"LI B HAHY 
 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY 
 Of ILLINOIS 
 
 8*2.3
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 HIDDEN LINKS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Hontion : 
 THOS. CAUTLEY NEWBY, PUBLISHER, 
 
 30, WELBECK STREET, CAVENDISH SQUARE. 
 1857. 
 
 ^-^
 
 
 HIDDEN LINKS; 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 At school each other's prompters, day hy day , 
 Companions in the frolic or the fray." 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 
 In the midst of a somewhat open tract of land 
 
 in a northern county, there is visible an object 
 
 which, even at a distance, is not unlikely to 
 
 *r> arrest the attention, and excite the curiosity of 
 
 H 
 
 the traveller. 
 
 Nearly on the summit of a broad hill stands 
 
 
 out, in bold relief, a mass of wide and continuous 
 buildings, which, to one taking a nearer view of 
 <o VOL. I. B
 
 6 HIDDEN LINKS ) OR, 
 
 them, appear imposing, if not from any archi- 
 tectural pretensions, at least from the height and 
 size of the structure. 
 
 An immense quadrangle presents an almost 
 similar face to the four quarters. On one side^ 
 however, there is a conspicuous addition, which 
 forms a marked contrast with the plain aspect of 
 the main building, and the eye would be instantly 
 caught by the high-pitched roof, the crocheted 
 pinnacles, and the floristed crosses of a small 
 Gothic church. 
 
 The spectator would be tempted to draw near 
 the edifice, in order to examine more closely the 
 beauty of its details, and, in the playfully flowing 
 tracery and the deeply cut mullions of its win- 
 dows, the uncouth gurgoyles, the corbels and 
 mouldings, and a thousand minutiae of exquisite 
 finish, he would admit and wonder at the perfect 
 revival of ancient design and mediaeval art. 
 
 The surrounding grounds are laid out with 
 simplicity and a general uniformity. A space of 
 eighteen or twenty acres is mostly walled round? 
 intersected with parallel walks, bordered with
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 7 
 
 mountain ash trees or Scotch firs ; and, here and 
 there, are racket courts, ball places, and the 
 various appurtenances of a college play-ground. 
 Such, indeed, it is ; and such was the general 
 appearance of the edifice and its environs at the 
 time when my tale commences. 
 
 It was a beautiful morning in the "merrie" 
 month of May. Not a cloud was to be seen in 
 the sky above; the unchecked rays of the 
 creative sun were calling into existence countless 
 beings on the earth below, and the air between 
 was filled with the songs of birds, and the musical 
 hum of myriads of insects. 
 
 But within and around the college there was 
 no sound of the human voice, and it would not 
 have been suspected, from aught, at least, that 
 could be seen or heard, that these walls con- 
 tained some two hundred inmates, nearly all of 
 them in the very heyday of youth and spirits. 
 Here and there, indeed, might be descried some 
 slowly pacing figure, with eyes fixed on a book 
 or manuscript; or, perchance, a glimpse might
 
 8 HIDDEN LINKS; OB, 
 
 be caught of the collegiate dress of the pupil, or 
 of the gown of the Professor, through the vista 
 of the long-drawn corridor, or among the lines 
 of the trees in the play-ground, converted for 
 the nonce into the sanctum of some peripatetic 
 student. 
 
 But all was silent on that May morning. 
 Silent ! With the first chimes from the tower 
 clock announcing half-past eight arose a deafen- 
 ing and astounding uproar. From the great 
 bel!, from whose solemn tongue proceeded with 
 undeviating regularity the daily summons to 
 each of the various punctual duties of academic 
 life, issued forth a voice as different to its 
 monotonous call as are the drawling tones of a 
 mendicant ballad-singer to the ringing shout of 
 a child at play. It seemed to say, as plainly as 
 bell could speak, " Come forth from your school- 
 rooms and study places, come round me, and let 
 us all laugh, and dance, and shout together — 
 leave Demosthenes and iEschines to abuse each 
 other without an audience — banish Ovid — 
 plague take Thucydides — leave Aristophanes to
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 9 
 
 the clouds — Homer in the dark — Horace in his 
 cups — Virgil at his farm, and let Lucian crack 
 his jokes alone with Charon." And the great 
 bell seemed to laugh and roar at such allusions, 
 all scholastic as they were, and to shake its 
 round sides in its jovial mirth, its deep notes 
 chiming in with the hip-hip hurraing of all the 
 boys in chorus around it, till their tongues grew 
 dry, and their lungs failed, and their arms were 
 tired of swinging it backwards and forwards. 
 Such was the commencement of the holiday. 
 
 " Come Harry," said a youth, fifteen or six- 
 teen years old, to another, two or three years 
 his junior, "let us have a lark to day." 
 
 " With all my heart. What shall it be?" 
 
 u Let us hire some horses and have a scurry 
 over the country. There's Fred Courtenay, we'll 
 ask him to come with us. Fred, Harry and I 
 are going down to Saddletree's ; we are resolved 
 to have a gallop; will you join us? We shall 
 have plenty of time to get back for dinner." 
 
 " To be sure I will," replied the boy, his eyes 
 glistening with delight. 
 
 B 5
 
 10 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " And you'll stand the expense, won't you, 
 Fred ?" said the first speaker. 
 
 "No, no," interrupted the youth who had 
 been first addressed, " you have done that too 
 often already. We will all share alike, or I 
 won't go." 
 
 " Well, well," rejoined the proposer of the freak, 
 rather hastily, " it's no use making a fuss about 
 a trifle; I was only joking." 
 
 The lark, as it was called, was still further 
 discussed and agreed upon, and the three youths 
 then separated, intending to leave the refectory 
 after breakfast, one by one, to escape notice. 
 
 In the meanwhile, I will devote a few lines to 
 a sketch of our new acquaintances; for they are 
 destined to be some of the principal actors in my 
 mimic show. 
 
 Dermod O'Neill was the eldest of the three 
 youths. His father possessed a considerable pro- 
 perty in Ireland, which was then, however, in the 
 unfortunate condition of a no small proportion of 
 the estates in that country. Mr. O'Neill's was, 
 in fact, in many points, the too common history
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 11 
 
 of an Irish gentleman's career. A thoughtless 
 prodigality, an overweening vanity, a love of 
 show, with a mistaken view of his position, and 
 of the necessity of maintaining it, had com- 
 bined to exhaust his annual resources, and em- 
 barrass his affairs. Perhaps these faults might 
 have been attributable, in part, to pride of ances- 
 try, for, springing from a pure Milesian stock, 
 Mr. O'Neill deemed such an origin to confer a 
 patent of precedence above the descendant of the 
 proudest Norman or the boldest Saxon who might 
 have followed the banner and shared the fortunes 
 of Earl Strongbow. Ostentation and prodigality 
 in such a one, was, according to his ideas, the 
 legitimate upholding of ancestral dignity. 
 
 As Mr. O'Neill advanced in years, his reck- 
 lessness diminished, but long habit was too strong 
 to allow him to adapt his expenses to his reduced 
 income. Taking advantage of the spirit of com- 
 petition, which was giving a fictitious value to 
 land, his aim now was to raise his rents to the 
 utmost. The consequence was obvious ; and in 
 the perpetual disagreement and contests which
 
 12 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 ensued between landlord and tenant, the old feu- 
 dal maxim " qui terre a guerre a" was thoroughly 
 exemplified. 
 
 His son, Dermod, very soon understood the 
 state of his father's affairs, and many points of 
 his character owed much of their development 
 to the force of his father's principles and con- 
 duct; and if there was aught of selfishness, 
 craft, deceit, or falsehood in his idiosyncracy, it 
 was not likely to be checked by^the constant 
 before him exhibition of what was considered 
 the fair and open game of over-reaching a 
 creditor, or shirking a dun. 
 
 Dermod was by no means ill-looking, but a 
 physiognomist could not have mistaken his cha- 
 racter. 
 
 To him there could not be a greater contrast 
 than Frederick Courtenay. He was now enter- 
 ing his fifteenth year — the model of a fine and 
 handsome boy. No thought of falsehood or 
 guile could lurk beneath his high white brow; 
 his clear and sparkling blue eye seemed both to 
 proclaim the openness of his own heart, and to
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 13 
 
 look for a return of confidence, while the quick 
 and eager grasp of his hand, and his active, un- 
 hesitating manners told of an ardent, affection- 
 ate, and willing disposition. 
 
 Yet Fred had his faults — nor were they few ; 
 he was clever, but vain, thoughtless and volatile 
 too ; he would fly from one occupation or study 
 to another, tiring of a pursuit just when success 
 became certain, and the object was about to be 
 grasped, and rather than apply his mind to sift 
 a question, whether of mental or moral action, 
 he would rely on the impulse of the moment, or 
 yield unthinkingly and blindly to the opinion 
 and guidance of others. Courtenay might have 
 taken for his motto : " When I do trust a man, 
 I trust him wholly;" a generous principle, 
 indeed, but one which Fred was too likely to 
 apply indiscriminately. To conclude my sketch : 
 
 " A mind it is, 
 Accessible to ieason's subtlest rays, 
 And many enter there, but none converge, 
 An arch without a key-stone." 
 
 Henry Montague was Courtenay 's cousin.
 
 14 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 They were about the same age, they had played 
 together in their infancy and childhood, and 
 made common cause in the first trying days of 
 college life. They were almost inseparable when 
 at school, and were often companions during their 
 vacations. Montague was more quiet, more 
 prudent, more determined ; his abilities were as 
 great, his perseverance greater than Courtenay's. 
 There was less to fear for him in his journey 
 through life. 
 
 We left the three schoolfellows just after 
 they had agreed upon their truant expedition. 
 
 Cautiously they stole, one by one, out of the 
 college grounds, now peeping round an angle of 
 the boundary wall, now crouching, cat-like, under 
 a hedge, now darting through a copse or bound- 
 ing across some exposed place which might be 
 within the range of some watchful eye ; nor was 
 it till fairly beyond the precincts of the college 
 that they united, with slackened steps and upright 
 gait. 
 
 " Well, here we are, and I hope all safe," said 
 Harry Montague.
 
 THE SOIIOOLFELLOWS. 15 
 
 "I don't know," replied Courtenay, "old 
 Orderly looked desperately hard and very sus- 
 piciously at me as I walked out of the re- 
 fectory." 
 
 " I went straight up to him," said O'Neill, 
 " and asked permission to take a pair of shoes to 
 the village to be mended." 
 
 " Well," said Fred, " they'll not catch us now; 
 we will have our fun, come what may ;" and the 
 handsome boy vaulted like a deer over a wall, 
 and led the way, laughing and shouting down the 
 green slope of the hill. 
 
 It was not the first time they had been to Mr. 
 Saddletree's stables for the same purpose. They 
 all three rode with ease and courage, and their 
 boyish spirits, ignorant of danger, could quite 
 appreciate the excitement which boldness and 
 mastery alone can give, when, as the old dra- 
 matist says, we — 
 
 " Feel our horses 
 Like proud seas under us.' ' 
 
 We will not follow them in their " lark," or
 
 16 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " scurry," nor will I chronicle the results of their 
 races across Pewit Common, nor tell how Dermod 
 won a five shilling sweepstakes, nor how Fred got 
 a fall while pressing his horse at an awkward 
 fence as they galloped across farmer Thompson's 
 meadows. Their steeds were pretty well tired 
 when they re-entered the stable-yard, and, having 
 mollified the horse-dealer by an extra half-sove- 
 reign for a few scratches Fred's horse had got in 
 his fall, they commenced their journey home- 
 wards. 
 
 " What shall you say, Fred," asked Montague, 
 " if your crushed hat should be noticed !" 
 
 "Say!" interposed O'Neill, "just say that 
 some one smashed it yesterday as we were play- 
 ing at prisoners' base; or, that Jack Dumpling 
 sat upon it in the school-room." 
 
 " No," replied Fred, " that won't do. I won't 
 tell a lie about it, though I need not say how it 
 was done. It was all the fault of the horse, I 
 am sure, for I put him straight at the fence, and 
 had him well in hand too ; 1 don't believe Tom 
 Oliver himself could have saved him."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 17 
 
 Thus consoling his wounded vanity, Fred 
 forgot his crushed hat, and they pushed on 
 briskly till they came to a bridge about two 
 miles from home. Here they halted, and all 
 three stood looking over the parapet upon the 
 clear smooth water below. 
 
 11 How hot it is ! " said Montague, as he wiped 
 his heated brow. 
 
 "How I should like to be that fish!" ex- 
 claimed Fred, as he saw a trout rise greedily 
 at a fly, and splash the water in an eddy round 
 it. 
 
 "Let us bathe," suggested O'Neill; "it will 
 cool us, and then no one will be able to tell 
 from our looks that we have been out of the 
 house." 
 
 " Agreed, agreed ! " and they jumped over the 
 wall into the meadow, in search of some conve- 
 nient and secluded place. 
 
 At about three or four hundred yards from 
 the bridge they came to a spot which seemed 
 exactly suited to their purpose; circled on three 
 sides by a belt of trees, a low meadow, such as
 
 18 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 in some counties is called a u haugh," ran down 
 to the river, which, emerging from a thicket, 
 came tumbling amid rocks and stones like a 
 reeling drunkard, till a gentler inclination of its 
 bed united its broken waters in a deep and 
 strong current, which finally seemed to subside 
 into almost perfect stillness, ere it stole away on 
 the opposite side of the glen. 
 
 In a few minutes they were all in the full 
 enjoyment of their bath, though the water — 
 as yet but little warmed by the rays of a vernal 
 sun, struck coldly upon their heated bodies. 
 
 Dermod was a strong and active swimmer, 
 and when a mere child had been wont to buffet 
 the waves of the broad Atlantic, as, from the 
 pathless expanse of the far west, they came to 
 fling their foamy crests upon the Irish coast. 
 
 Courtenay's vanity made him consider himself 
 almost equally expert, so he dashed off after 
 O'Neill, ignorant of the strength and depth of 
 the current. 
 
 Dermod had almost reached the bottom of the 
 glen, when he heard a cry, and turning round,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 19 
 
 saw Montague running along the bank, pointing 
 to a rock round which the water circled in a 
 deep and treacherous current. 
 
 "Fred is drowning! Fred is drowning! " he 
 exclaimed; " help him, Dermod! help him! " 
 
 It was too true ; cramp had seized Courtenay's 
 limbs, and, with a scream of fright and anguish, 
 Harry had seen him disappear. 
 
 Dermod had to swim against the current to 
 the spot where Fred had sunk, then, as he was 
 no longer visible, he dived boldly after him. He 
 rose for breath, foiled in his attempt; a few 
 seconds, which to Harry seemed like hours, and he 
 again plunged deep into the pool. He remained 
 below longer than before, and, on rising, two 
 objects this time broke the surface of the sullen 
 waters. The current had carried them many 
 yards below the fatal spot where Courtenay had 
 gone down, and Montague, whose eyes had been 
 riveted on one place, saw O'Neill rise like an 
 apparition in another, supporting with difficulty 
 the apparently lifeless body of their companion. 
 Senseless and ghastly, the poor fellow was laid
 
 20 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 upon the grass, and O'Neill sank down exhausted 
 beside him. 
 
 Harry slipped on his clothes and ran back to 
 the road, intending to seek assistance at a cot- 
 tage which was not far from the bridge. As he 
 was climbing over the wall by the side of the 
 road he heard the sound of a horse trotting 
 briskly towards him, and his heart bounded with 
 joy as he recognised the white face and legs of 
 the animal, which, in part from the roughness of 
 his action (on the lucus a non lucendo prin- 
 ciple), in part from the avocations of his owner, 
 was well known by the name of Bonesetter. 
 
 " What, slipped away this morning !" said the 
 rider, laughing. 
 
 "Oh, sir !" cried Harry, " come with me, 
 Fred Courtenay is drowned !" 
 
 " Drowned !" 
 
 "Yes, sir, I fear so ; but, perhaps, you may 
 save him yet." 
 
 Bonesetter had now and then carried his master 
 slowly perhaps, but safely, with the county 
 hounds. In a moment he cleared the wall, and,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 21 
 
 with Harry running by his side, was trotting fast 
 to the scene of the accident. 
 
 Anxiously did Mr. Cardamon bend over the 
 corpse-like form of the poor boy. He was not 
 a man to look despondingly on a case, or to 
 magnify the difficulty in order to enhance the 
 merit of the cure ; but it was easy to see that 
 his fears were greater than his hopes. To the 
 frequent inquiries of the frightened youths, he 
 only answered — 
 
 " Wait a while, he may still come round. I 
 have seen cases quite as bad," together with other 
 equivocal expressions of encouragement. 
 
 At length his features brightened. " Thank 
 God ! he is reviving," were the words that fell 
 like a message from heaven on the ears of O'Neill 
 and Montague. 
 
 As soon as the surgeon pronounced his patient 
 to be really recovering, Montague left the cottage 
 to which Courtenay had been carried, and bent 
 his steps to the college, to announce the sad 
 result of their escapade. His steps, but a few 
 hours ago so light and elastic, were dull and
 
 22 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 heavy now, and upon his heart, then buoyant 
 with merriment and the excitement of the stolen 
 excursion, there now pressed a weight of fear, of 
 care, and of self reproach. 
 
 " But he lives," said he to himself, repeating 
 the doctor's assurance, " and will be better soon. 
 They will be very angry and perhaps we shall 
 be expelled — poor Fred ! surely he will not, he 
 has been punished enough. But I don't care 
 what they do to me now that I know Fred will 
 not die. Oh, how dreadful it would have been 
 if he had been drowned !" 
 
 Thus he went on communing with himself. 
 
 He was approaching the College walls, when 
 he caught a glimpse of the formidable prefect, 
 u Old Orderly." Not that this epithet was really 
 applicable to the said worthy, who had not even 
 passed the meridian of life, but it is a term which 
 seems invested with a latitude by no means ac- 
 knowledged by Johnson or Walker. Thus, when 
 Master Troublesome is at home for the holidays, 
 his schoolfellow " old Bradshaw," comes to spend 
 a week with him ; and the epithet, prefixed to
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 23 
 
 the rather obnoxious word " fellow," not only has 
 no reference to longevity, but renders its adjunct 
 perfectly unobjectionable, and forms a phrase of 
 good-humoured familiarity. 
 
 " Old Orderly," who had missed the three truants 
 from the refectory at dinner — for Courtenay's ac- 
 cident had prevented their appearance at that meal 
 was certainly peering about in a very unpleasant 
 manner, and Harry's heart beat very quickly 
 when he -first perceived him. The boy did not, 
 however, stop, but went boldly up to the prefect. 
 
 It might be that Mr. Orderly was struck dumb 
 at the unusual audacity of a boy confronting him 
 while in the transgression of a stringent rule, — 
 flagrante delicto — or, perhaps, he saw on Harry's 
 countenance such unwonted seriousness, that he 
 forbore to greet him with any of the phrases of 
 ominous import with which he might otherwise 
 have accosted the delinquent. He therefore 
 allowed the boy to address him and detail the 
 circumstances of the accident. 
 
 The prefect listened with anxious earnestness ; 
 all thought of the offence was lost in his horror
 
 24 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 at the catastrophe, in thankfulness that the 
 result of it had not been worse, and in reflection 
 upon what was now to be done. The boy and 
 his superior returned to the college together, 
 and, apparently, on terms which excited the sur- 
 prise of those who saw them, for Mr. Orderly's 
 hand was resting gently, not judicially, on 
 Harry's shoulder. 
 
 Happily, aftet some hours, poor Fred was able 
 to be removed from the cottage to which Mr. 
 Cardamon and his two schoolfellows had carried 
 him; and few, indeed, were there among the 
 many inmates of the college who did not, that 
 night, breathe a heart-felt prayer of affectionate 
 thanksgiving and joy that their companion and 
 playmate had been preserved, and that they 
 would not have cause to remember with sorrow 
 the tragic consequences of that May holiday.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Venez voirle plus beau spectacle que puissa presenter la terre, 
 Venez voir mourir le fidele." 
 
 Chateaubriand. 
 
 *■ He was an orphan born to wealth, and then 
 Placed in the guardianship of cautious men." 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 It was not to be wondered at that Fred should 
 feel very grateful to O'Neill for his preservation, 
 from so great a danger as that from which he 
 had been rescued. There were many among 
 his acquaintance whom he liked better than 
 Dermod, but now, with his characteristic vehe- 
 mence and thoughtlessness, Courtenay made him 
 at once his friend and his guide. 
 
 Dermod was not slow to profit by Fred's grati- 
 tude; while, on the one hand, he flattered 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 26 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Courtenay's vanity, on the other he assumed an 
 authority over him which, before this time, Fred 
 would have resented; and, by making him be- 
 lieve that in all things he had his interest at 
 heart, as much as when he risked his life for 
 him, O'Neill succeeded in establishing an ascen- 
 dancy over his companion, which was very likely 
 to be permanent. 
 
 Thus passed some months. 
 
 It is fortunate that the modern writer is not 
 shackled by the trammels of ancient rule. Be- 
 tween one chapter and the next a more or less 
 time may have elapsed — turn over a page, and, 
 swift as thought, the reader is transported to the 
 Antipodes ; no spirit is more subtle than the 
 novelist; he needs no door to move from cham- 
 ber to chamber — he is invisible and ubiquitous. 
 
 I will avail myself of these valuable privi- 
 leges for the present, only so far as to beg my 
 reader to accompany me to a more southern 
 county. 
 
 Beside the deep dark waters of a broad and 
 sluggish river, whose bed is encroached upon, in
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 27 
 
 many places, by thick masses of flags and bul- 
 rushes — meet haunt of the ravenous pike and 
 the lazy chub — stood a large mansion. It was 
 built in that style which is called Tudor, or 
 more commonly Elizabethan. 
 
 The front was terminated on either side by a 
 narrow wing, projecting just sufficiently to break 
 the uniformity of the main building, but not 
 enough to suggest the idea of an unfinished 
 quadrangle. The principal entrance was in the 
 centre of the front, thro' a porch or projection 
 which, with the two wings, made the resem- 
 blance of the letter E, a form chosen by the 
 architects of the time of Queen Elizabeth in com- 
 pliment to their royal mistress. 
 
 The entire breadth of the wings was taken up 
 with bay windows, which here, as in the body of 
 the house, were carried up through the two stories 
 of which it consisted. Their mullions and 
 corners were composed of freestone, which 
 formed an agreeable contrast with the brickwork 
 of which the house was built, while the unifor- 
 mity of the dead wall was relieved by the 
 c 2
 
 28 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 insertion of bricks of a different colour, placed in 
 lozenge-shaped outlines. Above the high pitched 
 roof and gables rose the decorated and dissimilar 
 chimneys, either singly, in pairs, or in stacks. 
 It was a picturesque as well as an imposing 
 edifice. The grounds no longer preserved the 
 stiffness which characterised those of the period 
 when the house was built. Terraces extended 
 quite down to the water's edge ; the prim yew 
 hedges and accurately planted lines of trees had 
 given place to flower beds and groups of ever- 
 greens; but so judiciously had the alteration 
 been effected that all still harmonized sufficiently 
 with the design and character of the house; 
 while round, as well as inside the mansion, the 
 comforts and elegancies of modern days had been 
 introduced without any sacrifice of taste. 
 
 But the most striking appendage to the place 
 was its glorious avenue. At # a distance of about 
 two hundred yards from the house rose two 
 mighty elm trees, the giants of their race, 
 spreading their gnarled limbs towards the man- 
 sion as if in guardianship. At an interval
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 29 
 
 sufficient to prevent mutual interference, others, 
 scarcely less magnificent, reared their lofty heads, 
 and thus they continued for upwards of three 
 quarters of a mile, each a study in itself, and 
 united, forming a sort of gigantic telescope of 
 nature. And, as the eye wandered along this 
 vista, it would rest at length upon a not inappro- 
 priate finish ; for — it must have been by chance 
 — at a distance of about four miles, directly in 
 the centre of the avenue, rose high and distinct 
 the heavenward-pointed spire of a Gothic 
 church. 
 
 Gently swelling from each side of the river, 
 the hills spread in graceful undulations, their 
 sides presenting a verdant zone of meadows, 
 studded with clumps of trees, their summits 
 crowned with a changing diadem — a mass of 
 beech woods, clothed, in the spring, with the 
 softest green that nature wears ; in the autumn, 
 exhibiting the choicest tints and richest colours 
 that her palette can produce. 
 
 Behind, and at a little distance from the house, 
 was the parish church, once the property of the
 
 30 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 family, and attached to the mansion; audits plain 
 square tower formed a striking and massive 
 feature in the picture. Altogether, there were 
 few spots in our island which, for quiet and 
 graceful beauty, and for the harmony which a 
 union of still and pleasing objects forms, could 
 surpass the realities of this charming scene. 
 
 The name of this house and domain was 
 Lowick ; its possessor was Sir Dugald Courtenay, 
 the representative of one of the ancient Catholic 
 families of England, and father of our schoolboy 
 friend, Fred. 
 
 It was a calm autumnal day. The gossamer 
 spider had been busy with its web ; a swallow 
 that had been left behind, was still wheeling 
 about, and the " drowsy tinklings" of the flocks, 
 folded on the hill side, sounded unusually dis- 
 tinct. If, on that day, you had been standing 
 under one of the lofty pine trees in the woods at 
 Lowick, you might have been startled by the 
 ripe cones falling beside you ; or, as you wan- 
 dered among those silent labyrinths, you might 
 have heard the beech masts opening Perchance,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 31 
 
 in your walk, you might have encountered the 
 agile squirrel returning to his nest, his jaws 
 distended witli a walnut, which was to swell his 
 winter store-house; or you might have seen him, 
 frightened from the ground, looking down at you 
 from the forked bough or trunk of a tree, chat- 
 tering his displeasure. You might have been 
 tempted to stop for awhile to watch a single leaf, 
 separated from the sapless branch, sinking, in 
 obedience to a universal law, to the ground, all 
 its softness gone, shrivelled, red, and sere. 
 There was no gust of wind to shake it rudely 
 from the branch before its time, but you might 
 have watched it falling slowly, in a spiral eddy, 
 to decay upon the dank earth with millions of 
 its fellows which had accomplished their task of 
 being, which had imparted their share of he 
 and beauty to the tree, which had formed a 
 curtain above the cradle of the nestling, and 
 given shelter to the flock from the burning 
 summer sun. Is not that leaf the type of an 
 old man sinking into the grave? of the return 
 of " dust to dust?"
 
 32 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 On such a day it was that a carriage drove 
 rapidly past the avenue and up to the hall door 
 at Lowick. Inside it was Frederick Courtenay, 
 who had been hastily summoned from college by 
 the alarming intelligence of the dangerous illness 
 of his father. 
 
 As he drove through the domain, he overtook 
 and recognised more than one poor man bending 
 his steps in the same direction ; and, as he ap- 
 proached the house, he passed some groups, 
 mostly of the cottagers and humbler tenants, 
 assembled to hear tidings of their sick landlord. 
 As they bowed or touched their hats to the oc- 
 cupant of the carriage, on each honest face there 
 were marks of unfeigned seriousness and anxiety, 
 for there was not one of his dependents who did 
 not honour and esteem Sir Dugald Courtenay. 
 
 A message had just been sent to those outside 
 the house that he was considerably worse, but 
 that he was sensible, and thanked them all for their 
 kind enquiries, and bade them all farewell. 
 
 But they seemed loath to depart; and some, 
 as they slowly moved away, and others, as they
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 33 
 
 yet lingered near the house, recounted to each 
 other the kindnesses and benefactions of him who 
 was leaving them. 
 
 " Where would I have been," said one, " if Sir 
 Dugald had not helped me, when I was bond for 
 Phil Amory, who ran away to America, and left 
 me to pay the debt?" 
 
 "And was it not at the very last rent day," said 
 another, "that he forgave me half the rent of my 
 cottage, because I had been unfortunate with mv 
 
 pig?» 
 
 " It was only last month," observed a third, 
 " that I heard him order a bottle of wine for 
 widow Smith's son, and ' mind,' said the good 
 man to the butler, ' give her some of the old port, 
 it will be best for him.' Ah, it will be a dark 
 hour for us all that is his last." 
 
 Thus affectionately and sadly were the humble 
 enquirers employed, when the carriage drove up 
 to the entrance door. 
 
 Fred was met by a very old and dear friend of 
 his father's. 
 
 " Frederick, my poor fellow," he sobbed, as he 
 c 5
 
 34 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 wrung the boy's hand, " Frederick, I fear that 
 
 your father is very ill. Doctor (naming 
 
 an eminent London physician) has been here, and 
 he says that we must be prepared for the worst; 
 indeed, Fred," — and the old man could scarcely 
 articulate, — u it would be wrong in me to conceal 
 it from you — your father is dying." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Otley, is there no hope, no hope at 
 all ?" 
 
 " None, my poor boy, I fear. But I am so 
 glad that you have arrived, for your father has 
 often asked for you, and he desired that you 
 should be immediately brought to his room ; 
 so come with me. You will find your dear father 
 sadly altered ; but compose yourself, Frederick, 
 and do not give way to what I know you 
 feel," added Mr. Otley, for the boy's eyes were 
 filled with tears, and he could not speak a word. 
 
 "Within the chamber of death was a mournful 
 and touching group. On the bed, propped up 
 with pillows, was the sunken form of the dying 
 man. All his faculties seemed absorbed in 
 deep thought ; his eyes were nearly closed, while
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 35 
 
 on Ills bloodless lips a slight motion was visible, 
 as though he was engaged in earnest prayer. 
 The step that would be noiseless, and the anxious 
 whispers of those around were painfully distinct. 
 At the head of the couch was the priest who had 
 lately administered the last solemn rites of the 
 Church; at the foot of it a grey-haired servant. 
 who through many long years had served his master 
 with fidelity and attachment, was on his knees, 
 striving to stifle the sobs that burst from his 
 bruised heart, and quench the tears that forced 
 themselves through his hands clasped ove: 
 face. 
 
 At length the priest, who had remained for 
 some time silently watching the countenance of 
 the dying man, taking a book and kneeling down, 
 commenced reciting the beautiful but solemn and 
 awful prayers appointed to be read over 
 agonised. He too felt that he was losing a 
 valued friend, and his voice trembled as he bade 
 "the Christian soul go forth." Not another 
 sound was to be heard when the room door was 
 softly opened, and Sir Dugald's old friend 
 entered with Fred.
 
 36 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 The dying man turned his eyes to the door, 
 and an unearthly smile played like a lambent flame 
 round his blanched lips, while the faintest shade of 
 colour flitted like a breath across the pallid 
 cheek which it had forsaken. 
 
 " It is he ! it is he ! " stretching out his hands ; 
 "come to me," and then clasping his child 
 to his bosom, he faintly murmured: " once 
 more to my arms, my darling boy ; oh ! may the 
 God of Heaven bless you, my child, my 
 dearest — " but his lips could not repeat the 
 word of love; his arms relaxed their hold, his 
 head sank back upon the pillow, and the priest 
 began to recite the psalm De Profundis, for the 
 soul that had passed away. 
 
 Poor Fred was very sad that evenig; not 
 once thought he of the title and possessions 
 that were now his. Feelings, which he could 
 not define, had arisen within him, and every 
 now and then he had to rouse himself to be con- 
 vinced that he was not dreaming. 
 
 When he retired to his room at night the reality 
 of his grief forced itself rudely upon him. The
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 37 
 
 father, who had been so kind and indulgent, 
 who had written such affectionate letters to him 
 when absent, and had ever sought to give him 
 pleasure and amusement when at home, was no 
 more — lost to him for ever ; he would never hear 
 that fond voice again. Fred thought of the beau- 
 tiful pony which his father had given him when 
 he last came from college, and when he laid 
 down his latest gift — a small gold watch — poor 
 Fred could bear up no longer ; he hid his face in 
 his hands, though there was no one to see him, 
 and sobbed aloud. 
 
