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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10920-0.txt b/10920-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..26422b0 --- /dev/null +++ b/10920-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12626 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10920 *** + +TWO YEARS AGO + +[Illustration] + + + + +TWO YEARS AGO + +BY CHARLES KINGSLEY + +IN TWO VOLS.--VOL. I + + +1901 + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL.I. + + CHAP + + INTRODUCTORY + I POETRY AND PROSE + II STILL LIFE + III ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE + IV FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND + V THE WAY TO WIN THEM + VI AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE + VII LA CORDIFIAMMA + VIII TAKING ROOT + IX "AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?" + X THE RECOGNITION + XI THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT + XII A PEER IN TROUBLE + XIII L'HOMME INCOMPRIS + XIV THE DOCTOR AT BAY + + + + +TWO YEARS AGO. + +INTRODUCTORY. + + +It may seem a somewhat Irish method of beginning the story of "Two +Years Ago" by a scene which happened but a month since. And yet, will +not the story be on that very account a better type of many a man's +own experiences! How few of us had learnt the meaning of "Two Years +Ago," until this late quiet autumn time; and till Christmas, too, with +its gaps in the old ring of friendly faces, never to be filled up +again on earth, began to teach us somewhat of its lesson. + +Two years ago, while pestilence was hovering over us and ours; while +the battle-roar was ringing in our ears; who had time to think, to ask +what all that meant; to seek for the deep lesson which we knew must +lie beneath? Two years ago was the time for work; for men to do with +all their might whatsoever their hands found to do. But now the storm +has lulled once more; the air has cleared awhile, and we can talk +calmly over all the wonders of that sudden, strange, and sad "Two +years ago." + +So felt, at least, two friends who went down, just one week before +Christmas-day, to Whitbury, in Berkshire. Two years ago had come to +one of them, as to thousands more, the crisis of his life; and he was +talking of it with his companion; and was on his way, too, to learn +more of that story, which this book contains, and in which he had +borne his part. + +They were both of them men who would at first sight interest a +stranger. The shorter of the two he might have seen before--at picture +sales, Royal Academy meetings, dinner parties, evening parties, +anywhere and everywhere, in town; for Claude Mellot is a general +favourite, and a general guest. + +He is a tiny, delicate-featured man, with a look of half-lazy +enthusiasm about his beautiful face, which reminds you much of +Shelley's portrait; only he has what Shelley had not, clustering +auburn curls, and a rich brown beard, soft as silk. You set him +down at once as a man of delicate susceptibility, sweetness, +thoughtfulness; probably (as he actually is) an artist. + +His companion is a man of statelier stamp, tall, dark, and handsome, +with a very large forehead; if the face has a fault, it is that the +mouth is too small; that, and the expression of face too, and the +tone of voice, seem to indicate over-refinement, possibly a too +aristocratic exclusiveness. He is dressed like a very fine gentleman +indeed, and looks and talks like one. Aristocrat, however, in the +common sense of the word, he is not; for he is a native of the Model +Republic, and sleeping-partner in a great New York merchant firm. + +He is chatting away to Claude Mellot, the artist, about Frémont's +election; and on that point seems to be earnest enough, though patient +and moderate. + +"My dear Claude, our loss is gain. The delay of the next four years +was really necessary, that we might consolidate our party. And I leave +you to judge, if it has grown to its present size in but a few months, +what dimensions it will have attained before the next election. We +require the delay, too, to discover who are our really best men; not +merely as orators, but as workers; and you English ought to know +better than any nation, that the latter class of men are those whom +the world most needs--that though Aaron may be an altogether inspired +preacher, yet it is only slow-tongued practical Moses, whose spokesman +he is, who can deliver Israel from their taskmasters. Besides, my dear +fellow, we really want the next four years--'tell it not in Gath'--to +look about us and see what is to be done. Your wisest Englishmen +justly complain of us, that our 'platform' is as yet a merely negative +one; that we define what the South shall not do, but not what the +North shall. Ere four years be over, we will have a 'positive +platform,' at which you shall have no cause to grumble." + +"I still think with Marie, that your 'positive platform' is already +made for you, plain as the sun in heaven, as the lightnings of Sinai. +Free those slaves at once and utterly!" + +"Impatient idealist! By what means? By law, or by force? Leave us to +draw a _cordon sanitaire_ round the tainted States, and leave the +system to die a natural death, as it rapidly will if it be prevented +from enlarging its field. Don't fancy that a dream of mine. None know +it better than the Southerners themselves. What makes them ready +just now to risk honour, justice, even the common law of nations +and humanity, in the struggle for new slave territory? What but the +consciousness that without virgin soil, which will yield rapid and +enormous profit to slave labour, they and their institution must be +ruined!" + +"The more reason for accelerating so desirable a consummation, by +freeing the slaves at once." + +"Humph!" said Stangrave with a smile. "Who so cruel at times as your +too benevolent philanthropist? Did you ever count the meaning of those +words? Disruption of the Union, an invasion of the South by the North; +and an internecine war, aggravated by the horrors of a general rising +of the slaves, and such scenes as Hayti beheld sixty years ago. If you +have ever read them, you will pause ere you determine to repeat them +on a vaster scale." + +"It is dreadful, Heaven knows, even in thought! But, Stangrave, can +any moderation on your part ward it off? Where there is crime, there +is vengeance; and without shedding of blood is no remission of sin." + +"God knows! It may be true: but God forbid that I should ever do aught +to hasten what may come. Oh, Claude, do you fancy that I, of all men, +do not feel at moments the thirst for brute vengeance?" + +Claude was silent. + +"Judge for yourself, you who know all--what man among us Northerners +can feel, as I do, what those hapless men may have deserved?--I who +have day and night before me the brand of their cruelty, filling my +heart with fire? I need all my strength, all my reason, at times to +say to myself, as I say to others--'Are not these slaveholders men of +like passions with yourself? What have they done which you would not +have done in their place?' I have never read that key to Uncle Tom's +Cabin. I will not even read this Dred, admirable as I believe it to +be." + +"Why should you?" said Claude. "Have you not a key to Uncle Tom's +Cabin, more pathetic than any word of man's or woman's?" + +"But I do not mean that! I will not read them, because I have the key +to them in my own heart, Claude: because conscience has taught me to +feel for the Southerner as a brother, who is but what I might have +been; and to sigh over his misdirected courage and energy, not with +hatred, not with contempt: but with pity, all the more intense the +more he scorns that pity; to long, not merely for the slaves' sake, +but for the masters' sake, to see them--the once chivalrous gentlemen +of the South--delivered from the meshes of a net which they did not +spread for themselves, but which was round their feet, and round their +fathers', from the day that they were born. You ask me to destroy +these men. I long to save them from their certain doom!" + +"You are right, and a better Christian than I am, I believe. Certainly +they do need pity, if any sinners do; for slavery seems to be--to +judge from Mr. Brooks's triumph--a great moral curse, and a heavier +degradation to the slaveholder himself, than it can ever be to the +slave." + +"Then I would free them from that curse, that degradation. If the +negro asks, 'Am I not a man and a brother?' have they no right to ask +it also? Shall I, pretending to love my country, venture on any rash +step which may shut out the whole Southern white population from their +share in my country's future glory? No; have but patience with us, you +comfortable liberals of the Old World, who find freedom ready made to +your hands, and we will pay you all. Remember, we are but children +yet; our sins are the sins of youth,--greediness, intemperance, +petulance, self-conceit. When we are purged from our youthful sins, +England will not be ashamed of her child." + +"Ashamed of you? I often wish I could make Americans understand the +feeling of England to you--the honest pride, as of a mother who has +brought into the world the biggest baby that ever this earth beheld, +and is rather proud of its stamping about and beating her in its +pretty pets. Only the old lady does get a little cross when she hears +you talk of the wrongs which you have endured from her, and teaching +your children to hate us as their ancient oppressors, on the ground of +a foolish war, of which every Englishman is utterly ashamed, and in +the result of which he glories really as much as you do." + +"Don't talk of 'you,' Claude! You know well what I think on that +point. Never did one nation make the _amende honorable_ to another +more fully and nobly than you have to us; and those who try to keep up +the quarrel are--I won't say what. But the truth is, Claude, we +have had no real sorrows; and therefore we can afford to play with +imaginary ones. God grant that we may not have our real ones--that we +may not have to drink of the cup of which our great mother drank two +years ago!" + +"It was a wholesome bitter for us; and it may be so for you likewise: +but we will have no sad forebodings on the eve of the blessed +Christmas-tide. He lives, He loves, He reigns; and all is well, for we +are His, and He is ours." + +"Ah," said Stangrave, "when Emerson sneered at you English for +believing your Old Testament, he little thought that that was the +lesson which it had taught you; and that that same lesson was the +root of all your greatness. That that belief in God's being, in some +mysterious way, the living King of England and of Christendom, has +been the very idea which has kept you in peace and safety, now for +many a hundred years, moving slowly on from good to better, not +without many backslidings and many shortcomings, but still finding +out, quickly enough, when you were on the wrong road, and not ashamed +to retrace your steps, and to _reform_, as brave strong men should +dare to do; a people who have been for many an age in the vanguard +of all the nations, and the champions of sure and solid progress +throughout the world; because what is new among you is not patched +artificially on to the old, but grows organically out of it, with +a growth like that of your own English oak, whose every new-year's +leaf-crop is fed by roots which burrow deep in many a buried +generation, and the rich soil of full a thousand years." + +"Stay!" said the little artist. "We are quite conceited enough +already, without your eloquent adulation, sir! But there is a truth +in your words. There is a better spirit roused among us, and that +not merely of two years ago. I knew this part of the country well in +1846-7-8, and since then, I can bear witness, a spirit of self-reform +has been awakened round here, in many a heart which I thought once +utterly frivolous. I find, in every circle of every class, men and +women asking to be taught their duty, that they may go and do it; +I find everywhere schools, libraries, and mechanics' institutes +springing up: and rich and poor meeting together more and more in the +faith that God has made them all. As for the outward and material +improvements--you know as well as I, that since free trade and +emigration, the labourers confess themselves better off than they +have been for fifty years; and though you will not see in the chalk +counties that rapid and enormous agricultural improvement which you +will in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, or the Lothians, yet you shall see +enough to-day to settle for you the question whether we old-country +folk are in a state of decadence and decay. _Par exemple_--" + +And Claude pointed to the clean large fields, with their neat +close-clipt hedge-rows, among which here and there stood cottages, +more than three-fourths of them new. + +"Those well-drained fallow fields, ten years ago, were poor clay +pastures, fetlock deep in mire six months in the year, and accursed in +the eyes of my poor dear old friend, Squire Lavington; because they +were so full of old moles'-nests, that they threw all horses down. I +am no farmer: but they seem surely to be somewhat altered since then." + +As he spoke, they turned off the main line of the rolling clays toward +the foot of the chalk hills, and began to brush through short cuttings +of blue gault and "green sand," so called by geologists, because its +usual colours are bright brown, snow-white, and crimson. + +Soon they get glimpses of broad silver Whit, as she slides, with +divided streams, through bright water-meadows, and stately groves of +poplar, and abele, and pine; while, far aloft upon the left, the downs +rise steep, crowned with black fir spinnies, and dotted with dark box +and juniper. + +Soon they pass old Whitford Priory, with its numberless gables, +nestling amid mighty elms, and the Nunpool flashing and roaring as of +old, and the broad shallow below sparkling and laughing in the low, +but bright December sun. + +"So slides on the noble river, for ever changing, and yet for ever the +same--always fulfilling its errand, which yet is never fulfilled," +said Stangrave,--he was given to half-mystic utterances, and +hankerings after Pagan mythology, learnt in the days when he +worshipped Emerson, and tried (but unsuccessfully) to worship Margaret +Fuller Ossoli,--"Those old Greeks had a deep insight into nature, +when they gave to each river not merely a name, but a semi-human +personality, a river-god of its own. It may be but a collection +of ever-changing atoms of water;--what is your body but a similar +collection of atoms, decaying and renewing every moment? Yet you are a +person; and is not the river, too, a person--a live thing? It has +an individual countenance which you love, which you would recognise +again, meet it where you will; it marks the whole landscape; it +determines probably the geography and the society of a whole district. +It draws you, too, to itself by an indefinable mesmeric attraction. If +you stop in a strange place, the first instinct of your idle +half-hour is, to lounge by the river. It is a person to you; you call +it--Scotchmen do, at least--she, and not it. How do you know that you +are not philosophically correct, and that the river has a spirit as +well as you?" + +"Humph!" said Claude, who talks mysticism himself by the hour, but +snubs it in every one else. "It has trout, at least; and they stand, +I suppose, for its soul, as the raisins did for those of Jean Paul's +gingerbread bride and bridegroom and peradventure baby." + +"Oh you materialist English! sporting-mad all of you, from the duke +who shooteth stags to the clod who poacheth rabbits!" + +"And who therefore can fight Russians at Inkermann, duke and clod +alike, and side by side; never better (says the chronicler of old) +than in their first battle. I can neither fight nor fish, and on the +whole agree with you: but I think it proper to be as English as I can +in the presence of an American." + +A whistle--a creak--a jar; and they stop at the little Whitford +station, where a cicerone for the vale, far better than Claude was, +made his appearance, in the person of Mark Armsworth, banker, railway +director, and _de facto_ king of Whitbury town, long since elected by +universal suffrage (his own vote included) as permanent _locum tenens_ +of her gracious Majesty. + +He hails Claude cheerfully from the platform, as he waddles about, +with a face as of the rising sun, radiant with good fun, good humour, +good deeds, good news, and good living. His coat was scarlet once; but +purple now. His leathers and boots were doubtless clean this morning; +but are now afflicted with elephantiasis, being three inches deep in +solid mud, which his old groom is scraping off as fast as he can. His +cap is duntled in; his back bears fresh stains of peat; a gentle rain +distils from the few angles of his person, and bedews the platform; +for Mark Armsworth has "been in Whit" to-day. + +All porters and guards touch their hats to him; the station-master +rushes up and down frantically, shouting, "Where are those +horse-boxes? Now then, look alive!" for Mark is chairman of the line, +and everybody's friend beside; and as he stands there being scraped, +he finds time to inquire after every one of the officials by turns, +and after their wives, children, and sweethearts beside. + +"What a fine specimen of your English squire!" says Stangrave. + +"He is no squire; he is the Whitbury banker, of whom I told you." + +"Armsworth!" said Stangrave, looking at the old man with interest. + +"Mark Armsworth himself. He is acting as squire, though, now; for he +has hunted the Whitford Priors ever since poor old Lavington's death." + +"Now then--those horse-boxes!"... + +"Very sorry, sir; I telegraphed up, but we could get but one down." + +"Put the horses into that, then; and there's an empty carriage! Jack, +put the hounds into it, and they shall all go second class, as sure as +I'm chairman!" + +The grinning porters hand the strange passengers in, while Mark counts +the couples with his whip-point,-- + +"Ravager--Roysterer; Melody--Gay-lass; all right. Why, where's that +old thief of a Goodman?" + +"Went over a gate as soon as he saw the couples; and wouldn't come +in at any price, sir," says the huntsman. "Gone home by himself, I +expect." + +"Goodman, Goodman, boy!" And forthwith out of the station-room slips +the noble old hound, grey-nosed, grey-eyebrowed, who has hidden, for +purposes of his own, till he sees all the rest safe locked in. + +Up he goes to Mark, and begins wriggling against his knees, and +looking up as only dogs can. "Oh, want to go first-class with me, eh? +Jump in, then!" And in jumps the hound, and Mark struggles after him. + +"Hillo, sir! Come out! Here are your betters here before you," as he +sees Stangrave, and a fat old lady in the opposite corner. + +"Oh, no; let the dog stay!" says Stangrave. + +"I shall wet you, sir, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, no." + +And Mark settles himself, puffing, with the hound's head on his knees, +and begins talking fast and loud. + +"Well, Mr. Mellot, you're a stranger here. Haven't seen you since poor +Miss Honour died. Ah, sweet angel she was! Thought my Mary would never +get over it. She's just such another, though I say it, barring the +beauty. Goodman, boy! You recollect old Goodman, son of Galloper, that +the old squire gave our old squire?" + +Claude, of course, knows--as all do who know those parts--who The Old +Squire is; long may he live, patriarch of the chase! The genealogy he +does not. + +"Ah, well--Miss Honour took to the pup, and used to walk him out; and +a prince of a hound he is; so now he's old we let him have his own +way, for her sake; and nobody'll ever bully _you_, will they, Goodman, +my boy?" + +"I want to introduce you to a friend of mine." + +"Proud to know any friend of yours, sir." + +"Mr. Stangrave--Mr. Armsworth. Mr. Stangrave is an American gentleman, +who is anxious to see Whitbury and the neighbourhood." + +"Well, I shall be happy to show it him, then--can't have a better +guide, though I say it--know everything by this time, and everybody, +man, woman, and child, as I hope Mr. Stangrave'll find when he gets to +know old Mark." + +"You must not speak of getting to know you, my dear sir; I know +you intimately already, I assure you; and more, am under very deep +obligations to you, which, I regret to say, I can only repay by +thanks." + +"Obligation to me, my dear sir?" + +"Indeed I am: I will tell you all when we are alone." And Stangrave +glanced at the fat old woman, who seemed to be listening intently. + +"Oh, never mind her," says Armsworth; "deaf as a post: very good +woman, but so deaf--ought to speak to her, though"--and, reaching +across, to the infinite amusement of his companions, he roared in the +fat woman's face, with a voice as of a speaking-trumpet--"Glad to see +you, Mrs. Grove! Got those dividends ready for you next time you come +into town." + +"Yah!" screamed the hapless woman, who (as the rest saw) heard +perfectly well. "What do you mean, frightening a lady in that way? +Deaf, indeed!" + +"Why," roared Mark again, "ain't you Mrs. Grove, of Drytown +Dirtywater?" + +"No, nor no acquaintance! What business is it of your'n, sir, to go +hollering in ladies' faces at your age?" + +"Well:--but I'll swear if you ain't her, you're somebody else. I know +you as well as the town clock" + +"Me? If you must know, sir, I'm Mrs. Pettigrew's mother, the +Linendraper's establishment, sir; a-going down for Christmas, sir!" + +"Humph!" says Mark: "you see--was sure I knew her--know everybody +here. As I said, if she wasn't Mrs. Grove, she was somebody else. Ever +in these parts before?" + +"Never: but I have heard a good deal of them; and very much charmed +with them I am. I have seldom seen a more distinctive specimen of +English scenery." + +"And how you are improving round here!" said Claude, who knew Mark's +weak points, and wanted to draw him out. "Your homesteads seem all +new; three fields have been thrown into one, I fancy, over half the +farms." + +Mark broke out at once on his favourite topic,--"I believe you! I'm +making the mare go here in Whitford, without the money too, sometimes. +I'm steward now, bailiff--ha! ha! these four years past--to Mrs. +Lavington's Irish husband; I wanted him to have a regular agent, a +canny Scot, or Yorkshireman. Faith, the poor man couldn't afford it, +and so fell back on old Mark. Paddy loves a job, you know. So I've the +votes and the fishing, and send him his rents, and manage all the rest +pretty much, my own way." + +When the name of Lavington was mentioned, Mark observed Stangrave +start; and an expression passed over his face difficult to be +defined--it seemed to Mark mingled pride and shame. He turned to +Claude, and said, in a low voice, but loud enough for Mark to hear,-- + +"Lavington? Is this their country also? As I am going to visit the +graves of my ancestors, I suppose I ought to visit those of hers." + +Mark caught the words which he was not intended to. + +"Eh? Sir, do you belong to these parts?" + +"My family, I believe, lived in the neighbourhood of Whitbury, at a +place called Stangrave-end." + +"To be sure! Old farm-house now; fine old oak carving in it, though; +fine old family it must have been; church full of their monuments. +Hum,--ha! Well! that's pleasant, now! I've often heard there were good +old families away there in New England; never thought that there were +Whitbury people among them. Hum--well! the world's not so big as +people think, after all. And you spoke of the Lavingtons? They are +great folks here--or were--" He was going to rattle on: but he saw a +pained expression on both the travellers' faces, and Stangrave stopped +him, somewhat drily-- + +"I know nothing of them, I assure you, or they of me. Your country +here is certainly charming, and shows little of those signs of decay +which some people in America impute to it." + +"Decay!" Mark went off at score. "Decay be hanged? There's life in the +old dog yet, sir! and dead pigs are looking up since free trade and +emigration. Cheap bread and high wages now: and instead of lands +going out of cultivation, as they threatened--bosh! there's a greater +breadth down in wheat in the vale now than there ever was; and look +at the roots. Farmers must farm now, or sink; and by George! they are +farming, like sensible fellows: and a fig for that old turnip ghost of +Protection! There was a fellow came down from the Carlton--you know +what that is!" Stangrave bowed, and smiled assent. "From the Carlton, +sir, two years since, and tried it on, till he fell in with old Mark. +I told him a thing or two; among the rest, told him to his face that +he was a liar; for he wanted to make farmers believe they were ruined, +when he knew they were not; and that he'd get 'em back Protection, +when he knew that he couldn't--and, what's more, he didn't mean to. So +he cut up rough, and wanted to call me out." + +"Did you go?" asked Stangrave, who was fast becoming amused with his +man, + +"I told him that that wasn't my line, unless he'd try Eley's greens at +forty yards; and then I was his man: but if he laid a finger on me, +I'd give him as sound a horsewhipping, old as I am, as ever man had +in his life. And so I would." And Mark looked complacently at his own +broad shoulders. "And since then, my lord and I have had it all our +own way; and Minchampstead and Co. is the only firm in the vale." + +"What's become of a Lord Vieuxbois, who used to live somewhere +hereabouts? I used to meet him at Rome." + +"Rome?" said Mark solemnly. "Yes; he was too fond of Rome, awhile +back: can't see what people want running into foreign parts to look at +those poor idolators, and their Punch and Judy plays. Pray for 'em, +and keep clear of them, is the best rule:--but he has married my +lord's youngest daughter; and three pretty children he has,--ducks of +children. Always comes to see me in my shop, when he drives into town. +Oh!--he's doing pretty well.--One of these new between-the-stools, +Peelites they call them--hope they'll be as good as the name. However, +he's a freetrader, because he can't help it. So we have his votes; and +as to his Conservatism, let him conserve hips and haws if he chooses, +like a 'pothecary. After all, why pull down anything, before it's +tumbling on your head? By the by, sir, as you're a man of money, +there's that Stangrave-end farm in the market now. Pretty little +investment,--I'd see that you got it cheap; and my lord wouldn't bid +against you, of course, as you're a liberal--all Americans, are, I +suppose. And so you'd oblige us, as well as yourself, for it would +give us another vote for the county." + +"Upon my word, you tempt me; but I do not think that this is just +the moment for an American to desert his own country, and settle in +England. I should not be here now, had I not this autumn done all I +could for America in America, and so crossed the sea to serve her, if +possible, in England." + +"Well, perhaps not; especially if you're a Frémonter." + +"I am, I assure you." + +"Thought as much, by your looks. Don't see what else an honest man can +be just now." + +Stangrave laughed. "I hope every one thinks so in England." + +"Trust us for that, sir! We know a man when we see him here; I hope +they'll do the same across the water." + +There was silence for a minute or two; and then Mark began again. + +"Look!--there's the farm; that's my lord's. I should like to show +you the short-horns there, sir!--all my Lord Ducie's and Sir Edward +Knightley's stock; bought a bull-calf of him the other day myself for +a cool hundred, old fool that I am. Never mind, spreads the breed. And +here are mills--four pair of new stones. Old Whit don't know herself +again. But I dare say they look small enough to you, sir, after your +American water-power." + +"What of that? It is just as honourable in you to make the most of a +small river, as in us to make the most of a large one." + +"You speak like a book, sir. By the by, if you think of taking home a +calf or two, to improve your New England breed--there are a good many +gone across the sea in the last few years--I think we could find you +three or four beauties, not so very dear, considering the blood." + +"Thanks; but I really am no farmer." + +"Well--no offence, I hope: but I am like your Yankees in one thing, +you see;--always have an eye to a bit of business. If I didn't, I +shouldn't be here now." + +"How very tasteful!--our own American shrubs! what a pity that they +are not in flower! What is this," asked Stangrave,--"one of your +noblemen's parks?" + +And they began to run through the cutting in Minchampstead Park, where +the owner has concealed the banks of the rail for nearly half a mile, +in a thicket of azaleas, rhododendrons, and clambering roses. + +"All!--isn't it pretty? His lordship let us have the land for a song; +only bargained that we should keep low, not to spoil his view; and so +we did; and he's planted our cutting for us. I call that a present to +the county, and a very pretty one too! Ah, give me these new brooms +that sweep clean!" + +"Your old brooms, like Lord Vieuxbois, were new brooms once, and swept +well enough five hundred years ago," said Stangrave, who had that +filial reverence for English antiquity which sits so gracefully upon +many highly educated and far-sighted Americans. + +"Worn to the stumps, now, too many of them, sir; and want new-hething, +as our broom-squires would say; and I doubt whether most of them are +worth the cost of a fresh bind. Not that I can say that of the young +lord. He's foremost in all that's good, if he had but money; and +when he hasn't, he gives brains. Gave a lecture, in our institute at +Whitford, last winter, on the four great Poets. Shot over my head a +little, and other people's too: but my Mary--my daughter, sir, thought +it beautiful; and there's nothing that she don't know." + +"It is very hopeful, to see your aristocracy joining in the general +movement, and bringing their taste and knowledge to bear on the lower +classes." + +"Yes, sir! We're going all right now, in the old country. Only have +to steer straight, and not put on too much steam. But give me the +new-comers, after all. They may be close men of business;--how else +could one live? But when it comes to giving, I'll back them against +the old ones for generosity, or taste either. They've their proper +pride, when they get hold of the land; and they like to show it, and +quite right they. You must see my little place too. It's not in such +bad order, though I say it, and am but a country banker: but I'll back +my flowers against half the squires round--my Mary's, that is--and my +fruit too.--See, there! There's my lord's new schools, and his model +cottages, with more comforts in them, saving the size, than my +father's house had; and there's his barrack, as he calls it, for the +unmarried men--reading-room, and dining-room, in common; and a library +of books, and a sleeping-room for each." + +"It seems strange to complain of prosperity," said Stangrave; "but I +sometimes regret that in America there is so little room for the very +highest virtues; all are so well off, that one never needs to give; +and what a man does here for others, they do for themselves." + +"So much the better for them. There are other ways of being generous +besides putting your hand in your pocket, sir! By Jove! there'll be +room enough (if you'll excuse me) for an American to do fine things, +as long as those poor negro slaves--" + +"I know it; I know it," said Stangrave, in the tone of a man who had +already made up his mind on a painful subject, and wished to hear no +more of it. "You will excuse me; but I am come here to learn what I +can of England. Of my own country I know enough, I trust, to do my +duty in it when I return." + +Mark was silent, seeing that he had touched a tender place; and +pointed out one object of interest after another, as they ran through +the flat park, past the great house with its Doric façade, which +the eighteenth century had raised above the quiet cell of the +Minchampstead recluses. + +"It is very ugly," said Stangrave; and truly. + +"Comfortable enough, though; and, as somebody said, people live inside +their houses, and not outside 'em. You should see the pictures there, +though, while you're in the country. I can show you one or two, too, I +hope. Never grudge money for good pictures. The pleasantest furniture +in the world, as long as you keep them; and if you're tired of them, +always fetch double their price." + +After Minchampstead, the rail leaves the sands and clays, and turns up +between the chalk hills, along the barge river which it has rendered +useless, save as a supernumerary trout-stream; and then along Whit, +now flowing clearer and clearer, as we approach its springs amid the +lofty clowns. On through more water-meadows, and rows of pollard +willow, and peat-pits crested with tall golden reeds, and still +dykes,--each in summer a floating flower-bed; while Stangrave looks +out of the window, his face lighting up with curiosity. + +"How perfectly English! At least, how perfectly un-American! It is +just Tennyson's beautiful dream--" + + 'On either side the river lie + Long fields, of barley and of rye, + Which clothe the wold and meet the sky, + And through the field the stream runs by, + To many towered Camelot.' + +"Why, what is this?" as they stop again at a station, where the board +bears, in large letters, "Shalott." + +"Shalott? Where are the + + 'Four grey walls, and four grey towers,' + +which overlook a space of flowers?" + +There, upon the little island, are the castle-ruins, now converted +into a useful bone-mill. "And the lady?--is that she?" + +It was only the miller's daughter, fresh from a boarding-school, +gardening in a broad straw-hat. + +"At least," said Claude, "she is tending far prettier flowers than +ever the lady saw; while the lady herself, instead of weaving and +dreaming, is reading Miss Young's novels, and becoming all the wiser +thereby, and teaching poor children in Hemmelford National School." + +"And where is her fairy knight," asked Stangrave, "whom one half hopes +to see riding down from that grand old house which sulks there +above among the beech-woods as if frowning on all the change and +civilisation below!" + +"You do old Sidricstone injustice. Vieuxbois descends from thence, +now-a-days, to lecture at mechanics' institutes, instead of the fairy +knight, toiling along in the blazing summer weather, sweating in +burning metal, like poor Perillus in his own bull." + +"Then the fairy knight is extinct in England!" asked Stangrave, +smiling. + +"No man less; only he (not Vieuxbois, but his younger brother) has +found a wide-awake cooler than an iron kettle, and travels by rail +when he is at home; and when he was in the Crimea, rode a shaggy pony, +and smoked cavendish all through the battle of Inkermann." + +"He showed himself the old Sir Lancelot there," said Stangrave, + +"He did. Wherefore the lady married him when the Guards came home; and +he will breed prize pigs; and sit at the board of guardians; and take +in the Times; clothed, and in his right mind; for the old Berserk +spirit is gone out of him; and he is become respectable, in a +respectable age, and is nevertheless just as brave a fellow as ever." + +"And so all things are changed, except the river; where still-- + + 'Willows whiten, aspens quiver. + Little breezes dash and shiver + On the stream that runneth ever.'" + +"And," said Claude, smiling, "the descendants of mediaeval trout snap +at the descendants of mediaeval flies, spinning about upon just the +same sized and coloured wings on which their forefathers spun a +thousand years ago; having become, in all that while, neither bigger +nor wiser." + +"But is it not a grand thought," asked Stangrave,--"the silence and +permanence of nature amid the perpetual flux and noise of human +life?--a grand thought that one generation goeth and another cometh, +and the earth abideth for ever?" + +"At least it is so much the worse for the poor old earth, if her doom +is to stand still, while man improves and progresses from age to age." + +"May I ask one question, sir?" said Stangrave, who saw that their +conversation was puzzling their jolly companion. "Have you heard any +news yet of Mr. Thurnall!" + +Mark looked him full in the face. + +"Do you know him?" + +"I did, in past years, most intimately." + +"Then you knew the finest fellow, sir, that ever walked mortal earth." + +"I have discovered that, sir, as well as you. I am under obligations +to that man which my heart's blood will not repay. I shall make no +secret of telling you what they are at a fit time." + +Mark held out his broad red hand, and grasped Stangrave's till the +joints cracked: his face grew as red as a turkey-cock's; his eyes +filled with tears. + +"His father must hear that! Hang it; his father must hear that! And +Grace too!" + +"Grace!" said Claude: "and is she with you?" + +"With the old man, the angel! tending him night and day." + +"And as beautiful as ever?" + +"Sir!" said Mark solemnly, "when any one's soul is as beautiful as +hers is, one never thinks about her face." + +"Who is Grace?" asked Stangrave. + +"A saint and a heroine!" said Claude. "You shall know all; for you +ought to know. But you have no news of Tom; and I have none either. I +am losing all hope now." + +"I'm not, sir!" said Mark fiercely. "Sir, that boy's not dead; he +can't be. He has more lives than a cat, and if you know anything of +him, you ought to know that." + +"I have good reason to know it, none more: but--" + +"But, sir! But what? Harm come to him, sir? The Lord wouldn't harm him +for his father's sake; and as for the devil!--I tell you, sir, if he +tried to fly away with him, he'd have to drop him before he'd gone a +mile!" And Mark began blowing his nose violently, and getting so red +that he seemed on the point of going into a fit. + +"Tell you what it is, gentlemen," said he at last, "you come and stay +with me, and see his father. It will comfort the old man--and--and +comfort me too; for I get down-hearted about him at times." + +"Strange attraction there was about that man," says Stangrave, _sotto +voce_ to Claude. + +"He was like a son to him--" + +"Now, gentlemen. Mr. Mellot, you don't hunt?" + +"No, thank you," said Claude. + +"Mr. Stangrave does, I'll warrant." + +"I have at various times, both in England and in Virginia." + +"Ah! Do they keep up the real sport there, eh? Well that's the best +thing I've heard of them, sir!--My horses are yours!--A friend of that +boy, sir, is welcome to lame the whole lot, and I won't grumble. Three +days a week, sir. Breakfast at eight, dinner at 5.30--none of your +late London hours for me, sir; and after it the best bottle of port, +though I say it, short of my friend S----'s, at Reading." + +"You must accept," whispered Claude, "or he will be angry." + +So Stangrave accepted; and all the more readily because he wanted to +hear from the good banker many things about the lost Tom Thurnall. + + * * * * * + +"Here we are," cries Mark. "Now, you must excuse me: see to +yourselves. I see to the puppies. Dinner at 5.30, mind! Come along, +Goodman, boy!" + +"Is this Whitbury?" asks Stangrave. + +It was Whitbury, indeed. Pleasant old town, which slopes down the +hill-side to the old church,--just "restored," though by Lords +Minchampstead and Vieuxbois, not without Mark Armsworth's help, to its +ancient beauty of grey flint and white clunch chequer-work, and quaint +wooden spire. Pleasant churchyard round it, where the dead lie looking +up to the bright southern sun, among huge black yews, upon their knoll +of white chalk above the ancient stream. Pleasant white wooden bridge, +with its row of urchins dropping flints upon the noses of elephantine +trout, or fishing over the rail with crooked pins, while hapless +gudgeon come dangling upward between stream and sky, with a look +of sheepish surprise and shame, as of a school-boy caught stealing +apples, in their foolish visages. Pleasant new national schools at +the bridge end, whither the urchins scamper at the sound of the two +o'clock bell. Though it be an ugly pile enough of bright red brick, it +is doing its work, as Whitbury folk know well by now. Pleasant, too, +though still more ugly, those long red arms of new houses which +Whitbury is stretching out along its fine turnpikes,--especially up +to the railway station beyond the bridge, and to the smart new hotel, +which hopes (but hopes in vain) to outrival the ancient "Angler's +Rest." Away thither, and not to the Railway Hotel, they trundle in a +fly--leaving Mark Armsworth all but angry because they will not sleep, +as well as breakfast, lunch, and dine with him daily,--and settle +in the good old inn, with its three white gables overhanging the +pavement, and its long lattice window buried deep beneath them, +like--so Stangrave says--to a shrewd kindly eye under a bland white +forehead. + +No, good old inn; not such shall be thy fate, as long as trout are +trout, and men have wit to catch them. For art thou not a sacred +house? Art thou not consecrate to the Whitbury brotherhood of anglers! +Is not the wainscot of that long low parlour inscribed with many a +famous name? Are not its walls hung with many a famous countenance? +Has not its oak-ribbed ceiling rung, for now a hundred years, to the +laughter of painters, sculptors, grave divines (unbending at least +there), great lawyers, statesmen, wits, even of Foote and Quin +themselves; while the sleek landlord wiped the cobwebs off another +magnum of that grand old port, and took in all the wisdom with a quiet +twinkle of his sleepy eye? He rests now, good old man, among the yews +beside his forefathers; and on his tomb his lengthy epitaph, writ by +himself; for Barker was a poet in his way. + +Some people hold the same epitaph to be irreverent, because in a list +of Barker's many blessings occurs the profane word "trout:" but those +trout, and the custom which they brought him, had made the old man's +life comfortable, and enabled him to leave a competence for his +children; and why should not a man honestly thank Heaven for that +which he knows has done him good, even though it be but fish? + +He is gone: but the Whit is not, nor the Whitbury club; nor will, +while old Mark Armsworth is king in Whitbury, and sits every evening +in the Mayfly season at the table head, retailing good stones of the +great anglers of his youth,--names which you, reader, have heard many +a time,--and who could do many things besides handling a blow-line. +But though the club is not what it was fifty years ago,--before Norway +and Scotland became easy of access,--yet it is still an important +institution of the town, to the members whereof all good subjects +touch their hats; for does not the club bring into the town good +money, and take out again only fish, which cost nothing in the +breeding? Did not the club present the Town-hall with a portrait of +the renowned fishing Sculptor? and did it not (only stipulating that +the school should be built beyond the bridge to avoid noise) give +fifty pounds to the said school but five years ago, in addition to +Mark's own hundred? + +But enough of this:--only may the Whitbury club, in recompense for my +thus handing them down to immortality, give me another day next +year, as they gave me this: and may the Mayfly be strong on, and a +south-west gale blowing! + +In the course of the next week, in many a conversation, the three men +compared notes as to the events of two years ago; and each supplied +the other with new facts, which shall be duly set forth in this tale, +saving and excepting, of course, the real reason why everybody did +everything. For--as everybody knows who has watched life--the true +springs of all human action are generally those which fools will not +see, which wise men will not mention; so that, in order to present +a readable tragedy of Hamlet, you must always "omit the part of +Hamlet,"--and probably the ghost and the queen into the bargain. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +POETRY AND PROSE. + + +Now, to tell my story--if not as it ought to be told, at least as I +can tell it,--I must go back sixteen years,--to the days when Whitbury +boasted of forty coaches per diem, instead of one railway,--and set +forth how, in its southern suburb, there stood two pleasant houses +side by side, with their gardens sloping down to the Whit, and parted +from each other only by the high brick fruit-wall, through which there +used to be a door of communication; for the two occupiers were fast +friends. In one of these two houses, sixteen years ago, lived our +friend Mark Armsworth, banker, solicitor, land-agent, churchwarden, +guardian of the poor, justice of the peace,--in a word, viceroy of +Whitbury town, and far more potent therein than her gracious majesty +Queen Victoria. In the other, lived Edward Thurnall, esquire, doctor +of medicine, and consulting physician of all the country round. These +two men were as brothers; and had been as brothers for now twenty +years, though no two men could be more different, save in the two +common virtues which bound them to each other; and that was, that they +both were honest and kind-hearted men. What Mark's character was, and +is, I have already shown, and enough of it, I hope, to make my readers +like the good old banker: as for Doctor Thurnall, a purer or gentler +soul never entered a sick-room, with patient wisdom in his brain, and +patient tenderness in his heart. Beloved and trusted by rich and poor, +he had made to himself a practice large enough to enable him to settle +two sons well in his own profession; the third and youngest was still +in Whitbury. He was something of a geologist, too, and a botanist, and +an antiquarian; and Mark Armsworth, who knew, and knows still, nothing +of science, looked up to the Doctor as an inspired sage, quoted him, +defended his opinion, right or wrong, and thrust him forward at public +meetings, and in all places and seasons, much to the modest Doctor's +discomfiture. + +The good Doctor was sitting in his study on the morning on which my +tale begins; having just finished his breakfast, and settled to his +microscope in the bay-window opening on the lawn. + +A beautiful October morning it was; one of those in which Dame Nature, +healthily tired with the revelry of summer, is composing herself, with +a quiet satisfied smile, for her winter's sleep. Sheets of dappled +cloud were sliding slowly from the west; long bars of hazy blue hung +over the southern chalk downs which gleamed pearly grey beneath the +low south-eastern sun. In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist +still hung over the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the +huge elms and poplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering down +at the very rustle of the western breeze, spotting the grass below. +The river swirled along, glassy no more, but dingy grey with autumn +rains and rotten leaves. All beyond the garden told of autumn; bright +and peaceful, even in decay: but up the sunny slope of the garden +itself, and to the very window sill, summer still lingered. The beds +of red verbena and geranium were still brilliant, though choked with +fallen leaves of acacia and plane; the canary plant, still untouched +by frost, twined its delicate green leaves, and more delicate yellow +blossoms, through the crimson lacework of the Virginia-creeper; and +the great yellow noisette swung its long canes across the window, +filling all the air with fruity fragrance. + +And the good Doctor, lifting his eyes from his microscope, looked out +upon it all with a quiet satisfaction, and though his lips did not +move, his eyes seemed to be thanking God for it all; and thanking Him, +too, perhaps, that he was still permitted to gaze upon that fair world +outside. For as he gazed, he started, as if with sudden pain, and +passed his hand across his eyes, with something like a sigh, and then +looked at the microscope no more, but sat, seemingly absorbed in +thought, while upon his delicate toil-worn features, and high, bland, +unwrinkled forehead, and the few soft grey locks which not time--for +he was scarcely fifty-five--but long labour of brain, had spared to +him, there lay a hopeful calm, as of a man who had nigh done his work, +and felt that he had not altogether done it ill;--an autumnal calm, +resigned, yet full of cheerfulness, which harmonised fitly with the +quiet beauty of the decaying landscape before him. + +"I say, daddy, you must drop that microscope, and put on your shade. +You are ruining those dear old eyes of yours again, in spite of what +Alexander told you." + +The Doctor took up the green shade which lay beside him, and replaced +it with a sigh and a smile. + +"I must use the old things now and then, till you can take my place +at the microscope, Tom; or till we have, as we ought to have, a +first-rate analytical chemist settled in every county-town, and paid, +in part at least, out of the county rates." + +The "Tom" who had spoken was one of two youths of eighteen, who stood +in opposite corners of the bay-window, gazing out upon the landscape, +but evidently with thoughts as different as were their complexions. + +Tom was of that bull-terrier type so common in England; sturdy, and +yet not coarse; middle-sized, deep-chested, broad-shouldered; with +small, well-knit hands and feet, large jaw, bright grey eyes, crisp +brown hair, a heavy projecting brow; his face full of shrewdness and +good-nature, and of humour withal, which might be at whiles a little +saucy and sarcastic, to judge from the glances which he sent forth +from the corners of his wicked eyes at his companion on the other side +of the window. He was evidently prepared for a day's shooting, in +velveteen jacket and leather gaiters, and stood feeling about in +his pockets to see whether he had forgotten any of his tackle, and +muttering to himself amid his whistling,--"Capital day. How the birds +will lie. Where on earth is old Mark? Why must he wait to smoke his +cigar after breakfast? Couldn't he have had it in the trap, the +blessed old chimney that he is?" + +The other lad was somewhat taller than Tom, awkwardly and plainly +dressed, but with a highly-developed Byronic turn-down collar, and +long black curling locks. He was certainly handsome, as far as the +form of his features and brow; and would have been very handsome, +but for the bad complexion which at his age so often accompanies a +sedentary life, and a melancholic temper. One glance at his face +was sufficient to tell that he was moody, shy, restless, perhaps +discontented, perhaps ambitious and vain. He held in his hand a volume +of Percy's Reliques, which he had just taken down from Thurnall's +shelves; yet he was looking not at it, but at the landscape. +Nevertheless, as he looked, one might have seen that he was thinking +not so much of it as of his own thoughts about it. His eye, which was +very large, dark, and beautiful, with heavy lids and long lashes, +had that dreamy look so common among men of the poetic temperament; +conscious of thought, if not conscious of self; and as his face +kindled, and his lips moved more and more earnestly, he began +muttering to himself half-aloud, till Tom Thurnall burst into an open +laugh. + +"There's Jack at it again! making poetry, I'll bet my head to a China +orange." + +"And why not?" said his father, looking up quietly, but reprovingly, +as Jack winced and blushed, and a dark shade of impatience passed +across his face. + +"Oh! it's no concern of mine. Let everybody please themselves. The +country looks very pretty, no doubt, I can tell that; only my notion +is, that a wise man ought to go out and enjoy it--as I am going to +do--with a gun on his shoulder, instead of poking at home like a +yard-dog, and behowling oneself in po-o-oetry;" and Tom lifted up his +voice into a doleful mastiff's howl. + +"Then be as good as your word, Tom, and let every one please +themselves," said the Doctor; but the dark youth broke out in sudden +passion. + +"Mr. Thomas Thurnall! I will not endure this! Why are you always +making me your butt,--insulting me, sir, even in your father's house? +You do not understand me; and I do not care to understand you. If my +presence is disagreeable to you, I can easily relieve you of it!" and +the dark youth turned to go away like Naaman, in a rage. + +"Stop, John," said the Doctor. "I think it would be the more courteous +plan for Tom to relieve you of his presence. Go and find Mark, Tom; +and please to remember that John Briggs is my guest, and that I will +not allow any rudeness to him in my house." + +"I'll go, daddy, to the world's end, if you like, provided you won't +ask me to write poetry. But Jack takes offence so soon. Give us your +hand, old tinder-box! I meant no harm, and you know it." + +John Briggs took the proffered hand sulkily enough; and Tom went out +of the glass door, whistling as merry as a cricket. + +"My dear boy," said the Doctor, when they were alone, "you must try to +curb this temper of yours. Don't be angry with me, but--" + +"I should be an ungrateful brute if I was, sir. I can bear anything +from you. I ought to, for I owe everything to you; but--" + +"But, my dear boy--'better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that +taketh a city.'" + +John Briggs tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. "I cannot +help it, sir. It will drive me mad, I think at times,--this +contrast between what I might be, and what I am, I can bear it no +longer--mixing medicines here, when I might be educating myself, +distinguishing myself--for I can do it; have you not said as much +yourself to me again and again?" + +"I have, of course; but--" + +"But, sir, only hear me. It is in vain to ask me to command my temper +while I stay here. I am not fit for this work; not fit for the dull +country. I am not appreciated, not understood; and I shall never be, +till I can get to London,--till I can find congenial spirits, and take +my rightful place in the great parliament of mind. I am Pegasus in +harness, here!" cried the vain, discontented youth. "Let me but once +get there,--amid art, civilisation, intellect, and the company of men +like that old Mermaid Club, to hear and to answer-- + + 'words, + So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, + As one had put his whole soul in a jest;'-- + +and then you shall see whether Pegasus has not wings, and can use them +too!" And he stopped suddenly, choking with emotion, his nostril and +chest dilating, his foot stamping impatiently on the ground. + +The Doctor watched him with a sad smile. + +"Do you remember the devil's temptation of our Lord--'Cast thyself +down from hence; for, it is written, He shall give His angels charge +over thee?" + +"I do; but what has that to do with me?" + +"Throw away the safe station in which God has certainly put you, to +seek, by some desperate venture, a new, and, as you fancy, a grander +one for yourself? Look out of that window, lad; is there not poetry +enough, beauty and glory enough, in that sky, those fields,--ay, in +every fallen leaf,--to employ all your powers, considerable as I +believe them to be? Why spurn the pure, quiet, country life, in which +such men as Wordsworth have been content to live and grow old?" + +The boy shook his head like an impatient horse. "Too slow--too slow +for me, to wait and wait, as Wordsworth did, through long years of +obscurity, misconception, ridicule. No. What I have, I must have +at once; and, if it must be, die like Chatterton--if only, like +Chatterton, I can have my little day of success, and make the world +confess that another priest of the beautiful has arisen among men." + +Now, it can scarcely be denied, that the good Doctor was guilty of a +certain amount of weakness in listening patiently to all this rant. +Not that the rant was very blamable in a lad of eighteen; for have we +not all, while we are going through our course of Shelley, talked very +much the same abominable stuff, and thought ourselves the grandest +fellows upon earth on account of that very length of ear which was +patent to all the world save our precious selves; blinded by our +self-conceit, and wondering in wrath why everybody was laughing at us? +But the truth is, the Doctor was easy and indulgent to a fault, and +dreaded nothing so much, save telling a lie, as hurting people's +feelings; besides, as the acknowledged wise man of Whitbury, he was a +little proud of playing the Maecenas; and he had, and not unjustly, +a high, opinion of John Briggs's powers. So he had lent him books, +corrected his taste in many matters, and, by dint of petting and +humouring, had kept the wayward youth half-a-dozen times from running +away from his father, who was an apothecary in the town, and from the +general practitioner, Mr. Bolus, under whom John Briggs fulfilled the +office of co-assistant with Tom Thurnall. Plenty of trouble had +both the lads given the Doctor in the last five years, but of very +different kinds, Tom, though he was in everlasting hot water, as the +most incorrigible scapegrace for ten miles round, contrived to confine +his naughtiness strictly to play-hours, while he learnt everything +which was to be learnt with marvellous quickness, and so utterly +fulfilled the ideal of a bottle-boy (for of him, too, as of all +things, I presume, an ideal exists eternally in the supra-sensual +Platonic universe), that Bolus told his father,--"In hours, sir, he +takes care of my business as well as I could myself; but out of hours, +sir, I believe he is possessed by seven devils." + +John Briggs, on the other hand, sinned in the very opposite direction. +Too proud to learn his business, and too proud also to play the +scapegrace as Tom did, he neglected alike work and amusement, for lazy +mooning over books, and the dreams which books called up. He made +perpetual mistakes in the shop; and then considered himself insulted +by an "inferior spirit," if poor Bolus called him to account for it. +Indeed, had it not been for many applications of that "precious oil of +unity," with which the good Doctor daily anointed the creaking wheels +of Whitbury society, John Briggs and his master would have long ago +"broken out of gear," and parted company in mutual wrath and fury. +And now, indeed, the critical moment seemed come at last; for the lad +began afresh to declare his deliberate intention of going to London to +seek his fortune, in spite of parents and all the world. + +"To live on here, and never to rise, perhaps, above the post of +correspondent to a country newspaper!--To publish a volume of poems +by subscription and have to go round, hat in hand, begging +five shillings' worth of patronage from every stupid country +squire--intolerable! I must go! Shakespeare was never Shakespeare till +he fled from miserable Stratford, to become at once the friend of +Sidney and Southampton." + +"But John Briggs will be John Briggs still, if he went to the moon," +shouted Tom Thurnall, who had just come up to the window. "I advise +you to change that name of yours, Jack, to Sidney, or Percy, or Walker +if you like; anything but the illustrious surname of Briggs the +poisoner!" + +"What do you mean, sir!" thundered John, while the Doctor himself +jumped up; for Tom was red with rage. + +"What is this, Tom!" + +"What's that?" screamed Tom, bursting, in spite of his passion into +roars of laughter. "What's that?"--and he held out a phial "Smell it! +taste it! Oh, if I had but a gallon of it to pour down your throat! +That's what you brought Mark Armsworth last night, instead of his +cough mixture, while your brains were wool-gathering after poetry!" + +"What is it?" gasped John Briggs. + +"Miss Twiddle's black dose;--strong enough to rive the gizard out of +an old cock!" + +"It's not!" + +"It is!" roared Mark Armsworth from behind as he rushed in, in +shooting-jacket and gaiters, his red face redder with fury, his red +whiskers standing on end with wrath like a tiger's, his left hand upon +his hapless hypogastric region, his right brandishing an empty glass, +which smelt strongly of brandy and water. "It is! And you've given me +the cholera, and spoilt my day's shooting; and if I don't serve you +out for it there's no law in England!" + +"And spoilt my day's shooting, too; the last I shall get before I'm +off to Paris! To have a day in Lord Minchampstead's preserves, and to +be baulked of it in this way!" + +John Briggs stood as one astonied. + +"If I don't serve you out for this!" shouted Mark. + +"If I don't serve you out for it! You shall never hear the last of +it!" shouted Tom. "I'll take to writing, after all I'll put it in the +papers. I'll make the name of Briggs the poisoner an abomination in +the land." + +John Briggs turned and fled. + +"Well!" said Mark, "I must spend my morning at home, I suppose. So I +shall just sit and chat with you, Doctor." + +"And I shall go and play with Molly," said Tom, and walked off to +Armsworth's garden. + +"I don't care for myself so much," said Mark; "but I'm sorry the boy's +lost his last day's shooting." + +"Oh, you will be well enough by noon, and can go then; and as for the +boy, it is just as well for him not to grow too fond of sports in +which he can never indulge." + +"Never indulge? Why not? He vows he'll go to the Rocky Mountains, and +shoot a grizzly bear; and he'll do it." + +"He has a great deal to do before that, poor fellow; and a great deal +to learn." + +"And he'll learn it. You're always down-hearted about the boy, +Doctor." + +"I can't help feeling the parting with him: and for Paris, too:--such +a seat of temptation. But it is his own choice; and, after all, he +must see temptation, wherever he goes." + +"Bless the man! if a boy means to go to the bad, he'll go just as +easily in Whitbury as in Paris. Give the lad his head, and never fear; +he'll fall on his legs like a cat, I'll warrant him, whatever happens. +He's as steady as old Time, I tell you; there's a grey head on green +shoulders there." + +"Steady?" said the Doctor, with a smile and a shrug. + +"Steady, I tell you at heart; as prudent as you or I; and never lost +you a farthing, that you know. Hang good boys! give me one who knows +how to be naughty in the right place; I wouldn't give sixpence for a +good boy; I never was one myself, and have no faith in them. Give me +the lad who has more steam up than he knows what to do with, and must +needs blow off a little in larks. When once he settles down on the +rail, it'll send him along as steady as a luggage train. Did you never +hear a locomotive puffing and roaring before it gets under way? well, +that's what your boy is doing. Look at him now, with my poor little +Molly." + +Tom was cantering about the garden with a little weakly child of eight +in his arms. The little thing was looking up in his face with delight, +screaming at his jokes. + +"You are right, Mark: the boy's heart cannot be in the wrong place +while he is so fond of little children." + +"Poor Molly! How she'll miss him! Do you think she'll ever walk, +Doctor?" + +"I do indeed." + +"Hum! ah! well! if she grows up, Doctor, and don't go to join her poor +dear mother up there, I don't know that I'd wish her a better husband +than your boy." + +"It would be a poor enough match for her." + +"Tut! she'll have the money, and he the brains. Mark my words, Doctor, +that boy'll be a credit to you; he'll make a noise in the world, or I +know nothing. And if his fancy holds seven years hence, and he wants +still to turn traveller, let him. If he's minded to go round the +world, I'll back him to go, somehow or other, or I'll eat my head, Ned +Thurnall!" + +The Doctor acquiesced in this hopeful theory, partly to save an +argument; for Mark's reverence for his opinion was confined to +scientific matters; and he made up to his own self-respect by +patronising the Doctor, and, indeed, taking him sometimes pretty +sharply to task on practical matters. + +"Best fellow alive is Thurnall; but not a man of business, poor +fellow. None of your geniuses are. Don't know what he'd do without +me." + +So Tom carried Mary about all the morning, and went to Minchampstead +in the afternoon, and got three hours' good shooting; but in the +evening he vanished; and his father went into Armsworth's to look for +him. + +"Why do you want to know where he is?" replied Mark, looking sly. +"However, as you can't stop him now, I'll tell you. He is just about +this time sewing up Briggs's coat-sleeves, putting copperas into his +water jug, and powdered galls on his towel, and making various other +little returns for this morning's favour." + +"I dislike practical jokes." + +"So do I; especially when they come in the form of a black dose. Sit +down, old boy, and we'll have a game at cribbage." + +In a few minutes Tom came in--"Here's a good riddance. The poisoner +has fabricated his pilgrim's staff, to speak scientifically, and +perambulated his calcareous strata." + +"What!" + +"Cut his stick, and walked his chalks; and is off to London." + +"Poor boy," said the Doctor, much distressed. + +"Don't cry, daddy; you can't bring him back again. He's been gone +these four hours. I went to his room, at Bolus's, about a little +business, and saw at once that he had packed up, and carried off all +he could. And, looking about, I found a letter directed to his father. +So to his father I took it; and really I was sorry for the poor +people. I left them all crying in chorus." + +"I must go to them at once;" and up rose the Doctor. + +"He's not worth the trouble you take for him--the addle-headed, +ill-tempered coxcomb," said Mark. "But it's just like your +soft-heartedness. Tom, sit down, and finish the game with me." + +So vanished from Whitbury, with all his aspirations, poor John Briggs; +and save an occasional letter to his parents, telling them that he +was alive and well, no one heard anything of him for many a year. The +Doctor tried to find him out in London, again and again; but without +success. His letters had no address upon them, and no clue to his +whereabouts could be found. + +And Tom Thurnall went to Paris, and became the best pistol-shot +and billiard-player in the Quartier Latin; and then went to St. +Mumpsimus's Hospital in London, and became the best boxer therein, +and captain of the eight-oar, besides winning prizes and certificates +without end, and becoming in due time the most popular house-surgeon +in the hospital: but nothing could keep him permanently at home. Stay +drudging in London he would not. Settle down in a country practice +he would not. Cost his father a farthing he would not. So he started +forth into the wide world with nothing but his wits and his science, +as anatomical professor to a new college in some South American +republic. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found that the annual +revolution had just taken place, and that the party who had founded +the college had been all shot the week before. Whereat he whistled, +and started off again, no man knew whither. + +"Having got round half the world, daddy," he wrote home, "it's hard if +I don't get round the other half. So don't expect me till you see me; +and take care of your dear old eyes." + +With which he vanished into infinite space, and was only heard of by +occasional letters dated from the Rocky Mountains (where he did shoot +a grizzly bear), the Spanish West Indies, Otahiti, Singapore, the +Falkland Islands, and all manner of unexpected places; sending +home valuable notes (sometimes accompanied by valuable specimens), +zoological and botanical; and informing his father that he was doing +very well; that work was plentiful, and that he always found two fresh +jobs before he had finished one old one. + +His eldest brother, John, died meanwhile. His second brother, William, +was in good general practice in Manchester. His father's connections +supported him comfortably; and if the old Doctor ever longed for Tom +to come home, he never hinted it to the wanderer, but bade him go on +and prosper, and become (which he gave high promise of becoming) a +distinguished man of science. Nevertheless the old man's heart sank at +last, when month after month, and at last two full years, had passed +without any letter from Tom. + +At last, when full four years were past and gone since Tom started +for South America, he descended from the box of the day-mail, with a +serene and healthful countenance; and with no more look of interest in +his face than if he had been away on a two days' visit, shouldered his +carpet-bag, and started for his father's house. He stopped, however; +as there appeared from the inside of the mail a face which he must +surely know. A second look told him that it was none other than +John Briggs. But how altered! He had grown up into a very handsome +man,--tall and delicate-featured, with long black curls, and a black +moustache. There was a slight stoop about his shoulders, as of a +man accustomed to too much sitting and writing; and he carried an +eye-glass, whether for fashion's sake, or for his eyes' sake, was +uncertain. He was wrapt in a long Spanish cloak, new and good; wore +well-cut trousers, and (what Tom, of course, examined carefully) +French boots, very neat, and very thin. Moreover, he had lavender +kid-gloves on. Tom looked and wondered, and walked half round him, +sniffing like a dog when he examines into the character of a fellow +dog. + +"Hum!--his mark seems to be at present P.P.--prosperous party: so +there can be no harm in renewing our acquaintance. What trade on +earth does he live by, though? Editor of a newspaper? or keeper of a +gambling-table? Begging his pardon, he looks a good deal more like the +latter than the former. However--" + +And he walked up and offered his hand, with "How d'e do, Briggs? Who +would have thought of our falling from the skies against each other in +this fashion?" + +Mr. Briggs hesitated a moment, and then took coldly the offered hand. + +"Excuse me; but the circumstances of my visit here are too painful to +allow me to wish for society." + +And Mr. Briggs withdrew, evidently glad to escape. + +"Has he vampoosed with the contents of a till, that he wishes so for +solitude?" asked Tom; and, shouldering his carpet-bag a second time, +with a grim inward laugh, he went to his father's house, and hung up +his hat in the hall, just as if he had come in from a walk, and walked +into the study; and not finding the old man, stepped through the +garden to Mark Armsworth's, and in at the drawing-room window, +frightening out of her wits a short, pale, ugly girl of seventeen, +whom he discovered to be his old playfellow, Mary. However, she soon +recovered her equanimity: he certainly never lost his. + +"How d'e do, darling? How you are grown! and how well you look! How's +your father? I hadn't anything particular to do, so I thought I'd come +home and see you all, and get some fishing." + +And Mary, who had longed to throw her arms round his neck, as of old, +and was restrained by the thought that she was grown a great girl now, +called in her father, and all the household; and after a while the old +Doctor came home, and the fatted calf was killed, and all made merry +over the return of this altogether unrepentant prodigal son, who, +whether from affectation, or from that blunted sensibility which often +comes by continual change and wandering, took all their affection and +delight with the most provoking coolness. + +Nevertheless, though his feelings were not "demonstrative," as fine +ladies say now-a-days, he evidently had some left in some corner of +his heart; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they were all +settled in the Doctor's study, it came out that his carpet-bag +contained little but presents, and those valuable ones--rare minerals +from the Ural for his father; a pair of Circassian pistols for +Mark; and for little Mary, to her astonishment, a Russian malachite +bracelet, at which Mary's eyes opened wide, and old Mark said-- + +"Pretty fellow you are, to go fooling your money away like that. What +did that gimcrack cost, pray, sir?" + +"That is no concern of yours, sir, or mine either; for I didn't pay +for it." + +"Oh!" said Mary, doubtingly. + +"No, Mary. I killed a giant, who was carrying off a beautiful +princess; and this, you see, he wore as a ring on one of his fingers: +so I thought it would just suit your wrist." + +"Oh, Tom--Mr. Thurnall--what nonsense!" + +"Come, come," said his father: "instead of telling us these sort of +stories, you ought to give an account of yourself, as you seem quite +to forget that we have not heard from you for more than two years." + +"Whew! I wrote," said Tom, "whenever I could. However, you can have +all my letters in one now." + +So they sat round the fire, and Tom gave an account of himself; +while his father marked with pride that the young man had grown and +strengthened in body and in mind; and that under that nonchalant, +almost cynical outside, the heart still beat honest and kindly. +For before Tom began, he would needs draw his chair closer to his +father's, and half-whispered to him,-- + +"This is very jolly. I can't be sentimental, you know. Knocking about +the world has beat all that out of me: but it is very comfortable, +after all, to find oneself with a dear old daddy and a good coal +fire." + +"Which of the two could you best do without?" + +"Well, one takes things as one finds them. It don't do to look too +deeply into one's feelings. Like chemicals, the more you analyse them, +the worse they smell." + +So Tom began his story. + +"You heard from me at Bombay; after I'd been up to the Himalaya with +an old Mumpsimus friend?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I worked my way to Suez on board a ship whose doctor had fallen +ill; and then I must needs see a little of Egypt; and there robbed was +I, and nearly murdered, too; but I take a good deal of killing." + +"I'll warrant you do," said Mark, looking at him with pride. + +"So I begged my way to Cairo; and there I picked up a Yankee--a New +Yorker, made of money, who had a yacht at Alexandria, and travelled +_en prince_; and nothing would serve him but I must go with him to +Constantinople; but there he and I quarrelled--more fools, both of us! +I wrote to you from Constantinople." + +"We never got the letter." + +"I can't help that; I wrote. But there I was on the wide world again. +So I took up with a Russian prince, whom I met at a gambling-table +in Pera,--a mere boy, but such a plucky one,--and went with him to +Circassia, and up to Astrakhan, and on to the Kirghis steppes; and +there I did see snakes." + +"Snakes?" says Mary. "I should have thought you had seen plenty in +India already." + +"Yes, Mary! but these were snakes spiritual and metaphorical. For, +poking about where we had no business, Mary, the Tartars caught us, +and tied us to their horses' tails, after giving me this scar across +the cheek, and taught us to drink mares' milk, and to do a good deal +of dirty work beside. So there we stayed with them six months, and +observed their manners, which were none, and their customs, which were +disgusting, as the midshipman said in his diary; and had the honour of +visiting a pleasant little place in No-man's Land, called Khiva, which +you may find in your atlas, Mary; and of very nearly being sold for +slaves into Persia, which would not have been pleasant; and at last, +Mary, we ran away--or rather, rode away, on two razor-backed Calmuc +ponies, and got back to Russia, _viâ_ Orenberg,--for which consult +your atlas again; so the young prince was restored to the bosom of his +afflicted family; and a good deal of trouble I had to get him safe +there, for the poor boy's health gave way. They wanted me to stay with +them, and offered to make my fortune." + +"I'm so glad you didn't," said Mary. + +"Well--I wanted to see little Mary again, and two worthy old gentlemen +beside, you see. However, those Russians are generous enough. They +filled my pockets, and heaped me with presents; that bracelet among +them. What's more, Mary, I've been introduced to old Nick himself, +and can testify, from personal experience, to the correctness of +Shakspeare's opinion that the prince of darkness is a gentleman." + +"And now you are going to stay at home?" asked the Doctor. + +"Well, if you'll take me in, daddy, I'll send for my traps from +London, and stay a month or so." + +"A month!" cried the forlorn father. + +"Well, daddy, you see, there is a chance of more fighting in Mexico, +and I shall see such practice there; beside meeting old friends who +were with me in Texas. And--and I've got a little commission, too, +down in Georgia, that I should like to go and do." + +"What is that?" + +"Well,--it's a long story and a sad one: but there was a poor Yankee +surgeon with the army in Circassia--a Southerner, and a very good +fellow; and he had taken a fancy to some coloured girl at home--poor +fellow, he used to go half mad about her sometimes, when he was +talking to me, for fear she should have been sold--sent to the New +Orleans market, or some other devilry; and what could I say to comfort +him? Well, he got his mittimus by one of Schamyl's bullets; and when +he was dying, he made me promise (I hadn't the heart to refuse) to +take all his savings, which he had been hoarding for years for no +other purpose, and see if I couldn't buy the girl, and get her away to +Canada. I was a fool for promising. It was no concern of mine; but the +poor fellow wouldn't die in peace else. So what must be, must." + +"Oh, go! go!" said Mary. "You will let him go, Doctor Thurnall, and +see the poor girl free? Think how dreadful it must be to be a slave." + +"I will, my little Miss Mary; and for more reasons than you think of. +Little do you know how dreadful it is to be a slave." + +"Hum!" said Mark Armsworth. "That's a queer story. Tom, have you got +the poor fellow's money? Didn't lose it when you were taken by those +Tartars?" + +"Not I. I wasn't so green as to carry it with me. It ought to have +been in England six months ago. My only fear is, it's not enough." + +"Hum!" said Mark. "How much more do you think you'll want?" + +"Heaven knows. There is a thousand dollars; but if she be half as +beautiful as poor Wyse used to swear she was, I may want more than +double that." + +"If you do, pay it, and I'll pay you again. No, by George!" said Mark, +"no one shall say that while Mark Armsworth had a balance at his +bankers' he let a poor girl--" and, recollecting Mary's presence, he +finished his sentence by sundry stamps and thumps on the table. + +"You would soon exhaust your balance, if you set to work to free all +poor girls who are in the same case in Georgia," said the Doctor. + +"Well, what of that? Them I don't know of, and so I ain't responsible +for them; but this one I do know of, and so--there, I can't argue; +but, Tom, if you want the money, you know where to find it." + +"Very good. By the by--I forgot it till this moment--who should come +down in the coach with me but the lost John Briggs." + +"He is come too late, then," said the Doctor. "His poor father died +this morning." + +"Ah! then Briggs knew that he was ill? That explains the Manfredic +mystery and gloom with which he greeted me." + +"I cannot tell. He has written from time to time, but he has never +given any address; so that no one could write in return." + +"He may have known. He looked very downcast. Perhaps that explains his +cutting me dead." + +"Cut you?" cried Mark. "I dare say he's been doing something he's +ashamed of, and don't want to be recognised. That fellow has been +after no good all this while, I'll warrant. I always say he's +connected with the swell mob, or croupier at a gambling-table, or +something of that kind. Don't you think it's likely, now?" + +Mark was in the habit of so saying for the purpose of tormenting the +Doctor, who held stoutly to his old belief, that John Briggs was +a very clever man, and would turn up some day as a distinguished +literary character. + +"Well," said Tom, "honest or not, he's thriving; came down inside the +coach, dressed in the distinguished foreigner style, with lavender kid +gloves, and French boots." + +"Just like a swell pickpocket," said Mark. "I always told you so, +Thurnall." + +"He had the old Byron collar, and Raphael hair, though." + +"Nasty, effeminate, un-English foppery," grumbled Mark; "so he may be +in the scribbling line after all." + +"I'll go and see if I can find him," quoth the Doctor. + +"Bother you," said Mark, "always running out o' nights after somebody +else's business, instead of having a jolly evening. You stay, Tom, +like a sensible fellow, and tell me and Mary some more travellers' +lies. Had much sporting, boy?" + +"Hum! I've shot and hunted every beast, I think, shootable and +huntable, from a humming-bird to an elephant; and I had some splendid +fishing in Canada; but, after all, give me a Whitbury trout, on a +single-handed Chevalier. We'll at them to-morrow, Mr. Armsworth." + +"We will, my boy! never so many fish in the river as this year, or in +season so early." + +The good Doctor returned; but with no news which could throw light +on the history of the now mysterious Mr. John Briggs. He had locked +himself into the room with his father's corpse, evidently in great +excitement and grief; spent several hours in walking up and down there +alone; and had then gone to an attorney in the town, and settled +everything about the funeral "in the handsomest way," said the man of +law; "and was quite the gentleman in his manner, but not much of a man +of business; never had even thought of looking for his father's will; +and was quite surprised when I told him that there ought to be a fair +sum--eight hundred or a thousand, perhaps, to come in to him, if the +stock and business were properly disposed of. So he went off to London +by the evening mail, and told me to address him to the post-office in +some street off the Strand. Queer business, sir, isn't it?" + +John Briggs did not reappear till a few minutes before his father's +funeral, witnessed the ceremony evidently with great sorrow, bowed off +silently all who attempted to speak to him, and returned to London +by the next coach--leaving matter for much babble among all Whitbury +gossips. One thing at least was plain, that he wished to be forgotten +in his native town; and forgotten he was, in due course of time. + +Tom Thurnall stayed his month at home, and then went to America; +whence he wrote home, in about six months, a letter, of which only one +paragraph need interest us, + +"Tell Mark I have no need for his dollars. I have done the deed; and, +thanks to the underground railway, done it nearly gratis; which was +both cheaper than buying her, and infinitely better for me; so that +she has all poor Wyse's dollars to start with afresh in Canada. I +write this from New York. I could accompany her no farther; for I must +get back to the South in time for the Mexican expedition." + +Then came a long and anxious silence; and then a letter, not from +Mexico but from California,--one out of several which had been posted; +and then letters, more regularly from Australia. Sickened with +Californian life, he had crossed the Pacific once more, and was hard +at work in the diggings, doctoring and gold-finding by turns. + +"A rolling stone gathers no moss," said his father. + +"He has the pluck of a hound, and the cunning of a fox," said Mark; +"and he'll be a credit to you yet." + +And Mary prayed every morning and night for her old playfellow; and so +the years slipped on till the autumn of 1853. + +As no one has heard of Tom now for eight months and more (the pulse of +Australian postage being of a somewhat intermittent type), we may as +well go and look for him. + +A sheet of dark rolling ground, quarried into a gigantic rabbit +burrow, with hundreds of tents and huts dotted about among the heaps +of rubbish; dark evergreen forests in the distance, and, above all, +the great volcanic mountain of Buninyong towering far aloft--these are +the "Black Hills of Ballarat;" and that windlass at that shaft's mouth +belongs in part to Thomas Thurnall. + +At the windlass are standing two men, whom we may have seen in +past years, self-satisfied in countenance, and spotless in array, +sauntering down Piccadilly any July afternoon, or lounging in Haggis's +stable-yard at Cambridge any autumn morning. Alas! how changed from +the fast young undergraduates, with powers of enjoyment only equalled +by their powers of running into debt, are those two black-bearded and +mud-bespattered ruffians, who once were Smith and Brown of Trinity. +Yet who need pity them, as long as they have stouter limbs, healthier +stomachs, and clearer consciences, than they have had since they left +Eton at seventeen? Would Smith have been a happier man as a briefless +barrister in a dingy Inn of Law, peeping now and then into third-rate +London society, and scribbling for the daily press! Would Brown have +been a happier man had he been forced into those holy orders for which +he never felt the least vocation, to pay off his college debts out +of his curate's income, and settle down on his lees, at last, in the +family living of Nomansland-cum-Clayhole, and support a wife and five +children on five hundred a-year, exclusive of rates and taxes? Let +them dig, and be men. + +The windlass rattles and the rope goes down. A shout from the bottom +of the shaft proclaims all right; and in due time, sitting in +the noose of the rope, up comes Thomas Thurnall, bare-footed and +bare-headed, in flannel trousers and red jersey, begrimed with slush +and mud; with a mahogany face, a brick-red neck, and a huge brown +beard, looking, to use his own expression, "as jolly as a sandboy." + +"A letter for you, Doctor, from Europe." + +Tom takes it, and his countenance falls; for it is black-edged and +black-sealed. The handwriting is Mary Armsworth's. + +"I suppose the old lady who is going to leave me a fortune is dead," +says he drily, and turns away to read. + +"Bad luck, I suppose," he says to himself, "I have not had any for +full six months, so I suppose it is time for Dame Fortune to give me +a sly stab again. I only hope it is not my father; for, begging the +Dame's pardon, I can bear any trick of hers but that." And he sets his +teeth doggedly, and reads. + +"My dear Mr. Thurnall,--My father would have written himself, but he +thought, I don't know why, that I could tell you better than he. Your +father is quite well in health,"--Thurnall breathes freely again--"but +he has had heavy trials since your poor brother William's death." + +Tom opens his eyes and sets his teeth more firmly. "Willy dead? I +suppose there is a letter lost: better so; better to have the whole +list of troubles together, and so get them sooner over. Poor Will!" + +"Your father caught the scarlet fever from him, while he was attending +him, and was very ill after he came back. He is quite well again now; +but if I must tell you the truth, the disease has affected his eyes. +You know how weak they always were, and how much worse they have grown +of late years; and the doctors are afraid that he has little chance of +recovering the sight, at least of the left eye." + +"Recovering? He's blind, then." And Tom set his teeth more tightly +than ever. He felt a sob rise in his throat, but choked it down, +shaking his head like an impatient bull. + +"Wait a bit, Tom," said he to himself, "before you have it out with +Dame Fortune. There's more behind, I'll warrant. News like this lies +in pockets, and not in single nuggets." And he read on-- + +"And--for it is better you should know all--something has happened +to the railroad in which he had invested so much. My father has lost +money in it also; but not much: but I fear that your poor dear father +is very much straitened. My father is dreadfully vexed about it, and +thinks it all his fault in not having watched the matter more closely, +and made your father sell out in time: and he wants your father to +come and live with us: but he will not hear of it. So he has given up +the old house, and taken one in Water Street, and, oh! I need not tell +you that we are there every day, and that I am trying to make him as +happy as I can--but what can I do? And then followed kind womanly +commonplaces, which Tom hurried over with fierce impatience. + +"He wants you to come home; but my father has entreated him to let you +stay. You know, while we are here, he is safe; and my father begs +you not to come home, if you are succeeding as well as you have been +doing." + +There was much more in the letter, which I need not repeat; and, after +all, a short postscript, by Mark himself, followed:-- + +"Stay where you are, boy, and keep up heart; while I have a pound, +your father shall have half of it; and you know Mark Armsworth." + +He walked away slowly into the forest. He felt that the crisis of his +life was come; that he must turn his hand henceforth to quite new +work; and as he went he "took stock," as it were, of his own soul, to +see what point he had attained--what he could do. + +Fifteen years of adventure had hardened into wrought metal a character +never very ductile. Tom was now, in his own way, an altogether +accomplished man of the world, who knew (at least in all companies and +places where he was likely to find himself) exactly what to say, to +do, to make, to seek, and to avoid. Shifty and thrifty as old Greek, +or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps +nothing he could not endure. He had watched human nature under every +disguise, from the pomp of the ambassador to the war-paint of the +savage, and formed his own clear, hard, shallow, practical estimate +thereof. He looked on it as his raw material, which he had to work up +into subsistence and comfort for himself. He did not wish to live on +men, but live by them he must; and for that purpose he must study +them, and especially their weaknesses. He would not cheat them; for +there was in him an innate vein of honesty, so surly and explosive, +at times, as to give him much trouble. The severest part of his +self-education had been the repression of his dangerous inclination to +call a sham a sham on the spot, and to answer fools according to their +folly. That youthful rashness, however, was now well-nigh subdued, +and Tom could flatter and bully also, when it served his turn--as who +cannot? Let him that is without sin among my readers, cast the first +stone. Self-conscious he was, therefore, in every word and action; not +from morbid vanity, but a necessary consequence of his mode of life. +He had to use men, and therefore to watch how he used them; to watch +every word, gesture, tone of voice, and, in all times and places, do +the fitting thing. It was hard work: but necessary for a man who stood +alone and self-poised in the midst of the universe; fashioning for +himself everywhere, just as far as his arm could reach, some not +intolerable condition; depending on nothing but himself, and caring +for little but himself and the father whom, to do him justice, he +never forgot. If I wished to define Tom Thurnall by one epithet, I +should call him specially an ungodly man--were it not that scriptural +epithets have, now-a-days, such altogether conventional and official +meanings, that one fears to convey, in using them, some notion quite +foreign to the truth. Tom was certainly not one of those ungodly whom +David had to deal with of old, who robbed the widow, and put the +fatherless to death. His morality was as high as that of the average; +his sense of honour far higher. He was generous and kind-hearted. No +one ever heard him tell a lie; and he had a blunt honesty about him, +half real, because he liked to be honest, and yet half affected too, +because he found it pay in the long run, and because it threw off +their guard the people whom he intended to make his tools. But of +godliness in its true sense--of belief that any Being above cared for +him, and was helping him in the daily business of life--that it was +worth while asking that Being's advice, or that any advice would be +given if asked for; of any practical notion of a Heavenly Father, or +a Divine education--Tom was as ignorant as thousands of respectable +people who go to church every Sunday, and read good books, and believe +firmly that the Pope is Antichrist. He ought to have learnt it, no +doubt; for his father was a religious man: but he had not learnt +it--any more than thousands learn it, who have likewise religious +parents. He had been taught, of course, the common doctrines and +duties of religion; but early remembrances had been rubbed out, as off +a schoolboy's slate, by the mere current of new thoughts and objects, +in his continual wanderings. Disappointments he had had, and dangers +in plenty; but only such as rouse a brave and cheerful spirit to +bolder self-reliance and invention; not those deep sorrows of the +heart which leave a man helpless in the lowest pit, crying for help +from without, for there is none within. He had seen men of all creeds, +and had found in all alike (so he held) the many rogues, and the few +honest men. All religions were, in his eyes, equally true and equally +false. Superior morality was owing principally to the influences of +race and climate; and devotional experiences (to judge, at least, from +American camp-meetings and popish-cities) the results of a diseased +nervous system. + +Upon a man so hard and strong this fearful blow had fallen, and, to do +him justice, he took it like a man. He wandered on and on for an hour +or more, up the hills, and into the forest, talking to himself. + +"Poor old Willy! I should have liked to have looked into his honest +face before he went, if only to make sure that we were good friends. +I used to plague him sadly with my tricks. But what is the use of +wishing for what cannot be? I recollect I had just the same feeling +when John died; and yet I got over it after a time, and was as +cheerful as if he were alive again, or had never lived at all. And so +I shall get over this. Why should I give way to what I know will pass, +and is meant to pass? It is my father I feel for. But I couldn't be +there; and it is no fault of mine that I was not there. No one told me +what was going to happen; and no one could know: so again,--why grieve +over what can't be helped?" + +And then, to give the lie to all his cool arguments, he sat down among +the fern, and burst into a violent fit of crying. "Oh, my poor dear +old daddy!" + +Yes; beneath all the hard crust of years, that fountain of life still +lay pure as when it came down from heaven--love for his father. + +"Come, come, this won't do; this is not the way to take stock of my +goods, either mental or worldly. I can't cry the dear old man out of +this scrape." + +He looked up. The sun was setting. Beneath the dark roof of evergreens +the eucalyptus boles stood out, like basalt pillars, black against a +background of burning flame. The flying foxes shot from tree to tree, +and moths as big as sparrows whirred about the trunks, one moment +black against the glare beyond, and vanishing the next, like imps of +darkness, into their native gloom. There was no sound of living thing +around, save the ghastly rattle of the dead bark-tassels which swung +from every tree, and far away, the faint clicking of the diggers at +their work, like the rustle of a gigantic ant-hill. Was there one +among them all who cared for him? who would not forget him in a week +with--"Well, he was pleasant company, poor fellow," and go on digging +without a sigh? What, if it were his fate to die, as he had seen many +a stronger man, there in that lonely wilderness, and sleep for ever, +unhonoured and unknown, beneath that awful forest roof, while his +father looked for bread to others' hands? + +No man was less sentimental, no man less superstitious than Thomas +Thurnall; but crushed and softened--all but terrified (as who would +not have been?)--by that day's news, he could not struggle against the +weight of loneliness which fell upon him. For the first and last time, +perhaps, in his life, he felt fear; a vague, awful dread of unseen and +inevitable possibilities. Why should not calamity fall on him, wave +after wave? Was it not falling on him already? Why should he not grow +sick to-morrow, break his leg, his neck--why not? What guarantee had +he in earth or heaven that he might not be "snuffed out silently," as +he had seen hundreds already, and die and leave no sign? And there +sprang up in him at once the intensest yearning after his father and +the haunts of his boyhood, and the wildest dread that he should never +see them. Might not his father be dead ere he could return?--if ever +he did return. That twelve thousand miles of sea looked to him a gulf +impassable. Oh, that he were safe at home! that he could start that +moment! And for one minute a helplessness, as of a lost child, came +over him. + +Perhaps it had been well for him had he given that feeling vent, +and, confessing himself a lost child, cried out of the darkness to a +Father; but the next minute he had dashed it proudly away. + +"Pretty baby I am, to get frightened, at my time of life, because +I find myself in a dark wood--and the sun shining all the while as +jollily as ever away there in the west! It is morning somewhere or +other now, and it will be morning here again to-morrow. 'Good times +and bad times, and all times pass over;'--I learnt that lesson out of +old Bewick's vignettes, and it has stood me in good stead this many +a year, and shall now. Die? Nonsense. I take more killing than that +comes to. So for one more bout with old Dame Fortune. If she throws me +again, why, I'll get up again, as I have any time these fifteen years. +Mark's right. I'll stay here and work till I make a hit, or luck +runs dry, and then home and settle; and, meanwhile, I'll go down to +Melbourne to-morrow, and send the dear old man two hundred pounds; and +then back again here, and to it again." + +And with a fate-defiant smile, half bitter and half cheerful, Tom +rose and went down again to his mates, and stopped their inquiries +by--"What's done can't be mended, and needn't be mentioned; whining +won't make me work the harder, and harder than ever I must work." + +Strange it is, how mortal man, "who cometh up and is cut down like the +flower," can thus harden himself into stoical security, and count on +the morrow, which may never come. Yet so it is; and, perhaps, if it +were not so, no work would get done on earth,--at least by the many +who know not that God is guiding them, while they fancy that they are +guiding themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +STILL LIFE. + + +I must now, if I am to bring you to "Two years ago," and to my story, +as it was told to me, ask you to follow me into the good old West +Country, and set you down at the back of an old harbour pier; thirty +feet of grey and brown boulders, spotted aloft with bright yellow +lichens, and black drops of tar, polished lower down by the surge of +centuries, and towards the foot of the wall roughened with crusts +of barnacles, and mussel-nests in crack and cranny, and festoons of +coarse dripping weed. + +On a low rock at its foot, her back resting against the Cyclopean +wall, sits a young woman of eight-and-twenty, soberly, almost primly +dressed, with three or four tiny children clustering round her. In +front of them, on a narrow spit of sand between the rocks, a dozen +little girls are laughing, romping, and pattering about, turning the +stones for "shannies" and "bullies," and other luckless fish left by +the tide; while the party beneath the pier wall look steadfastly down +into a little rock-pool at their feet,--full of the pink and green +and purple cut-work of delicate weeds and coralline, and starred with +great sea-dahlias, crimson and brown and grey, and with the waving +snake-locks of the Cercus, pale blue, and rose-tipped like the fingers +of the dawn. One delicate Medusa is sliding across the pool, by slow +pantings of its crystal bell; and on it the eyes of the whole group +are fixed,--for it seems to be the subject of some story which the +village schoolmistress is finishing in a sweet, half-abstracted +voice,-- + +"And so the cruel soldier was changed into a great rough red starfish, +who goes about killing the poor mussels, while nobody loves him, or +cares to take his part; and the poor little girl was changed into a +beautiful bright jelly-fish, like that one, who swims about all day in +the pleasant sunshine, with a red cross stamped on its heart." + +"Oh, mistress, what a pretty story!" cry the little ones, with tearful +eyes. "And what shall we be changed to when we die?" + +"If we will only be good we shall go up to Jesus, and be beautiful +angels, and sing hymns. Would that it might be soon, soon; for you and +me, and all!" And she draws the children, to her, and looks upward, as +if longing to bear them with her aloft. + +Let us leave the conversation where it is, and look into the face of +the speaker, who, young as she is, has already meditated so long upon +the mystery of death that it has grown lovely in her eyes. + +Her figure is tall, graceful, and slight, the severity of its outlines +suiting well with the severity of her dress, with the brown stuff gown +and plain grey whittle. Her neck is long, almost too long: but all +defects are forgotten in the first look at her face. We can see it +fully, for her bonnet lies beside her on the rock. + +The masque, though thin, is perfect. The brow, like that of Greek +statue, looks lower than it really is, for the hair springs from below +the bend of the forehead. The brain is very long, and sweeps backward +and upward in grand curves, till it attains above the ears a great +expanse and height. She should be a character more able to feel +than to argue; full of all a woman's veneration, devotion, love of +children,--perhaps, too, of a woman's anxiety. + +The nose is slightly aquiline; the sharp-cut nostrils indicate a +reserve of compressed strength and passion; the mouth is delicate; +the lips, which are full and somewhat heavy, not from coarseness, but +rather from languor, show somewhat of both the upper and the under +teeth. Her eyes are bent on the pool at her feet; so that we can see +nothing of them but the large sleepy lids, fringed with lashes so long +and dark that the eye looks as if it had been painted, in the Eastern +fashion, with antimony; the dark lashes, dark eyebrows, dark hair, +crisped (as West-country hair so often is) to its very roots, increase +the almost ghostlike paleness of the face, not sallow, not snow-white, +but of a clear, bloodless, waxen hue. + +And now she lifts her eyes,--dark eyes, of preternatural largeness; +brilliant, too, but not with the sparkle of the diamond; brilliant as +deep clear wells are, in which the mellow moonlight sleeps fathom-deep +between black walls of rock; and round them, and round the wide-opened +lips, and arching eyebrow, and slightly wrinkled forehead, hangs an +air of melancholy thought, vague doubt, almost of startled fear; then +that expression passes, and the whole face collapses into a languor of +patient sadness, which seems to say,--"I cannot solve the mystery. Let +Him solve it as seems good to Him." + +The pier has, as usual, two stages; the upper and narrower for a +public promenade, the lower and broader one for business. Two rough +collier-lads, strangers to the place, are lounging on the wall above, +and begin, out of mere mischief, dropping pebbles on the group below. + +"Hillo! you young rascals," calls an old man lounging like them on +the wall; "if you don't drop that, you're likely to get your heads +broken." + +"Will you do it?" + +"I would thirty years ago; but I'll find a dozen in five minutes who +will do it now. Here, lads! here's two Welsh vagabonds pelting our +schoolmistress." + +This is spoken to a group of Sea-Titans, who are sitting about on +the pier-way behind him, in red caps, blue jackets, striped jerseys, +bright brown trousers, and all the picturesque comfort of a +fisherman's costume, superintending the mending of a boat. + +Up jump half-a-dozen off the logs and baulkings, where they have been +squatting, doubled up knee to nose, after the fashion of their class, +and a volley of execrations, like a storm of grape, almost blows +the two offenders off the wall. The bolder, however, lingers, +anathematising in turn; whereon a black-bearded youth, some six feet +four in height, catches up an oar, makes a sweep at the shins of +the lad above his head, and brings him writhing down upon the upper +pier-way, whence he walks off howling, and muttering threats of +"taking the law." In vain;--there is not a magistrate within ten +miles; and custom, Lynch-law, and the coast-guard lieutenant, settle +all matters in Aberalva town, and do so easily enough; for the petty +crimes which fill our gaols are all unknown among those honest +Vikings' sons; and any man who covets his neighbour's goods, instead +of stealing them has only to go and borrow them, on condition, of +course, of lending in his turn. + +"What's that collier-lad hollering about, Captain Willis?" asks Mr. +Tardrew, steward to Lord Scoutbush, landlord of Aberalva, as he comes +up to the old man. + +"Gentleman Jan cut him over, for pelting the schoolmistress below +here." + +"Serve him right; he'll have to cut over that curate next, I reckon." + +"Oh, Mr. Tardrew, don't you talk so; the young gentleman is as kind a +man as I ever saw, and comes in and out of our house like a lamb." + +"Wolf in sheep's clothing," growls Tardrew. + +"What d'ye think he says to me last week? Wanted to turn the +schoolmistress out of her place because she went to chapel sometimes." + +"I know, I know," replied Willis, in the tone of a man who wished to +avoid a painful subject. "And what did you answer, then, Mr. Tardrew?" + +"I told him he might if he liked; but he'd make the place too hot +to hold him, if he hadn't done it already, with his bowings and his +crossings, and his chantings, and his Popish Gregories,--and tells one +he's no Papist; called him Pope Gregory himself. What do we want with +popes' tunes here, instead of the Old Hundredth and Martyrdom? I +should like to see any Pope of the lot make a tune like them." + +Captain Willis listened with a face half sad, half slily amused. He +and Tardrew were old friends; being the two most notable persons in +the parish, save Jones the lieutenant, Heale the doctor, and another +gentleman, of whom we shall speak presently. Both of them too, were +thorough-going Protestants, and though Churchmen, walked sometimes +into the Brianite Chapel of an afternoon, and thought it no sin. But +each took the curate's "Puseyism" in a different way, being two men as +unlike each other as one could well find. + +Tardrew--steward to Lord Scoutbush, the absentee landlord,--was a +shrewd, hard-bitten, choleric old fellow, of the shape, colour, and +consistence of a red brick; one of those English types which Mr. +Emerson has so well hit off in his rather confused and contradictory +"Traits:"-- + +"He hides virtues under vices, or, rather, under the semblance of +them. It is the misshapen, hairy, Scandinavian Troll again who lifts +the cart out of the mire, or threshes the corn which ten day-labourers +could not end: but it is done in the dark, and with muttered +maledictions. He is a churl with a soft place in his heart, whose +speech is a brash of bitter waters, but who loves to help you at a +pinch. He says, No; and serves you, and his thanks disgust you." Such, +was Tardrew,--a true British bulldog, who lived pretty faithfully up +to his Old Testament, but had, somehow, forgotten the existence of the +New. + +Willis was a very different and a very much nobler person; the most +perfect specimen which I ever have met (for I knew him well, and loved +him) of that type of British sailor which good Captain Marryat has +painted in his Masterman Ready, and painted far better than I can, +even though I do so from life. A tall and graceful old man, though +stooping much from lumbago and old wounds; with snow-white hair and +whiskers, delicate aquiline features, the manners of a nobleman, and +the heart of a child. All children knew that latter fact, and clung +to him instinctively. Even "the Boys," that terrible Berserk-tribe, +self-organised, self-dependent, and bound together in common +iniquities and the dread of common retribution, who were in Aberalva, +as all fishing towns, the torment and terror of all douce fogies, male +and female,--even the Boys, I say, respected Captain Willis, so potent +was the influence of his gentleness; nailed not up his shutters, nor +tied fishing-lines across his doorway; tail-piped not his dog, nor +sent his cat to sea on a barrel-stave; nor put live crabs into his +pocket, nor dead dog-fish into his well; yea, even when judgment, too +long provoked, made bare her red right hand, and the lieutenant vowed +by his commission that he would send half-a-dozen of them to the +treadmill, they would send up a deputation to "beg Captain Willis to +beg the schoolmistress to beg them off." For between Willis and +that fair young creature a friendship had grown up, easily to be +understood. Willis was one of those rare natures upon whose purity no +mire can cling; who pass through the furnace, and yet not even the +smell of fire has passed upon them. Bred, almost born, on board a +smuggling cutter, in the old war-times; then hunting, in the old +coast-blockade service, the smugglers among whom he had been trained; +watching the slow horrors of the Walcheren; fighting under Collingwood +and Nelson, and many another valiant Captain; lounging away years +of temptation on the West-Indian station, as sailing-master of a +ship-of-the-line; pensioned comfortably now for many a year in his +native town, he had been always the same gentle, valiant, righteous +man; sober in life, strict in duty, and simple in word; a soul as +transparent as crystal, and as pure. He was the oracle of +Aberalva now; and even Lieutenant Brown would ask his +opinion,--non-commissioned officer though he was,--in a tone which was +all the more patronising, because he stood a little in awe of the old +man. + +But why, when the boys wanted to be begged off, was the schoolmistress +to be their advocate? Because Grace Harvey exercised, without +intending anything of the kind, an almost mesmeric influence on every +one in the little town. Goodness rather than talent had given her +wisdom, and goodness rather than courage a power of using that wisdom, +which, to those simple, superstitious folk, seemed altogether an +inspiration. There was a mystery about her, too, which worked strongly +on the hearts of the West-country people. She was supposed to be at +times "not right;" and wandering intellect is with them, as with +many primitive peoples, an object more of awe than of pity. Her deep +melancholy alternated with bursts of wild eloquence, with fantastic +fables, with entreaties and warnings against sin, full of such pity +and pathos that they melted, at times, the hardest hearts. A whole +world of strange tales, half false, half true, had grown up around +her as she grew. She was believed to spend whole nights in prayer; to +speak with visitors from the other world; even to have the power of +seeing into futurity. The intensity of her imagination gave rise to +the belief that she had only to will, and she could see whom she +would, and all that they were doing, even across the seas; her +exquisite sensibility, it was whispered, made her feel every bodily +suffering she witnessed, as acutely as the sufferer's self, and in the +very limb in which he suffered. Her deep melancholy was believed to be +caused by some dark fate--by some agonising sympathy with evil-doers; +and it was sometimes said in Aberalva,--"Don't do that, for poor +Grace's sake. She bears the sins of all the parish." + +So it befell that Grace Harvey governed, she knew not how or why, all +hearts in that wild simple fishing-town. Rough men, fighting on the +quay, shook hands at Grace's bidding. Wives who could not lure their +husbands from the beer-shop, sent Grace in to fetch them home, sobered +by shame: and woe to the stranger who fancied that her entrance into +that noisy den gave him a right to say a rough word to the fair girl! +The maidens, instead of envying her beauty, made her the confidant of +all their loves; for though many a man would gladly have married her, +to woo her was more than any dared; and Gentleman Jan himself, the +rightful bully of the quay, as being the handsomest and biggest +man for many a mile, beside owning a tidy trawler and two good +mackerel-boats, had said openly, that if any man had a right to her, +he supposed he had; but that he should as soon think of asking her to +marry him, as of asking the moon. + +But it was in the school, in the duty which lay nearest to her, that +Grace's inward loveliness shone most lovely. Whatever dark cloud of +melancholy lay upon her own heart, she took care that it should never +overshadow one of those young innocents, whom she taught by love and +ruled by love, always tender, always cheerful, even gay and playful; +punishing, when she rarely punished, with tears and kisses. To make +them as happy as she could in a world where there was nothing but +temptation, and disappointment, and misery; to make them "fit for +heaven," and then to pray that they might go thither as speedily +as possible, this had been her work for now seven years; and that +Manichaeism which has driven darker and harder natures to destroy +young children, that they might go straight to bliss, took in her the +form of outpourings of gratitude (when the first natural tears were +dried), as often as one of her little lambs was "delivered out of the +miseries of this sinful world." But as long as they were in the +world, she was their guardian angel; and there was hardly a mother in +Aberalva who did not confess her debt to Grace, not merely for her +children's scholarship, but for their characters. + +Frank Headley the curate, therefore, had touched altogether the +wrong chord when he spoke of displacing Grace. And when, that same +afternoon, he sauntered down to the pier-head, wearied with his +parish work, not only did Tardrew stump away in silence as soon as he +appeared, but Captain Willis's face assumed a grave and severe look, +which was not often to be seen on it. + +"Well, Captain Willis?" said Frank, solitary and sad; longing for a +talk with someone, and not quite sure whether he was welcome. + +"Well, sir?" and the old man lifted his hat, and made one of his +princely bows. "You look tired, sir; I am afraid you're doing too +much." + +"I shall have more to do, soon," said the curate, his eye glancing +towards the schoolmistress, who, disturbed by the noise above, was +walking slowly up the beach, with a child holding to every finger, and +every fold of her dress. + +Willis saw the direction of his eye, and came at once to the point, in +his gentle, straightforward fashion. + +"I hear you have thoughts of taking the school from her, sir?" + +"Why--indeed--I shall be very sorry; but if she will persist in going +to the chapel, I cannot overlook the sin of schism." + +"She takes the children to church twice a Sunday, don't she? And +teaches them all that you tell her--" + +"Why--yes--I have taken the religious instruction almost into my own +hands now." + +Willis smiled quietly. + +"You'll excuse an old sailor, sir; but I think that's more than mortal +man can do. There's no hour of the day but what she's teaching them +something. She's telling them Bible stories now, I'll warrant, if you +could hear her." + +Frank made no answer. + +"You wouldn't stop her doing that? Oh, sir," and the old man spoke +with a quiet earnestness which was not without its effect, "just look +at her now, like the Good Shepherd with His lambs about His feet, and +think whether that's not much too pretty a sight to put an end to, in +a poor sinful world like this." + +"It is my duty," said Frank, hardening himself. "It pains me +exceedingly, Willis;--I hope I need not tell you that." + +"If I know aught of Mr. Headley's heart by his ways, you needn't +indeed, sir." + +"But I cannot allow it.--Her mother a class leader among these +Dissenters, and one of the most active of them, too.--The school next +door to her house. The preacher, of course, has influence there, and +must have. How am I to instil Church principles into them, if he is +counteracting me the moment my back is turned? I have made up my mind, +Willis, to do nothing in a hurry. Lady-day is past, and she must go on +till Midsummer; then I shall take the school into my own hands, and +teach them myself, for I can pay no mistress or master; and Mr. St. +Just--" + +Frank checked himself as he was going to speak the truth; namely, that +his sleepy old absentee rector, Lord Scoutbush's uncle, would yawn and +grumble at the move, and wondering why Frank "had not the sense to +leave ill alone," would give him no manner of assistance beyond his +pittance of eighty pounds a-year, and five pounds at Christmas to +spend on the poor. + +"Excuse me, sir, I don't doubt that you'll do your best in teaching, +as you always do: but I tell you honestly, you'll get no children to +teach." + +"No children?" + +"Their mothers know the worth of Grace too well, and the children too, +sir; and they'll go to her all the same, do what you will; and never a +one will enter the church door from that day forth." + +"On their own heads be it!" said Frank, a little testily; "but I +should not have fancied Miss Harvey the sort of person to set up +herself in defiance of me." + +"The more reason, sir, if you'll forgive me, for your not putting upon +her." + +"I do not want to put upon her or any one. I will do everything. I +will--I do--work day and night for these people, Mr. Willis. I tell +you, as I would my own father. I don't think I have another object +on earth--if I have, I hope I shall forget it--than the parish: but +Church principles I must carry out." + +"Well, sir, certainly no man ever worked here as you do. If all had +been like you, sir, there would not be a Dissenter here now; but +excuse me, sir, the Church is a very good thing, and I keep to mine, +having served under her Majesty, and her Majesty's forefathers, and +learnt to obey orders, I hope; but don't you think, sir, you're taking +it as the Pharisees took the Sabbath-day?" + +"How then!" + +"Why, as if man was made for the Church, and not the Church for man." + +"That is a shrewd thought, at least. Where did you pick it up?" + +"'Tis none of my own, sir; a bit of wisdom that my maid let fall; and +it has stuck to me strangely ever since." + +"Your maid?" + +"Yes, Grace there. I always call her my maid; having no father, poor +thing, she looks up to me as one, pretty much,--the dear soul. Oh, +sir! I hope you'll think over this again, before you do anything. It's +done in a day: but years won't undo it again." + +So Grace's sayings were quoted against him. Her power was formidable +enough, if she dare use it. He was silent awhile, and then-- + +"Do you think she has heard of this--of my--" + +"Honesty's the best policy, sir: she has; and that's the truth. You +know how things get round." + +"Well; and what did she say?" + +"I'll tell you her very words, sir; and they were these, if you'll +excuse me. 