ARDING 
 
 Money-Spinner 
 
 — ^
 
 L I E) RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UN IVLRSITY 
 
 Of ILLINOIS
 
 Return this book on or before the 
 Latest Date stamped below. 
 
 University of Illinois Library 
 
 L161 — H41
 
 HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNER,
 
 HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNER. 
 
 BY 
 
 MILES GERALD KEON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " DION AND THE SIBYLS." 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, 
 
 NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1879. 
 
 (.AW rights reserved.)
 
 PRINTED AT THE CAXTON PRESS, BECCLES.
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The late Miles Gerald Keon was descended 
 from an ancient Irish family. He was born 
 in 1821, in Tipperary, near the Shannon, in 
 a castle belonging to his father ; the marble 
 used in the construction of which, being 
 taken from quarries in the neighbourhood, 
 was said to have "finished both the building 
 and the builder," so that the castle is to this 
 day called " Keon's Folly." His father died 
 when the boy was three years old, his mother 
 only surviving his father one twelvemonth. 
 Thus at the tender age of four years he was 
 left an orphan, with one little sister, younger
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 than himself, to cheer him in facing the 
 world. 
 
 After the death of their mother, the little 
 orphans were taken from home to Temora, 
 the residence of their grandmother, the 
 Countess Magawly. Here the two children 
 were both lovingly cared for and protected 
 by that most excellent lady, until she herself 
 died, leaving them to the care of her only 
 son, the Count Magawly,''' at that time 
 Prime Minister to Napoleon's widow, Marie 
 Louise, who had come from Parma to attend 
 the funeral of his revered mother. The 
 Count very soon discovered in his little 
 nephew marvellous intelligence, and an un- 
 usual appreciation, for so young a child, of 
 all he then told him about the history of 
 different places and countries. He spoke to 
 him as one " qui a la puissance d'entendre, 
 et de comprendre ; " and he was determined 
 
 * See Burke's Peerage, under the head of 
 " Magawly " among " Foreign Noblemen."
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 that, whatever happened, the boy should 
 have a first-class education. Accordingly 
 he made up his mind at once to send him 
 to the famous College of Stonyhurst, where, 
 during a period of eight or nine years, Miles 
 Keon's youthful and vigorous intellect had 
 full scope to develop itself, under the guid- 
 ance and cultivation of those far-famed im- 
 parters of learning, the Jesuit Fathers. 
 
 During his education at the College he 
 gained several high honours, and formed one 
 or two lasting friendships. 
 
 About four years after leaving the College 
 he came from Keonbrook to I^ondon, to 
 study for the Bar ; but after having " eaten 
 his term " at Gray's Inn, he acquired a dis- 
 taste for the profession, and beiDg persuaded 
 by his friend Sidney Smythe (the late Lord 
 Strangford) to devote himself to literature, 
 he soon became a well-known man of letters, 
 and one of the leaders of the Young England 
 Conservative party. He was only twenty-
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 three years of age wlien lie began his literary- 
 career in London, with all its toils and 
 disappointments, its occasional triumphs, 
 and its long waitings. He was alone in the 
 great Babylon, fighting up-hill against con- 
 siderable odds — for he was an Irishman and 
 a Catholic. Our great English author, the 
 late Lord Lytton — always generous in en- 
 couraging hterary talent — became happily 
 his friend. On discovering who was the 
 writer of certain leading articles in the 
 Morning Post, Lord Lytton wrote to him, 
 expressing his admiration, and at the same 
 time inviting him to stay with him at his 
 country seat at Knebworth, to meet some 
 literary and scientific celebrities. Thus 
 commenced the intimacy and friendship 
 of the two men — the one, the great, ac- 
 knowledged, and everywhere famous English 
 novelist, poet, dramatist and orator ; and 
 the other, the then unknown, young aspirant 
 to fame, but who was afterwards acknow-
 
 PEEFACE. IX 
 
 1 edged not only in England, but in France, 
 Italy, India, America, and other countries 
 where he sojourned, as a distinguished 
 writer, poet, and orator. In 1856 Mr. 
 Keon was honoured by being made a 
 member of the Literary and Scientific Insti- 
 tution of Abbeville (Societe Imperiale 
 dJ Emulation) by the late president of that 
 society. Monsieur J. Boucher de Perthes, a 
 well-known French author and geologist. 
 
 The author of " Harding the Money-spin- 
 ner" might very possibly have never at- 
 tempted to write a novel — for at the time 
 when he did so he was engaged in literary 
 studies of a much higher and more import- 
 ant description — had it not been for a cir- 
 cumstance which it may be as well briefly 
 here to mention, seeing that it paved the 
 way for the young author and journalist to 
 a practically useful introduction. 
 
 One foggy morning in November, as he 
 was conversing with Lord Lytton in the
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 study of his house in Park Lane, a gentleman 
 was ushered into their presence, his card 
 having been first sent in. This gentleman was 
 Mr. Stiff, the late proprietor of the London 
 Journal ; who was calling for the purpose of 
 petitioning Lord Lytton to write a novel for 
 his journal, on the celebrated novelist's own 
 terms. This request was at once politely de- 
 clined. But after some little talk on general 
 subjects with this gentleman, Lord Lytton, 
 upon the spur of the moment, and waving 
 his hand towards Mr. Keon, while he ad- 
 dressed himself to Mr. Stiff, said kindly, 
 " Let me introduce my friend here ; he is 
 just the man who will do in my stead, 
 and he perhaps will accept your proposal, 
 provided you can make terms amicably 
 between you." Mr. Stiff gladly availed him- 
 self of the great author's recommendation, 
 and immediately fixed a day to talk the 
 matter over at his office. There liberal terms 
 were proposed and accepted for the under-
 
 PREFACE. XI 
 
 taking of the following novel. It is now 
 for the first time published in book form. 
 
 Mr. Keon was perhaps better known, how- 
 ever, as the author of "Dion and the Sibyls/' 
 a classical novel of the time of Tiberius, 
 singularly accurate in its details and local 
 colouring, and revealing abilities of a very 
 high order. Mr. Keon died at Bermuda, in 
 1875, deeply regretted by all who knew 
 him.
 
 HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNER. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 " Hear now further : 
 After the feast, when now the vap'ring wine 
 Opens the heart and shuts the eyes." 
 
 Schiller's Piccolomini. 
 
 It was a beautiful summer evening in an 
 English June, ere the glare and sultriness 
 of the day had yet sensibly abated, when 
 two youths of good quality — some eighteen, 
 apparently, or nineteen years of age — de- 
 scended from a postchaise at the door of the 
 Frederick and Pigtail, the principal inn of 
 Huntingferry, one of the prettiest towns in 
 Warwickshire, or, indeed, in all England. 
 
 1
 
 2 HARDING 
 
 The horses had evidently made a long 
 stage. The road by which the travellers 
 had entered the town was not — out of five 
 which traversed it in different directions — 
 the one leading from the races, some twelve 
 miles distant ; a scene to which railway, 
 saddle horse, and carriage of all public or 
 private kinds and styles, had conveyed thou- 
 sands from every part of the country since 
 early morning, and whence no straggler had 
 hitherto returned to this neighbourhood. A 
 stillness unusual even in that tranquil place 
 made the clang of the chaise door a start- 
 ling sound, as the travellers, having quitted 
 it, looked round them, and stood for a 
 moment under the fretwork shade of the 
 two trees which supported the inn porch on 
 either hand. Athirst, ran on before it the 
 dusty road, which would not accept a change 
 of dress, nor take, even for a moment, the 
 customary costume of paving stones, which 
 such roads wear as they pass, in deference
 
 THE MOJS'EY-SPINNER. o 
 
 to large towns ; parched, yet eager and un- 
 beguiled, it rushed forward between the low 
 brick parapets of the bow-like bridge, and 
 climbed, under the blazing light, the long- 
 backed hill beyond. 
 
 Little thought they how that road would 
 make their hearts beat, ere many hours had 
 passed ! 
 
 This road was pleasanter to gaze on than 
 to travel on, and grateful now felt the cool 
 inn-porch, beneath the bloomy luxuriance 
 of the ringleted eglantine ! pleasant even 
 the shady old-fashioned archway by its 
 side ; and the slow, lazy, irregular echo of 
 the jolting chaise, which — its purpose ful- 
 filled, its freight discharged — was rumbling 
 with a hollow sound into the yard behind. 
 But pleasanter than all, the voice of the 
 innkeeper, as he came out to welcome his 
 new guests. 
 
 He appeared in his shirt sleeves, and a 
 sudden alacrity which shone in his face
 
 4 HARDING 
 
 seemed to exhale itself upon everything 
 around him. The " chame maid's" bell, as 
 it vociferously jangled within, was almost 
 articulate, and the very bill which he waved 
 in his left hand was alive with gfreetinors. 
 
 "Why, it's Mr. Geoffrey Mandeville, as 
 I'm a living sinner ! Well, I'm sure, sir, 
 you be main welcome ! Left Eton, Mr. 
 Geoffrey, for good ? I heard they was ex- 
 pecting of you at the Park. Well, but 
 how you be shot up, sir ! You'll have your 
 father. Sir Walter Mandeville's inches, every 
 one on 'em. This way, Mr. Geoffrey — this 
 ^^^J> gentlemen, if you please. You would 
 like to wash your hands before dining ? " 
 
 " Thank you, Parker, thank you ; but I 
 don't think we can stay to dine. We want 
 you to give us horses on. As to the horses 
 that brought us here, besides that they are 
 pretty well exhausted, we could not pro- 
 cure them except on condition that we took 
 them no further than Huntingferry, and
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEE. 5 
 
 that they returned to Basingcote this even- 
 ing, to be ready for something early to- 
 morrow. In fact, they were already ordered, 
 and engaged for the morning, when we took 
 them. You must find us another pair, for 
 we are expected to dinner at my father's." 
 
 " At the Park, sir ? WeU, Mr. Geoffrey, 
 it's most unfortunate ; but this 'ere week — 
 the races, you know, sir, being on — we've 
 been a most done out for 'osses ; and. there 
 isn't a 'oss in the stables at this present 
 moment, except the two you and this gentle- 
 man — (here the landlord made a short and 
 parenthetic, but respectful, obeisance to the 
 companion of the youth whom he was ad- 
 dressing) — excepting them two 'osses, sir, 
 there ain't one left in the stables at this 
 moment ; not to call a 'oss ; that is, not to 
 put to a fly. I'm sure the number of flys 
 I've sent off in various directions this last 
 week is something beyond belief; all along 
 of the races. There ain't an hour of the day
 
 b HARDING 
 
 or niglit that it ain't a fly here, or a fly there, 
 or a fly the other place ; till I ain't got a fly 
 left, leastways a 'oss. I could, mayhap, make 
 out a pair this evening, Mr. Geofirey, for 
 Fm expecting the old grey back from a 
 short job to Squire Harrington's, at the 
 Grange ; and there's the bay will be fresh- 
 ened up a bit. But he ain't got a leg just 
 now." 
 
 " Not got a leg ? " 
 
 "Not to stand on, Mr. Geofirey, you 
 know. The poor creatures be uncommon 
 worked, certainly. I'm truly sorry if so be 
 as your honoured father. Sir Walter, and 
 my lady, was expecting you and this 
 gentleman — (another short bow, accom- 
 panied by a scrutinising glance) — to dinner. 
 But it'll be a pleasanter drive by a deal 
 when the 'eat gets lowered a bit, and when 
 you and this gentleman 'ave 'ad as good a 
 dinner as my 'ouse can afibrd. The larder 
 is worth a trial to-day, of all days that ever
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 7 
 
 came, I promise you. I have a choice bit 
 of " 
 
 " Well, Cuthbert, what say you ? Sup- 
 pose we stay to dine," said Geoffrey to his 
 companion. '* I dare say honest Parker 
 will, somehow or other, make us out a good 
 pair of horses in the evening. We shall 
 have a much pleasanter drive, as he truly 
 says — and I should like to show you Mande- 
 ville Park, and the old house for the first 
 time, by such a glorious moonlight as we 
 are likely to enjoy after this magnificent 
 day." 
 
 " With great pleasure," replied the second 
 youth ; " and, to speak plainly, I was loth 
 to go on until we had got news how to-day's 
 races had resulted. You know, I have my 
 betting book to square up." 
 
 "Well, gentlemen," said Parker, "I 
 think you do wisely ; and you shall have a 
 dinner, I'll warrant you. Here, Thomas, 
 take the gentlemen's things. Sorry it
 
 o HARDING 
 
 should be so. If I 'ad 'ave only knowed you 
 was agoing to come, the fly shouldn't a 
 went to the Grange. This way, sir. You 
 remember the conservatory room, sir, over- 
 looking the brook ? That's the room Sir 
 Walter likes, Mr. Geofirey, when he comes 
 this way. And it is quite a claret day, I 
 am sure. A bottle of good claret and a 
 good cigar, after a good dinner, in the con- 
 servatory balcony over the brook, with a 
 sight across country, sir, such as there ain't 
 nowhere else in the whole county, just 
 taking in the woods of Mandeville Park on 
 the ridge of the farthest hill ! Ah ! sir, 
 perhaps it's as well I ain't got no 'osses in 
 the stable just at this moment — leastways, 
 none to put to a fly, except it was a fly 
 over a six-barred gate." 
 
 The other youth, whom Geofirey Mande- 
 ville had called Cuthbert, and who had been 
 gazing abstractedly into the sea of dazzle 
 that lay outside the cool and cavernous 
 porch, here looked round.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 9 
 
 " Oh, you have saddle horses, then, 
 though not draught, in your stables ? " he 
 said, glancing at Parker. 
 
 "I've one, sir ; but he ain't mine, I'm 
 sorry to say ; and if he was, sir," added 
 Parker, " you two gentlemen couldn't both 
 ride him at once, like the picture in my 
 little parlour of the two knights belonging 
 to the Temple family ; so it was no use for 
 to name him — not," added mine host, turn- 
 ing briskly towards the two youths — ''not 
 but what he's a rare 'un! Here am I now 
 twenty-seven years, come Michaelmas, in 
 the Frederick and Pigtail, and I think such 
 a 'oss never stood in stall of mine afore — 
 'tis a sporting county, too : none more so ! " 
 
 " How, such a horse ? " said Geoffrey. 
 " So fine ? " 
 
 " So fine, sir, and so ongovernable like. 
 I think he's only half broken or something." 
 
 " Who is his master, Parker ? " asked 
 Geofirey, with interest.
 
 10 HARDING 
 
 But there was more interest still in the 
 look of his companion, who silently awaited 
 the innkeeper's reply to this query. 
 
 "Well," said Parker, "if you 11 step 
 round after dinner into the yard, when the 
 gentleman's groom returns (he has locked 
 the stable and got the key with him), he'll 
 both show you the hanimal, and tell you 
 whose hanimal he's to be. He was Mr. 
 Childering's, that lives at the other side of 
 the county. But the groom tells me he is 
 sold to some rich London gentleman, a Mr. 
 — Mr. — I forget liis name, but I know 
 there's a worth in it. Something worthJ^ 
 
 " Why, he's worth something, you say ! " 
 
 The landlord was in the midst of a dutiful 
 burst of laughter, when he suddenly ceased, 
 with his mouth open, as Cuthbert said — 
 
 " Poor wit, Geoffrey, poor wit. There is 
 not any worth in that, at all events. But 
 you were telling us, landlord ? " 
 
 *' Well, sir, I forgot the London gentle-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 11 
 
 man's name. He possessed a lot of railway 
 property. But I seed him once. Ah ! sir, 
 a railway's one thing and a 'oss is another ; 
 and if he's wise, he'll never go for to mount 
 that 'ere hanimal without making his will 
 first. I expect the gentleman what was the 
 former master this evening, from the races." 
 
 '' You have not heard which horse has 
 won ? " asked Cuthbert. 
 
 ** No, sir. It's too early yet to know that 
 in Huntingferry." 
 
 " Very well," observed Geoffrey ; " then 
 you go and see what we can have for dinner 
 by-and-by, say at half-past six ; we will 
 stroll out and amuse ourselves in the mean- 
 time. But, first, let us wash our hands." 
 
 " ni see to it at once, sir. Here, Alice ! " 
 
 The chambermaid, who, during this short 
 conversation, had stood a little behind the 
 master of the house, asked the young gentle- 
 men to follow her, and tripped lightly up- 
 stairs, to show them a room for the purpose
 
 12 HARDING 
 
 which Geoffrey had mentioned. Cuthbert, 
 who was restless to learn the issue of the 
 races, had soon finished ; he urged his friend 
 to make haste, and they were presently in 
 the main street of the little town. No 
 decisive intelligence had yet arrived, al- 
 though certain flying rumours, like those 
 which shook the soul of Brussels on that 
 wet and gloomy Sunday in 1815, had suf- 
 ficed to coUect a few groups on the shady 
 side of the otherwise deserted street. But 
 their talk was languid, and the excitement 
 feeble, like the last outside ripple of the 
 water when the plunge of a stone sends the 
 receding circles to trace themselves further 
 and further from the spot into which it is 
 cast. It was easy to see that these groups, 
 left behind out of a whole population, had 
 caught up a sort of secondary interest in 
 the races. As Geoffrey and Cuthbert passed, 
 they opened out and saluted the former, 
 whose name had transpired from the inn.
 
 THE MOKE Y- SPINNER. 13 
 
 Halting at one of these greetings, tlie two 
 young men learned that the group knew 
 nothing, but that Mr. Owen, the saddler, 
 across the bridge, always obtained the first 
 news of the event. They proceeded thither 
 at once ; the personage whom they sought 
 was, however, still ignorant of the result. 
 They then determined to call upon him 
 again after dining, and having looked at 
 everything which seemed at all remarkable 
 in the little town, they returned to the 
 inn. 
 
 They had dined, and were sipping the 
 claret of which their host had predicted 
 their approbation. 
 
 ''Well, then," said Geoffrey Mandeville, 
 in continuation of some persuasions which 
 he had been addressing to his friend, " we 
 may consider that matter settled. You will 
 sleep this night, at least, under my father's 
 roof; and, if nothing can induce you to 
 delay your return home, I'll drive you over
 
 14 HARDING 
 
 myself to-morrow to — to — what is the name 
 of the place where you live ? You know 
 it is only ten miles beyond Mandeville 
 Park." 
 
 "Lea Meadows," replied Cuthbert, redden- 
 ing. "It is not so well known as Mande- 
 ville Park, nor are we Har dings so well 
 known as the Mandevilles, who came over 
 with the Conqueror, and, according to an 
 old English report, found us here when they 
 came. You have often spoken of your 
 family." 
 
 He paused a moment, pressing and almost 
 puckering his lips together, as was his wont 
 when silent. A sort of frown contracted a 
 forehead singularly massive and pallid, 
 while his nostrils were dilated with a motion 
 peculiar to a certain class of countenance. 
 
 " In fact," he added, " I am not sure, 
 though very thankful to you that — that — " 
 
 " That what ? " 
 
 " That we are at Eton no longer. There
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 15 
 
 — one's own pluck and one's own abilities — 
 in short, we were then simply Geoffrey Man- 
 deville and Cuthbert Harding." 
 
 " And what are we now, I should like to 
 know ? Fm sure Fm Geoffrey still. Why 
 shouldn't you be the same Cuthbert ? Non- 
 sense, my dear fellow ! You don't know 
 my father ; he'll like you — so will they 
 all." 
 
 A vivid glance shot from the dark grey 
 eyes of Cuthbert. 
 
 " You see, it is become a case of Mande- 
 ville Park and Lea Meadows. But I'm very 
 stupid, and I know you are most kind — that 
 is why you insist on this plan of yours. 
 But how do I know that Sir Walter and 
 Lady Mandeville — what, if — I remember the 
 case of that poor, broken-spirited Tom Fal- 
 coner, who went with an Eton friend, being 
 otherwise uninvited, to pass last Christmas 
 at Hazlebury. But Fm infernally boorish 
 to requite your heartiness in this manner.
 
 16 HARDING 
 
 I'll come, and there's an end of it. After 
 all, Mandeville Park is on mj way." 
 
 " Of course you'll come, and there's an 
 end of it, as you say. And now I suppose 
 that Parker will have discovered the horses 
 for us." 
 
 And Geoffrey rang the bell. The landlord 
 answered it himself ; but there was a rueful 
 look on his countenance as he entered, and, 
 with many apologies, he explained that he 
 found himself unable to accommodate them 
 according to his wishes and intentions. He 
 had but one horse after all, and that one 
 scarcely able to stir. He had sent all over 
 the neighbourhood to beg, borrow, or hire 
 another. Such a thing hadn't happened to 
 him for the twenty -seven years he was in 
 the Frederick and Pigtail, and to think that 
 the first sufferer should be the son of Sir 
 Walter Mandeville, the son of his earliest 
 and best patron ! It was, he repeated, all 
 along of the races ; although that wouldn't
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 17 
 
 have caused it, only that everything fell out 
 crosslike just at that very moment. Doubt- 
 less, a little further on in the evening, he 
 might manage. He would suggest to Mr. 
 Geoffrey and his friend another bottle of 
 claret in the meantime. This they declined ; 
 and Geoffrey asked for the bill, which he 
 settled, telling the landlord forthwith to 
 order the one-horse fly round. 
 
 " Put our things upon it, and let it pro- 
 ceed at once along the road to the Park," 
 added Geoffrey. " Come, Cuthbert, we may 
 as well stroll on at once. The chaise will 
 overtake us." 
 
 The host withdrew to give orders accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 We have noted the preceding circum- 
 stances carefully, slowly, and somewhat 
 minutely, because, notwithstanding their 
 apparent triviality, it will be found that 
 they exercised a painfully important bearing 
 on the events which rapidly followed. 
 
 2
 
 18 HARDING 
 
 As Geoffrey, putting on his hat, was about 
 to leave the room, Cuthbert took out his 
 purse. 
 
 " You have paid all," he said, " half is my 
 debt — we are still merely travelling." 
 
 " Pooh ! nonsense, Cuthbert ; you know 
 I'm much richer than you — you'll offend me." 
 
 The pale face of the boy to whom this 
 rudely kind speech was addressed, became 
 suddenly flushed ; his mouth, which was 
 handsome, but thin lipped, writhed ; but 
 the expression quickly passed into a smile, 
 which seemed to correct or contradict the 
 hasty gleam from the dark giej eyes, and 
 the momentary contraction of the massive 
 brows. Geoffrey observed nothing of this. 
 
 " As you please," said Cuthbert ; " but, 
 talking of money, we have both of us some- 
 thing on to-day's races, some bets together, 
 and some bets with others. It must be 
 known by this time which horse has won the 
 last running."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEE. 19 
 
 Thus talking, they had descended the 
 stairs, and exchanging greetings with the 
 landlord, who awaited them in the low 
 ceilinged, antler-hung hall, and who enfiladed 
 them with a raking fire of Eastern salaams 
 rather than English bows, they sallied forth 
 upon their walk — the one-horse fly to over- 
 take them, as ordered. 
 
 They found, first query, that, an outsider 
 having won, and Geoffrey having backed the 
 favourite, he had lost a few pounds. Cuth- 
 bert remarked, after glancing at some 
 memoranda, that he was very considerably 
 a winner. 
 
 " In fact," added he, "I could not well 
 have lost ; there were only two combinations 
 out of thirty-five against me ; I stood to 
 gain at least twelve pounds in any other 
 case. But, at Eton, it was impossible to 
 command a sufficiently large breadth of 
 betting." 
 
 " How stood to win in any case ? " de-
 
 20 HARDING 
 
 manded Geoffrey. *' Of course you just 
 stood your chance, like others." 
 
 " No, there was no chance in the matter, 
 except the chance of fellows not paying. I 
 heard, long ago, that to make a book was 
 simply a problem of downright calculation, 
 and I soon saw how " 
 
 "Well, /don't see it yet." 
 
 " I dare say not," replied Cuthbert, 
 quietly ; " but, though I'm not rich, you 
 know I have, in my turn, a sort of pull over 
 
 you." 
 
 " You mean that I'm not clever," said 
 Geoffrey, with a highly offended air : "I 
 know that very well." 
 
 "No, no, no," answered Cuthbert, after a 
 glance keen and rapid. " I don't mean any 
 such thing. I meant that you seldom take 
 any trouble ; and you don't need it as I do. 
 Difficult things and troublesome things are 
 not the same in themselves, although they 
 are, perhaps, pretty much the same in the
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 21 
 
 upshot, if — but it is of little consequence. 
 There's not much to win or lose on mere 
 horses ; at least, 'tis a life in itself, and such 
 a life were scarce worth — Fm sure I 
 shouldn't care for it." 
 
 *' And yet you are a splendid horseman,'* 
 remarked Geoffrey. " I wish I could ride 
 as you do." 
 
 " As to that," laucrhed Cuthbert, " I could 
 ride almost before I could walk, and the 
 bone doesn't forget what the gristle learned." 
 
 They had now reached the upper end of 
 the little town, lounging slowly along the 
 middle of the road, when Geoffrey, happen- 
 ing to look back, stood suddenly still, and 
 then exclaimed — 
 
 " Hollo ! there's the white naef of our 
 postboy at the door of Wilson, the chemist's 
 shop. What the deuce brings him there ? 
 I hope nobody is ill at the Park." 
 
 At this they turned, and, ascending the 
 whole length of the street, entered the shop.
 
 22 HARDING I 
 
 Inside they found tlie chemist, a fussy, 
 loquacious little man, in the act of labelling 
 some phials behind his counter ; against 
 which, leaning with his back to it, stood 
 Saunders, the letter-carrier of Mandeville 
 Park, his bag slung under his arm. 
 Although he was a postboy, yet, contrary to 
 a great principle of logic, he was not a boy 
 at all, but a light, spare, wizened, oldish 
 man, with a sandy-coloured face, in the skin 
 of which there were as many little lines as 
 in Eussian leather. He wore a peak caj), 
 and was lazily masticating the stalk of a 
 rose, as if he had been smoking a pipe of 
 which the flower was the bowl. There was 
 also in the shop a little boy, who seemed, 
 like Saunders, to be waiting for some pre- 
 scription. 
 
 On Geofirey's entrance, he was immedi- 
 ately recognized and saluted with great 
 respect by the messenger from the Park, 
 who took the cap from his head and the rose
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 23 
 
 from his mouth. In answer to the young 
 gentleman's inquiry, Saunders replied that 
 the medicine which Mr. Wilson was pre- 
 paring, was for Lady Mandeville. 
 
 " Is my mother unwell, then ? " asked 
 Geoffrey, in alarm : *' my letters told me 
 nothing of it ! " 
 
 *' Not to say unwell, sir ; only a little ill- 
 disposed. My lady is up, and looking in 
 nearly her usual health, as I heard the butler 
 say. I think 'tis a perwentive, sir, that my 
 lady is sending for." 
 
 " I wish," muttered Geoffrey, '' my mother 
 would be persuaded to leave off this eternal 
 quacking." 
 
 Mr. Wilson, the chemist, who had caught 
 the word quacking, here observed, with an 
 air slightly offended or, as it were, dignified 
 and respectfully explanatory, that Mr. Geof- 
 frey need not entertain any apprehension. 
 Lady Mandeville was somewhat dyspeptic, 
 and was suffering from a loss of appetite.
 
 24 HARDING 
 
 He had no doubt that the mixture which he 
 had made up, and to which her ladyship was 
 well accustomed, would restore her tone. 
 He then remarked upon the weather, the 
 races, the Emperor of Eussia, and the won- 
 ders of table rapping, with placid volubility, 
 proceeding meantime with the labelling and 
 equipj^ing of two bottles and of a pillbox. 
 
 ''I have written the directions," he said, 
 although he was still writing rapidly while 
 he spoke. " One half of the mixture this 
 evening, about half an hour after dinner. 
 The pills at bedtime. I am sure, sir, your 
 mother will find herself perfectly well in a 
 day or two. The other half of the mixture 
 to-morrow, after dinner, exactly as to-day." 
 
 He then handed one bottle and the little 
 box to Saunders, the other bottle he gave to 
 the small boy already mentioned, saying, 
 " Here is the cleaning mixture, my lad, for 
 Mr. Owen's, the saddler's fastenings. Tell 
 Mr. Owen to be careful that he does not
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 25 
 
 leave it about ; and do you be careful your- 
 self, for it is a deadly poison. Children," he 
 added, turning to Geoffrey, " are so apt to 
 taste whatever comes in their way, sir." 
 
 "I'm sure I don't want to taste your 
 things," said the urchin, darting off with his 
 phial in the direction of the bridge, the 
 same which the two young men had been 
 pursuing, when the sight of the white pony 
 induced them to return. 
 
 Meanwhile, Saunders mounted that ani- 
 mal, having thrust the medicines for which 
 he had come into his pocket. 
 
 " Make haste, Saunders ! " said Geoffrey ; 
 " I hope they will not have waited dinner 
 for us. Explain that we could get no horses 
 in this place when we arrived, and we have 
 dined while waiting for them. We shall be 
 at the Park not very long after you reach it 
 yourself." 
 
 He little thought how soon afterwards he 
 ought to be there !
 
 26 HARDING 
 
 Saunders cantered away with his message, 
 and the two friends followed on foot at a 
 leisurely pace. As they passed the inn, 
 they learnt that the fly had not yet gone on, 
 but was being then " put to." All this took 
 a little time, and a little more was lost at 
 the bridge, where they stopped a few mo- 
 ments to gaze down the pretty vale through 
 which the stream beneath them went spark- 
 ling. It was a lovely evening — they were 
 not in a hurry — the view was charming — 
 and here they loitered, leaning on the para- 
 pet, while they lit a cigar. This done, they 
 resumed their journey.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 27 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 " Alone, but with, unbated zeal, 
 That iLorseman plied the scourge and steel." 
 Lady of the Lake. 
 
 Across the bridge rose the long and gradual 
 hill to which the innkeeper had drawn 
 their attention, when praising what he 
 styled his "conservatory room," a flowery 
 projecting balcony, suspended, like the an- 
 cient hanging gardens of Babylon, over the 
 rushing waters ; — and, upon the first slope 
 of this hill, the fag end or suburb of the 
 little town had fixed itself. Here were 
 situated the saddler's and harness-maker's 
 shop, to which the boy had just fetched 
 from Mr. Wilson's — while Geofii'ey and
 
 28 HARDING 
 
 Cutlibert were there — the cleaning mixture, 
 or what the chemist intended for such. 
 The shop in question was decidedly the most 
 flourishing establishment which the pleasant 
 town of Huntingferry boasted. 
 
 Cuthbert and Geoffrey were examining, 
 ere they passed on, the whips and other 
 articles displayed in the broad, low window, 
 when Mr. Owen himself appeared in the 
 doorway with the same lad whom they had 
 seen at the chemist's. He was pushing the 
 child with both hands, or, rather, was in act 
 to push — the lad being equally in act to 
 dart away, and looking round merely to 
 hear his master's parting orders before a 
 good vigorous rush. 
 
 ^'Tell Mr. Wilson," said the saddler, 
 " that I don't know how he can be so stupid 
 — that this is not the cleaning mixture, but 
 some medicine stuff. Let him change it for 
 you at once, and you run back here im- 
 mediately."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 29 
 
 The urchin flew off as he was bidden. 
 
 We may observe that, at this moment, 
 the white horse of Saunders, the letter- 
 carrier, could be seen by Geoffrey and 
 Cuthbert standing clear out against the 
 sky line, on the summit of the long hill 
 before them. The next instant he disap- 
 peared behind the ridge. They were about 
 to lounge forward in the same direction, 
 when the saddler, saluting them, engaged 
 their attention. 
 
 '^A sweet evening, gentlemen," observed 
 he, thrusting his hands into his trouser's 
 pockets, and inhaling with zest the balmy 
 air ; "so Nugget has won, after all ! " 
 
 " Yes, confound him ! " said Geoffrey. 
 "Nugget has won — who'd have thought it ? " 
 
 *' Few, sir, did think it," returned the 
 saddler. " Some bets, sir, I presume ? " 
 
 " Yes, on the favourite." 
 
 "Ah! that's unlucky. Talk of public 
 opinion being always right, sir ; public
 
 30 HAKDING 
 
 opinion very often finds its level on a race- 
 course. Public opinion, sir, is not a 
 prophet. How Mr. Bloundel has lost, to be 
 sure ! " 
 
 Not being under the necessity of making 
 more progress than they chose till the fly 
 overtook them, and probably feeling the 
 lazy influence of that delicious evening, the 
 two friends lingered, for a few moments, to 
 hear the disjointed gossip which Mr. Owen 
 proceeded to retail to them about the 
 Course. In the midst of his communi- 
 cations the group was disturbed by the 
 return of the saddler's errand boy. The 
 child was breathless with running, and 
 apparently with alarm. 
 
 "Well, Tommy, where's the mixture ? " 
 
 ^'I hain't got it, sir." 
 
 " Why, what's the matter ? Didn't I dis- 
 tinctly tell you " 
 
 " Yes, sir," interrupted the little fellow, 
 opening his eyes widely, as children are
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 3 J 
 
 wont wlien they have a story or a wonder 
 to tell ; " yes, sir, but Mr. Wilson wouldn't 
 give me anything ; but when he saw the 
 bottle he said he was ruined, and then he 
 began to tear his hair what's on the side of 
 his head, and said as how he had sent you 
 Lady Mandeville's mixture, and that there 
 would be murder at the Park, for that he 
 gave Saunders the poison by mistake, and 
 that it had no colour or smell no more than 
 the mixture, and then he took down some 
 bottles, and ran out of the shop without 
 his hat, and I saw him run into Mr. Parker's 
 inn — and that's all." 
 
 *' And enough too ! " cried the saddler. 
 