 The excitement, which had hitherto kept him 
 in a sort of waking dream, was over, and he was 
 painfully alive to the re-action of his feelings. 
 
 But at length wearied out and exhausted, 
 sleep came to his relief — sleep, the choicest gift 
 of God to man; but even that was troubled, 
 and he would start and toss himself, and wake 
 and weep again, as he thought of the sad scene 
 which he had witnessed. 
 
 The day which consigns the body to its kin- 
 dred earth is, perhaps, more mournful than that
 
 38 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 which returns the soul into the hands of its 
 Maker. 
 
 On the latter there is wild and distracting 
 grief — a frenzy of passion, which, from its very 
 intensity, precludes reflection. In the interval 
 there is consolation in gazing on the beloved 
 features of the departed, the calmness of which 
 is often a pleasing contrast to their so lately 
 painful and agonised expression, and there is 
 comfort in visiting the chamber of death, where 
 its presence seems so little a reality that the 
 voice is yet hushed to a whisper, and the foot- 
 fall is light and soft, as if the slumber that has 
 come at last could be disturbed. 
 
 But when the hour of final separation comes, 
 the chain that binds the living to the dead seems 
 to grow stronger and stronger, and, when the 
 links are broken by a last removal, a sickening 
 blow seems given to the heart, desolation is spread 
 over it, and a blank, dreary, dismal future is all 
 that opens to the view. 
 
 It was indeed a mournful day when the bell 
 tolled for the last short journey of Sir Dugald 
 Courtenay.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 39 
 
 "Within the church, behind the house, was an 
 aisle, dedicated entirely to the tombs and monu- 
 ments of some of the long line of his ancestors, 
 and beneath it was to rest their last, but not 
 least worthy, descendant. 
 
 The church was crowded with neighbours, 
 tenants, and dependents, and many a tearful eye 
 gazed sadly down as the remains of him whom all 
 honored, and many loved, were lowered into the 
 vault. 
 
 When all was over, the crowd dispersed, and 
 left poor Fred and his father's old friend, Mr. 
 Otley, kneeling in prayer within the silent aisle. 
 
 When Sir Dugald's will was opened, it was 
 found that he had left the guardianship of his son 
 to his " long proved and valued friend, John 
 Otley." 
 
 That Sir Dugald had- been a good steward to 
 the estate, every one knew, but it was not 
 supposed that he had saved so large a sum 
 as it was now found would eventually come 
 to the yet youthful baronet. It was, however, 
 remembered that he had, now and then,
 
 40 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 jokingly observed that " the perfection of pro- 
 perty was a fine estate in land, with plenty of 
 money in the funds to keep it up with/' But 
 there had been no parsimony in his saving, no 
 meanness in his economy. He did not disparage 
 the advantages of birth and fortune, and, during 
 the few years that Lady Courtenay lived (for 
 he married late in life and was soon left a 
 widower), his establishment was appropriate and 
 handsome. But a change came over him at her 
 death. Society had lost its charms. Henceforth 
 he led a retired and unostentatious life ; and thus 
 riches were accumulated for his only child, the 
 chief object of his thoughts and hopes. He lived 
 
 " Not as a miser, but in pure good taste, 
 That scorn' d the idle wantonness of waste." 
 
 A few weeks after Sir Dugald's funeral, Mr. 
 Otley proposed that the young Baronet should 
 resume his studies at College. 
 
 Fred was quite willing to do so, for altho' he 
 still felt deeply the loss of his loving father — ■ 
 it is only in the nature of a boy's elastic spirits
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 41 
 
 soon to rise, however low they may have been 
 depressed; and, altho' Fred found in Mr. Otley 
 all that was kind and considerate, he neverthe- 
 less began to think that he should be glad to mix 
 again with companions of his own age, and con- 
 verse with Montague and O'Neill respecting al 
 that he had seen and felt. 
 So Fred returned to College.
 
 42 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 " You are certainly a lucky fellow," said Derniod 
 O'Neill one day to Courtenay, two or three 
 months after his return to college ; " it is not 
 often that a young fellow like you comes into 
 such & fine fortune as you have got." 
 
 " What ! Dermod," replied Fred, " can you 
 call me lucky, when I have lost my father, 
 merely because I have got more money than I 
 shall ever know what to do with?" and the tears 
 started to his eyes. 
 
 "Well," rejoined O'Neill, "you will some 
 day think differently. I only wish I had a chance 
 of ever being half as rich as you will be. But in 
 Ireland money seems to have vanished unac- 
 countably, to be swallowed up, as our forests
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 43 
 
 have been in the bogs. Things seem to get 
 worse and worse, and I suppose I shall at last 
 have to work for my bread." 
 
 " Never, as long as I live," exclaimed Fred, 
 warmly; "promise me, Dermod, that you will 
 let me know if ever you require a helping hand." 
 
 "Thank you, thank you, Fred." 
 
 "No thanks, Dermod. Do I not owe you 
 more gratitude than I can ever pay? Besides, 
 I am sure I shall have more money than I can 
 spend; so that's a bargain. And now come 
 along, I want a new bat, and so do you, and I 
 will give you the best that old Spokeshave has 
 in his shop." 
 
 As the two youths proceeded to the carpenter's 
 shop Fred took a letter out of his pocket, and 
 unfolding the neatly and very closely written 
 pages — 
 
 11 See, Dermod," said he, " what a despatch I 
 have had from Mr. Otley this morning." 
 
 "What on earth is it all about?" asked 
 O'Neill. 
 
 " These two first pages are all about Homer and
 
 44 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Virgil, chiefly a comparison of some of the 
 verses of both in the books we have been lately 
 reading, and an explanation why he thinks 
 Dacier is wrong about that very passage we 
 had to construe yesterday." 
 
 "Oh! is that all?" 
 
 " INTo ; in this last page there are a few lines 
 about Lowick, and the rent day, which was last 
 week. Shall I read you the letter?" 
 
 " Well, no, not the first part at least (I dare- 
 say my reader thinks Dermod was right) ; but 
 what does he say at the end about the rents ?" 
 
 " Oh ! not much ; he is sorry the rent day 
 was not so good as he expected it to be. There has 
 been a failure of the turnips, and a good deal of 
 disease among the sheep, so he tells me he has 
 had to make a considerable return to the tenants." 
 
 " Depend upon it, Fred," said O'Neill, " the 
 failure and disease are only excuses of the 
 tenants not to pay their rents. You know what 
 a grumbling set they are, at least T know. They 
 are taking advantage of your having just come 
 into possession, and, if I were you, I would not
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 45 
 
 be humbugged by any such nonsense. But in a 
 few years you will be your own master y and then, 
 I suppose, you will judge and act for yourself. " 
 
 Fred had felt sure that Mr. Otley would do 
 all that was right; and yet O'Neill's assumption 
 of superior experience and knowledge, and his 
 off-hand, confident way of deciding a point, had 
 taken but too strong a hold of his mind, and he 
 made no reply. 
 
 I spared my readers the infliction of Mr. 
 Otley's erudite and critical letter, but Fred's 
 guardian deserves some lines of notice. 
 
 Briefly then, John Otley had been a book- 
 worm — I say had been, for he was now something 
 more. 
 
 Intellect had been the divinity he worshipped ; 
 knowledge, the El Dorado of his aspirations ; 
 books, the only society he desired. A sage in 
 the wisdom and lore of books, he was a child in 
 the ways of life ; familiar, for instance, with the 
 nature of the talus or tessera, he had scarcely 
 heard of the dice box or roulette table; an en- 
 thusiast, great as Pindar was, in the Olympic or
 
 46 hidden links; or, 
 
 Isthmian games, the glories of Epsom, Ascot, or 
 Newmarket were nought to him. Like Menippus 
 in Lueian's Episcopamtes, he had needed 
 some one to open his ears to the hive- 
 like hum of busy mortals, and his eyes to all 
 their follies and vices, their tricks and chica- 
 neries. He was a very hellao librorum. 
 
 It was in the long nights and tedious days of 
 convalescence, after a dangerous illness, that the 
 retrospect of his past years forced upon him the 
 question — Cui bono ? 
 
 He left his sick room an altered man. His 
 very house partook of the change, and great, no 
 doubt, was the tumult among the spiders, which 
 might well arrogate the same prescriptive right 
 to his mansion as those which had woven their 
 webs among the folios of his prototype, Maglia- 
 bechi. 
 
 He entered upon a course of active benevo- 
 lence ; and freely — for he was blest with an ample 
 independence — shared with the poor the contents 
 of his purse, and, with those who solicited his 
 counsel, the treasures of his wonderful mind.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 47 
 
 Nor were these last few. For, not to speak 
 of the educated, among whom he was called a 
 living cyclopaedia, the ruder and poorer sought 
 his advice, and referred their differences to him 
 with something of the awe and veneration with 
 which the ancients approached their oracles. He 
 was no friend to the lawyers, and it was with 
 him, as Pope sings of the Man of Ross — 
 
 " Is there a variance ? Enter but his door, 
 Balk'd are the courts, and contest is no more." 
 
 He was changed in all things save one : John 
 Otley never become Benedict, the married 
 man. 
 
 Such was Fred's guardian. 
 
 Time flew on with rapid wing. Fred's vaca- 
 tions were always passed at home, and, during 
 them, Mr. Otley left his own house to remain at 
 Lowick. Most carefully, indeed, did he in every 
 particular fulfil the charge intrusted to him by 
 his departed friend. 
 
 Montague, I have said, was Courtenay's cousin. 
 
 By a somewhat strange disposition, it was
 
 48 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 settled in the entail of the Lowick estates, 
 that, should their present possessor die without 
 direct heirs, they should devolve upon Harry 
 Montague, passing over his elder brother. 
 
 His chance of inheriting the property was, 
 however, very small, for Fred's health was 
 excellent. 
 
 Strange partialities and dislikes sometimes 
 exist in families. With or without a cause, 
 Harry was not a favourite with his father, who 
 perhaps, too, on account of the contingent 
 interest which his son had in his cousin's estates, 
 was prevailed upon, without much difficulty, to 
 let Harry keep his friend and schoolmate company 
 at Lowick, during their vacations. 
 
 O'Neill had left college, but Fred and he kept 
 up a frequent correspondence. Dermod was now 
 his own master, idle and without occupation, for 
 he had shown no inclination for the army, the 
 only profession which his father did not think 
 beneath the dignity of the son of him who pos- 
 sessed the broad lands (mortgaged though they 
 were) and castle of Iverah.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 49 
 
 The day presently came when Dermod's com- 
 panions, Courtenay and Montague, also bade- 
 adieu to Alma Mater, each having achieved more 
 than average distinction. 
 
 I rather think that Fred now considered that 
 he was qualified at once to take a leading part 
 upon the world's great stage, and fancied, as 
 certain youths of far more moderate acquire- 
 ments have been known to declare, that he was 
 leaving college for the simple reason that he had 
 learnt all that could be taught there. 
 
 This very considerable folly Mr. Otley took 
 instant measures to put an end to ; and, Fred's 
 self-sufficiency having received a very severe and 
 wholesome check, he became aware that he had 
 still a good deal to learn; and many a time, 
 in after years, in those days which I may 
 briefly sketch ere my pen is laid by, he remem- 
 bered how much he owed to those studies which, 
 guided by the best master he had ever had, he 
 now pursued. 
 
 " But Mr. Author," says a "fast" young gen- 
 tleman of my acquaintance, who has already 
 
 VOL I D
 
 50 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 voted my tale exceedingly dull, " you will make 
 your hero a regular muff, shutting him up with 
 ao old book-worm." 
 
 " My dear Mr. Prigge, do not be impatient, 
 Fred will not turn out a muff, and you will find 
 that, although he can laugh with Lucian, and 
 quite enter into the spirit of Juvenal, Persius, 
 and Horace, when they lash the vices and follies 
 of the c fast' men of this day, he is not thereby 
 precluded from the perusal of your class books, 
 ' Bell's Life in London,' and the 6 Sporting 
 Magazine.' " 
 
 The stables and kennels at Lowick were by no 
 means empty, for Fred was passionately fond of 
 field sports, and Mr. Otley only sought to mode- 
 rate, not to extinguish, his ardour; and the " old 
 book-worm" quite entered into Fred's enthusiasm as 
 he recounted how well the grey horse had carried 
 him from Oakum Spinney, where the fox 
 was found, to Newton copse, where he was run 
 to ground : " the most brilliant thing, sir, they 
 have had for years;" and a few months later was 
 almost equally excited with Fred, as he watched
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 51 
 
 the young sportsman hook and play, and land a 
 trout of immense size, " fourteen pounds, sir, if 
 he is an ounce," after a good half hour's contest 
 in the deep mill-pool behind the church. 
 
 But Mr. Otley had no intention to allow the 
 young man to remain entirely at Lowick. He 
 had already proposed to Fred that he should pass 
 a year or two in travelling, and, recurring to the 
 subject, said to him one day, " Fred, I have men- 
 tioned my project to your friend Montague's 
 father, and he is quite willing that Harry should 
 be your companion." 
 
 "Thank you," replied Fred, "I could not 
 have desired anything better." 
 
 " Mr. Montague makes one stipulation how- 
 ever." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 u That you go by yourselves, and fight your 
 own battles together, as you have often enough 
 done already." 
 
 " Depend upon it we shall get on famously. 
 And what time have you fixed for our departure ?" 
 
 " It will probably be in a few months, it de- 
 d 2
 
 52 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 pends upon your cousin's arrangements with the 
 lawyer he is with. During that time you must 
 be content with less sporting and amusement. 
 Bacon says, Fred/' (there's the bookworm, Prigge) 
 " he that travelleth into a country before he hath 
 some entrance into the language, goeth to school 
 and not to travel." 
 
 " You shall have no cause to complain," said 
 Fred, " HI not cross a saddle, nor spin another 
 minnow." 
 
 u No extremes, Fred : and I hope you will both 
 return safe and well, tho' you remember Hesiod's 
 line, (there again, Prigge,) : — " nAa'r? /wS yap 
 
 yaia Ka/cwi>, HXU^i QaXaaoa" and that VOUT 
 
 old friend will not be laid low before he wel- 
 comes you back again. 
 
 I dare say my young blaze acquaintance 
 Prigge will laugh when I say that Fred's eyes 
 almost revealed the emotion he felt, as he very 
 warmly thanked the old man for all his kindness. 
 
 And Fred went to work manfully, and studied 
 hard, and his horses and dogs led an easy, indo-
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 53 
 
 lent life. Thus the interval went by even more 
 quickly than usually sped the months. 
 
 Montague came to Lowick, and Fred and 
 he read together till the day of their departure 
 arrived. 
 
 You may be sure that Mr. Otley supplied them 
 with a good stock of advice, ethical and classical, 
 but when the carriage drove to the door, he could 
 only shake Harry's hand warmly, and press Fred's 
 yet more closely, while he faltered out few words 
 besides an affectionate u God bless you! God 
 bless you, my boy." 
 
 The two companions now trimmed their 
 sails for their first voyage, (figuratively, Prigge) 
 and launched their boat on the broad billows of 
 life's fitful ocean. 
 
 Despite the natural excitement thus felt, Fred, 
 in particular, was unfeignedly sorry to leave 
 home. But it was not likely that the pleasure 
 which they anticipated and the curiosity of 
 youth should leave them much time for regret, 
 and their spirits quickly rose, and they gaily 
 talked of their plans for the future.
 
 54 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 For the present we will bid adieu to Fred and 
 Harry, and leave them to gain a little experiencce 
 in the ways of the world, which, as Byron 
 
 says — 
 
 " Is a curious sight, 
 And very much unlike what people write."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 55 
 
 CHAPTER IV, 
 
 ** Use wiles for wit, and make deceit a pleasure, 
 Call craft counsel." 
 
 Sir Thos. Wyatt. 
 
 '* When lovers meet, 'tis to the mind 
 
 The spring flush of the blooming year. 
 
 But oh ! their pairing M 
 
 Hogg. 
 
 Although Dermod O'Neill had not been required 
 by bis father to embrace any profession, he was 
 not an eldest son. 
 
 Some time after Mr. O'Neill came into pos- 
 session of his estates, he married a lady noble in 
 blood and name, and beautiful and good as she 
 was noble. 
 
 But it is, alas ! too frequently the case that
 
 56 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 beauty conceals disease, as the petals of the rose- 
 bud hide the canker that consumes it, and the 
 delicate flush on the almost transparent cheek of 
 Lady Alice soon deepened into a hectic spot. 
 
 But when her meek suffering spirit passed 
 away, she left behind her an infant in whose 
 undeveloped features might be traced the sem- 
 blance of his lost mother's loveliness. 
 
 For a time, grief held full sway over the 
 widower; but Iveragh was lonely, and, ere the 
 wild flower had twice bloomed beside the church 
 which contained the tomb of his youthful wife, 
 the bells above it rang their merry peal, and the 
 dance, the feast, and the bonfire proclaimed 
 the arrival of a second bride in the lately deso- 
 late mansion. 
 
 Short had been the time granted to Lady 
 Alice O'Neill as mistress of her husband's 
 castle : but she had not failed to gain the 
 affections of all by her condescension, her kind- 
 ness, and her charity; and her memory was 
 still preserved as that of a good spirit which 
 had visited the earth for awhile, to soothe the 
 poor man's care and the orphan's loneliness.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 57 
 
 "'Tis a long day till we see the likes of her 
 again," were words often spoken : and when Mr. 
 O'Neill brought home his second bride, her man- 
 ner and demeanour were very unlikely to efface 
 the remembrance of his first. Her deportment 
 was cold and haughty, and an overweening sense 
 of her own importance, and an imperiousness 
 towards her dependants contrasted ill with the 
 mildness, graciousness, affability, and self-forget- 
 fulness of her predecessor. 
 
 Dermod was her son. 
 
 The name of his elder brother was Charles. 
 He grew tall and handsome, and while his features 
 reflected his mother's beauty, he appeared, at 
 first, to have inherited the delicate nature 
 winch had deprived him so early of her fostering 
 care. 
 
 There existed but little cordiality between the 
 brothers in their boyhood, and it diminished 
 rather than increased as they grew older. 
 
 Mrs. O'Neill had not the good sense to conceal 
 the natural preference which she felt for her own 
 son, and the elder brother was made to yield to 
 d 5
 
 58 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 the younger, who quickly became the most odious 
 of creatures — a spoiled child. 
 
 While every action of Charles denoted a dis- 
 position generous, open, and confiding to a 
 fault, the sly and secret subterfuge, the plausible 
 excuse, and the ready lie, indicated plainly his 
 brother's character. 
 
 His mother, with a mistaken fondness, would 
 not part with her boy, violent and headstrong 
 though he was, till long indulgence had made 
 him unbearable, and his father now insisted upon 
 his leaving home and his being sent to college. 
 
 Charles had evinced a decided passion for a 
 military life, and he had been some years in the 
 army when Dermod returned from college. The 
 two brothers then met again, and Charles at least 
 endeavoured to forget their early mutual anti- 
 pathy. After a time, he left Iveragh to rejoin 
 his regiment, which had been ordered to a town in 
 the south of Ireland. 
 
 Charles now generally addressed his letters to 
 his brother, for his step-mother had behaved to- 
 wards him with too little fairness to gain his
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 59 
 
 confidence, and his father's dictatorial precision 
 and coldness made his son consider him rather as 
 a superior than a friend and parent. Absence, 
 too, had somewhat lessened the jealousy and want 
 of cordiality between the two brothers, and 
 they were now tolerably good friends — at a 
 distance. 
 
 About four miles from the town where Charles 
 O'Neill was quartered, was a small village, 
 beautiful and romantic in its situation. Here, 
 on as sweet a spot as nature ever gave to be the 
 abode of man, dwelt a father and his two 
 daughters. They had once been rich, but their 
 entire property was in one of the West Indian 
 islands, and had suffered an enormous deprecia- 
 tion in value. Their name was Fitzpatrick; 
 their dwelling was called Charleville Cottage. 
 Fanny, the younger sister, was a lovely girl ; 
 she had been cast in a mould of faultless form, 
 and her every movement was graceful, and each 
 attitude was a model. She was her father's 
 pride, her sister's idol. 
 
 It was by chance that Charles O'Neill first met
 
 60 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Fanny Fitzpatrick. His heart — to which, as it 
 often happens, Cupid had gained access by 
 first taking possession coup de main of the 
 watch towers, the eyes — was fairly won, 
 and he failed not rapidly to increase the in- 
 timacy which chance had begun. How swiftly 
 flew the hours and the days, the weeks too, 
 of the dreamy existence of the lovers — for 
 such they ere long became — the future un- 
 heeded, the present only in their thoughts, while 
 they fondly dreamed that all was happiness 
 around them, and never imagined that any cloud 
 would darken the sunshine of their thoughtless 
 love. 
 
 In his letters to his brother, Charles had 
 spoken with rapture of Fanny Fitzpatrick, and 
 when he last wrote had acknowledged his en- 
 gagement to her, and he begged Dermod, as a 
 brother and friend, to advise him how to act so 
 as to propitiate his father. 
 
 The very next post brought the following letter 
 from Dermod : —
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 61 
 
 " Iveragh Castle. 
 " My dear Charles, 
 
 " I lose no time in answering your letter, 
 and, as the post gives us so little law, you must 
 excuse my being very brief. 
 
 " Accept my warmest congratulations on the 
 success of your suit. How much I should like 
 to see your fair Fanny, and let my own eyes con- 
 vince me that yours have not drawn a flattered 
 portrait of her beauty. You will give me credit 
 I know, for wishing you many years of happiness 
 together. 
 
 " But I am forgetting that you are no excep- 
 tion to the adage about true love and its course. 
 
 " My father is, I assure you, very hard to 
 deal with just now; I believe he is at his wit's 
 end sometimes for a two pound note, and I over- 
 heard him say, the other day, that he had a mind 
 to send away the second footman and part with 
 his carriage horses. I don't believe he will 
 though. He has had a regular flare up with 
 old McGrath about some right of way. McGrath 
 got the best of it at the assizes, and the governor
 
 62 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 had to pay costs, so you may be sure lie is not 
 in the sweetest of tempers. Do not you think 
 it would be bad policy to say anything to him 
 just now about your marriage? You know 
 Susan Waller is growing up (at least the governor 
 thinks so) on purpose for you. By the way, I 
 saw her the other day, and I cannot say I think 
 she would ever make you a handsome wife. 
 Some ill-natured person has given her the sou- 
 briquet of " the little lumper," because she is so 
 dumpy and short, so like our national esculent. 
 It does not matter telling you this now. How 
 unlike your beauty ! 
 
 " Perhaps, therefore, you may consider that it 
 will only exasperate the governor to say anything 
 about your marriage. Of course you would not 
 listen to me if I were to advise you to be off 
 your engagement. 
 
 " But what are you to do, if this is not to be 
 thought of, for I suppose your regiment was only 
 ordered south preparatory to foreign service. 
 One sometimes hears of a son not marrying quite 
 according to his father's views, and yet all comes
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 63 
 
 right at last, especially if the daughter-in-law is 
 pretty and has winning ways. I heard of some 
 one not very long ago, who married a girl with- 
 out saying a word to his governor. She had not 
 a sixpence, moreover. "Well, of course there was 
 a tremendous row when the news came ; and the 
 old gentleman fumed and stormed and — wrote to 
 ask them to come down to the country, and spend 
 the winter with him ! You are now as well aware 
 as I am, how matters are here, and you must act 
 as you think best. May I send a brother elect's 
 love to your fair Fanny? Of course I shall be 
 anxious to know what course you adopt. Mean- 
 while, believe me, dear Charles, 
 
 " Your affectionate brother, 
 
 u Dermod." 
 
 Just as Dermod had finished his letter, Mrs. 
 O'Neill came into the room. 
 
 " Dermod," she said, " have you seen anything 
 of that deed your father received yesterday ? He 
 has lost or mislaid it, and — " 
 
 "Is not very amiable just now, eh mother?" 
 interposed the son. "But stop one moment.
 
 64 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Are you quite sure that only a part of the property 
 is entailed on Charles?" 
 
 " Yes, boy, only Iveragh and a portion of the 
 estates are settled ; but it makes no difference, 
 Mr. O'Neill will not divide the property. I 
 have told you that before. Why do you ask?" 
 
 " Oh ! I forgot, but there is my father calling 
 you." 
 
 Mr. Fitzpatrick was an indulgent, easy, inert 
 man, and his partiality for Charles O'Neill and 
 the knowledge that he would be the representa- 
 tive of one of the oldest families and the possessor 
 of one of the finest places in Ireland, got the 
 better of his prudence and the justice due to Mr. 
 O'Neill. Poverty and reverses are very apt to de- 
 tract from a man's independence of feeling ; love, 
 too, is persuasive ; and Mr. Fitzpatrick stilled his 
 scruples by saying that he must manage to spare 
 something for Charles and his wife till some 
 arrangement should be made with Mr. O'Neill, 
 who would never be so unreasonable as not to re- 
 ceive the couple, when all opposition to his 
 son's wishes would be useless.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 65 
 
 Yet Charles could not conceal from himself the 
 necessity that sooner or later he must make 
 known to his father the attachment which he had 
 formed. But he delayed doing so from day to 
 day, for he knew that his father had other 
 prospects in view for him, and that he was ex- 
 pected in due time to retrieve the fallen for- 
 tunes of his house by a union with an heiress 
 whom, in spite of her wealth, he could not admire. 
 
 So Charles and Fanny were married ; but ere 
 the young officer bore his lovely bride from her 
 home, he wrote to his father, acknowledging the 
 step he had taken, and giving such a glowing 
 and, it must be admitted, such a just description 
 of his wife's beauty and good qualities, that he 
 flattered himself he had secured a kind and for- 
 giving reply. 
 
 Great indeed were his surprise and horror when 
 a few days afterwards Charles received a letter 
 containing — not according to the imaginary pre- 
 cedent Dermod had so artfully introduced in his 
 communication with his brother, words of for- 
 giveness and affection — but a father's curse, and
 
 66 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 a prohibition, ever to enter the gates of 
 Iveragh. 
 
 Much as they were horrified, and deeply as 
 they felt the consequence of their imprudence, 
 the lovers were too happy in their mutual, truth- 
 ful, ardent affection, to allow other thoughts to 
 intrude for any lengthened time on their present 
 heedless existence, or their future ideal world of 
 
 joy. 
 
 " The storm will blow over, depend upon it 
 dearest," said Charles. 
 
 " Oh ! but that dreadful curse," replied his 
 wife : " I never thought that anything so shock- 
 ing as that would happen.'" 
 
 " Do not think of it, Fanny. My father is an 
 impetuous man, he has many things to harass 
 and vex him ; by this time, perhaps, he may be 
 sorry that he sent that letter." 
 
 "God grant that it may be so, Charles." 
 
 " Remember also, dearest, that Dermod is on 
 the spot. He will have many opportunities of 
 speaking a word for us. Some day — not quite 
 immediately, perhaps, but soon I hope- -we shall
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 67 
 
 have a letter to tell us that we are forgiven, and 
 bidding us to lose no time, but to go at once to 
 Iveragh." 
 
 " Oh! how I wish it would come — how happy 
 it would make me I" 
 
 a And how proud I shall be ! You will have 
 to make acquaintance with, and be stared at by 
 all the tenants, Fanny. We must wait a little, 
 and all will come right." 
 
 They indeed waited, but in vain, for the wished- 
 for letter : the proximity of Fanny's home, how- 
 ever, made Charles and his wife reflect less that 
 his was closed to them. 
 
 But sickness and misfortune were gathering 
 over the inmates of Charleville Cottage, and the 
 house which, even amid denials and reverses, 
 had been wont to ring with the merry laugh and 
 the sound of music and song, was to be changed 
 into the abode of death and the place of mour- 
 ning. 
 
 Fanny's sister was seized with a malignant 
 fever, which in a few days consigned her to the 
 grave.
 
 68 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 How often it is that misfortunes come "in 
 troops." While Mr. Fitzpatrick was yet sorrow- 
 ing in the first burst of his grief for the loss of 
 his daughter, he received intelligence that his 
 agent in the West Indies had absconded, and, it 
 was feared, had embezzled his employees property 
 to a considerable amount. His correspondent, 
 moreover, assured Mr. Fitzpatrick that his 
 presence on the spot was absolutely necessary, and 
 urged him to leave Ireland immediately. 
 
 This intelligence, coming so quickly after 
 those sad days of anguish which succeeded the 
 death of his child, added despondency to the 
 father's grief; and, at first, Mr. Fitzpatrick felt 
 but little inclined to make any exertion towards 
 retrieving his shattered fortunes. 
 
 He thought that he might still reckon upon suffi- 
 cient to maintain himself in humble independence, 
 for his dear Teresa was beyond the reach of worldly 
 wants, and Fanny — but, alas! it had never be- 
 fore appeared in its stern reality that Fanny was 
 the wife of one exiled on her account from his 
 father's house, and dependent upon himself.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 69 
 
 This thought roused him from his apathy, and 
 determined him to act upon the advice which he 
 had received. 
 
 In a few weeks, Charleville Cottage was dis- 
 posed of; a sad farewell had been breathed 
 between Fanny O'Neill and her heart-broken 
 father, and where lately she trod the happiest 
 of brides, the most prized of daughters, the most 
 loved of sisters, she now stood — even in the pre- 
 sence of her adored and adoring husband — a for- 
 lorn and desolate being. 
 
 A very short time after these melancholy occur- 
 rences, orders were received for the immediate 
 embarkation of Charles' regiment for foreign 
 service. 
 
 It was necessary that he and his wife should 
 part, for Fanny was about to become a mother. 
 
 Among the many subjects which, in the few 
 days preceding his departure, Charles and Fanny 
 thought and talked of with full hearts and eyes, 
 were the chances of a reconciliation with Mr. 
 O'Neill. 
 
 Dermod had written to his brother a fearful
 
 70 HIDDEN LINKS; 0E T 
 
 account of his father's anger and rage upon the 
 receipt of the letter announcing Charles's marriage. 
 There was no need for him to exaggerate them, 
 for they were all that the uncurbed but outraged 
 pride of a thwarted, indignant, and violent man 
 could produce ; and though Dermod's motive might 
 not have been his brother's interest, his advice 
 was, perhaps, not injudicious, when he assured 
 Charles that he would only exasperate his father 
 still more by writing again. 
 
 All that Charles therefore did, was to inform 
 his brother that he was ordered abroad, and he 
 left it entirely to Dermod's judgment to show his 
 letter to his father or not. 
 
 " How can I leave you,my Fanny," said Charles 
 to his wife, as they sat together in the small 
 lodging which he had engaged, " how can I ever 
 leave you?" 
 
 "It will not be long, Charles, and the thought 
 of our meeting will encourage me to bear our 
 separation. It is you, I think, who want cheer- 
 ing," she added, with a faint smile. 
 
 " I do indeed. I feel z& if I was forsaking
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 71 
 
 you, but you know that there is no alternative; 
 and yet you have not a relative who will watch 
 and care for you while I am away." 
 
 " I have not one indeed : my father is gone, 
 and poor Teresa — oh ! Charles, how little did we 
 think only a few months ago how sad we should 
 so soon be." 
 
 And, indeed, poor Fanny did look very sad, 
 and her dark mourning dress made her pale cheek 
 appear still paler. 
 
 The remembrance of her father and sister 
 brought tears into her eyes, and she laid her mild 
 calm face on her husband's shoulder and wept. 
 
