he said — “most distinctly 
 I remember tying up the letter with the 
 parcel. Where can it be gone to ? ” 
 
 A feeling of trouble to come seized him. 
 He was perfectly sure he had tied up the 
 letter with the parcel, and here was the 
 parcel without the letter, and no one had 
 opened the safe except himself. 
 
 “Never mind about the letter, grand- 
 father,” said Iris; “we shall find that 
 afterwards.” 
 
 “ Well, then, let us open the parcel.” 
 
 It was a packet about the size of a crown- 
 octavo volume, in brown paper, carefully 
 fastened up with gum, and on the face of it 
 was a white label inscribed : “ For Iris, to 
 be opened on her twenty-first birthday.” 
 Everybody in turn took it, weighed it, so 
 to speak, looked at it curiously, and read 
 the legend. Then they returned it to Mr. 
 Emblem, who laid it before him and pro- 
 duced a penknife. With this, as carefully 
 and solemnly as if he were offering up a 
 sacrifice or performing a religious function, 
 he cut the parcel straight through. 
 
 “ After eighteen years,” he said ; “ after 
 eighteen years. The ink will be faded and 
 the papers yellow. But we shall see the 
 certificates of the marriage and of your 
 baptism, Iris ; there will also be letters to 
 different people, and a true account of the 
 rupture with his father, and the cause, of 
 which his letter spoke. And of course we 
 shall find out what was his real name and 
 what is the kind of inheritance which has 
 been waiting for you so long, my dear. 
 Now then.” 
 
 The covering in case of the packet was a 
 kind of stiff cardboard or millboard, within 
 brown paper. Mr. Emblem laid it open. 
 It was full of folded papers. He took up 
 the first and opened it. The paper was 
 blank. The next, it was blank ; the third, 
 it was blank; the fourth, and fifth, and 
 sixth, and so on throughout. The case, 
 which had been waiting so long, waiting 
 
44 [November 13, 1S34.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 for eighteen years, to be opened on Iris’s 
 twenty-first birthday, was full of blank 
 papers. They were all half sheets of note- 
 paper. 
 
 Mr. Emblem looked surprised at the 
 first two or three papers ; then he turned 
 pale ; then he rushed at the rest. When 
 he had opened all, he stared about him 
 with bewilderment. 
 
 “ Where is the letter 1 ” he asked again. 
 Then he began with trembling hands to 
 tear out the contents of the safe and spread 
 them upon the table. The letter was 
 nowhere. 
 
 “ I am certain,” he said, for the tenth 
 time, “I am quite certain that I tied up 
 the letter with red tape, outside the packet. 
 And no one has been at the safe except 
 me. 
 
 “ Tell us,” said Arnold, “ the contents 
 of the letter as well as you remember them. 
 Your son-in-law was known to you under 
 the name of Aglen, which was not his real 
 name. Did he tell you his real name ? ” 
 
 “ No.” 
 
 “What did he tell you? Do you re- 
 member the letter ? ” 
 
 “I remember every word of the letter.” 
 
 “ If you dictate it, I will write it down. 
 That may be a help.” 
 
 Mr. Emblem began quickly, and as if he 
 was afraid of forgetting : 
 
 “ f When you read these lines, I shall be 
 in the Silent Land, whither Alice, my wife, 
 has gone before me.” 
 
 Then Mr. Emblem began to stammer. 
 
 “ ‘ In one small thing we deceived you, 
 Alice and I. My name is not Aglen 5 — is 
 not Aglen ” 
 
 And here a strange thing happened. 
 His memory failed him at this point. 
 
 “ Take time,” said Arnold ; “ there is no 
 hurry.” 
 
 Mr. Emblem shook his head. 
 
 “ I shall remember the rest to-morrow, 
 perhaps,” he said. 
 
 “Is there anything else you have to 
 help us ? ” asked Arnold ; “ never mind 
 the letter, Mr. Emblem. No doubt that 
 will come back presently. You see we 
 want to find out, first, who Iris’s father 
 really was, and what is her real name. 
 There was his coat-of-arms. That will 
 connect her with some family, though 
 it may be a family with many branches.” 
 
 “ Yes — oh yes ! his coat-of-arms. I have 
 seen his signet-ring a dozen times. Yes, 
 his coat ; yes, first and fourth, two roses 
 and a boar’s head erect ; second and third 
 — I forget.” 
 
 “Humph! Was there anyone who 
 knew him before he was married ? ” 
 
 “Yes, yes,” Mr. Emblem sat up eagerly. 
 “ Yes, there is — there is ; he is my oldest 
 customer. But I forget his name. I have 
 forgotten everything. Perhaps I shall get 
 back my memory to-morrow. But I am 
 old. Perhaps it will never get back.” 
 
 He leaned his head upon his hands, and 
 stared about him with bewildered eyes. 
 
 “I do not know, young man,” he said 
 presently, addressing Arnold, “who you 
 are. If you come from Mr. Chalker, let 
 me tell you it is a day too soon. To- 
 morrow we will speak of business.” Then 
 he sprung to his feet suddenly, struck with 
 a thought which pierced him like a dagger. 
 “ To-morrow ! It is the day when they 
 will come to sell me up. Oh, Iris ! what 
 did that matter when you were safe 1 Now 
 we are all paupers together — all paupers.” 
 He fell back in his chair white and 
 trembling. Iris soothed him ; kissed his 
 cheek and pressed his hand ; but the 
 terror and despair of bankruptcy were 
 upon him. This is an awful spectre, which 
 is ever ready to appear before the man 
 who has embarked his all in one venture. 
 A disastrous season, two or three unlucky 
 ventures, a succession of bad debts, and 
 the grisly spectre stands before them. He 
 had no terror for the old man so long as 
 he thought that Iris was safe. But 
 now 
 
 “Idle talk, Iris — idle talk, child,” he said, 
 when they tried to comfort him. “ How 
 can a girl make money by teaching ? Idle 
 talk, young man. How can money be made 
 by painting ? It’s as bad a trade as 
 writing. How can money be made anyhow 
 but in an honest shop ? And to-morrow 
 I shall have no shop, and we shall all go 
 into the street together ! ” 
 
 Presently, when lamentations had yielded 
 to despair, they persuaded him to go to 
 bed. It was past midnight. Iris went 
 upstairs with him, while Lala Roy and 
 Arnold waited down below. And then 
 Arnold made a great discovery. He began 
 to examine the folded papers which were 
 in the packet. I think he had some kind 
 of vague idea that they might contain 
 secret and invisible writing. They were 
 all sheets of note-paper, of the same size, 
 folded in the same way — namely, doubled 
 as if for a square envelope. On holding 
 one to the light, he read the water-mark : 
 HIEROGLYPHICA 
 A Vegetable Vellum. 
 
 M. S. and Co. 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK 
 
 They all had the same water-mark. He 
 showed the thing to the Hindoo, who did 
 not understand what it meant. 
 
 Then Iris came down again. Her grand- 
 father was sleeping. Like a child, he fell 
 asleep the moment his head fell upon 
 the pillow. 
 
 “ Iris/' he said, “ this is no delusion 
 of your grandfather’s. The parcel has been 
 robbed.” 
 
 “ How do you know, Arnold 1 ” 
 
 “ The stupid fellow who stole and opened 
 the packet no doubt thought he was won- 
 derfully clever to fill it up again with 
 paper. But he forgot that the packet has 
 been lying for eighteen years in the safe, 
 and that this note-paper was made the day 
 before yesterday.” 
 
 “ How do you know that % ” 
 
 “ You can tell by the look and feel of 
 the paper ; they did not make paper like 
 this twenty years ago ; besides, look at the 
 water-mark ; ” he held it to the light, and 
 Iris read the mystic words. “ That is the 
 fashion of to-day. One House issues a 
 new kind of paper, with a fancy name, 
 and another imitates them. To-morrow, I 
 will ascertain exactly when this paper was 
 made.” 
 
 “ But who would steal it, Arnold ? Who 
 could steal it ] ” 
 
 “ It would not probably be of the least 
 use to anyone. But it might be stolen in 
 order to sell it back. We may see an 
 advertisement carefully worded, guarded, 
 
 or perhaps Iris, who had access to the 
 
 place, when your grandfather was out 1 ” 
 
 “ No one but James, the shopman. He 
 has been here five-and-twenty years. He 
 would not, surely, rob his old master. No 
 one else comes here except the customers 
 and Cousin Joe.” 
 
 “ Joe is not, I believe, quite ” 
 
 “ Joe is a very bad man. He has done 
 dreadful things. But then, even if Joe 
 were bad enough to rob the safe, how 
 could he get at it 1 My grandfather never 
 leaves it unlocked. Oh, Arnold, Arnold, 
 that all this trouble should fall upon us on 
 the very day ” 
 
 “ My dear, is it not better that it should 
 fall upon you when I am here, one more 
 added to your advisers 1 If you have lost 
 a fortune, I have found one. Think that 
 you have given it to me.” 
 
 “Oh, the fortune may go,” she said. 
 
 “ The future is ours, and we are young. 
 But who shall console my grandfather in 
 his old age for his bankruptcy 1 ” 
 
 “ As the stream,” said Lala Roy, “ which 
 
 AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 45 
 
 passeth from the mountains to the ocean, 
 kisseth every meadow on its way, yet 
 tarries not in any place, so Fortune visits 
 the sons of men ; she is unstable as the 
 wind ; who shall hold her 1 Let not 
 adversity tear off the wings of hope.” 
 
 They could do nothing more. Arnold 
 replaced the paper in the packet, and- gave 
 it to Iris ; they put back the ledgers and 
 account-books in the safe, and locked it 
 up, and then they went upstairs. 
 
 “ You shall go to bed, Iris,” said Arnold, 
 “and you, too, Lala Roy. I shall stay 
 here, in case Mr. Emblem should — should 
 want anything.” 
 
 He was, in reality, afraid that “ some- 
 thing would happen ” to the old man. His 
 sudden loss of memory, his loss of self- 
 control when he spoke of his bankruptcy, 
 the confusion of his words, told clearly of 
 a mind unhinged. He could not go away 
 and leave Iris with no better protection 
 than one other weak old man. 
 
 He remained, but Iris sat with him, and 
 in the silent watches of the night they 
 talked about the future. 
 
 Under every roof are those who talk 
 about the future, and those who think 
 about the past ; so the shadow of death is 
 always with us and the sunshine of life. 
 Not without reason is the Roman Catholic 
 Altar incomplete without a bone of some 
 dead man. As for the thing which had 
 been stolen, that affected them but little. 
 What does it matter— the loss of what was 
 promised but five minutes since ? 
 
 It was one o’clock in the morning when 
 Lala Roy left them. They sat at the 
 window, hand-in-hand, and talked. The 
 street below them was very quiet; now 
 and then a late cab broke the silence, or 
 the tramp of a policeman ; but there were 
 no other sounds. They sat in darkness 
 because they wanted no light. The hours 
 sped too swiftly for them. At five the day 
 began to dawn. 
 
 “Iris,” said Arnold, “leave me now, 
 and try to sleep a little. Shall we .ever 
 forget this night of sweet and tender 
 talk ? ” 
 
 When she was gone, he began to be 
 aware of footsteps overhead in the old 
 man’s room. What was he going to do 1 
 Arnold waited at the door. Presently the 
 door opened, and he heard careful steps 
 upon the stairs. They were the steps of 
 Mr. Emblem himself. He was fully 
 dressed, with his usual care and neatness, 
 his black silk stock buckled behind, and 
 his white hair brushed. 
 
46 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 Conducted by 
 
 “ Ah, Mr. Arbuthnot,” he said cheerfully, 
 
 “ you are early this morning ! ” as if it was 
 quite a usual thing for his friends to look 
 in at six in the morning. 
 
 “ You are going down to the shop, Mr. 
 Emblem 1 ” 
 
 “ Yes, certainly — to the shop. Pray 
 come with me.” 
 
 Arnold followed him. 
 
 “ I have just remembered,” said the old 
 man, “ that last night we did not look on 
 the floor. I will have one more search for 
 the letter, and then, if I cannot find it, I 
 will write it all out — every word. There 
 is not much, to be sure, but the story is 
 told without the names.” 
 
 “ Tell me the story, Mr. Emblem, while 
 you remember it.” 
 
 “ All in good time, young man. Youth 
 is impatient.” .. 
 
 He drew up the blind and let in the 
 morning light; then he began his search 
 for the letter on the floor, going on his 
 hands and knees, and peering under the 
 table and chairs with a candle. At length 
 he desisted. 
 
 “I tied it up,” he said, “with the 
 parcel, with red tape. Very well — we 
 must do without it. Now, Mr. Arbuthnot, 
 my plan is this. First, I will dictate the 
 letter. This will give you the outlines of 
 the story. Next, I will send you to— to 
 my old customer, who can tell you my 
 son-in-law’s real name. And then I will 
 describe his coat-of-arms. My memory 
 was never so clear and good as I feel it 
 to-day. Strange that last night I seemed, 
 for the moment, to forget everything! 
 Ha, ha ! Ridiculous, wasn’t it 1 I sup- 
 pose But there is no accounting for 
 
 these queer things. Perhaps I was disap- 
 pointed to find nothing in the packet. Do 
 
 you think, Mr. Arbuthnot, that I ” 
 
 Here he began to tremble. “Do you 
 think that I dreamed it all? Old men 
 think strange things. Perhaps 
 
 “ Let us try to remember the letter, Mr. 
 Emblem.” 
 
 “ Yes, yes— certainly— the letter. Why 
 it went — ahem ! — as follows ” 
 
 Arnold laid down the pen in despair. 
 The poor old man was mad. He had 
 poured out the wildest farrago without 
 sense, coherence, or story. 
 
 “ So much for the letter, Mr. Arbuthnot.” 
 He was mad without doubt, yet he knew 
 Arnold, and knew, too, why he was in the 
 house. “ Ab, I knew it would come back 
 to me. Strange if it did not. Why I read 
 
 that letter once every quarter or so for 
 eighteen years. It is a part of myself. I 
 could not forget it.” 
 
 “ And the name of your son-in-law’s old 
 friend ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes, the name ! ” 
 
 He gave some name, which might have 
 been the lost name, but as Mr. Emblem 
 changed it the next moment, and forgot it 
 again the moment after, it was doubtful; 
 certainly not much to build upon. 
 
 “ And the coat-of-arms ? ” 
 
 “We are getting on famously, are we 
 not ? The coat, sir, was as follows.” 
 
 He proceeded to describe an impossible 
 coat— a coat which might have been drawn 
 by a man absolutely ignorant of science. 
 
 All this took a couple of hours. It was 
 now eight o’clock. 
 
 “ Thank you, Mr. Emblem,” said Arnold. 
 
 “ I have no doubt now that we shall some- 
 how bring Iris to her own again, in spite 
 of your loss. Shall we go upstairs and 
 have some breakfast ? ” 
 
 “It is all right, Iris,” cried the old man 
 gleefully. “ It is all right. I have 
 remembered everything, and Mr. Arbuth- 
 not will go out presently and secure your 
 inheritance.” 
 
 Iris looked at Arnold. 
 
 “ Yes, dear,” she said. “ You shall have 
 your breakfast. And then you shall tell 
 me all about it when Arnold goes ; and you 
 will take a holiday, won’t you — because I 
 am twenty-one to-day ? ” 
 
 “ Aha ! ” He was quite cheerful and 
 mirthful, because he had recovered his 
 memory. “ Aha, my dear, all is well ! 
 You are twenty-one, and I am seventy-five; 
 and Mr. Arbuthnot will go and bring home 
 the — the inheritance. And I shall sit here 
 all day long. It was a good dream that came 
 to me this morning, was it not ? Quite a 
 voice from Heaven, which said : 4 Get up 
 and write down the letter while you 
 remember it.’ I got up; I found by the — 
 by the merest accident, Mr. Arbuthnot on 
 the stairs, and we have arranged everything 
 for you — everything.” 
 
 CHAPTER IX. DR. WASHINGTON. 
 Arnold returned to his studio, sat 
 down, and fell fast asleep. 
 
 He was awakened about noon by his 
 cousin Clara. 
 
 “Oh, Arnold,” she cried, shaking him 
 wrathfully by the arm, “ this is a moment 
 of the greatest excitement and importance 
 to me, and you are my only adviser, and 
 you are asleep 1 ” 
 
Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 47 
 
 He sprang to his feet. 
 
 “I am awake now, Clara. Anxiety 
 and trouble \ On account of our talk 
 yesterday 1 ” 
 
 He saw that she had been crying. In 
 her hands she had a packet of letters. 
 
 “ Oh no, no ; it is far more important 
 than that. As for our talk ” 
 
 “ I am engaged to her, Clara.” 
 
 “So I expected,” she replied coldly. 
 “But I am not come here about your 
 engagement. And you do not want my 
 congratulations, I suppose ? ” 
 
 “I should like to have your good 
 wishes, Clara.” 
 
 “Oh, Arnold, that is what my poor 
 Claude said when he deserted me and 
 married the governess. You men want to 
 have your own way, and then expect us to 
 be delighted with it.” 
 
 “ I expect nothing, Clara. Pray under- 
 stand that.” 
 
 “ I told Claude, when he wrote asking 
 forgiveness, that he had my good wishes, 
 whatever he chose to do, but that I would 
 not on any account receive his wife. Very 
 well, Arnold ; that is exactly what I say to 
 you.” 
 
 “ Very well, Clara. I quite understand. 
 As for the studio, and all the things that 
 you have given me, they are, of course, 
 yours again. Let me restore what I can 
 to you.” 
 