'Poor dear gentleman,' says she, 'if he thinks chapel-going +so wrong, why does he dare drive folks to chapel? I wonder, every time +he looks at that deep sea, he don't remember what the Lord said about +it, and those who cause his little ones to offend.'" + +Frank was somewhat awed. The thought was new; the application of the +text, as his own scholarship taught him, even more exact than Grace +had fancied. + +"Then she was not angry?" + +"She, sir! You couldn't anger her if you tore her in pieces with hot +pincers, as they did those old martyrs she's always telling about." + +"Good-bye, Willis," said Frank, in a hopeless tone of voice, and +sauntered to the pier-end, down the steps, and along the lower +pier-way, burdened with many thoughts. He came up to the knot of +chatting sailors. Not one of them touched his cap, or moved out of the +way for him. The boat lay almost across the whole pier-way; and he +stopped, awkwardly enough, for there was not room to get by. + +"Will you be so kind as to let me pass?" asked he, meekly enough. But +no one stirred. + +"Why don't you get up, Tom?" asked one. + +"I be lame." + +"So be I." + +"The gentleman can step over me, if he likes," said big Jan; a +proposition the impossibility whereof raised a horse-laugh. + +"Ain't you ashamed of yourselves, lads?" said the severe voice of +Willis, from above. The men rose sulkily; and Frank hastened on, as +ready to cry as ever he had been in his life. Poor fellow! he had been +labouring among these people for now twelve months, as no man had ever +laboured before, and he felt that he had not won the confidence of a +single human being,--not even of the old women, who took his teaching +for the sake of his charity, and who scented popery, all the while, in +words in which there was no popery, and in doctrines which were just +the same, on the whole, as those of the dissenting preacher, simply +because he would sprinkle among them certain words and phrases which +had become "suspect," as party badges. His church was all but empty; +the general excuse was, that it was a mile from the town: but Frank +knew that that was not the true reason; that all the parish had got it +into their heads that he had a leaning to popery; that he was going +over to Rome; that he was probably a Jesuit in disguise. + +Now, be it always remembered, Frank Headley was a good man, in every +sense of the word. He had nothing, save the outside, in common with +those undesirable coxcombs, who have not been bred by the High Church +movement, but have taken refuge in its cracks, as they would have done +forty years ago in those of the Evangelical,--youths who hide their +crass ignorance and dulness under the cloak of Church infallibility, +and having neither wit, manners, learning, humanity, or any other +dignity whereon to stand, talk loud, _pour pis aller_, about the +dignity of the priesthood. Such men Frank had met at neighbouring +clerical meetings, overbearing and out-talking the elder and the wiser +members; and finding that he got no good from them, had withdrawn into +his parish-work, to eat his own heart, like Bellerophon of old. For +Frank was a gentleman and a Christian, if ever one there was. Delicate +in person, all but consumptive; graceful and refined in all his works +and ways; a scholar, elegant rather than deep, yet a scholar still; +full of all love for painting, architecture, and poetry, he had come +down to bury himself in this remote curacy, in the honest desire of +doing good. He had been a curate in a fashionable London Church; but +finding the atmosphere thereof not over wholesome to his soul, he +had had the courage to throw off St. Nepomuc's, its brotherhoods, +sisterhoods, and all its gorgeous and highly-organised appliances for +enabling five thousand rich to take tolerable care of five hundred +poor: and had fled from "the holy virgins" (as certain old ladies, +who do twice their work with half their noise, call them) into the +wilderness of Bethnal Green. But six months' gallant work there, with +gallant men (for there are High Churchmen there who are an honour to +England), brought him to death's door. The doctors commanded some soft +western air. Frank, as chivalrous as a knight-errant of old, would +fain have died at his post, but his mother interfered; and he could +do no less than obey her. So he had taken this remote west country +curacy; all the more willingly because he knew that nine-tenths of the +people were Dissenters. To recover that place to the Church would be +something worth living for. So he had come, and laboured late and +early; and behold, he had failed utterly; and seemed farther than +ever from success. He had opened, too hastily, a crusade against the +Dissenters, and denounced where he should have conciliated. He had +overlooked--indeed he hardly knew--the sad truth, that the mere fact +of his being a clergyman was no passport to the hearts of his people. +For the curate who preceded him had been an old man, mean, ignorant, +incapable, remaining there simply because nobody else would have him, +and given to brandy-and-water as much as his flock. + +The rector for the last fifteen years, Lord Scoutbush's uncle, was a +cypher. The rector before him had notoriously earned the living by a +marriage with a lady who stood in some questionable relation to Lord +Scoutbush's father, and who had never had a thought above his dinner +and his tithes; and all that the Aberalva fishermen knew of God or +righteousness, they had learnt from the _soi-disant_ disciples of John +Wesley. So Frank Headley had to make up, at starting, the arrears +of half-a-century of base neglect; but instead of doing so, he had +contrived to awaken against himself that dogged hatred of popery which +lies inarticulate and confused, but deep and firm, in the heart of the +English people. Poor fellow! if he made a mistake, he suffered for it. +There was hardly a sadder soul than poor Frank, as he went listlessly +up the village street that afternoon, to his lodging at Captain +Willis's, which he had taken because he preferred living in the +village itself to occupying the comfortable rectory a mile out of +town. + +However we cannot set him straight;--after all, every man must perform +that office for himself. So the best thing we can do, as we landed, +naturally, at the pier-head, is to walk up-street after him, and see +what sort of a place Aberalva is. + +Beneath us, to the left hand, is the quay-pool, now lying dry, in +which a dozen trawlers are lopping over on their sides, their red +sails drying in the sun, the tails of the trawls hauled up to the +topmast heads; while the more handy of their owners are getting on +board by ladders, to pack away the said red sails; for it will blow +to night. In the long furrows which their keels have left, and in the +shallow muddy pools, lie innumerable fragments of exenterated maids +(not human ones, pitiful reader, but belonging to the order Pisces, +and the family Raia), and some twenty non-exenterated ray-dogs and +picked dogs (Anglice, dog-fish), together with a fine basking shark, +at least nine feet long, out of which the kneeling Mr. George Thomas, +clothed in pilot cloth patches of every hue, bright scarlet, blue and +brown (not to mention a large square of white canvas which has been +let into that part of his trousers which is now uppermost), is +dissecting the liver for the purpose of greasing his "sheaves" with +the fragrant oil thereof. The pools in general are bedded with black +mud, and creamed over with oily flakes which may proceed from the tar +on the vessels' sides, and may also from "decomposing animal matter," +as we euphemise it now-a-days. The hot pebbles, at high-tide +mark,--crowned with a long black row of herring and mackerel boats, +laid up in ordinary for the present--are beautifully variegated with +mackerels' heads, gurnets' fins, old hag, lobworm, and mussel-baits, +and the inwards of a whole ichthyological museum; save at one spot +where the Cloaca maxima and Port Esquiline of Aberalva town (small +enough, considering the place holds fifteen hundred souls) murmurs +from beneath a grey stone arch toward the sea, not unfraught with dead +rats and cats, who, their ancient feud forgotten, combine lovingly at +last in increasing the health of the blue-trousered urchins who are +sailing upon that Acherontic stream bits of board with a feather stuck +in it, or of their tiny sisters who are dancing about in the dirtiest +pool among the trawlers in a way which (if your respectable black coat +be seen upon the pier) will elicit from one of the balconied windows +above, decked with reeking shirts and linen, some such shriek as-- + +"Patience Penberthy, Patience Penberthy--a! You nasty, dirty, little +ondecent hussy--a! What be playing in the quay-pool for--a! A pulling +up your pesticoats before the quality--a!" Each exclamation being +followed with that groaning grunt, with which the West-country folk, +after having screamed their lungs empty through their noses, recover +their breath for a fresh burst. + +Never mind; it is no nosegay, certainly as a whole: but did you ever +see sturdier, rosier, nobler-looking children,--rounder faces, raven +hair, bright grey eyes, full of fun and tenderness? As for the dirt, +that cannot harm them; poor people's children must be dirty--why not? +Look on fifty yards to the left. Between two ridges of high pebble +bank, some twenty yards apart, comes Alva river rushing to the sea. +On the opposite ridge, a low white house, with three or four white +canvas-covered boats, and a flag-staff with sloping cross-yard, +betokens the coast-guard station. Beyond it rise black jagged cliffs; +mile after mile of iron-bound wall; and here and there, at the glens' +mouths, great banks and denes of shifting sand. In front of it, upon +the beach, are half-a-dozen great green and grey heaps of Welsh +limestone; behind it, at the cliff foot, is the lime-kiln, with its +white dusty heaps, and brown dusty men, its quivering mirage of hot +air, its strings of patient hay-nibbling donkeys, which look as +if they had just awakened out of a flour bin. Above, a green down +stretches up to bright yellow furze-crofts far aloft. Behind a reedy +marsh, covered with red cattle, paves the valley till it closes in; +the steep sides of the hills are clothed in oak and ash covert, in +which, three months ago, you could have shot more cocks in one day +than you would in Berkshire in a year. Pleasant little glimpses there +are, too, of grey stone farm-houses, nestling among sycamore and +beech; bright-green meadows, alder-fringed; squares of rich red +fallow-field, parted by lines of golden furze; all cut out with a +peculiar blackness, and clearness, soft and tender withal, which +betokens a climate surcharged with rain. Only in the very bosom of +the valley, a soft mist hangs, increasing the sense of distance, and +softening back one hill and wood behind another, till the great brown +moor which backs it all seems to rise out of the empty air. For a +thousand feet it ranges up, in rude sheets of brown heather, and grey +cairns and screes of granite, all sharp and black-edged against the +pale blue sky; and all suddenly cut off above by one long horizontal +line of dark grey cloud, which seems to hang there motionless, and yet +is growing to windward, and dying to leeward, for ever rushing out of +the invisible into sight, and into the invisible again, at railroad +speed. Out of nothing the moor rises, and into nothing it ascends,--a +great dark phantom between earth and sky, boding rain and howling +tempest, and perhaps fearful wreck--for the groundswell moans and +thunders on the beach behind us, louder and louder every moment. + +Let us go on, and up the street, after we have scrambled through the +usual labyrinth of timber-baulks, rusty anchors, boats which have been +dragged, for the purpose of mending and tarring, into the very middle +of the road, and old spars stowed under walls, in the vain hope that +they may be of some use for something some day, and have stood the +stares and welcomes of the lazy giants who are sitting about upon +them, black-locked, black-bearded, with ruddy, wholesome faces, and +eyes as bright as diamonds; men who are on their own ground, and know +it; who will not touch their caps to you, or pull the short black pipe +from between their lips as you pass, but expect you to prove yourself +a gentleman, by speaking respectfully to them; which, if you do, you +will find them as hearty, intelligent, brave fellows as ever walked +this earth, capable of anything, from working the naval-brigade +guns at Sevastopol, down to running up to ... a hundred miles in a +cockleshell lugger, to forestall the early mackerel market. God be +with you, my brave lads, and with your children after you; for as long +as you are what I have known you, Old England will rule the seas, and +many a land beside! + +But in going up Aberalva Street, you remark several things; first, +that the houses were all white-washed yesterday, except where the +snowy white is picked out by buttresses of pink and blue; next, +that they all have bright green palings in front, and bright green +window-sills and frames; next, that they are all roofed with shining +grey slate, and the space between the window and the pales flagged +with the same; next, that where such space is not flagged, it is full +of flowers and shrubs which stand the winter only in our greenhouses. +The fuchsias are ten feet high, laden with ripe purple berries running +over (for there are no birds to pick them off); and there in the front +of the coast-guard lieutenant's house, is Cobaea scandens, covered +with purple claret-glasses, as it has been ever since Christmas: for +Aberalva knows no winter: and there are grown-up men in it who never +put on a skate, or made a snowball in their lives. A most cleanly, +bright-coloured, foreign-looking street, is that long straggling one +which runs up the hill towards Penalva Court: only remark, that this +cleanliness is gained by making the gutter in the middle street the +common sewer of the town, and tread clear of cabbage-leaves, pilchard +bones, _et id genus omne_. For Aberalva is like Paris (if the answer +of a celebrated sanitary reformer to the Emperor be truly reported), +"fair without but foul within." + +However, the wind is blowing dull and hollow from south-west; the +clouds are rolling faster and faster up from the Atlantic; the sky to +westward is brassy green; the glass is falling fast; and there will +be wind and rain enough to-night to sweep even Aberalva clean for the +next week. + +Grace Harvey sees the coming storm, as she goes slowly homewards, +dismissing her little flock; and she lingers long and sadly outside +her cottage door, looking out over the fast blackening sea, and +listening to the hollow thunder of the groundswell, against the back +of the point which shelters Aberalva Cove. + +Far away on the horizon, the masts of stately ships stand out against +the sky, driving fast to the eastward with shortened sail. They, too, +know what is coming; and Grace prays for them as she stands, in her +wild way, with half outspoken words. + +"All those gallant ships, dear Lord! and so many beautiful men in +them, and so few of them ready to die; and all those gallant soldiers +going to the war;--Lord, wilt thou not have mercy? Spare them for +a little time before--. Is not that cruel, man-devouring sea full +enough, Lord; and brave men's bones enough, strewn up and down all +rocks and sands? And is not that dark place full enough, O Lord, of +poor souls cut off in a moment, as my two were? Oh, not to-night, dear +Lord! Do not call any one to-night--give them a day more, one chance +more, poor fellows--they have had so few, and so many temptations, +and, perhaps, no schooling. They go to sea so early, and young things +will be young things, Lord. Spare them but one night more--and yet He +did not spare my two--they had no time to repent, and have no time for +ever, evermore!" + +And she stands looking out over the sea; but she has lost sight of +everything, save her own sad imaginations. Her eyes open wider and +wider, as if before some unseen horror; the eyebrows contract upwards; +the cheeks sharpen; the mouth parts; the lips draw back, showing +the white teeth, as if in intensest agony. Thus she stands long, +motionless, awe-frozen, save when a shudder runs through every limb, +with such a countenance as that "fair terror" of which Shelley sang-- + + "Its horror and its beauty are divine; + Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie + Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, + Fiery and lucid, struggling underneath, + The agonies of anguish and of death." + +Her mother comes out from the cottage door behind, and lays her hand +upon the girl's shoulder. The spell is broken; and hiding her face in +her hands, Grace bursts into violent weeping. + +"What are you doing, my poor child, here in the cold night air?" + +"My two, mother, my two!" said she; "and all the poor souls at sea +to-night!" + +"You mustn't think of it. Haven't I told you not to think of it? One +would lose one's wits if one did too often." + +"If it is all true, mother, what else is there worth thinking of in +heaven or earth?" + +And Grace goes in with a dull, heavy look of utter exhaustion, bodily +and mental, and quietly sets the things for supper, and goes about her +cottage work as one who bears a heavy chain, but has borne it too long +to let it hinder the daily drudgery of life. + +Grace had reason to pray at least, for the soldiers who were going +to the war. For as she prayed, the Orinoco, Ripon, and Manilla, were +steaming down Southampton Water, with the Guards on board; and but +that morning little Lord Scoutbush, left behind at the depôt, had bid +farewell to his best friend, opposite Buckingham Palace, while the +bearskins were on the bayonet-points, with-- + +"Well, old fellow, you have the fun, after all, and I the work;" and +had been answered with-- + +"Fun? there will be no fighting; and I shall only have lost my season +in town." + +Was there, then, no man among them that day, who + + "As the trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, + Heard in the wild March morning the angels call his soul"? + + * * * * * + +Verily they are gone down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of +heroes. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE. + + +Penalva Court, about half a mile from the quay, is "like a house in a +story;"--a house of seven gables, and those very shaky ones; a house +of useless long passages, useless turrets, vast lumber attics where +maids see ghosts, lofty garden and yard walls of grey stone, round +which the wind and rain are lashing through the dreary darkness; low +oak-ribbed ceilings; windows which once were mullioned with stone, but +now with wood painted white; walls which were once oak-wainscot, +but have been painted like the mullions, to the disgust of Elsley +Vavasour, poet, its occupant in March 1854, who forgot that, while the +oak was left dark, no man could have seen to read in the rooms a yard +from the window. + +He has, however, little reason to complain of the one drawing-room, +where he and his wife are sitting, so pleasant has she made it look, +in spite of the plainness of the furniture. A bright log-fire is +burning on the hearth. There are a few good books too, and a few +handsome prints; while some really valuable nick-nacks are set out, +with pardonable ostentation, on a little table covered with crimson +velvet. It is only cotton velvet, if you look close at it; but the +things are pretty enough to catch the eye of all visitors; and Mrs. +Heale, the Doctor's wife (who always calls Mrs. Vavasour "my lady," +though she does not love her), and Mrs. Trebooze, of Trebooze, always +finger them over when they have any opportunity, and whisper to each +other half contemptuously,--"Ah, poor thing! there's a sign that she +has seen better days." + +And better days, in one sense, Mrs. Vavasour has seen. I am afraid, +indeed, that she has more than once regretted the morning when she ran +away in a hack-cab from her brother Lord Scoutbush's house in Eaton +Square, to be married to Elsley Vavasour, the gifted author of "A +Soul's Agonies and other Poems." He was a lion then, with foolish +women running after him, and turning his head once and for all; and +Lucia St. Just was a wild Irish girl, new to London society, all +feeling and romance, and literally all; for there was little real +intellect underlying her passionate sensibility. So when the +sensibility burnt itself out, as it generally does; and when children, +and the weak health which comes with them, and the cares of a +household, and money difficulties were absorbing her little powers, +Elsley Vavasour began to fancy that his wife was a very commonplace +person, who was fast losing even her good looks and her good temper. +So, on the whole, they were not happy. Elsley was an affectionate man, +and honourable to a fantastic nicety; but he was vain, capricious, +over-sensitive, craving for admiration and distinction; and it was not +enough for him that his wife loved him, and bore him children, kept +his accounts, mended and moiled all day long for him and his; he +wanted her to act the public for him exactly when he was hungry for +praise; and that not the actual, but an altogether ideal, public; to +worship him as a deity, "live for him and him alone," "realise" his +poetic dreams of marriage bliss, and talk sentiment with him, or +listen to him talking sentiment to her, when she would much sooner be +safe in bed burying all the petty cares of the day, and the pain in +her back too, poor thing! in sound sleep; and so it befell that they +often quarrelled and wrangled, and that they were quarrelling and +wrangling this very night. + +Who cares to know how it began? Who cares to hear how it went on,--the +stupid, aimless skirmish of bitter words, between two people who had +forgotten themselves? I believe it began with Elsley's being vexed +at her springing up two or three times, fancying that she heard the +children cry, while he wanted to be quiet, and sentimentalise over the +roaring of the wind outside. Then--she thought of nothing but those +children. Why did she not take a book and occupy her mind? To which +she had her pert, though just answer, about her mind having quite +enough to do to keep clothes on the children's backs, and so +forth,--let who list imagine the miserable little squabble;--till she +says,--"I know what has put you out so to-night; nothing but the news +of my sister's coming." He answers,--"That her sister is as little to +him as to any man; as welcome to come now as she has been to stay away +these three years." + +"Ah, it's very well to say that; but you have been a different person +ever since that letter came." And so she torments him into an angry +self-justification (which she takes triumphantly as a confession) that +"it is very disagreeable to have his thoughts broken in on by one who +has no sympathy with him and his pursuits--and who" and at that point +he wisely stops short, for he was going to throw down a very ugly gage +of battle. + +Thrown down or not, Lucia snatches at it. + +"Ah, I understand; poor Valentia! You always hated her." + +"I did not: but she is so brusque, and excited, and--" + +"Be so kind as not to abuse my family. You may say what you will of +me; but--" + +"And what have your family done for me, pray?" + +"Why, considering that we are now living rent-free in my brother's +house, and--" She stops in her turn; for her pride and her prudence +also will not let her tell him that Valentia has been clothing her and +the children for the last three years. He is just the man to forbid +her on the spot to receive any more presents, and to sacrifice her +comfort to his own pride. But what she has said is quite enough to +bring out a very angry answer, which she expecting, nips in the bud +by-- + +"For goodness' sake, don't speak so loud; I don't want the servants to +hear." + +"I am not speaking loud"--(he has not yet opened his lips). "That is +your old trick to prevent my defending myself, while you are driving +one mad. How dare you taunt me with being a pensioner on your +brother's bounty? I'll go up to town again and take lodgings there. +I need not be beholden to any aristocrat of them all. I have my own +station in the real world,--the world of intellect; I have my own +friends; I have made myself a name without his help; and I can live +without his help, he shall find!" + +"Which name were you speaking of?" rejoins she looking up at him, with +all her native Irish humour flashing up for a moment in her naughty +eyes. The next minute she would have given her hand not to have said +it; for, with a very terrible word, Elsley springs to his feet and +dashes out of the room. + +She hears him catch up his hat and cloak, and hurry out into the rain, +slamming the door behind him. She springs up to call him back, but +he is gone;--and she dashes herself on the floor, and bursts into an +agony of weeping over "young bliss never to return"? Not in the least. +Her principal fear is, lest he should catch cold in the rain. She +takes up her work again, and stitches away in the comfortable +certainty that in half an hour she will have recovered her temper, and +he also; that they will pass a sulky night; and to-morrow, by about +mid-day, without explanation or formal reconciliation, have become as +good friends as ever. "Perhaps," says she to herself, with a woman's +sense of power, "if he be very much ashamed and very wet, I'll pity +him and make friends to-night." + +Miserable enough are these little squabbles. Why will two people, who +have sworn to love and cherish each other utterly, and who, on the +whole, do what they have sworn, behave to each other as they dare for +very shame behave to no one else? Is it that, as every beautiful thing +has its hideous antitype, this mutual shamelessness is the devil's +ape of mutual confidence? Perhaps it cannot be otherwise with beings +compact of good and evil. When the veil of reserve is withdrawn from +between two souls, it must be withdrawn for evil, as for good, till +the two natures, which ought to seek rest, each in the other's inmost +depths, may at last spring apart, confronting each other recklessly +with,--"There, you see me as I am; you know the worst of me, and I of +you; take me as you find me--what care I?" + +Elsley and Lucia have not yet arrived at that terrible crisis: though +they are on the path toward it,--the path of little carelessnesses, +rudenesses, ungoverned words and tempers, and, worst of all, of that +half-confidence, which is certain to avenge itself by irritation and +quarrelling; for if two married people will not tell each other in +love what they ought, they will be sure to tell each other in anger +what they ought not. It is plain enough already that Elsley has his +weak point, which must not be touched; something about "a name," which +Lucia is to be expected to ignore,--as if anything which really exists +could be ignored while two people live together night and day, for +better for worse. Till the thorn is out, the wound will not heal; and +till the matter (whatever it may be) is set right, by confession and +absolution, there will be no peace for them, for they are living in a +lie; and, unless it be a very little one indeed, better, perhaps, that +they should go on to that terrible crisis of open defiance. It may +end in disgust, hatred, madness; but it may, too, end in each +falling again upon the other's bosom, and sobbing out through holy +tears,--"Yes, you do know the worst of me, and yet you love me still. +This is happiness, to find oneself most loved when one most hates +oneself! God, help us to confess our sins to Thee, as we have done to +each other, and to begin life again like little children, struggling +hand in hand out of this lowest pit, up the steep path which leads to +life, and strength, and peace." + +Heaven grant that it may so end! But now Elsley has gone raging out +into the raging darkness; trying to prove himself to himself the most +injured of men, and to hate his wife as much as possible: though the +fool knows the whole time that he loves her better than anything on +earth, even than that "fame," on which he tries to fatten his lean +soul, snapping greedily at every scrap which falls in his way, and, in +default, snapping at everybody and everything else. And little comfort +it gives him. Why should it? What comfort, save in being wise and +strong? And is he the wiser or stronger for being told by a reviewer +that he has written fine words, or has failed in writing them; or to +have silly women writing to ask for his autograph, or for leave to set +his songs to music? Nay,--shocking as the question may seem,--is +he the wiser and stronger man for being a poet at all, and a +genius?--provided, of course, that the word genius is used in its +modern meaning, of a person who can say prettier things than his +neighbours. I think not. Be it as it may, away goes the poor genius; +his long cloak, picturesque enough in calm weather, fluttering about +uncomfortably enough, while the rain washes his long curls into swabs; +out through the old garden, between storm-swept laurels, beneath dark +groaning pines, and through a door in the wall which opens into the +lane. + +The lane leads downward, on the right, into the village. He is in no +temper to meet his fellow-creatures,--even to see the comfortable +gleam through their windows, as the sailors close round the fire with +wife and child; so he turns to the left, up the deep stone-banked +lane, which leads towards the cliff, dark now as pitch, for it is +overhung, right and left, with deep oak-wood. + +It is no easy matter to proceed, though, for the wind pours down the +lane as through a funnel, and the road is of slippery bare slate, worn +here and there into puddles of greasy clay, and Elsley slips back half +of every step, while his wrath, as he tires, oozes out of his heels. +Moreover, those dark trees above him, tossing their heads impatiently +against the scarcely less dark sky, strike an awe into him,--a sense +of loneliness, almost of fear. An uncanny, bad night it is; and he is +out on a bad errand; and he knows it, and wishes that he were home +again. He does not believe, of course, in those "spirits of the +storm," about whom he has so often written, any more than he does in a +great deal of his fine imagery; but still in such characters as his, +the sympathy between the moods of nature and those of the mind is +most real and important; and Dame Nature's equinoctial night wrath is +weird, gruesome, crushing, and can be faced (if it must be faced) in +real comfort only when one is going on an errand of mercy, with +a clear conscience, a light heart, a good cigar, and plenty of +Mackintosh. + +So, ere Elsley had gone a quarter of a mile, he turned back, and +resolved to go in, and take up his book once more. Perhaps Lucia might +beg his pardon; and if not, why, perhaps he might beg hers. The rain +was washing the spirit out of him, as it does out of a thin-coated +horse. + +Stay! What was that sound above the roar of the gale? a cannon? + +He listened, turning his head right and left to escape the howling of +the wind in his ears. A minute, and another boom rose and rang aloft. +It was near, too. He almost fancied that he felt the concussion of the +air. + +Another, and another; and then, in the village below, he could see +lights hurrying to and fro. A wreck at sea? He turned again up the +lane. He had never seen a wreck. What an opportunity for a poet; and +on such a night too: it would be magnificent if the moon would but +come out! Just the scene, too, for his excited temper! He will work on +upward, let it blow and rain as it may. He is not disappointed. Ere he +has gone a hundred yards, a mass of dripping oil-skins runs full butt +against him, knocking him against the bank; and, by the clank of +weapons, he recognises the coast-guard watchman. + +"Hillo!--who's that? Beg your pardon, sir," as the man recognises +Elsley's voice. + +"What is it?--what are the guns?" + +"God knows, sir! Overright the Chough and Crow; on 'em, I'm afeard. +There they go again!--hard up, poor souls! God help them!" and the man +runs shouting down the lane. + +Another gun, and another; but long ere Elsley reaches the cliff, they +are silent; and nothing is to be heard but the noise of the storm, +which, loud as it was below among the wood, is almost intolerable now +that he is on the open down. + +He struggles up the lane toward the cliff, and there pauses, gasping, +under the shelter of a wall, trying to analyse that enormous mass of +sound which fills his ears and brain, and flows through his heart +like maddening wine. He can bear the sight of the dead grass on the +cliff-edge, weary, feeble, expostulating with its old tormentor the +gale; then the fierce screams of the blasts as they rush up across the +layers of rock below, like hounds leaping up at their prey; and far +beneath, the horrible confused battle-roar of that great leaguer of +waves. He cannot see them, as he strains his eyes over the wall into +the blank depth,--nothing but a confused welter and quiver of mingled +air, and rain, and spray, as if the very atmosphere were writhing in +the clutches of the gale: but he can hear,--what can he not hear? It +would have needed a less vivid brain than Elsley's to fancy another +Badajos beneath. There it all is:--the rush of columns to the breach, +officers cheering them on,--pauses, breaks, wild retreats, upbraiding +calls, whispering consultations,--fresh rush on rush, now here, now +there,--fierce shouts above, below, behind,--shrieks of agony, choked +groans and gasps of dying men,--scaling-ladders hurled down with all +their rattling freight,--dull mine-explosions, ringing cannon-thunder, +as the old fortress blasts back its besiegers pell-mell into the deep. +It is all there: truly enough there, at least, to madden yet more +Elsley's wild angry brain, till he tries to add his shouts to the +great battle-cries of land and sea, and finds them as little audible +as an infant's wail. + +Suddenly, far below him, a bright glimmer;--and, in a moment, a +blue-light reveals the whole scene, in ghastly hues,--blue leaping +breakers, blue weltering sheets of foam, blue rocks, crowded with blue +figures, like ghosts, flitting to and fro upon the brink of that blue +seething Phlegethon, and rushing up towards him through the air, a +thousand flying blue foam-sponges, which dive over the brow of the +hill and vanish, like delicate fairies fleeing before the wrath of the +gale:--but where is the wreck? The blue-light cannot pierce the grey +veil of mingled mist and spray which hangs to seaward; and her guns +have been silent for half an hour and more. + +Elsley hurries down, and finds half the village collected on the +long sloping point of down below. Sailors wrapped in pilot-cloth, +oil-skinned coast-guardsmen, women with their gowns turned over their +heads, staggering restlessly up and down, and in and out, while every +moment some fresh comer stumbles down the slope, thrusting himself +into his clothes as he goes, and asks, "Where's the wreck!" and gets +no answer, but a surly advice to "hold his noise," as if they had hope +of hearing the wreck which they cannot see; and kind women, with their +hearts full of mothers' instincts, declare that they can hear little +children crying, and are pooh-poohed down by kind men, who, man's +fashion, don't like to believe anything too painful, or, if they +believe it, to talk of it. + +"What were the guns from, then, Brown?" asks the Lieutenant of the +head-boatman. + +"Off the Chough and Crow, I thought, sir. God grant not!" + +"You thought, sir!" says the great man, willing to vent his vexation +on some one. "_Why_ didn't you make sure?" + +"Why, just look, Lieutenant," says Brown, pointing into the "blank +height of the dark;" "and I was on the pier too, and couldn't see; but +the look-out man here says--" A shift of wind, a drift of cloud, and +the moon flashes out a moment.--"There she is, sir!" + +Some three hundred yards out at sea lies a long curved black line, +beautiful, severe, and still, amid those white wild leaping hills. +A murmur from the crowd, which swells into a roar, as they surge +aimlessly up and down. + +Another moment, and it is cut in two by a white +line--covered--lost--all hold their breaths. No; the sea passes on, +and still the black curve is there; enduring. + +"A terrible big ship!" + +"A Liverpool clipper, by the lines of her." + +"God help the poor passengers, then!" sobs a woman. "They're past our +help: she's on her beam ends." + +"And her deck upright toward us." + +"Silence! Out of the way you loafing long-shores!" shouts the +Lieutenant. "Brown--the rockets!" + +What though the Lieutenant be somewhat given to strong liquors, and +stronger language? He wears the Queen's uniform; and what is more, he +knows his work, and can do it; all make a silent ring while the fork +is planted; the Lieutenant, throwing away the end of his cigar, kneels +and adjusts the stick; Brown and his mates examine and shake out the +coils of line. + +Another minute, and the magnificent creature rushes forth with a +triumphant roar, and soars aloft over the waves in a long stream of +fire, defiant of the gale. + +Is it over her? No! A fierce gust, which all but hurls the spectators +to the ground; the fiery stream sweeps away to the left, in a grand +curve of sparks, and drops into the sea. + +"Try it again!" shouts the Lieutenant, his blood now up. "We'll see +which will beat, wind or powder." + +Again a rocket is fixed, with more allowance for the wind; but the +black curve has disappeared, and he must wait awhile. + +"There it is again! Fly swift and sure," cries Elsley, "thou fiery +angel of mercy, bearing the saviour-line! It may not be too late yet." + +Full and true the rocket went across her; and "three cheers for the +Lieutenant!" rose above the storm. + +"Silence, lads! Not so bad, though;" says he, rubbing his wet hands. +"Hold on by the line, and watch for a bite, Brown." + +Five minutes pass. Brown has the line in his hand, waiting for any +signal touch from the ship: but the line sways limp in the surge. + +Ten minutes. The Lieutenant lights a fresh cigar, and paces up and +down, smoking fiercely. + +A quarter of an hour; and yet no response. The moon is shining clearly +now. They can see her hatchways, the stumps of her masts, great +tangles of rigging swaying and lashing down across her deck; but that +delicate upper curve is becoming more ragged after every wave; and the +tide is rising fast. + +"There's a pull!" shouts Brown.... "No, there ain't ... God have +mercy, sir! She's going!" + +The black curve boils up, as if a mine had been sprung on board, leaps +into arches, jagged peaks, black bars crossed and tangled; and then +all melts away into the white seething waste; while the line floats +home helplessly, as if disappointed; and the billows plunge more +sullenly and sadly towards the shore, as if in remorse for their dark +and reckless deed. + +All is over. What shall we do now? Go home, and pray that God may have +mercy on all drowning souls? Or think what a picturesque and tragical +scene it was, and what a beautiful poem it will make, when we have +thrown it into an artistic form, and bedizened it with conceits and +analogies stolen from all heaven and earth by our own self-willed +fancy? + +Elsley Vavasour--through whose spectacles, rather than with my own +eyes, I have been looking at the wreck, and to whose account, not +to mine, the metaphors and similes of the last two pages must be +laid--took the latter course; not that he was not awed, calmed, and +even humbled, as he felt how poor and petty his own troubles +were, compared with that great tragedy: but in his fatal habit of +considering all matters in heaven and earth as bricks and mortar for +the poet to build with, he considered that he had "seen enough;" as if +men were sent into the world to see and not to act; and going home too +excited to sleep, much more to go and kiss forgiveness to his sleeping +wife, sat up all night, writing "The Wreck," which may be (as the +reviewer in "The Parthenon" asserts) an exquisite poem; but I cannot +say that it is of much importance. + +So the delicate genius sate that night, scribbling verses by a +warm fire, and the rough Lieutenant settled himself down in his +Mackintoshes, to sit out those weary hours on the bare rock, having +done all that he could do, and yet knowing that his duty was, not to +leave the place as long as there was a chance of saving--not a life, +for that was past all hope--but a chest of clothes, or a stick of +timber. There he settled himself, grumbling, yet faithful; and filled +up the time with sleepy maledictions against some old admiral, who +had--or had not--taken a spite to him in the West Indies thirty years +before, else he would have been a post captain by now, comfortably in +bed on board a crack frigate, instead of sitting all night out on +a rock, like an old cormorant, etc. etc. Who knows not the woes of +ancient coast-guard lieutenants? + +But as it befell, Elsley Vavasour was justly punished for going home, +by losing the most "poetical" incident of the whole night. + +For with the coast-guardsmen many sailors stayed. There was nothing to +be earned by staying: but still, who knew but they might be wanted? +And they hung on with the same feeling which tempts one to linger +round a grave ere the earth is filled in, loth to give up the last +sight, and with it the last hope. The ship herself, over and above her +lost crew, was in their eyes a person to be loved and regretted. And +Gentleman Jan spoke, like a true sailor-- + +"Ah, poor dear! And she such a beauty, Mr. Brown; as any one might see +by her lines, even that way off. Ah, poor dear!" + +"And so many brave souls on board; and, perhaps, some of them not +ready, Mr. Beer," says the serious elderly chief boatman. "Eh, Captain +Willis?" + +"The Lord has had mercy on them, I don't doubt." answers the old man, +in his quiet sweet voice. "One can't but hope that he would give them +time for one prayer before all was over; and having been drowned +myself, Mr. Brown, three times, and taken up for dead--that is, +once in Gibraltar Bay, and once when I was a total wreck in the old +Seahorse, that was in the hurricane in the Indies; after that when +I fell over quay-head here, fishing for bass,--why, I know well how +quick the prayer will run through a man's heart, when he's a-drowning, +and the light of conscience, too, all one's life in one minute, +like--" + +"It arn't the men I care for," says Gentleman Jan; "they're gone to +heaven, like all brave sailors do as dies by wreck and battle: but the +poor dear ship, d'ye see, Captain Willis, she ha'n't no heaven to go +to, and that's why I feel for her so." + +Both the old men shake their heads at Jan's doctrine, and turn the +subject off. + +"You'd better go home, Captain, 'fear of the rheumatics. It's a rough +night for your years; and you've no call, like me." + +"I would, but my maid there; and I can't get her home; and I can't +leave her." And Willis points to the schoolmistress, who sits upon +the flat slope of rock, a little apart from the rest, with her face +resting on her hands, gazing intently out into the wild waste. + +"Make her go; it's her duty--we all have our duties. Why does her +mother let her out at this time of night? I keep my maids tighter than +that, I warrant." And disciplinarian Mr. Brown makes a step towards +her. + +"Ah, Mr. Brown, don't now! She's not one of us. There's no saying +what's going on there in her. Maybe she's praying; maybe she sees more +than we do, over the sea there." + +"What do you mean? There's no living body in those breakers, be sure!" + +"There's more living things about on such a night than have bodies to +them, or than any but such as she can see. If any one ever talked +with angels, that maid does; and I've heard her, too; I can say I +have--certain of it. Those that like may call her an innocent: but I +wish I were such an innocent, Mr. Brown. I'd be nearer heaven then, +here on earth, than I fear sometimes I ever shall be, even after I'm +dead and gone." + +"Well, she's a good girl, mazed or not; but look at her now! What's +she after?" + +The girl had raised her head, and was pointing, with one arm stretched +stiffly out toward the sea. + +Old Willis went down to her, and touched her gently on the shoulder. + +"Come home, my maid, then, you'll take cold, indeed;" but she did not +move or lower her arm. + +The old man, accustomed to her fits of fixed melancholy, looked down +under her bonnet, to see whether she was "past," as he called it. By +the moonlight he could see her great eyes steady and wide open. She +motioned him away, half impatiently, and then sprang to her feet with +a scream. + +"A man! A man! Save him!" + +As she spoke, a huge wave rolled in, and shot up the sloping end of +the point in a broad sheet of foam. + +And out of it struggled, on hands and knees, a human figure. He looked +wildly up, and round, and then his head dropped again on his breast; +and he lay clinging with outspread arms, like Homer's polypus in the +Odyssey, as the wave drained back, in a thousand roaring cataracts, +over the edge of the rock. + +"Save him!" shrieked she again, as twenty men rushed forward--and +stopped short. The man was fully thirty yards from them: but close to +him, between them and him, stretched a long ghastly crack, some ten +feet wide, cutting the point across. All knew it: its slippery edge, +its polished upright sides, the seething cauldrons within it; and +knew, too, that the next wave would boil up from it in a hundred jets, +and suck in the strongest to his doom, to fall, with brains dashed +out, into a chasm from which was no return. + +Ere they could nerve themselves for action, the wave had come. Up the +slope it went, one half of it burying the wretched mariner, and fell +over into the chasm. The other half rushed up the chasm itself, and +spouted forth again to the moonlight in columns of snow, in time to +meet the wave from which it had just parted, as it fell from above; +and then the two boiled up, and round, and over, and swirled along the +smooth rock to their very feet. + +The schoolmistress took one long look; and as the wave retired, rushed +after it to the very brink of the chasm, and flung herself on her +knees. + +"She's mazed!" + +"No, she's not!" almost screamed old Willis, in mingled pride and +terror, as he rushed after her. "The wave has carried him across the +crack and she's got him!" And he sprang upon her, and caught her round +the waist. + +"Now, if you be men!" shouted he, as the rest hurried down. + +"Now, if you be men; before the next wave comes!" shouted Big Jan. +"Hands together, and make a line!" And he took a grip with one hand +of the old man's waistband, and held out the other for who would to +seize. + +Who took it? Frank Headley, the curate, who had been watching all +sadly apart, longing to do something which no one could mistake. + +"Be you man enough?" asked big Jan doubtfully. + +"Try," said Frank. + +"Really, you ben't, sir," said Jan, civilly enough. "Means no offence, +sir; your heart's stout enough, I see; but you don't know what'll be." +And he caught the hand of a huge fellow next him, while Frank shrank +sadly back into the darkness. + +Strong hand after hand was clasped, and strong knee after knee dropped +almost to the rock, to meet the coming rush of water; and all who knew +their business took a long breath,--they might have need of one. + +It came, and surged over the man, and the girl, and up to old Willis's +throat, and round the knees of Jan and his neighbour; and then +followed the returning out-draught, and every limb quivered with the +strain: but when the cataract had disappeared, the chain was still +unbroken. + +"Saved!" and a cheer broke from all lips, save those of the girl +herself; she was as senseless as he whom she had saved. They hurried +her and him up the rock ere another wave could come; but they had much +ado to open her hands, so firmly clenched together were they round his +waist. + +Gently they lifted each, and laid them on the rock; while old Willis, +having recovered his breath, set to work crying like a child, to +restore breath to "his maiden." + +"Run for Dr. Heale, some good Christian!" But Frank, longing to escape +from a company who did not love him, and to be of some use ere the +night was out, was already half-way to the village on that very +errand. + +However, ere the Doctor could be stirred out of his boozy slumbers, +and thrust into his clothes by his wife, the schoolmistress was safe +in bed at her mother's house; and the man, weak, but alive, carried +triumphantly up to Heale's door; which having been kicked open, the +sailors insisted in carrying him right upstairs, and depositing him on +the best spare bed. + +"If you won't come to your patients, Doctor, your patients shall come +to you. Why were you asleep in your liquors, instead of looking out +for poor wratches, like a Christian? You see whether his bones be +broke, and gi'un his medicines proper; and then go and see after the +schoolmistress; she'm worth a dozen of any man, and a thousand of you! +We'll pay for 'un like men; and if you don't, we'll break every bottle +in your shop." + +To which, what between bodily fear and real good-nature, old Heale +assented; and so ended that eventful night. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND. + + +About nine o'clock the next morning, Gentleman Jan strolled into Dr. +Heale's surgery, pipe in mouth, with an attendant satellite; for every +lion, poor as well as rich,--in country as in town, must needs have +his jackal. + +Heale's surgery--or, in plain English, shop--was a doleful hole +enough; in such dirt and confusion as might be expected from a drunken +occupant, with a practice which was only not decaying because there +was no rival in the field. But monopoly made the old man, as it makes +most men, all the more lazy and careless; and there was not a drug on +his shelves which could be warranted to work the effect set forth in +that sanguine and too trustful book, the Pharmacopoeia, which, like +Mr. Pecksniff's England, expects every man to do his duty, and is, +accordingly (as the Lancet and Dr. Letheby know too well), grievously +disappointed. + +In this kennel of evil savours, Heale was slowly trying to poke things +into something like order; and dragging out a few old drugs with a +shaky hand, to see if any one would buy them, in a vague expectation +that something must needs have happened to somebody the night before, +which would require somewhat of his art. + +And he was not disappointed. Gentleman Jan, without taking his pipe +out of his mouth, dropped his huge elbows on the counter, and his +black-fringed chin on his fists; took a look round the shop, as if to +find something which would suit him; and then-- + +"I say, Doctor, gi's some tackleum." + +"Some diachylum plaster, Mr. Beer?" says Heale, meekly. "What for, +then?" + +"To tackle my shins. I barked 'em cruel against King Arthur's nose +last night. Hard in the bone he is;--wish I was as hard." + +"How much diachylum will you want, then, Mr. Beer?" + +"Well, I don't know. Let's see!" and Jan pulls up his blue trousers, +and pulls down his grey rig and furrows, and considers his broad and +shaggy shins. + +"Matter of four pennies broad: two to each leg;" and then replaces his +elbows, and smokes on. + +"I say, Doctor, that 'ere curate come out well last night. I shall go +to church next Sunday." + +"What," asks the satellite, "after you upset he that fashion +yesterday?" + +"I don't care what you thinks;" says Jan, who, of course, bullies his +jackal, like most lions: "but I goes to church. He's a good 'un, say +I,--little and good, like a Welshman's cow; and clapped me on the back +when we'd got the man and the maid safe, and says,--'Well done our +side, old fellow!' and stands something hot all round, what's more, in +at the Mariner's Rest.--I say, Doctor, where's he as we hauled ashore? +I'll go up and see 'un." + +"Not now, then, Mr. Beer; not now, then. He's sleeping, indeed he is, +like any child." + +"So much the better. We wain't be bothered with his hollering. But go +up I will. Do ye let me now; I'll be as still as a maid." + +And Jan kicked off his shoes, and marched on tip-toe through the shop, +while Dr. Heale, moaning professional ejaculations, showed him the +way. + +The shipwrecked man was sleeping sweetly; and little was to be seen of +his face, so covered was it with dark tangled curls and thick beard. + +"Ah! a 'Stralian digger, by the beard of him, and his red jersey," +whispered Jan, as he bent tenderly over the poor fellow, and put his +head on one side to listen to his breathing. "Beautiful he sleeps, to +be sure!" said Jan: "and a tidy-looking chap, too. 'Tis a pity to +wake 'un, poor wratch; and he, perhaps, with a sweetheart aboard, and +drownded; or else all his kit lost.--Let 'un sleep so long as he can: +he'll find all out soon enough, God help him!" + +And big Jan stole down the stairs gently and reverently, like a true +sailor; and took his diachylum, and went off to plaster his shins. + +About ten minutes afterwards, Heale was made aware that his guest was +awake, "by sundry grunts and ejaculations, which ended in a series of +long and doleful whistles, and then broke out into a song. So he went +up, and found the stranger sitting upright in bed, combing his curls +with his fingers, and chaunting unto himself a cheerful ditty. + +"Good morning, Doctor," quoth he, as his host entered. "Very kind of +you, this. Hope I haven't turned a better man than myself out of his +bed." + +"Delighted to see you so well. Very near drowned, though. We were +pumping at your lungs for a full half hour." + +"Ah? nothing, though, for an experienced professional man like you!" + +"Hum! speaks well for your discrimination," says Heale, flattered. +"Very well-spoken young person, though his beard is a bit wild.--How +did you know, then, that I was a doctor?" + +"By the reverend looks of you, sir. Besides, I smelt the rhubarb +and senna all the way up-stairs, and knew that I'd fallen among +professional brethren;-- + + "'Oh, then this valiant mariner, + Which sailed across the sea, + He came home to his own sweetheart, + With his heart so full of glee; + + With his heart so full of glee, sir, + And his pockets full of gold, + And his bag of drugget, with many a nugget, + As heavy as he could hold.' + +"Don't you wish yours was, Doctor?" + +"Eh, eh, eh," sniggered Heale. + +"Mine was last night. Now, Doctor, let's have a glass of +brandy-and-water, hot with, and an hour's more sleep; and then kick +me out, and into the workhouse. Was anybody else saved from the wreck +last night?" + +"Nobody, sir," said Heale; and said "sir," because, in spite of the +stranger's rough looks, his accent,--or rather, his no-accent,--showed +him that he had fallen in with a very different, and probably a very +superior stamp of man to himself; in the light of which conviction +(and being withal a good-natured old soul), he went down and mixed him +a stiff glass of brandy-and water, answering his wife's remonstrances +by-- + +"The party up-stairs is a bit of a frantic party, certainly; but he is +certainly a very superior party, and has the true gentleman about him, +any one can see. Besides, he's shipwrecked, as you and I may be any +day; and what's like brandy-and-water?" + +"I should like to know when I'm like to be shipwrecked, or you +either;" says Mrs. Heale, in a tone slightly savouring of indignation +and contempt. "You think of nothing but brandy-and-water." But she let +the doctor take the glass upstairs, nevertheless. + +A few minutes afterwards, Frank came in, and inquired for the +shipwrecked man. + +"Well enough in body, sir; and rather requires your skill than mine," +said the old time-server. "Won't you walk up?" + +So up Frank was shown. + +The stranger was sitting up in bed. "Capital, your brandy is, +Doctor,--Ah, sir," seeing Frank, "it is very kind of you, I am sure, +to call on me! I presume you are the clergyman?" + +But before Frank could answer, Heale had broken forth into loud +praises of him, setting forth how the stranger owed his life entirely +to his superhuman strength and courage. + +"'Pon my word, sir," said the stranger,--looking them both over and +over, through and through, as if to settle how much of all this he was +to believe,--"I am deeply indebted to you for your gallantry. I only +wish it had been employed on a better subject." + +"My good sir," said Frank, blushing, "you owe your life not to me. I +would have helped if I could; but was not thought worthy by our sons +of Anak here. Your actual preserver was a young girl." + +And Frank told him the story. + +"Whew! I hope she won't expect me to marry her as payment.--Handsome?" + +"Beautiful," said Frank. + +"Money?" + +"The village schoolmistress." + +"Clever?" + +"A sort of half-baked body," said Heale. + +"A very puzzling intellect," said Frank + +"Ah--well--that's a fair excuse for declining the honour. I can't be +expected to marry a frantic party, as you called me down stairs just +now, Doctor." + +"I, sir?" + +"Yes, I heard; no offence, though, my good sir,--but I've the ears +of a fox. I hope really, though, that she is none the worse for her +heroic flights." + +"How is she this morning, Mr. Heale?" + +"Well--poor thing, a little light-headed last night: but kindly when I +went in last." + +"Whew! I hope she has not fallen in love with me. She may fancy me her +property--a private waif and stray. Better send for the Coast-guard +officer, and let him claim me as belonging to the Admiralty, as +flotsom, jetsom, and lagend; for I was all three last night." + +"You were, indeed, sir," said Frank, who began to be a little tired of +this levity; "and very thankful to Heaven you ought to be." + +Frank spake this in a somewhat professional tone of voice; at which +the stranger arched his eyebrows, screwed his lips up, and laid his +ears back, like a horse when he meditates a kick, + +"You must be better acquainted with my affairs than I am, my dear sir, +if you are able to state that fact.--Doctor! I hear a patient coming +into the surgery." + +"Extraordinary power of hearing, to be sure," said Heale, toddling +down stairs, while the stranger went on, looking Frank full in the +face. + +"Now that old fogy's gone down stairs, my dear sir, let us come to an +understanding at the beginning of our acquaintance. Of course, you're +bound by your cloth to say that sort of thing to me, just as I am +bound by it not to swear in your company: but you'll allow me to +remark, that it would be rather trying even to your faith, if you were +to be thrown ashore with nothing in the world but an old jersey and a +bag of tobacco, two hundred miles short of the port where you hoped to +land with fifteen hundred well-earned pounds in your pocket." + +"My dear sir," said Frank, after a pause, "whatsoever comes from our +Father's hand must be meant in love. 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath +taken away.'" + +A quaint wince passed over the stranger's face. + +"Father, sir? That fifteen hundred pounds was going to my father's +hand, from whosesoever hand it came, or the loss of it. And now +what is to become of the poor old man, that hussy Dame Fortune only +knows--if she knows her own mind an hour together, which I very much +doubt. I worked early and late for that money, sir; up to my knees +in mud and water. Let it be enough for your lofty demands on poor +humanity, that I take my loss like a man, with a whistle and a laugh, +instead of howling and cursing over it like a baboon. Let's talk of +something else; and lend me five pounds, and a suit of clothes. I +shan't run away with them, for as I've been thrown ashore here, here I +shall stay." + +Frank almost laughed at the free and easy request, though he felt +at once pained by the man's irreligion, and abashed by his +Stoicism;--would he have behaved even as well in such a case? + +"I have not five pounds in the world." + +"Good! we shall understand each other better." + +"But the suit of clothes you shall have at once." + +"Good again! Let it be your oldest; for I must do a little +rock-scrambling here, for purposes of my own." + +So off went Frank to fetch the clothes, puzzling over his new +parishioner. The man was not altogether well bred, either in voice or +manner; but there was an ease, a confidence, a sense of power, which +made Frank feel that he had fallen in with a very strong nature; and +one which had seen many men, and many lands, and profited by what it +had seen. + +When he returned, he found the stranger busy at his ablutions, and +gradually appearing as a somewhat dapper, handsome fellow, with a +bright grey eye, a short nose, a firm, small mouth, a broad and +upright forehead, across the left side of which ran a fearful scar. + +"That's a shrewd mark," said he, as he caught Frank's eye fixed on it, +while he sat coolly arranging himself on the bedside. "I got it in +fair fight, though, by a Crow's tomahawk in the Rocky Mountains. And +here's another token (lifting up his black curls), which a Greek +robber gave me in the Morea. I've another under my head, for which I +have to thank a Tartar, and one or two more little remembrances of +flood and field up and down me. Perhaps they may explain to you why +I take life and death so coolly. I've looked too often at the little +razor-bridge which parts them, to care much for either. Now, don't +let me trouble you any longer. You have your flock to see to, I don't +doubt. You'll find me at church on Sunday. I always do at Rome as Rome +does." + +"Then you will stay away," said Frank, with a sad smile. + +"Ah? No. Church is respectable and aristocratic; and there one don't +get sent to a place unmentionable, ten times an hour, by some inspired +tinker. Beside, country people like the Doctor to go to church with +their betters; and the very fellows who go to the Methodist meeting +themselves would think it _infra dig._ in me to walk in there. Now, +good-bye--though I haven't introduced myself--not knowing the name of +my kind preserver." + +"My name is Frank Headley, Curate of the Parish," said Frank, smiling: +though he saw the man was rattling on for the purpose of preventing +his talking on serious matters. + +"And mine is Tom Thurnall, F.R.C.S., Licentiate of the Universities +of Paris, Glasgow, and whilome surgeon of the good clipper Hesperus, +which you saw wrecked last night. So, farewell!" + +"Come over with me, and have some breakfast." + +"No, thanks; you'll be busy. I'll screw some out of old bottles here." + +"And now," said Tom Thurnall to himself, as Frank left the room, "to +begin life again with an old penknife and a pound of honeydew. I +wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick here till I find out +that one thing, and stop the notes by to-day's post if I can but +recollect them all;--if I could but stop the nugget, too!" + +So saying, he walked down into the surgery, and looked round. +Everything was in confusion. Cobwebs were over the bottles, and armies +of mites played at bo-peep behind them. He tried a few drawers, and +found that they stuck fast; and when he at last opened one, its +contents were two old dried-up horse-balls, and a dirty tobacco-pipe. +He took down a jar marked Epsom salts, and found it full of Welsh +snuff; the next, which was labelled cinnamon, contained blue vitriol. +The spatula and pill-roller were crusted with deposits of every hue. +The pill-box drawer had not a dozen whole boxes in it; and the counter +was a quarter of an inch deep in deposit of every vegetable and +mineral matter, including ends of string, tobacco ashes, and broken +glass. + +Tom took up a dirty duster, and set to work coolly to clear up, +whistling away so merrily that he brought in Heale. + +"I'm doing a little in the way of business, you see." + +"Then you really are a professional practitioner, sir, as Mr. Headley +informs me: though, of course, I don't doubt the fact?" said Heale, +summoning up all the little courage he had, to ask the question with. + +"F.R.C.S. London, Paris, and Glasgow. Easy enough to write and +ascertain the fact. Have been medical officer to a poor-law union, and +to a Brazilian man-of-war. Have seen three choleras, two army fevers, +and yellow-jack without end. Have doctored gunshot wounds in the two +Texan wars, in one Paris revolution, and in the Schleswig-Holstein +row; beside accident practice in every country from California to +China, and round the world and back again. There's a fine nest of Mr. +Weekes's friend (if not creation), Acarus Horridus," and Tom went on +dusting and arranging. + +Heale had been fairly taken aback by the imposing list of +acquirements, and looked at his guest awhile with considerable awe: +suddenly a suspicion flashed across him, which caused him (not unseen +by Tom) a start and a look of self-congratulatory wisdom. He next +darted out of the shop, and returned as rapidly, rather redder about +the eyes, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. + +"But, sir, though, though"--began he--"but, of course you will allow +me, being a stranger--and as a man of business--all I have to say is, +if--that is to say--" + +"You want to know why, if I've had all these good businesses, why I +haven't kept them?" + +"Ex--actly," stammered Heale much relieved. + +"A very sensible and business-like question: but you needn't have been +so delicate about asking it as to want a screw before beginning." + +"Ah, you're a wag, sir," keckled the old man, + +"I'll tell you frankly; I have an old father, sir,--a gentleman, and a +scholar, and a man of science; once in as good a country practice as +man could have, till, God help him, he went blind, sir--and I had to +keep him, and have still. I went over the world to make my fortune and +never made it; and sent him home what I did make, and little enough +too. At last, in my despair, I went to the diggings, and had a pretty +haul--I needn't say how much. That matters little now; for I suppose +it's at the bottom of the sea. There's my story, sir, and a poor +one enough it is,--for the dear old man, at least." And Tom's voice +trembled so as he told it, that old Heale believed every word, and, +what is more, being--like most hard drinkers--not "unused to the +melting mood," wiped his eyes fervently, and went off for another drop +of comfort; while Tom dusted and arranged on, till the shop began to +look quite smart and business-like. + +"Now, sir!"--when the old man came back--"business is business, +and beggars must not be choosers. I don't want to meddle with your +practice; I know the rules of the profession: but if you'll let me +sit here and mix your medicines for you, you'll have the more time to +visit your patients, that's clear,"--and, perhaps (thought he), to +drink your brandy-and-water,--"and when any of them are poisoned by +me, it will be time to kick me out. All I ask is, bed and board. Don't +be frightened for your spirit-bottle, I can drink water; I've done it +many a time, for a week together, in the prairies, and been thankful +for a half-pint in the day." + +"But, sir, your dignity as a--" + +"Fiddlesticks for dignity; I must live, sir. Only lend me a couple of +sheets of paper and two queen's heads, that I may tell my friends my +whereabouts,--and go and talk it over with Mrs. Heale. We must never +act without consulting the ladies." + +That day Tom sent off the following epistle:-- + +"_To_ CHARLES SHUTER, Esq., M.D, _St. Mumpsimus's Hospital, London_. + +"DEAR CHARLEY-- + + "'I do adjure thee, by old pleasant days, + Quartier Latin, and neatly-shod grisettes + By all our wanderings in quaint by-ways, + By ancient frolics, and by ancient debts,' + +"Go to the United Bank of Australia forthwith, and stop the notes +whose numbers--all, alas! which I can recollect--are enclosed. Next, +lend me five pounds. Next, send me down, as quick as possible, five +pounds' worth of decent drugs, as per list; and--if you can borrow +me one--a tolerable microscope, and a few natural history books, to +astound the yokels here with: for I was shipwrecked here last night, +after all at a dirty little west-country port, and what's worse, +robbed of all I had made at the diggings, and start fair, once more, +to run against cruel Dame Fortune, as Colston did against the Indians, +without a shirt to my back. Don't be a hospitable fellow, and ask me +to come up and camp with you. Mumpsimus's and all old faces would be a +great temptation: but here I must stick till I hear of my money, and +physic the natives for my daily bread." + +To his father he wrote thus, not having the heart to tell the truth:-- + +"_To_ EDWARD THURNALL, Esq., M.D., _Whitbury_. + +"My Dearest Old Father--I hope to see you again in a few weeks, as +soon as I have settled a little business here, where I have found a +capital opening for a medical man. Meanwhile let Mark or Mary write +and tell me how you are--and for sending you every penny I can spare, +trust me. I have not had all the luck I expected; but am as hearty as +a bull, and as merry as a cricket, and fall on my legs, as of old, +like a cat. I long to come to you; but I mustn't yet. It is near three +years since I had a sight of that blessed white head, which is the +only thing I care for under the sun, except Mark and little Mary--big +Mary I suppose she is now, and engaged to be married to some 'bloated +aristocrat.' Best remembrances to old Mark Armsworth. + +"Your affectionate son, + +"T.T." + +"Mr. Heale," said Tom next, "are we Whigs or Tories here?" + +"Why--ahem, sir, my Lord Scoutbush, who owns most hereabouts, and my +Lord Minchampstead, who has bought Carcarrow moors above,--very old +Whig connections, both of them; but Mr. Trebooze, of Trebooze, he, +again, thorough-going Tory--very good patient he was once, and may be +again--ha! ha! Gay young man, sir--careless of his health; so you see +as a medical man, sir--" + +"Which is the liberal paper? This one? Very good." And Tom wrote off +to the liberal paper that evening a letter, which bore fruit ere the +week's end, in the shape of five columns, headed thus:-- + +WRECK OF THE "HESPERUS." + +"The following detailed account of this lamentable catastrophe has +been kindly contributed by the graphic pen of the only survivor, +Thomas Thurnall, Esquire, F.R.C.S., &c. &c. &c., late surgeon on board +the ill-fated vessel." Which five columns not only put a couple of +guineas into Tom's pocket, but, as he intended they should, brought +him before the public as an interesting personage, and served as +a very good advertisement to the practice which Tom had already +established in fancy. + +Tom had not worked long, however, before the Coast-guard Lieutenant +bustled in. He had trotted home to shave and get his breakfast, and +was trotting back again to the shore. + +"Hillo, Heale! can I see the fellow who was saved last night?" + +"I am that fellow," says Tom. + +"The dickens you are! you seem to have fallen on your legs quickly +enough." + +"It's a trick I've had occasion to learn, sir," says Tom. "Can I +prescribe for you this morning?" + +"Medicine?" roars the Lieutenant, laughing. "Catch me at it! No; I +want you to come down to the shore, and help to identify goods and +things. The wind has chopped up north, and is blowing dead on; and, +with this tide, we shall have a good deal on shore. So, if you're +strong enough--" + +"I'm always strong enough to do my duty," said Tom. + +"Hum! Very good sentiment, young man. Always strong enough for +duty.--Hum! worthy of Nelson; said pretty much the same, didn't he? +something about duty I know it was, and always thought it uncommon +fine.--Now, then, what can you tell me about this business?" + +It was a sad story; but no sadder than hundreds beside. They had been +struck by the gale to the westward two days before, with the wind +south; had lost their foretopmast and boltsprit, and become all but +unmanageable; had tried during a lull to rig a jury-mast, but were +prevented by the gale, which burst on them with fresh fury from the +south-west, with very heavy rain and fog; had passed a light in the +night, which they took for Scilly, but which must have been the +Longships; had still fancied that they were safe, running up Channel +with a wide berth, when, about sunset, the gale had chopped again to +north-west;--and Tom knew no more. "I was standing on the poop with +the captain about ten o'clock. The last words he said to me were,--'If +this lasts, we shall see Brest harbour to-morrow,' when she struck, +and stopped dead. I was chucked clean off the poop, and nearly +overboard; but brought up in the mizen rigging. Where the captain +went, poor fellow, Heaven alone knows; for I never saw him after. +The mainmast went like a carrot. The mizen stood. I ran round to the +cabin-doors. There were four men steering; the wheel had broke out of +the poor fellows' hands, and knocked them over,--broken their limbs, +I believe. I was stooping to pick them up, when a sea came into the +waist, and then aft, washing me in through the saloon-doors, among the +poor half-dressed women and children. Queer sight, Lieutenant! I've +seen a good many, but never worse than that. I bolted to my cabin, +tied my notes and gold round me, and out again." + +"Didn't desert the poor things?" + +"Couldn't if I'd tried; they clung to me like a swarm of bees. 'Gad, +sir, that was hard lines! to have all the pretty women one had waltzed +with every evening through the Trades, and the little children one had +been making playthings for, holding round one's knees, and screaming +to the doctor to save them. And how the ---- was I to save them, +sir?" cried Tom, with a sudden burst of feeling, which, as in so many +Englishmen, exploded in anger to avoid melting in tears. + +"Ought to be a law against it, sir," growled the Lieutenant; "against +women-folk and children going to sea. It's murder and cruelty. I've +been wrecked, scores of times; but it was with honest men, who could +shift for themselves, and if they were drowned, drowned; but didn't +screech and catch hold--I couldn't stand that! Well?" + +"Well, there was a pretty little creature, an officer's widow, and two +children. I caught her under one arm, and one of the children under +the other;--said 'I can't take you all at once; I'll come back for the +rest, one by one.'--Not that I believed it; but anything to stop the +screaming; and I did hope to put some of them out of the reach of the +sea, if I could get them forward. I knew the forecastle was dry, for +the chief officer was firing there. You heard him?" + +"Yes, five or six times; and then he stopped suddenly." + +"He had reason.--We got out. I could see her nose up in the air forty +feet above us, covered with fore-cabin passengers. I warped the lady +and the children upward--Heaven knows how; for the sea was breaking +over us very sharp--till we were at the mainmast stump, and holding on +by the wreck of it. I felt the ship stagger as if a whale had struck +her, and heard a roar and a swish behind me, and looked back--just in +time to see mizen, and poop, and all the poor women and children in +it, go bodily, as if they had been shaved off with a knife. I suppose +that altered her balance; for before I could turn again she dived +forward, and then rolled over upon her beam ends to leeward, and I saw +the sea walk in over her from stem to stern like one white wall, and I +was washed from my hold, and it was all over." + +"What became of the lady?" + +"I saw a white thing flash by to leeward,--what's the use of asking?" + +"But the child you held?" + +"I didn't let it go till there was good reason." + +"Eh?" + +Tom tapped the points of his fingers smartly against the side of +his head, and then went on, in the same cynical drawl, which he had +affected throughout-- + +"I heard that--against a piece of timber as we went overboard And, +as a medical man, I considered after that, that I had done my duty. +Pretty little boy it was, just six years old: and such a fancy for +drawing." + +The Lieutenant was quite puzzled by Tom's seeming nonchalance. + +"What do you mean, sir? Did you leave the child to perish?" + +"Confound you, sir! If you will have plain English, here it is. I tell +you I heard the child's skull crack like an egg-shell! There, let's +talk no more about it, or the whole matter. It's a bad business, and +I'm not answerable for it, or you either; so let's go and do what we +are answerable for, and identify--" + +"Sir! you will be so good as to recollect," said the Lieutenant, with +ruffled plumes. + +"I do; I do! I beg your pardon a thousand times, I'm sure, for being +so rude: but you know as well as I, sir, there are a good many things +in the world which won't stand too much thinking over; and last night +was one." + +"Very true, very true; but how did you get ashore?" + +"I get ashore? Oh, well enough! Why not?" + +"'Gad, sir, you were near enough being drowned at last; only that +girl's pluck saved you." + +"Well; but it did save me: and here I am, as I knew I should be when I +first struck out from the ship." + +"Knew!--that is a bold word for mortal man at sea." + +"I suppose it is: but we doctors, you see, get into the way of looking +at things as men of science; and the ground of science is experience; +and, to judge from experience, it takes more to kill me than I have +yet met with. If I had been going to be snuffed out, it would have +happened long ago." + +"Hum! It's well to carry a cheerful heart; but the pitcher goes often +to the well, and comes home broken at last." + +"I must be a gutta-percha pitcher, I think, then, or else-- + + "'There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft,' etc. + +as Dibdin has it. Now, look at the facts yourself, sir," continued the +stranger, with a recklessness half true, half assumed to escape from +the malady of thought. "I don't want to boast, sir; I only want +to show you that I have some practical reason for wearing as my +motto--'Never say die.' I have had the cholera twice, and yellow-jack +beside: five several times I have had bullets through me; I have been +bayoneted and left for dead; I have been shipwrecked three times--and +once, as now, I was the only man who escaped; I have been fatted by +savages for baking and eating, and got away with a couple of friends +only a day or two before the feast. One really narrow chance I had, +which I never expected to squeeze through: but, on the whole, I have +taken full precautions to prevent its recurrence." + +"What was that, then?" + +"I have been hanged, sir," said the doctor quietly. + +"Hanged?" cried the Lieutenant, facing round upon his strange +companion with a visage which asked plainly enough--"You hanged? I +don't believe you; and if you have been hanged, what have you been +doing to get hanged?" + +"You need not take care of your pockets, sir,--neither robbery +nor murder was it which brought me to the gallows; but innocent +bug-hunting. The fact is, I was caught by a party of Mexicans, during +the last war, straggling after plants and insects, and hanged as a +spy. I don't blame the fellows: I had no business where I was; and +they could not conceive that a man would risk his life for a few +butterflies." + +"But if you were hanged, sir--" + +"Why did I not die?--By my usual luck. The fellows were clumsy, and +the noose would not work; so that the Mexican doctor, who meant to +dissect me, brought me round again; and being a freemason, as I am, +stood by me,--got me safe off, and cheated the devil." + +The worthy Lieutenant walked on in silence, stealing furtive glances +at Tom, as if he had been a guest from the other world, but not +disbelieving his story in the least. He had seen, as most old navy +men, so many strange things happen, that he was prepared to give +credit to any tale when told, as Tom's was, with a straightforward and +unboastful simplicity. + +"There lives the girl who saved you," said he, as they passed Grace +Harvey's door. + +"Ah? I ought to call and pay my respects." + +But Grace was not at home. The wreck had emptied the school; and Grace +had gone after her scholars to the beach. + +"We couldn't keep her away, weak as she was," said a neighbour, "as +soon as she heard the poor corpses were coming ashore." + +"Hum?" said Tom. "True woman. Quaint,--that appetite for horrors the +sweet creatures have. Did you ever see a man hanged, Lieutenant?--No? +If you had, you would have seen two women in the crowd to one man. Can +you make out the philosophy of that?" + +"I suppose they like it, as some people do hot peppers." + +"Or donkeys thistles;--find a little pain pleasant! I had a patient +once in France, who read Dumas' 'Crimes Célèbres' all the week, and +the 'Vies des Saints' on Sundays, and both, as far as I could see, for +just the same purpose,--to see how miserable people could be, and how +much pinching and pulling they could bear." + +So they walked on, along a sheep-path, and over the Spur, and down to +the Cove. + +It was such a morning as often follows a gale, when the great +firmament stares down upon the ruin which it has made, bright and +clear, and bold; and seems to say, with shameless smile,--"There, +I have done it; and am as merry as ever after it all!" Beneath a +cloudless sky, the breakers, still grey and foul from the tempest, +were tumbling in before a cold northern breeze. Half a mile out at +sea, the rough backs of the Chough and Crow loomed black and sulky in +the foam. At their feet, the rocks and shingle of the Cove were alive +with human beings--groups of women and children clustering round a +corpse or a chest; sailors, knee-deep in the surf hauling at floating +spars and ropes; oil-skinned coast-guardsmen pacing up and down in +charge of goods, while groups of farmers' men, who had hurried down +from the villages inland, lounged about on the top of the cliff, +looking sulkily on, hoping for plunder: and yet half afraid to mingle +with the sailors below, who looked on them as an inferior race, and +refused, in general, to intermarry with them. + +The Lieutenant plainly held much the same opinion; for as a party of +them tried to descend the narrow path to the beach, he shouted after +them to come back. + +"Eh! you won't?" and out rattled from its scabbard the old worthy's +sword. "Come back, I say, you loafing, miching, wrecking crow-keepers; +there are no pickings for you here. Brown, send those fellows back +with the bayonet. None but blue-jackets allowed on the beach!" And the +labourers go up again, grumbling. + +"Can't trust those landsharks. They'll plunder even the rings off a +corpse's fingers. They think every wreck a godsend. I've known them, +after they've been driven off, roll great stones over the cliff at +night on the coast-guard, just out of spite; while these blue-jackets +here--I can depend on them. Can you tell me the reason of that, as you +seem a bit of a philosopher?" + +"It is easy enough; the sailors have a fellow-feeling with sailors, +and the landsmen have none. Besides, the sailors are finer fellows, +body and soul; and the reason is that they have been brought up to +face danger, and the landsmen haven't." + +"Well," said the Lieutenant, "unless a man has been taught to look +death in the face, he never will grow up, I believe, to be much of a +man at all." + +"Danger, my good sir, is a better schoolmaster than all your new model +schools, diagrams, and scientific apparatus. It made our forefathers +the masters of the sea, though they never heard of popular science; +and I dare say couldn't, one out of ten of them, spell their own +names." + +This sentiment elicited from the Lieutenant a grunt of approbation, as +Tom intended that it should do; shrewdly arguing that the old martinet +was no friend to the modern superstition, that all which is required +to cast out the devil is a smattering of the 'ologies. + +"Will the gentleman see the corpses?" asked Brown; "we have fourteen +already;"--and he led the way to where, along the shingle at +high-water mark, lay a ghastly row, some fearfully bruised and +mutilated, cramped together by the death-agony; others with the +peaceful smile which showed that they had sunk to sleep in that +strange water-death, amid a wilderness of pleasant dreams. Strong men +lay there, little children, women, whom the sailors' wives had covered +decently with cloaks and shawls; and at their heads stood Grace +Harvey, motionless, with folded hands, gazing into the dead faces +with her great solemn eyes. Her mother and Captain Willis stood by, +watching her with a sort of superstitions awe. She took no notice +either of Thurnall or of the Lieutenant, as the doctor identified the +bodies one by one, without a remark which indicated any human emotion. + +"A very sensible man, Willis," said the Lieutenant apart, as Tom knelt +awhile to examine the crushed features of a sailor; and then looking +up said simply,-- + +"James Macgillivray, second mate. Cause of death, contusions; probably +by the fall of the main-mast." + +"A very sensible man, and has seen a deal of life, and kept his eyes +open; but a terrible hard-plucked one. Talked like a book to me all +the way; but, be hanged if I don't think he has a thirty-two pound +shot under his ribs instead of a heart.--Doctor Thurnall, that is Miss +Harvey,--the young person who saved your life last night." + +Tom rose, took off his hat (Frank Headley's), and made her a bow, of +which an ambassador need not have been ashamed. + +"I am exceedingly shocked that Miss Harvey should have run so much +danger for anything so worthless as my life." + +She looked up at him, and answered, not him, but her own thoughts. + +"Strange, is it not, that it was a duty to pray for all these poor +things last night, and a sin to pray for them this morning?" + +"Grace, dear!" interposed her mother, "don't you hear the gentleman +thanking you?" + +She started, as one awaking out of a dream, and looked into his face, +blushing scarlet. + +"Good heavens, what a beautiful creature!" said Tom to himself, as +quite a new emotion passed through him. Quite new it was, whatsoever +it was; and he was aware of it. He had had his passions, his +intrigues, in past years, and prided himself--few men more--on +understanding women; but the expression of the face, and the strange +words with which she had greeted him, added to the broad fact of +her having offered her own life for his, raised in him a feeling of +chivalrous awe and admiration, which no other woman had ever called +up. + +"Madam," he said again; "I can repay you with nothing but thanks: but, +to judge from your conduct last night, you are one of those people +who will find reward enough in knowing that you have done a noble and +heroic action." + +She looked at him very steadfastly, blushing still. Thurnall, be it +understood, was (at least, while his face was in the state in which +Heaven intended it to be, half hidden in a silky-brown beard) a very +good-looking fellow; and (to use Mark Armsworth's description) "as +hard as a nail; as fresh as a rose; and stood on his legs like a +game-cock." Moreover, as Willis said approvingly, he had spoken to her +"as if he was a duke, and she was a duchess." Besides, by some blessed +moral law, the surest way to make oneself love any human being is to +go and do him a kindness; and therefore Grace had already a tender +interest in Tom, not because he had saved her, but she him. And so it +was, that a strange new emotion passed through her heart also, though +so little understood by her, that she put it forthwith into words. + +"You might repay me," she said in a sad and tender tone. + +"You have only to command me," said Tom, wincing a little as the words +passed his lips. + +"Then turn to God, now in the day of His mercies. Unless you have +turned to Him already." + +One glance at Tom's rising eyebrows told her what he thought upon +those matters. + +She looked at him sadly, lingeringly, as if conscious that she ought +not to look too long, and yet unable to withdraw her eyes.--"Ah! and +such a precious soul as yours must be; a precious soul--all taken, and +you alone left! God must have high things in store for you. He must +have a great work for you to do. Else, why are you not as one of +these! Oh, think! where would you have been at this moment if God had +dealt with you as with them?" + +"Where I am now, I suppose," said Tom quietly. + +"Where you are now?" + +"Yes: where I ought to be. I am where I ought to be now. I suppose if +I had found myself anywhere else this morning, I should have taken it +as a sign that I was wanted there, and not here." + +Grace heaved a sigh at words which were certainly startling. The Stoic +optimism of the world-hardened doctor was new and frightful to her. + +"My good madam," said he, "the part of Scripture which I appreciate +best, just now, is the case of poor Job, where Satan has leave to rob +and torment him to the utmost of his wicked will, provided only he +does not touch his life, I wish," he went on, lowering his voice, "to +tell you something which I do not wish publicly talked of; but in +which you may help me. I had nearly fifteen hundred pounds about me +when I came ashore last night, sewed in a belt round my waist. It is +gone. That is all." + +Tom looked steadily at her as he spoke. She turned pale, red, pale +again, her lips quivered: but she spoke no word. + +"She has it, as I live!" thought Tom to himself. "'Frailty, thy name +is woman!' The canting, little, methodistical humbug! She must have +slipped it off my waist as I lay senseless. I suppose she means to +keep it in pawn, till I redeem it by marrying her. Well I might take +an uglier mate certainly; but when I do enter into the bitter bonds of +matrimony, I should like to be sure, beforehand, that my wife was not +a thief!" + +Why, then, did not Tom, if he were so very sure of Grace's having the +belt, charge her with the theft? because he had found out already how +popular she was, and was afraid of merely making himself unpopular; +because, too, he took for granted that whosoever had his belt, had +hidden it already beyond the reach of a search warrant; and, because, +after all, an honourable shame restrained him. It would be a poor +return to the woman who had saved his life to charge her with theft +the next morning; and more, there was something about that girl's face +which had made him feel that, if he had seen her put the belt into her +pocket before his eyes, he could not have found the heart to have sent +her to gaol. "No!" thought he; "I'll get it out of her, or whoever has +it, and stay here till I do get it. One place is as good as another to +me." + +But what was Grace saying? + +She had turned, after two or three minutes' astonished silence, to her +mother and Captain Willis-- + +"Belt! Mother! Uncle! What is this? The gentleman has lost a belt?" + +"Dear me!--a belt! Well, child, that's not much to grieve over, when +the Lord has spared his life and soul from the pit!" said her mother, +somewhat testily. + +"You don't understand. A belt, I say, full of money--fifteen hundred +pounds; he lost it last night. Uncle! Speak, quick! Did you see a +belt?" + +Willis shook his head meditatively. "I don't, and yet I do, and yet +I don't again. My brains were, well-nigh washed out of me, I know. +However, sir, I'll think, and talk it over with you too; for if it be +in the village, found it ought to be, and will be, with God's help." + +"Found?" cried Grace, in so high a key, that Tom entreated her to calm +herself, and not make the matter public.--"Found? yes; and shall be +found, if there be justice in heaven. Shame that west-country folk +should turn robbers and wreckers! Mariners, too, and manners' wives, +who should be praying for those who are wandering far away, each man +with his life in his hand! Ah, what a world! When will it end? soon, +too soon, when west-country folk rob shipwrecked men! But you will +find your belt; yes, sir, you will find it. Wait till you have learnt +to do without it. Man does not live by bread alone. Do you think he +lives by gold? Only be patient; and when you are worthy of it, you +shall find it again, in the Lord's good time." + +To the doctor this seemed a mere burst of jargon, invented for the +purpose of hiding guilt; and his faith in womankind was not heightened +when he heard Grace's mother say, _sotto voce_ to Willis, that--"In +wrecks, and fires, and such like, a many people complained of having +lost more than ever they had." + +"Oh ho! my old lady, is that the way the fox is gone?" quoth Tom to +that trusty counsellor, himself; and began carefully scrutinising Mrs. +Harvey's face. It had been very handsome: it was still very clever: +but the eyebrows, crushed together downwards above her nose, and +rising high at the outer corners, indicated, as surely as the restless +down-dropt eye, a character self-conscious, furtive, capable of great +inconsistencies, possibly of great deceits. + +"You don't look me in the face, old lady!" quoth Tom to himself. "Very +well! between you two it lies; unless that old gentleman implicates +himself also, in his approaching confession." + +He took his part at once. "Well, well, you will oblige me by saying +nothing more about it. After all, as this good lady says, the loss of +a little money is not worth complaining over, when one has escaped +with life. Good morning; and many thanks for all your kindness!" + +And Tom made another grand bow, and went off to the Lieutenant. + +Grace looked after him awhile, as one stunned; and then turned to her +mother. + +"Let us go home." + +"Go home? Why there, dear?" + +"Let me go home; you need not come. I am sick of this world. Is it +not enough to have misery and death (and she pointed to the row of +corpses), but we must have sin, too, wherever we turn! Meanness and +theft:--and ingratitude too!" she added, in a lower tone. + +She went homeward; her mother, in spite of her entreaties, accompanied +her; and, for some reason or other, did not lose sight of her all that +day, or for several days after. + +Meanwhile, Willis had beckoned the Doctor aside. His face was serious +and sad, and his lips were trembling. + +"This is a very shocking business, sir. Of course, you've told the +Lieutenant." + +"Not yet, my good sir." + +"But--excuse my boldness; what plainer way of getting it back from the +rascal, whoever he is?" + +"Wait awhile," said Tom; "I have my reasons." + +"But, sir--for the honour of the place, the matter should be cleared +up; and till the thief's found, suspicion will lie on a dozen innocent +men; myself among the rest, for that matter." + +"You?" said Tom, smiling. "I don't know who I have the honour to speak +to; but you don't look much like a gentleman who wishes for a trip to +Botany Bay." + +The old man chuckled, and then his face dropped again. + +"I'm glad you take the thing so like a man, sir; but it is really no +laughing matter. It's a scoundrelly job, only fit for a Maltee off the +Nix Mangeery. If it had been a lot of those carter fellows that had +carried you up, I could have understood it; wrecking's born in the +bone of them: but for those four sailors that carried you up, 'gad +sir! they'd have been shot sooner. I've known 'em from boys!" and the +old man spoke quite fiercely, and looked up; his lip trembling, and +his eye moist. + +"There's no doubt that you are honest--whoever is not," thought Tom; +so he ventured a further question. + +"Then you were by all the while?" + +"All the while? Who more? And that's just what puzzles me." + +"Pray don't speak loud," said Tom. "I have my reasons for keeping +things quiet." + +"I tell you, sir. I held the maid, and big John Beer (Gentleman Jan +they call him) held me; and the maid had both her hands tight in your +belt. I saw it as plain as I see you, just before the wave covered +us, though little I thought what was in it; and should never have +remembered you had a belt at all, if I hadn't thought over things in +the last five minutes." + +"Well, sir, I am lucky in having come straight to the fountain head; +and must thank you for telling me so frankly what you know." + +"Tell you, sir? What else should one do but tell you? I only wish I +knew more; and more I'll know, please the Lord. And you'll excuse an +old sailor (though not of your rank, sir) saying that he wonders a +little that you don't take the plain means of knowing more yourself." + +"May I take the liberty of asking your name?" said Tom; who saw by +this time that the old man was worthy of his confidence. + +"Willis, at your service, sir. Captain they call me, though I'm none. +Sailing-master I was, on board of His Majesty's ship Niobe, 84;" and +Willis raised his hat with such an air, that Tom raised his in return. + +"Then, Captain Willis, let me have five words with you apart; first +thanking you for having helped to save my life." + +"I'm very glad I did, sir; and thanked God for it on my knees this +morning: but you'll excuse me, sir, I was thinking--and no blame to +me--more of saving my poor maid's life than yours, and no offence to +you, for I hadn't the honour of knowing you; but for her, I'd have +been drowned a dozen times over." + +"No offence, indeed," said Tom; and hardly knew what to say next. "May +I ask, is she your niece? I heard her call you uncle." + +"Oh, no--no relation; only I look on her as my own, poor thing, having +no father; and she always calls me uncle, as most do us old men in the +West." + +"Well, then, sir," said Tom, "you will answer for none of the four +sailors having robbed me?" + +"I've said it, sir." + +"Was any one else close to her when we were brought ashore?" + +"No one but I. I brought her round myself." + +"And who took her home?" + +"Her mother and I." + +"Very good. And you never saw the belt after she had her hands in it?" + +"No; I'm sure not." + +"Was her mother by her when she was lying on the rock?" + +"No; came up afterwards, just as I got her on her feet." + +"Humph! What sort of a character is her mother?" + +"Oh, a tidy, God-fearing person, enough. One of these Methodist +class-leaders, Brianites they call themselves. I don't hold with them, +though I do go to chapel at whiles: but there are good ones among +them; and I do believe she's one, though she's a little fretful +at times. Keeps a little shop that don't pay over well; and those +preachers live on her a good deal, I think. Creeping into widows' +houses, and making long prayers--you know the text." + +"Well, now, Captain Willis, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but do +you not see that one of two things I must believe,--either that the +belt was torn off my waist, and washed back into the sea, as it may +have been after all; or else, that--" + +"Do you mean that she took it?" asked Willis, in voice of such +indignant astonishment that Tom could only answer by a shrug of the +shoulders. + +"Who else could have done so, on your own showing?" + +"Sir!" said Willis, slowly. "I thought I had to do with a gentleman: +but I have my doubts of it now. A poor girl risks her life to drag you +out of that sea, which but for her would have hove your body up to lie +along with that line there,"--and Willis pointed to the ghastly row--" +and your soul gone to give in its last account--You only know what +that would have been like--And the first thing you do in payment is +to accuse her of robbing you--her, that the very angels in heaven, I +believe, are glad to keep company with;" and the old man turned and +paced the beach in fierce excitement. + +"Captain Willis," said Tom, "I'll trouble you to listen patiently and +civilly to me a minute." + +Willis stopped, drew himself up, and touched his hat mechanically. + +"Just because I am a gentleman, I have not accused her; but held +my tongue, and spoken to you in confidence. Now, perhaps, you will +understand why I have said nothing to the Lieutenant." + +Willis looked up at him. + +"I beg your pardon, sir. I see now, and I'm sorry if I was rude; but +it took me aback, and does still. I tell you, sir," quoth he, warming +again, "whatever's true,--that's false. You're wrong there, if you +never are wrong again; and you'll say so yourself, before you've known +her a week. No, sir! If you could make me believe that, I should never +believe in goodness again on earth; but hold all men, and women too, +and those above, for aught I know, that are greater than men and +women, for liars together." + +What was to be answered? Perhaps only what Tom did answer. + +"My good sir, I will say no more. I would not have said that much if I +had thought I should have pained you so. I suppose that the belt was +washed into the sea. Why not?" + +"Why not, indeed, sir? That's a much more Christian-like way of +looking at it, than to blacken your own soul before God by suspecting +that sweet innocent creature." + +"Be it so, then. Only say nothing about the matter; and beg them to +say nothing. If it be jammed among the rocks (as it might be, heavy as +it is), talking about it will only set people looking for it; and +I suppose there is a man or two, even in Aberalva, who would find +fifteen hundred pounds a tempting bait. If, again, some one finds it, +and makes away with it, he will only be the more careful to hide it if +he knows that I am on the look-out. So just tell Miss Harvey and her +mother that I think it must have been lost, and beg them to keep my +secret. And now shake hands with me." + +"The best plan, I believe, though bad, is the best," said Willis, +holding out his hand; and he walked away sadly. His spirit had been +altogether ruffled by the imputation on Grace's character: and, +besides, the chances of Thurnall's recovering his money seemed to him +very small. + +In five minutes he returned. + +"If you would allow me, sir, there's a man there of whom I should like +to ask one question. He who held me, and, after that, helped to carry +you up;" and he pointed to Gentleman Jan, who stood, dripping from the +waist downward, over a chest which he had just secured. "Just let us +ask him, off-hand like, whether you had a belt on when he carried you +up. You may trust him, sir. He'd knock you down as soon as look at +you; but tell a lie, never." + +They went to the giant; and, after cordial salutations, Tom propounded +his question carelessly, with something like a white lie. + +"It's no great matter; but it was an old friend, you see, with +fittings for my knife and pistols, and I should be glad to find it +again." + +Jan thrust his red hand through his black curls, and meditated while +the water surged round his ankles. + +"Never a belt seed I, sir; leastwise while you were in my hands. I had +you round the waist all the way up, so no one could have took it off. +Why should they? And I undressed you myself; and nothing, save your +presence, was there to get off, but jersey and trousers, and a lump of +backy against your skin that looked the right sort." + +"Have some, then," said Tom, pulling out the honey-dew. "As for the +belt, I suppose it's gone to choke the dog-fish." + +And there the matter ended, outwardly at least; but only outwardly. +Tom had his own opinion, gathered from Grace's seemingly guilty +face, and to it he held, and called old Willis, in his heart, a +simple-minded old dotard, who had been taken in by her hypocrisy. + +And Tom accompanied the Lieutenant on his dreary errand that day, and +several days after, through depositions before a justice, interviews +with Lloyd's underwriters, and all the sad details which follow a +wreck. Ere the week's end, forty bodies and more had been recovered, +and brought up, ten or twelve at a time, to the churchyard, and upon +the down, and laid side by side in one long shallow pit, where Frank +Headley read over them the blessed words of hope, amid the sobs of +women, and the grand silence of stalwart men, who knew not how soon +their turn might come; and after each procession came Grace Harvey, +with all her little scholars two and two, to listen to the funeral +service; and when the last corpse was buried, they planted flowers +upon the mound, and went their way again to learn hymns and read +their Bible--little ministering angels to whom, as to most sailors' +children, death was too common a sight to have in it aught of hideous +or strange. + +And this was the end of the good ship Hesperus, and all her gallant +crew. + +Verily, however important the mere animal lives of men may be, and +ought to be, at times, in our eyes, they never have been so, to judge +from floods and earthquakes, pestilence and storm, in the eyes of +Him who made and loves us all. It is a strange fact, better for us, +instead of shutting our eyes to it because it interferes with our +modern tenderness of pain, to ask honestly what it means. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE WAY TO WIN THEM. + + +So, for a week or more, Tom went on thrivingly enough, and became a +general favourite in the town. Heale had no reason to complain of +boarding him; for he had dinner and supper thrust on him every day by +one and another, who were glad enough to have him for the sake of his +stories, and songs, and endless fun and good-humour. The Lieutenant, +above all, took the new-comer under his especial patronage, and was +paid for his services in some of Tom's incomparable honey-dew. The +old fellow soon found that the Doctor knew more than one old foreign +station of his, and ended by pouring out to him his ancient wrongs, +and the evil doings of the wicked admiral; all of which Tom heard with +deepest sympathy, and surprise that so much naval talent had remained +unappreciated by the unjust upper powers; and the Lieutenant, of +course, reported of him accordingly to Heale. + +"A very civil spoken and intelligent youngster, Mr. Heale, d'ye see, +to my mind; and you can't do better than accept his offer; for you'll +find him a great help, especially among the ladies, d'ye see. They +like a good-looking chap, eh, Mrs. Jones?" + +On the fourth day, by good fortune, what should come ashore but +Tom's own chest--moneyless, alas! but with many useful matters still +unspoilt by salt water. So, all went well, and indeed somewhat too +well (if Tom would have let it), in the case of Miss Anna Maria Heale, +the Doctor's daughter. + +She was just such a girl as her father's daughter was likely to be; a +short, stout, rosy, pretty body of twenty, with loose red lips, thwart +black eyebrows, and right naughty eyes under them; of which Tom took +good heed: for Miss Heale was exceedingly inclined, he saw, to make +use of them in his behoof. Let others who have experience in, and +taste for such matters, declare how she set her cap at the dapper +young surgeon; how she rushed into the shop with sweet _abandon_ ten +times a-day, to find her father; and, not finding him, giggled, and +blushed, and shook her shoulders, and retired, to peep at Tom through +the glass door which led into the parlour; how she discovered that +the muslin curtain of the said door would get out of order every ten +minutes; and at last called Mr. Thurnall to assist her in rearranging +it; how, bolder grown, she came into the shop to help herself to +various matters, inquiring tenderly for Tom's health, and giggling +vulgar sentiments about "absent friends, and hearts left behind;" in +the hope of fishing out whether Tom had a sweetheart or not. How, at +last, she was minded to confide her own health to Tom, and to instal +him as her private physician; yea, and would have made him feel her +pulse on the spot, had he not luckily found some assafoetida, and +therewith so perfumed the shop, that her "nerves" (of which she was +always talking, though she had nerves only in the sense wherein a +sirloin of beef has them) forced her to beat a retreat. + +But she returned again to the charge next day, and rushed bravely +through that fearful smell, cleaver in hand, as the carrier set down +at the door a huge box, carriage-paid, all the way from London, and +directed to Thomas Thurnall, Esquire. She would help to open it: and +so she did, while old Heale and his wife stood by curious,--he with a +maudlin wonder and awe (for he regarded Tom already as an altogether +awful and incomprehensible "party"), and Mrs. Heale with a look of +incredulous scorn, as if she expected the box to be a mere sham, +filled probably with shavings. For (from reasons best known to +herself) she had never looked pleasantly on the arrangement which +entrusted to Tom the care of the bottles. She had given way from +motives of worldly prudence, even of necessity; for Heale had been +for the greater part of the week quite incapable of attending to his +business: but black envy and spite were seething in her foolish heart, +and seethed more and more fiercely when she saw that the box did +not contain shavings, but valuables of every sort and kind--drugs, +instruments, a large microscope (which Tom delivered out of Miss +Heale's fat clumsy fingers only by strong warnings that it would go +off and shoot her), books full of prints of unspeakable monsters; and +finally, a little packet, containing not one five-pound note, but +four, and a letter which Tom, after perusing, put into Mr. Heale's +hands, with a look of honest pride. + +The Mumpsimus men, it appeared, had "sent round the hat" for him, and +here were the results; and they would send the hat round again every +month, if he wanted it; or, if he would come up, board, lodge, and +wash him gratis. The great Doctor Bellairs, House Physician, and +Carver, the famous operator (names at which Heale bowed his head +and worshipped), sent compliments, condolences, offers of +employment--never was so triumphant a testimonial; and Heale, in his +simplicity, thought himself (as indeed he was) the luckiest of country +doctors; while Mrs. Heale, after swelling and choking for five +minutes, tottered into the back room, and cast herself on the sofa in +violent hysterics. + +As she came round again, Tom could not but overhear a little that +passed. And this he overheard among other matters:-- + +"Yes, Mr. Heale, I see, I see too well, which your natural blindness, +sir, and that fatal easiness of temper, will bring you to a premature +grave within the paupers' precincts; and this young designing infidel, +with his science and his magnifiers, and his callipers, and philosophy +falsely so called, which in our true Protestant youth there was none, +nor needed none, to supplant you in your old age, and take the bread +out of your grey hairs, which he will bring with sorrow to the grave, +and mine likewise, which am like my poor infant here, of only too +sensitive sensibilities! Oh, Anna Maria, my child, my poor lost child! +which I can feel for the tenderness of the inexperienced heart! My +Virgin Eve, which the Serpent has entered into your youthful paradise, +and you will find; alas! too late, that you have warmed an adder into +your bosom!" + +"Oh, Ma, how indelicate!" giggled Anna Maria, evidently not +displeased. "If you don't mind he will hear you, and I should never be +able to look him in the face again." And therewith she looked round to +the glass door. + +What more passed, Tom did not choose to hear; for he began making all +the bustle he could in the shop, merely saying to himself,-- + +"That flood of eloquence is symptomatic enough: I'll lay my life the +old dame knows her way to the laudanum bottle." + +Tom's next business was to ingratiate himself with the young curate. +He had found out already, cunning fellow, that any extreme intimacy +with Headley would not increase his general popularity; and, as we +have seen already, he bore no great affection to "the cloth" in +general: but the curate was an educated gentleman, and Tom wished for +some more rational conversation than that of the Lieutenant and Heale. +Besides, he was one of those men, with whom the possession of power, +sought at first from self-interest, has become a passion, a species of +sporting, which he follows for its own sake. To whomsoever he met he +must needs apply the moral stethoscope; sound him, lungs, heart, and +liver; put his tissues under the microscope, and try conclusions on +him to the uttermost. They might be useful hereafter; for knowledge +was power: or they might not. What matter? Every fresh specimen of +humanity which he examined was so much gained in general knowledge. +Very true, Thomas Thurnall; provided the method of examination be the +sound and the deep one, which will lead you down in each case to the +real living heart of humanity: but what if your method be altogether a +shallow and a cynical one, savouring much more of Gil Blas than of +St. Paul, grounded not on faith and love for human beings, but on +something very like suspicion and contempt? You will be but too +likely, Doctor, to make the coarsest mistakes, when you fancy yourself +most penetrating; to mistake the mere scurf and disease of the +character for its healthy organic tissue, and to find out at last, +somewhat to your confusion, that there are more things, not only in +heaven, but in the earthiest of the earth, than are dreamt of in your +philosophy. You have already set down Grace Harvey as a hypocrite, and +Willis as a dotard. Will you make up your mind in the same foolishness +of over-wisdom, that Frank Headley is a merely narrow-headed and +hard-hearted pedant, quite unaware that he is living an inner life of +doubts, struggles, prayers, self-reproaches, noble hunger after an +ideal of moral excellence, such as you, friend Tom, never yet dreamed +of, which would be to you as an unintelligible gibber of shadows out +of dreamland, but which is to him the only reality, the life of life, +for which everything is to be risked and suffered? You treat his +opinions (though he never thrusts them on you) about "the Church," and +his duty, and the souls of his parishioners, with civil indifference, +as much ado about nothing; and his rubrical eccentricities as +puerilities. You have already made up your mind to "try and put a +little common sense into him," not because it is any concern of yours +whether he has common sense or not, but because you think that it +will be better for you to have the parish at peace; but has it ever +occurred to you how noble the man is, even in his mistakes? How that +one thought, that the finest thing in the world is to be utterly good, +and to make others good also, puts him three heavens at least above +you, you most unangelic terrier-dog, bemired all day long by grubbing +after vermin! What if his idea of "the Church" be somewhat too narrow +for the year of grace 1854, is it no honour to him that he has such +an idea at all; that there has risen up before him the vision of a +perfect polity, a "Divine and wonderful Order," linking earth to +heaven, and to the very throne of Him, who died for men; witnessing to +each of its citizens what the world tries to make him forget, namely, +that he is the child of God himself; and guiding and strengthening +him, from the cradle to the grave, to do his Father's work? Is it a +shame to him that he has seen that such a polity must exist, that he +believes that it does exist; or that he thinks he finds it in its +highest, if not its perfect form, in the most ancient and august +traditions of his native land? True, he has much to learn, and you +may teach him something of it; but you will find some day, Thomas +Thurnall, that, granting you to be at one pole of the English +character, and Frank Headley at the other, he is as good an Englishman +as you, and can teach you more than you can him. + +The two soon began to pass almost every evening together, pleasantly +enough; for the reckless and rattling manner which Tom assumed +with the mob, he laid aside with the curate, and showed himself as +agreeable a companion as man could need; while Tom in his turn found +that Headley was a rational and sweet-tempered man, who, even where +he had made up his mind to differ, could hear an adverse opinion, put +sometimes in a startling shape, without falling into any of those male +hysterics of sacred horror, which are the usual refuge of ignorance +and stupidity, terrified by what it cannot refute. And soon Tom began +to lay aside the reserve which he usually assumed to clergymen, and to +tread on ground which Headley would gladly have avoided. For, to tell +the truth, ever since Tom had heard of Grace's intended dismissal, the +curate's opinions had assumed a practical importance in his eyes; and +he had vowed in secret that, if his cunning failed him not, turned out +of her school she should not be. Whether she had stolen his money or +not, she had saved his life; and nobody should wrong her, if he could +help it. Besides, perhaps she had not his money. The belt might have +slipped off in the struggle; some one else might have taken it off in +carrying him up; he might have mistaken the shame of innocence in her +face for that of guilt. Be it as it might, he had not the heart +to make the matter public, and contented himself with staying at +Aberalva, and watching for every hint of his lost treasure. + +By which it befell that he was thinking, the half of every day at +least, about Grace Harvey; and her face was seldom out of his mind's +eye; and the more he looked at it, either in fancy or in fact, the +more did it fascinate him. They met but rarely, and then interchanged +the most simple and modest of salutations: but Tom liked to meet her, +would have gladly stopped to chat with her; however, whether from +modesty or from a guilty conscience, she always hurried on in silence. + +And she? Tom's request to her, through Willis, to say nothing about +the matter, she had obeyed, as her mother also had done. That Tom +suspected her was a thought which never crossed her mind; to suspect +any one herself was in her eyes a sin; and if the fancy that this man +or that, among the sailors who had carried Tom up to Heale's, might +have been capable of the baseness, she thrust the thought from her, +and prayed to be forgiven for her uncharitable judgment. + +But night and day there weighed on that strange and delicate spirit +the shame of the deed, as heavily, if possible, as if she herself had +been the doer. There was another soul in danger of perdition; another +black spot of sin, making earth hideous to her. The village was +disgraced; not in the public eyes, true: but in the eye of heaven, and +in the eyes of that stranger for whom she was beginning to feel an +interest more intense than she ever had done in any human being +before. Her saintliness (for Grace was a saint in the truest sense of +that word) had long since made her free of that "communion of saints" +which consists not in Pharisaic isolation from "the world," not in the +mutual flatteries and congratulations of a self-conceited clique; but +which bears the sins and carries the sorrows of all around: whose +atmosphere is disappointed hopes and plans for good, and the +indignation which hates the sin because it loves the sinner, and +sacred fear and pity for the self-inflicted miseries of those who +might be (so runs the dream, and will run till it becomes a waking +reality) strong, and free, and safe, by being good and wise. To such +a spirit this bold cunning man had come, stiff-necked and +heaven-defiant, a "brand plucked from the burning:" and yet equally +unconscious of his danger, and thankless for his respite. Given, too, +as it were, into her hands; tossed at her feet out of the very mouth +of the pit,--why but that she might save him? A far duller heart, a +far narrower imagination than Grace's would have done what Grace's +did--concentrate themselves round the image of that man with all the +love of woman. For, ere long, Grace found that she did love that man, +as a woman loves but once in her life; perhaps in all time to come. +She found that her heart throbbed, her cheek flushed, when his name +was mentioned; that she watched, almost unawares to herself, for his +passing; and she was not ashamed at the discovery. It was a sort of +melancholy comfort to her that there was a great gulf fixed between +them. His station, his acquirements, his great connections and friends +in London (for all Tom's matters were the gossip of the town, as, +indeed, he took care that they should be), made it impossible that he +should ever think of her; and therefore she held herself excused +for thinking of him, without any fear of that "self-seeking," and +"inordinate affection," and "unsanctified passions," which her +religious books had taught her to dread. Besides, he was not "a +Christian." That five minutes on the shore had told her that; and even +if her station had been the same as his, she must not be "unequally +yoked with an unbeliever." And thus the very hopelessness of her love +became its food and strength; the feeling which she would have checked +with maidenly modesty, had it been connected even remotely with +marriage, was allowed to take immediate and entire dominion; and she +held herself permitted to keep him next her heart of hearts, because +she could do nothing for him but pray for his conversion. + +And pray for him she did, the noble, guileless girl, day and night, +that he might be converted; that he might prosper, and become--perhaps +rich, at least useful; a mighty instrument in some good work. And then +she would build up one beautiful castle in the air after another, out +of her fancies about what such a man, whom she had invested in her own +mind with all the wisdom of Solomon, might do if his "talents were +sanctified." Then she prayed that he might recover his lost gold--when +it was good for him; that he might discover the thief: no, that would +only involve fresh shame and sorrow: that the thief, then, might be +brought to repentance, and confession, and restitution. That was the +solution of the dark problem, and for that she prayed; while her face +grew sadder and sadder day by day. + +For a while, over and above the pain which the theft caused her, there +came--how could it be otherwise?