 Suddenly, she raised herself, " Charles," she 
 exclaimed, with animation, u a thought has come 
 into my mind, and I will try if my plan will 
 succeed : yes, you must let me try." 
 
 "What is it, dearest?" 
 
 " It is, that after you are gone, I will — you 
 know I am to go to Dublin — I will stop at Ive- 
 ragh." 
 
 "Iveragh!" 
 
 " Yes, and see your father."
 
 72 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 u But Iveragli is not on your way to Dublin, 
 quite the contrary." 
 
 "No matter, I will go to Iveragli. I will 
 throw myself at your father's feet — I will beseech 
 him to forgive us — affection will plead for me, 
 love will be my prompter, and he will not, no, he 
 cannot shut his eyes to my grief and loneliness. " 
 
 "No, no! dearest, it cannot be, for if — " 
 
 " Well, wp shall not even then be worse off 
 than we are now. But he will not, he cannot 
 remain thus hard and implacable to us. I shall 
 write to you, Charles, and tell you of my success. 
 Oh ! it will be joy — joy indeed."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 73 
 
 CHAPTEK V. 
 
 *' Show me a man who cares no more for one place than anotner 
 and I will show you, in the same person, one who loves nothing but 
 himself. Beware of those who are harmless by choice. You have no 
 hold on a human being whose affections are without a top root." 
 
 Southey. 
 
 " I will not hear her speak ; away with her." 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Time hung heavily on Dermod O'Neill's hand; 
 he had long found Iveragh anything but a plea- 
 sant homev 
 
 His mother, thinking to turn to her child's 
 advantage his brother's marriage and his father's 
 consequent resentment, had ventured to urge Mr. 
 O'Neill to settle upon Dermod that portion of his 
 property which was not entailed on Charles. But 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 74 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 there were gentle influences within the heart of 
 that stern, proud father that she dreamt not of, 
 and the memory of his first and only love inter- 
 posed, and with warmth and displeasure he for- 
 bade the subject to be mentioned. 
 
 From that time Dermod and his father seemed 
 to become less at ease with each other, and less 
 cordial. Thus Dermod, who stood in awe of his 
 father, found few attractions within the Castle, 
 while his unpopularity with the tenants and his 
 continual bickering and disputes with them, 
 caused him much mortification, and deprived 
 him of many amusements beyond its walls. 
 
 He was, therefore, fain often to take refuge in 
 his mother's apartments, and in the privacy of 
 her chamber was established the confidence — such 
 as it was — of mother and son, a confidence nur- 
 tured by the scheming heartlessness of the one, 
 pandering to the absorbing selfishness of the 
 other. 
 
 " Mother," said Dermod, one day, entering 
 Mrs. O'Neill's apartment, " have you spoken to 
 my father about my leaving?"
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 75 
 
 " Yes, I have ; and he consents to your doing 
 so. But what makes you so pale, Dermod? are 
 you ill?' 
 
 " No, I am quite well. I am very glad my 
 father will give me leave of absence. I do not 
 often get away, and I am tired of this place, and 
 sick to death of these never-ending disputes with 
 tenants and creditors ?" 
 
 " I am sure I am so likewise, Dermod.'' 
 u And what attraction has this dull, grim old 
 castle for me ? What is it to me ? It will never 
 be mine ; and, after all, what interest have I in 
 one place more than another ? One of these days 
 we shall all have to turn out, I expect, for my 
 father's affairs seem getting worse and worse." 
 "Then the rents must be raised." 
 " That would be difficult, I suspect." 
 " Well, never mind them, but look here, boy," 
 added Mrs. O'Neill, taking a newspaper from a 
 drawer, " here is an announcement that Charles' 
 regiment — a detachment of it, at least — has 
 sailed. The names of the officers are not given, 
 and Charles may not be among them, but I took 
 B 2
 
 76 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 the paper away from the study in case you 
 father has not already seen the notice." 
 
 "Why so, mother?*' 
 
 " Because if Charles has been left, your father, 
 knowing he would have to follow, might take a 
 fancy to see him or write to him before his 
 departure." 
 
 cc And yet—" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Simply that I do not think any body would 
 give much for my chance of possessing Iveragh. 
 Charles may have a son, even though he has 
 sailed and may never return to Ireland." 
 
 " You seem in bad spirits, Dermod. Do tell me 
 what is the matter. You do not look yourself 
 to-day." 
 
 "Nothing, mother, except that I have had 
 some high words with young McGrath. You 
 know I got him convicted last year for poaching. 
 The evidence was certainly not very strong, but 
 if he was not guilty his imprisonment would 
 serve as a warning." 
 
 " And what has the impudent fellow been say- 
 ing to you?" •
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 77 
 
 " I met him in the plantation near his father's 
 farm, and I taxed him with being there for the 
 same purpose. He said he had been driving out 
 some sheep that had strayed from the field. He 
 was very impudent; and, at last, he shook his 
 fist at me, and threatened me with such fierce 
 words that really I should not dare to prosecute 
 him as I threatened; I should not even like to 
 meet him alone;" and Derrnod's cheek grew pale 
 as he thought of the menaces of the stout young 
 farmer. " I wish," he added, " that you would 
 prevail on my father to get rid of those 
 McGraths." 
 
 " Well, my boy, if we can find any plea for 
 their ejectment." 
 
 " That may be found, surely, Besides, I 
 know my father bears them no good-will ; he has 
 not forgotten the decision old McGrath got 
 about the right of way, and the heavy costs." 
 
 "Well, Dermod, they shall be got rid of, if 
 possible." 
 
 " Thank you, mother, do not forget them." 
 
 The young villain's eyes glistened with delight 
 at the revenge, and the hope of being relieved
 
 78 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 from his fears ; and he left his mother's apart- 
 ments with a lightened heart. 
 
 The day before that which Dermod had fixed 
 for his departure from Iveragh, he received a 
 summons to join his father in his study. 
 
 Mr. O'Neill was now between fifty and sixty 
 years of age. His frame was still powerful, and 
 his countenance handsome, but those who knew 
 him in his youth, and in those days of mirth and 
 gallantry which preceded his first marriage, were 
 wont to say that latter years had wrought a great 
 and visible change in him beyond what the advance 
 of age would warrant. Under any circumstance, 
 his black hair might have become grizzled, and 
 perhaps his grey eye might not beam with its 
 former quickness, but the surface of his brow was 
 seamed with lines which sometimes, it is said, 
 tell of long and painful thought; and upon his 
 face, particularly beneath his eyes, and converging 
 to the corners of his mouth, were marks deeply 
 furrowed, which gave him the appearance of a 
 much older man than he was. 
 
 The rumour was rife that Mr. O'NeilFs second 
 marriage was not so happy as the first had been.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 79 
 
 With some of his acquaintances this fully ac- 
 counted for any change they saw in him ; while 
 those who had any suspicion of the circumstances 
 of his eldest son's marriage, attributed much to 
 the annoyance and irritation which it had pro- 
 duced. Each cause might have had its share : 
 certain it is that the cloud upon his brow became 
 darker as Mr. O'Neill grew older, and far from 
 transferring to Dermod the affection which, in 
 appearance at least, he withheld from his offend- 
 ing child, he treated him, as well as his mother, 
 with a coldness and reserve that were frequently 
 noticed and commented on. 
 
 Mr. O'Neill was seated at his bureau when 
 Dermod entered his study. As he heard his son 
 approach and touch the door, he hastily put on 
 one side an object which he had been gazing upon 
 with long and deep attention. It was a minia- 
 ture of his deceased wife. 
 
 Perhaps he was wrong in allowing himself to 
 indulge his mind in a melancholy retrospect : 
 
 " But who shall school the heart's affections?" 
 
 And long ere this date Mr. O'Neill found
 
 80 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 himself day by day less able to resist making a 
 comparison between the present and his former 
 married life, and more closely guarding the me- 
 mory of the budding hopes of his youth, and the 
 bliss of his happiest days. 
 
 " So you leave to-morrow, Deriuod," said his 
 father, " you have not been long in making your 
 preparations, but no doubt you are anxious to 
 have a little more society than you meet with here." 
 
 " Indeed, I do not desire much society," replied 
 Dermod, " at the same time, I shall be glad to 
 see a little of the world. My mother tells me 
 you have received an answer from my uncle, to 
 whom you wished me to pay my first visit." 
 
 " Yes, he will be glad to see you. I do not 
 think, however, that you will meet much company 
 at his house ; it is situated in a very retired part 
 of the country. However, you will go south 
 when you leave your uncle's, and so to England 
 but, hark ye, Dermod," and though his voice grew 
 sterner, signs of uneasiness, if not of actual emo- 
 tion, were visible in Mr. O'Neill's manner and 
 countenance, " you must have no personal com- 
 munication with your brother."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 81 
 
 u Your wishes," replied Dermod, cc are suffi- 
 cient." 
 
 " But tell me," continued tlie father, with 
 something more than curiosity in his manner ; 
 " you were accustomed, at one time, to corres- 
 pond frequently with Charles ; when did you 
 hear last from him?" 
 
 Now it was but a short time before this, and 
 immediately upon receiving orders to embark, 
 that Charles had written to his brother. 
 
 " Indeed," replied Dermod, " I hardly know. 
 When Charles first went to the South I often 
 heard from him; but I suppose he found his 
 time otherwise occupied, for gradually our cor- 
 respondence slackened, and I really do not think 
 he has written twice since we first heard of " 
 
 "Well, well," said Mr. O'Neill, interrupting 
 him, with symptoms of vexation as well as impa- 
 tience, " I trust you will enjoy yourself, Dermud ; 
 take this pocket-book, there is money in it; 
 enough to last you some months. I can neither 
 provide for you now as well as I could wish, nor 
 make you liberal promises for the future; for 
 
 E 5
 
 82 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 there are heavy encumbrances on the property, 
 as you know." 
 
 Dermod received the gift with the expression 
 of his thanks. There is no doubt that the 
 father would have been glad to glean some intel- 
 ligence of the child of her whosa pictured form 
 he had been contemplating ; for it was rather his 
 pride that was offended than his affection that 
 was diminished — but this pride forbade more 
 open and direct inquiries, and it stopped the 
 allusion to Charles's marriage which Dermod was 
 artfully introducing. 
 
 Charles O'Neill had torn himself from the 
 fainting form of his wife, and was far away 
 from her. 
 
 With the fond hope of winning the pardon of 
 her husband's father, she set out a few days after 
 he had sailed — alone, unprotected, unaided, poor 
 — determining that her future plans should be 
 regulated by the reception she should meet with 
 at Iveragh. 
 
 Dermod had taken leave of his father, and
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 83 
 
 had his hand almost on the handle of the door, 
 when it was opened, and before the servant 
 could announce the arrival of a stranger, 
 a lady stepped quickly past him and Dermod, 
 and, raising for a moment to the latter her 
 agitated eyes, sank down on her knees at 
 the feet of Mr. O'Neill. With her hands 
 clasped before her heaving bosom, and her eyes 
 at first raised with searching earnestness, then 
 lowered with modest bashfulness, Charles' wife 
 had knelt humbly down. The act of falling on 
 her knees had displaced her bonnet, the strings 
 of which she had loosened from her throat — for 
 the agitation she experienced from the immediate 
 prospect of the dreaded yet longed-for interview 
 had amounted almost to suffocation. Her luxu- 
 riant hair was scattered in disorder about her 
 neck and shoulders, and her animated features 
 were fully visible to Dermod, whose curiosity 
 riveted him to the spot, and who now gazed, 
 with a sordid and malignant interest, on the 
 being whose destiny he had attempted, but too 
 successfully, to cloud.
 
 84 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " Pardon us ! " she exclaimed, in broken ac- 
 cents. " Pardon us, Mr. O'Neill— I dare not 
 call you father. We have erred, yet forgive us. 
 Your child is far away from you and me, and 
 may never see you more. Oh! give me the 
 right to bear to him the pardon which he so 
 ardently desires, and which I now humbly crave." 
 She paused for an instant, and looked implor- 
 ingly into Mr. O'Neill's countenance. 
 
 There was no reply. 
 
 " If the fault," she continued, " be too great 
 for your forgiveness, on me alone inflict your 
 anger. By the memory of your early love — for 
 the sake of her, the mother of your son, who 
 sees me pleading for him, I conjure you to take 
 him once again back to your heart. Oh ! with- 
 hold not any longer a father's love, a father's 
 pardon." 
 
 Still Mr. O'Neill was silent, but he moved 
 restlessly. She fondly misinterpreted his silence. 
 
 "You will; you will! you do forgive us," 
 she exclaimed, almost wildly. " Oh ! blessings 
 on you."
 
 THE SOIIOOLFELLOfl-S. 85 
 
 " Madam," said Mr. O'Neill, interrupting her, 
 and speaking in a stern voice, from which, however, 
 emotion was not absent, " your words leave me 
 to presume that you come hither as the wife of 
 a disobedient son." 
 
 "I am indeed his wife, his unhappy wife; but — " 
 
 " Then rise, madam, this is not your place. 
 When my son committed that act of disrespect 
 to his father which has given you the fancied 
 right of appearing here on his behalf, I swore 
 that in my life time neither he nor his should 
 ever rest beneath my roof. Go, madam, you have 
 your answer." 
 
 u For pity's sake, hear me, I conjure you; re- 
 call the curse you have invoked upon your child. 
 Be merciful as you would hope for mercy. The 
 son you have cursed is the child of your early 
 love, your first-born." 
 
 A struggle was visible in the compressed fea- 
 tures of Mr. O'Neill. It was but for an instant. 
 Rising, he said, " You should not have been ad- 
 mitted; I will hear no more. Go, ere I ring 
 for my servants."
 
 86 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Yain were poor Fanny's supplications, vain 
 her adjurations, her tears. A frown was on the 
 harsh man's brow, his lips spoke not again ; and 
 even while the beautiful petitioner persisted in 
 her entreaties — not so much for herself as for 
 that stern father's son — Mr. O'Neill summoned 
 the domestics, who compelled her to quit the 
 room. 
 
 But ere she reached the outer door, her self- 
 possession returned, her innate dignity was re- 
 stored ; she shook . off the rude hands that had 
 been laid upon her, and walked proudly forth. 
 
 The vehicle which had brought her from the 
 nearest village was still at the gate. She stepped 
 into it, and the sneering voice of one of the 
 menials bade the driver return whence he had 
 come. 
 
 Overwhelmed with the rudeness and indignity 
 with which she had been treated, Fanny sank 
 back, and, with her hands over her face, relieved 
 her full heart by a passionate burst of tears. 
 
 a Oh ! Charles," she cried aloud, " what have 
 I not suffered for you ! better a life time of
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 87 
 
 poverty and distress than the repetition of such 
 an hour as the last." 
 
 To collect her thoughts or quiet her heart's 
 emotions was impossible. One determination 
 only was pre-eminent, to retire as soon as possible 
 from the precincts of those walls whence she had 
 been thrust by menial hands, and endure every 
 thing rather than return thither. 
 
 She had but just alighted, late in the evening 
 at the inn where she had procured the carriage 
 when the sound of a horn announced the arrival 
 of a public conveyance. It was a vehicle of 
 very primitive appearance, which was accustomed 
 at intervals to perform a slow unpunctual journey 
 along some cross roads of an unfrequented dis- 
 trict. 
 
 Fanny hastily enquired what was its destina- 
 tion, and asked if she should be enabled, by taking 
 a place in it, to join the high road to Dublin. 
 
 After some consultation, she was advised to 
 travel by it to a certain point; there she might 
 procure a car, which would transport her across 
 the hills to the junction with the high road.
 
 88 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Glad of an opportunity of escaping from a 
 neighbourhood now so hateful, fatigued though 
 she really was, yet in that state of excitement 
 which made her careless whither she was borne 
 so that she was in motion, Fanny willingly took 
 her place, and the vehicle started. 
 
 Let us return to I ver agh for awhile. It must not 
 be supposed that Mr. O'Neill was unmoved, when 
 he beheld at his feet, in her surpassing loveliness, 
 the wife of his son. Had that son presented 
 himself in person, it is possible that his father's 
 latent affection, and the memory of his departed 
 wife, might have effected a reconciliation between 
 them ; but that the very cause of that child's 
 disobedience — the "head and front of his 
 offence" — should presume to appear in his 
 own castle, which he had banned and barred 
 against her, and vowed she should never enter — 
 was too much for his pride to brook, and 
 pride settled his agitated features, calmed his 
 tremulous voice, chilled his heart's blood, nerved 
 his hand to summon his domestics, and steadied 
 his eye to behold a lady treated with insolence
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 89 
 
 and roughness, even tho' that lady was the most 
 precious treasure of the child he really loved. 
 
 But there came a re-action of feeling; — and 
 when the proud stern father, having thus vindi- 
 cated his parental rights turned round again to 
 his bureau, from which he had withdrawn his 
 chair on Dermod's entrance, — the miniature on 
 which he had been fondly gazing, and to which 
 his eyes mechanically reverted, seemed to start 
 from its setting and expand into the full figure 
 of the being it represented. With features pale 
 and wan, with eyes of melancholy and chiding ten- 
 derness, his dead wife seemed to his excited imagi- 
 nation to stand before him, asking him why he 
 had treated thus his daughter-in-law. A shuddering 
 came over him; he rose from his seat, and has 
 extended his hand to reach the bell rope — he 
 would call her back — when the mocking fiend 
 whispered, " ay, own yourself in the wrong — re- 
 nounce your own will — forget the oath which you 
 swore — yield to an artful woman" — and the hand 
 was withdrawn, and the troubled man returned 
 for awhile to his seat, and then went forth to try
 
 90 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 to forget in other occupations the rebukes of his 
 conscience. . 
 
 Mrs. O'Neill very quickly had heard from 
 Dermod every particular of Fanny O'Neill's inter- 
 view with her husband. 
 
 11 Tell me, Dermod," said she, " is this girl 
 with whom Charles was so infatuated, so very 
 beautiful?" 
 
 11 Certainly," he replied, u altho' Charles may 
 not have shown his prudence in his choice, no one 
 can call in question his taste. And I am sure 
 my father was on the point of raising her up and 
 forgiving her, for his lips quivered, and he grew 
 as pale as death : it was only for an instant tho', 
 and he recovered himself and rang the bell for 
 the servants." 
 
 " And how did she bear her rebuff? " 
 
 " Like an injured queen. There is no chance 
 of a repetition of the scene." 
 
 u Ah ! proud as well as poor. Well, Dermod, 
 you will not enjoy yourself the less because you 
 know the result of this interview." 
 
 " To change the subject, this pocket book is 
 not very amply filled, mother."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 91 
 
 " But I suppose its contents can be renewed." 
 ." You must see to that, or I shall have to be- 
 come a chevalier dHndustrie, and live by my 
 wits." 
 
 The next morning Dermod left Iveragh. He 
 went away without a regret for those he left be- 
 hind, for he feared, but did not love his father, 
 and he looked upon his mother only as being the 
 intriguing agent for his aggrandizement, and the 
 screen of his faults. Dermod was too thoroughly, 
 selfish to love any one.
 
 92 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 11 Oh, make a grave where the sunbeams rest, 
 When they promise a glorious moirow ; 
 They'll shine o'er her sleep like a smile from the West, 
 From her own lov'd island of sorrow." 
 
 Moore. 
 
 *' Oh ! pourquoi n'ai-je pas de mUse ? 
 
 Pourquoi ne suis-je pas semblable au jeune oiseau, 
 Dont le nid se balance aux branches de l'ormeau? 
 Rien ne m'appartient sur la terre, 
 Je n'ai pas meme de berceau." — 
 
 Alexander Soumet. 
 
 Let us follow poor Fanny O'Neill on her weary 
 journey. 
 
 For hours, cramped and uncomfortable, she 
 travelled by the uneasy jolting conveyance. The 
 excitement, which had created a false energy, 
 and made her forget her fatigue, had subsided,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 93 
 
 but sleep came not to her relief. She was ill 
 and feverish ; a sense of loneliness and despond- 
 ency came over her, and her heart sank at the 
 thought that months must pass ere she should 
 again look on the face of her husband. 
 
 The night, made long by discomfort and 
 fatigue, at length passed, and Fanny O'Neill 
 found herself about daybreak at the place where 
 she was to leave the coach. 
 
 It was a wretched village, and the inn by the 
 road side seemed unable to afford more than 
 mere shelter to the humblest wayfarer. But to 
 be emancipated from the uncomfortable vehicle 
 was such a relief that Fanny saw it drive away 
 without regret. 
 
 She made immediate enquiry for a car to 
 convey her to the high road. She then found 
 that, either intentionally or through ignorance, 
 she had been misinformed as to the distance be- 
 tween that village and the main road, and that 
 a journey of several stages was still before her. 
 She was very tired, but there was no accommo- 
 dation in the wretched inn; perhaps the air
 
 94 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 would revive her, so she decided upon continuing 
 her journey. 
 
 But the car, with its stiff unyielding spring, 
 was even worse than the coach, and the road 
 became every mile more hilly and uneven. Still 
 Fanny went on, and had twice changed cars, as 
 she completed the almost interminable stages. 
 
 At another time the scenery of that district 
 might have attracted her attention, and diverted 
 her mind from mournful thoughts, for it was 
 singularly wild and varied. 
 
 At length Fanny felt that she was too ill to 
 proceed any farther, and she desired the driver 
 to stop at the first house that afforded any ac- 
 commodation, however humble. But for miles, 
 in that bare tract, there was not even a cabin, 
 and poor Fanny could scarcely sit upright, so 
 great was her lassitude, when they drew up at 
 the door of a house at the entrance of a small 
 village. 
 
 She alighted, and paid the driver, who forth- 
 with turned his horse's head and departed. 
 
 The dwelling was a small inn of two stories,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 95 
 
 which, although it might by comparison with the 
 other cabins in that poor hamlet claim a higher 
 rank than that of the mere shebeen, seemed but 
 a sorry place of entertainment for either man or 
 beast. The walls were rough-plastered, and 
 whitewashed, and, though the rooms were 
 boarded, the passage had only a mud floor. 
 
 Fanny was completely worn out, mind and 
 body, and had some difficulty in stopping the 
 landlady's volubility by the request that she 
 would prepare her bed as soon as possible, for 
 she was ill and tired. The worthy woman, con- 
 vinced at last that her offers of refreshment were 
 useless, retired to make the necessary prepara- 
 tions, and left her guest alone in the parlour. 
 
 As she sat there, reflecting on the ill success 
 of her visit to Iveragh, and her bitter disap- 
 pointment, her eye rested by chance on a news- 
 paper lying on the table before her, which, 
 strange to say, was only a day or two old. Ac- 
 cording to the custom of printers when atten- 
 tion is to be called to any special catastrophe,
 
 96 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 there was an announcement in large type, and 
 the first words that met Fanny's eyes were — 
 
 " Dreadful Shipwreck. Loss of the Transport 
 Ship ' Thetis.' " 
 
 She seized the paper; an instant was suffi- 
 cient. Suddenly, as though struck down by 
 some invisible hand, with a piercing shriek, she 
 fell from her seat. 
 
 That scream rang throughout the house, and the 
 landlady quickly ran into the parlour, and found 
 her guest stretched senseless on the floor. The 
 good woman, with what assistance was at hand, 
 bore her up stairs, and laid her on the coarse 
 pallet that had been prepared for her; and 
 there, whilst yet in a state of heavy uncon- 
 scious listlessness, the hour of "nature's 
 sorrow " came upon her. 
 
 " Och ! wirra, wirra," exclaimed the hostess, 
 " an' what will we do for the poor cratur ? An' 
 this to happen in my house! Faix, an' I'd 
 rather not sell another bite or drop 'twixt now 
 and Easter than have had this happen us. But
 
 TIIE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 97 
 
 rin, Kathleen," she said to her eldest daughter, 
 " rin an' tell ould Nancy M'Dermott that she is 
 wanted; an' stay, mavourneen, jist step down to 
 father Robert's before you come back, an' ax his 
 riverence to call in." 
 
 " No, no," said Miles Dogherty, her husband : 
 " go an' seek auld Nancy a-cuishla, an' then come 
 back. Where would be the use of troublin' his 
 riv'rance to step up here, an* she lyin' as little 
 able to spake a word to him as if she was dead 
 intirely. Wait a while, an' then call Father 
 Robert." 
 
 In due time Nancy McDermott made her ap- 
 pearance. She was an aged crone, to whose 
 supposed skill and science all the maladies and 
 casualties in and about the hamlet were confided. 
 They were too rare, however, for the acquisition 
 of much experience, but old Nancy was the only 
 person in that poor neighbourhood with the 
 smallest pretensions to medical knowledge, for 
 the scattered and scanty population gave no hope 
 of practice to the doctor any more than their 
 poverty could offer a temptation to the lawyer. 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 The inn was beset with the matrons of the 
 village, who, however, confined their good offices 
 to lamentations and pity. 
 
 " Wirra ! wirra P'exclaimed an old crone, coming 
 out to a group of villagers standing by the inn door, 
 " the root is withered, an' the saplin' has taken 
 t>he life from the stock that bore it. Och hone ! 
 och hone !" 
 
 " The poor cratur is past all mortal aid an' 
 help now then?" asked one of the bystanders. 
 
 " Thrue for you; but, alack ! how will we find 
 her kith and kin, that, maybe, know nothin' of 
 her bein' in these parts at all — at all ?" 
 
 " Did she say nothin' ?" 
 
 " Sorra a word did she spake, barrin' some 
 that we could not catch the manin' of." 
 
 The old woman satisfied with having imparted 
 the intelligence of poor Fanny's death to those 
 outside the house door, returned to the room she 
 had left. 
 
 One of the women had on* her lap the little
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 99 
 
 babe that had thus sadly and strangely appeared 
 on the earth. 
 
 " An' what'll be done wid the purty cratur," 
 said she, " for its mother has lift it alone in the 
 wide world." 
 
 " Sure, was not Mary Falvey's babe took from 
 her an' laid in the church-yard but yesterday, 
 that was but three months old when it went to 
 glory, God be praised," said one of the women; 
 " an' wouldn't she be proud to be all the same as 
 a mother to the poor cratur that has lost its 
 own?" 
 
 " Thrue for you, Nelly," replied Mrs. Dogherty, 
 " an' I'll jist tell one of the gossoons rin down to 
 her, an' bid her step up. Patsy '11 be back wid 
 her in no time at all." 
 
 Patsy, Mrs. Dogherty's eldest son, and heir 
 apparent to his father's hostelry and farm, was 
 forthwith summoned, and deputed to fetch the 
 poor woman. 
 
 She quickly appeared, and was very soon in- 
 duced to take charge of the infant, but it was 
 not without tears at the thought of the babe she 
 F 2
 
 100 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 had so lately laid down to rest in its narrow bed 
 beneath the green turf in the old church-yard, 
 that she received into her arms the little crea- 
 ture whom heaven had so soon sent to take its 
 place. 
 
 Thus was poor Fanny's child provided with a 
 foster mother.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 101 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 " As having clasped a lose 
 Within my palm ; the rose heing ta'en away, 
 My hand retains a little hreath of sweet ; 
 So nry man's trunk, his spirit slipped away, 
 Hold still a faint perfume of his sweet guest." 
 
 Marston. 
 
 * My cradle was the couch of care, 
 And sorrow rocked me in it, 
 Fate seemed her saddest robe to wear, 
 On the first day that saw me there, 
 And deeply shadowed with despair 
 My earliest minute." 
 
 Camenus. 
 
 Travelling by the now almost obsolete medium 
 of her Majesty's highway and a pair of post- 
 horses, particularly if the road was not one of 
 the principal channels of communication between 
 the metropolis and the provinces, never attained
 
 102 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 in Ireland the perfection which, before the 
 introduction of railways, was almost universal 
 in England. 
 
 Dermod's progress on his journey to his re- 
 lative was slow and tedious, for the road was 
 little frequented, and he found difficulty even in 
 procuring the necessary relays of horses. 
 
 Their appearance and condition, and their 
 driver's costume, seemed at length to have reached 
 the extreme of wretchedness. The driver, a 
 being squalid and unshaven, whose countenance 
 seemed illustrative of that theory which advocates 
 the gradual transition from the monkey to the 
 man, and whose tattered trousers, vandyked in 
 shreds, were partially concealed by the ragged 
 flaps of a cotamore, or great coat, appeared 
 dragging from their shed two animals of the 
 genus equus. The motto under the impression 
 of a man with a wooden leg was very applicable 
 to them — they were " paired but not matched." 
 The one was a mere pony, the other a huge bony 
 animal, whose skeleton might have passed for the 
 remains of an antidiluvian monster. Carriage
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 103 
 
 and horses were with difficulty set in motion, and 
 Dermod found himself crawling up and creeping 
 down the stony hills, at a pace which promised 
 to protract his journey much beyond night fall, 
 and his patience and temper were both exhausted, 
 when, after a stage of sixteen Irish miles, he 
 drove up to the abode of our worthy acquaint- 
 ance, Miles Dogherty. 
 
 Upon his asking in no very courteous terms 
 for fresh horses, he were informed that the pair 
 which were made to do service on those extremely 
 rare occasion when a travelling carriage appeared 
 in the village, " had been carryin' turf all day 
 from the bog, an' wouldn't it be a sin an* a shame 
 to take the poor craturs out agin, an' they jist 
 made up for the night?" Miles was inexorable, 
 and not to be moved by either abuse or entreaty ; 
 and the post boy, who was a shrivelled old man of 
 seventy, declared that " the bastes were so dead 
 bate wid the muthurin' hills that sorra another 
 mile could mortal man coax them to go, barrin' 
 on the road home again, and that same," added 
 he, "is jist what I'll be afther doin'."
 
 104 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 To advance any further was out of the ques- 
 tion, and Dermod was compelled, tho' with a 
 very ill grace, to accept the invitation of the 
 sturdy Boniface, and tarry for the night beneath 
 his roof. 
 
 Thus strangely were brought within the same 
 threshhold the wronger and the wronged, the 
 heartless, sordid schemer and the gentle, guileless, 
 injured wife of that man's brother. 
 
 As Miles ushered his guest into the only room 
 which had any pretensions to be called a parlour, 
 he took occasion to inform him of the sudden 
 illness whicl; had occurred in the same apart- 
 ment. 
 
 " Troth an' it's frightened to death we were 
 when we heard the scream the lady gave, an' 
 found her lyin' there jist where yer honor is 
 standin', all as one as dead." 
 
 " Well, I am glad it was not so in reality," re- 
 plied Dermod : "I should not have liked to have had 
 a wake going on over my head to-night in your 
 house. It's bad enough without one," he added 
 in a low voice ; "but, come, let me have something
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 105 
 
 to eat, if you have got anything beyond potatoes 
 and milk, and I suppose I must be content with 
 a noggin of whisky — you've got no wine?" 
 
 The colour mounted to the publican's face at 
 this slur upon the resources of his larder and 
 cellar, but he contented himself with saying, in 
 reply, " sure yer honor might have done betther 
 to have brought yer own dinner wid you, for it 
 isn't often we're called on to suit the quality, but 
 as for the dhrink, though I say it that should 
 not, I'll go bail you'll not find a betther bottle o' 
 claret on this side the hill o' Howth, an' that's 
 sayin' a good deal, for there's all Dhublin atwixt 
 us. And as for somethin' for yer honor to ate 
 wid it, there's a purty fowl that we thought might 
 sarve the poor cratur that's tuk ill." 
 
 " If she was so ill, why didn't you send for a 
 doctor?" 
 
 " Divil a docther is there nearer than ; 
 
 an' that's a matther o' thirty mile or more." 
 
 "Well," said Dermod, "see after the fowl, and 
 don't forget a bottle of the best claret this side 
 the hill of Howth." 
 