 “No, Arnold, they are yours. Let me 
 hear no more about things that are your 
 own. Of course, your business, as you 
 call it, is exciting. But as for this other 
 thing, it is far more important. Some- 
 thing has happened ; something I always 
 expected ; something that I looked forward 
 to for years ; although it has waited on the 
 way so long, it has actually come at last, 
 when I had almost forgotten to look for it. 
 So true it is, Arnold, that good fortune and 
 misfortune alike come when we least expect 
 them.” 
 
 Arnold sat down. He knew his cousin 
 too well to interrupt her. She had her 
 own way of telling a story, and it was a 
 roundabout way. 
 
 “I cannot complain, after twenty years, 
 can I ] I have had plenty of rope, as you 
 would say. But still it has come at last. 
 And naturally, when it does come, it is a 
 shock.” 
 
 “ Is it hereditary gout, Clara ? ” 
 
 “ Gout ! Nonsense, Arnold ! When the 
 will was read, I said to myself, ‘ Claude is 
 certain to come back and claim his own. 
 It is his right, and I hope he will come. 
 
 But for my own part, I have not the least 
 intention of calling upon the governess.’ 
 Then three or four years passed away, and 
 I heard — I do not remember how — that he 
 was dead. And then I waited for his 
 heirs, his children, or their guardians. But 
 they did not come.” 
 
 “ And now they have really come 1 Oh, 
 Clara, this is indeed a misfortune.” 
 
 “No, Arnold ; call it a restitution, not a 
 misfortune. I have been living all these 
 years on the money which belongs to 
 Claude’s heir.” 
 
 “ There was a son, then. And now he 
 has dropped upon us from the clouds 1 ” 
 
 “ It is a daughter, not a son. But you 
 shall hear. I received a letter this morning 
 from a person called Dr. J oseph Washington, 
 stating that he wrote to me on account of 
 the only child and heiress of the late Claude 
 Deseret.” 
 
 “ Who is Dr. Joseph Washington 1 ” 
 
 “ He is a physician, he says, and an 
 American.” 
 
 “ Yes ; will you go on ? ” 
 
 “I do not mind it, Arnold; I really 
 do not. I must give up my house 
 and put down my carriage, but it 
 is for Claude’s daughter. I rejoice to 
 think that he has left someone behind 
 him. Arnold, that face upon your canvas 
 really has got eyes wonderfully like his, 
 if it was not a mere fancy, when I saw it 
 yesterday. I am glad, I say, to give up 
 everything to the child of Claude.” 
 
 “ You think so kindly of him, Clara, who 
 inflicted so much pain on you.” 
 
 “ I can never think bitterly of Claude. 
 We were brought up together ; we were 
 like brother and sister ; he never loved me 
 in any other way. Oh, I understood it all 
 years ago. To begin with, I was never 
 beautiful ; and it was his father’s mistake. 
 Well : this American followed up his letter 
 by a visit. In the letter he merely said he 
 had come to London with the heiress. But 
 he called an hour ago, and brought me — 
 oh, Arnold, he brought me one more letter 
 from Claude. It has been waiting for me 
 for eighteen years. After all that time, 
 after eighteen years, my poor dead Claude 
 speaks to me again. My dear, when I 
 thought he was miserable on account of 
 his marriage, I was wrong. His wife 
 made him happy, and he died because she 
 died.” The tears came into her eyes 
 again. “ Poor boy ! Poor Claude ! The 
 
 letter speaks of his child. It says ” 
 
 She opened and read the letter. “He 
 says : ‘ Some day my child will, I hope, 
 
48 November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK 
 
 come to you, and say : “ Cousin Clara, I am 
 Iris Deseret.” ’” 
 
 “Iris ? ” said Arnold. 
 
 “It is her name, Arnold. It was the 
 child’s grandmother’s name.” 
 
 “A strange coincidence,” he said. “ Pray 
 go on.” 
 
 “ ‘ She will say : “ Cousin Clara, I am 
 Iris Deseret.” Then you will be kind to 
 her, as you would to me, if I were to come 
 home again.’ I cannot read any more, 
 my dear, even to you.” 
 
 “ Did this American give you any other 
 proof of what he asserts 1 ” 
 
 ‘‘He gave me a portrait of Claude, 
 taken years ago, when he was a boy of 
 sixteen, and showed me the certificate of 
 marriage, and the child’s certificate of 
 baptism, and letters from his wife. I 
 suppose nothing more can be wanted.” 
 
 “I dare say it is all right, Clara. But why 
 was not the child brought over before ? ” 
 “Because — this is the really romantic 
 part of the story — when her father died, 
 leaving the child, she was adopted by 
 these charitable Americans, and no one 
 ever thought of examining the papers, 
 which were lying in a desk, until the other 
 day.” 
 
 “ You have not seen the young lady.” 
 
 “ No ; he is to bring her to-morrow.” 
 
 “ And what sort of a man is this 
 American 1 Is he a gentleman 1 ” 
 
 “ Well, I do not quite know. Perhaps 
 Americans are different from Englishmen. 
 If he was an Englishman, I should say 
 without any hesitation that he is not a 
 gentleman, as we count good breeding and 
 good manners. He is a big man, handsome 
 and burly, and he seems good-tempered. 
 When I told him what was the full amount 
 
 of Iris’s inheritance ” 
 
 “ Iris’s inheritance ! ” Arnold repeated. 
 
 “ I beg your pardon, Clara ; pray go on ; 
 but it seems like a dream.” 
 
 “ He only laughed, and said he was glad 
 she would have so much. The utmost 
 they hoped, he said, was that it might be 
 a farm, or a house or two, or a few 
 hundreds in the stocks. He is to bring 
 her to-morrow, and of course I shall make 
 her stay with me. As for himself, he says 
 that he is only anxious to get back home 
 to his wife and his practice.” 
 
 “ He wants nothing for himself, then ? 
 That seems a good sign.” 
 
 “ I asked him that question, and he said 
 that he could not possibly take money for 
 what he and his family had done for Iris ; 
 that is to say, her education and mainte- 
 
 AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 nance. This was very generous of him. 
 Perhaps he is really a gentleman by birth, 
 but has provincial manners. lie said, 
 however, that he had no objection to 
 receiving the small amount of money spent 
 on the voyage and on Iris’s outfit, because 
 they were not rich people, and it was a 
 serious thing to fit out a young lady 
 suitably. So of course I gave him what 
 he suggested, a cheque for two hundred 
 pounds. No one, he added with true 
 feeling, would grudge a single dollar that 
 had been spent upon the education of the 
 dear girl ; and this went to my heart.” 
 
 “ She is well educated, then ? ” 
 
 “ She sings well,” he says, “ and has had 
 a good plain education. He said I might 
 rest assured that she was ladylike, because 
 she had been brought up among his own 
 friends.” 
 
 “ That is a very safe guarantee,” said 
 Arnold, laughing. “I wonder if she is 
 pretty 1 ” 
 
 “ I asked him that question too, and he 
 replied very oddly that she had a most 
 splendid figure, which fetched everybody. 
 Is not that rather a vulgar expression 1 ” 
 
 “ It is, in Eogland. Perhaps in America 
 it belongs to the first circles, and is a sur- 
 vival of the Pilgrim Fathers. So you gave 
 him a cheque for two hundred pounds % ” 
 “ Yes ; surely I was not wrong, Arnold. 
 Consider the circumstances, the outfit and 
 the voyage, and the man’s reluctance and 
 delicacy of feeling.” 
 
 “ I dare say you were quite right, but — 
 well, I think I should have seen the young 
 lady first. Remember, you have given the 
 money to a stranger, on his bare word.” 
 
 “ Oh, Arnold, this man is perfectly 
 honest. I would answer for his truth 
 and honesty. He has frank, honest eyes. 
 Besides, he brought me all those letters. 
 Well, dear, you are not going to desert 
 me because you are engaged, are you, 
 Arnold 1 I want you to be present when 
 she comes to-morrow morning.” 
 
 “Certainly I will be present, with the 
 greatest — no, not the greatest pleasure. 
 But I will be present — I will come to 
 luncheon, Clara.” 
 
 When she was gone he thought again 
 of the strange coincidence, both of the man 
 and of the inheritance. Yet what had his 
 Iris in common with a girl who had been 
 brought up in America 1 Besides, she had 
 lost her inheritance, and this other Iris 
 had crossed the ocean to receive hers. Yet 
 a very strange coincidence. It was so 
 strange that he told it to Iris and to Lala 
 
K ■ -Hi 
 
 Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK. AT .LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 49 
 
 Roy. Iris laughed, and said she did not 
 know she had a single namesake. Lala 
 did not laugh ; but he sat thinking in 
 silence. There was no chess for him that 
 night ; instead of playing his usual game, 
 Mr. Emblem, in his chair, laughed and 
 chuckled in rather a ghastly way. 
 
 CHAPTER X. “IT IS MY COUSIN.” 
 
 “ Well, Joe,” said his wife, “ and how is 
 it going to finish ? It looks to me as if 
 there was a prison-van and a police-court 
 at the end. Don’t you think we had better 
 back out of it while there is time 1 ’ 
 
 “ You’re a fool ! ” her husband replied 
 — it was the morning after his visit to 
 Clara ; “you know nothing about it. Now 
 listen.” 
 
 “I do nothing but listen ; you’ve told 
 me the story till I know it by heart. Do 
 you think anybody in the world will be so 
 green as to believe such a clumsy plant as 
 that 1 ” 
 
 “Now look here, Lotty; if there’s 
 another word said — mind, now — you shall 
 have nothing more to do with the business 
 at all. I’ll give it to a girl I know — a 
 clever girl, who will carry it through with 
 flying colours.” 
 
 She set her lips hard, and drummed her 
 fingers on the table. He knew how to rule 
 his wife. 
 
 “ Go on,” she said, “ since we can’t be 
 honest.” 
 
 “ Be reasonable, then ; that’s all I ask 
 you. Honest ! who is honest 1 Ain’t we 
 every one engaged in getting round our 
 neighbours ? Isn’t the whole game, all the 
 world over, lying and deceit 1 Honest ! 
 you might as well go on the boards with- 
 out faking up your face, as try to live 
 honest. Hold your tongue, then.” He 
 growled and swore, and after his fashion 
 called on the Heavens to witness and ex- 
 press their astonishment. 
 
 The girl bent her head, and made no 
 reply for a space. She was cowed and 
 afraid. Presently she looked up and 
 laughed, but with a forced laugh. 
 
 “ Don’t be cross, Joe; I’ll do whatever 
 you want me to do, and cheerfully, too, if 
 it will do you any good. What is a woman 
 good for but to help her husband ? Only 
 don’t be cross, Joe.” 
 
 She knew what her husband was by this 
 time — a false and unscrupulous man. Yet 
 she loved him. The case is not rare by any 
 means, so that there is hope for all of us, 
 from the meanest and most wriggling worm 
 among us to the most hectoring ruffian. 
 
 — 
 
 “ Why there, Lotty,” he said, “ that is 
 what I like. Now listen. The old lady 
 is a cake — do you understand ? She is a 
 sponge, she swallows everything, and is 
 ready to fall on your neck and cry over you 
 for joy. As for doubt or suspicion, not a 
 word. I don’t think there will be a single 
 question asked. No, it’s all ‘My poor 
 dear Claude ’ — that’s your father, Lotty — 
 and ‘ My poor dear Iris ’ — that’s you, 
 Lotty.” 
 
 “ All right, J oe, go on. I am Iris — I am 
 anybody you like. Go on.” 
 
 “The more I think about it, the more 
 I’m certain we shall do the trick. Only 
 keep cool over the job, and forget the 
 Music Hall. You are Iris Deseret, and 
 you are the daughter of Claude Deseret, 
 deceased. I am Dr. Washington, one of 
 the American family who brought you up. 
 You’re grateful, mind. Nothing can be 
 more lively than your gratitude. We’ve 
 been brother and sister, you and me, and I’ve 
 got a wife and young family and a rising 
 practice at home in the State of Maine, and 
 I am only come over here to see you into 
 your rights at great personal expense. Paid 
 a substitute. Yes, actually paid a substi- 
 tute. We only found the papers the other 
 day, which is the reason why we did not 
 come over before, and I am going home 
 again directly.” 
 
 “You are not really going away, Joe, 
 are you 1 ” 
 
 “ No, I am going to stay here ; but I 
 shall pretend to go away. Now remember, 
 we’ve got no suspicion ourselves, and we 
 don’t expect to meet any. If there is any, 
 we are surprised and sorry. We don’t 
 come to the lady with a lawyer or a 
 blunderbuss ; we come as friends, and we 
 shall arrange this little business between 
 ourselves. Ob, never you fear, we shall 
 arrange it quite comfortably, without 
 lawyers.” 
 
 “ How much do you think we shall get 
 out of it, Joe 1 ” 
 
 “Listen, and open your eyes. There’s 
 nearly a hundred and twenty thousand 
 pounds and a small estate in the country. 
 Don’t let us trouble about the estate more 
 than we can help. Estates mean lawyers. 
 Money doesn’t.” 
 
 He spoke as if small sums like a hundred 
 thousand pounds are carried about in the 
 pocket. 
 
 “ Good gracious ! And you’ve got two 
 hundred of it already, haven’t you 1 ” 
 
 “Yes, but what is two hundred out of a 
 hundred and twenty thousand ? A hundred 
 
 c 
 
50 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 and twenty thousand ! There’s spending in 
 it, isn’t there, Lotty ? Gad, we’ll make the 
 money spin, I calculate ! It may be a few 
 weeks before the old lady transfers the 
 money — I don’t quite know where it is, 
 but in stocks or something — to your name. 
 As soon as it is in your name I’ve got a 
 plan. We’ll remember that you’ve got a 
 sweetheart or something in America, and 
 you’ll break your heart for wanting to see 
 him. And then nothing will do- but you 
 must run across for a trip. Oh, I’ll 
 manage, and we’ll make the money fly.” . 
 
 He was always adding new details to his 
 story, finding something to embellish it 
 and heighten the effect, and now having 
 succeeded in getting the false Iris into the 
 house, he began already to devise schemes 
 to get her out again. 
 
 “ A hundred thousand pounds ! Why, 
 Joe, it is a terrible great sum of money. 
 Good gracious ! What shall we do with it, 
 when we get it $ ” 
 
 “ I’ll show you what to do with it, my 
 girl.” 
 
 “ And you said, Joe— you declared that 
 it is your own by rights.” 
 
 “ Certainly, it is my own. It would have 
 been bequeathed to me by my own cousin. 
 But she didn’t know it. And she. died 
 without knowing it, and I am her heir.” 
 
 Lotty wondered vaguely and rather sadly 
 how much of this statement was true. But 
 she did not dare to ask. She had promised 
 her assistance. Every night she woke with 
 a dreadful dream of a policeman knocking 
 at the door ; whenever she saw a man in 
 blue she trembled ; and she knew perfectly 
 well that, if the plot failed, it was she herself, 
 in all probability, and not her husband at 
 all, who would be put in the dock. She 
 did not believe a word about the cousin ; 
 she knew she was going to do a vile and 
 dreadful wickedness, but she was ready to 
 go through with it, or with anything else, 
 to pleasure a husband who already, the 
 honeymoon hardly finished, showed the 
 propensities of a rover. 
 
 “ Very well, Lotty ; we are going there 
 at once. You need take nothing with you, 
 but you won’t come back here for a good 
 spell. In fact, I think I shall have to 
 give up these lodgings, for fear of accidents. 
 I shall leave you with your cousin.” 
 
 “ Yes ; and I’m to be quiet, and behave 
 pretty, I suppose ? ” 
 
 “ You’ll be just as quiet and demure as 
 you used to be when you were serving in 
 the music-shop. No loud laughing, no 
 capers, no comic songs, and no daneing.” 
 
 “ And am I to begin at once by asking 
 for the money to be — what do you call it, 
 transferred 1 ” 
 
 “No; you are not on any account to 
 say a word about the money ; you are to 
 go on living there without hinting at the 
 money — without showing any desire to 
 discuss the subject — perhaps for months, 
 until there can’t be the shadow of a doubt 
 that you are the old woman’s cousin. You 
 are to make much of her, flatter her, 
 cocker her up, find out all the family 
 secrets, and get the length of her foot ; 
 but you are not to say one single word 
 about the money. As for your manners, 
 I’m not afraid of them, because when 
 you like, you can look and talk like a 
 countess.” 
 
 “I know now.” She got up and changed 
 her face so that it became at once subdued 
 and quiet, like a quiet serving-girl behind 
 a counter. “ So, is that modest enough, 
 Joe 1 And as for singing, I shall sing for 
 her, but not music-hall trash. This kind of 
 thing. Listen.” 
 
 There was a piano in the room, and she 
 sat down and sang to her own accompani- 
 ment, with a sweet, low voice, one of the 
 soft, ‘sad German songs. 
 
 “ That’ll do,” cried Joe. “ Hang me ! 
 what a clever girl you are, Lotty ! That’s 
 the kind of thing the swells like. As for 
 me, give me ten minutes of Jolly Nash. 
 But you know how to pull ’em in, Lotty.” 
 
 It was approaching twelve, the hour 
 when they were due. Lotty retired and 
 arrayed herself in her quietest and most 
 sober dress, a costume in some brown 
 stuff, with a bonnet to match. She put on 
 her best gloves and boots, having herself 
 felt the inferiority of the shop-girl to the 
 lady in those minor points ; and she modi- 
 fied and mitigated her fringe, which, she 
 knew, was rather more exaggerated than 
 young ladies in Society generally wear. 
 
 “ You’re not afraid, Lotty ? ” said Joe, 
 when at last she was ready to start. 
 
 “ Afraid 3 Not I, Joe. Come along. 
 I couldn’t look quieter, not if I was to 
 make up as I do in the evening, as . a 
 Quakeress. Come along. Oh, J oe, it will 
 be awful dull ! Don’t forget to send word 
 to the Hall that I am ill. Afraid ? Not 
 I ! ” She laughed, but rather hysterically. 
 