--sudden pangs of regret that this +same love was hopeless, at least upon this side of the grave. +Inconsistent they were with the chivalrous unselfishness of her usual +temper; and as such she dashed them from her, and conquered them, +after a while, by a method which many a woman knows too well. It was +but "one cross more;" a natural part of her destiny--the child of +sorrow and heaviness of heart. Pleasure in joy she was never to find +on earth; she would find it, then, in grief. And nursing her own +melancholy, she went on her way, sad, sweet, and steadfast, and +lavished more care and tenderness, and even gaiety, than ever upon her +neighbours' children, because she knew that she should never have a +child of her own. + +But there is a third damsel, to whom, whether more or less engaging +than Grace Harvey or Miss Heale, my readers must needs be introduced. +Let Miss Heale herself do it, with eyes full of jealous curiosity. + +"There is a foreign letter for Mr. Thurnall, marked Montreal, and sent +on here from Whitbury," said she, one morning at breakfast, and in a +significant tone; for the address was evidently in a woman's hand. + +"For me--ah, yes; I see," said Tom, taking it carelessly, and +thrusting it into his pocket. + +"Won't you read it at once, Mr. Thurnall? I'm sure you must be anxious +to hear from friends abroad;" with an emphasis on the word friends. + +"I have a good many acquaintances all over the world, but no friends +that I am aware of," said Tom, and went on with his breakfast. + +"Ah--but some people are more than friends. Are the Montreal ladies +pretty, Mr. Thurnall?" + +"Don't know; for I never was there." + +Miss Heale was silent, being mystified: and, moreover, not quite sure +whether Montreal was in India or in Australia, and not willing to show +her ignorance. + +She watched Tom through the glass door all the morning to see if he +read the letter, and betrayed any emotion at its contents: but Tom +went about his business as usual, and, as far as she saw, never read +it at all. + +However, it was read in due time; for, finding himself in a lonely +place that afternoon, Tom pulled it out with an anxious face, and read +a letter written in a hasty ill-formed hand, underscored at every +fifth word, and plentifully bedecked with notes of exclamation. + +"What? my dearest friend, and fortune still frowns upon you? Your +father blind and ruined! Ah, that I were there to comfort him for your +sake! And ah, that I were anywhere, doing any drudgery, which might +prevent my being still a burden to my benefactors. Not that they are +unkind; not that they are not angels! I told them at once that you +could send me no more money till you reached England, perhaps not +then; and they answered that God would send it; that He who had sent +me to them would send the means of supporting me; and ever since they +have redoubled their kindness: but it is intolerable, this dependence, +and on you, too, who have a father to support in his darkness. Oh, +how I feel for you! But to tell you the truth, I pay a price for this +dependence. I must needs be staid and sober; I must needs dress +like any Quakeress; I must not read this book nor that; and my +Shelley--taken from me, I suppose, because it spoke too much +'Liberty,' though, of course, the reason given was its infidel +opinions--is replaced by 'Law's Serious Call.' 'Tis all right and +good, I doubt not: but it is very dreary; as dreary as these black +fir-forests, and brown snake fences, and that dreadful, dreadful +Canadian winter which is past, which went to my very heart, day after +day, like a sword of ice. Another such winter, and I shall die, as one +of my own humming-birds would die, did you cage him here, and prevent +him from fleeing home to the sunny South when the first leaves begin +to fall. Dear children of the sun! my heart goes forth to them; and +the whir of their wings is music to me, for it tells me of the South, +the glaring South, with its glorious flowers, and glorious woods, its +luxuriance, life, fierce enjoyments--let fierce sorrows come with +them, if it must be so! Let me take the evil with the good, and live +my rich wild life through bliss and agony, like a true daughter of the +sun, instead of crystallising slowly here into ice, amid countenances +rigid with respectability, sharpened by the lust of gain; without +taste, without emotion, without even sorrow! Let who will be the +stagnant mill-head, crawling in its ugly spade-cut ditch to turn the +mill. Let me be the wild mountain brook, which foams and flashes over +the rocks--what if they tear it?--it leaps them nevertheless, and goes +laughing on its way. Let me go thus, for weal or woe! And if I sleep +awhile, let it be like the brook, beneath the shade of fragrant +magnolias and luxuriant vines, and image, meanwhile, in my bosom +nothing but the beauty around. + +"Yes, my friend, I can live no longer this dull chrysalid life, in +comparison with which, at times, even that past dark dream seems +tolerable--for amid its lurid smoke were flashes of brightness. A +slave? Well; I ask myself at times, and what were women meant for +but to be slaves? Free them, and they enslave themselves again, or +languish unsatisfied; for they must love. And what blame to them +if they love a white man, tyrant though he be, rather than a +fellow-slave? If the men of our own race will claim us, let them prove +themselves worthy of us! Let them rise, exterminate their tyrants, or, +failing that, show that they know how to die. Till then, those who are +the masters of their bodies will be the masters of our hearts. If they +crouch before the white like brutes, what wonder if we look up to him +as to a god? Woman must worship, or be wretched. Do I not know it? +Have I not had my dream--too beautiful for earth? Was there not one +whom you knew, to hear whom call me slave would have been rapture; to +whom I would have answered on my knees, Master, I have no will but +yours! But that is past--past. One happiness alone was possible for a +slave, and even that they tore from me; and now I have no thought, no +purpose, save revenge. + +"These good people bid me forgive my enemies. Easy enough for +them, who have no enemies to forgive. Forgive? Forgive injustice, +oppression, baseness, cruelty? Forgive the devil, and bid him go in +peace, and work his wicked will? Why have they put into my hands, +these last three years, books worthy of a free nation?--books which +call patriotism divine; which tell me how in every age and clime men +have been called heroes who rose against their conquerors; women +martyrs who stabbed their tyrants, and then died? Hypocrites! Did +their grandfathers meekly turn the other cheek when your English taxed +them somewhat too heavily? Do they not now teach every school-child to +glory in their own revolution, their own declaration of independence, +and to flatter themselves into the conceit that they are the lords of +creation, and the examples of the world, because they asserted that +sacred right of resistance which is discovered to be unchristian in +the African? They will free us, forsooth, in good time (is it to be +in God's good time, or in their own?) if we will but be patient, +and endure the rice-swamp, the scourge, the slave-market, and shame +unspeakable, a few years more, till all is ready and safe,--for them. +Dreamers as well as hypocrites! What nation was ever freed by others' +help? I have been reading history to see,--you do not know how much +I have been reading,--and I find that freemen have always freed +themselves, as we must do; and as they will never let us do, because +they know that with freedom must come retribution; that our Southern +tyrants have an account to render, which the cold Northerner has no +heart to see him pay. For, after all, he loves the Southerner better +than the slave; and fears him more also. What if the Southern +aristocrat, who lords it over him as the panther does over the ox, +should transfer (as he has threatened many a time) the cowhide from +the negro's loins to his? No; we must free ourselves! And there lives +one woman, at least, who, having gained her freedom, knows how to use +it in eternal war against all tyrants. Oh, I could go down, I think at +moments, down to New Orleans itself, with a brain and lips of fire, +and speak words--you know how I could speak them--which would bring me +in a week to the scourge, perhaps to the stake. The scourge I could +endure. Have I not felt it already? Do I not bear its scars even now, +and glory in them; for they were won by speaking as a woman should +speak? And even the fire?--Have not women been martyrs already? +and could not I be one? Might not my torments madden a people into +manhood, and my name become a war-cry in the sacred fight? And yet, +oh my friend, life is sweet!--and my little day has been so dark and +gloomy!--may I not have one hour's sunshine, ere youth and vigour are +gone, and my swift-vanishing Southern womanhood wrinkles itself +up into despised old age? Oh, counsel me,--help me, my friend, my +preserver, my true master now, so brave, so wise, so all-knowing; +under whose mask of cynicism lies hid (have I not cause to know it?) +the heart of a hero. + +"MARIE" + +If Miss Heale could have watched Tom's face as he read, much more +could she have heard his words as he finished, all jealousy would have +passed from her mind: for as he read, the cynical smile grew sharper +and sharper, forming a fit prelude for the "Little fool!" which was +his only comment. + +"I thought you would have fallen in love with some honest farmer +years ago: but a martyr you shan't be, even if I have to send for you +hither; though how to get you bread to eat I don't know. However, you +have been reading your book, it seems,--clever enough you always were, +and too clever; so you could go out as governess, or something. Why, +here's a postscript dated three months afterwards! Ah, I see; this +letter was written last July, in answer to my Australian one. What's +the meaning of this?" And he began reading again. + +"I wrote so far; but I had not the heart to send it: it was so full +of repinings. And since then,--must I tell the truth?--I have made a +step; do not call it a desperate one; do not blame me, for your blame +I cannot bear: but I have gone on the stage. There was no other means +of independence open to me; and I had a dream, I have it still, that +there, if anywhere, I might do my work. You told me that I might +become a great actress: I have set my heart on becoming one; on +learning to move the hearts of men, till the time comes when I can +tell them, show them, in living flesh and blood, upon the stage, the +secrets of a slave's sorrows, and that slave a woman. The time has not +come for that yet here: but I have had my success already, more than I +could have expected; and not only in Canada, but in the States. I have +been at New York, acting to crowded houses. Ah, when they applauded +me, how I longed to speak! to pour out my whole soul to them, and call +upon them, as men, to--. But that will come in time. I have found a +friend, who has promised to write dramas especially for me. Merely +republican ones at first; in which I can give full vent to my passion, +and hurl forth the eternal laws of liberty, which their consciences +may--must--at last, apply for themselves. But soon, he says, we shall +be able to dare to approach the real subject, if not in America, still +in Europe; and then, I trust, the coloured actress will stand forth +as the championess of her race, of all who are oppressed, in every +capital in Europe, save, alas! Italy and the Austria who crushes her. +I have taken, I should tell you, an Italian name. It was better, I +thought, to hide my African taint, forsooth, for awhile. So the wise +New Yorkers have been feting, as Maria Cordifiamma, the white woman +(for am I not fairer than many an Italian signora?), whom they +would have looked upon as an inferior being under the name of Marie +Lavington: though there is finer old English blood running in +my veins, from your native Berkshire, they say, than in any a +Down-Easter's who hangs upon my lips. Address me henceforth, then, as +La Signora Maria Cordifiamma. I am learning fast, by the by, to speak +Italian. I shall be at Quebec till the end of the month. Then, I +believe, I come to London; and we shall meet once more: and I shall +thank you, thank you, thank you, once more, for all your marvellous +kindness." + +"Humph!" said Tom, after a while. "Well, she is old enough to choose +for herself. Five-and-twenty she must be by now.... As for the stage, +I suppose it is the best place for her; better, at least, than turning +governess, and going mad, as she would do, over her drudgery and +her dreams. But who is this friend? Singing-master, scribbler, or +political refugee? or perhaps all three together? A dark lot, those +fellows. I must keep my eye on him; though it's no concern of mine. +I've done my duty by the poor thing; the devil himself can't deny +that. But, somehow, if this play-writing worthy plays her false, I +feel very much as if I should be fool enough to try whether I have +forgotten my pistol-shooting." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE. + + +"This child's head is dreadfully hot; and how yellow he does look!" +says Mrs. Vavasour, fussing about in her little nursery. "Oh, Clara, +what shall I do? I really dare not give them any more medicine myself; +and that horrid old Doctor Heale is worse than no one." + +"Ah, ma'am," says Clara, who is privileged to bemoan herself, and to +have sad confidences made to her, "if we were but in town now, to see +Mr. Chilvers, or any one that could be trusted; but in this dreadful +out-of-the-way place--" + +"Don't talk of it, Clara! Oh, what will become of the poor children?" +And Mrs. Vavasour sits down and cries, as she does three times at +least every week. + +"But indeed, ma'am, if you thought you could trust him, there is that +new assistant--" + +"The man who was saved from the wreck? Why, nobody knows who he is." + +"Oh, but indeed, ma'am, he is a very nice gentleman, I can say that; +and so wonderfully clever; and has cured so many people already, they +say, and got down a lot of new medicines (for he has great friends +among the doctors in town), and such a wonderful magnifying glass, +with which he showed me himself, as I dropped into the shop +promiscuous, such horrible things, ma'am, in a drop of water, that I +haven't dared hardly to wash my face since." + +"And what good will the magnifying glass do to us?" says the poor +little Irish soul, laughing up through its tears. "He won't want it +to see how ill poor Frederick is, I'm sure; but you may send for him, +Clara." + +"I'll go myself, ma'am, and make sure," says Clara; glad enough of a +run, and chance of a chat with the young Doctor. + +And in half an hour Mr. Thurnall is announced. + +Though Mrs. Vavasour has a flannel apron on (for she will wash the +children herself, in spite of Elsley's grumblings), Tom sees that she +is a lady; and puts on, accordingly, his very best manner, which, as +his experience has long since taught him, is no manner at all. + +He does his work quietly and kindly, and bows himself out. + +"You will be sure to send the medicine immediately, Mr. Thurnall." + +"I will bring it myself, madam; and, if you like, administer it. +I think the young gentleman has made friends with me sufficiently +already." + +Tom keeps his word, and is back, and away again to his shop, in a +marvellously short space, having "struck a fresh root," as he calls +it; for-- + +"What a very well-behaved sensible man that Mr. Thurnall is," says +Lucia to Elsley, an hour after, as she meets him coming in from +the garden, where he has been polishing his "Wreck." "I am sure he +understands his business; he was so kind and quiet, and yet so ready, +and seemed to know all the child's symptoms beforehand, in such a +strange way. I do hope he'll stay here. I feel happier about the poor +children than I have for a long time." + +"Thurnall?" asks Elsley, who is too absorbed in the "Wreck" to ask +after the children; but the name catches his ear. + +"Mr. Heale's new assistant--the man who was wrecked," answers she, +too absorbed, in her turn, in the children to notice her husband's +startled face. + +"Thurnall? Which Thurnall?" + +"Do you know the name? It's not a common one," says she, moving to the +door. + +"No--not a common one at all! You said the children were not well?" + +"I am glad that you thought of asking after the poor things." + +"Why, really, my dear--" But before he can finish his excuse (probably +not worth hearing), she has trotted up-stairs again to the nest, and +is as busy as ever. Possibly Clara might do the greater part of what +she does, and do it better: but still, are they not her children? Let +those who will call a mother's care mere animal instinct, and liken it +to that of the sparrow or the spider: shall we not rather call it a +Divine inspiration, and doubt whether the sparrow and the spider must +not have souls to be saved, if they, too, show forth that faculty of +maternal love which is, of all human feelings, most inexplicable and +most self-sacrificing; and therefore, surely, most heavenly? If that +does not come down straight from heaven, a "good and perfect gift," +then what is heaven, and what the gifts which it sends down? + +But poor Elsley may have had solid reasons for thinking more of the +name of Thurnall than of his children's health: we will hope so for +his sake; for, after sundry melodramatic pacings and starts (Elsley +was of a melodramatic turn, and fond of a scene, even when he had no +spectator, not even a looking-glass;) besides ejaculations of "It +cannot be!" "If it were!" "I trust not!" "A fresh ghost to torment +me!" "When will come the end of this accursed coil which I have wound +round my life?" and so forth, he decided aloud that the suspense was +intolerable; and enclosing himself in his poetical cloak and Mazzini +wide-awake, strode down to the town, and into the shop. And as he +entered it, "his heart sank to his midriff, and his knees below were +loosed." For there, making up pills, in a pair of brown holland +sleeves of his own manufacture (for Tom was a good seamster, as all +travellers should be), whistled Lilliburlero, as of old, the Tom of +other days, which Elsley's muse would fain have buried in a thousand +Lethes. + +Elsley came forward to the counter carelessly, nevertheless, after a +moment. "What with my beard, and the lapse of time," thought he, "he +cannot know me." So he spoke,-- + +"I understand you have been visiting my children, sir. I hope you did +not find them seriously indisposed?" + +"Mr. Vavasour?" says Tom, with a low bow. + +"I am Mr. Vavasour!" But Elsley was a bad actor, and hesitated and +coloured so much as he spoke, that if Tom had known nothing, he might +have guessed something. + +"Nothing serious, I assure you, sir: unless you are come to announce +any fresh symptom." + +"Oh, no--not at all--that is--I was passing on my way to the quay, and +thought it as well to have your own assurance; Mrs. Vavasour is so +over-anxious." + +"You seem to partake of her infirmity, sir," says Tom, with a smile +and a bow. "However, it is one which does you both honour." + +An awkward pause. + +"I hope I am not taking a liberty, sir; but I think I am bound to--" + +"What in heaven is he going to say?" thought Elsley to himself, +feeling very much inclined to run away. + +"Thank you for all the pleasure and instruction which your writings +have given me in lonely hours, and lonely places too. Your first +volume of poems has been read by one man, at least, beside wild +watchfires in the Rocky Mountains." + +Tom did not say that he pitched the said volume into the river in +disgust; and that it was, probably, long since used up as house +material by the caddis-baits of those parts,--for doubtless there are +caddises there as elsewhere. + +Poor Elsley rose at the bait, and smiled and bowed in silence. + +"I have been so long absent from England, and in utterly wild +countries, too, that I need hardly be ashamed to ask if you have +written anything since 'The Soul's Agonies'? No doubt if you have, I +might have found it at Melbourne, on my way home: but my visit there +was a very hurried one. However, the loss is mine, and the fault too, +as I ought to call it." + +"Pray make no excuses," says Elsley, delighted. "I have written, of +course. Who can help writing, sir, while Nature is so glorious, and +man so wretched? One cannot but take refuge from the pettiness of the +real in the contemplation of the ideal. Yes, I have written. I will +send you my last book down. I don't know whether you will find me +improved." + +"How can I doubt that I shall?" + +"Saddened, perhaps; perhaps more severe in my taste; but we will not +talk of that. I owe you a debt, sir, for having furnished me with +one of the most striking 'motifs' I ever had. I mean that miraculous +escape of yours. It is seldom enough, in this dull every-day world, +one stumbles on such an incident ready made to one's hands, and +needing only to be described as one sees it." + +And the weak, vain man chatted on, and ended by telling Tom all about +his poem of "The Wreck," in a tone which seemed to imply that he had +done Tom a serious favour, perhaps raised him to immortality, by +putting him in a book. + +Tom thanked him gravely for the said honour, bowed him at last out of +the shop, and then vaulted back clean over the counter, as soon as +Elsley was out of sight, and commenced an Indian war-dance of frantic +character, accompanying himself by an extemporary chaunt, with which +the name of John Briggs was frequently intermingled;-- + + "If I don't know you, Johnny, my boy, + In spite of all your beard; + Why then I am a slower fellow, + Than ever has yet appeared, + +"Oh if it was but he! what a card for me! What a world it is for poor +honest rascals like me to try a fall with!-- + + "Why didn't I take bad verse to make, + And call it poetry; + And so make up to an earl's daughter, + Which was of high degree? + +"But perhaps I am wrong after all: no--I saw he knew me, the humbug; +though he never was a humbug, never rose above the rank of fool. +However, I'll make assurance doubly sure, and then,--if it pays me not +to tell him I know him, I won't tell him; and if it pays me to tell +him, I will tell him. Just as you choose, my good Mr. Poet." And Tom +returned to his work, singing an extempore parody of "We met, 'twas in +a crowd," ending with-- + + "And thou art the cause of this anguish, my pill-box," + +in a howl so doleful, that Mrs. Heale marched into the shop, evidently +making up her mind for an explosion. + +"I am very sorry, sir, to have to speak to you upon such a subject, +but I must say, that the profane songs, sir, which our house is not at +all accustomed to them; not to mention that at your time of life, and +in your position, sir, as my husband's assistant, though there's no +saying (with a meaning toss of the head) how long it may last,"--and +there, her grammar having got into a hopeless knot, she stopped. + +Tom looked at her cheerfully and fixedly. "I had been expecting this," +said he to himself. "Better show the old cat at once that I carry +claws as well as she." + +"There _is_ saying, madam, humbly begging your pardon, how long my +present engagement will last. It will last just as long as I like." + +Mrs. Heale boiled over with rage: but ere the geyser could explode, +Tom had continued in that dogged, nasal Yankee twang which he assumed +when he was venomous: + +"As for the songs, ma'am, there are two ways of making oneself happy +in this life; you can judge for yourself which is best. One is to do +one's work like a man, and hum a tune, to keep one's spirits up; the +other is to let the work go to rack and ruin, and keep one's spirits +up, if one is a gentleman, by a little too much brandy;--if one is a +lady, by a little too much laudanum." + +"Laudanum, sir?" almost screamed Mrs. Heale, turning pale as death. + +"The pint bottle of best laudanum, which I had from town a fortnight +ago, ma'am, is now nearly empty, ma'am. I will make affidavit that I +have not used a hundred drops, or drunk one. I suppose it was the cat. +Cats have queer tastes in the west, I believe. I have heard the cat +coming down stairs into the surgery, once or twice after I was in bed; +so I set my door ajar a little, and saw her come up again: but whether +she had a vial in her paws--" + +"Oh, sir!" says Mrs. Heale, bursting into tears. "And after the +dreadful toothache which I have had this fortnight, which nothing but +a little laudanum would ease it; and at my time of life, to mock a +poor elderly lady's infirmities, which I did not look for this cruelty +and outrage!" + +"Dry your tears, my dear madam," says Tom, in his most winning tone. +"You will always find me the thorough gentleman, I am sure. If I had +not been one, it would have been easy enough for me, with my powerful +London connections,--though I won't boast,--to set up in opposition to +your good husband, instead of saving him labour in his good old age. +Only, my dear madam, how shall I get the laudanum-bottle refilled +without the doctor's--you understand?" + +The wretched old woman hurried upstairs, and brought him down a +half-sovereign out of her private hoard, trembling like an aspen leaf, +and departed. + +"So--scotched, but not killed. You'll gossip and lie too. Never +trust a laudanum-drinker. You'll see me, by the eye of imagination, +committing all the seven deadly sins; and by the tongue of inspiration +go forth and proclaim the same at the town-head. I can't kill you, and +I can't cure you, so I must endure you. What said old Goethe, in all +the German I ever cared to recollect:-- + + "'Der Wallfisch hat doch seine Laus; + Muss auch die meine haben.' + +"Now, then, for Mrs. Penberthy's draughts. I wonder how that pretty +schoolmistress goes on. If she were but honest, now, and had fifty +thousand pounds--why then, she wouldn't marry me; and so why now, I +wouldn't marry she,--as my native Berkshire grammar would render it." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LA CORDIFIAMMA. + + +This chapter shall begin, good reader, with one of those startling +bursts of "illustration," with which our most popular preachers are +wont now to astonish and edify their hearers, and after starting with +them at the opening of the sermon from the north-pole, the Crystal +Palace, or the nearest cabbage-garden, float them safe, upon the +gushing stream of oratory, to the safe and well-known shores of +doctrinal commonplace, lost in admiration at the skill of the good man +who can thus make all roads lead, if not to heaven, at least to strong +language about its opposite. True, the logical sequence of their +periods may be, like that of the coming one, somewhat questionable, +reminding one at moments of Fluellen's comparison between Macedon and +Monmouth, Henry the Fifth and Alexander: but, in the logic of the +pulpit, all's well that ends well, and the end must needs sanctify +the means. There is, of course, some connection or other between all +things in heaven and earth, or how would the universe hold together? +And if one has not time to find out the true connection, what is left +but to invent the best one can for oneself? Thus argues, probably, +the popular preacher, and fills his pews, proving thereby clearly the +excellence of his method. So argue also, probably, the popular poets, +to whose "luxuriant fancy" everything suggests anything, and thought +plays leap-frog with thought down one page and up the next, till +one fancies at moments that they had got permission from the higher +powers, before looking at the universe, to stir it all up a few times +with a spoon. It is notorious, of course, that poets and preachers +alike pride themselves upon this method of astonishing; that +the former call it, "seeing the infinite in the finite;" the +latter--"pressing secular matters into the service of the sanctuary," +and other pretty phrases which, for reverence' sake, shall be omitted. +No doubt they have their reasons and their reward. The style takes; +the style pays; and what more would you have? Let them go on +rejoicing, in spite of the cynical pedants in the Saturday Review, who +dare to accuse (will it be believed?) these luminaries of the age +of talking merely irreverent nonsense. Meanwhile, so evident is the +success (sole test of merit) which has attended the new method, that +it is worth while trying whether it will not be as taking in the novel +as it is in the chapel; and therefore the reader is requested to pay +special attention to the following paragraph, modelled carefully after +the exordiums of a famous Irish preacher, now drawing crowded houses +at the West End of Town. As thus;--"It is the pleasant month of May, +when, as in old Chaucer's time, the-- + + "Smale foules maken melodie, + That slepen alle night with open eye + So priketh hem nature in their corages. + Then longen folk to goe on pilgrimages, + And specially from every shire's end + Of Englelond, to Exeter-hall they wend," + +till the low places of the Strand blossom with white cravats, those +lilies of the valley, types of meekness and humility, at least in the +pious palmer--and why not of similar virtues in the undertaker, the +concert-singer, the groom, the tavern-waiter, the croupier at +the gaming-table, and Frederick Augustus Lord Scoutbush, who, +white-cravated like the rest, is just getting into his cab at the door +of the Never-mind-what Theatre, to spend an hour at Kensington before +sauntering in to Lady M----'s ball? + +Why not, I ask, at least in the case of little Scoutbush? For +Guardsman though he be, coming from a theatre and going to a ball, +there is meekness and humility in him at this moment, as well as in +the average of the white-cravated gentlemen who trotted along that +same pavement about eleven o'clock this forenoon. Why should not his +white cravat, like theirs, be held symbolic of that fact? However, +Scoutbush belongs rather to the former than the latter of Chaucer's +categories; for a "smale foule" he is, a little bird-like fellow, who +maketh melodie also, and warbles like a cock-robin; we cannot liken +him to any more dignified songster. Moreover, he will sleep all night +with open eye; for he will not be in bed till five to-morrow morning; +and pricked he is, and that sorely, in his courage; for he is as much +in love as his little nature can be, with the new actress, La Signora +Cordifiamma, of the Never-mind-what Theatre. + +How exquisitely, now (for this is one of the rare occasions in which +a man is permitted to praise himself), is established hereby an +unexpected bond of linked sweetness long drawn out between things +which had, ere they came beneath the magic touch of genius, no more +to do with each other than this book has with the Stock Exchange. Who +would have dreamed of travelling from the Tabard in Southwark to the +last new singer, _viâ_ Exeter-hall and the lilies of the valley, and +touching en passant on to cardinal virtues and an Irish Viscount? But +see; given only a little impudence, and less logic, and hey presto! +the thing is done; and all that remains to be done is to dilate (as +the Rev. Dionysius O'Blareaway would do at this stage of the process) +upon the moral question which has been so cunningly raised, and to +inquire, firstly,--how the virtues of meekness and humility could be +predicated of Frederick Augustus St. Just, Viscount Scoutbush and +Baron Torytown, in the peerage of Ireland; and secondly,--how those +virtues were called into special action by his questionably wise +attachment to a new actress, to whom he had never spoken a word in his +life. + +First, then, "Little Freddy Scoutbush," as his compeers irreverently +termed him, was, by common consent of her Majesty's Guards, a "good +fellow." Whether the St. James' Street definition of that adjective +be the perfect one or not, we will not stay to inquire; but in the +Guards' club-house it meant this: that Scoutbush had not an enemy in +the world, because he deserved none; that he lent, and borrowed not; +gave, and asked not again; envied not; hustled not; slandered not; +never bore malice, never said a cruel word, never played a dirty +trick, would hear a fellow's troubles out to the end, and if he could +not counsel, at least would not laugh at them, and at all times and +in all places lived and let live, and was accordingly a general +favourite. His morality was neither better nor worse than the average +of his companions; but if he was sensual, he was at least not base; +and there were frail women who blessed "little Freddy," and his shy +and secret generosity, from having saved them from the lowest pit. + +_Au reste_, he was idle, frivolous, useless; but with these two +palliating facts, that he knew it and regretted it; and that he never +had a chance of being aught else. His father and mother had died when +he was a child. He had been sent to Eton at seven, where he learnt +nothing, and into the Guards at seventeen, where he learnt less than +nothing. His aunt, old Lady Knockdown, who was a kind old Irish woman, +an ex-blue and ex-beauty, now a high Evangelical professor, but as +worldly as her neighbours in practice, had tried to make him a good +boy in old times: but she had given him up, long before he left Eton, +as a "vessel of wrath" (which he certainly was, with his hot Irish +temper); and since then she had only spoken of him with moans, and to +him just as if he and she had made a compact to be as worldly as they +could, and as if the fact that he was going, as she used to tell +her private friends, straight to the wrong place, was to be utterly +ignored before the pressing reality of getting him and his sisters +well married. And so it befell, that Lady Knockdown, like many more, +having begun with too high (or at least precise) a spiritual standard, +was forced to end practically in having no standard at all; and that +for ten years of Scoutbush's life, neither she nor any other human +being had spoken to him as if he had a soul to be saved, or any duty +on earth save to eat, drink, and be merry. + +And all the while there was a quaint and pathetic consciousness in the +little man's heart that he was meant for something better; that he was +no fool, and was not intended to be one. He would thrust his head into +lectures at the Polytechnic and the British Institution, with a dim +endeavour to guess what they were all about, and a good-natured envy +of the clever fellows who knew about "science, and all that." He would +sit and listen, puzzled and admiring, to the talk of statesmen, and +confide his woe afterwards to some chum.--"Ah, if I had had the chance +now that my cousin Chalkclere has! If I had had two or three tutors, +and a good mother, too, keeping me in a coop, and cramming me with +learning, as they cram chickens for the market, I fancy I could have +shown my comb and hackles in the House as well as some of them. I +fancy I could make a speech in parliament now, with the help of a +little Irish impudence, if I only knew anything to speak about." + +So Scoutbush clung, in a childish way, to any superior man who would +take notice of him, and not treat him as the fribble which he seemed. +He had taken to that well-known artist, Claude Mellot, of late, simply +from admiration of his brilliant talk about art and poetry; and boldly +confessed that he preferred one of Mellot's orations on the sublime +and beautiful, though he didn't understand a word of them, to the +songs and jokes (very excellent ones in their way) of Mr. Hector +Harkaway, the distinguished Irish novelist, and boon companion of her +Majesty's Life Guards Green. His special intimate and Mentor, however, +was a certain Major Campbell, of whom more hereafter; who, however, +being a lofty-minded and perhaps somewhat Pharisaic person, made +heavier demands on Scoutbush's conscience than he had yet been able to +meet; for fully as he agreed that Hercules' choice between pleasure +and virtue was the right one, still he could not yet follow that +ancient hero along the thorny path, and confined his conception of +"duty" to the minimum guard and drill. He had estates in Ireland, +which had almost cleared themselves during his long minority, but +which, since the famine, had cost him about as much as they brought +him in; and estates in the West, which, with a Welsh slate-quarry, +brought him in some seven or eight thousand a-year; and so kept his +poor little head above water, to look pitifully round the universe, +longing for the life of him to make out what it all meant, and hoping +that somebody would come and tell him. + +So much for his meekness and humility in general; as for the +particular display of those virtues which he has shown to-day, it must +be understood that he has given a promise to Mrs. Mellot not to make +love to La Cordifiamma; and, on that only condition, has been allowed +to meet her to-night at one of Claude Mellot's petits soupers. + +La Cordifiamma has been staying, ever since she came to England, with +the Mellots in the wilds of Brompton; unapproachable there, as in all +other places. In public, she is a very Zenobia, who keeps all animals +of the other sex at an awful distance; and of the fifty young puppies +who are raving about her beauty, her air, and her voice, not one has +obtained an introduction; while Claude, whose studio used to be a +favourite lounge of young Guardsmen, has, as civilly as he can, closed +his doors to those magnificent personages ever since the new singer +became his guest. + +Claude Mellot seems to have come into a fortune of late years, large +enough, at least, for his few wants. He paints no longer, save when he +chooses; and has taken a little old house in one of those back lanes +of Brompton, where islands of primaeval nursery garden still remain +undevoured by the advancing surges of the brick and mortar deluge. +There he lives, happy in a green lawn, and windows opening thereon; +in three elms, a cork, an ilex, and a mulberry, with a great standard +pear, for flower and foliage the queen of all suburban trees. There he +lies on the lawn, upon strange skins, the summer's day, playing with +cats and dogs, and making love to his Sabina, who has not lost +her beauty in the least, though she is on the wrong side of +five-and-thirty. He deludes himself, too, into the belief that he is +doing something, because he is writing a treatise on the "Principles +of Beauty;" which will be published, probably, about the time the +Thames is purified, in the season of Latter Lammas and the Greek +Kalends; and the more certainly so, because he has wandered into the +abyss of conic sections and curves of double curvature, of which, if +the truth must be spoken, he knows no more than his friends of the +Life Guards Green. + +To this charming little nest has Lord Scoutbush procured an evening's +admission after abject supplication to Sabina, who pets him because he +is musical, and solemn promises neither to talk or look any manner of +foolishness. + +"My dearest Mrs. Mellot," says the poor wretch, "I will be good, +indeed I will; I will not even speak to her. Only let me sit and +look,--and--and--why, I thought you understood all about such things, +and could pity a poor fellow who was spoony." + +And Sabina, who prides herself much on understanding such things, +and on having, indeed, reduced them to a science in which she +gives gratuitous lessons to all young gentlemen and ladies of her +acquaintance, receives him pityingly, in that delicious little back +drawing-room, whither whosoever enters is in no hurry to go out again. + +Claude's house is arranged with his usual defiance of all +conventionalities. Dining or drawing-room proper there is none; the +large front room is the studio, where he and Sabina eat and drink, as +well as work and paint but out of it opens a little room, the walls of +which are so covered with gems of art (where the rogue finds money to +buy them is a puzzle), that the eye can turn nowhere without taking +in some new beauty, and wandering on from picture to statue, from +portrait to landscape, dreaming and learning afresh after every +glance. At the back, a glass bay has been thrown out, and forms a +little conservatory, for ever fresh and gay with tropic ferns and +flowers; gaudy orchids dangle from the roof, creepers hide the +framework, and you hardly see where the room ends, and the +winter-garden begins; and in the centre an ottoman invites you +to lounge. It costs Claude money, doubtless; but he has his +excuse,--"Having once seen the tropics, I cannot live without some +love-tokens from their lost paradises; and which is the wiser plan, to +spend money on a horse and brougham, which we don't care to use, and +on scrambling into society at the price of one great stupid party a +year, or to make our little world as pretty as we can, and let those +who wish to see us, take us as they find us?" + +In this "nest," as Claude and Sabina call it, sacred to the +everlasting billing and cooing of that sweet little pair of human +love-birds who have built it, was supper set. La Cordifiamma, all the +more beautiful from the languor produced by the excitement of acting, +lay upon a sofa; Claude attended, talking earnestly; Sabina, according +to her custom, was fluttering in and out, and arranging supper with +her own hands; both husband and wife were as busy as bees; and yet any +one accustomed to watch the little ins and outs of married life, could +have seen that neither forgot for a moment that the other was in the +room, but basked and purred, like two blissful cats, each in the +sunshine of the other's presence; and he could have seen, too, that La +Cordifiamma was divining their thoughts, and studying all their little +expressions, perhaps that she might use them on the stage; perhaps, +too, happy in sympathy with their happiness: and yet there was a shade +of sadness on her forehead. + +Scoutbush enters, is introduced, and receives a salutation from the +actress haughty and cold enough to check the forwardest; puts on the +air of languid nonchalance which is considered (or was before the +little experiences of the Crimea) fit and proper for young gentlemen +of rank and fashion. So he sits down, and feasts his foolish eyes upon +his idol, hoping for a few words before the evening is over. Did I not +say well, then, that there was as much meekness and humility under +Scoutbush's white cravat as under others? But his little joy is +soon dashed; for the black boy announces (seemingly much to his own +pleasure) a tall personage, whom, from his dress and his moustachio, +Scoutbush takes for a Frenchman, till he hears him called Stangrave. +The intruder is introduced to Lord Scoutbush, which ceremony is +consummated by a microscopic nod on either side; he then walks +straight up to La Cordifiamma; and Scoutbush sees her cheeks flush as +he does so. He takes her hand, speaks to her in a low voice, and sits +down by her, Claude making room for him; and the two engage earnestly +in conversation. + +Scoutbush is much inclined to walk out of the room;--was he brought +there to see that? Of course, however, he sits still, keeps his own +counsel, and makes himself agreeable enough all the evening, like a +good-natured kind-hearted little man, as he is. Whereby he is repaid; +for the conversation soon becomes deep, and even too deep for him; and +he is fain to drop out of the race, and leave it to his idol and to +the new-comer, who seems to have seen, and done, and read everything +in heaven and earth, and probably bought everything also; not to +mention that he would be happy to sell the said universe again, at a +very cheap price, if any one would kindly take it off his hands. Not +that he boasts, or takes any undue share of the conversation; he +is evidently too well bred for that; but every sentence shows an +acquaintance with facts of which Eton has told Scoutbush nothing, the +barrack-room less, and after which he still craves, the good little +fellow, in a very honest way, and would soon have learnt, had he had a +chance; for of native Irish smartness he had no lack. + +"Poor Flake was half mad about you, Signora, in the stage-box +to-night," said Sabina. "He says that he shall not sleep till he has +painted you." + +"Do let him!" cried Scoutbush: "what a picture he will make!" + +"He may paint a picture, but not me; it is quite enough, Lord +Scoutbush, to be some one else for two hours every night, without +going down to posterity, as some one else for ever. If I am painted, I +will be painted by no one who cannot represent my very self." + +"You are right!" said Stangrave: "and you will do the man himself good +by refusing; he has some notion still of what a portrait ought to be. +If he once begins by attempting passing expressions of passion, which +is all stage portraits can give, he will find them so much easier than +honest representations of character, that he will end, where all our +moderns seem to do, in merest melodrama." + +"Explain!" said she. + +"Portrait painters now depend for their effect on the mere accidents +of the _entourage_; on dress, on landscape, even on broad hints of a +man's occupation, putting a plan on the engineer's table, and a roll +in the statesman's hands, like the old Greek who wrote 'this is an ox' +under his picture. If they wish to give the face expression, though +they seldom aim so high, all they can compass is a passing emotion; +and one sitter goes down to posterity with an eternal frown, another +with an eternal smile." + +"Or, if he be a poet," said Sabina, "rolls his eye for ever in a fine +frenzy." + +"But would you forbid them to paint passion?" + +"Not in its place; when the picture gives the causes of the passion, +and the scene tells its own story. But then let us not have merely +Kean as Hamlet, but Hamlet's self; let the painter sit down and +conceive for himself a Hamlet, such as Shakspeare conceived; not +merely give us as much of him as could be pressed at a given moment +into the face of Mr. Kean. He will be only unjust to both actor and +character. If Flake paints Marie as Lady Macbeth, he will give us +neither her nor Lady Macbeth; but only the single point at which their +two characters can coincide." + +"How rude!" said Sabina, laughing; "what is he doing but hinting +that La Signora's conception of Lady Macbeth is a very partial and +imperfect one?" + +"And why should it not be?" asked the actress, humbly enough. + +"I meant," he answered warmly, "that there was more, far more in her +than in any character which she assumes; and I do not want a painter +to copy only one aspect, and let a part go down to posterity as a +representation of the whole." + +"If you mean that, you shall be forgiven. No; when she is painted, she +shall be painted as herself, as she is now. Claude shall paint her." + +"I have not known La Signora long enough," said Claude, "to aspire to +such an honour. I paint no face which I have not studied for a year." + +"Faith!" said Scoutbush, "you would find no more in most faces at the +year's end, than you did the first day." + +"Then I would not paint them. If I paint a portrait, which I seldom +do, I wish to make it such a one as the old masters aimed at,--to give +the sum total of the whole character; traces of every emotion, if it +were possible, and glances of every expression which have passed over +it since it was born into the world. They are all here, the whole past +and future of the man; and every man, as the Mohammedans say, carries +his destiny on his forehead." + +"But who has eyes to see it?" + +"The old masters had; some of them at least. Raphael had; Sebastian +del Piombo had; and Titian, and Giorgione. There are portraits painted +by them which carry a whole life-history concentrated into one +moment." + +"But they," said Stangrave, "are the portraits of men such as they saw +around them; natures who were strong for good and evil, who were not +ashamed to show their strength. Where will a painter find such among +the poor, thin, unable mortals who come to him to buy immortality at +a hundred and fifty guineas apiece, after having spent their lives in +religiously rubbing off their angles against each other, and forming +their characters, as you form shot, by shaking them together in a bag +till they have polished each other into dullest uniformity?" + +"It's very true," said Scoutbush, who suffered much at times from a +certain wild Irish vein, which stirred him up to kick over the traces. +"People are horribly like each other; and if a poor fellow is bored, +and tries to do anything spicy or original, he has half-a-dozen people +pooh-poohing him down on the score of bad taste." + +"Men can be just as original now as ever," said La Signora, "if they +had but the courage, even the insight. Heroic souls in old times had +no more opportunities than we have: but they used them. There were +daring deeds to be done then--are there none now? Sacrifices to be +made--are there none now? Wrongs to be redressed--are there none now? +Let any one set his heart, in these days, to do what is right, and +nothing else; and it will not be long ere his brow is stamped with all +that goes to make up the heroical expression--with noble indignation, +noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows; perhaps, even, with +the print of the martyr's crown of thorns." + +She looked at Stangrave as she spoke, with an expression which +Scoutbush tried in vain to read. The American made no answer, and +seemed to hang his head awhile. After a minute he said tenderly:-- + +"You will tire yourself if you talk thus, after the evening's fatigue. +Mrs. Mellot will sing to us, and give us leisure to think over our +lesson." + +And Sabina sang; and then Lord Scoutbush was made to sing; and sang +his best, no doubt. + +So the evening slipt on, till it was past eleven o'clock, and +Stangrave rose. "And now," said he, "I must go to Lady M----'s ball; +and Marie must rest." + +As he went, he just leaned over La Cordifiamma. + +"Shall I come in to-morrow morning? We ought to read over that scene +together before the rehearsal." + +"Early then, or Sabina will be gone out; and she must play soubrette +to our hero and heroine." + +"You will rest? Mrs. Mellot, you will see that she does not sit up." + +"It is not very polite to rob us of her, as soon as you cannot enjoy +her yourself." + +"I must take care of people who do not take care of themselves;" and +Stangrave departed. + +Great was Scoutbush's wrath when he saw Marie rise and obey orders. +"Who was this man? what right had he to command her?" + +He asked as much of Sabina the moment La Cordifiamma had retired. + +"Are you not going to Lady M---- 's, too?" + +"No; that is, I won't go yet; not till you have explained all this to +me." + +"Explained what?" asked Sabina, looking as demure as a little brown +mouse. + +"Why, what did you ask me here for?" + +"Lord Scoutbush should recollect that he asked himself." + +"You cruel venomous creature! do you think I would have come, if I had +known that I was to see another man making love to her before my very +eyes? I could kill the fellow;--who is he?" + +"A New York merchant, unworthy of your aristocratic powder and ball." + +"The confounded Yankee!" muttered Scoutbush. + +"If people swear in my house, I fine them a dozen of kid gloves. Did +you not promise me that you would not make love to her yourself?" + +"Well--but, it is too cruel of you, before my very eyes." + +"I saw no love-making to-night." + +"None? Were you blind?" + +"Not in the least; but you cannot well see a thing making which has +been made long ago." + +"What! Is he her husband?" + +"No." + +"Engaged to her?" + +"No." + +"What then!" + +"Don't you know already that this is a house of mystery, full of +mysterious people? I tell you this only, that if she ever marries any +one, she will marry him; and that if I can, I will make her." + +"Then you are my enemy after all." + +"I! Do you think that Sabina Mellot can see a young viscount loose +upon the universe, without trying to make up a match for him? No; I +have such a prize for you,--young, handsome, better educated than any +woman whom you will meet to-night. True, she is a Manchester girl: but +then she has eighty thousand pounds." + +"Eighty thousand nonsense? I'd sooner have that divine creature +without a penny, than--" + +"And would my lord viscount so far debase himself as to marry an +actress?" + +"Humph! Faith, my grandmother was an actress; and we St. Justs are +none the worse for that fact, as far as I can see,--and certainly none +the uglier--the women at least. Oh Sabina--Mrs. Mellot, I mean--only +help me this once!" + +"This once? Do you intend to marry by my assistance this time, and by +your own the next? How many viscountesses are there to be?" + +"Don't laugh at me, you cruel woman: you don't know; you fancy that +I am not in love--" and the poor fellow began pouring out these +commonplaces, which one has heard too often to take the trouble of +repeating, and yet which are real enough, and pathetic too; for in +every man, however frivolous, or even worthless, love calls up to the +surface the real heroism, the real depth of character--all the more +deep because common to poet and philosopher, guardsman and country +clod. + +"I'll leave town to-morrow. I'll go to the Land's-end,--to Norway,--to +Africa--" + +"And forget her in the bliss of lion-hunting." + +"Don't, I tell you; here I will not stay to be driven mad. To think +that she is here, and that hateful Yankee at her elbow. I'll go--" + +"To Lady M----'s ball?" + +"No, confound it; to meet that fellow there! I should quarrel +with him, as sure as there is hot Irish blood in my veins. The +self-satisfied puppy! to be flirting and strutting there, while such a +creature as that is lying thinking of him." + +"Would you have him shut himself up in his hotel, and write poetry; or +walk the streets all night, sighing at the moon?" + +"No; but the cool way in which he went off himself, and sent her to +bed. Confound him! commanding her. It made my blood boil." + +"Claude, get Lord Scoutbush some iced soda-water." + +"If you laugh at me, I'll never speak to you again." + +"Or buy any of Claude's pictures?" + +"Why do you torment me so? I'll go, I say,--leave town +to-morrow,--only I can't with this horrid depot work! What shall I do? +It's too cruel of you, while Campbell is away in Ireland, too; and I +have not a soul but you to ask advice of, for Valencia is as great a +goose as I am;" and the poor little fellow buried his hands in his +curls, and stared fiercely into the fire, as if to draw from thence +omens of his love, by the spodomantic augury of the ancient Greeks; +while Sabina tripped up and down the room, putting things to rights +for the night, and enjoying his torments as a cat does those of the +mouse between her paws; and yet not out of spite, but from pure and +simple fun. + +Sabina is one of those charming bodies who knows everybody's business, +and manages it. She lives in a world of intrigue, but without a +thought of intriguing for her own benefit. She has always a match +to make, a disconsolate lover to comfort, a young artist to bring +forward, a refugee to conceal, a spendthrift to get out of a scrape; +and, like David in the mountains, "every one that is discontented, and +every one that is in debt, gather themselves to her." The strangest +people, on the strangest errands, run over each other in that cosy +little nest of hers. Fine ladies with over-full hearts, and seedy +gentlemen with over-empty pockets, jostle each other at her door; and +she has a smile, and a repartee, and good, cunning, practical wisdom +for each and every one of them, and then dismisses them to bill and +coo with Claude, and laugh over everybody and everything. The only +price which she demands for her services is, to be allowed to laugh; +and if that be permitted, she will be as busy, and earnest, and +tender, as Saint Elizabeth herself. "I have no children of my own," +she says, "so I just make everybody my children, Claude included; and +play with them, and laugh at them, and pet them, and help them out of +their scrapes, just as I should if they were in my own nursery." And +so it befalls that she is every one's confidant; and though every one +seems on the point of taking liberties with her, yet no one does: +partly because they are in her power, and partly because, like an +Eastern sultana, she carries a poniard, and can use it, though only in +self-defence. So if great people, or small people either (who can give +themselves airs as well as their betters), take her plain speaking +unkindly, she just speaks a little more plainly, once for all, and +goes off smiling to some one else; as a hummingbird, if a flower has +no honey in it, whirs away, with a saucy flirt of its pretty little +tail, to the next branch on the bush. + +"I must know more of this American," said Scoutbush, at last. + +"Well, he would be very improving company for you; and I know you like +improving company." + +"I mean--what has he to do with her?" + +"That is just what I will not tell you. One thing I will tell you, +though, for it may help to quench any vain hopes on your part; and +that is, the reason which she gives for not marrying him." + +"Well?" + +"Because he is an idler." + +"What would she say of me, then?" groaned Scoutbush. + +"Very true; for, you must understand, this Mr. Stangrave is not what +you or I should call an idle man. He has travelled over half the world +and made the best use of his eyes. He has filled his house in New +York, they say, with gems of art gathered from every country in +Europe. He is a finished scholar; talks half-a-dozen different +languages, sings, draws, writes poetry, reads hard every day, at every +subject, from gardening to German metaphysics--altogether, one of the +most highly cultivated men I know, and quite an Admirable Crichton in +his way." + +"Then why does she call him an idler?" + +"Because, she says, he has no great purpose in life. She will marry +no one who will not devote himself, and all he has, to some great, +chivalrous, heroic enterprise; whose one object is to be of use, even +if he has to sacrifice his life to it. She says that there must be +such men still left in the world; and that if she finds one, him she +will marry, and no one else." + +"Why, there are none such to be found now-a-days, I thought?" + +"You heard what she herself said on that very point." + +There was a silence for a minute or two. Scout-bush had heard, and was +pondering it in his heart. At last,-- + +"I am not cut out for a hero; so I suppose I must give her up. But I +wish sometimes I could be of use, Mrs. Mellot: but what can a fellow +do?" + +"I thought there was an Irish tenantry to be looked after, my lord, +and a Cornish tenantry too." + +"That's what Campbell is always saying: but what more can I do than I +do? As for those poor Paddies, I never ask them for rent; if I did, I +should not get it; so there is no generosity in that. And as for the +Aberalva people, they have got on very well without me for twenty +years; and I don't know them, nor what they want; nor even if they do +want anything, except fish enough, and I can't put more fish into the +sea, Mrs. Mellot!" + +"Try and be a good soldier, then," said she, laughing. "Why should not +Lord Scoutbush emulate his illustrious countryman, conquer at a second +Waterloo, and die a duke?" + +"I'm not cut out for a general, I am afraid; but if--I don't say if I +could marry that woman--I suppose it would be a foolish thing--though +I shall break my heart, I believe, if I do not. Oh, Mrs. Mellot, you +cannot tell what a fool I have made myself about her; and I cannot +help it! It's not her beauty merely; but there is something so noble +in her face, like one of those Greek goddesses Claude talks of; +and when she is acting, if she has to say anything grand, or +generous--or--you know the sort of thing,--she brings it out with such +a voice, and such a look, from the very bottom of her heart,--it makes +me shudder; just as she did when she told that Yankee, that every one +could be a hero, or a martyr, if he chose. Mrs. Mellot, I am sure she +is one, or she could not look and speak as she does." + +"She is one!" said Sabina; "a heroine, and a martyr too." + +"If I could,--that was what I was going to say,--if I could but win +that woman's respect--as I live, I ask no more; only to be sure she +didn't despise me. I'd do--I don't know what I wouldn't do. I'd--I'd +study the art of war: I know there are books about it. I'd get out +to the East, away from this depôt work; and if there is no fighting +there, as every one says there will not be, I'd go into a marching +regiment, and see service. I'd,--hang it, if they'd have me,--I'd even +go to the senior department at Sandhurst, and read mathematics!" + +Sabina kept her countenance (though with difficulty) at this +magnificent bathos; for she saw that the little man was really in +earnest; and that the looks and words of the strange actress had +awakened in him something far deeper and nobler than the mere sensual +passion of a boy. + +"Ah, if I had but gone out to Varna with the rest! I thought myself a +lucky fellow to be left here." + +"Do you know that it is getting very late?" + +So Frederick Lord Scoutbush went home to his rooms: and there sat +for three hours and more with his feet on the fender, rejecting the +entreaties of Mr. Bowie, his servant, either to have something, or to +go to bed; yea, he forgot even to smoke, by which Mr. Bowie "jaloused" +that he was hit very hard indeed: but made no remark, being a +Scotchman, and of a cautious temperament. + +However, from that night Scoutbush was a changed man, and tried to be +so. He read of nothing but sieges and stockades, brigade evolutions, +and conical bullets; he drilled his men till he was an abomination in +their eyes, and a weariness to their flesh; only every evening he went +to the theatre, watched La Cordifiamma with a heavy heart, and then +went home to bed; for the little man had good sense enough to ask +Sabina for no more interviews with her. So in all things he acquitted +himself as a model officer, and excited the admiration and respect of +Serjeant Major MacArthur, who began fishing at Bowie to discover the +cause of this strange metamorphosis in the rackety little Irishman. + +"Your master seems to be qualifying himself for the adjutant's post, +Mr. Bowie. I'm jalousing he's fired with martial ardour since the war +broke out." + +To which Bowie, being a brother Scot, answered Scotticè, by a crafty +paralogism. + +"I've always held it as my opeeeenion, that his lordship is a youth of +very good parts, if he was only compelled to employ them." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +TAKING ROOT. + + +Whosoever enjoys the sight of an honest man doing his work well, +would have enjoyed the sight of Tom Thurnall for the next two months. +In-doors all the morning, and out of doors all the afternoon, was that +shrewd and good-natured visage, calling up an answering smile on every +face, and leaving every heart a little lighter than he found it. +Puzzling enough it was, alike to Heale and to Headley, how Tom +contrived, as if by magic, to gain every one's good word--their own +included. For Frank, in spite of Tom's questionable opinions, had +already made all but a confidant of the Doctor; and Heale, in spite +of envy and suspicion, could not deny that the young man was a very +valuable young man, if he wasn't given so much to those new-fangled +notions of the profession. + +By which term Heale indicated the, to him, astounding fact, that Tom +charged the patients as little, instead of as much as possible, and +applying to medicine the principles of an enlightened political +economy, tried to increase the demand by cheapening the supply. + +"Which is revolutionary doctrine, sir," said Heale to Lieutenant +Jones, over the brandy-and-water, "and just like what the Cobden +and Bright lot used to talk, and have been the ruin of British +agriculture, though don't say I said so, because of my Lord +Minchampstead. But, conceive my feelings, sir, as the father of a +family, who have my bread to earn, this very morning.--In comes old +Dame Penaluna (which is good pay I know, and has two hundred and more +out on a merchant brig) for something; and what was my feelings, sir, +to hear this young party deliver himself--'Well, ma'am,' says he, as I +am a living man, 'I can cure you, if you like, with a dozen bottles of +lotion, at eighteenpence a-piece; but if you'll take my advice, you'll +buy two pennyworth of alum down street, do what I tell you with it, +and cure yourself.' It's robbery, sir, I say, all these out-of-the-way +cheap dodges, which arn't in the pharmacopoeia, half of them; it's +unprofessional, sir--quackery." + +"Tell you what, Doctor, robbery or none, I'll go to him to-morrow, +d'ye see, if I live as long, for this old ailment of mine. I never +told you of it, old pill and potion, for fear of a swinging bill: but +just grinned and bore it, d'ye see." + +"There it is again," cries Heale in despair. "He'll ruin me." + +"No, he won't, and you know it." + +"What d'ye think he served me last week? A young chap comes in, +consumptive, he said, and I dare say he's right--he is uncommonly +'cute about what he calls diagnosis. Says he, 'You ought to try +Carrageen moss. It's an old drug, but it's a good one.' There was a +drawer full of it to his hand; had been lying there any time this ten +years: I go to open it; but what was my feelings when he goes on, as +cool as a cucumber--'And there's bushels of it here,' says he, 'on +every rock; so if you'll come down with me at low tide this afternoon, +I'll show you the trade, and tell you how to boil it.' I thought I +should have knocked him down." + +"But you didn't," said Jones, laughing in every muscle of his body. +"Tell you what, Doctor, you've got a treasure; he's just getting back +your custom, d'ye see, and when he's done that, he'll lay on the bills +sharp enough. Why, I hear he's up at Mrs. Vavasour's every day." + +"And not ten shillings' worth of medicine sent up to the house any +week." + +"He charges for his visits, I suppose." + +"Not he! If you'll believe me, when I asked him if he wasn't going +to, he says, says he, that Mrs. Vavasour's company was quite payment +enough for him." + +"Shows his good taste. Why, what now, Mary?" as the maid opens the +door. + +"Mr. Thurnall wants Mr. Heale." + +"Always wanting me," groans Heale, hugging his glass, "driving me +about like any negro slave. Tell him to come in." + +"Here, Doctor," says the Lieutenant, "I want you to prescribe for me, +if you'll do it gratis, d'ye see. Take some brandy and water." + +"Good advice costs nothing," says Tom, filling; "Mr. Heale, read that +letter." + +And the Lieutenant details his ailments, and their supposed cause, +till Heale has the pleasure of hearing Tom answer-- + +"Fiddlesticks! That's not what's the matter with you. I'll cure you +for half-a-crown, and toss you up double or quits. + +"Oh!" groans Heale, as he spells away over the letter,-- + +"Lord Minchampstead having been informed by Mr. Armsworth that Mr. +Thurnall is now in the neighbourhood of his estates of Pentremochyn, +would feel obliged to him at his earliest convenience to examine into +the sanitary state of the cottages thereon, which are said to be much +haunted by typhus and other epidemics, and to send him a detailed +report, indicating what he thinks necessary for making them thoroughly +healthy. Mr. Thurnall will be so good as to make his own charge." + +"Well, Mr. Thurnall, you ought to turn a good penny by this," said +Heale, half envious of Tom's connection, half contemptuous at his +supposed indifference to gain. + +"I'll charge what it's worth," said Tom. "Meanwhile, I hope you're +going to see Miss Beer to-night." + +"Couldn't you just go yourself, my dear sir? It is so late." + +"No; I never go near young women. I told you so at first, and I stick +to my rule. You'd better go, sir, on my word, or if she's dead before +morning, don't say it's my fault." + +"Did you ever hear a poor old man so tyrannised over?" said Heale, as +Tom coolly went into the passage, brought in the old man's great coat +and hat, arrayed him and marched him out, civilly, but firmly. + +"Now, Lieutenant, I've half an hour to spare; let's have a jolly chat +about the West Indies." + +And Tom began with anecdote and joke, and the old seaman laughed till +he cried, and went to bed vowing that there never was such a pleasant +fellow on earth, and he ought to be physician to Queen Victoria. + +Up at five the next morning, the indefatigable Tom had all his work +done by ten; and was preparing to start for Pentremochyn, ere Heale +was out of bed, when a customer came in who kept him half an hour. + +He was a tall broad-shouldered young man, with a red face, protruding +bull's eyes, and a moustachio. He was dressed in a complete suit of +pink and white plaid, cut jauntily enough. A bright blue cap, a thick +gold watch-chain, three or four large rings, a dog-whistle from his +button-hole, a fancy cane in his hand, and a little Oxford meerschaum +in his mouth, completed his equipment. He lounged in, with an air of +careless superiority, while Tom, who was behind the counter, cutting +up his day's provision of honey-dew, eyed him curiously. + +"Who are you, now? A gentleman? Not quite, I guess. Some squireen of +the parts adjacent, and look in somewhat of a crapulocomatose state +moreover. I wonder if you are the great Trebooze of Trebooze." + +"I say," yawned the young gentleman, "where's old Heale?" and an oath +followed the speech, as it did every other one herein recorded. + +"The playing half of old Heale is in bed, and I'm his working half. +Can I do anything for you?" + +"Cool fish," thought the customer. "I say--what have you got there?" + +"Australian honey-dew. Did you ever smoke it?" + +"I've heard of it; let's see:" and Mr. Trebooze--for it was he--put +his hand across the counter unceremoniously, and clawed up some. + +"Didn't know you sold tobacco here. Prime stuff. Too strong for me, +though, this morning, somehow." + +"Ah? A little too much claret last night? I thought so. We'll set that +right in five minutes." + +"Eh? How did you guess that?" asked Trebooze, with a larger oath than +usual. + +"Oh, we doctors are men of the world," said Tom, in a cheerful and +insinuating tone, as he mixed his man a draught. + +"You doctors? You're a cock of a different hackle from old Heale, +then." + +"I trust so," said Tom. + +"By George, I feel better already. I say, you're a trump; I suppose +you're Heale's new partner, the man who was washed ashore!" + +Tom nodded assent; + +"I say--How do you sell that honey-dew?" + +"I don't sell it; I'll give you as much as you like, only you shan't +smoke it till after dinner." + +"Shan't?" said Trebooze, testy and proud. + +"Not with my leave, or you'll be complaining two hours hence that I am +a humbug, and have done you no good. Get on your horse, and have four +hours' gallop on the downs, and you'll feel like a buffalo bull by two +o'clock." + +Trebooze looked at him with a stupid curiosity and a little awe. He +saw that Tom's cool self-possession was not meant for impudence; and +something in his tone and manner told him that the boast of being "a +man of the world" was not untrue. And of all kinds of men, a man of +the world was the man of whom Trebooze stood most in awe. A small +squireen, cursed with six or seven hundreds a year of his own, never +sent to school, college, or into the army, he had grown up in a narrow +circle of squireens like himself, without an object save that of +gratifying his animal passions; and had about six years before, being +then just of age, settled in life by marrying his housemaid--the only +wise thing, perhaps, he ever did. For she, a clever and determined +woman, kept him, though not from drunkenness and debt, at least from +delirium tremens and ruin, and was, in her rough, vulgar way, his +guardian angel--such a one at least, as he was worthy of. More than +once has one seen the same seeming folly turn out in practice as wise +a step as could well have been taken; and the coarse nature of the +man, which would have crushed and ill-used a delicate and high-minded +wife, subdued to something like decency by a help literally meet for +it. + +There was a pause. Trebooze fancied, and wisely, that the Doctor was a +cleverer man than he, and of course would want to show it. So, after +the fashion of a country squireen, he felt a longing to "set him +down." "He's been a traveller, they say," thought he in that +pugnacious, sceptical spirit which is bred, not, as twaddlers fancy, +by too extended knowledge, but by the sense of ignorance, and a narrow +sphere of thought, which makes a man angry and envious of any one who +has seen more than he. + +"Buffalo bulls?" said he, half contemptuously; "what do you know about +buffalo bulls?" + +"I was one once myself," said Tom, "where I lived before." + +Trebooze swore. "Don't you put your traveller's lies on me, sir." + +"Well, perhaps I dreamt it," said Tom, placidly; "I remember I dreamt +at the same time that you were a grizzly bear, fourteen feet long, and +wanted to eat me up: but you found me too tough about the hump ribs." + +Trebooze stared at his audacity. + +"You're a rum hand." + +To which Tom made answer in the same elegant strain; and then began a +regular word-battle of slang, in which Tom showed himself so +really witty a proficient, that Mr. Trebooze laughed himself into +good-humour, and ended by-- + +"I say, you're a good fellow, and I think you and I shall suit." + +Tom had his doubts, but did not express them. + +"Come up this afternoon and see my child; Mrs. Trebooze thinks it's +got swelled glands, or some such woman's nonsense. Bother them, why +can't they let the child alone, fussing and doctoring; and she will +have you. Heard of you from Mrs. Vavasour, I believe. Our doctor and I +have quarrelled, and she said, if I could get you, she'd sooner have +you than that old rum-puncheon Heale. And then, you'd better stop and +take pot-luck, and we'll make a night of it." + +"I have to go round Lord Minchampstead's estates, and will take you on +my way: but I'm afraid I shall be too dirty to have the pleasure of +dining with Mrs. Trebooze coming back." + +"Mrs. Trebooze! She must take what I like; and what's good enough for +me is good enough for her, I hope. Come as you are--Liberty Hall at +Trebooze;" and out he swaggered. + +"Does he bully her?" thought Tom, "or is he hen-pecked, and wants to +hide it? I'll see to-night, and play my cards accordingly." + +All which Miss Heale had heard. She had been peeping and listening +at the glass-door, and her mother also; for no sooner had Trebooze +entered the shop, than she had run off to tell her mother the +surprising fact, Trebooze's custom having been, for some years past, +courted in vain by Heale. So Miss Heale peeped and peeped at a man +whom she regarded with delighted curiosity, because he bore the +reputation of being "such a naughty wicked man!" and "so very handsome +too, and so distinguished as he looks!" said the poor little fool, to +whose novel-fed imagination Mr. Trebooze was an ideal Lothario. + +But the surprise of the two dames grew rapidly as they heard Tom's +audacity towards the country aristocrat. + +"Impudent wretch!" moaned Mrs. Heale to herself. "He'd drive away an +angel if he came into the shop." + +"Oh, ma! hear how they are going on now." + +"I can't bear it, my dear. This man will be the ruin of us. His +manners are those of the pot-house, when the cloven foot is shown, +which it's his nature as a child of wrath, and we can't expect +otherwise." + +"Oh, ma! do you hear that Mr. Trebooze has asked him to dinner?" + +"Nonsense!" + +But it was true. + +"Well! if there ain't the signs of the end of the world, which is? All +the years your poor father has been here, and never so much as send +him a hare, and now this young penniless interloper; and he to dine at +Trebooze off purple and fine linen." + +"There is not much of that there, ma; I'm sure they are poor enough, +for all his pride; and as for her--" + +"Yes, my dear; and as for her, though we haven't married squires, my +dear, yet we haven't been squires' housemaids, and have adorned our +own station, which was good enough for us, and has no need to rise out +of it, nor ride on Pharaoh's chariot-wheels after filthy lucre--" + +Miss Heale hated poor Mrs. Trebooze with a bitter hatred, because +she dreamed insanely that, but for her, she might have secured Mr. +Trebooze for herself. And though her ambition was now transferred to +the unconscious Tom, that need not make any difference in the said +amiable feeling. + +But that Tom was a most wonderful person, she had no doubt. He had +conquered her heart--so she informed herself passionately again and +again; as was very necessary, seeing that the passion, having no real +life of its own, required a good deal of blowing to keep it alight. +Yes, he had conquered her heart, and he was conquering all hearts +likewise. There must be some mystery about him--there should be. And +she settled in her novel-bewildered brain, that Tom must be a nobleman +in disguise--probably a foreign prince exiled for political offences. +Bah! perhaps too many lines have been spent on the poor little fool; +but as such fools exist, and people must be as they are, there is no +harm in drawing her; and in asking, too--Who will help those young +girls of the middle class who, like Miss Heale, are often really less +educated than the children of their parents' workmen; sedentary, +luxurious, full of petty vanity, gossip, and intrigue, without work, +without purpose, except that of getting married to any one who will +ask them--bewildering brain and heart with novels, which, after all, +one hardly grudges them; for what other means have they of learning +that there is any fairer, nobler life possible, at least on earth, +than that of the sordid money-getting, often the sordid puffery and +adulteration, which is the atmosphere of their home? Exceptions there +are, in thousands, doubtless; and the families of the great city +tradesmen, stand, of course, on far higher ground, and are often far +better educated, and more high-minded, than the fine ladies, their +parents' customers. But, till some better plan of education than +the boarding-school is devised for them; till our towns shall see +something like in kind to, though sounder and soberer in quality than, +the high schools of America; till in country villages the ladies who +interest themselves about the poor will recollect that the farmers' +and tradesmen's daughters are just as much in want of their influence +as the charity children, and will yield a far richer return for their +labour, though the one need not interfere with the other; so long will +England be full of Miss Heales; fated, when they marry, to bring up +sons and daughters as sordid and unwholesome as their mothers. + +Tom worked all that day in and out of the Pentremochyn cottages, +noting down nuisances and dilapidations: but his head was full of +other thoughts; for he had received, the evening before, news which +was to him very important, for more reasons than one. + +The longer he stayed at Aberalva, the longer he felt inclined to stay. +The strange attraction of Grace had, as we have seen, something to do +with his purpose: but he saw, too, a good opening for one of those +country practices, in which he seemed more and more likely to end. At +his native Whitbury, he knew, there was no room for a fresh medical +man; and gradually he was making up his mind to settle at Aberalva; to +buy out Heale, either with his own money (if he recovered it), or with +money borrowed from Mark; to bring his father down to live with him, +and in that pleasant wild western place, fold his wings after all his +wanderings. And therefore certain news which he had obtained the night +before was very valuable to him, in that it put a fresh person into +his power, and might, if cunningly used, give him a hold upon the +ruling family of the place, and on Lord Scoutbush himself. He had +found out that Lucia and Elsley were unhappy together; and found out, +too, a little more than was there to find. He could not, of course, be +a month among the gossips of Aberalva, without hearing hints that the +great folks at the court did not always keep their tempers; for, of +family jars, as of everything else on earth, the great and just law +stands true:--"What you do in the closet, shall be proclaimed on the +housetop." + +But the gossips of Aberalva, as women are too often wont to do, had +altogether taken the man's side in the quarrel. The reason was, I +suppose, that Lucia, conscious of having fallen somewhat in rank, +"held up her head" to Mrs. Trebooze and Mrs. Heale (as they themselves +expressed it), and to various other little notabilities of the +neighbourhood, rather more than she would have done had she married a +man of her own class. She was afraid that they might boast of being +intimate with her; that they might take to advising and patronising +her as an inexperienced young creature; afraid, even, that she might +be tempted, in some unguarded moment, to gossip with them, confide her +unhappiness to them, in the blind longing to open her heart to some +human being; for there were no resident gentry of her own rank in the +neighbourhood. She was too high-minded to complain much to Clara; and +her sister Valencia was the very last person to whom she would confess +that her run-away-match had not been altogether successful. So she +lived alone and friendless, shrinking into herself more and more, +while the vulgar women round mistook her honour for pride, and +revenged themselves accordingly. She was an uninteresting fine lady, +proud and cross, and Elsley was a martyr. "So handsome and agreeable +as he was--(and to do him justice, he was the former, and he could be +the latter when he chose)--to be tied to that unsociable, stuck-up +woman;" and so forth. + +All which Tom had heard, and formed his own opinion thereof; which +was,-- + +"All very fine: but I flatter myself I know a little what women are +made of; and this I know, that where man and wife quarrel, even if she +ends the battle, it is he who has begun it. I never saw a case yet +where the man was not the most in fault; and I'll lay my life John +Briggs has led her a pretty life: what else could one expect of him?" + +However, he held his tongue, and kept his eyes open withal whenever he +went up to Penalva Court, which he had to do very often; for though +he had cured the children of their ailments, yet Mrs. Vavasour was +perpetually, more or less, unwell, and he could not cure her. Her low +spirits, headaches, general want of tone and vitality, puzzled him +at first; and would have puzzled him longer, had he not settled with +himself that their cause was to be sought in the mind, and not in the +body; and at last, gaining courage from certainty, he had hinted as +much to Miss Clara the night before, when she came down (as she was +very fond of doing) to have a gossip with him in his shop, under the +pretence of fetching medicine. + +"I don't think I shall send Mrs. Vavasour any more, Miss Clara. There +is no use running up a long bill when I do no good; and, what is more, +suspect that I can do none, poor lady." And he gave the girl a look +which seemed to say, "You had better tell me the truth; for I know +everything already." + +To which Clara answered by trying to find out how much he did know: +but Tom was a cunninger diplomatist than she; and in ten minutes, +after having given solemn promises of secresy, and having, by strong +expressions of contempt for Mrs. Heale and the village gossips, made +Clara understand that he did not at all take their view of the case, +he had poured out to him across the counter all Clara's long-pent +indignation and contempt. + +"I never said a word of this to a living soul, sir; I was too proud, +for my mistress's sake, to let vulgar people know what we suffered. +We don't want any of their pity indeed; but you, sir, who have the +feelings of a gentleman, and know what the world is, like ourselves--" + +"Take care," whispered Tom; "that daughter of Heale's may be +listening." + +"I'd pull her hair about her ears if I caught her!" quoth Clara; and +then ran on to tell how Elsley "never kept no hours, nor no accounts +either; so that she has to do everything, poor thing; and no thanks +either. And never knows when he'll dine, or when he'll breakfast, or +when he'll be in, wandering in and out like a madman; and sits up all +night, writing his nonsense. And she'll go down twice and three times +a night in the cold, poor dear, to see if he's fallen asleep; and gets +abused like a pickpocket for her pains (which was an exaggeration); +and lies in bed all the morning, looking at the flies, and calls after +her if his shoes want tying, or his finger aches; as helpless as the +babe unborn; and will never do nothing useful himself, not even to +hang a picture or move a chair, and grumbles at her if he sees her +doing anything, because she ain't listening to his prosodies, and +snaps, and worrits, and won't speak to her sometimes for a whole +morning, the brute." + +"But is he not fond of his children?" + +"Fond? Yes, his way, and small thanks to him, the little angels! To +play with 'em when they're good, and tell them cock-and-a-bull fairy +tales--wonder why he likes to put such stuff into their heads--and +then send 'em out of the room if they make a noise, because it splits +his poor head, and his nerves are so delicate. Wish he had hers, or +mine either, Doctor Thurnall; then he'd know what nerves was, in a +frail woman, which he uses us both as his negro slaves, or would if I +didn't stand up to him pretty sharp now and then, and give him a piece +of my mind, which I will do, like the faithful servant in the parable, +if he kills me for it, Doctor Thurnall!" + +"Does he drink?" asked Tom, bluntly. + +"He!" she answered, in a tone which seemed to imply that even one +masculine vice would have raised him in her eyes. "He's not man +enough, I think; and lives on his slops, and his coffee, and his +tapioca; and how's he ever to have any appetite, always a sitting +about, heaped up together over his books, with his ribs growing into +his backbone?--If he'd only go and take his walk, or get a spade and +dig in the garden, or anything but them everlasting papers, which I +hates the sight of;" and so forth. + +From all which Tom gathered a tolerably clear notion of the poor +poet's state of body and mind; as a self-indulgent, unmethodical +person, whose ill-temper was owing partly to perpetual brooding over +his own thoughts, and partly to dyspepsia, brought on by his own +effeminacy--in both cases, not a thing to be pitied or excused by the +hearty and valiant Doctor. And Tom's original contempt for Vavasour +took a darker form, perhaps one too dark to be altogether just. + +"I'll tackle him, Miss Clara." + +"I wish you would: I'm sure he wants some one to look after him just +now. He's half wild about some review that somebody's been and done of +him in The Times, and has been flinging the paper about the room, and +calling all mankind vipers and adders, and hooting herds--it's as bad +as swearing, I say--and running to my mistress, to make her read it, +and see how the whole world's against him, and then forbidding her to +defile her eyes with a word of it; and so on, till she's been crying +all the morning, poor dear!" + +"Why not laughing at him?" + +"Poor thing; that's where it all is: she's just as anxious about his +poetry as he is, and would write it just as well as he, I'll warrant, +if she hadn't better things to do; and all her fuss is, that people +should 'appreciate' him. He's always talking about appreciating, till +I hate the sound of the word. How any woman can go on so after a man +that behaves as he does! but we're all soft fools, I'm afraid, Doctor +Thurnall." And Clara began a languishing look or two across the +counter, which made Tom answer to an imaginary Doctor Heale, whom he +heard calling from within. + +"Yes, Doctor! coming this moment, Doctor! Good-bye, Miss Clara. I must +hear more next time; you may trust me, you know; secret as the grave, +and always your friend, and your lady's too, if you will allow me to +do myself such an honour. Coming, Doctor!" + +And Tom bolted through the glass door, till Miss Clara was safe on her +way up the street. + +"Very well," said Tom to himself. "Knowledge is power: but how to use +it? To get into Mrs. Vavasour's confidence, and show an inclination to +take her part against her husband? If she be a true woman, she would +order me out of the house on the spot, as surely as a fish-wife would +fall tooth and nail on me as a base intruder, if I dared to interfere +with her sacred right of being beaten by her husband when she chooses. +No; I must go straight to John Briggs himself, and bind him over to +keep the peace; and I think I know the way to do it." + +So Tom pondered over many plans in his head that day; and then went to +Trebooze, and saw the sick child, and sat down to dinner, where his +host talked loud about the Treboozes of Trebooze, who fought in the +Spanish Armada--or against it; and showed an unbounded belief in +the greatness and antiquity of his family, combined with a historic +accuracy about equal to that of a good old dame of those parts, who +used to say "her family comed over the water, that she knew; but +whether it were with the Conqueror, or whether it were wi' Oliver, she +couldn't exactly say!" + +Then he became great on the subject of old county families in general, +and poured out all the vials of his wrath on "that confounded upstart +of a Newbroom, Lord Minchampstead," supplanting all the fine old blood +in the country--"Why, sir, that Pentremochyn, and Carcarrow moors too +(--good shooting there, there used to be), they ought to be mine, sir, +if every man had his rights!" And then followed a long story; and a +confused one withal, for by this time Mr. Trebooze had drunk a great +deal too much wine, and as he became aware of the fact, became +proportionately anxious that Tom should drink too much also; out of +which story Tom picked the plain facts, that Trebooze's father had +mortgaged Pentremochyn estate for more than its value, and that Lord +Minchampstead had foreclosed; while some equally respectable uncle, or +cousin, just deceased, had sold the reversion of Carcarrow to the same +mighty Cotton Lord twenty years before. "And this is the way, sir, +the land gets eaten up by a set of tinkers, and cobblers, and +money-lending jobbers, who suck the blood of the aristocracy!" +The oaths we omit, leaving the reader to pepper Mr. Trebooze's +conversation therewith, up to any degree of heat which may suit his +palate. + +Tom sympathised with him deeply, of course; and did not tell him, as +he might have done, that he thought the sooner such cumberers of the +ground were cleared off, whether by an encumbered estates' act, such +as we may see yet in England, or by their own suicidal folly, the +better it would be for the universe in general, and perhaps for +themselves in particular. But he only answered with pleasant +effrontery-- + +"Ah, my dear sir, I am sure there are hundreds of good sportsmen who +can sympathise with you deeply. The wonder is, that you do not unite +and defend yourselves. For not only in the West of England, but in +Ireland, and in Wales, and in the north, too, if one is to believe +those novels of Currer Bell's and her sister, there is a large and +important class of landed proprietors of the same stamp as yourself, +and exposed to the very same dangers. I wonder at times that you do +not all join, and use your combined influence on the Government." + +"The Government? All a set of Whig traitors! Call themselves +Conservative, or what they like. Traitors, sir! from that fellow +Peel upwards--all combined to crush the landed gentry--ruin +the Church--betray the country party--D'Israeli--Derby--Free +trade--ruined, sir!--Maynooth--Protection--treason--help yourself, and +pass the--you know, old fellow--" + +And Mr. Trebooze's voice died away, and he slumbered, but not softly. + +The door opened, and in marched Mrs. Trebooze, tall, tawdry, and +terrible. + +"Mr. Trebooze! it's past eleven o'clock!" + +"Hush, my dear madam! He is sleeping so sweetly," said Tom, rising, +and gulping down a glass, not of wine, but of strong ammonia and +water. The rogue had put a phial thereof in his pocket that morning, +expecting that, as Trebooze had said, he would be required to make a +night of it, + +She was silent; for to rouse her tyrant was more than she dare do. +If awakened, he would crave for brandy and water; and if he got that +sweet poison, he would probably become furious. She stood for half a +minute; and Tom, who knew her story well, watched her curiously. + +"She is a fine woman: and with a far finer heart in her than that +brute. Her eyebrow and eye, now, have the true Siddons' stamp; +the great white forehead, and sharp-cut little nostril, breathing +scorn--and what a Siddons-like attitude!--I should like, madam, to see +the child again before I go." + +"If you are fit, sir," answered she. + +"Brave woman; comes to the point at once, I am a poor doctor, madam, +and not a country gentleman; and have neither money nor health to +spend in drinking too much wine." + +"Then why do you encourage him in it, sir? I had expected a very +different sort of conduct from you, sir." + +Tom did not tell her what she would not (no woman will) understand; +that it is morally and socially impossible to escape from the table of +a fool, till either he or you are conquered; and she was too shrewd to +be taken in by commonplace excuses; so he looked her very full in +the face, and replied a little haughtily, with a slow and delicate +articulation, using his lips more than usual, and yet compressing +them:-- + +"I beg your pardon, madam, if I have unintentionally displeased you: +but if you ever do me the honour of knowing more of me, you will be +the first to confess that your words are unjust. Do you wish me to see +your son, or do you not?" + +Poor Mrs. Trebooze looked at him, with an eye which showed that +she had been accustomed to study character keenly, perhaps in +self-defence. She saw that Tom was sober; he had taken care to prove +that, by the way in which he spoke; and she saw, too, that he was a +better bred man than her husband, as well as a cleverer. She dropped +her eye before his; heaved something very like a sigh; and then +said, in her curt, fierce tone, which yet implied a sort of sullen +resignation-- + +"Yes; come up-stairs." + +Tom went up, and looked at the boy again, as he lay sleeping. A +beautiful child of four years old, as large and fair a child as man +need see; and yet there was on him the curse of his father's sins; and +Tom knew it, and knew that his mother knew it also. + +"What a noble boy!" said he, after looking, not without honest +admiration, upon the sleeping child, who had kicked off his +bed-clothes, and lay in a wild graceful attitude, as children are wont +to lie; just like an old Greek statue of Cupid, "It all depends upon +you, madam, now." + +"On me?" she asked, in a startled, suspicious tone. + +"Yes. He is a magnificent boy: but--I can only give palliatives. It +depends upon your care now." + +"He will have that, at least, I should hope," she said, nettled. + +"And on your influence ten years hence," went on Tom. + +"My influence?" + +"Yes; only keep him steady, and he may grow up a magnificent man. If +not--you will excuse me--but you must not let him live as freely as +his father; the constitutions of the two are very different." + +"Don't talk so, sir. Steady? His father makes him drunk now, if he +can; teaches him to swear, because it is manly--God help him and me!" + +Tom's cunning and yet kind shaft had sped. He guessed that with a +coarse woman like Mrs. Trebooze his best plan was to come as straight +to the point as he could; and he was right. Ere half an hour was over, +that woman had few secrets on earth which Tom did not know. + +"Let me give you one hint before I go," said he at last. "Persuade +your husband to go into a militia regiment." + +"Why? He would see so much company, and it would be so expensive." + +"The expense would repay itself ten times over. The company which he +would see would be sober company, in which he would be forced to keep +in order. He would have something to do in the world; and he'd do it +well. He is just cut out for a soldier, and might have made a gallant +one by now, if he had had other men's chances. He will find he does +his militia work well; and it will be a new interest, and a new pride, +and a new life to him. And meanwhile, madam, what you have said to me +is sacred. I do not pretend to advise or interfere. Only tell me if I +can be of use--how, when, and where--and command me as your servant." + +And Tom departed, having struck another root; and was up at four the +next morning (he never worked at night; for, he said, he never could +trust after-dinner brains), drawing out a detailed report of the +Pentremochyn cottages, which he sent to Lord Minchampstead with-- + +"And your lordship will excuse my saying, that to put the cottages +into the state in which your lordship, with your known wish for +progress of all kinds, would wish to see them is a responsibility +which I dare not take on myself, as it would involve a present outlay +of not less than £450. This sum would be certainly repaid to your +Lordship and your tenants, in the course of the next three years, by +the saving in poor-rates; an opinion for which I subjoin my grounds +drawn from the books of the medical officer, Mr. Heale: but the +responsibility and possible unpopularity, which employing so great +a sum would involve, is more than I can, in the present dependent +condition of poor-law medical officers, dare to undertake, in justice +to Mr. Heale my employer, save at your special command. I am bound, +however, to inform your lordship, that this outlay would, I think, +perfectly defend the hamlets, not only from that visit of the cholera +which we have every reason to expect next summer, but also from those +zymotic diseases which (as your lordship will see by my returns) make +up more than sixty-five per cent of the aggregate sickness of the +estate." + +Which letter the old Cotton Lord put in his pocket, rode into Whitbury +therewith, and showed it to Mark Armsworth. + +"Well, Mr. Armsworth, what am I to do?" + +"Well, my Lord; I told you what sort of a man you'd have to do +with; one that does his work thoroughly, and, I think, pays you a +compliment, by thinking that you want it done thoroughly." + +Lord Minchampstead was of the same opinion; but he did not say so. +Few, indeed, have ever heard Lord Minchampstead give his opinion: +though many a man has seen him act on it. + +"I'll send down orders to my agent." + +"Don't." + +"Why, then, my good friend?" + +"Agents are always in league with farmers, or guardians, or builders, +or drain-tile makers, or attorneys, or bankers, or somebody; and +either you'll be told that the work don't need doing; or have a job +brewed out of it, to get off a lot of unsaleable drain-tiles, or +cracked soil-pans; or to get farm ditches dug, and perhaps the highway +rates saved building culverts, and fifty dodges beside. I know their +game; and you ought, too, by now, my lord, begging your pardon." + +"Perhaps I do, Mark," said his lordship with a chuckle. + +"So, I say, let the man that found the fox, run the fox, and kill the +fox, and take the brush home." + +"And so it shall be," quoth my Lord Minchampstead. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +"AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?" + + +But what was the mysterious bond between La Cordifiamma and the +American, which had prevented Scoutbush from following the example +of his illustrious progenitor, and taking a viscountess from off the +stage? + +Certainly, any one who had seen her with him on the morning after +Scoutbush's visit to the Mellots, would have said that, if the cause +was love, the love was all on one side. + +She was standing by the fireplace in a splendid pose, her arm resting +on the chimney-piece, the book from which she had been reciting in one +hand, the other playing in her black curls, as her eyes glanced back +ever and anon at her own profile in the mirror. Stangrave was half +sitting in a low chair by her side, half kneeling on the footstool +before her, looking up beseechingly, as she looked down tyrannically. + +"Stupid, this reciting? Of course it is! I want realities, not shams; +life, not the stage; nature, not art." + +"Throw away the book, then, and words, and art, and live!" + +She knew well what he meant; but she answered as if she had +misunderstood him. + +"Thanks, I live already, and in good company enough. My ghost-husbands +are as noble as they are obedient; do all which I demand of them, and +vanish on my errands when I tell them. Can you guess who my last +is? Since I tired of Egmont, I have taken Sir Galahad, the spotless +knight. Did you ever read the Mort d'Arthur?" + +"A hundred times." + +"Of course!" and she spoke in a tone of contempt so strong that it +must have been affected. "What have you not read! And what have you +copied. No wonder that these English have been what they have been for +centuries, while their heroes have been the Galahads, and their Homer +the Mort d'Arthur." + +"Enjoy your Utopia!" said he bitterly. "Do you fancy they acted up to +their ideals? They dreamed of the Quest of the Sangreal: but which of +them ever went upon it?" + +"And does it count for nothing that they felt it the finest thing in +the world to have gone on it, had it been possible? Be sure if their +ideal was so self-sacrificing, so lofty, their practice was ruled by +something higher than the almighty dollar." + +"And so are some other men's, Marie," answered he reproachfully. + +"Yes, forsooth;--when the almighty dollar is there already, and a man +has ten times as much to spend every day as he can possibly invest in +French cookery, and wines, and fine clothes, then he begins to lay out +his surplus nobly on self-education, and the patronage of art, and the +theatre--for merely aesthetic purposes, of course; and when the lust +of the flesh has been satisfied, thinks himself an archangel, because +he goes on to satisfy the lust of the eye and the pride of life. +Christ was of old the model, and Sir Galahad was the hero. Now the one +is exchanged for Goethe, and the other for Wilhelm Meister." + +"Cruel! You know that my Goethe fever is long past. How would you have +known of its existence if I had not confessed it to you as a sin of +old years? Have I not said to you, again and again, show me the thing +which you would have me do for your sake, and see if I will not do +it!" + +"For my sake? A noble reason! Show yourself the thing which you will +do for its own sake; because it ought to be done. Show it yourself, I +say; I cannot show you. If your own eyes cannot see the Sangreal, and +the angels who are bearing it before you, it is because they are dull +and gross; and am I Milton's archangel, to purge them with euphrasy +and rue? If you have a noble heart, you will find for yourself the +noblest Quest. If not, who can prove to you that it is noble?" And +tapping impatiently with her foot, she went on to herself-- + + "'A gentle sound, an awful light! + Three angels bear the holy Grail; + With folded feet, in stoles of white, + On sleeping wings they sail. + + Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! + The spirit beats her mortal bars, + As down dark tides, the glory slides, + And star-like mingles with the stars.' + +"Why, there was not a knight of the round table, was there, who did +not give up all to go upon that Quest, though only one was found +worthy to fulfil it? But now-a-days, the knights sit drinking hock +and champagne, or drive sulky-wagons, and never fancy that there is a +Quest at all." + +"Why talk in these parables?" + +"So the Jews asked of their prophets. They are no parables to my +ghost-husband, Sir Galahad. Now go, if you please; I must be busy, and +write letters." + +He rose with a look, half of disappointment, half amused, and yet his +face bore a firmness which seemed to say, "You will be mine yet." As +he rose, he cast his eye upon the writing-table, and upon a letter +which lay there: and as he did so, his cheek grew pale, and his brows +knitted. + +The letter was addressed to "Thomas Thurnall, Esq., Aberalva." + +"Is this, then, your Sir Galahad?" asked he, after a pause, during +which he had choked down his rising jealousy, while she looked first +at herself in the glass, and then at him, and then at herself again, +with a determined and triumphant air. + +"And what if it be?" + +"So he, then, has achieved the Quest of the Sangreal?" + +Stangrave spoke bitterly, and with an emphasis upon the "he;" and-- + +"What if he have? Do you know him?" answered she, while her face +lighted up with eager interest, which she did not care to conceal, +perhaps chose, in her woman's love of tormenting, to parade. + +"I knew a man of that name once," he replied, in a carefully careless +tone, which did not deceive her; "an adventurer--a doctor, if I +recollect--who had been in Texas and Mexico, and I know not where +besides. Agreeable enough he was; but as for your Quest of the +Sangreal, whatever it may be, he seemed to have as little notion of +anything beyond his own interest as any Greek I ever met." + +"Unjust! Your words only show how little you can see! That man, of all +men I ever met, saw the Quest at once, and followed it, at the risk of +his own life, as far at least as he was concerned with it:--ay, even +when he pretended to see nothing. Oh, there is more generosity in that +man's affected selfishness, than in all the noisy good-nature which I +have met with in the world. Thurnall! oh, you know his nobleness as +little as he knows it himself." + +"Then he, I am to suppose, is your phantom-husband, for as long, at +least, as your present dream lasts?" asked he, with white, compressed +lips. + +"He might have been, I believe," she answered carelessly, "if he had +even taken the trouble to ask me." + +"Marie, this is too much! Do you not know to whom you speak? To one +who deserves, if not common courtesy, at least common mercy." + +"Because he adores me, and so forth? So has many a man done; or told +me that he has done so. Do you know that I might be a viscountess +to-morrow, so Sabina informs me, if I but chose?" + +"A viscountess? Pray accept your effete English aristocrat, and, as +far as I am concerned, accept my best wishes for your happiness." + +"My effete English aristocrat, did I show him that pedigree of mine +which I have ere now threatened to show you, would perhaps be less +horrified at it than you are." + +"Marie, I cannot bear this! Tell me only what you mean. What care I +for pedigree? I want you--worship you--and that is enough, Marie!" + +"You admire me because I am beautiful. What thanks do I owe you for +finding out so patent a fact? What do you do more to me than I do to +myself?" and she glanced back once more at the mirror. + +"Marie, you know that your words are false; I do more--" + +"You admire me," interrupted she, "because I am clever. What thanks +to you for that, again? What do you do more to me than you do to +yourself?" + +"And this, after all--" + +"After what? After you found me, or rather I found you--you, +the critic, the arbiter of the greenroom, the highly-organised +do-nothings--teaching others how to do nothing most gracefully; the +would-be Goethe who must, for the sake of his own self-development, +try experiments on every weak woman whom he met. And I, the new +phenomenon, whom you must appreciate to show your own taste, patronise +to show your own liberality, develop to show your own insight into +character. You found yourself mistaken! You had attempted to play +with the tigress--and behold she was talons; to angle for the silly +fish--and behold the fish was the better angler, and caught you." + +"Marie, have mercy! Is your heart iron?" + +"No; but fire, as my name shows:" and she stood looking down on him +with a glare of dreadful beauty. + +"Fire, indeed!" + +"Yes, fire, that I may scorch you, kindle you, madden you, to do my +work, and wear the heart of fire which I wear day and night!" + +Stangrave looked at her startled. Was she mad? Her face did not +say so; her brow was white, her features calm, her eye fierce and +contemptuous, but clear, steady, full of meaning. + +"So you know Mr. Thurnall?" said she, after a while. + +"Yes; why do you ask?" + +"Because he is the only friend I have on earth." + +"The only friend, Marie?" + +"The only one," answered she calmly, "who, seeing the right, has gone +and done it forthwith. When did you see him last?" + +"I have not been acquainted with Mr. Thurnall for some years," said +Stangrave, haughtily. + +"In plain words, you have quarrelled with him?" + +Stangrave bit his lip. + +"He and I had a difference. He insulted my nation, and we parted." + +She laughed a long, loud, bitter laugh, which rang through Stangrave's +ears. + +"Insulted your nation? And on what grounds, pray?" + +"About that accursed slavery question!" + +La Cordifiamma looked at him with firm-closed lips a while. + +"So then! I was not aware of this! Even so long ago you saw the +Sangreal, and did not know it when you saw it. No wonder that since +then you have been staring at it for months, in your very hands, +played with it, admired it, made verses about it, to show off your own +taste: and yet were blind to it the whole time! Farewell, then!" + +"Marie, what do you mean?" and Stangrave caught both her hands. + +"Hush, if you please. I know you are eloquent enough, when you choose, +though you have been somewhat dumb and monosyllabic to-night in the +presence of the actress whom you undertook to educate. But I know that +you can be eloquent, so spare me any brilliant appeals, which can only +go to prove that already settled fact. Between you and me lie two +great gulfs. The one I have told you of; and from it I shrink. The +other I have not told you of; from it you would shrink." + +"The first is your Quest of the Sangreal." + +She smiled assent, bitterly enough. + +"And the second?" + +She did not answer. She was looking at herself in the mirror; and +Stangrave, in spite of his almost doting affection, flushed with +anger, almost contempt, at her vanity. + +And yet, was it vanity which was expressed in that face? No; but +dread, horror, almost disgust, as she gazed with side-long, startled +eyes, struggling, and yet struggling in vain, to turn her face from +some horrible sight, as if her own image had been the Gorgon's head. + +"What is it? Marie, speak!" + +But she answered nothing. For that last question she had no heart to +answer; no heart to tell him that in her veins were some drops, at +least, of the blood of slaves. Instinctively she had looked round at +the mirror--for might he not, if he had eyes, discover that secret for +himself? Were there not in her features traces of that taint? And as +she looked,--was it the mere play of her excited fancy,--or did her +eyelid slope more and more, her nostril shorten and curl, her lips +enlarge, her mouth itself protrude? + +It was more than the play of fancy; for Stangrave saw it as well as +she. Her actress's imagination, fixed on the African type with an +intensity proportioned to her dread of seeing it in herself, had +moulded her features, for the moment, into the very shape which it +dreaded. And Stangrave saw it, and shuddered as he saw. + +Another half minute, and that face also had melted out of the mirror, +at least for Marie's eyes; and in its place an ancient negress, +white-haired, withered as the wrinkled ape, but with eyes closed--in +death. Marie knew that face well; a face which haunted many a dream +of hers; once seen, but never forgotten since; for to that old dame's +coffin had her mother, the gay quadroon woman, flaunting in finery +which was the price of shame, led Marie when she was but a three +years' child; and Marie had seen her bend over the corpse, and call it +her dear old granny, and weep bitter tears. + +Suddenly she shook off the spell, and looked round and down, +terrified, self-conscious. Her eye caught Stangrave's; she saw, or +thought she saw, by the expression of his face, that he knew all, and +burst away with a shriek. + +He sprang up and caught her in his arms. "Marie! Beloved Marie!" She +looked up at him struggling; the dark expression had vanished, and +Stangrave's love-blinded eyes could see nothing in that face but the +refined and yet rich beauty of the Italian. + +"Marie, this is mere madness; you excite yourself till you know not +what you say, or what you are--" + +"I know what I am," murmured she: but he hurried on unheeding. + +"You love me, you know you love me; and you madden yourself by +refusing to confess it!" He felt her heart throb as he spoke, and knew +that he spoke truth. "What gulfs are these you dream of? No; I will +not ask. There is no gulf between me and one whom I adore, who has +thrown a spell over me which I cannot resist, which I glory in not +resisting; for you have been my guide, my morning star, which has +awakened me to new life. If I have a noble purpose upon earth, if I +have roused myself from that conceited dream of self-culture which now +looks to me so cold, and barren, and tawdry, into the hope of becoming +useful, beneficent--to whom do I owe it but to you, Marie? No; there +is no gulf, Marie! You are my wife, and you alone!" And he held her +so firmly, and gazed down upon her with such strong manhood, that her +woman's heart quailed; and he might, perhaps, have conquered then and +there, had not Sabina, summoned by her shriek, entered hastily. + +"Good heavens! what is the matter?" + +"Wait but one minute, Mrs. Mellot," said he; "the next, I shall +introduce you to my bride." + +"Never! never! never!" cried she, and breaking from him, flew into +Sabina's arms. "Leave me, leave me to bear my curse alone!" + +And she broke out into such wild weeping, and refused so wildly to +hear another word from Stangrave, that he went away in despair, the +prize snatched from his grasp in the very moment of seeming victory. + +He went in search of Claude, who had agreed to meet him at the +Exhibition in Trafalgar Square. Thither Stangrave rolled away in his +cab, his heart full of many thoughts. Marie's words about him, though +harsh and exaggerated, were on the whole true. She had fascinated him +utterly. To marry her was now the one object of his life: she had +awakened in him, as he had confessed, noble desires to be useful: but +the discovery that he was to be useful to the negro, that abolition +was the Sangreal in the quest of which he was to go forth, was as +disagreeable a discovery as he could well have made. + +From public life in any shape, with all its vulgar noise, its petty +chicanery, its pandering to the mob whom he despised, he had always +shrunk, as so many Americans of his stamp have done. He had no wish to +struggle, unrewarded and disappointed, in the ranks of the minority; +while to gain place and power on the side of the majority was to lend +himself to that fatal policy which, ever since the Missouri Compromise +of 1820, has been gradually making the northern states more and more +the tools of the southern ones. He had no wish to be threatened in +Congress with having his Northerner's "ears nailed to the counter, +like his own base coin," or to be informed that he, with the +17,000,000 of the north, were the "White Slaves" of a southern +aristocracy of 350,000 slaveholders. He had enough comprehension +of, enough admiration for the noble principles of the American +Constitution to see that the democratic mobs of Irish and Germans, +who were stupidly playing into the hands of the Southerners, were not +exactly carrying them out; but he had no mind to face either Irish or +Southerners. The former were too vulgar for his delicacy; the latter +too aristocratic for his pride. Sprung, as he held (and rightly), from +as fine old English blood as any Virginian (though it did happen to be +Puritan, and not Cavalier), he had no lust to come into contact with +men who considered him much further below them in rank than an English +footman is below an English nobleman; who, indeed, would some of them +look down on the English nobleman himself as a mushroom of yesterday. +So he compounded with his conscience by ignoring the whole matter, and +by looking on the state of public affairs on his side of the Atlantic +with a cynicism which very soon (as is usual with rich men) passed +into Epicureanism. Poetry and music, pictures and statues, amusement +and travel, became his idols, and cultivation his substitute for the +plain duty of patriotism, and wandering luxuriously over the world, he +learnt to sentimentalise over cathedrals and monasteries, pictures and +statues, saints and kaisers, with a lazy regret that such "forms of +beauty and nobleness" were no longer possible in a world of scrip and +railroads: but without any notion that it was his duty to reproduce in +his own life, or that of his country, as much as he could of the said +beauty and nobleness. And now he was sorely tried. It was interesting +enough to "develop" the peculiar turn of Marie's genius, by writing +for her plays about liberty, just as he would have written plays +about jealousy, or anything else for representing which she had +"capabilities." But to be called on to act in that Slavery question, +the one in which he knew (as all sensible Americans do) that the life +and death of his country depended, and which for that very reason he +had carefully ignored till a more convenient season, finding in +its very difficulty and danger an excuse for leaving it to solve +itself:--to have this thrust on him, and by her, as the price of the +thing which he must have, or die! If she had asked for his right hand, +he would have given it sooner; and he entered the Royal Academy that +day in much the same humour as that of a fine lady who should find +herself suddenly dragged from the ball-room into the dust-hole, in her +tenderest array of gauze and jewels, and there peremptorily compelled +to sift the cinders, under the superintendence of the sweep and the +pot-boy. + +Glad to escape from questions which he had rather not answer too +soon, he went in search of Claude, and found him before one of those +pre-Raphaelite pictures, which Claude does not appreciate as he ought. + +"Desinit in Culicem mulier formosa supernè," said Stangrave, as he +looked over Claude's shoulder; "but I suppose he followed nature, and +copied his model." + +"That he didn't," said Claude, "for I know who his model was: but if +he did he had no business to do so. I object on principle to these +men's notion of what copying nature means. I don't deny him talent. +I am ready to confess that there is more imagination and more honest +work in that picture than in any one in the room. The hysterical, all +but grinning joy upon the mother's face is a miracle of truth; I have +seen the expression more than once; doctors see it often, in the +sudden revulsion from terror and agony to certainty and peace; I only +marvel where he ever met it: but the general effect is unpleasing, +marred by patches of sheer ugliness, like that child's foot. There is +the same mistake in all his pictures. Whatever they are, they are not +beautiful; and no magnificence of surface-colouring will make up, in +my eyes, for wilful ugliness of form. I say that nature is beautiful; +and therefore nature cannot have been truly copied, or the general +effect would have been beautiful also. I never found out the fallacy +till the other day, when looking at a portrait by one of them. The +woman for whom it was meant was standing by my side, young and lovely; +the portrait hung there neither young nor lovely, but a wrinkled +caricature twenty years older than the model." + +"I surely know the portrait you mean; Lady D----'s." + +"Yes. He had simply, under pretence of following nature, caricatured +her into a woman twenty years older than she is." + +"But did you ever see a modern portrait which more perfectly expressed +character; which more completely fulfilled the requirements which you +laid down a few evenings since?" + +"Never; and that makes me all the more cross with the wilful mistake +of it. He had painted every wrinkle." + +"Why not, if they were there?" + +"Because he had painted a face not one-twentieth of the size of life. +What right had he to cram into that small space all the marks which +nature had spread over a far larger one?" + +"Why not, again, if he diminished the marks in proportion?" + +"Just what neither he nor any man could do, without making them so +small as to be invisible, save under a microscope: and the result was, +that he had caricatured every wrinkle, as his friend has in those +horrible knuckles of Shem's wife. Besides, I deny utterly your +assertion that one is bound to paint what is there. On that very +fallacy are they all making shipwreck." + +"Not paint what is there? And you are the man who talks of art being +highest when it copies nature." + +"Exactly. And therefore you must paint, not what is there, but what +you see there. They forget that human beings are men with two eyes, +and not daguerreotype lenses with one eye, and so are contriving and +striving to introduce into their pictures the very defect of the +daguerreotype which the stereoscope is required to correct." + +"I comprehend. They forget that the double vision of our two eyes +gives a softness, and indistinctness, and roundness, to every +outline." + +"Exactly so; and therefore, while for distant landscapes, motionless, +and already softened by atmosphere, the daguerreotype is invaluable +(I shall do nothing else this summer but work at it), yet for taking +portraits, in any true sense, it will be always useless, not only for +the reason I just gave, but for another one which the pre-Raphaelites +have forgotten." + +"Because all the features cannot be in focus at once?" + +"Oh no, I am not speaking of that. Art, for aught I know, may overcome +that; for it is a mere defect in the instrument. What I mean is this: +it tries to represent as still what never yet was still for the +thousandth part of a second: that is, the human face; and as seen by a +spectator who is perfectly still, which no man ever yet was. My dear +fellow, don't you see that what some painters call idealising a +portrait is, if it be wisely done, really painting for you the face +which you see, and know, and love; her ever-shifting features, with +expression varying more rapidly than the gleam of the diamond on +her finger; features which you, in your turn, are looking at with +ever-shifting eyes; while, perhaps, if it is a face which you love and +have lingered over, a dozen other expressions equally belonging to it +are hanging in your memory, and blending themselves with the actual +picture on your retina:--till every little angle is somewhat rounded, +every little wrinkle somewhat softened, every little shade somewhat +blended with the surrounding light, so that the sum total of what +you see, and are intended by Heaven to see, is something far softer, +lovelier--younger, perhaps, thank Heaven--than it would look if your +head was screwed down in a vice, to look with one eye at her head +screwed down in a vice also:--though even that, thanks to the muscles +of the eye, would not produce the required ugliness; and the only +possible method of fulfilling the pre-Raphaelite ideal would be, to +set a petrified Cyclops to paint his petrified brother." + +"You are spiteful." + +"Not at all. I am standing up for art, and for nature too. For +instance: Sabina has wrinkles. She says, too, that she has grey hairs +coming. The former I won't see, and therefore don't. The latter I +can't see, because I am not looking for them." + +"Nor I either," said Stangrave smiling. "I assure you the announcement +is new to me." + +"Of course. Who can see wrinkles in the light of those eyes, that +smile, that complexion?" + +"Certainly," said Stangrave, "if I asked for her portrait, as I shall +do some day, and the artist sat down and painted the said 'wastes +of time,' on pretence of their being there, I should consider it an +impertinence on his part. What business has he to spy out what nature +has taken such charming trouble to conceal?" + +"Again," said Claude, "such a face as Cordifiamma's. When it is at +rest, in deep thought, there are lines in it which utterly puzzle +one--touches which are Eastern, Kabyle, almost Quadroon." + +Stangrave started. Claude went on unconscious:-- + +"But who sees them in the light of that beauty? They are defects, no +doubt, but defects which no one would observe without deep study of +the face. They express her character no more than a scar would; and +therefore when I paint her, as I must and will, I shall utterly ignore +them. If, on the other hand, I met the same lines in a face which I +knew to have Quadroon blood in it, I should religiously copy them; +because then they would be integral elements of the face. You +understand?" + +"Understand?