 Geoffrey stood for a moment, pale, silent, 
 and horror-stricken. He then exclaimed, 
 with a truly scared aspect — 
 
 " Saunders must be two miles on the road 
 already ; he is riding fast ; it is out of the 
 question to overtake him with the fly and 
 that worn-out horse. My mother is to
 
 32 HARDING 
 
 take tlie medicine half an hour after dinner. 
 Good Heavens ! it will be as soon as 
 Saunders arrives — they dine at eight! What 
 is to be done ? " 
 
 At this moment, the fly which had been 
 ordered to follow the two young gentlemen 
 came thundering furiously over the bridge, 
 with their luggage piled on the roof. The 
 driver was lashing the jaded animal, which 
 strained along painfully, but stoutly. Inside 
 sat a man pale as a corpse, and staring with 
 a wild and haggard expression. On seeing 
 Geoffrey and Cuthbert on the side of the 
 road, the driver pulled suddenly up, while 
 the man inside the vehicle uttered an ex- 
 clamation of horror, and hid his face in his 
 hands. It was the unfortunate chemist, 
 who having discerned the fatal blunder of 
 which he had been guilty, had delayed but 
 to provide himself with the stomach pump 
 and other remedies, and had rushed to the 
 inn to procure some conveyance. At the
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 33 
 
 door of that establishment he had found 
 the fly, ready to start for the Park. He 
 hastily explained the case to the landlord, 
 who, having at his disposal, as the reader 
 knows, only the horse then and there 
 harnessed, and no other present means 
 whatever of speeding the apothecary to his 
 destination, shoved him forthwith into the 
 vehicle, and bade the postboy gallop the 
 whole way though he killed the horse. 
 
 With as little delay as Mr. Wilson's own 
 self-accusatory interjections had unavoid- 
 ably caused, all this was explained in 
 answer to the rapid questions put by 
 Cuthbert, who then ascertained that the 
 apothecary had all the necessary remedies 
 in a paper parcel, to which he pointed be- 
 side him on the seat. 
 
 Cuthbert seemed an inch taller : turning 
 to his friend, who was stamping about with 
 frantic gestures — 
 
 " Geoffrey," he said, in a loud, ringing 
 
 3
 
 34 HARDTNG 
 
 voice, ^'here are ten minutes good saved out 
 of the fire for you; jump on the box; see 
 that this man drives the animal to the top 
 of its physical capacity ; if it break down, 
 you will have but part of the road, instead 
 of the whole, to run on foot. Leave the 
 rest to me. I'll be there before you, and 
 before Saunders. I'll get Childering's horse 
 — by Heaven I will ! On, on ! Good 
 courage, Geoffrey." 
 
 Away went the vehicle, while he was yet 
 speaking, as if his voice had electrified the 
 driver and Geoffrey, who urged the horse 
 into the rickety gallop of which alone it 
 was capable. 
 
 Cuthbert no sooner saw them off than he 
 turned to Mr. Owen. 
 
 ** Do you know Mr. Childering's horse ? " 
 he said. '' Dare I ride him in a snaffle ? 
 You had better give me, at need, a bridle 
 and bit on which I may confidently rely." 
 
 The instant Cuthbert had finished the
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 35 
 
 sentence — ''You Lad better," etc.. Owen, as 
 if he had been actually prepared for the 
 order, although, in truth, he had not ex- 
 pected it, rushed, without saying a word, 
 into his back shop, and presently returned 
 with a bit containing a lower bar, curb 
 chain, and double-reined bridle, which he 
 gave to Cuthbert. While the latter was 
 considering them, Owen observed — 
 
 " I don't know this horse, sir ; but Mr. 
 Childering is the best and boldest rider in 
 the county — he always prefers my bridles, 
 and according to his experience with that 
 particular pattern which you now have in 
 your hand, you are master of any horse on 
 the forward, whether he yet have his mouth 
 or not. Of course, you would be cautious 
 of bringing him down." 
 
 But Cuthbert was already moving away. 
 He stopped to ask where the nearest black- 
 smith's was ; and Mr. Owen telling him it 
 was next door but one on this side of the
 
 36 HARDING 
 
 inD, he ^^assed the bridge hastily, with the 
 bridle over his arm, and entered the stithy. 
 
 The saddler, urged by the interest and 
 excitement which had gained upon him, 
 glanced nervously along the road, in the 
 opposite direction, and saw the fly still 
 labouring furiously up the hill, enveloped in 
 dust, and fast nearing the summit. He 
 then, without waiting to get his hat, 
 wrapped his coloured pocket handkerchief 
 around his hat, to protect him from the 
 westering sun, which was still powerful, and 
 pursued Cuthbert across the bridge. He 
 saw this last emerge, in great haste, from 
 the smithy, followed by a man carrying 
 some instruments ; he saw him stride, still 
 followed by the smith, to the inn door, 
 where Parker was standing, surrounded by 
 a group of listeners, to whom he was doubt- 
 less relating what had befallen at the 
 chemist's shop, and leaving them to calcu- 
 late what would soon befall at Mandeville
 
 THE MONEY-SPIJSKER. 37 
 
 Park. Mr. Owen, seeing Parker lift up his 
 hands, as if in boundless astonishment, at 
 the first words which Cuthbert addressed to 
 him, could restrain his curiosity and im- 
 patience no longer, but fairly ran over the 
 intervening space till he made one of the 
 little crowd outside the Frederick and Pig- 
 tail. As he arrived, Cuthbert was speaking ; 
 his manner was resolute in the extreme, but 
 not excited ; he was calm, with, however, 
 something dangerous in his look. 
 
 " You mentioned that before," he said, 
 " to my friend, Mr. Geoffrey Mandeville. 
 The horse is not yours. I'll answer for the 
 horse : all Mandeville Park will answer for 
 him. As to the stable being locked, you 
 mentioned that too. Look you, time is life 
 in this matter, and you are taking it away. 
 You are the murderer of Lady Mandeville ! 
 Delay me but by another syllable, and her 
 blood be on your head ! Show me the 
 stable, and as this fine steed may be difficult
 
 38 HARDING 
 
 to bridle, and even to approach, let your 
 ostler come round to help me — that's all we 
 want of you. Here is a smith who will 
 pick the lock." 
 
 "Why don't you do as the gentleman 
 says ? " interposed mine host's wife, now for 
 the first time appearing. "Follow me, sir; 
 I'll show you the stable ! " and, as she 
 forced her way out into the porch, she con- 
 tinued, with reverted head : " 1 am ashamed 
 of you, John ; and Lady Mandeville, poor 
 dear lady, going to be poisoned ! " 
 
 Parker, at this, hurried down the archway 
 at the side of the inn, followed by Cuthbert, 
 the smith, and the crowd. As he proceeded 
 (time not being any longer lost, Cuthbert 
 now ungrudgingly allowed him to vent all 
 his sentiments freely), mine host gave utter- 
 ance to the thoughts which clashed with 
 each other in his mind. 
 
 '' Well, certainly, if the smith be here, sir 
 — and though it ain't my horse, that's why
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 39 
 
 I can't forbid you — and doubtless her lady- 
 ship must not be allowed to be poisoned, if 
 we can hinder it. This way, sir ! You 
 take the responsibility, sir ? 'Tis a clear 
 case enough. Any one may see that. But 
 it would be useless to ask me to mount that 
 'ere hanimal, were it never so ! I wouldn't 
 save the queen's neck by a riding of him — 
 no, that I wouldn't." 
 
 All this time, I say, they were making 
 progress through the back yards, and Cuth- 
 bert's good humour had returned. He 
 said — 
 
 " No, honest Parker, you would break 
 your own by such an experiment. But I 
 see the stable, where that little boy, who 
 ran on before us, is standing. I thought so ; 
 you need not come any further." 
 
 While the smith was picking the lock, 
 Cuthbert desired the crowd to fall back 
 from the door, in order not to excite the 
 animal needlessly by the noise of voices.
 
 40 HARDING 
 
 He then took off his neckcloth, and 
 belted it round his waist, the crowd watch- 
 ing his every movement with intense interest 
 and excitement, and becoming suddenly 
 silent on witnessing this last. 
 
 The door was opened in a few seconds, 
 and Cuthbert entered the stable with the 
 ostler, to whom he handed the bridle which 
 he had brought from Mr. Owen's. Scarcely 
 a minute, though it seemed a far longer 
 period to the expectant groups, elapsed, ere 
 the young man reappeared in the yard. He 
 was followed by the ostler, who led out a 
 noble chestnut horse, plunging violently. 
 Cuthbert, pulling his hat firmly down on 
 his brows, approached him, patted him on 
 the neck, spoke to him soothingly, and 
 arranged the stirrup leathers to the length 
 which he desired, judging as well as he 
 could by the eye. This, however, was the 
 longest operation of all. It was both diffi- 
 cult to take, and dangerous to retain, the
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 41 
 
 stirrup leathers. The peculiar action of the 
 splendid animal, meantime, as he fretted 
 rapidly round the yard in the ostler's hold, 
 was not lost upon Cuthbert, who asked the 
 ostler whether he was not a " buck jumper." 
 
 "Why, sir, I believe he's every kind of 
 jumper ; but, once off, he is fast enough. 
 Give him his head, sir — give him his head ; 
 he's at the end of the mile a'most as soon as 
 he's at the beginning of it. You see, I've 
 planted the saddle well oS the withers, 
 sir ! " 
 
 " Let go the rein the instant I am in the 
 saddle," cried Cuthbert; and almost as he 
 spoke he vaulted clean from the ground. 
 The ostler obeyed, and Cuthbert was fixed 
 in his seat, a light hand low upon the bridle, 
 his form slightly bending with every motion 
 of the horse, and his mind vigilant and 
 intent to make thorough acquaintance 
 with this new and puissant servant. At 
 first, the horse moved aside with a gentle
 
 42 HARDING 
 
 dancing motion, his neck arched, his eye- 
 balls glaring, his whole frame trembling 
 with mettle and excitement. But, when 
 his rider would bring him to the entrance of 
 the yard, where the little crowd, which had 
 been somewhat increased, was nestling in a 
 corner near the gate, the horse suddenly 
 swerved with violence, and turning fairly 
 round, made a bolt towards the stable. 
 Mastered by one sharp but temperate touch 
 of the powerful nether rein, he reared almost 
 to the perpendicular, and then broke into a 
 series of furious plunges, writhing the back 
 with that peculiar motion which renders it 
 impossible to all but a very rare horseman 
 to keep the saddle. Now began that contest 
 which is at the same time so beautiful and 
 so terrible to behold, between a mighty 
 steed in all his disdain, spirit, and strength, 
 refusing the mastery of man, and a fearless 
 rider determined to impose it. 
 
 They were in a large, straw-littered, inner
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 43 
 
 yard, wliicli communicated, by a low, broad 
 gate, now oj^en, with the outer yard, from 
 which the archway led out into the street. 
 It was near this open gate, on the further 
 side, that the innkeeper and the rest of the 
 spectators had gathered, and were still stand- 
 ing. At this moment the clock of the town 
 church rang the three-quarters past eight. 
 "It is too fast, sir — five minutes too fast ! " 
 cried the innkeeper. 
 
 Cuthbert perceived that while the group 
 remained near the gate, it would be a slow 
 and almost hopeless attempt to get his horse 
 through. He called out to them to with- 
 draw. They had hardly done so when, as 
 he was borne towards the opening, in a suc- 
 cession of sidelong, curveting, bounding 
 plunges, like a weatherly craft upon a strain- 
 ing tack in a storm, a man in the smart 
 livery of a gentleman's groom appeared sud- 
 denly running to the gateway, across the 
 further or outer yard.
 
 44 HARDING 
 
 " Hollo ! young gentlemau ! " he cried 
 out, closing the gate, " are you tired of your 
 existence ? " 
 
 " Have a care of your own ! " shouted 
 Cuthbert, as the animal, shying at the clang 
 of the closing gate, again wheeled violently, 
 and bore him to the rear ; " have a care of 
 your own ! " 
 
 The groom climbed over the gate into the 
 inner yard. 
 
 *^ Come, sir," he said, approaching ; " you 
 just get down off that horse, if you please ; 
 he's in my care. By the law ! " added the 
 groom, with a terrified look, " he'll be killed 
 off-hand.'' 
 
 This exclamation was elicited by a new 
 and tremendous effort of the steed to throw 
 his dauntless rider. Shaking his neck, and 
 slightly dipping his head, he flung himself 
 into the air, off all four feet at the same 
 moment. But Cuthbert's blood w^as up. 
 The progress of the desperate struggle seemed
 
 THE MOXEY-SPINNER. 45 
 
 but to raise within him the true spirit of 
 buoyant energy and '' derring dee." 
 
 " Oh ! " he cried to the groom, " I'll give 
 him leave to throw me \" 
 
 And then, shaking the reins and settling 
 himself well in the saddle, he uttered a kind 
 of loud defiant cheer or laugh — it might be 
 either — to which the horse seemed almost to 
 reply, for, as if tired of his unavailing 
 struo^orles, or at leno;th satisfied that he bore 
 a rider worthy of him, he raised a sharp, 
 whinnying neigh, and sprang forward. The 
 low gate was still closed, and they went 
 easily and flowingiy over it, while the groom 
 stood gazing from the other side, like one in 
 a dream. Obeying the hand, the noble 
 animal bent a little to the right, and swept 
 gracefully and lightly under the archway 
 into the street, and then towards the bridge 
 in an increasing gallop. 
 
 The pace still mended as he came to the 
 foot of the hill ; the generous brute, no
 
 46 HARDING 
 
 sooner perceiving the long vista of tlie 
 adverse rise, which seemed to be delaying 
 his progress, than he pnt forth all his trans- 
 cendent vigour. Now he compensated for 
 his previous recalcitrance. As if he had 
 become at last aware that some high and 
 gallant interest depended upon his fleetness 
 that evening — as if he knew that, on this 
 occasion, or never, he was bound to show 
 what he was worth — as if he had sympa- 
 thetically caught the fiery solicitude and 
 eagerness of his rider — he scarcely seemed 
 to touch the long, dusty ascent up which he 
 dashed. The fly had for some minutes dis- 
 appeared behind the summit of the hill, ere 
 Cuthbert had beeu borne with a sound of 
 receding thunder from the heariug of those 
 who watched his departure. The landlord 
 had hastened upstairs to the balcony of the 
 room where Geoffrey Mandeville and his 
 friend had dined. There he found his wife 
 before him. They looked eagerly out upon
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 47 
 
 the beautiful acclivity, clothed in woods, 
 over which the declining sun now threw a 
 flood of crimson tints. But not the woods, 
 in their wealth of summer foliage, nor the 
 bright tints, nor the peaceful evening pros- 
 pect of that delicious landscape, engaged 
 their attention. 
 
 They watched for another sight ; they 
 watched to behold, rising from the dusty 
 hollow, upon the loug white road, the daring 
 rider and the matchless steed, speeding upon 
 the dread errand of Life or Death. 
 
 " There ! — there he is ! " cried the hostess. 
 '' Oh, merciful heaven ! what a pace ! It 
 makes me dizzy to look, John. Oh, the 
 dear young gentleman ! Yes — fly — fly ! 
 Ah ! may you come to the Park in time ! 
 Ah, John, how could you but think of the 
 time when we were married, and when that 
 dear lady — a child then, John — took such 
 trouble to see us comfortably settled. And 
 to think of what may be given to her this
 
 48 HARDING 
 
 evening as medicine ! Oh, dear, dear ! Saun- 
 ders must be near the Park Lodge by this 
 time. I almost think I see the white pony 
 in my mind — and where, where is the noble 
 chestnut horse ? Indeed, indeed, my eyes 
 are blinded ! " 
 
 And so they were ; the good woman's 
 tears fell fast, in her excitement. She wiped 
 them with the corner of her apron, and, 
 looking forth again, exclaimed — 
 
 " There ! — see ! — he is on the top of the 
 hill, against the sky ! He is gone ! " 
 
 Thus it was — so brief the vision — so 
 fiercely fleet that grand rush of the brave 
 horse. Like a dream he passed upwards 
 towards the evening sky — like a dream he 
 vanished behind the horizon. 
 
 Mrs. Parker clasped her hands, and, with 
 a long sigh, exclaimed again — • 
 
 '' Oh ! may he — may he be in time ! "
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEK. 49 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 "Clarens ! sweet Clarens ! birthplace of deep love ! 
 Thine air is the youug breath of passionate thought ! " 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 While Cuthbert is riding with such head- 
 long speed from Huntingferrj, we will alight 
 before him at the scene of his destination. 
 There was a dinner party at Mandeville 
 Park that evening ; and the majestic ban- 
 quet-hall, ascending to the whole height of 
 the building itself, and spreading its groined 
 ceiling immediately below the roof — that 
 great and ancient banquet-hall where more 
 than one sovereign of England had been 
 magnificently entertained — where belted 
 knights and gallant nobles had feasted ere 
 settino; out to the French wars of our Plan-
 
 50 HARDING 
 
 tagenet kings, so enchantingly recounted by 
 a monk, beneath whose cassock throbbed a 
 hero's and a poet's heart in one — that old 
 hall where, although not in the highbacked 
 chair of darkly resplendent Spanish oak, 
 which now guarded its place at the head 
 of the table, had once sat, as master of the 
 mansion and the estates of the Mandevilles, 
 their maternal ancestor — the gentlest, the 
 most skilful, and the bravest of all the chiefs 
 whose deeds are recorded in the honour- 
 worshipping chronicles of Froissart ; that 
 hall now blazed with chandeliers in the 
 centre, glittered with gold and silver plate 
 upon the massive buffets at the sides, and 
 rose into tall and nodding shadows near the 
 four corners, and along the mysterious and 
 grimly-smiling ceiling. The ceiling of this 
 apartment, as I have said, was here, at least, 
 the roof of the edifice. 
 
 Four ages told their story in the scene 
 around you. The slow sweep of the lofty
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 51 
 
 vault above had hung^ over those who fought 
 in Bosworth Field — who beheld the ferocious 
 death-struggle of Richard the Third, as 
 he fell despairing in his youth — and who 
 assisted in raising the adventurous Duke of 
 Richmond into the politic, wary, and parsi- 
 monious Henry the Seventh. The music 
 loft, with its mighty balustrade of darkly 
 gleaming and everlasting timber, had been 
 constructed in the time and in the taste of 
 Elizabeth's reign. Nay, she had herself 
 listened to the strains which fell from the 
 dimness of that half-seen gallery, when she 
 sojourned a day and a night with her trusty 
 and illustrious subject Sir Bomund de Man- 
 deville. The gold beaker from which she 
 drank stood, at this moment, upon the 
 mighty table before Sir Walter s accustomed 
 chair. A less remote age had, on every 
 side, clothed the walls with their durable 
 and beauteous apparel, for the wainscoting 
 was the handiwork of Inigo Jones. 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 52 HARDING 
 
 The giant fireplace, which was a little 
 room in itself, and which recalled the war- 
 like winter gatherings of ruder and earlier 
 times than any we have mentioned, was — 
 to paraphrase an expression of Dante's — 
 " tacqiie il sol " — silent of a fire on this 
 beautiful summer evening ; but the tall, old- 
 fashioned spires of its polished dogs were 
 blinking and winking, and glittering, in the 
 rays of the lamps and pendant lights. In a 
 certain part of this hall, the floor rang 
 hollow to the footstep. Far, far down 
 beneath wound the long disused passages 
 which had led to the dungeons in times 
 when the fair and radiant park was a feudal 
 chase, and the modern country palace a 
 Norman baron's stronghold — when the juris- 
 diction of a petty sovereign had not yet 
 dissolved into that of a great county magis- 
 trate, and when the head of the Mandevilles 
 reckoned rather the spears of valiant and 
 devoted retainers, than the votes of free
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 53 
 
 constituents. Suits of ancient armour liung 
 against the walls, and effigies of tlie men 
 who had worn them stood in still array at 
 their posts. So great was the space that, 
 althouo;h a cluster of lio^hts threw down a 
 flood of radiance on the table which stood in 
 the centre of the floor, the more distant 
 parts of the hall receded into comparative 
 darkness, where the shadows seemed flitting 
 to and fro, separating, assembling again, 
 conferring with silent gesticulations, and 
 creeping into corners or dispersing, to allow 
 a servant bearing a candle to pass ; then 
 suddenly gathering behind him, in capricious 
 groups, which appeared to menace him as 
 he withdrew. Amidst this indistinctly re- 
 ceding vastness, the brilliant table glittered 
 like a fairy island, all light and sparkle, 
 stricken forth into multiplied efi*ulgence by 
 the gold and the silver, the exquisitely en- 
 chased stand, or epergne, which occupied its 
 centre, and the wilderness of many coloured
 
 54 HAEDING 
 
 flowers with which that stand overflowed on 
 every side. The nestling flowers were 
 stretching forth their delicate heads to gaze 
 down on the splendour around, and thus a 
 miniature garden — in all that a garden has 
 rarest and most perfect — added, with unex- 
 pected grace, the efiects of nature to those 
 of art. The flowers looked as though they 
 had archly come to surprise, with their 
 breathing bloom, the fixed and frigid ele- 
 gance of ornaments which were not so living 
 as they, yet not to die so soon. Not tender- 
 ness, but searching wounds — not the mater- 
 nal breath of summer, but the torture of the 
 chisel, had shaped that pallid beauty, and 
 it would last for ever. A little fountain 
 flashed up into a slender column of light 
 from the midst of the flowers, and fell, in a 
 tent-like canopy of silver sprays, with a 
 gentle, tinkling music, into a crystal well. 
 A fragrance, tender yet subtle, ascended like 
 that fountain, but sprinkled its invisible jets
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 55 
 
 over a far larger area, and permeated the 
 entire atmosphere of the hall with its deli- 
 cious refreshments. 
 
 Thick, soft, and heavy hung before the 
 windows the folds of the long curtains, and 
 thus was the fading sunset light of summer 
 forbidden to contend with, or disturb, the 
 indoor effects with which wealth, taste, 
 imagination, genius, and ancient memories, 
 had filled the banqueting-room of Mande- 
 ville Park. As a servant happened to open 
 a window, in order to close it more perfectly, 
 the cawing of a populous rookery was borne 
 from the great trees outside into the echoing 
 hall. 
 
 The dressing bell had rung, the dinner 
 bell had rung, and the guests — first the 
 gentlemen, then, gradually, the ladies — had 
 appeared in, and passed from, the drawing- 
 room — not the chief drawing-room, used 
 only on great occasions, — but still a very 
 stately and beautiful apartment. To reach
 
 56 HARDING 
 
 this room, they had come by various pas- 
 sages, and various splendid galleries ; some 
 from the great western tower, others from 
 the opposite wing, all from quarters which 
 possessed distinct traditions, partially indi- 
 cated to the inquisitive, or to the learned 
 in the history of great families, by the style 
 of the furniture, by a piece of tapestry, by 
 a portrait, by a relic, by a hundred memorial 
 signs. Paintings of value abounded. Busts 
 and statues stood where the figures gave the 
 idea of life or of recollection to the silent 
 place. Windows of stained glass suffused 
 all objects with a warm glow, and upheld 
 against the sky which they concealed the 
 lineaments of many a famous ancestor, or 
 those heraldic bearings which had quartered 
 into the shield of the Mandevilles the arms 
 of half the noble families in the three king- 
 doms. On the lower landings of the great 
 double staircase, which swept majestically 
 upwards, from a feudal-looking vestibule of
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 57 
 
 great extent and elevation, into opposite 
 wings of the mansion, stood moresque 
 figures, lifting on high each a flickering 
 torch, which gave to the lustrous swarthi- 
 ness of his complexion, the contrasting 
 white of his glaring eyes, and the almost 
 necromantic malice of his meaning smile, 
 something unearthly, strange, eldritch, and 
 weird. Children and ladies on a visit 
 passed these figures at night with a side- 
 long glance of suspicion and a hastened 
 step. 
 
 The architecture was Gothic, and at every 
 turn — protruding from cornices, and perched 
 on angles — there seemed earnestly scanning 
 you some hideous countenance ; as though 
 the dreaming stone had broken into a 
 visible nightmare, and had gone mad with 
 terror, or with rage. Some of these faces, 
 horrible as they were, looked at you pro- 
 foundly with a grisly smile, which seemed 
 to say, " You think me unhappy — you
 
 58 HAKDTNG 
 
 think me in torture, the face of some soul 
 in penal fires ; no, no — I smile — I am some- 
 thing else — move on ; come, go ; come, go ; 
 you will find me here again ! When you 
 have fretted out your little time, you will 
 find me smiling still. I smile ; I look on. 
 Yes — for I wait." 
 
 For thus it is ; " art is long, and life is 
 short " — ars longa vita hrevis. 
 
 Outside the building the peacock swept 
 and strutted amid the glories of the terrace- 
 ranged, fountain-tinkling, statue-peopled, 
 grotto- varied, alley-shaded garden. Beyond 
 declined, in gradual and unequal falls of 
 landscape, the undulated park ; here, open- 
 ing into peaceful views of distant farms and 
 pastures ; there, wrapping in closer folds 
 around the building its proud mantle of 
 woods. The trees formed, in some places, 
 long and broad avenues, linking their arms 
 overhead ; in others, were gathered into 
 dense battalions ; in others, they had sepa-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 59 
 
 rated into small groups, as if conferring 
 apart by whispers, and moving their heads 
 with listening attitude to the breeze ; while 
 some stood singly aloof, in majestic attitude, 
 surveying the diversified and imposing scene 
 around them. A boat slept over its own 
 shadow on a grove -margined sapphire pool, 
 in a dell. As copses were blended with the 
 woods of larger timber, so patches of fern 
 diapered, in one or two spots, the richer 
 sward. Among the shadows, or athwart 
 the yellow stripes of the evening sunshine 
 in the glades, moved capriciously the troops 
 of deer, under their an tiered captains. Over 
 all, upon the summit of several convergent, 
 terrace-like hills, at the highest, or nearly 
 the highest, point in the county, the splen- 
 did quadrangular mansion itself lifted its 
 bright helmet of many towers to the clouds ; 
 and against the sky, from the loftiest of 
 them, the banner of the Mandevilles was 
 floating like a plume.
 
 60 HARDING 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " We shall soon know the whole, 
 For here comes Illo, full of haste and joyous." 
 
 Schiller's Death of Wallenstein. 
 
 In the drawing-room, near the window, with 
 the light, as it were, of rubies and topazes 
 streaming through the stained gkiss upon 
 her fair and still youthful-seeming tresses, 
 amidst the beautiful furniture (so many por- 
 tions of which almost claimed the character 
 of artistic productions, from the harmonious 
 design and the exquisite workmanship) — 
 amidst this furniture, beneath a line of 
 striking portraits, some of them ancestral, 
 impanelled in the walls, sat, in the chequered 
 light we have described, Lady Mandeville.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 61 
 
 Two or three ladies were around her. They 
 were in evening costume, but yet seemed to 
 form a familiar group. Their dress and 
 occupations blended the forms of a stately 
 sphere with the effects of that domestic 
 influence which the character and habits of 
 their hostess exhaled. She never could seem 
 otherwise than the great territorial princess ; 
 but, at the same time, all around her 
 breathed of home and home tastes. A piano 
 and a harp were near. By her side stood 
 a work-table, and she was engaged in some 
 embroidery. Five or six other ladies were 
 present. Her guests, like the reader, were 
 aware that she felt somewhat unwell ; and, 
 accordingly, the usual glance which tele- 
 graphs among the fair sex the signal of 
 retirement from table, had passed almost 
 as soon as the dessert began to circulate. 
 
 " I like coming away early," said Mrs. 
 Finchley, the parson's wife. '' What a won- 
 derfully clever man Mr. Melcombe seems.
 
 62 HARDING 
 
 I want to ask you about him, Lady Man- 
 deville." 
 
 "The gentlemen will not soon join us/' 
 said Lady Mandeville, " for Lord Solent, I 
 believe," she added, addressing the Mar- 
 chioness of Solent, " wishes to confer ma- 
 turely with Sir Walter about the state of 
 parties." 
 
 " Yes," replied the marchioness. " Sir 
 Walter must know how much our party in 
 the Lower House desires he would take the 
 leadership, and Solent merely bears to him 
 an assurance of the unanimous feeling of the 
 same great section among the peers. Sir 
 Walter is the only man, as Solent says, who 
 knows how to conciliate the new something 
 or other with the old, the old — well, it don't 
 much matter. I know it is something or 
 other, too." 
 
 "Yes," replied Lady Mandeville: "and 
 that being so, will you, Mrs. Finchley, 
 excuse me if I request you to touch the bell
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 63 
 
 within your reach? I feel rather unwell, 
 and I am sure you will forgive me if I take 
 something which my doctor prescribes to me 
 at this hour." 
 
 " Oh, pray do," replied the marchioness, 
 anticipating Mrs. Finchley, and pulling the 
 bell. 
 
 " I know what is the matter with you," 
 said Mrs. Finchley, with a sympathetic look. 
 "It is mind, soul, enthusiasm, genius. I 
 suffered so much once — until I married 
 Astolphus for love. I am sure I should die, 
 only I haven't time with my family. I 
 never thought we should come to be such 
 a tribe — dear Astolphus and I. But, I 
 believe, in the Church it always happens so 
 — when the living is not large. As soon as 
 Sir "Walter gave dear Astolphus the new 
 cure of Hurstbrigg, I thought it would have 
 stopped. But it is all for the best, and 
 Astolphus's sermons are a great relief; the 
 — the — poetry finds a vent somehow "
 
 64 HARDING 
 
 Here a servant out of livery entered. 
 
 " When Saunders returns from Hunting- 
 ferry," said Lady Mandeville, " bring me the 
 tonic here." 
 
 The groom of the chambers said, "yes, 
 my lady," and withdrew. 
 
 "No, I assure you, my dear Mrs. Finch- 
 ley, my ailment has nothing to do with the 
 mind. I have no pretensions to either the 
 privileges or the penalties of what you call 
 soul and genius." 
 
 " Come, now, dear Lady Mandeville," 
 slily persisted little Mrs. Finchley — " do not 
 think me rude, but have you not helped 
 Sir Walter in that exquisite passage of his 
 great poem about the two girlish friends, the 
 daughters of the two chiefs — you know what 
 I mean — where there are some willows, and, 
 if memory serves me, a windmill also, and 
 there's a breeze, and a " 
 
 "Most certainly, I never helped him," 
 returned the fair wife, her eyes sparkling
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 65 
 
 with a flash that mio-ht ahnost seem incliof- 
 nation, a faint smile dimpling her cheek, 
 however, and sweetening the otherwise too 
 withering glance which she darted at poor 
 Mrs. Finchley. " Not only I did not help 
 him, but I could not. I think," she added, 
 " that this order, and, indeed, this quality 
 of poetry can sufficiently vindicate their own 
 origin. There is no woman living — and, if 
 such a remark can come fittingly from 
 Walter Mandeville's wife, only one man, 
 who could have written either that or many 
 other passages in a poem nearly as well 
 known now among the brighter minds of 
 foreign lands as of our own." 
 
 "It is true," said a sweet, low voice, in 
 a slightly foreign accent. " Sir Walter's 
 fame has made itself a word in every civil- 
 ized country ; it is purer and greater than 
 Sir AValter Manney's was in my country- 
 man^s page ; it will last for ever, and it has 
 
 rendered even this very habitation as fami- 
 
 5
 
 66 HARDING 
 
 liar an object to every young eye which 
 loves to linger over the pictures of interest- 
 ing spots abroad, as it can be in his own 
 country. Therefore it would be an affront 
 to inform us. We have learnt all. We are 
 not strangers to genius. It is not in poetry 
 alone that we know him. We know also, 
 believe me, even we women, how high is his 
 place among the most original, philosophic 
 thinkers, and the most shining political 
 orators, of England. But in his poetry 
 there is not, as miladi so truly says, any- 
 thing of hers — for, a la verite, no woman's 
 muse at all is here, but something very 
 different." 
 
 ''When the little Henrietta is somewhat 
 older, and when she begins to read the 
 classical moderns, it will be a singular 
 pleasure to you, madame, to tell her that 
 the English passages which she will com- 
 pare with some of the sweetest in Tasso, 
 are to be found in the great work of her 
 own father."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 67 
 
 The speaker was a darkly-beantifiil young 
 woman with a pale complexion. She seemed 
 about twenty. Lady Mandeville flushed to 
 the temples, a tear stood in her eyes, and 
 her whole face glowed with mingled plea- 
 sure and confusion. She was still a very 
 charming and lovely woman, some ten years 
 older than Madame de Sainte Seine — that 
 is, about ^ve and thirty, an age whk:h she 
 scarcely looked. The feelings with which 
 she reofarded Sir Walter were those of 
 boundless admiration and true self-effacing 
 love. The love he fully reciprocated, and, 
 indeed, the admiration also, though it was 
 of a totally different kind ; for this quality, 
 like ivy, must take the form of that which 
 it covers. He admired her gentle heart, 
 her lofty principles, her noble and disinter- 
 ested spirit, her accomplished mind ; candid, 
 intelligent, full of taste, singularly feminine, 
 graceful, elegant, and agile. She was not 
 that fine monster — more often feigned than
 
 68 HARDING 
 
 seen — tlie woman who exercises (?) a man's 
 mental faculties ; and not being that mon- 
 ster, it had not come into her head to pre- 
 tend that she was. Men, and especially 
 able men, wish for the woman in the wife ; 
 it is weak, but natural. Sir Walter believed 
 that his wife was and would continue to be 
 feminine, and she never disappointed his 
 calculation. We are aware that the taste 
 we here ascribe to most men, and in a 
 special manner to men of ability, is very 
 spiritless, mean, and despicable ; and that 
 all masculine-souled women, if we may be 
 permitted the expression, proclaim that such 
 men are afraid, for example, of their powers 
 in discussion. These craven -hearted men, 
 in their turn, whenever we have taunted 
 them to that effect, smile, as though they 
 really thought a miserable evasion could 
 settle such a question, and reply — 
 
 " Hang it ! After all, one doesn't marry 
 for the sake of discussion. Besides, no
 
 THR MONEY-SPINNER. 69 
 
 woman does discuss," add these slanderers. 
 '* A woman has an immensity to say, when 
 she is bent on it. But that sort of thing is 
 not discussion, you know." 
 
 As might be expected from the prevalence 
 of this base prejudice, few male-minded 
 ladies find their opportunity to marry. 
 When they do, the husband is tempted to 
 prefer an amicable talk with any other lady 
 to a " discussion " with his wife. Lady 
 Mandeville was not of the class here indi- 
 cated. In order to hide her pleasurable 
 confusion at Madame de Sainte Seine's 
 allusion to Sir Walter's renown, she took 
 advantage of the reference to her daughter, 
 Henrietta, to ask — 
 
 ** And where is my little daughter ? — 
 where is Henrietta ? " 
 
 " I met her just now as I came from my 
 room. She is, in great delight, changing her 
 garden dress ; for you have given her leave, 
 she says, to come here for a few moments.
 