 There would be, however, she secretly 
 considered, some excitement when it came 
 to the finding out, which would happen, she 
 was convinced, in a very few hours. In fact, 
 she had no faith at all in the story being 
 accepted and believed by anybody ; to be 
 
XL 
 
 Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 ===fc, 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 51 
 
 sure, she herself had been trained, as ladies 
 in shops generally are, to mistrust all 
 mankind, and she could not understand at 
 all the kind of confidence which comes of 
 having the very thing presented to you 
 which you ardently desire. When they 
 arrived in Chester Square, she found wait- 
 ing for her a lady, who was certainly not 
 beautiful, but she had kind eyes, which 
 looked eagerly at the strange face, and 
 with an expression of disappointment. 
 
 “ It can’t be the fringe,” thought Lotty. 
 “Cousin Clara,” she said softly and 
 sweetly, as her husband had taught her, 
 
 “ I am Iris Deseret, the daughter of your 
 old playfellow, Claude.” 
 
 “Oh, my dear, my dear,” cried Clara 
 with enthusiasm, “ come to my arms ! 
 Welcome home again !” 
 
 She kissed and embraced her. Then 
 she held her by both hands, and looked at 
 her face again. 
 
 “ My dear,” she said, “ you have been a 
 long time coming. I had almost given up 
 hoping that Claude had any children. But 
 you are welcome, after all — very welcome. 
 You are in your own house, remember, my 
 dear. This house is yours, and the plate, 
 and furniture, and everything, and I am 
 only your tenant.” 
 
 “ Oh !” said Lotty, overwhelmed. Why, 
 she had actually been taken on her word, 
 or rather the word of J oe. 
 
 “ Let me kiss you again. Your face 
 does not remind me as yet, in any single 
 feature, of your father’s. But I dare say 
 I shall find resemblance presently. And, 
 indeed, your voice does remind me of him 
 already. He had a singularly sweet and 
 delicate voice.” 
 
 “ Iris has a remarkably sweet and deli- 
 cate voice,” said Joe softly. “ No doubt she 
 got it from her father. You will hear her 
 sing presently.” 
 
 Lotty hardly knew her husband. His 
 face was preternaturally solemn, and he 
 looked as if he was engaged in Hie most 
 serious business of his life. 
 
 “ All her father’s ways were gentle and 
 delicate,” said Clara. 
 
 “Just like hers,” said Joe. When all 
 of us— American boys and girls, pretty 
 rough at times— were playing and larking 
 about, Iris would be just sittin’ out like a 
 cat on a carpet, quiet and demure. I suppose 
 she got that way, too, from her father.” 
 “No doubt; and as for your face, my 
 dear, I dare say I shall find a likeness 
 presently. But just now I see none. Will 
 you take off your bonnet 1 ” 
 
 When the girl’s bonnet was off, Clara 
 looked at her again, curiously, but kindly. 
 
 “I suppose I can’t help looking for a 
 likeness, my dear. But you must take 
 after your mother, whom I never saw. 
 Your father’s eyes were full and limpid; 
 yours are large, and clear, and bright ; 
 very good eyes, my dear, but they are not 
 limpid. His mouth was flexible and 
 mobile, but yours is firm. Your hair, 
 however, reminds me somewhat of his, 
 which was much your light shade of brown 
 when he was young. And now, sir ” — 
 she addressed Joe — “ now that you have 
 brought this dear girl all the way across 
 the Atlantic, what are you going to do 1 ” 
 “Well, I don’t exactly know that there’s 
 anything to keep me,” said Joe. “You 
 see, I’ve got my practice to look after at 
 home — I am a physician, as I told you — 
 and my wife and children ; and the sooner 
 I get back the better, now that I can leave 
 Iris with her friends, safe and comfortable. 
 Stay,” he added, “ there are all those 
 papers which I promised you — the certifi- 
 cates, and the rest of them. You had better 
 take them all, miss, and keep them for Iris.” 
 
 “ Thank you,” said Clara, touched by 
 this confidence; “Iris will be safe with 
 me. It is very natural that you should 
 want to go home again. And you will be 
 content to stay with me, my dear, won’t 
 you? You need not be afraid, sir; I 
 assure you that her interests will not in 
 any way suffer. Tell her to write and let 
 you know exactly what is done. Let her, 
 however, since she is an English girl, 
 remain with English friends, and get to 
 know her cousins and relations. You can 
 safely trust her with me, Dr. Washington.” 
 “Thank you,” said Joe. “You know 
 that when one has known a girl all her 
 life, one is naturally anxious about her hap- 
 piness. We are almost brother and sister.” 
 “ I know ; and I am sure, Mr. Washing- 
 ton, we ought to be most grateful to you. 
 As for the money you have expended upon 
 her, let me once more beg of you — — ” 
 
 Joe waved his hand majestically. 
 
 “ As for that,” he said,. “ the money is 
 spent. Iris is welcome to it, if it were ten 
 times as much. Now, madam, you trusted 
 me, the very first day that you saw me, 
 with two hundred pounds sterling. Only 
 an English lady would have done that. 
 You trusted me without asking me who 
 or what I was, or doubting my word. I 
 assure you, madam, I felt that kindness, 
 and that trust, very much indeed ; and in 
 return, I have brought you Iris herself. 
 
52 [November" 13, 1884.] IN LUCK 
 
 After all expenses paid of coming over and 
 getting back, buying a few things for Iris, 
 if I find that there’s anything over, I shall 
 ask you to take back the balance. Madam, 
 I thank you for the money, but I am sure 
 I have repaid you — with Iris.” 
 
 This was a very clever speech. If there 
 had been a shadow of doubt before it in 
 Clara’s heart (which there was not), it 
 would vanish now. She cordially and 
 joyfully accepted her newly-found cousin. 
 
 “ And now, Iris,” he said with a manly 
 tremor in his voice, “ I do not know if I 
 shall see you again before I go away. If 
 not, I shall take your fond love to all of 
 them at home — Tom, and Dick, and Harry, 
 and Harriet, and Prissy, and all of them” — 
 Joe really was carrying the thing through 
 splendidly — “ and perhaps, my dear, when 
 you are a grand lady in England, you will 
 give a thought — a thought now and again 
 — to your old friends across the water.” 
 
 “ Oh, Joe ! ” cried Lotty, really carried 
 away with admiration, and ashamed of her 
 sceptical spirit. “Oh,” she whispered, 
 “ ain’t you splendid ! ” 
 
 “But you must not go, Dr. Washington,” 
 said Clara, “without coming again to say 
 farewell. Will you not dine with us to- 
 night ? Will you stay and have lunch ? ” 
 
 “ No, madam, I thank you. It will be 
 best for me to leave Iris alone with you. 
 The sooner she learns your English ways 
 and forgets American ways, the better.” 
 
 “ But you are not going to start away 
 for Liverpool at once ? You will stay a 
 
 day or two in London ” 
 
 The American Physician said that per- 
 haps he might stay a week longer for 
 scientific purposes. 
 
 “Have you got enough money, Joe?” 
 asked the new Iris thoughtfully. 
 
 Joe gave her a glance of infinite ad- 
 miration. 
 
 “Well,” he said, “the fact is that I 
 should like to buy a few books and things. 
 Perhaps ” 
 
 “Cousin,” said Lotty eagerly, “please 
 give him a cheque for a hundred pounds. 
 Make it a hundred. You said everything 
 was mine. No, Joe, I won’t hear a word 
 about repayment, as if a little thing like 
 fifty pounds, or a hundred pounds, should 
 want to be repaid ! As if you and I could 
 ever talk about repayment ! ” 
 
 Clara did as she was asked readily and 
 eagerly. Then Joe departed, promising 
 to call and say farewell before he left 
 England, and resolving that in his next 
 visit — his last visit — there should be 
 
 AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 another cheque. But he had made one 
 mistake : he had parted with the papers. 
 No one in any situation of life should 
 ever give up the power until he has secured 
 the substance. But it is human to err. 
 
 “ And now, my dear,” said Clara warmly, 
 “ sit down and let us talk. Arnold is 
 coming to lunch with us, and to make 
 your acquaintance.” 
 
 When Arnold came a few minutes later, 
 he was astonished to find his cousin already 
 on the most affectionate terms with the 
 newly - arrived Iris Deseret. She was 
 walking about the room showing her the 
 pictures of her grandfather and other 
 ancestors, and they were hand-in-hand. 
 
 “Arnold,” said Clara, “this is Iris, and I 
 hope you will both be great friends ; Iris, 
 this is my cousin, but he is not yours.” 
 
 “ I don’t pretend to know how that may 
 be,” said the young lady. “But then I 
 am glad to know all your cousins, whether 
 they are mine or not; only don’t bother me 
 with questions, because I don’t remember 
 anything, and I don’t know anything. 
 Why, until the other day I did not even 
 know that I was an English lady, not 
 until they found those papers.” 
 
 A strange accent for an American ! and 
 she certainly said “ laidy ” for “ lady,” and 
 “ paiper ” for “ paper,” like a cockney. 
 Alas ! This comes of London Music Halls 
 even to country-bred damsels ! 
 
 Arnold made a mental observation that 
 the new comer might be called anything 
 in the world, but could not be called a 
 lady. She was handsome, certainly, but 
 how could Claude Deseret’s daughter have 
 grown into so common a type of beauty ? 
 Where was the delicacy of feature and 
 manner which Clara had never ceased to 
 commend in speaking of her lost cousin ? 
 
 “ Iris,” said Clara, “ is our little savage 
 from the American Forest. She is Queen 
 Pocahontas, who has come over to conquer 
 England and to win all our hearts. My 
 dear, my cousin Arnold will help me to 
 make you an English girl.” 
 
 She spoke as if the State of Maine was 
 still the hunting-ground of Sioux and 
 Iroquois. 
 
 Arnold thought that a less American- 
 looking girl he had never seen ; that she 
 did not speak or look like a lady was to 
 be expected perhaps, if she had, as was 
 probable, been brought up by rough 
 and unpolished people. But he had no 
 doubt, any more than Clara herself, as 
 to the identity of the girl. Nobody ever 
 doubts a claimant. Every impostor, from 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 53 
 
 Demetrius downwards, has gained his. sup- 
 porters and partisans by simply living 
 among them and keeping up the im- 
 position. It is so easy, in fact, to be a 
 claimant, .that it is wonderful there are 
 not more of them. 
 
 Then luncheon was served, and the 
 young lady not only showed a noble 
 appetite, but, to Arnold’s astonishment, con- 
 fessed to an ardent love for bottled stout. 
 
 “Most American ladies,” he said imper- 
 tinently, “ only drink water, do they not T 
 Lotty perceived that she had made a 
 
 “I only drink stout,” she said, “when the 
 doctor tells me. But I like it all the same. 
 
 She certainly had no American accent. 
 But she would not talk much; she was 
 perhaps shy. After luncheon, however, 
 Clara asked her if she would sing, and she 
 complied, showing considerable skill with 
 her accompaniment, and singing a simple 
 song in good taste and with a sweet voice. 
 Arnold observed, however, that there was 
 some weakness about the letter “ h,” less 
 common among Americans than among the 
 English. Presently he went away, and the 
 girl, who had been aware that he was 
 watching her, breathed more easily. 
 
 “ Who is your cousin Arnold 1 ” she 
 asked. 
 
 “ My dear, he is my cousin but not yours. 
 You will not see him often, because he 
 is going to be married, I am sorry to say, 
 and to be married beneath him — oh, it is 
 dreadful !— to some tradesman’s girl, my 
 dear.” 
 
 “Dreadful!” said Iris with a queer 
 look in her eyes. “ Well, cousin, I don’t 
 want to see much of him. He’s a good- 
 looking chap, too, though rather too 
 finicking for my taste. I like a man who 
 looks as if he could knock another man 
 down. Besides, he looks at me as if I was 
 a riddle, and he wanted to find out the 
 answer.” 
 
 In the evening Arnold found that no 
 change had come over the old man. He 
 was, however, perfectly happy, so that, 
 considering the ruin of his worldly prospects, 
 it was, perhaps, as well that he had parted, 
 for a time, at least, with his wits. Some 
 worldly misfortunes there are which should 
 always produce this effect. 
 
 “You told me,” said Lala Roy, “that 
 another Iris had just come from America to 
 claim an inheritance of your cousin.” 
 
 “ Yes ; it is a very strange coincidence.” 
 “Very strange. Two Englishmen die 
 in America at the same time, each having 
 
 a daughter named Iris, and each daughter 
 entitled to some kind of inheritance.” 
 
 Lala Roy spoke slowly, and with meaning. 
 
 “ Oh ! ” cried Arnold. “ It is more than 
 
 strange. Do you think — is it possible 
 
 He could not for the moment clothe his 
 thoughts in words. 
 
 “Do you know if anyone has brought 
 this girl to England 1 ” 
 
 “ Yes ; she was brought over by a young 
 American Physician, one of the family who 
 adopted and brought her up.” 
 
 “ What is he like — the young American 
 Physician h ” 
 
 “ I have not seen him.” 
 
 “ GoJ my young friend, to-morrow 
 morning, and ask your cousin if this photo- 
 graph resembles the American Physician.” 
 It was the photograph of a handsome 
 young fellow, with strongly - marked 
 features, apparently tall and well-set-up. 
 
 “Lala, you don’t really suspect any- 
 thing — you don’t think ” 
 
 “Hush! I know who has stolen the 
 papers. Perhaps the same man has pro- 
 duced the heiress.” 
 
 “ And you think — you suspect that the 
 man who stole the papers is connected 
 
 with. But then those papers must be — 
 
 oh, it cannot be ! For then Iris would be 
 Clara’s cousin — Clara’s cousin — and the 
 other an impostor.” 
 
 “ Even so ; everything is possible. But 
 silence. Do not speak a word, even to 
 Iris. If the papers are lost, they are lost. 
 Say nothing to her yet ; but go — go, and 
 find out if that photograph resembles the 
 American Physician. The river wanders 
 here and there, but the sea swallows it at 
 last.” 
 
 CHAPTER XL MR. JAMES MAKES ATONE- 
 MENT. 
 
 James arrived as usual in the morning 
 at nine o’clock, in order to take down 
 the shutters. To his astonishment, he 
 found Lala Roy and Iris waiting for him in 
 the back shop. And they had grave faces. 
 
 “James,” said Iris, “your master has 
 suffered a great shock, and is not himself 
 this morning. His safe has been broken 
 open by someone, and most important 
 papers have been taken out.” 
 
 “ Papers, miss — papers 1 Out of the 
 
 safe ? ” 
 
 “Yes. They are papers of no value 
 whatever to the thief, whoever he may be. 
 But they are of the very greatest impor- 
 tance to us. Your master seems to have 
 lost his memory for a while, and cannot 
 
54 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK 
 
 help us in finding out who has done this 
 wicked thing. You have been a faithful 
 servant for so long that I am sure you will 
 do what you can for us. Think for us. Try 
 to remember if anybody besides yourself 
 has had access to this room when your 
 master was out of it.” 
 
 James sat down. He felt that he must 
 sit down, though Lala Roy was looking at 
 him with eyes full of doubt and suspicion. 
 The whole enormity of his own guilt, 
 though he had not stolen anything, fell 
 upon him. He had got the key ; he had 
 given it to Mr. Joseph ; and he had 
 received it back again. In fact, at that 
 very moment, it was lying in his pocket. 
 The worst that he had feared had happened. 
 The safe was robbed. 
 
 He was struck with so horrible a dread, 
 and so fearful a looking forward to judg- 
 ment and condemnation, that his teeth 
 chattered and his eye gave way, 
 
 “You will think it over, James,” said 
 Iris ; “ think it over, and tell us presently 
 if you can remember anything.” 
 
 “ Think it over, Mr. James,” Lala Roy 
 repeated in his deepest tone, and with an 
 emphatic gesture of his right forefinger. 
 “Think it over carefully. Like a lamp that 
 is never extinguished are the eyes of the 
 faithful servant.” 
 
 They left him, and James fell back into 
 his chair with hollow cheek and beating 
 heart. 
 
 “He told me,” he murmured — “oh, 
 the villain ! — he swore to me that he had 
 taken nothing from the safe. He said he 
 only looked in it, and read the contents. 
 The scoundrel ! He has stolen the papers ! 
 He must have known they were there. 
 And then, to save himself, he put me on 
 to the job. For who would be suspected 
 if not — oh, Lord ! — if not me 1 ” 
 
 He grasped his paste-brush, and attacked 
 his work with a feverish anxiety to find 
 relief in exertion ; but his heart was not in 
 it, and presently a thought pierced his 
 brain, as an arrow pierceth the heart, and 
 under the pang and agony of it, his face 
 turned ashy pale, and the big drops stood 
 upon his brow. 
 
 “For,” he thought, “suppose that the thing 
 gets abroad ; suppose they were to adver- 
 tise a reward ; suppose the man who made 
 the key were to see the advertisement or 
 to hear about it ! And he knows my name, 
 too, and my business ; and he’ll let out for 
 a reward — I know he will — who it was 
 ordered that key of him.” 
 
 Already he saw himself examined before 
 
 AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 a magistrate; already he saw in imagination 
 that locksmith’s man who made the key 
 kissing the Testament, and giving his 
 testimony in clear and distinct words, which 
 could not be shaken. 
 