 F 5
 
 106 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Before Miles left the room he tendered the news- 
 paper to Dermod, saying, " it's come down this 
 mornin', yer honor, by chance. " 
 
 " Oh ! you're a politician are you," said Dermod, 
 rather sneer ingly. 
 
 u Well, yer honor, I do like a newspaper. I'm 
 auld enough to remimber stirrin' times before 
 yer honor was born, an' though I hope never to 
 hear tell o' the likes o' Vinegar Hill or Wyford 
 Bridge, divil a harm do I see in knowin' what 
 thim Parliamint men are about: they're not 
 always safe to be trusted." 
 
 With this not very complimentary remark, 
 Miles Dogherty left the room. 
 
 Dermod did not take up the newspaper, but 
 strolled out, and on his return found his dinner 
 prepared, and was speedily doing ample justice 
 to the fowl and claret, which, to say the truth, 
 its owner had not overrated. 
 
 Nor let my reader wonder at the boast. Claret 
 was in Ireland a much more general beverage than 
 ever it has been in England, and that must have 
 been a poor shebeen indeed, which was not, at one
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 107 
 
 period, well provided with a fair description ot 
 that wine. 
 
 Dermod, having settled himself in the old- 
 fashioned high backed arm chair, sipped his wine 
 listlessly and with ennui. Occasionally, he was 
 roused by persons walking along the passage, and 
 the sound of their voices, but he was not one to 
 interest himself much about other people, and he 
 remained in the arm chair till sleep came to his 
 assistance, and helped to pass away one of those 
 half hours which never seem more tedious than 
 when they are involuntarily spent in the dull 
 parlour of a country inn. 
 
 Awaking, he again applied himself to the claret. 
 To relieve the monotony of emptying and re-filling 
 his glass, which was of very much less capacious 
 dimensions than such as we generally use — for 
 our predilection seems to be for the ancient capa- 
 city, which gives the point to the old poet's epi- 
 gram against the lady, who, 
 
 Turning out a vessel like a tun, 
 Simpering, exclaimed, ' Observe, I drink but one,'
 
 108 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Dermod took up the hitherto neglected news- 
 paper. 
 
 It was the same in which occurred the fatal 
 paragraph which, by the announcement of her 
 husband's untimely end, had proved to be the 
 death warrant of poor Fanny O'Neill. 
 
 Dermod threw a careless and still drowsy glance 
 over its contents, but the same large characters 
 which had so fatally arrested Fanny's eyes, drew 
 his attention likewise. 
 
 " Loss of the Thetis!" said he, aloud; "that 
 was the very ship that Charles told me he was to 
 sail in." And Dermod carefully perused the par- 
 ticulars of the ship's wreck. Remorselessly as he 
 had pursued the tenor of his selfish course, he 
 yet felt a pang, as, among the names of those who 
 had perished, he read that of Lieutenant Charles 
 O'Neill. But the pang was only momentary, 
 and was soon lost in the reflection that he was 
 now heir to Iveragh Castle and its broad 
 lands. 
 
 He read the account again and again. " No," 
 said he, communing with himself, " there can be
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 109 
 
 no doubt of the truth of the shipwreck. There 
 was no other officer of our name in the regiment. 
 I wonder how my father will bear the intelli- 
 gence." 
 
 Dermod sat musing and staring at the dark 
 turf fire — u But," thought he, with a start, 
 " there will be a child; — what if it should be a 
 boy? Then am I again supplanted." 
 
 Dermod continued revolving in his mind these 
 and many other reflections, and debating whether 
 he should return to Iveragh or proceed to his 
 uncle's house. He determined upon the latter 
 course, and was still speculating upon the results of 
 his brother's death, when Miles Dogherty made 
 his appearance at the door, with a very serious 
 countenance. 
 
 " I beg your honor's pardon," said he, " but I 
 make bould to ax you honor if you would plaze 
 step up stairs." 
 
 "Why so?" asked Dermod. 
 
 " I did not like to disturb you honor before, 
 but it has plazed God to take the poor sick lady 
 to himself — the heavens be her bed."
 
 110 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 11 But of what use can I be upstairs?" 
 
 " It would be a favor to us if you would be pre- 
 sent, a witness your honor — till the poor cratur's 
 things be sarched, for sorra a word did she say 
 that we might know who or what she was." 
 
 " Well," replied Dermod, " I don't mind going. 
 You will not be long I suppose." 
 
 Thus ungraciously assenting to the proposal, 
 Dermod followed the worthy publican up the nar- 
 row stairs to the chamber of death. 
 
 On the coarse rough pallet, pale and stiffening, 
 lay poor Fanny's corpse. Beautiful in death, 
 almost more than in life, were her features. An 
 expression of sweet repose had come over them, as 
 though sleep had conquered pain, and anxious care 
 had been succeeded by contentment and resigna- 
 tion. There was almost a smile on her lips, the 
 token, it seemed, of some soft calm pleasure. 
 
 " There she lies, poor thing!" said Miles as he 
 entered the room. 
 
 Dermod looked over his host's shoulder. " My 
 God!" he exclaimed, as his eyes beheld again the
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. Ill 
 
 features which, tho' seen but once, had left a true 
 impression on his memory. 
 
 Miles had lowered the candle he held, and its 
 light fell directly on the face of the corpse. He 
 heard Dermod's exclamation, but merely thought 
 that the sad spectacle had, naturally enough, 
 caused a sudden emotion in the young man's 
 heart, and, turning round, said to him : " She is 
 young an beautiful, yer honor, to lave the world 
 so soon." 
 
 But honest Dogherty's reflection was lost 
 upon Dermod, who had turned away bewildered 
 with the awfulness of the discovery, and shocked 
 as he had felt, for a time, at the intelligence 
 of his brother's death, he was far more so now; — 
 h e stood speechless, as if in a dream. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Dogherty was employed in 
 searching the small travelling box, which was all 
 the luggage which Fanny had brought with her. 
 Miles had gone to his wife's side, but now came 
 back to where Dermod was standing. 
 
 " My wife has looked over the things, yer 
 honor, and sorra a letter or sign of any name is
 
 112 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 there among them, there is just a mark on her 
 handkerchief, and here are a picture and a ring." 
 
 " They were in her hands when she died," in- 
 terrupted Mrs. Dogherty. 
 
 The former was a small exquisitively painted 
 miniature, of a youthful and handsome officer, 
 the latter was a wreath of diamonds, which 
 had been worn as a guard to the wedding ring. 
 
 "Faix, an divil a doubt is there that she's of 
 the raal quality," said Miles, exhibiting them. 
 
 A cold shudder ran through Dermod's whole 
 body as he looked on that likeness of his own 
 brother, whom he had so cruelly injured. 
 
 Just then, the little infant, whom Dermod had 
 not noticed, raised its feeble cry, and recalled 
 him to a selfish consciousness. 
 
 " Is that her child?" he asked. 
 
 " It is, your honour." 
 
 "A boy?" 
 
 " It is, your honour, an* he seems strong an' 
 healthy; an' ould Nancy says — " 
 
 Dermod listened no more ; and if the thought 
 of announcing his relationship to that pale corpse
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 113 
 
 had entered his mind, it passed away. A dumb 
 devil possessed him, and closed his lips. Dermod 
 never acted from impulse. Then, as he looked 
 at the frail babe, whose lamp of life had been so 
 lately lit, and might be so easily quenched, a dark 
 thought crossed his mind. 
 
 He stood apart, in almost breathless anxiety, 
 waiting to make sure that no discovery should 
 be made of Fanny's name. 
 
 " Is this all you have found?" said he, at last, 
 with forced calmness. 
 
 Nothing more had been ascertained to en- 
 lighten the perplexity of Dogherty and his wife, 
 and Dermod, very pale and agitated, left the room. 
 
 When he re-entered the parlour, he flung him- 
 self down in the old arm chair, and fairly gasped 
 for breath. In a few minutes, his intense agita- 
 tion passed away, and he could scarcely believe 
 that he had not been dreaming. 
 
 The bottle was yet on the table : he seized it, 
 but it was empty. He laid hold of the string 
 attached to the bell-wire, and summoned the 
 publican.
 
 114 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " Another bottle of claret," said he to Miles 
 as he entered, " and a tumbler ; this is no better 
 than a thimble." 
 
 In a few minutes, Miles appeared with the 
 bottle. 
 
 " Your honour likes the wine," he observed, 
 with a smile, " I said it was bad to bate." 
 
 " You were right : it is excellent." Dermod 
 was quite composed, apparently. " Set it down 
 before the fire — there, that will do; a little 
 warmth brings out the flavour. Thank you." 
 
 Miles departed, but he had scarcely closed the 
 door, when Dermod seized the bottle, poured the 
 wine into a tumbler almost to the brim, and 
 drained it at a draught. 
 
 " Curse the brat !" he exclaimed aloud, setting 
 down the glass ; " here it is born and living, to 
 stand in my way. But the life of a child," he 
 continued after awhile, " what is it? A thread, 
 a bit of glass, snapped in an instant. Even," 
 thought he, becoming more composed, " supposing 
 it should live, though its chances of life are not 
 great, its being may never be discovered. Why am
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 115 
 
 I to proclaim the existence of the heir of Iveragh ? 
 How should I know who this lady is ? I never saw 
 her but once. But then the miniature. Bah ! 
 the room was dark : I did not see the likeness. 
 No, no, I'll let things take their course." 
 
 Thus for some time Dermod weighed in his 
 mind, and occasionally argued aloud, the chances 
 of the future with relation to himself and the 
 unconscious infant in the room above him. He 
 was puzzled how to act, and he bethought him 
 of her who had always been his confidante and 
 often his guide. He took a sheet of paper from 
 his writing desk, and once more cold, impassive, 
 heartless, Dermod detailed to his mother the 
 strange events which had happened since he had 
 arrived at that poor inn. 
 
 A few months later, Dermod would have 
 locked up the information within his own bosom ^ 
 but he had been so accustomed to find his mother 
 the ready abettor of all his selfish views that he 
 did not reflect that he was doing a very im- 
 prudent thing in committing to paper such evi-
 
 116 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 dence of his share in the occurrences which he 
 narrated. 
 
 It was late before he had finished writing, 
 and, although it was raining, and the official who 
 combined the occupations of grocer and post- 
 master lived at the extremity of the straggling 
 hamlet, Dermod declined his host's offer to send 
 Patsy with the letter, and went himself to the 
 post office. 
 
 With a hesitation partaking of the doubts 
 which had filled his mind, he dropped the letter 
 into the box, and this being done, he returned 
 immediately and retired to his room for the 
 night. But it was long before the remem- 
 brance of the strange events of the day permitted 
 him to close his eyes in sleep. Which was to 
 be preferred — the guilty sleep of the living 
 man, or the sinless slumber of the dead mother ! 
 
 There was but a thin partition between the two 
 chambers of death and sin, and dark night had 
 spread her mantle over them both; but there 
 was One whose eye was equally upon those two 
 chambers.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 117 
 
 Sweet, passing sweet, it is to a mother to 
 watch the unfolding faculties of her babe, to 
 mark the timid eye, pleased and yet astonished, 
 expand to the novelty of the countless objects 
 around it; and, chief delight, to see the smile that 
 plays on the tiny mouth when first on her is cast 
 the look of recognition and preference: to sit 
 for hours beside the cot of her treasure, and, 
 while the sight is dimmed with the half-formed 
 tear of pride and tenderness, to think true the 
 beautiful fiction that to the ears of the cherub 
 as it laughs in its slumbers, are being breathed 
 the whispers of kindred angels; to call forth 
 from the shadowy future the joys to come, and 
 to trace in the soft, smooth features of the infant 
 of a few weeks' life the handsome countenance 
 or the brilliant beauty of the full-formed man or 
 woman. Deep is the heart's-spring of a mother's 
 love; for, "come weal, come woe," in health 
 and sickness — ay, and in. unkindness and ingrati- 
 tude, too, how true it is that u the heart we 
 have lain near before our birth is the only one 
 that cannot forget that it has loved us."
 
 118 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 To Fanny O'Neill maternal joys had been all 
 denied; and the bell tolled from the humble 
 chapel, and she rested amid the nameless graves 
 of the hallowed ground of the old church-yard, 
 some miles from the village where she had died. 
 
 There was no one of the inhabitants of that 
 poor hamlet at all qualified to trace the parentage 
 of the babe who had been cast among them. 
 The priest who consigned the unknown mother 
 to her last resting-place became aware of the 
 circumstances of the child's birth, and he did 
 what was in his power to cause investigation to 
 be made ; but the good man had long lived in 
 seclusion among the hills; the duties of a widely- 
 spread parish occupied all his time, and in no 
 respect was he calculated to undertake the requi- 
 site inquiries. 
 
 Nor let my readers deem me to be drawing 
 too largely on their credulity in allowing Fanny 
 O'Neill to sink unknown into her grave, and her 
 babe to be dependent for its life and nourishment 
 on the good offices of a lowly villager. 
 
 Though I might remind them of the saying,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 119 
 
 not more trite than true, that " truth is stranger 
 than fiction," and that modern prescription allows 
 to the Novelist all the latitude which - ancient 
 custom gave to the poet and painter, bounded 
 only by the injunction — 
 
 " Non ut 
 Serpentis avibus quimentura tigribus agni," — 
 
 I would yet haj^ them consider that Fanny's 
 father, the only remaining member of the family, 
 had quitted Ireland for a distant country, where 
 (to conclude his history) he had hardly landed 
 before sorrow, anxiety, and the change of cli- 
 mate completely broke down his already shat- 
 tered constitution, and he died before any cor- 
 respondence had passed between him and the 
 child he had left behind ; that, with a timidity 
 which shrinks from becoming the topic of gossip 
 and tea-table small-talk, Fanny had disclosed to 
 no one her destination when she visited Iveragh ; 
 that she had sent the bulk of her wardrobe in 
 the ill-fated c Thetis,' providing herself with what 
 was merely necessary for a time, and, that she had
 
 120 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 neglected to affix her address to her travelling 
 trunk ; that the hamlet where she breathed her 
 last was far from the great trunk roads, and in 
 a wild, thinly -peopled district; that, from her 
 father's reduced circumstances she had not a 
 large acquaintance; and, to say no more, 
 that the most startling occurrences cannot boast 
 of being more than a " nine day's wonder." 
 
 The little orphan had fallen ia|o kind and care- 
 ful hands. The poor woman to whom he had 
 been confided was strong and sincere in her un- 
 tutored affection, and she loved the high-born 
 babe as if it had been her own, and the boy grew 
 strong and healthy under her humble roof. 
 
 " Och ! cuishla-ma-chree," she sometimes would 
 say, pressing the babe she had received in place 
 of her own to her kind heart, " may the saints in 
 Heaven watch over you and protect you ; a mo- 
 ther's blessing be on you darlint. Benach, nulla 
 benach — benach Dhea, a-cuishla." 
 
 My readers must supply for themselves, as re- 
 gards the little being so rudely flung upon life's 
 ocean, the various incidents in the cycle of infant
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 121 
 
 and childish existence. Mouths and years rolled 
 on — the grass grew and died, the flowers blos- 
 somed and faded above poor Fanny's grave; — 
 the sea had never yielded up the remains of her 
 soldier-husband; — but, although their youthful 
 loving hearts rested not side by side, their spirits 
 had, perhaps, met in another world to part no 
 more, and perchance were looking down on the 
 babe they had left behind, and blessing those 
 who had supplied their place, and given a home 
 to their orphan child. 
 
 VOL I. G
 
 122 HIDDEN LIXKS; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " The family of the Lamhs had long been among the most thriving 
 and popular in the neighbourhood * * * They were smitten with 
 a passion for high life." 
 
 Washington Irving. 
 
 " Watering places might with equal propriety be called fishing places, 
 because they are frequented by female anglers, who are in quest of such 
 prey, the younger for themselves, the elder for their daughters." 
 
 Southey. 
 
 The Dobisons lived in what was not the fashion- 
 able quarter of a large manufacturing town. 
 
 They were four in family, the father, mother, 
 and two daughters. 
 
 Their names might assuredly be sought for in
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 123 
 
 vain in the Koll of Battle Abbey (though that 
 honorable catalogue is said to contain some 
 which have not much right to be there). 
 
 Mr. Dobison's father — antecedently to that 
 worthy and estimable individual tradition is 
 silent — had left his son a fortune which was the 
 result of many years' patient devotion to his 
 business. This business had been, at first, car- 
 ried on behind the counter of a shop, and not a 
 large one either — not one with a frontage of 
 brass window frames, and plate glass ten feet by 
 six — but had finally been expanded and trans- 
 ferred to seven and eight-storied warehouses and 
 counting-houses, well furnished with huge ledgers 
 and pale-faced clerks. 
 
 This fortune would have been very consider- 
 able had it not been for an unlucky venture. 
 Tempted — as old men sometimes are by m'aterial 
 syrens — beyond the bounds of prudence, by the 
 smiles of fortune which had hitherto proved 
 very constant, Mr. Dobison embarked in a 
 speculation far exceeding any which he had 
 hitherto entered upon. It failed; and, though 
 g 2
 
 124 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 no man could say that Mr. Dobison owed him a 
 farthing, it was a blow from which neither the old 
 man's banking book nor his constitution ever re- 
 covered. Thus the property which he retained 
 was not a tithe of what it was before the last unfor- 
 tunate venture, although it still amounted to more 
 than what he himself had begun life with, and, in 
 careful and diligent hands, might form the 
 nucleus of an ample and permanent fortune. 
 
 With this property, his son — the subject of my 
 notice — had carefully traded, and, in course of 
 time — although Mr. Dobison did not pretend to 
 rank with the merchant princes of his native 
 town — he found himself, as a fortunate speculator 
 and a man of considerable wealth, looked upon 
 with that respect and deference which success 
 generally commands. 
 
 In the domestic circle, however, Mr. Dobison 
 was not, perhaps, of that importance which his 
 position in reference to it might warrant. 
 
 He was not an ambitious man, and, had he 
 consulted his own tastes and inclinations, he 
 would have continued to inhabit in his increased
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 125 
 
 prosperity and affluence, the same dingy, low- 
 roomed house, under the shadow and smoke of 
 the tall chimney which had witnessed the early 
 struggles of Mr. Dobison, senior. 
 
 But such lowly habits suited not the larger 
 soul and more comprehensive views of his wife. 
 
 Although I am bound to confess that Mrs. 
 Dobison's origin was humble, and her education 
 deficient, she had, by the exercise of her manag- 
 ing and matter-of-fact qualifications, materially 
 assisted in the ascent of the family up the 
 u ladder of gold," but, after a considerable eleva- 
 tion had been attained, and a permanent footing 
 seemed secured, she disdained to pass her days, 
 spider-like, in laborious obscurity, and resolved 
 that tbe sun of her latter life should pursue his 
 way by a more conspicuous path. 
 
 Unlike a certain contented being, who, when 
 fortune, with sudden freak, transported her 
 from the humble lodging of her husband, once a 
 banker's clerk, to a gay and gaudy mansion, 
 bitterly complained that her bunch of keys — 
 precious as the portfolio of a minister — would
 
 126 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 have to be given up; that, dressed in silk, she 
 would have to sit in her gilded drawing-room, and 
 take the air in her cushioned carriage, and, who 
 in fine, pined and died of no other complaint but 
 prosperity and wealth, the adventurous Mrs. 
 Dobison appreciated the smiles of the fickle 
 goddess, and determined at once to assert her 
 right to walk abroad in the full blaze of her 
 prosperity. 
 
 Her two daughters — Clementina and Amelia 
 were their names — proved useful adjuncts and 
 powerful auxiliaries, and their fond mother so 
 worked upon the feelings of her good-natured 
 spouse by the picture which she sketched of the 
 sensation the young ladies were certain to make 
 in their novel sphere of high society, and, of the 
 brilliant alliances which with their fortunes, they 
 were sure to form, that, although the good man's 
 heart still warmed towards his plain three o'clock 
 dinner and social evenings at his club, he was 
 fairly overcome; and, while feeling himself to 
 be a domestic Coriolanus — for that, in granting 
 his wife's request, his own happiness was undone
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 127 
 
 — he consented, at length, to leave his home and 
 occupations. 
 
 The die was cast, and Mr. Dobison, in a 
 philosophic spirit, resigned himself, life and 
 purse, into the hands of his wife and daughters, 
 consoling himself with the hope that their matri- 
 monial visions would ere kng be realized, and 
 that then — the grand object of their foray on 
 the aristocratic borders being accomplished — he 
 might, with all honour, seek once more his con- 
 genial retirement. 
 
 He was, therefore, inexorable upon the subject 
 of the sale of their house; for Mrs. Dobison, 
 acting upon that strategic policy which has in- 
 duced certain generals to deprive their troops of 
 all means of retreat in order to impress upon 
 them the desperate necessity of advance and 
 victory, suggested that their late residence should 
 be forthwith advertised for sale. 
 
 But Mr. Dobison was too much attached, from 
 motives both of the past and future, to his 
 household gods, to desert them entirely; and, 
 therefore, the guardianship of his Laus and
 
 128 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Penates was, for the time, entrusted to the old 
 housekeeper ; and their preparations for the 
 exodus commenced, greatly to the advantage of 
 certain dressmakers, and milliners, and haber- 
 dashers, from whose stores the ladies selected an 
 ample and varied provision for the exigencies of 
 their opening campaign. 
 
 Cheltenham was selected as the scene of their 
 entrance on the beau monde; and accordingly, 
 as soon as might he, the Dobisons exhibited 
 themselves and the fashions of their native town 
 in all the public walks of that "fair muse of 
 fountains," 
 
 None were neglected; Pittville and Mont- 
 pellier, the old well walk, and the Promenade, 
 were alternately refreshed with the sight of Mrs. 
 Dobison's open, good humoured, rubicund coun- 
 tenance, set in one of the most enlivening 
 bonnets which Miss Sample (she had slightly 
 modified her name, and now wrote it Mademoiselle 
 de Sampelle) had ever enriched with a perfect 
 hortus siccus of rare and remarkable exotics. 
 Moreover, they revolved daily round the hy-
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 129 
 
 gienic fountains with the regularity, if not the 
 brilliancy, of higher constellations, and had pre- 
 sently tasted of each variety, for Hippocrene 
 was not more sacred to the Muses than were 
 these waters, gushing forth from the well-trodden 
 soil of aristocracy, to Mrs. Dobison and her 
 daughters. 
 
 The parade of these household troops certainly 
 caused, as had been anticipated, a sensation, but 
 one rather different from what their generalissima 
 had expected; but they moved on, blissfully ig- 
 norant of the stare of the confectioner's errand 
 boy, as he daudled up the Promenade with a sin- 
 gular collection of architectural devices and long 
 tin boxes on his head, unaware of the haber- 
 dasher's apprentice, who stretched his neck over 
 the counter, or flattened his nose against the 
 window pane to u take an observation" of the 
 strangely cut mantle or flaunting bonnet that 
 went by, and innocently misinterpreting the 
 smile of the courteous Master of Ceremonies, as, 
 for the fiftieth time in his walk from Montpelliei 
 to High Street, he lifted his hat and bowed low, 
 G 5
 
 130 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 prompted to the act by the remembrance of an 
 entry made by Mr. Dobison in a certain blank 
 book at one of the libraries. 
 
 But, alas! no magic squares of pasteboard 
 gave the Dobisons an opportunity of displaying 
 Mademoiselle de Sampelle's taste and skill in 
 ball or evening costume. 
 
 Mrs Dobison, however, was not long in dis- 
 covering that there were such things as public 
 balls held periodically. Here there was an 
 opening for her and her girls. And very soon it 
 was taken advantage of.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 131 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 1 Hknriquez — Where are the minstre's ? 
 
 Let them strike up a dance : we are too still. 
 
 Leonora— Doubt not we shall be gay; but we expect 
 Some merry maskers here to join our revels ; 
 They should have come ere now." 
 
 Joanna Baillie. 
 
 The young lady who (on Mademoiselle de Sam- 
 pelle's recommendation) had been engaged to ac- 
 company the Dobison party, in the capacity of 
 what Mr. Dobison called a tire-woman, had, you 
 may be sure, no sinecure on the day of the 
 ball. 
 
 An early dinner was the first symptom that 
 time, on that day at least, was precious.
 
 132 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Mrs. Dobison was th?. first to undergo the re- 
 quisite metamorphosis; and she made her 
 appearance about six o'clock in full evening cos- 
 tume, in order that her dear girls might not be 
 hurried, and that Ann Jane (the tire -woman) 
 might have time to do them justice. At that 
 hour then, and before the searching brilliancy of 
 garish day had been succeeded in the drawing- 
 room by the light of the milder composite or 
 subdued solar, Mrs. Dobison, with slow and 
 measured step, advanced into the room. A sea- 
 green silk dress encircled her portly person, and 
 a bright scarlet turban crowned her upright 
 head. 
 
 " Oh, mamma !" exclaimed Clementina, " how 
 handsome your dress looks/' 
 
 " And how well it is made," added Amelia. 
 
 u And pray what do you think of me?" in- 
 quired the self-satisfied lady, appealing to her 
 spouse, and, at the same time, revolving slowly 
 on her own axis for his inspection. 
 
 " Is it to be a fancy ball, my dear?" asked Mr. 
 Dobison.
 
 THE SOHOOLFELLO^S. 133 
 
 " A fancy ball, indeed ! What should make 
 you think it is to be a fancy ball?" 
 
 " Well, my dear," replied Mr. Dobison apolo- 
 getically, " I thought — that turban — looked — 
 rather Turkish and uncommon." 
 
 " Some men have no notion of style and taste; 
 though some husbands take a pride in seeing 
 their wives well dressed. But go, girls," added 
 their mamma, with an air of proud pity for the 
 ignorance of men in general, and Mr. Dobison 
 in particular, " Ann Jane is waiting for you, and 
 it will not do to hurry her." 
 
 Then Mrs. Dobison slowly and majestically 
 descended upon an ample ottoman, where she 
 proposed to remain, apart from the contact of 
 narrow arm chairs, that her dress might run no 
 risk of losing aught of its uncrumpled ampli- 
 tude. 
 
 The young ladies in due time, that is, m about 
 three hours, rejoined Mr. and Mrs. Dobison in 
 the drawing-room, and Ann Jane was pro- 
 nounced to have succeeded admirably in their 
 toilette.
 
 134 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 "I hope," observed Mrs. Dobison, after a 
 general and particular inspection of her daugh- 
 ters' costumes, " that Mr. Splinterbar will not 
 forget us. I desired the fly might be here to a 
 minute." 
 
 " Depend upon it, mamma, he will come, but 
 as it is the ball night, I dare say he has so much 
 to do he cannot be quite punctual. Our fly is 
 probably taking some other party to the ball-room 
 before us." 
 
 " Dear, dear, how it rains ! Take care girls," 
 said the anxious mother, " not to wet your san- 
 dals, mind your dresses do not touch the wheel, 
 and be sure not to slip as you get out. Oh ! I 
 hear a carriage coming. Now then. No, it has 
 gone past. There's another. Dear, how 
 crowded the ball will be ! All these carriages 
 are going to take up, I suppose. There's the 
 bell. Here is the fly at last. Now, girls, we 
 must not keep it waiting." 
 
 " Good night, papa," said Clementina and 
 Amelia. 
 
 " Good night, my dears; much enjoyment to
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 135 
 
 you," replied their worthy father, who much pre- 
 ferred entrusting his daughters to the ahle general- 
 ship of their energetic mamma, to conducting 
 them to the ball-room himself. 
 
 " To the Assembly Rooms," said Mrs. Dobison, 
 with an air of dignity, as she placed her foot on 
 the step of the cairiage. It yielded and swung 
 towards her, for hers was no feather weight, and 
 she was too much occupied in effecting an entrance 
 into the vehicle to notice the driver's smile, 
 which was rather on the increase as he slammed 
 the door to, shutting in a few inches of Miss 
 Dobison's flounce. The smile expanded into a 
 broad grin as he passed another fly, and the dri- 
 vers exchanged certain telegraphic gestures sug- 
 gestive of each other's freights and destinations, 
 and productive of increased risibility. 
 
 " Oh, dear," exclaimed Clementina, " I'm fast; 
 that horrid man has shut in my dress." 
 
 " Take care you don't — " but Mrs. Dobison's 
 warning suggestion was cut short by a sudden 
 jerk, which nearly displaced her turban.
 
 136 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " Good gracious!" she exclaimed, " we are in 
 the string now." 
 
 Almost before the words were scid, the door, 
 glass and all, was thrown open, and the steps let 
 down with all the noise usual on such occasions. 
 
 " Good gracious," repeated the lady, becoming 
 considerably agitated, " are we at the Assembly 
 Rooms?" 
 
 " Yes, mum," said a strange voice at the door. 
 
 " Oh, dear ! then we must get out." 
 
 " Yes, mum," repeated the same voice, in the 
 same short tone. 
 
 Mrs. Dobison suited her action to the word, and 
 trod so heavily upon the step, which, from long 
 service, had accquired an undue downward ten- 
 dency, that, had it not been for the fortunate 
 intervention of the owner of the quick mysterious 
 voice, her scarlet turban would, like that of some 
 unbelieving Moslem, vanquished by a stalwart 
 Crusader — have rolled in the mire. 
 
 u I say, Bill," said a little vulgar boy, who 
 was watching the exit, to his companion, " run
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 137 
 
 for the fire ingine ; her chimney top's a fire ; see 
 how red it is." 
 
 Amelia followed closely, and Mrs.Dobison, in a 
 state of flurry and agitation, I do not say, sailed, 
 which is, I believe, the approved expression, but 
 pitched and rolled into the ante-room, shaking 
 out the folds of her ample sea-green dress on each 
 side, like paddle-vexed waves. To continue the 
 metaphor, she dropped anchor in the cloak room, 
 and, turning round, then only discovered that one 
 of her daughters was missing. 
 
 " Where's Clementina?" she exclaimed. " Oh ! 
 here she comes." 
 
 That young lady had endeavoured to follow in 
 the wake of the maternal convoy, but, as we are 
 aware, her rigging was fast in the fly door. With 
 dismay, she saw her mother and sister disappear, 
 vociferating meanwhile, like the caged starling, 
 " I can't get out, I can't get out." But the use- 
 ful functionary who saved Mrs. Dobison and her 
 turban from an ignominious fall, saw her distress, 
 and, slipping round, knight-like, set free the im- 
 prisoned damsel.
 
 138 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " My eye, Bill, she's a vopper," said the little 
 vulgar boy, at the same time bringing his dirty 
 thumb in contact with his little snub nose, 
 thereby, with the assistance of his digits, accom- 
 plishing that gesture which is technically termed 
 "taking a sight." 
 
 "What time, if you please, Miss?" asked the 
 driver of the fly. 
 
 But Miss Dobison was far too anxious to re- 
 join her mother, to heed any remarks, or answer 
 any questions, and rushed frantically forward 
 along the passage. 
 
 The meeting being effected, and the sisters 
 having looked each other over, the three ladies 
 prepared to make their appearance in the ball- 
 room, whence, greatly to their surprise, there 
 issued neither the swell of music, nor the mea- 
 sured tread of feet, nor the sound of voices. 
 
 Leaving the explanation of this silence to time, 
 they passed out of the cloak-room, and entered 
 the ball-room. 
 
 "Good gracious, girls! why, there's nobody 
 here," exclaimed Mrs. Dobison, pulling up short, 
 like a jibbing horse.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 139 
 
 So it was : the room long and spacious, looked 
 interminable in its desertion, while, in the gal- 
 lery, the members of a very scanty orchestra 
 leaned listlessly over their music stands, not 
 caring to waste one note of their idle instruments 
 on the untrodden floor and empty benches. 
 