 70 HARDING 
 
 before the gentlemen have quitted the 
 dining-hall." 
 
 The words were hardly uttered when 
 there entered a beautiful girl of about ten. 
 Her figure was slight and delicate. The 
 expression of the face was pensive. She 
 was fair, like her mother ; the forehead oval, 
 elegant, and of snowy whiteness ; the eyes 
 dark blue ; the tresses a pale gold, which 
 would yet deepen into a rich soft brown. 
 At present, as she moved her graceful 
 throat, a faint brightness, like a halo, shim- 
 mered from the glossy curls — a cascade of 
 rays which never seemed to settle, but 
 always to be falling, and, as it were, 
 vanishing around the beauteous young head. 
 
 " And where have you been this beautiful 
 day, Henrietta ? " said the Marchioness of 
 Solent, drawing the child to her. 
 
 " I have been in the garden all the 
 morning, and on the tower very often this 
 evening."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEB. 71 
 
 '' What were you doing on tlie tower ? " 
 
 " Looking for the white pony, because 
 mamma is not well, and I know Saunders is 
 gone to bring something which will do her 
 good. I saw Saunders entering the lodge 
 gates as [ came down just this moment. 
 He will be here immediately." 
 
 " And in the garden what were you 
 doing ? " pursued the marchioness. 
 
 *' Oh ! in the garden, I was reading, part 
 of the time, with my governess, and talking 
 French with Madame de Sainte Seine. I 
 wish, mamma, you would let me leave off 
 French ! " added she, in a coaxing, cajoling, 
 beseeching tone. " Do, mamma, dear 1 " 
 
 " And when the French was over, what 
 
 next ? " 
 
 "Why, then," interrupted Madame de 
 
 Sainte Seine, " she ran off to the fruit 
 garden ; but though she appeared very 
 energetically engaged, I could not under- 
 stand her occupation."
 
 72 HARDING 
 
 "I was poking the asparagus beds with 
 the top of my parasol, to make the asparagus 
 come up faster. Geoffrey used to like 
 asparagus before he went to Eton, and he 
 is cominsf back to-nisfht." 
 
 At this moment the servant entered with 
 a small salver, on which were a decanter 
 of water, a wine glass, and a little phial. 
 He placed the tray on a table by Lady 
 Mandeville's chair, saying — 
 
 " Saunders has brought this, my lady. 
 He saw Mr. Geoffrey at Huntingferry ; but 
 there was no horse to be had in the town 
 at that moment, in consequence of the races. 
 Mr. Geoffrey, therefore, could not come on 
 so quickly as he had purposed, but he said 
 to Saunders, my lady, that he would follow 
 later." 
 
 " This evening V 
 
 '' Oh, yes, my lady ; so I understood from 
 Saunders. But it may be late. Is anything 
 else required except the water, my lady ? "
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 73 
 
 Lady Mandeville glanced at the label on 
 the phial, and replied — 
 
 " No ; you can withdraw. Of course 
 Mr. Geoffrey's room is ready ? He speaks 
 of some friend ; let the room in the tower 
 be prepared, therefore." 
 
 When the servant had retired, Henrietta 
 sprang forward, seized the phial, and ex- 
 claimed — • 
 
 " Oh, mamma, let me pour it out. I 
 know exactly how to measure it. I've 
 watched you do it before. It is just up to 
 the top of the cut part of the glass ; then 
 the water." 
 
 "Well, my dear, be careful. Do not 
 poison your mother," returned Lady Mande- 
 ville. 
 
 The child looked up with her lips parted, 
 and, seeing her mother smiling, said — 
 
 " This is not poison — it is medicine." 
 
 Having poured the deadly draught which 
 was supposed to be medicine into the
 
 74 HARDING 
 
 glass, she was holding the glass up between 
 herself and the window, as she had seen her 
 mother do, when the earth seemed to palpi- 
 tate as if some faint beat bore rapidly 
 by ; and a shuddering, quickly iterated and 
 transient sound, like the rushing hoof-prints 
 of a charger or a racer in his grandest stride, 
 was heard for a moment ; it passed round 
 the house, and died away. At the same 
 instant a something, swift as the storm - 
 driven cloud, but low and near the earth, 
 had appeared to shoot by the windows. 
 The stained glass prevented this object from 
 being distinguished. 
 
 " How curious ! '' said Lady Mandeville. 
 " Was that the sound of wrings ? But we 
 have no large birds round the Park ! " 
 
 " There are herons, mamma, down in the 
 hollow, near the pool ; but that was not a 
 heron. I thought it was a horse gallojjing." 
 
 The child had, meantime, satisfied herself 
 with the measurement of the medicine, and
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEK. 75 
 
 exclaiming, " Now, mamma, you are going 
 to be cured ! " extended her hand with the 
 glass towards Lady Mandeville, who took it 
 mechanically. 
 
 She was in the act of raising it to her lips, 
 when a scream from Mrs. Finchley arrested 
 her. Following the direction of that lady's 
 gaze, she saw that the door had been thrown 
 violently open. In the aperture stood the 
 groom of the chambers, past w^hom had 
 rushed a young man — bare throated, his 
 handkerchief belted round his waist, his hair 
 dishevelled, his face dark with dust and 
 perspiration, his forehead stained with blood. 
 At this sudden apparition, another but 
 slight scream escaped Mrs. Finchley, who 
 happened to be sitting with her face towards 
 the door. The rest of the ladies turned. 
 
 Meanwhile, the intruder, who was a 
 stranger, had scanned with a quick glance 
 the group before him. The next moment, 
 darting across the apartment, he firmly and
 
 76 HARDING 
 
 quickly, but gently, seized the wine glass 
 which Lady Mandeville still held in her 
 hand. 
 
 " Good Heavens ! " exclaimed Lady 
 Mandeville, as the phial was thus snatched 
 from her, " what means this conduct ? 
 Markham ! " she cried to the servant, " who 
 is this person ? And how comes he to be 
 admitted ? " 
 
 The servant advanced, with a perplexed 
 and alarmed air, and stammered something 
 incoherent, in which " Mr, Wilson, the 
 apothecary,'' were the only distinguishable 
 words. 
 
 The youth who had so strangely broken 
 into the stately circle stood in front of Lady 
 Mandeville, with one hand pressed to his 
 side, and the other grasping the phial, which 
 he examined curiously : he was panting, as 
 if he would gain breath to speak. 
 
 " Who are you, sir ? And what is your 
 business here ? " said the lady of the house.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 77 
 
 *^ Have you drunk any of this potion, 
 Lady Mandeville ? " demanded lie. 
 
 '' No ; I have not yet tasted it." 
 
 The expression of his face changed : he 
 staggered towards a chair instinctively, and 
 catching the back of it, as if to support him- 
 self, although he still stood with a not un- 
 graceful air, he exclaimed : — 
 
 " Then I am in time ! This bottle con- 
 tains poison ! Wilson, the chemist, at 
 Huntingferry, interchanged, by mistake, 
 two phials, yours and another, which he 
 chanced to be preparing when your son 
 Geoflfrey and I were in his shop. He dis- 
 covered his mistake only some time after 
 your messenger had departed. What I have 
 now in my hand is not your medicine I " 
 
 Lady Mandeville was too much shocked 
 to reply for several moments ; and every eye 
 was silently bent upon the dust-soiled, but 
 bold-featured and handsome speaker. A 
 vivid blush had now succeeded to the pallor
 
 78 HARDING 
 
 which overspread his face when he had 
 rushed into the room. 
 
 Little Henrietta threw her arms round 
 her mother's neck, sobbing. Lady Mande- 
 ville, gently disengaging herself, after kissing 
 the child, turned again towards Cuthbert, 
 and said — 
 
 " Then you are Mr. Harding, my son 
 Geoffrey's Eton friend ? But where is 
 Geoffrey ? — and how, on earth, have you 
 contrived to come so quickly ? Geoffrey 
 sent word that there were no horses pro- 
 curable ! " 
 
 Cuthbert had meanwhile gradually sunk 
 into the chair on the back of which he was 
 before leaning. He did not reply at first, 
 although he was looking from Lady Mande- 
 ville to Henrietta, and had evidently heard 
 these questions. The young girl flew to- 
 wards him, and, taking his hand, with her 
 head averted towards Lady Mandeville — 
 
 "Don't you see, mamma," she said, in
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 79 
 
 her quick, plaintive manner, " the gentleman 
 is ill ? There is blood on his forehead ! " 
 
 " No — pardon me ! " said Cuthbert, rising, 
 and bendinoj a sudden glance of grateful 
 interest upon the fair young speaker. "I am 
 still a little out of breath — nothing more." 
 
 Henrietta withdrew her hand shyly, and 
 stole back to her mother's side ; and at this 
 instant, happening to raise his eyes towards 
 an immense pier glass, Cuthbert paused 
 abruptly, with a look of extreme confusion. 
 Till then he had been unconscious of the 
 wild aspect which he presented. He saw 
 his forehead streaked with blood, his bare 
 throat, his black neckerchief tied round his 
 waist, and dust all over his person. This 
 dust, which was white everywhere else, had 
 assumed a sooty aspect upon his brow, 
 cheeks, and neck, where it meandered with 
 an effect perfectly horrible to behold, giving 
 him the character of some painted warrior 
 chieftain in a Eed Indian tribe.
 
 80 HARDING 
 
 ^' I am not," stammered he — " 1 am not 
 exactly fit to be in the presence of ladies. 
 You ask where Geoffrey is : Geoffrey is 
 coming in the chaise. Forgive me, Lady 
 Mandeville. My motive must plead my 
 excuse for appearing before you in such a 
 guise." 
 
 "Both your motive and your success 
 "make you most welcome, I am sure," replied 
 she. " You have preserved my life, and by 
 some desperate exertion, as I conjecture. 
 But I must postpone the gratification of my 
 curiosity until you have refreshed yourself 
 and are rested. Markham show Mr. Hard- 
 ing to his room." 
 
 Cuthbert bowed low and followed the 
 servant. 
 
 " What a providential preservation, dear 
 Lady Mandeville ! — what a curious circum- 
 stance, and what an extraordinary first visit 
 your son's Eton friend has made to Mande- 
 ville Park ! " said the Marchioness of Solent.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 81 
 
 " Who is he ? His air is not a little 
 striking ! " 
 
 "Striking!" cried Mrs. Finchley. "I 
 thought he would have struck Lady Mande- 
 ville. I am glad he had the grace to 
 apologise for appearing such a guy. Were 
 you not frightened, dear Lady Mandeville ? 
 I am sure I was ; but, then, my nerves are 
 so delicate." 
 
 " His father is one of Sir Walter's most 
 influential constituents," said Lady Mande- 
 viUe, addressing the marchioness — " Mr. 
 Harding, of Lea Meadows, some ten miles 
 from here. He became great friends with 
 Geoffrey at Eton. It is, I believe, some old 
 Saxon race, but poor. They always used to 
 rank with the gentlemen of the county, I 
 am told, until the present Mr. Harding, 
 anxious to increase his means, went into 
 trade." 
 
 We leave the ladies thus discussing the 
 subject. 
 
 6
 
 82 HARDING 
 
 Meanwhile, Cuthbert followed the groom 
 of the chambers through the great vestibule 
 already described. His sudden and strange 
 task was accomplished. His mind was now 
 free. He paused and looked around and 
 above. Many a tint fell upon the head and 
 shoulders of the servant who preceded him. 
 He sought their origin. The stained and 
 storied Gothic windows ; the moresque torch 
 bearers ; the conflict of the ordinary light 
 which these dispensed with the coloured 
 light of evening, filtered through the lofty 
 casements ; the suits of old armour ; the 
 armed and pedestalled figures of another 
 age; the statues, the busts, and the paintings 
 (of which some large and noble specimens 
 adorned the walls of this immense vestibule) ; 
 the palatial double staircase of polished and 
 slippery oak, supported by massive balusters 
 of the same wood, elaborately carved — the 
 whole scene, with its thousand silently com- 
 bined efiects, produced a powerful impression
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 83 
 
 upon an eye whicli had never beheld any- 
 thing similar, but which nature had well 
 formed to appreciate, upon this first oppor- 
 tunity, the aggregate result. The scutcheon, 
 the crest, the motto of the Mandevilles, met 
 his glance everywhere. Borne as if upon the 
 wings of the blast through the domain, a 
 vague and bewildering sense of its beauty 
 and grandeur had, nevertheless, settled upon 
 his senses, though, while still in the saddle, 
 it had not arrested his consciousness. Like 
 a question or a remark which is addressed to 
 us when absorbed in thought, and which we 
 are not ourselves aware of hearing at the 
 moment, but which we presently reply to, 
 perhaps after the questioner is gone — like 
 such a question or remark, the external 
 spectacle of Mandeville Park now rushed 
 back and mingled, in the awakened and 
 observant mind, with the impressions which 
 he received as he followed Markham. He 
 had not noticed the drawing-room while in
 
 84 HARDING 
 
 it. He looked back. The door was closed. 
 Through it seemed to come a vision of the 
 stately scene behind, with its air of, till 
 then, unwitnessed refinement and splendour. 
 All this occurred in a second. He sighed, 
 compressed his lips, and raised a hand to 
 his forehead. He felt confused, however, as 
 he observed that the servant was looking 
 round. 
 
 *' Have you dined, sir ? " 
 
 "Yes, at Huntingferry. So has Mr. 
 Geoffrey. But I should like a biscuit and 
 some wine after I have washed and dressed," 
 thrusting a hand through his hair. 
 
 " Would you like a bath, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes ; and I will stay in it till the chaise 
 comes with my clothes. And, Markham (I 
 think I heard you called Markham), give 
 orders that the horse be carefully looked to. 
 I will come round and see him after my 
 bath. Can you tell me whose horse this is 
 to be ? "
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEE. 85 
 
 The servant stared. 
 
 '^ I thought, perhaps, he might be yours," 
 he said. " Do you mean the horse you 
 rode, sir ? " 
 
 '' No ; you could not have heard anything 
 about him. Mr. Childering has sold him, I 
 understand." 
 
 " Oh, sir, — if that be the horse, I do 
 happen to i?:now, for I heard the gentleman 
 say — in short, sir, the gentleman is dining 
 here now, with other company. It is Mr. 
 Brad worth." 
 
 But Cuthbert had asked without caring 
 for the answer, merely because, as he ima- 
 gined, he had seen the servant watching the 
 effect produced upon his mind by the un- 
 wonted magnificence around him. The 
 man was too much used to that magnifi- 
 cence, and too little acquainted with the 
 youth's character or circumstances, to have 
 entertained any such thoughts. Cuthbert's 
 ear was caught by a word which the servant 
 had used.
 
 86 HARDING 
 
 '' Is there a dinner party ? " he asked. 
 " You speak of company ! " 
 
 " Sir Walter entertains a few friends, sir ; 
 the Marquis of Solent and Mr. Bradworth 
 are here, sir." 
 
 " And Mr. Bradworth I " said Cuthbert. 
 " Well, when Mr. Geoffrey arrives, let him 
 know that I shall not come down till I see 
 him.''
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 87 
 
 CHAPTEK y. 
 
 " Oh ! Time ! the beautifier of the dead ! 
 Adorner of the ruin ! " 
 
 Byron. 
 
 The noise of a footman entering the neigh- 
 bouring bedchamber, and arranging some 
 luggage, roused Cuthbert, while still in the 
 bath. He called out to the man and asked 
 whether the chaise had not come. 
 
 The servant appeared in the doorway. 
 
 " Yes, sir ; and Mr. Geoffrey and the 
 chemist. Mr. Geoffrey is now in the draw- 
 ing-room, with my lady and the company. 
 Mr. Geoffrey asked, was you in time, sir ? 
 And then he ran through the staircase hall, 
 but he turned, and bade me say, that he
 
 88 HARDING 
 
 would come directly he Lad told everything 
 to everybody, sir ; and what you have done, 
 sir? When Mr. Geoffrey was told you 
 wasn't killed, sir, nor my lady was not 
 dying, he hoped you would soon be dressed, 
 and that he would come here directly with 
 Sir Walter. I have placed some wine, with 
 grapes, and some biscuits on the table, in 
 the next room, sir. Markham told me — • — " 
 " Yes, very well. Bring me the smaller 
 portmanteau here," called out Cuthbert. 
 
 The servant did so, and then retired. 
 Cuthbert was soon dressed ; and, surveying 
 himself in a cheval glass, which stood back 
 upon its proper inclined plane, beneath two 
 wax lights, attached to it in projecting 
 sconces, he was agreeably saluted by the 
 marvellous change in his appearance. The 
 exertion he had undergone, the suspense 
 attending it, which had called all his facul- 
 ties into such wonderful action as they never 
 before had known, the complete success he
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEK. 89 
 
 had achieved when no one else had seemed 
 capable of even thinking with precision or 
 with clearness — and, above all, the vital 
 nature of the service it had thus fallen to 
 his lot to render to a great family — com- 
 bined to give an animation, a dignity, and 
 even a nobleness, to a person which was 
 naturally elegant, to a face which was hand- 
 some in all, save the expression, and to an 
 air eminently bold, gallant, and engaging. 
 He stood for a moment before the mirror, 
 and said, with a smile — 
 
 " Ah I I see that I am a man. This 
 morning I was only a schoolboy." 
 
 Then, suddenly, a dark, cold, and wary 
 look stole like a cloud over the momentary 
 radiance which had illumined his face. 
 He glanced musingly, around the walls, 
 which, even in this bath room, presented 
 everywhere the tokens of a union between 
 wealth, personal refinement, and hereditary 
 honours.
 
 90 HARDING 
 
 "Good Heavens!" thought he, as he threw 
 himself into a chair. ''What a difference ! 
 What a contrast ! Yes, yes ; he need not 
 have said to me, 'You know I am much 
 richer than you/ He need not have insisted 
 on paying my bill at the Frederick and 
 Pigtail. Confound his impertinence ! But 
 he never meant it. No, it comes to him 
 naturally. Heir to this place ! Ah ! it is 
 not merely that he is richer. And what am 
 I ? Certainly, between Mandeville Park and 
 Lea Meadows, the gulph is deep. But, 
 between Geoffrey Mandeville and Cuthbert 
 Harding, what is the difference ? Is it not 
 just as great ? What can he do that I 
 cannot do better ? Nothing ; and there are 
 fifty things I can do that he could not 
 attempt. I am not so big, and yet I 
 thrashed Jermyn, who had thrashed Geof- 
 frey. When it came to reading, I could 
 always take my place among those in whose 
 rank Geoffrey was never found. But what
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 91 
 
 could reading do for poor Tom Falconer ? 
 He soon found the value of it when he went 
 to Hazlebury. I might have read, but what 
 then ? I thought money was the thing. 
 Clear, it gave a fellow a great swing. 
 Geoffrey always had lots of pocket money ; 
 it was hard to see the position one got by 
 spending it ; for, after all, it is not the 
 having — it is the spending. Well ! I found 
 out how to make a book. That pulled me 
 up the leeway, until this last year. Then, 
 in the debates, again, I succeeded ; and 
 Geoffrey could never open his lips, without 
 making himself absurd. Everything after 
 this, and after my bookkeeping, ha ! ha ! 
 went well, till this last year. Somehow, 
 positions seemed to change then. Fellows 
 began to think what each fellow was to be, 
 immediately after leaving Eton. Strange 
 how quickly the nobodies found out who the 
 somebodies that had been nobodies were ! 
 And I, who had been somebody, became
 
 92 HARDING 
 
 nobody very soon. Some of the fellows had 
 letters from home, I know, telling them whom 
 to make up to. A mean, toadying set, with 
 toadies for fathers and mothers to teach 
 them ! I am sure the mothers told some of 
 the set which would be the right acquaint- 
 ance. I remember how that lout, Wickham, 
 became quite important all of a sudden, 
 when he announced to us, with his cursed 
 stutter, that he was 'go-go-going to spend 
 the vacation at the Duke of Man's.' Con- 
 founded impertinence ! At the same time, 
 Geoffrey began to be a fellow of high con- 
 sequence, though 111 do him justice, he never 
 changed a bit himself. But those around us 
 did, and what a difference it seemed to make 
 when it was known that I was to come here 
 with Geoffrey — that I was to be introduced 
 to his mother and to Sir Walter — that I was 
 to spend some days with them. Spend some 
 days ? What does that signify ? He is to 
 spend all the days he pleases here, and not
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 93 
 
 as a guest. He is my taper, and I looked 
 bright with his rays, because I was by 
 his side. Great honour, to be sure ! Who 
 and what, then, are we two ? Wherefore 
 are we so unequal ? Unequal, true enough. 
 I don't know one thing in which he can 
 pretend to equal me. But where's the use 
 of my superiority ? Why, the very last 
 year, after I had taken the lead of him in 
 every mortal kind of trial — from books, 
 while I cared for them, to the boat on the 
 river — he comes suddenly out upon us as 
 heir of Sir Walter Mandeville, of Mandeville 
 Park. Heir ! That's part of him, I sup- 
 pose ! But he did not make his father, and 
 I cannot make mine. What merit is it of 
 Geoffrey's that he has an ancestor, called Sir 
 Joceline, who went to the Crusades six 
 hundred years ago ? Did Geoffrey send 
 him ? Is all this fair ? Good Heavens ! to 
 think that such a circumstance should make 
 this manifest difference in the present year
 
 94 HARDING 
 
 between Geoffrey and me as we leave Eton I 
 And he talks of driving me over from such a 
 place as this to Lea Meadows ! I suppose 
 hell propose next that some of the ladies 
 shall come with us, to show them our 
 mansion, our park, my father, the brewer's 
 towers, and stained glass windows, and 
 armorial bearings forsooth, with our crest 
 stuck up everywhere like his, as if there was 
 nothing else in the world, no other object in 
 nature ! " 
 
 He took a turn up and down the exquisite 
 little bath-room, and halted, with folded 
 arms, at the Gothic window, from which he 
 drew back the curtain, and raised the blind. 
 Outside ran an esplanade, separated from 
 the park by an ornamental, open- worked, 
 and battlemented wall, with, beyond it, a 
 mimic moat, and on the hither side, a 
 terraced gravel walk. At the left of the 
 esplanade, a corner of the garden hedge, 
 composed of rosetree and sweetbrier, and
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 95 
 
 pierced with arched and bowery doorways, 
 peeped round and was just visible. On the 
 opposite side, " dark as a wolf's mouth," 
 yawned the shadowy jaws of a wood, through 
 which the back avenue retired. Here, seem- 
 ing to lean like a wounded and weary giant 
 among the trees, stood the broken and ivy- 
 covered tower of a ruin, part of the ancient 
 feudal castle. Over it shone the summer 
 moon. The battlemented wall which we 
 have mentioned supported, perching or 
 crouching at intervals, immense griffins, 
 dragons, and other heraldic images, each 
 clutching in its talons, or in its paws, the 
 shield of the Mandevilles, which was thus 
 upheld vertically, with its face towards the 
 windows. 
 
 " Ugh ! " exclaimed Cuthbert, '^ those 
 monsters in stone seem to grin and mow 
 at me ! " 
 
 Thus muttering, he turned back into the 
 room. Then, wondering what delayed his
 
 96 HARDING 
 
 friend, lie sat down, took out liis pocket- 
 book, and examined again the memoranda 
 of his bets on the recent race. 
 
 " Fifty pounds grown into a hundred and 
 twenty-five ! " he pursued, mentally. " Well, 
 money is no use ! — it won't buy a dead Sir 
 Joceline of the thirteenth century. I 
 thought it was all in all. But this place, 
 certainly, is not made out of mere money. 
 Still I shall be able to make some nice 
 presents to my mother and my sister. Why 
 did my father become a brewer ? We are 
 of an old Saxon stock, too. But, then, 
 without any of the enjoyments of life, or 
 any of these means of reminding people 
 of their race — in short, without a grand 
 expenditure — there is nothing in it. I dare 
 say, my father was quite right. I know 
 who was not right, though : Uncle Marlowe, 
 the parson. What fudge about my being 
 the gentleman of the family ! — about taking 
 care there should be one gentleman, at least,
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEU. 97 
 
 in the family, and sending me to Eton, at 
 his own expense, and all that ! Very 
 good of Uncle Marlowe; and I wish now 
 I had read, just to please him. But what 
 advantage would it have been to me ? 
 Gentleman, indeed ! — what's a gentleman ? 
 Does Uncle Marlowe know this place ? 
 Why, now I think of it, he does know it ; 
 and he's a very clever man, too ! Perhaps 
 it is true. I'll see and judge for myself. 
 I'll see what it really is that gives people 
 consideration in this world. Is it talent ? 
 Well, I've heard my father say that he has 
 known fifty astonishingly clever fellows, his 
 own contemporaries, who lived in scorn and 
 died in beggary. I wonder if any very rich 
 man ever lived in scorn ? As to the dying, 
 that, at least, would be different. But I 
 can't believe that mere riches would ever 
 stand the presence of this place. I should 
 like to see it tried. I should like to see 
 
 7
 
 98 HARDING 
 
 some bloated, vulgar, purse-proud, illiterate 
 capitalist come here, and watch what 
 position he took, what effect he produced, 
 and what effect was produced on himself ! "
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 99 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " Upon their shields of solid ore, 
 And on their helm, the graver's toil had wrought 
 Its subtlety in rich device." 
 
 Sotheby's Saul. 
 
 " Mammon led them on, 
 Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell." 
 
 Paradise Lost. 
 
 CuTHBERT again reverted to Ms winnings, 
 whicli at Huntingferry liad appeared to him 
 so large, and had now dwindled, in his ima- 
 gination, to such an inconsiderable sum ; 
 and he was revolving what gifts he had 
 better procure with this money to offer to 
 his mother and sister, when he heard a rapid 
 footstep in the adjoining apartment, and 
 Geoffrey burst into the room. A tear stood
 
 100 HARDING 
 
 in his eyes as he seized both Cuthbert's 
 hands, and wning them with generous fer- 
 vour, exclaiming — 
 
 " My dear, dear Cuthbert ! how can I 
 ever thank you as you deserve ? How can 
 any of us ever thank you as you deserve ? 
 You have saved my mother's life, and saved 
 it at the risk of your own. I shall never 
 forget this day. "VVe always were friends," 
 added the warm-hearted youth, "but I now 
 feel that I love you as a brother.'' 
 
 " Oh ! " said Cuthbert, reddening and cor- 
 dially returning his friend's grasp, " don't 
 speak of it. A happy thought happened to 
 occur to us just at the critical moment, and 
 it has served its turn, that's all. I am more 
 delighted than I can say that I should have 
 been so lucky. Do you know, Geoffrey, I 
 felt quite overpowered for the first time only 
 when all was done. As soon as I had got 
 good firm hold of the cursed phial — as soon 
 as I had fairly snatched it out of your
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 101 
 
 mother's hand — it was as if I had swallowed 
 its contents myself. Till then, all was dis- 
 tinct. I saw what I had to do. I saw 
 your mother the moment I entered the 
 room ; I should have known her instinct- 
 ively, even if she had not been holding in 
 her hand the fatal bottle. But the instant 
 aU was safe, the room seemed to swim round 
 me. Lady Mandeville sat before me in a 
 mist of many tints, like one of the figures 
 in the stained window behind her ; a con- 
 fused medley of persons seemed fading away 
 on every side ; I could make out nothing 
 clearly ; when suddenly the beautiful vision, 
 as it seemed, of a young angel stood between 
 me and the light, which so surrounded her 
 form that I did not know where the one 
 began and the other ended ; I felt my hand 
 taken, and I heard a sweet voice say — ' the 
 gentleman is ill, mamma,' or something to 
 that efi'ect." 
 
 " Ah ! " returned Geofirey, smiling, " that
 
 102 HARDING 
 
 was Henrietta, my little sister. She's all in 
 love with you — being ten years old, you 
 know. And, by-the-by, what is that she 
 says about your being wounded in the head ? 
 I should think she has been reading lately 
 some Middle Ages romance, which never 
 lets off a gallant rescuing knight without a 
 wound, only that I do now remember, as 
 you overtook us and flew by the chaise, 
 something like blood seemed on your fore- 
 head. But you were come and you were 
 gone in a second. I do hope you are not 
 hurt." 
 
 And Geoffrey, with eager solicitude, began 
 to examine Cuthbert's forehead. The latter 
 pushed the friendly hand away, laughingly. 
 
 " It is only a scratch," he said. " I sup- 
 pose, before I passed you, being obliged to 
 keep the side of the road, where, as you will 
 remember, the trees overhung it very low, I 
 must have brushed my head against the 
 twiojs. I did not feel it. All T know is,
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 103 
 
 that I lost my hat, which was knocked off 
 in that place. But how long you have 
 been, Geoffrey ! I thought you would never 
 come.'' 
 
 *' Well," said Geoffrey, " I perceive there 
 is some wine in the next room. Before we 
 go down, we'll take a glass together. I am 
 sure you require it. And, for my part, I 
 have gone through more than an hour of 
 such anxiety as will make it acceptable to 
 myself. Hearing that you were in the bath, 
 or were dressing, I went, and have also 
 dressed, you see. So we have nothing to 
 detain us, except that, just while I drink 
 your welcome under this roof, I will explain 
 to you why I was so long. It will be better 
 than joining my father's circle so late in the 
 dining-room, especially as you know none of 
 them yet, and it would break their political 
 conversation." The two young men accord- 
 ingly repaired to the neighbouring room, 
 where, near a broad casement in the tower,
 
 104 HARDING 
 
 a table was drawn ; a couple of arm chairs 
 stood in each corner, within the recess of the 
 window. On a round table, in the centre 
 of the apartment, two wax lights were set. 
 The door of this room was closed, and the 
 window was still unshuttered and uncur- 
 tained. Here, half turned towards the room, 
 and half towards a lovely view which, from 
 this lofty chamber in the great tower, un- 
 rolled itself for miles beneath them in the 
 moonlight, the friends took their station. 
 When each had filled his glass, and helped 
 himself to some grapes, Geoffrey said — 
 
 " Well, you must know that if I have 
 been long in getting away, it is because I 
 had to satisfy ten thousand questions about 
 you. But I could tell only part of the 
 story. I knew not what had occurred at 
 Huntingferry after I left that place myself on 
 the chaise box. I only knew that you must 
 have had no very easy work to get upon 
 this horse of Child ering's. I did not even
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 105 
 
 know how you got at him ; for I remem- 
 bered, as we drove along, that the innkeeper 
 had told us the stable door was locked. You 
 are a perfect hero in the drawing-room, and 
 among the gentlemen, too. It was nothing 
 but a series of exclamations in your praise. 
 ' What courage ! ' cried my mother ; ' and 
 what presence of mind, to think beforehand 
 of the smith ! ' said my father." 
 
 " How could he know anything about the 
 smith ? " inquired Cuthbert. " That occurred 
 after you had driven off ! " 
 
 " Yes ; but it seems you had hardly got 
 the horse away, when its master, Mr. Chil- 
 dering, arrived at the inn, with a chaise and 
 pair. Learning what had occurred, he 
 posted on here immediately, for three rea- 
 sons. First, as he said, to relieve his anxiety 
 about my mother's fate ; secondly, because, 
 although he could not come to dinner, he 
 was engaged here beforehand to meet Mr. 
 Bradworth, to whom he had sold this very
 
 106 HARDING 
 
 animal ; and, thirdly, because he expected 
 to find you dead, or dying, on the road, and 
 he meant to pick you up." 
 
 " Oh ! depend upon it," interposed Cuth- 
 bert, " there was a fourth reason, too. He 
 was anxious to pick up the horse. That 
 belonged to him, you know, and I do not. 
 If I was killed, he lost nothing ; if the horse 
 was killed, he lost a couple of hundred 
 guineas, or so — perhaps twice the sum." 
 
 " You are a fellow- creature, and Child er- 
 ing is a Christian," remonstrated Geoffrey, 
 sipping his wine, like one who enjoyed it. 
 
 " No matter ; a man may be a very good 
 Christian to his horse, when it will fetch a 
 heavy price. 
 
 " Well, be that as it may," pursued Geof- 
 frey, '^ he came on, and arrived with his 
 groom, about ten minutes after I had rushed, 
 like a maniac, into the drawing-room ; and 
 as he had learnt from Parker, the innkeeper, 
 and from his own servant, your Alexander
 
 THE MONEY-SPINKER. ^ 107 
 
 Macedon sort of battle with this new- 
 Bucephalus, he was able to supply my 
 history exactly where it was deficient. He 
 then went with me to the gentlemen, where 
 he repeated the whole tale. My father, 
 when he heard what had chanced, went out 
 for a minute to see my mother, begging his 
 male guests to excuse him, and to await his 
 reappearance, for they were arranging the 
 next campaign in the House of Commons. 
 I went with him. Finding all was well, he 
 returned, taking me still with him, but I 
 soon broke away. 
 
 " You were the topic, I understand, 
 among the men while my father was away ; 
 you were still the topic among them when 
 he went back ; and among the ladies, I 
 verily believe nothing else has been men- 
 tioned ever since. In short, you are the 
 lion, you are the hero." 
 
 " The dancing dog and the learned pig," 
 added Cuthbert, smiling ; " and, no doubt.
 
 108 HARDING 
 
 my fame has, at the same time, penetrated 
 to the servants' hall and the stable yard, so 
 that high and low will celebrate my achieve- 
 ments. I think I ought to have a ballad all 
 to myself. There would be the malignant 
 magician speeding on his errand of woe ; the 
 fair lady doomed to his despite ; the trusty 
 and true knight apprised of her danger, but 
 unprovided with the means of transport ; 
 the friendly enchanter in the shape of a 
 smith, and the winged horse on which he 
 mounted the eager champion." 
 
 " Truly he did seem to have wings," 
 returned Geoffrey, seriously. " Oh, Cuth- 
 bert ! imagine the agony of my feelings, as 
 I sat upon the box of that lumbering chaise. 
 For the first half mile or more, I could not 
 help — although the hill up which we drove 
 barred all view beyond it — straining my 
 eyes to try if I could see Saunders and the 
 white pony. To be sure, he had got a 
 perfectly hopeless start of us. But I stood
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 109 
 
 up all the same and continued my vain 
 look out. When, however, we had reached 
 the summit of that hill, and I beheld the 
 long white stretch of the declivity, void of 
 all objects as far as where it tapered to my 
 hand's breadth — no Saunders, no Saunders 
 anywhere, — I thought I should have gone 
 mad ! * Faster, faster, you villain ! ' I shouted 
 to the driver at my side, and the man stood 
 up from his seat and lashed the horse for 
 a. whole minute together. But the poor 
 brute was galloping already, such gallop 
 as it was, and it was utterly unable to 
 mend its pace. ' We'd better let him 
 alone, sir,' said the driver, *or we shall 
 bust his heart, and have no horse to go on 
 with.' 
 