--yes," answered Stangrave, in a tone which made Claude +look up. + +That strange scene of half an hour before flashed across him. What if +it were no fancy? What if Marie had African blood in her veins? And +Stangrave shuddered, and felt for the moment that thousands of pounds +would be a cheap price to pay for the discovery that his fancy was a +false one. + +"Yes--oh--I beg your pardon," said he, recovering himself. "I was +thinking of something else. But, as you say, what if she had Quadroon +blood?" + +"I? I never said so, or dreamt of it." + +"Oh! I mistook. Do you know, though, where she came from?" + +"I? You forget, my dear fellow, that you yourself introduced her to +us." + +"Of course; but I thought Mrs. Mellot might--women always makes +confidences." + +"All we know is, what I suppose you knew long ago, that her most +intimate friend, next to you, seems to be an old friend of ours, named +Thurnall." + +"An old friend of yours?" + +"Oh yes; we have known him these fifteen years. Met him first at +Paris; and after that went round the world with him, and saw infinite +adventures. Sabina and I spent three months with him once, among the +savages in a South-sea Island, and a very pretty romance our stay and +our escape would make. We were all three, I believe, to have been +cooked and eaten, if Tom had not got us off by that wonderful address +which, if you know him, you must know well enough." + +"Yes," answered Stangrave, coldly, as in a dream; "I have known +Mr. Thurnall in past years; but not in connection with La Signora +Cordifiamma. I was not aware till this moment--this morning, I +mean--that they knew each other." + +"You astound me; why, she talks of him to us all day long, as of one +to whom she has the deepest obligations; she was ready to rush into +our arms when she first found that we knew him. He is a greater hero +in her eyes, I sometimes fancy, than even you are. She does nothing +(or fancies that she does nothing, for you know her pretty wilfulness) +without writing for his advice." + +"I a hero in her eyes? I was really not aware of that fact," said +Stangrave, more coldly than ever; for bitter jealousy had taken +possession of his heart. "Do you know, then, what this same obligation +may be?" + +"I never asked. I hate gossiping, and I make a rule to inquire into no +secrets but such as are voluntarily confided to me; and I know that +she has never told Sabina." + +"I suppose she is married to him. That is the simplest explanation of +the mystery." + +"Impossible! What can you mean? If she ever marries living man, she +will marry you." + +"Then she will never marry living man," said Stangrave to himself. +"Good-bye, my dear fellow; I have an engagement at the Traveller's." +And away went Stangrave, leaving Claude sorely puzzled, but little +dreaming of the powder-magazine into which he had put a match. + +But he was puzzled still more that night, when by the latest post a +note came-- + +"From Stangrave!" said Claude. "Why, in the name of all wonders!"--and +he read:-- + +"Good-bye. I am just starting for the Continent, on sudden and urgent +business. What my destination is I hardly can tell you yet. You will +hear from me in the course of the summer." + +Claude's countenance fell, and the note fell likewise. Sabina snatched +it up, read it, and gave La Cordifiamma a look which made her spring +from the sofa, and snatch it in turn. + +She read it through, with trembling hands, and blanching cheeks, and +then dropped fainting upon the floor. + +They laid her on the sofa, and while they were recovering her, Claude +told Sabina the only clue which he had to the American's conduct, +namely, that afternoon's conversation. + +Sabina shook her head over it; for to her, also, the American's +explanation had suggested itself. Was Marie Thurnall's wife? Or did +she--it was possible, however painful--stand to him in some less +honourable relation, which she would fain forget now, in a new passion +for Stangrave? For that Marie loved Stangrave, Sabina knew well +enough. + +The doubt was so ugly that it must be solved; and when she had got the +poor thing safe into her bedroom she alluded to it as gently as she +could. + +Marie sprang up in indignant innocence. + +"He! Whatever he may be to others, I know not: but to me he has been +purity and nobleness itself--a brother, a father! Yes; if I had no +other reason for trusting him, I should love him for that alone; that +however tempted he may have been, and Heaven knows he was tempted, +he could respect the honour of his friend, though that friend lay +sleeping in a soldier's grave ten thousand miles away." + +And Marie threw herself upon Sabina's neck, and under the pressure of +her misery sobbed out to her the story of her life. What it was need +not be told. A little common sense, and a little knowledge of human +nature, will enable the reader to fill up for himself the story of a +beautiful slave. + +Sabina soothed her, and cheered her; and soothed and cheered her most +of all by telling her in return the story of her own life; not so dark +a one, but almost as sad and strange. And poor Marie took heart, when +she found in her great need a sister in the communion of sorrows. + +"And you have been through all this, so beautiful and bright as you +are! You whom I should have fancied always living the life of the +humming-bird: and yet not a scar or a wrinkle has it left behind!" + +"They were there once, Marie! but God and Claude smoothed them away." + +"I have no Claude,--and no God, I think, at times." + +"No God, Marie! Then how did you come hither?" + +Marie was silent, reproved; and then passionately-- + +"Why does He not right my people?" + +That question was one to which Sabina's little scheme of the universe +had no answer; why should it, while many a scheme which pretends to be +far vaster and more infallible has none as yet? + +So she was silent, and sat with Marie's head upon her bosom, caressing +the black curls, till she had soothed her into sobbing exhaustion. + +"There; lie there and rest: you shall be my child, my poor Marie. I +have a fresh child every week; but I shall find plenty of room in my +heart for you, my poor hunted deer." + +"You will keep my secret?" + +"Why keep it? No one need be ashamed of it here in free England." + +"But he--he--you do not know, Sabina! Those Northerners, with all +their boasts of freedom, shrink from us just as much as our own +masters." + +"Oh, Marie, do not be so unjust to him! He is too noble, and you must +know it yourself." + +"Ay, if he stood alone; if he were even going to live in England; if +he would let himself be himself; but public opinion," sobbed the poor +self-tormentor--"It has been his God, Sabina, to be a leader of +taste and fashion--admired and complete--the Crichton of Newport and +Brooklyn. And he could not bear scorn, the loss of society. Why should +he bear it for me? If he had been one of the abolitionist party, it +would have been different: but he has no sympathy with them, good, +narrow, pious people, or they with him: he could not be satisfied +in their society--or I either, for I crave after it all as much +as he--wealth, luxury, art, brilliant company, admiration,--oh, +inconsistent wretch, that I am! And that makes me love him all the +more, and yet makes me so harsh to him, wickedly cruel, as I was +to-day; because when I am reproving his weakness, I am reproving +my own, and because I am angry with myself, I grow angry with him +too--envious of him, I do believe at moments, and all his success and +luxury!" + +And so poor Marie sobbed out her confused confession of that strange +double nature which so many Quadroons seem to owe to their mixed +blood; a strong side of deep feeling, ambition, energy, an intellect +rather Greek in its rapidity than English in sturdiness; and withal +a weak side, of instability, inconsistency, hasty passion, love of +present enjoyment, sometimes, too, a tendency to untruth, which is +the mark, not perhaps of the African specially, but of every enslaved +race. + +Consolation was all that Sabina could give. It was too late to act. +Stangrave was gone, and week after week rolled by without a line from +the wanderer. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE RECOGNITION. + + +Elsley Vavasour is sitting one morning in his study, every comfort +of which is of Lucia's arrangement and invention, beating the +home-preserve of his brains for pretty thoughts. On he struggles +through that wild, and too luxuriant cover; now brought up by a +"lawyer," now stumbling over a root, now bogged in a green spring, now +flushing a stray covey of birds of Paradise, now a sphinx, chimaera, +strix, lamia, fire-drake, flying-donkey, two-headed eagle (Austrian, +as will appear shortly), or other portent only to be seen now-a-days +in the recesses of that enchanted forest, the convolutions of a poet's +brain. Up they whir and rattle, making, like most game, more noise +than they are worth. Some get back, some dodge among the trees; the +fair shots are few and far between: but Elsley blazes away right and +left with trusty quill; and, to do him justice, seldom misses his aim, +for practice has made him a sure and quick marksman in his own line. +Moreover, all is game which gets up to-day; for he is shooting for the +kitchen, or rather for the London market, as many a noble sportsman +does now-a-days, and thinks no shame. His new volume of poems ("The +Wreck" included) is in the press: but behold, it is not as long as the +publisher thinks fit, and Messrs. Brown and Younger have written down +to entreat in haste for some four hundred lines more, on any subject +which Mr. Vavasour may choose. And therefore is Elsley beating his +home covers, heavily shot over though they have been already this +season, in hopes that a few head of his own game may still be left: or +in default (for human nature is the same, in poets and in sportsmen), +that a few head may have strayed in out of his neighbours' manors. + +At last the sport slackens; for the sportsman is getting tired, and +hungry also, to carry on the metaphor; for he has seen the postman +come up the front walk a quarter of an hour since, and the letters +have not been brought in yet. + +At last there is a knock at the door, which he answers by a somewhat +testy "come in." But he checks the coming grumble, when not the maid, +but Lucia enters. + +Why not grumble at Lucia? He has done so many a time. + +Because she looks this morning so charming; really quite pretty again, +so radiant is her face with smiles. And because, also, she holds +triumphant above her head a newspaper. + +She dances up to him-- + +"I have something for you." + +"For me? Why, the post has been in this half-hour." + +"Yes, for you, and that's just the reason why I kept it myself. D'ye +understand my Irish reasoning?" + +"No, you pretty creature," said Elsley, who saw that whatever the news +was, it was good news. + +"Pretty creature, am I? I was once, I know; but I thought you had +forgotten all about that. But I was not going to let you have the +paper till I had devoured every word of it myself first." + +"Every word of what?" + +"Of what you shan't have unless you promise to be good for a week. +Such a Review; and from America! What a dear man he must be who wrote +it! I really think I should kiss him if I met him." + +"And I really think he would not say no. But as he's not here, I shall +act as his proxy." + +"Be quiet, and read that, if you can, for blushes;" and she spread out +the paper before him, and then covered his eyes with her hands. "No, +you shan't see it; it will make you vain." + +Elsley had looked eagerly at the honeyed columns; (as who would not +have done?) but the last word smote him. What was he thinking of? his +own praise, or his wife's love? + +"Too true," he cried, looking up at her. "You dear creature! Vain I +am, God forgive me: but before I look at a word of this I must have a +talk with you." + +"I can't stop; I must run back to the children. No; now don't look +cross;" as his brow clouded, "I only said that to tease you. I'll +stop with you ten whole minutes, if you won't look so very solemn and +important. I hate tragedy faces. Now what is it?" + +As all this was spoken while both her hands were clasped round +Elsley's neck, and with looks and tones of the very sweetest as well +as the very sauciest, no offence was given, and none taken: but +Elsley's voice was sad as he asked,-- + +"So you really do care for my poems?" + +"You great silly creature? Why else did I marry you at all? As if I +cared for anything in the world but your poems; as if I did not love +everybody who praises them; and if any stupid reviewer dares to say a +word against them I could kill him on the spot. I care for nothing in +the world but what people say of you.--And yet I don't care one pin; I +know what your poems are, if nobody else does; and they belong to me, +because you belong to me, and I must be the best judge, and care for +nobody, no not I!"--And she began singing, and then hung over him, +tormenting him lovingly while he read. + +It was a true American review, utterly extravagant in its laudations, +whether from over-kindness, or from a certain love of exaggeration and +magniloquence, which makes one suspect that a large proportion of the +Transatlantic gentlemen of the press must be natives of the sister +isle: but it was all the more pleasant to the soul of Elsley. + +"There," said Lucia, as she clung croodling to him; "there is a pretty +character of you, sir! Make the most of it, for it is all those +Yankees will ever send you." + +"Yes," said Elsley, "if they would send one a little money, instead of +making endless dollars by printing one's books, and then a few more by +praising one at a penny a line." + +"That's talking like a man of business: if instead of the review, now, +a cheque for fifty pounds had come, how I would have rushed out and +paid the bills!" + +"And liked it a great deal better than the review?" + +"You jealous creature! No. If I could always have you praised, I'd +live in a cabin, and go about the world barefoot, like a wild Irish +girl." + +"You would make a very charming one." + +"I used to, once, I can tell you, Valencia and I used to run about +without shoes and stockings at Kilanbaggan, and you can't think how +pretty and white this little foot used to look on a nice soft carpet +of green moss." + +"I shall write a sonnet to it." + +"You may if you choose, provided you don't publish it." + +"You may trust me for that. I am not one of those who anatomise their +own married happiness for the edification of the whole public, and +make fame, if not money, out of their own wives' hearts." + +"How I should hate you, if you did! Not that I believe their fine +stories about themselves. At least, I am certain it's only half the +story. They have their quarrels, my dear, just as you and I have but +they take care not to put them into poetry." + +"Well, but who could? Whether they have a right or not to publish the +poetical side of their married life, it is too much to ask them to +give you the unpoetical also." + +"Then they are all humbugs, and I believe, if they really love their +wives so very much, they would not be at all that pains to persuade +the world of it." + +"You are very satirical and spiteful, ma'am." + +"I always am when I am pleased. If I am particularly happy, I always +long to pinch somebody. I suppose it's Irish-- + + "'Comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down.'" + +"But you know, you rogue, that you care to read no poetry but love +poetry." + +"Of course not every woman does, but let me find you publishing any +such about me, and see what I will do to you! There, now I must go +to my work, and you go and write something extra superfinely grand, +because I have been so good to you. No. Let me go; what a bother you +are. Good-bye." + +And away she tripped, and he returned to his work, happier than he had +been for a week past. + +His happiness, truly, was only on the surface. The old wound had been +salved--as what wound cannot be?--by woman's love and woman's wit +but it was not healed. The cause of his wrong doing, the vain, +self-indulgent spirit, was there still unchastened, and he was +destined, that very day, to find that he had still to bear the +punishment of it. + +Now the reader must understand, that though one may laugh at Elsley +Vavasour, because it is more pleasant than scolding at him, yet have +Philistia and Fogeydom neither right nor reason to consider him a +despicable or merely ludicrous person, or to cry, "Ah, if he had been +as we are!" + +Had he been merely ludicrous, Lucia would never have married him; and +he could only have been spoken of with indignation, or left utterly +out of the story, as a simply unpleasant figure, beyond the purposes +of a novel, though admissible now and then into tragedy. One cannot +heartily laugh at a man if one has not a lurking love for him, as one +really ought to have for Elsley. How much value is to be attached to +his mere power of imagination and fancy, and so forth, is a question; +but there was in him more than mere talent: there was, in thought at +least, virtue and magnanimity. + +True, the best part of him, perhaps almost all the good part of him, +spent itself in words, and must be looked for, not in his life, but in +his books. But in those books it can be found; and if you look through +them, you will see that he has not touched upon a subject without +taking, on the whole, the right, and pure, and lofty view of it. +Howsoever extravagant he may be in his notions of poetic licence, that +licence is never with him a synonym for licentiousness. Whatever is +tender and true, whatever is chivalrous and high-minded, he loves at +first sight, and reproduces it lovingly. And it may be possible that +his own estimate of his poems was not altogether wrong; that his words +may have awakened here and there in others a love for that which is +morally as well as physically beautiful, and may have kept alive in +their hearts the recollection that, both for the bodies and the souls +of men forms of life far nobler and fairer than those which we see now +are possible; that they have appeared, in fragments at least, already +on the earth; that they are destined, perhaps, to reappear and combine +themselves in some ideal state, and in + + "One far-off divine event, + Toward which the whole creation moves." + +This is the special and proper function of the poet; that he may do +this, does God touch his lips with that which, however it may be +misused, is still fire from off the altar beneath which the spirits +of his saints cry,--"Lord, how long?" If he "reproduce the beautiful" +with this intent, however so little, then is he of the sacred guild. +And because Vavasour had this gift, therefore he was a poet. + +But in this he was weak: that he did not feel, or at least was +forgetting fast, that this gift had been bestowed on him for any +practical purpose. No one would demand that he should have gone forth +with some grand social scheme, to reform a world which looked to him +so mean and evil. He was not a man of business, and was not meant +to be one. But it was ill for him that in his fastidiousness and +touchiness he had shut himself out from that world, till he had quite +forgotten how much good there was in it as well as evil; how many +people--commonplace and unpoetical it may be--but still heroical in +God's sight, were working harder than he ever worked, at the divine +drudgery of doing good, and that in dens of darkness and sloughs of +filth, from which he would have turned with disgust; so that the +sympathy with the sinful and fallen which marks his earlier poems, and +which perhaps verges on sentimentalism, gradually gives place to a +Pharisaic and contemptuous tone; a tone more lofty and manful in +seeming, but far less divine in fact. Perhaps comparative success had +injured him. Whilst struggling himself against circumstances, poor, +untaught, unhappy, he had more fellow-feeling, with those whom +circumstance oppressed. At least, the pity which he could once bestow +upon the misery which he met in his daily walks, he now kept for the +more picturesque woes of Italy and Greece. + +In this, too, he was weak; that he had altogether forgotten that +the fire from off the altar could only be kept alight by continual +self-restraint and self-sacrifice, by continual gentleness and +humility, shown in the petty matters of everyday home-life; and that +he who cannot rule his own household can never rule the Church of God. +And so it befell, that amid the little cross-blasts of home squabbles +the sacred spark was fast going out. The poems written after he +settled at Penalva are marked by a less definite purpose, by a lower +tone of feeling: not, perhaps, by a lower moral tone; but simply by +less of any moral tone at all. They are more and more full of merely +sensuous beauty, mere word-painting, mere word-hunting. The desire of +finding something worth saying gives place more and more to that of +saying something in a new fashion. As the originality of thought +(which accompanies only vigorous moral purpose) decreases, the attempt +at originality of language increases. Manner, in short, has taken the +place of matter. The art, it may be, of his latest poems is greatest: +but it has been expended on the most unworthy themes. The later are +mannered caricatures of the earlier, without their soul; and the same +change seems to have passed over him which (with Mr. Ruskin's pardon) +transformed the Turner of 1820 into the Turner of 1850. + +Thus had Elsley transferred what sympathy he had left from +needle-women and ragged schools, dwellers in Jacob's Island and +sleepers in the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge, to sufferers of a more +poetic class. Whether his sympathies showed thereby that he had risen +or fallen, let my readers decide each for himself. It is a credit to +any man to feel for any human being; and Italy, as she is at this +moment, is certainly one of the most tragic spectacles which the world +has ever seen. Elsley need not be blamed for pitying her; only for +holding, with most of our poets, a vague notion that her woes were to +be cured by a hair of the dog who bit her; viz., by homoeopathic +doses of that same "art" which has been all along her morbid and +self-deceiving substitute for virtue and industry. So, as she had +sung herself down to the nether pit, Elsley would help to sing her up +again; and had already been throwing off, ever since 1848, a series +of sonnets which he entitled Eurydice, intimating, of course, that he +acted as the Orpheus. Whether he had hopes of drawing iron tears down +Pluto Radetzky's cheek, does not appear; but certainly the longer poem +which had sprung from his fancy, at the urgent call of Messrs. Brown +and Younger, would have been likely to draw nothing but iron balls +from Radetzky's cannon; or failing so vast an effect, an immediate +external application to the poet himself of that famous herb +Pantagruelion, cure for all public ills and private woes, which men +call hemp. Nevertheless, it was a noble subject; one which ought +surely to have been taken up by some of our poets, for if they do not +make a noble poem of it, it will be their own fault. I mean that +sad and fantastic tragedy of Fra Dolcino and Margaret, which Signor +Mariotti has lately given to the English public, in a book which, both +for its matter and its manner, should be better known than it is. +Elsley's soul had been filled (it would have been a dull one else) +with the conception of the handsome and gifted patriot-monk, his soul +delirious with, the dream of realising a perfect Church on earth; +battling with tongue and pen, and at last with sword, against the +villanies of pope and kaiser, and all the old devourers of the earth, +cheered only by the wild love of her who had given up wealth, fame, +friends, all which render life worth having, to die with him a death +too horrible for words. And he had conceived (and not altogether ill) +a vision, in which, wandering along some bright Italian bay, he met +Dolcino sitting, a spirit at rest but not yet glorified, waiting for +the revival of that dead land for which he had died; and Margaret +by him, dipping her scorched feet for ever in the cooling wave, and +looking up to the hero for whom she had given up all, with eyes of +everlasting love. There they were to prophesy to him such things as +seemed fit to him, of the future of Italy and of Europe, of the +doom of priests and tyrants, of the sorrows and rewards of genius +unappreciated and before its age; for Elsley's secret vanity could +see in himself a far greater likeness to Dolcino, than Dolcino--the +preacher, confessor, bender of all hearts, man of the world and man +of action, at last crafty and all but unconquerable guerilla +warrior--would ever have acknowledged in the self-indulgent dreamer. +However, it was a fair conception enough; though perhaps it never +would have entered Elsley's head, had Shelley never written the +opening canto of the Revolt of Islam. + +So Elsley, on a burning July forenoon, strolled up the lane and over +the down to King Arthur's Nose, that he might find materials for his +sea-shore scene. For he was not one of those men who live in such +quiet, everyday communication with nature, that they drink in her +various aspects as unconsciously as the air they breathe; and so can +reproduce them, out of an inexhaustible stock of details, simply and +accurately, and yet freshly too, tinged by the peculiar hue of the +mind in which they have been long sleeping. He walked the world, +either blind to the beauty round him, and trying to compose instead +some little scrap of beauty in his own self-imprisoned thoughts; or +else he was looking out consciously and spasmodically for views, +effects, emotions, images; something striking and uncommon which would +suggest a poetic figure, or help out a description, or in some way +re-furnish his mind with thought. From which method it befell, that +his lamp of truth was too often burnt out just when it was needed; and +that, like the foolish virgins, he had to go and buy oil when it +was too late; or failing that, to supply its place with some baser +artificial material. + +That day, however, he was fortunate enough; for wandering and +scrambling among the rocks, at a dead low spring tide, he came upon +a spot which would have made a poem of itself better than all Elsley +ever wrote, had he, forgetting all about Fra Dolcino, Italy, priests, +and tyrants, set down in black and white just what he saw; provided, +of course, that he had patience first to see the same. + +It was none other than that ghastly chasm across which Thurnall had +been so miraculously swept, on the night of his shipwreck. The same +ghastly chasm: but ghastly now no longer; and as Elsley looked down, +the beauty below invited him, and the coolness also; for the sun beat +on the flat rock above till it scorched the feet, and dazzled the eye, +and crisped up the blackening sea-weeds; while every sea-snail crept +to hide itself under the bladder-tangle, and nothing dared to peep or +stir save certain grains of gunpowder, which seemed to have gone mad, +so merrily did they hop about upon the surface of the fast evaporating +salt-pools. That wonder, indeed, Elsley stooped to examine, and drew +back his hands with an "ugh!" and a gesture of disgust, when he found +that they were "nasty little insects." For Elsley held fully the +poet's right to believe that all things are not very good; none, +indeed, save such as suited his eclectic and fastidious taste; and to +hold (on high aesthetic grounds, of course) toads and spiders in as +much abhorrence as does any boarding-school girl. However, finding +some rock ledges which formed a natural ladder, down he scrambled, +gingerly enough, for he was neither an active nor a courageous man. +But, once down, I will do him the justice to say, that for five whole +minutes he forgot all about Fra Dolcino, and, what was better, about +himself also. + +The chasm may have been fifteen feet deep, and above, about half that +breadth; but below, the waves had hollowed it into dark overhanging +caverns. Just in front of him a huge boulder spanned the crack; and +formed a natural doorway, through which he saw, like a picture set in +a frame, the far-off blue sea softening into the blue sky among brown +Eastern haze. Amid the haze a single ship hung motionless, like a +white cloud. Nearer, a black cormorant floated sleepily along, and +dived, and rose again. Nearer again, long lines of flat tide-rock, +glittering and quivering in the heat, sloped gradually under the +waves, till they ended in half-sunken beds of olive oar-weed, which +bent their tangled stems into a hundred graceful curves, and swayed to +and fro slowly and sleepily. The low swell slid whispering among their +floating palms, and slipped on toward the cavern's mouth, as if asking +wistfully (so Elsley fancied) when it would be time for it to return +to that cool shade, and hide from all the blinding blaze outside. But +when his eye was enough accustomed to the shade within, it withdrew +gladly from the glaring sea and glaring tide-rocks to the walls of the +chasm itself; to curved and polished sheets of stone, rich brown, with +snow-white veins, on which danced for ever a dappled network of pale +yellow light; to crusted beds of pink coralline; to caverns, in the +dark crannies of which hung branching sponges and tufts of purple +sea-moss; to strips of clear white sand, bestrewn with shells; to +pools, each a gay flower-garden of all hues, where branching sea-weeds +reflected blue light from every point, like a thousand damasked +sword-blades; while among them, dahlias and chrysanthemums, and many +another mimic of our earth-born flowers, spread blooms of crimson, and +purple, and lilac, and creamy grey, half-buried among feathered weeds +as brightly coloured as they; and strange and gaudy fishes shot across +from side to side, and chased each other in and out of hidden cells. + +Within and without all was at rest; the silence was broken only by the +timid whisper of the swell, and by the chime of dropping water within +some unseen cave: but what a different rest! Without, all lying +breathless, stupefied, sun-stricken, in blinding glare; within, all +coolness, and refreshing sleep. Without, all simple, broad, and vast; +within, all various, with infinite richness of form and colour.--An +Hairoun Alraschid's bower, looking out upon the-- + +Bother the fellow! Why will he go on analysing and figuring in this +way? Why not let the blessed place tell him what it means, instead of +telling it what he thinks? And--why, he is actually writing verses, +though not about Fra Dolcino! + + "How rests yon rock, whoso half-day's bath is done, + With broad bright sight, beneath the broad bright sun, + Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping. + Yet, nearer drawn, beneath her purple tresses, + From down-bent brows we find her slowly weeping, + So many a heart for cruel man's caresses + Must only pine and pine, and yet must bear + A gallant front beneath life's gaudy glare." + +Silly fellow! Do you think that Nature had time to think of such a +far-fetched conceit as that while it was making that rock and peopling +it with a million tiny living things, of which not one falleth to the +ground without your Father's knowledge, and each more beautiful than +any sea-nymph whom you ever fancied? For, after all, you cannot fancy +a whole sea nymph (perhaps in that case you could make one), but only +a very little scrap of her outside. Or if, as you boast, you are +inspired by the Creative Spirit, tell us what the Creative Spirit says +about that rock, and not such verse as that, the lesson of which you +don't yourself really feel. Pretty enough it is, perhaps: but in your +haste to say a pretty thing, just because it was pretty, you have not +cared to condemn yourself out of your own mouth. Why were you sulky, +sir, with Mrs. Vavasour this very morning, after all that passed, +because she would look over the washing-books, while you wanted her to +hear about Fra Dolcino? And why, though she was up to her knees among +your dirty shirts when you went out, did you not give her one parting +kiss, which would have transfigured her virtuous drudgery for her into +a sacred pleasure? One is heartily glad to see you disturbed, cross +though you may look at it, by that sturdy step and jolly whistle which +burst in on you from the other end of the chasm, as Tom Thurnall, with +an old smock frock over his coat and a large basket on his arm, comes +stumbling and hopping towards you, dropping every now and then on +hands and knees, and turning over on his back, to squeeze his head +into some muddy crack, and then withdraw it with the salt water +dripping down his nose. + +Elsley closed his eyes, and rested his head on his hand in a somewhat +studied "pose." But as he wished not to be interrupted, it may not +have been altogether unpardonable to pretend sleep. However, the +sleeping posture had exactly the opposite effect to that which he +designed. + +"Ah, Mr. Vavasour!" + +"Humph!" quoth he slowly, if not sulkily. + +"I admire your taste, sir; a charming summerhouse old Triton has +vacated for your use; but let me advise you not to go to sleep in it." + +"Why then, sir?" + +"Because--it's no business of mine, of course: but the tide has turned +already; and if a breeze springs up old Triton will be back again in a +hurry, and in a rage also; and--I may possibly lose a good patient." + +Elsley, who knew nothing about the tides, save that "the moon wooed +the ocean," or some such important fact, thanked him coolly enough, +and returned to a meditative attitude. Tom saw that he was in the +seventh heaven, and went on: but he had not gone three steps before he +pulled up short, slapping his hands together once, as a man does who +has found what he wants; and then plunged up to his knees in a rock +pool, and then began working very gently at something under water. + +Elsley watched him for full five minutes with so much curiosity, that, +despite of himself, he asked him what he was doing. + +Tom had his whole face under water, and did not hear, till Elsley had +repeated the question. + +"Only a rare zoophyte," said he at last, lifting his dripping visage, +and gasping for breath; and then he dived again. + +"Inexplicable pedantry of science!" thought Elsley to himself, while +Tom worked on steadfastly, and at last rose, and, taking out a phial +from his basket, was about to deposit in it something invisible. + +"Stay a moment; you really have roused my curiosity by your +earnestness. May I see what it is for which you have taken so much +trouble?" + +Tom held out on his finger a piece of slimy crust the size of a +halfpenny. Elsley could only shrug his shoulders. + +"Nothing to you, sir, I doubt not; but worth a guinea to me, even if +it be only to mount bits of it as microscopic objects." + +"So you mingle business with science?" said Elsley, rather in a +contemptuous tone. + +"Why not? I must live, and my father too; and it is as honest a way of +making money as any other: I poach in no man's manor for my game." + +"But what is your game! What possible attraction in that bit of dirt +can make men spend their money on it?" + +"You shall see," said Tom, dropping it into the phial of salt water, +and offering it to Elsley, with his pocket magnifier. + +"Judge for yourself." + +Elsley did so, and beheld a new wonder--a living plant of crystal, +studded with crystal bells, from each of which waved a crown of +delicate arms. It was the first time that Elsley had ever seen one +of those exquisite zoophytes which stud every rock and every tuft of +weed. + +"This is most beautiful," said he at length. + +"Humph! why should not Mr. Vavasour write a poem about it?" + +"Why not indeed?" thought Elsley. + +"It's no business of mine, no man's less: but I often wonder why you +poets don't take to the microscope, and tell us a little more about +the wonderful things which are here already, and not about those which +are not, and which, perhaps, never will be." + +"Well," said Elsley, after another look: "but, after all, these things +have no human interest in them." + +"I don't know that; they have to me, for instance. These are the +things which I would write about if I had any turn for verse, not +about human nature, of which I know, I'm afraid, a little too much +already. I always like to read old Darwin's 'Loves of the Plants;' +bosh as it is in a scientific point of view, it amuses one's fancy +without making one lose one's temper, as one must when one begins to +analyse the microscopic ape called self and friends. + +"You would like, then, the old Cosmogonies, the Eddas and the Vedas," +said Elsley, getting interested, as most people did after five +minutes' talk with the cynical doctor. "I suppose you would not say +much for their science; but, as poetry, they are just what you ask +for--the expression of thoughtful spirits, who looked round upon +nature with awe-struck, childlike eyes, and asked of all heaven and +earth the question, 'What are you? How came you to be?' Yet--it may be +my fault--while I admire them, I cannot sympathise with them. To me, +this zoophyte is as a being of another sphere; and till I can create +some link in my own mind between it and humanity it is as nothing in +my eyes." + +"There is link enough, sir, don't doubt, and chains of iron and brass +too." + +"You believe then, in the development theory of the 'Vestiges'?" + +"Doctors who have their bread to earn never commit themselves to +theories. No; all I meant was, that this little zoophyte lives by the +same laws as you and I; and that he, and the sea-weeds, and so forth, +teach us doctors certain little rules concerning life and death, which +you will have a chance soon of seeing at work on the most grand and +poetical, and indeed altogether tragic scale." + +"What do you mean?" + +"When the cholera comes here as it will, at its present pace, before +the end of the summer, then I shall have the zoophytes rising up in +judgment against me, if I have not profited by a leaf out of their +book." + +"The cholera?" said Elsley in a startled voice, forgetting Tom's +parables in the new thought. For Elsley had a dread more nervous than +really coward of infectious diseases; and he had also (and prided +himself, too, on having) all Goethe's dislike of anything terrible or +horrible, of sickness, disease, wounds, death, anything which jarred +with that "beautiful" which was his idol. + +"The cholera?" repeated he. "I hope not; I wish you had not mentioned +it, Mr. Thurnall." + +"I am very sorry that I did so, if it offends you. I had thought that +forewarned was forearmed. After all it is no business of mine; if I +have extra labour, as I shall have, I shall have extra experience; and +that will be a fair set-off, even if the board of guardians don't vote +me an extra remuneration, as they ought to do." + +Elsley was struck dumb; first by the certainty which Tom's words +expressed, and next by the coolness of their temper. At last he +stammered out, "Good heavens, Mr. Thurnall! you do not talk of that +frightful scourge--so disgusting, too, in its character--as a matter +of profit and loss? It is sordid, cold-hearted!" + +"My dear sir, if I let myself think, much more talk, about the matter +in any other tone, I should face the thing poorly enough when it came. +I shall have work enough to keep my head about the end of August +or beginning of September, and I must not lose it beforehand, +by indulging in any horror, disgust, or other emotion perfectly +justifiable in a layman." + +"But are not doctors men?" + +"That depends very much on what 'a man' means." + +"Men with human sympathy and compassion." + +"Oh, I mean by a man, a man with human strength. My dear sir, one may +be too busy, and at doing good too (though that is not my line, save +professionally, because it is my only way of earning money); but one +may be too busy at doing good to have time for compassion. If while +I was cutting a man's leg off I thought of the pain which he was +suffering--" + +"Thank heaven!" said Elsley, "that it was not my lot to become a +medical man." + +Tom looked at him with the quaintest smile: a flush of mingled anger +and contempt had been rising in him as he heard the ex-bottle-boy +talking sentiment: but he only went on quietly, + +"No, sir; with your more delicate sensibilities, you may thank Heaven +that you did not become a medical man; your life would have been one +of torture, disgust, and agonising sense of responsibility. But do you +not see that you must thank Heaven for the sufferer's sake also? I +will not shock you again by talking of amputation; but even in the +smallest matter--even if you were merely sending medicine to an old +maid--suppose that your imagination were preoccupied by the thought +of her old age, her sufferings, her disappointed hopes, her regretful +dream of bygone youth, and beauty, and love, and all the tender +fancies which might well spring out of such a mournful spectacle, +would you not be but too likely (pardon the bathos) to end by +sending her an elderly gentleman's medicine after all, and so either +frightfully increasing her sufferings, or ending them once for all?" + +Tom said this in the most quiet and natural tone, without even a +twinkle of his wicked eye: but Elsley heard him begin with reddening +face; and as he went on, the red had turned to purple, and then to +deadly yellow; till making a half-step forward he cried fiercely:-- + +"Sir!" and then stopped suddenly; for his feet slipped upon the +polished stone, and on his face he fell into the pool at Thurnall's +feet. + +"Well for both of us geese!" said Tom inwardly, as he went to pick him +up. "I verily believe he was going to strike me, and that would have +done for neither of us. I was a fool to say it; but the temptation was +so exquisite; and it must have come some day." + +But Vavasour staggered up of his own accord, and dashing away Tom's +proffered hand, was rushing off without a word. + +"Not so, Mr. John Briggs!" said Tom, making up his mind in a moment +that he must have it out now, or never; and that he might have +everything to fear from Vavasour if he let him go home furious. We do +not part thus, sir!" + +"We will meet again, if you will," foamed Vavasour, "but it shall end +in the death of one of us!" + +"By each other's potions? I can doctor myself, sir, thank you. Listen +to me, John Briggs! You shall listen!" and Tom sprang past him, and +planted himself at the foot of the rock steps, to prevent his escaping +upward. + +"What, do you wish to quarrel with me, sir? It is I who ought to +quarrel with you. I am the aggrieved party, and not you, sir! I have +not seen the son of the man who, when I was an apothecary's boy, +petted me, lent me books, introduced me as a genius, turned my head +for me, which was just what I was vain enough to enjoy--I have not +seen that man's son cast ashore penniless and friendless, and yet +never held out to him a helping hand, but tried to conceal my identity +from him, from a dirty shame of my honest father's honest name." + +Vavasour dropped his eyes, for was it not true? but he raised them +again more fiercely than ever. + +"Curse you! I owe you nothing. It was you who made me ashamed of it. +You rhymed on it, and laughed about poetry coming out of such a name." + +"And what if I did? Are poets to "be made of nothing but tinder and +gall?" Why could you not take an honest joke as it was meant, and +go your way like other people, till you had shown yourself worth +something, and won honour even, for the name of Briggs?" + +"And I have! I have my own station now, my own fame, sir, and it is +nothing to you what I choose to call myself. I have won my place, I +say, and your mean envy cannot rob me of it." + +"You have your station. Very good," said Tom, not caring to notice the +imputation; "you owe the greater part of it to your having made a most +fortunate marriage, for which I respect you, as a practical man. Let +your poetry be what it may (and people tell me that it is really very +beautiful), your match shows me that you are a clever, and therefore a +successful person." + +"Do you take me for a sordid schemer, like yourself? I loved what was +worthy of me, and won it because I deserved it." + +"Then, having won it, treat it as it deserves," said Tom, with a cool +searching look, before which Vavasour's eyes fell again. "Understand +me, Mr. John Briggs; it is of no consequence to me what you call +yourself: but it is of consequence to me that I should not have a +patient in my parish whom I cannot cure; for I cannot cure broken +hearts, though they will be simple enough to come to me for medicine." + +"You shall have no chance! You shall never enter my house! You shall +not ruin me, sir, by your bills!" + +Tom made no answer to this fresh insult. He had another game to play. + +"Take care what you say, Briggs; remember that, after all, you are in +my power, and I had better remind you plainly of the fact." + +"And you mean to make me your tool? I will die first!" + +"I believe that," said Tom, who was very near adding, "that he should +be sorry to work with such tools." + +"My tools are my lancet and my drugs," said he, quietly, "and all +I have to say refers to them. It suits my purpose to become the +principal medical man in this neighbourhood--" + +"And I am to tout for introductions for you?" + +"You are to be so very kind as to allow me to finish my sentence, +just as you would allow any other gentleman; and because I wish for +practice, and patients, and power, you will be so kind as to treat me +henceforth as one high-minded man would treat another, to whom he is +obliged. For you know, John Briggs, as well as I," said Tom, drawing +himself up to his full height, "look me in the face, if you can, ere +you deny it, that I was, while you knew me, as honourable a man, and +as kind-hearted a man, as you ever were; and that now--considering the +circumstances under which we meet,--you have more reason to trust me, +than I have, prima facie, to trust you." + +Vavasour answered not a word. + +"Good-bye, then," said Tom, drawing aside from the step; "Mrs. +Vavasour will be anxious about you. And mind! With regard to her first +of all, sir, and then with regard to other matters--as long, and only +as long, as you remember that you are John Briggs of Whitbury, I shall +be the first to forget it. There is my hand, for old acquaintance' +sake." + +Vavasour took the proffered hand coldly, paused a moment, and then +wrung it in silence, and hurried away home. + +"Have I played my ace ill after all?" said Tom, sitting down to +consider. "As for whether I should have played it all, that's no +business of mine now. Madam Might-have-been may see to that. But did +I play ill? for if I did, I may try a new lead yet. Ought I to have +twitted him about his wife? If he's venomous, it may only make matters +worse; and still worse if he be suspicious. I don't think he was +either in old times; but vanity will make a man so, and it may have +made him. Well, I must only ingratiate myself all the more with her; +and find out, too, whether she has his secret as well as I. What I am +most afraid of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power; +it's apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere +hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their +miserable selves. Never mind; he can't break my tackle; and besides, +that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor wretch was +beat, and thought himself let off easily--as indeed he is. We'll hope +so. Now, zoophytes, for another turn with you!" + +To tell the truth, however, Tom is looking for more than zoophytes, +and has been doing so at every dead low tide since he was wrecked. He +has heard nothing yet of his belt. The notes have not been presented +at the London bank; nobody in the village has been spending more money +than usual; for cunning Tom has contrived already to know how many +pints of ale every man of whom he has the least doubt has drunk. +Perhaps, after all, the belt may have been torn off in the life +struggle; it may have been for a moment in Grace's hands, and then +have been swept into the sea. What more likely? And what more likely, +in that case, that, sinking by its weight, it is wedged away in some +cranny of the rocks? + +So spring-tide after spring-tide Tom searches, and all the more +carefully because others are searching too, for waifs and strays from +the wreck. Sad relics of mortality he finds at times, as others do: +once, even, a dressing-case, full of rings and pins and chains, which +belonged, he fancied, to a gay young bride with whom he had waltzed +many a time on deck, as they slipped along before the soft trade-wind: +but no belt. He sent the dressing-case to the Lloyd's underwriters, +and searched on: but in vain. Neither could he find that any one else +had forestalled him; and that very afternoon, sulky and disheartened, +he determined to waste no more time about the matter, and strode home, +vowing signal vengeance against the thief, if he caught him. + +"And I will catch him! These west-country yokels, to fancy that they +can do Tom Thurnall! It's adding insult to injury, as Sam Weller's +parrot has it." + +Now his shortest way home lay across the shore, and then along the +beach, and up the steps by the little waterfall, past Mrs. Harvey's +door; and at that door sat Grace, sewing in the sun. She looked up and +bowed as his passed, smiling modestly, and little dreaming of what was +passing in his mind; and when a very lovely girl smiled and bowed to +Tom, he must needs do the same to her: whereon she added,-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir: have you heard anything of the money you +lost? I--we--have been so ashamed to think of such a thing happening +here." + +Tom's evil spirit was roused. + +"Have _you_ heard anything of it, Miss Harvey? For you seem to me the +only person in the place who knows anything about the matter." + +"I, sir?" cried Grace, fixing her great startled eyes full on him. + +"Why, ma'am," said Tom, with a courtly smile, "you may possibly +recollect, if you will so far tax your memory, that you had it in your +hands at least a moment, when you did me the kindness to save my life; +and as you were kind enough to inform me that I should recover it when +I was worthy of it, I suppose I have not yet risen in your eyes to +the required state of conversion and regeneration." And swinging +impatiently away, he walked on, really afraid lest he should say +something rude. + +Grace half called after him, and then suddenly checking herself, +rushed in to her mother with a wild and pale face. + +"What is this Mr. Thurnall has been saying to me about his belt and +money which he lost?" + +"About what? Has he been rude to you, the bad man?" cried Mrs. Harvey, +dropping the pie-dish in some confusion, and taking a long while to +pick up the pieces. + +"About the belt--the money which he lost? Why don't you speak, +mother?" + +"Belt--money? Ah, I recollect now. He has lost some money, he says." + +"Of course he has." + +"How should you know anything? I recollect there was some talk of it, +though. But what matter what he says? He was quite passed away, I'll +swear, when they carried him up." + +"But, mother! mother! he says that I know about it; that I had it in +my hands!" + +"You? Oh the wicked wretch, the false, ungrateful, slanderous child of +wrath, with adder's poison tinder his lips! No, my child! Though we're +poor, we're honest! Let him slander us, rob us, of our good name, send +us to prison, if he will--he cannot rob us of our souls. We'll be +silent; we'll turn the other cheek, and commit our cause to One above +who pleads for the orphan and the widow. We will not strive nor cry, +my child. Oh, no!" And Mrs. Harvey began fussing over the smashed +pie-dish. + +"I shall not strive nor cry, mother," said Grace, who had recovered +her usual calm: "but he must have some cause for these strange words. +Do you recollect seeing me with the belt?" + +"Belt, what's a belt? I know nothing about belts. I tell you he's a +villain, and a slanderer. Oh, that it should have come to this, to +have my child's fair fame blasted by a wretch that comes nobody knows +where from, and has been doing nobody knows what, for aught I know!" + +"Mother, mother! we know no harm of him. If he is mistaken, God +forgive him!" + +"If he is mistaken?" went on Mrs. Harvey, still over the pie-dish: but +Grace gave her no answer. + +She was deep in thought. She recollected now, that as she had gone up +the path, from the cove on that eventful morning, she had seen Willis +and Thurnall whispering earnestly together; and she recollected +now, for the first time, that there had been, a certain sadness and +perplexity, almost reserve, about Willis ever since. Good Heavens! +could he suspect her too? She would find out that at least; and no +sooner had her mother fussed away, talking angrily to herself, into +the back kitchen, than Grace put on her bonnet and shawl, and went +forth to find the Captain. + +In an hour she returned. Her lips were firm set, her cheeks pale, her +eyes red with weeping. She said nothing to her mother, who for her +part did not seem inclined to allude again to the matter. + +"Where have you been, child? You look quite poorly, and your eyes +red." + +"The wind is very cold, mother," said she, and went into her room. Her +mother looked sharply after her, and muttered to herself. + +Grace went in, and sat down on the bed. + +"What a coldness this is at my heart!" she said aloud to herself, +trying to smile; but she could not: and she sat on the bedside, +without taking off her bonnet and shawl, her hands hanging listlessly +by her side, her head drooping on her bosom, till her mother called +her to tea: then she was forced to rouse herself, and went out, +composed, but utterly wretched. + +Tom walked up homeward, very ill at ease. He had played, to use his +nomenclature, two trump cards running, and was by no means satisfied +that he had played them well. He had no right, certainly, to be +satisfied with either move; for both had been made in a somewhat evil +spirit, and certainly for no very disinterested end. + +That was a view of the matter, however, which never entered his mind; +there was only that general dissatisfaction with himself which is, +though men try hard to deny the fact, none other than the supernatural +sting of conscience. He tried "to lay to his soul the flattering +unction" that he might, after all, be of use to Mrs. Vavasour, by +using his power over her husband: but he knew in his secret heart that +any move of his in that direction was likely only to make matters +worse; that to-day's explosion might only have sent home the hapless +Vavasour in a more irritable temper than ever. And thinking over many +things, backward and forward, he saw his own way so little, that he +actually condescended to go and "pump" Frank Headley. So he termed it: +but, after all, it was only like asking advice of a good man, because +he did not feel himself quite good enough to advise himself. + +The curate was preparing to sally forth, after his frugal dinner. +The morning he spent at the schools, or in parish secularities; the +afternoon, till dusk, was devoted to visiting the poor; the night, not +to sleep, but to reading and sermon writing. Thus, by sitting up till +two in the morning, and rising again at six for his private devotions, +before walking a mile and a half up to church for the morning service, +Frank Headley burnt the candle of life at both ends very effectually, +and showed that he did so by his pale cheeks and red eyes. + +"Ah!" said Tom, as he entered. "As usual: poor Nature is being robbed +and murdered by rich Grace." + +"What do you mean now?" asked Frank, smiling, for he had become +accustomed enough to Tom's quaint parables, though he had to scold him +often enough for their irreverence. + +"Nature says, 'after dinner sit awhile;' and even the dumb animals +hear her voice, and lie by for a siesta when their stomachs are full. +Grace says, 'Jump up and rush out the moment you have swallowed your +food; and if you get an indigestion, abuse poor Nature for it; and lay +the blame on Adam's fall.'" + +"You are irreverent, my good sir, as usual; but you are unjust also +this time." + +"How then?" + +"Unjust to Grace, as you phrase it," answered Frank, with a quaint sad +smile. "I assure you on my honour, that Grace has nothing whatsoever +to do with my 'rushing out' just now, but simply the desire to do my +good works that they may be seen of men. I hate going out. I should +like to sit and read the whole afternoon: but I am afraid lest the +dissenters should say, 'He has not been to see so-and-so for the last +three days;' so off I go, and no credit to me." + +Why had Frank dared, upon a month's acquaintance, to lay bare his own +heart thus to a man of no creed at all? Because, I suppose, amid all +differences, he had found one point of likeness between himself and +Thurnall; he had found that Tom at heart was a truly genuine man, +sincere and faithful to his own scheme of the universe. + +How that man, through all his eventful life, had been enabled to + + "Bate not a jot of heart or hope, + But steer right onward," + +was a problem which Frank longed curiously, and yet fearfully withal, +to solve. There were many qualities in him which Frank could not but +admire, and long to imitate; and, "Whence had they come?" was another +problem at which he looked, trembling as many a new thought crossed +him. He longed, too, to learn from Tom somewhat at least of that +savoir faire, that power of "becoming all things to all men," which +St. Paul had; and for want of which Frank had failed. He saw, too, +with surprise, that Tom had gained in one month more real insight into +the characters of his parishioners than he had done in twelve; and +besides all, there was the craving of the lonely heart for human +confidence and friendship. So it befell that Frank spoke out his +inmost thought that day, and thought no shame; and it befell also, +that Thurnall, when he heard it, said in his heart-- + +"What a noble, honest fellow you are, when you--" + +But he answered enigmatically. + +"Oh, I quite agree with you that Grace has nothing to do with it. I +only referred it to that source because I thought you would do so." + +"You ought to be ashamed of your dishonesty, then." + +"I know it; but my view of the case is, that you rush out after +dinner for the very same reason that the Yankee storekeeper +does--from--You'll forgive me if I say it?" + +"Of course. You cannot speak too plainly to me." + +"Conceit; the Yankee fancies himself such an important person, that +the commercial world will stand still unless he flies back to its help +after ten minutes' gobbling, with his month full of pork and pickled +peaches. And you fancy yourself so important in your line, that the +spiritual world will stand still unless you bolt back to help it in +like wise. Substitute a half-cooked mutton chop for the pork, and the +cases are exact parallels." + +"Your parallel does not hold good, Doctor. The Yankee goes back to his +store to earn money for himself, and not to keep commerce alive." + +"While you go for utterly disinterested motives.--I see." + +"Do you?" said Frank. "If you think that I fancy myself a better man +than the Yankee, you mistake me: but at least you will confess that I +am not working for money." + +"No; you have your notions of reward, and he has his. He wants to +be paid by material dollars, payable next month; you by spiritual +dollars, payable when you die. I don't see the great difference." + +"Only the slight difference between what is material and what is +spiritual." + +"They seem to me, from all I can hear in pulpits, to be only two +different sorts of pleasant things, and to be sought after, both +alike, simply because they are pleasant. Self-interest, if you will +forgive me, seems to me the spring of both: only, to do you justice, +you are a farther-sighted and more prudent man than the Yankee +storekeeper; and having more exquisitely developed notions of what +your true self-interest is, are content to wait a little longer than +he." + +"You stab with a jest, Thurnall. You little know how your words hit +home." + +"Well, then, to turn from a matter of which I know nothing--I must +keep you in, and give you parish business to do at home. I am come to +consult you as my spiritual pastor and master." + +Frank looked a little astonished. + +"Don't be alarmed. I am not going to confess my own sins--only other +people's." + +"Pray don't, then. I know far more of them already than I can cure. I +am worn out with the daily discovery of fresh evil wherever I go." + +"Then why not comfort yourself by trying to find a little fresh good +wherever you go?" + +Frank sighed. + +"Perhaps, though, you don't care for any sort of good except your own +sort of good. You are fastidious. Well, you have your excuses. But you +can understand a poor fellow like me, who has been dragged through +the slums and sewers of this wicked world for fifteen years and more, +being very well content with any sort of good which I can light on, +and not particular as to either quantity or quality." + +"Perhaps yours is the healthier state of mind; if you can only +find the said good. The vulturine nose, which smells nothing but +corruption, is no credit to its possessor. And it would be pleasant, +at least, to find good in every man." + +"One can't do that in one's study. Mixing with them is the only plan. +No doubt they're inconsistent enough. The more you see of them, the +less you trust them; and yet the more you see of them, the more you +like them. Can you solve that paradox from your books?" + +"I will try," said Frank. "I generally have more than one to think +over when you go. But, surely, there are men so fallen that they are +utterly insensible to good." + +"Very likely. There's no saying in this world what may not be. Only I +never saw one. I'll tell you a story: you may apply it as you like. +When I was on the Texan expedition, and raw to soldiering and camping, +we had to sleep in low ground, and suffered terribly from a miasma. +Deadly cold, it was, when it came; and the man who once got chilled +through with it, just died. I was lying on the bare ground one night, +and chilly enough I was--for I was short of clothes, and had lost my +buffalo robe--but fell asleep: and on waking the next morning, I found +myself covered up in my comrade's blankets, even to his coat, while he +was sitting shivering in his shirt sleeves. The cold fog had come down +in the night, and the man had stripped himself, and sat all night with +death staring him in the face, to save my life. And all the reason he +gave was, that if one of us must die, it was better the older should +go first, and not a youngster like me. And," said Tom, lowering his +voice, "that man was a murderer!" + +"A murderer!" + +"Yes; a drunken, gambling, cut-throat rowdy as ever grew ripe for the +gallows. Now, will you tell me that there was nothing in that man but +what the devil put there?" + +Frank sat meditating awhile on this strange story, which is moreover a +true one; and then looked up with something like tears in his eyes. + +"And he did not die?" + +"Not he! I saw him die afterwards--shot through the heart, without +time even to cry out. But I have not forgotten what he did for me that +night; and I'll tell you what, sir! I do not believe that God has +forgotten it either." + +Frank was silent for a few moments, and then Tom changed the subject. + +"I want to know what you can tell me about this Mr. Vavasour." + +"Hardly anything, I am sorry to say. I was at his house at tea, two or +three times, when I first came; and I had very agreeable evenings, and +talks on art and poetry: but I believe I offended him by hinting that +he ought to come to church, which he never does, and since then our +acquaintance has all but ceased. I suppose you will say, as usual, +that I played my cards badly there also." + +"Not at all," said Tom, who was disposed to take any one's part +against Elsley. "If a clergyman has not a right to tell a man that, I +don't see what right he has of any kind. Only," added he, with one of +his quaint smiles, "the clergyman, if he compels a man to deal at his +store, is bound to furnish him with the articles which he wants." + +"Which he needs, or which he likes? For 'wanting' has both these +meanings." + +"With something that he finds by experience does him good; and so +learns to like it, because he knows that he needs it, as my patients +do my physic." + +"I wish my patients would do so by mine: but, unfortunately, half of +them seem to me not to know what their disease is, and the other half +do not think they are diseased at all." + +"Well," said Tom drily, "perhaps some of them are more right than you +fancy. Every man knows his own business best." + +"If it were so, they would go about it somewhat differently from what +most of the poor creatures do." + +"Do you think so? I fancy myself that not one of them does a wrong +thing, but what he knows it to be wrong just as well as you do, and is +much more ashamed and frightened about it already, than you can ever +make him by preaching at him." + +"Do you?" + +"I do. I judge of others by myself." + +"Then would you have a clergyman never warn his people of their sins?" + +"If I were he, I'd much sooner take the sins for granted, and say to +them, 'Now, my friends, I know you are all, ninety-nine out of the +hundred of you, not such bad fellows at bottom, and would all like +to be good, if you only knew how; so I'll tell you as far as I know, +though I don't know much about the matter. For the truth is, you must +have a hundred troubles every day which I never felt in my life; and +it must be a very hard thing to keep body and soul together, and +to get a little pleasure on this side the grave without making +blackguards of yourselves. Therefore I don't pretend to set myself up +as a better or a wiser man than you at all: but I do know a thing or +two which I fancy may be useful to you. You can but try it. So come +up, if you like, any of you, and talk matters over with me as between +gentleman and gentleman. I shall keep your secret, of course; and if +you find I can't cure your complaint, why, you can but go away and try +elsewhere.'" + +"And so the doctor's model sermon ends in proposing private +confession!" + +"Of course. The thing itself which will do them good, without the red +rag of an official name, which sends them cackling off like frightened +turkeys.--Such private confession as is going on between you and me +now. Here am I confessing to you all my unorthodoxy." + +"And I my ignorance," said Frank; "for I really believe you know more +about the matter than I do." + +"Not at all. I may be all wrong. But the fault of your cloth seems to +me to be that they apply their medicines without deigning, most of +them, to take the least diagnosis of the case. How could I cure a man +without first examining what was the matter with him?" + +"So say the old casuists, of whom I have read enough--some would say +too much; but they do not satisfy me. They deal with actions, and +motives, and so forth; but they do not go down to the one root of +wrong which is the same in every man." + +"You are getting beyond me: but why do you not apply a little of the +worldly wisdom which these same casuists taught you?" + +"To tell you the truth, I have tried in past years, and found that the +medicine would not act." + +"Humph! Well, that would depend, again, on the previous diagnosis of +human nature being correct; and those old monks, I should say, would +know about as much of human nature as so many daws in a steeple. +Still, you wouldn't say that what was the matter with old Heale was +the matter also with Vavasour?" + +"I believe from my heart that it is." + +"Humph! Then you know the symptoms of his complaint?" + +"I know that he never comes to church." + +"Nothing more? I am really speaking in confidence. You surely have +heard of disagreements between him and Mrs. Vavasour?" + +"Never, I assure you; you shock me." + +"I am exceedingly sorry, then, that I said a word about it: but the +whole parish talks of it," answered Tom, who was surprised at this +fresh proof of the little confidence which Aberalva put in their +parson. + +"Ah!" said Frank sadly, "I am the last person in the parish to hear +any news: but this is very distressing." + +"Very, to me. My honour, to tell you the truth, as a medical man, +is concerned in the matter; for she is growing quite ill from +unhappiness, and I cannot cure her; so I come to you, as soul-doctor, +to do what I, the body-doctor, cannot." + +Frank sat pondering for a minute, and then-- + +"You set me on a task for which I am as little fit as any man, by your +own showing. What do I know of disagreements between man and wife? And +one has a delicacy about offering her comfort. She must bestow her +confidence on me before I can use it: while he--" + +"While he, as the cause of the disease, is what you ought to treat; +and not her unhappiness, which is only a symptom of it." + +"Spoken like a wise doctor; but to tell you the truth, Thurnall, I +have no influence over Mr. Vavasour, and see no means of getting any. +If he recognised my authority, as his parish priest, then I should see +my way. Let him be as bad as he might, I should have a fixed point +from which to work; but with his free-thinking notions, I know +well--one can judge it too easily from his poems--he would look on me +as a pedant assuming a spiritual tyranny to which I have no claim." + +Tom sat awhile nursing his knee, and then-- + +"If you saw a man fallen into the water, what do you think would be +the shortest way to prove to him that you had authority from heaven +to pull him out? Do you give it up? Pulling him out would it not be, +without more ado?" + +"I should be happy enough to pull poor Vavasour out, if he would let +me. But till he believes that I can do it, how can I even begin!" + +"How can you expect him to believe, if he has no proof?" + +"There are proofs enough in the Bible and elsewhere, if he will but +accept them. If he refuses to examine into the credentials, the fault +is his, not mine. I really do not wish to be hard; but would not you +do the same, if any one refused to employ you, because he chose to +deny that you were a legally qualified practitioner?" + +"Not so badly put; but what should I do in that case? Go on quietly +curing his neighbours, till he began to alter his mind as to my +qualifications, and came in to be cured himself. But here's this +difference between you and me. I am not bound to attend to any one who +don't send for me; while you think that you are, and carry the notion +a little too far, for I expect you to kill yourself by it some day." + +"Well?" said Frank, with something of that lazy Oxford tone, which is +intended to save the speaker the trouble of giving his arguments, when +he has already made up his mind, or thinks that he has so done. + +"Well, if I thought myself bound to doctor the man, willy-nilly, as +you do, I would certainly go to him, and show him, at least, that I +understood his complaint. That would be the first step towards his +letting me cure him. How else on earth do you fancy that Paul cured +those Corinthians about whom I have been reading lately?" + +"Are you, too, going to quote Scripture against me? I am glad to find +that your studies extend to St. Paul." + +"To tell you the truth, your sermon last Sunday puzzled me. I could +not comprehend (on your showing) how Paul got that wonderful influence +over those pagans which he evidently had; and as how to get influence +is a very favourite study of mine, I borrowed the book when I went +home, and read for myself; and the matter at last seemed clear enough, +on Paul's own showing." + +"I don't doubt that: but I suspect your interpretation of the fact and +mine would not agree." + +"Mine is simple enough. He says that what proved him to be an apostle +was his power. He is continually appealing to his power; and what can +he mean by that, but that he could do, and had done, what he professed +to do? He promised to make those poor heathen rascals of Greeks +better, and wiser, and happier men; and, I suppose, he made them so; +and then there was no doubt of his commission, or his authority, or +anything else. He says himself he did not require any credentials, for +they were his credentials, read and known of every one; he had made +good men of them out of bad ones, and that was proof enough whose +apostle he was." + +"Well," said Frank half sadly, "I might say a great deal, of course, +on the other side of the question, but I prefer hearing what you +laymen think about it all." + +"Will you be angry if I tell you honestly?" + +"Did you ever find me angry at anything you said?" + +"No. I will do you the justice to say that. Well, what we laymen say +is this. If the parsons have the authority of which they boast, why +don't they use it? If they have commission to make bad people good, +they must have power too; for He whose commission they claim, is not +likely, I should suppose, to set a man to do what he cannot do." + +"And we can do it, if people would but submit to us. It all comes +round again to the same point." + +"So it does. How to get them to listen. I tried to find out how Paul +achieved that first step; and when I looked he told me plainly enough. +By becoming all things to all men; by showing these people that he +understood them, and knew what was the matter with them. Now do you go +and do likewise by Vavasour, and then exercise your authority like a +practical man. If you have power to bind and loose, as you told us +last Sunday, bind that fellow's ungovernable temper, and loose him +from the real slavery which he is in to his miserable conceit and +self-indulgence! and then if he does not believe in your 'sacerdotal +power,' he is even a greater fool than I take him for." + +"Honestly, I will try: God help me!" added Frank in a lower voice; +"but as for quarrels between man and wife, as I told you, no one +understands them less than I." + +"Then marry a wife yourself and quarrel a little with her for +experiment, and then you'll know all about it." + +Frank laughed in spite of himself. + +"Thank you. No man is less likely to try that experiment than I." + +"Hum!" + +"I have quite enough as a bachelor to distract me from my work, +without adding to them those of a wife and family, and those little +home lessons in the frailty of human nature, in which you advise me to +copy Mr. Vavasour." + +"And so," said Tom, "having to doctor human beings, +nineteen-twentieths of whom are married; and being aware that three +parts of the miseries of human life come either from wanting to be +married, or from married cares and troubles--you think that you will +improve your chance of doctoring your flock rightly by avoiding +carefully the least practical acquaintance with the chief cause of +their disease. Philosophical and logical, truly!" + +"You seem to have acquired a little knowledge of men and women, my +good friend, without encumbering yourself with a wife and children." + +"Would you like to go to the same school to which I went?" asked +Thurnall, with a look of such grave meaning that Frank's pure spirit +shuddered within him. "And I'll tell you this; whenever I see a woman +nursing her baby, or a father with his child upon his knees, I say to +myself--they know more, at this minute, of human nature, as of the +great law of 'C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour, which makes the world +go round,' than I am likely to do for many a day. I'll tell you what, +sir! These simple natural ties, which are common to us and the dumb +animals,--as I live, sir, they are the divinest things I see in the +world! I have but one, and that is love to my poor old father; that's +all the religion I have as yet: but I tell you, it alone has kept me +from being a ruffian and a blackguard. And I'll tell you more," said +Tom, warming, "of all diabolical dodges for preventing the parsons +from seeing who they are, or what human beings are, or what their work +in the world is, or anything else, the neatest is that celibacy of the +clergy. I should like to have you with me in Spanish America, or in +France either, and see what you thought of it then. How it ever came +into mortal brains is to me the puzzle. I've often fancied, when +I've watched those priests--and very good fellows, too, some of them +are--that there must be a devil after all abroad in the world, as you +say; for no human insanity could ever have hit upon so complete and +'cute a device for making parsons do the more harm, the more good they +try to do. There, I've preached you a sermon, and made you angry." + +"Not in the least: but I must go now and see some sick." + +"Well, go, and prosper; only recollect that the said sick are men and +women." + +And away Tom went, thinking to himself: "Well, that is a noble, +straightforward, honest fellow, and will do yet, if he'll only get a +wife. He's not one of those asses who have made up their minds by book +that the world is square, and won't believe it to be round for any +ocular demonstration. He'll find out what shape the world is before +long, and behave as such, and act accordingly." + +Little did Tom think, as he went home that day in full-blown +satisfaction with his sermon to Frank, of the misery he had caused, +and was going to cause for many a day, to poor Grace Harvey. It was a +rude shock to her to find herself thus suspected; though perhaps it +was one which she needed. She had never, since one first trouble ten +years ago, known any real grief; and had therefore had all the more +time to make a luxury of unreal ones. She was treated by the simple +folk around her as all but inspired; and being possessed of real +powers as miraculous in her own eyes as those which were imputed to +her were in theirs (for what are real spiritual experiences but daily +miracles?) she was just in that temper of mind in which she required, +as ballast, all her real goodness, lest the moral balance should +topple headlong after the intellectual, and the downward course of +vanity, excitement, deception, blasphemous assumptions be entered on. +Happy for her that she was in Protestant and common-sense England, and +in a country parish, where mesmerism and spirit-rapping were unknown. +Had she been an American, she might have become one of the most +lucrative "mediums;" had she been born in a Romish country, she would +have probably become an even more famous personage. There is no reason +why she should not have equalled or surpassed, the ecstasies of St. +Theresa, or of St. Hildegardis, or any other sweet dreamer of sweet +dreams; have founded a new order of charity, have enriched the clergy +of a whole province, and have died in seven years, maddened by +alternate paroxysms of self-conceit and revulsions of self-abasement. +Her own preachers and class-leaders, indeed (so do extremes meet), +would not have been sorry to make use of her in somewhat the same +manner, however feebly and coarsely: but her innate self-respect and +modesty had preserved her from the snares of such clumsy poachers; and +more than one good-looking young preacher had fled desperately from a +station where, instead of making a tool of Grace Harvey, he could only +madden his own foolish heart with love for her. + +So Grace had reigned upon her pretty little throne of not unbearable +sorrows, till a real and bitter woe came; one which could not be +hugged and cherished, like the rest; one which she tried to fling from +her, angrily, scornfully, and found to her horror, that, instead of +her possessing it, it possessed her, and coiled itself round her +heart, and would not be flung away. She--she, of all beings, to be +suspected as a thief, and by the very man whose life she had saved! +She was willing enough to confess herself--and confessed herself night +and morning--a miserable sinner, and her heart a cage of unclean +birds, deceitful, and desperately wicked--except in that. The +conscious innocence flashed up in pride and scorn, in thoughts, even +when she was alone, in words, of which she would not have believed +herself capable. With hot brow and dry eyes she paced her little +chamber, sat down on the bed, staring into vacancy, sprang up and +paced again: but she went into no trance--she dare not. The grief was +too great; she felt that, if she once gave way enough to lose her +self-possession, she should go mad. And the first, and perhaps not the +least good effect of that fiery trial was, that it compelled her to +a stern self-restraint, to which her will, weakened by mental +luxuriousness, had been long a stranger. + +But a fiery trial it was. The first wild (and yet not unnatural) +fancy, that heaven had given Thurnall to her, had deepened day by +day, by the mere indulgence of it. But she never dreamt of him as her +husband: only as a friendless stranger to be helped and comforted. And +that he was worthy of help; that some great future was in store +for him; that he was a chosen vessel marked out for glory, she had +persuaded herself utterly; and the persuasion grew in her day by day, +as she heard more and more of his cleverness, honesty, and kindliness, +mysterious and, to her, miraculous learning. Therefore she did not +make haste; she did not even try to see him, or to speak to him; +a civil bow in passing was all that she took or gave; and she was +content with that, and waited till the time came, when she was +destined to do for him--what she knew not; but it would be done if she +were strong enough. So she set herself to learn, and read, and trained +her mind and temper more earnestly than ever, and waited in patience +for God's good time. And now, behold, a black, unfathomable gulf of +doubt and shame had opened between them, perhaps for ever. And a +tumult arose in her soul, which cannot be, perhaps ought not to be, +analysed in words; but which made her know too well, by her own +crimson cheeks, that it was none other than human love strong as +death, and jealousy cruel as the grave. + +At last long and agonising prayer brought gentler thoughts, and mere +physical exhaustion a calmer mood. How wicked she had been; how +rebellious! Why not forgive him, as One greater than she had forgiven? +It was ungrateful of him; but was he not human? Why should she expect +his heart to be better than hers? Besides, he might have excuses for +his suspicion. He might be the best judge, being a man, and such a +clever one too. Yes; it was God's cross, and she would bear it; she +would try and forget him. No; that was impossible; she must hear of +him, if not see him, day by day: besides, was not her fate linked up +with his? And yet shut out from him by that dark wall of suspicion! It +was very bitter. But she could pray for him; she would pray for him +now. Yes; it was God's cross, and she would bear it. He would right +her if He thought fit; and if not, what matter? Was she not born to +sorrow? Should she complain if another drop, and that the bitterest of +all, was added to the cup? + +And bear her cross she did, about with her, coming in, and going out, +for many a weary day. There was no change in her habits or demeanour; +she was never listless for a moment in her school; she was more gay +and amusing than ever, when she gathered her little ones around her +for a story: but still there was the unseen burden, grinding her heart +slowly, till she felt as if every footstep was stained with a drop of +her heart's blood.... Why not? It would be the sooner over. + +Then, at times came that strange woman's pleasure in martyrdom, the +secret pride of suffering unjustly: but even that, after a while, she +cast away from her, as a snare, and tried to believe that she deserved +all her sorrow--deserved it, that is, in the real honest sense of the +word; that she had worked it out, and earned it, and brought it on +herself--how, she knew not, but longed and strove to know. No; it was +no martyrdom. She would not allow herself so silly a cloak of pride; +and she went daily to her favourite "Book of Martyrs," to contemplate +there the stories of those who really innocent, really suffered for +welldoing. And out of that book she began to draw a new and a strange +enjoyment, for she soon found that her intense imagination enabled +her to re-enact those sad and glorious stories in her own person; to +tremble, agonise, and conquer with those heroines who had been for +years her highest ideals--and what higher ones could she have? And +many a night, after extinguishing the light, and closing her eyes, she +would lie motionless for hours on her little bed, not to sleep, but to +feel with Perpetua the wild bull's horns, to hang with St. Maura on +the cross, or lie with Julitta on the rack, or see with triumphant +smile, by Anne Askew's side, the fire flare up around her at the +Smithfield stake, or to promise, with dying Dorothea, celestial +roses to the mocking youth, whose face too often took the form of +Thurnall's; till every nerve quivered responsive to her fancy in +agonies of actual pain, which died away at last into heavy slumber, as +body and mind alike gave way before the strain. Sweet fool! she knew +not--how could she know?--that she might be rearing in herself the +seeds of idiotcy and death: but who that applauds a Rachel or +a Ristori, for being able to make awhile their souls and their +countenances the homes of the darkest passions, can blame her for +enacting in herself, and for herself alone, incidents in which the +highest and holiest virtue takes shape in perfect tragedy? + +But soon another, and a yet darker cause of sorrow arose in her. It +was clear, from what Willis had told her, that she had held the lost +belt in her hand. The question was, how had she lost it? + +Did her mother know anything about it? That question could not but +arise in her mind, though, for very reverence she dared not put it to +her mother; and with it arose the recollection of her mother's +strange silence about the matter. Why had she put away the subject, +carelessly, and yet peevishly, when it was mentioned? Yes. Why? Did +her mother know anything? Was she--? Grace dared not pronounce the +adjective, even in thought; dashed it away as a temptation of the +devil; dashed away, too, the thought which had forced itself on +her too often already, that her mother was not altogether one who +possessed the single eye; that in spite of her deep religious feeling, +her assurance of salvation, her fits of bitter self-humiliation and +despondency, there was an inclination to scheming and intrigue, +ambition, covetousness; that the secrets which she gained as +class-leader too, were too often (Grace could but fear) used to her +own advantage; that in her dealings her morality was not above the +average of little country shopkeepers; that she was apt to have two +prices; to keep her books with unnecessary carelessness when the +person against whom the account stood was no scholar. Grace had more +than once remonstrated in her gentle way; and had been silenced, +rather than satisfied, by her mother's commonplaces as to the right of +"making those who could pay, pay for those who could not;" that "it +was very hard to get a living, and the Lord knew her temptations," +and "that God saw no sin in His elect," and "Christ's merits were +infinite," and "Christians always had been a backsliding generation;" +and all the other commonplaces by which such people drug their +consciences to a degree which is utterly incredible, except to those +who have seen it with their own eyes, and heard it with their own +ears, from childhood. + +Once, too, in those very days, some little meanness on her mother's +part brought the tears into Grace's eyes, and a gentle rebuke to her +lips: but her mother bore the interference less patiently than usual; +and answered, not by cant, but by counter-reproach. "Was she the +person to accuse a poor widowed mother, struggling to leave her child +something to keep her out of the workhouse? A mother that lived for +her, would die for her, sell her soul for her, perhaps--" + +And there Mrs. Harvey stopped short, turned pale, and burst into such +an agony of tears, that Grace, terrified, threw her arms round her +neck, and entreated forgiveness, all the more intensely on account of +those thoughts within which she dared not reveal. So the storm passed +over. But not Grace's sadness. For she could not but see, with her +clear pure spiritual eye, that her mother was just in that state in +which some fearful and shameful fall is possible, perhaps wholesome. +"She would sell her soul for me? What if she have sold it, and stopped +short just now, because she had not the heart to tell me that love for +me had been the cause? Oh! if she have sinned for my sake! Wretch that +I am! Miserable myself, and bringing misery with me! Why was I ever +born? Why cannot I die--and the world be rid of me?" + +No, she would not believe it. It was a wicked, horrible, temptation +of the devil. She would rather believe that she herself had been the +thief, tempted during her unconsciousness; that she had hidden it +somewhere; that she should recollect, confess, restore all some day. +She would carry it to him herself, grovel at his feet, and entreat +forgiveness. "He will surely forgive, when he finds that I was not +myself when--that it was not altogether my fault--not as if I had been +waking--yes, he will forgive!" And then on that thought followed a +dream of what might follow, so wild that a moment after she had hid +her blushes in her hands, and fled to books to escape from thoughts. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT. + + +We must now return to Elsley, who had walked home in a state of mind +truly pitiable. He had been flattering his soul with the hope that +Thurnall did not know him; that his beard, and the change which years +had made, formed a sufficient disguise: but he could not conceal +from himself that the very same alterations had not prevented his +recognising Thurnall; and he had been living for two months past in +continual fear that that would come which now had come. + +His rage and terror knew no bounds. Fancying Thurnall a merely mean +and self-interested worldling, untouched by those higher aspirations +which stood to him in place of a religion, he imagined him making +every possible use of his power; and longed to escape to the uttermost +ends of the earth from his old tormentor, whom the very sea would not +put out of the way, but must needs cast ashore at his very feet, to +plague him afresh. + +What a net he had spread around his own feet, by one act of foolish +vanity! He had taken his present name, merely as a _nom de guerre_, +when first he came to London as a penniless and friendless scribbler. +It would hide him from the ridicule (and, as he fancied, spite) of +Thurnall, whom he dreaded meeting every time he walked London streets, +and who was for years, to his melancholic and too intense fancy, his +_bête noir_, his Frankenstein's familiar. Beside, he was ashamed of +the name of Briggs. It certainly is not an euphonious or aristocratic +name; and "The Soul's Agonies, by John Briggs," would not have sounded +as well as "The Soul's Agonies, by Elsley Vavasour." Vavasour was a +very pretty name, and one of those which is supposed by novelists and +young ladies to be aristocratic;--why so is a puzzle; as its plain +meaning is a tenant-farmer, and nothing more nor less. So he had +played with the name till he became fond of it, and considered that +he had a right to it, through seven long years of weary struggles, +penury, disappointment, as he climbed the Parnassian Mount, writing +for magazines and newspapers, subediting this periodical and that; +till he began to be known as a ready, graceful, and trustworthy +workman, and was befriended by one kind-hearted _littérateur_ after +another. For in London, at this moment, any young man of real power +will find friends enough, and too many, among his fellow book-wrights, +and is more likely to have his head turned by flattery, than his heart +crushed by envy. Of course, whatsoever flattery he may receive, he is +expected to return; and whatsoever clique he may be tossed into on +his _début_, he is expected to stand by, and fight for, against the +universe; but that is but fair. If a young gentleman, invited to enrol +himself in the Mutual-puffery Society which meets every Monday and +Friday in Hatchgoose the publisher's drawing-room, is willing to +pledge himself thereto in the mystic cup of tea, is he not as solemnly +bound thenceforth to support those literary Catilines in their efforts +for the subversion of common sense, good taste, and established things +in general, as if he had pledged them, as he would have done in Rome +of old, in his own life-blood? Bound he is, alike by honour and by +green tea; and it will be better for him to fulfil his bond. For if +association is the cardinal principle of the age, will it not work as +well in book-making as in clothes-making? And shall not the motto +of the poet (who will also do a little reviewing on the sly) be +henceforth that which shines triumphant over all the world, on many a +valiant Scotchman's shield-- + + "Caw me, and I'll caw thee"? + +But to do John Briggs justice, he kept his hands, and his heart also, +cleaner than most men do, during this stage of his career. After the +first excitement of novelty, and of mixing with people who could +really talk and think, and who freely spoke out whatever was in them, +right or wrong, in language which at least sounded grand and deep, he +began to find in the literary world about the same satisfaction for +his inner life which he would have found in the sporting world, or the +commercial world, or the religious world, or the fashionable world, or +any other world and to suspect strongly that wheresoever a world is, +the flesh and the devil are not very far off. Tired of talking when +he wanted to think, of asserting when he wanted to discover, and +of hearing his neighbours do the same; tired of little meannesses, +envyings, intrigues, jobberies (for the literary world, too, has +its jobs), he had been for some time withdrawing himself from the +Hatchgoose soirées into his own thoughts, when his "Soul's Agonies" +appeared, and he found himself, if not a lion, at least a lion's cub. + +There is a house or two in Town where you may meet on certain +evenings, everybody; where duchesses and unfledged poets, bishops and +red republican refugees, fox-hunting noblemen and briefless barristers +who have taken to politics, are jumbled together for a couple of +hours, to make what they can out of each other, to the exceeding +benefit of them all. For each and every one of them finds his +neighbour a pleasanter person than he expected; and none need leave +those rooms without knowing something more than he did when he came +in, and taking an interest in some human being who may need that +interest. To one of these houses, no matter which, Elsley was invited +on the strength of the "Soul's Agonies;" found himself, for the first +time, face to face with high-bred Englishwomen; and fancied--small +blame to him--that he was come to the mountains of the Peris, and to +Fairy Land itself. He had been flattered already: but never with such +grace, such sympathy, or such seeming understanding; for there are few +high-bred women who cannot seem to understand, and delude a hapless +genius into a belief in their own surpassing brilliance and +penetration, while they are cunningly retailing again to him the +thoughts which they have caught up from the man to whom they spoke +last; perhaps--for this is the very triumph of their art--from the +very man to whom they are speaking. Small blame to bashful, clumsy +John Briggs, if he did not know his own children; and could not +recognise his own stammered and fragmentary fancies, when they were +re-echoed to him the next minute, in the prettiest shape, and with the +most delicate articulation, from lips which (like those in the fairy +tale) never opened without dropping pearls and diamonds. + +Oh, what a contrast, in the eyes of a man whose sense of beauty and +grace, whether physical or intellectual, was true and deep, to +that ghastly ring of prophetesses in the Hatchgoose drawing-room; +strong-minded and emancipated women, who prided themselves on having +cast off conventionalities, and on being rude, and awkward, and +dogmatic, and irreverent, and sometimes slightly improper; women +who had missions to mend everything in heaven and earth, except +themselves; who had quarrelled with their husbands, and had therefore +felt a mission to assert women's rights, and reform marriage in +general; or who had never been able to get married at all, and +therefore were especially competent to promulgate a model method of +educating the children whom they never had had; women who wrote poetry +about Lady Blanches whom they never had met, and novels about male and +female blackguards whom (one hopes) they never had met, or about whom +(if they had) decent women would have held their peace; and every one +of whom had in obedience to Emerson, "followed her impulses," and +despised fashion, and was accordingly clothed and bedizened as was +right in the sight of her own eyes, and probably in those of no one +else. + +No wonder that Elsley, ere long, began drawing comparisons, and using +his wit upon ancient patronesses, of course behind their backs, +likening them to idols fresh from the car of Juggernaut, or from the +stern of a South Sea canoe; or, most of all, to that famous +wooden image of Freya, which once leapt lumbering forth from her +bullock-cart, creaking and rattling in every oaken joint, to belabour +the too daring Viking who was flirting with her priestess. Even so, +whispered Elsley, did those brains and tongues creak and rattle, +lumbering before the blasts of Pythonic inspiration; and so, he verily +believed, would the awkward arms and legs have done likewise, if one +of the Pythonesses had ever so far degraded herself as to dance. + +No wonder, then, that those gifted dames had soon to complain +of Elsley Vavasour as a traitor to the cause of progress and +civilisation; a renegade who had fled to the camp of aristocracy, +flunkeydom, obscurantism, frivolity, and dissipation; though there was +not one of them but would have given an eye--perhaps no great loss to +the aggregate loveliness of the universe--for one of his invitations +to 999 Cavendish Street south-east, with the chance of being presented +to the Duchess of Lyonesse. + +To do Elsley justice, one reason why he liked his new acquaintances so +well was, that they liked him. He behaved well himself, and therefore +people behaved well to him. He was, as I have said, a very handsome +fellow in his way; therefore it was easy to him, as it is to all +physically beautiful persons, to acquire a graceful manner. Moreover, +he had steeped his whole soul in old poetry, and especially in +Spenser's Faery Queen. Good for him, had he followed every lesson +which he might have learnt out of that most noble of English books: +but one lesson at least he learnt from it; and that was, to be +chivalrous, tender, and courteous to all women, however old or ugly, +simply because they were women. The Hatchgoose Pythonesses did not +wish to be women, but very bad imitations of men; and therefore he +considered himself absolved from all knightly duties toward them: but +toward these Peris of the west, and to the dowagers who had been Peris +in their time, what adoration could be too great? So he bowed down +and worshipped; and, on the whole, he was quite right in so doing. +Moreover, he had the good sense to discover, that though the young +Peris were the prettiest to look at, the elder Peris were the better +company; and that it is, in general, from married women that a poet or +any one else will ever learn what woman's heart is like. And so well +did he carry out his creed, that before his first summer was over he +had quite captivated the heart of old Lady Knockdown, aunt to Lucia +St. Just, and wife to Lucia's guardian; a charming old Irishwoman, who +affected a pretty brogue, perhaps for the same reason that she wore a +wig, and who had been, in her day, a beauty and a blue, a friend +of the Miss Berrys, and Tommy Moore, and Grattan, and Lord Edward +Fitzgerald, and Dan O'Connell, and all other lions and lionesses which +had roared for the last sixty years about the Emerald Isle. There was +no one whom she did not know, and nothing she could not talk about. +Married up, when a girl, to a man for whom she did not care, and +having no children, she had indemnified herself by many flirtations, +and the writing of two or three novels, in which she penned on paper +the superfluous feeling which had no vent in real life. She had +deserted, as she grew old, the novel for unfulfilled prophecy; and was +a distinguished leader in a distinguished religious coterie: but she +still prided herself upon having a green head upon grey shoulders; and +not without reason; for underneath all the worldliness and intrigue, +and petty affectation of girlishness, which she contrived to jumble +in with her religiosity, beat a young and kindly heart. So she was +charmed with Mr. Vavasour's manners, and commended them much to Lucia, +who, a shrinking girl of seventeen, was peeping at her first season +from under Lady Knockdown's sheltering wing. + +"Me dear, let Mr. Vavasour be who he will, he has not only the +intellect of a true genius, but what is a great deal better for +practical purposes; that is, the manners of one. Give me the man +who will let a woman of our rank say what we like to him, without +supposing that he may say what he likes in return; and considers one's +familiarity as an honour, and not as an excuse for taking liberties. A +most agreeable contrast, indeed, to the young men of the present +day; who come in their shooting jackets, and talk slang to their +partners,--though really the girls are just as bad,--and stand with +their backs to the fire, and smell of smoke, and go to sleep after +dinner, and pay no respect to old age, nor to youth either, I think. +'Pon me word, Lucia, the answers I've heard young gentlemen make to +young ladies, this very season,--they'd have been called out the +next morning in my time, me dear. As for the age of chivalry, nobody +expects that to be restored: but really one might have been spared the +substitute for it which, we had when I was young, in the grand air of +the old school. It was a 'sham,' I daresay, as they call everything +now-a-days: but really, me dear, a pleasant sham is better to live +with than an unpleasant reality, especially when it smells of cigars." + +So it befell that Elsley Vavasour was asked to Lady Knockdown's, and +that there he fell in love with Lucia, and Lucia fell in love with +him. + +The next winter, old Lord Knockdown, who had been decrepit for some +years past, died; and his widow, whose income was under five hundred +a year,--for the estates were entailed, and mortgaged, and everything +else which can happen to an Irish property,--came to live with her +nephew, Lord Scoutbush, in Eaton Square, and take such care as she +could of Lucia and Valencia. + +So, after a dreary autumn and winter of parting and silence, Elsley +found himself the next season invited to Eaton Square; there the +mischief, if mischief it was, was done; and Elsley and Lucia started +in life upon two hundred a year. He had inherited some fifty of his +own; she had about a hundred and fifty, which, indeed, was not yet +her own by right; but little Scoutbush (who was her sole surviving +guardian) behaved on the whole very well for a young gentleman of +twenty-two, in a state of fury and astonishment. The old Lord had, +wisely enough, settled in his will that Lucia was to enjoy the +interest of her fortune from the time that she came out, provided she +did not marry without her guardian's leave; and Scoutbush, to avoid +esclandre and misery, thought it as well to waive the proviso, and +paid her her dividends as usual. + +But how had she contrived to marry at all without his leave? That is +an ugly question. I will not say that she had told a falsehood, +or that Elsley had forsworn himself when he got the licence: but +certainly both of them were guilty of something very like a white lie, +when they declared that Lucia had the consent of her sole surviving +guardian, on the strength of an half-angry, half-jesting expression of +Scoutbush's that she might marry whom she chose, provided she did not +plague him. In the first triumph of success and intoxication of wedded +bliss, Lucia had written him a saucy letter, reminding him of his +permission, and saying that she had taken him at his word: but her +conscience smote her; and Elsley's smote him likewise; and smote him +all the more, because he had been married under a false name, a fact +which might have ugly consequences in law which he did not like to +contemplate. To do him justice, he had been half-a-dozen times during +his courtship on the point of telling Lucia his real name and +history. Happy for him had he done so, whatever might have been the +consequences: but he wanted moral courage; the hideous sound of Briggs +had become horrible to him; and once his foolish heart was frightened +away from honesty, just as honesty was on the point of conquering, by +old Lady Knockdown's saying that she could never have married a man +with an ugly name, or let Lucia marry one. + +"Conceive becoming Mrs. Natty Bumppo, me dear, even for twenty +thousand a year. If you could summon up courage to do the deed, I +couldn't summon up courage to continue my correspondence with ye." + +Elsley knew that that was a lie; that the old lady would have let her +marry the most triumphant snob in England, if he had half that income: +but unfortunately Lucia capped her aunt's nonsense with "There is no +fear of my ever marrying any one who has not a graceful name," and a +look at Vavasour, which said--"And you have one, and therefore I--" +For the matter had then been settled between them. This was too much +for his vanity, and too much, also, for his fears of losing Lucia by +confessing the truth. So Elsley went on, ashamed of his real name, +ashamed of having concealed it, ashamed of being afraid that it would +be discovered,--in a triple complication of shame, which made him +gradually, as it makes every man, moody, suspicious, apt to take +offence where none is meant. Besides they were very poor. He, though +neither extravagant nor profligate, was, like most literary men who +are accustomed to live from hand to mouth, careless, self-indulgent, +unmethodical. She knew as much of housekeeping as the Queen of Oude +does; and her charming little dreams of shopping for herself were +rudely enough broken, ere the first week was out, by the horrified +looks of Clara, when she returned from her first morning's marketing +for the weekly consumption, with nothing but a woodcock, some +truffles, and a bunch of celery. Then the landlady of the lodgings +robbed her, even under the nose of the faithful Clara, who knew as +little about housekeeping as her mistress; and Clara, faithful as +she was, repaid herself by grumbling and taking liberties for being +degraded from the luxurious post of lady's maid to that of servant of +all work, with a landlady, and "marchioness" to wrestle with all day +long. Then, what with imprudence and anxiety, Lucia of course lost +her first child: and after that came months of illness, during which +Elsley tended her, it must be said for him, as lovingly as a mother; +and perhaps they were both really happier during that time of sorrow +than they had been in all the delirious bliss of the honeymoon. + +Valencia meanwhile defied old Lady Knockdown (whose horror and wrath +knew no bounds), and walked off one morning with her maid to see her +prodigal sister; a visit which not only brought comfort to the weary +heart, but important practical benefits. For going home, she seized +upon Scoutbush, and so moved his heart with pathetic pictures of +Lucia's unheard-of penury and misery, that his heart was softened; +and though he absolutely refused to call on Vavasour, he made him an +offer, through Lucia, of Penalva Court for the time being; and thither +they went--perhaps the best thing they could have done. + +There, of course, they were somewhat more comfortable. A very cheap +country, a comfortable house rent free, and a lovely neighbourhood, +were a pleasant change after dear London lodgings: but it is a +question whether the change made Elsley a better man. + +In the first place, he became a more idle man. The rich enervating +climate began to tell upon his mind, as it did upon Lucia's health. He +missed that perpetual spur of nervous excitement, change of society, +influx of ever-fresh objects, which makes London, after all, the best +place in the world for hard working; and which makes even a walk along +the streets an intellectual tonic. In the soft and luxurious West +Country Nature invited him to look at her, and dream; and dream he +did, more and more, day by day. He was tired, too--as who would not +be?