 At the farthest end of the room, pacing cross- 
 wise, with hat in hand, " alone in his glory," 
 was, as the medal suspended from his neck by 
 the broad blue silk ribbon indicated, the master 
 of the ceremonies. 
 
 Seeing the three ladies enter, he instantly 
 came forward, getting up, during his transit, the 
 blandest of smiles, and terminating his journey 
 with the most faultless of bows. 
 
 " I greatly fear, Mrs. Dobison," he commenced, 
 " that your young ladies will be disappointed of 
 their dancing to-night." 
 
 u You don't say so," replied the lady; "we 
 expected to have found the ball-room quite 
 crowded." 
 
 a Unfortunately," resumed the M. C, " to 
 night has been fixed upon for Lady Tearaway's
 
 140 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 fancy ball. Her ladyship's ball will, I fear, have 
 more attractions than our more humble meeting. 
 But here is another party ; though alas ! " he 
 added, with a compassionate glance at the Miss 
 Dobisons, " there are as yet no beaux." 
 
 Presently a tall thin young gentleman made 
 his appearance, and the young ladies began to 
 hope that as, according to the very trite verse — 
 " Coming events cast their shadows before," — 
 so this very shadowy young gentleman might be 
 the avant courier of something more substantial. 
 
 He tarried awhile in the vicinity of the en- 
 trance, looking anything but happy ; then, deem- 
 ing it, no doubt, utterly impossible to smoothe 
 his white kid gloves any further on his fingers, 
 took heart, and launched himself forth to the 
 wide expanse of waxed floor. His voyage across 
 being safely accomplished, he remained moored 
 upon a bench at the other side of the room for 
 some time, but looking, and probably feeling shy 
 and awkward, he slid noiselessly back again, and, 
 like a ghost vanishing from the stage, disap- 
 peared from the eyes of the spectators.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 141 
 
 With his defection the hopes of the company 
 sank still lower; and at length the master of the 
 ceremonies, watch in hand, made the circuit of 
 the room, and delicately insinuated to the disap- 
 pointed Dobisons, and the other eight or ten 
 ladies who were dotted here and there, like gulls 
 on a creek, that it was altogether a hopeless case, 
 and that there was no chance of any dancing 
 that night : but he trusted that they should meet 
 again, and be more fortunate on a future occa- 
 sion. Thus throwing as much sympathy and 
 consolation as was possible into his parting 
 speech and farewell bow, the M.C. secretly re- 
 joicing to be relieved from the unpleasant task 
 of catering for the amusement of a few chance 
 coiners, took his departure, and pocketing the 
 insignia of his office on his way out, hailed a 
 fly, and shortly afterwards made his appearance, 
 all smiles and satisfaction, in the crowded rooms 
 of Lady Tearaway. 
 
 Deceived, disappointed, and depressed, the 
 Dobisons slowly retreated from the ball-room. 
 
 The presiding nymph of the cloak depart-
 
 142 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 ment, while handing to the ladies their shawls 
 and handkerchiefs, reiterated the master of the 
 ceremonies' words of sympathy and hope; but 
 Mrs. Dobison's feelings had received too severe 
 a shock for consolation, and her only remark 
 was the question, "How were they to get home?" 
 
 " Allow me to call a fly for you," said the 
 polite young woman, who was herself going out 
 to join a select tea-party, and she tripped off on 
 her charitable errand. 
 
 The Dobisons, meanwhile, stood cloaked and 
 ready, but as yet silent, for their confused per- 
 ceptions had not taken a definite and communi- 
 cative form. They merely looked at each 
 other, and noted, with the ardent feelings of 
 soldiers who with their accoutrements unstained, 
 their arms undimmed, have wasted their time in 
 indolence, that no flounce was tumbled, no bou- 
 quet crushed, but " they spoke not a word of 
 sorrow." 
 
 u There is a fly at the door, ladies," said the 
 disinterested young woman, who was going out 
 to tea and cards.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 143 
 
 This was the signal for their final evacua- 
 tion of the deserted room. And the trio once 
 more found themselves in motion, and were 
 quickly deposited at their own house door. 
 
 Mr. Dobison, in the gratified and amiable 
 belief that his wife and daughters were com- 
 mencing an evening of unbounded pleasure, and, 
 it might be, of important results affecting the 
 destinies of the latter, had heard the carriage 
 wheels roll from his door, and for a while he 
 indulged in a sort of dreamy speculative state 
 of mind. His visions, however, did not resolve 
 themselves into anything very clear; and being 
 a man, from character and habit, more addicted 
 to the real than to the imaginative his thoughts 
 quickly descended from the realms of fancy, 
 and taking up the " Commercial Gazette and 
 Mercantile Chronicle" — even yet his vade 
 mecum, he ensconsed himself comfortably in an 
 easy chair, and devoted himself to a more con- 
 genial occupation. 
 
 His first employment was a careful perusal of 
 the various commercial reports at home and
 
 144 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 abroad. There he saw cotton mentioned as 
 "ruling heavy," "lead with an upward ten- 
 dency," " spelter very lively," " tin plates rather 
 dull." He then became duly impressed with the 
 extraordinary announcement from the Indian 
 market that, while " pale ale meets with no en- 
 quiry," empty bottles are in great request;" and 
 observed that, although " quicksilver was dull," 
 yet that "one hundred and fifty bags of salt- 
 petre had gone off with spirit;" and that though 
 " Turkey red yarns were languid," that " Scotch 
 pig iron was very firm." 
 
 He then turned to the bulletin of the health 
 of the patients in that interesting hospital, the 
 " money market." There he read that " money 
 was rather tighter," the "stocks were feverish 
 and uneasy," and "quotations rather weaker:" 
 anything but a hopeful report. 
 
 " Dear me," quoth the worthy man to himself, 
 " money was generally easier last week, though, 
 to be sure, I did see that the market had had 
 a slight collapse." 
 
 Then he put the newspaper on his knees, and
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 145 
 
 gave himself up to a mental recapitulation and 
 synthesis of the various pieces of information 
 which he had noticed. 
 
 He had just come to the conclusion that the 
 state of affairs in general was much the same as 
 it had been of late, when he heard the noise of 
 a carriage stopping at his door, followed by a 
 peal from the ring-bell, which seemed to convey 
 from the ringer the conviction of his perfect 
 right of entry. 
 
 "It must be a mistake," thought he; "they 
 cannot be back already;" and he sat upright, 
 listening like a hare with pricked ears. 
 
 The mystery was soon solved. The door of 
 the drawing-room flew open, and Mrs. Dobison, 
 no longer the stiff and stately, but the excited 
 and undignified, burst into the room. 
 
 "Bless me!" said the astonished husband, 
 "what is the matter?" 
 
 " Matter enough, Mr. Dobison !" exclaimed his 
 lady ; " I'll not stay here any longer. There's 
 no ball — no ball ! is that not matter enough ?" 
 
 VOL I. H
 
 146 HIDDEN LIKKS; OR, 
 
 And she sat down on the sofa with a violence that 
 made the patent springs shrink together and 
 jingle in commotion. 
 
 " No ball, my dear ! What, have you mis- 
 taken the night?" 
 
 " Not a bit of it. But it's a shame and a 
 scandal. There's that horrid Lady Bounce- 
 away — " 
 
 " Tearaway, mamma," said Amelia. 
 
 " Well, Tearaway — and I wish she would tear 
 herself away," added Mrs. Dobison with bitter 
 pleasantry. " She has an absurd fancy ball to- 
 night, as if she couldn't choose any other of the 
 three hundred and sixty-five nights in the year 
 for it, but must fix it for to-night, just to spoil 
 the amusement of quiet, sensible people, who 
 don't care to dress themselves up like mounte- 
 banks and morris dancers;" and Mrs. Dobison 
 rose up like a tragedy queen multiplied by two, 
 and made the circuit of the room with quick and 
 indignant step. 
 
 " Don't you think it was too bad, papa?" said 
 Amelia.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 147 
 
 u And was there no one there at all?" asked 
 the individual appealed to. 
 
 " Yes," answered Clementina, " there was the 
 Master of the Ceremonies, quite ready, with his 
 badge and blue ribbon." 
 
 " And a gentlemanly young man in black," 
 added Amelia, " but he did not stay long." 
 
 " And a lady with four daughters," wound up 
 Mrs. Dobison, emphasizing the "four," and 
 showing now, as then, how her kind heart sympa- 
 thized with one so blessed. u I got into conversa- 
 tion with her, and she said if she were a man — a 
 man, Mr. Dobison — she would write to all the 
 newspapers about it, and show Lady Tearaway 
 up." 
 
 " It is really unfortunate," said Mr. Dobison, 
 not relishing the inuendo conveyed by the last 
 speech, " and I am very sorry, indeed ; but it 
 won't be the last ball: when will there be 
 another?" 
 
 44 Nonsense, another," said Mrs. Dobison, firing 
 up again; "that's just what the cloak- woman 
 said, and I'm sure I saw her laughing, though 
 h2
 
 148 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 she pretended to be mighty civil, and quite sorry 
 for our disappointment. Another, indeed ! why, 
 we've been here nearly a month, and what for? 
 What for, Mr. Dobison? But men are so selfish. 
 As long as you get your newspaper, and your 
 arm chair, and your port, you don't care for 
 anything." 
 
 " I am sure, my dear, it wasn't I who pro- 
 posed coming here," mildly observed the head of 
 the family. 
 
 " Well, it's no use talking about such things," 
 resumed the excited matron ; " men don't care 
 about them, and one can't expect them to under- 
 stand a mother's feelings. So, girls, we may as 
 well go to bed." 
 
 In this agitated state of her maternal emo- 
 tions, Mrs. Dobison led the way out of the room, 
 followed by her daughters, who forthwith pro- 
 ceeded, while divesting themselves of their finery 
 — alas! fresh and untumbled — to detail their 
 griefs and grievances to Ann Jane. 
 
 Mr. Dobison remained later than usual that 
 night in the drawing-room.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 149 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Self fluttered, inexperienced, high in hope, 
 
 When young, with sanguine cheer, and streamers gay 
 
 We cut our cahle, launch into the world, 
 
 And fondly dream each wind and star our friend. 
 
 Young. 
 
 Now is the woodcock near the gin. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 It is time we should return to Fred Courtenay 
 and Harry Montague. They had been travelling 
 about to their heart's content, and, in addition to 
 much enjoyment, to the acquisition of as much 
 information as tourists are wont to come 
 home with, or rather more, as well as to the very 
 great profit of postmasters, hotel keepers, valets 
 de place, guides, et hoc genus omne, who flatter,
 
 150 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 cajole, cheat, and laugh at Milor Anglais. More- 
 over, they seemed to have understood and prac- 
 tised the celebrated American clockmaker's coun- 
 sel, for, as Mr. Slick observes, "grumblm* spiles 
 the relish, and hurts the digestion." 
 
 One circumstance, however, had grieved Fred 
 extremely. On calling one day at the Poste 
 restante, after an excursion in a wild and unfre- 
 quented district, among the letters which had 
 been couchant in their pigeon hole for some time 
 was one, the large black seal of which immediately 
 attracted Courtenay's notice. It contained the 
 intelligence of the death of his guardian, and, 
 though Fred considered the event as one calling 
 for his most sincere sorrow, a person less self- 
 satisfied would have also bewailed it as entailing 
 in addition, the loss of a true and trusty pilot. 
 
 The friends had made a very extensive tour, 
 but the greatest portion of their time had 
 been spent in the sunny lands of poetry, 
 romance, and chivalry, where Petrarch loved, 
 where the Troubadours had sung, and where the 
 Cid had fought and conquered.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 151 
 
 They were strolling one day, during their* stay 
 in Paris, along the Boulevard des Italiens, when, 
 most unexpectedly, they encountered their old 
 schoolfellow, Dermod O'Neill. He also had a com- 
 panion, whom he introduced to his two friends, 
 and they all agreed to dine together. 
 
 Captain Brown, Dermod's acquaintance, think- 
 ing, perhaps, that the three schoolfellows might 
 prefer being left to themselves, volunteered to 
 order dinner, and presently took leave of them. 
 
 However grandly young men may deport them- 
 selves in public, they generally drop the buskin 
 in their own society, and pleasantly and unaffec- 
 tedly recur to the scenes and days when it was 
 not thought incumbent in them to act a part. 
 
 Even Fred became a boy again, and the three 
 schoolmates, naturally enough, recalled many 
 events which had happened before they were 
 separated. 
 
 After many an allusion to their College frays 
 and freaks, and many a hearty laugh, they pro- 
 ceeded to a restaurant, and, though they did not 
 practise the fashionable folly of want of punc-
 
 152 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 totality they found Captain Brown waiting for 
 them. 
 
 " I hope," said he, " that you will find that I 
 have catered successfully for you." 
 
 Although Captain Brown disclaimed being a 
 gourmet, the dinner was recherche and excellent. 
 The spirits of the young men rose, their conver- 
 sation was unaffected, and the gallant Captain 
 made himself remarkably pleasant, mentioning 
 many interesting and humorous anecdotes respect- 
 ing those who were now figuring in the society of 
 Paris. He usually gave his authority for these 
 details, " such as the Duke of Broadacres," 
 " my friend Jack Hottentot — Lord Capetown 
 now — who is travelling in Egypt," " Lady Pal- 
 melle Pedaque, who is going to winter in Rome," 
 " Baron Van Hittharde, who has gone to Califor- 
 nia," and so on ; but, with the exception of a 
 Madame Cotillon, it was rather singular that 
 none of his friends were in Paris that season. 
 
 They passed the evening at one of the theatres, 
 when they separated, all rejoicing at their unex- 
 pected meeting in the morning.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 153 
 
 Capt Brown and O'Neill departed arm in arm. 
 
 " Well, O'Neill," said the former, " have you 
 heard from Iveragh?" 
 
 "No, indeed, I have not; and I can assure 
 you I had not much left in my purse after our 
 reckoning to-day was paid. You ordered a 
 confoundedly expensive dinner." 
 
 " And a very good one — I did so on purpose. 
 Those young fellows will want me to do so again 
 some of these days. Your friend Sir Frederick 
 is rich, isn't he?" 
 
 M Twelve thousand a-year in land, besides 
 a good deal of ready money. I've taken his 
 measure pretty correctly you may depend." 
 
 " I like him better than his companion. He 
 talks and drinks twice as much." 
 
 " Montague is a plaguey steady fellow, " re- 
 plied Dermod. " Fred will not break loose as 
 long as Montague is at his elbow. But I suspect 
 they are both tolerably green." 
 
 " So I should think." 
 
 " They seem to have been passing the last two 
 years in picture galleries and cathedrals." 
 
 h 5
 
 154 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " And no courier has ever ridden more miles 
 in his vocation than they have travelled, in 
 search of the picturesque.' 7 
 
 "But can't you get them separated, Dermod? 
 Montague has no money, has he?" 
 
 " Not he ; he's only a younger brother, and 
 his father is alive. He is going to be a bar- 
 rister." 
 
 " He'll not suit us, Dermod, my boy," said the 
 Captain. 
 
 They went on discoursing in the same confi- 
 dential manner a considerable time, so long that 
 it might have been supposed that they had 
 apartments there. 
 
 At length they came out into the street, 
 O'Neill looking rather flushed and excited. 
 
 " Well, Brown, you've made a good thing of 
 it to-night," said he. 
 
 " Yes," replied the Captain, " but I ought to 
 have left off half-an-hour sooner. I think you 
 also will be able to pay for another dinner at the 
 Trois Freres with your two acquaintances, even if
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 155 
 
 the remittance from Iveragh does not come for a 
 week or two. Good night." 
 
 14 Good night, Captain." 
 
 Time passed pleasantly enough. The three 
 friends were constantly together, and Courtenay 
 and Montague also saw a good deal of their new 
 
 acquaintance, Captain Brown. 
 
 # * # * 
 
 "Fred," said Montague, one morning, U I have 
 had a reminder that I am only here on suffer- 
 ance. This letter from my father bids me re- 
 member that I have to make my way in the 
 world, and that I have only interrupted, not 
 relinquished my studies. I am afraid we must 
 say good bye to each other, and that as soon as 
 possible. Eead the letter." 
 
 "After this," said Courtenay, "I cannot press 
 you to remain, sorry as I am that the pleasant 
 time we have spent together has come to an 
 end." 
 
 u The sooner I am off the better. I will 
 leave to-morrow." 
 
 44 1 shall not miss you quite as much as I
 
 156 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 I should have done if Dermod had not been 
 here," said Courtenay. "But do you remark 
 how grave and silent he has become? He never 
 was very lively, but now he looks as if he had 
 the cares of a nation upon him." 
 
 " He looks ten years older than he is." 
 
 "I suspect he frets about his father's affairs. 
 It gave me much pleasure to have the opportu- 
 nity of making him a present the other day." 
 
 u His acquaintance, Captain Brown, makes 
 up for Dermod's silence and reserve. They 
 came from London together." 
 
 u Yes, there is some indefinite degree of 
 cousinship between them, I think." 
 
 "His stories are rather in the Baron Mun- 
 chausen style," remarked Montague; "and I 
 think both these and his language would be im- 
 proved by being a little more disguised, to use 
 no stronger term." 
 
 "Oh! there's no harm in him, depend upon 
 it," said Courtenay, gaily. "I like him: he's 
 capital fun." 
 
 The following day Montague left Paris.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 157 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Man is to man all kinds of beasts ; — a fawning dog, a 
 
 thieving fox, a robbing wolf, a dissembling crocodile, a 
 
 treacherous decoy, and a rapacious vulture. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 Valere — A gamester's hand is the philosopher's stone 
 that turns all it touches into gold. 
 
 Hector — And go'd into nothing. 
 
 Mrs. Curtliver. 
 
 O, woman lovely ! woman fair ! 
 An angel form's fall'n to thy share, 
 T'wad been o'er meikle to gie thee mair ; 
 I mean an angel mind. 
 
 Burns. 
 
 There was given by Madame Cotillon, on a cer- 
 tain night, a very brilliant party. 
 
 Her friend, Captain Brown, introduced 
 Courtenay to her, and the consequence was that
 
 158 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 the young Baronet was presented with the free- 
 dom of her house in the shape of a highly-scented 
 billet, which conveyed her request to him to 
 be one of her guests that evening. 
 
 " Do you go to Madame Cotillon's to-night," 
 said Fred to young Glenville, one of the attaches 
 to the English embassy. 
 
 " No," replied the other with a smile, " I am 
 engaged to attend a party given by the old Com- 
 tesse de Grenouille, in the Faubourg St. Ger- 
 main." 
 
 There were several very ill-natured things said 
 about Madame Cotillon. Some among the 
 starched and tight-laced had routed out some 
 libel about her, from the scandalous chronicles of 
 Paris, which, of course, ought to have been sup- 
 pressed long before. But everybody knows how 
 much truth there is in a ream of such records ; 
 and, even if there had been the slightest founda- 
 tion for the aspersion, it ought, in charity, long 
 since to have been forgotten. Besides she was 
 a widow (a very pretty widow, too), and, as 
 such, ought to have met with respect and con-
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 159 
 
 sideration. Then, again, there were some 
 reports — equally false, of course — that there 
 had been some high play in her apartments, and 
 some spiteful people went so far as to say, that 
 after that sad business which ended in poor 
 Fitzgerald's suicide, her house was under the 
 surveillance of the police. How could people be 
 so censorious and uncharitable. 
 
 Fred had heard these rumours about the fair 
 widow; — but what had he to do with such non- 
 sense ? 
 
 So he went to her party that night : and a 
 very gay and sparkling affair it was; and I 
 would engage that the stiff and stately reception 
 of the Comtessa de Grenouille, in her aristocratic 
 and stupid quartier, was not to be compared 
 with it. 
 
 Perhaps I might also venture to suspect that 
 the merry sons and daughters of those clear- 
 starched mamas, who tossed their heads at the 
 pleasant laughing widow, would have very gladly 
 left the Comtessa's sombre salons for Madam 
 Cotillon's gilded and lightsome apartment.
 
 160 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Her music was excellent, her refreshments 
 unexceptionable, her rooms spacious and conve- 
 nient, and lighted with a brilliancy for which 
 our neighbours are unrivalled. 
 
 Fred was rather surprised that he was acquainted 
 with so few of her guests, but even he was not vain 
 enough to think that he already knew all Paris, 
 and, therefore, he supposed that he had got 
 among a fresh "set." 
 
 Among others, was a very clever, witty, and ori- 
 ginal writer of romances. He had several in hand, 
 as might be seen on reference to the feuilletons 
 in the cafes; and, when Courtenay entered the 
 room, Madame Cotillon was joking with him about 
 some awkward adventure which one of his hero- 
 ines had got into. But, with a laugh, she left 
 him, and graciously welcomed Fred. 
 
 There was also present an English lady, re- 
 ported to be very rich, with her two daughters, Ar- 
 rived, it was whispered, some said, direct from 
 Liverpool, some said from Wigan, or Leeds, or 
 Birmingham ; her dress, a sea-green velvet and 

 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 161 
 
 crimson turban — no other, in fact, than our 
 friend Mrs. Dobison. 
 
 By what stroke of diplomacy she had received 
 the entree of Madame Cotillon's apartments, or 
 what motive the gay widow had in receiving 
 her, I am unable to chronicle; but there she 
 was, and there, too, were her fair daughters. 
 
 As soon as she heard the name of Sir Frederick 
 Courtenay, she determined to procure a special 
 introduction to him of herself and daughters. 
 This she soon effected in reference to herself and 
 Clementina, and she attempted to keep him in 
 close conversation until Amelia should have 
 finished her dance. 
 
 With this view, she commenced detailing to 
 Courtenay some of the many misfortunes and 
 perplexities which her ignorance of the lan- 
 guage of the country had brought upon her, 
 since her arrival on the continent. "Keally, 
 Sir Frederick," she exclaimed, pathetically, " it 
 is so unpleasant : they would not even under- 
 stand, the other day, that I wanted a plain
 
 162 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 boiled egg. Who would dream of such a phrase 
 as — as — dear me, if I haven't forgotten it again." 
 
 "(Eufsa la coque" suggested Sir Frederick. 
 
 " To he sure: how stupid of me. But how 
 odd it is that they should make their cocks fe- 
 minine! I know that is the feminine article. 
 Clementina showed it to me in the grammar." 
 
 Mrs. Dobison's philological observation drove 
 Sir Frederick abrubtly from her presence. He 
 passed through some rooms where several more 
 than one parti carre was engaged in sober 
 silence at whist : but he could discern nothing, 
 either in the manner of the players, or the 
 amount of the stakes, to warrant the imputa- 
 tion he had heard against the character of the 
 widow's apartments. No: he saw a few Napo- 
 leons changing hands ; sometimes even less. Why 
 should he suppose that any deception was prac- 
 tised, any more than he would expect a fifty 
 pound match on a race course to be for a thou- 
 sand, or vice versd ? 
 
 " Ah ! Sir Frederick," said Captain Brown, 
 meeting him accidentally in one of the inner
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 163 
 
 rooms, " how do you do ! — been here long? — met 
 many acquaintances?" 
 
 11 No, indeed, I have not." 
 
 " Then let me introduce you to two or three 
 friends of mine." 
 
 The Captain immediately took Fred up to 
 some gentlemen who were looking on at one of 
 the card tables— Captain Tiffin, of the H.E.I.C.S. 
 — Sir James Long Hardup — Mr. Handicap, the 
 owner of the celebrated race horse Hocus Pocus ; 
 and then, passing into the principal room, did 
 him the same good service there; and, during 
 the evening, he asked Courtenay to give him the 
 pleasure of his company at dinner, the following 
 day, to meet a few of the gentlemen whose 
 acquaintance he had made that night . 
 
 Fred went home with the innocent conviction 
 that the reports he had heard of Madame 
 Cotillon were only the inventions of ill-natured 
 scandal-mongers, and that the widow was a very 
 ill-used woman. 
 
 It is needless to detail the events which 
 occurred at Captain Brown's dinner party, in
 
 164 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 his comfortable, snug, unpretending apartment, 
 where books, papers, a review or two, and a port- 
 folio of well-selected prints, spoke of his pursuits, 
 and proclaimed the man of literature and infor- 
 mation. 
 
 Nor is it necessary that Sir James Long 
 Hardup, or Captain Tiffin, or any other of the 
 party should here sit for their portraits — all was 
 good fellowship, good humour, simplicity, and 
 "hypocrisy," adds the reader. 
 
 Alas ! it is true. Fred Courtenay has " fallen 
 among thieves," — and Dermod, his schoolmate, 
 has been the decoy. It is a trite and every day 
 occurrence, the ruin of a young man of fortune 
 — the plucking of the pigeon, and there is little 
 variety in the practice; for as long as birds are 
 birds, grain must be thrown to lure them ; — as 
 long as fish are fish, they will not take a hook 
 without a bait on it; — and as long as human 
 pigeons exist, so long will they require a little 
 solid corn to tempt them fairly within the trap. 
 
 I forbear, therefore, to repeat the sad record 
 which we have all heard of or read, or sorrowed
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 165 
 
 over a hundred times, or watch the sad and 
 quickening progress of one who, step by step, 
 was to become a duped yet devoted gambler. 
 
 It was a few days after Captain Brown's din- 
 ner party that Courtenay met Captain Tiffin. 
 
 " I think, Sir Frederick," said the latter, after a 
 cordial greeting, " that you are fond of smoking : 
 let me offer you a cigar. This reminds me of 
 my promise to take you to the best cigar shop in 
 Paris, c a la belle Indienne 1 as it is called. Are 
 you disengaged now." 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 " Then shall we stroll so far? It is only in the 
 Kue St. ." 
 
 " With all my heart." 
 
 Let me proffer the same request to my reader, 
 and let us precede Sir Frederick and Captain 
 Tiffin. 
 
 The shop in question presented a frontage very 
 mean in comparison with that of some of its 
 gaudy neighbours. As is the case where to- 
 bacco, or what ought to be tobacco, forms the 
 staple commodity, this shop was redolent of the
 
 166 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 leaf in every variety and duration of fragrance. 
 From it there was an exit into two or three 
 plainly furnished rooms, which were appropriated 
 to the use of those who came there to enjoy their 
 narcotic amusement. Above stairs, the apart- 
 ments were neatly and tastefully decorated. The 
 shop just now is left to the care of a sharp, cun- 
 ning lad — such youths are not unfrequently seen 
 dispensing cigars and latakia, and their wits be- 
 come keen from being " chaffed" by the fast 
 young gentlemen whom they are in the habit of 
 serving. 
 
 The owner of it — a widow — and her daughter, 
 are in one of the apartments up stairs. 
 
 Mrs. Werther — a singularly unfortunate name 
 for French tongues — was the widow of one who 
 had held a civil appointment in one of the West 
 Indian Islands, and had fallen a victim to an 
 attack of yellow fever, leaving his wife and 
 daughter almost wholly unprovided for. 
 
 I know not why she preferred the French capi- 
 tal to her native country, but, on leaving the 
 West Indies, soon after her husband's death, Mrs.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 167 
 
 Werther settled in Paris, opening a shop for the 
 sale of that article of which she had acquired a 
 knowledge in the country where it is produced ; 
 and, in a little time, the superiority of her mer- 
 chandise, aided, perhaps, by the rumour of the 
 surpassing beauty of her daughter, attracted many 
 customers. 
 
 She herself was still handsome. Her stature 
 — exceeding the average — was striking and com- 
 manding ; her dark eyes were brilliant, her fea- 
 tures were large, and the whole expression of her 
 countenance was imposing though somewhat 
 forbiding. 
 
 Beatrix, her daughter — or, as she was always 
 called, Beatrice — was formed after the same model 
 as her mother, but was less in height, and all her 
 features were more delicate and softened. Per- 
 haps, too, the tropical climate, where she had 
 been born and passed her childhood had tinged her 
 cheek with a darker dye. As a brunette, she 
 was faultless, and well deserved the appellation — 
 by which also her mother's shop was distinguished 
 — of " la belle Indienne."
 
 168 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 The mother and daughter are seated together. 
 The latter has a note in her hand which she has 
 just opened. 
 
 " Look here, mother," she says ; "ami not a 
 pattern of filial duty and confidence? That young 
 coxcomb at the Embassy, Mr. Augustus Tender- 
 hart, is beginning to pester me with his effusions, 
 — a mere boy, and yet he talks of c unalterable 
 affection,' and says l he never felt his heart so 
 completely besieged' — ha ! ha ! Why he cannot 
 have had a month's experience since he left school. 
 I tell you what, mother; I'll marry Sir Harry 
 Sinclair's son, if it is only to get rid of such pup- 
 pies as the writer of this precious production. 
 Bah ! " throwing it into the fire, " how it smells of 
 scent ! I would rather have the fumes of the shop 
 down stairs." 
 
 " You will not marry Sir Harry Sinclair's son, 
 Beatrice," replied her mother. 
 
 " Why not? You know I have only to say the 
 word. The least encouragement will bring him 
 to my feet again." 
 
 "Nonsense, child. You would believe any- 
 thing an artful tongue would tell you."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 169 
 
 " I do not see what objection you can have to 
 Mr. Sinclair. He will, no doubt, return to Paris, 
 for he was only advised to stay in the South a 
 short time." 
 
 " You seem very well acquainted with his plans. 
 However, it matters not what my objections are ; 
 it would be reason enough that he is far too much 
 above you in rank." 
 
 " Why should I not raise myself if I can, 
 mother." 
 
 " You know, Beatrice, as well as I do, that you 
 do not care for him any more than he really does 
 for you. I know, moreover, that there was not 
 a greater roui in Paris, and it was quite time 
 that he should leave, for neither his debts nor his 
 health would have allowed him to remain here 
 much longer." 
 
 " I dare say he was not a bit more extrava- 
 gant than other young men of rank and fortune. 7 
 
 "I assure you, Beatrice, I am sometimes 
 tempted to close the shop, and go away to some 
 quiet place, St. Omer, or Dunkirk, or Heildel- 
 berg, for your head is turned with all the non- 
 
 VOL I. I
 
 170 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 sense you hear. If you talk of marrying, there 
 was Mr. Ploddington — " 
 
 " What ! a clerk in a bank ! an automaton ! 
 a calculating machine ! a drudge, that has to work 
 I don't know how many hours a-day, leaving his 
 wife to darn his worsted stockings in a room, au 
 septieme, with nothing in it but two or three 
 wooden chairs and a table; or, for a pleasant 
 variety, to prepare the pot-au-feu for his dinner ! 
 Marry Mr. Ploddington ! I like the notion. How 
 well I should look with a saucepan in one hand 
 and an iron spoon in the other. No, no, I'm not 
 going to marry any of your good, respectable, 
 worthy hard-working clerks." 
 
 There is the sound of a small bell. 
 
 " There is that shop bell again," says Mrs. 
 Werther; "I suppose the shop is filled with the 
 vauriens and do-nothings of Paris, whose sole 
 occupation is to smoke cigars, admire themselves, 
 and talk nonsense to such pretty fools as you are." 
 
 " Shall I go down to the shop, mother?" 
 
 " I wonder you are not too proud to show your- 
 self behind a counter."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 171 
 
 u My curiosity is greater than my pride just 
 now, and I want to see who may be added to the 
 old habitues of the shop, for they say Paris is 
 filling fast, and that there will be an excellent 
 season. Shall go?" 
 
 "No, child: I must try to take care of you, 
 if you cannot, or will not, take care of yourself." 
 The boy had rung the bell to intimate the ar- 
 rival of more customers than he was able to at- 
 tend to. 
 