 “ Oh, Lord ! oh, Lord ! ” he groaned. 
 “No one will believe me, even if I do 
 confess the truth ; and as for him, I know 
 him well ; if I go to him, he’ll only laugh 
 at me. But I must go to him — I must ! ” 
 
 He was so goaded by his terror that he 
 left the shop unprotected — a thing he had 
 never thought to do — and ran as fast as he 
 could to Joe’s lodgings. But he had left 
 them ; he was no longer there ; he had not 
 been there for six weeks ; the landlady did 
 not know his address, or would not give it. 
 Then James felt sick and dizzy, and would 
 have sat down on the doorstep and cried 
 but for the look of the thing. Besides, he 
 remembered the unprotected shop. So he 
 turned away sadly and walked back, well 
 understanding now that he had fallen like 
 a fool into a trap, artfully set to fasten 
 suspicion and guilt upon himself. 
 
 When he returned he found the place 
 full of people. Mr. Emblem was sitting 
 in his customary place, and he was smiling. 
 He did not look in the least like a man 
 who had been robbed. He was smiling 
 pleasantly and cheerfully. Mr. Chalker 
 was also present, a man with whom no one 
 ever smiled, and Lala Roy, solemn and 
 dignified, and a man — an unknown man — 
 who sat in the outer shop, and seemed 
 to take no interest at all in the proceed- 
 ings. Were they come, he asked himself, 
 to arrest him on the spot ? 
 
 Apparently they were not, for no one 
 took the least notice of him, and they were 
 occupied with something else. How could 
 they think of anything else? Yet Mr. 
 Chalker, standing at the table, was making 
 a speech, which had nothing to do with 
 the robbery. 
 
 “ Here I am, you see, Mr. Emblem,” he 
 said ; “ I have told you already that I 
 don’t want to do anything to worry you. 
 Let us be friends all round. This gentle- 
 man, your friend from India, will advise 
 you, I am sure, for your own good, not 
 to be obstinate. Lord ! what is the amount, 
 after all, to a substantial man like yourself? 
 A substantial man, I say.” He spoke con- 
 fidently, but he glanced about the shop 
 with doubtful eyes. “ Granted that it was 
 borrowed to get your grandson out of a 
 scrape — supposing he promised to pay it 
 back and hasn’t done so ; putting the case 
 that it has grown and developed itself as 
 
3 
 
 Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 55 
 
 bills will do, and can’t help doing, and 
 can’t be stopped ; it isn’t the fault of the 
 lawyers, but the very nature of a bill to go 
 on growing — it’s like a baby for growing. 
 Why, after all, you were your grandson’s 
 security — you can’t escape that. And when 
 I would no longer renew, you gave of your 
 own accord — come now, you can’t deny 
 that— a Bill of Sale on goods and furniture. 
 Now, Mr. Emblem, didn’t you % Don’t let 
 us have any bitterness or quarrelling. 
 Let’s be friends, and tell me I may send 
 away the man.” 
 
 Mr. Emblem smiled pleasantly, but did 
 not reply. 
 
 “ A Bill of Sale it was, dated J anuary 
 the 25th, 1883, just before that cursed 
 Act of Parliament granted the five days’ 
 notice. Here is the bailiff’s man in 
 possession. You can pay the amount, 
 which is, with costs and Sheriff’s Pound- 
 age, three hundred and fifty-one pounds 
 thirteen shillings and fourpence, at once, 
 or you may pay it five days hence. Other- 
 wise the shop, and furniture, and all, will 
 be sold off in seven days.” 
 
 “ Oh,” James gasped, listening with 
 bewilderment, “ we can’t be going to be 
 sold up ! Emblem’s to be sold up ! ” 
 
 “ Three hundred and fifty pounds ! ” 
 said Mr. Emblem. “ My friend, let us 
 rather speak of thousands. This is a truly 
 happy day for all of us. Sit down, Mr. 
 Chalker — my dear friend, sit down. 
 Rejoice with us. A happy morning.” 
 
 “ What the devil is the matter with 
 him 1 ” asked the money-lender. 
 
 “ There was something, Mr. Chalker,” 
 Mr. Emblem went on cheerfully, “ some- 
 thing said about my grandson. J oe was 
 always a bad lot; lucky his father and 
 mother are out of the way in Australia. 
 You came to me about that business, per- 
 haps ? Oh, on such a joyful day as this 
 I forgive everybody. Tell Joe I do not 
 want to see him, but I have forgiven him.” 
 
 “ Oh, he’s mad ! ” growled James ; “ he’s 
 gone stark staring mad ! ” 
 
 “You don’t seem quite yourself this 
 morning, Mr. Emblem,” said Mr. Chalker. 
 “ Perhaps this gentleman, your friend from 
 India, will advise you when I am gone. 
 You don’t understand, Mister,” lie 
 addressed Lala Roy, “ the nature of a bill. 
 Once you start a bill, and begin to renew 
 it, it’s like planting a tree, for it grows and 
 grows of its own accord, and by Act of 
 Parliament, too, though they do try to 
 hack and cut it down in the most cruel 
 way. You see Mr. Emblem is obstinate. 
 
 He’s got to pay off that bill, which is a Bill 
 of Sale, and he won’t do it. Make him 
 write the cheque and have done with it.” 
 
 “ This is the best day’s work I ever did,” 
 Mr. Emblem went on. “ To remember the 
 letter, word for word, and everything ! 
 Mr. Arbuthnot has, very likely, finished 
 the whole business by now. Thousands — 
 thousands — and all for Iris ! ” 
 
 “Look here, Mr. Emblem,” said the 
 lawyer angrily. “ You’ll not only be a 
 bankrupt if you go on like this, but you’ll be 
 a fraudulent bankrupt as well. Is it honest, 
 
 I want to know, to refuse to pay your just 
 debts when you’ve put by thousands, as 
 you boast — you actually boast — for your 
 granddaughter 1 ” 
 
 « Yes,” said the old man, “ Iris will have 
 thousands.” 
 
 “ I think, sir,” said Lala Roy, “ that you 
 are under an illusion. Mr. Emblem does 
 not possess any such savings or invest- 
 ments as you imagine.” 
 
 “ Then why does he go on talking about 
 thousands ] ” 
 
 “ He has had a shock ; he cannot quite 
 understand what has happened. You had 
 better leave him for the present.” 
 
 “ Leave him ! And nothing but these 
 mouldy old books ! Here, you sir — you — 
 James — you shopman — come here ! What 
 is the stock worth 1 ” 
 
 “ It depends upon whether you are buy- 
 ing or selling,” said James. “If you were 
 to sell it under the hammer, in lots, it 
 wouldn’t fetch a hundred pounds.” 
 
 “There, you hear — you hear, all of you! 
 Not a hundred pounds, and my Bill of Sale 
 is three-fifty.” 
 
 “ Pray, sir,” said Lala Roy, “ who told 
 you that Mr. Emblem was so wealthy % ” 
 
 “ His grandson.” 
 
 “ Then, sir, perhaps it would be well to 
 question the grandson further. He may 
 know things of which we have heard 
 nothing.” 
 
 The Act of 1882, which came into opera- 
 tion in the following January, is cruel indeed, 
 I am told, to those who advanced money on 
 Bills of Sale before that date, for it allows 
 — it actually allows the debtor five clear 
 days during which he may, if he can, with- 
 out being caught, make away with portions 
 of his furniture and belongings — the smaller 
 and the more precious portion ; or he may 
 find someone else to lend him the money, 
 and so get off clear and save his sticks. It 
 is, as the modern Shylock declares, a most 
 wicked and iniquitous Act, by which the 
 shark may be baulked, and many an honest 
 
n c 
 
 56 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK 
 
 AT LAST. [Condueted by 
 
 tradesman, who would otherwise have been 
 most justly ruined, is enabled to save his 
 stock, and left to worry along until the 
 times become more prosperous. To a man 
 like Mr. David Chalker, such an Act of 
 Parliament is most revolting. 
 
 He went away at length, leaving the man 
 — the professional person — behind. Then 
 Lala Roy persuaded Mr. Emblem to go 
 upstairs again. He did so without any 
 apparent consciousness that there was a 
 Man in Possession. 
 
 “James,” said Lala Roy, “you have 
 heard that your master has been robbed. 
 You are reflecting and meditating on this 
 circumstance. Another thing is that a 
 creditor has threatened to sell off every- 
 thing for a debt. Most likely, everything 
 will be sold, and the shop closed. You will, 
 therefore, lose the place you have had for 
 five-and-twenty years. That is a very bad 
 business for you. You are unfortunate this 
 morning. To lose your place — and then 
 this robbery. That seems also a bad 
 business.” 
 
 “It is,” said James with a hollow groan. 
 “ It is, Mr. Lala Roy. It is a dreadful bad 
 business.” 
 
 “ Pray, Mr. James,” continued this man 
 with grave, searching eyes which made 
 sinners shake in their shoes, “ pray, why 
 did you run away, and where did you go 
 after you opened the shop this morning 1 
 You went to see Mr. Emblem’s grandson, 
 did you not 'i ” 
 
 “ Yes, I did,” said James. 
 
 “Why did you go to see him 1 ” 
 
 “ I w — w — went — oh, Lord ! — I went to 
 tell him what had happened, because he is 
 master’s grandson, and I thought he ought 
 to know,” said James. 
 
 “Did you tell him 1 ” 
 
 “ No ; he has left his lodgings. I don’t 
 know where he is — oh, and he always told 
 me the shop was his— settled on him,” he 
 said. 
 
 “He is the Father of Lies ; his end 
 will be confusion. Shame and confusion 
 shall wait upon all who have hearkened 
 unto him or worked with him, until they 
 repent and make atonement.” 
 
 “Don’t, Mister Lala Roy — don’t; you 
 frighten me,” said James. “ Oh, what a 
 dreadful Liar he is !” 
 
 All that morning the Philosopher sat in 
 the bookseller’s chair, and James, in the 
 outer shop, felt that those deep eyes were 
 resting continually upon him, and knew 
 that bit by bit his secret would be dragged 
 from him. If he could get up and run 
 
 away — if a customer would come — if the 
 dark gentleman would go upstairs — if he 
 could think of something else ! But 
 none of these things happened, and 
 James, at his table with the paste 
 before him, passed a morning com- 
 pared with which any seat anywhere in 
 Purgatory would have been comfortable. 
 Presently a strange feeling came over him, 
 as if some invisible force was pushing and 
 dragging him and forcing him to leave his 
 chair, and throw himself at the Philoso- 
 pher’s feet and confess everything. This 
 was the mesmeric effect of those reproach- 
 ful eyes fixed steadily upon him. And in 
 the doorway, like some figure in a night- 
 mare — a figure incongruous and out of 
 place — the Man in Possession sitting, 
 passive and unconcerned, with one eye on 
 the street and the other on the shop. Up- 
 stairs Mr. Emblem was sitting fast asleep ; 
 joy had made him sleepy ; and Iris was at 
 work among her pupih letters, compiling 
 sums for the Fruiterer, making a paper on 
 Conic Sections for the Cambridge man, 
 and working out Trigonometrical Equa- 
 tions for the young schoolmaster, and her 
 mind full of a solemn exultation and glory, 
 for she was a woman who was loved. The 
 other things troubled her but little. Her 
 grandfather would get back his equilibrium 
 of mind ; the shop might be shut up, but 
 that mattered little. Arnold, and Lala 
 Roy, and her grandfather, and herself, 
 would all live together, and she and Arnold 
 would work. The selfishness of youth is 
 really astonishing. Nothing — except per- 
 haps toothache — can make a girl unhappy 
 who is loved and newly betrothed. She 
 may say what she pleases, and her face 
 may be a yard long when she speaks of 
 the misfortunes of others, but all the time 
 her heart is dancing. 
 
 To Lala Roy, the situation presented a 
 problem with insufficient data, some of 
 which would have to be guessed. A letter, 
 now lost, said that a certain case con- 
 tained papers necessary to obtain an un- 
 known inheritance for Iris. How then to 
 ascertain whether anybody was expecting 
 or looking for a girl to claim an inherit- 
 ance 1 Then there was half a coat-of-arms, 
 and lastly there was a certain customer of 
 unknown name, who had been acquainted 
 with Iris’s father before his marriage. So 
 far for Iris. As for the thief, Lala Roy 
 had no doubt at all. It was, he was quite 
 certain, the grandson, whose career he had 
 watched for some years with interest and 
 curiosity. Who else was there who would 
 
 Tf 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 18S4.J 57 
 
 steal the papers ] And who would help 
 him, and give him access to the safe ] 
 He did not only suspect, he was. certain 
 that James was in some way cognisant of 
 the deed. Why else did he turn so pale ] 
 Why did he rush off to Joe’s lodgings] 
 Why did he sit trembling ] ” 
 
 At half-past twelve Lala Roy rose. 
 
 “It is your dinner-hour,” he said to J ames, 
 and it seemed to the unhappy man as if 
 he was saying, “ I know all.” “ It is your 
 dinner-hour; go, eat, refresh the body. 
 Whom should suspicion affright except the 
 guilty ] ” 
 
 James put on his hat and sneaked — he 
 felt that he was sneaking— out of the 
 shop. 
 
 During his dinner-hour, Joseph himself 
 called. It was an unusual thing to see him 
 at any time ; in fact, as he was never wont 
 to call upon his grandfather, unless he was 
 in a scrape and wanted money, no one 
 ever made the poor young man welcome, 
 or begged him to come more often. 
 
 But this morning, he walked upstairs 
 and appeared so cheerful, so entirely free 
 from any self-reproach for past sins, and so 
 easy in his mind, without the least touch of 
 the old hangdog look, that Iris began to 
 reproach herself for thinking badly of her 
 cousin. 
 
 When he was told about the robbery, 
 he expressed the greatest surprise that 
 any one in the world could be so wicked 
 as to rob an old man like his grand- 
 father. Besides his abhorrence of crime 
 in the abstract, he affirmed that the 
 robbery of a safe was a species of 
 villainy for which hanging was too mild 
 — much too mild a punishment. He then 
 asked his grandfather what were the 
 contents of the packet stolen, and when he 
 received no answer except a pleasant and a 
 cheery laugh, he asked Iris, and learned to 
 his sorrow that the contents were unknown, 
 and could not, therefore, be identified, even 
 if they were found. This, he said, was a 
 thousand pities, because, if they had been 
 known, a reward might have been offered. 
 For his own part he would advise the 
 greatest caution. Nothing at all should be 
 done at first; no step should be taken 
 which might awaken suspicion ; they 
 should go on as if the papers were with- 
 out value. As for that, they had no real 
 proof that there was any robbery. Iris 
 thought of telling him about the water- 
 mark of the blank pages, but refrained. 
 Perhaps there was no robbery after all — 
 who was to prove what had been inside the 
 
 packet] But if there had been papers, 
 and if they were valueless except to the 
 rightful owners, they would, perhaps, be 
 sent back voluntarily ; or after a time, say 
 a year or two, they might be advertised 
 for ; not as if the owners were very anxious 
 to get them, and not revealing the nature 
 of the papers, but cautiously; and presently, 
 if they had not been destroyed, the holders 
 of the papers would answer the advertise- 
 ment, and then a moderate reward might, 
 after a while, be offered ; and so on, giving 
 excellent advice. While he was speaking, 
 Lala Roy entered the room in his noiseless 
 manner, and took his accustomed chair. 
 
 “And what do you think, sir]” said 
 Joseph, when he had finished. “You have 
 heard my advice. You are not an Englishman, 
 but I suppose you’ve got some intelligence.” 
 Lala bowed and spread his hands, but 
 replied not. 
 
 “Your opinion should be asked,” Joseph 
 went on, “because, you see, as the only 
 other person, besides my grandfather and 
 my cousin, in the house, you might yourself 
 be suspected. Indeed,” he added, “ I have 
 no doubt you will be suspected. When I 
 take over the conduct of the case, which 
 will be my task, I suppose, it will, perhaps, 
 be my duty to suspect you.” 
 
 Lala bowed again and again, spread his 
 hands, but did not speak. 
 
 In fact, Joseph now perceived that he 
 was having the conversation wholly ^ to 
 himself. His grandfather sat passive, 
 listening as one who, in a dream, hears 
 voices but does not heed what they are 
 saying, yet smiling politely. Iris listened, 
 but paid no heed. She thought that a 
 great deal of fuss was being made about 
 papers, which, perhaps, were worth 
 nothing. And as for her inheritance, why, 
 as she never expected to get any, she was 
 not going to mourn the loss of what, 
 perhaps, was worth nothing. 
 
 “ Very well, then,” said Joseph, “that’s 
 all I’ve got to say. I’ve given you the best 
 advice I can, and I suppose I may go. 
 Have you lost your voice, Iris 1 ” 
 
 “ No ; but I think you had better go, 
 Joseph. My grandfather is not able to talk 
 this morning, and I dare say your advice 
 is very good, but we have other advisers.’ 
 “ As for you, Mr. Lala Roy, or whatever 
 you call yourself,” said Joe roughly, “I’ve 
 warned you. Suspicion will certainly fall 
 upon you, and what I say is — take care. 
 For my own part I never did believe in 
 niggers, and I wouldn’t have one in my 
 house.” 
 
nfl -- — :;r:.T.r-: . " r ~ 
 
 58 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK 
 
 Lala Roy again bowed and spread his 
 fingers. 
 
 Then Joseph went away. The door 
 between the shop and the hall was half- 
 open, and he looked in. A strange man 
 was sitting in the outer shop, a pipe in his 
 mouth, and James was leaning his head 
 upon his hands, with wild and haggard eyes 
 gazing straight before him. 
 
 “Poor devil!” murmured Joseph. “I 
 feel for him, I do indeed. He had the key 
 made — for himself ; he certainly let me use 
 it once, but only once, and who’s to prove 
 it ? And he’s had the opportunity every 
 day of using it himself. That’s very awk- 
 ward, Foxy, my boy. If I were Foxy, I 
 should be in a funk, myself.” 
 