--of the drudgery of writing for his daily bread; and relieved from +the importunities of publishers and printers'-devils, he sent up fewer +and fewer contributions to the magazines. He would keep his energies +for a great work; poetry was, after all, his forte: he would not +fritter himself away on prose and periodicals, but would win for +himself, etc. etc. If he made a mistake, it was at least a pardonable +one. + +But Elsley became not only a more idle, but a more morose man. He +began to feel the evils of solitude. There was no one near with whom +he could hold rational converse, save an antiquarian parson or two; +and parsons were not to his taste. So, never measuring his wits +against those of his peers, and despising the few men whom he met +as inferior to himself, he grew more and more wrapt up in his own +thoughts and his own tastes. His own poems, even to the slightest turn +of expression, became more and more important to him. He grew more +jealous of criticism, more confident in his own little theories, about +this and that, more careless of the opinion of his fellowmen, and, +as a certain consequence, more unable to bear the little crosses and +contradictions of daily life; and as Lucia, having brought one and +another child safely into the world, settled down into motherhood, he +became less and less attentive to her, and more and more attentive to +that self which was fast becoming the centre of his universe. + +True, there were excuses for him; for whom are there none? He was +poor and struggling; and it is much more difficult (as Becky Sharp, I +think, pathetically observes) to be good when one is poor than when +one is rich. It is (and all rich people should consider the fact) much +more easy, if not to go to heaven, at least to think one is going +thither, on three thousand a year, than on three hundred. Not only is +respectability more easy, as is proved by the broad fact that it is +the poor people who fill the gaols, and not the rich ones: but virtue, +and religion--of the popular sort. It is undeniably more easy to be +resigned to the will of Heaven, when that will seems tending just as +we would have it; much more easy to have faith in the goodness of +Providence, when that goodness seems safe in one's pocket in the +form of bank-notes; and to believe that one's children are under the +protection of Omnipotence, when one can hire for them in half an hour +the best medical advice in London. One need only look into one's own +heart to understand the disciples' astonishment at the news, that "How +hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven." + +"Who then can be saved?" asked they, being poor men, accustomed to +see the wealthy Pharisees in possession of "the highest religious +privileges, and means of grace." Who, indeed, if not the rich? If the +noblemen, and the bankers, and the dowagers, and the young ladies who +go to church, and read good books, and have been supplied from youth +with the very best religious articles which money can procure, and +have time for all manner of good works, and give their hundreds to +charities, and head reformatory movements, and build churches, +and work altar-cloths, and can taste all the preachers and +father-confessors round London, one after another, as you would taste +wines, till they find the spiritual panacea which exactly suits their +complaint--if they are not sure of salvation, who can be saved? + +Without further comment, the fact is left for the consideration of +all readers; only let them not be too hard upon Elsley and Lucia, if, +finding themselves sometimes literally at their wits' end, they went +beyond their poor wits into the region where foolish things are said +and done. + +Moreover, Elsley's ill-temper (as well as Lucia's) had its excuses in +physical ill-health. Poor fellow! Long years of sedentary work had +begun to tell upon him; and while Tom Thurnall's chest, under the +influence of hard work and oxygen, measured round perhaps six inches +more than it had done sixteen years ago, Elsley's, thanks to stooping +and carbonic acid, measured six inches less. Short breath, lassitude, +loss of appetite, heartburn, and all that fair company of miseries +which Mr. Cockle and his Antibilious Pills profess to cure, are no +cheering bosom friends; but when a man's breast-bone is gradually +growing into his stomach, they will make their appearance; and small +blame to him whose temper suffers from their gentle hints that he has +a mortal body as well as an immortal soul. + +But most fretting of all was the discovery that Lucia knew--if not all +about his original name--still enough to keep him in dread lest she +should learn more. + +It was now twelve months and more that this new terror had leapt up +and stared in his face. He had left a letter about--a thing which he +was apt to do--in which the Whitbury lawyer made some allusions to his +little property; and he was sure that Lucia had seen it; the hated +name of Briggs certainly she had not seen; for Elsley had torn it out +the moment he opened the letter: but she had seen enough, as he soon +found, to be certain that he had, at some time or other, passed under +a different name. + +If Lucia had been a more thoughtful or high-minded woman, she would +have gone straight to her husband, and quietly and lovingly asked him +to tell her all: but, in her left-handed Irish fashion, she kept the +secret to herself, and thought it a very good joke to have him in her +power, and to be able to torment him about that letter when he got out +of temper. It never occurred, however, to her that his present name +was the feigned one. She fancied that he had, in some youthful +escapade, assumed the name to which the lawyer alluded. So the +next time he was cross, she tried laughingly the effect of her +newly-discovered spell; and was horror-struck at the storm which she +evoked. In a voice of thunder, Elsley commanded her never to mention +the subject again; and showed such signs of terror and remorse, that +she obeyed him from that day forth, except when now and then she lost +her temper as completely, too, as he. Little she thought, in her +heedlessness, what a dark cloud of fear and suspicion, ever deepening +and spreading, she had put between his heart and hers. + +But if Elsley had dreaded her knowledge of his story, he dreaded ten +times more Tom's knowledge of it. What if Thurnall should tell Lucia? +What if Lucia should make a confidant of Thurnall? Women told their +doctors everything; and Lucia, he knew too well, had cause to complain +of him. Perhaps, thought he, maddened into wild suspicion by the sense +of his own wrong-doing, she might complain of him; she might combine +with Thurnall against him--for what purpose he knew not: but the +wildest imaginations flashed across him, as he hurried desperately +home, intending as soon as he got there to forbid Lucia's ever calling +in his dreaded enemy. No, Thurnall should never cross his door again! +On that one point he was determined, but on nothing else. + +However, his intention was never fulfilled. For long before he reached +home he began to feel himself thoroughly ill. His was a temperament +upon which mental anxiety acts rapidly and severely; and the burning +sun, and his rapid walk, combined with rage and terror to give him +such a "turn" that, as he hurried down the lane, he found himself +reeling like a drunken man. He had just time to hurry through the +garden, and into his study, when pulse and sense failed him, and he +rolled over on the sofa in a dead faint. + +Lucia had seen him come in, and heard him fall, and rushed in. The +poor little thing was at her wits' end, and thought that he had had +nothing less than a _coup-de-soleil._ And when he recovered from his +faintness, he began to be so horribly ill, that Clara, who had been +called in to help, had some grounds for the degrading hypothesis (for +which Lucia all but boxed her ears) that "Master had got away into the +woods, and gone eating toadstools, or some such poisonous stuff;" for +he lay a full half-hour on the sofa, death-cold, and almost pulseless; +moaning, shuddering, hiding his face in his hands, and refusing +cordials, medicines, and, above all, a doctor's visit. + +However, this could not be allowed to last. Without Elsley's +knowledge, a messenger was despatched for Thurnall, and luckily met +him in the lane; for he was returning to the town in the footsteps of +his victim. + +Elsley's horror was complete, when the door opened, and Lucia brought +in none other than his tormentor. + +"My dearest Elsley, I have sent for Mr. Thurnall. I knew you would not +let me, if I told you; but you see I have done it, and now you must +really speak to him." + +Elsley's first impulse was to motion them both away angrily; but the +thought that he was in Thurnall's power stopped him. He must not show +his disgust. What if Lucia were to ask its cause, even to guess it? +for to his fears even that seemed possible. A fresh misery! Just +because he shrank so intensely from the man, he must endure him! + +"There is nothing the matter with me," said he languidly. + +"I should be the best judge of that, after what Mrs. Vavasour has just +told me," said Tom, in his most professional and civil voice; and +slipped, catlike, into a seat beside the unresisting poet. + +He asked question on question: but Elsley gave such unsatisfactory +answers, that Lucia had to detail everything afresh for him, +with--"You know, Mr. Thurnall, he is always overtasking his brain, and +will never confess himself ill,"--and all a woman's anxious comments. + +Rogue Tom knew all the while well enough what was the cause: but he +saw, too, that Elsley was very ill. He felt that he must have the +matter out at once; and, by a side glance, sent the obedient Lucia out +of the room to get a table-spoonful of brandy. + +"Now, my dear sir, that we are alone," began he blandly. + +"Now, sir!" answered Vavasour, springing off the sofa, his whole +pent-up wrath exploding in hissing steam, the moment the safety-valve +was lifted. "Now, sir! What--what is the meaning of this insolence, +this intrusion?" + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Vavasour," answered Tom, rising, in a tone of +bland and stolid surprise. + +"What do you want here, with your mummery and medicine, when you know +the cause of my malady well enough already? Go, sir! and leave me to +myself." + +"My dear sir," said Tom firmly, "you seem to have forgotten what +passed between us this morning." + +"Will you insult me beyond endurance?" cried Elsley. + +"I told you that, as long as you chose, you were Elsley Vavasour, and +I the country doctor. We have met in that character. Why not sustain +it? You are really ill; and if I know the cause, I am all the more +likely to know the cure." + +"Cure?" + +"Why not? Believe me, it is in your power to become a much happier +man, simply by becoming a healthier one." + +"Impertinence!" + +"Pish! What can I gain by being impertinent, sir? I know very well +that you have received a severe shock; but I know equally well, that +if you were as you ought to be, you would not feel it in this way. +When one sees a man in the state of prostration in which you are, +common sense tells one that the body must have been neglected, for the +mind to gain such power over it." + +Elsley replied with a grunt; but Tom went on, bland and imperturbable. + +"Believe me, it may be a very materialist view of things: but fact +is fact--the _corpus sanum_ is father to the _mens sana_--tonics and +exercise make the ills of life look marvellously smaller. You have +the frame of a strong and active man; and all you want to make you +light-hearted and cheerful, is to develop what nature has given you." + +"It is too late," said Elsley, pleased, as most men are, by being told +that they might be strong and active. + +"Not in the least. Three months would strengthen your muscles, open +your chest again, settle your digestion, and make you as fresh as a +lark, and able to sing like one. Believe me, the poetry would be the +better for it, as well as the stomach. Now, positively, I shall begin +questioning you." + +So Elsley was won to detail the symptoms of internal _malaise_, which +he was only too much in the habit of watching himself; but there were +some among them which Tom could not quite account for on the ground of +mere effeminate habits. A thought struck him. + +"You sleep ill, I suppose?" said he carelessly. + +"Very ill." + +"Did you ever try opiates?" + +"No--yes--that is, sometimes." + +"Ah!" said Tom, more carelessly still, for he wished to hide, by all +means, the importance of the confession. "Well, they give relief for a +time: but they are dangerous things--disorder the digestion, and have +their revenge on the nerves next morning, as spitefully as brandy +itself. Much better try a glass of strong ale or porter just before +going to bed. I've known it give sleep, even in consumption--try it, +and exercise. You shoot?" + +"No." + +"Pity; there ought to be noble cocking in these woods. However, the +season's past. You fish?" + +"No." + +"Pity again. I hear Alva is full of trout. Why not try sailing? +Nothing oxygenates the lungs like a sail, and your friends the +fishermen would be delighted to have you as super-cargo. They are +always full of your stories to them, and your picking their brains for +old legends and adventures." + +"They are noble fellows, and I want no better company; but, +unfortunately, I am always sea-sick." + +"Ah! wholesome, but unpleasant: you are fond of gardening?" + +"Very; but stooping makes my head swim." + +"True, and I don't want you to stoop. I hope to see you soon as erect +as a Guardsman. Why not try walks?" + +"Abominable bores--lonely, aimless--" + +"Well, perhaps you're right. I never knew but three men who took long +constitutionals on principle, and two of them were cracked. But why +not try a companion; and persuade that curate, who needs just the same +medicine as you, to accompany you? I don't know a more gentleman-like, +agreeable, well-informed man than he is." + +"Thank you. I can choose my acquaintances for myself." + +"You touchy ass!" said Thurnall to himself. "If we were in the blessed +state of nature now, wouldn't I give you ten minutes' double thonging, +and then set you to work, as the runaway nigger did his master, Bird +o' freedom Sawin, till you'd learnt a thing or two." But blandly still +he went on. + +"Try the dumb-bells then. Nothing like them for opening your chest. +And do get a high desk made, and stand to your writing instead of +sitting." And Tom actually made Vavasour promise to do both, and bade +him farewell with-- + +"Now, I'll send you up a little tonic; and trouble you with no more +visits till you send for me. I shall see by one glance at your face +whether you are following my prescriptions. And, I say, I wouldn't +meddle with those opiates any more; try good malt and hops instead." + +"Those who drink beer, think beer," said Elsley, smiling; for he +was getting more hopeful of himself, and his terrors were vanishing +beneath Tom's skilful management. + +"And those who drink water, think water. The Elizabethans--Sidney and +Shakspeare, Burleigh and Queen Bess, worked on beef and ale,--and you +would not class them among the muddle-headed of the earth: Believe me, +to write well, you must live well. If you take it out of your brain, +you must put it in again. It's a question of fact. Try it for +yourself." And off Tom went; while Lucia rushed back to her husband, +covered him with caresses, assured him that he was seven times as ill +as he really was, and so nursed and petted him, that he felt himself, +for that time at least, a beast and a fool for having suspected her +for a moment. Ah, woman, if you only knew how you carry our hearts in +your hands, and would but use your power for our benefit, what angels +you might make us all! + +"So," said Tom, as he went home, "he has found his way to the +elevation-bottle, has he, as well as Mrs. Heale? It's no concern of +mine: but as a professional man, I must stop that. You will certainly +be no credit to me if you kill yourself under my hands." + +Tom went straight home, showed the blacksmith how to make a pair of +dumb-bells, covered them himself with leather, and sent them up the +next morning with directions to be used for half an hour morning and +evening. + +And something--whether it was the dumb-bells, or the tonic, or +wholesome fear of the terrible doctor--kept Elsley for the next month +in better spirits and temper than he had been in for a long while. + +Moreover, Tom set Lucia to coax him into walking with Headley. She +succeeded at last; and, on the whole, each of them soon found that +he had something to learn from the other. Elsley improved daily in +health, and Lucia wrote to Valencia flaming accounts of the wonderful +doctor who had been cast on shore in their world's end; and received +from her after a while this, amid much more--for fancy is not +exuberant enough to reproduce the whole of a young lady's letter. + +"--I am so ashamed. I ought to have told you of that doctor a +fortnight ago; but, rattle-pate as I am, I forgot all about it. Do +you know, he is Sabina Mellot's dearest friend; and she begged me to +recommend him to you; but I put it off, and then it slipped my memory, +like everything else good. She has told me the most wonderful stories +of his courage and goodness; and conceive--she and her husband were +taken prisoners with him by the savages in the South Seas, and going +to be eaten, she says: but he helped them to escape in a canoe--such +a story--and lived with them for three months on the most beautiful +desert island--it is all like a fairy tale. I'll tell it you when I +come, darling--which I shall do in a fortnight, and we shall be all so +happy. I have such a box ready for you and the chicks, which I shall +bring with me; and some pretty things from Scoutbush beside, who is +very low, poor fellow, I cannot conceive what about: but wonderfully +tender about you. I fancy he must be in love; for he stood up the +other day about you to my aunt, quite solemnly, with, 'Let her alone, +my lady. She's not the first whom love has made a fool of, and she +won't be the last: and I believe that some of the moves which look +most foolish, turn out best after all. Live and let live; everybody +knows his own business best; anything is better than marriage without +real affection.' Conceive my astonishment at hearing the dear little +fellow turn sage in that way! + +"By the way, I have had to quote his own advice against him; for I +have refused Lord Chalkclere after all. I told him (C. not S.) that he +was much too good for me: far too perfect and complete a person; that +I preferred a husband whom I could break in for myself, even though he +gave me a little trouble. Scoutbush was cross at first; but he said +afterwards that it was just like Baby Blake (the wretch always calls +me Baby Blake now, after that dreadful girl in Lever's Novel); and I +told him frankly that it was, if he meant that I had sooner break in +a thorough-bred for myself, even though I had a fall or two in the +process, than jog along on the most finished little pony on earth, who +would never go out of an amble. Lord Chalk may be very finished, and +learned, and excellent, and so forth: but, _ma chère_, I want, not a +white rabbit (of which he always reminds me), but a hero, even though +he be a naughty one. I always fancy people must be very little if they +can be finished off so rapidly; if there was any real verve in them, +they would take somewhat longer to grow. Lord Chalk would do very well +to bind in Russian leather, and put on one's library shelves, to be +consulted when one forgot a date; but really even your Ulysses of a +doctor--provided, of course, he turned out a prince in disguise, and +don't leave out his h's--would be more to the taste of your naughtiest +of sisters." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A PEER IN TROUBLE. + + +Somewhere in those days, so it seems, did Mr. Bowie call unto himself +a cab at the barrack-gate, and, dressed in his best array, repair +to the wilds of Brompton, and request to see either Claude or Mrs. +Mellot. + +Bowie is an ex-Scots-Fusilier, who, damaged by the kick of a horse, +has acted as valet, first to Scoutbush's father, and next to Scoutbush +himself. He is of a patronising habit of mind, as befits a tolerably +"leeterary" Scotsman of forty-five years of age and six-feet three in +height, who has full confidence in the integrity of his own virtue, +the infallibility of his own opinion, and the strength of his own +right arm; for Bowie, though he has a rib or two "dinged in," is +mighty still as Theseus' self; and both astonished his red-bearded +compatriots, and won money for his master, by his prowess in the late +feat of arms at Holland House. + +Mr. Bowie is asked to walk into Sabina's boudoir (for Claude is out in +the garden), to sit down, and deliver his message: which he does after +a due military salute, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and in a +solemn and sonorous voice. + +"Well, madam, it's just this, that his lordship would be very glad to +see ye and Mr. Mellot, for he's vary ill indeed, and that's truth; and +if he winna tell ye the cause, then I will--and it's just a' for love +of this play-acting body here, and more's the pity." + +"More's the pity, indeed!" + +"And it's my opeenion the puir laddie will just die, if nobody sees to +him; and I've taken the liberty of writing to Major Cawmill mysel', to +beg him to come up and see to him, for it's a pity to see his lordship +cast away, for want of an understanding body to advise him." + +"So I am not an understanding body, Bowie?" + +"Oh, madam, ye're young and bonny," says Bowie, in a tone in which +admiration is not unmingled with pity. + +"Young indeed! Mr. Bowie, do you know that I am almost as old as you?" + +"Hoot, hut, hut--" says Bowie, looking at the wax-like complexion and +bright hawk-eyes. + +"Really I am. I'm past five-and-thirty this many a day." + +"Weel, then, madam, if you'll excuse me, ye're old enough to be wiser +than to let his lordship be inveigled with any such play-acting." + +"Really he's not inveigled," says Sabina, laughing. "It is all his own +fault, and I have warned him how absurd and impossible it is. She has +refused even to see him; and you know yourself he has not been near +our house for these three weeks." + +"Ah, madam, you'll excuse me: but that's the way with that sort +of people, just to draw back and draw back, to make a poor young +gentleman follow them all the keener, as a trout does a minnow, the +faster you spin it." + +"I assure you no. I can't let you into ladies' secrets; but there is +no more chance of her listening to him than of me. And as for me, I +have been trying all the spring to marry him to a young lady with +eighty thousand pounds; so you can't complain of me." + +"Eh? No. That's more like and fitting." + +"Well, now. Tell his lordship that we are coming; and trust us, Mr. +Bowie: we do not look very villainous, do we?" + +"Faith, 'deed then, and I suppose not," said Bowie, using the verb +which, in his cautious, Scottish tongue, expresses complete certainty. +The truth is, that Bowie adores both Sabina and her husband, who are, +he says, "just fit to be put under a glass case on the sideboard, like +twa wee china angels." + +In half an hour they were in Scoutbush's rooms. They found the little +man lying on his sofa, in his dressing-gown, looking pale and pitiable +enough. He had been trying to read; for the table by him was covered +with books; but either gunnery and mathematics had injured his eyes, +or he had been crying; Sabina inclined to the latter opinion. + +"This is very kind of you both; but I don't want you, Claude. I want +Mrs. Mellot. You go to the window with Bowie." + +Bowie and Claude shrugged their shoulders at each other, and departed. + +"Now, Mrs. Mellot, I can't help looking up to you as a mother." + +"Complimentary to my youth," says Sabina, who always calls herself +young when she is called old, and old when she is called young. + +"I didn't mean to be rude. But one does long to open one's heart. I +never had any mother to talk to, you know; and I can't tell my aunt; +and Valencia is so flighty; and I thought you would give me one chance +more. Don't laugh at me, I say. I am really past laughing at." + +"I see you are, you poor creature," says Sabina, melting; and a long +conversation follows, while Claude and Bowie exchange confidences, and +arrive at no result beyond the undeniable assertion; "it is a very bad +job." + +Presently Sabina comes out, and Scoutbush calls cheerfully from the +sofa:-- + +"Bowie, get my bath and things to dress; and order me the cab in half +an hour. Good-bye, you dear people, I shall never thank you enough." + +Away go Claude and Sabina in a hack-cab. + +"What have you done?" + +"Given him what he entreated for--another chance with Marie." + +"It will only madden him all the more. Why let him try, when you know +it is hopeless." + +"Why, I had not the heart to refuse, that's the truth; and besides, I +don't know that it is hopeless." + +"All the naughtier of you, to let him run the chance of making a fool +of himself." + +"I don't know that he will make such a great fool of himself. As he +says, his grandfather married an actress, and why should not he?" + +"Simply because she won't marry him." + +"And how do you know that, sir? You fancy that you understand all the +women's hearts in England, just because you have found out the secret +of managing one little fool." + +"Managing her, quotha! Being managed by her, till my quiet house is +turned into a perfect volcano of match-making. Why, I thought he was +to marry Manchestrina." + +"He shall marry who he likes; and if Marie changes her mind, and +revenges herself on this American by taking Lord Scoutbush, all I can +say is, it will be a just judgment on him. I have no patience with the +heartless fellow, going off thus, and never even leaving his address." + +"And because you have no patience, you think Marie will have none?" + +"What do you know about women's hearts? Leave us to mind our own +matters." + +"Mr. Bowie will kill you outright, if your plot succeeds." + +"No, he won't. I know who Bowie wants to marry; and if he is not good, +he shan't have her. Besides, it will be such fun to spite old Lady +Knockdown, who always turns up her nose at me. How mad she will be! +Here we are at home. Now, I shall go and prepare Marie." + +An hour after, Scoutbush was pleading his cause with Marie; and had +been met, of course, at starting, with the simple rejoinder,-- + +"But, my lord, you would not surely have me marry where I do not +love?" + +"Oh, of course not; but, you see, people very often get love after +they are married:--and I am sure I would do all to make you love me. I +know I can't bribe you by promising you carriages and jewels, and all +that:--but you should have what you would like--pictures and statues, +and books--and all that I can buy--Oh, madam, I know I am not worthy +of you--I never have had any education as you have!"-- + +Marie smiled a sad smile. + +"But I would learn--I know I could--for I am no fool, though I say it: +I like all that sort of thing, and--and if I had you to teach me, I +should care about nothing else. I have given up all my nonsense since +I knew you; indeed I have--I am trying all day long to read--ever +since you said something about being useful, and noble, and doing +one's work:--I have never forgotten that, madam, and never shall; and +you would find me a pleasant person to live with, I do believe. At all +events, I would--oh, madam--I would be your servant, your dog--I would +fetch and carry for you like a negro slave!" + +Marie turned pale, and rose. + +"Listen to me, my lord; this must end. You do not know to whom you are +speaking. You talk of negro slaves. Know that you are talking to one!" + +Scoutbush looked at her in blank astonishment. + +"Madam? Excuse me: but my own eyes--" + +"You are not to trust them; I tell you fact." + +Scoutbush was silent. She misunderstood his silence: but went on +steadily. + +"I tell you, my lord, what I expect you to keep secret: and I know +that I can trust your honour." + +Scoutbush bowed. + +"And what I should never have told you, were it not my only chance of +curing you of this foolish passion. I am an American slave!" + +"Curse them! Who dared make you a slave?" cried Scoutbush, turning as +red as a game-cock. + +"I was born a slave. My father was a white gentleman of good family: +my mother was a quadroon; and therefore I am a slave;--a negress, +a runaway slave, my lord, who, if I returned to America, should be +seized, and chained, and scourged, and sold.--Do you understand me?" + +"What an infernal shame!" cried Scoutbush, to whom the whole thing +appeared simply as a wrong done to Marie. + +"Well, my lord?" + +"Well, madam?" + +"Does not this fact put the question at rest for ever?" + +"No, madam! What do I know about slaves? No one is a slave in England. +No madam; all that it does is to make me long to cut half-a-dozen +fellows' throats--" and Scoutbush stamped with rage. "No, madam, you +are you: and if you become my viscountess, you take my rank, I trust, +and my name is yours, and my family yours; and let me see who dare +interfere!" + +"But public opinion, my lord?" said Marie, half-pleased, +half-terrified to find the shaft which she had fancied fatal fall +harmless at her feet. + +"Public opinion? You don't know England, madam! What's the use of my +being a peer, if I can't do what I like, and make public opinion go +my way, and not I its? Though I am no great prince, madam, but only +a poor Irish viscount, it's hard if I can't marry whom I like--in +reason, that is--and expect all the world to call on her, and treat +her as she deserves. Why, madam, you will have all London at your feet +after a season or two, and all the more if they know your story: or if +you don't like that, or if fools did talk at first, why we'd go and +live quietly at Kilanbaggan, or at Penalva, and you'd have all the +tenants looking up to you as a goddess, as I do, madam.--Oh, madam, I +would go anywhere, live anywhere, only to be with you!" + +Marie was deeply affected. Making all allowances for the wilfulness of +youth, she could not but see that her origin formed no bar whatever to +her marrying a nobleman; and that he honestly believed that it would +form none in the opinion of his compeers, if she proved herself worthy +of his choice; and, full of new emotions, she burst into tears. + +"There, now, you are melting: I knew you would! Madam! Signora?" and +Scoutbush advanced to take her hand. + +"Never less," cried she, drawing back. "Do not;--you only make me +miserable! I tell you it is impossible. I cannot tell you all.--You +must not do yourself and yours such an injustice! Go, I tell you!" + +Scoutbush still tried to take her hand. + +"Go, I entreat you," cried she, at her wits' end, "or I will really +ring the bell for Mrs. Mellot!" + +"You need not do that, madam," said he, drawing himself up; "I am not +in the habit of being troublesome to ladies, or being turned out of +drawing-rooms. I see how it is--" and his tone softened; "you despise +me, and think me a vain, frivolous puppy.--Well; I'll do something yet +that you shall not despise!" And he turned to go. + +"I do not despise you; I think you a generous, high-hearted +gentleman--nobleman in all senses." + +Scoutbush turned again. + +"But, again, impossible! I shall always respect you; but we must never +meet again." + +She held out her hand. Little Freddy caught and kissed it till he was +breathless, and then rushed out, and blundered over Sabina in the next +room. + +"No hope?" + +"None." And though he tried to squeeze his eyes together very tight, +the great tears would come dropping down. + +Sabina took him to a sofa, and sat him down while he made his little +moan. + +"I told you that she was in love with the American." + +"Then why don't he come back and marry her! Hang him, I'll go after +him and make him!" cried Scoutbush, glad of any object on which to +vent his wrath. + +"You can't, for nobody knows where he is. Now do be good and patient; +you will forget all this." + +"I shan't!" + +"You will; not at first, but gradually; and marry some one really more +fit for you." + +"Ah, but if I marry her I shan't love her; and then, you know, Mrs. +Mellot, I shall go to the bad again, just as much as ever. Oh, I was +trying to be steady for her sake!" + +"You can be that still." + +"Yes, but it's so hard, with nothing to hope for. I'm not fit to take +care of myself. I'm fit for nothing, I believe, but to go out and be +shot by those Russians; and I'll do it!" + +"You must not; you are not strong enough. The doctors would not let +you go as you are." + +"Then I'll get strong; I'll--" + +"You'll go home, and be good." + +"Ain't I good now?" + +"Yes, you are a good, sensible fellow, and have behaved nobly, and I +honour you for it, and Claude shall come and see you every day." + +That evening a note came from Scoutbush. + +"DEAR MRS. MELLOT--Whom should I find when I went home, but Campbell? +I told him all; and he says that you and everybody have done quite +right, so I suppose you have; and that I am quite right in trying to +get out to the East, so I shall do it. But the doctor says I must +rest for six weeks at least. So Campbell has persuaded me to take the +yacht, which is at Southampton, and go down to Aberalva, and then +round to Snowdon, where I have a little slate-quarry, and get some +fishing. Campbell is coming with me, and I wish Claude would come too. +He knows that brother-in-law of mine, Vavasour, I think, and I shall +go and make friends with him. I've got very merciful to foolish lovers +lately, and Claude can help me to face him; for I am a little afraid +of genuises, you know. So there we'll pick up my sister (she goes down +by land this week), and then go on to Snowdon; and Claude can visit +his old quarters at the Royal Oak at Bettws, where he and I had that +jolly week among the painters. Do let him come, and beg La Signora not +to be angry with me. That's all I'll ever ask of her again." + +"Poor fellow! But I can't part with you, Claude." + +"Let him," said La Cordifiamma. "He will comfort his lordship; and do +you come with me." + +"Come with you! Where!" + +"I will tell you when Claude is gone." + +"Claude, go and smoke in the garden. Now?" + +"Come with me to Germany, Sabina." + +"To Germany? Why on earth to Germany?" + +"I--I only said Germany because it came first into my mind. Anywhere +for rest; anywhere to be out of that poor man's way." + +"He will not trouble you any more; and you will not surely throw up +your engagement?" + +"Of course not!" said she, half peevishly. "It will be over in a +fortnight; and then I must have rest. Don't you see how I want rest?" + +Sabina had seen it for some time past. That white cheek had been +fading more and more to a wax-like paleness; those black eyes +glittered with fierce unhealthy light; and dark rings round them told, +not merely of late hours and excitement, but of wild passion and +midnight tears. Sabina had seen all, and could not but give way, as +Marie went on. + +"I must have rest, I tell you! I am beginning--I can confess all +to you--to want stimulants. I am beginning to long for brandy and +water--pah!--to nerve me up to the excitement of acting, and then for +morphine to make me sleep after it. The very eau de Cologne flask +tempts me! They say that the fine ladies use it, before a ball, for +other purposes than scent. You would not like to see me commence that +practice, would you?" + +"There is no fear, dear." + +"There is fear! You do not know the craving for exhilaration, the +capability of self-indulgence, in our wild Tropic blood. Oh, Sabina, I +feel at times that I could sink so low--that I could be so wicked, so +utterly wicked, if I once began! Take me away, dearest creature, +take me away, and let me have fresh air, and fair quiet scenes, and +rest--rest--oh, save me, Sabina!" and she put her hands over her face, +and burst into tears. + +"We will go, then: to the Rhine, shall it be? I have not been there +now for these three years, and it will be such fun running about the +world by myself once more, and knowing all the while that--" and +Sabina stopped; she did not like to remind Marie of the painful +contrast between them. + +"To the Rhine? Yes. And I shall see the beautiful old world, the old +vineyards, and castles, and hills, which he used to tell me of--taught +me to read of in those sweet, sweet books of Longfellow's! So gentle, +and pure, and calm--so unlike me!" + +"Yes, we will see them; and perhaps--" + +Marie looked up at her, guessing her thoughts, and blushed scarlet. + +"You, too, think then, that--that--" she could not finish her +sentence. + +Sabina stooped over her, and the two beautiful mouths met. + +"There, darling, we need say nothing. We are both women, and can talk +without words." + +"Then you think there is hope!" + +"Hope? Do you fancy that he is gone so very far? or that if he were, I +could not hunt him out? Have I wandered half round the world alone for +nothing?" + +"No, but hope--hope that--" + +"Not hope, but certainty; if some one I know had but courage." + +"Courage--to do what!" + +"To trust him utterly." + +Marie covered her face with her hands, and shuddered in every limb. + +"You know my story. Did I gain or lose by telling my Claude all?" + +"I will!" she cried, looking up pale but firm. "I will!" and she +looked steadfastly into the mirror over the chimney-piece, as if +trying to court the reappearance of that ugly vision which haunted it, +and so to nerve herself to the utmost, and face the whole truth. + +In little more than a fortnight, Sabina and Marie, with maid and +courier (for Marie was rich now), were away in the old Antwerpen. +And Claude was rolling down to Southampton by rail, with Campbell, +Scoutbush, and last, but not least, the faithful Bowie; who had under +his charge what he described to the puzzled railway-guard as "goads +and cleiks, and pirns and creels, and beuks and heuks, enough for a' +the cods o' Neufundland." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +L'HOMME INCOMPRIS. + + +Elsley went on, between improved health and the fear of Tom Thurnall, +a good deal better for the next month. He began to look forward to +Valencia's visit with equanimity, and, at last, with interest; and was +rather pleased than otherwise when, in the last week of July, a fly +drove up to the gate of old Penalva Court, and he handed out therefrom +Valencia, and Valencia's maid. + +Lucia had discovered that the wind was east, and that she was afraid +to go to the gate for fear of catching cold; her real purpose being, +that Valencia should meet Elsley first. + +"She is so impulsive," thought the good little creature, always +plotting about her husband, "that she will rush upon me, and never see +him for the first five minutes; and Elsley is so sensitive--how can he +be otherwise, in his position, poor dear?" So she refrained herself, +like Joseph, and stood at the door till Valencia was half-way down the +garden-walk, having taken Elsley's somewhat shyly-offered arm; and +then she could refrain herself no longer, and the two women ran upon +each other, and kissed, and sobbed, and talked, till Lucia was out of +breath; but Valencia was not so easily silenced. + +"My darling! and you are looking so much better than I expected; but +not quite yourself yet. That naughty baby is killing you, I am sure! +And Mr. Vavasour too, I shall begin to call him Elsley to-morrow, if +I like him as much as I do now--but he is looking quite thin--wearing +himself out with writing so many beautiful books,--that Wreck was +perfect! And where are the children?--I must rush upstairs and devour +them!--and what a delicious old garden! and clipt yews, too, so dark +and romantic, and such dear old-fashioned flowers!--Mr. Vavasour must +show me all over it, and over that hanging wood, too. What a duck of a +place!--And oh, my dear, I am quite out of breath!" + +And so she swept in, with her arm round Lucia's waist; while Elsley +stood looking after her, well enough satisfied with her reception of +him, and only hoping that the stream of words would slaken after a +while. + +"What a magnificent creature!" said he to himself. "Who could believe +that the three years would make such a change!" + +And he was right. The tall lithe girl had bloomed into full glory' and +Valencia St. Just, though not delicately beautiful, was as splendid +an Irish damsel as man need look upon, with a grand masque, aquiline +features, luxuriant black hair, and--though it was the fag-end of the +London season--the unrivalled Irish complexion, as of the fair dame of +Kilkenny, whose + + "Lips were like roses, her cheeks were the same, + Like a dish of fresh strawberries smother'd in crame." + +Her figure was perhaps too tall, and somewhat too stout also; but its +size was relieved by the delicacy of those hands and feet of which +Miss Valencia was most pardonably proud, and by that indescribable +lissomeness and lazy grace which Irishwomen inherit, perhaps, with +their tinge of southern blood; and when, in half an hour, she +reappeared, with broad straw-hat, and gown tucked up _à la bergère_ +over the striped Welsh petticoat, perhaps to show off the ankles, +which only looked the finer for a pair of heavy laced boots, Elsley +honestly felt it a pleasure to look at her, and a still greater +pleasure to talk to her, and to be talked to by her; while she, bent +on making herself agreeable, partly from real good taste, partly from +natural good-nature, and partly, too, because she saw in his eyes that +he admired her, chatted sentiment about all heaven and earth. + +For to Miss Valencia--it is sad to have to say it--admiration had been +now, for three years, her daily bread. She had lived in the thickest +whirl of the world, and, as most do for a while, found it a very +pleasant place. + +She had flirted--with how many must not be told; and perhaps with more +than one with whom she had no business to flirt. Little Scoutbush had +remonstrated with her on some such affair, but she had silenced him +with an Irish jest,--"You're a fisherman, Freddy; and when you can't +catch salmon, you catch trout; and when you can't catch trout, you'll +whip on the shallow for poor little gubbahawns, and say that it is all +to keep your hand in--and so do I." + +The old ladies said that this was the reason why she had not married; +the men, however, asserted that no one dare marry her; and one +club-oracle had given it as his opinion that no man in his rational +senses was to be allowed to have anything to do with her, till she had +been well jilted two or three times, to take the spirit out of her: +but that catastrophe had not yet occurred, and Miss Valencia still +reigned "triumphant and alone," though her aunt, old Lady Knockdown, +moved all the earth, and some dirty places, too, below the earth, to +get the wild Irish girl off her hands; "for," quoth she, "I feel with +Valencia, indeed, just like one of those men who carry about little +dogs in the Quadrant. I always pity the poor men so, and think how +happy they must be when they have sold one. It is one chance less, you +know, of having it bite them horribly, and then run away after all." + +There was, however, no more real harm in Valencia, than there is in +every child of Adam. Town frivolity had not corrupted her. She was +giddy, given up to enjoyment of the present: but there was not a +touch, of meanness about her: and if she was selfish, as every one +must needs be whose thoughts are of pleasure, admiration, and success, +she was so unintentionally; and she would have been shocked and pained +at being told that she was anything but the most kind-hearted and +generous creature on earth. Major Campbell, who was her Mentor as well +as her brother's, had certainly told her so more than once; at which +she had pouted a good deal, and cried a little, and promised to amend; +then packed up a heap of cast-off things to send to Lucia--half of it +much too fine to be of any use to the quiet little woman; and lastly, +gone out and bought fresh finery for herself, and forgot all her good +resolutions. Whereby it befell that she was tolerably deep in debt at +the end of every season, and had to torment and kiss Scoutbush into +paying her bills, which he did, like a good brother, and often before +he had paid his own. + +But, howsoever full Valencia's head may have been of fine garments and +London flirtations, she had too much tact and good feeling to talk +that evening of a world of which even Elsley knew more than her +sister. For poor Lucia had been but eighteen at the time of her +escapade, and had not been presented twelve months; so that she was +as "inexperienced" as any one can be, who has only a husband, three +children, and a household to manage on less than three hundred a year. +Therefore Valencia talked only of things which would interest Elsley; +asked him to read his last new poem--which, I need not say, he did; +told him how she devoured everything he wrote; planned walks with him +in the country; seemed to consult his pleasure in every way. + +"To-morrow morning I shall sit with you and the children, Lucia; of +course I must not interrupt Mr. Vavasour: but really in the afternoon +I must ask him to spare a couple of hours from the Muses." + +Vavasour was delighted to do anything--"Where would she walk?" + +"Where? of course to see the beautiful schoolmistress who saved the +man from drowning; and then to see the chasm across which he was +swept. I shall understand your poem so much better, you know, if I +can but realise the people and the place. And you must take me to see +Captain Willis, too, and even the Lieutenant--if he does not smell too +much of brandy. I will be so gracious and civil, quite the lady of the +castle." + +"You will make quite a royal progress," said Lucia, looking at her +with sisterly admiration. + +"Yes, I intend to usurp as many of Scoutbush's honours as I can till +he comes. I must lay down the sceptre in a fortnight, you know, so I +shall make as much use of it as I can meanwhile." + +And so on, and so on; meaning all the while to put Elsley quite at his +ease, and let him understand that bygones were bygones, and that with +her any reconciliation at all was meant to be a complete one; which +was wise and right enough. But Valencia had not counted on the +excitable and vain nature with which she was dealing; and Lucia, who +had her own fears from the first evening, was the last person in the +world to tell her of it; first from pride in herself, and then from +pride in her husband. For even if a woman has made a foolish match, it +is hard to expect her to confess as much: and, after all, a husband +is a husband, and let his faults be what they might, he was still +her Elsley; her idol once; and perhaps (so she hoped) her idol again +hereafter, and if not, still he was her husband, and that was enough. + +"By which you mean, sir, that she considers herself bound to endure +everything and anything from him, simply because she had been married +to him in church?" + +Yes, and a great deal more. Not merely being married in church; but +what being married in church means, and what every woman who is a +woman understands; and lives up to without flinching, though she die +a martyr for it, or a confessor; a far higher saint, if the truth was +known, as it will be some day, than all the holy virgins who ever +fasted and prayed in a convent since the days when Macarius first +turned fakeer. For to a true woman, the mere fact of a man's being +her husband, put it on the lowest ground that you choose, is utterly +sacred, divine, all-powerful; in the might of which she can conquer +self in a way which is an everyday miracle; and the man who does not +feel about the mere fact of a woman's having given herself utterly to +him, just what she herself feels about it, ought to be despised by all +his fellows;--were it not that, in that case, it would be necessary to +despise more human beings than is safe for the soul of any man. + +That fortnight was the sunniest which Elsley had passed, since he made +secret love to Lucia in Eaton Square. Romantic walks, the company of a +beautiful woman as ready to listen as she was to talk, free licence to +pour out all his fancies, sure of admiration, if not of flattery, and +pardonably satisfied vanity--all these are comfortable things for most +men, who have nothing better to comfort them. But, on the whole, this +feast did not make Elsley a better or a wiser man at home. Why +should it? Is a boy's digestion improved by turning him loose into a +confectioner's shop? And thus the contrast between what he chose to +call Valencia's sympathy, and Lucia's want of sympathy, made him, +unfortunately, all the more cross to her when they were alone; and +who could blame the poor little woman for saying one night, angrily +enough: + +"Ah, yes! Valencia,--Valencia is imaginative--Valencia understands +you--Valencia sympathises--Valencia thinks ... Valencia has no +children to wash and dress, no accounts to keep, no linen to +mend--Valencia's back does not ache all day long, so that she would be +glad enough to lie on the sofa from morning till night, if she was not +forced to work whether she can work or not. No, no; don't kiss me, for +kisses will not make up for injustice, Elsley. I only trust that you +will not tempt me to hate my own sister. No: don't talk to me now, +let me sleep if I can sleep; and go and walk and talk sentiment with +Valencia to-morrow, and leave the poor little brood hen to sit on +her nest, and be despised." And refusing all Elsley's entreaties for +pardon, she sulked herself to sleep. + +Who can blame her? If there is one thing more provoking than another +to a woman, it is to see her husband Strass-engel, Haus-teufel, an +angel of courtesy to every woman but herself; to see him in society +all smiles and good stories, the most amiable and self-restraining of +men; perhaps to be complimented on his agreeableness: and to know all +the while that he is penning up all the accumulated ill-temper of the +day, to let it out on her when they get home; perhaps in the very +carriage as soon as it leaves the door. Hypocrites that you are, +some of you gentlemen! Why cannot the act against cruelty to women, +corporal punishment included, be brought to bear on such as you? And +yet, after all, you are not most to blame in the matter: Eve herself +tempts you, as at the beginning; for who does not know that the man is +a thousand times vainer than the woman? He does but follow the analogy +of all nature. Look at the Red Indian, in that blissful state of +nature from which (so philosophers inform those who choose to believe +them) we all sprang. Which is the boaster, the strutter, the bedizener +of his sinful carcase with feathers and beads, fox-tails and bears' +claws,--the brave, or his poor little squaw? An Australian settler's +wife bestows on some poor slaving gin a cast-off French bonnet; before +she has gone a hundred yards, her husband snatches it off, puts it on +his own mop, quiets her for its loss with a tap of the waddie, and +struts on in glory. Why not? Has he not the analogy of all nature +on his side? Have not the male birds and the male moths, the fine +feathers, while the females go soberly about in drab and brown? Does +the lioness, or the lion, rejoice in the grandeur of a mane; the hind, +or the stag, in antlered pride? How know we but that, in some more +perfect and natural state of society, the women will dress like so +many quakeresses; while the frippery shops will become the haunts +of men alone, and "browches, pearls and owches be consecrate to +the nobler sex?" There are signs already, in the dress of our young +gentlemen, of such a return to the law of nature from the present +absurd state of things, in which the human peahens carry about the +gaudy trains which are the peacocks' right. + +For there is a secret feeling in woman's heart that she is in her +wrong place; that it is she who ought to worship the man, and not the +man her; and when she becomes properly conscious of her destiny, has +not he a right to be conscious of his? If the grey hens will stand +round in the mire clucking humble admiration, who can blame the old +blackcock for dancing and drumming on the top of a moss hag, with +outspread wings and flirting tail, glorious and self-glorifying. He is +a splendid fellow; and he was made splendid for some purpose surely? +Why did Nature give him his steel-blue coat, and his crimson +crest, but for the very same purpose that she gave Mr. A---- his +intellect--to be admired by the other sex? And if young damsels, +overflowing with sentiment and Ruskinism, will crowd round him, ask +his opinion of this book and that picture, treasure his bon-mots, beg +for his autograph, looking all the while the praise which they do not +speak (though they speak a good deal of it), and when they go home +write letters to him on matters about which in old times girls used to +ask only their mothers;--who can blame him if he finds the little wife +at home a very uninteresting body, whose head is so full of petty +cares and gossip, that he and all his talents are quite unappreciated? +_Les femmes incomprises_ of France used to (perhaps do now) form a +class of married ladies, whose sorrows were especially dear to the +novelists, male or female; but what are their woes compared to those +of _l'homme incompris?_ What higher vocation for a young maiden than +to comfort the martyr during his agonies? And, most of all, where the +sufferer is not merely a genius, but a saint; persecuted, perhaps, +abroad by vulgar tradesmen and Philistine bishops, and snubbed at home +by a stupid wife, who is quite unable to appreciate his magnificent +projects for regenerating all heaven and earth; and only, humdrum, +practical creature that she is, tries to do justly, and love mercy, +and walk humbly with her God? Fly to his help, all pious maidens, +and pour into the wounded heart of the holy man the healing balm of +self-conceit; cover his table with confidential letters, choose him as +your father-confessor, and lock yourself up alone with him for an +hour or two every week, while the wife is mending his shirts +upstairs.--True, you may break the stupid wife's heart by year-long +misery, as she slaves on, bearing the burden and heat of the day, of +which you never dream; keeping the wretched man, by her unassuming +good example, from making a fool of himself three times a week; and +sowing the seed of which you steal the fruit. What matter? If your +immortal soul requires it, what matter what it costs her carnal heart? +She will suffer in silence; at least, she will not tell you. You think +she does not understand you. Well;--and she thinks in return that you +do not understand her, and her married joys and sorrows, and her five +children, and her butcher's bills, and her long agony of fear for the +husband of whom she is ten times more proud than you could be; for +whom she has slaved for years; whose defects she has tried to cure, +while she cured her own; for whom she would die to-morrow, did he fall +into disgrace, when you had flounced off to find some new idol: and so +she will not tell you: and what the ear heareth not, that the heart +grieveth not.--Go on and prosper! You may, too, ruin the man's +spiritual state by vanity: you may pamper his discontent with the +place where God has put him, till he ends by flying off to "some +purer Communion," and taking you with him. Never mind. He is a most +delightful person, and his intercourse is so improving. Why were sweet +things made, but to be eaten? Go on and prosper. + +Ah, young ladies, if some people had (as it is perhaps well for them +that they have not) the ordering of this same British nation, they +would certainly follow your example, and try to restore various +ancient institutions. And first among them would be that very ancient +institution of the cucking-stool; to be employed however, not as of +old, against married scolds (for whom those who have been behind +the scenes have all respect and sympathy), but against unmarried +prophetesses, who, under whatsoever high pretence of art or religion, +flirt with their neighbours' husbands, be they parson or poet. + +Not, be it understood, that Valencia had the least suspicion that +Elsley considered himself "incompris." If he had hinted the notion +to her, she would have resented it as an insult to the St. Justs +in general, and to her sister in particular; and would have said +something to him in her off-hand way, the like whereof he had seldom +heard, even from adverse reviewers. + +Elsley himself soon divined enough of her character to see that he +must keep his sorrows to himself, if he wished for Valencia's good +opinion; and soon,--so easily does a vain man lend himself to +meanness--he found himself trying to please Valencia, by praising to +her the very woman with whom he was discontented. He felt shocked and +ashamed when first his own baseness flashed across him: but the bait +was too pleasant to be left easily: and, after all, he was trying to +say to his guest what he knew his guest would like; and what was that +but following those very rules of good society, for breaking which +Lucia was always calling him gauche and morose? So he actually quieted +his own conscience by the fancy that he was bound to be civil, and to +keep up appearances, "even for Lucia's sake," said the self-deceiver +to himself. And thus the mischief was done; and the breach between +Lucia and her husband, which had been somewhat bridged over during the +last month or two, opened more wide than ever, without a suspicion on +Valencia's part that she was doing all she could to break her sister's +heart. + +She, meanwhile, had plenty of reasons which justified her new intimacy +to herself. How could she better please Lucia? How better show that +bygones were to be bygones, and that Elsley was henceforth to be +considered as one of the family, than by being as intimate as possible +with him? What matter how intimate? For, after all, he was only a +brother, and she his sister. + +She had law on her side in that last argument, as well as love of +amusement. Whether she had either common sense or Scripture, is a very +different question. + +Poor Lucia, too, tried to make the best of the matter; and to take the +new intimacy as Valencia would have had her take it, in the light of a +compliment to herself; and so, in her pride, she said to Valencia, and +told her that she should love her for ever for her kindness to Elsley, +while her heart was ready to burst. + +But ere the fortnight was over the Nemesis had come, and Lucia, woman +as she was, could not repress a thrill of malicious joy, even though +Elsley became more intolerable than ever at the change. + +What was the Nemesis, then? + +Simply that this naughty Miss St. Just began to smile upon Frank +Headley the curate, even as she had smiled upon Elsley Vavasour. + +It was very naughty; but she had her excuses. She had found Elsley +out; and it was well for both of them that she had done so. Already, +upon the strength of their supposed relationship, she had allowed him +to talk a great deal more nonsense to her,--harmless perhaps, but +nonsense still,--than she would have listened to from any other +man; and it was well for both of them that Elsley was a man without +self-control who began to show the weak side of his character freely +enough, as soon as he became at ease with his companion, and excited +by conversation. Valencia quickly saw that he was vain as a peacock, +and weak enough to be led by her in any and every direction, when she +chose to work on his vanity. And she despised him accordingly, and +suspected, too, that her sister could not be very happy with such a +man. + +None are more quick than sisters-in-law to see faults in the +brother-in-law, when once they have begun to look for them; and +Valencia soon remarked that Elsley showed Lucia no _petits soins_, +while he was ready enough to show them to her; that he took no real +trouble about his children, or about anything else; and twenty more +faults, which she might have perceived in the first two days of her +visit, if she had not been in such a hurry to amuse herself. But she +was too delicate to ask Lucia the truth, and contented herself with +watching all parties closely, and in amusing herself meanwhile--for +amusement she must have--in + + "Breaking a country heart + For pastime, ere she went to town." + +She had met Frank several times about the parish and in the schools, +and had been struck at once with his grace and high breeding, and with +that air of melancholy which is always interesting in a true woman's +eyes. She had seen, too, that Elsley tried to avoid him, naturally +enough not wishing an intrusion on their pleasant _têtes-à -tête._ +Whereon, half to spite Elsley, and half to show her own right to +chat with whom she chose, she made Lucia ask Frank to tea; and next +contrived to go to the school when he was teaching there, and to make +Elsley ask him to walk with them; and all the more, because she had +discovered that Elsley had discontinued his walks with Frank, as soon +as she had appeared at Penalva. + +Lucia was not sorry to countenance her in her naughtiness; it was a +comfort to her to have a fourth person in the room at times, and thus +to compel Elsley and Valencia to think of something beside each other; +and when she saw her sister gradually transferring her favours from +the married to the unmarried victim, she would have been more than +woman if she had not rejoiced thereat. Only, she began soon to be +afraid for Frank, and at last told Valencia so. + +"Do take care that you do not break his heart!" + +"My dear! You forget that I sit under Mr. O'Blareaway, and am to him +as a heathen and a publican. Fresh from St. Nepomuc's as he is, he +would as soon think of falling in love with an 'Oirish Prodestant,' +as with a malignant and a turbaned Turk. Besides, my dear, if the +mischief is going to be done, it's done already." + +"I dare say it is, you naughty beautiful thing. If anybody is goose +enough to fall in love with you, he'll be also goose enough, I don't +doubt, to do so at first sight. There, don't look perpetually in that +glass: but take care!" + +"What use? If it is going to happen at all, I say, it has happened +already; so I shall just please myself, as usual." + +And it had happened: and poor Frank had been, ever since the first day +he saw Valencia, over head and ears in love. His time had come, and +there was no escaping his fate. + +But to escape he tried. Convinced, with many good men of all ages and +creeds, that a celibate life was the fittest one for a clergyman, he +had fled from St. Nepomuc's into the wilderness to avoid temptation, +and beheld at his cell-door a fairer fiend than ever came to St. +Dunstan. A fairer fiend, no doubt; for St. Dunstan's imagination +created his temptress for him, but Valencia was a reality: and fact +and nature may be safely backed to produce something more charming +than any monk's brain can do. One questions whether St. Dunstan's +apparition was not something as coarse as his own mind, clever though +that mind was. At least, he would never have had the heart to apply +the hot tongs to such a nose as Valencia's, but at most have bowed +her out pityingly, as Frank tried to bow out Valencia from the sacred +place of his heart, but failed. + +Hard he tried, and humbly too. He had no proud contempt for married +parsons. He was ready enough to confess, that he, too, might be weak +in that respect, as in a hundred others. He conceived that he had no +reason, from his own inner life, to believe himself worthy of any +higher vocation--proving his own real nobleness of soul by that very +humility. He had rather not marry. He might do so some day: but he +would sacrifice much to avoid the necessity. If he was weak, he would +use what strength he had to the uttermost ere he yielded. And all the +more, because he felt, and reasonably enough, that Valencia was the +last woman in the world to make a parson's wife. He had his ideal of +what such a wife should be, if she were to be allowed to exist at +all--the same ideal which Mr. Paget has drawn in his charming little +book (would that all parsons' wives would read and perpend), the +"Owlet of Owlstone Edge." But Valencia would surely not make a +Beatrice. Beautiful she was, glorious, lovable, but not the helpmeet +whom he needed. And he fought against the new dream like a brave man. +He fasted, he wept, he prayed: but his prayers seemed not to be heard. +Valencia seemed to have enthroned herself, a true Venus victrix, in +the centre of his heart, and would not be dispossessed. He tried +to avoid seeing her: but even for that he had not strength: more +miserable each time, as fierce against himself and his own weakness as +if he had given way to wine or to oaths. In vain, too, he represented +to himself the ridiculous hopelessness of his passion; the +impossibility of the London beauty ever stooping to marry the poor +country curate. Fancies would come in, how such things, strange as +they might seem, had happened already; might happen again. It was a +class of marriages for which he had always felt a strong dislike, even +suspicion and contempt; and though he was far more fitted, in family +as well as personal excellence, for such a match, than three out of +four who make them, yet he shrank with disgust from the notion of +being himself classed at last among the match-making parsons. Whether +there was "carnal pride" or not in that last thought, his soul so +loathed it, that he would gladly have thrown up his cure at Aberalva; +and would have done so actually, but for one word which Tom Thurnall +had spoken to him, and that was--Cholera. + +That the cholera might come; that it probably would come, in the +course of the next two months, was news to him which was enough to +keep him at his post, let what would be the consequence. And gradually +he began to see a way out of his difficulty--and a very simple one; +and that was to die. + +"That is the solution after all," said he. "I am not strong enough for +God's work: but I will not shrink from it, if I can help. If I cannot +master it, let it kill me; so at least I may have peace. I have failed +utterly here: all my grand plans have crumbled to ashes between my +fingers. I find myself a cumberer of the ground, where I fancied that +I was going forth like a very Michael--fool that I was!--leader of +the armies of heaven. And now, in the one remaining point on which +I thought myself strong, I find myself weakest of all. Useless and +helpless! I have one chance left, one chance to show these poor souls +that I really love them, really wish their good--Selfish that I am! +What matter whether I do show it or not? What need to justify myself +to them? Self, self, creeping in everywhere! I shall begin next, I +suppose, longing for the cholera to come, that I may show off myself +in it, and make spiritual capital out of their dying agonies! Ah me! +that it were all over!--That this cholera, if it is to come, would +wipe out of this head what I verily believe nothing but death will +do!" And therewith Frank laid his head on the table, and cried till he +could cry no more. + +It was not over manly: but he was weakened with overwork and sorrow: +and, on the whole, it was perhaps the best thing he could do; for he +fell asleep there, with his head on the table, and did not wake till +the dawn blazed through his open window. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE DOCTOR AT BAY. + + +Did you ever, in a feverish dream, climb a mountain which grew higher +and higher as you climbed; and scramble through passages which changed +perpetually before you, and up and down break-neck stairs which broke +off perpetually behind you? Did you ever spend the whole night, foot +in stirrup, mounting that phantom hunter which never gets mounted, or, +if he does, turns into a pen between your knees; or in going to fish +that phantom stream which never gets fished? Did you ever, late +for that mysterious dinner-party in some enchanted castle, wander +disconsolately, in unaccountable rags and dirt, in search of that +phantom carpet-bag which never gets found? Did you ever "realise" to +yourself the sieve of the Danaides, the stone of Sisyphus, the wheel +of Ixion; the pleasure of shearing that domestic animal who (according +to the experience of a very ancient observer of nature) produces more +cry than wool; the perambulation of that Irishman's model bog, where +you slip two steps backward for one forward, and must, therefore, in +order to progress at all, turn your face homeward, and progress as +a pig does into a steamer, by going the opposite way? Were you ever +condemned to spin ropes of sand to all eternity, like Tregeagle the +wrecker; or to extract the cube roots of a million or two of hopeless +surds, like the mad mathematician; or last, and worst of all, to work +the Nuisances Removal Act? Then you can enter, as a man and a brother, +into the sorrows of Tom Thurnall, in the months of June and July, +1854. + +He had made up his mind, for certain good reasons of his own, that the +cholera ought to visit Aberalva in the course of the summer; and, of +course, tried his best to persuade people to get ready for their ugly +visitor: but in vain. The cholera come there? Why, it never had come +yet, which signified, when he inquired a little more closely, that +there had been only one or two doubtful cases in 1837, and five or six +in 1849. In vain he answered, "Very well; and is not that a proof that +the causes of cholera are increasing here? If you had one case the +first time, and five times as many the next, by the same rule you will +have five times as many more if it comes this summer." + +"Nonsense! Aberalva was the healthiest town on the coast." + +"Well but," would Tom say, "in the census before last, you had a +population of 1300 in 112 houses, and that was close packing enough, +in all conscience: and in the last census I find you had a population +of over 1400, which must have increased since; and there are eight or +nine old houses in the town pulled down, or turned into stores; so you +are more closely packed than ever. And mind, it may seem no very great +difference; but it is the last drop that fills the cup." + +What had that to do with cholera? And more than one gave him to +understand that he must be either a very silly or a very impertinent +person, to go poking into how many houses there were in the town, and +how many people lived in each. Tardrew, the steward, indeed, said +openly, that Mr. Thurnall was making disturbance enough in people's +property up at Pentremochyn, without bothering himself with Aberalva +too. He had no opinion of people who had a finger in everybody's pie. +Whom Tom tried to soothe with honeyed words, knowing him to be of the +original British bulldog breed, which, once stroked against the hair, +shows his teeth at you for ever afterwards. + +But staunch was Tardrew, unfortunately on the wrong side; and backed +by the collective ignorance, pride, laziness, and superstition +of Aberalva, showed to his new assailant that terrible front of +stupidity, against which, says Schiller, "the gods themselves fight in +vain." + +"Does he think we was all fools afore he came here?" + +That was the rallying cry of the Conservative party, worshippers of +Baalzebub, god of flies, and of that (so say Syrian scholars) from +which flies are bred. And, indeed, there were excuses for them, on the +Yankee ground, that "there's a deal of human natur' in man." It is +hard to human nature to make all the humiliating confessions which +must precede sanitary repentance; to say, "I have been a very nasty, +dirty fellow. I have lived contented in evil smells, till I care for +them no more than my pig does. I have refused to understand Nature's +broadest hints, that anything which is so disagreeable is not meant to +be left about. I have probably been more or less the cause of half my +own illnesses, and of three-fourths of the illness of my children; for +aught I know, it is very much my fault that my own baby has died of +scarlatina, and two or three of my tenants of typhus. No, hang it! +that's too much to make any man confess to! I'll prove my innocence +by not reforming!" So sanitary reform is thrust out of sight, simply +because its necessity is too humiliating to the pride of all, too +frightful to the consciences of many. + +Tom went to Trebooze. + +"Mr. Trebooze, you are a man of position in the county, and own some +houses in Aberalva. Don't you think you could use your influence in +this matter?" + +"Own some houses? Yes,"--and Mr. Trebooze consigned the said cottages +to a variety of unmentionable places; "cost me more in rates than they +bring in in rent, even if I get the rent paid. I should like to get a +six-pounder, and blow the whole lot into the sea. Cholera coming, eh? +D'ye think it will he there before Michaelmas?" + +"I do." + +"Pity I can't clear 'em out before Michaelmas. Else I'd have ejected +the lot, and pulled the houses down." + +"I think something should be done meanwhile, though, towards cleansing +them." + +"---- Let 'em cleanse them themselves! Soap's cheap enough with your +---- free trade, ain't it! No, sir! That sort of talk will do well +enough for my Lord Minchampstead, sir, the old money-lending Jew! ---- +but gentlemen, sir, gentlemen, that are half-ruined with free trade, +and your Whig policy, sir, you must give 'em back their rights before +they can afford to throw away their money on cottages. Cottages, +indeed! ---- upstart of a cotton-spinner, coming down here, buying +the lands over our heads, and pretends to show us how to manage our +estates; old families that have been in the county this four hundred +years, with the finest peasantry in the world ready to die for them, +sir, till these new revolutionary doctrines came in--Pride and +purse-proud conceit, just to show off his money! What do they want +with better cottages than their fathers had? Only put notions into +their heads, raise 'em above their station; more they have, more +they'll want. ---- sir, make chartists of 'em all before he's done! +I'll tell you what, sir,"--and Mr. Trebooze attempted a dignified and +dogmatic tone--"I never told it you before, because you were my very +good friend, sir: but my opinion is, sir, that by what you're doing +up at Pentremochyn, you're just spreading chartism--chartism, sir! Of +course I know nothing. Of course I'm nobody, in these days: but that's +my opinion, sir, and you've got it!" + +By which motion Tom took little. Mighty is envy always, and mighty +ignorance: but you become aware of their truly Titanic grandeur only +when you attempt to touch their owner's pocket. + +Tom tried old Heale: but took as little in that quarter. Heale had +heard of sanitary reform, of course; but he knew nothing about it, and +gave a general assent to Tom's doctrines, for fear of exposing his own +ignorance: acting on them was a very different matter. It is always +hard for an old medical man to confess that anything has been +discovered since the days of his youth; and beside, there were other +reasons behind, which Heale tried to avoid giving; and therefore +fenced off, and fenced off, till, pressed hard by Tom, wrath came +forth, and truth with it. + +"And what be you thinking of, sir, to expect me to offend all my best +patients? and not one of 'em but rents some two cottages, some a +dozen. And what'll they say to me if I go a routing and rookling in +their drains, like an old sow by the wayside, beside putting 'em to +all manner of expense? And all on the chance of this cholera coming, +which I have no faith in, nor in this new-fangled sanitary reform +neither, which is all a dodge for a lot of young Government puppies to +fill their pockets, and rule and ride over us: and my opinion always +was with the Bible, that 'tis jidgment, sir, a jidgment of God, and we +can't escape His holy will, and that's the plain truth of it." + +Tom made no answer to that latter argument. He had heard that "'tis +jidgment" from every mouth during the last few days; and had mortally +offended the Brianite preacher that very morning, by answering his +"'tis jidgment" with-- + +"But, my good sir! the Bible, I thought, says that Aaron stayed the +plague among the Israelites, and David the one at Jerusalem." + +"Sir, those was miracles, sir! and they was under the Law, sir, and +we'm under the Gospel, you'll be pleased to remember." + +"Humph!" said Tom, "then, by your showing, they were better off under +the Law than we are now, if they could have their plagues stopped by +miracles; and we cannot have ours stopped at all." + +"Sir, be you an infidel?" + +To which there was no answer to be made. + +In this case, Tom answered Heale with-- + +"But, my dear sir, if you don't like (as is reasonable enough) to take +the responsibility on yourself, why not go to the Board of Guardians, +and get them to put the Act in force?" + +"Boord, sir? and do you know so little of Boords as that? Why, there +ain't one of them but owns cottages themselves, and it's as much as my +place is worth--" + +"Your place as medical officer is just worth nothing, as you know; +you'll have been out of pocket by it seven or eight pounds this year, +even if no cholera comes." + +Tom knew the whole state of the case; but he liked tormenting Heale +now and then. + +"Well, sir! but if I get turned out next year, in steps that Drew over +at Carcarrow Churchtown into my district, and into the best of my +practice, too. I wonder what sort of a Poor Law district you were +medical officer of, if you don't know yet that that's why we take to +the poor." + +"My dear sir, I know it, and a good deal more beside." + +"Then why go bothering me this way?" + +"Why," said Tom, "it's pleasant to have old notions confirmed as often +as possible-- + + "'Life is a jest, and all things show it; + I thought so once, but now I know it.' + +What an ass the fellow must have been who had that put on his +tombstone, not to have found it out many a year before he died!" + +He went next to Headley the curate, and took little by that move; +though more than by any other. + +For Frank already believed his doctrines, as an educated London parson +of course would; was shocked to hear that they were likely to become +fact so soon and so fearfully; offered to do all he could: but +confessed that he could do nothing. + +"I have been hinting to them, ever since I came, improvements in +cleanliness, in ventilation, and so forth: but I have been utterly +unheeded: and bully me as you will, Doctor, about my cramming +doctrines down their throats, and roaring like a Pope's bull, I assure +you that, on sanitary reform, my roaring was as of a sucking dove, and +ought to have prevailed, if soft persuasion can." + +"You were a dove where you ought to have been a bull, and a bull where +you ought to have been a dove. But roar now, if ever you roared, in +the pulpit and out. Why not preach to them on it next Sunday?" + +"Well, I'd give a lecture gladly, if I could get any one to come and +hear it; but that you could do better than me." + +"I'll lecture them myself, and show them bogies, if my quarter-inch +will do its work. If they want seeing to believe, see they shall; I +have half-a-dozen specimens of water already which will astonish them. +Let me lecture, you must preach." + +"You must know, that there is a feeling,--you would call it a +prejudice,--against introducing such purely secular subjects into the +pulpit." + +Tom gave a long whistle. + +"Pardon me, Mr. Headley; you are a man of sense; and I can speak to +you as one human being to another, which I have seldom been able to do +with your respected cloth." + +"Say on; I shall not be frightened." + +"Well, don't you put up the Ten Commandments in your Church?" + +"Yes." + +"And don't one of them run: 'Thou shalt not kill.'" + +"Well?" + +"And is not murder a moral offence--what you call a sin?" + +"_Sans doute_." + +"If you saw your parishioners in the habit of cutting each other's +throats, or their own, shouldn't you think that a matter spiritual +enough to be a fit subject for a little of the drum ecclesiastic?" + +"Well?" + +"Well? Ill! There are your parishioners about to commit wholesale +murder and suicide, and is that a secular question? If they don't know +the fact, is not that all the more reason for your telling them of it? +You pound away, as I warned you once, at the sins of which they are +just as well aware as you; why on earth do you hold your tongue about +the sins of which they are not aware? You tell us every Sunday that we +do Heaven only knows how many more wrong things than we dream of. +Tell it us again now. Don't strain at gnats like want of faith and +resignation, and swallow such a camel as twenty or thirty deaths. +It's no concern of mine; I've seen plenty of people murdered, and may +again: I am accustomed to it; but if it's not your concern, what on +earth you are here for is more than I can tell." + +"You are right--you are right; but how to put it on religious +grounds--" + +Tom whistled again. + +"If your doctrines cannot be made to fit such plain matters as twenty +deaths, _tant pis pour eux_. If they have nothing to say on such +scientific facts, why the facts must take care of themselves, and the +doctrines may, for aught I care, go and--. But I won't be really rude. +Only think over the matter. If you are God's minister, you ought to +have something to say about God's view of a fact which certainly +involves the lives of his creatures, not by twos and threes, but by +tens of thousands." + +So Frank went home, and thought it through; and went once and again to +Thurnall, and condescended to ask his opinion of what he had said, +and whether he said ill or well. What Thurnall answered was--"Whether +that's sound Church doctrine is your business; but if it be, I'll +say with the man there in the Acts--what was his name?--'Almost thou +persuadest me to be a Christian.'" + +"Would God that you were one! for you would make a right good one." + +"Humph! at least you see what you can do, if you'll only face fact as +it stands, and talk about the realities of life. I'll puff your sermon +beforehand, I assure you, and bring all I can to hear it." + +So Frank preached a noble sermon, most rational, and most spiritual +withal; but he, too, like his tutor, took little by his motion. + +All the present fruit upon which he had to congratulate himself was, +that the Brianite preacher denounced him in chapel next Sunday as a +German Rationalist, who impiously pretended to explain away the Lord's +visitation into a carnal matter of drains, and pipes, and gases, and +such like; and that his rival of another denomination, who was a +fanatic on the teetotal question, denounced him as bitterly for +supporting the cause of drunkenness, by attributing cholera to want of +cleanliness, while all rational people knew that its true source was +intemperance. Poor Frank! he had preached against drunkenness many +a time and oft: but because he would not add a Mohammedan eleventh +commandment to those ten which men already find difficulty enough in +keeping, he was set upon at once by a fanatic whose game it was--as it +is that of too many--to snub sanitary reform, and hinder the spread of +plain scientific truth, for the sake of pushing their own nostrum for +all human ills. + +In despair, Tom went off to Elsley Vavasour. Would he help? Would he +join, as one of two householders, in making a representation to the +proper authorities? + +Elsley had never mixed in local matters: and if he had, he knew +nothing of how to manage men, or to read an Act of Parliament; so, +angry as Tom was inclined to be with him, he found it useless to +quarrel with a man so utterly unpractical, who would, probably, had he +been stirred into exertion, have done more harm than good. + +"Only come with me, and satisfy yourself as to the existence of one of +these nuisances, and then you will have grounds on which to go," said +Tom, who had still hopes of making a cat's-paw of Elsley, and by his +power over him, pulling the strings from behind. + +Sorely against his will, Elsley went, saw, and smelt; came home again; +was very unwell; and was visited nightly for a week after that by that +most disgusting of all phantoms, sanitary nightmare; which some +who have worked in the foul places of the earth know but too well. +Evidently his health could not stand it. There was no work to be got +out of him in that direction. + +"Would he write, then, and represent matters to Lord Scoutbush?" + +How could he? He did not know the man; not a line had ever been +exchanged between them. Their relations were so very peculiar. It +would seem sheer impertinence on his part to interfere with the +management of Lord Scoutbush's property. Really there was a great deal +to be said, Tom felt, for poor Elsley's dislike of meddling in that +quarter. + +"Would Mrs. Vavasour write, then?" + +"For Heaven's sake do not mention it to her. She would be so terrified +about the children; she is worn out with anxiety already,"--and so +forth. + +Tom went back to Frank Headley. + +"You see a good deal of Miss St. Just." + +"I?--No--why?--what?" said poor Frank, blushing. + +"Only that you must make her write to her brother about this cholera." + +"My dear fellow, it is such a subject for a lady to meddle with." + +"It has no scruple in meddling with ladies; so ladies ought to have +none in meddling with it. You must do it as delicately as you will: +but done it must be: it is our only chance. Tell her of Tardrew's +obstinacy, or Scoutbush will go by his opinion; and tell her to keep +the secret from her sister." + +Frank did it, and well. Valencia was horror-struck, and wrote. + +Scoutbush was away at sea, nobody knew where; and a full fortnight +elapsed before an answer came. + +"My dear, you are quite mistaken if you think I can do anything. +Nine-tenths of the houses in Aberalva are not in my hands; but +copyholds and long leases, over which I have no power. If the people +will complain to me of any given nuisance, I'll right it if I can; and +if the doctor wants money, and sees any ways of laying it out well, he +shall have what he wants, though I am very high in Queer Street just +now, ma'am, having paid your bills before I left town, like a good +brother: but I tell you again, I have no more power than you have, +except over a few cottages, and Tardrew assured me, three weeks ago, +that they were as comfortable as they ever had been." + +So Tardrew had forestalled Thurnall in writing to the Viscount. Well, +there was one more chance to be tried. + +Tom gave his lecture in the school-room. He showed them magnified +abominations enough to frighten all the children into fits, and +dilated on horrors enough to spoil all appetites: he proved to them +that, though they had the finest water in the world all over the +town, they had contrived to poison almost every drop of it; he waxed +eloquent, witty, sarcastic; and the net result was a general grumble. + +"How did he get hold of all the specimens, as he calls them? What +business has he poking his nose down people's wells and waterbutts?" + +But an unexpected ally arose at this juncture, in the coast-guard +lieutenant, who, being valiant after his evening's brandy-and-water, +rose and declared, "that Dr. Thurnall was a very clever man; that +by what he'd seen himself in the West Indies, it was all as true as +gospel; that the parish might have the cholera if it liked,"--and here +a few expletives occurred,--"but that he'd see that the coast-guard +houses were put to rights at once; for he would not have the lives of +Her Majesty's servants endangered by such dirty tricks, not fit for +heathen savages," etc. etc. + +Tom struck while the iron was hot. He saw that the great man's speech +had produced an impression. + +"Would he" (so he asked the lieutenant privately) "get some one to +join him, and present a few of these nuisances?" + +He would do anything in his contempt for "a lot of long-shore +merchant-skippers and herringers, who went about calling themselves +captains, and fancy themselves, sir, as good as if they wore the +Queen's uniform!" + +"Well, then, can't we find another householder--some cantankerous dog +who don't mind a row?" + +Yes, the cantankerous dog was found, in the person of Mr. John +Penruddock, coal-merchant, who had quarrelled with Tardrew, because +Tardrew said he gave short weight--which he very probably did--and had +quarrelled also with Thomas Beer, senior, shipbuilder, about right of +passage through a back-yard. + +Mr. Penruddock suddenly discovered that Mr. Beer kept up a dirt-heap +in the said back-yard, and with virtuous indignation vowed "he'd sarve +the old beggar out at last." + +So far so good. The weapons of reason and righteousness having failed, +Tom felt at liberty to borrow the devil's tools. Now to pack a vestry, +and to nominate a local committee. + +The vestry was packed; the committee nominated: of course half of +them refused to act--they "didn't want to go quarrelling with their +neighbours." + +Tom explained to them cunningly and delicately that they would have +nothing to do; that one or two (he did not say that he was the one, +and the two also) would do all the work, and bear all the odium; +whereon the malcontents subsided, considering it likely that, after +all, nothing would be done. + +Some may fancy that matters were now getting somewhat settled. Those +who do so know little of the charming machinery of local governments. +One man has "summat to say,"--utterly irrelevant. Another must needs +answer him with something equally irrelevant; a long chatter ensues, +in spite of all cries to order and question. Soon one and another gets +personal, and temper shows here and there. You would fancy that the +go-ahead party try to restore order, and help business on. Not in the +least. They have begun to cool a little. They are a little afraid that +they have committed themselves. If people quarrel with each other, +perhaps they may quarrel with them too. And they begin to be +wonderfully patient and impartial, in the hope of staving off the evil +day, and finding some excuse for doing nothing after all. "Hear 'mun +out!" ... "Vair and zoft, let ev'ry man ha' his zay!" ... "There's +vary gude rason in it!" ... "I didn't think of that avore;"--and so +forth; till in a quarter of an hour the whole question has to be +discussed over again, through the fog of a dozen fresh fallacies, and +the miserable earnest man finds himself considerably worse off than +when he began. Happy for him if some chance word is not let drop, +which will afford the whole assembly an excuse for falling on him +open-mouthed, as the cause of all their woes! + +That chance word came. Mr. Penruddock gave a spiteful hit, being, as +he said, of a cantankerous turn, to Mr. Treluddra, principal "jowder," +_i.e._ fish salesman, of Aberalva. Whereon Treluddra, whose conscience +told him that there was at present in his back-yard a cartload and +more of fish in every stage of putrefaction, which he had kept rotting +there rather than lower the market-price, rose in wrath. + +"An' if any committee puts its noz into my back-yard, if it doant get +the biggest cod's innards as I can collar hold on, about its ears, my +name is not Treluddra! A man's house is his castle, says I, and them +as takes up with any o' this open-day burglary, for it's nothing less, +has to do wi' me, that's all, and them as knows their interest, knows +me!" + +Terrible were these words; for old Treluddra, like most jowders, +combined the profession of money-lender with that of salesman; and +there were dozens in the place who were in debt to him for money +advanced to buy boats and nets, after wreck and loss. Besides, to +offend one jowder was to offend all. They combined to buy the fish at +any price they chose: if angered, they would combine now and then not +to buy it at all. + +"You old twenty per cent rascal," roared the Lieutenant, "after making +a fortune out of these poor fellows' mishaps, do you want to poison +'em all with your stinking fish?" + +"I say, Lieutenant," says old Beer, whose son owed Treluddra fifty +pounds at that moment, "fair's fair. You mind your Coastguard, and +we'm mind our trade. We'm free fishermen, by charter and right; you'm +not our master, and you shall know it." + +"Know it?" says the Lieutenant, foaming. + +"Iss; you put your head inside my presences, and I'll split mun open, +if I be hanged for it." + +"You split my head open?" + +"Iss, by--." And the old grey-bearded sea-king set his arms akimbo. + +"Gentlemen, gentlemen, for Heaven's sake!" cries poor Headley, "this +is really going too far. Gentlemen, the vestry is adjourned!" + +"Best thing too! oughtn't never to have been called," says one and +another. + +And some one, as he went out, muttered something about "interloping +strange doctors, colloquies with popish curates," which was answered +by a--"Put 'mun in the quay pule," from Treluddra. + +Tom stepped up to Treluddra instantly, "What were you so kind as to +say, sir?" + +Treluddra turned very pale. "I didn't say nought." + +"Oh, but I assure you I heard; and I shall be most happy to jump into +the quay pule this afternoon, if it will afford you the slightest +amusement. Say the word, and I'll borrow a flute, and play you the +Rogue's March all the while with my right hand, swimming with my left. +Now, gentlemen, one word before we part!" + +"Who be you?" cries some one. + +"A man at least, and ought to have a fair hearing. Now, I ask you, +what possible interest can I have in this matter? I knew when I began +that I should give myself a frightful quantity of trouble, and get +only what I have got." + +"Why did you begin at all, then?" + +"Because I was a very foolish, meddlesome ass, who fancied that I +ought to do my duty once in a way by my neighbours. Now, I have only +to say, that if you will but forgive and forget, and let bygones be +bygones, I promise you solemnly I'll never do my duty by you again +as long as I live, nor interfere with the sacred privilege of every +free-born Englishman, to do that which is right in the sight of his +own eyes, and wrong too!" + +"You'm making fun at us," said old Beer dubiously. + +"Well, Mr. Beer, and isn't that better than quarrelling with you? Come +along, we'll all go home and forget it, like good Christians. Perhaps +the cholera won't come; and if it does, what's the odds so long as +you're happy, eh?" + +And to the intense astonishment both of the Lieutenant and Frank, Tom +walked home with the malcontents, making himself so agreeable, that he +was forgiven freely on the spot. + +"What does the fellow mean? He's deserted us, sir, after bringing us +here to make fools of us!" + +Frank could give no answer; but Thurnall gave one himself that +evening, both to Frank and the Lieutenant. + +"The cholera will come; and these fellows are just mad; but I mustn't +quarrel with them, mad or not." + +"Why, then?" + +"For the same reason that you must not. If we keep our influence, +we may be able to do some good at the last, which means, in plain +English, saving a few human lives. As for you Lieutenant, you have +behaved like a hero, and have been served as heroes generally are. +What you must do is this. On the first hint of disease, pack up your +traps and your good lady, and go and live in the watch-house across +the river. As for the men's houses, I'll set them to rights in a day, +if you'll get the commander of the district to allow you a little +chloride of lime and whitewash." + +And so the matter ended. + +"You are a greater puzzle than ever to me, Thurnall," said Frank. "You +are always pretending to care for nothing but your own interest, and +yet here you have gone out of your way to incur odium, knowing, you +say, that your cause was all but hopeless." + +"Well, I do it because I like it. It's a sort of sporting with your +true doctor. He blazes away at a disease where he sees one, as he +would at a bear or a lion; the very sight of it excites his organ of +destructiveness. Don't you understand me? You hate sin, you know. +Well, I hate disease. Moral evil is your devil, and physical evil is +mine. I hate it, little or big; I hate to see a fellow sick; I hate +to see a child rickety and pale; I hate to see a speck of dirt in the +street; I hate to see a woman's gown torn; I hate to see her stockings +down at heel; I hate to see anything wasted, anything awry, anything +going wrong; I hate to see water-power wasted, manure wasted, land +wasted, muscle wasted, pluck wasted, brains wasted; I hate neglect, +incapacity, idleness, ignorance, and all the disease and misery which +spring out of that. There's my devil; and I can't help it for the life +of me, going right at his throat, wheresoever I meet him!" + +Lastly, rather to clear his reputation than in the hope of doing good, +Tom wrote up to London, and detailed the case to that much-calummated +body, the General Board of Health, informing them civilly, that the +Nuisances Removal Act was simply waste paper; that he could not get it +to bear at all on Aberalva; and that if he had done so, it would have +been equally useless, for the simple reason that it constituted the +offenders themselves judge and jury in their own case. + +To which the Board returned for answer, that they were perfectly aware +of the fact, and deeply deplored the same: but that as soon as cholera +broke out in Aberalva, they should be most happy to send down an +inspector. + +To which Tom replied courteously, that he would not give them the +trouble, being able, he trusted, to perform without assistance the not +uncommon feat of shutting the stable-door after the horse was stolen. + +And so was Aberalva left "a virgin city," undefiled by Government +interference, to the blessings of that "local government," which +signifies, in plain English, the leaving the few to destroy themselves +and the many, by the unchecked exercise of the virtues of pride and +ignorance, stupidity and stinginess. + +But to Tom, in his sorest need, arose a new and most unexpected +coadjutor; and this was the way in which it came to pass. + +For it befell in that pleasant summer time, "when small birds sing and +shaughs are green," that Thurnall started, one bright Sunday eve, to +see a sick child at an upland farm, some few miles from the town. +And partly because he liked the walk, and partly because he could no +other, having neither horse nor gig, he went on foot; and whistled as +he went like any throstle-cock, along the pleasant vale, by flowery +banks and ferny walls, by oak and ash and thorn, while Alva flashed +and swirled, between green boughs below, clear coffee-brown from last +night's rain. Some miles up the turnpike road he went, and then away +to the right, through the ash-woods of Trebooze, up by the rill which +drips from pool to pool over the ledges of grey slate, deep-bedded in +dark sedge, and broad bright burdock leaves, and tall angelica, and +ell-broad rings and tufts of king, and crown, and lady-fern, and all +the semi-tropic luxuriance of the fat western soil, and steaming +western woods; out into the boggy moor at the glen head, all fragrant +with the gold-tipped gale, where the turf is enamelled with the hectic +marsh violet, and the pink pimpernel, and the pale yellow leaf-stars +of the butterwort, and the blue bells and green threads of the +ivy-leaved campanula; out upon the steep smooth down above, and away +over the broad cattle-pastures; and then to pause a moment, and look +far and wide over land and sea. + +It was a "day of God." The earth lay like one great emerald, ringed +and roofed with sapphire; blue sea, blue mountain, blue sky overhead. +There she lay, not sleeping, but basking in her quiet Sabbath joy, as +though her two great sisters, of the sea and air, had washed her weary +limbs with holy tears, and purged away the stains of last week's +sin and toil, and cooled her hot worn forehead with their pure +incense-breath, and folded her within their azure robes, and brooded +over her with smiles of pitying love, till she smiled back in answer, +and took heart and hope for next week's weary work. + +Heart and hope for next week's work.--That was the sermon which it +preached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there alone, a stranger and a +wanderer, like Ulysses of old; but, like him, self-helpful, cheerful, +fate-defiant. In one respect indeed, he knew less than Ulysses, and +was more of a heathen than he; for he knew not what Ulysses knew, +that a heavenly guide was with him in his wanderings; still less what +Ulysses knew not, that what he called the malicious sport of fortune +was, in truth, the earnest education of a father; but who will blame +him for getting strength and comfort from such merely natural founts, +or say that the impulse came from below, and not from above, which +made him say-- + +"Brave old world she is, after all, and right well made; and looks +right well to-day, in her go-to-meeting clothes; and plenty of room +and chance in her for a brave man to earn his bread, if he will but go +right on about his business, as the birds and the flowers do, instead +of peaking and pining over what people think of him, like that +miserable Briggs. Hark to that jolly old missel-thrush below! he's had +his nest to build, and his supper to earn, and his young ones to feed, +and all the crows and kites in the wood to drive away, the sturdy John +Bull that he is; and yet he can find time to sing as merrily as +an abbot, morning and evening, since he sang the new year in last +January. And why should not I?" + +Let him be a while; there are sounds of deeper meaning in the air, +if his heart had ears to hear them; far off church-bells chiming to +even-song; hymn-tunes floating up the glen from the little chapel in +the vale. He may learn what they, too, mean some day. Honour to him, +at least, that he has learnt what the missel-thrush below can tell +him. If he accept cheerfully and manfully the things which he does +see, he will be all the more able to enter hereafter into the deeper +mystery of things unseen. The road toward true faith and reverence for +God's kingdom of heaven does not lie through Manichaean contempt and +slander of God's kingdom of earth. + +So let him stride over the down, enjoying the mere fact of life, and +health, and strength, and whistling shrilly to the bird below, who +trumpets out a few grand ringing notes, and repeats them again and +again, in saucy self-satisfaction; and then stops to listen for the +answer to this challenge; and then rattles on again with a fresh +passage, more saucily than ever, in a tone which seems to ask,--"You +could sing that, eh? but can you sing this, my fine fellow on the down +above?" So he seems to Tom to say; and, tickled with the fancy, Tom +laughs, and whistles, and laughs, and has just time to compose his +features as he steps up to the farm-yard gate. + +Let him be, I say again. He might have better Sunday thoughts; perhaps +he will have some day. At least he is a man, and a brave one; and as +the greater contains the less, surely before a man can be a good man, +he must be a brave one first, much more a man at all. Cowards, old +Odin held, inevitably went to the very bottom of Hela-pool, and by no +possibility, unless of course they became brave at last, could rise +out of that everlasting bog, but sank whining lower and lower, like +mired cattle, to all eternity in the unfathomable peat-slime. And if +the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation, and the eighth +verse, is to be taken as it stands, their doom has not altered since +Odin's time, unless to become still worse. + +Tom came up, over the home-close and through the barton-gate, through +the farm-yard, and stopped at last at the porch. The front door was +open, and the door beyond it; and ere he knocked, he stopped, looking +in silence at a picture which held him spellbound for a moment by its +rich and yet quiet beauty. + +Tom was no artist, and knew no more of painting, in spite of his +old friendship with Claude, than was to be expected of a keen and +observant naturalist who had seen half the globe. Indeed, he had been +in the habit of snubbing Claude's profession; and of arriving, on +pre-Raphaelite grounds, at a by no means pre-Raphaelite conclusion. +"A picture, you say, is worth nothing unless you copy Nature. But you +can't copy her. She is ten times more gorgeous than any man can dare +represent her. Ergo, every picture is a failure; and the nearest +hedge-bush is worth all your galleries together"--a syllogism of sharp +edge, which he would back up by Byron's-- + + "I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, + Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal." + +But here was one of Nature's own pictures, drawn and coloured by more +than mortal hand, and framed over and above, ready to his eye, by the +square of the dark doorway, beyond which all was flooded with the full +glory, of the low north-western sun. + +A dark oak-ribbed ceiling; walls of pale fawn-yellow; an open window, +showing a corner of rich olive-stone wall, enamelled with golden +lichens, orange and green combs of polypody, pink and grey tufts of +pellitory, all glowing in the sunlight. + +Above the window-sill rose a bush of maiden-blush roses; a tall spire +of blue monkshood; and one head of scarlet lychnis, like a spark +of fire; and behind all, the dark blue sea, which faded into the +pale-blue sky. + +At the window stood a sofa of old maroon leather, its dark hue +throwing out in strong relief two figures who sat upon it. And when +Tom had once looked at them, he looked at nothing else. + +There sat the sick girl, her head nestling upon the shoulder of Grace +Harvey; a tall, delicate thing of seventeen, with thin white cheeks, +the hectic spot aflame on each, and long fair curls, which mingled +lovingly with Grace's dark tresses, as they sat cheek against cheek, +and hand in hand. Her eyes were closed; Tom thought at first that she +was asleep: but there was a quiet smile about her pale lips; and every +now and then her left hand left Grace's, to move toward a leaf full of +strawberries which lay on Grace's lap; and Tom could see that she +was listening intently to Grace, who told and told, in that sweet, +measured voice of hers, her head erect, her face in the full blaze of +sunshine, her great eyes looking out far away beyond the sea, beyond +the sky, into some infinite which only she beheld. + +Tom had approached unheard, across the farm-yard straw. He stood and +looked his fill. The attitude of the two girls was so graceful, that +he was loth to disturb it; and loth, too, to disturb a certain sunny +calm which warmed at once and softened his stout heart. + +He wished, too--he scarce knew why--to hear what Grace was saying; +and as he listened, her voice was so distinct and delicate in its +modulations, that every word came clearly to his ear. + +It was the beautiful old legend of St. Dorothea:-- + +"So they did all sorts of dreadful things to her, and then led her +away to die; and they stood laughing there. But after a little time +there came a boy, the prettiest boy that ever was seen on earth, and +in his hand a basket full of fruits and flowers, more beautiful than +tongue can tell. And he said, 'Dorothea sends you these, out of the +heavenly garden which she told you of--will you believe her now?' And +then, before they could reply, he vanished away. And Theophilus looked +at the flowers, and tasted the fruit--and a new heart grew up within +him; and he said, 'Dorothea's God shall be my God, and I will die for +him like her.' + +"So you see, darling, there are sweeter fruits than these, and gayer +flowers, in the place to which you go; and all the lovely things in +this world here will seem quite poor and worthless beside the glory of +that better land which He will show you: and yet you will not care to +look at them; for the sight of Him will be enough, and you will care +to think of nothing else." + +"And you are sure He will accept me, after all?" asked the sick girl, +opening her eyes, and looking up at Grace. She saw Thurnall standing +in the doorway, and gave a little scream. + +Tom came forward, bowing. "I am very sorry to have disturbed you. I +suspect Miss Harvey was giving you better medicine than I can give." + +Now why did Tom say that, to whom the legend of St. Dorothea, and, +indeed, that whole belief in a better land, was as a dream fit only +for girls? + +Not altogether because he must need say something civil. True, he +felt, on the whole, about the future state as Goethe did--"To the able +man this world is not dumb: why should he ramble off into eternity? +Such incomprehensible subjects lie too far off, and only disturb our +thoughts, if made the subject of daily meditation." That there was a +future state he had no doubt. Our having been born once, he used to +say, is the strongest possible presumption in favour of our being born +again; and probably, as nature always works upward and develops higher +forms, in some higher state. Indeed, for aught he knew, the old +ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs might be alive now, as lions--or as +men. He himself, indeed, he had said, ere now, had been probably a +pterodactyle of the Lias, neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, +but crocodile and bat in one, able alike to swim, or run, or fly, eat +anything, and live in any element. Still it was no concern of his. He +was here; and here was his business. He had not thought of this life +before he came into it; and it would be time enough to think of the +next life when he got into it. Besides, he had all a doctor's dislike +of those terrors of the unseen world, with which some men are wont to +oppress still more failing nature, and break the bruised reed. His +business was to cure his patients' bodies; and if he could not do +that, at least to see that life was not shortened in them by nervous +depression and anxiety. Accustomed to see men of every character die +under every possible circumstance, he had come to the conclusion that +the "safety of a man's soul" could by no possibility be inferred from +his death-bed temper. The vast majority, good or bad, died in peace: +why not let them die so? If nature kindly took off the edge of sorrow, +by blunting the nervous system, what right had man to interfere with +so merciful an arrangement? Every man, he held in his easy optimism, +would go where he ought to go: and it could be no possible good to +him--indeed, it might be a very bad thing for him, as in this life--to +go where he ought not to go. So he used to argue, with three-fourths +of mankind, mingling truth and falsehood: and would, on these grounds, +have done his best to turn the dissenting preacher out of that house, +had he found him in it. But to-day he was in a more lenient, perhaps +in a more human, and therefore more spiritual mood. It was all very +well for him, full of life, and power, and hope, to look on death in +that cold, careless way; but for that poor young thing, cut off just +as life opened from all that made life lovely--was not death for her a +painful, ugly anomaly? Could she be blamed, if she shuddered at going +forth into the unknown blank, she knew not whither? All very well for +the old emperor of Rome, who had lived his life and done his work, to +play with the dreary question-- + + "Animula, vagula, blandula, + Hospes comesque corporis, + Quae nunc abibis in loca, + Rigidula, nudula, pallida?--" + +But she, who had lived no life, and done no work--only had pined +through weary years of hideous suffering; crippled and ulcerated with +scrofula, now dying of consumption: was it not a merciful dream, a +beautiful dream, a just dream--so beautiful and just, that perhaps it +might be true,--that in some fairer world, all this, and more, might +be made up to her? If not, was it not a mistake and an injustice, that +she should ever have come into the world at all? And was not Grace +doing a rational as well as a loving work, in telling her, under +whatsoever symbols, that such a home of rest and beauty awaited her? +It was not the sort of place to which he expected, perhaps even +wished, to go: but it fitted well enough with a young girl's hopes, a +young girl's powers of enjoyment. Let it be; perhaps there was such a +place,--why not?