 Among them, were Courtenay and Captain 
 Tiffin. 
 
 It so happened that some one came to the 
 private door of the house immediately after Mrs. 
 Werther had left her daughter, and the latter 
 went down stairs to give her mother the message 
 which had been brought. She could not help 
 casting her eyes round the shop to see who of 
 the gay gallants of Paris were occupying it, but 
 a reproachful and angry glance from her mother 
 made her retire before Captain Tiffin had got 
 beyond the "Ah! Mademoiselle," of his intended 
 address. 
 
 I 2
 
 172 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 "By Jove, she's a splendid creature, isn't she, 
 Sir Frederick ?" whispered Tiffin. "But I sus- 
 pect she is pretty closely watched by that she- 
 dragon of a mother. Did you see the look she 
 gave her. She used to be in the shop con- 
 stantly, but I suspect she is caged above stairs 
 now, for she very seldom makes her appearance." 
 
 As Courtenay and Tiffin went out into the 
 street again, the latter raised his eyes to the 
 windows above the shop. "There she is, Sir 
 Frederick. What a shame to keep her mewed 
 up there all day." 
 
 "Who was that gentleman with Captain 
 Tiffin, mother?" asked Beatrice, when Mrs. 
 Werther returned to the room up stairs. "He 
 was a very good-looking man: an Englishman, I 
 should think." 
 
 "How should I know, child? Besides, what 
 is it to your 
 
 However, the wayward, wilful Beatrice found 
 out before very long that the good-looking 
 Englishman (who now came very often to the shop 
 to buy cigars) was Sir Frederick Courtenay,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 173 
 
 whose arrival at Hotel she had seen an- 
 nounced in the newspaper. 
 
 * # * * 
 
 The season was passing by, but its gaieties 
 had become of little interest to Courtenay, who, 
 when he did appear in society, was no longer no- 
 ticed as the joyous, light-hearted being he was a 
 few months before 
 
 No doubt the pigeon would, ere long, have 
 been completely plucked, to the full satisfaction 
 of Sir James Long Hardup, Captains Brown, 
 Tiffin, and Co., had not an event happened, 
 which, as the faithful compiler of a veracious 
 biography, I am bound to relate. 
 
 I shall, however, take leave to do so as rapidly 
 as I can ; nor adopt as my model the narratives 
 of the Proteus-like feuilletonist — Madame Co- 
 tillon's guest — who would have deemed the fol- 
 lowing incident in Fred's life an admirable op- 
 portunity for the display of his powers of detail.
 
 174 HIDDEN LINKS; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 11 Great Heaven ! how frail thy creature man is made ! 
 How hy himself insensibly betrayed!" Prior. 
 
 " Thou hast— 
 
 Stol'n the impression of her fantasy 
 With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gaws. conceits, 
 Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeat?, messengers 
 Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth : 
 "With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's her t, 
 Turn'd her obedience which is due to me, 
 To stubborn harshness." Shakspeare. 
 
 There had been a late but severe frost. 
 
 Courtenay was hurrying home one day, when, 
 
 at the corner of the Rue St. , he saw a lady 
 
 crossing from one side of it to the other. The 
 water-course in the centre of the Rue St.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 175 
 
 was frozen and partially covered by a sprinkling 
 of snow. 
 
 There was a carriage driving rapidly up the 
 street. As the lady attempted to cross before it, 
 her foot slipped on the ice, and she fell. Fred 
 sprang forward to save her from the danger of 
 being run over, and was in the act of lifting her 
 up, when the pole of the carriage, which the 
 horses were unable to stop struck him with 
 considerable force, and brought both him and his 
 charge to the ground. 
 
 The horses had been sufficiently checked to 
 prevent their advancing further, and no more 
 injury was done. Courtenay was able to rise, 
 though the effects of the blow made him stagger. 
 
 He then discovered that the person he had 
 sought to rescue from danger was Beatrice 
 Werther. 
 
 She was more frightened than hurt ; Fred was 
 much the greater sufferer. He insisted, however, 
 upon seeing her safe home : and it was well that 
 Mrs. Werther's abode was at no great distance, 
 for, before he reached it, he felt very faint ; and
 
 176 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 lie had barely heard the beautiful brunette detail 
 the circumstances of the accident to her mother, 
 with the warmest expressions of her gratitude 
 and thanks, than he saw the cigar boxes and 
 meerschaums multiplied around him, and, like a 
 host of glittering figurantes, performing infinite 
 varieties of pirouettes, entre-chats, cabrioles, and 
 many other strange saltatory movements, after 
 which the curtain seemed to drop on the per- 
 formance — for Fred, in plain words, had fainted. 
 
 When he came to himself, he found Mrs. Wer- 
 ther bathing his temples with vinegar, and her 
 daughter looking excessively frightened. He was 
 able, before long, to return home, though he felt 
 a good deal shaken. 
 
 La belle Indienne would, no doubt, have de- 
 served to catch the small pox, and lose her 
 beauty, if she had not been very grateful te 
 Courtenay for having rescued her from an 
 accident. She felt thankful to him; and even 
 the " she dragon," as Captain Tiffin had 
 called her mother, could hardly find fault with 
 her anxiety to learn that the ill effects of the
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 177 
 
 blow which Courtenay had received in her service 
 were passing away. 
 
 After this occurrence, Fred smoked even more 
 cigars than he had done before it (he always 
 bought them at Mrs. Werther's, they were so 
 very superior), an dhe seldom left the Rue St. — 
 without changing either a few words with the 
 dark beauty in the shop, or receiving a gracious 
 smile from her at the window up-stairs. 
 
 After a month or so, there were more than one 
 of Fred's notes in Beatrice's desk, the key of which 
 she would rather have died than have given up : 
 and a very pretty hoop of emeralds and opals, 
 and a very handsome bracelet which Courtenay 
 had taken a fancy to in the Palais Royal, had 
 
 found their way into the same little desk. 
 
 # * # * 
 
 A strange rumour was one day heard in the 
 Cafes of Paris, that La belle Indienne had broken 
 her cage and flown away, and the report went 
 still farther to announce that the gallant who had 
 lured the pretty bird from her home was Sir 
 Frederick Courtenay. The intelligence caused a 
 I 5
 
 178 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 considerable sensation among the fashionable 
 smokers of Paris ; and Captain Tiffin paid an early- 
 visit to the Rue St for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining the truth of the report. He found Mrs. 
 Werther's shop closed, and the blinds drawn down 
 in the windows up-stairs, as though a death had 
 occurred there. 
 
 Madame Rimolade, who lived just opposite, 
 and one of whose brioches the Captain purchased 
 as an excuse for going into her shop, informed 
 him that poor Madame Werther was ve-ry ve-ry 
 ill, that her naughty coquette of a daughter had 
 really departed with a vaurien, that the ungrate- 
 ful hussy had left a billet on the table — the first 
 thing poor Madame Werther saw when she came 
 down in the morning (how she could have had 
 theheart to write it, Madame Eimolade could not 
 imagine) ; and that the poor mother was quite 
 distracted, and her pitiable and terrifying, cries 
 could be heard in the street — and that she was 
 not left for an instant, for fear she should throw 
 herself out of the window. 
 
 All this, and more, Madame Rimolade detailed
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 179 
 
 to Captain Tiffin, on the authority of Madame 
 W either 1 sjitte de quartier. 
 
 To make all sure, Captain Tiffin went round 
 by Courtenay's hotel. He was there informed 
 that Fred was not in, nor was it known where he 
 was, but that he had not given up his rooms. 
 Very little doubt was left in the Captain's mind 
 of the entire truth of the report, and he returned 
 to Captain Brown's apartments, where O'Neill 
 also was. 
 
 "It is quite true," said he, as he entered. 
 
 " The d — 1 it is," exclaimed Captain Brown. 
 
 " Ay, the jade has left her mother, who has 
 gone raving mad." 
 
 " And the worst of it is," continued Brown, 
 " that we have not yet pumped Courtenay dry." 
 
 " What a horse leech you are, Brown," answered 
 Tiffin ; " I think we have bled him pretty freely." 
 
 " You my depend upon it," said O'Neill, 
 " Courtenay will be back again, before many 
 months. Fred cannot be constant to anything ; 
 he must have change."
 
 130 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " Confound it," said Tiffin, " the jade has 
 spoiled our game anyhow." 
 
 " It was you that introduced him to her. 
 Tiffin," said Captain Brown. 
 
 " We have to thank you for our loss." 
 
 " As for that," replied Tiffin, " he might have 
 heen off long ago if I had not thought of some 
 attraction for him. There's plenty of play to be 
 had in other places. Depend upon it, it was not 
 bad policy to give him something to think of, 
 beyond, our society. Have you any of his 
 I. 0. IPs, Brown?" 
 
 " Not one : he was the best pay I ever met. 
 He must have had plenty of ready money." 
 
 a I don't possess one, either," said Tiffin, " and 
 I'm not sorry for that, for, if I mistake not, he 
 has got an expensive companion now." 
 
 " I must find out where Courtenay is," said 
 O'Neill; "it will never do for me not to know 
 where to get my bills cashed." 
 
 " What do you mean, Dermod?" asked Cap- 
 tain Tiffin. " Is not the per centage we give you 
 on our winnings sufficient to satisfy you?"
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 181 
 
 " Have I not told you," replied O'Neill, " that 
 Courtenay made me promise to apply to him 
 whenever my purse ran low? And do you think 
 J am fool enough not to keep up the practice suffi- 
 ciently to prevent his thinking I have other re- 
 sources? I saved his life once — it was the luckiest 
 day of mine — and I am not going to let his gra- 
 titude die for the want of being exercised. So I 
 send him a note now and then to tell him I am 
 particularly hard up, or I show him my tailor's 
 bill, or complain of the high price of lodgings. 
 
 That's what I mean by getting my bills cashed." 
 * * # # 
 
 For some weeks, no one knew what had be- 
 come of Courtenay. At length, Dermod got a 
 letter from him, with the request that he would 
 make enquiries respecting Mrs. Werther, and let 
 him know how she had borne her daughter's de- 
 sertion of her maternal home. Fred desired 
 that the answer might be directed to him at a 
 small town in the Pyrenees, but begged Dermod 
 not to let any one know the address. 
 
 The letter was evidently written by Courtenay,
 
 182 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 in a state of great excitement, and it was very 
 short. 
 
 Dermod had the grace to comply with Fred's 
 request. He found that the effect upon Mrs. 
 Werther's mind had been so great, that, although 
 her constitution had rallied from the jfirst shock, 
 and from the fever which had succeeded, she con- 
 tinued violent and raving, and the probability 
 was that madness, incurable madness would be 
 the result of her daughter's flight. 
 
 These and other particulars j he transmitted to 
 Courtenay, who, in the hope that the evil had 
 been exaggerated, did not mention to the guilty 
 cause of it all the details which Dermod's letter 
 contained. 
 
 Fred wrote again immediately to O'Neill, send- 
 ing him a cheque, and begging him to get it 
 cashed, and to apply the money as he thought 
 best for Mrs. Werther's benefit. 
 
 O'Neill executed the commission at the bank, 
 but parted with only a portion of the sum, thinking 
 it was not prudent to give it all up at once; be- 
 sides, he was expecting a remittance from Ive-
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 183 
 
 ragh, and, therefore, he would keep the remain- 
 der of the money till his own arrived : it was very- 
 convenient f®r him just then to be his friend's 
 
 almoner. 
 
 # • # * 
 
 Some months passed ; no improvement in Mrs. 
 Werther's condition took place, and she was 
 transferred to one of those institutions provided 
 for such as have sustained that greatest of all 
 misfortunes, the loss of mind. 
 
 Thus, from the day when Captain Tiffin sought 
 to verify the disappearance of La belle Indienne by 
 applying to Madame Eimolade, the cigar shop was 
 open no more, and, at the sale of its contents, the 
 gallant Captain, whose financial affairs had been 
 latterly improving, laid in a considerable quan- 
 tity of the poor widow's regalias and cheroots, 
 " for it will be a long time," he observed, " before 
 I can meet with such first-rate merchandise; 
 indeed, I consider Mrs. Werther's retirement a 
 public calamity." 
 
 I promised that I would not delay long upon 
 this sad period of Courtenay's career.
 
 184 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 For a time, Fred strove to banish all re- 
 flection : perhaps, too, he rather prided himself 
 on the sensation he must have made among the 
 young men in Paris; still he was sincerely 
 grieved at the injury which Mrs. Werther had 
 sustained. Nor could even his infatuation 
 make him blind to the unfeeling manner in 
 which Beatrice received the intelligence of her 
 mother's illness, — even though she might not 
 fully understand how serious it was. The beau- 
 tiful creature did not hear the sad news with 
 indifference, but its effect was short-lived, and 
 did not make her less careful, when she 
 went out walking that her mantilla should 
 sit gracefully on her shoulders, and that her 
 bonnet strings should be without a crease. * 
 
 Gradually, Fred's better nature began to pre- 
 vail, and reason and reflection to have more 
 and more weight. The^ impression became by 
 degrees stronger on his mind, not only that 
 he had been guilty of a great crime, but 
 also that he had committed an egregrious folly- 
 He found that Beatrice possessed no embellish"
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 185 
 
 ments of mind and heart to match her extreme 
 personal beauty. Nature, prodigal of the latter, 
 had been churlish with the former; — a more 
 frivolous, uncertain, vain creature was never 
 formed. 
 
 The report of Courtenay's proceedings had 
 come, in time, to Montague's ears, and Harry 
 had written to him immediately, under cover to 
 O'Neill. The first reply which Courtenay made 
 to him was flippant, and made light of Harry's 
 sober earnestness. But Fred was not a hypo- 
 crite, and, when the cloud began to clear off his 
 reason and his conscience, he could not bear to 
 practise deceit towards his oldest friend; and, 
 rather than write what he did not feel, he let 
 Montague's letters lie unanswered, though they 
 
 were not unread. 
 
 # * # * 
 
 Courtenay passed the summer months among 
 the beautiful scenery of the Pyrenees, but the 
 thousand charms of that ever-changing region 
 had no delight, no interest for him. Fred was 
 too young in the ways of vice not to feel ill at
 
 186 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 ease and unhappy. He had been a few days at 
 Bagneres de Luchon, and his livelycompanion, 
 who had been rallying Fred upon his stupidity, 
 had prevailed upon him to accompany her upon 
 an excursion to the Port de Venasque. 
 
 The ascent of the mountain had been duly 
 accomplished, Fred had feigned a certain atten- 
 tion to the guide's patois, and had beheld the 
 snow-capped Maladetta and the untrodden gla- 
 cier — what occupied his thoughts? 
 
 No doubt Fred was more sensitive ("for sen- 
 sitive, read muffish," says my friend Prigge,) 
 than a great many of his gay acquaintances in 
 Paris and elsewhere would have been: already 
 sorrow and remorse were in his young heart ; and, 
 great as he knew would be the ridicule to which the 
 act would expose him, he was very seriously occu- 
 pied with the intention of making what amends he 
 could to both Mrs. Werther and her daughter. 
 "What! perpetrate matrimony!" says Prigge, 
 who thinks no more of an affaire de cceur (ex- 
 cept as a boast) than of cheating his tailor, or 
 "bilking" a turnpike. It might be a very fool-
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 187 
 
 ish and unusual meditation for a young man to 
 make, but such actually was Courtenay's as lie 
 stood in the midst of the magnificent works of 
 God ; such, in fact, had been the subject of his 
 thoughts for some weeks. Laugh, ye young 
 "men about town!" sneer, ye ancient heroes of 
 a hundred broken hearts and blasted reputations ! 
 Sir Frederick Courtenay had almost resolved to 
 marry Beatrice Werther, the tobacconist's 
 daughter ! She had felt for Courtenay as much 
 attachment, perhaps, as so fickle a heart as hers 
 was capable of; and it is but due to our vain 
 friend to say, that he was very likely to inspire 
 love and admiration. He was handsome, and 
 more than handsome, for his countenance was 
 expressive, and his manners engaging. La 
 belle Indienne had lived in such an atmosphere 
 of coquetry and self-esteem, vanity and frivolity, 
 adulation and deceit, that neither her mind nor 
 her heart were capable of receiving any very 
 deep impression ; but her, nature was such that 
 the impression, though faint and superficial,
 
 188 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 would never be lost, and, like characters written 
 in sympathetic ink, would be renewed by cir- 
 cumstances. Perhaps she needed that harsh 
 master, sorrow, to settle her unstable mind, and 
 fix the all too- fleeting emotions of her inconstant 
 heart. In after years, would not her earliest 
 memories be the strongest? They are not un- 
 frequently found to be so. 
 
 Courtenay and Beatrice were returning home 
 from their excursion, and had just passed that 
 part of the descent of the mountain where the 
 sudden, violent gusts of wind which so frequently 
 occur have given rise to the proverb that "the 
 father must not tarry there for his son, nor the son 
 for his •father," when they met a party of gentle- 
 men ascending. 
 
 Courtenay was in advance, and had not his 
 mind been pre-occupied, he might have noticed 
 one of them in particular. He was a tall, dark, 
 handsome man, but of delicate appearance, and 
 with the unmistakable a*ir of a roue. 
 
 As he passed, he took off his hat and bowed
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 189 
 
 to Beatrice ; the colour mounted into her cheeks 
 but she returned the salute with a gracious 
 smile. 
 
 That evening Courtenay went out and 
 remained away till late into the night. 
 The moon, with her pale, steady light, looked 
 down upon him, the stars were bright in the 
 cloudless vault above him, the trees stirred not, 
 and man and beast slept quietly around him ; all 
 seemed at peace but his young heart. 
 
 When he returned home, he found that 
 Beatrice had not retired. She complained of his 
 long absence, and, with pouting lips and a flushed 
 face, she accused him of treating her with cold- 
 ness and neglect. He was sad, and ill at ease, 
 and but little disposed to make excuses, or feign 
 a warmth he did not feel. They parted ; one in 
 
 anger, the other with coldness, sorrow, remorse. 
 * # * * 
 
 The grapes hang ripe upon the bending vines, 
 and light is the laugh and jocund are the voices 
 of the vintagers as they look up, for a moment, 
 at the travelling carriage that passes rapidly by.
 
 190 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Sir Frederick Courtenay is in it — alone. 
 
 His mind is at least relieved from the antici- 
 pation of the unhappiness to which his sense of 
 duty and justice had condemned hin ; for La 
 belle Indienne has left him : he knows not what 
 has become of her. 
 
 Where she is, the handsome son of Sir Hany 
 Sinclair alone can tell.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 191 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 To one small room the steward found his way, 
 Where tenants follow' d to complain and pay. 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 Good Heaven ! what sorrows gloom that parting day 
 That called them from their native walks away ; 
 Where the poor exiles, every pleasure past, 
 Hung round the bow'rs and fondly look'd their last. 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 The letter which Dermod O'Neill himself has 
 carried to the post office, the night after his 
 brother's wife had so prematurely breathed his 
 last, arrived safely at its destination. 
 
 It was perused with the utmost interest ; but 
 no part of it was communicated to Mr. O'Neill, 
 
 That very morning he had heard of the sad
 
 192 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 fate of his son, and grief, remorse, and pride 
 by turns, held mastery over him. He had lost 
 his child, the pledge of his early happy love, and 
 he is deeply grieved — he had treated that child 
 and that child's wife, harshly, cruelly, and, there 
 fore, he felt remorse \ — but then came pride, and 
 it told him, as it had done before, that his pater- 
 nal authority had been outraged, that his son 
 had been rebellious, and that he had only repelled 
 from his house her who had been the cause of his 
 son's rebellion against him. 
 
 He shut himself up in his room, and sought 
 no consolation from others. He became a sadder 
 but not a wiser man, and the reflections which 
 ought to have had a chastening influence upon 
 him served only to make his deportment to 
 
 those around him more harsh and morose. 
 # * * * 
 
 It was Mr. O'Neill's rent day. For some 
 years it had been his custom to present himself, 
 with his agent, to give audience to his tenants ; 
 but his motive for doing so was not to yield 
 assistance or redress wrongs.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 193 
 
 The season had been unfavourable, and some 
 of the tenants had been unable on this occasion 
 to make up the full amount due. 
 
 Among those who had suffered severely from 
 loss of stock and crop, was one whose name has 
 been already introduced, Mc'Grath. After lay- 
 ing down the money he had brought, he pressed 
 earnestly for a short time during which he might 
 endeavour to make up the deficiency. 
 
 " It's been a sore sayson, yer honor," said the 
 farmer, who was one of the few old dependents 
 remaining on the estate, " an' it's not in the 
 power o' mortal man to raise the good crap, if so 
 be it plazes the Almighty to send us such a time 
 as it has been." 
 
 " What is the amount deficient," asked Mr. 
 O'Neill, addressing his agent who was counting 
 the money. 
 
 " Nearly the half short, sir." 
 
 u But sure," resumed Mc'Grath, " yer honour 
 won't mind bein' out o' yer due for a month or 
 two ; an', wid the help o' God, I'll be able to fat 
 vol I. K
 
 194 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 an' sell the bastes before long ; anyhow, I'll make 
 up the remainder before the next rint day." 
 
 " McGrath," replied Mr. O'Neill, " a man has 
 no business with a farm if he cannot meet an oc- 
 casional bad season without falling into arrears." 
 
 " It's thirty year an' more since I came to live 
 on yer honor's property, an' sorra day have I 
 ever been behind hand wid the rint, ban-in' this 
 wanst. An' yer honor will plaze remimber that 
 the rint was riz when the lease was renewed." 
 
 " McGrath," said Mr. O'Neill, " I have had 
 occasion to be displeased with your son. It was 
 not long since he was convicted of poaching, and 
 I have my suspicions that he is not cured." 
 
 " I know, yer honor, that Jamesy suffered for 
 what another did. Sorra snare or wire Jamesy 
 ever set in his life." 
 
 u It is no use denying it, McGrath, your son 
 was convicted. With regard to your rent, you 
 are considerably in arrear. I give you a month 
 from this time to make up the deficiency. If you 
 do not pay the whole by that time, you quit 
 your farm."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 195 
 
 " It's worse than useless to thiy," exclaimed 
 the poor man despairingly : " a week would be 
 as likely a time to make it up in as a month, but 
 I hope yer honor — " 
 
 "I have done with you, McGrath; send in 
 Moran." 
 
 How often, in every variety of form, have the 
 acts of harsh Irish landlords met our eyes! One 
 has been merely a copy of another ; the only differ- 
 ence being in the scale of harshness, from merely 
 compelling a tenant to part with his stock or crop 
 at a certain loss, to those scenes of eviction and 
 extermination where the picture is made up of 
 wretched cabins, unroofed and destroyed, and their 
 squalid occupants crouching in ditches, or scattered 
 on the road side; here a bed-ridden woman, 
 stretched on the damp earth, for the wretched 
 pallet has been taken from under her helpless 
 limbs ; there, the work of consumption, hastened 
 by the rude blast of a wintry wind ; here, the 
 chattering idiot, gazing with vacant stare at what 
 he understands not; while the heartless agent 
 looks on with indifference, and thinks not of the 
 k2
 
 196 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 vengeance of Heaven, nor of the night bullet of 
 the scowling man whom he has made des- 
 perate. But it is to be hoped that such scenes 
 exist only in the records of an era that is past. 
 
 It was with a heavy heart that McGrath re- 
 tired and rejoined the rest of his fellow tenants. 
 They crowded round him to know how he had 
 fared. 
 
 " It's all over wid us," said he sadly : " God's 
 will be done." 
 
 " It's he that has the hard heart," said one. 
 
 u A month, sure," exclaimed another, " but it's 
 just the way Mick Donovan was sarved. You 
 mind it, don't you !" 
 
 " Ay, ay!" replied McGrath, sorrowfully, and 
 he sat down on a bench and rested his elbows on 
 his knees, and his grey-haired head on the rough 
 hard hands that had laboured so long and to so 
 little purpose. 
 
 I need not narrate how McGrath sacrificed his 
 property, and appeared on the appointed day, a 
 month afterwards, and laid down his money, and 
 left the room without a word of bitterness, though
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 197 
 
 he was about to leave his home, a bowed and 
 broken-hearted old man. 
 
 But though the old grey-headed man was 
 silent, a deep dark curse rose irom the young 
 heart of the son who had accompanied his father 
 to the door. 
 
 McGrath was ruined, and a letter which 
 Dermod received from his mother shortly after- 
 wards, announced to him the agreeable fact that 
 her promise had been kept, and that another 
 tenant occupied McGrath's farm. 
 
 Dermod had been long absent from home, but 
 his father had never expressed himself anxious 
 for his return, and Mrs. O'Neill, who had dis- 
 covered that her husband had not become more 
 attached to her child since Charles' death 
 would not advise the young man to re- visit Ive- 
 ragh. She was apprehensive that her husband's 
 harshness and ill-temper, which might prove so 
 galling as to overcome the self-interest and 
 craftiness of her son. 
 
 Dermod therefore remained absent from I veragh, 
 and we have seen how and with whom he occupied 
 his time.
 
 198 HIDDEN LINKS; OK, 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight, 
 Till our scale turn the beam. 
 
 Shakspeare. 
 
 Straight, 
 As if some dreadful vision had appeared, 
 She started up, her hair unbound, and with 
 Distracted looks, staring about the chamber. 
 
 • * * • 
 
 Trembling in every joint, her brows contracted, 
 Her fair face as 'twere changed into a curse, 
 Her hands he'd up thus, as if her words 
 Were too big to find passage thro' her mouth. 
 She groans ; then throws herself upon her bed, 
 Beating her breast. 
 
 Massinger. 
 
 Sir Frederick Courtenay continued his journey 
 back to Paris with feelings very different from 
 those with which he had left it. 
 
 He did not intend to make any lengthened
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 199 
 
 stay in the French capital, as, by doing so, his 
 vanity might run the risk of no small mortilica- 
 tion; for he, the rich, the agreeable, the irre- 
 sistible Fred Courtenay had been very uncere- 
 moniously discarded, and he knew full well that 
 he must be the laughing stock of his acquaint- 
 ances, who might not always in his presence 
 check the sarcastic joke or conceal the sneering 
 smile. 
 
 There was one errand, however, upon which 
 he was bent, and he lost no time in accomplish- 
 ing it. 
 
 Courtenay might have sought out Dermod, 
 but that young gentleman, after exerting his 
 talents in London during a part of the summer, 
 had deemed that it might be to his benefit to 
 pass a short time among the German spas; and 
 he was accordingly visiting one of them when 
 Sir Frederick reached Paris. 
 
 The morning after his arrival, Courtenay pro- 
 ceeded along the Rue St. . A strong in- 
 fluence, a kind of fascination brought him to the 
 shop formerly occupied by Mrs. Werther.
 
 200 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 It was now tenanted by a glove maker. Sir 
 Frederick went in and asked for a pair of gloves. 
 A drawer-full was produced, and, while he busied 
 himself with trying on a pair, he noticed, with 
 bitter retrospection, the alterations which had 
 taken place in the shop. 
 
 This reflection occupied him so much that he 
 almost forgot the gloves, and the attention of the 
 fair vendor was called to what she considered 
 the extreme awkwardness of her customer. 
 
 " Monsieur will never succeed in making them 
 fit," she remarked at last. 
 
 u No, J believe I shall not," said Fred; "these 
 are too small; give me another pair." 
 
 " Pardon, Monsieur ; there is a great art in 
 making fit a pair of gloves. Excuse me, Sir," 
 and she took possession of Fred's hand, and com- 
 menced an artistic process of fitting on the 
 gloves. " Monsieur should always put on the 
 fingers first; like that, see you, and then the 
 thumb will slip in quite easily. But these are 
 a little too long; this pair will do better. I 
 have sold a great many to your countrymen;
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 201 
 
 they have no want to talk French here. I could 
 not hinder myself to laugh one day : a lady 
 came in ; she wished des gants de fiX d'Ecosse* 
 et elle demandait des gants de Jil de cochon : it 
 was so droll. " 
 
 The fair gantiere went on chattering, a little 
 French and a good deal of English (such as it 
 was), for she was very proud of her proficiency 
 in the latter language. 
 
 " There," she continued, u I was sure Mon- 
 sieur's hand would take a glove not more large. 
 Monsieur is well gante now; and I hope that, 
 for the future, we shall have the honour of your 
 patronage. We are not long time in this 
 magazin. It was at other times that of one 
 of Monsieur's countrywomen, poor Madame 
 Verter." 
 
 "Ah! what of her?" asked Fred, unguard- 
 edly. 
 
 " She had a daughter, beautiful as an angel — - 
 Monsieur does not perceive the smell of tobacco," 
 said the little woman, mistaking the motive 
 which made Fred turn abruptly round. 
 
 K 5
 
 202 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " Oh ! dear, no," replied Courtenay. 
 
 " Oh ! I thought it might still be perceptible/' 
 continued the gantiere, "for Madame Verter 
 sold the cigars. And all the young men had 
 custom to come to smoke and talk. But her 
 daughter — ah ! it was a bad girl." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Fred unwittingly, " but what 
 has become of her mother ? How is she now ?" 
 
 " Oh ! Monsieur knows, then, how she left her 
 mother, and escaped with one of those vau- 
 riens that were always paying her compliments. 
 Poor Madame Verter ! she will never be better. 
 Oh! if that monster that took away her daughter 
 was to be of return, and that he could see and 
 hear the poor mother, day and night, to cry and 
 demand her daughter, perhaps he would blush of 
 his crimes." 
 
 In all probability the little woman would have 
 become more earnest in her invectives, but a 
 servant girl came into the shop. She had lived 
 with Mrs. Werther, and had remained in the 
 house when it was taken possession of by the 
 gantiere.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 203 
 
 The girl had begun to deliver the message to 
 her mistress, when she recognised Courtenay, 
 and, of course, thought it necessary to scream. 
 Fred, too, remembered the girl who had, as he 
 once considered, done him a service occasionally, 
 by taking charge of some of his billets, and not 
 knowing what might be the consequence of the 
 recognition, he hastily went out of the shop, 
 leaving both his gloves and the money he had 
 paid for them upon the counter. 
 
 Great, no doubt, was the astonishment of the 
 gantiere when her servant informed her who her 
 customer had been ; and when she found that she 
 had been denouncing the monster to the delin- 
 quent himself, her hopes of his future pur- 
 chases in her shop vanished altogether. 
 
 Fred proceeded to the establishment where he 
 ascertained that Mrs. Werther was in confine- 
 ment. 
 
 With considerable difficulty he procured ad- 
 mittance, and was conducted to the cell which 
 she occupied. 
 
 At the end of a long passage his guide opened
 
 204 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 a strong door leading into a cell. The light was 
 admitted through a small window at the top of 
 it; and, although from its height the precaution 
 appeared needless, the aperture was closely 
 and strongly barred. The walls, for about eight 
 feet from the ground, were thickly padded. 
 There was no furniture in the room but a low 
 bed. It had the appearance of a cell of a cri- 
 minal, almost of the lair of a wild beast 
 
 Its unfortunate occupant- -the mother of 
 Beatrice Werther, was seated on the bed. An 
 iron girdle was round her waist, and was at- 
 tached by a chain to a staple in the wall. Her 
 hands were bound together. Her hair had been 
 closely cut, but had grown again, and was several 
 inches in length. Instead of being black as the 
 raven's wing, as it was a few months back, it 
 was very grey. Her cheeks were ghastly and 
 sunken, and her eyes, once so full, seemed shrunk, 
 and glared with an unnatural light from their 
 hollow sockets. 
 