 He strolled away, thinking that all 
 promised well. Lotty most favourably 
 and unsuspiciously received in her new 
 character ; no one knowing the contents of 
 the packet; his grandfather gone silly; 
 and for himself, he had had the opportunity 
 of advising exactly what he wished to be 
 done — namely, that silence and inaction 
 should be observed for a space, in order 
 to give the holders of the property a 
 chance of offering terms. What better 
 advice could he give? And what line 
 of action would be better or safer for 
 himself 1 
 
 If James had known who was in the 
 house-passage, the other side of the door, 
 there would, I think, have been a collision 
 of two solid bodies. But he did not 
 know, and presently Lala Roy came back, 
 and the torture began again. James took 
 down books and put them up again; he 
 moved about feverishly, doing nothing, 
 with a duster in his hand; but all the 
 time he felt those deep accusing eyes upon 
 him with a silence worse than a thousand 
 questions. He knew — he was perfectly 
 certain — that he should be found out. 
 And all the trouble for nothing ! and the 
 Bailiff’s man in possession, and the safe 
 robbed, and those eyes upon him, saying, 
 as plain as eyes could speak, “ Thou art 
 the Man ! ” 
 
 “And Joe is the man,” said James; 
 “not me at all. What I did was wrong, 
 but I was tempted. Oh, what a precious 
 liar and villain he is ! And what a fool 
 I’ve been ! ” 
 
 The day passed more slowly than it 
 seemed possible for any day to pass; 
 always the man in the shop ; always the 
 deep eyes of the silent Hindoo upon him. 
 It was a relief when, once, Mr. Chalker 
 looked in and surveyed the shelves with a 
 
 AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 suspicious air, and asked if the old man 
 had by this time listened to reason. 
 
 It is the business of him who makes 
 plunder out of other men’s distresses — as 
 the jackal feeds upon the offal and the 
 putrid carcase — to know as exactly as he 
 can how his fellow-creatures are situated. 
 For this reason such an one doth diligently 
 enquire, listen, pick up secrets, put two 
 and two together, and pry curiously into 
 everybody’s affairs, being never so happy 
 as when he gets an opportunity of going 
 to the rescue of a sinking man. Thus 
 among those who lived in good repute 
 about the lower end of the King’s Road, 
 none had a better name than Mr. Emblem, 
 and no one was considered to have made 
 more of his chances. And it was with joy 
 that Mr. Chalker received Joe one evening 
 and heard from him the dismal story, that 
 if he could not find fifty pounds within a 
 few hours, he was ruined. The fifty 
 pounds was raised on a bill bearing Mr. 
 Emblem’s name. When it was presented, 
 however, and the circumstances explained, 
 the old gentleman, who had at first refused 
 to own the signature, accepted it meekly, 
 and told no one that his grandson had 
 written it himself, and without the polite 
 formality of asking permission to sign for 
 him. In other words, Joseph was a forger, 
 and Mr. Chalker knew it, and this made 
 him the more astonished when Mr. 
 Emblem did not take up the bill, but got 
 it renewed quarter after quarter, substi- 
 tuting at length a bill of sale, as if he was 
 determined to pay as much as possible for 
 his grandson’s sins. 
 
 “ Where is he % ” asked the money- 
 lender angrily. “Why doesn’t he come 
 down and face his creditors 1 ” 
 
 “Master’s upstairs,” said James, “and 
 you’ve seen yourself, Mr. Chalker, that he 
 is off his chump. And oh, sir, who would 
 have thought that Emblem’s would have 
 come to ruin ? ” 
 
 “But there’s something, James 
 
 Come, think — there must be something.” 
 
 “Mr. Joseph said there were thousands. 
 But he’s a terrible liar — oh, Mr. Chalker, 
 he’s a terrible liar and villain ! Why, he’s 
 even deceived me !” 
 
 “ What ? Has he borrowed your 
 money 1 ” 
 
 “ Worse — worse. Do you know where 
 I could find him, sir ? ” 
 
 “ Well, I don’t know ” Mr. Chalker 
 
 was not in the habit of giving addresses, 
 but in this case, perhaps Joe might be 
 squeezed as well as his grandfather. Un- 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 59 
 
 fortunately that bill with the signature had 
 been destroyed. “ I don’t know. Perhaps 
 if I find out I may tell you. And, James, 
 if you can learn anything — this rubbish 
 won’t fetch half the money — I’ll make it 
 worth your while, James, I will indeed.” _ 
 
 “ I’ll make him take his share,” said 
 James to himself. “If I have to go to 
 prison, he shall go too. They sha’n’t send 
 me without sending him.” 
 
 He looked round. The watchful eyes 
 were gone. The Hindoo had gone away 
 noiselessly. James breathed again. 
 
 “ After all,” he said, “ how are they to 
 find out ? How are they to prove any- 
 thing? Mr. Joseph took the things, and 
 I helped him to a key; and he isn’t likely to 
 split, and— oh, Lord, if they were to find 
 it 1” For at that moment he felt the duplicate 
 key in his waistcoat - pocket. “ If they 
 were to find it ! ” 
 
 He took the key out, and looked at the 
 bright and innocent-looking thing, as a 
 murderer might look at his blood-stained 
 dagger. 
 
 Just then, as he gazed upon it, holding 
 it just twelve inches in front of his nose, 
 one hand was laid upon his shoulder, 
 and another took the key from between 
 his fingers. 
 
 He turned quickly, and his knees gave 
 way, and he sank upon the floor, crying : 
 
 “ Oh, Mr. Lala Roy, sir, Mr. Lala Roy, I 
 am not the thief 1 I am innocent ! I will tell 
 you all about it ! I will confess all to you ! 
 I will indeed ! I will make atonement ! 
 Oh, what a miserable fool I’ve been ! ” 
 “Upon the heels of Folly,” said the 
 Sage, “treadeth Shame. You will now be 
 able to understand the words of wisdom, 
 which say of the wicked man, ‘ The curse 
 of iniquity pursueth him ; he liveth in con- 
 tinual fear ; the anxiety of his mind taketh 
 vengeance upon him.’ Stand up and speak.” 
 The Man in Possession looked on as if 
 an incident of this kind was too common 
 in families for him to take any notice of 
 it. Nothing, in fact, is able to awaken 
 astonishment in the heart of the Man in 
 Possession, because nothing is sacred to 
 him except the “ sticks ” he has to guard. 
 To Iris, the event was, however, of im- 
 portance, because it afforded Lala Roy a 
 chance of giving Arnold that photograph, 
 no other than an early portrait of Mr. 
 Emblem’s grandson. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. IS THIS HIS PHOTOGRAPH? 
 
 The best way to get a talk with his 
 cousin was to dine with her. Arnold there- 
 
 fore went to Chester Square next day with 
 the photograph in his pocket. It was half 
 an hour before dinner when he arrived, 
 and Clara was alone. 
 
 “ My dear,” she cried with enthusiasm, 
 
 “ I am charmed — I am delighted — with 
 Iris.” 
 
 “ I am glad,” said Arnold mendaciously. 
 “I am delighted with her — in every 
 way. She is more and better than I could 
 have expected — far more. A few Ameri- 
 canisms, of course ” 
 
 “No doubt,” said Arnold. “When I 
 saw her I thought they rather resembled 
 Anglicisms. But you have had oppor- 
 tunities of judging. You have in your 
 own possession,” he continued, “ have you 
 not, all the papers which establish her 
 identity ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes ; they are all locked up in my 
 strong-box. I shall be very careful of 
 them. Though, of course, there is no one 
 who has to be satisfied except myself. And 
 I am perfectly satisfied. But then I never 
 had any doubt from the beginning. How 
 could there be any doubt ? ” 
 
 “ How, indeed ? ” 
 
 “Truth, honour, loyalty, and candour, 
 as well as gentle descent, are written on 
 that girl’s noble brow, Arnold, plain, so 
 that all may read. It is truly wonderful,” 
 she went on, “ how the old gentle blood 
 shows itself, and will break out under the 
 most unexpected conditions. In her face 
 she is not much like her father ; that is 
 true ; though sometimes I catch a momen- 
 tary resemblance, which instantly dis- 
 appears again. Her eyes are not in the least 
 like his, nor has she his manner, or carriage, 
 or any of his little tricks and peculiarities 
 — though, perhaps, I shall observe traces 
 of some of them in time. But especially 
 she resembles him in her voice. The tone 
 — the timbre— reminds me every moment 
 of my poor Claude.” 
 
 “I suppose,” said Arnold, “that one 
 must inherit something, if it is only a, 
 voice, from one’s father. Have you said 
 anything to her yet about money matters, 
 and a settlement of her claims ? ” 
 
 “No, not yet. I did venture, last night, 
 to approach the subject, but she would not 
 hear of it. So I dropped it. I call that 
 true delicacy, Arnold — native, instinctive, 
 hereditary delicacy.” 
 
 “ Have you given any more money to 
 the American gentleman who brought her 
 home ? ” 
 
 “ Iris made him take a hundred pounds, 
 against his will, to buy books with, for he 
 
; = fc 
 
 60 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 
 is not rich. Poor fellow ! It went much 
 against the grain with him to take the 
 money. But she made him take it. She 
 said he wanted books and instruments, 
 and insisted on his having at least a 
 hundred pounds. It was generous of her. 
 Yes; she is — I am convinced — a truly 
 generous girl, and as open-handed as the 
 day. Now, would a common girl, a girl 
 of no descent, have shown so much delicacy 
 and generosity ? ” 
 
 “ By the way, Clara, here is a photo- 
 graph. Does it belong to you? I — I 
 picked it up.” 
 
 He showed the photograph which Lala 
 Roy had given him. 
 
 “ Oh yes ; it is a likeness of Dr. 
 Washington, Iris’s adopted brother and 
 guardian. She must have dropped it. I 
 should think it was taken a few years 
 back, but it is still a very good likeness. 
 A handsome man, is he not ? He grows 
 upon one rather. His parting words with 
 Iris yesterday were very dignified and 
 touching.” 
 
 “ I will give it to her presently,” he 
 replied, without further comment. 
 
 There was, then, no doubt. The woman 
 was an impostor, and the man was the 
 thief, and the papers were the papers 
 which had been stolen from the safe, and 
 Iris Deseret was no other than his own 
 Iris. But he must not show the least sign 
 of suspicion. 
 
 “What are you thinking about, Arnold?” 
 asked Clara. “ Your face is as black as 
 thunder. You are not sorry that Iris has 
 returned, are you ? ” 
 
 “I was thinking of my engagement, 
 Clara.” 
 
 “ Why, you are not tired of it already ? 
 An engaged man, Arnold, ought not to 
 look so gloomy as that.” 
 
 “I am not tired of it yet. But I am 
 unhappy as regards some circumstances 
 connected with it. Your disapproval, 
 Clara, for one. My dear cousin, I owe so 
 much to you, that I want to owe you 
 more. Now, I have a proposition — a 
 promise — to make to you. I am now so 
 sure, so very sure and certain, that you 
 will want me to marry Miss Aglen — and 
 no one else — when you once know her, that 
 I will engage solemnly not to marry her 
 unless you entirely approve. Let me owe 
 my wife to you, as well as everything else.” 
 
 “ Arnold, you are not in earnest ? ” 
 
 “ Quite in earnest.” 
 
 “ But I shall never approve. Never — 
 never — never ! I could not bring myself, 
 
 . 
 
 under any circumstances that I can con- 
 ceive, to approve of such a connection.” 
 “My dear cousin, I am, on the other 
 hand, perfectly certain that you will 
 approve. Why, if I were not quite 
 certain do you think I should have made 
 this promise ? But to return to your 
 newly-found cousin. Tell me more about 
 her.” 
 
 “Well, I have discovered that she is a 
 really very clever and gifted girl. She can 
 imitate people in the most wonderful way, 
 especially actresses, though she has only 
 been to a theatre once or twice in her life. 
 At Liverpool she heard some one sing what 
 she calls a Topical Song, and this she 
 actually remembers — she carried it away 
 in her head, every word — and she can 
 sing it just as they sing it on the stage, 
 with all the vulgarity and gestures imitated 
 to the very life. Of course I should not 
 like her to do this before anybody else, 
 but it is really wonderful.” 
 
 “Indeed !” said Arnold. “It must be 
 very clever and amusing.” 
 
 “ Of course,” said Clara, with colossal 
 ignorance, “ an American lady can hardly 
 be expected to understand English vulgari- 
 ties. No doubt there is an American 
 variety.” 
 
 Arnold thought that a vulgar song could 
 be judged at its true value by any lady, 
 either American or English ; but he said 
 nothing. 
 
 And then the young lady herself 
 appeared. She had been driving about 
 with Clara among various shops, and now 
 bore upon her person the charming result 
 of these journeys, in the shape of a garment, 
 which was rich in texture, and splendid in 
 the making. And she really was a hand- 
 some girl, only with a certain air of being 
 dressed for the stage. But Arnold, now 
 more than suspicious, was not dazzled by 
 the gorgeous raiment, and only considered 
 how his cousin could for a moment imagine 
 this person to be a lady, and how it would 
 be best to break the news. 
 
 “ Clara’s cousin,” she said, “ I have for- 
 gotten your name ; but how do you do, 
 again ? ” 
 
 And then they went in to dinner. 
 
 “You have learned, I suppose,” said 
 Arnold, “something about the Deseret 
 family by this time ? ” 
 
 “ Oh yes ; I have heard all about the 
 family-tree. I dare say I shall get to know 
 it by heart in time. But you don’t expect 
 me, all at once, to care much for it.” 
 
 “ Little Republican ! ” said Clara. “ She 
 
 0 
 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1894.] G 1 
 
 actually does not feel a pride in belonging 
 to a good old family.’ 
 
 The girl made a little gesture. 
 
 ** Your family can’t do much for you, 
 that I can see, except to make you proud, 
 and pretend not to see other women in the 
 shop.- That is what the county ladies do.” 
 “ Why, my dear, what on earth do you 
 know of the county ladies ? ” 
 
 Lotty blushed a little. She had made 
 a mistake. But she quickly recovered. . 
 
 “ I only know what I’ve read, cousin, 
 about any kind of English ladies. But 
 that’s enough, I’m sure. Stuck-up things !” 
 And again she observed, from Clara’s 
 pained expression, that she had made 
 another mistake. 
 
 If she showed a liking for stout at lunch, 
 she manifested a positive passion for cham- 
 pagne at dinner. 
 
 “I do like the English custom,” she 
 said, “ of having two dinners in the day.” 
 “ Ladies in America, I suppose,” said 
 Clara, “ dine in the middle of the day 1 ” 
 
 A1 
 
 “ But I have visited many families in 
 New York and Boston who dined late,” 
 said Arnold. 
 
 “ Daresay,” she replied carelessly. “ I’m 
 going to have some more of that curry 
 stuff, please. And don’t ask any more 
 questions, anybody, till I’ve worried through 
 with it. I’m a wolf at curry.” 
 
 “ She likes England, Arnold,” said Clara, 
 covering up this remark, so to speak. 
 “She likes the country, she says, very 
 much.” 
 
 “At all events,” said the girl, “I like 
 this house, which is first-class — fine — 
 
 proper. And the furniture, and pictures, 
 and all — tip-top. But I’m afraid it is 
 
 
 going to be awful dull, except at meals, 
 and when the Boy is going.” Her own 
 head was just touched by the “Boy,” and 
 she was a little off her guard. 
 
 “ My dear child,” said Clara, “ you have 
 only just come, and you have not yet 
 learned to know and love your own home 
 and your father’s friends. You must take 
 a little time.” 
 
 “ Oh, I’ll take time. As long as you like. 
 But I shall soon be tired of sitting at home. 
 I want to go about and see things — 
 theatres and music-halls, and all kinds of 
 places.” 
 
 “ Ladies, in England, do not go to music 
 halls,” said Arnold. 
 
 “ Gentlemen do. Why not ladies, then ] 
 Answer me that. Why can’t ladies go, 
 when gentlemen go % What is proper for 
 
 gentlemen is proper for ladies. Y ery well 
 then, I want to go somewhere every night. 
 
 I want to see everything there is to see, 
 and to hear all that there is to hear.” 
 
 “We shall go, presently, a good deal 
 into society,” said Clara timidly. “ Society 
 will come back to town very soon now 
 at least, some of it.” 
 
 “Oh yes, I dare say. Society ! No, thank 
 you, with company manners. I want to 
 ' augh, and talk, and enjoy myself.” 
 
 The champagne, in fact, had made her 
 forget the instructions of her tutor. . At 
 all events, she looked anything but “ quiet,’ 
 with her face flushed and her eyes bright. 
 Suddenly she caught Arnold’s expression 
 of suspicion and watchfulness, and resolutely 
 subdued a rising inclination to get up from 
 the table and have a walk round with a 
 snatch of a Topical Song. . 
 
 “ Forgive me, Clara,” she murmured in 
 her sweetest tone ; “ forgive me, cousin. I 
 feel as if I must break out a bit, now and 
 then. Yankee manners, you know. Let 
 me stay quiet with you for a while. You 
 know the thought of starched and stiff 
 London society quite frightens me. I am 
 not used to anything stiff. Let me stay at 
 home quiet, with you.” 
 
 “ Dear girl ! ” cried Clara, her eyes filling 
 with tears ; “she has all Claude’s affec- 
 tionate softness of heart.” 
 
 “ I believe,” said Arnold, later on in the 
 evening, “ that she must have been a 
 circus-rider, or something of that sort. 
 What on earth does Clara mean by the 
 gentle blood breaking out?. We nearly 
 had a breaking out at dinner, but it 
 certainly was not due to the gentle 
 blood.” . . 
 