--fitted for St. Dorothea, and those cut off in youth +like her; and other places fit for such as he. And he spoke more +tenderly than usual (though he was never untender), as he said,-- + +"And you feel better to-day? I am sure you must, with such a kind +friend, to tell you such sweet tales." + +"I do not feel better, thank you. And why should I wish to do so? You +all take too much trouble about me; why do you want to keep me here?" + +"We are loth to lose you; and besides, while you can be kept here, it +is a sign that you ought to be here." + +"So Grace tells me. Yes, I will be patient, and wait till He has done +His work. I am more patient now; am I not, Grace?" And she fondled +Grace's hand, and looked up in her face. + +"Yes," said Grace, who was standing near, with downcast face, trying +to avoid Tom's eye. "Yes, you are very good; but you must not talk:" +but the girl went on, with kindling eye,-- + +"Ah--I was very fretful at first, because I could not go to heaven +at once: but Grace showed me how it was good to be here, as well +as there, as long as He thought that I might be made perfect by +sufferings. And since then, my pain has become quite pleasant to me, +and I am ready to wait and bear--wait and bear." + +"You must not talk,--see, you are beginning to cough," said Tom, who +wished somehow to stop a form of thought which so utterly puzzled him. +Not that he had not heard it before; commonplace enough indeed it is, +thank God: but that day the words came home to him with spirit and +power, all the more solemnly from their contrast with the scene +around--without, all sunshine, joy, and glory: all which could tempt +a human being to linger here: and within, that young girl longing to +leave it all, and yet content to stay and suffer. What mysteries there +were in the human spirit--mysteries to which that knowledge of mankind +on which he prided himself gave him no key! + +"What if I were laid on my back to-morrow for life, by a fall, a blow, +as I have seen many a better man than me;--should I not wish to have +one to talk to me, as she was talking to that child?" And for a moment +a yearning after Grace came over him, as it had done before, and swept +from his mind the dark cloud of suspicion. + +"Now I must talk with your mother," said he; "for you have better +company than mine; and I hear her just coming in." + +He settled little matters for his patient's comfort with the farmer's +wife. When he returned to bid her good-bye Grace was gone. + +"I hope I have not driven her away." + +"Oh no; she had been here an hour, and she must go back now, to get +her mother's supper." + +"That is a good girl," said Tom, looking after her as she went down +the field. + +"She's an angel from heaven, sir. Not a three days go over without +her walking up here all this way after her work, to comfort my poor +maid--and all of us as well. It's like the dew of heaven upon us. +Pity, sir, you didn't see her home." + +"I should have liked it well enough; but folks might talk, if two +young people were seen walking together Sunday evening." + +"Oh, sir, they know her too well by now, for miles round: and you too, +sir, I'll make bold to say." + +"Well, at least I'll go after her." + +So Tom went, and kept Grace in sight, till she had crossed the little +moor, and disappeared in the wood below. + +He had gone about a hundred yards into the wood, when he heard voices +and laughter--then a loud shriek. He hurried forward. In another +minute, Grace rushed up to him, her eyes wide with terror and +indignation. + +"What is it?" cried he, trying to stop her: but, not seeming to see +him, she dashed past him, and ran on. Another moment, and a man +appeared in full pursuit. + +It was Trebooze of Trebooze, an evil laugh upon his face. + +Tom planted himself across the narrow path in an attitude which there +was no mistaking. + +Not a word passed between them. Silently and instinctively, like two +fierce dogs, the two men flew upon each other; Tom full of righteous +wrath, and Trebooze of half-drunken passion, turned to fury by the +interruption. + +He was a far taller and heavier man than Thurnall, and, as the bully +of the neighbourhood, counted on an easy victory. But he was mistaken. +After the first rush was over, he found it impossible to close +with his foe, and saw in the doctor's face, now grown cool and +business-like as usual, the wily smile of superior science and +expected triumph. + +"Brandy-and-water in the morning ought not to improve the wind," said +Tom to himself, as his left hand countered provokingly, while his +right rattled again and again upon Trebooze's watch-chain. "Justice +will overtake you in the offending part, which I take to be the +epigastric region." + +In a few minutes more the scuffle ended shamefully enough for the +sottish squireen. + +Tom stood over him for a minute, as he sat grovelling and groaning +among the long grass. "I may as well see that I have not killed him. +No, he will do as well as ever--which is not saying much.... Now, +sir! Go home quietly, and ask Mrs. Trebooze for a little rhubarb and +salvolatile. I'll call up in the course of to-morrow to see how you +are." + +"I'll kill you, if I catch you!" + +"As a man, I am open of course to be killed by any fair means; but as +a doctor, I am still bound to see after my patient's health." And +Tom bowed civilly, and walked back up the path to find Grace, after +washing face and hands in the brook. + +He found her up at Tolchard's farm, trembling and thankful. + +"I cannot do less than see Miss Harvey safe home." + +Grace hesitated. + +"Mrs. Tolchard, I am sure, will walk with us; it would be safer, in +case you felt faint again." + +But Mrs. Tolchard would not come to save Grace's notions of propriety; +so Tom passed Grace's arm through his own. She offered to withdraw it. + +"No; you will require it. You do not know yet how much you have gone +through. My fear is, that you will feel it all the more painfully when +the excitement is past. I shall send you up a cordial; and you must +promise me to take it. You owe me a little debt you know, to-day; you +must pay it by taking my medicines." + +Grace looked up at him sidelong; for there was a playful tenderness +in his voice which was new to her, and which thrilled her through and +through. + +"I will indeed, I promise you. But I am so much better now. Really, I +can walk alone!" And she withdrew her arm from his, but not hastily. + +After that they walked on awhile in silence. Grace kept her veil +down, for her eyes were full of tears. She loved that man intensely, +utterly. She did not seek to deny it to herself. God had given him to +her, and hers he was. The very sea, the devourer whom she hated, who +hungered to swallow up all young fair life, the very sea had yielded +him up to her, alive from the dead. And yet that man, she knew, +suspected her of a base and hateful crime. It was too dreadful! She +could not exculpate herself, save by blank denial--and what would that +avail? The large hot drops ran down her cheeks. She had need of all +her strength to prevent sobbing. + +She looked round. In the bright summer evening, all things were full +of joy and love. The hedge-banks were gay as flower gardens; the +swifts chased each other, screaming harsh delight; the ring-dove +murmured in the wood beneath his world-old song, which she had taught +the children a hundred times-- + + "Curuckity coo, curuck coo; + You love me, and I love you!" + +The woods slept golden in the evening sunlight; and over head brooded, +like one great smile of God, the everlasting blue. + +"He will right me!" she said. "'Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide +patiently, and He will make thy righteousness clear as the light, and +thy just dealing as the noon-day!'" And after that thought she wept no +more. + +Was it as a reward for her faith that Tom began to talk to her? He had +paced on by her side, serious, but not sad. True, he had suspected +her; he suspected her still. But that scene with the dying child had +been no sham. There, at least, there was nothing to suspect, nothing +to sneer at. The calm purity, self-sacrifice, hope, which was +contained in it, had softened his world-hardened spirit, and woke up +in him feelings which were always pleasant, feelings which the sight +of his father, or the writing to his father, could only awaken. +Quaintly enough, the thought of Grace and of his father seemed +intertwined, inextricable. If the old man had but such a nurse as she! +And for a moment he felt a glow of tenderness toward her, because he +thought she would be tender to his father. She had stolen his money, +certainly; or if not, she knew where it was, and would not tell him. +Well, what matter just then? He did not want the money at that minute. +How much pleasanter and wiser to take things as they came, and enjoy +himself while he could; and fancy that she was always what he had seen +her that day. After all, it was much more pleasant to trust people +than to suspect them: "Handsome is who handsome does! And besides, she +did me the kindness of saving my life; so it would but be civil to +talk to her a little." + +He began to talk to her about the lovely scene around; and found, to +his surprise, that she saw as much of it as he, and saw a great deal +more in it than he. Her answers were short, modest, faltering; but +each one of them suggestive; and Tom soon found that he had met with +a mind which contained all the elements of poetry, and needed only +education to develop them. + +"What a blue stocking, pre-Raphaelite seventh-heavenarian she would +have been, if she had had the misfortune to be born in that station of +life!" But where a clever man is talking to a beautiful woman, talk he +will, and must, for the mere sake of showing off, though she be but +a village schoolmistress; and Tom soon found himself, with a secret +sneer at his own vanity, displaying before her all the much finer +things that he had seen in his travels; and as he talked, she +answered, with quiet expressions of wonder, sympathy, regret at her +own narrow sphere of experience, till, as if the truth was not enough, +he found himself running to the very edge of exaggeration, and a +little over it, in the enjoyment of calling out her passion for the +marvellous, especially when called out in honour of himself. + +And she, simple creature, drank it all in as sparkling wine, and only +dreaded lest the stream should cease. Adventures with noble savages +in palm-fringed coral-islands, with greedy robbers amid the fragrant +hills of Greece, with fierce Indians beneath the snow-peaks of the Far +West, with coward Mexicans among tunals of cactus and agave, beneath +the burning tropic sun--What a man he was! Where had he not been? and +what had he not seen? And how he had been preserved--for her? And his +image seemed to her utterly beautiful and glorious, clothed as it +was in the beauty and glory of all that he had seen, and done, and +suffered. Oh Love, Love, Love, the same in peasant and in peer! The +more honour to you, then, old Love, to be the same thing in this world +which is common to peasant and to peer. They say that you are blind; +a dreamer, an exaggerator--a liar, in short. They know just nothing +about you, then. You will not see people as they seem, and as they +have become, no doubt: but why? because you see them as they ought +to be, and are, in some deep way, eternally, in the sight of Him who +conceived and created them. + +At last she started, as if waking from a pleasant dream, and spoke, +half to herself-- + +"Oh, how foolish of me--to be idling away this opportunity; the only +one, perhaps, which I may have! Oh, Mr. Thurnall, tell me about this +cholera!" + +"What about it?" + +"Everything. Ever since I heard of what you have been saying to the +people, ever since Mr. Headley's sermon, it has been like fire in my +ears!" + +"I am truly glad to hear it. If all parsons had preached about it for +the last fifteen years as Mr. Headley did last Sunday, if they had +told people plainly that, if the cholera was God's judgment at all, it +was His judgment of the sin of dirt, and that the repentance which +He required was to wash and be clean in literal earnest, the cholera +would be impossible in England by now." + +"Oh, Mr. Thurnall: but is it not God's doing? and can we stop His +hand?" + +"I know nothing about that, Miss Harvey. I only know that wheresoever +cholera breaks out, it is some one's fault; and if deaths occur, some +one ought to be tried for manslaughter--I had almost said murder, and +transported for life." + +"Someone? Who?" + +"That will be settled in the next generation, when men have common +sense enough to make laws for the preservation of their own lives, +against the dirt, and covetousness, and idleness, of a set of human +hogs." + +Grace was silent for awhile. + +"But can nothing be done to keep it off now? Must it come?" + +"I believe it must. Still one may do enough to save many lives in the +meanwhile." + +"Enough to save many lives--lives?--immortal souls, too! Oh, what +could I do?" + +"A great deal, Miss Harvey," said Tom, across whom the recollection of +Grace's influence flashed for the first time. What a help she might be +to him! + +And he talked on and on to her, and found that she entered into his +plans with all her wild enthusiasm, but also with sound practical +common sense; and Tom began to respect her intellect as well as her +heart. + +At last, however, she faltered-- + +"Oh, if I could but believe all this! Is it not fighting against God?" + +"I do not know what sort of God yours is, Miss Harvey. I believe in +some One who made all that!" and he pointed round him to the glorious +woods and glorious sky; "I should have fancied from your speech to +that poor girl, that you believed in Him also. You may, however, only +believe in the same being in whom the Methodist parson believes, one +who intends to hurl into endless agony every human being who has not +had a chance of hearing the said preacher's nostrum for delivering men +out of the hands of Him who made them!" + +"What do you mean?" asked Grace, startled alike by Tom's words, and +the intense scorn and bitterness of his tone. + +"That matters little. What do you mean in turn? What did you mean by +saying, that saving lives is saving immortal souls?" + +"Oh, is it not giving them time to repent? What will become of them, +if they are cut off in the midst of their sins?" + +"If you had a son whom it was not convenient to you to keep at home, +would his being a bad fellow--the greatest scoundrel on the earth--be +a reason for your turning him into the streets to live by thieving, +and end by going to the dogs for ever and a day?" + +"No; but what do you mean?" + +"That I do not think that God, when He sends a human being out of this +world, is more cruel than you or I would be. If we transport a man +because he is too bad to be in England, and he shows any signs of +mending, we give him a fresh chance in the colonies, and let him start +again, to try if he cannot do better next time. And do you fancy that +God, when He transports a man out of this world, never gives him a +fresh chance in another--especially when nine out of ten poor rascals +have never had a fair chance yet?" + +Grace looked up in his face astonished. + +"Oh, if I could but believe that! Oh! it would give me some gleam of +hope for my two!--But no--it's not in Scripture. Where the tree falls +there it lies." + +"And as the fool dies, so dies the wise man; and there is one account +to the righteous and to the wicked. And a man has no pre-eminence over +a beast, for both turn alike to dust; and Solomon does not know, +he says, or any one else, anything about the whole matter, or even +whether there be any life after death at all; and so, he says, the +only wise thing is to leave such deep questions alone, for Him who +made us to settle in His own way, and just to fear God and keep His +commandments, and do the work which lies nearest us with all our +might." + +Grace was silent. + +"You are surprised to hear me quote Scripture, and well you may be: +but that same book of Ecclesiastes is a very old favourite with me; +for I am no Christian, but a worlding, if ever there was one. But it +does puzzle me why you, who are a Christian, should talk one half-hour +as you have been talking to that poor girl, and the next go +for information about the next life to poor old disappointed, +broken-hearted Solomon, with his three hundred and odd idolatrous +wives, who confesses fairly that this life is a failure, and that he +does not know whether there is any next life at all." + +Whether Tom was altogether right or not, is not the question here; the +novelist's business is to represent the real thoughts of mankind, when +they are not absolutely unfit to be told; and certainly Tom spoke the +doubts of thousands when he spoke his own. + +Grace was silent still. + +"Well," he said, "beyond that I can't go, being no theologian. But +when a preacher tells people in one breath of a God who so loves men +that He gave His own Son to save them, and in the next, that the same +God so hates men that He will cast nine-tenths of them into hopeless +torture for ever,--(and if that is not hating, I don't know what +is),--unless he, the preacher, gets a chance of talking to them for a +few minutes--Why, I should like, Miss Harvey, to put that gentleman +upon a real fire for ten minutes, instead of his comfortable Sunday's +dinner, which stands ready frying for him, and which he was going home +to eat, as jolly as if all the world was not going to destruction; and +there let him feel what fire was like, and reconsider his statements." + +Grace looked up at him no more; but walked on in silence, pondering +many things. + +"Howsoever that may be, sir, tell me what to do in this cholera, and I +will do it, if I kill myself with work or infection!" + +"You shan't do that. We cannot spare you from Aberalva, Grace," said +Tom; "you must save a few more poor creatures ere you die, out of +the hands of that Good Being who made little children, and love, and +happiness, and the flowers, and the sunshine, and the fruitful earth; +and who, you say, redeemed them all again, when they were lost, by an +act of love which passes all human dreams." + +"Do not talk so!" cried Grace. "It frightens me; it puzzles me, and +makes me miserable. Oh, if you would but become a Christian!" + +"And listen to the Gospel?" + +"Yes--oh yes!" + +"A gospel means good news, I thought. When you have any to tell me, I +will listen. Meanwhile, the news that three out of four of those poor +fellows down town are going to a certain place, seems to me such +terribly bad news, that I can't help fancying that it is not the +Gospel at all; and so get on the best way I can, listening to the good +news about God which this grand old world, and my microscope, and my +books, tell me. No, Grace, I have more good news than that, and I'll +confess it to you." + +He paused, and his voice softened. + +"Say what the preacher may. He must be a good God who makes such +creatures as you, and sends them into the world to comfort poor +wretches. Follow your own sweet heart, Grace, and torment yourself no +more with these dark dreams!" + +"My heart?" cried she, looking down; "it is deceitful and desperately +wicked." + +"I wish mine were too, then," said Tom: "but it cannot be, as long as +it is so unlike yours. Now stop, Grace, I want to speak to you." + +There was a gate in front of them, leading into the road. + +As they came to it, Tom lingered with his hand upon the top bar, that +Grace might stop. She did stop, half-frightened. Why did he call her +Grace? + +"I wish to speak to you on one matter, on which I believe I ought to +have spoken long ago." + +She looked up at him, surprise in her large eyes: and turned pale as +he went on. + +"I ought long ago to have begged your pardon for something rude which +I said to you at your own door. This day has made me quite ashamed +of--" + +But she interrupted him, quite wildly, gasping for breath. + +"The belt? The belt? Oh, my God! my God! Have you heard anything +more?--anything more?" + +"Not a word; but--" + +To his astonishment, she heaved a deep sigh, as if relieved from a +sudden fear. His face clouded, and his eyebrows rose. Was she guilty, +then, after all? + +With the quick eyes of love, she saw the change; and broke out +passionately,-- + +"Yes; suspect me! suspect me, if you will! only give me time! Send me +to prison, innocent as I am--innocent as that child there above--would +God I were dying like her!--Only give me time! O misery! I had hoped +you had forgotten--that it was lost in the sea--that--what am I +saying?--Only give me time!"--and she dropped on her knees before him, +wringing her hands. + +"Miss Harvey! This is not worthy of you. If you be innocent, as I +don't doubt, what more do you need--or I?" + +He took her hands, and lifted her up: but she still kept looking down, +round, upwards, like a hunted deer, and pleading in words which seemed +sobbed out--as by some poor soul on the rack--between choking spasms +of agony. + +"Oh, I don't know,--God help me! O Lord, help me! I will try and find +it--I know I shall find it! only have patience; have patience with me +a little, and I know I shall bring it you; and then--and then you will +forgive?--forgive?" + +And she laid her hands upon his arms, and looked up in his face with a +piteous smile of entreaty. + +She had never looked so beautiful as at that moment. The devil saw it; +and entered into the heart of Thomas Thurnall. He caught her in his +arms, kissed away her tears, stopped her mouth with kisses. "Yes! I'll +wait--wait for ever, if you will! I'll lose another belt, for such +another look as that!" + +She was bewildered for a moment, poor fond wretch, at finding herself +where she would gladly have stayed for ever: but quickly she recovered +her reason. + +"Let me go!" she cried, struggling. "This is not right! Let me go, +sir!" and she tried to cover her burning cheeks with her hands. + +"I will not, Grace! I love you! I love you, I tell you!" + +"You do not, sir!" and she struggled still more fiercely. "Do not +deceive yourself! Me you cannot deceive! Let me go, I say! You could +not demean yourself to love a poor girl like me!" + +Utterly losing his head, Tom ran on with passionate words. + +"No, sir! you know that I am not fit to be your wife: and do you fancy +that I--" + +Maddened now, Tom went on, ere he was aware, from a foolish deed to a +base speech. + +"I know nothing, but that I shall keep you in pawn for my belt. Till +that is at least restored, you are in my power, Grace! Remember that!" + +She thrust him away with so sudden and desperate a spasm, that he was +forced to let her go. She stood gazing at him, a trembling deer no +longer, but rather a lioness at bay, her face flashing beautiful +indignation. + +"In your power! Yes, sir! My character, my life, for aught I know: but +not my soul, Send me to Bodmin Gaol if you will; but offer no more +insults to a modest maiden! Oh!"--and her expression changed to one +of lofty sorrow and pity;--"Oh! to find all men alike at heart? After +having fancied you--fancied you" (what she had fancied him her woman's +modesty dare not repeat)--"to find you even such another as Mr. +Trebooze!" + +Tom was checked. As for mere indignation, in such cases, he had seen +enough of that to trust it no more than "ice that is one night old:" +but pity for him was a weapon of defence to which he was unaccustomed. +And there was no contempt in her pity; and no affectation either. Her +voice was solemn, but tender, gently upbraiding, like her countenance. +Never had he felt Grace's mysterious attraction so strong upon him; +and for the first and last time, perhaps, for many a year, he answered +with downcast eyes of shame. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss Harvey. I have been rude--mad. If you will +look in your glass when you go home, and have a woman's heart in you, +you may at least see an excuse for me: but like Mr. Trebooze I am not. +Forgive and forget, and let us walk home rationally." And he offered +to take her hand. + +"No: not now! Not till I can trust you, sir!" said she. The words were +lofty enough: but there was a profound melancholy in their tone which +humbled Tom still more. Was it possible--she seemed to have hinted +it--that she had thought him a very grand personage till now, and that +he had disgraced himself in her eyes? + +If a man had suspected Tom of such a feeling, I fear he would have +cared little, save how to restore the balance by making a fool of the +man who fancied him a fool: but no male self-sufficiency or pride +is proof against the contempt of woman; and Tom slunk along by the +schoolmistress's side, as if he had been one of her naughtiest +school-children. He tried, of course, to brazen it out to his own +conscience. He had done no harm, after all; indeed, never seriously +meant any. She was making a ridiculous fuss about nothing. It was all +part and parcel of her methodistical cant. He dared say that she was +not as prudish with the methodist parson. And at that base thought he +paused; for a flush of rage, and a strong desire on such hypothesis to +slay the said methodist parson, or any one else who dared even to look +sweet on Grace, showed him plainly enough what he had long been afraid +of, that he was really in love with her; and that, as he put it, if +she did not make a fool of herself about him, he was but too likely to +end in making a fool of himself about her. However, he must speak, to +support his own character as a man of the world;--it would never do to +knock under to a country girl in this way;--she might go and boast of +it all over the town;--beside, foiled or not, he would not give in +without trying her mettle somewhat further. + +"Miss Harvey, will you forgive me?" + +"I have forgiven you." + +"Will you forget?" + +"If I can!" she said, with a marked expression, which signified +(though, of course, she did not mean Tom to understand it), "some of +what is past is too precious, and some too painful, to forget." + +"I do not ask you to forget all which has passed!" + +"I am afraid that there is nothing which would be any credit to you, +sir, to have remembered." + +"Credit or none," said Tom, unabashed, "do not forget one word that I +said." + +She looked hastily and sidelong round,--"That I am in your power?" + +"No! curse it! I wish I had bitten out my tongue before I had said +that. No! that I am in your power, Miss Harvey." + +"Sir! I never heard you say that; and if you had, the sooner anything +so untrue is forgotten the better." + +"I said that I loved you, Grace; and if that does not mean that--" + +"Sir! Mr. Thurnall! I cannot, I will not hear! You only insult me, +sir, by speaking thus, when you know that--that you consider me--a +thief!" and the poor girl burst into tears again. + +"I do not! I do not;" cried Tom, growing really earnest at the sight +of her sorrow, "Did I not begin this unhappy talk by begging your +pardon for ever having let such a thought cross my mind?" + +"But you do! you do! you told me as much at my own door; and I have +seen it ever since, till I have almost gone mad under it!" + +"I will swear to you by all that is sacred that I do not! Oh, Grace, +the first moment I saw you my heart told me that it was impossible; +and now, this afternoon, as I listened to you with that sick girl, I +felt a wretch for ever having--Grace, I tell you, you made me feel, +for the moment, a better man than I ever felt in my life before. A +poor return I have made for that, truly!" + +Grace looked up in his face gasping. + +"Oh, say that! say that again. Oh, good Lord, merciful Lord, at last! +Oh, if you knew what it was to have even one weight lifted off, among +all my heavy burdens, and that weight the hardest to bear. God forgive +me that it should have been so! Oh, I can breathe freely now again, +that I know I am not suspected by you." + +"By you?" Tom could not but see what, after all, no human being can +conceal, that Grace cared for him. And the devil came and tempted +him once more: but this time it was in vain. Tom's better angel had +returned; Grace's tender guilelessness, which would with too many men +only have marked her out as the easier prey, was to him as a sacred +shield before her innocence. So noble, so enthusiastic, so pure! He +could not play the villain with that woman. + +But there was plainly a mystery. What were the burdens, heavier even +than unjust suspicion, of which she had spoken? There was no harm in +asking. + +"But, Grace--Miss Harvey--You will not be angry with me if I ask?--Why +speak so often, as if finding this money depended on you alone? You +wish me to recover it, I know; and if you can counsel me, why not do +so? Why not tell me whom you suspect?" + +Her old wild terror returned in an instant. She stopped short-- + +"Suspect? I suspect? Oh, I have suspected too many already! Suspected +till I began to hate my fellow-creatures--hate life itself, when I +fancied that I saw 'thief' written on every forehead. Oh, do not ask +me to suspect any more!" + +Tom was silent. + +"Oh," she cried, after a moment's pause. "Oh, that we were back in +those old times I have read of, when they used to put people to the +torture to make them confess!" + +"Why, in Heaven's name?" + +"Because then I should have been tortured, and have confessed it, true +or false, in the agony, and have been hanged. They used to hang them +then, and put them out of their misery; and I should have been put out +of mine, and no one have been blamed but me for ever more." + +"You forget," said Tom, lost in wonder, "that then I should have +blamed you, as well as every one else." + +"True; yes, it was a foolish faithless word. I did not take it, and it +would have been no good to my soul to say I did. Lies cannot prosper, +cannot prosper, Mr. Thurnall!" and she stopped short again. + +"What, my dear Grace?" said he, kindly enough; for he began to fear +that she was losing her wits. + +"I saved your life!" + +"You did, Grace." + +"Then, I never thought to ask for payment; but, oh, I must now. Will +you promise me one thing in return?" + +"What you will, as I am a man and a gentleman; I can trust you to ask +nothing which is not worthy of you." + +Tom spoke truth. He felt,--perhaps love made him feel it all the more +easily,--that whatever was behind, he was safe in that woman's hands. + +"Then promise me that you will wait one month, only one month: ask no +questions; mention nothing to any living soul. And if, before that +time, I do not bring you that belt back, send me to Bodmin Gaol, and +let me bear my punishment." + +"I promise," said Tom. And the two walked on again in silence, till +they neared the head of the village. + +Then Grace went forward, like Nausicaa when she left Ulysses, lest the +townsfolk should talk; and Tom sat down upon a bank and watched her +figure vanishing in the dusk. + +Much he puzzled, hunting up and down in his cunning head for an +explanation of the mystery. At last he found one which seemed to fit +the facts so well, that he rose with a whistle of satisfaction, and +walked homewards. + +Evidently, her mother had stolen the belt; and Grace was, if not a +repentant accomplice--for that he could not believe,--at least aware +of the fact. + +"Well, it is a hard knot for her to untie, poor child; and on the +strength of having saved my life, she shall untie it her own way. I +can wait. I hope the money won't be spent meanwhile, though, and the +empty leather returned to me when wanted no longer. However, that's +done already, if done at all. I was a fool for not acting at once;--a +double fool for suspecting her! Ass that I was, to take up with +a false scent, and throw myself off the true one! My everlasting +unbelief in people has punished itself this time. I might have got a +search-warrant three months ago, and had that old witch safe in the +bilboes. But no--I might not have found it, after all, and there would +have been only an esclandre; and if I know that girl's heart, she +would have been ten times more miserable for her mother than for +herself, so it's as well as it is. Besides, it's really good fun to +watch how such a pretty plot will work itself out;--as good as a pack +of harriers with a cold scent and a squatted hare. So, live and let +live. Only, Thomas Thurnall, if you go for to come for to go for to +make such an abominable ass of yourself with that young lady any more, +like a miserable school-boy, you will be pleased to make tracks, and +vanish out of these parts for ever. For my purse can't afford to have +you marrying a schoolmistress in your impoverished old age; and my +character, which also is my purse, can't afford worse." + +One word of Grace's had fixed itself in Tom's memory. What did she +mean by "her two?" + +He contrived to ask Willis that very evening. + +"Oh, don't you know, sir? She had a young brother drowned, a long +while ago, when she was sixteen or so. He went out fishing on the +Sabbath, with another like him, and both were swamped. Wild young +lads, both, as lads will be. But she, sweet maid, took it so to heart, +that she never held up her head since; nor will, I think, at times, to +her dying day." + +"Humph! Was she fond of the other lad, then?" + +"Sir," said Willis, "I don't think it's fair like,--not decent, if +you'll excuse an old sailor,--to talk about young maids' affairs, that +they wouldn't talk of themselves, perhaps not even to themselves. So I +never asked any questions myself." + +"And think it rude in me to ask any. Well, I believe you're right, +good old gentleman that you are. What a nobleman you'd have made, if +you had had the luck to have been born in that station of life!" + +"I have found too much trouble, in doing my duty in my humble place, +to wish to be in any higher one." + +"So!" thought Tom to himself, "a girl's fancy: but it explains so much +in the character, especially when the temperament is melancholic. +However, to quote Solomon once more, 'A live dog is better than a dead +lion;' and I have not much to fear from a rival who has been washed +out of this world ten years since. Heyday! Rival! quotha? Tom +Thurnall, you are going to make a fool of yourself. You must go, sir! +I warn you; you must flee, till you have recovered your senses." + +There appeared next morning in Tom's shop a new phenomenon. A smart +youth, dressed in what he considered to be the newest London fashion; +but which was really that translation of last year's fashion which +happened to be current in the windows of the Bodmin tailors. Tom knew +him by sight and name,--one Mr. Creed, a squireen like Trebooze, and +an especial friend of Trebooze's, under whose tutelage he had learned +to smoke cavendish assiduously from the age of fifteen, thereby +improving neither his stature, nor his digestion, his nerves, nor the +intelligence of his countenance. + +He entered with a lofty air, and paused awhile as he spoke. + +"Is it possible," said Tom to himself, "that Trebooze has sent me a +challenge? It would be too good fun. I'll wait and see." So he went on +rolling pills. + +"I say, sir," quoth the youth, who had determined, as an owner of +land, to treat the doctor duly _de haut en bas_, and had a vague +notion that a liberal use of the word "sir" would both help thereto, +and be consonant with professional style of duel diplomacy, whereof he +had read in novels. + +Tom turned slowly, and then took a long look at him over the counter +through halfshut eye-lids, with chin upraised, as if he had been +suddenly afflicted with short sight; and worked on meanwhile steadily +at his pills. + +"That is, I wish--to speak to you, sir--ahem--!" went on Mr. Creed; +being gradually but surely discomfited by Tom's steady gaze. + +"Don't trouble yourself, sir: I see your case in your face. A slight +nervous affection--will pass as the digestion improves. I will make +you up a set of pills for the night; but I should advise a little +ammonia and valerian at once. May I mix it?" + +"Sir! you mistake me, sir!" + +"Not in the least; you have brought me a challenge from Mr. Trebooze." + +"I have, sir!" said the youth with a grand air, at once relieved by +having the awful words said for him, and exalted by the dignity of his +first, and perhaps last, employment in that line. + +"Well, sir," said Tom deliberately, "Mr. Trebooze does me a kindness +for which I cannot sufficiently thank him, and you also, as his +second. It is full six months since I fought, and I was getting hardly +to know myself again." + +"You will have to fight now, sir!" said the youth, trying to brazen +off by his discourtesy increasing suspicion that he had "caught a +Tartar." + +"Of course, of course. And of course, too, I fight you afterwards." + +"I--I, sir? I am Mr. Trebooze's friend, his second, sir. You do not +seem to understand, sir!" + +"Pardon me, young gentleman," said Tom, in a very quiet, determined +voice; "it is I who have a right to tell you that you do not +understand in such matters as these. I had fought my man, and more +than one of them, while you were eating blackberries in a short +jacket." + +"What do you mean, sir?" quoth the youth in fury; and began swearing a +little. + +"Simple fact. Are you not about twenty-three years old?" + +"What is that to you, sir?" + +"No business of mine, of course. You may be growing into your second +childhood for aught I care: but if, as I guess, you are about +twenty-three, I, as I know, am thirty-six: then I fought my first duel +when you were five years old, and my tenth, I should say, when you +were fifteen; at which time, I suppose, you were not ashamed either of +the jacket or the blackberries." + +"You will find me a man now, sir, at all events," said Creed, justly +wroth at what was, after all, a sophism; for if a man is not a man at +twenty, he never will be one. + +"_Tant mieux_. You know, I suppose, that as the challenged, I have the +choice of weapons?" + +"Of course, sir," said Creed, in an off-hand generous tone, because he +did not very clearly know. + +"Then, sir, I always fight across a handkerchief. You will tell Mr. +Trebooze so; he is, I really believe, a brave man, and will accept the +terms. You will tell yourself the same, whether you be a brave man or +not." + +The youth lost the last words in those which went before them. He was +no coward: would have stood up to be shot at, at fifteen paces, +like any one else; but the deliberate butchery of fighting across a +handkerchief-- + +"Do I understand you, sir?" + +"That depends on whether you are clever enough, or not, to comprehend +your native tongue. Across a handkerchief, I say, do you hear that?" +And Tom rolled on at his pills. + +"I do." + +"And when I have fought him, I fight you!" And the pills rolled +steadily at the same pace. + +"But--sir?--Why--sir?" + +"Because," said Tom, looking him full in the face, "because you, +calling yourself a gentleman, and being, more shame for you, one by +birth, dare to come here, for a foolish vulgar superstition called +honour, to ask me, a quiet medical man, to go and be shot at by a man +whom you know to be a drunken, profligate, blackguard: simply because, +as you know as well as I, I interfered to prevent his insulting a poor +helpless girl: and in so doing, was forced to give him what you, if +you are (as I believe) a gentleman, would have given him also, in my +place." + +"I don't understand you, sir!" said the lad, blushing all the while, +as one honestly conscience-stricken; for Tom had spoken the exact +truth, and he knew it. + +"Don't lie, sir, and tell me that you don't understand; you understand +every word which I have spoken, and you know that it is true." + +"Lie?" + +"Yes, lie. Look you, sir; I have no wish to fight--" + +"You will fight, though, whether you wish it or not," said the youth +with a hysterical laugh, meant to be defiant. + +"But--I can snuff a candle; I can split a bullet on a penknife at +fifteen paces." + +"Do you mean to frighten us by boasting? We shall see what you can do +when you come on the ground." + +"Across a handkerchief: but on no other condition; and, unless you +will accept that condition, I will assuredly, the next time I see you, +be we where we may, treat you as I treated your friend Mr. Trebooze. +I'll do it now! Get out of my shop, sir! What do you want here, +interfering with my honest business?" + +And, to the astonishment of Mr. Trebooze's second, Tom vaulted clean +over the counter, and rushed at him open-mouthed. + +Sacred be the honour of the gallant West country: but, "both being +friends," as Aristotle has it, "it is a sacred duty to speak the +truth." Mr. Creed vanished through the open door. + +"I rid myself of the fellow jollily," said Tom to Frank that day, +after telling him the whole story. + +"And no credit to me. I saw from the minute he came in there was no +fight in him." + +"But suppose he had accepted--or suppose Trebooze accepts still?" + +"There was my game--to frighten him. He'll take care Trebooze shan't +fight, for he knows that he must fight next. He'll go home and patch +the matter up, trust him. Meanwhile, the oaf had not even _savoir +faire_ enough to ask for my second. Lucky for me; for I don't know +where to have found one, save the lieutenant; and though he would +have gone out safe enough, it would have been a bore for the good old +fellow." + +"And," said Prank, utterly taken aback by Tom's business-like levity, +"you would actually have stood to shoot, and be shot at, across a +handkerchief?" + +Tom stuck out his great chin, and looked at him with one of his quaint +sidelong moues. + +"You are my very good friend, sir: but not my father-confessor." + +"I know that: but really--as a mere question of human curiosity--" + +"Oh, if you ask me on the human ground, and not on the sacerdotal, +I'll tell you. I've tried it twice, and I should be sorry to try it +again; though it's a very easy dodge. Keep your right elbow up--up to +your ear--and the moment you hear the word, fire. A high elbow and a +cool heart--that's all; and that wins." + +"Wins? Good heavens? As you are here alive you must have killed your +man?" + +"No. I only shot my men each through the body; and each of them +deserved it: but it is an ugly chance; I should have been sorry to try +it on that yokel. The boy may make a man yet. And what's more," said +Tom, bursting into a great laugh, "he will make a man, and go down +to his fathers in peace, _quant à moi_; and so will that wretched +Trebooze. For I'll bet you my head to a China orange, I hear no more +of this matter; and don't even lose Trebooze's custom." + +"Upon my word, I envy your sanguine temperament!" + +"Mr. Headley, I shall quietly make my call at Trebooze to-morrow, as +if nothing had happened. What will you bet me that I am not received +as usual?" + +"I never bet," said Frank. + +"Then you do well. It is a foolish and a dirty trick; playing with +edge tools, and cutting one's own fingers. Nevertheless, I speak +truth, as you will see." + +"You are a most extraordinary man. All this is so contrary to your +usual caution." + +"When you are driven against the ropes, 'hit out' is the old rule of +Fistiana and common sense. It is an extreme bore: all the more reason +for showing such an ugly front, as to give people no chance of its +happening again. Nothing so dangerous as half-measures, Headley. +'Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,' your creed says. Mine +only translates it into practice." + +"I have no liking for half-measures myself." + +"Did you ever," said Tom, "hear the story of the two Sandhurst +broom-squires?" + +"Broomsquires?" + +"So we call, in Berkshire, squatters on the moor who live by tying +heath into brooms. Two of them met in Reading market once, and fell +out:-- + +"'How ever do you manage to sell your brooms for three halfpence? I +steals the heth, and I steals the binds, and I steals the handles: and +yet I can't afoord to sell 'em under twopence.' + +"Ah, but you see,' says the other, 'I steals mine ready made.' + +"Moral--If you're going to do a thing, do it outright." + +That very evening, Tom came in again. + +"Well; I've been to Trebooze." + +"And fared, how?" + +"Just as I warned you. Inquired into his symptoms; prescribed for his +digestion--if he goes on as he is doing, he will soon have none left +to prescribe for; and, finally, plastered, with a sublime generosity, +the nose which my own knuckles had contused." + +"Impossible! you are the most miraculously impudent of men!" + +"Pish! simple common sense. I knew that Mrs. Trebooze would suspect +that the world had heard of his mishap, and took care to let her know +that I knew, by coming up to inquire for him." + +"_Cui bono?_" + +"Power. To have them, or any one, a little more in my power. Next, +I knew that he dared not fly out at me, for fear I should tell Mrs. +Trebooze what he had been after--you see? Ah, it was delicious to have +the great oaf sitting sulking under my fingers, longing to knock my +head off, and I plastering away, with words of deepest astonishment +and condolence. I verily believe that, before we parted, I had +persuaded him that his black eye proceeded entirely from his having +run up against a tree in the dark." + +"Well," said Frank, half sadly, though enjoying the joke in spite of +himself, "I cannot help thinking it would have been a fit moment for +giving the poor wretch a more solemn lesson." + +"My dear sir,--a good licking--and he had one, and something over--is +the best lesson for that manner of biped. That's the way to school +him: but as we are on lessons, I'll give you a hint." + +"Go on, model of self-sufficiency!" said Frank. + +"Scoff at me if you will, I am proof. But hearken--you mustn't turn +out that schoolmistress. She's an angel, and I know it; and if I say +so of any human being, you may be sure I have pretty good reasons." + +"I am beginning to be of your mind myself," said Frank. + + +END OF VOL. 1. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Two Years Ago, Volume I, by Charles Kingsley + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10920 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a56f373 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10920 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10920) diff --git a/old/10920-8.txt b/old/10920-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60e3495 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10920-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13048 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Two Years Ago, Volume I, by Charles Kingsley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Two Years Ago, Volume I + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10920] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO YEARS AGO, VOLUME I *** + + + + +Produced by Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +TWO YEARS AGO + +[Illustration] + + + + +TWO YEARS AGO + +BY CHARLES KINGSLEY + +IN TWO VOLS.--VOL. I + + +1901 + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL.I. + + CHAP + + INTRODUCTORY + I POETRY AND PROSE + II STILL LIFE + III ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE + IV FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND + V THE WAY TO WIN THEM + VI AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE + VII LA CORDIFIAMMA + VIII TAKING ROOT + IX "AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?" + X THE RECOGNITION + XI THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT + XII A PEER IN TROUBLE + XIII L'HOMME INCOMPRIS + XIV THE DOCTOR AT BAY + + + + +TWO YEARS AGO. + +INTRODUCTORY. + + +It may seem a somewhat Irish method of beginning the story of "Two +Years Ago" by a scene which happened but a month since. And yet, will +not the story be on that very account a better type of many a man's +own experiences! How few of us had learnt the meaning of "Two Years +Ago," until this late quiet autumn time; and till Christmas, too, with +its gaps in the old ring of friendly faces, never to be filled up +again on earth, began to teach us somewhat of its lesson. + +Two years ago, while pestilence was hovering over us and ours; while +the battle-roar was ringing in our ears; who had time to think, to ask +what all that meant; to seek for the deep lesson which we knew must +lie beneath? Two years ago was the time for work; for men to do with +all their might whatsoever their hands found to do. But now the storm +has lulled once more; the air has cleared awhile, and we can talk +calmly over all the wonders of that sudden, strange, and sad "Two +years ago." + +So felt, at least, two friends who went down, just one week before +Christmas-day, to Whitbury, in Berkshire. Two years ago had come to +one of them, as to thousands more, the crisis of his life; and he was +talking of it with his companion; and was on his way, too, to learn +more of that story, which this book contains, and in which he had +borne his part. + +They were both of them men who would at first sight interest a +stranger. The shorter of the two he might have seen before--at picture +sales, Royal Academy meetings, dinner parties, evening parties, +anywhere and everywhere, in town; for Claude Mellot is a general +favourite, and a general guest. + +He is a tiny, delicate-featured man, with a look of half-lazy +enthusiasm about his beautiful face, which reminds you much of +Shelley's portrait; only he has what Shelley had not, clustering +auburn curls, and a rich brown beard, soft as silk. You set him +down at once as a man of delicate susceptibility, sweetness, +thoughtfulness; probably (as he actually is) an artist. + +His companion is a man of statelier stamp, tall, dark, and handsome, +with a very large forehead; if the face has a fault, it is that the +mouth is too small; that, and the expression of face too, and the +tone of voice, seem to indicate over-refinement, possibly a too +aristocratic exclusiveness. He is dressed like a very fine gentleman +indeed, and looks and talks like one. Aristocrat, however, in the +common sense of the word, he is not; for he is a native of the Model +Republic, and sleeping-partner in a great New York merchant firm. + +He is chatting away to Claude Mellot, the artist, about Frémont's +election; and on that point seems to be earnest enough, though patient +and moderate. + +"My dear Claude, our loss is gain. The delay of the next four years +was really necessary, that we might consolidate our party. And I leave +you to judge, if it has grown to its present size in but a few months, +what dimensions it will have attained before the next election. We +require the delay, too, to discover who are our really best men; not +merely as orators, but as workers; and you English ought to know +better than any nation, that the latter class of men are those whom +the world most needs--that though Aaron may be an altogether inspired +preacher, yet it is only slow-tongued practical Moses, whose spokesman +he is, who can deliver Israel from their taskmasters. Besides, my dear +fellow, we really want the next four years--'tell it not in Gath'--to +look about us and see what is to be done. Your wisest Englishmen +justly complain of us, that our 'platform' is as yet a merely negative +one; that we define what the South shall not do, but not what the +North shall. Ere four years be over, we will have a 'positive +platform,' at which you shall have no cause to grumble." + +"I still think with Marie, that your 'positive platform' is already +made for you, plain as the sun in heaven, as the lightnings of Sinai. +Free those slaves at once and utterly!" + +"Impatient idealist! By what means? By law, or by force? Leave us to +draw a _cordon sanitaire_ round the tainted States, and leave the +system to die a natural death, as it rapidly will if it be prevented +from enlarging its field. Don't fancy that a dream of mine. None know +it better than the Southerners themselves. What makes them ready +just now to risk honour, justice, even the common law of nations +and humanity, in the struggle for new slave territory? What but the +consciousness that without virgin soil, which will yield rapid and +enormous profit to slave labour, they and their institution must be +ruined!" + +"The more reason for accelerating so desirable a consummation, by +freeing the slaves at once." + +"Humph!" said Stangrave with a smile. "Who so cruel at times as your +too benevolent philanthropist? Did you ever count the meaning of those +words? Disruption of the Union, an invasion of the South by the North; +and an internecine war, aggravated by the horrors of a general rising +of the slaves, and such scenes as Hayti beheld sixty years ago. If you +have ever read them, you will pause ere you determine to repeat them +on a vaster scale." + +"It is dreadful, Heaven knows, even in thought! But, Stangrave, can +any moderation on your part ward it off? Where there is crime, there +is vengeance; and without shedding of blood is no remission of sin." + +"God knows! It may be true: but God forbid that I should ever do aught +to hasten what may come. Oh, Claude, do you fancy that I, of all men, +do not feel at moments the thirst for brute vengeance?" + +Claude was silent. + +"Judge for yourself, you who know all--what man among us Northerners +can feel, as I do, what those hapless men may have deserved?--I who +have day and night before me the brand of their cruelty, filling my +heart with fire? I need all my strength, all my reason, at times to +say to myself, as I say to others--'Are not these slaveholders men of +like passions with yourself? What have they done which you would not +have done in their place?' I have never read that key to Uncle Tom's +Cabin. I will not even read this Dred, admirable as I believe it to +be." + +"Why should you?" said Claude. "Have you not a key to Uncle Tom's +Cabin, more pathetic than any word of man's or woman's?" + +"But I do not mean that! I will not read them, because I have the key +to them in my own heart, Claude: because conscience has taught me to +feel for the Southerner as a brother, who is but what I might have +been; and to sigh over his misdirected courage and energy, not with +hatred, not with contempt: but with pity, all the more intense the +more he scorns that pity; to long, not merely for the slaves' sake, +but for the masters' sake, to see them--the once chivalrous gentlemen +of the South--delivered from the meshes of a net which they did not +spread for themselves, but which was round their feet, and round their +fathers', from the day that they were born. You ask me to destroy +these men. I long to save them from their certain doom!" + +"You are right, and a better Christian than I am, I believe. Certainly +they do need pity, if any sinners do; for slavery seems to be--to +judge from Mr. Brooks's triumph--a great moral curse, and a heavier +degradation to the slaveholder himself, than it can ever be to the +slave." + +"Then I would free them from that curse, that degradation. If the +negro asks, 'Am I not a man and a brother?' have they no right to ask +it also? Shall I, pretending to love my country, venture on any rash +step which may shut out the whole Southern white population from their +share in my country's future glory? No; have but patience with us, you +comfortable liberals of the Old World, who find freedom ready made to +your hands, and we will pay you all. Remember, we are but children +yet; our sins are the sins of youth,--greediness, intemperance, +petulance, self-conceit. When we are purged from our youthful sins, +England will not be ashamed of her child." + +"Ashamed of you? I often wish I could make Americans understand the +feeling of England to you--the honest pride, as of a mother who has +brought into the world the biggest baby that ever this earth beheld, +and is rather proud of its stamping about and beating her in its +pretty pets. Only the old lady does get a little cross when she hears +you talk of the wrongs which you have endured from her, and teaching +your children to hate us as their ancient oppressors, on the ground of +a foolish war, of which every Englishman is utterly ashamed, and in +the result of which he glories really as much as you do." + +"Don't talk of 'you,' Claude! You know well what I think on that +point. Never did one nation make the _amende honorable_ to another +more fully and nobly than you have to us; and those who try to keep up +the quarrel are--I won't say what. But the truth is, Claude, we +have had no real sorrows; and therefore we can afford to play with +imaginary ones. God grant that we may not have our real ones--that we +may not have to drink of the cup of which our great mother drank two +years ago!" + +"It was a wholesome bitter for us; and it may be so for you likewise: +but we will have no sad forebodings on the eve of the blessed +Christmas-tide. He lives, He loves, He reigns; and all is well, for we +are His, and He is ours." + +"Ah," said Stangrave, "when Emerson sneered at you English for +believing your Old Testament, he little thought that that was the +lesson which it had taught you; and that that same lesson was the +root of all your greatness. That that belief in God's being, in some +mysterious way, the living King of England and of Christendom, has +been the very idea which has kept you in peace and safety, now for +many a hundred years, moving slowly on from good to better, not +without many backslidings and many shortcomings, but still finding +out, quickly enough, when you were on the wrong road, and not ashamed +to retrace your steps, and to _reform_, as brave strong men should +dare to do; a people who have been for many an age in the vanguard +of all the nations, and the champions of sure and solid progress +throughout the world; because what is new among you is not patched +artificially on to the old, but grows organically out of it, with +a growth like that of your own English oak, whose every new-year's +leaf-crop is fed by roots which burrow deep in many a buried +generation, and the rich soil of full a thousand years." + +"Stay!" said the little artist. "We are quite conceited enough +already, without your eloquent adulation, sir! But there is a truth +in your words. There is a better spirit roused among us, and that +not merely of two years ago. I knew this part of the country well in +1846-7-8, and since then, I can bear witness, a spirit of self-reform +has been awakened round here, in many a heart which I thought once +utterly frivolous. I find, in every circle of every class, men and +women asking to be taught their duty, that they may go and do it; +I find everywhere schools, libraries, and mechanics' institutes +springing up: and rich and poor meeting together more and more in the +faith that God has made them all. As for the outward and material +improvements--you know as well as I, that since free trade and +emigration, the labourers confess themselves better off than they +have been for fifty years; and though you will not see in the chalk +counties that rapid and enormous agricultural improvement which you +will in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, or the Lothians, yet you shall see +enough to-day to settle for you the question whether we old-country +folk are in a state of decadence and decay. _Par exemple_--" + +And Claude pointed to the clean large fields, with their neat +close-clipt hedge-rows, among which here and there stood cottages, +more than three-fourths of them new. + +"Those well-drained fallow fields, ten years ago, were poor clay +pastures, fetlock deep in mire six months in the year, and accursed in +the eyes of my poor dear old friend, Squire Lavington; because they +were so full of old moles'-nests, that they threw all horses down. I +am no farmer: but they seem surely to be somewhat altered since then." + +As he spoke, they turned off the main line of the rolling clays toward +the foot of the chalk hills, and began to brush through short cuttings +of blue gault and "green sand," so called by geologists, because its +usual colours are bright brown, snow-white, and crimson. + +Soon they get glimpses of broad silver Whit, as she slides, with +divided streams, through bright water-meadows, and stately groves of +poplar, and abele, and pine; while, far aloft upon the left, the downs +rise steep, crowned with black fir spinnies, and dotted with dark box +and juniper. + +Soon they pass old Whitford Priory, with its numberless gables, +nestling amid mighty elms, and the Nunpool flashing and roaring as of +old, and the broad shallow below sparkling and laughing in the low, +but bright December sun. + +"So slides on the noble river, for ever changing, and yet for ever the +same--always fulfilling its errand, which yet is never fulfilled," +said Stangrave,--he was given to half-mystic utterances, and +hankerings after Pagan mythology, learnt in the days when he +worshipped Emerson, and tried (but unsuccessfully) to worship Margaret +Fuller Ossoli,--"Those old Greeks had a deep insight into nature, +when they gave to each river not merely a name, but a semi-human +personality, a river-god of its own. It may be but a collection +of ever-changing atoms of water;--what is your body but a similar +collection of atoms, decaying and renewing every moment? Yet you are a +person; and is not the river, too, a person--a live thing? It has +an individual countenance which you love, which you would recognise +again, meet it where you will; it marks the whole landscape; it +determines probably the geography and the society of a whole district. +It draws you, too, to itself by an indefinable mesmeric attraction. If +you stop in a strange place, the first instinct of your idle +half-hour is, to lounge by the river. It is a person to you; you call +it--Scotchmen do, at least--she, and not it. How do you know that you +are not philosophically correct, and that the river has a spirit as +well as you?" + +"Humph!" said Claude, who talks mysticism himself by the hour, but +snubs it in every one else. "It has trout, at least; and they stand, +I suppose, for its soul, as the raisins did for those of Jean Paul's +gingerbread bride and bridegroom and peradventure baby." + +"Oh you materialist English! sporting-mad all of you, from the duke +who shooteth stags to the clod who poacheth rabbits!" + +"And who therefore can fight Russians at Inkermann, duke and clod +alike, and side by side; never better (says the chronicler of old) +than in their first battle. I can neither fight nor fish, and on the +whole agree with you: but I think it proper to be as English as I can +in the presence of an American." + +A whistle--a creak--a jar; and they stop at the little Whitford +station, where a cicerone for the vale, far better than Claude was, +made his appearance, in the person of Mark Armsworth, banker, railway +director, and _de facto_ king of Whitbury town, long since elected by +universal suffrage (his own vote included) as permanent _locum tenens_ +of her gracious Majesty. + +He hails Claude cheerfully from the platform, as he waddles about, +with a face as of the rising sun, radiant with good fun, good humour, +good deeds, good news, and good living. His coat was scarlet once; but +purple now. His leathers and boots were doubtless clean this morning; +but are now afflicted with elephantiasis, being three inches deep in +solid mud, which his old groom is scraping off as fast as he can. His +cap is duntled in; his back bears fresh stains of peat; a gentle rain +distils from the few angles of his person, and bedews the platform; +for Mark Armsworth has "been in Whit" to-day. + +All porters and guards touch their hats to him; the station-master +rushes up and down frantically, shouting, "Where are those +horse-boxes? Now then, look alive!" for Mark is chairman of the line, +and everybody's friend beside; and as he stands there being scraped, +he finds time to inquire after every one of the officials by turns, +and after their wives, children, and sweethearts beside. + +"What a fine specimen of your English squire!" says Stangrave. + +"He is no squire; he is the Whitbury banker, of whom I told you." + +"Armsworth!" said Stangrave, looking at the old man with interest. + +"Mark Armsworth himself. He is acting as squire, though, now; for he +has hunted the Whitford Priors ever since poor old Lavington's death." + +"Now then--those horse-boxes!"... + +"Very sorry, sir; I telegraphed up, but we could get but one down." + +"Put the horses into that, then; and there's an empty carriage! Jack, +put the hounds into it, and they shall all go second class, as sure as +I'm chairman!" + +The grinning porters hand the strange passengers in, while Mark counts +the couples with his whip-point,-- + +"Ravager--Roysterer; Melody--Gay-lass; all right. Why, where's that +old thief of a Goodman?" + +"Went over a gate as soon as he saw the couples; and wouldn't come +in at any price, sir," says the huntsman. "Gone home by himself, I +expect." + +"Goodman, Goodman, boy!" And forthwith out of the station-room slips +the noble old hound, grey-nosed, grey-eyebrowed, who has hidden, for +purposes of his own, till he sees all the rest safe locked in. + +Up he goes to Mark, and begins wriggling against his knees, and +looking up as only dogs can. "Oh, want to go first-class with me, eh? +Jump in, then!" And in jumps the hound, and Mark struggles after him. + +"Hillo, sir! Come out! Here are your betters here before you," as he +sees Stangrave, and a fat old lady in the opposite corner. + +"Oh, no; let the dog stay!" says Stangrave. + +"I shall wet you, sir, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, no." + +And Mark settles himself, puffing, with the hound's head on his knees, +and begins talking fast and loud. + +"Well, Mr. Mellot, you're a stranger here. Haven't seen you since poor +Miss Honour died. Ah, sweet angel she was! Thought my Mary would never +get over it. She's just such another, though I say it, barring the +beauty. Goodman, boy! You recollect old Goodman, son of Galloper, that +the old squire gave our old squire?" + +Claude, of course, knows--as all do who know those parts--who The Old +Squire is; long may he live, patriarch of the chase! The genealogy he +does not. + +"Ah, well--Miss Honour took to the pup, and used to walk him out; and +a prince of a hound he is; so now he's old we let him have his own +way, for her sake; and nobody'll ever bully _you_, will they, Goodman, +my boy?" + +"I want to introduce you to a friend of mine." + +"Proud to know any friend of yours, sir." + +"Mr. Stangrave--Mr. Armsworth. Mr. Stangrave is an American gentleman, +who is anxious to see Whitbury and the neighbourhood." + +"Well, I shall be happy to show it him, then--can't have a better +guide, though I say it--know everything by this time, and everybody, +man, woman, and child, as I hope Mr. Stangrave'll find when he gets to +know old Mark." + +"You must not speak of getting to know you, my dear sir; I know +you intimately already, I assure you; and more, am under very deep +obligations to you, which, I regret to say, I can only repay by +thanks." + +"Obligation to me, my dear sir?" + +"Indeed I am: I will tell you all when we are alone." And Stangrave +glanced at the fat old woman, who seemed to be listening intently. + +"Oh, never mind her," says Armsworth; "deaf as a post: very good +woman, but so deaf--ought to speak to her, though"--and, reaching +across, to the infinite amusement of his companions, he roared in the +fat woman's face, with a voice as of a speaking-trumpet--"Glad to see +you, Mrs. Grove! Got those dividends ready for you next time you come +into town." + +"Yah!" screamed the hapless woman, who (as the rest saw) heard +perfectly well. "What do you mean, frightening a lady in that way? +Deaf, indeed!" + +"Why," roared Mark again, "ain't you Mrs. Grove, of Drytown +Dirtywater?" + +"No, nor no acquaintance! What business is it of your'n, sir, to go +hollering in ladies' faces at your age?" + +"Well:--but I'll swear if you ain't her, you're somebody else. I know +you as well as the town clock" + +"Me? If you must know, sir, I'm Mrs. Pettigrew's mother, the +Linendraper's establishment, sir; a-going down for Christmas, sir!" + +"Humph!" says Mark: "you see--was sure I knew her--know everybody +here. As I said, if she wasn't Mrs. Grove, she was somebody else. Ever +in these parts before?" + +"Never: but I have heard a good deal of them; and very much charmed +with them I am. I have seldom seen a more distinctive specimen of +English scenery." + +"And how you are improving round here!" said Claude, who knew Mark's +weak points, and wanted to draw him out. "Your homesteads seem all +new; three fields have been thrown into one, I fancy, over half the +farms." + +Mark broke out at once on his favourite topic,--"I believe you! I'm +making the mare go here in Whitford, without the money too, sometimes. +I'm steward now, bailiff--ha! ha! these four years past--to Mrs. +Lavington's Irish husband; I wanted him to have a regular agent, a +canny Scot, or Yorkshireman. Faith, the poor man couldn't afford it, +and so fell back on old Mark. Paddy loves a job, you know. So I've the +votes and the fishing, and send him his rents, and manage all the rest +pretty much, my own way." + +When the name of Lavington was mentioned, Mark observed Stangrave +start; and an expression passed over his face difficult to be +defined--it seemed to Mark mingled pride and shame. He turned to +Claude, and said, in a low voice, but loud enough for Mark to hear,-- + +"Lavington? Is this their country also? As I am going to visit the +graves of my ancestors, I suppose I ought to visit those of hers." + +Mark caught the words which he was not intended to. + +"Eh? Sir, do you belong to these parts?" + +"My family, I believe, lived in the neighbourhood of Whitbury, at a +place called Stangrave-end." + +"To be sure! Old farm-house now; fine old oak carving in it, though; +fine old family it must have been; church full of their monuments. +Hum,--ha! Well! that's pleasant, now! I've often heard there were good +old families away there in New England; never thought that there were +Whitbury people among them. Hum--well! the world's not so big as +people think, after all. And you spoke of the Lavingtons? They are +great folks here--or were--" He was going to rattle on: but he saw a +pained expression on both the travellers' faces, and Stangrave stopped +him, somewhat drily-- + +"I know nothing of them, I assure you, or they of me. Your country +here is certainly charming, and shows little of those signs of decay +which some people in America impute to it." + +"Decay!" Mark went off at score. "Decay be hanged? There's life in the +old dog yet, sir! and dead pigs are looking up since free trade and +emigration. Cheap bread and high wages now: and instead of lands +going out of cultivation, as they threatened--bosh! there's a greater +breadth down in wheat in the vale now than there ever was; and look +at the roots. Farmers must farm now, or sink; and by George! they are +farming, like sensible fellows: and a fig for that old turnip ghost of +Protection! There was a fellow came down from the Carlton--you know +what that is!" Stangrave bowed, and smiled assent. "From the Carlton, +sir, two years since, and tried it on, till he fell in with old Mark. +I told him a thing or two; among the rest, told him to his face that +he was a liar; for he wanted to make farmers believe they were ruined, +when he knew they were not; and that he'd get 'em back Protection, +when he knew that he couldn't--and, what's more, he didn't mean to. So +he cut up rough, and wanted to call me out." + +"Did you go?" asked Stangrave, who was fast becoming amused with his +man, + +"I told him that that wasn't my line, unless he'd try Eley's greens at +forty yards; and then I was his man: but if he laid a finger on me, +I'd give him as sound a horsewhipping, old as I am, as ever man had +in his life. And so I would." And Mark looked complacently at his own +broad shoulders. "And since then, my lord and I have had it all our +own way; and Minchampstead and Co. is the only firm in the vale." + +"What's become of a Lord Vieuxbois, who used to live somewhere +hereabouts? I used to meet him at Rome." + +"Rome?" said Mark solemnly. "Yes; he was too fond of Rome, awhile +back: can't see what people want running into foreign parts to look at +those poor idolators, and their Punch and Judy plays. Pray for 'em, +and keep clear of them, is the best rule:--but he has married my +lord's youngest daughter; and three pretty children he has,--ducks of +children. Always comes to see me in my shop, when he drives into town. +Oh!--he's doing pretty well.--One of these new between-the-stools, +Peelites they call them--hope they'll be as good as the name. However, +he's a freetrader, because he can't help it. So we have his votes; and +as to his Conservatism, let him conserve hips and haws if he chooses, +like a 'pothecary. After all, why pull down anything, before it's +tumbling on your head? By the by, sir, as you're a man of money, +there's that Stangrave-end farm in the market now. Pretty little +investment,--I'd see that you got it cheap; and my lord wouldn't bid +against you, of course, as you're a liberal--all Americans, are, I +suppose. And so you'd oblige us, as well as yourself, for it would +give us another vote for the county." + +"Upon my word, you tempt me; but I do not think that this is just +the moment for an American to desert his own country, and settle in +England. I should not be here now, had I not this autumn done all I +could for America in America, and so crossed the sea to serve her, if +possible, in England." + +"Well, perhaps not; especially if you're a Frémonter." + +"I am, I assure you." + +"Thought as much, by your looks. Don't see what else an honest man can +be just now." + +Stangrave laughed. "I hope every one thinks so in England." + +"Trust us for that, sir! We know a man when we see him here; I hope +they'll do the same across the water." + +There was silence for a minute or two; and then Mark began again. + +"Look!--there's the farm; that's my lord's. I should like to show +you the short-horns there, sir!--all my Lord Ducie's and Sir Edward +Knightley's stock; bought a bull-calf of him the other day myself for +a cool hundred, old fool that I am. Never mind, spreads the breed. And +here are mills--four pair of new stones. Old Whit don't know herself +again. But I dare say they look small enough to you, sir, after your +American water-power." + +"What of that? It is just as honourable in you to make the most of a +small river, as in us to make the most of a large one." + +"You speak like a book, sir. By the by, if you think of taking home a +calf or two, to improve your New England breed--there are a good many +gone across the sea in the last few years--I think we could find you +three or four beauties, not so very dear, considering the blood." + +"Thanks; but I really am no farmer." + +"Well--no offence, I hope: but I am like your Yankees in one thing, +you see;--always have an eye to a bit of business. If I didn't, I +shouldn't be here now." + +"How very tasteful!--our own American shrubs! what a pity that they +are not in flower! What is this," asked Stangrave,--"one of your +noblemen's parks?" + +And they began to run through the cutting in Minchampstead Park, where +the owner has concealed the banks of the rail for nearly half a mile, +in a thicket of azaleas, rhododendrons, and clambering roses. + +"All!--isn't it pretty? His lordship let us have the land for a song; +only bargained that we should keep low, not to spoil his view; and so +we did; and he's planted our cutting for us. I call that a present to +the county, and a very pretty one too! Ah, give me these new brooms +that sweep clean!" + +"Your old brooms, like Lord Vieuxbois, were new brooms once, and swept +well enough five hundred years ago," said Stangrave, who had that +filial reverence for English antiquity which sits so gracefully upon +many highly educated and far-sighted Americans. + +"Worn to the stumps, now, too many of them, sir; and want new-hething, +as our broom-squires would say; and I doubt whether most of them are +worth the cost of a fresh bind. Not that I can say that of the young +lord. He's foremost in all that's good, if he had but money; and +when he hasn't, he gives brains. Gave a lecture, in our institute at +Whitford, last winter, on the four great Poets. Shot over my head a +little, and other people's too: but my Mary--my daughter, sir, thought +it beautiful; and there's nothing that she don't know." + +"It is very hopeful, to see your aristocracy joining in the general +movement, and bringing their taste and knowledge to bear on the lower +classes." + +"Yes, sir! We're going all right now, in the old country. Only have +to steer straight, and not put on too much steam. But give me the +new-comers, after all. They may be close men of business;--how else +could one live? But when it comes to giving, I'll back them against +the old ones for generosity, or taste either. They've their proper +pride, when they get hold of the land; and they like to show it, and +quite right they. You must see my little place too. It's not in such +bad order, though I say it, and am but a country banker: but I'll back +my flowers against half the squires round--my Mary's, that is--and my +fruit too.--See, there! There's my lord's new schools, and his model +cottages, with more comforts in them, saving the size, than my +father's house had; and there's his barrack, as he calls it, for the +unmarried men--reading-room, and dining-room, in common; and a library +of books, and a sleeping-room for each." + +"It seems strange to complain of prosperity," said Stangrave; "but I +sometimes regret that in America there is so little room for the very +highest virtues; all are so well off, that one never needs to give; +and what a man does here for others, they do for themselves." + +"So much the better for them. There are other ways of being generous +besides putting your hand in your pocket, sir! By Jove! there'll be +room enough (if you'll excuse me) for an American to do fine things, +as long as those poor negro slaves--" + +"I know it; I know it," said Stangrave, in the tone of a man who had +already made up his mind on a painful subject, and wished to hear no +more of it. "You will excuse me; but I am come here to learn what I +can of England. Of my own country I know enough, I trust, to do my +duty in it when I return." + +Mark was silent, seeing that he had touched a tender place; and +pointed out one object of interest after another, as they ran through +the flat park, past the great house with its Doric façade, which +the eighteenth century had raised above the quiet cell of the +Minchampstead recluses. + +"It is very ugly," said Stangrave; and truly. + +"Comfortable enough, though; and, as somebody said, people live inside +their houses, and not outside 'em. You should see the pictures there, +though, while you're in the country. I can show you one or two, too, I +hope. Never grudge money for good pictures. The pleasantest furniture +in the world, as long as you keep them; and if you're tired of them, +always fetch double their price." + +After Minchampstead, the rail leaves the sands and clays, and turns up +between the chalk hills, along the barge river which it has rendered +useless, save as a supernumerary trout-stream; and then along Whit, +now flowing clearer and clearer, as we approach its springs amid the +lofty clowns. On through more water-meadows, and rows of pollard +willow, and peat-pits crested with tall golden reeds, and still +dykes,--each in summer a floating flower-bed; while Stangrave looks +out of the window, his face lighting up with curiosity. + +"How perfectly English! At least, how perfectly un-American! It is +just Tennyson's beautiful dream--" + + 'On either side the river lie + Long fields, of barley and of rye, + Which clothe the wold and meet the sky, + And through the field the stream runs by, + To many towered Camelot.' + +"Why, what is this?" as they stop again at a station, where the board +bears, in large letters, "Shalott." + +"Shalott? Where are the + + 'Four grey walls, and four grey towers,' + +which overlook a space of flowers?" + +There, upon the little island, are the castle-ruins, now converted +into a useful bone-mill. "And the lady?--is that she?" + +It was only the miller's daughter, fresh from a boarding-school, +gardening in a broad straw-hat. + +"At least," said Claude, "she is tending far prettier flowers than +ever the lady saw; while the lady herself, instead of weaving and +dreaming, is reading Miss Young's novels, and becoming all the wiser +thereby, and teaching poor children in Hemmelford National School." + +"And where is her fairy knight," asked Stangrave, "whom one half hopes +to see riding down from that grand old house which sulks there +above among the beech-woods as if frowning on all the change and +civilisation below!" + +"You do old Sidricstone injustice. Vieuxbois descends from thence, +now-a-days, to lecture at mechanics' institutes, instead of the fairy +knight, toiling along in the blazing summer weather, sweating in +burning metal, like poor Perillus in his own bull." + +"Then the fairy knight is extinct in England!" asked Stangrave, +smiling. + +"No man less; only he (not Vieuxbois, but his younger brother) has +found a wide-awake cooler than an iron kettle, and travels by rail +when he is at home; and when he was in the Crimea, rode a shaggy pony, +and smoked cavendish all through the battle of Inkermann." + +"He showed himself the old Sir Lancelot there," said Stangrave, + +"He did. Wherefore the lady married him when the Guards came home; and +he will breed prize pigs; and sit at the board of guardians; and take +in the Times; clothed, and in his right mind; for the old Berserk +spirit is gone out of him; and he is become respectable, in a +respectable age, and is nevertheless just as brave a fellow as ever." + +"And so all things are changed, except the river; where still-- + + 'Willows whiten, aspens quiver. + Little breezes dash and shiver + On the stream that runneth ever.'" + +"And," said Claude, smiling, "the descendants of mediaeval trout snap +at the descendants of mediaeval flies, spinning about upon just the +same sized and coloured wings on which their forefathers spun a +thousand years ago; having become, in all that while, neither bigger +nor wiser." + +"But is it not a grand thought," asked Stangrave,--"the silence and +permanence of nature amid the perpetual flux and noise of human +life?--a grand thought that one generation goeth and another cometh, +and the earth abideth for ever?" + +"At least it is so much the worse for the poor old earth, if her doom +is to stand still, while man improves and progresses from age to age." + +"May I ask one question, sir?" said Stangrave, who saw that their +conversation was puzzling their jolly companion. "Have you heard any +news yet of Mr. Thurnall!" + +Mark looked him full in the face. + +"Do you know him?" + +"I did, in past years, most intimately." + +"Then you knew the finest fellow, sir, that ever walked mortal earth." + +"I have discovered that, sir, as well as you. I am under obligations +to that man which my heart's blood will not repay. I shall make no +secret of telling you what they are at a fit time." + +Mark held out his broad red hand, and grasped Stangrave's till the +joints cracked: his face grew as red as a turkey-cock's; his eyes +filled with tears. + +"His father must hear that! Hang it; his father must hear that! And +Grace too!" + +"Grace!" said Claude: "and is she with you?" + +"With the old man, the angel! tending him night and day." + +"And as beautiful as ever?" + +"Sir!" said Mark solemnly, "when any one's soul is as beautiful as +hers is, one never thinks about her face." + +"Who is Grace?" asked Stangrave. + +"A saint and a heroine!" said Claude. "You shall know all; for you +ought to know. But you have no news of Tom; and I have none either. I +am losing all hope now." + +"I'm not, sir!" said Mark fiercely. "Sir, that boy's not dead; he +can't be. He has more lives than a cat, and if you know anything of +him, you ought to know that." + +"I have good reason to know it, none more: but--" + +"But, sir! But what? Harm come to him, sir? The Lord wouldn't harm him +for his father's sake; and as for the devil!--I tell you, sir, if he +tried to fly away with him, he'd have to drop him before he'd gone a +mile!" And Mark began blowing his nose violently, and getting so red +that he seemed on the point of going into a fit. + +"Tell you what it is, gentlemen," said he at last, "you come and stay +with me, and see his father. It will comfort the old man--and--and +comfort me too; for I get down-hearted about him at times." + +"Strange attraction there was about that man," says Stangrave, _sotto +voce_ to Claude. + +"He was like a son to him--" + +"Now, gentlemen. Mr. Mellot, you don't hunt?" + +"No, thank you," said Claude. + +"Mr. Stangrave does, I'll warrant." + +"I have at various times, both in England and in Virginia." + +"Ah! Do they keep up the real sport there, eh? Well that's the best +thing I've heard of them, sir!--My horses are yours!--A friend of that +boy, sir, is welcome to lame the whole lot, and I won't grumble. Three +days a week, sir. Breakfast at eight, dinner at 5.30--none of your +late London hours for me, sir; and after it the best bottle of port, +though I say it, short of my friend S----'s, at Reading." + +"You must accept," whispered Claude, "or he will be angry." + +So Stangrave accepted; and all the more readily because he wanted to +hear from the good banker many things about the lost Tom Thurnall. + + * * * * * + +"Here we are," cries Mark. "Now, you must excuse me: see to +yourselves. I see to the puppies. Dinner at 5.30, mind! Come along, +Goodman, boy!" + +"Is this Whitbury?" asks Stangrave. + +It was Whitbury, indeed. Pleasant old town, which slopes down the +hill-side to the old church,--just "restored," though by Lords +Minchampstead and Vieuxbois, not without Mark Armsworth's help, to its +ancient beauty of grey flint and white clunch chequer-work, and quaint +wooden spire. Pleasant churchyard round it, where the dead lie looking +up to the bright southern sun, among huge black yews, upon their knoll +of white chalk above the ancient stream. Pleasant white wooden bridge, +with its row of urchins dropping flints upon the noses of elephantine +trout, or fishing over the rail with crooked pins, while hapless +gudgeon come dangling upward between stream and sky, with a look +of sheepish surprise and shame, as of a school-boy caught stealing +apples, in their foolish visages. Pleasant new national schools at +the bridge end, whither the urchins scamper at the sound of the two +o'clock bell. Though it be an ugly pile enough of bright red brick, it +is doing its work, as Whitbury folk know well by now. Pleasant, too, +though still more ugly, those long red arms of new houses which +Whitbury is stretching out along its fine turnpikes,--especially up +to the railway station beyond the bridge, and to the smart new hotel, +which hopes (but hopes in vain) to outrival the ancient "Angler's +Rest." Away thither, and not to the Railway Hotel, they trundle in a +fly--leaving Mark Armsworth all but angry because they will not sleep, +as well as breakfast, lunch, and dine with him daily,--and settle +in the good old inn, with its three white gables overhanging the +pavement, and its long lattice window buried deep beneath them, +like--so Stangrave says--to a shrewd kindly eye under a bland white +forehead. + +No, good old inn; not such shall be thy fate, as long as trout are +trout, and men have wit to catch them. For art thou not a sacred +house? Art thou not consecrate to the Whitbury brotherhood of anglers! +Is not the wainscot of that long low parlour inscribed with many a +famous name? Are not its walls hung with many a famous countenance? +Has not its oak-ribbed ceiling rung, for now a hundred years, to the +laughter of painters, sculptors, grave divines (unbending at least +there), great lawyers, statesmen, wits, even of Foote and Quin +themselves; while the sleek landlord wiped the cobwebs off another +magnum of that grand old port, and took in all the wisdom with a quiet +twinkle of his sleepy eye? He rests now, good old man, among the yews +beside his forefathers; and on his tomb his lengthy epitaph, writ by +himself; for Barker was a poet in his way. + +Some people hold the same epitaph to be irreverent, because in a list +of Barker's many blessings occurs the profane word "trout:" but those +trout, and the custom which they brought him, had made the old man's +life comfortable, and enabled him to leave a competence for his +children; and why should not a man honestly thank Heaven for that +which he knows has done him good, even though it be but fish? + +He is gone: but the Whit is not, nor the Whitbury club; nor will, +while old Mark Armsworth is king in Whitbury, and sits every evening +in the Mayfly season at the table head, retailing good stones of the +great anglers of his youth,--names which you, reader, have heard many +a time,--and who could do many things besides handling a blow-line. +But though the club is not what it was fifty years ago,--before Norway +and Scotland became easy of access,--yet it is still an important +institution of the town, to the members whereof all good subjects +touch their hats; for does not the club bring into the town good +money, and take out again only fish, which cost nothing in the +breeding? Did not the club present the Town-hall with a portrait of +the renowned fishing Sculptor? and did it not (only stipulating that +the school should be built beyond the bridge to avoid noise) give +fifty pounds to the said school but five years ago, in addition to +Mark's own hundred? + +But enough of this:--only may the Whitbury club, in recompense for my +thus handing them down to immortality, give me another day next +year, as they gave me this: and may the Mayfly be strong on, and a +south-west gale blowing! + +In the course of the next week, in many a conversation, the three men +compared notes as to the events of two years ago; and each supplied +the other with new facts, which shall be duly set forth in this tale, +saving and excepting, of course, the real reason why everybody did +everything. For--as everybody knows who has watched life--the true +springs of all human action are generally those which fools will not +see, which wise men will not mention; so that, in order to present +a readable tragedy of Hamlet, you must always "omit the part of +Hamlet,"--and probably the ghost and the queen into the bargain. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +POETRY AND PROSE. + + +Now, to tell my story--if not as it ought to be told, at least as I +can tell it,--I must go back sixteen years,--to the days when Whitbury +boasted of forty coaches per diem, instead of one railway,--and set +forth how, in its southern suburb, there stood two pleasant houses +side by side, with their gardens sloping down to the Whit, and parted +from each other only by the high brick fruit-wall, through which there +used to be a door of communication; for the two occupiers were fast +friends. In one of these two houses, sixteen years ago, lived our +friend Mark Armsworth, banker, solicitor, land-agent, churchwarden, +guardian of the poor, justice of the peace,--in a word, viceroy of +Whitbury town, and far more potent therein than her gracious majesty +Queen Victoria. In the other, lived Edward Thurnall, esquire, doctor +of medicine, and consulting physician of all the country round. These +two men were as brothers; and had been as brothers for now twenty +years, though no two men could be more different, save in the two +common virtues which bound them to each other; and that was, that they +both were honest and kind-hearted men. What Mark's character was, and +is, I have already shown, and enough of it, I hope, to make my readers +like the good old banker: as for Doctor Thurnall, a purer or gentler +soul never entered a sick-room, with patient wisdom in his brain, and +patient tenderness in his heart. Beloved and trusted by rich and poor, +he had made to himself a practice large enough to enable him to settle +two sons well in his own profession; the third and youngest was still +in Whitbury. He was something of a geologist, too, and a botanist, and +an antiquarian; and Mark Armsworth, who knew, and knows still, nothing +of science, looked up to the Doctor as an inspired sage, quoted him, +defended his opinion, right or wrong, and thrust him forward at public +meetings, and in all places and seasons, much to the modest Doctor's +discomfiture. + +The good Doctor was sitting in his study on the morning on which my +tale begins; having just finished his breakfast, and settled to his +microscope in the bay-window opening on the lawn. + +A beautiful October morning it was; one of those in which Dame Nature, +healthily tired with the revelry of summer, is composing herself, with +a quiet satisfied smile, for her winter's sleep. Sheets of dappled +cloud were sliding slowly from the west; long bars of hazy blue hung +over the southern chalk downs which gleamed pearly grey beneath the +low south-eastern sun. In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist +still hung over the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the +huge elms and poplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering down +at the very rustle of the western breeze, spotting the grass below. +The river swirled along, glassy no more, but dingy grey with autumn +rains and rotten leaves. All beyond the garden told of autumn; bright +and peaceful, even in decay: but up the sunny slope of the garden +itself, and to the very window sill, summer still lingered. The beds +of red verbena and geranium were still brilliant, though choked with +fallen leaves of acacia and plane; the canary plant, still untouched +by frost, twined its delicate green leaves, and more delicate yellow +blossoms, through the crimson lacework of the Virginia-creeper; and +the great yellow noisette swung its long canes across the window, +filling all the air with fruity fragrance. + +And the good Doctor, lifting his eyes from his microscope, looked out +upon it all with a quiet satisfaction, and though his lips did not +move, his eyes seemed to be thanking God for it all; and thanking Him, +too, perhaps, that he was still permitted to gaze upon that fair world +outside. For as he gazed, he started, as if with sudden pain, and +passed his hand across his eyes, with something like a sigh, and then +looked at the microscope no more, but sat, seemingly absorbed in +thought, while upon his delicate toil-worn features, and high, bland, +unwrinkled forehead, and the few soft grey locks which not time--for +he was scarcely fifty-five--but long labour of brain, had spared to +him, there lay a hopeful calm, as of a man who had nigh done his work, +and felt that he had not altogether done it ill;--an autumnal calm, +resigned, yet full of cheerfulness, which harmonised fitly with the +quiet beauty of the decaying landscape before him. + +"I say, daddy, you must drop that microscope, and put on your shade. +You are ruining those dear old eyes of yours again, in spite of what +Alexander told you." + +The Doctor took up the green shade which lay beside him, and replaced +it with a sigh and a smile. + +"I must use the old things now and then, till you can take my place +at the microscope, Tom; or till we have, as we ought to have, a +first-rate analytical chemist settled in every county-town, and paid, +in part at least, out of the county rates." + +The "Tom" who had spoken was one of two youths of eighteen, who stood +in opposite corners of the bay-window, gazing out upon the landscape, +but evidently with thoughts as different as were their complexions. + +Tom was of that bull-terrier type so common in England; sturdy, and +yet not coarse; middle-sized, deep-chested, broad-shouldered; with +small, well-knit hands and feet, large jaw, bright grey eyes, crisp +brown hair, a heavy projecting brow; his face full of shrewdness and +good-nature, and of humour withal, which might be at whiles a little +saucy and sarcastic, to judge from the glances which he sent forth +from the corners of his wicked eyes at his companion on the other side +of the window. He was evidently prepared for a day's shooting, in +velveteen jacket and leather gaiters, and stood feeling about in +his pockets to see whether he had forgotten any of his tackle, and +muttering to himself amid his whistling,--"Capital day. How the birds +will lie. Where on earth is old Mark? Why must he wait to smoke his +cigar after breakfast? Couldn't he have had it in the trap, the +blessed old chimney that he is?" + +The other lad was somewhat taller than Tom, awkwardly and plainly +dressed, but with a highly-developed Byronic turn-down collar, and +long black curling locks. He was certainly handsome, as far as the +form of his features and brow; and would have been very handsome, +but for the bad complexion which at his age so often accompanies a +sedentary life, and a melancholic temper. One glance at his face +was sufficient to tell that he was moody, shy, restless, perhaps +discontented, perhaps ambitious and vain. He held in his hand a volume +of Percy's Reliques, which he had just taken down from Thurnall's +shelves; yet he was looking not at it, but at the landscape. +Nevertheless, as he looked, one might have seen that he was thinking +not so much of it as of his own thoughts about it. His eye, which was +very large, dark, and beautiful, with heavy lids and long lashes, +had that dreamy look so common among men of the poetic temperament; +conscious of thought, if not conscious of self; and as his face +kindled, and his lips moved more and more earnestly, he began +muttering to himself half-aloud, till Tom Thurnall burst into an open +laugh. + +"There's Jack at it again! making poetry, I'll bet my head to a China +orange." + +"And why not?" said his father, looking up quietly, but reprovingly, +as Jack winced and blushed, and a dark shade of impatience passed +across his face. + +"Oh! it's no concern of mine. Let everybody please themselves. The +country looks very pretty, no doubt, I can tell that; only my notion +is, that a wise man ought to go out and enjoy it--as I am going to +do--with a gun on his shoulder, instead of poking at home like a +yard-dog, and behowling oneself in po-o-oetry;" and Tom lifted up his +voice into a doleful mastiff's howl. + +"Then be as good as your word, Tom, and let every one please +themselves," said the Doctor; but the dark youth broke out in sudden +passion. + +"Mr. Thomas Thurnall! I will not endure this! Why are you always +making me your butt,--insulting me, sir, even in your father's house? +You do not understand me; and I do not care to understand you. If my +presence is disagreeable to you, I can easily relieve you of it!" and +the dark youth turned to go away like Naaman, in a rage. + +"Stop, John," said the Doctor. "I think it would be the more courteous +plan for Tom to relieve you of his presence. Go and find Mark, Tom; +and please to remember that John Briggs is my guest, and that I will +not allow any rudeness to him in my house." + +"I'll go, daddy, to the world's end, if you like, provided you won't +ask me to write poetry. But Jack takes offence so soon. Give us your +hand, old tinder-box! I meant no harm, and you know it." + +John Briggs took the proffered hand sulkily enough; and Tom went out +of the glass door, whistling as merry as a cricket. + +"My dear boy," said the Doctor, when they were alone, "you must try to +curb this temper of yours. Don't be angry with me, but--" + +"I should be an ungrateful brute if I was, sir. I can bear anything +from you. I ought to, for I owe everything to you; but--" + +"But, my dear boy--'better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that +taketh a city.'" + +John Briggs tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. "I cannot +help it, sir. It will drive me mad, I think at times,--this +contrast between what I might be, and what I am, I can bear it no +longer--mixing medicines here, when I might be educating myself, +distinguishing myself--for I can do it; have you not said as much +yourself to me again and again?" + +"I have, of course; but--" + +"But, sir, only hear me. It is in vain to ask me to command my temper +while I stay here. I am not fit for this work; not fit for the dull +country. I am not appreciated, not understood; and I shall never be, +till I can get to London,--till I can find congenial spirits, and take +my rightful place in the great parliament of mind. I am Pegasus in +harness, here!" cried the vain, discontented youth. "Let me but once +get there,--amid art, civilisation, intellect, and the company of men +like that old Mermaid Club, to hear and to answer-- + + 'words, + So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, + As one had put his whole soul in a jest;'-- + +and then you shall see whether Pegasus has not wings, and can use them +too!" And he stopped suddenly, choking with emotion, his nostril and +chest dilating, his foot stamping impatiently on the ground. + +The Doctor watched him with a sad smile. + +"Do you remember the devil's temptation of our Lord--'Cast thyself +down from hence; for, it is written, He shall give His angels charge +over thee?" + +"I do; but what has that to do with me?" + +"Throw away the safe station in which God has certainly put you, to +seek, by some desperate venture, a new, and, as you fancy, a grander +one for yourself? Look out of that window, lad; is there not poetry +enough, beauty and glory enough, in that sky, those fields,--ay, in +every fallen leaf,--to employ all your powers, considerable as I +believe them to be? Why spurn the pure, quiet, country life, in which +such men as Wordsworth have been content to live and grow old?" + +The boy shook his head like an impatient horse. "Too slow--too slow +for me, to wait and wait, as Wordsworth did, through long years of +obscurity, misconception, ridicule. No. What I have, I must have +at once; and, if it must be, die like Chatterton--if only, like +Chatterton, I can have my little day of success, and make the world +confess that another priest of the beautiful has arisen among men." + +Now, it can scarcely be denied, that the good Doctor was guilty of a +certain amount of weakness in listening patiently to all this rant. +Not that the rant was very blamable in a lad of eighteen; for have we +not all, while we are going through our course of Shelley, talked very +much the same abominable stuff, and thought ourselves the grandest +fellows upon earth on account of that very length of ear which was +patent to all the world save our precious selves; blinded by our +self-conceit, and wondering in wrath why everybody was laughing at us? +But the truth is, the Doctor was easy and indulgent to a fault, and +dreaded nothing so much, save telling a lie, as hurting people's +feelings; besides, as the acknowledged wise man of Whitbury, he was a +little proud of playing the Maecenas; and he had, and not unjustly, +a high, opinion of John Briggs's powers. So he had lent him books, +corrected his taste in many matters, and, by dint of petting and +humouring, had kept the wayward youth half-a-dozen times from running +away from his father, who was an apothecary in the town, and from the +general practitioner, Mr. Bolus, under whom John Briggs fulfilled the +office of co-assistant with Tom Thurnall. Plenty of trouble had +both the lads given the Doctor in the last five years, but of very +different kinds, Tom, though he was in everlasting hot water, as the +most incorrigible scapegrace for ten miles round, contrived to confine +his naughtiness strictly to play-hours, while he learnt everything +which was to be learnt with marvellous quickness, and so utterly +fulfilled the ideal of a bottle-boy (for of him, too, as of all +things, I presume, an ideal exists eternally in the supra-sensual +Platonic universe), that Bolus told his father,--"In hours, sir, he +takes care of my business as well as I could myself; but out of hours, +sir, I believe he is possessed by seven devils." + +John Briggs, on the other hand, sinned in the very opposite direction. +Too proud to learn his business, and too proud also to play the +scapegrace as Tom did, he neglected alike work and amusement, for lazy +mooning over books, and the dreams which books called up. He made +perpetual mistakes in the shop; and then considered himself insulted +by an "inferior spirit," if poor Bolus called him to account for it. +Indeed, had it not been for many applications of that "precious oil of +unity," with which the good Doctor daily anointed the creaking wheels +of Whitbury society, John Briggs and his master would have long ago +"broken out of gear," and parted company in mutual wrath and fury. +And now, indeed, the critical moment seemed come at last; for the lad +began afresh to declare his deliberate intention of going to London to +seek his fortune, in spite of parents and all the world. + +"To live on here, and never to rise, perhaps, above the post of +correspondent to a country newspaper!--To publish a volume of poems +by subscription and have to go round, hat in hand, begging +five shillings' worth of patronage from every stupid country +squire--intolerable! I must go! Shakespeare was never Shakespeare till +he fled from miserable Stratford, to become at once the friend of +Sidney and Southampton." + +"But John Briggs will be John Briggs still, if he went to the moon," +shouted Tom Thurnall, who had just come up to the window. "I advise +you to change that name of yours, Jack, to Sidney, or Percy, or Walker +if you like; anything but the illustrious surname of Briggs the +poisoner!" + +"What do you mean, sir!" thundered John, while the Doctor himself +jumped up; for Tom was red with rage. + +"What is this, Tom!" + +"What's that?" screamed Tom, bursting, in spite of his passion into +roars of laughter. "What's that?"--and he held out a phial "Smell it! +taste it! Oh, if I had but a gallon of it to pour down your throat! +That's what you brought Mark Armsworth last night, instead of his +cough mixture, while your brains were wool-gathering after poetry!" + +"What is it?" gasped John Briggs. + +"Miss Twiddle's black dose;--strong enough to rive the gizard out of +an old cock!" + +"It's not!" + +"It is!" roared Mark Armsworth from behind as he rushed in, in +shooting-jacket and gaiters, his red face redder with fury, his red +whiskers standing on end with wrath like a tiger's, his left hand upon +his hapless hypogastric region, his right brandishing an empty glass, +which smelt strongly of brandy and water. "It is! And you've given me +the cholera, and spoilt my day's shooting; and if I don't serve you +out for it there's no law in England!" + +"And spoilt my day's shooting, too; the last I shall get before I'm +off to Paris! To have a day in Lord Minchampstead's preserves, and to +be baulked of it in this way!" + +John Briggs stood as one astonied. + +"If I don't serve you out for this!" shouted Mark. + +"If I don't serve you out for it! You shall never hear the last of +it!" shouted Tom. "I'll take to writing, after all I'll put it in the +papers. I'll make the name of Briggs the poisoner an abomination in +the land." + +John Briggs turned and fled. + +"Well!" said Mark, "I must spend my morning at home, I suppose. So I +shall just sit and chat with you, Doctor." + +"And I shall go and play with Molly," said Tom, and walked off to +Armsworth's garden. + +"I don't care for myself so much," said Mark; "but I'm sorry the boy's +lost his last day's shooting." + +"Oh, you will be well enough by noon, and can go then; and as for the +boy, it is just as well for him not to grow too fond of sports in +which he can never indulge." + +"Never indulge? Why not? He vows he'll go to the Rocky Mountains, and +shoot a grizzly bear; and he'll do it." + +"He has a great deal to do before that, poor fellow; and a great deal +to learn." + +"And he'll learn it. You're always down-hearted about the boy, +Doctor." + +"I can't help feeling the parting with him: and for Paris, too:--such +a seat of temptation. But it is his own choice; and, after all, he +must see temptation, wherever he goes." + +"Bless the man! if a boy means to go to the bad, he'll go just as +easily in Whitbury as in Paris. Give the lad his head, and never fear; +he'll fall on his legs like a cat, I'll warrant him, whatever happens. +He's as steady as old Time, I tell you; there's a grey head on green +shoulders there." + +"Steady?" said the Doctor, with a smile and a shrug. + +"Steady, I tell you at heart; as prudent as you or I; and never lost +you a farthing, that you know. Hang good boys! give me one who knows +how to be naughty in the right place; I wouldn't give sixpence for a +good boy; I never was one myself, and have no faith in them. Give me +the lad who has more steam up than he knows what to do with, and must +needs blow off a little in larks. When once he settles down on the +rail, it'll send him along as steady as a luggage train. Did you never +hear a locomotive puffing and roaring before it gets under way? well, +that's what your boy is doing. Look at him now, with my poor little +Molly." + +Tom was cantering about the garden with a little weakly child of eight +in his arms. The little thing was looking up in his face with delight, +screaming at his jokes. + +"You are right, Mark: the boy's heart cannot be in the wrong place +while he is so fond of little children." + +"Poor Molly! How she'll miss him! Do you think she'll ever walk, +Doctor?" + +"I do indeed." + +"Hum! ah! well! if she grows up, Doctor, and don't go to join her poor +dear mother up there, I don't know that I'd wish her a better husband +than your boy." + +"It would be a poor enough match for her." + +"Tut! she'll have the money, and he the brains. Mark my words, Doctor, +that boy'll be a credit to you; he'll make a noise in the world, or I +know nothing. And if his fancy holds seven years hence, and he wants +still to turn traveller, let him. If he's minded to go round the +world, I'll back him to go, somehow or other, or I'll eat my head, Ned +Thurnall!" + +The Doctor acquiesced in this hopeful theory, partly to save an +argument; for Mark's reverence for his opinion was confined to +scientific matters; and he made up to his own self-respect by +patronising the Doctor, and, indeed, taking him sometimes pretty +sharply to task on practical matters. + +"Best fellow alive is Thurnall; but not a man of business, poor +fellow. None of your geniuses are. Don't know what he'd do without +me." + +So Tom carried Mary about all the morning, and went to Minchampstead +in the afternoon, and got three hours' good shooting; but in the +evening he vanished; and his father went into Armsworth's to look for +him. + +"Why do you want to know where he is?" replied Mark, looking sly. +"However, as you can't stop him now, I'll tell you. He is just about +this time sewing up Briggs's coat-sleeves, putting copperas into his +water jug, and powdered galls on his towel, and making various other +little returns for this morning's favour." + +"I dislike practical jokes." + +"So do I; especially when they come in the form of a black dose. Sit +down, old boy, and we'll have a game at cribbage." + +In a few minutes Tom came in--"Here's a good riddance. The poisoner +has fabricated his pilgrim's staff, to speak scientifically, and +perambulated his calcareous strata." + +"What!" + +"Cut his stick, and walked his chalks; and is off to London." + +"Poor boy," said the Doctor, much distressed. + +"Don't cry, daddy; you can't bring him back again. He's been gone +these four hours. I went to his room, at Bolus's, about a little +business, and saw at once that he had packed up, and carried off all +he could. And, looking about, I found a letter directed to his father. +So to his father I took it; and really I was sorry for the poor +people. I left them all crying in chorus." + +"I must go to them at once;" and up rose the Doctor. + +"He's not worth the trouble you take for him--the addle-headed, +ill-tempered coxcomb," said Mark. "But it's just like your +soft-heartedness. Tom, sit down, and finish the game with me." + +So vanished from Whitbury, with all his aspirations, poor John Briggs; +and save an occasional letter to his parents, telling them that he +was alive and well, no one heard anything of him for many a year. The +Doctor tried to find him out in London, again and again; but without +success. His letters had no address upon them, and no clue to his +whereabouts could be found. + +And Tom Thurnall went to Paris, and became the best pistol-shot +and billiard-player in the Quartier Latin; and then went to St. +Mumpsimus's Hospital in London, and became the best boxer therein, +and captain of the eight-oar, besides winning prizes and certificates +without end, and becoming in due time the most popular house-surgeon +in the hospital: but nothing could keep him permanently at home. Stay +drudging in London he would not. Settle down in a country practice +he would not. Cost his father a farthing he would not. So he started +forth into the wide world with nothing but his wits and his science, +as anatomical professor to a new college in some South American +republic. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found that the annual +revolution had just taken place, and that the party who had founded +the college had been all shot the week before. Whereat he whistled, +and started off again, no man knew whither. + +"Having got round half the world, daddy," he wrote home, "it's hard if +I don't get round the other half. So don't expect me till you see me; +and take care of your dear old eyes." + +With which he vanished into infinite space, and was only heard of by +occasional letters dated from the Rocky Mountains (where he did shoot +a grizzly bear), the Spanish West Indies, Otahiti, Singapore, the +Falkland Islands, and all manner of unexpected places; sending +home valuable notes (sometimes accompanied by valuable specimens), +zoological and botanical; and informing his father that he was doing +very well; that work was plentiful, and that he always found two fresh +jobs before he had finished one old one. + +His eldest brother, John, died meanwhile. His second brother, William, +was in good general practice in Manchester. His father's connections +supported him comfortably; and if the old Doctor ever longed for Tom +to come home, he never hinted it to the wanderer, but bade him go on +and prosper, and become (which he gave high promise of becoming) a +distinguished man of science. Nevertheless the old man's heart sank at +last, when month after month, and at last two full years, had passed +without any letter from Tom. + +At last, when full four years were past and gone since Tom started +for South America, he descended from the box of the day-mail, with a +serene and healthful countenance; and with no more look of interest in +his face than if he had been away on a two days' visit, shouldered his +carpet-bag, and started for his father's house. He stopped, however; +as there appeared from the inside of the mail a face which he must +surely know. A second look told him that it was none other than +John Briggs. But how altered! He had grown up into a very handsome +man,--tall and delicate-featured, with long black curls, and a black +moustache. There was a slight stoop about his shoulders, as of a +man accustomed to too much sitting and writing; and he carried an +eye-glass, whether for fashion's sake, or for his eyes' sake, was +uncertain. He was wrapt in a long Spanish cloak, new and good; wore +well-cut trousers, and (what Tom, of course, examined carefully) +French boots, very neat, and very thin. Moreover, he had lavender +kid-gloves on. Tom looked and wondered, and walked half round him, +sniffing like a dog when he examines into the character of a fellow +dog. + +"Hum!--his mark seems to be at present P.P.--prosperous party: so +there can be no harm in renewing our acquaintance. What trade on +earth does he live by, though? Editor of a newspaper? or keeper of a +gambling-table? Begging his pardon, he looks a good deal more like the +latter than the former. However--" + +And he walked up and offered his hand, with "How d'e do, Briggs? Who +would have thought of our falling from the skies against each other in +this fashion?" + +Mr. Briggs hesitated a moment, and then took coldly the offered hand. + +"Excuse me; but the circumstances of my visit here are too painful to +allow me to wish for society." + +And Mr. Briggs withdrew, evidently glad to escape. + +"Has he vampoosed with the contents of a till, that he wishes so for +solitude?" asked Tom; and, shouldering his carpet-bag a second time, +with a grim inward laugh, he went to his father's house, and hung up +his hat in the hall, just as if he had come in from a walk, and walked +into the study; and not finding the old man, stepped through the +garden to Mark Armsworth's, and in at the drawing-room window, +frightening out of her wits a short, pale, ugly girl of seventeen, +whom he discovered to be his old playfellow, Mary. However, she soon +recovered her equanimity: he certainly never lost his. + +"How d'e do, darling? How you are grown! and how well you look! How's +your father? I hadn't anything particular to do, so I thought I'd come +home and see you all, and get some fishing." + +And Mary, who had longed to throw her arms round his neck, as of old, +and was restrained by the thought that she was grown a great girl now, +called in her father, and all the household; and after a while the old +Doctor came home, and the fatted calf was killed, and all made merry +over the return of this altogether unrepentant prodigal son, who, +whether from affectation, or from that blunted sensibility which often +comes by continual change and wandering, took all their affection and +delight with the most provoking coolness. + +Nevertheless, though his feelings were not "demonstrative," as fine +ladies say now-a-days, he evidently had some left in some corner of +his heart; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they were all +settled in the Doctor's study, it came out that his carpet-bag +contained little but presents, and those valuable ones--rare minerals +from the Ural for his father; a pair of Circassian pistols for +Mark; and for little Mary, to her astonishment, a Russian malachite +bracelet, at which Mary's eyes opened wide, and old Mark said-- + +"Pretty fellow you are, to go fooling your money away like that. What +did that gimcrack cost, pray, sir?" + +"That is no concern of yours, sir, or mine either; for I didn't pay +for it." + +"Oh!" said Mary, doubtingly. + +"No, Mary. I killed a giant, who was carrying off a beautiful +princess; and this, you see, he wore as a ring on one of his fingers: +so I thought it would just suit your wrist." + +"Oh, Tom--Mr. Thurnall--what nonsense!" + +"Come, come," said his father: "instead of telling us these sort of +stories, you ought to give an account of yourself, as you seem quite +to forget that we have not heard from you for more than two years." + +"Whew! I wrote," said Tom, "whenever I could. However, you can have +all my letters in one now." + +So they sat round the fire, and Tom gave an account of himself; +while his father marked with pride that the young man had grown and +strengthened in body and in mind; and that under that nonchalant, +almost cynical outside, the heart still beat honest and kindly. +For before Tom began, he would needs draw his chair closer to his +father's, and half-whispered to him,-- + +"This is very jolly. I can't be sentimental, you know. Knocking about +the world has beat all that out of me: but it is very comfortable, +after all, to find oneself with a dear old daddy and a good coal +fire." + +"Which of the two could you best do without?" + +"Well, one takes things as one finds them. It don't do to look too +deeply into one's feelings. Like chemicals, the more you analyse them, +the worse they smell." + +So Tom began his story. + +"You heard from me at Bombay; after I'd been up to the Himalaya with +an old Mumpsimus friend?