 " Then my thoughts reverted to you, and 
 I looked back. Now, again, in a contrary 
 direction, the hill intercepted my view ; and 
 remembering, as I just now told you, what 
 the innkeeper had said about Childering's
 
 110 HAEDING 
 
 horse being locked up, and tlie groom absent 
 with the key, I felt quite cold. A chill of 
 horror and despair crept down my back. 
 I fancied Saunders already arrived; I fancied 
 that I actually saw my mother expiring. 
 Then I thought of the time ; I looked at 
 my watch ; I perceived that the pony could 
 not yet have reached his journey's end. But, 
 not to weary you with all the agonies of 
 terror and doubt through which I passed, 
 oh ! Cuthbert, conceive my dehght when, on 
 turning round again, I beheld in the distance 
 the mighty chestnut horse ! I told the driver 
 to pull to the left of the road. Scarcely had 
 we thus made room, when, far as you had 
 seemed, we felt the wind of your rush, and 
 saw you already vanishing along the road 
 before us ! Half my anxiety was over ; but 
 now the remaining half was more acute and 
 more intense — I mean, whether you could 
 possibly overtake Saunders ! '' 
 
 " In truth,'' said Cuthbert, " I failed in
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEE. Ill 
 
 that, and it was the narrowest and nicest hit 
 of time that can easily be conceived. I had 
 literally not three seconds to spare. The 
 man at the lodge, most fortunately, was 
 talking lazily to some person — a gamekeeper, 
 he looked — as I came up, and he had not 
 yet closed the gate again, which he had 
 opened just before to let my chace through. 
 As I burst past him, upon the lawn I saw 
 the white pony being led round the house 
 to the stables. I believe I uttered some 
 cry which Childering's noble horse — I wish 
 he were mine — seemed to understand ; for I 
 felt myself heaved upwards and onwards as 
 if upon a wave at sea ; he appeared to 
 devour the whole intervening lawn, and my 
 very breath was taken away by his last 
 tremendous rush. Saunders himself, halted, 
 turned, and met me to catch the reins, as 
 I flung myself off at the door." 
 
 Geoffrey here seized Cuthbert's hand 
 again, and wrung it silently.
 
 112 HARDING 
 
 " Anotlier glass, Cuthbert," he then said, 
 " and we will go down/' 
 
 "Oh, by-the-by," said Cuthbert, helping 
 himself as he was desired, " I want you to 
 tell me one thing. I understood, from one 
 of the servants, that the Marquis of Solent 
 and Mr. Bradworth are dining here. Now, 
 who is Mr. Bradworth ? " 
 
 " Who ? " answered Geoffrey, stupidly. 
 " He's— he's Mr. Bradworth." 
 
 " True — so I conjectured, my dear fellow. 
 But, unless I am deceived by something, by 
 the servant's tone, he must be a man of very 
 high consideration indeed; scarcely second 
 to Lord Solent, I should say." 
 
 " Oh, I believe, very high consideration, 
 indeed," replied Geoffrey, with a perplexed 
 look ; " he's the great Mr. Bradworth, you 
 know." 
 
 " No, I don't. Great in what ? " 
 
 " Ah ! that I can't tell you. I never saw 
 him till just now, in the dining-hall."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 113 
 
 '' Is lie a member of the House of Com- 
 mons ? " 
 
 "Certainly. He's member for Suds, or 
 for Soap, or some place like that." 
 
 " Then, perhaps, he is a great orator ? 
 Though how can that be ? Everybody 
 would know it, and would know his 
 speeches, too — like Mr. Melcombe's, for 
 instance." 
 
 " Lord ! he's not like Melcombe, Cuth- 
 bert. You never saw such a man." 
 
 " What is he like ? " 
 
 " Like a porpoise, as much as anything I 
 know." 
 
 " Doubtless he is a very learned person ? " 
 
 " Can't say, but should think not. He is 
 something about railways." 
 
 "Then, of course, he is an inventor — a 
 second Watt ? " 
 
 " No, he's not a Watt, I'm sure, nor an 
 inventor. But he's — he's the great Mr. 
 Brad worth, I know." 
 
 8
 
 114 HARDING 
 
 "Your father respects liim very much, 
 doesn't he? And your father is a judge 
 of who should be respected, if any man 
 is." 
 
 *'Well, as to that, I never heard my 
 father speak of him. My father s position 
 in the political world obliges him to be civil 
 to all sorts of people. But " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 "Why, Lord Solent, at least, has the 
 highest opinion of Mr. Bradworth. I could 
 see it in his manner, even while I was in 
 the room. All I know, however, is that he 
 is a man of the greatest importance." 
 
 "I see I can get nothing out of your in- 
 formation ; and now I am ready to go 
 whenever you like. But stay ; you have 
 never heard me philosophise, and I will give 
 you a bit of my philosophy. This is clearly 
 some very eminent and illustrious man. 
 Now, men are illustrious in three ways : in 
 word, in action, and in thought. Any re-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 115 
 
 spect paid to them for any other cause must 
 be hypocritical and self-interested. But, 
 hang it ! I'll not continue — 'tis out of my 
 line. Shall we go ? " 
 
 Geoffrey assented, and, taking one of the 
 wax lights, led the way. Descending a 
 spiral staircase, they passed through two or 
 three long corridors into a broader and very 
 handsome gallery, on each side of which 
 were several doors. Opening another at 
 the end, a buzz of voices was heard, though 
 the speakers were invisible, and, to judge 
 by the sound, at some great depth below. 
 Geoffrey turned, and placed his finger upon 
 his lip. 
 
 " They have not left the dinner table," 
 he said ; and he explained to Cuthbert that 
 the place where they now stood was the 
 music loft of the dining hall. Leaning over 
 the massive balustrade, they could both see 
 and hear the guests — themselves unobserved. 
 A coarse, loud voice at that moment sue-
 
 116 HARDING 
 
 ceeded to the low and indistinct murmur 
 of many. All the other gentlemen had 
 apparently arrested their miscellaneous con- 
 versation to listen. 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered Geoffrey. 
 The speaker below, as Cuthbert could per- 
 ceive, was a round-shouldered, thick -fingered 
 man, whose hands were clenched on the 
 table before him. He had a diamond ring 
 and a ruby face. 
 
 " Hadam Smith, Sir AValter ! Wot's he 
 got to do with it ? That's all my heye — 
 'appiness of the greatest number ! The 
 greatest number can take care of themselves. 
 The thing to know is wot thing to go into, 
 and when to come out. The South Central 
 scrip will be at fifty per cent, premium before 
 the month's up. ' Appiness ! wot's 'appiness ? 
 Some says dividends, and some says pre- 
 miums at the sellin' time. But I don't go 
 into that. I don't want to. The South 
 Central is the thing I went into last, and
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 117 
 
 I'll not come out of it till every fifty pun' 
 share is a two hundred pun' bargain." 
 
 '* Understand me," said Sir Walter. " I 
 don't question for a moment what you say, 
 I am sure, for there is no better authority 
 than yourself that the South Central will 
 realize, under your auspices, the immense 
 profits you predict. But, as I happen to 
 know the proposed line well, and as there is 
 no physical possibility, either along its 
 course, or at the two points which it is to 
 connect, of any adequate paying traffic for 
 the next half century, it is perfectly evident 
 that the line itself will be abandoned 
 speedily, and will therefore entail ruinous 
 loss on the last purchasers of the shares. 
 Had I been on the committee, I would never 
 have consented to let this private bill pass." 
 " But I ain't talking of hultimate pur- 
 chasers," replied the other. " I take the 
 thing as I find it. I didn't go into it till I 
 knew the bill was safe to pass. I'm talking
 
 118 HARDING 
 
 of himmediate purchasers, to sell again by- 
 and-by." 
 
 '' Sir Walter," remarked Mr. Melcombe, 
 ''is right as to the principle, and " 
 
 ^' The principal, fiddlededee ! We don't 
 want the principal from the first share- 
 holders. Wot they do is to pay the deposit." 
 
 *' I mean the moral principle." 
 
 " If you come to that, wot is morals ? " 
 said the other. " Morals is a book. Morals 
 isn't a fortune. Is fifty per cent, in market 
 overt a bad moral principle to go upon, I 
 should like to know ? I'll trouble you for 
 some strawberries, my lord." 
 
 Here Cuthbert turned round, and saw 
 Geofirey very red in the face, and stufiing 
 his mouth with his pocket handkerchief to 
 prevent an open burst of laughter. 
 
 *' Who is that animal, Geofirey ? " 
 
 " Now you can judge for yourself. That's 
 the great Mr. Bradworth." 
 
 As they were descending the stairs, which.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 119 
 
 after passing througli a lobby, led down into 
 the great vestibule, Cuthbert glanced round 
 the scene. 
 
 " Has Mr. Brad worth got a country place 
 like this, with his crest all about ? " he 
 asked, after a pause. 
 
 "No, but ni tell you what he has; he 
 has half a million of money ! "
 
 120 HARDING 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 " Fixed on their end, with caution they proceed, 
 And sometimes give and sometimes take the lead." 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 The desperate ride, wliich it took only a 
 few minutes (some quarter of an hour) to 
 accomplish, was destined to be remembered 
 and talked of in that county for many a 
 year. 
 
 Next morning, Cuthbert rose early, and, 
 lighting a most injurious cigar (so the wise 
 have told me of a cigar smoked before 
 breakfast), sauntered forth into the Park, 
 while still the house was quiet, to indulge in 
 various tobacco-shaded reflections, undis- 
 turbed by the importunity of friendship.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEE. 121 
 
 Who can say what were those reflections ? 
 " Never mind reflections," thinks the reader 
 — " you just go on with your story ; tell us 
 what happened, as you hitherto have told 
 it ; the incidents and facts and whole outside 
 picture of the things — these are our object." 
 I will obey ; but I am so docile only 
 because I have no choice. Were it possible 
 for me to lift the veil from the hearts of all 
 my characters in a more direct manner than 
 by relating what befel them, what they did, 
 and what they suffered, how much more 
 enthraUingly interesting than any tale of 
 the mere result — the external, material con- 
 sequences — would be that strange and 
 wondrous spectacle ! All the stories of all 
 the lives on earth are first traced up to a 
 certain mysterious chapter (where the writing 
 ceases or changes), on that inner book, the 
 heart and brain of man. What we do 
 depends, and always depends, on what we 
 think and feel ; and on what we do, in its
 
 122 HARDING 
 
 turn, depends our destiny up to a certain 
 point. For, look you, Providence, knowing 
 also what all other persons will do, and even 
 arranging the instruments of inanimate 
 nature around us, so as to favour the success 
 of some attempts, and to insure the failure 
 of others, meets us at that point (the point 
 of which I speak, where the first hand- 
 writing on that inner book ceases), and 
 takes up the remainder of the tale in 
 characters of its own, not to be deciphered, 
 save by the light of the result. That 
 ulterior, undecipherable chapter is each 
 person's future. Attempts, then, alone are 
 left to us ; the issues are beyond our 
 mastery. Yet, every act (and acts are all 
 only the growth of some feeling, some 
 thought), every act has its consequence ; 
 and, what is more, there is not an individual 
 who reads these lines, nor an individual on 
 earth, who has not, up to a given point, as T 
 have said, his destiny in his own hands ; he
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 123 
 
 cannot command the shape of it, but lie can 
 command its quality. That is, he can make 
 it good, or he can make it bad ; but what 
 infinite details of form, what endless alterna- 
 tives of external circumstance that destiny 
 may clothe itself in (being still either the 
 good or the bad thing he has made it), this 
 neither you nor I can tell. 
 
 " There is a Providence that shapes our ends, 
 Bough hew them as we may." 
 
 But Cuthbert's cigar is out, and I must 
 suppress some very profound conclusion to 
 which. I was coming. Cuthbert's cigar is 
 out, so are the cloudy wreaths of his intri- 
 cate and fantastic calculations ; and pale 
 and fatigued, like one who had taken vio- 
 lent bodily exercise, although in truth he 
 had been lying under a sycamore tree, he 
 was slowly returning through the pleached 
 alleys and statued terraces of the garden, 
 when he observed the slight form and deli- 
 cate face of little Henrietta, who was gather-
 
 124 HARDING 
 
 ing flowers on the rich and sheltered lower 
 table ground, or esplanade. 
 
 As soon as she caught sight of him, she 
 ran forward, the morning sunlight seeming 
 to glance and stream from her shoulders in 
 a cascade of molten topazes. 
 
 " She is a sweet child," thought Cuthbert ; 
 "but never will she be so beautiful as Emily 
 AVhitsund, to whom I am engaged." 
 
 " Mr. Cuthbert, Mr. Cuthbert, where have 
 you been ? You naughty Mr. Cuthbert, I 
 have news for you ! " 
 
 "Pray tell me them." 
 
 "Them? what?" 
 
 " The news." 
 
 " Oh dear ! when I was in my grammar 
 the other day, Miss Haxton said ' new^s ' was 
 singular." 
 
 "Very likely," said Cuthbert; "just as 
 good, no doubt ; or perhaps I was even 
 wrong altogether. But what is the news 
 then ? " Is it singular ? Above all, is it 
 strange ? "
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 125 
 
 " No. Come, you are an Etonian ! Eton 
 is far above Miss Haxton." 
 
 " True, but every Etonian is not Eton. 
 Meanwhile, if I be not impertinent, your 
 last remark makes me very curious to know 
 your age." 
 
 " My age ! I am eleven. But you are not 
 by any means to go to-day ; at least, you 
 cannot go this morning ! and I am so glad !" 
 
 ^' Thanks to you for being so glad, but 
 why can I not go ? I rather fear I must." 
 
 " Oh ! I could tell you such a pretty story 
 about Micst and Cannot ; they were two 
 kings, and they went to war ! Miss Haxton 
 told me all about their great battle. But 
 say you zvill not go." 
 
 " Ahem ! " said Cuthbert, reddening and 
 shading his eyes for a moment; "you are 
 very kind to wish me to stay — and I ivill 
 stay till evening, to please you. But which 
 of those two mighty kings of whom you 
 speak, won the battle ? — Must or Cannot ? "
 
 126 HAEDING 
 
 " Oh ! Must won in the end, but with 
 great loss ; and then a very powerful king, 
 indeed, his neighbour, sent to offer him 
 friendship and alliance. That other king 
 was called Will, When he and Must are 
 friends, nothing can resist them ; but Will 
 often forgets this, and wastes half his king- 
 dom in wild and foolish undertakings, where 
 he gets taken prisoner." 
 
 Cuthbert's gaze wandered, and when he 
 fixed it again on Henrietta, he was evidently 
 pursuing his own train of thought, and had 
 not paid servile attention to her prattling 
 explanations. She suddenly perceived his 
 abstraction, and a sort of angry blush or 
 glow incarnadined the oval symmetry of her 
 pallid cheeks. Cuthbert, in his turn, noticed 
 the altered expression of the beauteous 
 young fairy, who had suddenly ceased 
 speaking. 
 
 " Something annoys you ? " said he. 
 
 "Yes; you do."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 127 
 
 "How? Why? What have I done? 
 When ? " 
 
 " Algernon listens to me, and talks to me 
 again. You don't think it worth while. 
 I'll tell him all my stories." 
 
 " Forgive me," said Cuthbert ; "it was 
 only for an instant. I was thinking of my 
 sister, who is not well." 
 
 " Why ! " cried Henrietta ; " you have 
 not worse news of her, have you, since 
 being here ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Then Geoffrey said, you know, that, 
 according to the news received by you, she 
 was much better than she had been. Don't 
 be frightened ; she will be quite well when 
 you get home. See ! I had plucked these 
 flowers, for fear you might be obstinate, that 
 you might, in that case, take them to little 
 Winnifrid, with my love. But you are to 
 stay till evening, and I'll get you a fresher 
 bouquet this afternoon."
 
 128 HARDING 
 
 " A thousand thanks ! Winnifrid will 
 love you very much. But who is Algernon, 
 to whom you say you will tell your story of 
 Must and Cannot ? " 
 
 '' Algernon is Algernon Childering. He 
 says such delightful things. I always long 
 for Algy to come, and I feel so, so sad when 
 he goes away." 
 
 " How old is he ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Not so old as you, I 
 think. But you don't talk as he does." 
 
 " How ? So much ? " 
 
 " No — so beautifully ; and when he is in 
 a diflferent humour, he says such funny 
 jokes ! " 
 
 '' Ahem ! — and so you'll tell him the 
 story ? " 
 
 " No — I will not tell him that story ; for 
 do you know," added she, lowering her 
 voice with a sort of awe, '* I thought all 
 stories were in story books ; and w^hen Miss 
 Haxton had read me this, I saw it was a
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 129 
 
 paper of writing, and she told me that Algy 
 had written it expressly for me ! '' 
 
 " What ! He had written it ?— that is, 
 written it out ? You do not mean that he 
 composed it ? " 
 
 " Yes, he did ! and every one says he is so 
 clever. It was kind in Algy — was it not ? 
 He has such magnificent eyes, when he is 
 talking eagerly to papa. Ah ! you should 
 see Algernon." 
 
 " Well — I have no chance, I perceive," 
 said Cuthbert, smiling (but with far more of 
 the reality of the jealousy which his words 
 expressed, than he, in his pride, would have 
 acknowledged). " I have no chance of 
 your caring for me. Algernon Childering 
 is everything with you.'' 
 
 "Not everything," said she, gently, and 
 looking fixedly at Cuthbert. "He never 
 saved mamma's hfe, and you have, dear Mr. 
 Cuthbert. But " 
 
 " But what ? "
 
 130 HARDING 
 
 '' Geoffrey says you rode so splendidly ; 
 but all he can tell us is just that : he says, 
 ' splendid ! ' (here the little elf began to 
 mimic her brother, in high good humour, 
 and with the most marvellous reproduction 
 of his voice, gestures, manner, and even 
 look) — ' splendid, by Jove ! stunning, sir, 
 stunning 1 Like a hundred thousand 
 bricks ! ' That is all that Geoffrey says. 
 Oh, I wish that Algy had seen you mount 
 that horse, dear Mr. Cuthbert, and ride that 
 terrible, terrible race ! And if, in a room 
 with many people, Geoffrey was going to 
 tell what you had done, I wouldn't let him 
 — but I would say, ' Let Algy tell it, 
 Geoffrey.' Indeed I would — I would make 
 Algy tell it ! one never forgets what Algy 
 says. I've heard papa say so, and mamma 
 says the same, so does Miss Haxton." 
 
 " I don't think I'm likely to forget what 
 you say, either," remarked Cuthbert; 
 " you've picked up the knack from this son
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 131 
 
 of the gentleman whose horse I rode. I 
 beg pardon — I mean, son of Mr. Childering, 
 who lately owned the horse." 
 
 "Ah, but you have saved mamma's life. 
 AVhenever I look at mamma, or see a chest- 
 nut-coloured horse, or a thin, little flask of 
 medicine, I shall think of you." 
 
 " And when will you think of this 
 Algernon ? " 
 
 " Oh — anything reminds me of him ; it 
 may be anything I " 
 
 " He ought to be glad," said Cuthbert— 
 " you will think of him the oftenest." 
 
 " Perhaps so. But I must tell you the 
 news, and then I must go in. I ought to 
 have brought my hat. Geofirey is to go to 
 Oxford immediately, and to take honour ; 
 and before he goes he is to go to the Duke 
 of Man's, and all his time will be taken 
 up, and you may not have any more 
 time to spend together for a long, long 
 time."
 
 132 HARDING 
 
 " Ah ! that is the news, is it ? " said 
 Cuthbert, musingly. 
 
 " There ! " cried the little fairy, with a 
 ringing laugh and a beaming countenance. 
 " The news is ! — you see it is singular, your- 
 self!" 
 
 " Yes," said he, smiling sadly ; '' singular, 
 but not strange ! " 
 
 There was something about his expression 
 which made the dear child pause suddenly 
 in her laughter. She put away, with a toss 
 of the head, the golden tresses which had 
 fallen over her forehead, and fixed a long, 
 inquisitive look upon Cuthbert. 
 
 " Why," she then asked, " do you not 
 also go to Oxford, Mr. Cuthbert, and take 
 honour ? " 
 
 The boy hesitated. 
 
 "Because — because — I — I must begin to 
 be busy in life ; — busy in life ; busy. * King 
 Must ' you know, of whom you just now 
 spoke, is a very despotic and powerful 
 monarch."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 133 
 
 As he said this, young Harding heaved a 
 scarcely audible sigh. The child gazed at 
 him wistfully ; and, then, with right ready 
 innocent sympathy, echoing the sigh, mur- 
 muringly and musingly replied — 
 
 " Yes, very powerful ; very." 
 
 While they were thus conferring, Harding 
 happened to look towards the window of 
 the drawing-room which commanded a view 
 of the garden, and he perceived at once the 
 fruits of fame, and the profound and con- 
 tinued sensation created by his all daring 
 and all achieving exploit of yesterday. Lady 
 Mandeville and a group of ladies were at 
 the window in the drawing-room. Lady 
 Mandeville was in the very act of pointing 
 with a book which she held in her hand 
 towards Cuthbert, and was evidently speak- 
 ing with animation ; while behind the fair 
 circle, and looking intently at him over 
 their shoulders, stood the elder Mr. Childer- 
 ing, Mr. Melcombe, and Sir Walter. The
 
 134 HARDING 
 
 youth had evidently attained, for the mo- 
 ment at least, and in that brilliant mansion, 
 to the '^ That is the man " of ancient Greek 
 ambition, and the coveted ^^ Digito monstrari 
 et dicier Hie est " of Imperial Eome. Blush- 
 ing scarlet, Cuthbert turned towards little 
 Henrietta and said : " But it is time — it is 
 time for you to go in, and I'll go too." And 
 while he spoke, he moved slowly towards 
 the house. 
 
 One of its Gothic fagades, all creeping 
 with devils, gryphons, dragons, and phan- 
 tasmal horrors, in every variety of mediaeval 
 blazon, and crowned with its diadem of gilt 
 minarets and twisted turrets, formed (beyond 
 a broad gravel esplanade, which was every- 
 where else enclosed by a battlemented wall, 
 but here by a thick hedge of sweetbrier and 
 monthly roses, lining, as it were, a row of 
 giant laurels) one of the Gothic facades or 
 fronts. I say, formed, on this side, the 
 boundary of the garden, and now rose be-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 135 
 
 fore them in a wondrous ricliness of light 
 and shadow, half of it gleaming in the 
 slant rajs of the morning sun, and half 
 withdrawn into the blackness of the buttress - 
 sheltered and figure-guarded hollows. In 
 the house, under the porch of a wide folding 
 door, which opened opposite to the lofty arch 
 of the central passage, through the hedge 
 of roses, stood a stout man, without his hat, 
 his hands crossed, Napoleon-wise, behind his 
 back. Henrietta, running on before, shot by 
 this figure rather unceremoniously. Cuthbert, 
 however, approached him very differently, 
 and with far more observance, muttering : 
 " There stands half a million of money ! " 
 
 '' Good morning, Mr. Brad worth," said 
 Cuthbert, lifting his hat with a rather fine 
 air, but speaking in a tone at once cordial, 
 frank and respectful. 
 
 The figure contemplated him a moment 
 with small, keen eyes, from over the purple 
 cheeks.
 
 136 HAEDING 
 
 " All ! you're the chap that rode my 'orse 
 yesterday ? " 
 
 " Not then knowing him to be yours," 
 answered Cuthbert. " Had heard, indeed, 
 at the inn, that he was sold to some per- 
 son of distinction, but the name was not 
 given/' 
 
 Mr. Bradworth's countenance brightened 
 at once at the phrase which Cuthbert had 
 so adroitly thrown in, " some person of dis- 
 tinction." 
 
 " It was a fortunate ride for me," con- 
 tinued Cuthbert, observing his advantage, 
 " since it has procured me " — another slight 
 bow here, and the hat again raised with a 
 certain off-hand, though grand air — "the 
 privilege of your acquaintance." 
 
 " Your 'eadpiece seems screwed on in the 
 right place," observed Mr. Bradworth. 
 " You'll do— you'll do ! " 
 
 " Have you bought that fine horse for 
 your own private riding, sir ? " inquired
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 137 
 
 Cutlibert, wtio reddened at being detected 
 in his flattery, "for I don't think he is fully 
 broken ; and, pardon my forwardness, it will 
 be much more comfortable for you to put 
 him in hand again for at least three months, 
 when you return to London." 
 
 " Thank you for the good intention," re- 
 turned the Half Million, with a knowing 
 smile and a twinkling eye. " I'm not 
 agoing to get upon that 'orse. He's for sale. 
 I should like you to 'ave 'ad 'im ; but you 
 couldn't apaid the price — you couldn't ! " 
 
 " Purchaser found, sir ? " pursued our 
 youth, quietly. 
 
 " Yes ; that Corsican or French Prince, 
 who would ride anything — Prince Thingum- 
 bob. Yes, yes ; the bargain was struck 
 before I bought him myself. I had the 
 brute up in London, to look at him, and to 
 let another person look at him, and take 
 opinions, before I paid the money to Mr. 
 Childering."
 
 138 HARDING 
 
 " A good difference, I hope," said Cuth- 
 bert, " between the two prices ? " 
 
 " Pretty well, pretty well ! — I nett a 
 couple of undred ! " 
 
 " That is equivalent," pursued our youth, 
 nearing his point, " to a couple of shares in 
 the newly-projected railway, of which I 
 heard you demonstrate the desirableness and 
 necessity so clearly, last night, after dinner. 
 How you crushed the arguments of poor 
 Sir Walter and that other person ! " 
 
 '* What do they know about railways ? " 
 returned Mr. Brad worth. " Couple of 
 shares ! equivalent ! Why that altogether 
 depends. If you wanted to buy in now, it 
 is two 'undred pun' ; but when we've got 
 our line through the committee, and when 
 I've fairly jerked the ball out on the public, 
 them shares '11 be worth twenty, perhaps 
 fifty, premium, at the very least." 
 
 " And when will the line have passed the 
 committee ? " demanded Cuthbert.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 139 
 
 " Next week, as I reckon." 
 
 Cuthbert mused a moment, and then, get- 
 ting very red, and evidently making great 
 efforts to preserve an air of composure, he 
 said — 
 
 " I won a little money on the late races ; 
 and I should like of all things (if you would 
 condescend so far) to place my contemptible 
 trifle in your hands, Mr. Bradworth, and 
 make a first investment under the wisdom of 
 your kind advice." 
 
 " How much ave you got ? " 
 
 " A hundred and twenty Hve pounds : it 
 will entitle me to only one share. I am 
 quite ashamed to occupy your attention with 
 such a very trifling investment — and — 
 and " 
 
 " Well ! 'tain't much of an investment, to 
 be sure," answered the vapour monarch, 
 with a scarcely audible sniggle ; " but I say, 
 they tell me you was at Eton ? You must 
 go it rather, you Etonians, to be able to nett
 
 140 HAEDING 
 
 or to lose 'undrecls in just pocket-money — 
 eh ? " 
 
 "If you saw my book," replied Cuthbert, 
 " you would perceive that I did not, for an 
 instant, risk as much as I afterwards won. 
 The book's the man, sir ! Not a soul of 'em 
 knew anything about making one." 
 
 Mr. Bradworth noiselessly unclasped his 
 arms from behind his back, and thrust two 
 very red hands into his trousers ; then 
 throwing his head on "the off " shoulder, 
 and jingling the silver which was in his 
 pockets, he contemplated Cuthbert for nearly 
 a minute with an expression of blended 
 scrutiny and admiration. The ingenuous 
 youth supported this ordeal with laudable 
 coolness. 
 
 " You'll rather do," remarked Mr. Brad- 
 worth, at last. " The book's the man, is it ? 
 Hum ! As to your 'undred and twenty-five 
 entitlin' of you to only one share, you're 
 mistaken. I'll tell you what I'll do ; you
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 141 
 
 'and over your 'undred and twenty-five, and 
 I'll give you, this moment, five shares to 
 begin with. You've paid the deposit for 
 five. But mind, you can't use the scrip till 
 the line's passed the committee of the 'Ouse. 
 The thing is sure, so we get our shares 
 ready. There'll be no call before there's a 
 rise, mark my words. When the rise comes 
 to fifteen per cent., you sell at that 'ere 
 premium, and nett seventy-five ; and if 
 there's a further rise, no matter, don't you 
 regret ; stick to that rule of prudential and 
 safe gains. I wouldn't do such a thing for 
 everybody ; if it so chanced that a call did 
 come, how could you pay up ? But I like 
 you, and I would pay for you, 'specially as 
 there won't be any occasion. StiU, knowing 
 that you're not solvent, up to the nominal 
 possible call, 'twouldn't be fair to give you 
 more than one share, if I wasn't ready to 
 stump up myself, and to fork down on 
 theory ; there won't be occasion, you know.
 
 1 42 HARDING 
 
 Here's the bits of paper. Take care of 
 them. In ten clays you just set them 
 allying, and put two 'unclred in your pocket- 
 book, instead of this 'ere 'undred and twenty- 
 five." 
 
 Cuthbert took the scrip, which he care- 
 fully folded up and lodged in his pocket- 
 book, in lieu of twelve different checks and 
 orders (to the value of one hundred and 
 twenty-five pounds), which he had received 
 by post from various Etonians, losers of bets 
 which they had made with him. 
 
 He had just finished his thanks to Mr. 
 Bradworth, when a quick step in the vesti- 
 bule behind them made both look round, and 
 a servant said — 
 
 " Lady Mandeville has come down, gentle- 
 men, and breakfast waits." 
 
 It was not a house in which breakfast 
 waited everybody's caprice from eight o'clock 
 in the morning till one in the afternoon, and 
 where the disorder of a tavern was aggra-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 143 
 
 vatecl by the far more reckless wastefulness 
 of the ungrateful guests. Eegularity of 
 hours reigned in Mandeville Park, amidst 
 all the splendours of its dress, appearance, 
 and arrangements. 
 
 Mr. Bradworth and Cuthbert Harding 
 moved with alacrity at the summons of the 
 servant, and carried to the breakfast-room, 
 the one the appetite which he had inhaled 
 at the porch, the other that which he had 
 obtained while pondering under the sycamore 
 tree.
 
 144 HARDING 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " These shall the fnry passions tear, 
 The vultures of the mind, 
 Disdainful anger, pallid fear, 
 And shame, that skulks behind. 
 Or pining love shall waste their youth. 
 Or jealousy, with rankling tooth. 
 That inly gnaws the secret heart. 
 And envy wan, and faded care, 
 Grim visaged, comfortless despair, 
 And sorrow's piercing dart." 
 
 Gray. 
 
 After breakfast, Geoffrey took Cutkbert to 
 his room, and skowed kim tke outfit wkick 
 kad been given kim by kis motker for 
 Oxford. All was very fine, and notking 
 seemed to be wanting wkick could become 
 tke keir of Mandeville Park. Care kad
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 145 
 
 been taken that his first entrance into the 
 world of his equals, his appearance among 
 the patrician youth of England, should carry 
 with it all that could grace his own manly, 
 healthful beauty, and the station of his 
 family. 
 
 While Geoffrey was displaying the won- 
 ders of his complete dressing-box, silver- 
 mounted, wherein he particularly bespoke 
 admiration of that case of razors, which he 
 had never yet had occasion to use, Cuthbert 
 stood by, taciturn and thoughtful, glancing 
 from each new bauble to his friend's exultant 
 face, and then back again — taciturn, I say, 
 and thoughtful. No young lady, exhibiting 
 the finery provided for her approaching 
 bridal, could have been more absorbed, 
 abstracted, delighted, enraptured, than was 
 Geofirey. As over the dismal marsh, on 
 some bleak wintry night, a star shining 
 through the torn and ragged crevices of the 
 misty clouds, casts a wan and haggard light 
 
 10
 
 146 HARDING 
 
 — SO, a smile, dubious and feeble, and not 
 easy to understand, illumined tlie counten- 
 ance of young Harding while lie watched 
 his friend's gladness, and replied with 
 "capital ! charming ! just the thing!" to his 
 frequent, his reiterated question of "is it not 
 stunning ?'' Sight-seeing is proverbially tire- 
 some, even when you are not called upon to 
 express, every moment, your unqualified 
 admiration. At last, Cuthbert said — 
 
 " Fve seen everything now, Geoffrey ; and 
 I must say your outfit is all you can desire. 
 Let us go down." 
 
 "Ay, come to the stables ; you have not 
 seen everything yet. There's my father's 
 present — a fine horse, well broken." 
 
 They repaired, therefore, to the stables, 
 and there Cuthbert saw a horse, in the points 
 of which he could indeed find no fault. He 
 muttered to himself something which made 
 Geoffrey say " what ? " 
 
 " A sweet creature 1 " answered Cuthbert.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 147 
 
 *^ I have not," he mentally added, " a horse 
 in the world." 
 
 While considering the animal, he silently 
 pursued this reflection a little further : " I 
 can ride, and I have nothing to ride. This 
 gentleman has the steed which would just 
 suit me, and he suits it not. Besides, what 
 will he do at Oxford ? What might not I do ? 
 Eeverse our positions, and all is in its place. 
 Now we have a topsy-turvy arrangement. 
 And whence the disorder ? Merely from 
 the uneven distribution of money. But 
 money, thank goodness, can be won or spun. 
 Money could not make a Mandeville Park, 
 it is true, with all its dusty banners. Battle 
 Abbey recollections, and Domesday-book 
 origin ; but have I not seen Mandeville 
 Park itself, with all these banners and 
 associations, bow down and worship Nicholas 
 Bradworth ? What did it worship in him ? 
 Would it have worshipped him twenty 
 years ago, when he was a lean-faced shop-
 
 148 HARDING 
 
 hoy behind a deal counter ? Was it Ms 
 mind or his manners, the wise books he has 
 written for the enlightenment of posterity, 
 the wise laws he has suggested in Parlia- 
 ment, the exploits he has performed, or any 
 services whatever rendered to the common 
 weal, or indeed rendered to others at all ? 
 Was it merit, or was it service, or was it 
 personal fascination, that was thus idolised ? 
 No — it was half a million of money." 
 