 After dinner, Arnold found her. sitting 
 on a sofa with Clara, who was telling her 
 something about the glories of the Deseret 
 family. He was half inclined to pity the 
 girl, or to laugh — he was not certain which 
 — for the patience with which she listened, 
 in order to make amends for any bad 
 impression she might have produced at 
 dinner. He asked her, presently, if she 
 would play. She might be, and certainly 
 was, vulgar; but she could play well and 
 she knew good music. People generally 
 think that good music softens manners, 
 and does not permit those who play and 
 practise it to be vulgar. But, concerning 
 this young person, so much could not be 
 said with any truth. 
 
 “You play very well. Where did you 
 learn ? Who was your master ? ” Arnold 
 asked. 
 
X — — 
 
 62 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 She began to reply, but stopped short. 
 He had very nearly caught her. 
 
 “ Don’t ask questions,” she said. “ I 
 told you not to ask questions before. 
 Where should I learn, but in America ? 
 Do you suppose no one can play the piano, 
 except in England? Look here,” she 
 glanced at her cousin. “Do you, Mr. 
 Arbuthnot, always spend your evenings 
 like this ? ” 
 
 “ How like this ? ” 
 
 “ Why, going around in a swallow-tail 
 to drawing-rooms with the women, like a 
 tame tom-cat ? If you do, you must be a 
 truly good young man. If you don’t, what 
 do you do ? ” 
 
 “ Very often, I spend my evenings in a 
 drawing-room.” 
 
 “Oh, Lord! Do most young English- 
 men carry on in the same proper way ? ” 
 
 “ Why not ? ” 
 
 “ Don’t they go to music-halls, please, 
 and dancing cribs, and such ? ” 
 
 “ Perhaps. But what does it concern 
 us to know what some men do ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, not much. Only if I were a man 
 like you, I wouldn’t consent to be a tame 
 tom-cat — that is all ; but perhaps you like 
 it.” 
 
 She meant to insult and offend him so 
 that he should hot come any more. 
 
 But she did not succeed. He only 
 laughed, feeling that he was getting below 
 the surface, and sat down beside the piano. 
 
 “You amuse me,” he said, “ and you 
 astonish me. You are, in fact, the most 
 astonishing person I ever met. For in- 
 stance, you come from America, and you 
 talk pure London slang with a cockney 
 twang. How did it get there ? ” 
 
 In fact, it was not exactly London slang, 
 but a patois or dialect, learned partly from 
 her husband, partly from her companions, 
 and partly brought from Gloucester. 
 
 “ I don’t know — I never asked. It came 
 wrapped up in brown paper, perhaps, with 
 a string round it.” 
 
 “ You have lived in America all your life, 
 and you look more like an Englishwoman 
 than any other girl I have ever seen.” 
 
 “Do I? So much the better for the 
 English girls; they can’t do better than 
 take after me. But perhaps — most likely, 
 in fact — you think that American girls all 
 squint, perhaps, or have got hump -backs ? 
 Anything else?” 
 
 “You were brought up in a little 
 American village, and yet you play in the 
 style of a girl who has had the best 
 masters.” 
 
 % 
 
 She did not explain — it was not neces- 
 sary to explain — that her master had been 
 her father, who was a teacher of music. 
 
 “ I can’t help it, can I ? ” she asked ; 
 
 “ I can’t help it if I turned out different 
 to what you expected. People sometimes 
 do, you know. And when you don’t ap- 
 prove of a girl, it’s English manners, I 
 suppose, to tell her so — kind of en- 
 courages her to persevere, and pray for 
 better luck next time, doesn’t it? It’s 
 simple, too, and prevents any foolish 
 errors — no mistake afterwards, you see. 
 
 I say, are you going to come here often ? 
 because, if you are, I shall go away back 
 to the States or somewhere, or stay up- 
 stairs in my own room. You and me won’t 
 get on very well together, I am afraid.” 
 
 “ I don’t think you will see me very 
 often,” he replied. “ That is improbable ; 
 yet I dare say I shall come here as often 
 as I usually do.” 
 
 “ What do you mean by that ?” She 
 looked sharply and suspiciously at him. 
 
 He repeated his words, and she perceived 
 that there was meaning in them, and she 
 felt uneasy. 
 
 “ I don’t understand at all,” she said ; 
 
 “ Clara tells me that this house is mine. 
 Now — don’t you know — I don’t intend 
 to invite any but my own friends to visit 
 me in my own house.” 
 
 “That seems reasonable. No one can 
 expect you to invite people who are not 
 your friends.” 
 
 “Well, then, I ain’t likely to call you 
 my friend” — Arnold inclined his head — 
 
 “ and I am not going to talk riddles any 
 more. Is there anything else you want to 
 say ? ” 
 
 “Nothing more, I think, at present, 
 thank you.” 
 
 “ If there is, you know, don’t mind me 
 — have it out — I’m nobody, of course. 
 I’m not expected to have any manners — 
 I’m only a girl. You can say what you 
 please to me, and be as rude as you please ; 
 Englishmen always are as rude as they can 
 be to American girls — I’ve always heard 
 that.” 
 
 Arnold laughed. 
 
 “At all events,” he said, “you have 
 charmed Clara, which is the only really 
 important thing. Good-night Miss — Miss 
 Deseret.” 
 
 “ Good-night, old man,” she said, laugh- 
 ing, because she bore no malice, and had 
 given him a candid opinion ; “I dare say 
 when you get rid of your fine company 
 manners, and put off your swallow-tail, 
 
 — i 
 
:fe 
 
 Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [November IS, 1884.1 63 
 
 you’re not a bad sort, after all. Perhaps, 
 if you would confess, you are as fond of a 
 kick-up on your way home as anybody. 
 Trust you quiet chaps ! ” 
 
 Clara had not fortunately heard much of 
 this conversation, which, indeed, was not 
 meant for her, because the girl was play- 
 ing all the time some waltz music, which 
 enabled her to talk and play without being 
 heard at the other end of the room. 
 
 Well, there was now no doubt. The 
 American physician and the subject of the 
 photograph were certainly the same man. 
 And this man was also the thief of the 
 safe, and Iris Aglen was Iris Deseret. Of 
 that, Arnold had no longer any reason- 
 able doubt. There was, however, one 
 thing more. Before leaving Clara’s house, 
 he refreshed his memory as to the Deseret 
 arms. The quarterings of the shield were, so 
 far, exactly what Mr. Emblem recollected. 
 
 “ It is,” said Lala Boy, “ what I thought. 
 But, as yet, not a word to Iris.” 
 
 He then proceeded to relate the re- 
 pentance, the confession, and the atone- 
 ment proposed by the remorseful J ames. 
 But he did not tell quite all. For the wise 
 man never tells all. What really happened 
 was this. When James had made a clean 
 breast and confessed his enormous share 
 in the villainy, Lala Boy bound him over 
 to secrecy under pain of Law — Law the 
 Bigorous, pointing out that although they 
 do not, in England, exhibit the Kourbash, 
 or bastinado the soles of the feet, they 
 make the prisoner sleep on a hard board, 
 starve him on skilly, set him to work 
 which tears his nails from his fingers, keep 
 him from conversation, tobacco, and drink, 
 and when he comes out, so hedge him 
 around with prejudice and so clothe him 
 with a robe of shame, that no one will ever 
 employ him again, and he is therefore 
 doomed to go back again to the English 
 Hell. Lala Boy, though a man of few 
 words, drew so vivid a description of the 
 punishment which awaited his penitent 
 that James, foxy as he was by nature, 
 felt constrained to resolve that henceforth, 
 happen what might,, then and for all 
 future, he would range himself on the side 
 of virtue, and as a beginning he promised 
 to do everything that he could . for the 
 confounding of Joseph and the bringing of 
 the guilty to justice. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. HIS LAST CHANCE. 
 
 Three days elapsed, during which 
 nothing was done. That cause is strongest 
 
 which can afford to wait. But in those 
 three days several things happened. 
 
 First of all, Mr. David Chalker, seeing 
 that the old man was obdurate, made up 
 his mind to lose most of his money, and 
 cursed Joe continually for having led him 
 to build upon his grandfather’s supposed 
 wealth. Yet he ought to have known. 
 Tradesmen do not lock up their savings in 
 investments for their grandchildren, nor 
 do they borrow small sums at ruinous 
 interest of money-lending solicitors ; nor 
 do they give Bills of Sale. These general 
 rules were probably known to Mr. Chalker. 
 
 Yet he did not apply them to this particular 
 case. The neglect of the General Buie,, in 
 fact, may lead the most astute of mankind 
 into ways of foolishness. 
 
 James, for his part, stimulated per- 
 petually by fear of prison and loss of 
 character and of situation — for who would 
 employ an Assistant who got keys made to 
 open the safe 1 — showed himself the most 
 repentant of mortals. Dr. Joseph Wash- 
 ington, lulled into the most perfect security, 
 enjoyed all those pleasures which the sum 
 of three hundred pounds could purchase. 
 Nobody knew where he was, or what he 
 was doing. As for Lotty, she had estab- 
 lished herself firmly in Chester Square, and 
 Cousin Clara daily found out new and 
 additional proofs of the gentle blood 
 breaking out ! 
 
 On the fourth morning Lala Boy sallied 
 forth. He was about to make a great 
 Moral Experiment, the nature of which you 
 will immediately understand. None but a 
 philosopher who had studied Confucius 
 and Lao Kiun, would have conceived so 
 fine a scheme. 
 
 First he paid a visit to Mr. Chalker. 
 
 The office was the ground-floor front 
 room, in one of the small streets north of 
 the King’s Boad. It was not an imposing 
 office, nor did it seem as if much business 
 was done there \ and one clerk of tender 
 years sufficed for Mr. Chalker’s wants. 
 
 “Oh!” he said, “it’s our friend from 
 India. You’re a lodger of old Emblem’s, 
 ain’t youl” 
 
 “ I have lived with him for twenty years. 
 
 I am his friend.” 
 
 “ Very well. I dare say we shall come to 
 terms, if he’s come to his senses. Just 
 take a chair and sit down. How is the old 
 man 1 ” 
 
 “ He has not yet recovered the use of 
 his intellect.” 
 
 “ Oh ! Then how can you act for him 
 if he’s off his head 1” 
 
 ==========1 
 
64 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 “ I came to ask an English creditor to 
 show mercy.” 
 
 “Mercy 1 ? What is the man talking 
 about? Mercy! I want my money. 
 What has that got to do with mercy ? ” 
 “Nothing, truly; but I will give you 
 your money. I will give you justice, and 
 you shall give me mercy. You lent Mr. 
 Emblem fifty pounds. Will you take your 
 fifty pounds, and leave us in peace ? ” 
 
 He drew a bag out of his pocket — a 
 brown banker’s bag — and Mr. Chalker 
 distinctly heard the rustling of notes. 
 
 This is a sound which to some ears is 
 more delightful than the finest music in 
 the world. It awakens all the most plea- 
 surable emotions; it provokes desire and 
 hankering after possession ; and it fills the 
 soul with the imaginary enjoyment of 
 
 wealth. 
 
 “ Certainly not,” said Mr. Chalker, con- 
 fident that better terms than those would 
 be offered. “ If that is all you have to say, 
 you may go away again.” 
 
 “ But the rest is usury. Think ! To 
 give fifty, and ask three hundred and fifty, 
 is the part of a usurer.” 
 
 tc Call it what you please. The Bill of 
 Sale is for three hundred and fifty pounds. 
 Pay that three hundred and fifty, with 
 costs and Sheriffs poundage, and I take 
 away my man. If you don’t pay it, then 
 the books on the shelves and the furniture 
 of the house go to the hammer.” 
 
 “ The books, I am informed,” said Lala 
 Roy, “ will not bring as much as a hundred 
 pounds if they are sold at auction. As for 
 the furniture, some of it is mine, and some 
 belongs to Mr. Emblem’s granddaughter.” 
 
 “ His granddaughter ! Oh, it’s a swindle,” 
 said Mr. Chalker angrily. “ It is nothing 
 more or less than a rank swindle. The old 
 man ought to be prosecuted, and, mind 
 you, I’ll prosecute him, and you too, for 
 conspiring with him.” 
 
 “A prosecution,” said the Hindoo, “ will 
 not hurt him, but it might hurt you. For 
 it would show how you lent him fifty 
 pounds five years ago ; how you made him 
 give you a bill for a hundred ; how you 
 did not press him to pay that bill, but you 
 continually offered to renew it for him, 
 increasing the amount on each time of 
 renewal ; and at last you made him give 
 you a Bill of Sale for three hundred and 
 fifty. This is, I suppose, one of the many 
 ways in which Englishmen grow rich. 
 There are also usurers in India, but they 
 do not, in my country, call themselves 
 A prosecution? My friend, it 
 
 is for us to prosecute. Shall we show that 
 you have done the same thing with many 
 others ? You are, by this time, well known 
 in the neighbourhood, Mr. Chalker, and 
 you are so much beloved that there are 
 many who would be delighted to relate 
 their experiences and dealings with so 
 clever a man. Have you ever studied, one 
 asks with wonder, the precepts of the great 
 Sage who founded your religion ? ” 
 
 “ Oh, come, don’t let us have any religious 
 nonsense ! ” 
 
 “ I assure you they are worth studying. 
 
 I am, myself, an humble follower of 
 Gautama, but I have read those Precepts 
 with profit. In the kingdom imagined by 
 that Preacher, there is no room for usurers, 
 Mr. Chalker. Where, then, will be your 
 kingdom ? Every man must be somewhere. 
 You must have a kingdom and a king.” 
 
 “ This is tomfoolery ! ” Mr. Chalker 
 turned red, and looked very uncomfortable. 
 “ Stick to business. Payment in full. 
 Those are my terms.” 
 
 “ You think, then, that the Precepts of 
 your Sage are only intended for men while 
 they sit in the church? Many English- 
 men think so, I have observed.” 
 
 “ Payment in full, mister. That’s what 
 I want.” 
 
 He banged his fist on the table. 
 
 “ No abatement ? No mercy shown to 
 an old man on the edge of the grave? 
 Think, Mr. Chalker. You will soon be as 
 old as Mr. Emblem, your hair as white, 
 your reason as unsteady— — ” 
 
 “ Payment in full, and no more words.” 
 
 “ It is well. Then, Mr. Chalker, I have 
 another proposal to make to you.” 
 
 “I thought we should come to some- 
 thing more. Out with it ! ” 
 
 “ I believe you are a friend of Mr. 
 Emblem’s grandson ? ” 
 
 “ Joe ? Oh yes, I know Joe.” 
 
 “ You know him intimately ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, I may say so.” 
 
 “ You know that he forged his grand- 
 father’s name ; that he is a profligate and 
 a spendthrift, and that he has taken or 
 borrowed from his grandfather whatever 
 money he could get, and that — in short, he 
 is a friend of your own ? ” 
 
 It was not until after his visitor had gone 
 that Mr. Chalker understood, and began to 
 resent this last observation. 
 
 “ Go on,” he said. “ I know all about 
 Joe.” 
 
 “ Good. Then if you can tell me any- 
 thing about him which may be of use to 
 me I will do this. I will pay you double 
 
B— ■ -== * 
 
 Charles Dickens.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 65 
 
 the valuation of Mr. Emblem’s shop, in 
 return for a receipt in full. If you can 
 not, you may proceed to sell everything by 
 auction.” 
 
 Mr. Chalker hesitated. A valuation 
 would certainly give a higher figure than 
 a forced sale, and then that valuation 
 doubled ! 
 
 “ Well,” he said, “ I don’t know. It’s a 
 cruel hard case to be done out of my 
 money. How am I to find out whether 
 anything I tell you would be of use to you 
 or not 1 What kind of thing do you 
 want ] How do I know that if you get 
 what you want, you won’t swear it is of no 
 use to you 1 ” 
 
 “You have the word of one who never 
 broke his word.” 
 
 Mr. Chalker laughed derisively. 
 
 “Why,” he said, “I wouldn’t take the 
 word of an English Bishop— no, nor of an 
 Archbishop— where money is concerned. 
 What is it— what is the kind of thing you 
 want to know 1 ” 
 
 “ lb is concerned with a certain woman.” 
 “Oh, well, if it is only a woman. I 
 thought it might be something about 
 money. Joe, you see, like a good many 
 other people, has got his own ideas about 
 money, and perhaps he isn’t so strict in 
 his dealings as he might be — few men are 
 — and I should not like to let out one 
 or two things that only him and me 
 know.” In fact, Mr. Chalker saw, in 
 imagination, the burly form of J oe in his 
 office, brandishing a stick, and accusing 
 him of friendship’s trust betrayed. “ But 
 as it is only a woman — which of ’em is it % ” 
 “This is a young woman, said to be 
 handsome, tall, and finely-made ; she has, 
 I am told, light brown hair and large eyes. 
 That is the description of her given to me. ” 
 “ I know the girl you mean. Splendid 
 figure, and goes well in tights 1 ” 
 
 “ I have not been informed on that sub- 
 ject. Can you tell me any more about her 1 ? ” 
 “I suspect, mister,” said Joe’s friend, 
 with cunning eyes, “ that you’ve made the 
 acquaintance of a certain widow that was 
 — married woman that is. I remember 
 now, I’ve seen Hindoos about her lodgings, 
 down Shad well way.” 
 
 “Perhaps,” said Lala, “and perhaps 
 not.” His face showed not the least sign 
 which could be read. “ You can tell me 
 afterwards what you know of the woman 
 at Shad well.” 
 
 “Well, then, Joe thinks I know nothing 
 about it. Else I wouldn’t tell you. 
 Because I don’t want a fight with J oe. Is 
 
 this any use to you ? He is married to 
 the girl as well as to the widow.” 
 
 “ He is married to the girl as well as to 
 the widow. He has, then, two wives. It 
 is against the English custom, and breaks 
 the English law. The young wife who is 
 beautiful, and the old wife who has the 
 lodging-house. Very good. What is the 
 address of this woman h ” 
 
 Mr. Chalker looked puzzled. 
 