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I worked my way to Suez on board a ship whose doctor had fallen +ill; and then I must needs see a little of Egypt; and there robbed was +I, and nearly murdered, too; but I take a good deal of killing." + +"I'll warrant you do," said Mark, looking at him with pride. + +"So I begged my way to Cairo; and there I picked up a Yankee--a New +Yorker, made of money, who had a yacht at Alexandria, and travelled +_en prince_; and nothing would serve him but I must go with him to +Constantinople; but there he and I quarrelled--more fools, both of us! +I wrote to you from Constantinople." + +"We never got the letter." + +"I can't help that; I wrote. But there I was on the wide world again. +So I took up with a Russian prince, whom I met at a gambling-table +in Pera,--a mere boy, but such a plucky one,--and went with him to +Circassia, and up to Astrakhan, and on to the Kirghis steppes; and +there I did see snakes." + +"Snakes?" says Mary. "I should have thought you had seen plenty in +India already." + +"Yes, Mary! but these were snakes spiritual and metaphorical. For, +poking about where we had no business, Mary, the Tartars caught us, +and tied us to their horses' tails, after giving me this scar across +the cheek, and taught us to drink mares' milk, and to do a good deal +of dirty work beside. So there we stayed with them six months, and +observed their manners, which were none, and their customs, which were +disgusting, as the midshipman said in his diary; and had the honour of +visiting a pleasant little place in No-man's Land, called Khiva, which +you may find in your atlas, Mary; and of very nearly being sold for +slaves into Persia, which would not have been pleasant; and at last, +Mary, we ran away--or rather, rode away, on two razor-backed Calmuc +ponies, and got back to Russia, _viâ_ Orenberg,--for which consult +your atlas again; so the young prince was restored to the bosom of his +afflicted family; and a good deal of trouble I had to get him safe +there, for the poor boy's health gave way. They wanted me to stay with +them, and offered to make my fortune." + +"I'm so glad you didn't," said Mary. + +"Well--I wanted to see little Mary again, and two worthy old gentlemen +beside, you see. However, those Russians are generous enough. They +filled my pockets, and heaped me with presents; that bracelet among +them. What's more, Mary, I've been introduced to old Nick himself, +and can testify, from personal experience, to the correctness of +Shakspeare's opinion that the prince of darkness is a gentleman." + +"And now you are going to stay at home?" asked the Doctor. + +"Well, if you'll take me in, daddy, I'll send for my traps from +London, and stay a month or so." + +"A month!" cried the forlorn father. + +"Well, daddy, you see, there is a chance of more fighting in Mexico, +and I shall see such practice there; beside meeting old friends who +were with me in Texas. And--and I've got a little commission, too, +down in Georgia, that I should like to go and do." + +"What is that?" + +"Well,--it's a long story and a sad one: but there was a poor Yankee +surgeon with the army in Circassia--a Southerner, and a very good +fellow; and he had taken a fancy to some coloured girl at home--poor +fellow, he used to go half mad about her sometimes, when he was +talking to me, for fear she should have been sold--sent to the New +Orleans market, or some other devilry; and what could I say to comfort +him? Well, he got his mittimus by one of Schamyl's bullets; and when +he was dying, he made me promise (I hadn't the heart to refuse) to +take all his savings, which he had been hoarding for years for no +other purpose, and see if I couldn't buy the girl, and get her away to +Canada. I was a fool for promising. It was no concern of mine; but the +poor fellow wouldn't die in peace else. So what must be, must." + +"Oh, go! go!" said Mary. "You will let him go, Doctor Thurnall, and +see the poor girl free? Think how dreadful it must be to be a slave." + +"I will, my little Miss Mary; and for more reasons than you think of. +Little do you know how dreadful it is to be a slave." + +"Hum!" said Mark Armsworth. "That's a queer story. Tom, have you got +the poor fellow's money? Didn't lose it when you were taken by those +Tartars?" + +"Not I. I wasn't so green as to carry it with me. It ought to have +been in England six months ago. My only fear is, it's not enough." + +"Hum!" said Mark. "How much more do you think you'll want?" + +"Heaven knows. There is a thousand dollars; but if she be half as +beautiful as poor Wyse used to swear she was, I may want more than +double that." + +"If you do, pay it, and I'll pay you again. No, by George!" said Mark, +"no one shall say that while Mark Armsworth had a balance at his +bankers' he let a poor girl--" and, recollecting Mary's presence, he +finished his sentence by sundry stamps and thumps on the table. + +"You would soon exhaust your balance, if you set to work to free all +poor girls who are in the same case in Georgia," said the Doctor. + +"Well, what of that? Them I don't know of, and so I ain't responsible +for them; but this one I do know of, and so--there, I can't argue; +but, Tom, if you want the money, you know where to find it." + +"Very good. By the by--I forgot it till this moment--who should come +down in the coach with me but the lost John Briggs." + +"He is come too late, then," said the Doctor. "His poor father died +this morning." + +"Ah! then Briggs knew that he was ill? That explains the Manfredic +mystery and gloom with which he greeted me." + +"I cannot tell. He has written from time to time, but he has never +given any address; so that no one could write in return." + +"He may have known. He looked very downcast. Perhaps that explains his +cutting me dead." + +"Cut you?" cried Mark. "I dare say he's been doing something he's +ashamed of, and don't want to be recognised. That fellow has been +after no good all this while, I'll warrant. I always say he's +connected with the swell mob, or croupier at a gambling-table, or +something of that kind. Don't you think it's likely, now?" + +Mark was in the habit of so saying for the purpose of tormenting the +Doctor, who held stoutly to his old belief, that John Briggs was +a very clever man, and would turn up some day as a distinguished +literary character. + +"Well," said Tom, "honest or not, he's thriving; came down inside the +coach, dressed in the distinguished foreigner style, with lavender kid +gloves, and French boots." + +"Just like a swell pickpocket," said Mark. "I always told you so, +Thurnall." + +"He had the old Byron collar, and Raphael hair, though." + +"Nasty, effeminate, un-English foppery," grumbled Mark; "so he may be +in the scribbling line after all." + +"I'll go and see if I can find him," quoth the Doctor. + +"Bother you," said Mark, "always running out o' nights after somebody +else's business, instead of having a jolly evening. You stay, Tom, +like a sensible fellow, and tell me and Mary some more travellers' +lies. Had much sporting, boy?" + +"Hum! I've shot and hunted every beast, I think, shootable and +huntable, from a humming-bird to an elephant; and I had some splendid +fishing in Canada; but, after all, give me a Whitbury trout, on a +single-handed Chevalier. We'll at them to-morrow, Mr. Armsworth." + +"We will, my boy! never so many fish in the river as this year, or in +season so early." + +The good Doctor returned; but with no news which could throw light +on the history of the now mysterious Mr. John Briggs. He had locked +himself into the room with his father's corpse, evidently in great +excitement and grief; spent several hours in walking up and down there +alone; and had then gone to an attorney in the town, and settled +everything about the funeral "in the handsomest way," said the man of +law; "and was quite the gentleman in his manner, but not much of a man +of business; never had even thought of looking for his father's will; +and was quite surprised when I told him that there ought to be a fair +sum--eight hundred or a thousand, perhaps, to come in to him, if the +stock and business were properly disposed of. So he went off to London +by the evening mail, and told me to address him to the post-office in +some street off the Strand. Queer business, sir, isn't it?" + +John Briggs did not reappear till a few minutes before his father's +funeral, witnessed the ceremony evidently with great sorrow, bowed off +silently all who attempted to speak to him, and returned to London +by the next coach--leaving matter for much babble among all Whitbury +gossips. One thing at least was plain, that he wished to be forgotten +in his native town; and forgotten he was, in due course of time. + +Tom Thurnall stayed his month at home, and then went to America; +whence he wrote home, in about six months, a letter, of which only one +paragraph need interest us, + +"Tell Mark I have no need for his dollars. I have done the deed; and, +thanks to the underground railway, done it nearly gratis; which was +both cheaper than buying her, and infinitely better for me; so that +she has all poor Wyse's dollars to start with afresh in Canada. I +write this from New York. I could accompany her no farther; for I must +get back to the South in time for the Mexican expedition." + +Then came a long and anxious silence; and then a letter, not from +Mexico but from California,--one out of several which had been posted; +and then letters, more regularly from Australia. Sickened with +Californian life, he had crossed the Pacific once more, and was hard +at work in the diggings, doctoring and gold-finding by turns. + +"A rolling stone gathers no moss," said his father. + +"He has the pluck of a hound, and the cunning of a fox," said Mark; +"and he'll be a credit to you yet." + +And Mary prayed every morning and night for her old playfellow; and so +the years slipped on till the autumn of 1853. + +As no one has heard of Tom now for eight months and more (the pulse of +Australian postage being of a somewhat intermittent type), we may as +well go and look for him. + +A sheet of dark rolling ground, quarried into a gigantic rabbit +burrow, with hundreds of tents and huts dotted about among the heaps +of rubbish; dark evergreen forests in the distance, and, above all, +the great volcanic mountain of Buninyong towering far aloft--these are +the "Black Hills of Ballarat;" and that windlass at that shaft's mouth +belongs in part to Thomas Thurnall. + +At the windlass are standing two men, whom we may have seen in +past years, self-satisfied in countenance, and spotless in array, +sauntering down Piccadilly any July afternoon, or lounging in Haggis's +stable-yard at Cambridge any autumn morning. Alas! how changed from +the fast young undergraduates, with powers of enjoyment only equalled +by their powers of running into debt, are those two black-bearded and +mud-bespattered ruffians, who once were Smith and Brown of Trinity. +Yet who need pity them, as long as they have stouter limbs, healthier +stomachs, and clearer consciences, than they have had since they left +Eton at seventeen? Would Smith have been a happier man as a briefless +barrister in a dingy Inn of Law, peeping now and then into third-rate +London society, and scribbling for the daily press! Would Brown have +been a happier man had he been forced into those holy orders for which +he never felt the least vocation, to pay off his college debts out +of his curate's income, and settle down on his lees, at last, in the +family living of Nomansland-cum-Clayhole, and support a wife and five +children on five hundred a-year, exclusive of rates and taxes? Let +them dig, and be men. + +The windlass rattles and the rope goes down. A shout from the bottom +of the shaft proclaims all right; and in due time, sitting in +the noose of the rope, up comes Thomas Thurnall, bare-footed and +bare-headed, in flannel trousers and red jersey, begrimed with slush +and mud; with a mahogany face, a brick-red neck, and a huge brown +beard, looking, to use his own expression, "as jolly as a sandboy." + +"A letter for you, Doctor, from Europe." + +Tom takes it, and his countenance falls; for it is black-edged and +black-sealed. The handwriting is Mary Armsworth's. + +"I suppose the old lady who is going to leave me a fortune is dead," +says he drily, and turns away to read. + +"Bad luck, I suppose," he says to himself, "I have not had any for +full six months, so I suppose it is time for Dame Fortune to give me +a sly stab again. I only hope it is not my father; for, begging the +Dame's pardon, I can bear any trick of hers but that." And he sets his +teeth doggedly, and reads. + +"My dear Mr. Thurnall,--My father would have written himself, but he +thought, I don't know why, that I could tell you better than he. Your +father is quite well in health,"--Thurnall breathes freely again--"but +he has had heavy trials since your poor brother William's death." + +Tom opens his eyes and sets his teeth more firmly. "Willy dead? I +suppose there is a letter lost: better so; better to have the whole +list of troubles together, and so get them sooner over. Poor Will!" + +"Your father caught the scarlet fever from him, while he was attending +him, and was very ill after he came back. He is quite well again now; +but if I must tell you the truth, the disease has affected his eyes. +You know how weak they always were, and how much worse they have grown +of late years; and the doctors are afraid that he has little chance of +recovering the sight, at least of the left eye." + +"Recovering? He's blind, then." And Tom set his teeth more tightly +than ever. He felt a sob rise in his throat, but choked it down, +shaking his head like an impatient bull. + +"Wait a bit, Tom," said he to himself, "before you have it out with +Dame Fortune. There's more behind, I'll warrant. News like this lies +in pockets, and not in single nuggets." And he read on-- + +"And--for it is better you should know all--something has happened +to the railroad in which he had invested so much. My father has lost +money in it also; but not much: but I fear that your poor dear father +is very much straitened. My father is dreadfully vexed about it, and +thinks it all his fault in not having watched the matter more closely, +and made your father sell out in time: and he wants your father to +come and live with us: but he will not hear of it. So he has given up +the old house, and taken one in Water Street, and, oh! I need not tell +you that we are there every day, and that I am trying to make him as +happy as I can--but what can I do? And then followed kind womanly +commonplaces, which Tom hurried over with fierce impatience. + +"He wants you to come home; but my father has entreated him to let you +stay. You know, while we are here, he is safe; and my father begs +you not to come home, if you are succeeding as well as you have been +doing." + +There was much more in the letter, which I need not repeat; and, after +all, a short postscript, by Mark himself, followed:-- + +"Stay where you are, boy, and keep up heart; while I have a pound, +your father shall have half of it; and you know Mark Armsworth." + +He walked away slowly into the forest. He felt that the crisis of his +life was come; that he must turn his hand henceforth to quite new +work; and as he went he "took stock," as it were, of his own soul, to +see what point he had attained--what he could do. + +Fifteen years of adventure had hardened into wrought metal a character +never very ductile. Tom was now, in his own way, an altogether +accomplished man of the world, who knew (at least in all companies and +places where he was likely to find himself) exactly what to say, to +do, to make, to seek, and to avoid. Shifty and thrifty as old Greek, +or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps +nothing he could not endure. He had watched human nature under every +disguise, from the pomp of the ambassador to the war-paint of the +savage, and formed his own clear, hard, shallow, practical estimate +thereof. He looked on it as his raw material, which he had to work up +into subsistence and comfort for himself. He did not wish to live on +men, but live by them he must; and for that purpose he must study +them, and especially their weaknesses. He would not cheat them; for +there was in him an innate vein of honesty, so surly and explosive, +at times, as to give him much trouble. The severest part of his +self-education had been the repression of his dangerous inclination to +call a sham a sham on the spot, and to answer fools according to their +folly. That youthful rashness, however, was now well-nigh subdued, +and Tom could flatter and bully also, when it served his turn--as who +cannot? Let him that is without sin among my readers, cast the first +stone. Self-conscious he was, therefore, in every word and action; not +from morbid vanity, but a necessary consequence of his mode of life. +He had to use men, and therefore to watch how he used them; to watch +every word, gesture, tone of voice, and, in all times and places, do +the fitting thing. It was hard work: but necessary for a man who stood +alone and self-poised in the midst of the universe; fashioning for +himself everywhere, just as far as his arm could reach, some not +intolerable condition; depending on nothing but himself, and caring +for little but himself and the father whom, to do him justice, he +never forgot. If I wished to define Tom Thurnall by one epithet, I +should call him specially an ungodly man--were it not that scriptural +epithets have, now-a-days, such altogether conventional and official +meanings, that one fears to convey, in using them, some notion quite +foreign to the truth. Tom was certainly not one of those ungodly whom +David had to deal with of old, who robbed the widow, and put the +fatherless to death. His morality was as high as that of the average; +his sense of honour far higher. He was generous and kind-hearted. No +one ever heard him tell a lie; and he had a blunt honesty about him, +half real, because he liked to be honest, and yet half affected too, +because he found it pay in the long run, and because it threw off +their guard the people whom he intended to make his tools. But of +godliness in its true sense--of belief that any Being above cared for +him, and was helping him in the daily business of life--that it was +worth while asking that Being's advice, or that any advice would be +given if asked for; of any practical notion of a Heavenly Father, or +a Divine education--Tom was as ignorant as thousands of respectable +people who go to church every Sunday, and read good books, and believe +firmly that the Pope is Antichrist. He ought to have learnt it, no +doubt; for his father was a religious man: but he had not learnt +it--any more than thousands learn it, who have likewise religious +parents. He had been taught, of course, the common doctrines and +duties of religion; but early remembrances had been rubbed out, as off +a schoolboy's slate, by the mere current of new thoughts and objects, +in his continual wanderings. Disappointments he had had, and dangers +in plenty; but only such as rouse a brave and cheerful spirit to +bolder self-reliance and invention; not those deep sorrows of the +heart which leave a man helpless in the lowest pit, crying for help +from without, for there is none within. He had seen men of all creeds, +and had found in all alike (so he held) the many rogues, and the few +honest men. All religions were, in his eyes, equally true and equally +false. Superior morality was owing principally to the influences of +race and climate; and devotional experiences (to judge, at least, from +American camp-meetings and popish-cities) the results of a diseased +nervous system. + +Upon a man so hard and strong this fearful blow had fallen, and, to do +him justice, he took it like a man. He wandered on and on for an hour +or more, up the hills, and into the forest, talking to himself. + +"Poor old Willy! I should have liked to have looked into his honest +face before he went, if only to make sure that we were good friends. +I used to plague him sadly with my tricks. But what is the use of +wishing for what cannot be? I recollect I had just the same feeling +when John died; and yet I got over it after a time, and was as +cheerful as if he were alive again, or had never lived at all. And so +I shall get over this. Why should I give way to what I know will pass, +and is meant to pass? It is my father I feel for. But I couldn't be +there; and it is no fault of mine that I was not there. No one told me +what was going to happen; and no one could know: so again,--why grieve +over what can't be helped?" + +And then, to give the lie to all his cool arguments, he sat down among +the fern, and burst into a violent fit of crying. "Oh, my poor dear +old daddy!" + +Yes; beneath all the hard crust of years, that fountain of life still +lay pure as when it came down from heaven--love for his father. + +"Come, come, this won't do; this is not the way to take stock of my +goods, either mental or worldly. I can't cry the dear old man out of +this scrape." + +He looked up. The sun was setting. Beneath the dark roof of evergreens +the eucalyptus boles stood out, like basalt pillars, black against a +background of burning flame. The flying foxes shot from tree to tree, +and moths as big as sparrows whirred about the trunks, one moment +black against the glare beyond, and vanishing the next, like imps of +darkness, into their native gloom. There was no sound of living thing +around, save the ghastly rattle of the dead bark-tassels which swung +from every tree, and far away, the faint clicking of the diggers at +their work, like the rustle of a gigantic ant-hill. Was there one +among them all who cared for him? who would not forget him in a week +with--"Well, he was pleasant company, poor fellow," and go on digging +without a sigh? What, if it were his fate to die, as he had seen many +a stronger man, there in that lonely wilderness, and sleep for ever, +unhonoured and unknown, beneath that awful forest roof, while his +father looked for bread to others' hands? + +No man was less sentimental, no man less superstitious than Thomas +Thurnall; but crushed and softened--all but terrified (as who would +not have been?)--by that day's news, he could not struggle against the +weight of loneliness which fell upon him. For the first and last time, +perhaps, in his life, he felt fear; a vague, awful dread of unseen and +inevitable possibilities. Why should not calamity fall on him, wave +after wave? Was it not falling on him already? Why should he not grow +sick to-morrow, break his leg, his neck--why not? What guarantee had +he in earth or heaven that he might not be "snuffed out silently," as +he had seen hundreds already, and die and leave no sign? And there +sprang up in him at once the intensest yearning after his father and +the haunts of his boyhood, and the wildest dread that he should never +see them. Might not his father be dead ere he could return?--if ever +he did return. That twelve thousand miles of sea looked to him a gulf +impassable. Oh, that he were safe at home! that he could start that +moment! And for one minute a helplessness, as of a lost child, came +over him. + +Perhaps it had been well for him had he given that feeling vent, +and, confessing himself a lost child, cried out of the darkness to a +Father; but the next minute he had dashed it proudly away. + +"Pretty baby I am, to get frightened, at my time of life, because +I find myself in a dark wood--and the sun shining all the while as +jollily as ever away there in the west! It is morning somewhere or +other now, and it will be morning here again to-morrow. 'Good times +and bad times, and all times pass over;'--I learnt that lesson out of +old Bewick's vignettes, and it has stood me in good stead this many +a year, and shall now. Die? Nonsense. I take more killing than that +comes to. So for one more bout with old Dame Fortune. If she throws me +again, why, I'll get up again, as I have any time these fifteen years. +Mark's right. I'll stay here and work till I make a hit, or luck +runs dry, and then home and settle; and, meanwhile, I'll go down to +Melbourne to-morrow, and send the dear old man two hundred pounds; and +then back again here, and to it again." + +And with a fate-defiant smile, half bitter and half cheerful, Tom +rose and went down again to his mates, and stopped their inquiries +by--"What's done can't be mended, and needn't be mentioned; whining +won't make me work the harder, and harder than ever I must work." + +Strange it is, how mortal man, "who cometh up and is cut down like the +flower," can thus harden himself into stoical security, and count on +the morrow, which may never come. Yet so it is; and, perhaps, if it +were not so, no work would get done on earth,--at least by the many +who know not that God is guiding them, while they fancy that they are +guiding themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +STILL LIFE. + + +I must now, if I am to bring you to "Two years ago," and to my story, +as it was told to me, ask you to follow me into the good old West +Country, and set you down at the back of an old harbour pier; thirty +feet of grey and brown boulders, spotted aloft with bright yellow +lichens, and black drops of tar, polished lower down by the surge of +centuries, and towards the foot of the wall roughened with crusts +of barnacles, and mussel-nests in crack and cranny, and festoons of +coarse dripping weed. + +On a low rock at its foot, her back resting against the Cyclopean +wall, sits a young woman of eight-and-twenty, soberly, almost primly +dressed, with three or four tiny children clustering round her. In +front of them, on a narrow spit of sand between the rocks, a dozen +little girls are laughing, romping, and pattering about, turning the +stones for "shannies" and "bullies," and other luckless fish left by +the tide; while the party beneath the pier wall look steadfastly down +into a little rock-pool at their feet,--full of the pink and green +and purple cut-work of delicate weeds and coralline, and starred with +great sea-dahlias, crimson and brown and grey, and with the waving +snake-locks of the Cercus, pale blue, and rose-tipped like the fingers +of the dawn. One delicate Medusa is sliding across the pool, by slow +pantings of its crystal bell; and on it the eyes of the whole group +are fixed,--for it seems to be the subject of some story which the +village schoolmistress is finishing in a sweet, half-abstracted +voice,-- + +"And so the cruel soldier was changed into a great rough red starfish, +who goes about killing the poor mussels, while nobody loves him, or +cares to take his part; and the poor little girl was changed into a +beautiful bright jelly-fish, like that one, who swims about all day in +the pleasant sunshine, with a red cross stamped on its heart." + +"Oh, mistress, what a pretty story!" cry the little ones, with tearful +eyes. "And what shall we be changed to when we die?" + +"If we will only be good we shall go up to Jesus, and be beautiful +angels, and sing hymns. Would that it might be soon, soon; for you and +me, and all!" And she draws the children, to her, and looks upward, as +if longing to bear them with her aloft. + +Let us leave the conversation where it is, and look into the face of +the speaker, who, young as she is, has already meditated so long upon +the mystery of death that it has grown lovely in her eyes. + +Her figure is tall, graceful, and slight, the severity of its outlines +suiting well with the severity of her dress, with the brown stuff gown +and plain grey whittle. Her neck is long, almost too long: but all +defects are forgotten in the first look at her face. We can see it +fully, for her bonnet lies beside her on the rock. + +The masque, though thin, is perfect. The brow, like that of Greek +statue, looks lower than it really is, for the hair springs from below +the bend of the forehead. The brain is very long, and sweeps backward +and upward in grand curves, till it attains above the ears a great +expanse and height. She should be a character more able to feel +than to argue; full of all a woman's veneration, devotion, love of +children,--perhaps, too, of a woman's anxiety. + +The nose is slightly aquiline; the sharp-cut nostrils indicate a +reserve of compressed strength and passion; the mouth is delicate; +the lips, which are full and somewhat heavy, not from coarseness, but +rather from languor, show somewhat of both the upper and the under +teeth. Her eyes are bent on the pool at her feet; so that we can see +nothing of them but the large sleepy lids, fringed with lashes so long +and dark that the eye looks as if it had been painted, in the Eastern +fashion, with antimony; the dark lashes, dark eyebrows, dark hair, +crisped (as West-country hair so often is) to its very roots, increase +the almost ghostlike paleness of the face, not sallow, not snow-white, +but of a clear, bloodless, waxen hue. + +And now she lifts her eyes,--dark eyes, of preternatural largeness; +brilliant, too, but not with the sparkle of the diamond; brilliant as +deep clear wells are, in which the mellow moonlight sleeps fathom-deep +between black walls of rock; and round them, and round the wide-opened +lips, and arching eyebrow, and slightly wrinkled forehead, hangs an +air of melancholy thought, vague doubt, almost of startled fear; then +that expression passes, and the whole face collapses into a languor of +patient sadness, which seems to say,--"I cannot solve the mystery. Let +Him solve it as seems good to Him." + +The pier has, as usual, two stages; the upper and narrower for a +public promenade, the lower and broader one for business. Two rough +collier-lads, strangers to the place, are lounging on the wall above, +and begin, out of mere mischief, dropping pebbles on the group below. + +"Hillo! you young rascals," calls an old man lounging like them on +the wall; "if you don't drop that, you're likely to get your heads +broken." + +"Will you do it?" + +"I would thirty years ago; but I'll find a dozen in five minutes who +will do it now. Here, lads! here's two Welsh vagabonds pelting our +schoolmistress." + +This is spoken to a group of Sea-Titans, who are sitting about on +the pier-way behind him, in red caps, blue jackets, striped jerseys, +bright brown trousers, and all the picturesque comfort of a +fisherman's costume, superintending the mending of a boat. + +Up jump half-a-dozen off the logs and baulkings, where they have been +squatting, doubled up knee to nose, after the fashion of their class, +and a volley of execrations, like a storm of grape, almost blows +the two offenders off the wall. The bolder, however, lingers, +anathematising in turn; whereon a black-bearded youth, some six feet +four in height, catches up an oar, makes a sweep at the shins of +the lad above his head, and brings him writhing down upon the upper +pier-way, whence he walks off howling, and muttering threats of +"taking the law." In vain;--there is not a magistrate within ten +miles; and custom, Lynch-law, and the coast-guard lieutenant, settle +all matters in Aberalva town, and do so easily enough; for the petty +crimes which fill our gaols are all unknown among those honest +Vikings' sons; and any man who covets his neighbour's goods, instead +of stealing them has only to go and borrow them, on condition, of +course, of lending in his turn. + +"What's that collier-lad hollering about, Captain Willis?" asks Mr. +Tardrew, steward to Lord Scoutbush, landlord of Aberalva, as he comes +up to the old man. + +"Gentleman Jan cut him over, for pelting the schoolmistress below +here." + +"Serve him right; he'll have to cut over that curate next, I reckon." + +"Oh, Mr. Tardrew, don't you talk so; the young gentleman is as kind a +man as I ever saw, and comes in and out of our house like a lamb." + +"Wolf in sheep's clothing," growls Tardrew. + +"What d'ye think he says to me last week? Wanted to turn the +schoolmistress out of her place because she went to chapel sometimes." + +"I know, I know," replied Willis, in the tone of a man who wished to +avoid a painful subject. "And what did you answer, then, Mr. Tardrew?" + +"I told him he might if he liked; but he'd make the place too hot +to hold him, if he hadn't done it already, with his bowings and his +crossings, and his chantings, and his Popish Gregories,--and tells one +he's no Papist; called him Pope Gregory himself. What do we want with +popes' tunes here, instead of the Old Hundredth and Martyrdom? I +should like to see any Pope of the lot make a tune like them." + +Captain Willis listened with a face half sad, half slily amused. He +and Tardrew were old friends; being the two most notable persons in +the parish, save Jones the lieutenant, Heale the doctor, and another +gentleman, of whom we shall speak presently. Both of them too, were +thorough-going Protestants, and though Churchmen, walked sometimes +into the Brianite Chapel of an afternoon, and thought it no sin. But +each took the curate's "Puseyism" in a different way, being two men as +unlike each other as one could well find. + +Tardrew--steward to Lord Scoutbush, the absentee landlord,--was a +shrewd, hard-bitten, choleric old fellow, of the shape, colour, and +consistence of a red brick; one of those English types which Mr. +Emerson has so well hit off in his rather confused and contradictory +"Traits:"-- + +"He hides virtues under vices, or, rather, under the semblance of +them. It is the misshapen, hairy, Scandinavian Troll again who lifts +the cart out of the mire, or threshes the corn which ten day-labourers +could not end: but it is done in the dark, and with muttered +maledictions. He is a churl with a soft place in his heart, whose +speech is a brash of bitter waters, but who loves to help you at a +pinch. He says, No; and serves you, and his thanks disgust you." Such, +was Tardrew,--a true British bulldog, who lived pretty faithfully up +to his Old Testament, but had, somehow, forgotten the existence of the +New. + +Willis was a very different and a very much nobler person; the most +perfect specimen which I ever have met (for I knew him well, and loved +him) of that type of British sailor which good Captain Marryat has +painted in his Masterman Ready, and painted far better than I can, +even though I do so from life. A tall and graceful old man, though +stooping much from lumbago and old wounds; with snow-white hair and +whiskers, delicate aquiline features, the manners of a nobleman, and +the heart of a child. All children knew that latter fact, and clung +to him instinctively. Even "the Boys," that terrible Berserk-tribe, +self-organised, self-dependent, and bound together in common +iniquities and the dread of common retribution, who were in Aberalva, +as all fishing towns, the torment and terror of all douce fogies, male +and female,--even the Boys, I say, respected Captain Willis, so potent +was the influence of his gentleness; nailed not up his shutters, nor +tied fishing-lines across his doorway; tail-piped not his dog, nor +sent his cat to sea on a barrel-stave; nor put live crabs into his +pocket, nor dead dog-fish into his well; yea, even when judgment, too +long provoked, made bare her red right hand, and the lieutenant vowed +by his commission that he would send half-a-dozen of them to the +treadmill, they would send up a deputation to "beg Captain Willis to +beg the schoolmistress to beg them off." For between Willis and +that fair young creature a friendship had grown up, easily to be +understood. Willis was one of those rare natures upon whose purity no +mire can cling; who pass through the furnace, and yet not even the +smell of fire has passed upon them. Bred, almost born, on board a +smuggling cutter, in the old war-times; then hunting, in the old +coast-blockade service, the smugglers among whom he had been trained; +watching the slow horrors of the Walcheren; fighting under Collingwood +and Nelson, and many another valiant Captain; lounging away years +of temptation on the West-Indian station, as sailing-master of a +ship-of-the-line; pensioned comfortably now for many a year in his +native town, he had been always the same gentle, valiant, righteous +man; sober in life, strict in duty, and simple in word; a soul as +transparent as crystal, and as pure. He was the oracle of +Aberalva now; and even Lieutenant Brown would ask his +opinion,--non-commissioned officer though he was,--in a tone which was +all the more patronising, because he stood a little in awe of the old +man. + +But why, when the boys wanted to be begged off, was the schoolmistress +to be their advocate? Because Grace Harvey exercised, without +intending anything of the kind, an almost mesmeric influence on every +one in the little town. Goodness rather than talent had given her +wisdom, and goodness rather than courage a power of using that wisdom, +which, to those simple, superstitious folk, seemed altogether an +inspiration. There was a mystery about her, too, which worked strongly +on the hearts of the West-country people. She was supposed to be at +times "not right;" and wandering intellect is with them, as with +many primitive peoples, an object more of awe than of pity. Her deep +melancholy alternated with bursts of wild eloquence, with fantastic +fables, with entreaties and warnings against sin, full of such pity +and pathos that they melted, at times, the hardest hearts. A whole +world of strange tales, half false, half true, had grown up around +her as she grew. She was believed to spend whole nights in prayer; to +speak with visitors from the other world; even to have the power of +seeing into futurity. The intensity of her imagination gave rise to +the belief that she had only to will, and she could see whom she +would, and all that they were doing, even across the seas; her +exquisite sensibility, it was whispered, made her feel every bodily +suffering she witnessed, as acutely as the sufferer's self, and in the +very limb in which he suffered. Her deep melancholy was believed to be +caused by some dark fate--by some agonising sympathy with evil-doers; +and it was sometimes said in Aberalva,--"Don't do that, for poor +Grace's sake. She bears the sins of all the parish." + +So it befell that Grace Harvey governed, she knew not how or why, all +hearts in that wild simple fishing-town. Rough men, fighting on the +quay, shook hands at Grace's bidding. Wives who could not lure their +husbands from the beer-shop, sent Grace in to fetch them home, sobered +by shame: and woe to the stranger who fancied that her entrance into +that noisy den gave him a right to say a rough word to the fair girl! +The maidens, instead of envying her beauty, made her the confidant of +all their loves; for though many a man would gladly have married her, +to woo her was more than any dared; and Gentleman Jan himself, the +rightful bully of the quay, as being the handsomest and biggest +man for many a mile, beside owning a tidy trawler and two good +mackerel-boats, had said openly, that if any man had a right to her, +he supposed he had; but that he should as soon think of asking her to +marry him, as of asking the moon. + +But it was in the school, in the duty which lay nearest to her, that +Grace's inward loveliness shone most lovely. Whatever dark cloud of +melancholy lay upon her own heart, she took care that it should never +overshadow one of those young innocents, whom she taught by love and +ruled by love, always tender, always cheerful, even gay and playful; +punishing, when she rarely punished, with tears and kisses. To make +them as happy as she could in a world where there was nothing but +temptation, and disappointment, and misery; to make them "fit for +heaven," and then to pray that they might go thither as speedily +as possible, this had been her work for now seven years; and that +Manichaeism which has driven darker and harder natures to destroy +young children, that they might go straight to bliss, took in her the +form of outpourings of gratitude (when the first natural tears were +dried), as often as one of her little lambs was "delivered out of the +miseries of this sinful world." But as long as they were in the +world, she was their guardian angel; and there was hardly a mother in +Aberalva who did not confess her debt to Grace, not merely for her +children's scholarship, but for their characters. + +Frank Headley the curate, therefore, had touched altogether the +wrong chord when he spoke of displacing Grace. And when, that same +afternoon, he sauntered down to the pier-head, wearied with his +parish work, not only did Tardrew stump away in silence as soon as he +appeared, but Captain Willis's face assumed a grave and severe look, +which was not often to be seen on it. + +"Well, Captain Willis?" said Frank, solitary and sad; longing for a +talk with someone, and not quite sure whether he was welcome. + +"Well, sir?" and the old man lifted his hat, and made one of his +princely bows. "You look tired, sir; I am afraid you're doing too +much." + +"I shall have more to do, soon," said the curate, his eye glancing +towards the schoolmistress, who, disturbed by the noise above, was +walking slowly up the beach, with a child holding to every finger, and +every fold of her dress. + +Willis saw the direction of his eye, and came at once to the point, in +his gentle, straightforward fashion. + +"I hear you have thoughts of taking the school from her, sir?" + +"Why--indeed--I shall be very sorry; but if she will persist in going +to the chapel, I cannot overlook the sin of schism." + +"She takes the children to church twice a Sunday, don't she? And +teaches them all that you tell her--" + +"Why--yes--I have taken the religious instruction almost into my own +hands now." + +Willis smiled quietly. + +"You'll excuse an old sailor, sir; but I think that's more than mortal +man can do. There's no hour of the day but what she's teaching them +something. She's telling them Bible stories now, I'll warrant, if you +could hear her." + +Frank made no answer. + +"You wouldn't stop her doing that? Oh, sir," and the old man spoke +with a quiet earnestness which was not without its effect, "just look +at her now, like the Good Shepherd with His lambs about His feet, and +think whether that's not much too pretty a sight to put an end to, in +a poor sinful world like this." + +"It is my duty," said Frank, hardening himself. "It pains me +exceedingly, Willis;--I hope I need not tell you that." + +"If I know aught of Mr. Headley's heart by his ways, you needn't +indeed, sir." + +"But I cannot allow it.--Her mother a class leader among these +Dissenters, and one of the most active of them, too.--The school next +door to her house. The preacher, of course, has influence there, and +must have. How am I to instil Church principles into them, if he is +counteracting me the moment my back is turned? I have made up my mind, +Willis, to do nothing in a hurry. Lady-day is past, and she must go on +till Midsummer; then I shall take the school into my own hands, and +teach them myself, for I can pay no mistress or master; and Mr. St. +Just--" + +Frank checked himself as he was going to speak the truth; namely, that +his sleepy old absentee rector, Lord Scoutbush's uncle, would yawn and +grumble at the move, and wondering why Frank "had not the sense to +leave ill alone," would give him no manner of assistance beyond his +pittance of eighty pounds a-year, and five pounds at Christmas to +spend on the poor. + +"Excuse me, sir, I don't doubt that you'll do your best in teaching, +as you always do: but I tell you honestly, you'll get no children to +teach." + +"No children?" + +"Their mothers know the worth of Grace too well, and the children too, +sir; and they'll go to her all the same, do what you will; and never a +one will enter the church door from that day forth." + +"On their own heads be it!" said Frank, a little testily; "but I +should not have fancied Miss Harvey the sort of person to set up +herself in defiance of me." + +"The more reason, sir, if you'll forgive me, for your not putting upon +her." + +"I do not want to put upon her or any one. I will do everything. I +will--I do--work day and night for these people, Mr. Willis. I tell +you, as I would my own father. I don't think I have another object +on earth--if I have, I hope I shall forget it--than the parish: but +Church principles I must carry out." + +"Well, sir, certainly no man ever worked here as you do. If all had +been like you, sir, there would not be a Dissenter here now; but +excuse me, sir, the Church is a very good thing, and I keep to mine, +having served under her Majesty, and her Majesty's forefathers, and +learnt to obey orders, I hope; but don't you think, sir, you're taking +it as the Pharisees took the Sabbath-day?" + +"How then!" + +"Why, as if man was made for the Church, and not the Church for man." + +"That is a shrewd thought, at least. Where did you pick it up?" + +"'Tis none of my own, sir; a bit of wisdom that my maid let fall; and +it has stuck to me strangely ever since." + +"Your maid?" + +"Yes, Grace there. I always call her my maid; having no father, poor +thing, she looks up to me as one, pretty much,--the dear soul. Oh, +sir! I hope you'll think over this again, before you do anything. It's +done in a day: but years won't undo it again." + +So Grace's sayings were quoted against him. Her power was formidable +enough, if she dare use it. He was silent awhile, and then-- + +"Do you think she has heard of this--of my--" + +"Honesty's the best policy, sir: she has; and that's the truth. You +know how things get round." + +"Well; and what did she say?" + +"I'll tell you her very words, sir; and they were these, if you'll +excuse me. 'Poor dear gentleman,' says she, 'if he thinks chapel-going +so wrong, why does he dare drive folks to chapel? I wonder, every time +he looks at that deep sea, he don't remember what the Lord said about +it, and those who cause his little ones to offend.'" + +Frank was somewhat awed. The thought was new; the application of the +text, as his own scholarship taught him, even more exact than Grace +had fancied. + +"Then she was not angry?" + +"She, sir! You couldn't anger her if you tore her in pieces with hot +pincers, as they did those old martyrs she's always telling about." + +"Good-bye, Willis," said Frank, in a hopeless tone of voice, and +sauntered to the pier-end, down the steps, and along the lower +pier-way, burdened with many thoughts. He came up to the knot of +chatting sailors. Not one of them touched his cap, or moved out of the +way for him. The boat lay almost across the whole pier-way; and he +stopped, awkwardly enough, for there was not room to get by. + +"Will you be so kind as to let me pass?" asked he, meekly enough. But +no one stirred. + +"Why don't you get up, Tom?" asked one. + +"I be lame." + +"So be I." + +"The gentleman can step over me, if he likes," said big Jan; a +proposition the impossibility whereof raised a horse-laugh. + +"Ain't you ashamed of yourselves, lads?" said the severe voice of +Willis, from above. The men rose sulkily; and Frank hastened on, as +ready to cry as ever he had been in his life. Poor fellow! he had been +labouring among these people for now twelve months, as no man had ever +laboured before, and he felt that he had not won the confidence of a +single human being,--not even of the old women, who took his teaching +for the sake of his charity, and who scented popery, all the while, in +words in which there was no popery, and in doctrines which were just +the same, on the whole, as those of the dissenting preacher, simply +because he would sprinkle among them certain words and phrases which +had become "suspect," as party badges. His church was all but empty; +the general excuse was, that it was a mile from the town: but Frank +knew that that was not the true reason; that all the parish had got it +into their heads that he had a leaning to popery; that he was going +over to Rome; that he was probably a Jesuit in disguise. + +Now, be it always remembered, Frank Headley was a good man, in every +sense of the word. He had nothing, save the outside, in common with +those undesirable coxcombs, who have not been bred by the High Church +movement, but have taken refuge in its cracks, as they would have done +forty years ago in those of the Evangelical,--youths who hide their +crass ignorance and dulness under the cloak of Church infallibility, +and having neither wit, manners, learning, humanity, or any other +dignity whereon to stand, talk loud, _pour pis aller_, about the +dignity of the priesthood. Such men Frank had met at neighbouring +clerical meetings, overbearing and out-talking the elder and the wiser +members; and finding that he got no good from them, had withdrawn into +his parish-work, to eat his own heart, like Bellerophon of old. For +Frank was a gentleman and a Christian, if ever one there was. Delicate +in person, all but consumptive; graceful and refined in all his works +and ways; a scholar, elegant rather than deep, yet a scholar still; +full of all love for painting, architecture, and poetry, he had come +down to bury himself in this remote curacy, in the honest desire of +doing good. He had been a curate in a fashionable London Church; but +finding the atmosphere thereof not over wholesome to his soul, he +had had the courage to throw off St. Nepomuc's, its brotherhoods, +sisterhoods, and all its gorgeous and highly-organised appliances for +enabling five thousand rich to take tolerable care of five hundred +poor: and had fled from "the holy virgins" (as certain old ladies, +who do twice their work with half their noise, call them) into the +wilderness of Bethnal Green. But six months' gallant work there, with +gallant men (for there are High Churchmen there who are an honour to +England), brought him to death's door. The doctors commanded some soft +western air. Frank, as chivalrous as a knight-errant of old, would +fain have died at his post, but his mother interfered; and he could +do no less than obey her. So he had taken this remote west country +curacy; all the more willingly because he knew that nine-tenths of the +people were Dissenters. To recover that place to the Church would be +something worth living for. So he had come, and laboured late and +early; and behold, he had failed utterly; and seemed farther than +ever from success. He had opened, too hastily, a crusade against the +Dissenters, and denounced where he should have conciliated. He had +overlooked--indeed he hardly knew--the sad truth, that the mere fact +of his being a clergyman was no passport to the hearts of his people. +For the curate who preceded him had been an old man, mean, ignorant, +incapable, remaining there simply because nobody else would have him, +and given to brandy-and-water as much as his flock. + +The rector for the last fifteen years, Lord Scoutbush's uncle, was a +cypher. The rector before him had notoriously earned the living by a +marriage with a lady who stood in some questionable relation to Lord +Scoutbush's father, and who had never had a thought above his dinner +and his tithes; and all that the Aberalva fishermen knew of God or +righteousness, they had learnt from the _soi-disant_ disciples of John +Wesley. So Frank Headley had to make up, at starting, the arrears +of half-a-century of base neglect; but instead of doing so, he had +contrived to awaken against himself that dogged hatred of popery which +lies inarticulate and confused, but deep and firm, in the heart of the +English people. Poor fellow! if he made a mistake, he suffered for it. +There was hardly a sadder soul than poor Frank, as he went listlessly +up the village street that afternoon, to his lodging at Captain +Willis's, which he had taken because he preferred living in the +village itself to occupying the comfortable rectory a mile out of +town. + +However we cannot set him straight;--after all, every man must perform +that office for himself. So the best thing we can do, as we landed, +naturally, at the pier-head, is to walk up-street after him, and see +what sort of a place Aberalva is. + +Beneath us, to the left hand, is the quay-pool, now lying dry, in +which a dozen trawlers are lopping over on their sides, their red +sails drying in the sun, the tails of the trawls hauled up to the +topmast heads; while the more handy of their owners are getting on +board by ladders, to pack away the said red sails; for it will blow +to night. In the long furrows which their keels have left, and in the +shallow muddy pools, lie innumerable fragments of exenterated maids +(not human ones, pitiful reader, but belonging to the order Pisces, +and the family Raia), and some twenty non-exenterated ray-dogs and +picked dogs (Anglice, dog-fish), together with a fine basking shark, +at least nine feet long, out of which the kneeling Mr. George Thomas, +clothed in pilot cloth patches of every hue, bright scarlet, blue and +brown (not to mention a large square of white canvas which has been +let into that part of his trousers which is now uppermost), is +dissecting the liver for the purpose of greasing his "sheaves" with +the fragrant oil thereof. The pools in general are bedded with black +mud, and creamed over with oily flakes which may proceed from the tar +on the vessels' sides, and may also from "decomposing animal matter," +as we euphemise it now-a-days. The hot pebbles, at high-tide +mark,--crowned with a long black row of herring and mackerel boats, +laid up in ordinary for the present--are beautifully variegated with +mackerels' heads, gurnets' fins, old hag, lobworm, and mussel-baits, +and the inwards of a whole ichthyological museum; save at one spot +where the Cloaca maxima and Port Esquiline of Aberalva town (small +enough, considering the place holds fifteen hundred souls) murmurs +from beneath a grey stone arch toward the sea, not unfraught with dead +rats and cats, who, their ancient feud forgotten, combine lovingly at +last in increasing the health of the blue-trousered urchins who are +sailing upon that Acherontic stream bits of board with a feather stuck +in it, or of their tiny sisters who are dancing about in the dirtiest +pool among the trawlers in a way which (if your respectable black coat +be seen upon the pier) will elicit from one of the balconied windows +above, decked with reeking shirts and linen, some such shriek as-- + +"Patience Penberthy, Patience Penberthy--a! You nasty, dirty, little +ondecent hussy--a! What be playing in the quay-pool for--a! A pulling +up your pesticoats before the quality--a!" Each exclamation being +followed with that groaning grunt, with which the West-country folk, +after having screamed their lungs empty through their noses, recover +their breath for a fresh burst. + +Never mind; it is no nosegay, certainly as a whole: but did you ever +see sturdier, rosier, nobler-looking children,--rounder faces, raven +hair, bright grey eyes, full of fun and tenderness? As for the dirt, +that cannot harm them; poor people's children must be dirty--why not? +Look on fifty yards to the left. Between two ridges of high pebble +bank, some twenty yards apart, comes Alva river rushing to the sea. +On the opposite ridge, a low white house, with three or four white +canvas-covered boats, and a flag-staff with sloping cross-yard, +betokens the coast-guard station. Beyond it rise black jagged cliffs; +mile after mile of iron-bound wall; and here and there, at the glens' +mouths, great banks and denes of shifting sand. In front of it, upon +the beach, are half-a-dozen great green and grey heaps of Welsh +limestone; behind it, at the cliff foot, is the lime-kiln, with its +white dusty heaps, and brown dusty men, its quivering mirage of hot +air, its strings of patient hay-nibbling donkeys, which look as +if they had just awakened out of a flour bin. Above, a green down +stretches up to bright yellow furze-crofts far aloft. Behind a reedy +marsh, covered with red cattle, paves the valley till it closes in; +the steep sides of the hills are clothed in oak and ash covert, in +which, three months ago, you could have shot more cocks in one day +than you would in Berkshire in a year. Pleasant little glimpses there +are, too, of grey stone farm-houses, nestling among sycamore and +beech; bright-green meadows, alder-fringed; squares of rich red +fallow-field, parted by lines of golden furze; all cut out with a +peculiar blackness, and clearness, soft and tender withal, which +betokens a climate surcharged with rain. Only in the very bosom of +the valley, a soft mist hangs, increasing the sense of distance, and +softening back one hill and wood behind another, till the great brown +moor which backs it all seems to rise out of the empty air. For a +thousand feet it ranges up, in rude sheets of brown heather, and grey +cairns and screes of granite, all sharp and black-edged against the +pale blue sky; and all suddenly cut off above by one long horizontal +line of dark grey cloud, which seems to hang there motionless, and yet +is growing to windward, and dying to leeward, for ever rushing out of +the invisible into sight, and into the invisible again, at railroad +speed. Out of nothing the moor rises, and into nothing it ascends,--a +great dark phantom between earth and sky, boding rain and howling +tempest, and perhaps fearful wreck--for the groundswell moans and +thunders on the beach behind us, louder and louder every moment. + +Let us go on, and up the street, after we have scrambled through the +usual labyrinth of timber-baulks, rusty anchors, boats which have been +dragged, for the purpose of mending and tarring, into the very middle +of the road, and old spars stowed under walls, in the vain hope that +they may be of some use for something some day, and have stood the +stares and welcomes of the lazy giants who are sitting about upon +them, black-locked, black-bearded, with ruddy, wholesome faces, and +eyes as bright as diamonds; men who are on their own ground, and know +it; who will not touch their caps to you, or pull the short black pipe +from between their lips as you pass, but expect you to prove yourself +a gentleman, by speaking respectfully to them; which, if you do, you +will find them as hearty, intelligent, brave fellows as ever walked +this earth, capable of anything, from working the naval-brigade +guns at Sevastopol, down to running up to ... a hundred miles in a +cockleshell lugger, to forestall the early mackerel market. God be +with you, my brave lads, and with your children after you; for as long +as you are what I have known you, Old England will rule the seas, and +many a land beside! + +But in going up Aberalva Street, you remark several things; first, +that the houses were all white-washed yesterday, except where the +snowy white is picked out by buttresses of pink and blue; next, +that they all have bright green palings in front, and bright green +window-sills and frames; next, that they are all roofed with shining +grey slate, and the space between the window and the pales flagged +with the same; next, that where such space is not flagged, it is full +of flowers and shrubs which stand the winter only in our greenhouses. +The fuchsias are ten feet high, laden with ripe purple berries running +over (for there are no birds to pick them off); and there in the front +of the coast-guard lieutenant's house, is Cobaea scandens, covered +with purple claret-glasses, as it has been ever since Christmas: for +Aberalva knows no winter: and there are grown-up men in it who never +put on a skate, or made a snowball in their lives. A most cleanly, +bright-coloured, foreign-looking street, is that long straggling one +which runs up the hill towards Penalva Court: only remark, that this +cleanliness is gained by making the gutter in the middle street the +common sewer of the town, and tread clear of cabbage-leaves, pilchard +bones, _et id genus omne_. For Aberalva is like Paris (if the answer +of a celebrated sanitary reformer to the Emperor be truly reported), +"fair without but foul within." + +However, the wind is blowing dull and hollow from south-west; the +clouds are rolling faster and faster up from the Atlantic; the sky to +westward is brassy green; the glass is falling fast; and there will +be wind and rain enough to-night to sweep even Aberalva clean for the +next week. + +Grace Harvey sees the coming storm, as she goes slowly homewards, +dismissing her little flock; and she lingers long and sadly outside +her cottage door, looking out over the fast blackening sea, and +listening to the hollow thunder of the groundswell, against the back +of the point which shelters Aberalva Cove. + +Far away on the horizon, the masts of stately ships stand out against +the sky, driving fast to the eastward with shortened sail. They, too, +know what is coming; and Grace prays for them as she stands, in her +wild way, with half outspoken words. + +"All those gallant ships, dear Lord! and so many beautiful men in +them, and so few of them ready to die; and all those gallant soldiers +going to the war;--Lord, wilt thou not have mercy? Spare them for +a little time before--. Is not that cruel, man-devouring sea full +enough, Lord; and brave men's bones enough, strewn up and down all +rocks and sands? And is not that dark place full enough, O Lord, of +poor souls cut off in a moment, as my two were? Oh, not to-night, dear +Lord! Do not call any one to-night--give them a day more, one chance +more, poor fellows--they have had so few, and so many temptations, +and, perhaps, no schooling. They go to sea so early, and young things +will be young things, Lord. Spare them but one night more--and yet He +did not spare my two--they had no time to repent, and have no time for +ever, evermore!" + +And she stands looking out over the sea; but she has lost sight of +everything, save her own sad imaginations. Her eyes open wider and +wider, as if before some unseen horror; the eyebrows contract upwards; +the cheeks sharpen; the mouth parts; the lips draw back, showing +the white teeth, as if in intensest agony. Thus she stands long, +motionless, awe-frozen, save when a shudder runs through every limb, +with such a countenance as that "fair terror" of which Shelley sang-- + + "Its horror and its beauty are divine; + Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie + Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, + Fiery and lucid, struggling underneath, + The agonies of anguish and of death." + +Her mother comes out from the cottage door behind, and lays her hand +upon the girl's shoulder. The spell is broken; and hiding her face in +her hands, Grace bursts into violent weeping. + +"What are you doing, my poor child, here in the cold night air?" + +"My two, mother, my two!" said she; "and all the poor souls at sea +to-night!" + +"You mustn't think of it. Haven't I told you not to think of it? One +would lose one's wits if one did too often." + +"If it is all true, mother, what else is there worth thinking of in +heaven or earth?" + +And Grace goes in with a dull, heavy look of utter exhaustion, bodily +and mental, and quietly sets the things for supper, and goes about her +cottage work as one who bears a heavy chain, but has borne it too long +to let it hinder the daily drudgery of life. + +Grace had reason to pray at least, for the soldiers who were going +to the war. For as she prayed, the Orinoco, Ripon, and Manilla, were +steaming down Southampton Water, with the Guards on board; and but +that morning little Lord Scoutbush, left behind at the depôt, had bid +farewell to his best friend, opposite Buckingham Palace, while the +bearskins were on the bayonet-points, with-- + +"Well, old fellow, you have the fun, after all, and I the work;" and +had been answered with-- + +"Fun? there will be no fighting; and I shall only have lost my season +in town." + +Was there, then, no man among them that day, who + + "As the trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, + Heard in the wild March morning the angels call his soul"? + + * * * * * + +Verily they are gone down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of +heroes. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE. + + +Penalva Court, about half a mile from the quay, is "like a house in a +story;"--a house of seven gables, and those very shaky ones; a house +of useless long passages, useless turrets, vast lumber attics where +maids see ghosts, lofty garden and yard walls of grey stone, round +which the wind and rain are lashing through the dreary darkness; low +oak-ribbed ceilings; windows which once were mullioned with stone, but +now with wood painted white; walls which were once oak-wainscot, +but have been painted like the mullions, to the disgust of Elsley +Vavasour, poet, its occupant in March 1854, who forgot that, while the +oak was left dark, no man could have seen to read in the rooms a yard +from the window. + +He has, however, little reason to complain of the one drawing-room, +where he and his wife are sitting, so pleasant has she made it look, +in spite of the plainness of the furniture. A bright log-fire is +burning on the hearth. There are a few good books too, and a few +handsome prints; while some really valuable nick-nacks are set out, +with pardonable ostentation, on a little table covered with crimson +velvet. It is only cotton velvet, if you look close at it; but the +things are pretty enough to catch the eye of all visitors; and Mrs. +Heale, the Doctor's wife (who always calls Mrs. Vavasour "my lady," +though she does not love her), and Mrs. Trebooze, of Trebooze, always +finger them over when they have any opportunity, and whisper to each +other half contemptuously,--"Ah, poor thing! there's a sign that she +has seen better days." + +And better days, in one sense, Mrs. Vavasour has seen. I am afraid, +indeed, that she has more than once regretted the morning when she ran +away in a hack-cab from her brother Lord Scoutbush's house in Eaton +Square, to be married to Elsley Vavasour, the gifted author of "A +Soul's Agonies and other Poems." He was a lion then, with foolish +women running after him, and turning his head once and for all; and +Lucia St. Just was a wild Irish girl, new to London society, all +feeling and romance, and literally all; for there was little real +intellect underlying her passionate sensibility. So when the +sensibility burnt itself out, as it generally does; and when children, +and the weak health which comes with them, and the cares of a +household, and money difficulties were absorbing her little powers, +Elsley Vavasour began to fancy that his wife was a very commonplace +person, who was fast losing even her good looks and her good temper. +So, on the whole, they were not happy. Elsley was an affectionate man, +and honourable to a fantastic nicety; but he was vain, capricious, +over-sensitive, craving for admiration and distinction; and it was not +enough for him that his wife loved him, and bore him children, kept +his accounts, mended and moiled all day long for him and his; he +wanted her to act the public for him exactly when he was hungry for +praise; and that not the actual, but an altogether ideal, public; to +worship him as a deity, "live for him and him alone," "realise" his +poetic dreams of marriage bliss, and talk sentiment with him, or +listen to him talking sentiment to her, when she would much sooner be +safe in bed burying all the petty cares of the day, and the pain in +her back too, poor thing! in sound sleep; and so it befell that they +often quarrelled and wrangled, and that they were quarrelling and +wrangling this very night. + +Who cares to know how it began? Who cares to hear how it went on,--the +stupid, aimless skirmish of bitter words, between two people who had +forgotten themselves? I believe it began with Elsley's being vexed +at her springing up two or three times, fancying that she heard the +children cry, while he wanted to be quiet, and sentimentalise over the +roaring of the wind outside. Then--she thought of nothing but those +children. Why did she not take a book and occupy her mind? To which +she had her pert, though just answer, about her mind having quite +enough to do to keep clothes on the children's backs, and so +forth,--let who list imagine the miserable little squabble;--till she +says,--"I know what has put you out so to-night; nothing but the news +of my sister's coming." He answers,--"That her sister is as little to +him as to any man; as welcome to come now as she has been to stay away +these three years." + +"Ah, it's very well to say that; but you have been a different person +ever since that letter came." And so she torments him into an angry +self-justification (which she takes triumphantly as a confession) that +"it is very disagreeable to have his thoughts broken in on by one who +has no sympathy with him and his pursuits--and who" and at that point +he wisely stops short, for he was going to throw down a very ugly gage +of battle. + +Thrown down or not, Lucia snatches at it. + +"Ah, I understand; poor Valentia! You always hated her." + +"I did not: but she is so brusque, and excited, and--" + +"Be so kind as not to abuse my family. You may say what you will of +me; but--" + +"And what have your family done for me, pray?" + +"Why, considering that we are now living rent-free in my brother's +house, and--" She stops in her turn; for her pride and her prudence +also will not let her tell him that Valentia has been clothing her and +the children for the last three years. He is just the man to forbid +her on the spot to receive any more presents, and to sacrifice her +comfort to his own pride. But what she has said is quite enough to +bring out a very angry answer, which she expecting, nips in the bud +by-- + +"For goodness' sake, don't speak so loud; I don't want the servants to +hear." + +"I am not speaking loud"--(he has not yet opened his lips). "That is +your old trick to prevent my defending myself, while you are driving +one mad. How dare you taunt me with being a pensioner on your +brother's bounty? I'll go up to town again and take lodgings there. +I need not be beholden to any aristocrat of them all. I have my own +station in the real world,--the world of intellect; I have my own +friends; I have made myself a name without his help; and I can live +without his help, he shall find!" + +"Which name were you speaking of?" rejoins she looking up at him, with +all her native Irish humour flashing up for a moment in her naughty +eyes. The next minute she would have given her hand not to have said +it; for, with a very terrible word, Elsley springs to his feet and +dashes out of the room. + +She hears him catch up his hat and cloak, and hurry out into the rain, +slamming the door behind him. She springs up to call him back, but +he is gone;--and she dashes herself on the floor, and bursts into an +agony of weeping over "young bliss never to return"? Not in the least. +Her principal fear is, lest he should catch cold in the rain. She +takes up her work again, and stitches away in the comfortable +certainty that in half an hour she will have recovered her temper, and +he also; that they will pass a sulky night; and to-morrow, by about +mid-day, without explanation or formal reconciliation, have become as +good friends as ever. "Perhaps," says she to herself, with a woman's +sense of power, "if he be very much ashamed and very wet, I'll pity +him and make friends to-night." + +Miserable enough are these little squabbles. Why will two people, who +have sworn to love and cherish each other utterly, and who, on the +whole, do what they have sworn, behave to each other as they dare for +very shame behave to no one else? Is it that, as every beautiful thing +has its hideous antitype, this mutual shamelessness is the devil's +ape of mutual confidence? Perhaps it cannot be otherwise with beings +compact of good and evil. When the veil of reserve is withdrawn from +between two souls, it must be withdrawn for evil, as for good, till +the two natures, which ought to seek rest, each in the other's inmost +depths, may at last spring apart, confronting each other recklessly +with,--"There, you see me as I am; you know the worst of me, and I of +you; take me as you find me--what care I?" + +Elsley and Lucia have not yet arrived at that terrible crisis: though +they are on the path toward it,--the path of little carelessnesses, +rudenesses, ungoverned words and tempers, and, worst of all, of that +half-confidence, which is certain to avenge itself by irritation and +quarrelling; for if two married people will not tell each other in +love what they ought, they will be sure to tell each other in anger +what they ought not. It is plain enough already that Elsley has his +weak point, which must not be touched; something about "a name," which +Lucia is to be expected to ignore,--as if anything which really exists +could be ignored while two people live together night and day, for +better for worse. Till the thorn is out, the wound will not heal; and +till the matter (whatever it may be) is set right, by confession and +absolution, there will be no peace for them, for they are living in a +lie; and, unless it be a very little one indeed, better, perhaps, that +they should go on to that terrible crisis of open defiance. It may +end in disgust, hatred, madness; but it may, too, end in each +falling again upon the other's bosom, and sobbing out through holy +tears,--"Yes, you do know the worst of me, and yet you love me still. +This is happiness, to find oneself most loved when one most hates +oneself! God, help us to confess our sins to Thee, as we have done to +each other, and to begin life again like little children, struggling +hand in hand out of this lowest pit, up the steep path which leads to +life, and strength, and peace." + +Heaven grant that it may so end! But now Elsley has gone raging out +into the raging darkness; trying to prove himself to himself the most +injured of men, and to hate his wife as much as possible: though the +fool knows the whole time that he loves her better than anything on +earth, even than that "fame," on which he tries to fatten his lean +soul, snapping greedily at every scrap which falls in his way, and, in +default, snapping at everybody and everything else. And little comfort +it gives him. Why should it? What comfort, save in being wise and +strong? And is he the wiser or stronger for being told by a reviewer +that he has written fine words, or has failed in writing them; or to +have silly women writing to ask for his autograph, or for leave to set +his songs to music? Nay,--shocking as the question may seem,--is +he the wiser and stronger man for being a poet at all, and a +genius?--provided, of course, that the word genius is used in its +modern meaning, of a person who can say prettier things than his +neighbours. I think not. Be it as it may, away goes the poor genius; +his long cloak, picturesque enough in calm weather, fluttering about +uncomfortably enough, while the rain washes his long curls into swabs; +out through the old garden, between storm-swept laurels, beneath dark +groaning pines, and through a door in the wall which opens into the +lane. + +The lane leads downward, on the right, into the village. He is in no +temper to meet his fellow-creatures,--even to see the comfortable +gleam through their windows, as the sailors close round the fire with +wife and child; so he turns to the left, up the deep stone-banked +lane, which leads towards the cliff, dark now as pitch, for it is +overhung, right and left, with deep oak-wood. + +It is no easy matter to proceed, though, for the wind pours down the +lane as through a funnel, and the road is of slippery bare slate, worn +here and there into puddles of greasy clay, and Elsley slips back half +of every step, while his wrath, as he tires, oozes out of his heels. +Moreover, those dark trees above him, tossing their heads impatiently +against the scarcely less dark sky, strike an awe into him,--a sense +of loneliness, almost of fear. An uncanny, bad night it is; and he is +out on a bad errand; and he knows it, and wishes that he were home +again. He does not believe, of course, in those "spirits of the +storm," about whom he has so often written, any more than he does in a +great deal of his fine imagery; but still in such characters as his, +the sympathy between the moods of nature and those of the mind is +most real and important; and Dame Nature's equinoctial night wrath is +weird, gruesome, crushing, and can be faced (if it must be faced) in +real comfort only when one is going on an errand of mercy, with +a clear conscience, a light heart, a good cigar, and plenty of +Mackintosh. + +So, ere Elsley had gone a quarter of a mile, he turned back, and +resolved to go in, and take up his book once more. Perhaps Lucia might +beg his pardon; and if not, why, perhaps he might beg hers. The rain +was washing the spirit out of him, as it does out of a thin-coated +horse. + +Stay! What was that sound above the roar of the gale? a cannon? + +He listened, turning his head right and left to escape the howling of +the wind in his ears. A minute, and another boom rose and rang aloft. +It was near, too. He almost fancied that he felt the concussion of the +air. + +Another, and another; and then, in the village below, he could see +lights hurrying to and fro. A wreck at sea? He turned again up the +lane. He had never seen a wreck. What an opportunity for a poet; and +on such a night too: it would be magnificent if the moon would but +come out! Just the scene, too, for his excited temper! He will work on +upward, let it blow and rain as it may. He is not disappointed. Ere he +has gone a hundred yards, a mass of dripping oil-skins runs full butt +against him, knocking him against the bank; and, by the clank of +weapons, he recognises the coast-guard watchman. + +"Hillo!--who's that? Beg your pardon, sir," as the man recognises +Elsley's voice. + +"What is it?--what are the guns?" + +"God knows, sir! Overright the Chough and Crow; on 'em, I'm afeard. +There they go again!--hard up, poor souls! God help them!" and the man +runs shouting down the lane. + +Another gun, and another; but long ere Elsley reaches the cliff, they +are silent; and nothing is to be heard but the noise of the storm, +which, loud as it was below among the wood, is almost intolerable now +that he is on the open down. + +He struggles up the lane toward the cliff, and there pauses, gasping, +under the shelter of a wall, trying to analyse that enormous mass of +sound which fills his ears and brain, and flows through his heart +like maddening wine. He can bear the sight of the dead grass on the +cliff-edge, weary, feeble, expostulating with its old tormentor the +gale; then the fierce screams of the blasts as they rush up across the +layers of rock below, like hounds leaping up at their prey; and far +beneath, the horrible confused battle-roar of that great leaguer of +waves. He cannot see them, as he strains his eyes over the wall into +the blank depth,--nothing but a confused welter and quiver of mingled +air, and rain, and spray, as if the very atmosphere were writhing in +the clutches of the gale: but he can hear,--what can he not hear? It +would have needed a less vivid brain than Elsley's to fancy another +Badajos beneath. There it all is:--the rush of columns to the breach, +officers cheering them on,--pauses, breaks, wild retreats, upbraiding +calls, whispering consultations,--fresh rush on rush, now here, now +there,--fierce shouts above, below, behind,--shrieks of agony, choked +groans and gasps of dying men,--scaling-ladders hurled down with all +their rattling freight,--dull mine-explosions, ringing cannon-thunder, +as the old fortress blasts back its besiegers pell-mell into the deep. +It is all there: truly enough there, at least, to madden yet more +Elsley's wild angry brain, till he tries to add his shouts to the +great battle-cries of land and sea, and finds them as little audible +as an infant's wail. + +Suddenly, far below him, a bright glimmer;--and, in a moment, a +blue-light reveals the whole scene, in ghastly hues,--blue leaping +breakers, blue weltering sheets of foam, blue rocks, crowded with blue +figures, like ghosts, flitting to and fro upon the brink of that blue +seething Phlegethon, and rushing up towards him through the air, a +thousand flying blue foam-sponges, which dive over the brow of the +hill and vanish, like delicate fairies fleeing before the wrath of the +gale:--but where is the wreck? The blue-light cannot pierce the grey +veil of mingled mist and spray which hangs to seaward; and her guns +have been silent for half an hour and more. + +Elsley hurries down, and finds half the village collected on the +long sloping point of down below. Sailors wrapped in pilot-cloth, +oil-skinned coast-guardsmen, women with their gowns turned over their +heads, staggering restlessly up and down, and in and out, while every +moment some fresh comer stumbles down the slope, thrusting himself +into his clothes as he goes, and asks, "Where's the wreck!" and gets +no answer, but a surly advice to "hold his noise," as if they had hope +of hearing the wreck which they cannot see; and kind women, with their +hearts full of mothers' instincts, declare that they can hear little +children crying, and are pooh-poohed down by kind men, who, man's +fashion, don't like to believe anything too painful, or, if they +believe it, to talk of it. + +"What were the guns from, then, Brown?" asks the Lieutenant of the +head-boatman. + +"Off the Chough and Crow, I thought, sir. God grant not!" + +"You thought, sir!" says the great man, willing to vent his vexation +on some one. "_Why_ didn't you make sure?" + +"Why, just look, Lieutenant," says Brown, pointing into the "blank +height of the dark;" "and I was on the pier too, and couldn't see; but +the look-out man here says--" A shift of wind, a drift of cloud, and +the moon flashes out a moment.--"There she is, sir!" + +Some three hundred yards out at sea lies a long curved black line, +beautiful, severe, and still, amid those white wild leaping hills. +A murmur from the crowd, which swells into a roar, as they surge +aimlessly up and down. + +Another moment, and it is cut in two by a white +line--covered--lost--all hold their breaths. No; the sea passes on, +and still the black curve is there; enduring. + +"A terrible big ship!" + +"A Liverpool clipper, by the lines of her." + +"God help the poor passengers, then!" sobs a woman. "They're past our +help: she's on her beam ends." + +"And her deck upright toward us." + +"Silence! Out of the way you loafing long-shores!" shouts the +Lieutenant. "Brown--the rockets!" + +What though the Lieutenant be somewhat given to strong liquors, and +stronger language? He wears the Queen's uniform; and what is more, he +knows his work, and can do it; all make a silent ring while the fork +is planted; the Lieutenant, throwing away the end of his cigar, kneels +and adjusts the stick; Brown and his mates examine and shake out the +coils of line. + +Another minute, and the magnificent creature rushes forth with a +triumphant roar, and soars aloft over the waves in a long stream of +fire, defiant of the gale. + +Is it over her? No! A fierce gust, which all but hurls the spectators +to the ground; the fiery stream sweeps away to the left, in a grand +curve of sparks, and drops into the sea. + +"Try it again!" shouts the Lieutenant, his blood now up. "We'll see +which will beat, wind or powder." + +Again a rocket is fixed, with more allowance for the wind; but the +black curve has disappeared, and he must wait awhile. + +"There it is again! Fly swift and sure," cries Elsley, "thou fiery +angel of mercy, bearing the saviour-line! It may not be too late yet." + +Full and true the rocket went across her; and "three cheers for the +Lieutenant!" rose above the storm. + +"Silence, lads! Not so bad, though;" says he, rubbing his wet hands. +"Hold on by the line, and watch for a bite, Brown." + +Five minutes pass. Brown has the line in his hand, waiting for any +signal touch from the ship: but the line sways limp in the surge. + +Ten minutes. The Lieutenant lights a fresh cigar, and paces up and +down, smoking fiercely. + +A quarter of an hour; and yet no response. The moon is shining clearly +now. They can see her hatchways, the stumps of her masts, great +tangles of rigging swaying and lashing down across her deck; but that +delicate upper curve is becoming more ragged after every wave; and the +tide is rising fast. + +"There's a pull!" shouts Brown.... "No, there ain't ... God have +mercy, sir! She's going!" + +The black curve boils up, as if a mine had been sprung on board, leaps +into arches, jagged peaks, black bars crossed and tangled; and then +all melts away into the white seething waste; while the line floats +home helplessly, as if disappointed; and the billows plunge more +sullenly and sadly towards the shore, as if in remorse for their dark +and reckless deed. + +All is over. What shall we do now? Go home, and pray that God may have +mercy on all drowning souls? Or think what a picturesque and tragical +scene it was, and what a beautiful poem it will make, when we have +thrown it into an artistic form, and bedizened it with conceits and +analogies stolen from all heaven and earth by our own self-willed +fancy? + +Elsley Vavasour--through whose spectacles, rather than with my own +eyes, I have been looking at the wreck, and to whose account, not +to mine, the metaphors and similes of the last two pages must be +laid--took the latter course; not that he was not awed, calmed, and +even humbled, as he felt how poor and petty his own troubles +were, compared with that great tragedy: but in his fatal habit of +considering all matters in heaven and earth as bricks and mortar for +the poet to build with, he considered that he had "seen enough;" as if +men were sent into the world to see and not to act; and going home too +excited to sleep, much more to go and kiss forgiveness to his sleeping +wife, sat up all night, writing "The Wreck," which may be (as the +reviewer in "The Parthenon" asserts) an exquisite poem; but I cannot +say that it is of much importance. + +So the delicate genius sate that night, scribbling verses by a +warm fire, and the rough Lieutenant settled himself down in his +Mackintoshes, to sit out those weary hours on the bare rock, having +done all that he could do, and yet knowing that his duty was, not to +leave the place as long as there was a chance of saving--not a life, +for that was past all hope--but a chest of clothes, or a stick of +timber. There he settled himself, grumbling, yet faithful; and filled +up the time with sleepy maledictions against some old admiral, who +had--or had not--taken a spite to him in the West Indies thirty years +before, else he would have been a post captain by now, comfortably in +bed on board a crack frigate, instead of sitting all night out on +a rock, like an old cormorant, etc. etc. Who knows not the woes of +ancient coast-guard lieutenants? + +But as it befell, Elsley Vavasour was justly punished for going home, +by losing the most "poetical" incident of the whole night. + +For with the coast-guardsmen many sailors stayed. There was nothing to +be earned by staying: but still, who knew but they might be wanted? +And they hung on with the same feeling which tempts one to linger +round a grave ere the earth is filled in, loth to give up the last +sight, and with it the last hope. The ship herself, over and above her +lost crew, was in their eyes a person to be loved and regretted. And +Gentleman Jan spoke, like a true sailor-- + +"Ah, poor dear! And she such a beauty, Mr. Brown; as any one might see +by her lines, even that way off. Ah, poor dear!" + +"And so many brave souls on board; and, perhaps, some of them not +ready, Mr. Beer," says the serious elderly chief boatman. "Eh, Captain +Willis?" + +"The Lord has had mercy on them, I don't doubt." answers the old man, +in his quiet sweet voice. "One can't but hope that he would give them +time for one prayer before all was over; and having been drowned +myself, Mr. Brown, three times, and taken up for dead--that is, +once in Gibraltar Bay, and once when I was a total wreck in the old +Seahorse, that was in the hurricane in the Indies; after that when +I fell over quay-head here, fishing for bass,--why, I know well how +quick the prayer will run through a man's heart, when he's a-drowning, +and the light of conscience, too, all one's life in one minute, +like--" + +"It arn't the men I care for," says Gentleman Jan; "they're gone to +heaven, like all brave sailors do as dies by wreck and battle: but the +poor dear ship, d'ye see, Captain Willis, she ha'n't no heaven to go +to, and that's why I feel for her so." + +Both the old men shake their heads at Jan's doctrine, and turn the +subject off. + +"You'd better go home, Captain, 'fear of the rheumatics. It's a rough +night for your years; and you've no call, like me." + +"I would, but my maid there; and I can't get her home; and I can't +leave her." And Willis points to the schoolmistress, who sits upon +the flat slope of rock, a little apart from the rest, with her face +resting on her hands, gazing intently out into the wild waste. + +"Make her go; it's her duty--we all have our duties. Why does her +mother let her out at this time of night? I keep my maids tighter than +that, I warrant." And disciplinarian Mr. Brown makes a step towards +her. + +"Ah, Mr. Brown, don't now! She's not one of us. There's no saying +what's going on there in her. Maybe she's praying; maybe she sees more +than we do, over the sea there." + +"What do you mean? There's no living body in those breakers, be sure!" + +"There's more living things about on such a night than have bodies to +them, or than any but such as she can see. If any one ever talked +with angels, that maid does; and I've heard her, too; I can say I +have--certain of it. Those that like may call her an innocent: but I +wish I were such an innocent, Mr. Brown. I'd be nearer heaven then, +here on earth, than I fear sometimes I ever shall be, even after I'm +dead and gone." + +"Well, she's a good girl, mazed or not; but look at her now! What's +she after?" + +The girl had raised her head, and was pointing, with one arm stretched +stiffly out toward the sea. + +Old Willis went down to her, and touched her gently on the shoulder. + +"Come home, my maid, then, you'll take cold, indeed;" but she did not +move or lower her arm. + +The old man, accustomed to her fits of fixed melancholy, looked down +under her bonnet, to see whether she was "past," as he called it. By +the moonlight he could see her great eyes steady and wide open. She +motioned him away, half impatiently, and then sprang to her feet with +a scream. + +"A man! A man! Save him!" + +As she spoke, a huge wave rolled in, and shot up the sloping end of +the point in a broad sheet of foam. + +And out of it struggled, on hands and knees, a human figure. He looked +wildly up, and round, and then his head dropped again on his breast; +and he lay clinging with outspread arms, like Homer's polypus in the +Odyssey, as the wave drained back, in a thousand roaring cataracts, +over the edge of the rock. + +"Save him!" shrieked she again, as twenty men rushed forward--and +stopped short. The man was fully thirty yards from them: but close to +him, between them and him, stretched a long ghastly crack, some ten +feet wide, cutting the point across. All knew it: its slippery edge, +its polished upright sides, the seething cauldrons within it; and +knew, too, that the next wave would boil up from it in a hundred jets, +and suck in the strongest to his doom, to fall, with brains dashed +out, into a chasm from which was no return. + +Ere they could nerve themselves for action, the wave had come. Up the +slope it went, one half of it burying the wretched mariner, and fell +over into the chasm. The other half rushed up the chasm itself, and +spouted forth again to the moonlight in columns of snow, in time to +meet the wave from which it had just parted, as it fell from above; +and then the two boiled up, and round, and over, and swirled along the +smooth rock to their very feet. + +The schoolmistress took one long look; and as the wave retired, rushed +after it to the very brink of the chasm, and flung herself on her +knees. + +"She's mazed!" + +"No, she's not!" almost screamed old Willis, in mingled pride and +terror, as he rushed after her. "The wave has carried him across the +crack and she's got him!" And he sprang upon her, and caught her round +the waist. + +"Now, if you be men!" shouted he, as the rest hurried down. + +"Now, if you be men; before the next wave comes!" shouted Big Jan. +"Hands together, and make a line!" And he took a grip with one hand +of the old man's waistband, and held out the other for who would to +seize. + +Who took it? Frank Headley, the curate, who had been watching all +sadly apart, longing to do something which no one could mistake. + +"Be you man enough?" asked big Jan doubtfully. + +"Try," said Frank. + +"Really, you ben't, sir," said Jan, civilly enough. "Means no offence, +sir; your heart's stout enough, I see; but you don't know what'll be." +And he caught the hand of a huge fellow next him, while Frank shrank +sadly back into the darkness. + +Strong hand after hand was clasped, and strong knee after knee dropped +almost to the rock, to meet the coming rush of water; and all who knew +their business took a long breath,--they might have need of one. + +It came, and surged over the man, and the girl, and up to old Willis's +throat, and round the knees of Jan and his neighbour; and then +followed the returning out-draught, and every limb quivered with the +strain: but when the cataract had disappeared, the chain was still +unbroken. + +"Saved!" and a cheer broke from all lips, save those of the girl +herself; she was as senseless as he whom she had saved. They hurried +her and him up the rock ere another wave could come; but they had much +ado to open her hands, so firmly clenched together were they round his +waist. + +Gently they lifted each, and laid them on the rock; while old Willis, +having recovered his breath, set to work crying like a child, to +restore breath to "his maiden." + +"Run for Dr. Heale, some good Christian!" But Frank, longing to escape +from a company who did not love him, and to be of some use ere the +night was out, was already half-way to the village on that very +errand. + +However, ere the Doctor could be stirred out of his boozy slumbers, +and thrust into his clothes by his wife, the schoolmistress was safe +in bed at her mother's house; and the man, weak, but alive, carried +triumphantly up to Heale's door; which having been kicked open, the +sailors insisted in carrying him right upstairs, and depositing him on +the best spare bed. + +"If you won't come to your patients, Doctor, your patients shall come +to you. Why were you asleep in your liquors, instead of looking out +for poor wratches, like a Christian? You see whether his bones be +broke, and gi'un his medicines proper; and then go and see after the +schoolmistress; she'm worth a dozen of any man, and a thousand of you! +We'll pay for 'un like men; and if you don't, we'll break every bottle +in your shop." + +To which, what between bodily fear and real good-nature, old Heale +assented; and so ended that eventful night. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND. + + +About nine o'clock the next morning, Gentleman Jan strolled into Dr. +Heale's surgery, pipe in mouth, with an attendant satellite; for every +lion, poor as well as rich,--in country as in town, must needs have +his jackal. + +Heale's surgery--or, in plain English, shop--was a doleful hole +enough; in such dirt and confusion as might be expected from a drunken +occupant, with a practice which was only not decaying because there +was no rival in the field. But monopoly made the old man, as it makes +most men, all the more lazy and careless; and there was not a drug on +his shelves which could be warranted to work the effect set forth in +that sanguine and too trustful book, the Pharmacopoeia, which, like +Mr. Pecksniff's England, expects every man to do his duty, and is, +accordingly (as the Lancet and Dr. Letheby know too well), grievously +disappointed. + +In this kennel of evil savours, Heale was slowly trying to poke things +into something like order; and dragging out a few old drugs with a +shaky hand, to see if any one would buy them, in a vague expectation +that something must needs have happened to somebody the night before, +which would require somewhat of his art. + +And he was not disappointed. Gentleman Jan, without taking his pipe +out of his mouth, dropped his huge elbows on the counter, and his +black-fringed chin on his fists; took a look round the shop, as if to +find something which would suit him; and then-- + +"I say, Doctor, gi's some tackleum." + +"Some diachylum plaster, Mr. Beer?" says Heale, meekly. "What for, +then?" + +"To tackle my shins. I barked 'em cruel against King Arthur's nose +last night. Hard in the bone he is;--wish I was as hard." + +"How much diachylum will you want, then, Mr. Beer?" + +"Well, I don't know. Let's see!" and Jan pulls up his blue trousers, +and pulls down his grey rig and furrows, and considers his broad and +shaggy shins. + +"Matter of four pennies broad: two to each leg;" and then replaces his +elbows, and smokes on. + +"I say, Doctor, that 'ere curate come out well last night. I shall go +to church next Sunday." + +"What," asks the satellite, "after you upset he that fashion +yesterday?" + +"I don't care what you thinks;" says Jan, who, of course, bullies his +jackal, like most lions: "but I goes to church. He's a good 'un, say +I,--little and good, like a Welshman's cow; and clapped me on the back +when we'd got the man and the maid safe, and says,--'Well done our +side, old fellow!' and stands something hot all round, what's more, in +at the Mariner's Rest.--I say, Doctor, where's he as we hauled ashore? +I'll go up and see 'un." + +"Not now, then, Mr. Beer; not now, then. He's sleeping, indeed he is, +like any child." + +"So much the better. We wain't be bothered with his hollering. But go +up I will. Do ye let me now; I'll be as still as a maid." + +And Jan kicked off his shoes, and marched on tip-toe through the shop, +while Dr. Heale, moaning professional ejaculations, showed him the +way. + +The shipwrecked man was sleeping sweetly; and little was to be seen of +his face, so covered was it with dark tangled curls and thick beard. + +"Ah! a 'Stralian digger, by the beard of him, and his red jersey," +whispered Jan, as he bent tenderly over the poor fellow, and put his +head on one side to listen to his breathing. "Beautiful he sleeps, to +be sure!" said Jan: "and a tidy-looking chap, too. 'Tis a pity to +wake 'un, poor wratch; and he, perhaps, with a sweetheart aboard, and +drownded; or else all his kit lost.--Let 'un sleep so long as he can: +he'll find all out soon enough, God help him!" + +And big Jan stole down the stairs gently and reverently, like a true +sailor; and took his diachylum, and went off to plaster his shins. + +About ten minutes afterwards, Heale was made aware that his guest was +awake, "by sundry grunts and ejaculations, which ended in a series of +long and doleful whistles, and then broke out into a song. So he went +up, and found the stranger sitting upright in bed, combing his curls +with his fingers, and chaunting unto himself a cheerful ditty. + +"Good morning, Doctor," quoth he, as his host entered. "Very kind of +you, this. Hope I haven't turned a better man than myself out of his +bed." + +"Delighted to see you so well. Very near drowned, though. We were +pumping at your lungs for a full half hour." + +"Ah? nothing, though, for an experienced professional man like you!" + +"Hum! speaks well for your discrimination," says Heale, flattered. +"Very well-spoken young person, though his beard is a bit wild.--How +did you know, then, that I was a doctor?" + +"By the reverend looks of you, sir. Besides, I smelt the rhubarb +and senna all the way up-stairs, and knew that I'd fallen among +professional brethren;-- + + "'Oh, then this valiant mariner, + Which sailed across the sea, + He came home to his own sweetheart, + With his heart so full of glee; + + With his heart so full of glee, sir, + And his pockets full of gold, + And his bag of drugget, with many a nugget, + As heavy as he could hold.' + +"Don't you wish yours was, Doctor?" + +"Eh, eh, eh," sniggered Heale. + +"Mine was last night. Now, Doctor, let's have a glass of +brandy-and-water, hot with, and an hour's more sleep; and then kick +me out, and into the workhouse. Was anybody else saved from the wreck +last night?" + +"Nobody, sir," said Heale; and said "sir," because, in spite of the +stranger's rough looks, his accent,--or rather, his no-accent,--showed +him that he had fallen in with a very different, and probably a very +superior stamp of man to himself; in the light of which conviction +(and being withal a good-natured old soul), he went down and mixed him +a stiff glass of brandy-and water, answering his wife's remonstrances +by-- + +"The party up-stairs is a bit of a frantic party, certainly; but he is +certainly a very superior party, and has the true gentleman about him, +any one can see. Besides, he's shipwrecked, as you and I may be any +day; and what's like brandy-and-water?" + +"I should like to know when I'm like to be shipwrecked, or you +either;" says Mrs. Heale, in a tone slightly savouring of indignation +and contempt. "You think of nothing but brandy-and-water." But she let +the doctor take the glass upstairs, nevertheless. + +A few minutes afterwards, Frank came in, and inquired for the +shipwrecked man. + +"Well enough in body, sir; and rather requires your skill than mine," +said the old time-server. "Won't you walk up?" + +So up Frank was shown. + +The stranger was sitting up in bed. "Capital, your brandy is, +Doctor,--Ah, sir," seeing Frank, "it is very kind of you, I am sure, +to call on me! I presume you are the clergyman?" + +But before Frank could answer, Heale had broken forth into loud +praises of him, setting forth how the stranger owed his life entirely +to his superhuman strength and courage. + +"'Pon my word, sir," said the stranger,--looking them both over and +over, through and through, as if to settle how much of all this he was +to believe,--"I am deeply indebted to you for your gallantry. I only +wish it had been employed on a better subject." + +"My good sir," said Frank, blushing, "you owe your life not to me. I +would have helped if I could; but was not thought worthy by our sons +of Anak here. Your actual preserver was a young girl." + +And Frank told him the story. + +"Whew! I hope she won't expect me to marry her as payment.--Handsome?" + +"Beautiful," said Frank. + +"Money?" + +"The village schoolmistress." + +"Clever?" + +"A sort of half-baked body," said Heale. + +"A very puzzling intellect," said Frank + +"Ah--well--that's a fair excuse for declining the honour. I can't be +expected to marry a frantic party, as you called me down stairs just +now, Doctor." + +"I, sir?" + +"Yes, I heard; no offence, though, my good sir,--but I've the ears +of a fox. I hope really, though, that she is none the worse for her +heroic flights." + +"How is she this morning, Mr. Heale?" + +"Well--poor thing, a little light-headed last night: but kindly when I +went in last." + +"Whew! I hope she has not fallen in love with me. She may fancy me her +property--a private waif and stray. Better send for the Coast-guard +officer, and let him claim me as belonging to the Admiralty, as +flotsom, jetsom, and lagend; for I was all three last night." + +"You were, indeed, sir," said Frank, who began to be a little tired of +this levity; "and very thankful to Heaven you ought to be." + +Frank spake this in a somewhat professional tone of voice; at which +the stranger arched his eyebrows, screwed his lips up, and laid his +ears back, like a horse when he meditates a kick, + +"You must be better acquainted with my affairs than I am, my dear sir, +if you are able to state that fact.--Doctor! I hear a patient coming +into the surgery." + +"Extraordinary power of hearing, to be sure," said Heale, toddling +down stairs, while the stranger went on, looking Frank full in the +face. + +"Now that old fogy's gone down stairs, my dear sir, let us come to an +understanding at the beginning of our acquaintance. Of course, you're +bound by your cloth to say that sort of thing to me, just as I am +bound by it not to swear in your company: but you'll allow me to +remark, that it would be rather trying even to your faith, if you were +to be thrown ashore with nothing in the world but an old jersey and a +bag of tobacco, two hundred miles short of the port where you hoped to +land with fifteen hundred well-earned pounds in your pocket." + +"My dear sir," said Frank, after a pause, "whatsoever comes from our +Father's hand must be meant in love. 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath +taken away.'" + +A quaint wince passed over the stranger's face. + +"Father, sir? That fifteen hundred pounds was going to my father's +hand, from whosesoever hand it came, or the loss of it. And now +what is to become of the poor old man, that hussy Dame Fortune only +knows--if she knows her own mind an hour together, which I very much +doubt. I worked early and late for that money, sir; up to my knees +in mud and water. Let it be enough for your lofty demands on poor +humanity, that I take my loss like a man, with a whistle and a laugh, +instead of howling and cursing over it like a baboon. Let's talk of +something else; and lend me five pounds, and a suit of clothes. I +shan't run away with them, for as I've been thrown ashore here, here I +shall stay." + +Frank almost laughed at the free and easy request, though he felt +at once pained by the man's irreligion, and abashed by his +Stoicism;--would he have behaved even as well in such a case? + +"I have not five pounds in the world." + +"Good! we shall understand each other better." + +"But the suit of clothes you shall have at once." + +"Good again! Let it be your oldest; for I must do a little +rock-scrambling here, for purposes of my own." + +So off went Frank to fetch the clothes, puzzling over his new +parishioner. The man was not altogether well bred, either in voice or +manner; but there was an ease, a confidence, a sense of power, which +made Frank feel that he had fallen in with a very strong nature; and +one which had seen many men, and many lands, and profited by what it +had seen. + +When he returned, he found the stranger busy at his ablutions, and +gradually appearing as a somewhat dapper, handsome fellow, with a +bright grey eye, a short nose, a firm, small mouth, a broad and +upright forehead, across the left side of which ran a fearful scar. + +"That's a shrewd mark," said he, as he caught Frank's eye fixed on it, +while he sat coolly arranging himself on the bedside. "I got it in +fair fight, though, by a Crow's tomahawk in the Rocky Mountains. And +here's another token (lifting up his black curls), which a Greek +robber gave me in the Morea. I've another under my head, for which I +have to thank a Tartar, and one or two more little remembrances of +flood and field up and down me. Perhaps they may explain to you why +I take life and death so coolly. I've looked too often at the little +razor-bridge which parts them, to care much for either. Now, don't +let me trouble you any longer. You have your flock to see to, I don't +doubt. You'll find me at church on Sunday. I always do at Rome as Rome +does." + +"Then you will stay away," said Frank, with a sad smile. + +"Ah? No. Church is respectable and aristocratic; and there one don't +get sent to a place unmentionable, ten times an hour, by some inspired +tinker. Beside, country people like the Doctor to go to church with +their betters; and the very fellows who go to the Methodist meeting +themselves would think it _infra dig._ in me to walk in there. Now, +good-bye--though I haven't introduced myself--not knowing the name of +my kind preserver." + +"My name is Frank Headley, Curate of the Parish," said Frank, smiling: +though he saw the man was rattling on for the purpose of preventing +his talking on serious matters. + +"And mine is Tom Thurnall, F.R.C.S., Licentiate of the Universities +of Paris, Glasgow, and whilome surgeon of the good clipper Hesperus, +which you saw wrecked last night. So, farewell!" + +"Come over with me, and have some breakfast." + +"No, thanks; you'll be busy. I'll screw some out of old bottles here." + +"And now," said Tom Thurnall to himself, as Frank left the room, "to +begin life again with an old penknife and a pound of honeydew. I +wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick here till I find out +that one thing, and stop the notes by to-day's post if I can but +recollect them all;--if I could but stop the nugget, too!" + +So saying, he walked down into the surgery, and looked round. +Everything was in confusion. Cobwebs were over the bottles, and armies +of mites played at bo-peep behind them. He tried a few drawers, and +found that they stuck fast; and when he at last opened one, its +contents were two old dried-up horse-balls, and a dirty tobacco-pipe. +He took down a jar marked Epsom salts, and found it full of Welsh +snuff; the next, which was labelled cinnamon, contained blue vitriol. +The spatula and pill-roller were crusted with deposits of every hue. +The pill-box drawer had not a dozen whole boxes in it; and the counter +was a quarter of an inch deep in deposit of every vegetable and +mineral matter, including ends of string, tobacco ashes, and broken +glass. + +Tom took up a dirty duster, and set to work coolly to clear up, +whistling away so merrily that he brought in Heale. + +"I'm doing a little in the way of business, you see." + +"Then you really are a professional practitioner, sir, as Mr. Headley +informs me: though, of course, I don't doubt the fact?" said Heale, +summoning up all the little courage he had, to ask the question with. + +"F.R.C.S. London, Paris, and Glasgow. Easy enough to write and +ascertain the fact. Have been medical officer to a poor-law union, and +to a Brazilian man-of-war. Have seen three choleras, two army fevers, +and yellow-jack without end. Have doctored gunshot wounds in the two +Texan wars, in one Paris revolution, and in the Schleswig-Holstein +row; beside accident practice in every country from California to +China, and round the world and back again. There's a fine nest of Mr. +Weekes's friend (if not creation), Acarus Horridus," and Tom went on +dusting and arranging. + +Heale had been fairly taken aback by the imposing list of +acquirements, and looked at his guest awhile with considerable awe: +suddenly a suspicion flashed across him, which caused him (not unseen +by Tom) a start and a look of self-congratulatory wisdom. He next +darted out of the shop, and returned as rapidly, rather redder about +the eyes, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. + +"But, sir, though, though"--began he--"but, of course you will allow +me, being a stranger--and as a man of business--all I have to say is, +if--that is to say--" + +"You want to know why, if I've had all these good businesses, why I +haven't kept them?" + +"Ex--actly," stammered Heale much relieved. + +"A very sensible and business-like question: but you needn't have been +so delicate about asking it as to want a screw before beginning." + +"Ah, you're a wag, sir," keckled the old man, + +"I'll tell you frankly; I have an old father, sir,--a gentleman, and a +scholar, and a man of science; once in as good a country practice as +man could have, till, God help him, he went blind, sir--and I had to +keep him, and have still. I went over the world to make my fortune and +never made it; and sent him home what I did make, and little enough +too. At last, in my despair, I went to the diggings, and had a pretty +haul--I needn't say how much. That matters little now; for I suppose +it's at the bottom of the sea. There's my story, sir, and a poor +one enough it is,--for the dear old man, at least." And Tom's voice +trembled so as he told it, that old Heale believed every word, and, +what is more, being--like most hard drinkers--not "unused to the +melting mood," wiped his eyes fervently, and went off for another drop +of comfort; while Tom dusted and arranged on, till the shop began to +look quite smart and business-like. + +"Now, sir!"--when the old man came back--"business is business, +and beggars must not be choosers. I don't want to meddle with your +practice; I know the rules of the profession: but if you'll let me +sit here and mix your medicines for you, you'll have the more time to +visit your patients, that's clear,"--and, perhaps (thought he), to +drink your brandy-and-water,--"and when any of them are poisoned by +me, it will be time to kick me out. All I ask is, bed and board. Don't +be frightened for your spirit-bottle, I can drink water; I've done it +many a time, for a week together, in the prairies, and been thankful +for a half-pint in the day." + +"But, sir, your dignity as a--" + +"Fiddlesticks for dignity; I must live, sir. Only lend me a couple of +sheets of paper and two queen's heads, that I may tell my friends my +whereabouts,--and go and talk it over with Mrs. Heale. We must never +act without consulting the ladies." + +That day Tom sent off the following epistle:-- + +"_To_ CHARLES SHUTER, Esq., M.D, _St. Mumpsimus's Hospital, London_. + +"DEAR CHARLEY-- + + "'I do adjure thee, by old pleasant days, + Quartier Latin, and neatly-shod grisettes + By all our wanderings in quaint by-ways, + By ancient frolics, and by ancient debts,' + +"Go to the United Bank of Australia forthwith, and stop the notes +whose numbers--all, alas! which I can recollect--are enclosed. Next, +lend me five pounds. Next, send me down, as quick as possible, five +pounds' worth of decent drugs, as per list; and--if you can borrow +me one--a tolerable microscope, and a few natural history books, to +astound the yokels here with: for I was shipwrecked here last night, +after all at a dirty little west-country port, and what's worse, +robbed of all I had made at the diggings, and start fair, once more, +to run against cruel Dame Fortune, as Colston did against the Indians, +without a shirt to my back. Don't be a hospitable fellow, and ask me +to come up and camp with you. Mumpsimus's and all old faces would be a +great temptation: but here I must stick till I hear of my money, and +physic the natives for my daily bread." + +To his father he wrote thus, not having the heart to tell the truth:-- + +"_To_ EDWARD THURNALL, Esq., M.D., _Whitbury_. + +"My Dearest Old Father--I hope to see you again in a few weeks, as +soon as I have settled a little business here, where I have found a +capital opening for a medical man. Meanwhile let Mark or Mary write +and tell me how you are--and for sending you every penny I can spare, +trust me. I have not had all the luck I expected; but am as hearty as +a bull, and as merry as a cricket, and fall on my legs, as of old, +like a cat. I long to come to you; but I mustn't yet. It is near three +years since I had a sight of that blessed white head, which is the +only thing I care for under the sun, except Mark and little Mary--big +Mary I suppose she is now, and engaged to be married to some 'bloated +aristocrat.' Best remembrances to old Mark Armsworth. + +"Your affectionate son, + +"T.T." + +"Mr. Heale," said Tom next, "are we Whigs or Tories here?" + +"Why--ahem, sir, my Lord Scoutbush, who owns most hereabouts, and my +Lord Minchampstead, who has bought Carcarrow moors above,--very old +Whig connections, both of them; but Mr. Trebooze, of Trebooze, he, +again, thorough-going Tory--very good patient he was once, and may be +again--ha! ha! Gay young man, sir--careless of his health; so you see +as a medical man, sir--" + +"Which is the liberal paper? This one? Very good." And Tom wrote off +to the liberal paper that evening a letter, which bore fruit ere the +week's end, in the shape of five columns, headed thus:-- + +WRECK OF THE "HESPERUS." + +"The following detailed account of this lamentable catastrophe has +been kindly contributed by the graphic pen of the only survivor, +Thomas Thurnall, Esquire, F.R.C.S., &c. &c. &c., late surgeon on board +the ill-fated vessel." Which five columns not only put a couple of +guineas into Tom's pocket, but, as he intended they should, brought +him before the public as an interesting personage, and served as +a very good advertisement to the practice which Tom had already +established in fancy. + +Tom had not worked long, however, before the Coast-guard Lieutenant +bustled in. He had trotted home to shave and get his breakfast, and +was trotting back again to the shore. + +"Hillo, Heale! can I see the fellow who was saved last night?" + +"I am that fellow," says Tom. + +"The dickens you are! you seem to have fallen on your legs quickly +enough." + +"It's a trick I've had occasion to learn, sir," says Tom. "Can I +prescribe for you this morning?" + +"Medicine?" roars the Lieutenant, laughing. "Catch me at it! No; I +want you to come down to the shore, and help to identify goods and +things. The wind has chopped up north, and is blowing dead on; and, +with this tide, we shall have a good deal on shore. So, if you're +strong enough--" + +"I'm always strong enough to do my duty," said Tom. + +"Hum! Very good sentiment, young man. Always strong enough for +duty.--Hum! worthy of Nelson; said pretty much the same, didn't he? +something about duty I know it was, and always thought it uncommon +fine.--Now, then, what can you tell me about this business?" + +It was a sad story; but no sadder than hundreds beside. They had been +struck by the gale to the westward two days before, with the wind +south; had lost their foretopmast and boltsprit, and become all but +unmanageable; had tried during a lull to rig a jury-mast, but were +prevented by the gale, which burst on them with fresh fury from the +south-west, with very heavy rain and fog; had passed a light in the +night, which they took for Scilly, but which must have been the +Longships; had still fancied that they were safe, running up Channel +with a wide berth, when, about sunset, the gale had chopped again to +north-west;--and Tom knew no more. "I was standing on the poop with +the captain about ten o'clock. The last words he said to me were,--'If +this lasts, we shall see Brest harbour to-morrow,' when she struck, +and stopped dead. I was chucked clean off the poop, and nearly +overboard; but brought up in the mizen rigging. Where the captain +went, poor fellow, Heaven alone knows; for I never saw him after. +The mainmast went like a carrot. The mizen stood. I ran round to the +cabin-doors. There were four men steering; the wheel had broke out of +the poor fellows' hands, and knocked them over,--broken their limbs, +I believe. I was stooping to pick them up, when a sea came into the +waist, and then aft, washing me in through the saloon-doors, among the +poor half-dressed women and children. Queer sight, Lieutenant! I've +seen a good many, but never worse than that. I bolted to my cabin, +tied my notes and gold round me, and out again." + +"Didn't desert the poor things?" + +"Couldn't if I'd tried; they clung to me like a swarm of bees. 'Gad, +sir, that was hard lines! to have all the pretty women one had waltzed +with every evening through the Trades, and the little children one had +been making playthings for, holding round one's knees, and screaming +to the doctor to save them. And how the ---- was I to save them, +sir?" cried Tom, with a sudden burst of feeling, which, as in so many +Englishmen, exploded in anger to avoid melting in tears. + +"Ought to be a law against it, sir," growled the Lieutenant; "against +women-folk and children going to sea. It's murder and cruelty. I've +been wrecked, scores of times; but it was with honest men, who could +shift for themselves, and if they were drowned, drowned; but didn't +screech and catch hold--I couldn't stand that! Well?" + +"Well, there was a pretty little creature, an officer's widow, and two +children. I caught her under one arm, and one of the children under +the other;--said 'I can't take you all at once; I'll come back for the +rest, one by one.'--Not that I believed it; but anything to stop the +screaming; and I did hope to put some of them out of the reach of the +sea, if I could get them forward. I knew the forecastle was dry, for +the chief officer was firing there. You heard him?" + +"Yes, five or six times; and then he stopped suddenly." + +"He had reason.--We got out. I could see her nose up in the air forty +feet above us, covered with fore-cabin passengers. I warped the lady +and the children upward--Heaven knows how; for the sea was breaking +over us very sharp--till we were at the mainmast stump, and holding on +by the wreck of it. I felt the ship stagger as if a whale had struck +her, and heard a roar and a swish behind me, and looked back--just in +time to see mizen, and poop, and all the poor women and children in +it, go bodily, as if they had been shaved off with a knife. I suppose +that altered her balance; for before I could turn again she dived +forward, and then rolled over upon her beam ends to leeward, and I saw +the sea walk in over her from stem to stern like one white wall, and I +was washed from my hold, and it was all over." + +"What became of the lady?" + +"I saw a white thing flash by to leeward,--what's the use of asking?" + +"But the child you held?" + +"I didn't let it go till there was good reason." + +"Eh?" + +Tom tapped the points of his fingers smartly against the side of +his head, and then went on, in the same cynical drawl, which he had +affected throughout-- + +"I heard that--against a piece of timber as we went overboard And, +as a medical man, I considered after that, that I had done my duty. +Pretty little boy it was, just six years old: and such a fancy for +drawing." + +The Lieutenant was quite puzzled by Tom's seeming nonchalance. + +"What do you mean, sir? Did you leave the child to perish?" + +"Confound you, sir! If you will have plain English, here it is. I tell +you I heard the child's skull crack like an egg-shell! There, let's +talk no more about it, or the whole matter. It's a bad business, and +I'm not answerable for it, or you either; so let's go and do what we +are answerable for, and identify--" + +"Sir! you will be so good as to recollect," said the Lieutenant, with +ruffled plumes. + +"I do; I do! I beg your pardon a thousand times, I'm sure, for being +so rude: but you know as well as I, sir, there are a good many things +in the world which won't stand too much thinking over; and last night +was one." + +"Very true, very true; but how did you get ashore?" + +"I get ashore? Oh, well enough! Why not?" + +"'Gad, sir, you were near enough being drowned at last; only that +girl's pluck saved you." + +"Well; but it did save me: and here I am, as I knew I should be when I +first struck out from the ship." + +"Knew!