 " My God !" exclaimed Courtenay, half aloud, 
 " and all this is my doing."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 205 
 
 She seemed to take no notice of Courtenay 
 and his conductor when they entered, but kept 
 swinging herself backwards and forwards, or 
 more usually, from side to side with a wearisome 
 and monotonous motion, and, occasionally, with a 
 howl, rather than the cry of a human being, 
 repeated the words, " My child! they have 
 taken my child. Cruel ! Cruel ! Give me back 
 my child !" 
 
 The spectacle turned Courtenay sick and faint ; 
 nor was it only what he saw and heard that 
 unnerved him, for he felt with bitter remorse 
 that there would come upon him a day of heavy 
 retribution. For awhile he leant against the 
 padded wall. Neither he nor his attendant had 
 spoken to her. Courtenay had been cautioned not 
 to say a word to her on any account, as speaking 
 to her generally increased her violence. 
 
 At length the monotonous motion of the ma- 
 niac ceased, and was succeeded by a twitching 
 of the muscles of her face, and an uneasy rest- 
 lessness of her limbs. She bent herself down, 
 but, at the same time, elevated and threw back
 
 206 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 her head by a powerful muscular action; the 
 veins of her neck became swollen, and her eyes 
 were fixed. Her breathing was at first hard, 
 then seemed to cease; her eyes kindled with 
 some unspoken emotion, and glowered upon 
 Courtenay for the space of, perhaps, half a minute. 
 
 Suddenly, with a terrific howl, and the bound 
 of a tigress, she leaped to within a yard of where 
 he was standing. " 'Tis he!" she shrieked, 
 " 'tis he !" and she gnashed her teeth in the im- 
 potence of her fury ; for, although she strained 
 her arms as though she would have torn them 
 from their sockets, their fastenings held strong 
 and tight. 
 
 In an instant the keeper's hand was upon her, 
 and he drew her back, but not harshly nor 
 roughly. " Yes, yes," she muttered, it seemed 
 to Courtenay, with prophetic vengeance, as she 
 slunk back to the bed, and crouched down upon 
 it like a foiled tigress. 
 
 There she remained, -without voice or motion, 
 for a short space, then she rose from her abject 
 position, and drew herself up to her full height,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 207 
 
 regaining by the action the character of a human 
 being, though her stature seemed above that of 
 an ordinary mortal. 
 
 She fixed her eyes again upon Courtenay, who 
 stood regarding her with both a look and feeling 
 of anguish, horror, and pity. She then pro- 
 nounced with a painfully distinct and emotioned 
 voice — and it sounded not as the voice of one 
 otherwise than sane — these awful words — u May 
 your wife be faithless to you, Sir Frederick 
 Courtenay ; may she be false to you, soul and 
 body; and may no child of yours ever bear 
 your name; may a curse cleave to you and 
 yours," and she raised her voice, "the curse 
 of one you have made a childless mother;" then 
 the poor maniac became violent again, and she 
 shook her chain like a furious wild beast, ex- 
 claiming, " for it was you that stole away my 
 child — Oh ! give me back my child, my child !" 
 But presently, as if she became aware that all 
 efforts to break her bonds were unavailing 
 she strove no more with them, her unnatural 
 stature seemed to shrink, and voice and figure
 
 208 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 diminished, as she sunk back upon the bed, re- 
 iterating these words — " My child ! my child !" 
 
 Courtenay felt riveted to the spot on 
 which he stood ; he would have spoken but for 
 the strict injunction he had received, and, the 
 attendant urging him to depart, with the utmost 
 grief and horror he left the cell. 
 
 Before Sir Frederick left Paris, he took every 
 means in his power to ensure the kindest and 
 best treatment of the unhappy maniac. 
 
 With a sad heart he proceeded directly to 
 England. He had but just arrived in London, 
 and was walking along Oxford Street, when, 
 strangely enough, he met Montague. As it often 
 happens, in the great currents that flow back- 
 wards and forwards in our great thorough- 
 fares, they had almost passed each other amid the 
 crowd of busy pre-occupied pedestrians. 
 
 " Harry ! " cried Courtenay, holding out his 
 hand. 
 
 " Fred Courtenay !" was Montague's exclama- 
 tion ; " are you ill ? — have you been ill ?" 
 
 " Come along with me, Harry, my old friend,"
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 209 
 
 said Courtenay, not answering the question, tl I 
 want you ; I was going to seek you. I have 
 just come to town. I must speak to you freely and 
 frankly. Oh ! Harry, that we had never parted !" 
 
 The two friends left the thoroughfares, and 
 walked arm in arm through one of the parks. 
 Then Fred confided to his old schoolmate the 
 details of what I have briefly narrated, and, 
 when he came to the scene in the madhouse, 
 most deeply, painfully even, did he reproach 
 himself for being the cause of it, and, sitting 
 down on a bench, Fred Courtenay wept bitterly. 
 
 " Harry," he said, " I feel that I am a different 
 being from what I was when I was with you last. 
 That curse, that dreadful curse, is always on 
 my mind. She haunts me ; I turn round 
 sometimes and almost think that tall, scowling 
 woman is beside me. At night I am more 
 nervous, more shattered. My struggles wake 
 me as I fight with her in my dreams. That look 
 those glaring eyes, that curse, I shall never 
 forget." 
 
 Montague saw from his friend's haggard look
 
 210 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 how strong the impression was that had been 
 made upon him, and knew not how to comfort 
 him. 
 
 Courtenay pressed his friend to accompany him 
 to Lowick, for he felt how unequal he was to bear 
 the solitude of the place. Inconvenient as it 
 was to him, Harry did so, but it was im- 
 possible for him to remain there long. 
 
 When left by himself, Fred was indeed what 
 he told Harry he should be, a very moody being. 
 He missed the kind benevolent face of his guar- 
 dian, and yet he felt a satisfaction that the old 
 man had never known his follies and crimes. 
 Sometimes he suffered from extreme depression 
 of spirits, at other times he felt a craving for 
 excitement which no country amusements nor 
 pursuits, neither the hunting field nor the phea- 
 sant covert, could satisfy. 
 
 On these occasions he not unfrequently hur- 
 ried up to London, for, although it was then 
 what is called the dull season of the year, he 
 could always find in the metropolis plenty of 
 rouge et noir and hazard.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 211 
 
 Fred had made a tolerably complete confession 
 to Harry respecting his more serious delinquen- 
 cies, but, although he could not conceal from his 
 friend that he occasionally played, nor that he 
 had incurred losses in Paris, he yet, with that 
 feeling which " makes us ashamed of our vices 
 but not of our crimes," was not inclined to make 
 even Harry his confidant in every particular.
 
 212 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 " Cupid and my Camaspe played 
 
 At cards for kisses, Cupid paid. 
 He stakes his quiver, bows, and arrows, 
 
 His mother's doves and team of sparrows ; 
 Loses them too, then down he throws 
 
 The coral of his lip ; the rose 
 Growing on's cheek (but none knows how), 
 
 With these the crystal of his brow, 
 And then the dimple of his chin ; 
 
 All these did my Camaspe win. 
 At last he set her both his eyes ; 
 
 She won, and Cupid blind, did rise. 
 O ! love, has she done this to thee, 
 
 What shall, alas! become of me?" 
 
 Lyly. 
 
 In the recess formed by an oriel window in the 
 very pretty drawing-room of a country-house, 
 two sisters were sitting together engaged on a 
 work of tapestry. 
 
 They were both gifted with no ordinary share
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 213 
 
 of beauty, but Mary De Lorme was provided 
 with every requisite from Cupid's armoury. 
 
 No description of beauty is capable of doing 
 justice to it; for who can mark in words the 
 thousand varying expressions, the creation of the 
 heart and mind, which mingle in fitful forms 
 upon the countenance : 
 
 " Who hath not proved how feebly words essay 
 To tix one spark of Beauty's heavenly ray ?" 
 
 I might sketch Mary De Lorme as a model of 
 symmetry and grace, with lustrous brown hair, 
 a fair complexion, clear as crystal and softly 
 tinted as Nature paints the first faint blush of 
 the summer morning's dawn, eyes full and bright, 
 such as Homer gives to Minerva the /3owttic 
 'Adriva; but how describe the roseate hues of 
 blushing bashfulness, the joyous laugh of con- 
 fiding innocence, the sunny smile, the mild and 
 melting look of tenderness and love ? Add too 
 what has been curiously called "la beaute du 
 diable" 
 
 "Alas! a witch at seventy-nine 
 Is nothing to a witch at twenty." 
 
 Pshaw! — Mary De Lorme was not to be de- 
 
 .
 
 214 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 scribed nor painted, for "the best part of beauty 
 is that which a picture cannot express:" — so 
 says Bacon, and that settles the question. 
 
 Perhaps I could succeed better with her sis- 
 ter's portrait; this I am not going to try. She 
 was dark, her features were larger, their ex- 
 pression more decided, brilliant, and showy, but 
 not as changeful as her sister's. Julia would 
 first attract notice in a ball-room, Mary would 
 make more conquests ere she left it; Mary 
 seemed to have no thought of self, Julia to con- 
 sider homage only her due; Julia might claim 
 to be admired, but Mary was made to be 
 loved. 
 
 "I have got some newg for you girls," said a 
 lady, entering the room where the sisters were 
 working; " you must take your frames to 
 pieces, and get yourselves ready to start for 
 Leamington." 
 
 "For Leamington, Mama!" 
 " Yes ; Dr. Hellebore has just been here, and 
 he says the climate here is too cold for your 
 papa during the winter, after his late illness;
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 215 
 
 and he recommends the change to Leamington 
 as soon as possible." 
 
 u And when are we to leave." 
 
 " In a few days, and I suppose you will not 
 break your hearts because you have to spend 
 the winter in a gay and fashionable place." 
 
 "No, indeed, Mama," said Julia. "Marling- 
 ton does seem dull now : no balls, no parties to 
 enliven us ; no society beyond what one meets 
 at some stupid dinner, where the ladies seem to 
 confine their information within their own parishes, 
 and the gentlemen talk of nothing but tile 
 draining and country business, poaching, and 
 the price of wheat." 
 
 u What do you say, Mary ; have you any ob- 
 jection to the change?" 
 
 "None for myself, Mama; but I was thinking 
 that Charley will not be pleased at our leaving 
 Marlington. You know his leave begins next 
 week, and he was enjoying the thoughts of get- 
 ting some good shooting." 
 
 "I don't think Charley will mind," said Julia. 
 "After that out-of-the-way place he has been
 
 216 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 quartered in, I fancy lie will be glad of a little 
 gaiety. We shall take our horses, I suppose ; shall 
 we not, Mama?" 
 
 "I really do not know." 
 
 "Oh! pray let us, Mama," urged Mary. 
 " The rides are so beautiful about Leamington. 
 Mr. Montague, whom we met in London, said 
 so much about them. How Felix will be ad- 
 mired. We must indeed, have our horses; and 
 it will be delightful to have Charley to ride 
 with us." 
 
 " Well, I will speak to Mr. De Lorme about 
 them." 
 
 " How glad I am," said Julia, when Mrs. De 
 Lorme had left the sisters alone together, " how 
 glad I am we are going to Leamington. I was 
 getting moped to death. The country is all 
 very well in the summer for a time, but in the 
 winter it is so dull; one must have some so- 
 ciety." 
 
 " And a little weekly gaiety too." 
 
 "You don't mind the dulness, Mary. It 
 would not surprise me to see you, some of these
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 217 
 
 days, doomed to solitary confinement in some out- 
 of-the-way country place, the wife of a wretched 
 younger son, with fifty pounds for your pin 
 money, and yet making yourself happy in spite 
 of your cotton gown and imitation lace." 
 
 " Perhaps I should not make a better poor 
 man's wife than you would, after all ; though, to 
 be sure, I do not know that I should be miser- 
 able, even were I to don a cotton gown, provided 
 always that it fitted well." 
 
 "I wonder," resumed Julia, a who we shall 
 find at Leamington; if there will be any one 
 there we met in town during the season. We 
 do not^know any one who lives there." 
 
 11 1 remember hearing Mr. Montague say that 
 his aunt had a house in Leamington." 
 
 11 Oh ! then, Mary, you may see him again. 
 Come, you need not blush so, though I know 
 quite well that you liked him." 
 
 "Well, Julia, perhaps I may have thought him 
 a pleasant and agreeable person; but then," she 
 added, laughing, "he is only a wretched younger 
 
 son." 
 
 VOL I.
 
 218 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " That is all, indeed," replied Julia, " and a 
 very great objection it is. Don't you think 
 Lizzy Lovegrove has found out, by this time, 
 how foolish she was to say 'no' to Sir Benjamin 
 Nugget, and c yes ' to poor Charley Cushat ? 
 How dreadful it must be to vegetate, as she has 
 to do, all the year, in a little country town! 
 having, as she wrote us word, to put up with the 
 ill temper of the half-pay captain's wife, because 
 she neglected to give the said lady precedence 
 over the doctor's or the lawyer's spouses, and glad 
 to eat her Christmas dinner at her brother's, the 
 Baronet, with the rest of the poor relations, and 
 thankful for a couple of rabbits or a pheasant 
 from his preserves/' 
 
 " Poor Lizzy !" said Mary. u But after all, 
 she could not be blamed for not accepting Sir 
 Benjamin; she could not bear him." 
 
 " At all events, he was a baronet, and she 
 would have had more pin-money than all poor 
 Charley Cushat's income amounts to. She would 
 have gone to town, and had her own carriages and 
 hawses. The Nuggets are a good family too.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 219 
 
 She would not have been marrying merely for 
 money. I never would marry for money only." 
 
 11 Nor without it," said her sister. 
 
 " Well, Mary, be sure and keep the fear of the 
 cotton gown before your eyes ; but that will not 
 be ghost enough to frighten you. Reflect, more- 
 over, that you may not have a maid clever 
 enough to make it fit. Neither Madame Cane- 
 zou, nor Madem iselle Pelerine would fancy a 
 cotton gown being seen in their show rooms." 
 
 " It would look rather odd and out of place 
 there," said Mary, laughing. 
 
 M But perhaps," resumed Julia, " Mr. Monta- 
 gue, or some other equally charming younger son, 
 might be able to discover a modiste who under- 
 takes to make cotton dresses, and on terms to 
 suit the finances of their wives." 
 
 "You seem to be quite sure of your own 
 heart," her colour a little heightened by her sis- 
 ter's bantering : u who knows, perhaps we may 
 meet your Irish friend at Leamington. Come, it 
 is my turn to catechise you a little," she added, 
 l2
 
 220 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 the slight expression of annoyance passing into a 
 very arch smile. 
 
 " Well, Mary," replied her sister, " you cannot 
 say that he was not good looking, far more so 
 than Mr. Montague, and I think quite as plea- 
 sant, though he could not sing the songs you 
 used to rave about. I wonder why neither papa 
 nor mamma liked him ; at Mrs. O'Sullivan's ball, 
 the night before we left town, papa would hardly 
 speak to him, and mama was positively rude." 
 
 " So I suppose you thought it necessary to 
 make up for their coldness." 
 
 a Nonsense, Mary." 
 
 " Perhaps they thought his attentions to you a 
 little too marked. Papa said that his father's pro- 
 perty is heavily encumbered. No doubt papa 
 knows that a cotton dress would not suit you." 
 
 " I don't believe a word of it. I am sure no 
 one seemed so live in better style, and one day I 
 heard all about his father's place, Iveragh Castle, 
 on the Western coast of Ireland, with such a 
 magnificent view from the windows." 
 
 " Mr. O'Neil was very communicative, and I
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 221 
 
 dare say, very pleasant, though, to my fancy, 
 there was something about him I did not like. 
 I never felt sure that he was saying what he 
 felt, and " 
 
 " Keally, Mary, that is rather too bad. Why 
 should you say that Mr. O'Neill is deceitful ?" 
 
 " Forgive me, Julia," said her sister, kissing 
 her; " I was wrong, very wrong, it was only my 
 foolish fancy." 
 
 " Well, I don't suppose it matters much what 
 you think of Mr. O'Neill," said Julia, rather 
 pettishly . 
 
 "Forgive me, Julia dear, for vexing you. 
 And come, we have been talking a deal of non- 
 sense, let us have Pinstick up, and see what 
 dresses we had better take to Leamington." 
 
 Mary twined her arm around her sister's waist, 
 and they went off to inspect — auspice Pinstick, 
 their very clever maid — the contents of their 
 wardrobes and presses, and make preparations 
 for their departure from Marlington. 
 
 Leamington was quite new to the De Lormes, 
 and the girls were quite charmed with it..
 
 222 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " Guess, mama," said Mary, as the two sisters 
 entered the drawing room after a walk with their 
 brother, u guess whom we have seen to-day. No 
 less a personage than Mrs. Dobison and her two 
 daughters. We met them on the parade, and 
 she told us that she has taken a house here for 
 six months, one of the largest and best in 
 Leamington. " 
 
 " So I suppose," added Julia, u we shall have 
 the red turban hoisted again. You remember it, 
 mama, I am sure you must, at old Mrs. Cromum- 
 tite's crush in Lowndes' Square. It was there 
 that some one saw her trying so hard to get into 
 the supper-room, and remarked of the never- 
 failing head-dress that it was 
 
 The flag that hraved a thousand years, 
 The crushing and the squeeze." 
 
 " I remember hearing she was well known by 
 it," said Mrs. De Lorme. 
 
 " I wonder," said Julia, a how she managed 
 to get the entree of some of the houses in Lon- 
 don. Lady Zenith and Mrs. Paramount both 
 had the Dobisons at their balls."
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 223 
 
 u Oh ! they are not the only people who con- 
 trive to step over the boundaries of exclusive 
 society." 
 
 " The Miss Dobisons looked taller than ever," 
 said Julia. 
 
 " Charley admired them excessively," remarked 
 Mary. 
 
 " Yes," added Julia, " but he is quite at a loss 
 which to prefer." 
 
 u Oh !" said the yourg officer, " the ass between 
 the two bundles of hay, I suppose, saucy one." 
 
 u Were they walking when you met them?" 
 asked Mrs. De Lor me. 
 
 " When we first saw them they were driving," 
 replied Mary, "and we could not imagine who 
 was bowing to us, as we waited at the crossing 
 to let the carriage pass." 
 
 " And such a carriage!" continued Julia; 
 " its panel was literally covered with an immense 
 coat of arms, with all sorts of scrolls around it." 
 
 That shield, I should observe as the veracious 
 narrator of the private memoirs as well as of 
 the public history of this worthy family, had
 
 224 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 been the origin, once or twice, of an incipient 
 altercation between Mr. and Mrs. Dobison. I 
 must interrupt the conversation to chronicle how 
 this happened. We know that names have been 
 derived from certain peculiarities. That, for 
 instance, of Rome's most illustrious orator was 
 owing to the successful cultivation of a vegetable. 
 Such a practice does not, however, seem usual 
 now ; and it would*certainly to us seem strange if 
 some fortunate agriculturist who had, we will 
 suppose, doubled the produce of an acre of 
 turnips, should therefore be styled Mr. Purple- 
 topped Brown, or if the inventor of a useful 
 implement should, as he receives the prize of 
 the " Grumbledon Agricultural Society,"be hailed 
 as Mr. Clodcrusher Jones, or Mr. Chaffcutter 
 Robinson. In heraldry, the case is more fre- 
 quently reversed, and the name suggests the 
 armorial bearings, as do also the occupation or 
 trade of the postulant for its honours. 
 
 Mr. Dobison, the father of our excellent ac- 
 quaintance, was the first of the family who 
 sought from " the science of vanity" an appro-
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. ZZO 
 
 priate coat of arras. This he did in the meridian 
 of his prosperity, and when his ledgers and 
 banking book might have warranted such a 
 pretension. 
 
 The arms were accordingly chosen with re- 
 ference to the Heraldic principle I hare just 
 mentioned; and accordingly the business which 
 had secured for Mr. Dobison the wealth which 
 he now sought to illustrate and dignify, suggested 
 the charges, the crest, and the motto. Where- 
 fore, Mr. Dobison in due course of time was declared 
 entitled to bear for arms three wool or cotton 
 packs argent in a field gules ; for crest a smoking 
 chimney; and for a motto, the words, "Non 
 sine fumo.' , The learned suggester of this coat 
 of arms, in selecting the colour of the field 
 had remembered that the origin of the word 
 gules is, by some thought to be the Hebrew word 
 u gulade," signifying red cloth; none could be 
 more appropriate for one whom that material with 
 others of a similar nature had helped to lift so 
 high. 
 
 The motto was not perhaps fraught with such 
 
 L 5
 
 226 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 evident meaning. It might be considered a 
 symbol of independence, and that a man might 
 make as much smoke as he liked; (there was not 
 so much said then about manufacturers consuming 
 their own smoke) or it might have been intended 
 to suggest the conclusion that the pageantry of 
 wealth is not attained without the grime of 
 labour and industry. 
 
 Now Mrs. Dobison's worldly wisdom (our 
 Mrs. Dobison, I mean,) took fright at the public 
 avowal of the origin and trade of her husband thus 
 blazoned to the world by tbe three cotton bales 
 argent and the smoking chimney, and would 
 fain have substituted for the crest some more 
 martial and less suggestive object, a griffin, 
 for instance, or a lion in any form, couchant, 
 passant, rampant, gardant, or regardant. The 
 motto she did not quarrel with, though after her 
 visit to Paris, she proposed a change to " en avant" 
 or Houjours pres' with the idea that the Dobisons 
 should be and were always ready to push on. 
 But her suggestions were not approved of, Mr. 
 Dobison always declaring that he was not
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 227 
 
 ashamed either of his origin or his arms, and 
 once he rather sharply asked his wife where the 
 money came from which filled her winged ward- 
 robes with silks and satins, and her larder with 
 venison and Norfolk turkeys, if not from those 
 wool bales and that chimney ? So Mr. Dobison's 
 plate continued to bear the objectionable crest 
 and the carriage panels to display the wool 
 bales argent on a field gules, the smoking 
 chimney, and the " Non sine fumo." 
 
 Return we now, after this digression, to the De 
 Lorme's drawing room. 
 
 a What a nice old lady Miss Montague seems," 
 said Mary, " she was at the library." 
 
 " And we overheard her say," said Julia, 
 rather maliciously, u that she was expecting her 
 nephew down at Christmas." 
 
 " I will go and take off my bonnet and shawl," 
 said Mary. 
 
 " How it has made your face flush, Mary, 
 coming into a warm room, after being out in the 
 town," remarked her sister. 
 
 Mary was very soon out of the room, and
 
 228 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 followed by Julia ; upon whose face the wind and 
 change of temperature had not produced the same 
 effect ; but then she was much darker, and hers 
 was much less likely to flush than Mary's fair 
 complexion. 
 
 In a short time, the gay town was very full. 
 The hunting season was at its height, and many 
 scarlet-coated gentlemen were seen, almost every 
 day, leaving or re-entering its streets. 
 
 " Let us look at the arrivals,'' said Mary, one 
 morning, as the servant brought in the news- 
 paper. 
 
 " Come, Julia, there is one name at least that 
 you well know; look here, in the list at the 
 Regent, are Mr. O'Neill and Sir Frederick 
 Courtenay; I have heard Mr. Montague talk 
 of the latter. They travel together, and 
 Mr. Montague spoke of him as his greatest 
 friend. I wonder if they are like each other. " 
 
 Before long, Mary had an opportunity of 
 udging, as she met Sir Frederick Courtenay at 
 a party. Mrs. Dobison and her supporters were 
 also present.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 229 
 
 The worthy lady was very assiduous in present- 
 ing cards of invitation to such young men as were 
 introduced to her, and was standing with a pack 
 of them for distribution, rather after the fashion 
 of certain individuals to be seen in the thorough- 
 fares of London who are employed in offering to 
 passers by announcements of, "immense sacri- 
 fice," t; family pills," "great bankruptcy," when 
 Sir Frederick entered the room. 
 
 " Oh ! Sir Frederick," she exclaimed, pouncing 
 upon him, "how do you do? We are old ac- 
 quaintances ; I had the pleasure of meeting you 
 at Madame Cotillon's party. How I doat on 
 Paris! Have you been there lately, Sir 
 Frederick?" 
 
 Courtenay felt a little embarrassed at the 
 recognition, for he doubted Mrs. Dobison's dis- 
 cretion too much not to fear that, if she were 
 acquainted wiht the follies of his career in Paris, 
 their history would soon be generally known 
 throughout Leamington. The good lady, however, 
 made no sly insinuations, and I do not think that
 
 230 HIDDEX LINKS; OR, 
 
 his having run away with a whole tribe of Belles 
 Indiennes would have disqualified him in her 
 eyes from making a very eligible and excellent 
 son-in-law. 
 
 Fred was, however, a good deal disconcerted, 
 and was turning away, when Mrs. Dobinson 
 detained him with — 
 
 " Sir Frederick, we are going to give a ball 
 on the — th, and it will give Mr. Dobison 
 and myself great pleasure if you will join our 
 party on that day." 
 
 Fred bowed. 
 
 " Allow me to give you a card," she con- 
 tinued, drawing one from the pack; u the — th, 
 Sir Frederick." 
 
 "I shall be most happy," said Courtenay, 
 taking the gage, and preparing to make his 
 retreat. 
 
 " Sir Frederick, you must allow me to intro- 
 duce my daughter Amelia to you, Clementina, 
 you know, was your dancing partner in Paris." 
 
 The introduction took place, and the anxious
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 231 
 
 mother, with the flattering vision of a possibly- 
 more permanent partnership, saw her daughter 
 and Sir Frederick join the dancers. 
 
 I must here explain how Courtenay and 
 O'Neill came to be at Leamington. 
 
 After remaining at Lowick some time, it be- 
 came apparent to Montague that Fred's state of 
 mind and spirits quite incapacitated him from 
 enduring the solitude and monotony of a country 
 life, a conviction which was strengthened by the 
 increasing number of Courtenay's visits to Lon- 
 don. Henry therefore proposed to him to remain 
 for a time in some place where he would be 
 less dependent on his own resources for amuse- 
 ment, and where society and the conversation of 
 others might weaken the impressions of the past, 
 and make him less inclined to yield to the morbid 
 indigencies of his own reflections. Montague 
 had promised to spend the Christmas vacation 
 with] his aunt, in Leamington, and Courtenay 
 was easily persuaded to choose the same town for 
 change of scene, and to take his horses with him 
 to finish the hunting season there.
 
 232 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Dermod had always contrived to be acquainted 
 with Courtenay's movements. After the gamb- 
 ling tables at the German Spas began to be de- 
 serted, he had returned to England, and had, 
 latterly, found it convenient to spend a short time 
 atLowick; and he had accompanied Fred to 
 Leamington. 
 
 A short time after their arrival, Montague left 
 London, anticipating a little the Christinas holi- 
 days, with the intention of visiting his aunt. 
 
 Once more, therefore, the three schoolfellows 
 were together. 
 
 They were strolling one day down the Parade. 
 
 "What two very handsome girls there are 
 walking this way with the officer," remarked 
 Fred. 
 
 " Ah ! the Miss DeLormes," said Harry : " I 
 am acquainted with them." 
 
 " You may as well introduce me to them, 
 Harry," said Courtenay. 
 
 The young ladies came up, and between Mon- 
 tague and one of them, at least, there was a very 
 cordial greeting. An introduction took place
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 233 
 
 between Courtenay and the young ladies and 
 their brother, and they stood, for a minute or 
 two, talking together. 
 
 " To my fancy," said Fred, as they moved off, 
 " the tall one is the handsomer of the two." 
 
 " Perhaps so," was Montague's reply. 
 
 Leamington is one of those places where there 
 is every facility for increasing an acquaintance 
 and forming intimacies. If the weather is fine, 
 everybody meets, or may meet, in the few places 
 of resort: even if rain and snow hold undisputed 
 possession of the air, and cause the streets and 
 gardens to be deserted, still there is the nightly 
 party or ball, where snow and hail, sleet and rain, 
 are alike unheeded. 
 
 There the half hours slip away like minutes, 
 and little heed is given by anyone in the 
 heated rooms to the poor fly horse and his 
 driver outside. There they are, the old hunter 
 grown stiff and slow, the once cherished favourite, 
 whose bed was as warm, and whose clothes were 
 as plentiful as his master's, standing benumbed
 
 234 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 between the shafts of a fly, of which he seems al- 
 most an equally inanimate part, and the shivering 
 driver, who locks and unlocks his arms, and runs 
 over to the nearest tap for something to keep the 
 cold out, while the gay gentleman whom they have 
 brought to the ball, is wiping his forehead, and 
 eating ices, with the thermometer in the room 
 at 90°. 
 
 O'Neill had been received but coldly by Mr. 
 and Mrs. De Lorme, but Courtenay and Monta- 
 gue became gradually more intimate with the 
 family. Julia had evidently made a very favoura- 
 ble impression upon Fred, but the effect was not 
 to the full extent, at least, reciprocal. 
 
 This, however, Fred was not the man to see, 
 nor was he likely to admit, even to himself, that 
 any motive beyond mere politeness or courtesy 
 ever induced her to transfer her attention from him 
 to another — Dermod for instance. Oh ! no, Fred 
 was much inclined to think himself invincible. 
 
 Montague was much more diffident, and with 
 far less reason, for, if the truth must be told, and
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 235 
 
 in plain terms, Mary De Lorme liked him very 
 much, as two or three blushes, which my readers 
 may have noticed, will have discovered. 
 
 Owing to Mr. and Mrs. De Lorme's coldness 
 towards O'Neill, he was apparently less intimate 
 with any of the family than Courtenay, though he 
 had been longer acquainted with them ; besides 
 which, his characteristic closeness, caution, and 
 impassiveness always masked his feelings. Nor 
 had he been very long in Leamington, when he 
 received a letter from his mother, urging him to 
 return home. 
 
 As, however, he thought it best to keep the 
 motives of his departure, which took place a day 
 or two afterwards, a secret from his friends, we 
 must be content to wait till the events of the 
 future disclose them. 
 
 Montague's suggestion that Courtenay should 
 seek in the society and amusements of Leaming- 
 ton, a relief for his depression of spirits and ner- 
 vousness, had already proved successful, and every 
 day he was regaining, more and more, his na- 
 tural activity and cheerfulness.
 
 236 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Perhaps the principle that " like cures like," 
 had a good deal to do with the improvement. It 
 often has in peculiar cases. Is not a cure often 
 sought for the overwrought heart, by renewing 
 or increasing its action — with the change only of 
 the moving power?
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS 237 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Swallow, a poor attorney, brought his hoy 
 Up at his desk, and gave him his employ. 
 
 * * * * 
 But his young Swallow, gaping and alive 
 To fiercer feelings, was resolved to thrive. 
 
 ♦ * * * 
 Let's part in peace, and each pursue his gain 
 Where it may start. 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 It was not a hunting day, and the Parade at 
 Leamington presented, in consequence, in the 
 afternoon, a greater choice than usual, of such 
 specimens of the lords of creation as were wont 
 to disport themselves upon it; for the impossi- 
 bility of meeting any pack of hounds made it a 
 dies non.
 
 238 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Some had considered it a good opportunity of 
 making up such arrears of sleep as late hours at 
 balls and parties had caused, and, therefore, had 
 devoted the entire forenoon to their slumbers. 
 Some few had spent an hour or two at the 
 tennis court or billiard rooms; but about two 
 o'clock most of the young men had left the va- 
 rious resorts to which the attractions of broiled 
 bones, tea, soda water or cigars, billiards or 
 tennis, stables or saddler's shops had drawn 
 them, to refresh themselves in the open air, and 
 while bracing their limbs by an invigorating 
 saunter from bridge to church, at the same time 
 to exercise their minds — after the custom of the 
 Peripatetics — by brilliant conversation, and 
 the exchange of keen and sparkling wit. 
 