 “ Don’t you know it, then ? What are 
 you driving at % ” 
 
 “ What is the name and address of this 
 Shad well woman ? ” 
 
 “Well, then ” — he wrote an address and 
 handed it over — “ you may be as close as 
 you like. I don’t care. It isn’t my business. 
 But you won’t make me believe you don’t 
 know all about her. Look here, whatever 
 happens, don’t say I told you.” 
 
 “ It shall be a secret,” said Lala, taking 
 out the bag of notes. “ Let us complete 
 the business at once, Mr. Chalker. Here 
 is another offer. I will give you two 
 hundred pounds in discharge of your whole 
 claim, or you shall have a valuation made, 
 if you prefer it, and I will double the 
 amount. ” 
 
 Mr. Chalker chose the former promptly, 
 and in a few moments handed over the 
 necessary receipts, and sent his clerk to 
 recall the Man in Possession. 
 
 “ What are you going to do with Joe 1 ” 
 he asked. “No good turn, I’ll swear. 
 And a more unforgiving face than yours I 
 never set eyes on. It isn’t my business, 
 but I’ll give you one warning. If you 
 make Joe desperate, he’ll turn on you ; 
 and Lord help your slender ribs if Joe 
 once begins. Don’t make him desperate. 
 And now I’ll tell you another thing. 
 First, the woman at Shadwell is horribly 
 jealous. She’ll make a row. Next, the 
 young one, who sings at a Music Hall, she’s 
 desperately in love with her husband — 
 more than he is with her — and if a 
 woman’s in love with a man, there’s one 
 thing she never forgives. You understand 
 what that is. Between the pair, Joe’s 
 likely to have a rough time.” 
 
 “ I do. I have had many wives myself.” 
 “ Oh, Lord, he says he’s had many wives ! 
 How many 1 ” 
 
 Lala Roy read the receipt, and put it in 
 his pocket. Then he rose and remarked, 
 with a smile of supreme superiority : 
 
 “It is a pleasure to give money to you, 
 and to such as you, Mr. Chalker.” 
 
 “ Is it ? ” he replied with a grin. “ Give 
 me some more, then.” 
 
n i 
 
 i 
 
 2X — ■ ‘ — 
 
 66 [November 13, 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 >- 
 
 “ You are one of those who, the richer 
 they become, the less harm they do. Many 
 Englishmen are of this disposition. When 
 they are poor they are jackals, hyaenas, 
 wolves, and man-eating tigers ; when they 
 are rich they are benevolent and charitable, 
 and show mercy unto the wretched and the 
 poor. So that, in their case, the words of 
 the Wise Man are naught, when he says that 
 the earth is barren of good things where 
 she hoardeth treasure; and that where 
 gold is in her bowels no herb groweth. 
 Pray, Mr. Chalker, pray earnestly for gold 
 in order that you may become virtuous.” 
 
 Mr. Chalker grinned, but looked uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 “ I will, mister,” he said, “ I will pray 
 with all my might.” 
 
 Nevertheless, he remained for the space 
 of the whole morning in uneasiness. The 
 words of the Philosopher troubled him. I 
 do not go so far as to say that his mind 
 went back to the days when he was young 
 and innocent, because he was still young, 
 and he never had been innocent ; nor do I 
 say that a tear rose to his eyes and trickled 
 down his cheek, because nothing brought 
 tears into his eyes except a speck of dust ; 
 or that he resolved to confine himself for 
 the future to legitimate lawyer’s work, 
 because he would then have starved. I 
 only say that he felt uncomfortable and 
 humiliated, and chiefly so because an old 
 man with white hair and a brown skin — 
 hang it ! a common Nigger — had been able 
 to bring discord into the sweet harmony 
 of his thoughts. 
 
 Lala Roy then betook himself to Joe’s 
 former lodgings, and asked for that gentle- 
 man’s present address. 
 
 The landlady professed to know nothing. 
 
 “ You do know, however,” he persisted, 
 reading knowledge in her eyes. 
 
 “ Is it trouble you mean for him ? ” asked 
 the woman, “ and him such a fine, well- 
 set-up young man, too ! Is it trouble ? Oh, 
 dear, I always thought he got his money 
 on the cross. Look here. I ain’t going 
 to round on him, though he has gone away 
 and left a comfortable room. So there ! 
 And you may go.” 
 
 Lala Roy opened his hand. There were 
 at least five golden sovereigns glorifying 
 his dingy palm. 
 
 “ Can gold,” the Moralist asked, “ ever 
 increase the virtue of man ? Woman, how 
 much ? ” 
 
 “ Is it trouble ? ” she repeated, looking 
 greedily at the money. “Will the young 
 man get copped ? ” 
 
 Lala understood no London slang. But 
 he showed his hand again. 
 
 “ How much ? Whoso is covetous let him 
 know that his heart is poor. How much?” 
 “ Poor young man ! I’ll take them all, 
 please, sir. What’s he done ? ” 
 
 “ Where does he live ? ” 
 
 “I know where he lives,” she said, 
 “ because our Bill rode away with him at 
 the back of his cab, and saw where he got 
 out. He’s married now, and his wife sings 
 at the Music Hall, and he lives on her 
 earnings. Quite the gentleman he is now, 
 and smokes cigars all day long. There’s 
 his address, and thank you for the money. 
 Oh,” she said with a gasp. “ To think 
 that people can earn five pounds so easy.” 
 “ May the gold procure you happiness 
 — such happiness as you desire ! ” said Lala 
 Roy. 
 
 “ It will nearly pay the quarter’s rent. 
 And that’s about happiness enough for one 
 morning.” 
 
 Joe was sitting in his room alone, half 
 asleep. In fact, he had a head upon him. 
 He sprang to his feet, however, when he 
 saw Lala Roy. 
 
 “Hajlo!” he cried. “'You here, Nig? 
 How the devil did you find out my 
 address ? ” 
 
 There was not only astonishment, but 
 some alarm upon his countenance. 
 
 “ Never mind. I want a little conversa- 
 tion with you, Mr. Joseph.” 
 
 “Well, sit down and let us have it out. 
 I say, have you come to tell me that you 
 did sneak those papers, after all ? What 
 did you get for them ? ” 
 
 “ I have not come to tell you that. I 
 dare say, however, we shall be able, some 
 day, to tell you who did steal the papers — 
 if any were stolen, that is.” 
 
 “ Quite so, my jolly mariner. If any 
 were stolen. Ho, ho ! you’ve got to prove 
 that first, haven’t you? How’s the old 
 man ? ” 
 
 “ He is ill ; he is feeble with age ; he is 
 weighed down with misfortune. I am 
 come, Mr. Joseph, to ask your help for 
 him.” 
 
 “ My help for him ? Why, can’t he help 
 himself ? ” 
 
 “ Four or five years ago he incurred a 
 debt for one who forged his name. He 
 needed not to have paid that money, but 
 he saved a man from prison.” 
 
 “Who was that? Who forged his 
 name?” 
 
 “I do not name that man, whose end 
 will be confusion, unless he repent and 
 
 u 
 
 Y 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 67 
 
 make amends. This debt has grown until 
 it is too large for him to pay it. Unless it 
 is paid, his whole property, his very means 
 of living, will be sold by the creditor.” 
 
 “ How can I pay him back % It is three 
 hundred and fifty pounds now,” said 
 Joseph. 
 
 “ Man, thou hast named thyself.” 
 
 Joseph stammered but blustered still 
 “ Well — then — what the devil do you 
 mean — you and your forgery ? ” 
 
 “ Forgery is one crime ; you have since 
 committed, perhaps, others. Think. You 
 have been saved once from prison. Will 
 anyone save you a second time ? How 
 have you shown your gratitude ? Will you 
 now do something for your benefactor 1 ” 
 
 “ What do you mean, I say ? What do 
 you mean with your forgery and prison ? 
 Hang me, if I oughtn’t to kick you out of 
 the room. I would, too, if you were ten 
 years younger. Do you know, sir, that you 
 are addressing an officer and a gentleman ? ” 
 “ There is sometimes, even at the very 
 end, a door opened for repentance. The 
 door is open now. Young man, once more, 
 consider. Your grandfather is old and 
 destitute. Will you help him ? ” 
 
 Joseph hesitated. 
 
 “ I don’t believe he is poor. He has 
 saved up all his money for the girl ; let her 
 help him.” 
 
 “ You are wrong. He has saved nothing. 
 His granddaughter maintains herself by 
 teaching. He has not a penny. You have 
 got from him and you have spent all the 
 money he had.” 
 
 “ He ought to have saved.” 
 
 “ He could, at least, have lived by his 
 calling but for you and for this debt which 
 was incurred for you. He is ruined by it. 
 What will you do for him 1 ” 
 
 “I am not going to do anything for 
 him,” said Joseph. “ Is it likely ? Did he 
 ever have anything but a scowl for me 1 ” 
 
 “ He who injures another is always in 
 the wrong. You will, then, do nothing ? 
 Think. It is the open door. He is your 
 grandfather ; he has kept you from starva- 
 tion when you were turned out of office 
 for drink and dishonesty. I hear that you 
 now have money. I have been told that 
 you have been seen to show a large sum of 
 money. Will you give him some ? ” 
 
 As a matter of fact, Joe had been, the 
 night before, having a festive evening at 
 the Music Hall, from which his wife was 
 absent, owing to temporary indisposition. 
 While there, he took so much Scotch 
 whisky and water that his tongue was 
 
 loosened and he became boastful ; and that 
 to so foolish an extent that he actually 
 brandished in the eyes of the multitude 
 a whole handful of bank-notes. He now 
 remembered this, and was greatly struck 
 by the curious fact that Lala Roy should 
 seem to know it. 
 
 “ I haven’t got any money. It was all 
 brag last night. I couldn’t help my grand- 
 father if I wanted to.” 
 
 “ You have what is left of three hundred 
 pounds,” said Lala Roy. 
 
 “ If I said that last night,” replied Joe, 
 
 “ I must have been drunker than I 
 thought. You old fool ! the flimsies were 
 duffers. Where do you think I could 
 raise three hundred pounds? No, no — 
 I’m sorry for the old man, but I can’t help 
 him. I’m going to sea again in a day or 
 two. We jolly sailors don’t make much 
 money, but if a pound or two, when I 
 come home, will be of any use to him, he’s 
 only got to say the word. After all, I 
 believe it’s a kid, got up between yorn The 
 old man must have saved something.” 
 “You will suffer him, then, even to be 
 taken to the workhouse ? ” 
 
 “ Why, I can’t help it, and I suppose 
 you’ll have to go there too. Ho, ho ! Isay, 
 Nig ! ” He began to laugh. “ Ho, ho 1 
 They won’t let you wear that old fez of 
 yours at the workhouse. How beautiful 
 you’ll look in the workhouse uniform, won’t 
 you ? I’ll come home, and bring you some 
 baccy. Now you can cheese it, old ’un.” 
 
 “ I will go, if that is what you mean. 
 It is the last time that you will be asked 
 to help your grandfather. The door is 
 closed. You have had one more chance, 
 and you have thrown it away.” 
 
 So he departed, and Joe, who was of 
 a self-reliant and sanguine disposition, 
 thought nothing of the warning, which 
 was therefore thrown away and wasted. 
 
 As for Lala, he called a cab, and drove 
 to Shad well. And if any man ever felt 
 that he was an Instrument set apart to 
 carry out a Scheme of Vengeance, that 
 Hindoo Philosopher felt like one. The 
 Count of Monte Christo himself was not 
 more filled with the Faith and Conviction 
 of his Divine obligation. 
 
 In the afternoon he returned to Chelsea, 
 and perhaps one who knew him might 
 have remarked upon his face something like 
 a gleam of satisfaction. He had done his 
 duty. 
 
 It was now five days since the fatal dis- 
 covery. Mr. Emblem still remained up- 
 stairs in his chair; but he was slowly 
 
IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 68 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 recovering. He clearly remembered that 
 he had been robbed, and the principal 
 sign of the shock was his firm conviction 
 that by his own exercise of memory Iris 
 had been enabled to enter into possession 
 of her own. 
 
 As regards the Bill of Sale, he had clean 
 forgotten it. Now, in the morning, there 
 happened a thing which surprised James 
 very much. The Man in Possession was 
 recalled. He went away. So that the 
 money must have been paid. James was 
 so astonished that he ran upstairs to tell 
 Iris. 
 
 “ Then,” said the girl, “ we shall not be 
 turned out after all. But who has paid 
 the money 'l ” 
 
 It could have been no other than Arnold. 
 Yet when, later in the day, he was taxed 
 with having committed the good action, 
 Arnold stoutly denied it. He had not so 
 much money in the world, he said ; in fact, 
 he had no money at all. 
 
 “ The good man,” said the Philosopher, 
 “ has friends of whom he knoweth not. As 
 the river returns its waters to the sea, so 
 the heart rejoiceth in returning benefits 
 received.” 
 
 “ Oh, Lala,” said Iris. “ But on whom 
 have we conferred any benefits 1 ” 
 
 “The moon shines upon all alike,” 
 said Lala, “ and knows not what she 
 illumines.” 
 
 “ Lala Roy,” said Arnold, suddenly 
 getting a gleam of intelligence, “ it is you 
 who have paid this money.” 
 
 “ You, Lala % ” 
 
 “ No one else could have paid it,” said 
 Arnold. 
 
 “ But I thought— I thought——” said 
 Iris. 
 
 “You thought I had no money at all. 
 Children, I have some. One may live 
 without money in Hindostan, but in 
 England even the Philosopher cannot 
 meditate unless he can pay for food and 
 shelter. I have money, Iris, and I have paid 
 the usurer enough to satisfy him. Let us 
 say no more.” 
 
 “ Oh, Lala ! ” The tears came to Iris’s 
 eyes. “ And now we shall go on living as 
 before.” 
 
 “I think not,” he replied. “In the 
 generations of Man, the seasons continue 
 side by side ; but spring does not always 
 continue with winter.” 
 
 “ I know, now,” interrupted Mr. Emblem, 
 suddenly waking into life and recollection ; 
 “ I could not remember at first. Now I 
 know very well, but I cannot tell how, that 
 
 [Conducted by 
 
 the man who stole my papers is my own 
 grandson. James would not steal. James 
 is curious; he wants to read over my 
 shoulders what I am writing. He would 
 pry and find out. But he would not steal. 
 It doesn’t matter much — does it 1 — since I 
 was able to repair the loss — I always had 
 a most excellent memory — and Iris has 
 now received her inheritance ; but it is my 
 grandson Joe who has stolen the papers. 
 My daughter’s son came home from 
 Australia when — but this I learned after- 
 wards — he had already disgraced himself 
 there. He ran into debt, and I paid his 
 debts ; he forged my name and I accepted 
 the Bill ; he took all the money I could let 
 him have, and still he asked for more. 
 There is no one in the world who would 
 rob me of those papers except Joseph.” 
 
 Now, the door was open to the stair- 
 case, and the door of communication 
 between the shop and the house-passage 
 was also open. This seems a detail hardly 
 worth noting ; yet it proved of the greatest 
 importance. From such small trifles follow 
 great events. Observe that as yet no 
 positive proof was in the hands of the two 
 conspirators which would actually connect 
 Iris with Claude Deseret. The proofs were 
 in the stolen papers, and though Clara had 
 those papers, who was to show that these 
 papers were actually those in the sealed 
 packet ? 
 
 When Mr. Emblem finished speaking, no 
 one replied, because Arnold and Lala knew 
 the facts already, but did not wish to 
 spread them abroad ; and next, because to 
 Iris it was nothing new that her cousin 
 was a bad man, and be cause she thought, 
 now that the Man in Possession was gone, 
 they might just as well forget the papers, 
 and go on as if all this fuss had not 
 happened. 
 
 In the silence that followed this speech, 
 they heard the voice of James downstairs, 
 saying : 
 
 “I am sorry to say, sir, that Mr. 
 Emblem is ill upstairs, and you can’t see 
 him to-day.” 
 
 “ 111, is he 1 I am very sorry. Take 
 him my compliments, James. Mr. Frank 
 Farrar’s compliments, and tell him ” . 
 
 And then Mr. Emblem sprang to his 
 feet, crying : 
 
 “ Stop him ! stop him ! Go downstairs, 
 someone, and stop him ! I don’t know 
 where he lives. Stop him ! stop him ! ” 
 
 Arnold rushed down the stairs. He 
 found in the shop an elderly gentleman, 
 carrying a bundle of books. It was, in fact, 
 
 r 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 69 
 
 Mr. Farrar come to negotiate the sale of 
 another work from his library. 
 
 “ I beg your pardon, sir,” said Arnold, 
 
 “ Mr. Emblem is most anxious to see you. 
 Would you step upstairs ? ” 
 
 “Quick, Mr. Farrar — quick,” the old 
 man held him tight by the hand. “ Tell 
 me before my memory ruus away with me 
 again — tell me. Listen, Iris ! Yet it doesn’t 
 
 matter, because you have already 
 
 Tell me ” He seemed about to wander 
 
 again, but he pulled himself together with 
 a great effort. “You knew my son-in-law 
 before his marriage.” 
 
 “Surely, Mr. Emblem; I knew your 
 son-in-law, and his father, and all his 
 people.” 
 
 “ And his name was not Aglen, at all? ” 
 asked Arnold. 
 
 “ No; he took the name of Aglen from a 
 fancied feeling of pride when he quarrelled 
 with his father about — well, it was about his 
 marriage, as you know, Mr. Emblem; he came 
 to London, and tried to make his way by 
 writing, and thought to do it, and either 
 to hide a failure or brighten a success, by 
 using a pseudonym. People were more 
 jealous about their names in those days. 
 He had better,” added the unsuccessful 
 veteran of letters, “he had far better 
 have made his living as a — as a” — he looked 
 about him for a fitting simile — “ as a book- 
 seller.” 
 