 " A beautiful animal, indeed, Geoffrey ! " 
 he suddenly said, rousing himself from his 
 abstraction ; " what did he cost ? " 
 
 " Don't know exactly, but I wouldn't 
 take a hundred pounds for him." 
 
 After dinner, when the horses for the two 
 friends were announced to be at the door, 
 Henrietta ran across the room and offered 
 Cuthbert a magnificent bouquet of flowers. 
 
 " Give these," said she, *' to dear Winni- 
 frid, with my love. Has she a nice garden 
 of her own ? "
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 149 
 
 " She has a garden," said Cuthbert. 
 " But what a magnificent bouquet ! I am 
 sure Winnj will be at a loss to thank you, 
 as I am myself." 
 
 " See," cried Henrietta, " the moon is 
 shining ; I'll just muffle myself well — I'm 
 sure mamma won't object — and I'll show 
 you my garden. Come, Mr. Cuthbert ; 
 come, Geoffrey, it is so improved ; come 1 " 
 
 Lady Mandeville shook her head, with 
 a smile, and said, " Only for a moment, 
 then, Henrietta." 
 
 The spoilt child laughed, while muffling a 
 cloak around her, and then, hastily tying 
 the strings of her bonnet, she darted out 
 by the tall window door which communi- 
 cated with the esplanade and garden, and 
 through which the balmy and still warm air 
 of a beautiful June evening stole into the 
 apartment. 
 
 " Dear child," said Lady Mandeville, " it 
 does not answer to contradict or restrain
 
 150 HARDING 
 
 her, as Dr. H. expressly said ; but don't be 
 long, Geoffrey ; the dew has long begun to 
 fall, and will soon fall very heavily." 
 
 " Look ! " exclaimed Henrietta, when 
 Cuthbert had followed with Geoffrey ; " all 
 this part, from the fountain as far as that 
 statue, belongs to me ! Papa says that I 
 am to call it mine I He says, also, that I 
 am to be constantly looking after and 
 tending the flowers on fine days ; he told 
 me so immediately after the doctor had 
 gone away one morning ; you remember, 
 Geoffrey, when I was so ill." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Cuthbert, looking anxiously, 
 and with a scrutinizing frown, at the child. 
 
 At this instant the weather suddenly 
 began to change ; a rack of misty clouds 
 concealed the moon ; some drops of rain 
 fell, and a low plaintive -sounding wind 
 arose. 
 
 " In, in, Henrietta ! " cried her brother, 
 seizing her hand, and making her run with
 
 THE M0NEY-SPI2^NER. 151 
 
 him towards the glass door, across the 
 gravel esplanade. 
 
 Efforts were made to induce Cuthbert 
 to " stay the night," as the phrase is, since 
 the night promised to be so nnpropitious. 
 He would not, however, be retarded, even 
 for five minutes, in his departure : merely 
 begging on his side that Geoffrey would not 
 think of accompanying him in such dis- 
 agreeable weather. 
 
 They were soon trotting smartly along the 
 plashy road, between the tall thick hedge- 
 rows, which, in certain counties, add so 
 much to the beauty of the rural scenery — 
 which helped, no doubt, of old, with other 
 features, to give its name of " merrie Eng- 
 lande " to this country — and which, in the 
 present day, excite to such a degree the 
 splenetic disapprobation of all economists, 
 as well as of all high farming agricul- 
 turists. A steep hill changed the pace ; 
 and, when the friends came to its foot, they
 
 152 HARDING 
 
 walked their horses. This permitted con- 
 versation. 
 
 *' Is your little sister, Henrietta," asked 
 Cuthbert, " threatened with consumption ? 
 You seemed to be peculiarly on your guard 
 not to let her face the shower." 
 
 " Well, the doctor said, when he told her 
 to work among the flowers, and all that, 
 that it was much better she should not 
 catch another severe cough. She does not 
 now cough at all, and I think she is growing 
 up strong. Consumption never was in my 
 father's family. But mamma's mother died 
 of it, and they say it leaps a generation, and 
 so comes out again." 
 
 " Certainly you, Geofirey, do not look a 
 likely subject for it!" said Cuthbert. ''Leaps 
 a generation ! How curious ! Is that pos- 
 sible ?" 
 
 '* So I have heard," returned Geofirey : 
 '^ and, moreover, that such disorders are 
 far more transmissible by the mother's, than 
 by the father's side."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 153 
 
 " Ah ! " said Cuthbert — " and it was your 
 mother's parent ? " 
 
 " Yes — but dear Henrietta is growing up 
 strong, I tell you ; and ever stronger may she 
 grow ! To me her life makes a difference 
 of forty thousand pounds lost ; and right 
 glad I am to think the dear little thing 
 is breathing out of good lungs, even at that 
 cost to me." 
 
 " How is that? — forty thousand pounds I " 
 
 " Why it is settled on her, man ! But 
 were she to die unmarried, it reverts to me, 
 merging back into the bulk of the estate." 
 
 " Oh ! I see," said Cuthbert, smelling at 
 the large bouquet which he carried. " How 
 the dew brings out the scent of flowers ! " 
 
 Geoffrey glanced round, and exclaimed — 
 
 *' Hey ! old fellow, that bouquet won't 
 reach its destination. It is sent to your 
 sister Winnifrid, but I know one that will 
 get it first." 
 
 "Who?"
 
 154 HARDING 
 
 '* A certain young lady, now on a visit to 
 your mother's. Why, man, your memory 
 is short. Do you forget telling me at Eton 
 all about Emily Whitsund ? I've never 
 breathed the subject till this moment, and 
 never will, to any but yourself. However, 
 I can't help often thinking of it. There 
 is something romantic in possessing the love 
 of a beautiful girl at your age or mine. I 
 cannot boast as much. And why is she at 
 your mother's just in this present nick of 
 time?" 
 
 " Well, Geoffrey, you are being de- 
 veloped ! You precipitate beautifully ! I 
 never thought you would come out as a 
 persifleur." 
 
 " What's a persifieur ? " 
 
 " A railer, a wit, a light lance of words, a 
 free spear in jests upon a friend. You are 
 wondrous ! I confess the romantic passage, 
 however. Emily Whitsund and I have 
 exchanged vows of troth, under a hawthorn
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 155 
 
 liedge, in this montli of June, one year ago. 
 Yet the plighted word may never come to 
 anything. Very often " 
 
 Here Cuthbert interrupted himself, and 
 glanced round uneasily. He fixed a long 
 stare on a dreary moor which bordered the 
 left of the road. Then he fell into a silent 
 fit of abstraction. 
 
 Geoffrey glanced in the same direction, 
 and seeing nothing to remark, reflected for 
 a moment, after which, shaking off some 
 thoughts too perplexing for solution, at 
 least by him, he exclaimed in a cordial 
 voice — 
 
 " Not come to anything ! Oh, yes, it 
 will, I am sure — all in good time. But 
 pardon me, dear Cuthbert, has the lady any 
 fortune ? '' 
 
 " Hark, Geoffrey ! " said Harding, laying 
 his hand nervously on his friend's bridle 
 arm ; " did you hear nothing ? " 
 
 " Nothing, except the clatter of our
 
 156 HARDING 
 
 horses' hoofs, and the soughing of the wind 
 in the trees." 
 
 " I heard a laugh, as if in scorn ; at least, 
 so I fancied," muttered Cuthbert ; and then, 
 without waiting for any comment upon this, 
 he added, rapidly : " any fortune ? Yes ; 
 Emmy AVhitsund has a piece of land in 
 Cumberland, which piece of land is hers 
 altogether, and fetches her the enormous 
 sum of ninety-five pounds per annum ! " 
 
 "Well," observed Geoffrey, good-naturedly 
 rather than profoundly, " never mind. Land 
 is land all the world over — and love is 
 love ! " 
 
 " You speak like an oracle," replied 
 Cuthbert, pulling his hat over his brows. 
 "Pray, do you know one Algernon Chil- 
 dering ? " 
 
 " I saw him once at the Park," said 
 Geoffrey. 
 
 " What is he like ? " inquired Harding, 
 with a sort of vehemence.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 157 
 
 " He is monstrous clever, I believe ; but 
 all I know is, tbat he is the nicest fellow 
 that ever was." 
 
 " He has been a kind of playfellow of 
 your sister's, I think — has he not ? " pursued 
 Cuthbert, his voice trembling very slightly. 
 
 Here an incident occurred which pre- 
 vented Geoffrey's answer ; and what Cuth- 
 bert or what Algernon might enact hereafter 
 — what destiny Henrietta, what Emily 
 Whitsund may yet encounter — these things, 
 I say, remain a little while in shadow. 
 
 Young Mandeville, whose mind was 
 running upon his outfit for Oxford, paid 
 at first no attention to the question, and 
 before he could collect his thoughts he 
 was startled by an exclamation of his 
 companion's.
 
 158 HARDING 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 How sinks his soul ! 
 
 What black despair, what horror, fills his heart ! " 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 They had ascended tlie hill of which we 
 have spoken ; they had descended it. A 
 long, straight, and level road lay before 
 them. On the right, some tall woods, form- 
 ing the outskirts of Mandeville Park, and 
 diversified by copse, occupied the scene. 
 But, to the left, extended a damp and lonely 
 heath, on the bosom of which, about a 
 quarter of a mile from the road, shone, 
 white and glassy, a pool of sedgy water. 
 Cuthbert, during the latter part of the con- 
 versation detailed in our last chapter, had 
 repeatedly glanced, with an uneasy and
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 159 
 
 hypochondriac air, over this desolate pros- 
 pect. A misty moon, and a drizzling rain, 
 shed down a species of woe upon the scene. 
 Geoffrey, two or three times, looked round 
 impatiently at his friend, when he found that 
 a sentence was interrupted in the middle. 
 On each occasion, he observed Cuthbert 
 gazing with a wild, haggard, and even 
 alarmed look upon the dreary and cheer- 
 less wold. He would then shake himself in 
 the saddle, and with a manifest effort resume 
 the conversation. But, ever and anon, the 
 gaze would wander, and always to the left 
 hand, always to the damp and lonely heath. 
 
 " What the deuce is the matter with 
 him?" thought Geoffrey, but he did not 
 put his thought into words. At last Cuth- 
 bert said — 
 
 " Geoffrey, does not the sight of that 
 dismal plain, those gloomy swamps, with 
 the misty, glassy pools of glistening water, 
 strike a kind of awe into you ? "
 
 160 HARDING 
 
 " Not a bit ; in four months there will be 
 capital wild duck shooting among those 
 flashes, as they call them in the west. That 
 is Heron Moss ! " 
 
 *' Flashes ! And see, Geofirey, there are 
 some flashes of lightning ! We shall be 
 caught in a storm. I don't like the heath. 
 I vote we gallop." 
 
 And, without waiting for assent or answer, 
 he put his nag to its utmost pace, and never 
 pulled bridle till some corn fields and farm 
 yards glittered in the moonlight, on the left 
 of the road. 
 
 " How strange ! " thought Geofirey, as he 
 pursued his friend. Blunt and frank him- 
 self, he was not the person to leave such a 
 mystery uninvestigated. 
 
 " Why what, in the name of all that's 
 mad, possesses you, Cuthbert ? " cried he, out 
 of breath, when he had ridden up to his 
 friend. 
 
 " How can I tell ? Let us chaneje the
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 161 
 
 subject. There are more wonderful things 
 than a fit of hippish weakness. I was 
 frightened, I believe ! " 
 
 " You were frightened ! I dared not have 
 said so, and I know no more wonderful 
 thing. But here you are, eh ? '' 
 
 ''Yes/' said Cuthbert, with a look of 
 mortification which the darkness concealed 
 from his friend : " yonder is Lea Meadows. 
 It is very unlike Mandeville Park ; it stands 
 close upon the public road, as we Hardings 
 stand close upon the great common and 
 middle highway of life ; we are not secluded 
 among the enveloping woods and proud 
 retirements of a lot at once aristocratic and 
 opulent. You must count upon homely fare- 
 and an unpretending welcome, my dear 
 Geoffrey, under this lowly roof." 
 
 There was a dignity beyond his years in 
 Cuthbert's manner of saying this, only its 
 effect was spoilt by a certain bitterness. 
 Geoffrey felt himself awkward in not know- 
 
 11
 
 162 HARDING • 
 
 ing exactly what to lejAy. The moon here 
 shone out again, and Geoffrey looked up at 
 it puzzled. He had neither the half supple 
 and refining, half ardent and daring intelli- 
 gence of Cuthbert, nor his morbid and 
 irritable sensitiveness. He was an onward, 
 straightforward, right-hearted English youth, 
 not very bright in head, but bright in heart, 
 in honour, in courage, and in truthfulness. 
 Add to this, that he had the carelessness 
 sometimes seen in the heirs of high station 
 and of large estate. He had fallen into an 
 absurd but natural and very common error, 
 in which he was kept in countenance by the 
 number of his companions — he was " too 
 rich to be learned,'' too high placed to 
 labour. To quote examples which would 
 put this error to shame would be pedantic, 
 because superfluous, although they are tempt- 
 ing in their picturesqueness, are these ex- 
 amples from Pericles to Caesar, from Caesar 
 to the modern and even contemporary heroes
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 163 
 
 of many an imperishable stoiy« And if it 
 be foreign from my present task to deal with 
 this error by citing the thousand glorious 
 instances which disgrace and discountenance 
 it, much more is it remote from my business 
 to deal with it, by reasoning about it accord- 
 ino^ to the strict rules of loo;ic and discussion. 
 One only example I will permit myself, that 
 which is contained in the occurrences I have 
 myself to relate. 
 
 But, short as are these digressive remarks, 
 the reader has already, I think, perceived 
 that they are too long for my taste. If with 
 equal propriety I could have done so, I should 
 have said at once, that Geoffrey was what 
 his friends would term "a fine, open-hearted, 
 simple fellow "■ — and his honest enemies, 
 '' an amiable and respectable young muff." 
 
 His lot was happy, his future was secure, 
 his feelings were excellent, his ideas slow, 
 his expressions just as might be. If they 
 came when they were wanted, well and
 
 164 HARDING 
 
 good ; if tliey did not, they still left liim 
 six feet liigli, full of health, handsomeness, 
 and kindliness, as well as heir of Mandeville 
 Park, with its nine thousand a year. 
 
 Meanwhile, there are now before us two 
 ladies and two gentlemen, whose destinies, 
 amidst the casual throng, justify our 
 curiosity, and claim our inquiries. Little 
 Henrietta is only in the bud, and belongs 
 to the future. Emmy Whitsund, as we 
 shall presently see, has blossomed into 
 more immediate interest. Which is to be 
 heroine of the doom ? and which the 
 queen of prosperous love? But, besides 
 Cuthbert and our friend Geoffrey, there is 
 yet a third youth who may demand notice. 
 Cuthbert the reader begins to understand 
 and to watch ; but there is another, I repeat. 
 Who and what is this Algernon Childering ? 
 Can Geoffrey tell us " which lover and 
 which lady " ? On these points there is 
 hitlierto only one fact clear. That young
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEE. 165 
 
 Harding is a suitor of one Emily Whitsund 
 — not yet introduced to tlie reader — and 
 that an engagement subsists between them, 
 is ascertained. But, without insisting on 
 an occasional distinction between ''suitor' 
 and " lover," and without inquiring what 
 young Harding will ultimately prove most 
 inclined to love, or what tests his love will 
 be capable of resisting, I need scarcely say 
 that an exchange of plighted troth, made 
 so very early in life, has its peculiar risks. 
 The character of neither party is developed ; 
 and not on the character of either alone, 
 but on that of both one and the other, even 
 under favourable circumstances, depends the 
 sequel. 
 
 For the last five minutes of the journey 
 which I have described, Cuthbert had wholly 
 ceased to be himself. Geoffrey was pain- 
 fully conscious of a change of humour in 
 him, which I find it difficult to describe. 
 Had the mists of the solitary moor settled
 
 166 HARDING 
 
 upon him, and clung, so to speak, around 
 his mind, there could not have been a 
 greater gloom of manner, or a more chilly 
 transition from the good spirits, if not 
 geniality, with which he had previously 
 supported his share in the conversation with 
 young Mandeville. 
 
 Entering now a little j)alisade through a 
 wicker gate, the two youths walked their 
 horses along a gravelled way, bordered by 
 a close mown miniature lawn, and leading 
 to the porch of an old-fashioned, red tiled 
 cottao^e. Throuo^h the central window of 
 three, all of which rose nearly from ground 
 to roof, in the nearest of the two cottage 
 wings, separated as these were by the broad 
 and far advancing porch, a continuous 
 arrowy light was shot over the flowers of 
 the little lawn, showing that the shutters of 
 that window were not quite closed, and that 
 the curtains were only partially drawn. 
 
 " How pretty," said Geoffrey. " What a
 
 THE MONEY- SPINNER. 167 
 
 nice place Lea Meadows is ! Hark ! " lie 
 added, reiniog in liis horse. " There's a 
 voice for you ! " 
 
 Cuthbert, recalled agreeably from his ab- 
 straction by his friend's flattering criticism 
 and subsequent exclamation, halted also, 
 and listened. A woman's voice, youthful, 
 yet rich and mellow, penetrated the case- 
 ment, and bore to them a sweet, strange 
 air, the words of which were undistinguish- 
 able, but seemed to be foreign. 
 
 Young Harding had been delighted by 
 Geoffrey's praise of Lea Meadows, as it 
 appeared under the rallying beams of the 
 summer moon ; and, while he now listened 
 to the ravishing strain of music which stole 
 into the outer night, the dark mood seemed 
 to be soothed within him, and his counten- 
 ance cleared up, even like the sky above 
 them. A powerful wind which prevailed 
 in the upper regions of the atmosphere, but 
 was not felt where they stood, had already
 
 1G8 HARDINO 
 
 rescued tlie middle lieavens from troops of 
 clouds, which were chased and driven down 
 the apparent declivity of the gemmed and 
 luminous vault ; while the moon, escaping 
 from the ragged rout, shed floods of pallid, 
 silvery light upon every object, casting 
 almost vertical shadows from the tall figures 
 of the two youths and of their horses, which 
 pawed their own eluding images upon the 
 darkened gravel, elsewhere gleaming with 
 a white, metallic-looking sheen. The tem- 
 porary disturbance of the weather had been 
 but, a "heat shower," as it is termed, and 
 was passing away in distant rolls of thunder; 
 the air was warm and full of electricity, and 
 a few flashes of sheet lightning lit up with 
 their lambent coruscations the skirts of the 
 receding storm. Presently, as the friends 
 still sate silent upon their horses, no other 
 sounds save the melody of the enchanting 
 song from the invisible vocalist broke the 
 stillness. The instrument on which she
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 169 
 
 sparingly accompanied the foreign words of 
 the sad, sweet air was evidently a guitar ; 
 and it seemed as if the singer (so faintly 
 fell at times the delicate cadence) was not 
 in the room from which shot the arrowy 
 ray I have mentioned, but in some adjoin- 
 ing and more distant apartment. At length 
 the music seemed to soar into an appealing, 
 prolonged, and tremulous complaint, and 
 died away. 
 
 The friends still sate as if listening, but 
 the strain had quite ceased, and the only 
 sounds which they now heard were the 
 champing of their steeds upon the bit, and 
 the cry of the " corn-crake," or land-rail, 
 amidst the newly-mown hay of a meadow, 
 which, from a little distance, sent its 
 peculiar and pleasant aroma even across the 
 dewy perfumes of the garden. 
 
 " It is Emily's voice,'' said Cuthbert— " I 
 know it well ; but the song is new to 
 me. Pray excuse our scant retainership,
 
 170 HARDING 
 
 Geoffrey, and ride round with me to the 
 stables, where we shall find old Humphrey 
 to take our horses. Bah ! the mists of that 
 swampy moss bewitched me."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 171 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 *' Among the crooked lanes, on every liedge, 
 The glowworm lights his gem, and through the 
 dark 
 
 A moving radiance twinkles." 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 In the yard tliey dismounted, and, at Cuth- 
 bert's loud call of " Humplirey," an old man, 
 wearing gaiters, a stable jacket, and a large, 
 round, horizontally convex, dogskin cap, 
 with the hair on, emerged from a coach- 
 house door, and inspected them for an in- 
 stant. He then hurried towards them with 
 a hobbling run, saying — 
 
 " Welcome home, Master Cuthbert ! I'm 
 joyed to see you ! Service, sir," added he, 
 touching his cap to Geoffrey, who, in return, 
 smiled, nodded, and brought to his hat the
 
 172 HARDING 
 
 horsewhip which he held. As the old man 
 placed himself between the two horses and 
 took the bridle of each, he looked askant, 
 and said, before moving on — 
 
 ''You wasn't troubled at all, was you. 
 Master Cuthbert, coming along ? " 
 
 " Surely not. What should trouble us ? " 
 asked Cuthbert. 
 
 " Well, sir, the roads bean't safe o' nights, 
 the last fortnight. They've been and let 
 loose some ticket-o'-leave men on us ; and 
 just about the same time three o' the most 
 notorietyest housebreakers have broke out 
 of the county goal of the next shire to us, 
 and they be a real scourge to Warwick- 
 shire. They're prowling and marauding in 
 this neighbourhood at the present time, and 
 down Throstledale way ; and there's no 
 catchin' on 'em. But, to be sure, we 
 han't got no police, to speak of. The 
 magistrates will have to 'crease the rates, 
 and get up a 'spectable force, I'm thinking. '^
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 173 
 
 " That's an ugly piece of news," said 
 Cuthbert. '* Well, we, at all events, saw 
 nothing, and met nothing, as we came up 
 from Mandeville Park." 
 
 " Ah ! " remarked Humphrey ; " and this 
 will be Master Geoffrey Mandeville, I take 
 it ! Welcome, sir ! Ah, they'll be trying 
 down that way next. Your father. Sir 
 Walter, had best look to it in time, sir." 
 
 *' Perhaps, Cuthbert," said Geoffrey, "it 
 was those fellows when you heard that 
 laugh, you know ? " 
 
 " What laugh ? Tush ! I heard no laugh." 
 
 "You said " 
 
 "Well, well, I know I said. That was 
 not a highwayman," replied Cuthbert, 
 gloomily. " It was," added he, mutter- 
 ingly, and between his teeth — " it was no 
 highwayman's voice that made me run." 
 
 " No, no," said Humphrey ; " two such 
 fine young gentlemen, well mounted, they 
 would let alone. They warn't likely to
 
 174 HAEDIXa 
 
 trouble tlie like. But tliey murdered a poor 
 pedlar, near Leamington, the niglit before 
 last." 
 
 "Is it possible," said Geoffrey. 
 
 *"' Ah ! " rejoined Humphrey, " and they 
 left the poor chap as naked as the day he 
 was born — ah ! did they. You know the 
 spot, Master Cuthbert : the narrow lane 
 between the banks, a short cut from the 
 carriao^e road out o' Leamino-ton to the 
 
 o o 
 
 Throstledale railway station." 
 
 '^ Surely," said Cuthbert, "I know the 
 spot well. The station is about three-quar- 
 ters of a mile from the town of Throstle- 
 dale, and the carriage-road winds round 
 the foot of the hill, whereas the lane you 
 speak of crosses its back. There's a thick 
 hazlewood on eacli hand, above the high 
 banks." 
 
 '' That's it, sir — that's the very spot. 
 "When you was a little one. Master Cuthbert, 
 you used to be fond o' nuttiDg in them
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 175 
 
 woods. All ! many a day I was sent to 
 look after you when you was lost like. But 
 I knew where to put my hand on you, and, 
 sure enough, there you was, with your little 
 white handkerchief spread over your knees, 
 all full o' nuts, and you a sittin' on the long 
 grass, under the hedge, a cracking o' the 
 nuts, just like a squirrel." 
 
 " True," said Cuthbert ; " those times are 
 gone ! " 
 
 *' Ah ! them warn't bad times, them 
 warn't. I was more nimble in the joints 
 then I And they hadn't been and gone and 
 let loose them ticket men on us. Now you 
 couldn't go a nut tin alone, big as you be 
 grown — (and I'm joyed to see it, Master 
 Cuthbert) — no, you couldn't, without takin' 
 precious care to look round you before you 
 swallowed each o' them kernels, or you 
 might chance to ha' no throat free to 
 swallow with." 
 
 "Is it so bad as that, Humphrey ? " said
 
 176 HARDING 
 
 Cutlibert. ''Why, Geoflfrey, we have nar- 
 rowly missed an adventure, it seems/' 
 
 '' I am content as we are," observed that 
 sensible personage, with gravity. 
 
 " You're about right, sir, Fm thinking," 
 said old Humphrey, nodding his head sig- 
 nificantly. " Belike, you'll not have heard 
 what happened last week. Master Cuthbert, 
 to the chaplain of the gaol. Parson Trust- 
 email?" 
 
 "No— what?" 
 
 Humphrey chuckled, for a few moments, 
 with such inward gratification, that he bent 
 double between the horses' heads, and was 
 seized with a fit of coughing before he could 
 reply. 
 
 " Why, the chaplain is the prime friend o' 
 these ticket folk ; he's always the first to 
 give 'em a character, and you'd say they 
 war a hinnocent aud hinjured race o' people, 
 to hear him. They Avent astray — Avhy ? 
 Cause no one trusted o' them. There was
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 177 
 
 no bowels in the land. Only you take care 
 o' the bowels, and the throats would take 
 care of themselves. Show yourself sweet 
 like to the critters, and they'd come round 
 — see if they wouldn't — like a filly to its 
 dam. Don't be always a growlin' at 'em. 
 'Twarn't likely that such ways would touch 
 their 'earts, poor things ! So his recom- 
 mendation gets a batch of 'em shortened 
 from sarvitude out of Portsmouth. Well, 
 he was a ridin' comfortable home to the 
 Elms, arter givin' the 'ighest character to 
 Ben Simmons not a month before. Ben 
 was out o' Stafibrdshire, you see ; and old 
 Simmons was w^ell known to the chaplain ; 
 and Mrs. Simmons, poor soul, took on 
 dreadful, as well she might, when her son 
 turned out ill, and took to 'ighway robbery. 
 They got round the chaplain, who was 
 lately removed back to his own county (he 
 does the Stafford gaol now), and he wrote 
 very strong about Ben. Well, he was a 
 
 12
 
 178 HARDING 
 
 ridin' comfortable home to the Ehiis, last 
 Wednesday, when, just as he came to the 
 ford of Three Towers — it might be near ten 
 o'clock — who should jump out of the hedge 
 and knock him off his pony, but his friend 
 Ben ! ' What, at the old tricks so soon, 
 Ben ! ' says the chaplain. ' Oh ! it's you, is 
 it ? ' says Ben ; * well, you may keep the 
 pony, for old acquaintance' sake, but give 
 me a couple of sovereigns — quick ! ' '1 
 beheved you a reformed character,' says the 
 chaplain. ' Hold your jaw,' says Ben, ' and 
 fork out. Do you think I can stand over 
 you here all night ? Come, make haste, 
 or I'll smash your skull, and then wot 
 would become o' the preachin' next Sunday 
 at the gaol ? ' The parson had no choice but 
 to give up his purse." 
 
 And old Humphrey resumed his chuckle, 
 with most reprehensible glee and malice. 
 
 " But how is all this known ? " asked 
 Cuthbert.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 179 
 
 *^ Why, you see, Parson Trustemall told 
 the thing 'imself to Dr. Marlowe Harding — 
 your uncle, Master Cuthbert ; and your 
 uncle, who is quite of the other way o' 
 thinking about tickets o' leave, and all them 
 cattle, laughed at 'im for his pains. I 'ave 
 the story from Jervis, who was awaitin' 
 behind their chairs at dinner." 
 
 ^^Only think," said Cuthbert, "of the 
 man telling such a story against himself ! 
 Well, Humphrey, good-night ; we'll go in 
 now. All are well, I hope ? " 
 
 /'All are well. Master Cuthbert — and 
 your sister, Miss Winny, is as active as a 
 wild cat acrain. There's noa holdin' of her 
 
 o 
 
 in." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it," said young Hard- 
 ing. " Come, Geoffrey." 
 
 And as the two youths returned towards 
 the front of the cottage, they could still hear 
 the chuckle of old Humphrey, who led the 
 horses to their stable.
 
 180 HARDING 
 
 Of Cuthbert Harding, I suspect the 
 reader has already begun to have a rather 
 distinct image before his mind's eye. That 
 young gentleman's psychological develop- 
 ment, I shall continue to leave to the 
 incidents of my narrative ; these will best 
 finish that " picture of an interior " which 
 I thought they could also best commence. 
 But of his outside — his personal appearance, 
 I have permitted myself, here and there, 
 to say a word in my own person. I have 
 only, therefore, to add that he looked rather 
 older than he was. You would say that 
 he was probably about two-and-twenty. 
 Some persons seem older than they are 
 in their youth, and younger in after life ; 
 presenting alike, at the age of twenty, for 
 instance, and at that of forty, the air and 
 impression of thirty. Others look old very 
 early, once and for all ; and others again, 
 much fewer and rarer temperaments, seem 
 to be endowed, both in mind and person.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 181 
 
 with the attributes of almost immortal 
 youth. It is a very common idea, that 
 the children of aged parents generally wear 
 that aspect of precocious senility to which 
 I have alluded ; but the rule is unsatis- 
 factory. In reality, the circumstances, the 
 health, and the mental cheerfulness or 
 melancholy, of the parents have much more 
 connection with this result. A wizened and 
 puny offspring is seen to issue as often 
 from premature, as from somewhat retarded, 
 marriage ; while the corporal and intel- 
 lectual vigour evinced by the cadet of the 
 family frequently forms a contrast to the 
 debility of the first-born. 
 
 Cuthbert Harding's looks belonged cer- 
 tainly to a stage of life a little in advance 
 of that which he had attained ; and one 
 cannot ascribe the circumstance to the opera- 
 tion of the assumed natural law laid down 
 in that popular philosophy, which popular 
 experience contradicts, and to which I have
 
 182 HARDING 
 
 adverted; for his little sister Winnifrid, 
 born ten years later, and, therefore, of 
 parents older by that much, exhibited the 
 very opposite characteristic — seeming much 
 more infantine than she was. 
 
 She and Cuthbert's parents met the two 
 friends in the outer room. 
 
 AYhen the fond welcomes and embraces 
 which young Harding received from his 
 father and mother were over, and when 
 Geoffrey had been introduced, and had ex- 
 changed a hearty shake of the hand with 
 each of the good couple, ]\Irs. Harding said 
 to her son, in a rather nervous manner, and 
 in a low voice, ^' Your Uncle Marlowe is 
 here ! " 
 
 " Yes," said old Mr. Harding, cracking 
 the knuckles of his left hand with his right, 
 and then those of his right hand with his 
 left, as he rubbed them together. " Yes ; 
 brother Marlowe is here." And, while 
 speaking, he jerked his elbow in the direc-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 183 
 
 tion of the inner room, with a look by 
 which he seemed to be endeavouring to 
 imply that he felt no concern on that 
 account, but which really expressed some 
 little disquietude and agitation. 
 
 ''I am glad Uncle Marlowe is come," 
 replied Cuthbert, composedly. *' Emily 
 Whitsund, too, is here," he added, in a 
 quicker way. 
 
 ''Yes, dear," returned Mrs. Harding ; "but 
 your uncle, who is going to sleep at Lea 
 Meadows to-night, is to take back his ward 
 to-morrow after breakfast." 
 
 "He was only now saying," subjoined 
 Mr. Harding, in a voice scarcely above his 
 breath, and again cracking the knuckles — it 
 was a trick he had when uneasy — " that he 
 wanted to have a serious conversation with 
 you at the earliest opportunity ; and that, 
 if you did not come to-night, you were to 
 ride over to the Glebe at Panes cum 
 Piscihiis, as soon as we could spare you.
 
 184 HARDING 
 
 But now I suppose he will talk to you to- 
 morrow morning, before he takes Emily 
 back." 
 
 "I am at his service," replied Cuthbert, 
 " either to-night or to-morrow." 
 
 When this whispering w^as over, a little 
 sprightly form bounced into "brother Cuth's" 
 arms, and called on him to remember that 
 he had a sister. 
 
 " Ah ! Winny," he cried, kissing her — 
 ^' we've overlooked you too long. Why, 
 you're grown wonderfully, dear ! Your 
 recent illness seems to have improved you. 
 You are not so stumpy as you w^ere ! " 
 
 *' Yes, and I can say Cuth, now ! " and 
 she brought out in fine style the aspirated 
 diphthong ("th"). 
 
 " True ! so you can, love ; and it used to 
 be Cut when I was here last. Hang it I I've 
 forgotten her bouquet in the stables," added 
 he to himself. 
 
 " Ain't I improved ? " she demanded.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 185 
 
 " Don't say ' ain't/ you rogue. I'd call 
 that vulgar if any but Winny said it." 
 
 " Well, am I not improved ? " 
 
 *' Come, don't tease your brother, "Winny ; 
 there's a good girl," said the father. 
 
 *' She doesn't tease me. There's room for 
 improvement still, Winny." 
 
 " Oh, I know that ! " she answered, very 
 gravely, placing the forefinger of her right 
 hand on her lips. Then, suddenly dismiss- 
 ing her air of meditative acknowledgment, 
 she bounded into the alcove, exclaiming 
 loudly, for the information of those within 
 and of all concerned — "Here's Brother 
 Cuth, from Eton ! " 
 
 Young Harding, following his mother, and 
 followed by Geoffrey and the old man, 
 entered the same apartment, where he shook 
 hands with an elderly gentleman and a 
 young lady, with whose hand his became 
 unaccountably entangled for a few seconds ; 
 and then he presented them to Geoffrey —
 
 186 HARDING 
 
 or, rather, Geoffrey to them — with consider- 
 able form — thus : " My friend, Mr. Geoffrey 
 Mandeville — my uncle, the Eeverend Doctor 
 Marlowe Harding. Mr. Geoffrey Mande- 
 ville— Miss Whitsund." 
 
 The lady silently bent her neck : the 
 clergyman rose and bowed, with marked 
 cordiality. 
 
 " I shall be glad," he observed, " to see 
 Mr. Geoffrey Mandeville any time when his 
 rides or drives may bring him into the 
 neighbourhood of my poor parsonage. I 
 have the honour of a slight acquaintance 
 with Sir Walter." 
 