 Among the pedestrians who were, about this 
 time, lounging down the Parade, were two 
 young men proceeding very amicably arm in arm. 
 
 One was a young, very young looking man. 
 He appeared, indeed, to be not more than 
 eighteen 
 
 Summers older than his heard 
 And that was horn last week — hefore its time;
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 239 
 
 but, in reality, more than one year had elapsed 
 since that magic day which had made him 
 
 Free to act 
 For self — free, namely to contract 
 Engagements, bonds, and debts. 
 
 His costume was not a little conspicuous. 
 Trowsers of the widest and gaudiest check pat- 
 tern — a waistcoat, the length of which, a few 
 years since, would have been admitted fair legal 
 evidence of its belonging to a stable helper, 
 from the lowest button-hole of which depended 
 a massive large-linked watch-chain from which 
 dangled a multifarious cluster of pendant articles 
 — the diminutive models of gold cannon, and 
 coral slippers, and bronze anchors, and silver 
 bedsteads, and jewelled horse-shoes, and ena- 
 melled umbrellas, cruet-stands of amalgam, 
 steam-engines of pinchbeck, beer-barrels of ivory, 
 with a row or two of quaint little entities bearing 
 the generic term of u charms" — boots of the 
 brightest polish — a tie, which has been happily 
 likened to the cross stuck on the neck of a goose 
 addicted to trespassing (I forget if the simile
 
 240 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 includes the wearer of the tie) — and a coat of 
 the widest sleeves, formed the principal items of 
 the furniture of the very elaborately got up 
 George, Lord Ravensclint, heir-apparent to the 
 baronial castle, the ancient pedigree, the broad 
 though mortgaged acres, the long rent-roll, and 
 the heavy list of balancing liabilities which now 
 formed the known and unknown possessions of 
 his father, the Eight Honourable the Earl of 
 Graspmorland. The utmost art of the hair- 
 dresser could infuse no curl nor vigour into his 
 lank, lustreless hair, — his limbs were thin and 
 weak, — his complexion sallow, — his lips almost 
 without colour, — and in his large, inexpressive, 
 blue-milk-tinted eyes, there was perhaps more 
 blood visible than in his pale cheeks. 
 
 His companion was altogether of a different 
 stamp. 
 
 He was, apparently, a good deal the young 
 nobleman's senior. His frame was powerful, 
 and closely knit, but not above the average 
 height — his features were rather coarse and 
 1 ebeian, — and his costume betokened an indif-
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 241 
 
 ference to his personal appearance, for his coat 
 was a rough shooting jacket, and he wore thick 
 iron-heeled shoes. 
 
 The two companions might suggest the idea 
 of a strong thick-set mastiff coupled to a young 
 rickety greyhound, not yet convalescent from 
 the distemper. 
 
 There seemed, however, to exist between 
 them quite an intimacy, and the young noble- 
 man leaned upon his companion's arm in an at- 
 titude of confidence and dependence. 
 
 " c Pon my honor, Tom," said Lord Ravensclinfc, 
 in a thin drawling voice, " I'm reg'larly used up. 
 They say old Swillum's champagne is undeniable, 
 so I suppose it cannot be that; but I'mdoocedly 
 bewildered this morning, my head feels like a 
 furnace." 
 
 " You want a pick-me-up," said his companion. 
 " Have some soda water. Come, we'll turn into 
 Coltsfoot's. He'll give you a bottle of soda water, 
 ■with a little essence of ginger in it. Here's his 
 shop." 
 
 Whilst the renovating beverage is being pre- 
 
 VOL I. M
 
 242 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 pared and imbibed, it may be as well to devote a 
 page or two to the previous history of the indi- 
 vidual whom Lord Ravensclint has familiarly 
 addressed as " Tom." 
 
 He was the son of a respectable solicitor — Mr. 
 Hardman — who lived in a small town in Wales, 
 and he was destined by his father to carry on a 
 business which the worthy gentleman had spent 
 many years of diligent and persevering toil in 
 securing. 
 
 Accordingly, after leaving school, (where 
 Master Tom certainly never achieved distinction 
 for anything but insubordination and idleness) 
 he passed some time in his father's office. But 
 the engrossing of deeds, and the drawing up of 
 leases, marriage settlements, and mortgages, were 
 as thoroughly distasteful to him as had been the 
 perusal of Cicero's " De Ofliciis"orXenophon , s 
 " Cyropcedia." 
 
 At first, the father shut his eyes to Tom's re- 
 missness, and trusted that time — which is said 
 to work wonders — would at length discover Tom's 
 character moulded into the proper legal form
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 243 
 
 Alas ! Tom's repugnance to the business increased. 
 He took every opportunity to absent himself 
 from the office, and his high stool would remain 
 for days unoccupied. 
 
 To make matters worse, not only did the wor- 
 thy solicitor perceive that his son had no liking 
 for his profession, but, to his infinite horror, he 
 discovered that Tom had a decided partiality for 
 dogs and horses, of which some very fair speci- 
 mens in basso relievo might be seen on Tom's 
 desk, executed during those hours which had 
 been supposed to have been dedicated to "Chitty 
 on Contracts, " or " Woodfall's Landlord and 
 Tenant/' 
 
 It also came to Mr. Hardman's ears, that a 
 certain journey, undertaken ostensibly for the 
 transaction of business, was, in reality, made for 
 the purpose of reaching a racing meeting at which 
 Tom had so forgotten himself and the sobriety of 
 his profession, as to neglect the sheep-skin for the 
 pig-skin, or, in plain language, to ride a race. 
 
 A further proof of Tom's propensities became 
 apparent to his father, upon going one day into 
 m2
 
 244 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 his son's room to look for a Look which had been 
 mislaid. The first thing that met Mr. Hard- 
 man's eyes, was a flaming print of a horse and 
 jockey, over the fire-place. " Oh ! good law, 
 good law ! " he exclaimed, (this was the solicitor's 
 favourite and appropriate adjuration) "why 
 Lord Eldon used to hang there." But so it was : 
 the worthy man's patron saint had been displaced 
 to make room for the winner of the last year's 
 " Derby." After another " good law" or two, 
 Mr. Hardman looked round in the forlorn hope 
 of finding the book. In a corner, were a number 
 of volumes, bound in legitimate legal calf, and 
 entitled "Ruff's Digest." 
 
 The title was not familiar to the solicitor, and 
 thinking it might be a late and lucid exposition 
 >f some branch of legal science, and indulging a 
 grateful hope that Tom might, after all, be going, 
 as the anxious parent had often trusted and ex- 
 pressed it, " to turn over a new leaf," he took up 
 a volume and opened it. Great was his disap- 
 pointment, disgust, and horror, when all he saw 
 was a catalogue of races and racehorses, trainers
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 245 
 
 and jockeys, and the only approximation to any- 
 thing legal in it — and that seemed like an out- 
 rage upon his valued profession — was a page or 
 two devoted to " the laws of racing, betting, &c." 
 Then, to crown all, there was a sacrilegious per- 
 version of legal phraseology in the title, for 
 " Eufi's Digest" was in reality " Huff's Guide to 
 the Turf." 
 
 " Oh ! Tom, Tom ! " exclaimed the indignant 
 father, " it is no use hoping any longer. That I 
 should have such a son, — one who could exchange 
 an honorable profession — for — what?" And the 
 irate parent, at a loss for words sufficiently ex- 
 pressive of his injured feelings, with the attitude 
 and look of the steward in the warning picture 
 of the " Rake's Progress," left his unworthy 
 son's apartment. 
 
 Tom had, early that very day, gone off to a 
 race-meeting not far from home. On his return 
 his father met him with more than usually serious 
 looks, but Tom had been very lucky, and had 
 come home with a pocket half full of sovereigns, 
 and, perhaps, with a little too much champagne.
 
 246 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 "I wish to see you in my private room," said 
 Mr. Hardman, coldly. 
 
 Tom followed his father into his study or 
 office, — the very sanctum, the inmost penetralia 
 of the legal divinity. 
 
 " Thomas," began the father, with a voice and 
 manner befitting the place and occasion, U I 
 am sorry to find that you are addicted to 
 pursuits which are quite incompatible with what 
 I had trusted would have been your permanent 
 profession : I mean — hem — " and he stopped as 
 if the mere mention of them was a disgrace; "I 
 mean — racing — or, as I believe, you are pleased 
 to term it, the Turf. It in not to be supposed 
 that my clients will be satisfied that their affairs 
 should be conducted in an office where there is 
 one who neglects his profession to seek after 
 running horses, and who associates with a set of 
 disreputable, cheating— greylegs. Hush, sir. 
 (Tom was about to correct the term) ; now I must 
 insist upon your entirely giving up your present 
 habits and pursuits, or else I shall be under the 
 necessity of signifying to my clients — publishing,
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 247 
 
 in fact — that you are no longer even admitted 
 into the office, and that their affairs will not 
 henceforth be liable to be discussed by jockeys 
 and greylegs." 
 
 M Depend upon it," said Tom, very flippantly, 
 "those individuals have something far more 
 interesting to discuss." 
 
 " Stop, sir," resumed Mr. Hardman, "I 
 have another condition to make. You have in 
 your possession certain books — catalogues of 
 places of resort of horses, and jockeys, and 
 greylegs." 
 
 "Blacklegs, sir," interrupted Tom, "if, as I 
 suppose, you wish to use the offensive term ap- 
 plied to betting men." 
 
 u You have, moreover," continued the father, 
 not noticing the correction, u impudently given 
 a legal title to those books, in order to deceive 
 the eye, perhaps to delude the unwary. Now 
 these books must be burnt." 
 
 " Burnt!" exclaimed the young man. "Why, 
 I only bought them the other day. I couldn't
 
 248 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 at that time afford to get the ' Calendar ' It's a 
 capital work ; there's a Spring, a Summer, and 
 an Autumn series." 
 "So much the worse." 
 "I have just had them bound, too." 
 "So I suppose; and entitled 'Ruff's Digest.' " 
 "But they may be of great service to me. 
 They are capital for reference. They may help 
 me to no end of money." 
 
 "They'll help you to the penal settlements. 
 You will never make a shilling by them, or any- 
 thing they refer to." 
 
 "Come, come," quoth Tom, with a smile, his 
 hand at the same time diving into his pocket 
 and re-appearing with a number of sovereigns; 
 "do you call this nothing? I made it all to- 
 day; and I'll engage it's a better day's work 
 than ever you had yet. Come now, what do 
 you think of that for a profession ? Let's hear 
 — honour bright, now — eh? old fellow." And 
 Tom, very familiarly, but in all good humour, 
 and with a good deal of triumph, gave the re-
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 249 
 
 spectable solicitor, his father, a good hard slap 
 on the back, adding, " Conjurer was a tremendous 
 pot for the Corkscrew Stakes." 
 
 Mr. Hardman was a good deal astonished, 
 first, at the sight of the money; secondly, at the 
 concussion down his spine; thirdly, at the 
 strangeness and freedom of his son's phraseology ; 
 but he recovered himself, and continued, "I will 
 give you till to-morrow morning to decide upon 
 your line of life, — and I trust that your decision 
 will be the right one. If not, depend upon it, 
 I will act as I have threatened." 
 
 It is not- difficult to anticipate what that deci- 
 sion was. Henceforth, Tom's sojourn under the 
 paternal roof was very limited, and he became a 
 constant attendant at every racing meeting of 
 importance in England. 
 
 Fortune smiled on her votary, as if in recom- 
 pense for his slighting the staid and demure divi- 
 nity of law. Hardman made some lucky hits, and 
 established for himself a certain position in the 
 " ring." 
 
 It was at the Doimbrown spring meeting that 
 m 5
 
 250 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Hardrnan first met Lord Ravensclint, and he was 
 not slow to perceive that he might turn the ac- 
 quaintance to his own advantage. By giving 
 him more liberal odds than the rest of the betting 
 fraternity, Tom secured his lordship's first entries 
 in his "book;" he put the young nobleman in 
 possession of some private information, which, 
 proving correct, raised him wonderfully in his 
 Lordship's estimation ; and when the aristocratic 
 better had brought the contents of his " book" 
 into hopeless confusion, Tom took it off his hands 
 — for a consideration. Step by step, he contrived 
 to ingratiate himself so far in Lord Ravensclint's 
 favour that he became at length thoroughly inti- 
 mate with him — his Lordship's shadow — (phy- 
 sically, the reverse would be more appropriate) "a 
 dooced useful feller," as the young nobleman 
 called him, and, as far as constant companionship 
 went, his Lordship's alter ego. 
 
 Lord Ravensclint and Tom Hardman were 
 types of those two classes of men into which 
 " Elia" has divided mankind, " those who borrow 
 and those who lend; the former," he adds, "the
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 251 
 
 superior; the latter, the inferior race." His 
 Lordship's weak intellect and delicate constitu- 
 tion marked him as a probable victim — Tom 
 Hardman's shrewd head and iron frame, betokened 
 the beast of prey. Such, briefly, were the ante- 
 cedents of the rough plebeian-looking individual 
 whom we left with his titled " pal" in Mr. Colts- 
 foot's shop. 
 
 " Well, my Lord," asked Hardman, u are you 
 better now?" 
 
 " Why, yaas, I think I am," replied his Lord- 
 ship. 
 
 " Come then, we'll have a stroll, and I'll engage 
 you'll be wound up by night for Mrs. Dobison's 
 party." 
 
 Lord Ravensclint listlessly and languidly put 
 his thin white hand upon the muscular iron arm 
 of his companion, and thus walked, or, more 
 properly, crawled down the Parade. 
 
 Besides Lord Ravensclint and Tom Hardman, 
 there were many other couples and triplets of 
 young " fast" men, sauntering up and down the 
 Parade to kill time.
 
 252 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 With some of them, there was interchanged, in 
 passing, merely a nod of recognition, or the new- 
 est slang phrase, or a choice quotation from some 
 elegant vocal performance, or the latest bon mot 
 or most successful morceau in vogue on the Lon- 
 don cabstands : some stopped, for a moment, with 
 a remark on Lord Ravensclint's " seedy," or 
 "weedy," or "shady" appearance, and then 
 moved off, for his Lordship was not gifted with 
 brilliant powers of conversation or repartee, and 
 Tom Hardman was not a favorite, and was some- 
 what looked down upon. 
 
 During one of those brief interruptions of their 
 walk, the heads of the party were all suddenly 
 directed one way, like a cluster of sunflowers. 
 The reason of this was, that, turning from a 
 parallel street, there appeared coming towards 
 the group, two ladies and a gentleman on horse- 
 back. 
 
 " By Jove," said one of the young men, " that's 
 a stunning girl on the chesnut." 
 
 " And a devilish handsome horse too," added 
 Hardman.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 253 
 
 "Who are they, Eustace?" said the first speaker; 
 "they bowed to you." 
 
 " Ay, tell us who your fair friends are," said 
 another. 
 
 " They are the Miss De Lorraes. I met 
 them, the other night, at Lady Girandoles. You 
 were there, were you not, Kavensclint?" 
 
 " Yaas, I think so ; pon honor, I forget ; I 
 don't think I was." 
 
 " Will they be at Mrs. what's her name's 
 
 to-night?" asked one. 
 
 "Do you mean Mrs.Dobison's? Are yuu going? 
 And you Kingly ? Why, I believe all Leamington 
 will be there; I suppose the Miss De Lormes 
 will have been invited." 
 
 "Where are you bound Kavensclint?" 
 
 " I'm sure I caa'nt say." 
 
 " Ravensclint's felt himself rather squeamish," 
 said Hardman. " He found old Swillum's cham- 
 pagne last night a knock-me-down, so we've 
 been to Coltsfoot's to get a pick-me-up, and now 
 he is trying what air and exercise will do for 
 him."
 
 25 t HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 " Hang it, Ravensclint, come and have a game 
 at billiards. It will make you forget your head- 
 ache." 
 
 " No, I could not make a stroke; but if Hard- 
 man will play, I'll lay you five to four he beats 
 you." 
 
 " Done," said the other. 
 
 The party moved off with quickened pace : — 
 the quarry was sprung — an object was in view 
 — slow time was given the go-by. . 
 
 There was an unoccupied table at the billiard 
 rooms: the two antagonists proceeded to take 
 their coats off and select their cues, and Lord 
 Eavensclint threw himself on a bench, and 
 stretched his long thin legs upon it, and let his 
 arm drop loosely over the back, as he settled 
 himself to watch the game.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 255 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Nunc pede libero 
 PulsaDdo tellus. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 Away they go, about, and about, and about — " About what, sir?" — 
 About the room, madam, to be sure. 
 
 Washington Irving. 
 
 The note of preparation for the approaching 
 ball had been sounded through the spacious 
 mansion of the Dobisons, and the whole house 
 was in the most approved state of that discom- 
 fort and disorder which precedes and follows 
 such festive gatherings. 
 
 That state is probably familiar to most of my 
 readers, and, therefore, I forbear to chronicle 
 how — as in a man of war preparing for action —
 
 256 HIDDENLINKS; OR, 
 
 all the appurtenances and comforts of ordinary 
 domestic life were sedulously stowed away in 
 bed-rooms, and closets, and Mr. Dobison's 
 dressing-room, and the principal portions of the 
 house so denuded as to be almost reduced to 
 their quondam state of " unfurnished apart- 
 ments." 
 
 But on the morning of the eventful day, men 
 came with long, narrow hard benches, and 
 ranged them round the drawing room, in very 
 mockery of its poverty, and then bundles of 
 evergreens were tossed out of spring carts and 
 festooned — bah ! it was like decking a skeleton 
 — round the naked walls. And the house 
 seemed the common property of the confection- 
 ers and their boys, and the Miss Dobisons were 
 hard at work all day tying bouquets of laurel 
 branches and holly, and Mrs. Dobison did the 
 work of a gang of prisoners on the tread-mill, in 
 ascertaining from kitchen to garret that her 
 property was effectually concealed, and that 
 of Messrs. Comfit, Truffle, and Chalker properly 
 disposed.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 257 
 
 Poor Mr. Dobison was chased from room to 
 room, like a hunted hare, now confronted, on 
 the staircase, by the end of a bench propelled 
 upwards by some hidden motive power, now en- 
 countered in his exit from the dining room by 
 a detachment of white aproned men — like 
 French sapeurs — in single file, their heads sur- 
 mounted with a great variety of grotesque and 
 curious constructions, including white walled 
 pagodas of blanc-mange with pink pinnacles, 
 sponge-cake porcupines with almond quills, 
 spire-sugar Gothic castles of an entirely new 
 period of that style of architecture and one un- 
 noticed by Rickman or Ruskin, and not realized 
 by Barry or Pugin, surrounded with a moat 
 of trifle, crouching rabbits of orange, setting 
 hens of strawberry cream, couchant lions of 
 calves' foot jelly; then, as he sought refuge in 
 his own private apartment, arrested in limine 
 and blocked out with all kinds of furniture, piled 
 up in curious combinations. But why renew to 
 my readers the horrors of such days ? 
 
 The hours passed in tumult and discomfort,
 
 258 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 especially to Mr. Dobison, who hastily and sur- 
 reptitiously snatched an unsatisfactory luncheon 
 in passing round the supper table, and here and 
 there abstracting a biscuit or cake where he 
 thought the theft would be unobserved. Dinner 
 he did not venture to hint at, for, as the day 
 wore on, the confusion increased. 
 
 To his supreme delight, however, Mrs. 
 Dobison, about six o'clock, invited him into the 
 housekeeper's room, and there the assembling of 
 the family took place over a cold fowl. 
 
 This having been discussed in a hurried and 
 agitated manner, the ladies retired to dress, and 
 Mr. Dobison to wander like an unlaid ghost over 
 the house. 
 
 The family council was once more held in the 
 evening, and they sat in the bare, cheerless 
 drawing room, in a nervous and unsettled state, 
 awaiting the arrival of their guests. 
 
 These, like the early flakes of a coming snow- 
 storm, were at first few and scattered, but they 
 soon came fast and thick, drifting in from all 
 quarters of the town, till the street was well
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS, 259 
 
 nigh blocked up. The higher orders of society 
 sent their representatives to the Dobison con- 
 gress, as well as those nearer the sphere of the 
 worthy host and hostess ; for the difficulty which 
 they had experienced in making their way into 
 the Arctic regions of Aristocracy had been over- 
 come, and Mr. Dobison's champagne and claret 
 were imbibed, his daughters danced with, and 
 his wife laughed at — in good society. And yet 
 the ulterior motive of all their exertions seemed 
 as far off attainment as ever, the Miss Dobisons 
 were not even brides elect. 
 
 Mrs. Dobison's apartments were filled on that 
 night with an extensive collection of such spe- 
 cimens of the genus " homo" as are usually 
 collected at such menageries. 
 
 There were ancient spinsters and dowagers, 
 forming the "wall-flowers," or "tapisserie" of 
 the ball-room ; there were young men and young 
 adies of average proportions, and appearance, 
 and intellect, by the dozens — here and there 
 one who, in beauty or plainness, height or dimi- 
 nutiveness, embonpoint or shoulder blades, .varied
 
 260 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 from the rest; here, one whose susceptible tem- 
 perament might have often tempted him to say 
 to his 
 
 Heart, between sleeping and wakiDg, 
 Thou wild thing that always art leaping and aching, 
 What black, brown, or fair, in what clime, in what nation, 
 By turns has not taught thee a pit-a-patation ; 
 
 there, one who, even though she might have left 
 her teens some years before, might still toss 
 her head and sing cheerily to herself — 
 
 Je n'ai pas de cceur 
 Je ne m'en soucis guere 
 Car si j'avais un je ne j'aurais qu'en faire. 
 
 But a book has been written on the physiology 
 of evening parties, and I would not be deemed a 
 plagiarist. 
 
 For the hundred and fiftieth time, Mrs. Dobi- 
 son's green velvet dress (she was partial to that 
 colour, and exhibited it with much constancy in 
 every variety of texture, velvet, satin, silk) had 
 swept the floor, obedient to the welcoming cour- 
 tesy of its owner ; for the hundred and fiftieth 
 time Mr. Dobison had bowed low, with a " glad
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 261 
 
 to see you — " when, immediately following the 
 announcement of his name, there appeared at 
 the door of the principal room the ghost-like 
 figure of Lord Ravensclint. 
 
 Again the green robe sank down, but lower, 
 as beseemed the hostess of an earl's eldest son, 
 and a bachelor to boot ; again were the host's 
 dorsal muscles brought into action at the same 
 time that the a very glad to see you, my lord," 
 was impressively and obsequiously pronounced. 
 His lordship's heavy eyes seemed suggestive of 
 sleep, perhaps of a glass or two of wine which 
 had better have been left untasted; and, to judge 
 from his totally inexpressive countenance, he 
 appeared hardly to have made up his mind as 
 to where he was or what was going on. 
 
 " Your lordship does us great honour in join- 
 ing our party to night," said Mrs. Dobison ; 
 " we heard you had been slightly indisposed." 
 
 " Yaas, a cold I got out hunting." 
 
 " Your sport is likely to be stopped," observed 
 Mr. Dobison ; " it looked like frost this after- 
 noon."
 
 262 HIDDEN LINKS; OK, 
 
 " Yaas, so they said at the club ; but I 
 don't care much ; for that feller Ellice lamed 
 my best horse at Birdlime bottom, and " 
 
 " Would your lordship allow me to introduce 
 my eldest daughter to you?" said Mrs. Dobison, 
 advancing with the fair Clementina in tow. 
 " Clementina, my dear, Lord Ravensclint." 
 
 A meaningless bow on the one side, and a smile 
 intended to be damaging on the other, followed 
 the introduction. His lordship then languidly 
 suggested a quadrille — the young lady assented 
 vivaciously, and was soon dancing with a real 
 live bachelor lord, and doing her best to improve 
 their acquaintance. 
 
 His lordship was not communicative ; more- 
 over, he considered that to walk silently through 
 a quadrille was all that could fairly be required 
 of any man in a ball-room. The last figure had 
 therefore been accomplished, and yet a very 
 small amount of conversation interchanged. 
 
 " Do you waltz, my lord? murmured Miss 
 Dobison, with a meaning smile, as, according to 
 our insular fashion, she and her partner took a
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 263 
 
 turn round the room at the conclusion of the 
 dance. 
 
 "No, it tires one, and makes one giddy," 
 replied Lord Kavensclint. 
 
 " I think so too," said the young lady, who 
 had hoped that his lordship's reply would have 
 been just the reverse ; " I really like a quiet 
 quadrille best " ( she had just, with her last 
 waltzing partner, voted quadrilles a horrid bore, 
 fit only for middle aged country squires and 
 spinsters) ; " one is not able to speak a word in 
 any other dance." 
 
 "You ride?" suggested the inventive imagi- 
 nation of Lord Kavensclint. 
 
 " We have not got any riding horses here," 
 was the cautions reply : the real fact being that 
 the young lady had never been on horseback in 
 her life, and that Mr. Dobison's whole stud con- 
 sisted of a pair of carriage horses jobbed by the 
 month. 
 
 "Do you like the country, my lord?" asked 
 the fair Clementina, with an artless and pastoral 
 expression.
 
 264 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 Ya-a- 
 
 " Oh ! I doat upon it ! " exclaimed she, enthu- 
 siastically, her eagerness to coincide with his 
 lordship's tastes causing her to interrupt his 
 reply ; " it is so pleasant to be among green 
 fields, and to have a nice garden, with shady 
 walks and sunny terraces." 
 
 " Yaas, but I was going to say that I liked 
 a town best ; it is so dull in the country." 
 
 " So it is; no balls, no parties." 
 
 a No billiards, no clubs, no fellers to talk 
 to." 
 
 u No, indeed, nothing really agreeable in the 
 way of society. Oh! a town is decidedly much 
 
 nicer." 
 
 After the establishment of this community of 
 feeling, Lord Ravensclint, whose hazy eyes had 
 been wandering over the room in search of Mrs. 
 Dobison, having discovered that conspicuous 
 lady, was leading his partner towards her, as he 
 considered he had done his duty. 
 
 "Would your lordship kindly reach me an 
 ice?" whispered Miss Dobison, still leaning
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS 265 
 
 gracefully on Lord Ravensclint's arm, as a ser- 
 vant passed with a tray full of white and red 
 prominences, like a sierra nevada, or a plan of 
 the comparative height of mountains. 
 
 This was an artful feint to stop his lordship's 
 desertion, and he was compelled to stand sentry 
 beside the fair Clementina, while the pink glacier 
 slowly, very slowly, disappeared. 
 
 His lordship's taciturnity was, however, on the 
 increase, and his share of the dialogue was nearly 
 confined to the enunciation of what are usually 
 considered monosyllables, an occasional . a ya-as 
 or " no," and he took the earliest opportunity of 
 conveying the young lady back to Mrs. Dobison, 
 who had not failed to watch and appreciate her 
 daughter's manoeuvres. The young lady with- 
 drew her arm from his lordship's with a winning 
 smile, which, perhaps, meant to say " for a time 
 only, I trust," and Lord Ravensclint retreated 
 across the room to join some acquaintances 
 who had just come together to the ball after 
 dinner and vingt-et-un. He had just come 
 up to the party of men, who were clustered 
 
 VOL I. N
 
 266 HIDDEN LINKS; OK, 
 
 round the door, when some other guests were 
 announced, and the gentlemen interrupted their 
 conversation, and stepped on one side as Mrs. 
 De Lorme, her son, and her two daughters? 
 passed into the room. 
 
 " These are the ladies that were out riding 
 this morning, Ravensclint," observed one of the 
 gentlemen: " they are a brace of deuced fine 
 girls." 
 
 " Yaas, by Jove, they are," replied his Lord- 
 ship, warming into something like animation; 
 and, as he watched the greeting of the hostess, 
 for once in his life, a purpose entered his head, 
 and he bethought him that he should like to be 
 introduced to them. The two sisters were look- 
 ing remarkably well. I should make some 
 dreadful blunder if I attempted anything with 
 reference to their dress, but I know that it har- 
 monized exactly with the characters of their 
 beauty, which, like that of " the fair-haired Mar- 
 tha and Teresa brown," whose charms inspired 
 some of Pope's most charming verses, was distinct 
 and dissimilar.
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 267 
 
 a They are the handsomest girls in the room," 
 said another of the party. 
 
 11 You may call the dark one handsome," re- 
 plied the third, " but the fair one is extremely 
 pretty, and that, to my mind, is higher praise. 
 See, there is Courtenay asking one to dance, and 
 Montague is off with the other. They will be 
 engaged ten deep in half as many minutes. 
 There'll be no chance for us, Ellice." 
 
 Lord Ravensclint had been standing silent, but 
 his ears were open, and his eyes more so than 
 they had been during the evening. He left the 
 knot of gentlemen, and walked directly towards 
 Mrs. Dobison. 
 
 She saw him advancing, and, coming forward, 
 said to him, " I was just looking for you, my 
 Lord, in hopes that you would allow me to intro- 
 duce my second daughter, my daughter Amelia, to 
 you." ' 
 
 An exclamation of annoyance rose to his Lord- 
 ship's lips, but was changed into " with plea- 
 sure." Then, like a blustering foaming steamer 
 with her boat in tow, Mrs. Dobison commenced
 
 268 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 making, I cannot write threading, her way- 
 through the crowd in search of her fair Amelia, 
 with Lord Ravensclint behind her. 
 
 It was the broad end of the wedge going first, 
 so they did not make very rapid progress, and 
 they came to a standstill, not far from where 
 Mary De Lorme happened to be. 
 
 His Lordship's courage rose, " Mrs. Dobison," 
 he said, with more rapid utterance than was his 
 wont, " will you introduce me to Miss De Lorme? 
 She is standing close to you." 
 
 " Oh ! certainly/' replied the hostess, though 
 a throb of jealousy shot through her maternal 
 heart. 
 
 The introduction took place, and Miss De 
 Lorme's hand was secured for a quadrille — any- 
 thing requiring more exertion would have anni- 
 hilated his Lordship — and they again started off 
 in search of Amelia. 
 
 But why chronicle in detail the events of that 
 night? Or, attempting a task more difficult than 
 to distinguish every movement on a battle-field, 
 narrate the thousand effects of which vanity or
 
 THE SCHOOLFELLOWS. 269 
 
 self-interest, pride or deceit, envy or disappoint- 
 ment, fun or good humour, mirth or innocence, was 
 the known or unconscious cause ? The rooms were 
 crowded with " fair women and brave men," the 
 music was good, the supper splendid, and if the 
 dancing was animated before, it was doubly so 
 after it, for champagne will add brilliancy to 
 the brightest eyes, and elasticity to the nimblest 
 feet. 
 
 Mr. Dobison moved stealthily about, bowing, 
 here and there, to people — his guests — whose 
 very names were unknown to him, or forgotten 
 as soon as heard, wishing heartily that the whole 
 performance was over, but supposing he was only 
 doing what was right; his girls danced to the 
 utmost delight of their hearts, and the great 
 heightening of their complexions ; and Mrs. Dobi- 
 son surveyed and directed the whole, as an able 
 general regulates the arrangements and manoeu- 
 vres of his entire force, presenting not a bad illus- 
 tration of La Bruyere's sarcasm, Elle est riche, 
 elle mange bien, mats les coiffures changent, et
 
 270 HIDDEN LINKS; OR, 
 
 lorsqyUelle y pense le moins, et qu'elle se croit 
 heureuse, la sienne est hors de mode. 
 
 No matter, her ball was thoroughly successful : 
 and Mr. and Mrs. Dobison, at length, at what is 
 termed, according to circumstances, either a" 
 early or a late hour — closed their eyes, with the 
 conviction that they had "done their duty." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 T. C. Newby, Printer, SO, Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square,
 
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