 “ Then, sir,” said Arnold, “ what was 
 his real name ? ” 
 
 “ His name was Claude Deseret, of 
 course.” 
 
 “ Iris,” said Arnold, taking her hand, 
 “ this is the last proof. We have known 
 it for four or five days, but we wanted the 
 final proof, and now we have it. My dear, 
 you are the cousin of Clara Holland, 
 and all her fortune, by her grandfather’s 
 will, is yours. This is the secret of the 
 safe. This was what the stolen papers 
 told you.” 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. THE HAND OF FATE. 
 
 At the first stroke of noon next day, 
 Arnold arrived at his cousin’s house in 
 Chester Square. He was accompanied by 
 Iris, by Lala Roy, and by Mr. Frank 
 Farrar. 
 
 “ Pray, Arnold, what is meant by all 
 this mystery ? ” asked Clara, receiving 
 him and his party with considerable 
 surprise. 
 
 “ I will explain all in a few minutes, my 
 dear Clara. Meanwhile, have you done 
 what you promised ? ” 
 
 “Yes. I wrote to Dr. W ashington. He 
 will be here, I expect, in a few minutes.” 
 
 “ You wrote exactly in the form of words 
 you promised me ? ” 
 
 “Yes, exactly. I asked him to meet me 
 here this morning at a quarter past twelve, 
 in order to discuss a few points connected 
 with Iris’s future arrangements, before he 
 left for America, and I wrote on the envelope, 
 ‘Immediate and important.’ ” 
 
 “Very well. He will be sure to come, 
 I think. Perhaps your cousin will insist 
 upon another cheque for fifty pounds being 
 given to him.” 
 
 “ Arnold, you are extremely suspicious 
 and most ungenerous about Dr. Washington, 
 on whose truth and disinterested honesty 
 I thoroughly rely.” 
 
 “We shall see. Meanwhile, Clara, I 
 desire to present to you a young lady of 
 whom we have already spoken. This is 
 Miss Aglen, who is, I need hardy say, deeply 
 anxious to win your good opinion. And 
 this is Lala Roy, an Indian gentleman who 
 knew her father, and has lived in the same 
 house with her for twenty years. Our 
 debt— I shall soon be able to say your debt — 
 of gratitude to this gentleman for his long 
 kindness to Miss Aglen— is one which can 
 never be repaid.” 
 
 Clara gave the most frigid bow to both 
 Iris and Lala Roy. 
 
 “Really, Arnold, you are talking in 
 enigmas this morning. What am I to 
 understand? What has this gentleman 
 to do with my appointment with Dr. 
 Washington ? ” 
 
 “My dear cousin, I am so happy this 
 morning that I wonder I do not talk in 
 conundrums, or rondeaux, or terza rima. 
 It is a mere chance, I assure you. Perhaps 
 I may break out in rhymes presently. This 
 evening we will have fireworks in the 
 square, roast a whole ox, invite the neigh- 
 bours, and dance about a maypole. You 
 shall lead off the dance, Clara.” 
 
 “ Pray go on, Arnold. All this is very 
 inexplicable.” 
 
 “ This gentleman, however, is a very old 
 friend of yours, Clara. Do you not recognise 
 Mr. Frank Farrar, who used to stay at the 
 Hall in the old days ? ” 
 
 “I remember Mr. Farrar very well.” 
 Clara gave him her hand. “But I should 
 not have known him. Why have we never 
 met in society during all these years, 
 Mr. Farrar ? ” 
 
 “ I suppose because I have been out of 
 society, Miss Holland,” said the scholar. 
 “When a man marries, and has a large 
 
70 [November IB, 1884.] IN LUCK AT LAST. [Conducted by 
 
 family, and a small income, and grows old, 
 and has to see the young fellows shoving 
 him out at every point, he doesn’t care 
 much about society. I hope you are well 
 and happy.” 
 
 “Iam very well, and I ought to be happy, 
 because I have recovered Claude’s lost 
 heiress, my cousin, Iris Deseret, and she is 
 the best and most delightful of girls, with 
 the warmest heart and the sweetest in- 
 stincts of a lady by descent and birth.” 
 
 She looked severely at Arnold, who said 
 nothing, but smiled incredulously. 
 
 Mr. Farrar looked from Iris to Miss 
 Holland, bewildered. 
 
 “And why do you come to see me 
 to-day, Mr. Farrar — and with Arnold ? ” 
 
 “ Because I have undertaken to answer 
 one question presently, which Mr. Arbuth- 
 not is to ask me. That is why I am here. 
 Not but what it gives me the greatest 
 pleasure to see you again, Miss Holland, 
 after so many years.” 
 
 “ Our poor Claude died in America, you 
 know, Mr. Farrar.” 
 
 “ So I have recently heard.” 
 
 “And left one daughter.” 
 
 “ That also I have learned.” He looked 
 at Iris. 
 
 “ She is with me, here in this house, and 
 has been with me for a week. You 
 may understand, Mr. Farrar, the happi- 
 ness I feel in having with me Claude’s only 
 daughter.” 
 
 Mr. Farrar looked from her to Arnold 
 with increasing amazement. But he said 
 nothing. 
 
 “ I have appointed this morning, at 
 Arnold’s request,” Clara went on, “to have 
 an interview, perhaps the last, with the 
 gentleman who brought my dear Iris from 
 America. I say, at Arnold’s request, 
 because he asked me to do this, and I 
 have always trusted him implicitly, and I 
 hope he is not going to bring trouble upon 
 us now, although I do not, I confess, un- 
 derstand the presence of his friends or 
 their connection with my cousin.” 
 
 “My dear Clara,” said Arnold again, 
 “I ask for nothing but patience. And that 
 only for a few moments. As for the 
 papers, you have them all in your posses- 
 sion 1 ” 
 
 Yes ; they are locked up in my strong 
 box.” 
 
 “Do not, on any account, give them to 
 anybody. However, after this morning 
 you will not be asked. Have you taken 
 
 • “Not yet. : 
 
 “ Thank goodness ! And now, Clara, I 
 will ask you, as soon as Dr. Washington 
 and — your cousin — are in the drawing- 
 room, to ring the bell. You need not 
 explain why. We will answer the summons, 
 and we will give all the explanations that 
 may be required.” 
 
 “I will not have my cousin vexed, 
 Arnold.” 
 
 “You shall not. Your cousin shall 
 never be vexed by me as long as I live.” 
 
 “And Dr. Washington must not be in 
 any way offended. Consider the feelings 
 of an American gentleman, Arnold. He 
 is my guest.” 
 
 “You may thoroughly rely upon my 
 consideration for the feelings of an 
 American gentleman. Go ; there is a 
 knock at the door. Go to receive him, 
 and, when both are in the room, ring the 
 bell.” 
 
 Joe was in excellent spirits that morning. 
 His interview with Lai a Boy convinced 
 him that nothing whatever was known of 
 the papers, therefore nothing could be 
 suspected. What a fool, he thought, must 
 be his, grandfather, to have had these 
 papers in his hands for eighteen years 
 and never to have opened the packet, in 
 obedience to the injunction of a dead man ! 
 Had it been his own case, he would have 
 opened the papers without the least delay, 
 mastered the contents, and instantly 
 claimed the property. He would have 
 gone on to use it for his own purposes and 
 private gain, and with an uninterrupted 
 run of eighteen years, he would most 
 certainly have made a very pretty thing 
 out of it. 
 
 However, everything works well for him 
 who greatly dares. His wife would manage 
 for him better than he could do it for 
 himself. Yet a few weeks, and the great 
 fortune would fall into his hands. He 
 walked all the way to Chester Square, 
 considering how he should spend the 
 money. There are some forms of foolish- 
 ness, such as, say, those connected with 
 art, literature, charity, and work for others, 
 which attract some rich men, but which he 
 was not at all tempted to commit. There 
 were others, however, connected with 
 horses, races, betting, and gambling, which 
 tempted him strongly. In fact, Joseph 
 contemplated spending this money wholly 
 on his own pleasures. Probably it would 
 be a part of his pleasure to toss a few 
 crumbs to his wife. 
 
 It is sad to record that Lotty, finding 
 
Charles Dickens.] 
 
 fln 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. [November 13, 1884.] 71 
 
 herself received with so much enthusiasm, 
 had already begun to fall off in her 
 behaviour. Even Clara, who thought she 
 discovered every hour some new point of 
 resemblance in the girl to her father, was 
 fain to admit that the “ Americanisms ” 
 were much too pronounced for general 
 society. 
 
 Her laugh was louder and more frequent; 
 her jests were rough and common ; she 
 used slang words freely ; her gestures were 
 extravagant, and she walked in the streets 
 as if she wished everyone to notice her. It 
 is the walk of the Music Hall stage, and 
 the trick of it consists chiefly in giving, so 
 to speak, prominence to the shoulders 
 and oscillation to the skirts. In fact, 
 she was one of those ladies who ardently 
 desire that all the world should notice 
 them. 
 
 Further, in her conversation, she showed 
 an acquaintance with certain phases of the 
 English lower life which was astonishing 
 in an American girl. But Clara had no 
 suspicion — none whatever. 
 
 One thing the girl did which pleased her 
 mightily. 
 
 She was never tired of hearing about her 
 father, and his way of looking, standing, 
 walking, folding his hands, and holding 
 himself. And constantly more and more 
 Clara detected these little tricks in his 
 daughter. Perhaps she learned them. 
 
 “ My dear,” she said, “ to think that I 
 ever thought yoh unlike your dear father ! ” 
 
 So that it made her extremely uncom- 
 fortable to detect a certain reserve in 
 Arnold towards the girl, and then a dis- 
 like of Arnold in the girl herself. How- 
 ever, she was accustomed to act by Arnold’s 
 advice, and consented, when he asked her, 
 to arrange so that Arnold might meet Dr. 
 Washington. As if anything that so much 
 as looked like suspicion could be thought 
 of for a moment ! 
 
 But the bell rang, and Arnold, followed 
 by his party, led the way from the morn- 
 ing-room to the drawing-room. Dr. Joseph 
 Washington was standing with his back to 
 the door. The girl was dressed as if she 
 had just come from a walk, and was holding 
 Clara’s hand. 
 
 “ Yes, madam,” he was saying softly, “ I 
 return to-morrow to America, and my wife 
 and my children. I leave our dear girl in 
 the greatest confidence in your hands. I 
 only venture to advise that, to avoid 
 lawyers’ expenses, you should simply in- 
 struct somebody — tha right person — to 
 transfer the property from your name to 
 
 the name of Iris. Then you will be saved 
 troubles and formalities of every kind. As 
 
 for me, my home is in America ” 
 
 “No, Joseph,” said Lala Boy gently; 
 “it is in Shad well.” 
 
 “ It is a lie ! ” he cried, starting ; “ it is 
 an infernal lie ! ” 
 
 “Iris,” said Arnold, “lift your veil, my 
 dear. Mr. Farrar, who is this young lady? 
 Look upon this face, Clara.” 
 
 “ This is the daughter of Claude 
 Deseret,” said Mr. Farrar, “ if she is the 
 daughter of the man who married Alice 
 Emblem, and went by the name of Aglen.” 
 Clara turned a terrified face to Arnold. 
 
 “ Arnold, help me ! ” 
 
 “ Whose face is this 1 ” he repeated. 
 
 “ It is — Good Heavens ! — it is the face of 
 your portrait. It is Claude’s face again. 
 
 They are his very eyes ” She covered 
 
 her face with her hands. “ Oh, Arnold, 
 what is it ! Who is this other ? ” 
 
 “ This other lady, Clara, is a Music Hall 
 Singer, who calls herself Carlotta Claridane, 
 wife of this man, who is not an American 
 at all, but the grandson of Mr. Emblem, 
 the bookseller, and therefore cousin of 
 Iris. It is he who robbed his grandfather 
 of the papers which you have in your 
 possession, Clara. And this is an audacious 
 conspiracy, which we have been so fortunate 
 as to unearth and detect, step by'step.” 
 
 “ Oh, can such wickedness be ? ” said 
 Clara ; “ and in my house, too 1 ” . 
 
 “Joe,” said Lotty, “the game is up. I 
 knew it wouldn’t last.” 
 
 “Let them prove it,” said Joe; “let 
 them prove it. I defy you to prove it.”. 
 
 “Don’t be a fool, Joe,” said his wife. 
 “ Kemember,” she whispered, “ you’ve got a 
 pocketful of money. Let us go peaceably.” 
 “As for you, Nigger,” said Joe, “I’ll 
 break every bone in your body.” 
 
 “Not here,” said Arnold ; “ there will 
 be no breaking of bones in this house.” 
 Lotty began to laugh. 
 
 “ The gentle blood always shows itself, 
 doesn’t it ? ” she said. “ I’ve got the real 
 instincts of a lady, haven’t I ? Oh, it was 
 beautiful while it lasted. And every day 
 more and more like my father.” 
 
 “ Arnold,” cried poor Clara, crushed, 
 “ help me ! ” 
 
 “ Come,” said Arnold, “ you had better 
 go at once.” 
 
 “I won’t laugh at you,” said Lotty. 
 “It’s a shame, and you’re a good old 
 thing. But it did me good, it really did, 
 to hear all about the gentle blood. Come, 
 Joe. Let us go away quietly.” 
 
72 
 
 IN LUCK AT LAST. 
 
 [November 13, 1884.] 
 
 She took her husband’s arm. Joe was 
 standing sullen and desperate. Mr. 
 Chalker was right. It wanted very little 
 more to make him fall upon the whole 
 party, and go off with a fight. 
 
 “ Young woman,” said Lala Roy, “ you 
 had better not go outside the house with 
 the man. It will be well for you to wait 
 until he has gone.” 
 
 “ Why ? He is my husband, whatever 
 we have done, and I’m not ashamed of 
 him.” 
 
 “Is he your husband? Ask him what 
 I meant when I said his home was at 
 Shadwell.” 
 
 “ Come, Lotty,” said Joe, with a curious 
 change of manner. “ Let us go at once.” 
 
 “ Wait,” Lala repeated. “ Wait, young 
 woman, let him go first. Pray— pray let 
 him go first.” 
 
 “ Why should I wait ? I go with my 
 husband.” 
 
 “I thought to save you from shame. 
 But if you will go with him, ask him again 
 why his home is at Shadwell, and why he 
 left his wife.” 
 
 Lotty sprang upon her husband, and 
 caught his wrists with both hands. 
 
 “ Joe, what does he mean ? Tell me he 
 is a liar.” 
 
 “ That would be useless,” said Lala Roy. 
 “Because a very few minutes will prove 
 the contrary. Better, however, that he 
 should go to prison for marrying two 
 wives than for robbing his grandfather’s 
 safe.” 
 
 “It’s a lie!” Joe repeated, looking as 
 dangerous as a wild boar brought to bay. 
 
 “There was a Joseph Gallop, formerly 
 assistant purser in the service of the 
 Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation 
 Company,” continued the Man of Fate, 
 “who married, nine months ago, a certain 
 widow at Shadwell. He was turned out 
 of the service, and he married her because 
 she had a prosperous lodging-house.” 
 
 “ Oh— h ! ” cried Lotty. “ You villain ! 
 You thought to live upon my earnings, 
 did you ? You put me up to pretend to 
 be somebody else. Miss Holland 
 
 she fell upon her knees, literally and 
 simply, and without any theatrical pretence 
 at all — “ forgive me ! I am properly 
 punished. Oh, he is made of lies ! He 
 told me that the real Iris was dead and 
 buried, and he was the rightful heir ; and 
 as for you” — she sprang to her feet and 
 turned upon her husband — “I know it 
 is true. I know it is true — I can see it 
 within your guilty eyes.” 
 
 “If you have any doubt,” said Lala, 
 “here is a copy of the marriage-certifi- 
 cate.” 
 
 She took it, read it, and put it in her 
 pocket. Then she went out of the room 
 without another word, but with rage and 
 revenge in her eyes. 
 
 Joseph followed her, saying no more. 
 He had lost more than he thought to 
 lose. But there was still time to escape, 
 and he had most of the money in his 
 pocket. 
 
 But another surprise awaited him. 
 
 The lady from Shadwell, in fact, was 
 waiting for him outside the door. With 
 her were a few Shadwell friends, of the 
 seafaring profession, come to see fair play. 
 It w,as a disgraceful episode in the history 
 of Chester Square. After five minutes or 
 so, during which no welsher on a race- 
 course was ever more hardly used, two 
 policemen interfered to rescue the man of 
 two wives, and there was a procession all 
 the way to the police-court, where, after 
 several charges of assault had been pre- 
 ferred and proved against half-a-dozen 
 mariners, Joseph was himself charged with 
 bigamy, both wives giving evidence, and 
 committed for trial. 
 
 His old friend, Mr. David Chalker, 
 one is sorry to add, refused to give bail, 
 so that he remained in custody, and 
 will now endure hardness for a somewhat 
 lengthened period. 
 
 “Clara,” said Arnold, “Iris will stay 
 with you, if you ask her. We shall not 
 marry, my dear, without your permission. 
 I have promised that already, have I 
 not?” 
 
 The Bight of Translating any 'portion of“ In Luck at Last” is reserved by the Author. 
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 Just Commenced in ALL THE YEAR ROUND a New Serial Story, 
 
 “LADY LOVELACE,” 
 
 By the Author op “Judith Wynne,” etc., etc. 
 
 Published at the Office, 26. Wellington Street, Strand. Printed by Charles Dickens & Evans, 24, Great New Street, E.C