 " I am very much obliged," returned 
 Geoffrey, "for your kind invitation. Where- 
 abouts does your parish lie. Dr. Marlowe 
 Harding ? " 
 
 "On the Oak ton side of the county," 
 answered the clergyman; "the parish, al- 
 though humble, is well known — Panes cum 
 Piscihiis"
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 187 
 
 " Hang it ! " exclaimed Geoffrey ; "I am 
 not very strong in Latin, as Cuthbert knows ; 
 but tliat seems to me to mean, ' the loaves 
 and the fishes along with them.' You seem 
 well and snugly bestowed, Dr. Marlowe ? " 
 
 " Your Latin does not fail you ; the name 
 is exceedingly scandalous, I admit. There 
 is a historical memory attached to it, which 
 I will tell you when you come to see me. 
 It has stuck to the place ever since the 
 utterance of a profane joke of Charles the 
 Second's, when his amiable, but not respect- 
 able, Majesty was bestowing the living on 
 an unworthy predecessor of mine." 
 
 By this time all the group were seated in 
 the verandah, and Mrs. Harding, addressing 
 young Mandeville, said — " So you and Cuth- 
 bert have left Eton together, and in your 
 friendship and kindness you have thought 
 proper to come between our boy and his old 
 parents ? for you took him with you to 
 Mandeville Park, instead of allowing him
 
 188 HARDING 
 
 to hasten on straight to Lea Meadows 
 first.'' 
 
 " Mrs. Harding, pardon me ; it so happens 
 that I did not take Cuthbert with me to 
 Mandeville Park. He was there before me." 
 
 " How there before you ? " exclaimed the 
 two old people in a breath, while a move- 
 ment of general surprise occurred in the 
 circle. 
 
 " Your son has saved Lady Mandeville's 
 life, by his noble courage and his astonishing 
 readiness of resource, and presence of mind," 
 pursued Geofirey. 
 
 All eyes were raised and fixed for a 
 moment on Cuthbert, after which they 
 were turned upon Geoffrey. Cuthbert stole 
 a glance towards Miss Whitsund, whose 
 glance, also, had crept towards Cuthbert, 
 but was now again riveted, like that of 
 everybody else, upon him who had made so 
 startling and, till further elucidated, so 
 unintelligible an announcement.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 189 
 
 *' For Heaven's sake, Mr. Mandeville, 
 what has mj dear boy done ? " cried Mrs. 
 Harding ; "do not keep me in suspense." 
 
 " I love him as a brother," resumed 
 Geoffrey, with unwonted eloquence, " and I 
 admire him as a hero ; and no one in 
 Mandeville Park, or in my family, can ever 
 forget his conduct. Henceforth, we are all 
 bound to him as our signal benefactor, and 
 devoted to him as to our best friend. For 
 my part, I am only too glad to have the 
 opportunity of saying before his family a 
 part of what I feel, and of what I wouldn't 
 and couldn't say to Cuthbert alone and 
 privately ; it would be so deucedly disagree- 
 able to be told by him that I was using 
 flattery, or that he would like me to drop 
 the subject, or some other of those confound- 
 edly acid remarks, at which he is only too 
 ready." 
 
 Probably, Geoffrey had never before in 
 his life uttered so many consecutive words.
 
 190 HARDING 
 
 His eloquent vehemence, as well as the 
 astounding purport of the statement which 
 he made, took the whole company whom he 
 addressed by surprise. Their looks rapidly 
 alternated between him and Cuthbert, who 
 bent his eyes on the ground, and turned — 
 not red — but very pale. The Eev. Marlowe 
 Harding, D.D., frowned thoughtfully, like a 
 man whose calculations have been some- 
 what put out, somewhat dislocated — and 
 who suspects that it will be necessary to go 
 over them again. He, like the others, main- 
 tained an observant silence ; but Mrs. 
 Harding, who had been knitting a summer 
 curtain, before the two friends arrived, and 
 who was about to resume her occupation, 
 dropped her piece of work with the needles, 
 and, resting her hands on her knees, gazed 
 for an instant, with lips apart, at Geoffrey. 
 
 "I am on the rack," said she ; "do tell 
 us everything. My dear Mr. Mandeville, 
 you would not keep me in suspense, after
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 191 
 
 what you have stated. Why do you speak 
 so of my boy ? " 
 
 " Why ? Why do I speak so of Cuth- 
 bert ? " returned Geoffrey, solemnly. " Be- 
 cause, Mrs. Harding, only for your son, not 
 only my mother, Lady Mandeville, would 
 probably at this moment be among the dead, 
 but because I had, apparently, just the same 
 chances as Cuthbert had of saving her, and 
 yet I neither knew what ought to be done, 
 nor could I have done it if I had known ; 
 and because, above all, Cuthbert did not 
 save my mother's life without the imminent 
 hazard of his own." 
 
 Geoffrey then briefly, and with great feel- 
 ing, related the occurrences as we have 
 abeady detailed them ; utterly falsifying his 
 little sister Henrietta's depreciatory criticism 
 upon his powers of narration, and exempli- 
 fying the wiser and juster remark of a truly 
 great ancient thinker, who tells us that " it 
 is the heart which produces all real elo-
 
 192 HARDING 
 
 quence " — pectus est quod disertum facit. 
 At Mandeville Park, Geoffrey, in a flurry 
 and frenzy of delight, after an hour of the 
 most cruel suspense, was talking to those 
 from whom he had as much to learn about 
 the transaction as he could himself impart, 
 and he had certainly then expressed his 
 thankfulness in very incoherent and uncouth 
 language. Indeed, he hardly knew what he 
 was saying or doing, in his excitement, 
 anxiety, and exultation. But on the present 
 occasion, full of calm gratitude and, of 
 generous admiration, having to describe his 
 friend's exploit to an audience totally igno- 
 rant of it, and at the same time naturally 
 feeling more interest in Cuthbert than any 
 other person on earth could be expected to 
 entertain — thus made, I say, the historian of 
 the event — Geoffrey told it with the most 
 graphic and even pathetic effect. Not once 
 did the famous expression, " stunning, sir, 
 stunning," escape him ; and Cuthbert, who
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 193 
 
 remembered Henrietta's mimicry, in vain 
 listened for the ''hundred thousand bricks." 
 As Geoflfrey concluded, Mrs. Harding wept 
 for joy and pride — a tear glistened even in 
 Emmy Whitsund's bright eyes — the old 
 father loudly cried '' bravo, my boy ! " — and 
 a pair of little arms were flung rapturously 
 round Cuthbert's neck, while Winnifrid 
 kissed him boisterously again and again, 
 much increasing his not unpleasurable con- 
 fusion by her repeated cries of " Well done, 
 Cuth!'' 
 
 The Eev. John Marlowe Harding, D.D., 
 during this little scene, had been buried in 
 a profound meditation ; his striking and 
 somewhat austere features exhibiting a 
 family hkeness to those of Cuthbert, espe- 
 cially in that firm and compressed mouth, 
 the lines of which were so faintly, yet so 
 decisively traced in the younger man, but 
 deepened and made harsh by time in the 
 elder. He had come to Lea Meadows, as 
 
 13
 
 194 HAKDING 
 
 both Mrs. and Mr. Harding had mysteriously 
 intimated to their son, not perhaps solely in 
 order to have, but yet intending to have, 
 " some serious conversation " with the young 
 gentleman who formed the subject of Geof- 
 frey's enraptured praises. Uncle Marlowe's 
 '^ serious conversations" were evidently es- 
 teemed by the good couple to be conversa- 
 tions of a kind for which it was as well that 
 Uncle Marlowe's nephew should be prepared 
 by a friendly warning beforehand. During 
 the thoughtful pause which I have men- 
 tioned. Doctor Marlowe Harding cast two 
 or three " under glances " from beneath his 
 beetling brows, at the youth with whom he 
 was to ''converse." 
 
 " Well," remarked the clergyman, at 
 length, " that is one way of coming from 
 Eton with credit and distinction. It is, at 
 least, a comfort that my nephew is full of 
 spirit and resources, and that he has had the 
 good fortune to exercise them so early in so 
 good a cause."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 195 
 
 Geoffrey noticed that Mrs. Harding winced, 
 while Cuthbert himself betrayed no emotion. 
 
 Nobody replied to this observation ; and 
 it seemed to be felt that, at least in Cuth- 
 bert 's presence, the topic was now exhausted. 
 Hitherto, young Harding's first evening at 
 home had been signalized by incidents a 
 little confusing, perhaps, but highly flatter- 
 ing and favourable ; but the sequel of that 
 first evening was destined to ruffle his feel- 
 ings in a curious degree. He was chatting 
 absently with his mother and with little 
 Winnifrid, and was meditating by what means 
 he could possess himself of the chair next to 
 Emily Whitsund, a chair at that moment 
 occupied by his formidable and reverend 
 uncle, when suddenly his daring project 
 was arrested, and a remarkable conversation, 
 leading to various ulterior events, arose out 
 of the following simple request — 
 
 "May I entreat of you. Miss Whitsund, 
 to favour us with a repetition of that en-
 
 196 HAEDING 
 
 chanting song whicli my friend Cutlibert 
 and I had the luck to hear when we arrived 
 half an hour ago ? " 
 
 This speech was addressed by young 
 Mandeville to the lady whom he named, as 
 she, Cuthbert, Geoffrey, and Cuthbert's 
 father, mother, and little sister, having 
 now adjourned all more special themes by 
 tacit and common consent, sate together 
 under Uncle Marlowe's austere res^ards in 
 the verandah and grapery which I have 
 mentioned, and which opened upon the 
 flower grounds at the side of the cottage. 
 The large room with the three windows, 
 before which Harding and his friend had 
 stopped to listen to the song in question, 
 communicated by folding doors with an 
 inner and smaller apartment, terminating 
 in this verandah. Here the family of the 
 Hardings and their four guests were now 
 assembled to pass the time preceding that 
 supper, on which Mrs. Harding had insisted
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 197 
 
 as being indispensable to her son and to his 
 companion, whom she termed "travellers," 
 and whom she invested with the rights and 
 the appetite of that interesting and hungry 
 class. 
 
 It will be well, before going further, to 
 present to the reader more fully those about 
 whom he knows the least. He ou^ht to 
 make acquaintance with Cuthbert's family. 
 Little Winnifrid Harding was a child of 
 about nine years old, with a face otherwise 
 very pretty, but disfigured by a nose which 
 exhibited a depression where there should 
 have been either a slight elevation or a 
 level continuance, according to all the laws 
 of human and artistic beauty. This depres- 
 sion had formerly, however, been much 
 deeper ; it was gradually diminishing, and 
 it promised to disappear altogether as the 
 child grew up. The chief passions of her 
 soul, so far as they had hitherto developed 
 themselves, were pride in her brother
 
 198 HARDIES G 
 
 "Cuth," and a love for haymaking in 
 summer, and snowballs in winter. She was 
 a sprightly, quick-witted, observant little 
 girl, whom it was impossible to keep out 
 of the fruit garden after the cherries had 
 ripened, and who was in high alliance with 
 old Humphrey, who not only managed the 
 stable department, but took care of the 
 garden. She was sharp at her lessons ; and, 
 on the whole, neither with respect to her 
 health, nor with respect to her disposition, 
 did she give any serious uneasiness to her 
 parents. She had, only the other day, pro- 
 posed to her mother, who was a notable 
 housewife, to begin to help her in house- 
 keeping or, at least, to begin to learn ; and, 
 when Mrs. Harding had replied, " Well, 
 Winny, and where shall we begin ? ^' the 
 little darling had rejoined, without a mo- 
 ment's hesitation, *' with the jams and pre- 
 serves, mamma ! ^' 
 
 She was a prodigious favourite with her
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 199 
 
 father, wliose surreptitious and clandestine 
 pipe she had learned to light on apparently 
 the most hopeless occasions ; for Mrs. Hard- 
 ing (who would not, for the world, have 
 seen her " good man " deprived of his peace- 
 ful cigar) retained from earlier years a sort 
 of pretence and affectation of opposition to 
 the robuster, fuller-flavoured, and longer — 
 burning meerschaum. The father, in return, 
 spoilt his little " snubby," as he called the 
 good-humoured child, in whose face, never- 
 theless, he was delighted to mark the de- 
 creasing evidences of the snub, and the grow- 
 ing dawn of eminent attractions. Whenever 
 Mrs. Harding displayed discontent with 
 Winny's ill-remembered or ill-said lesson, 
 and when Winny's cheerful countenance was 
 clouded with the grief and bathed in the 
 tears which quickly came under her mother's 
 reproof, the father would seize an early 
 opportunity of indemnifying his afflicted pet 
 with conserves and sweetmeats, which the
 
 200 HARDING 
 
 mother pronounced injurious alike to her 
 morals and to her teeth. 
 
 '' Grin, Winny!" the doting father would 
 then exclaim — " Grin, and show your teeth ! 
 Where did you ever see such a set, Mrs. 
 Harding, except in your looking-glass ! 
 You'll have >your mother's teeth, AVinny — 
 that's certain. And as to morals, go and 
 kiss mamma, my love, and give her another 
 kiss from her old husband, and then come 
 and light your father's pipe. Always re- 
 spect your parents, dear, and do as your 
 mother bids you. That's a lesson for you ; 
 and now pay more attention to your books 
 next time. Eemember, it is your mother 
 who takes the j)ains herself to teach you, 
 as we can't afford you a governess ; and, 
 under these circumstances, Winny, it would 
 be most cruel and ungrateful to afflict or 
 displease mamma. A little more tobacco, 
 my love." 
 
 One little occurrence had confirmed the
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 201 
 
 father's infatuated predilection for Winny. 
 Mr. Harding, who well understood the 
 nature of his wife's innocent affectation 
 about his pipe, and that, provided she 
 should be still permitted to protest undis- 
 turbed, he would assuredly be allowed after- 
 wards to smoke un watched, felt, nevertheless, 
 that it would be more agreeable if he fur- 
 nished her with a reasonable pretext for 
 tolerating, under strictly understood and 
 limited conditions, the obnoxious indulgence. 
 Accordingly he affirmed to her, with great 
 show of heat, on the authority of all scien- 
 tific horticulturists, that the oleaginous ex- 
 udations of the meerschaum rendered the 
 fumes of tobacco still more beneficial (bene- 
 ficial they were conceded to be, even from 
 a cigar) to the vine, because those fumes 
 killed the insects which otherwise would 
 prey upon the life of the growing tendrils. 
 In the vinetum, then, or grapery, or veran- 
 dah, the prohibition was removed, and the
 
 202 HARDING 
 
 pipe passed free. That place was privileged, 
 and, during summer, all went well. But 
 when the cold weather came, Mr. Harding 
 could not be beguiled even by the charms 
 of his richly-seasoned bowl of marine froth 
 to venture into that outpost. The pipe, 
 therefore, lay idle on a table, and poor 
 Mr. Harding's wistful glance stole towards 
 it frequently as he sat by the fire. Little 
 Winny, who had heard the previous discus- 
 sion respecting the " beneficial " effects of 
 tobacco smoke upon the vine, looked an 
 image of mental distress and childish sym- 
 pathy as she watched her father. At last 
 she could stand it no longer, and she ex- 
 claimed — 
 
 " Mamma, I'm sure papa's pipe would be 
 very beneficial to the insects ; they are not 
 half killed, and if you would only let him 
 smoke his pipe, he will do them such good, 
 and kill them all, for I will myself make 
 the smoke go out in the morning into the
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 203 
 
 verandah, and we shall have lots of grapes 
 in summer." 
 
 ''So the way to do good to the insects, 
 Winny, is to kill them ? " said the mother, 
 smiling. 
 
 " Ah ! you know what I meant, mamma," 
 said Winny ; " if papa don't kill the insects 
 with his pipe, they'll kill the grapes before 
 they're ripe." 
 
 " There's reasoning fox you ! " cried the 
 enraptured father. "Those are what I call 
 deductions ! That is thinking power ! 
 Winny, dear, where is that large-bowled 
 pipe that your mother said was so prettily 
 veined, and streaked, and coloured, and 
 shaded, and clouded — only for the use it 
 was intended for. Ahem, I don't want to 
 use it, you know, Laura, my love," added 
 Mr. Harding, in a mild and cheerful voice, 
 and, turning to his wife with an atrocious 
 assumption of sincerity and of lively resigna- 
 tion, which would have done credit to a
 
 204 HARDING 
 
 Pozzo cli Borgo, a Metternicli, a Nesselrode, 
 or any other veteran member of that curious 
 profession, the adepts of which may be 
 called the barristers and retained counsel 
 of international or public law — I mean 
 diplomacy. 
 
 Winny, who wished nothing better, had 
 quickly found and triumphantly produced 
 the large pipe ; when Mr. Harding, holding 
 it before him for a moment with a pensive 
 expression of admiration, extended it towards 
 his wife, saying — 
 
 " Just look at that colouring, those deda- 
 lous tints, Mrs. Harding." 
 
 She, on the other hand, gently pushing 
 away the wonder of a pipe, the matchless 
 sample of slowly impregnated and whimsical 
 encaustic, the patient production of many 
 a sitting, declined all examination, and said, 
 drily and inexorably — 
 
 " Have I not seen it fifty times ? " 
 
 ''But on each succeeding inspection, one
 
 THE MOXEY-SPmNER. 205 
 
 discovers something new," urged Mr. Hard- 
 ing. " It is a perfect landscape." 
 
 " Landscapes are best not clouded over, 
 in the way in which I know you want to 
 treat this precious 'landscape' of yours, since 
 that is to be the word." 
 
 " I assure you, Laura, in the present 
 instance, I am quite disinterested." 
 
 "As if I didn't know what you were at 
 when you told Winny to fetch the pipe." 
 
 " No, on my honour, Laura ; just look at 
 it, that's all. You never saw a specimen 
 of the rosy-threaded, many-coloured, cross- 
 hued marble of the finest quarries of Italy, 
 that could be compared with that bit of 
 shading. I'm perfectly serious ; it is quite 
 a work of art, a piece of poetry in sea 
 foam." 
 
 " Don't think you are going to cajole me 
 like that." 
 
 '^ I wouldn't do it, Laura, for the world, 
 even if I could. Perhaps you think I had
 
 206 HARDING 
 
 some design of that sort when I told Winny 
 to fetch the pipe." 
 
 " How delicately you phrase it, William ! 
 No ; not merely a design of that sort, but 
 that particular and specific very design. 
 Well, as I have taken down the curtains 
 to be dusted, and taken off the chair and 
 sofa covers, I don't mind if you add another 
 vein to that many-tinted, streaky bowl." 
 
 " You mean that I should smoke ? " 
 
 " If you like." 
 
 " In that case, on second thoughts, I don't 
 mind if I do have a smoke. As Winny 
 said, it will do the insects good, and kill 
 them all." 
 
 And Winny proceeds to charge the pipe, 
 in which operation the fond father each time 
 notes with admiration the progressively in- 
 creased cunning of her hand. 
 
 As it is necessary to show the kind of 
 home into which Cuthbert's subsequent con- 
 duct and career were destined to carry
 
 TEE MONEY-SPINNER. 207 
 
 tumultuous emotions of a kind previously 
 unknown to that unambitious and unre- 
 marked retreat, the reader will pardon these 
 characteristic little details, exhibiting ''still 
 life" at Lea Meadows. The place became 
 well known enough at a later epoch, sepa- 
 rated by but a very short interval from that 
 of Cuthbert's final return home ; and if 
 nothing were now said to give an idea of 
 the inmates and of their manner of existence 
 — as they had been up to this time — no good 
 opportunity for such a picture could hence- 
 forth occur. It will not be w^ithout interest 
 to despatch this subject at once ; and, for 
 that reason, an anecdote, in which Cuthbert 
 also figures, may be added. 
 
 From what has been said, it is clear how 
 great a pet Winny was with her old father ; 
 perhaps, in reality, she was not less a 
 favourite of her wiser mother's, although 
 the afiection displayed itself in a difierent 
 manner. Indeed, this vivacious child was
 
 208 HAEDING 
 
 popular with all at Lea Meadows, down to 
 old Humphrey, a pluralist, whom I have 
 already mentioned as undertaking in that 
 modest establishment the care of the stables 
 and that of the garden simultaneously. 
 
 The portion of the garden which contained 
 the fruit was at the end of the parterres 
 of flower beds, which the verandah — where, 
 at this moment, sat the family of Lea 
 Meadows and their visitors — overlooked. 
 Now, the fruit garden in question was en- 
 closed by a high wall^ capable, it was 
 vainly hoped, of excluding little Winny 
 from predatory inroads, which might prove 
 pernicious to her health. She well knew 
 where the cherries and other fruits were ; 
 and, although she could not have climbed 
 the wall proper of the enclosure, her in- 
 genuity and daring made another wall, 
 which joined it at right angles, on the 
 side near the stables, serve her purpose. 
 This second wall was much lower than that
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 209 
 
 of the garden at about thirty yards from 
 the latter, to the level of which it gradu- 
 ally rose ; and Winnifrid, getting upon the 
 copestone, pretty much in the attitude in 
 which ladies sit on horseback, edged her- 
 self sideways till she reached the loftier 
 rampart, on the top of which she could 
 now lay her hand. The ascent afterwards 
 from her stone side-saddle was easy. It 
 was the descent on the farther or fruity 
 side of this obstruction that was formidable. 
 But, by creeping along its coping some 
 ten or twelve yards, Winny placed herself 
 exactly above the strawberry beds, the rich 
 mould of which promised a soft landing 
 to a bold jumper. When first the child 
 adventured this enterprising expedition, she 
 found in the garden, and at his work, old 
 Humphrey, who was thunderstruck to be- 
 hold her. His first movement was to feel 
 in his pocket for the key of those pro- 
 hibited precincts ; his next was to proceed 
 
 14
 
 210 HARDING • 
 
 to the door of them, which he examined. 
 He was right. It was duly locked, as he 
 had supposed, and the key was on the 
 inside. Had Winnifrid dropped from a 
 balloon ? or had the knowing and almost 
 uncanny-looking child — had this little witch 
 been disembarked in his sacredly guarded 
 and high-walled enclosure from the ''cloudy 
 car" of her friend, some sky-riding and far- 
 wandering magician ? That such person- 
 ages were rare he knew, but that they 
 existed he secretly believed in his heart. 
 He had read of them in a very old and 
 dog-leaved copy of the " Arabian Nights," 
 given to him by Master Cuthbert on his 
 first departure for Eton. It was, therefore, 
 with a confused misgiving that he asked 
 Winny how she had got into the garden ; 
 but she begged him to promise he would 
 not tell she had been there ; and when, 
 at last, he yielded that pledge to her 
 vehement importunities and her wheedling
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 211 
 
 prayers, not one word would she, in her 
 turn, vouchsafe to him about her means 
 of ingress. 
 
 *'Did you fall from the clouds, Miss 
 Winny ? " he demanded. 
 
 She only laughed, but so impish was 
 the light which darted from her sidelong 
 glancing eye, so startling was the fifelike, 
 shrilly, mocking, roguish, outburst of her 
 mirth, so firmly, and yet so slightly and 
 so lightly, set upon the ground was the 
 agile form — upright as a dart, well poised, 
 elastic — seeming, indeed, as if just alighted 
 from the air, and on the very spring to 
 reascend, that old Humphrey, who was ex- 
 cessively superstitious, gazed upon the keen- 
 witted, mercurial, restless, omnipresent dar- 
 ling of Lea Meadows, with feelings in which 
 a latent awe, which he would not have 
 acknowledged even to himself, was blended 
 with the protecting love and respectful 
 admiration of an old retainer of the family 
 for its youngest born.
 
 212 HARDING 
 
 I may mention that Winny, wlio was 
 small for her years, and who looked, as I 
 stated a little while since, younger than she 
 was, had taken the astonishing precaution to 
 efface the deep footprints which her valiant 
 plunging leap had made in the strawberry 
 bed. She had, with her hands, scraped 
 together the loose, soft mould into the holes, 
 and had restored it completely to its pre- 
 vious appearance. There, then, stood she 
 before old Humphrey, the bloom and flush 
 of violent exercise on her wee wee cheeks, 
 exceedingly dirty in face and hands, her 
 bonnet tossed, her hair disordered, her little 
 apron filled with fruit, and the falling ends 
 gathered up and fastened to the string which 
 attached it round her waist, so as to form 
 of the apron an extemporaneous bag, while 
 a beautiful new cambric pocket handkerchief 
 was swinging from her left hand in the 
 shape of another and smaller bag, apparently 
 well filled, and as ill-treated by the daring
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 213 
 
 and freakish damsel as though it had been 
 an old rag of sacking. She had left no 
 traces of her escalade and descent into that 
 forbidden land ; and wonderful was the con- 
 trast between her reckless disregard of per- 
 sonal tidiness, and the minute exactitude 
 and scrupulous carefulness of her precau- 
 tions to carry out any specific action or 
 scheme on which she was for the moment 
 bent. That contrast between her heedful 
 moods and her heedless habits indicated the 
 class of character to which she belono;ed. 
 All parents who have, and all who may yet 
 be parents and have, a perplexing and unin- 
 telligible child to rear, will not only be very 
 far from thinking these details and touches 
 of infantine temperament trivial or unim- 
 portant — will not only be far from deeming 
 them unworthy of record or devoid of 
 interest, but will be glad to pause amidst 
 the rush, as it were, of loud and violent 
 occurrences, to register and examine some
 
 214 HARDING 
 
 of the unobtrusive, but all-deciding, inci- 
 dents and signs of early childhood. 
 
 Never was there a greater error, let it be 
 said in passing, than to imagine infancy 
 unfraught with the strong tendencies which 
 determine the whole fate of the individual ; 
 never a greater mistake than to wait for 
 character to develop itself. The truth is, 
 that childhood is the very reign of character, 
 and that idiosyncracy cannot be watched too 
 early. In childhood, the individual triumphs 
 over circumstances ; but in after life (unless 
 advantage, to impress on it a given direction, 
 has been taken of the gigantic power which 
 the will then, and then only, exercises), 
 circumstances triumph, on the contrary, over 
 the individual. None of us have been really 
 so much our true selves as in early life ; we 
 are subsequently anything, or everything, 
 which we have been then induced to prepare 
 ourselves to become. 
 
 But to return. Humphrey vowed discre-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 215 
 
 tion, and promised the small, strange witch 
 before him, that he would not relate the 
 apparition which he had seen. 
 
 One evening, however, Winny, as ill luck 
 ordained, made her customary irruption into 
 the garden after Humphrey had left it for 
 the day, and had locked the door behind 
 him. Winny helped herself, blackened her 
 hands, blackened her face, blackened her 
 sleeves, tore her frock, and then looked round 
 for Humphrey. Not visible. He must be in 
 the little garden-house — which, inside, was 
 hung all over with rows of onions and of 
 dried seeds, and which smelt so sweetly, and 
 lurked so darkly, retiring half embowered 
 under the deciduous canopy of the weeping 
 ash, in the farthest corner of the garden, at 
 the end of the terrible, shadowy, whispering, 
 shuddering, ghostlike avenue of yew trees. 
 When we return, full grown, to places which 
 we quitted as children, we are astonished by 
 the apparent diminution and dwarfing of
 
 216 HARDING 
 
 what we had supposed large. This small 
 avenue seemed to Winny to be immense. It 
 was growing dusk where she stood, but, 
 beneath the over-arching shade of that fear- 
 ful approach, it was already quite dark — it 
 was black. There was no way, however, by 
 which Winny could get out of the garden 
 except through the open door. She could 
 get down into it easily enough ; but to 
 emerge, this was the task, this the difficulty. 
 
 From the top of the lofty wall the child 
 could boldly throw herself into the soft 
 strawberry-bed ; and then she could cun- 
 ningly obliterate the traces of her jump. 
 But she could not throw herself up again 
 from the strawberry bed to the top of the 
 wall. 
 
 Winny had some little fraction of the 
 all-daring, all-confronting courage of her 
 brother, yet it was not without a shake and 
 shiver of her whole frame, not without a 
 nervous groan and a chiU of vague fear, that
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 217 
 
 she hazarded herself in the dark avenue con- 
 ducting to the garden hut. Once within 
 the jaws of its shadows, she ran as if fiends 
 and goblins were in pursuit of her. Half- 
 way she stopjDed, screamed, and looked 
 round. No ; there was nothing ! She per- 
 ceived that a cold hand had not been laid 
 upon her shoulders ; hideous fingers, re- 
 sembling claws, had not clutched her poor 
 little throat. She resumed her advance, 
 venturing — just attempting — a slight song, 
 but her voice quavered too much ; she re- 
 signed the effort, and ran till she reached 
 the hut door. Lifting the latch, she pushed 
 it open, and tremulously said — 
 
 *' Dear Humphrey ! — dear old Humphrey! 
 are you there ? " 
 
 No answer ; and if the yew tree avenue 
 was dark, the hut was darkness itself. 
 Looking back, she discerned the distant 
 mouth of the avenue opening into the dim 
 pale light of evening. Fixing her eyes
 
 218 HARDING 
 
 firmly upon this blessed ray, and taking the 
 very middle of the path, she rushed back at 
 the top of her speed. She was fleet enough, 
 and, in daylight, surefooted enough. But, 
 just about halfway in this unlucky path, one 
 of the trees stretched across from side to 
 side the lubber length of an immense gnarled 
 root ; and poor Winny, striking her foot 
 against this obstacle, was flung with violence 
 upon her face. All her stolen fruit was 
 scattered out of the carefully-secured apron, 
 and the blood gushed in a torrent from the 
 snubby little nose. You may be very sure 
 she never stopped to gather up the lost 
 plunder — and, indeed, I may here remark 
 that it was not from gluttony that Winny 
 was in the habit of accumulating these for- 
 bidden delicacies ; but partly, I believe, 
 because forbidden they were ; partly because 
 they were acquired with such adventure ; 
 and partly (this was the grand incentive), 
 because Winny was, by nature, a bounteous
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 219 
 
 and a boundless giver. Certain small ragged 
 children had discovered her mysterious opu- 
 lence ; they were in the habit of throwing 
 themselves in her way once or twice a week ; 
 and they were enriched by her munificence. 
 Winny's great delight was to watch and 
 study the countenances of these clandestine 
 correspondents, as she poured her treasures 
 into outstretched greasy caps, and the lifted 
 fronts of dingy, threadbare, tattered little 
 frocks. 
 
 But I have left the child imprisoned in 
 the garden. 
 
 When her supper hour arrived she was, of 
 course, sought high and low ; and, to the 
 serious alarm of her parents, could nowhere 
 be found. Soon the strange news of Miss 
 Winnifrid's disappearance penetrated to the 
 stables, where Humphrey was making the 
 bed of the aged, experienced, and soberly- 
 conducted horse which Mr. Harding kept for 
 his gig. Immediately the thought flashed
 
 220 HARDING 
 
 througli Humplirey's mind that the child 
 could be only in the garden, and that she 
 could not get out of it on account of his 
 absence. Exclaiming that he would soon 
 find her, he was followed by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Harding and by Cuthbert (for this occurred 
 during Cuthbert 's last visit home from Eton) 
 to the door of the high-walled fruit garden. 
 No sooner had he opened this door than the 
 child rushed forth, like some scared and 
 hunted animal, but was caught in her 
 fathers arms. Cuthbert stood by — atten- 
 tive, observant, absorbed. " Humphrey ! " 
 cried the elder Mr. Harding, " how is this ? 
 You know that we never allow Miss Winny 
 to go, except with ourselves, into this place. 
 You must have left the door open some time 
 this evening, and she must have stole in." 
 
 " Lord love you, sir," returned the old 
 servant, " such a thing never happened me, 
 since Miss Winny was able to toddle, as to 
 leave that door open longer than to let
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 221 
 
 myself in and let myself out ! But Miss 
 Winny don't want doors to get in ! " 
 
 *' You must have admitted her yourself ? " 
 "May I be blowed if I ever did," said 
 Humphrey with privileged ardour ; " I know 
 my duties better. There's nothing worse for 
 little uns than too much wall fruit, except 
 it was the bite of a glandered horse." 
 
 During this cross-examination, Winny 
 awaited her own turn, a very dirty fore- 
 finger in her mouth, and a desperate resolve 
 in her heart. She would divulge nothing 
 about the secret method of escalade and 
 storm. The darkness of evening concealed 
 in a great measure the extremely damaged, 
 battered, clay-covered, and even blood- 
 stained, appearance of the young sorceress. 
 " Then you never have let her into the 
 garden, Humphrey ? " 
 
 " Never, sir ; though I'm free to confess, 
 I've sometimes let her out of it." 
 
 " That passes my comprehension," said
 
 222 HARDING 
 
 Mr. Harding. '' How did you get in, 
 Winny ? " 
 
 AVinny uttered what was half a sob and 
 half a giggle, nor would she yield any other 
 answer to the repeated question, although 
 urged strongly by both her parents. Her 
 mother said that she should be locked up 
 till she gave the required information. But 
 it came at once without her confession. 
 Cuthbert had been scrutinizing the so 
 thought impregnable defences of the garden 
 with a sort of military eye, and with a 
 profound insight into his wayward sister's 
 character ; and, noting the fragment of 
 lower wall which abutted upon the other- 
 wise more secure enclosure, he at once solved 
 the mystery, and pointed out the secret to 
 Mr. and Mrs. Harding. 
 
 *' Is that the way you got in ? " says the 
 father, with a look of pretended indignation, 
 but in reality suppressing, with great exer- 
 tion, a violent temptation to laugh.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 223 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Speak, Winny ! " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 '* Speak, miss ! " 
 
 No answer, but the little lips compressed, 
 and tlie little arms drooped crosswise down, 
 and the tiny fingers — which, in a better 
 light, would have shown the stains of blood, 
 incurred as she had endeavoured to staunch 
 the ejQfusion from her nez retrousse — those 
 tiny fingers viciously clenched. 
 
 " Speak, I say, you naughty child ! " 
 
 She shifted her feet and gazed into 
 vacancy, but not a word. 
 
 " Then go with your mother. Locked up 
 you shall be till you find the use of your 
 tongue." 
 
 Cuthbert, who had attentively considered 
 this scene, and who well understood the 
 little prisoner, entered, after a quarter of an 
 hour, the room where she was confined. 
 
 " My dear Winny," said he, just in time
 
 224 HARDINa 
 
 to arrest a desperate njovement of hers to 
 get down from tlie window by the help of 
 the ivy, '' I don't ask you why you are so 
 silly as to stay in this uncomfortable place 
 all alone, when, without breaking your bones 
 in that manner, a word would set you free, 
 and make you and everybody else happy. 
 I could not help laughing, only that I love 
 my own little Winny. Indeed, anybody 
 who had not great love for you would laugh, 
 and would simply consider you a fool, not 
 worth any more thought, and then forget all 
 about you and your absurd obstinacy ; it 
 could not hurt others, you know. But what 
 has poor Humphrey done to offend you? 
 Why are you so cruel to poor Humphrey ? '' 
 
 " Cruel to Humphrey ? I love dear old 
 Humphrey." 
 
 " Then he will go away, unless you answer 
 papa's questions. It will be thought that he 
 helped you." 
 
 " He never helped me."
 
 THE MOXEY-SPINNER. 225 
 
 " Well, answer papa's questions, and come 
 out of this stupid room. What is the good 
 of staying here ? Just tell me that. Is it 
 pleasant ? Hark you, Winny, give me a 
 hearty kiss, and come along with me. If I 
 am vexed, I don't try to hurt myself; / am 
 not a fool. I don't want people to feel that 
 they could laugh at me till the tears ran 
 down their cheeks, only that their affection 
 made them pity me instead. I don't even 
 want to be pitied." 
 
 " But I'm ashamed to answer now, Cuth, 
 after refusing." 
 
 " What a clever rogue you are ! " returned 
 
 the attentive and skilful envoy, without 
 
 directly noticing this last demurrer of his 
 
 sister's. " That broken wall, eh ! A capital 
 
 idea, on my honour ! First rate ! I'm 
 
 proud of you, Winny, dear ! But you have 
 
 carried your wounds from the wars, love ; 
 
 your nose has been bleeding." 
 
 While yet speaking, he walked towards 
 
 15
 
 226 HARDING 
 
 the fireplace and pulled the bell-rope. The 
 summons was quickly answered by the 
 housemaid, Margy. 
 
 " Miss Winnifrid has ordered some warm 
 water in a basin, some soap, and a towel, to 
 be brought here," said Cuthbert. " See to 
 it immediately, Margy." 
 
 The articles in question quickly came, and 
 Cuthbert shortly afterwards had the pleasure 
 of marching Winny into the room where 
 her father and mother were awaiting the 
 uncertain moment of repentance. She now 
 replied to every question frankly. 
 
 I need not dwell upon the singular and 
 precocious art of every word that Cuthbert 
 had addressed to his resentful sister. He 
 had UDdertaken to bring her to terms within 
 half an hour: the mother sighed, and old 
 Harding shook his head to signify that, in 
 this case, Cuthbert overrated the extent of 
 his eloquence and tact ; ere five minutes 
 elapsed he had, however, accomplished his
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 227 
 
 promise. In part, he had made his appeal 
 to what was best, but, in part to what was 
 worst, in Winny's character — to her affection 
 and sense of justice chiefly — but also to her 
 pride, a worsted, but still resisting and 
 desperate, enemy, for whose easy retreat he 
 had made a bridge, not "of gold,'' but of 
 the broken wall near the stables. 
 
 While others, whom I must leave it to 
 my tale to pourtray, wait to give me a sit- 
 ting, I have been too long detained by this 
 child, of whom I will, therefore, add merely 
 that her popularity extended to the kitchen, 
 and that the cook never made any pastry 
 for the table of the seniors without slily 
 putting aside a small perquisitional and pre- 
 scriptive patty, cake, or pie, which was 
 known, and sacred, as "Miss Winny's tax."
 
 228 HARDING 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " Though T, perchance, am vicious in my guess, 
 As I confess it is my nature's plague 
 To spy into abuses." 
 
 lago^ in Othello, 
 
 That young lady, whose character was 
 sketched in the last chapter, now proudly 
 stood by her brother's chair in the verandah, 
 listening, with parted lips, to Geoffrey 
 Mandeville's history of the transaction in 
 which Cuthbert had so conspicuously figured. 
 At quite the other end of the glazed and 
 vine-hung bower sat Miss Whitsund, facing 
 Cuthbert, and making him return rather 
 absent-minded replies to his sister's oc- 
 casional whispers.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 229 
 
 Miss Whitsund was tlie daughter of a 
 lieutenant-colonel of the line, who had fallen 
 on the field of battle in the East. Her 
 mother had died while the little Emily was 
 still in long clothes. That mother was 
 sister to the Eeverend Dr. Marlowe Hard- 
 ing's wife ; and, as the colonel was con- 
 demned by his profession to frequent and 
 prolonged terms of exile, in which it did not 
 suit his views to take his child with him, he 
 had made an arrangement by which the 
 infant found, even during part of his life- 
 time, a home with her aunt, Mrs. Marlowe 
 Harding, to whom, therefore, she came, in 
 her vacations, from that convent in France 
 where it was her father's wish that she 
 should receive her education. Upon the 
 colonel's death in battle, it was found, by 
 his will, that the Eeverend Dr. Harding had 
 been constituted guardian of the orphan, 
 and the prayer and behest of that solemn 
 document required him, in all respects, to
 
 230 HARDING 
 
 assume, until her marriage, the control and 
 management of the little estate which the 
 colonel had left to his daughter. 
 
 This arrangement had naturally brought 
 young Cuthbert Harding into acquaintance 
 with his uncle's fair ward, at a very early 
 age. Indeed, Cuthbert's childhood and 
 Emily's childhood had played together. 
 
 Hence arose, later, the opportunities for 
 that premature engagement which Cuthbert 
 had succeeded in extorting or surprising. 
 The audacity of the youthful lover had 
 wooed the inexperience of the beautiful 
 orphan. It must not be inferred, however, 
 that the Hardings of Lea Meadows and those 
 of the Kectory, known by the auspicious 
 name of Panes cum Fiscihus, moved in the 
 same sphere of society. The two brothers 
 visited each other indeed, but not each 
 other's friends. The clergyman still held up 
 his head in the circles where his forefathers 
 had immemorially been at home; but the
 
 THE MONEY- SriNNER. 231 
 
 brewer had sunk out of their ken and 
 
 recognition into quite another grade. As a 
 
 child, Cuthbert could not feel or discern this 
 
 disparity of social station ; but, latterly, his 
 
 observant mind had become fully aware of 
 
 it, and his spirit ruffled its rebellious plumage 
 
 within him — 
 
 " And shook 
 The strength of its unconquerable wings." 
 
 At the same time he found the situation 
 anything but simple. It revolted him to 
 note the air of superiority, and the dictatorial 
 protection, which his uncle, the doctor, dared 
 to assume towards his father, the brewer. 
 But, on the other hand, it was the uncle 
 who had so generously sent him to Eton, 
 and who had paid for his schooling ; it was 
 the uncle who had more than once called on 
 him there ; it was his uncle who had always 
 "tipped" him; and it was his uncle who 
 had pronounced, with direct reference to 
 him (Cuthbert), the words which — boy
 
 232 HARDING 
 
 though he was when he first heard them — 
 had so often thrilled in his memory, and 
 made him feel an inch taller with the pride 
 of conscious responsibility, and of trust re- 
 posed — I mean the words: ''There shall at 
 least be one gentleman in the family.'' He 
 was to be that gentleman — he, Cuthbert ! 
 Add to this that he was not ashamed of his 
 uncle, who had some reputation as a scholar, 
 and who occupied besides, as I have hinted, 
 the old position of the family in the county, 
 a position which his father, the head of that 
 family, had abdicated. On the other hand, 
 Cuthbert, in self defence, as it were, could 
 not forget whose son he himself was ; and, 
 in this smouldering and chronic dissension 
 between the two brothers, his calculations 
 were held in suspense by opposing magnets. 
 William Harding was his father ; but Mar- 
 lowe Harding was the guardian of Emily 
 Whitsund, upon whom, by-the-by, at the 
 moment at which we are now arrived,
 
 THE MOXEY-SPINNER. 233 
 
 Cuthbert observed that Geoffrey Mancleville's 
 eyes were fixed with an ahnost ludicrous 
 expression of wonder and entrancement. 
 While Geoffrey was telling his story of their 
 adventures at Huntingferry and at Mande- 
 ville Park, Miss Whitsund's face had been 
 shaded by one of the festoons of vine leaves 
 which hung from the ceiling ; but, in her 
 interest, and in the eagerness of her atten- 
 tion, she had leant forward, as he concluded, 
 to transfer her gaze from the narrator, to the 
 hero of the tale ; and now, therefore, a ray 
 of the moonlight fully revealed her coun- 
 tenance to our astonished friend, Geoffrey. 
 
 It is only probable, in truth, that he had 
 never before beheld such a vision. Mention 
 has been made of the small estate which 
 Colonel Whitsund had bequeathed to his 
 daughter ; but her richest heritage, beyond 
 all comparison, she had derived straight 
 from nature. 
 
 Her slight form was of exquisite propor-
 
 234 HARDING 
 
 tion: her fair young head was set with 
 statuesque effect on the snow-white dazzling 
 throat, which made the ivory paper-cutter 
 with which she was playing, and which she, 
 ever and anon, applied in a musing attitude 
 to her roseate, dewy lips, look yellow and 
 dingy. She wore the great wealth of her 
 sheeny brown hair braided halfway oif the 
 faint, delicate bloom of her oval cheeks, and 
 gathered into a loose copious knot at the 
 back, from which a few stray tresses hung 
 carelessly. The forehead, which was well 
 filled, displayed a trenchant elegance in the 
 outlines ; and, while producing a pensive 
 and gentle effect, if viewed from the full 
 front, offered a profile resolutely Greek, and 
 of the severest purity. A strange play of 
 greater and less lustrousness was occasioned 
 by the development of parts of this mode- 
 rately high forehead (for it was not an even, 
 expressionless, dead surface) ; and you would 
 almost say that you were looking at a trans-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 235 
 
 parency, and ttiat some limpid light was 
 burning within, behind a slender screen of 
 alabaster. Her eyebrows, which were dark 
 brown, traced an almost oriental arch ; 
 while the eyelashes, equally dark, and un- 
 usually long, almost shaded the pale cheek, 
 when she looked down. At such moments, 
 so still, and hushed, and harmonious, was 
 the expression of the whole head and coun- 
 tenance, that they gave you the idea of a 
 classic Muse in meditation, an aspect which 
 only rendered more startling the effect of 
 the bright blue eye, long and oval as the 
 almond, when the veil of those darkling 
 lashes was suddenly lifted, and when the 
 glittering, swordlike glance flashed forth. 
 The whole face was then wondrously irradi- 
 ated. The sleepy, dreamy, muselike statue 
 had vanished, and one feeling of admiration 
 was lost in another still deeper. 
 
 The power which Emily Whitsund's 
 beauty exercised was not due ,to the mere
 
 236 HARDING 
 
 material perfection of the features and 
 person. That beauty had character, and 
 the character was not to be mistaken. 
 Loftiness and greatness of thought, tem- 
 pered by the physiognomical promise of an 
 unspeakably sweet and gracious disposition, 
 were marked in every line ; while a certain 
 sadness, or, at least, pensiveness, not tran- 
 siently impressed, not even resulting from 
 the looks and play of the countenance, but 
 permanently appertaining to the very style 
 of it, and equally conveyed in the gentle 
 and slow manner, added a new interest 
 where it might have been supposed there 
 was room for none. 
 
 This young lady had been " brought out " 
 — or, as it is more fastidiously phrased, had 
 been introduced — not quite a year. More- 
 over, her formal entrance into the extra 
 domestic world had not been made in the 
 larger and more turbid arena of London — 
 the avocati9ns and tastes of a country
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 237 
 
 rector's wife not affording much opportunity 
 for that. It might come later, if advisable. 
 But, meantime, the first appearance, and all 
 the succeeding appearances, of the brave 
 soldier's beautiful orphan, in mixed society, 
 and in the character of one who had just 
 emerged from the tutelage of girlhood, had 
 occurred amid the comparatively retired 
 scenes and restricted circles of the country 
 where her guardian resided. Yet, in the 
 memory of the living, no such sensation had 
 been produced by a similar event, and long 
 was the remembrance of Emily Whitsund's 
 maiden career destined to be preserved. 
 Brief as hitherto that career had been, tattle 
 had classed her among the breakers of hearts 
 — a designation frequently, and even cur- 
 rently, flung out in the stories and discus- 
 sions of which some girl of unequalled, and 
 therefore envied, beauty is the subject. 
 Like many other such attempts to sum up 
 the judgment of an individual's character
 
 238 HARDING 
 
 in an ej^ithet or denomination, it was true 
 in the letter, and false, as well as malignant, 
 in the spirit. It was not Miss Whitsund's 
 fault if she had refused, in a twelvemonth, 
 more offers of marriage than all the other 
 young ladies of the county together could 
 boast of having received w^ithin the previous 
 half-dozen years. In not one of these in- 
 stances had she encouraged, by a heedless 
 word or look, the proposals which she de- 
 clined ; and yet she had declined, not with- 
 out a pang of compassion, each succeeding 
 suitor; and the thought of his grief some- 
 times would cost her whole nights of sleep- 
 lessness. If she gave pain, she felt it. She 
 pained many, because she had pleased all. 
 She had trifled, however, with no one's 
 affections. She could not help the love 
 which several youths of the country, some 
 of whom had a very brilliant future to offer 
 — she could not help the love which they 
 had imbibed, and by which they had allowed
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 239 
 
 themselves to be transported. They had 
 taken love in her presence, as they might 
 have taken cold in a draught. But the 
 malady was pleasant up to a certain point, 
 and they would not avoid the occasion. 
 They it was who deserved the blame. 
 
 Meanwhile Dr. Marlowe Harding began 
 to feel more surprised that all these pro- 
 posals should be refused, than that so many 
 should be made. The reader knows more 
 of the cause than Emily's uncle by marriage 
 knew at first. Cuthbert Harding, just be- 
 fore Emily Whitsund was to enter the outer 
 world (when he would necessarily cease to 
 monopolize the opportunities of her society) — 
 just before that change in her position which 
 he anticipated with jealous repugnance and 
 presaging terror, had availed himself of the 
 advantage w^hich hitherto none shared with 
 him, and had used the influences resulting 
 from childish companionship, and from long 
 habits of familiar affection, to build a ram-
 
 240 HARDING 
 
 part round the girl's liberty. He was, as 
 yet, without a rival ; but rivals were coming 
 — they were at hand, and they were only 
 the more formidable because he could not 
 yet say who or what they might be. They 
 might be numerous ; they might be superior 
 to him in station, in personal accomplish- 
 ments, in congeniality with Emily's charac- 
 ter, in general suitableness ; his uncle, 
 moreover, would be likely to throw the 
 weight of a guardian's advice and influence 
 into the scale adverse to him ; the associ- 
 ations of infancy, on which he placed his 
 chief reliance, were about to be effaced by 
 new and exciting relations : he would wait 
 no longer ; he would at once secure Emily 
 by an engagement, or she would, probably, 
 for ever escape him. He would bind and 
 fetter beforehand the poor child's moral 
 freedom, circumscribing her chances in life 
 to the orbit of his own destiny. 
 
 Such were the reflections of that wary
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 24.1 
 
 and precocious intelligence, and upon those 
 reflections he had acted. Unfair and cruel, 
 nine times out of ten, is an engagement 
 obtained under such circumstances and by 
 such means, and terrible are the eventual 
 consequences not seldom found to be. But, 
 in the present case, there was one element 
 which young Harding had not taken into 
 his calculations. In how many instances, 
 the refusal of so many advantageous matri- 
 monial offers, following each other rapidly 
 in one year — in how many such instances, 
 or whether in any one of them, the young 
 beauty had been influenced by the remem- 
 brance of the promise which bound, her to 
 Cuthbert Harding, rather than by indiffer- 
 ence to the merits of the rejected suitor, 
 or by incapability of reciprocating his affec- 
 tion, will presently be seen. She felt herself 
 tied to Cuthbert ; but, whether it was the 
 vow to him, or whether it was love for him, 
 which always had dictated her rejection of 
 
 16
 
 242 HARDma 
 
 others, and whether the recollection of the 
 vow itself (originally springing from her 
 childish partiality), was now calculated to 
 maintain or to foster that partiality, the 
 story will explain of itself. Having thus 
 briefly indicated the general situation of the 
 persons chiefly interested, I return to the 
 group in the conservatory of Lea Meadows. 
 
 Geoffrey Mandeville, having perfectly 
 satisfied himself, by the long and astonished 
 gaze which he bestowed on Miss Whitsund, 
 that the taste of his friend, young Harding, 
 was not at all at fault, and that the lady 
 before him might well be the object of any 
 man's love, suddenly recollected himself. 
 Her really extraordinary beauty had taken 
 him by surprise. He was ashamed to have 
 been betrayed into such ill manners ; but 
 nobody had observed it, he hoped. And, 
 thereupon, with the look of a conscious 
 culprit, he turned in his chair, casting a 
 hasty glance round the circle. No — not
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 243 
 
 even Cutlibert had seen him. But at what 
 was Cuthbert smiling ? 
 
 Geoffrey was mistaken ; his friend had 
 noticed and had read that protracted stare 
 of amazed admiration, but he had averted 
 his sidelong, detecting glance in time to 
 escape Geoffrey's timid inspection. 
 
 Young Mandeville — partly, perhaps, to 
 cover or to divert a sense of awkwardness — 
 now addressed to Miss Whitsund the request 
 already mentioned. 
 
 '' May I entreat of you, Miss Whitsund, 
 to favour us with a repetition of that en- 
 chanting song, which Cuthbert and I had 
 the luck to hear when we arrived half an 
 hour ago ? " 
 
 ''Oh ! " with pleasure ; " but I am more 
 used to sing it with another. Indeed, I 
 have always had a second, or have myself 
 made the second, till to-night. Would you 
 favour me by trying to take the second, 
 Mr. Mandeville ? "
 
 244 HARDING 
 
 " I should be only too happy," replied 
 Geoffrey ; " but, though passionately fond 
 of music, I don't know a note of it. My 
 friend Cuthbert, however, sings famously. 
 He has a voice, which — which '' 
 
 ^^A very fine voice, I know," said Miss 
 Whitsund, hastening to the aid of young 
 Mandeville's halting rhetoric. When not 
 roused by some stinging excitement, or 
 impelled by some powerful feeling, Geoffrey's 
 eloquence was habitually apt to stumble, 
 both in men's and in women's society — a 
 fatal defect, had not his worldly position 
 been secure. Such persons seldom force 
 their own way in life. We all know the 
 boast of Wilkes, the most hideous-looking 
 individual of his age : " Give him half an 
 hour's start of conversation against the 
 handsomest dull man you pleased, with any 
 woman equally a stranger to both, and he 
 would undertake that she should forget 
 alike his own ugliness and his rival's per-
 
 THE M0NE5f -SPINNER. 245 
 
 sonal advantages." So far, it was a com- 
 pliment to the understanding of women, a 
 compliment which, is well deserved, since it 
 is indorsed by the testimony of every day's 
 experience. Young Mandeville had not 
 that habitual fluency or felicity in express- 
 ing himself, and he cared not a rush for it. 
 
 " So in tliat way of talking without thinking 
 He had a strange alacrity for sinking." 
 
 "A very fine voice, I know," said Miss 
 Whitsund. ''Will you, then," she added, 
 looking at Cuthbert, with a sweet smile, 
 " try the second with me ? There never 
 was a more simple air. It needs but to 
 be sung with feeling. I would not give 
 such trouble," continued she, raising, from 
 a cushion at her feet, a pretty guitar, en- 
 amelled in mother-of-pearl, '' only that I 
 have been spoilt in this song. After once 
 perceiving the wonderful improvement it 
 acquires from the second voice, I dislike 
 singing it alone, if I can help it."
 
 246 HAEDING 
 
 Young Harding had risen with his heart 
 beating thick and fast, as soon as Miss 
 Whitsund had turned towards him the 
 smiling look I have mentioned. He was 
 not surprised at the surprise of Geoffrey, 
 for, even within the j)^st year, and since he 
 had met her, Emily Whitsund's beauty had 
 been strikingly developed. Cuthbert, more- 
 over, was enthralled by various circum- 
 stances. Her acquaintance with other lan- 
 guages and other literatures (the natural 
 result of her education abroad), her superi- 
 ority to himself in knowledge of the arts, 
 and her grace of movement and of action, 
 produced on his mind an effect even deeper 
 than that caused by her surpassing beauty. 
 But that effect was accompanied by a vague 
 uneasiness. Was he the person most fitted 
 or most likely, by position, character, and 
 personal qualities, to captivate such a 
 maiden ? 
 
 He had heard, besides, while at Eton, in
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEE. 247 
 
 occasional allusions and general news inter- 
 spersed through his correspondence with 
 home (in the letters of his mother, and even 
 in the brief, incipient scrawls of little Winny, 
 as well as through Geoffrey's epistolary 
 gossip from Mandeville Park), something of 
 the numerous offers with which Miss Whit- 
 sund had been besieged — something of that 
 blockade of love or admiration which she 
 bad sustained. She had, it was rumoured, 
 refused this gentleman and that ; she was 
 going to be married — no, it was broken off. 
 Lord James Woodburn had certainly pro- 
 posed — splendid match — most extraordinary 
 — Lord James had gone off in great morti- 
 fication — surely, Uncle Harding could see 
 nothing objectionable in such an alliance ! 
 Could Emily herself have refused Lord 
 James 1 — and he so handsome ? Very 
 mysterious I nothing could please her. Did 
 she expect a dukedom ? Many said it must 
 be some such vanity, and that she reckoned
 
 248 HARDING 
 
 on no less. Or was she in love with some 
 low fellow ? — was there some clandestine 
 sort of attachment which rendered her in- 
 sensible to her dignity, her interests, and 
 her happiness ? That was the theory of 
 others. 
 
 A feeling of pride, and a pang of anxiety, 
 were simultaneously awakened in Cuthbert 
 by these fragments of intelligence. He 
 applauded himself for the engagement by 
 which he had anchored his hopes ; he had 
 foreseen the storms of passion or ambition 
 which would arise in that outer sea of the 
 great world upon which the young life of 
 Emily was about to be adventured, and he 
 had prepared for the crisis. But would the 
 cable stand the strain ? In what kind of 
 ground was it to drag ? Was he sure of her 
 character, on the one hand ? and could he 
 face his various rivals with a good chance of 
 superiority to all of them, on the other ? 
 Were they all such as Geoffrey's far better
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 249 
 
 position, and yet not dread tlie issue. But 
 were they all such as Geoffrey ? Among 
 the well-bred nobodies — among the ordi- 
 nary, average, polished rabble — was it 
 certain that not one brilliant character, not 
 one energetic heart and vivid intelligence, 
 was it certain that not one such should be 
 found ? 
 
 It may appear strange (for no decisive, no 
 direct clue whatever, pointed in that direc- 
 tion), but it is the case, that young Hard- 
 ing's mind was haunted for the last twenty- 
 four hours by the image, or by what served 
 for such — of one individual. There was one 
 name which seemed continually to be mur- 
 mured in his ear. But why dread that 
 individual ? why think he heard that name 
 in particular ? He had never even seen the 
 person in question ; he could not know how 
 great or how small were his merits or attrac- 
 tions ; and, what is more remarkable, he 
 had not heard that Miss Whitsund was so
 
 250 HARDING 
 
 much as acquainted with him. It is to 
 be ascribed, then, only to the self-tormenting 
 or presentimental character of certain minds, 
 that this one person should detach himself 
 from the vague and misty crowd whom 
 Cuthbert bodied forth in his imagination 
 as pursuing Emily Whitsund, and should 
 stand out clearly and sharply defined in the 
 visions of his jealous terror. 
 
 Cuthbert, when Miss Whitsund asked 
 him to take the second part of the song, 
 rose, as has been stated, and, making an 
 apology for such a demand, asked his uncle, 
 with respectful audacity, to exchange chairs 
 with him. 
 
 The reverend gentleman looked, at first, 
 as though his nephew had asked him to 
 exchange coats, or even heads. But the 
 request was reasonable, it was even neces- 
 sary, and the defeated divine retreated 
 austerely. So far, so good ; but the youth's 
 triumph was short-lived. ]\Iiss Whitsund
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. "251 
 
 handed him the music of the song, in which 
 the words were interlined. 
 
 " You wish me to sing this ? " he said. 
 " Why, I cannot even read it ! This is 
 a German song.'' 
 
 And thus, after a few confused remarks 
 on both sides, during which Miss Whitsund 
 innocently asked (to Dr. Marlowe Harding's 
 intense scandal), " What, then, do they 
 teach you at Eton ? " she consented to sing 
 alone. This time the music failed to please 
 Cuthbert so highly as when he had heard it 
 first ; but Geofii-ey was more enthusiastic 
 than before. 
 
 " You say," said Cuthbert, " that you 
 have been spoiled for singing that beautiful 
 song by yourself. You have, then, been 
 able to find, in our rustic circles, somebody 
 who not only knows music well enough, but 
 knows German also ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes. He sings beautifully. It was 
 he who gave me, and, indeed, taught me, 
 the song."
 
 252 HARDING 
 
 *'I did not catch the name," pursued 
 Cuthbert. 
 
 '' The name ! " replied the lovely girl, 
 with an air of abstraction and pensiveness 
 which escaped not the uneasy glance and 
 much -conjecturing, much-misgiving mind of 
 Cuthbert, '' the name ! Oh, the name is 
 'Die ungluckliche Verbindlichkeit/ " 
 
 " Ehem ! " answered Cuthbert, " that 
 appears to be the name of the song in 
 German. But what is the name of the per- 
 son who knows German, and sings so well, 
 and gave you, and taught you, the song ? " 
 
 The rest were now all talking, and no one 
 noticed the little dialogue apart, which was 
 carried on almost in a whisper. 
 
 "I beg a thousand pardons," she said 
 with a faint blush, like the inside of a sea- 
 shell (the blush Cuthbert did not at all 
 relish). " I beg a thousand pardons. The 
 name of the person ? Oh, it was Mr. Alger- 
 non Childering."
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 253 
 
 Cuthbert, although he had asked with a 
 presentiment of this name, started as if he 
 was shot, and fixed on the young lady a 
 searching glance, which again made the red 
 blood mantle in her cheeks ; but this time 
 a slight tinge of indignation was blended 
 with her confusion. Innocence can blush as 
 well as guilt; and, indeed, innocence blushes 
 oftener ; and, unaccountable as it may seem, 
 there are characters who, under the con- 
 sciousness of an inquisitorial scrutiny, will 
 betray more awkwardness if they do not 
 deserve it, than if they do. Guilt is pre- 
 pared, where innocence is not. Young 
 Harding had never read nor heard Paul 
 de Gondi's profound maxim, that, in dealing 
 with people, we should always suppress the 
 appearance or air of suspecting them, and, 
 nine times out of ten, even the suspicion 
 itself. It may be, Cuthbert had never heard 
 of this counsel (his studies had not extended 
 to French political and social literature) ;
 
 254 HARDING 
 
 but lie felt instinctively, that, in the present 
 instance, he would be unwise to betray the 
 thoughts which were lurking "in the re- 
 cesses of a mind capacious of such things." 
 He took the guitar which Miss Whitsund 
 was placing back on the cushion, and, while 
 examining it, said, with an assumed look of 
 carelessness — 
 
 " T have never had the pleasure of meet- 
 ing the younger Mr. Childering, but I hear 
 he is quite a superior person. What is he 
 like ? Is he considered handsome ? " 
 
 For an instant, Miss Whitsund naturally 
 hesitated ; but, with brave simplicity, 
 replied — 
 
 "He is considered so, and is so." 
 
 "So is my friend, Geoffrey Mandeville," 
 pursued Cuthbert. " Is young Mr. Childer- 
 ing endowed with such good looks ? " 
 
 "This," said Miss Whitsund, "is to me 
 quite a new point of view in which to regard 
 Mr. Algernon Childering, or any other gentle-
 
 THE MONEY-SPIXNEE. 255 
 
 man. I never thought whether he was, or 
 was not, handsome, till you asked me. Do 
 you generally ask ladies whether they con- 
 sider gentlemen handsome ? " 
 
 Although these abrupt words contained a 
 withering reproof of Cuthbert's ill-bred 
 question, they were not spoken with that 
 intention, but modestly and naturally. It 
 little mattered, however, for Cuthbert scarcely 
 heard them. His gaze was riveted upon 
 the guitar. 
 
 At the broader end, a small, round plate 
 of ivory, shaped like an heraldic shield, was 
 niello'd into the wood, and encircled with a 
 border of flowery inlaying. The plate was 
 obviously designed to receive initials, or a 
 name, or a crest, or a motto — or, in fine, 
 any little device which might suit the phan- 
 tasy of the owner. But it presented an 
 exquisite miniature portrait of Emily herself. 
 This it was which had arrested Cuthbert's 
 attention. He knew that Miss Whitsund
 
 256 HAEDING 
 
 could draw and paint ; but it was absurd to 
 suppose that she had sat down for this pur- 
 pose before her looking-glass. Most cer- 
 tainly, she would not have selected herself 
 as the person from whom she would " ask a 
 sitting." Besides, so far as his memory 
 served him, she, although sufficiently accom- 
 plished in the art, could not have drawn — 
 and, above all, she could not have painted 
 — in a style approaching the marvellous 
 excellence of the little fairy portrait before 
 him. It spoke of a master hand. Cuthbert 
 was lost for a few seconds in the contempla- 
 tion of that exquisite production. Two or 
 three times he sighed almost imperceptibly. 
 
 " Pardon me," said he, looking up at 
 length, " your manner to me is changed, 
 Emily. Do you forget all ? " 
 
 " You can fear that I should forget ? Is 
 it so ? " she replied. 
 
 " No, no, dearest Emily ; but I am so 
 little worthy of you ; so many would envy
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 257 
 
 me ; so many are less undeserving of your 
 thoughts ; absence, you know, is always so 
 full of fears and self-torture. I most eagerly 
 await the opportunity of a long conversa- 
 tion. To-morrow, I shall rise early ; let me 
 meet you ; I have much to say, on which 
 my whole life depends. I shall expect you 
 in the old bridle path, which winds beyond 
 the garden — where we used once to stroll 
 together, Emily — yes, yes, building stately 
 castles in the air. Is no ruin of them all 
 left in your memory ? You were never cold. 
 and distant to me then ! I cannot, here 
 and now, speak what is in my mind, what is 
 torturing it. Will you meet me ? " 
 
 She bowed silently, with a look of sad 
 kindness — a sweet, pensive, pained expres- 
 sion. He noticed it. 
 
 " Before seven ? " he added. 
 
 Again she bent her head. 
 
 " Thanks, from my heart, even for this," 
 he said. 
 
 17
 
 258 HARDING 
 
 He still held the guitar. 
 
 "Until then, let me talk to you of any- 
 thing. No matter what. To see you, to 
 address you, to hear your answers — however 
 brief and cold — is better than the absence 
 which has rendered me so wretched. A 
 word, I repeat — even your brief, cold replies 
 — are better than to be forbidden to see you 
 and to speak with you. You seem pained ! 
 Is my very presence become so disagree- 
 able?" 
 
 " I seem what ? Pained ! " 
 
 " You scarcely answer me." 
 
 " Yes. I answer you," said she. 
 
 " AVell, well," he returned, with a sigh, 
 " I deliver you from all this — I free you 
 from the subject. To change it, let me 
 assure you that this guitar has given me a 
 shock of astonishment." 
 
 " A shock of astonishment ! " she replied, 
 stealing a timid glance towards him, which 
 made his heart throb fast.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 259 
 
 " Yes," pursued he ; *' I had not thought 
 it within the means of mortal art, potent as 
 it is, to have done justice to that face and 
 head." 
 
 " Oh ! " she confusedly said, " the por- 
 trait ! " 
 
 " Pray, whose work is the portrait 1 " 
 asked he. 
 
 Miss Whitsund had nothing to conceal. 
 Indeed, what would have been the inference, 
 had she made any mystery of the question ? 
 Yet, the question jarred upon her feelings ; 
 she could not have said why. The reply, 
 however, jarred still worse on the feelings of 
 Cuthbert. It was one of those inquiries 
 which must be answered, and for this reason, 
 that silence itself is an answer, and happens 
 to be the least convenient that could be 
 given. Such inquiries are like some in- 
 visible lasso, flung true — you cannot shake 
 them ofl". Therefore, secretly and undefin- 
 ably displeased at feeling herself pressed,
 
 260 HAKDING 
 
 pinioned, by the consummate, but unper- 
 ceived art of ber lover, sbe said, coldly — 
 
 *' The portrait is the work of Mr. Alger- 
 non Childering." 
 
 " He must be truly accomplished," said 
 Cuthbert, slowly, and, as it were, with 
 difficulty. 
 
 The beautiful girl, who was deadly pale, 
 preserved silence. Cuthbert, with feelings 
 unspeakable in his heart, but calm and 
 elegant in look, manner, voice, now threw 
 again the unseen lasso. 
 
 '' You could scarcely,'' remarked he, 
 " have expected the task to be executed 
 in that artistic, that masterly style, when 
 you entrusted Mr. Algernon Child ering with 
 the guitar, that he might fill up the ivory 
 plate, either thus, or as best his skill might 
 enable him." 
 
 " Entrust ! I entrust 1 You mistake. I 
 never gave him the guitar. I missed the 
 instrument for awhile ; and then, suddenly,
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 261 
 
 I found it again on my aunt's table, 
 with this miniature occupying the ivory 
 plate." 
 
 '* Drawn and painted from memory," mur- 
 mured Cuthbert ; " there is certainly an 
 astonishing talent shown in such a freak ; 
 it was gracefully imagined too." 
 
 Miss Whitsund looked at him to see if he 
 spoke ironically ; but he was perfectly grave, 
 and was contemplating the likeness with 
 a candid and placid look of admiration. 
 Something bitter had, indeed, risen to his 
 lips ; but he had a habit, when much in- 
 terested, of putting himself, imaginarily, in 
 the place of the person to whom he was 
 speaking, and then he would ask, mentally, 
 " How would it sound ? how would it look ? 
 What would be the impression, the effect ? " 
 Over anxiety made him lose this habit ere 
 his career was accomplished ; forgetting to 
 act on a maxim the justness of which he 
 well knew, and which, at this date, was
 
 262 HARDING 
 
 seldom out of his mind — that precisely by- 
 how much more one is anxious, precisely by 
 that much it is the more needful not to be 
 tyrannized over, or influenced, by anxiety. 
 He felt, or he fancied, in the present in- 
 stance, that irony, sarcasm, could in no way 
 advance him ; that it would grate upon Miss 
 Whitsund's ear ; and, in truth, that it would 
 be out of place in itself. The oftener he 
 heard of this Algernon Childering, the less 
 applicable to him appeared the assumption 
 of anything like a depreciatory — or, at all 
 events, a satirical tone. Nor was Cuthbert 
 at all anxious that Emily Whitsund should 
 impute to him an ungenial and sardonic 
 temper. 
 
 Thus musing, or rather electrically 
 lightening, with an excited and thunder-laden 
 spirit, from reflection to reflection, Cuthbert 
 mechanically laid down the guitar, and, in 
 order to make room for it upon the cushion, 
 took up the printed song. During the low-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 263 
 
 toned conversation just detailed, the rest of 
 the party in the conservatory had been 
 occupied in their own manner. Dr. Hard- 
 ing, when he had been manoeuvred by Cuth- 
 bert out of the chair beside Miss Whitsund 
 — like the Tartars and Moguls, who, when 
 attacked and driven away by their enemies 
 in the obscure depths of Central Asia, carried 
 their swords westward to overrun Europe in 
 compensatory conquest and atoning glory — 
 like that Hunnish horde, I say, Dr. Marlowe 
 Harding rolled his portly weight towards 
 the seat which little Winny had seized by 
 Geoflfrey Mandeville's side, and, irresistibly 
 dislodging that feeble occupant, availed 
 himself of the chance of cultivating an in- 
 timacy with Sir Walter Mandeville's heir. 
 Oxford furnished him with a natural and 
 congenial topic, and to the lively conversa- 
 tion which ensued (for Dr. Marlowe Harding 
 had great tact, and could adapt himself in a 
 moment to Geoffrey's taste), Mr. William
 
 264 HARDING 
 
 Haxding and Winny were amused and 
 curious listeners. 
 
 By this means it happened that Cuthbert 
 and Emily were left to interchange, undis- 
 turbed and nearly unheeded, the questions 
 and answers I have mentioned. But there 
 was one person whose glance stole frequently 
 towards the youthful couple, and rested, not 
 without an expression of unquiet sympathy, 
 upon the pale brow of Cuthbert. One 
 glance there was which thus hovered round 
 him. It was his mother's. She had studied 
 too long and too closely her son's physiog- 
 nomy to be deceived by any of its phases. 
 She alone in the world had been entrusted, 
 from the beginning, with the secret of that 
 engagement in which her boy had garnered 
 up, as she believed, the hopes of his life, and 
 all his chances of happiness. 
 
 She had now followed, with a kind of 
 magnetic intuition, all the turns of a dia- 
 loofue, not a word of which reached her
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 265 
 
 ears ; and, although she could not have said 
 literally what passed, she could have said, 
 at least, in what mood Cuthbert uttered 
 each sentence, and what effect each sentence 
 of Emily's produced on him. It was curious 
 to see Mrs. Harding, as she mechanically 
 pursued her knitting, her look raised to the 
 speakers beyond hearing, as if they were not 
 beyond it, every inaudible word apparently 
 understood — occasionally the point of a long 
 needle applied absently to her temple (for 
 when Mrs. Harding was unusually medita- 
 tive, she would thus scratch her temple with 
 the point of her needle) — occasionally, again, 
 as she looked, she heaved an unconscious 
 siofh. 
 
 But what has now happened ? Ah ! what 
 has happened ? Mrs. Harding had become 
 very pale ; she had dropped her work into 
 her lap ; her hands were folded quietly to- 
 gether upon her knees ; and a tear stood in 
 her eyes. Long and sad was the gaze which
 
 266 HARDING 
 
 she fixed upon her son. AVhat' she beheld 
 in his face I cannot explain ; all I can 
 do is to record what had passed, at that 
 moment, between Miss Whitsund and Cuth- 
 bert Harding. 
 
 It has been stated that young Harding, in 
 putting down the guitar on the cushion, had 
 mechanically taken up, to make room for it, 
 the song. In doing this, the title caught 
 his eye. He could hardly, at that moment, 
 trespass on Miss Whitsund to the extent of 
 askinof her to translate the whole of the 
 words for him ; yet he burned to know what 
 it was that the girl who was plighted to him 
 — what it was that she and this Algernon 
 Childering had often, doubtless, sung to- 
 gether. The thought flashed across his 
 mind that,^if he knew the title, he might 
 be able to guess at the style, the class of 
 song, and, perhaps, the general drift and 
 very purport of the words. He could not 
 forget with what melancholy pathos, with
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 267 
 
 what plaintive feeling, with what an im- 
 passioned, trembling emotion, Emily's sweet 
 voice, as he and Geoffrey listened outside, 
 had penetrated through the casement, and 
 had seemed to soar away like a complaint to 
 Heaven. 
 
 Thus brooding, he pointed to the heading, 
 and said — 
 
 " You call this song " 
 
 " Die ungliickliche Verbindlichkeit," she 
 answered, with a look of alarm, but a look 
 so new and so genuinely innocent, that it 
 was clear she now, for the first time, 
 observed the atrocious and terrible coinci- 
 dence, whatever it was, which lurked in 
 those words. 
 
 *' And that means in English ? " per- 
 sisted Cuthbert, on whom nothing in the 
 lady's manner was lost — " how do you trans- 
 late it ? " 
 
 " Let me see," she returned, bending over 
 the music, more and more disconcerted ;
 
 268 HARDING 
 
 * ' that means — means — ' The unfortunate 
 engagement.' " 
 
 Cuthbert slowly, dreamily, turned towards 
 her. He fixed upon her a long and melan- 
 choly gaze ; then he rose from his chair, 
 and, without uttering one word, left the 
 verandah and retired into the large adjoin- 
 ing room, in which, as I have mentioned, 
 nobody had remained. 
 
 It was at this moment, and on seeing this 
 movement of her son's, that Mrs. Harding 
 had betrayed the emotion which had been 
 described.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 269 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " She used to singe his powdered wig, 
 To steal the staff he put such trust in, 
 And make the puppy dance a jig 
 When he began to quote Augustin." 
 
 Praed, The Vicar, 
 
 " His talk was like a stream which runs 
 With rapid change from rocks to roses ; 
 It slipt from politics to puns ; 
 It passed from Mahomet to Moses." 
 
 Praed, Ibid. 
 
 It will, perhaps, be remembered that Dr. 
 Harding proceeded at once, with heavy and 
 phlegmatic prowess, to dislodge Winny from 
 the chair beside Geoffrey Mandeville, as 
 soon as he — that reverend and redoubtable 
 doctor — had been deprived of his own beside 
 his beautiful ward, by the adroit audacity
 
 270 HARDING 
 
 of Cuthbert. Winny, tlius dispossessed, cast 
 her eyes round the circle, and at first seemed 
 inclined to follow Cuthbert, and again plague 
 him to solve the multifarious problems which 
 succeeded each other, like bubbles in an 
 eddy, or grains of dust from a threshing- 
 floor, in her very discursive conversation. 
 But she vaguely felt, as she glanced at the 
 earnest and preoccupied air of the two, that 
 this was no moment to disturb her brother 
 and Miss Whitsund. The next truth which 
 beamed on her observant mind was, that 
 all who usually took note of her movements, 
 and curbed her rather devious, erratic, and 
 eccentric orbits, were now fully absorbed. 
 She noiselessly vanished, therefore, into the 
 outer room, and thence went on an exploring 
 expedition to the kitchen, to ascertain in 
 what state of forwardness was the repast 
 which she knew that her mother had 
 ordered to revive her " travelling " son and 
 his friend.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 271 
 
 Mrs. Harding still sat gazing with her 
 wan and piteous eyes on her son's abruptly 
 deserted place (the incident which was men- 
 tioned at the close of the last chapter, 
 having just occurred), when Winny burst 
 into view between the folding doors, with 
 the highly satisfactory intelligence which 
 she thought proper to announce thus : 
 *' s — u — upper, supper ! s — u — upper, sup- 
 per ! " This specimen of spelling power 
 was given with astounding rapidity of 
 utterance, in a shrill and excited tone, and 
 with a genuine appreciation of the interest- 
 ing nature of the event itself which was 
 thus proclaimed. 
 
 " Winny, for shame ! " said Mrs. Harding. 
 "You ought to be in bed." 
 
 " No, mamma, this is brother Cuth's first 
 night at home ! You said I might stay up 
 for s — u — upper, supper! s — u — upper, 
 supper ! And Humphrey is going to 
 bring it ! Oh, you need not stir yet, uncle I
 
 272 HARDING 
 
 Humphrey is only just laying the cloth. 
 I saw him." 
 
 " Where is your brother, dear ? " said 
 Mrs. Harding, looking all round the veran- 
 dah in vain. 
 
 At that moment, Cuthbert reappeared in 
 the doorway, against the sill of which he 
 leant, throwing an arm round the neck of 
 Winny, who turned and gazed up at him 
 with a smile, saying — 
 
 " I knew very well it was you ? " 
 
 Not a trace of emotion remained now on 
 the youth's countenance. It was open and 
 calm — the sole change (and none but his 
 mother remarked even this) was, that the 
 light which burned in his dark grey eyes 
 was more than usually vivid — while the 
 darino: character natural to the whole face, 
 seemed to her to be somehow brought out 
 with more marked effect. Only a practised 
 painter or sculptor could have laid his finger 
 on the particular lineaments which produced
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 273 
 
 this expression ; and, indeed, it may not 
 have proceeded from the lineaments at all, 
 but from a certain gallant, challenging sit 
 of the head, which was well thrown back. 
 
 Winny's proclamation had broken up the 
 doctor's and Geoffrey's conference, and had 
 drawn all eyes towards her. The conse- 
 quence was distressing, for Mrs. Harding, 
 after perusing the child's costume with an 
 understanding glance, demanded — 
 
 *' Where is your beautiful new plum- 
 coloured silk sash, Winny ? What have you 
 done with it, child ? " 
 
 Winny held down her head sideways, and 
 hearing Cuthbert utter a low laugh, looked 
 up at him out of the corners of her eyes, 
 with mingled astonishment and anxiety. 
 
 "I know where it is," said Cuthbert, 
 darting at her a penetrating glance. 
 
 " I'm sure you don't," murmured Winny, 
 her mind, however, much misgiving her, 
 despite of that stout asseveration. 
 
 18
 
 274 HARDING 
 
 Cuthbert whispered in her ear — 
 
 "You reckless, wasteful child, you have 
 made a garter of it ! " 
 
 AVinny blushed crimson, and, full of con- 
 sternation, said — 
 
 " How did you know ? " 
 
 But, instantly rising on her toes, and 
 placing her hand over his mouth, she 
 added — 
 
 " Don't tell, Cuth, dear ! Don't tell ! " 
 
 "No, I wont tell," said he. " If you be 
 the first there, you will find what you want 
 — ahem — on the ground, near the door of 
 the drawing-room." 
 
 She vanished. When she returned, she 
 had her plum-coloured silk sash round her 
 waist, but looking disgracefully crumpled. 
 
 Humphrey just then appeared, and an- 
 nounced supper. 
 
 Cuthbert instantly approached Emily 
 Whitsund, and ofiered her his disengaged 
 arm, for Winny hung fast upon the other.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 275 
 
 Geoffrey took Mrs. Harding, the doctor and 
 his brother following last. 
 
 Mrs. Harding, who was separated from 
 Cuthbert only by Winny, took advantage 
 of the little stir which the guests made in 
 finding their places, to lean across the 
 child's shoulders, and to whisper to her 
 son — 
 
 " Your uncle talked of having some 
 serious conversation with you, Cuthbert, 
 darling ; but I'm afraid he's going to do 
 something horrid. I don't know that he 
 means to speak to you privately. Be pre- 
 pared ! " 
 
 Cuthbert, much surprised, replied, in the 
 same low tone — 
 
 *' How ! not privately ? " 
 
 "Just this instant," continued Mrs. 
 Harding, " I partially overheard him talking 
 to your father respecting you, as we were 
 all coming from the verandah, and I caught 
 somethinoj about ' the wholesome shock of an
 
 276 HARDING 
 
 exposure/ I know, I feel, he was speaking 
 of you, dear." 
 
 There was no time to say more ; every- 
 body was seated, and silence prevailed for a 
 moment. It was soon broken in general 
 conversation, the doctor leading off on the 
 subject of '' table rapping." Cuthbert 
 wanted to think, but AVinny would not let 
 him. 
 
 " How did you know about the sash, 
 Cuth ? " she demanded. 
 
 " Why, I saw you dart through the draw- 
 ing-room with one of your stockings about 
 your heels, and I saw you come back with 
 the same stocking all right and trim again, 
 to announce *s — u — upper, supper.' Never- 
 theless, I had, meantime, observed your lost 
 garter upon the floor, where I told you 
 afterwards to look for it. I had no idea 
 how you had managed your slattern stock- 
 ing til] your mamma asked you what had 
 become of your sash. Then, indeed, I 
 easily guessed."
 
 THE MONEY-SPIXNER. 277 
 
 " Cuth, you are a witch ! " 
 
 "A witch is a lady, Winny. You are 
 more like a witch." 
 
 "Well, a witcher, then." 
 
 " Wizard, you rogue, wizard ! Talk 
 English, or I won't answer you. Emily, 
 some wine : have you seen any of this table- 
 rapping ? " 
 
 " One cannot go into society without 
 witnessing whatever frenzy has come last to 
 the top — and ' cela fait fureur ' just now." 
 
 " You say " 
 
 " I beg pardon ; I forgot. I am so accus- 
 tomed to talk French, or German, or Italian. 
 But at Eton " 
 
 Cuthbert, at that instant, thought less 
 gratefully than he had formerly of his 
 uncle's kindness in sending him to Eton 
 and arranging his future for him, before 
 he himself could have any voice in its 
 settlement. 
 
 " The friend who sings," said he, " and
 
 278 HARDING 
 
 who paints so well, he knows those lan- 
 guages ? " 
 
 She paused to look at Cuthbert, but, dis- 
 daining all affectation, said — 
 
 "Yes, he knows those languages, and 
 knows the countries where they are spoken." 
 
 '' And," persisted young Harding, '' after 
 travelling a good deal, and observing a good 
 deal, while still a mere boy, he has now 
 come home — has he not ? — to settle in this 
 county ? '* 
 
 " I believe so. I think his father — who, 
 along with Sir Walter Mandeville, you 
 know, represents the shire in Parliament — 
 has said something about resigning his seat, 
 and putting forward his second son, who is 
 only just coming of age, as a candidate in 
 his place." 
 
 " His second son I " exclaimed Cuthbert. 
 " Is not Mr. Algernon, then, his eldest, his 
 heir?" 
 
 " Oh, certainly not ! "
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 279 
 
 Here Cuthbert shuddered violently, be- 
 came deadly pale, and looked quickly back 
 ovei; his chair. 
 
 ** Emily," said he, in a whisper, '* yoa 
 — you heard nothing, did you ? " 
 
 "No 1" said she, more astonished by his 
 manner than by the question — "that is, I 
 heard the voices at table, together with the 
 busy sound of knife and fork — what do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing — nothing," he replied, in 
 visible confusion. He hastily added — 
 
 " Have you met the elder brother ? What 
 sort of person is he ? " 
 
 "The exact contrary of Mr. Algernon," 
 she replied. 
 
 " From all I can gather," said Cuthbert, 
 " that is not flattering — I mean, no favour- 
 able description of him." 
 
 " Of course, very unfsivouiahle" she said, 
 with involuntary emphasis. 
 
 Doctor Marlowe, who (surpassing Zo-
 
 280 HARDINa 
 
 roaster) had smashed, by this time, not one, 
 but a great many, tables — all, in fact, on 
 which any *' rappings " had been practised — 
 overheard Miss Whitsund's last remark, and 
 exclaimed — 
 
 "You are speaking, I presume, of Mr. 
 Childering's eldest son, George. The greatest 
 scapegrace in the kingdom ! The estate is 
 strictly entailed on him, and he has already 
 run pretty nearly through his own future 
 life interest in it, by means of the most 
 costly kind of post obits. If his father 
 do not die immediately, Mr. George will be 
 a ruined man by the time he comes into the 
 property. If I were his father, I would 
 never suffer him under my roof. In these 
 days of clear-seeing through the mahogany,* 
 and strychnine on it, and of rapping tables 
 for imps, there is no telling what he might 
 not be capable of attempting." 
 
 ** Oh, pray do not speak so fearfully, so 
 horribly, guardian," said Miss Whitsund.
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 281 
 
 *'Mr. George may be wild, wicked, and yet 
 not an assassin — not a parricide." 
 
 ** Very good," returned tlie doctor ; *' but 
 I happen to know of an incident in tliis 
 unhappy young man's career, of which 
 incident you, Emily, are ignorant. During 
 the sensation created by the trial and execu- 
 tion of Septimus Hodge, the poisoner — his 
 former dwelling at Ditchend became, as you 
 are aware, the object, the terminus, the 
 bourne, of a largely frequented and scan- 
 dalous pilgrimage, while the very ground 
 on which he had trodden was venerated and 
 treated as precious. Hundreds of thousands 
 repaired to the shrine of this singular saint 
 — and the very pebbles which paved the 
 little garden walk leading up to his door 
 were worth a shilling and (as they grew 
 scarce) half-a-crown a piece ! It is a posi- 
 tive fact, that not one of those pebbles 
 which had been pressed by the sole of the 
 caitiff murderer's foot, remains now in that
 
 282 HARDING 
 
 walk ; all — all have been, one by one, 
 bought up as relics by the devotion, the 
 zeal, of the countless relays of ever suc- 
 ceeding pilgrims. We sneer at the Eoman 
 Catholics for making pilgrimages to the 
 tombs or homes of martyrs and saints— for 
 seeking and treasuring the relics of such 
 persons as have died glorious deaths, after 
 living blameless lives ; the relics, in short, 
 of those who have become famous by sheer 
 goodness ; and here is a wretch who, by 
 sheer badness, sheer devilry, has, in about 
 the same measure and degree, distinguished 
 himself from the ordinary bulk and herd of 
 men, and you cannot count the crowds of 
 devotees to be found in civilized, enlightened 
 England, who flock to the spots where he 
 has left any print or trace of himself, in 
 quest of some memorial by which they may, 
 respectively, more vividly realize the indi- 
 vidual, and retain within reach a means of, 
 at will, recalling, familiarizing, domesti-
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNEK. 283 
 
 eating, eterDizing, his memory and example 
 among their very homes. Mesmerism ! mag- 
 netism ! clear-seeing ! mystical affinities ; 
 evoked influences ! wonders of concentrated 
 meditation on an exciting theme ! What 
 are all these lame and clumsy processes 
 compared to those which I have just men- 
 tioned ? Mere puerilities — a feeble substi- 
 tute. Here, here— on Septimus Hodge's 
 hearth — you will find the true spiritual food 
 for you, mysterious, your prodigy- working 
 reveries, and clear-seeings. That's the true 
 magic ! Horrible — I say horrible ! And 
 the perverted and self-righteous age in which 
 such things can occur calls itself the most 
 enlightened of all ! " 
 
 Here the doctor paused for breath, and 
 looked round him with a glance of indigna- 
 tion, as if the company present had been the 
 culprits to whom the invectives of his power- 
 ful and acrid eloquence were applicable. 
 The reader may, perhaps, imagine, in con-
 
 284 HARDING 
 
 sequence of circumstances already related, 
 that young Harding was all this time lying 
 nervously under the expectation of the im- 
 pending stroke with which he had been 
 threatened ; and, for this reason, that he 
 would be now incapable of supporting his 
 share in a mixed and general conversation ; 
 in fine, it might be supposed that, whoever 
 might be likely to answer the doctor, and to 
 fling back the volatile ball of discussion, it 
 would not be Cuthbert. 
 
 ** That is very good, uncle," observed he, 
 *' as you just now said to Miss Whitsund, 
 but what bearing has it upon the particular 
 character of Mr. George Childering ? " 
 
 " You have expressed my very thought," 
 said Miss Whitsund in a low tone to Cuth- 
 bert. 
 
 Young Harding smiled with an expression 
 of surprise and pleasure. 
 
 " A fair question, nephew," returned the 
 clergyman. " Well, in this huge moral
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 285 
 
 mania, the worst maniac of all was no other 
 than that young gentleman. He not only 
 joined in those infatuated and outrageous 
 pilgrimages, the dishonour of our social 
 state, the shame and infamy of our age — 
 he not only purchased the sacred pebbles 
 of the gravelled walk, like the rest of that 
 rabble of demented miscreants — but he, 
 alone of all, devised a new and peculiar 
 method of testifying the general interest 
 in the miscreant, the fiendish criminal, who 
 had just fittingly finished so delightful a 
 career upon the gallows. He alone thought 
 of inquiring where the hypocritical murderer 
 habitually sat in church (for this poisoner 
 by profession was regular in his attendance 
 at church) ; and he actually placed himself 
 in the pew, and there he remained, wrapt 
 in ecstatic musings for upwards of an hour. 
 By such touches, believe me, character is 
 glaringly revealed. The Greek, in ponder- 
 ing at the grave of Leonidas, was exalted
 
 286 HARDING 
 
 and transported with lofty thouglits ; the 
 Christian, as he bends over the hallowed 
 spots of Palestine, is inebriated with a divine 
 enthusiasm ; and Mr. George Childering, as 
 he meditated in the pew of Septimus Hodge, 
 derived, I have no doubt, from the genius 
 and influences of the place, inspirations 
 worthy of the dock, and sentiments that 
 may yet befit him to emulate his chosen 
 prototype's career. We are all friends here. 
 I speak, as it were, in my family." 
 
 Geoffrey, with very graceful thought — 
 being the only stranger present — bowed, to 
 acknowledge the flattering speech. 
 
 But in one sense, at least, the doctors 
 remark was not true ; he had spoken not 
 as if in his family, but as if in the pulpit, 
 his voice making the very walls vibrate 
 with its thunder. And, indeed, the style 
 of all that diatribe which has been re- 
 ported, concerning the pilgrimages to the 
 poisoner's home, much resembled that of
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 287 
 
 his more ardent homilies and furibund 
 discourses. 
 
 Dr. Marlowe Harding was a most remark- 
 able man. His abilities were of the highest 
 order, and of singular amplitude in the range 
 which they embraced ; they had breadth as 
 well as height. But it was especially by 
 his rough, vigorous, vehement, and nerve- 
 shaking eloquence that he was distinguished. 
 He was, beyond all comparison, the first 
 preacher in the ''Establishment" In short, 
 only for his unusual — but I was going to say 
 that he was " too gifted for a bishop." It 
 is possible to cite exceptions to that rule 
 of patronage which, for years, marked the 
 policy of Dr. Marlowe Harding's friends ; 
 but it was, nevertheless, only by a daring 
 menace he had got the living in which he 
 now thundered. He uttered that menace on 
 two occasions : on the first he was laughed 
 at ; on the second, he was installed in the 
 rectory of Panes cum Piscihus. The anec-
 
 288 HARDING 
 
 dote, as characteristic of more persons than 
 one, and, indeed, of two whole classes of 
 persons, is worth relating : 
 
 "I'm beginning to feel very like a Dis- 
 senter," quoth Dr. Marlowe Harding to his 
 
 old college chum, Lord A , then high in 
 
 the Cabinet. 
 
 " Well, feel like one, my dear fellow," 
 returned that earl (bearer of one of the most 
 ancient Saxon titles) — " feel like one, if you 
 think it nice, or that it will do you any 
 good." 
 
 " May be, it will do others harm, my 
 lord," answered the iodignant doctor ; and 
 he forthwith hired a large public building, 
 which he so crowded, by the attractions 
 of his unhackneyed, novel, genuine, and 
 startling style, that the galleries broke 
 down during his " third appearance," and 
 some of the close packed, overwhelming 
 audience actually lost their lives — several 
 of the ladies had previously lost something
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 289 
 
 not quite so painful to resign — their hearts. 
 From among these ladies, after attending 
 the coroner's inquest, the successful preacher 
 selected one, who had a small property, 
 the sister of the late Colonel Whitsund, 
 married her, and withdrew (professedly 
 only for a time) from the temporary 
 pulpit, which he had suddenly made so 
 famous. 
 
 Just as he was emerging back into view, 
 and dawning out of the honeymoon, he 
 
 again met his friend. Lord A . (We 
 
 do not like giving the real name of that 
 politician, who is dead. Suffice it to say, 
 that it began with A — a very legitimate 
 beginning.) 
 
 " I'm beginning," observed Dr. Marlowe 
 Harding, " to feel once more very like a 
 Dissenter." 
 
 '' Then we are in for another coroner's 
 inquest, though not for another wedding ! " 
 
 " Tush, my dear fellow," continued the 
 
 19
 
 290 HARDING 
 
 earl ; "all that sort of thing — vagaries, 
 you know, and the rest — is very well for 
 lads, fresh from reading ; but in wise men, 
 like you and me, it disturbs the digestion, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Ah! my lord,'' says the doctor, eye- 
 ing the earl, who was a man of extra- 
 ordinary portliness, " that depends on what 
 one eats — and, I may say, on what one 
 has to eat. Eeligion, my lord, is a great 
 load to fat people." 
 
 " Really, eh ? Well, I never heard that 
 before. It is a new point of view to me. 
 / never felt the weight of it." 
 
 " Only lift it up, my lord, and try," said 
 the sarcastic divine. 
 
 " What ! eh I caustic as ever ? " cried the 
 earl. "By-the-by, there's a living in my 
 gift, just fallen vacant. Panes cum Piscihus ; 
 it would suit you to a nicety ; twelve 
 hundred a year, including everything. What 
 do you think ? "
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 291 
 
 " I agree with your lordship." 
 
 And thus, to parody a famous line of 
 Alexander Pope's, Dr. Marlowe Harding, 
 hsLvhig foamed a free preacher, subsided a 
 rich rector. 
 
 But, to account for the extraordinary 
 scene which has now to be related, and 
 which took place at the supper table of 
 Lea Meadows, I must beg the reader's in- 
 telliofent and kind attention to another of 
 the doctor's talents, a talent less creditable 
 than eloquence in his profession. He was 
 what may be termed a " social diplomatist," 
 of the most original genius. He was never 
 known to fail in having any project adopted 
 which he undertook to support, within the 
 sphere of his family, or of his intimate 
 friends. He was certain to carry anything 
 which he recommended. 
 
 Such success — success so continued and 
 uniform — is never the result of accident. 
 It was indeed the fruit of profound thought
 
 292 HARDING 
 
 on the part of Doctor Marlowe Harding. 
 He had discovered a secret upon which he 
 acted — a moral lever, which many use, in- 
 deed, in an unconscious and clumsy manner, 
 but which, probably, not another person 
 living knew how to employ, or had so 
 often purposely and systematically em- 
 ployed, to heave out of the way impedi- 
 ments which obstructed his plans of interest 
 or ambition. 
 
 But he had never yet had occasion to 
 try the efficacy of his hitherto infallible 
 engine, or manoeuvre against the pro- 
 verbially obstinate tenacity of love ; he 
 was now about to make that supreme ex- 
 periment. Guardians and uncles have im- 
 memorially been plagued with the difficulty 
 of controlling the perverse attachments of 
 wards and nephews ; but guardians and 
 uncles had not known the secret, the art, 
 the expedient, on which Dr. Harding relied 
 for victory. Would this secret avail to
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 293 
 
 solve a problem hitherto generally found 
 insoluble and wholly desperate ? 
 
 Before stating what was this secret of 
 the doctor's art in domestic diplomacy, it 
 will be well to mention at once another 
 secret which he had discovered. It was 
 that of Cuthbert's engagement with Miss 
 Whitsund. The discovery was not a day 
 old. From Eton, Cuthbert had corres- 
 ponded with the lovely orphan, uneasily 
 conjecturing, through her later replies, the 
 new sphere in which she had begun to 
 move, the gay circles into which she had 
 been introduced. The engagement was not 
 to be disclosed to her guardian till Cuth- 
 bert returned, and disclosed it himself. It 
 is of no importance to the events which 
 I am recording to explain the means by 
 which Cuthbert had contrived to conceal 
 the correspondence. Enough to say that 
 his last letter had been intercepted by Dr. 
 Harding, and had revealed everythiug.
 
 294 HARDING 
 
 *' Mrs. Harding/' said the doctor to his 
 wife, holding this letter in his hand, " have 
 you noticed the pointed attentions of Mr. 
 Childering's second son, Algernon V 
 
 It was on the morning of the very day 
 of Cuthbert's return home, that the doctor 
 put this question to his wife. 
 
 " I was going to ask you the same thing," 
 said she. 
 
 *'AVell," pursued the doctor, "I am certain 
 that our dear Emily is greatly struck by 
 that young gentleman." 
 
 *' It is not wonderful," said the wife. 
 
 *'By no means," continued the doctor. 
 " Now, in such houses as that of the 
 Childerings', there is generally an ample 
 provision for the younger children." 
 
 " I don't know," said the wife. " I think 
 Mr. Childering married for love ; and, you 
 are aware, his own property is strictly en- 
 tailed." 
 
 "Well, well," returned the doctor; "at
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 295 
 
 all events Algernon is a youth who is sure 
 to make a brilliant figure in life. He is 
 even about to enter Parliament, young as he 
 is. He has, I am convinced, crept into 
 Emily's affections. He is, himself, passion- 
 ately enamoured. And, now look you, Mrs. 
 Harding — / am not a bishop ! " 
 
 Startled by this most unexpected con- 
 clusion, Mrs. Harding meekly answered — 
 
 " I know that, my dear." 
 
 " Well," resumed the doctor, " so far we 
 are agreed. I am 7iot a bishop ! But Emily 
 is tenderly attached to you ; you have great 
 influence over her. You will still, in your 
 soft, unostentatious way, exercise that in- 
 fluence and retain that affection when she is 
 Mrs. Algernon Childering." 
 
 " When she is, you say ! " 
 
 " Yes," pursued he ; " don t interrupt me. 
 I have had a long conversation with Alger- 
 non, as I may well call him behind his back, 
 since I have come to call him so to his face.
 
 296 HARDING 
 
 I have drawn him into a confidential avowal 
 of his love for Emilj. He, like an honour- 
 able youth, asked my permission to offer her 
 his hand ; although, mind you, I am not 
 blind — I know very well that the rogue had 
 been making love to the lady before this 
 dutiful appeal to her guardian. The proof 
 is, that he cannot think me more deserving 
 of respect than his own father, and yet, 
 when I inquired whether he had Mr. Chil- 
 dering's sanction, he replied that he would 
 immediately solicit it ; so that he had been 
 committing himself first, and intended to 
 ask leave afterwards ! " 
 
 " Dear boy," said Mrs. Harding ; " he 
 pursued the usual course."" 
 
 " Well," resumed the doctor, *' this morn- 
 ing I received a note from him, communi- 
 cating his father's consent ; and saying that, 
 so soon as he, Algernon, heard from me in 
 return, he would make a proposal in writing 
 to Emily herself; for, observe, although he
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 297 
 
 has been very attentive to our ward, and 
 has exerted all his very rare accomplish- 
 ments and gifts to win her heart, he never, 
 it seems, has actually made her an explicit 
 offer. His incomprehensible tact, his in- 
 tuitive penetration, had revealed to him 
 more than I knew myself, and he felt that 
 a direct positive proposal would have termi- 
 nated the addresses which it was his aim to 
 continue and prolong, until he had made an 
 impregnable lodgment in her heart." 
 
 " A proposal would have terminated 
 them ! " cried Mrs. Harding. " I don't 
 understand." 
 
 " Ah ! nor should / have understood ; but 
 this is really a wonderful lad ! He had 
 some indistinct presentiment that he would 
 have been refused ; and yet he knew that 
 Emily loved him ! Would you believe it ? 
 Our ward is enoraored, madam ! enoraofed. if 
 you please ! "
 
 298 HARDING 
 
 ** Engaged ! engaged ! " exclaimed the 
 lady. 
 
 " Ah ! engaged, I tell you. That nephew 
 of mine, for whom I had formed such great 
 designs, and incurred such heavy expenses — 
 Cuthbert, I say — obtained the plighted word 
 from her before he went back, the last time, 
 to Eton." 
 
 *' Why, the poor girl could not," cried 
 Mrs. Marlowe Harding, ''have known her 
 own mind ! " 
 
 " No," said the doctor ; " she mistook the 
 affection of an intimate infancy, and the 
 interest growing out of the common games 
 of childhood, for love ; and of this, Master 
 Cuthbert took unfair advantage. But such 
 a match would suit neither my plans for 
 Cuthbert nor my plans for Emily. It 
 would ruin both of the young pair, and each 
 
 may aspire to play a part many degrees " 
 
 he interrupted himself, said " hum ! " and
 
 THE MONEY-SPINNER. 299 
 
 twirled his eyeglass. " But I am now 
 away," continued he, '' to Lea Meadows, 
 and I will smash this precious project with 
 a crushing blow ; I'll hit it down to the 
 earth ; I'll strike it on the forehead ; I'll 
 make this forward nephew ashamed of him- 
 self—I will ! " 
 
 And the energetic clergyman, twirling the 
 eyeglass more rapidly than before with his 
 left hand, and striking the air with his right 
 hand clenched, strode up and down the 
 apartment. 
 
 *' You see, my dear, when Emily is 
 Mrs. Algernon Childering, and when that 
 phosphorescent young husband — that piece 
 of light and fire — is in Parliament, you, as I 
 have said, will influence Emily (I'll show 
 you how to proceed) ; she will influence 
 Algernon ; I shall gain the Mandeville in- 
 terest through him ; and / shall he a bishop ! 
 Do you see ?"
 
 300 HARDING THE MONEY-SPINNEK. 
 
 " I see," she replied. 
 
 Having now mentioned all the previous 
 circumstances, a knowledge of which is in- 
 dispensable in order to understand what 
 ensued, it is time to return to the supper 
 table at Lea Meadows. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 FWINTED AT THE CAXTON PRESS, BECCI-ES. »S". <&> H.