--that is a bold word for mortal man at sea." + +"I suppose it is: but we doctors, you see, get into the way of looking +at things as men of science; and the ground of science is experience; +and, to judge from experience, it takes more to kill me than I have +yet met with. If I had been going to be snuffed out, it would have +happened long ago." + +"Hum! It's well to carry a cheerful heart; but the pitcher goes often +to the well, and comes home broken at last." + +"I must be a gutta-percha pitcher, I think, then, or else-- + + "'There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft,' etc. + +as Dibdin has it. Now, look at the facts yourself, sir," continued the +stranger, with a recklessness half true, half assumed to escape from +the malady of thought. "I don't want to boast, sir; I only want +to show you that I have some practical reason for wearing as my +motto--'Never say die.' I have had the cholera twice, and yellow-jack +beside: five several times I have had bullets through me; I have been +bayoneted and left for dead; I have been shipwrecked three times--and +once, as now, I was the only man who escaped; I have been fatted by +savages for baking and eating, and got away with a couple of friends +only a day or two before the feast. One really narrow chance I had, +which I never expected to squeeze through: but, on the whole, I have +taken full precautions to prevent its recurrence." + +"What was that, then?" + +"I have been hanged, sir," said the doctor quietly. + +"Hanged?" cried the Lieutenant, facing round upon his strange +companion with a visage which asked plainly enough--"You hanged? I +don't believe you; and if you have been hanged, what have you been +doing to get hanged?" + +"You need not take care of your pockets, sir,--neither robbery +nor murder was it which brought me to the gallows; but innocent +bug-hunting. The fact is, I was caught by a party of Mexicans, during +the last war, straggling after plants and insects, and hanged as a +spy. I don't blame the fellows: I had no business where I was; and +they could not conceive that a man would risk his life for a few +butterflies." + +"But if you were hanged, sir--" + +"Why did I not die?--By my usual luck. The fellows were clumsy, and +the noose would not work; so that the Mexican doctor, who meant to +dissect me, brought me round again; and being a freemason, as I am, +stood by me,--got me safe off, and cheated the devil." + +The worthy Lieutenant walked on in silence, stealing furtive glances +at Tom, as if he had been a guest from the other world, but not +disbelieving his story in the least. He had seen, as most old navy +men, so many strange things happen, that he was prepared to give +credit to any tale when told, as Tom's was, with a straightforward and +unboastful simplicity. + +"There lives the girl who saved you," said he, as they passed Grace +Harvey's door. + +"Ah? I ought to call and pay my respects." + +But Grace was not at home. The wreck had emptied the school; and Grace +had gone after her scholars to the beach. + +"We couldn't keep her away, weak as she was," said a neighbour, "as +soon as she heard the poor corpses were coming ashore." + +"Hum?" said Tom. "True woman. Quaint,--that appetite for horrors the +sweet creatures have. Did you ever see a man hanged, Lieutenant?--No? +If you had, you would have seen two women in the crowd to one man. Can +you make out the philosophy of that?" + +"I suppose they like it, as some people do hot peppers." + +"Or donkeys thistles;--find a little pain pleasant! I had a patient +once in France, who read Dumas' 'Crimes Célèbres' all the week, and +the 'Vies des Saints' on Sundays, and both, as far as I could see, for +just the same purpose,--to see how miserable people could be, and how +much pinching and pulling they could bear." + +So they walked on, along a sheep-path, and over the Spur, and down to +the Cove. + +It was such a morning as often follows a gale, when the great +firmament stares down upon the ruin which it has made, bright and +clear, and bold; and seems to say, with shameless smile,--"There, +I have done it; and am as merry as ever after it all!" Beneath a +cloudless sky, the breakers, still grey and foul from the tempest, +were tumbling in before a cold northern breeze. Half a mile out at +sea, the rough backs of the Chough and Crow loomed black and sulky in +the foam. At their feet, the rocks and shingle of the Cove were alive +with human beings--groups of women and children clustering round a +corpse or a chest; sailors, knee-deep in the surf hauling at floating +spars and ropes; oil-skinned coast-guardsmen pacing up and down in +charge of goods, while groups of farmers' men, who had hurried down +from the villages inland, lounged about on the top of the cliff, +looking sulkily on, hoping for plunder: and yet half afraid to mingle +with the sailors below, who looked on them as an inferior race, and +refused, in general, to intermarry with them. + +The Lieutenant plainly held much the same opinion; for as a party of +them tried to descend the narrow path to the beach, he shouted after +them to come back. + +"Eh! you won't?" and out rattled from its scabbard the old worthy's +sword. "Come back, I say, you loafing, miching, wrecking crow-keepers; +there are no pickings for you here. Brown, send those fellows back +with the bayonet. None but blue-jackets allowed on the beach!" And the +labourers go up again, grumbling. + +"Can't trust those landsharks. They'll plunder even the rings off a +corpse's fingers. They think every wreck a godsend. I've known them, +after they've been driven off, roll great stones over the cliff at +night on the coast-guard, just out of spite; while these blue-jackets +here--I can depend on them. Can you tell me the reason of that, as you +seem a bit of a philosopher?" + +"It is easy enough; the sailors have a fellow-feeling with sailors, +and the landsmen have none. Besides, the sailors are finer fellows, +body and soul; and the reason is that they have been brought up to +face danger, and the landsmen haven't." + +"Well," said the Lieutenant, "unless a man has been taught to look +death in the face, he never will grow up, I believe, to be much of a +man at all." + +"Danger, my good sir, is a better schoolmaster than all your new model +schools, diagrams, and scientific apparatus. It made our forefathers +the masters of the sea, though they never heard of popular science; +and I dare say couldn't, one out of ten of them, spell their own +names." + +This sentiment elicited from the Lieutenant a grunt of approbation, as +Tom intended that it should do; shrewdly arguing that the old martinet +was no friend to the modern superstition, that all which is required +to cast out the devil is a smattering of the 'ologies. + +"Will the gentleman see the corpses?" asked Brown; "we have fourteen +already;"--and he led the way to where, along the shingle at +high-water mark, lay a ghastly row, some fearfully bruised and +mutilated, cramped together by the death-agony; others with the +peaceful smile which showed that they had sunk to sleep in that +strange water-death, amid a wilderness of pleasant dreams. Strong men +lay there, little children, women, whom the sailors' wives had covered +decently with cloaks and shawls; and at their heads stood Grace +Harvey, motionless, with folded hands, gazing into the dead faces +with her great solemn eyes. Her mother and Captain Willis stood by, +watching her with a sort of superstitions awe. She took no notice +either of Thurnall or of the Lieutenant, as the doctor identified the +bodies one by one, without a remark which indicated any human emotion. + +"A very sensible man, Willis," said the Lieutenant apart, as Tom knelt +awhile to examine the crushed features of a sailor; and then looking +up said simply,-- + +"James Macgillivray, second mate. Cause of death, contusions; probably +by the fall of the main-mast." + +"A very sensible man, and has seen a deal of life, and kept his eyes +open; but a terrible hard-plucked one. Talked like a book to me all +the way; but, be hanged if I don't think he has a thirty-two pound +shot under his ribs instead of a heart.--Doctor Thurnall, that is Miss +Harvey,--the young person who saved your life last night." + +Tom rose, took off his hat (Frank Headley's), and made her a bow, of +which an ambassador need not have been ashamed. + +"I am exceedingly shocked that Miss Harvey should have run so much +danger for anything so worthless as my life." + +She looked up at him, and answered, not him, but her own thoughts. + +"Strange, is it not, that it was a duty to pray for all these poor +things last night, and a sin to pray for them this morning?" + +"Grace, dear!" interposed her mother, "don't you hear the gentleman +thanking you?" + +She started, as one awaking out of a dream, and looked into his face, +blushing scarlet. + +"Good heavens, what a beautiful creature!" said Tom to himself, as +quite a new emotion passed through him. Quite new it was, whatsoever +it was; and he was aware of it. He had had his passions, his +intrigues, in past years, and prided himself--few men more--on +understanding women; but the expression of the face, and the strange +words with which she had greeted him, added to the broad fact of +her having offered her own life for his, raised in him a feeling of +chivalrous awe and admiration, which no other woman had ever called +up. + +"Madam," he said again; "I can repay you with nothing but thanks: but, +to judge from your conduct last night, you are one of those people +who will find reward enough in knowing that you have done a noble and +heroic action." + +She looked at him very steadfastly, blushing still. Thurnall, be it +understood, was (at least, while his face was in the state in which +Heaven intended it to be, half hidden in a silky-brown beard) a very +good-looking fellow; and (to use Mark Armsworth's description) "as +hard as a nail; as fresh as a rose; and stood on his legs like a +game-cock." Moreover, as Willis said approvingly, he had spoken to her +"as if he was a duke, and she was a duchess." Besides, by some blessed +moral law, the surest way to make oneself love any human being is to +go and do him a kindness; and therefore Grace had already a tender +interest in Tom, not because he had saved her, but she him. And so it +was, that a strange new emotion passed through her heart also, though +so little understood by her, that she put it forthwith into words. + +"You might repay me," she said in a sad and tender tone. + +"You have only to command me," said Tom, wincing a little as the words +passed his lips. + +"Then turn to God, now in the day of His mercies. Unless you have +turned to Him already." + +One glance at Tom's rising eyebrows told her what he thought upon +those matters. + +She looked at him sadly, lingeringly, as if conscious that she ought +not to look too long, and yet unable to withdraw her eyes.--"Ah! and +such a precious soul as yours must be; a precious soul--all taken, and +you alone left! God must have high things in store for you. He must +have a great work for you to do. Else, why are you not as one of +these! Oh, think! where would you have been at this moment if God had +dealt with you as with them?" + +"Where I am now, I suppose," said Tom quietly. + +"Where you are now?" + +"Yes: where I ought to be. I am where I ought to be now. I suppose if +I had found myself anywhere else this morning, I should have taken it +as a sign that I was wanted there, and not here." + +Grace heaved a sigh at words which were certainly startling. The Stoic +optimism of the world-hardened doctor was new and frightful to her. + +"My good madam," said he, "the part of Scripture which I appreciate +best, just now, is the case of poor Job, where Satan has leave to rob +and torment him to the utmost of his wicked will, provided only he +does not touch his life, I wish," he went on, lowering his voice, "to +tell you something which I do not wish publicly talked of; but in +which you may help me. I had nearly fifteen hundred pounds about me +when I came ashore last night, sewed in a belt round my waist. It is +gone. That is all." + +Tom looked steadily at her as he spoke. She turned pale, red, pale +again, her lips quivered: but she spoke no word. + +"She has it, as I live!" thought Tom to himself. "'Frailty, thy name +is woman!' The canting, little, methodistical humbug! She must have +slipped it off my waist as I lay senseless. I suppose she means to +keep it in pawn, till I redeem it by marrying her. Well I might take +an uglier mate certainly; but when I do enter into the bitter bonds of +matrimony, I should like to be sure, beforehand, that my wife was not +a thief!" + +Why, then, did not Tom, if he were so very sure of Grace's having the +belt, charge her with the theft? because he had found out already how +popular she was, and was afraid of merely making himself unpopular; +because, too, he took for granted that whosoever had his belt, had +hidden it already beyond the reach of a search warrant; and, because, +after all, an honourable shame restrained him. It would be a poor +return to the woman who had saved his life to charge her with theft +the next morning; and more, there was something about that girl's face +which had made him feel that, if he had seen her put the belt into her +pocket before his eyes, he could not have found the heart to have sent +her to gaol. "No!" thought he; "I'll get it out of her, or whoever has +it, and stay here till I do get it. One place is as good as another to +me." + +But what was Grace saying? + +She had turned, after two or three minutes' astonished silence, to her +mother and Captain Willis-- + +"Belt! Mother! Uncle! What is this? The gentleman has lost a belt?" + +"Dear me!--a belt! Well, child, that's not much to grieve over, when +the Lord has spared his life and soul from the pit!" said her mother, +somewhat testily. + +"You don't understand. A belt, I say, full of money--fifteen hundred +pounds; he lost it last night. Uncle! Speak, quick! Did you see a +belt?" + +Willis shook his head meditatively. "I don't, and yet I do, and yet +I don't again. My brains were, well-nigh washed out of me, I know. +However, sir, I'll think, and talk it over with you too; for if it be +in the village, found it ought to be, and will be, with God's help." + +"Found?" cried Grace, in so high a key, that Tom entreated her to calm +herself, and not make the matter public.--"Found? yes; and shall be +found, if there be justice in heaven. Shame that west-country folk +should turn robbers and wreckers! Mariners, too, and manners' wives, +who should be praying for those who are wandering far away, each man +with his life in his hand! Ah, what a world! When will it end? soon, +too soon, when west-country folk rob shipwrecked men! But you will +find your belt; yes, sir, you will find it. Wait till you have learnt +to do without it. Man does not live by bread alone. Do you think he +lives by gold? Only be patient; and when you are worthy of it, you +shall find it again, in the Lord's good time." + +To the doctor this seemed a mere burst of jargon, invented for the +purpose of hiding guilt; and his faith in womankind was not heightened +when he heard Grace's mother say, _sotto voce_ to Willis, that--"In +wrecks, and fires, and such like, a many people complained of having +lost more than ever they had." + +"Oh ho! my old lady, is that the way the fox is gone?" quoth Tom to +that trusty counsellor, himself; and began carefully scrutinising Mrs. +Harvey's face. It had been very handsome: it was still very clever: +but the eyebrows, crushed together downwards above her nose, and +rising high at the outer corners, indicated, as surely as the restless +down-dropt eye, a character self-conscious, furtive, capable of great +inconsistencies, possibly of great deceits. + +"You don't look me in the face, old lady!" quoth Tom to himself. "Very +well! between you two it lies; unless that old gentleman implicates +himself also, in his approaching confession." + +He took his part at once. "Well, well, you will oblige me by saying +nothing more about it. After all, as this good lady says, the loss of +a little money is not worth complaining over, when one has escaped +with life. Good morning; and many thanks for all your kindness!" + +And Tom made another grand bow, and went off to the Lieutenant. + +Grace looked after him awhile, as one stunned; and then turned to her +mother. + +"Let us go home." + +"Go home? Why there, dear?" + +"Let me go home; you need not come. I am sick of this world. Is it +not enough to have misery and death (and she pointed to the row of +corpses), but we must have sin, too, wherever we turn! Meanness and +theft:--and ingratitude too!" she added, in a lower tone. + +She went homeward; her mother, in spite of her entreaties, accompanied +her; and, for some reason or other, did not lose sight of her all that +day, or for several days after. + +Meanwhile, Willis had beckoned the Doctor aside. His face was serious +and sad, and his lips were trembling. + +"This is a very shocking business, sir. Of course, you've told the +Lieutenant." + +"Not yet, my good sir." + +"But--excuse my boldness; what plainer way of getting it back from the +rascal, whoever he is?" + +"Wait awhile," said Tom; "I have my reasons." + +"But, sir--for the honour of the place, the matter should be cleared +up; and till the thief's found, suspicion will lie on a dozen innocent +men; myself among the rest, for that matter." + +"You?" said Tom, smiling. "I don't know who I have the honour to speak +to; but you don't look much like a gentleman who wishes for a trip to +Botany Bay." + +The old man chuckled, and then his face dropped again. + +"I'm glad you take the thing so like a man, sir; but it is really no +laughing matter. It's a scoundrelly job, only fit for a Maltee off the +Nix Mangeery. If it had been a lot of those carter fellows that had +carried you up, I could have understood it; wrecking's born in the +bone of them: but for those four sailors that carried you up, 'gad +sir! they'd have been shot sooner. I've known 'em from boys!" and the +old man spoke quite fiercely, and looked up; his lip trembling, and +his eye moist. + +"There's no doubt that you are honest--whoever is not," thought Tom; +so he ventured a further question. + +"Then you were by all the while?" + +"All the while? Who more? And that's just what puzzles me." + +"Pray don't speak loud," said Tom. "I have my reasons for keeping +things quiet." + +"I tell you, sir. I held the maid, and big John Beer (Gentleman Jan +they call him) held me; and the maid had both her hands tight in your +belt. I saw it as plain as I see you, just before the wave covered +us, though little I thought what was in it; and should never have +remembered you had a belt at all, if I hadn't thought over things in +the last five minutes." + +"Well, sir, I am lucky in having come straight to the fountain head; +and must thank you for telling me so frankly what you know." + +"Tell you, sir? What else should one do but tell you? I only wish I +knew more; and more I'll know, please the Lord. And you'll excuse an +old sailor (though not of your rank, sir) saying that he wonders a +little that you don't take the plain means of knowing more yourself." + +"May I take the liberty of asking your name?" said Tom; who saw by +this time that the old man was worthy of his confidence. + +"Willis, at your service, sir. Captain they call me, though I'm none. +Sailing-master I was, on board of His Majesty's ship Niobe, 84;" and +Willis raised his hat with such an air, that Tom raised his in return. + +"Then, Captain Willis, let me have five words with you apart; first +thanking you for having helped to save my life." + +"I'm very glad I did, sir; and thanked God for it on my knees this +morning: but you'll excuse me, sir, I was thinking--and no blame to +me--more of saving my poor maid's life than yours, and no offence to +you, for I hadn't the honour of knowing you; but for her, I'd have +been drowned a dozen times over." + +"No offence, indeed," said Tom; and hardly knew what to say next. "May +I ask, is she your niece? I heard her call you uncle." + +"Oh, no--no relation; only I look on her as my own, poor thing, having +no father; and she always calls me uncle, as most do us old men in the +West." + +"Well, then, sir," said Tom, "you will answer for none of the four +sailors having robbed me?" + +"I've said it, sir." + +"Was any one else close to her when we were brought ashore?" + +"No one but I. I brought her round myself." + +"And who took her home?" + +"Her mother and I." + +"Very good. And you never saw the belt after she had her hands in it?" + +"No; I'm sure not." + +"Was her mother by her when she was lying on the rock?" + +"No; came up afterwards, just as I got her on her feet." + +"Humph! What sort of a character is her mother?" + +"Oh, a tidy, God-fearing person, enough. One of these Methodist +class-leaders, Brianites they call themselves. I don't hold with them, +though I do go to chapel at whiles: but there are good ones among +them; and I do believe she's one, though she's a little fretful +at times. Keeps a little shop that don't pay over well; and those +preachers live on her a good deal, I think. Creeping into widows' +houses, and making long prayers--you know the text." + +"Well, now, Captain Willis, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but do +you not see that one of two things I must believe,--either that the +belt was torn off my waist, and washed back into the sea, as it may +have been after all; or else, that--" + +"Do you mean that she took it?" asked Willis, in voice of such +indignant astonishment that Tom could only answer by a shrug of the +shoulders. + +"Who else could have done so, on your own showing?" + +"Sir!" said Willis, slowly. "I thought I had to do with a gentleman: +but I have my doubts of it now. A poor girl risks her life to drag you +out of that sea, which but for her would have hove your body up to lie +along with that line there,"--and Willis pointed to the ghastly row--" +and your soul gone to give in its last account--You only know what +that would have been like--And the first thing you do in payment is +to accuse her of robbing you--her, that the very angels in heaven, I +believe, are glad to keep company with;" and the old man turned and +paced the beach in fierce excitement. + +"Captain Willis," said Tom, "I'll trouble you to listen patiently and +civilly to me a minute." + +Willis stopped, drew himself up, and touched his hat mechanically. + +"Just because I am a gentleman, I have not accused her; but held +my tongue, and spoken to you in confidence. Now, perhaps, you will +understand why I have said nothing to the Lieutenant." + +Willis looked up at him. + +"I beg your pardon, sir. I see now, and I'm sorry if I was rude; but +it took me aback, and does still. I tell you, sir," quoth he, warming +again, "whatever's true,--that's false. You're wrong there, if you +never are wrong again; and you'll say so yourself, before you've known +her a week. No, sir! If you could make me believe that, I should never +believe in goodness again on earth; but hold all men, and women too, +and those above, for aught I know, that are greater than men and +women, for liars together." + +What was to be answered? Perhaps only what Tom did answer. + +"My good sir, I will say no more. I would not have said that much if I +had thought I should have pained you so. I suppose that the belt was +washed into the sea. Why not?" + +"Why not, indeed, sir? That's a much more Christian-like way of +looking at it, than to blacken your own soul before God by suspecting +that sweet innocent creature." + +"Be it so, then. Only say nothing about the matter; and beg them to +say nothing. If it be jammed among the rocks (as it might be, heavy as +it is), talking about it will only set people looking for it; and +I suppose there is a man or two, even in Aberalva, who would find +fifteen hundred pounds a tempting bait. If, again, some one finds it, +and makes away with it, he will only be the more careful to hide it if +he knows that I am on the look-out. So just tell Miss Harvey and her +mother that I think it must have been lost, and beg them to keep my +secret. And now shake hands with me." + +"The best plan, I believe, though bad, is the best," said Willis, +holding out his hand; and he walked away sadly. His spirit had been +altogether ruffled by the imputation on Grace's character: and, +besides, the chances of Thurnall's recovering his money seemed to him +very small. + +In five minutes he returned. + +"If you would allow me, sir, there's a man there of whom I should like +to ask one question. He who held me, and, after that, helped to carry +you up;" and he pointed to Gentleman Jan, who stood, dripping from the +waist downward, over a chest which he had just secured. "Just let us +ask him, off-hand like, whether you had a belt on when he carried you +up. You may trust him, sir. He'd knock you down as soon as look at +you; but tell a lie, never." + +They went to the giant; and, after cordial salutations, Tom propounded +his question carelessly, with something like a white lie. + +"It's no great matter; but it was an old friend, you see, with +fittings for my knife and pistols, and I should be glad to find it +again." + +Jan thrust his red hand through his black curls, and meditated while +the water surged round his ankles. + +"Never a belt seed I, sir; leastwise while you were in my hands. I had +you round the waist all the way up, so no one could have took it off. +Why should they? And I undressed you myself; and nothing, save your +presence, was there to get off, but jersey and trousers, and a lump of +backy against your skin that looked the right sort." + +"Have some, then," said Tom, pulling out the honey-dew. "As for the +belt, I suppose it's gone to choke the dog-fish." + +And there the matter ended, outwardly at least; but only outwardly. +Tom had his own opinion, gathered from Grace's seemingly guilty +face, and to it he held, and called old Willis, in his heart, a +simple-minded old dotard, who had been taken in by her hypocrisy. + +And Tom accompanied the Lieutenant on his dreary errand that day, and +several days after, through depositions before a justice, interviews +with Lloyd's underwriters, and all the sad details which follow a +wreck. Ere the week's end, forty bodies and more had been recovered, +and brought up, ten or twelve at a time, to the churchyard, and upon +the down, and laid side by side in one long shallow pit, where Frank +Headley read over them the blessed words of hope, amid the sobs of +women, and the grand silence of stalwart men, who knew not how soon +their turn might come; and after each procession came Grace Harvey, +with all her little scholars two and two, to listen to the funeral +service; and when the last corpse was buried, they planted flowers +upon the mound, and went their way again to learn hymns and read +their Bible--little ministering angels to whom, as to most sailors' +children, death was too common a sight to have in it aught of hideous +or strange. + +And this was the end of the good ship Hesperus, and all her gallant +crew. + +Verily, however important the mere animal lives of men may be, and +ought to be, at times, in our eyes, they never have been so, to judge +from floods and earthquakes, pestilence and storm, in the eyes of +Him who made and loves us all. It is a strange fact, better for us, +instead of shutting our eyes to it because it interferes with our +modern tenderness of pain, to ask honestly what it means. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE WAY TO WIN THEM. + + +So, for a week or more, Tom went on thrivingly enough, and became a +general favourite in the town. Heale had no reason to complain of +boarding him; for he had dinner and supper thrust on him every day by +one and another, who were glad enough to have him for the sake of his +stories, and songs, and endless fun and good-humour. The Lieutenant, +above all, took the new-comer under his especial patronage, and was +paid for his services in some of Tom's incomparable honey-dew. The +old fellow soon found that the Doctor knew more than one old foreign +station of his, and ended by pouring out to him his ancient wrongs, +and the evil doings of the wicked admiral; all of which Tom heard with +deepest sympathy, and surprise that so much naval talent had remained +unappreciated by the unjust upper powers; and the Lieutenant, of +course, reported of him accordingly to Heale. + +"A very civil spoken and intelligent youngster, Mr. Heale, d'ye see, +to my mind; and you can't do better than accept his offer; for you'll +find him a great help, especially among the ladies, d'ye see. They +like a good-looking chap, eh, Mrs. Jones?" + +On the fourth day, by good fortune, what should come ashore but +Tom's own chest--moneyless, alas! but with many useful matters still +unspoilt by salt water. So, all went well, and indeed somewhat too +well (if Tom would have let it), in the case of Miss Anna Maria Heale, +the Doctor's daughter. + +She was just such a girl as her father's daughter was likely to be; a +short, stout, rosy, pretty body of twenty, with loose red lips, thwart +black eyebrows, and right naughty eyes under them; of which Tom took +good heed: for Miss Heale was exceedingly inclined, he saw, to make +use of them in his behoof. Let others who have experience in, and +taste for such matters, declare how she set her cap at the dapper +young surgeon; how she rushed into the shop with sweet _abandon_ ten +times a-day, to find her father; and, not finding him, giggled, and +blushed, and shook her shoulders, and retired, to peep at Tom through +the glass door which led into the parlour; how she discovered that +the muslin curtain of the said door would get out of order every ten +minutes; and at last called Mr. Thurnall to assist her in rearranging +it; how, bolder grown, she came into the shop to help herself to +various matters, inquiring tenderly for Tom's health, and giggling +vulgar sentiments about "absent friends, and hearts left behind;" in +the hope of fishing out whether Tom had a sweetheart or not. How, at +last, she was minded to confide her own health to Tom, and to instal +him as her private physician; yea, and would have made him feel her +pulse on the spot, had he not luckily found some assafoetida, and +therewith so perfumed the shop, that her "nerves" (of which she was +always talking, though she had nerves only in the sense wherein a +sirloin of beef has them) forced her to beat a retreat. + +But she returned again to the charge next day, and rushed bravely +through that fearful smell, cleaver in hand, as the carrier set down +at the door a huge box, carriage-paid, all the way from London, and +directed to Thomas Thurnall, Esquire. She would help to open it: and +so she did, while old Heale and his wife stood by curious,--he with a +maudlin wonder and awe (for he regarded Tom already as an altogether +awful and incomprehensible "party"), and Mrs. Heale with a look of +incredulous scorn, as if she expected the box to be a mere sham, +filled probably with shavings. For (from reasons best known to +herself) she had never looked pleasantly on the arrangement which +entrusted to Tom the care of the bottles. She had given way from +motives of worldly prudence, even of necessity; for Heale had been +for the greater part of the week quite incapable of attending to his +business: but black envy and spite were seething in her foolish heart, +and seethed more and more fiercely when she saw that the box did +not contain shavings, but valuables of every sort and kind--drugs, +instruments, a large microscope (which Tom delivered out of Miss +Heale's fat clumsy fingers only by strong warnings that it would go +off and shoot her), books full of prints of unspeakable monsters; and +finally, a little packet, containing not one five-pound note, but +four, and a letter which Tom, after perusing, put into Mr. Heale's +hands, with a look of honest pride. + +The Mumpsimus men, it appeared, had "sent round the hat" for him, and +here were the results; and they would send the hat round again every +month, if he wanted it; or, if he would come up, board, lodge, and +wash him gratis. The great Doctor Bellairs, House Physician, and +Carver, the famous operator (names at which Heale bowed his head +and worshipped), sent compliments, condolences, offers of +employment--never was so triumphant a testimonial; and Heale, in his +simplicity, thought himself (as indeed he was) the luckiest of country +doctors; while Mrs. Heale, after swelling and choking for five +minutes, tottered into the back room, and cast herself on the sofa in +violent hysterics. + +As she came round again, Tom could not but overhear a little that +passed. And this he overheard among other matters:-- + +"Yes, Mr. Heale, I see, I see too well, which your natural blindness, +sir, and that fatal easiness of temper, will bring you to a premature +grave within the paupers' precincts; and this young designing infidel, +with his science and his magnifiers, and his callipers, and philosophy +falsely so called, which in our true Protestant youth there was none, +nor needed none, to supplant you in your old age, and take the bread +out of your grey hairs, which he will bring with sorrow to the grave, +and mine likewise, which am like my poor infant here, of only too +sensitive sensibilities! Oh, Anna Maria, my child, my poor lost child! +which I can feel for the tenderness of the inexperienced heart! My +Virgin Eve, which the Serpent has entered into your youthful paradise, +and you will find; alas! too late, that you have warmed an adder into +your bosom!" + +"Oh, Ma, how indelicate!" giggled Anna Maria, evidently not +displeased. "If you don't mind he will hear you, and I should never be +able to look him in the face again." And therewith she looked round to +the glass door. + +What more passed, Tom did not choose to hear; for he began making all +the bustle he could in the shop, merely saying to himself,-- + +"That flood of eloquence is symptomatic enough: I'll lay my life the +old dame knows her way to the laudanum bottle." + +Tom's next business was to ingratiate himself with the young curate. +He had found out already, cunning fellow, that any extreme intimacy +with Headley would not increase his general popularity; and, as we +have seen already, he bore no great affection to "the cloth" in +general: but the curate was an educated gentleman, and Tom wished for +some more rational conversation than that of the Lieutenant and Heale. +Besides, he was one of those men, with whom the possession of power, +sought at first from self-interest, has become a passion, a species of +sporting, which he follows for its own sake. To whomsoever he met he +must needs apply the moral stethoscope; sound him, lungs, heart, and +liver; put his tissues under the microscope, and try conclusions on +him to the uttermost. They might be useful hereafter; for knowledge +was power: or they might not. What matter? Every fresh specimen of +humanity which he examined was so much gained in general knowledge. +Very true, Thomas Thurnall; provided the method of examination be the +sound and the deep one, which will lead you down in each case to the +real living heart of humanity: but what if your method be altogether a +shallow and a cynical one, savouring much more of Gil Blas than of +St. Paul, grounded not on faith and love for human beings, but on +something very like suspicion and contempt? You will be but too +likely, Doctor, to make the coarsest mistakes, when you fancy yourself +most penetrating; to mistake the mere scurf and disease of the +character for its healthy organic tissue, and to find out at last, +somewhat to your confusion, that there are more things, not only in +heaven, but in the earthiest of the earth, than are dreamt of in your +philosophy. You have already set down Grace Harvey as a hypocrite, and +Willis as a dotard. Will you make up your mind in the same foolishness +of over-wisdom, that Frank Headley is a merely narrow-headed and +hard-hearted pedant, quite unaware that he is living an inner life of +doubts, struggles, prayers, self-reproaches, noble hunger after an +ideal of moral excellence, such as you, friend Tom, never yet dreamed +of, which would be to you as an unintelligible gibber of shadows out +of dreamland, but which is to him the only reality, the life of life, +for which everything is to be risked and suffered? You treat his +opinions (though he never thrusts them on you) about "the Church," and +his duty, and the souls of his parishioners, with civil indifference, +as much ado about nothing; and his rubrical eccentricities as +puerilities. You have already made up your mind to "try and put a +little common sense into him," not because it is any concern of yours +whether he has common sense or not, but because you think that it +will be better for you to have the parish at peace; but has it ever +occurred to you how noble the man is, even in his mistakes? How that +one thought, that the finest thing in the world is to be utterly good, +and to make others good also, puts him three heavens at least above +you, you most unangelic terrier-dog, bemired all day long by grubbing +after vermin! What if his idea of "the Church" be somewhat too narrow +for the year of grace 1854, is it no honour to him that he has such +an idea at all; that there has risen up before him the vision of a +perfect polity, a "Divine and wonderful Order," linking earth to +heaven, and to the very throne of Him, who died for men; witnessing to +each of its citizens what the world tries to make him forget, namely, +that he is the child of God himself; and guiding and strengthening +him, from the cradle to the grave, to do his Father's work? Is it a +shame to him that he has seen that such a polity must exist, that he +believes that it does exist; or that he thinks he finds it in its +highest, if not its perfect form, in the most ancient and august +traditions of his native land? True, he has much to learn, and you +may teach him something of it; but you will find some day, Thomas +Thurnall, that, granting you to be at one pole of the English +character, and Frank Headley at the other, he is as good an Englishman +as you, and can teach you more than you can him. + +The two soon began to pass almost every evening together, pleasantly +enough; for the reckless and rattling manner which Tom assumed +with the mob, he laid aside with the curate, and showed himself as +agreeable a companion as man could need; while Tom in his turn found +that Headley was a rational and sweet-tempered man, who, even where +he had made up his mind to differ, could hear an adverse opinion, put +sometimes in a startling shape, without falling into any of those male +hysterics of sacred horror, which are the usual refuge of ignorance +and stupidity, terrified by what it cannot refute. And soon Tom began +to lay aside the reserve which he usually assumed to clergymen, and to +tread on ground which Headley would gladly have avoided. For, to tell +the truth, ever since Tom had heard of Grace's intended dismissal, the +curate's opinions had assumed a practical importance in his eyes; and +he had vowed in secret that, if his cunning failed him not, turned out +of her school she should not be. Whether she had stolen his money or +not, she had saved his life; and nobody should wrong her, if he could +help it. Besides, perhaps she had not his money. The belt might have +slipped off in the struggle; some one else might have taken it off in +carrying him up; he might have mistaken the shame of innocence in her +face for that of guilt. Be it as it might, he had not the heart +to make the matter public, and contented himself with staying at +Aberalva, and watching for every hint of his lost treasure. + +By which it befell that he was thinking, the half of every day at +least, about Grace Harvey; and her face was seldom out of his mind's +eye; and the more he looked at it, either in fancy or in fact, the +more did it fascinate him. They met but rarely, and then interchanged +the most simple and modest of salutations: but Tom liked to meet her, +would have gladly stopped to chat with her; however, whether from +modesty or from a guilty conscience, she always hurried on in silence. + +And she? Tom's request to her, through Willis, to say nothing about +the matter, she had obeyed, as her mother also had done. That Tom +suspected her was a thought which never crossed her mind; to suspect +any one herself was in her eyes a sin; and if the fancy that this man +or that, among the sailors who had carried Tom up to Heale's, might +have been capable of the baseness, she thrust the thought from her, +and prayed to be forgiven for her uncharitable judgment. + +But night and day there weighed on that strange and delicate spirit +the shame of the deed, as heavily, if possible, as if she herself had +been the doer. There was another soul in danger of perdition; another +black spot of sin, making earth hideous to her. The village was +disgraced; not in the public eyes, true: but in the eye of heaven, and +in the eyes of that stranger for whom she was beginning to feel an +interest more intense than she ever had done in any human being +before. Her saintliness (for Grace was a saint in the truest sense of +that word) had long since made her free of that "communion of saints" +which consists not in Pharisaic isolation from "the world," not in the +mutual flatteries and congratulations of a self-conceited clique; but +which bears the sins and carries the sorrows of all around: whose +atmosphere is disappointed hopes and plans for good, and the +indignation which hates the sin because it loves the sinner, and +sacred fear and pity for the self-inflicted miseries of those who +might be (so runs the dream, and will run till it becomes a waking +reality) strong, and free, and safe, by being good and wise. To such +a spirit this bold cunning man had come, stiff-necked and +heaven-defiant, a "brand plucked from the burning:" and yet equally +unconscious of his danger, and thankless for his respite. Given, too, +as it were, into her hands; tossed at her feet out of the very mouth +of the pit,--why but that she might save him? A far duller heart, a +far narrower imagination than Grace's would have done what Grace's +did--concentrate themselves round the image of that man with all the +love of woman. For, ere long, Grace found that she did love that man, +as a woman loves but once in her life; perhaps in all time to come. +She found that her heart throbbed, her cheek flushed, when his name +was mentioned; that she watched, almost unawares to herself, for his +passing; and she was not ashamed at the discovery. It was a sort of +melancholy comfort to her that there was a great gulf fixed between +them. His station, his acquirements, his great connections and friends +in London (for all Tom's matters were the gossip of the town, as, +indeed, he took care that they should be), made it impossible that he +should ever think of her; and therefore she held herself excused +for thinking of him, without any fear of that "self-seeking," and +"inordinate affection," and "unsanctified passions," which her +religious books had taught her to dread. Besides, he was not "a +Christian." That five minutes on the shore had told her that; and even +if her station had been the same as his, she must not be "unequally +yoked with an unbeliever." And thus the very hopelessness of her love +became its food and strength; the feeling which she would have checked +with maidenly modesty, had it been connected even remotely with +marriage, was allowed to take immediate and entire dominion; and she +held herself permitted to keep him next her heart of hearts, because +she could do nothing for him but pray for his conversion. + +And pray for him she did, the noble, guileless girl, day and night, +that he might be converted; that he might prosper, and become--perhaps +rich, at least useful; a mighty instrument in some good work. And then +she would build up one beautiful castle in the air after another, out +of her fancies about what such a man, whom she had invested in her own +mind with all the wisdom of Solomon, might do if his "talents were +sanctified." Then she prayed that he might recover his lost gold--when +it was good for him; that he might discover the thief: no, that would +only involve fresh shame and sorrow: that the thief, then, might be +brought to repentance, and confession, and restitution. That was the +solution of the dark problem, and for that she prayed; while her face +grew sadder and sadder day by day. + +For a while, over and above the pain which the theft caused her, there +came--how could it be otherwise?--sudden pangs of regret that this +same love was hopeless, at least upon this side of the grave. +Inconsistent they were with the chivalrous unselfishness of her usual +temper; and as such she dashed them from her, and conquered them, +after a while, by a method which many a woman knows too well. It was +but "one cross more;" a natural part of her destiny--the child of +sorrow and heaviness of heart. Pleasure in joy she was never to find +on earth; she would find it, then, in grief. And nursing her own +melancholy, she went on her way, sad, sweet, and steadfast, and +lavished more care and tenderness, and even gaiety, than ever upon her +neighbours' children, because she knew that she should never have a +child of her own. + +But there is a third damsel, to whom, whether more or less engaging +than Grace Harvey or Miss Heale, my readers must needs be introduced. +Let Miss Heale herself do it, with eyes full of jealous curiosity. + +"There is a foreign letter for Mr. Thurnall, marked Montreal, and sent +on here from Whitbury," said she, one morning at breakfast, and in a +significant tone; for the address was evidently in a woman's hand. + +"For me--ah, yes; I see," said Tom, taking it carelessly, and +thrusting it into his pocket. + +"Won't you read it at once, Mr. Thurnall? I'm sure you must be anxious +to hear from friends abroad;" with an emphasis on the word friends. + +"I have a good many acquaintances all over the world, but no friends +that I am aware of," said Tom, and went on with his breakfast. + +"Ah--but some people are more than friends. Are the Montreal ladies +pretty, Mr. Thurnall?" + +"Don't know; for I never was there." + +Miss Heale was silent, being mystified: and, moreover, not quite sure +whether Montreal was in India or in Australia, and not willing to show +her ignorance. + +She watched Tom through the glass door all the morning to see if he +read the letter, and betrayed any emotion at its contents: but Tom +went about his business as usual, and, as far as she saw, never read +it at all. + +However, it was read in due time; for, finding himself in a lonely +place that afternoon, Tom pulled it out with an anxious face, and read +a letter written in a hasty ill-formed hand, underscored at every +fifth word, and plentifully bedecked with notes of exclamation. + +"What? my dearest friend, and fortune still frowns upon you? Your +father blind and ruined! Ah, that I were there to comfort him for your +sake! And ah, that I were anywhere, doing any drudgery, which might +prevent my being still a burden to my benefactors. Not that they are +unkind; not that they are not angels! I told them at once that you +could send me no more money till you reached England, perhaps not +then; and they answered that God would send it; that He who had sent +me to them would send the means of supporting me; and ever since they +have redoubled their kindness: but it is intolerable, this dependence, +and on you, too, who have a father to support in his darkness. Oh, +how I feel for you! But to tell you the truth, I pay a price for this +dependence. I must needs be staid and sober; I must needs dress +like any Quakeress; I must not read this book nor that; and my +Shelley--taken from me, I suppose, because it spoke too much +'Liberty,' though, of course, the reason given was its infidel +opinions--is replaced by 'Law's Serious Call.' 'Tis all right and +good, I doubt not: but it is very dreary; as dreary as these black +fir-forests, and brown snake fences, and that dreadful, dreadful +Canadian winter which is past, which went to my very heart, day after +day, like a sword of ice. Another such winter, and I shall die, as one +of my own humming-birds would die, did you cage him here, and prevent +him from fleeing home to the sunny South when the first leaves begin +to fall. Dear children of the sun! my heart goes forth to them; and +the whir of their wings is music to me, for it tells me of the South, +the glaring South, with its glorious flowers, and glorious woods, its +luxuriance, life, fierce enjoyments--let fierce sorrows come with +them, if it must be so! Let me take the evil with the good, and live +my rich wild life through bliss and agony, like a true daughter of the +sun, instead of crystallising slowly here into ice, amid countenances +rigid with respectability, sharpened by the lust of gain; without +taste, without emotion, without even sorrow! Let who will be the +stagnant mill-head, crawling in its ugly spade-cut ditch to turn the +mill. Let me be the wild mountain brook, which foams and flashes over +the rocks--what if they tear it?--it leaps them nevertheless, and goes +laughing on its way. Let me go thus, for weal or woe! And if I sleep +awhile, let it be like the brook, beneath the shade of fragrant +magnolias and luxuriant vines, and image, meanwhile, in my bosom +nothing but the beauty around. + +"Yes, my friend, I can live no longer this dull chrysalid life, in +comparison with which, at times, even that past dark dream seems +tolerable--for amid its lurid smoke were flashes of brightness. A +slave? Well; I ask myself at times, and what were women meant for +but to be slaves? Free them, and they enslave themselves again, or +languish unsatisfied; for they must love. And what blame to them +if they love a white man, tyrant though he be, rather than a +fellow-slave? If the men of our own race will claim us, let them prove +themselves worthy of us! Let them rise, exterminate their tyrants, or, +failing that, show that they know how to die. Till then, those who are +the masters of their bodies will be the masters of our hearts. If they +crouch before the white like brutes, what wonder if we look up to him +as to a god? Woman must worship, or be wretched. Do I not know it? +Have I not had my dream--too beautiful for earth? Was there not one +whom you knew, to hear whom call me slave would have been rapture; to +whom I would have answered on my knees, Master, I have no will but +yours! But that is past--past. One happiness alone was possible for a +slave, and even that they tore from me; and now I have no thought, no +purpose, save revenge. + +"These good people bid me forgive my enemies. Easy enough for +them, who have no enemies to forgive. Forgive? Forgive injustice, +oppression, baseness, cruelty? Forgive the devil, and bid him go in +peace, and work his wicked will? Why have they put into my hands, +these last three years, books worthy of a free nation?--books which +call patriotism divine; which tell me how in every age and clime men +have been called heroes who rose against their conquerors; women +martyrs who stabbed their tyrants, and then died? Hypocrites! Did +their grandfathers meekly turn the other cheek when your English taxed +them somewhat too heavily? Do they not now teach every school-child to +glory in their own revolution, their own declaration of independence, +and to flatter themselves into the conceit that they are the lords of +creation, and the examples of the world, because they asserted that +sacred right of resistance which is discovered to be unchristian in +the African? They will free us, forsooth, in good time (is it to be +in God's good time, or in their own?) if we will but be patient, +and endure the rice-swamp, the scourge, the slave-market, and shame +unspeakable, a few years more, till all is ready and safe,--for them. +Dreamers as well as hypocrites! What nation was ever freed by others' +help? I have been reading history to see,--you do not know how much +I have been reading,--and I find that freemen have always freed +themselves, as we must do; and as they will never let us do, because +they know that with freedom must come retribution; that our Southern +tyrants have an account to render, which the cold Northerner has no +heart to see him pay. For, after all, he loves the Southerner better +than the slave; and fears him more also. What if the Southern +aristocrat, who lords it over him as the panther does over the ox, +should transfer (as he has threatened many a time) the cowhide from +the negro's loins to his? No; we must free ourselves! And there lives +one woman, at least, who, having gained her freedom, knows how to use +it in eternal war against all tyrants. Oh, I could go down, I think at +moments, down to New Orleans itself, with a brain and lips of fire, +and speak words--you know how I could speak them--which would bring me +in a week to the scourge, perhaps to the stake. The scourge I could +endure. Have I not felt it already? Do I not bear its scars even now, +and glory in them; for they were won by speaking as a woman should +speak? And even the fire?--Have not women been martyrs already? +and could not I be one? Might not my torments madden a people into +manhood, and my name become a war-cry in the sacred fight? And yet, +oh my friend, life is sweet!--and my little day has been so dark and +gloomy!--may I not have one hour's sunshine, ere youth and vigour are +gone, and my swift-vanishing Southern womanhood wrinkles itself +up into despised old age? Oh, counsel me,--help me, my friend, my +preserver, my true master now, so brave, so wise, so all-knowing; +under whose mask of cynicism lies hid (have I not cause to know it?) +the heart of a hero. + +"MARIE" + +If Miss Heale could have watched Tom's face as he read, much more +could she have heard his words as he finished, all jealousy would have +passed from her mind: for as he read, the cynical smile grew sharper +and sharper, forming a fit prelude for the "Little fool!" which was +his only comment. + +"I thought you would have fallen in love with some honest farmer +years ago: but a martyr you shan't be, even if I have to send for you +hither; though how to get you bread to eat I don't know. However, you +have been reading your book, it seems,--clever enough you always were, +and too clever; so you could go out as governess, or something. Why, +here's a postscript dated three months afterwards! Ah, I see; this +letter was written last July, in answer to my Australian one. What's +the meaning of this?" And he began reading again. + +"I wrote so far; but I had not the heart to send it: it was so full +of repinings. And since then,--must I tell the truth?--I have made a +step; do not call it a desperate one; do not blame me, for your blame +I cannot bear: but I have gone on the stage. There was no other means +of independence open to me; and I had a dream, I have it still, that +there, if anywhere, I might do my work. You told me that I might +become a great actress: I have set my heart on becoming one; on +learning to move the hearts of men, till the time comes when I can +tell them, show them, in living flesh and blood, upon the stage, the +secrets of a slave's sorrows, and that slave a woman. The time has not +come for that yet here: but I have had my success already, more than I +could have expected; and not only in Canada, but in the States. I have +been at New York, acting to crowded houses. Ah, when they applauded +me, how I longed to speak! to pour out my whole soul to them, and call +upon them, as men, to--. But that will come in time. I have found a +friend, who has promised to write dramas especially for me. Merely +republican ones at first; in which I can give full vent to my passion, +and hurl forth the eternal laws of liberty, which their consciences +may--must--at last, apply for themselves. But soon, he says, we shall +be able to dare to approach the real subject, if not in America, still +in Europe; and then, I trust, the coloured actress will stand forth +as the championess of her race, of all who are oppressed, in every +capital in Europe, save, alas! Italy and the Austria who crushes her. +I have taken, I should tell you, an Italian name. It was better, I +thought, to hide my African taint, forsooth, for awhile. So the wise +New Yorkers have been feting, as Maria Cordifiamma, the white woman +(for am I not fairer than many an Italian signora?), whom they +would have looked upon as an inferior being under the name of Marie +Lavington: though there is finer old English blood running in +my veins, from your native Berkshire, they say, than in any a +Down-Easter's who hangs upon my lips. Address me henceforth, then, as +La Signora Maria Cordifiamma. I am learning fast, by the by, to speak +Italian. I shall be at Quebec till the end of the month. Then, I +believe, I come to London; and we shall meet once more: and I shall +thank you, thank you, thank you, once more, for all your marvellous +kindness." + +"Humph!" said Tom, after a while. "Well, she is old enough to choose +for herself. Five-and-twenty she must be by now.... As for the stage, +I suppose it is the best place for her; better, at least, than turning +governess, and going mad, as she would do, over her drudgery and +her dreams. But who is this friend? Singing-master, scribbler, or +political refugee? or perhaps all three together? A dark lot, those +fellows. I must keep my eye on him; though it's no concern of mine. +I've done my duty by the poor thing; the devil himself can't deny +that. But, somehow, if this play-writing worthy plays her false, I +feel very much as if I should be fool enough to try whether I have +forgotten my pistol-shooting." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE. + + +"This child's head is dreadfully hot; and how yellow he does look!" +says Mrs. Vavasour, fussing about in her little nursery. "Oh, Clara, +what shall I do? I really dare not give them any more medicine myself; +and that horrid old Doctor Heale is worse than no one." + +"Ah, ma'am," says Clara, who is privileged to bemoan herself, and to +have sad confidences made to her, "if we were but in town now, to see +Mr. Chilvers, or any one that could be trusted; but in this dreadful +out-of-the-way place--" + +"Don't talk of it, Clara! Oh, what will become of the poor children?" +And Mrs. Vavasour sits down and cries, as she does three times at +least every week. + +"But indeed, ma'am, if you thought you could trust him, there is that +new assistant--" + +"The man who was saved from the wreck? Why, nobody knows who he is." + +"Oh, but indeed, ma'am, he is a very nice gentleman, I can say that; +and so wonderfully clever; and has cured so many people already, they +say, and got down a lot of new medicines (for he has great friends +among the doctors in town), and such a wonderful magnifying glass, +with which he showed me himself, as I dropped into the shop +promiscuous, such horrible things, ma'am, in a drop of water, that I +haven't dared hardly to wash my face since." + +"And what good will the magnifying glass do to us?" says the poor +little Irish soul, laughing up through its tears. "He won't want it +to see how ill poor Frederick is, I'm sure; but you may send for him, +Clara." + +"I'll go myself, ma'am, and make sure," says Clara; glad enough of a +run, and chance of a chat with the young Doctor. + +And in half an hour Mr. Thurnall is announced. + +Though Mrs. Vavasour has a flannel apron on (for she will wash the +children herself, in spite of Elsley's grumblings), Tom sees that she +is a lady; and puts on, accordingly, his very best manner, which, as +his experience has long since taught him, is no manner at all. + +He does his work quietly and kindly, and bows himself out. + +"You will be sure to send the medicine immediately, Mr. Thurnall." + +"I will bring it myself, madam; and, if you like, administer it. +I think the young gentleman has made friends with me sufficiently +already." + +Tom keeps his word, and is back, and away again to his shop, in a +marvellously short space, having "struck a fresh root," as he calls +it; for-- + +"What a very well-behaved sensible man that Mr. Thurnall is," says +Lucia to Elsley, an hour after, as she meets him coming in from +the garden, where he has been polishing his "Wreck." "I am sure he +understands his business; he was so kind and quiet, and yet so ready, +and seemed to know all the child's symptoms beforehand, in such a +strange way. I do hope he'll stay here. I feel happier about the poor +children than I have for a long time." + +"Thurnall?" asks Elsley, who is too absorbed in the "Wreck" to ask +after the children; but the name catches his ear. + +"Mr. Heale's new assistant--the man who was wrecked," answers she, +too absorbed, in her turn, in the children to notice her husband's +startled face. + +"Thurnall? Which Thurnall?" + +"Do you know the name? It's not a common one," says she, moving to the +door. + +"No--not a common one at all! You said the children were not well?" + +"I am glad that you thought of asking after the poor things." + +"Why, really, my dear--" But before he can finish his excuse (probably +not worth hearing), she has trotted up-stairs again to the nest, and +is as busy as ever. Possibly Clara might do the greater part of what +she does, and do it better: but still, are they not her children? Let +those who will call a mother's care mere animal instinct, and liken it +to that of the sparrow or the spider: shall we not rather call it a +Divine inspiration, and doubt whether the sparrow and the spider must +not have souls to be saved, if they, too, show forth that faculty of +maternal love which is, of all human feelings, most inexplicable and +most self-sacrificing; and therefore, surely, most heavenly? If that +does not come down straight from heaven, a "good and perfect gift," +then what is heaven, and what the gifts which it sends down? + +But poor Elsley may have had solid reasons for thinking more of the +name of Thurnall than of his children's health: we will hope so for +his sake; for, after sundry melodramatic pacings and starts (Elsley +was of a melodramatic turn, and fond of a scene, even when he had no +spectator, not even a looking-glass;) besides ejaculations of "It +cannot be!" "If it were!" "I trust not!" "A fresh ghost to torment +me!" "When will come the end of this accursed coil which I have wound +round my life?" and so forth, he decided aloud that the suspense was +intolerable; and enclosing himself in his poetical cloak and Mazzini +wide-awake, strode down to the town, and into the shop. And as he +entered it, "his heart sank to his midriff, and his knees below were +loosed." For there, making up pills, in a pair of brown holland +sleeves of his own manufacture (for Tom was a good seamster, as all +travellers should be), whistled Lilliburlero, as of old, the Tom of +other days, which Elsley's muse would fain have buried in a thousand +Lethes. + +Elsley came forward to the counter carelessly, nevertheless, after a +moment. "What with my beard, and the lapse of time," thought he, "he +cannot know me." So he spoke,-- + +"I understand you have been visiting my children, sir. I hope you did +not find them seriously indisposed?" + +"Mr. Vavasour?" says Tom, with a low bow. + +"I am Mr. Vavasour!" But Elsley was a bad actor, and hesitated and +coloured so much as he spoke, that if Tom had known nothing, he might +have guessed something. + +"Nothing serious, I assure you, sir: unless you are come to announce +any fresh symptom." + +"Oh, no--not at all--that is--I was passing on my way to the quay, and +thought it as well to have your own assurance; Mrs. Vavasour is so +over-anxious." + +"You seem to partake of her infirmity, sir," says Tom, with a smile +and a bow. "However, it is one which does you both honour." + +An awkward pause. + +"I hope I am not taking a liberty, sir; but I think I am bound to--" + +"What in heaven is he going to say?" thought Elsley to himself, +feeling very much inclined to run away. + +"Thank you for all the pleasure and instruction which your writings +have given me in lonely hours, and lonely places too. Your first +volume of poems has been read by one man, at least, beside wild +watchfires in the Rocky Mountains." + +Tom did not say that he pitched the said volume into the river in +disgust; and that it was, probably, long since used up as house +material by the caddis-baits of those parts,--for doubtless there are +caddises there as elsewhere. + +Poor Elsley rose at the bait, and smiled and bowed in silence. + +"I have been so long absent from England, and in utterly wild +countries, too, that I need hardly be ashamed to ask if you have +written anything since 'The Soul's Agonies'? No doubt if you have, I +might have found it at Melbourne, on my way home: but my visit there +was a very hurried one. However, the loss is mine, and the fault too, +as I ought to call it." + +"Pray make no excuses," says Elsley, delighted. "I have written, of +course. Who can help writing, sir, while Nature is so glorious, and +man so wretched? One cannot but take refuge from the pettiness of the +real in the contemplation of the ideal. Yes, I have written. I will +send you my last book down. I don't know whether you will find me +improved." + +"How can I doubt that I shall?" + +"Saddened, perhaps; perhaps more severe in my taste; but we will not +talk of that. I owe you a debt, sir, for having furnished me with +one of the most striking 'motifs' I ever had. I mean that miraculous +escape of yours. It is seldom enough, in this dull every-day world, +one stumbles on such an incident ready made to one's hands, and +needing only to be described as one sees it." + +And the weak, vain man chatted on, and ended by telling Tom all about +his poem of "The Wreck," in a tone which seemed to imply that he had +done Tom a serious favour, perhaps raised him to immortality, by +putting him in a book. + +Tom thanked him gravely for the said honour, bowed him at last out of +the shop, and then vaulted back clean over the counter, as soon as +Elsley was out of sight, and commenced an Indian war-dance of frantic +character, accompanying himself by an extemporary chaunt, with which +the name of John Briggs was frequently intermingled;-- + + "If I don't know you, Johnny, my boy, + In spite of all your beard; + Why then I am a slower fellow, + Than ever has yet appeared, + +"Oh if it was but he! what a card for me! What a world it is for poor +honest rascals like me to try a fall with!-- + + "Why didn't I take bad verse to make, + And call it poetry; + And so make up to an earl's daughter, + Which was of high degree? + +"But perhaps I am wrong after all: no--I saw he knew me, the humbug; +though he never was a humbug, never rose above the rank of fool. +However, I'll make assurance doubly sure, and then,--if it pays me not +to tell him I know him, I won't tell him; and if it pays me to tell +him, I will tell him. Just as you choose, my good Mr. Poet." And Tom +returned to his work, singing an extempore parody of "We met, 'twas in +a crowd," ending with-- + + "And thou art the cause of this anguish, my pill-box," + +in a howl so doleful, that Mrs. Heale marched into the shop, evidently +making up her mind for an explosion. + +"I am very sorry, sir, to have to speak to you upon such a subject, +but I must say, that the profane songs, sir, which our house is not at +all accustomed to them; not to mention that at your time of life, and +in your position, sir, as my husband's assistant, though there's no +saying (with a meaning toss of the head) how long it may last,"--and +there, her grammar having got into a hopeless knot, she stopped. + +Tom looked at her cheerfully and fixedly. "I had been expecting this," +said he to himself. "Better show the old cat at once that I carry +claws as well as she." + +"There _is_ saying, madam, humbly begging your pardon, how long my +present engagement will last. It will last just as long as I like." + +Mrs. Heale boiled over with rage: but ere the geyser could explode, +Tom had continued in that dogged, nasal Yankee twang which he assumed +when he was venomous: + +"As for the songs, ma'am, there are two ways of making oneself happy +in this life; you can judge for yourself which is best. One is to do +one's work like a man, and hum a tune, to keep one's spirits up; the +other is to let the work go to rack and ruin, and keep one's spirits +up, if one is a gentleman, by a little too much brandy;--if one is a +lady, by a little too much laudanum." + +"Laudanum, sir?" almost screamed Mrs. Heale, turning pale as death. + +"The pint bottle of best laudanum, which I had from town a fortnight +ago, ma'am, is now nearly empty, ma'am. I will make affidavit that I +have not used a hundred drops, or drunk one. I suppose it was the cat. +Cats have queer tastes in the west, I believe. I have heard the cat +coming down stairs into the surgery, once or twice after I was in bed; +so I set my door ajar a little, and saw her come up again: but whether +she had a vial in her paws--" + +"Oh, sir!" says Mrs. Heale, bursting into tears. "And after the +dreadful toothache which I have had this fortnight, which nothing but +a little laudanum would ease it; and at my time of life, to mock a +poor elderly lady's infirmities, which I did not look for this cruelty +and outrage!" + +"Dry your tears, my dear madam," says Tom, in his most winning tone. +"You will always find me the thorough gentleman, I am sure. If I had +not been one, it would have been easy enough for me, with my powerful +London connections,--though I won't boast,--to set up in opposition to +your good husband, instead of saving him labour in his good old age. +Only, my dear madam, how shall I get the laudanum-bottle refilled +without the doctor's--you understand?" + +The wretched old woman hurried upstairs, and brought him down a +half-sovereign out of her private hoard, trembling like an aspen leaf, +and departed. + +"So--scotched, but not killed. You'll gossip and lie too. Never +trust a laudanum-drinker. You'll see me, by the eye of imagination, +committing all the seven deadly sins; and by the tongue of inspiration +go forth and proclaim the same at the town-head. I can't kill you, and +I can't cure you, so I must endure you. What said old Goethe, in all +the German I ever cared to recollect:-- + + "'Der Wallfisch hat doch seine Laus; + Muss auch die meine haben.' + +"Now, then, for Mrs. Penberthy's draughts. I wonder how that pretty +schoolmistress goes on. If she were but honest, now, and had fifty +thousand pounds--why then, she wouldn't marry me; and so why now, I +wouldn't marry she,--as my native Berkshire grammar would render it." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LA CORDIFIAMMA. + + +This chapter shall begin, good reader, with one of those startling +bursts of "illustration," with which our most popular preachers are +wont now to astonish and edify their hearers, and after starting with +them at the opening of the sermon from the north-pole, the Crystal +Palace, or the nearest cabbage-garden, float them safe, upon the +gushing stream of oratory, to the safe and well-known shores of +doctrinal commonplace, lost in admiration at the skill of the good man +who can thus make all roads lead, if not to heaven, at least to strong +language about its opposite. True, the logical sequence of their +periods may be, like that of the coming one, somewhat questionable, +reminding one at moments of Fluellen's comparison between Macedon and +Monmouth, Henry the Fifth and Alexander: but, in the logic of the +pulpit, all's well that ends well, and the end must needs sanctify +the means. There is, of course, some connection or other between all +things in heaven and earth, or how would the universe hold together? +And if one has not time to find out the true connection, what is left +but to invent the best one can for oneself? Thus argues, probably, +the popular preacher, and fills his pews, proving thereby clearly the +excellence of his method. So argue also, probably, the popular poets, +to whose "luxuriant fancy" everything suggests anything, and thought +plays leap-frog with thought down one page and up the next, till +one fancies at moments that they had got permission from the higher +powers, before looking at the universe, to stir it all up a few times +with a spoon. It is notorious, of course, that poets and preachers +alike pride themselves upon this method of astonishing; that +the former call it, "seeing the infinite in the finite;" the +latter--"pressing secular matters into the service of the sanctuary," +and other pretty phrases which, for reverence' sake, shall be omitted. +No doubt they have their reasons and their reward. The style takes; +the style pays; and what more would you have? Let them go on +rejoicing, in spite of the cynical pedants in the Saturday Review, who +dare to accuse (will it be believed?) these luminaries of the age +of talking merely irreverent nonsense. Meanwhile, so evident is the +success (sole test of merit) which has attended the new method, that +it is worth while trying whether it will not be as taking in the novel +as it is in the chapel; and therefore the reader is requested to pay +special attention to the following paragraph, modelled carefully after +the exordiums of a famous Irish preacher, now drawing crowded houses +at the West End of Town. As thus;--"It is the pleasant month of May, +when, as in old Chaucer's time, the-- + + "Smale foules maken melodie, + That slepen alle night with open eye + So priketh hem nature in their corages. + Then longen folk to goe on pilgrimages, + And specially from every shire's end + Of Englelond, to Exeter-hall they wend," + +till the low places of the Strand blossom with white cravats, those +lilies of the valley, types of meekness and humility, at least in the +pious palmer--and why not of similar virtues in the undertaker, the +concert-singer, the groom, the tavern-waiter, the croupier at +the gaming-table, and Frederick Augustus Lord Scoutbush, who, +white-cravated like the rest, is just getting into his cab at the door +of the Never-mind-what Theatre, to spend an hour at Kensington before +sauntering in to Lady M----'s ball? + +Why not, I ask, at least in the case of little Scoutbush? For +Guardsman though he be, coming from a theatre and going to a ball, +there is meekness and humility in him at this moment, as well as in +the average of the white-cravated gentlemen who trotted along that +same pavement about eleven o'clock this forenoon. Why should not his +white cravat, like theirs, be held symbolic of that fact? However, +Scoutbush belongs rather to the former than the latter of Chaucer's +categories; for a "smale foule" he is, a little bird-like fellow, who +maketh melodie also, and warbles like a cock-robin; we cannot liken +him to any more dignified songster. Moreover, he will sleep all night +with open eye; for he will not be in bed till five to-morrow morning; +and pricked he is, and that sorely, in his courage; for he is as much +in love as his little nature can be, with the new actress, La Signora +Cordifiamma, of the Never-mind-what Theatre. + +How exquisitely, now (for this is one of the rare occasions in which +a man is permitted to praise himself), is established hereby an +unexpected bond of linked sweetness long drawn out between things +which had, ere they came beneath the magic touch of genius, no more +to do with each other than this book has with the Stock Exchange. Who +would have dreamed of travelling from the Tabard in Southwark to the +last new singer, _viâ_ Exeter-hall and the lilies of the valley, and +touching en passant on to cardinal virtues and an Irish Viscount? But +see; given only a little impudence, and less logic, and hey presto! +the thing is done; and all that remains to be done is to dilate (as +the Rev. Dionysius O'Blareaway would do at this stage of the process) +upon the moral question which has been so cunningly raised, and to +inquire, firstly,--how the virtues of meekness and humility could be +predicated of Frederick Augustus St. Just, Viscount Scoutbush and +Baron Torytown, in the peerage of Ireland; and secondly,--how those +virtues were called into special action by his questionably wise +attachment to a new actress, to whom he had never spoken a word in his +life. + +First, then, "Little Freddy Scoutbush," as his compeers irreverently +termed him, was, by common consent of her Majesty's Guards, a "good +fellow." Whether the St. James' Street definition of that adjective +be the perfect one or not, we will not stay to inquire; but in the +Guards' club-house it meant this: that Scoutbush had not an enemy in +the world, because he deserved none; that he lent, and borrowed not; +gave, and asked not again; envied not; hustled not; slandered not; +never bore malice, never said a cruel word, never played a dirty +trick, would hear a fellow's troubles out to the end, and if he could +not counsel, at least would not laugh at them, and at all times and +in all places lived and let live, and was accordingly a general +favourite. His morality was neither better nor worse than the average +of his companions; but if he was sensual, he was at least not base; +and there were frail women who blessed "little Freddy," and his shy +and secret generosity, from having saved them from the lowest pit. + +_Au reste_, he was idle, frivolous, useless; but with these two +palliating facts, that he knew it and regretted it; and that he never +had a chance of being aught else. His father and mother had died when +he was a child. He had been sent to Eton at seven, where he learnt +nothing, and into the Guards at seventeen, where he learnt less than +nothing. His aunt, old Lady Knockdown, who was a kind old Irish woman, +an ex-blue and ex-beauty, now a high Evangelical professor, but as +worldly as her neighbours in practice, had tried to make him a good +boy in old times: but she had given him up, long before he left Eton, +as a "vessel of wrath" (which he certainly was, with his hot Irish +temper); and since then she had only spoken of him with moans, and to +him just as if he and she had made a compact to be as worldly as they +could, and as if the fact that he was going, as she used to tell +her private friends, straight to the wrong place, was to be utterly +ignored before the pressing reality of getting him and his sisters +well married. And so it befell, that Lady Knockdown, like many more, +having begun with too high (or at least precise) a spiritual standard, +was forced to end practically in having no standard at all; and that +for ten years of Scoutbush's life, neither she nor any other human +being had spoken to him as if he had a soul to be saved, or any duty +on earth save to eat, drink, and be merry. + +And all the while there was a quaint and pathetic consciousness in the +little man's heart that he was meant for something better; that he was +no fool, and was not intended to be one. He would thrust his head into +lectures at the Polytechnic and the British Institution, with a dim +endeavour to guess what they were all about, and a good-natured envy +of the clever fellows who knew about "science, and all that." He would +sit and listen, puzzled and admiring, to the talk of statesmen, and +confide his woe afterwards to some chum.--"Ah, if I had had the chance +now that my cousin Chalkclere has! If I had had two or three tutors, +and a good mother, too, keeping me in a coop, and cramming me with +learning, as they cram chickens for the market, I fancy I could have +shown my comb and hackles in the House as well as some of them. I +fancy I could make a speech in parliament now, with the help of a +little Irish impudence, if I only knew anything to speak about." + +So Scoutbush clung, in a childish way, to any superior man who would +take notice of him, and not treat him as the fribble which he seemed. +He had taken to that well-known artist, Claude Mellot, of late, simply +from admiration of his brilliant talk about art and poetry; and boldly +confessed that he preferred one of Mellot's orations on the sublime +and beautiful, though he didn't understand a word of them, to the +songs and jokes (very excellent ones in their way) of Mr. Hector +Harkaway, the distinguished Irish novelist, and boon companion of her +Majesty's Life Guards Green. His special intimate and Mentor, however, +was a certain Major Campbell, of whom more hereafter; who, however, +being a lofty-minded and perhaps somewhat Pharisaic person, made +heavier demands on Scoutbush's conscience than he had yet been able to +meet; for fully as he agreed that Hercules' choice between pleasure +and virtue was the right one, still he could not yet follow that +ancient hero along the thorny path, and confined his conception of +"duty" to the minimum guard and drill. He had estates in Ireland, +which had almost cleared themselves during his long minority, but +which, since the famine, had cost him about as much as they brought +him in; and estates in the West, which, with a Welsh slate-quarry, +brought him in some seven or eight thousand a-year; and so kept his +poor little head above water, to look pitifully round the universe, +longing for the life of him to make out what it all meant, and hoping +that somebody would come and tell him. + +So much for his meekness and humility in general; as for the +particular display of those virtues which he has shown to-day, it must +be understood that he has given a promise to Mrs. Mellot not to make +love to La Cordifiamma; and, on that only condition, has been allowed +to meet her to-night at one of Claude Mellot's petits soupers. + +La Cordifiamma has been staying, ever since she came to England, with +the Mellots in the wilds of Brompton; unapproachable there, as in all +other places. In public, she is a very Zenobia, who keeps all animals +of the other sex at an awful distance; and of the fifty young puppies +who are raving about her beauty, her air, and her voice, not one has +obtained an introduction; while Claude, whose studio used to be a +favourite lounge of young Guardsmen, has, as civilly as he can, closed +his doors to those magnificent personages ever since the new singer +became his guest. + +Claude Mellot seems to have come into a fortune of late years, large +enough, at least, for his few wants. He paints no longer, save when he +chooses; and has taken a little old house in one of those back lanes +of Brompton, where islands of primaeval nursery garden still remain +undevoured by the advancing surges of the brick and mortar deluge. +There he lives, happy in a green lawn, and windows opening thereon; +in three elms, a cork, an ilex, and a mulberry, with a great standard +pear, for flower and foliage the queen of all suburban trees. There he +lies on the lawn, upon strange skins, the summer's day, playing with +cats and dogs, and making love to his Sabina, who has not lost +her beauty in the least, though she is on the wrong side of +five-and-thirty. He deludes himself, too, into the belief that he is +doing something, because he is writing a treatise on the "Principles +of Beauty;" which will be published, probably, about the time the +Thames is purified, in the season of Latter Lammas and the Greek +Kalends; and the more certainly so, because he has wandered into the +abyss of conic sections and curves of double curvature, of which, if +the truth must be spoken, he knows no more than his friends of the +Life Guards Green. + +To this charming little nest has Lord Scoutbush procured an evening's +admission after abject supplication to Sabina, who pets him because he +is musical, and solemn promises neither to talk or look any manner of +foolishness. + +"My dearest Mrs. Mellot," says the poor wretch, "I will be good, +indeed I will; I will not even speak to her. Only let me sit and +look,--and--and--why, I thought you understood all about such things, +and could pity a poor fellow who was spoony." + +And Sabina, who prides herself much on understanding such things, +and on having, indeed, reduced them to a science in which she +gives gratuitous lessons to all young gentlemen and ladies of her +acquaintance, receives him pityingly, in that delicious little back +drawing-room, whither whosoever enters is in no hurry to go out again. + +Claude's house is arranged with his usual defiance of all +conventionalities. Dining or drawing-room proper there is none; the +large front room is the studio, where he and Sabina eat and drink, as +well as work and paint but out of it opens a little room, the walls of +which are so covered with gems of art (where the rogue finds money to +buy them is a puzzle), that the eye can turn nowhere without taking +in some new beauty, and wandering on from picture to statue, from +portrait to landscape, dreaming and learning afresh after every +glance. At the back, a glass bay has been thrown out, and forms a +little conservatory, for ever fresh and gay with tropic ferns and +flowers; gaudy orchids dangle from the roof, creepers hide the +framework, and you hardly see where the room ends, and the +winter-garden begins; and in the centre an ottoman invites you +to lounge. It costs Claude money, doubtless; but he has his +excuse,--"Having once seen the tropics, I cannot live without some +love-tokens from their lost paradises; and which is the wiser plan, to +spend money on a horse and brougham, which we don't care to use, and +on scrambling into society at the price of one great stupid party a +year, or to make our little world as pretty as we can, and let those +who wish to see us, take us as they find us?" + +In this "nest," as Claude and Sabina call it, sacred to the +everlasting billing and cooing of that sweet little pair of human +love-birds who have built it, was supper set. La Cordifiamma, all the +more beautiful from the languor produced by the excitement of acting, +lay upon a sofa; Claude attended, talking earnestly; Sabina, according +to her custom, was fluttering in and out, and arranging supper with +her own hands; both husband and wife were as busy as bees; and yet any +one accustomed to watch the little ins and outs of married life, could +have seen that neither forgot for a moment that the other was in the +room, but basked and purred, like two blissful cats, each in the +sunshine of the other's presence; and he could have seen, too, that La +Cordifiamma was divining their thoughts, and studying all their little +expressions, perhaps that she might use them on the stage; perhaps, +too, happy in sympathy with their happiness: and yet there was a shade +of sadness on her forehead. + +Scoutbush enters, is introduced, and receives a salutation from the +actress haughty and cold enough to check the forwardest; puts on the +air of languid nonchalance which is considered (or was before the +little experiences of the Crimea) fit and proper for young gentlemen +of rank and fashion. So he sits down, and feasts his foolish eyes upon +his idol, hoping for a few words before the evening is over. Did I not +say well, then, that there was as much meekness and humility under +Scoutbush's white cravat as under others? But his little joy is +soon dashed; for the black boy announces (seemingly much to his own +pleasure) a tall personage, whom, from his dress and his moustachio, +Scoutbush takes for a Frenchman, till he hears him called Stangrave. +The intruder is introduced to Lord Scoutbush, which ceremony is +consummated by a microscopic nod on either side; he then walks +straight up to La Cordifiamma; and Scoutbush sees her cheeks flush as +he does so. He takes her hand, speaks to her in a low voice, and sits +down by her, Claude making room for him; and the two engage earnestly +in conversation. + +Scoutbush is much inclined to walk out of the room;--was he brought +there to see that? Of course, however, he sits still, keeps his own +counsel, and makes himself agreeable enough all the evening, like a +good-natured kind-hearted little man, as he is. Whereby he is repaid; +for the conversation soon becomes deep, and even too deep for him; and +he is fain to drop out of the race, and leave it to his idol and to +the new-comer, who seems to have seen, and done, and read everything +in heaven and earth, and probably bought everything also; not to +mention that he would be happy to sell the said universe again, at a +very cheap price, if any one would kindly take it off his hands. Not +that he boasts, or takes any undue share of the conversation; he +is evidently too well bred for that; but every sentence shows an +acquaintance with facts of which Eton has told Scoutbush nothing, the +barrack-room less, and after which he still craves, the good little +fellow, in a very honest way, and would soon have learnt, had he had a +chance; for of native Irish smartness he had no lack. + +"Poor Flake was half mad about you, Signora, in the stage-box +to-night," said Sabina. "He says that he shall not sleep till he has +painted you." + +"Do let him!" cried Scoutbush: "what a picture he will make!" + +"He may paint a picture, but not me; it is quite enough, Lord +Scoutbush, to be some one else for two hours every night, without +going down to posterity, as some one else for ever. If I am painted, I +will be painted by no one who cannot represent my very self." + +"You are right!" said Stangrave: "and you will do the man himself good +by refusing; he has some notion still of what a portrait ought to be. +If he once begins by attempting passing expressions of passion, which +is all stage portraits can give, he will find them so much easier than +honest representations of character, that he will end, where all our +moderns seem to do, in merest melodrama." + +"Explain!" said she. + +"Portrait painters now depend for their effect on the mere accidents +of the _entourage_; on dress, on landscape, even on broad hints of a +man's occupation, putting a plan on the engineer's table, and a roll +in the statesman's hands, like the old Greek who wrote 'this is an ox' +under his picture. If they wish to give the face expression, though +they seldom aim so high, all they can compass is a passing emotion; +and one sitter goes down to posterity with an eternal frown, another +with an eternal smile." + +"Or, if he be a poet," said Sabina, "rolls his eye for ever in a fine +frenzy." + +"But would you forbid them to paint passion?" + +"Not in its place; when the picture gives the causes of the passion, +and the scene tells its own story. But then let us not have merely +Kean as Hamlet, but Hamlet's self; let the painter sit down and +conceive for himself a Hamlet, such as Shakspeare conceived; not +merely give us as much of him as could be pressed at a given moment +into the face of Mr. Kean. He will be only unjust to both actor and +character. If Flake paints Marie as Lady Macbeth, he will give us +neither her nor Lady Macbeth; but only the single point at which their +two characters can coincide." + +"How rude!" said Sabina, laughing; "what is he doing but hinting +that La Signora's conception of Lady Macbeth is a very partial and +imperfect one?" + +"And why should it not be?" asked the actress, humbly enough. + +"I meant," he answered warmly, "that there was more, far more in her +than in any character which she assumes; and I do not want a painter +to copy only one aspect, and let a part go down to posterity as a +representation of the whole." + +"If you mean that, you shall be forgiven. No; when she is painted, she +shall be painted as herself, as she is now. Claude shall paint her." + +"I have not known La Signora long enough," said Claude, "to aspire to +such an honour. I paint no face which I have not studied for a year." + +"Faith!" said Scoutbush, "you would find no more in most faces at the +year's end, than you did the first day." + +"Then I would not paint them. If I paint a portrait, which I seldom +do, I wish to make it such a one as the old masters aimed at,--to give +the sum total of the whole character; traces of every emotion, if it +were possible, and glances of every expression which have passed over +it since it was born into the world. They are all here, the whole past +and future of the man; and every man, as the Mohammedans say, carries +his destiny on his forehead." + +"But who has eyes to see it?" + +"The old masters had; some of them at least. Raphael had; Sebastian +del Piombo had; and Titian, and Giorgione. There are portraits painted +by them which carry a whole life-history concentrated into one +moment." + +"But they," said Stangrave, "are the portraits of men such as they saw +around them; natures who were strong for good and evil, who were not +ashamed to show their strength. Where will a painter find such among +the poor, thin, unable mortals who come to him to buy immortality at +a hundred and fifty guineas apiece, after having spent their lives in +religiously rubbing off their angles against each other, and forming +their characters, as you form shot, by shaking them together in a bag +till they have polished each other into dullest uniformity?" + +"It's very true," said Scoutbush, who suffered much at times from a +certain wild Irish vein, which stirred him up to kick over the traces. +"People are horribly like each other; and if a poor fellow is bored, +and tries to do anything spicy or original, he has half-a-dozen people +pooh-poohing him down on the score of bad taste." + +"Men can be just as original now as ever," said La Signora, "if they +had but the courage, even the insight. Heroic souls in old times had +no more opportunities than we have: but they used them. There were +daring deeds to be done then--are there none now? Sacrifices to be +made--are there none now? Wrongs to be redressed--are there none now? +Let any one set his heart, in these days, to do what is right, and +nothing else; and it will not be long ere his brow is stamped with all +that goes to make up the heroical expression--with noble indignation, +noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows; perhaps, even, with +the print of the martyr's crown of thorns." + +She looked at Stangrave as she spoke, with an expression which +Scoutbush tried in vain to read. The American made no answer, and +seemed to hang his head awhile. After a minute he said tenderly:-- + +"You will tire yourself if you talk thus, after the evening's fatigue. +Mrs. Mellot will sing to us, and give us leisure to think over our +lesson." + +And Sabina sang; and then Lord Scoutbush was made to sing; and sang +his best, no doubt. + +So the evening slipt on, till it was past eleven o'clock, and +Stangrave rose. "And now," said he, "I must go to Lady M----'s ball; +and Marie must rest." + +As he went, he just leaned over La Cordifiamma. + +"Shall I come in to-morrow morning? We ought to read over that scene +together before the rehearsal." + +"Early then, or Sabina will be gone out; and she must play soubrette +to our hero and heroine." + +"You will rest? Mrs. Mellot, you will see that she does not sit up." + +"It is not very polite to rob us of her, as soon as you cannot enjoy +her yourself." + +"I must take care of people who do not take care of themselves;" and +Stangrave departed. + +Great was Scoutbush's wrath when he saw Marie rise and obey orders. +"Who was this man? what right had he to command her?" + +He asked as much of Sabina the moment La Cordifiamma had retired. + +"Are you not going to Lady M---- 's, too?" + +"No; that is, I won't go yet; not till you have explained all this to +me." + +"Explained what?" asked Sabina, looking as demure as a little brown +mouse. + +"Why, what did you ask me here for?" + +"Lord Scoutbush should recollect that he asked himself." + +"You cruel venomous creature! do you think I would have come, if I had +known that I was to see another man making love to her before my very +eyes? I could kill the fellow;--who is he?" + +"A New York merchant, unworthy of your aristocratic powder and ball." + +"The confounded Yankee!" muttered Scoutbush. + +"If people swear in my house, I fine them a dozen of kid gloves. Did +you not promise me that you would not make love to her yourself?" + +"Well--but, it is too cruel of you, before my very eyes." + +"I saw no love-making to-night." + +"None? Were you blind?" + +"Not in the least; but you cannot well see a thing making which has +been made long ago." + +"What! Is he her husband?" + +"No." + +"Engaged to her?" + +"No." + +"What then!" + +"Don't you know already that this is a house of mystery, full of +mysterious people? I tell you this only, that if she ever marries any +one, she will marry him; and that if I can, I will make her." + +"Then you are my enemy after all." + +"I! Do you think that Sabina Mellot can see a young viscount loose +upon the universe, without trying to make up a match for him? No; I +have such a prize for you,--young, handsome, better educated than any +woman whom you will meet to-night. True, she is a Manchester girl: but +then she has eighty thousand pounds." + +"Eighty thousand nonsense? I'd sooner have that divine creature +without a penny, than--" + +"And would my lord viscount so far debase himself as to marry an +actress?" + +"Humph! Faith, my grandmother was an actress; and we St. Justs are +none the worse for that fact, as far as I can see,--and certainly none +the uglier--the women at least. Oh Sabina--Mrs. Mellot, I mean--only +help me this once!" + +"This once? Do you intend to marry by my assistance this time, and by +your own the next? How many viscountesses are there to be?" + +"Don't laugh at me, you cruel woman: you don't know; you fancy that +I am not in love--" and the poor fellow began pouring out these +commonplaces, which one has heard too often to take the trouble of +repeating, and yet which are real enough, and pathetic too; for in +every man, however frivolous, or even worthless, love calls up to the +surface the real heroism, the real depth of character--all the more +deep because common to poet and philosopher, guardsman and country +clod. + +"I'll leave town to-morrow. I'll go to the Land's-end,--to Norway,--to +Africa--" + +"And forget her in the bliss of lion-hunting." + +"Don't, I tell you; here I will not stay to be driven mad. To think +that she is here, and that hateful Yankee at her elbow. I'll go--" + +"To Lady M----'s ball?" + +"No, confound it; to meet that fellow there! I should quarrel +with him, as sure as there is hot Irish blood in my veins. The +self-satisfied puppy! to be flirting and strutting there, while such a +creature as that is lying thinking of him." + +"Would you have him shut himself up in his hotel, and write poetry; or +walk the streets all night, sighing at the moon?" + +"No; but the cool way in which he went off himself, and sent her to +bed. Confound him! commanding her. It made my blood boil." + +"Claude, get Lord Scoutbush some iced soda-water." + +"If you laugh at me, I'll never speak to you again." + +"Or buy any of Claude's pictures?" + +"Why do you torment me so? I'll go, I say,--leave town +to-morrow,--only I can't with this horrid depot work! What shall I do? +It's too cruel of you, while Campbell is away in Ireland, too; and I +have not a soul but you to ask advice of, for Valencia is as great a +goose as I am;" and the poor little fellow buried his hands in his +curls, and stared fiercely into the fire, as if to draw from thence +omens of his love, by the spodomantic augury of the ancient Greeks; +while Sabina tripped up and down the room, putting things to rights +for the night, and enjoying his torments as a cat does those of the +mouse between her paws; and yet not out of spite, but from pure and +simple fun. + +Sabina is one of those charming bodies who knows everybody's business, +and manages it. She lives in a world of intrigue, but without a +thought of intriguing for her own benefit. She has always a match +to make, a disconsolate lover to comfort, a young artist to bring +forward, a refugee to conceal, a spendthrift to get out of a scrape; +and, like David in the mountains, "every one that is discontented, and +every one that is in debt, gather themselves to her." The strangest +people, on the strangest errands, run over each other in that cosy +little nest of hers. Fine ladies with over-full hearts, and seedy +gentlemen with over-empty pockets, jostle each other at her door; and +she has a smile, and a repartee, and good, cunning, practical wisdom +for each and every one of them, and then dismisses them to bill and +coo with Claude, and laugh over everybody and everything. The only +price which she demands for her services is, to be allowed to laugh; +and if that be permitted, she will be as busy, and earnest, and +tender, as Saint Elizabeth herself. "I have no children of my own," +she says, "so I just make everybody my children, Claude included; and +play with them, and laugh at them, and pet them, and help them out of +their scrapes, just as I should if they were in my own nursery." And +so it befalls that she is every one's confidant; and though every one +seems on the point of taking liberties with her, yet no one does: +partly because they are in her power, and partly because, like an +Eastern sultana, she carries a poniard, and can use it, though only in +self-defence. So if great people, or small people either (who can give +themselves airs as well as their betters), take her plain speaking +unkindly, she just speaks a little more plainly, once for all, and +goes off smiling to some one else; as a hummingbird, if a flower has +no honey in it, whirs away, with a saucy flirt of its pretty little +tail, to the next branch on the bush. + +"I must know more of this American," said Scoutbush, at last. + +"Well, he would be very improving company for you; and I know you like +improving company." + +"I mean--what has he to do with her?" + +"That is just what I will not tell you. One thing I will tell you, +though, for it may help to quench any vain hopes on your part; and +that is, the reason which she gives for not marrying him." + +"Well?" + +"Because he is an idler." + +"What would she say of me, then?" groaned Scoutbush. + +"Very true; for, you must understand, this Mr. Stangrave is not what +you or I should call an idle man. He has travelled over half the world +and made the best use of his eyes. He has filled his house in New +York, they say, with gems of art gathered from every country in +Europe. He is a finished scholar; talks half-a-dozen different +languages, sings, draws, writes poetry, reads hard every day, at every +subject, from gardening to German metaphysics--altogether, one of the +most highly cultivated men I know, and quite an Admirable Crichton in +his way." + +"Then why does she call him an idler?" + +"Because, she says, he has no great purpose in life. She will marry +no one who will not devote himself, and all he has, to some great, +chivalrous, heroic enterprise; whose one object is to be of use, even +if he has to sacrifice his life to it. She says that there must be +such men still left in the world; and that if she finds one, him she +will marry, and no one else." + +"Why, there are none such to be found now-a-days, I thought?" + +"You heard what she herself said on that very point." + +There was a silence for a minute or two. Scout-bush had heard, and was +pondering it in his heart. At last,-- + +"I am not cut out for a hero; so I suppose I must give her up. But I +wish sometimes I could be of use, Mrs. Mellot: but what can a fellow +do?" + +"I thought there was an Irish tenantry to be looked after, my lord, +and a Cornish tenantry too." + +"That's what Campbell is always saying: but what more can I do than I +do? As for those poor Paddies, I never ask them for rent; if I did, I +should not get it; so there is no generosity in that. And as for the +Aberalva people, they have got on very well without me for twenty +years; and I don't know them, nor what they want; nor even if they do +want anything, except fish enough, and I can't put more fish into the +sea, Mrs. Mellot!" + +"Try and be a good soldier, then," said she, laughing. "Why should not +Lord Scoutbush emulate his illustrious countryman, conquer at a second +Waterloo, and die a duke?" + +"I'm not cut out for a general, I am afraid; but if--I don't say if I +could marry that woman--I suppose it would be a foolish thing--though +I shall break my heart, I believe, if I do not. Oh, Mrs. Mellot, you +cannot tell what a fool I have made myself about her; and I cannot +help it! It's not her beauty merely; but there is something so noble +in her face, like one of those Greek goddesses Claude talks of; +and when she is acting, if she has to say anything grand, or +generous--or--you know the sort of thing,--she brings it out with such +a voice, and such a look, from the very bottom of her heart,--it makes +me shudder; just as she did when she told that Yankee, that every one +could be a hero, or a martyr, if he chose. Mrs. Mellot, I am sure she +is one, or she could not look and speak as she does." + +"She is one!" said Sabina; "a heroine, and a martyr too." + +"If I could,--that was what I was going to say,--if I could but win +that woman's respect--as I live, I ask no more; only to be sure she +didn't despise me. I'd do--I don't know what I wouldn't do. I'd--I'd +study the art of war: I know there are books about it. I'd get out +to the East, away from this depôt work; and if there is no fighting +there, as every one says there will not be, I'd go into a marching +regiment, and see service. I'd,--hang it, if they'd have me,--I'd even +go to the senior department at Sandhurst, and read mathematics!" + +Sabina kept her countenance (though with difficulty) at this +magnificent bathos; for she saw that the little man was really in +earnest; and that the looks and words of the strange actress had +awakened in him something far deeper and nobler than the mere sensual +passion of a boy. + +"Ah, if I had but gone out to Varna with the rest! I thought myself a +lucky fellow to be left here." + +"Do you know that it is getting very late?" + +So Frederick Lord Scoutbush went home to his rooms: and there sat +for three hours and more with his feet on the fender, rejecting the +entreaties of Mr. Bowie, his servant, either to have something, or to +go to bed; yea, he forgot even to smoke, by which Mr. Bowie "jaloused" +that he was hit very hard indeed: but made no remark, being a +Scotchman, and of a cautious temperament. + +However, from that night Scoutbush was a changed man, and tried to be +so. He read of nothing but sieges and stockades, brigade evolutions, +and conical bullets; he drilled his men till he was an abomination in +their eyes, and a weariness to their flesh; only every evening he went +to the theatre, watched La Cordifiamma with a heavy heart, and then +went home to bed; for the little man had good sense enough to ask +Sabina for no more interviews with her. So in all things he acquitted +himself as a model officer, and excited the admiration and respect of +Serjeant Major MacArthur, who began fishing at Bowie to discover the +cause of this strange metamorphosis in the rackety little Irishman. + +"Your master seems to be qualifying himself for the adjutant's post, +Mr. Bowie. I'm jalousing he's fired with martial ardour since the war +broke out." + +To which Bowie, being a brother Scot, answered Scotticè, by a crafty +paralogism. + +"I've always held it as my opeeeenion, that his lordship is a youth of +very good parts, if he was only compelled to employ them." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +TAKING ROOT. + + +Whosoever enjoys the sight of an honest man doing his work well, +would have enjoyed the sight of Tom Thurnall for the next two months. +In-doors all the morning, and out of doors all the afternoon, was that +shrewd and good-natured visage, calling up an answering smile on every +face, and leaving every heart a little lighter than he found it. +Puzzling enough it was, alike to Heale and to Headley, how Tom +contrived, as if by magic, to gain every one's good word--their own +included. For Frank, in spite of Tom's questionable opinions, had +already made all but a confidant of the Doctor; and Heale, in spite +of envy and suspicion, could not deny that the young man was a very +valuable young man, if he wasn't given so much to those new-fangled +notions of the profession. + +By which term Heale indicated the, to him, astounding fact, that Tom +charged the patients as little, instead of as much as possible, and +applying to medicine the principles of an enlightened political +economy, tried to increase the demand by cheapening the supply. + +"Which is revolutionary doctrine, sir," said Heale to Lieutenant +Jones, over the brandy-and-water, "and just like what the Cobden +and Bright lot used to talk, and have been the ruin of British +agriculture, though don't say I said so, because of my Lord +Minchampstead. But, conceive my feelings, sir, as the father of a +family, who have my bread to earn, this very morning.--In comes old +Dame Penaluna (which is good pay I know, and has two hundred and more +out on a merchant brig) for something; and what was my feelings, sir, +to hear this young party deliver himself--'Well, ma'am,' says he, as I +am a living man, 'I can cure you, if you like, with a dozen bottles of +lotion, at eighteenpence a-piece; but if you'll take my advice, you'll +buy two pennyworth of alum down street, do what I tell you with it, +and cure yourself.' It's robbery, sir, I say, all these out-of-the-way +cheap dodges, which arn't in the pharmacopoeia, half of them; it's +unprofessional, sir--quackery." + +"Tell you what, Doctor, robbery or none, I'll go to him to-morrow, +d'ye see, if I live as long, for this old ailment of mine. I never +told you of it, old pill and potion, for fear of a swinging bill: but +just grinned and bore it, d'ye see." + +"There it is again," cries Heale in despair. "He'll ruin me." + +"No, he won't, and you know it." + +"What d'ye think he served me last week? A young chap comes in, +consumptive, he said, and I dare say he's right--he is uncommonly +'cute about what he calls diagnosis. Says he, 'You ought to try +Carrageen moss. It's an old drug, but it's a good one.' There was a +drawer full of it to his hand; had been lying there any time this ten +years: I go to open it; but what was my feelings when he goes on, as +cool as a cucumber--'And there's bushels of it here,' says he, 'on +every rock; so if you'll come down with me at low tide this afternoon, +I'll show you the trade, and tell you how to boil it.' I thought I +should have knocked him down." + +"But you didn't," said Jones, laughing in every muscle of his body. +"Tell you what, Doctor, you've got a treasure; he's just getting back +your custom, d'ye see, and when he's done that, he'll lay on the bills +sharp enough. Why, I hear he's up at Mrs. Vavasour's every day." + +"And not ten shillings' worth of medicine sent up to the house any +week." + +"He charges for his visits, I suppose." + +"Not he! If you'll believe me, when I asked him if he wasn't going +to, he says, says he, that Mrs. Vavasour's company was quite payment +enough for him." + +"Shows his good taste. Why, what now, Mary?" as the maid opens the +door. + +"Mr. Thurnall wants Mr. Heale." + +"Always wanting me," groans Heale, hugging his glass, "driving me +about like any negro slave. Tell him to come in." + +"Here, Doctor," says the Lieutenant, "I want you to prescribe for me, +if you'll do it gratis, d'ye see. Take some brandy and water." + +"Good advice costs nothing," says Tom, filling; "Mr. Heale, read that +letter." + +And the Lieutenant details his ailments, and their supposed cause, +till Heale has the pleasure of hearing Tom answer-- + +"Fiddlesticks! That's not what's the matter with you. I'll cure you +for half-a-crown, and toss you up double or quits. + +"Oh!" groans Heale, as he spells away over the letter,-- + +"Lord Minchampstead having been informed by Mr. Armsworth that Mr. +Thurnall is now in the neighbourhood of his estates of Pentremochyn, +would feel obliged to him at his earliest convenience to examine into +the sanitary state of the cottages thereon, which are said to be much +haunted by typhus and other epidemics, and to send him a detailed +report, indicating what he thinks necessary for making them thoroughly +healthy. Mr. Thurnall will be so good as to make his own charge." + +"Well, Mr. Thurnall, you ought to turn a good penny by this," said +Heale, half envious of Tom's connection, half contemptuous at his +supposed indifference to gain. + +"I'll charge what it's worth," said Tom. "Meanwhile, I hope you're +going to see Miss Beer to-night." + +"Couldn't you just go yourself, my dear sir? It is so late." + +"No; I never go near young women. I told you so at first, and I stick +to my rule. You'd better go, sir, on my word, or if she's dead before +morning, don't say it's my fault." + +"Did you ever hear a poor old man so tyrannised over?" said Heale, as +Tom coolly went into the passage, brought in the old man's great coat +and hat, arrayed him and marched him out, civilly, but firmly. + +"Now, Lieutenant, I've half an hour to spare; let's have a jolly chat +about the West Indies." + +And Tom began with anecdote and joke, and the old seaman laughed till +he cried, and went to bed vowing that there never was such a pleasant +fellow on earth, and he ought to be physician to Queen Victoria. + +Up at five the next morning, the indefatigable Tom had all his work +done by ten; and was preparing to start for Pentremochyn, ere Heale +was out of bed, when a customer came in who kept him half an hour. + +He was a tall broad-shouldered young man, with a red face, protruding +bull's eyes, and a moustachio. He was dressed in a complete suit of +pink and white plaid, cut jauntily enough. A bright blue cap, a thick +gold watch-chain, three or four large rings, a dog-whistle from his +button-hole, a fancy cane in his hand, and a little Oxford meerschaum +in his mouth, completed his equipment. He lounged in, with an air of +careless superiority, while Tom, who was behind the counter, cutting +up his day's provision of honey-dew, eyed him curiously. + +"Who are you, now? A gentleman? Not quite, I guess. Some squireen of +the parts adjacent, and look in somewhat of a crapulocomatose state +moreover. I wonder if you are the great Trebooze of Trebooze." + +"I say," yawned the young gentleman, "where's old Heale?" and an oath +followed the speech, as it did every other one herein recorded. + +"The playing half of old Heale is in bed, and I'm his working half. +Can I do anything for you?" + +"Cool fish," thought the customer. "I say--what have you got there?" + +"Australian honey-dew. Did you ever smoke it?" + +"I've heard of it; let's see:" and Mr. Trebooze--for it was he--put +his hand across the counter unceremoniously, and clawed up some. + +"Didn't know you sold tobacco here. Prime stuff. Too strong for me, +though, this morning, somehow." + +"Ah? A little too much claret last night? I thought so. We'll set that +right in five minutes." + +"Eh? How did you guess that?" asked Trebooze, with a larger oath than +usual. + +"Oh, we doctors are men of the world," said Tom, in a cheerful and +insinuating tone, as he mixed his man a draught. + +"You doctors? You're a cock of a different hackle from old Heale, +then." + +"I trust so," said Tom. + +"By George, I feel better already. I say, you're a trump; I suppose +you're Heale's new partner, the man who was washed ashore!" + +Tom nodded assent; + +"I say--How do you sell that honey-dew?" + +"I don't sell it; I'll give you as much as you like, only you shan't +smoke it till after dinner." + +"Shan't?" said Trebooze, testy and proud. + +"Not with my leave, or you'll be complaining two hours hence that I am +a humbug, and have done you no good. Get on your horse, and have four +hours' gallop on the downs, and you'll feel like a buffalo bull by two +o'clock." + +Trebooze looked at him with a stupid curiosity and a little awe. He +saw that Tom's cool self-possession was not meant for impudence; and +something in his tone and manner told him that the boast of being "a +man of the world" was not untrue. And of all kinds of men, a man of +the world was the man of whom Trebooze stood most in awe. A small +squireen, cursed with six or seven hundreds a year of his own, never +sent to school, college, or into the army, he had grown up in a narrow +circle of squireens like himself, without an object save that of +gratifying his animal passions; and had about six years before, being +then just of age, settled in life by marrying his housemaid--the only +wise thing, perhaps, he ever did. For she, a clever and determined +woman, kept him, though not from drunkenness and debt, at least from +delirium tremens and ruin, and was, in her rough, vulgar way, his +guardian angel--such a one at least, as he was worthy of. More than +once has one seen the same seeming folly turn out in practice as wise +a step as could well have been taken; and the coarse nature of the +man, which would have crushed and ill-used a delicate and high-minded +wife, subdued to something like decency by a help literally meet for +it. + +There was a pause. Trebooze fancied, and wisely, that the Doctor was a +cleverer man than he, and of course would want to show it. So, after +the fashion of a country squireen, he felt a longing to "set him +down." "He's been a traveller, they say," thought he in that +pugnacious, sceptical spirit which is bred, not, as twaddlers fancy, +by too extended knowledge, but by the sense of ignorance, and a narrow +sphere of thought, which makes a man angry and envious of any one who +has seen more than he. + +"Buffalo bulls?" said he, half contemptuously; "what do you know about +buffalo bulls?" + +"I was one once myself," said Tom, "where I lived before." + +Trebooze swore. "Don't you put your traveller's lies on me, sir." + +"Well, perhaps I dreamt it," said Tom, placidly; "I remember I dreamt +at the same time that you were a grizzly bear, fourteen feet long, and +wanted to eat me up: but you found me too tough about the hump ribs." + +Trebooze stared at his audacity. + +"You're a rum hand." + +To which Tom made answer in the same elegant strain; and then began a +regular word-battle of slang, in which Tom showed himself so +really witty a proficient, that Mr. Trebooze laughed himself into +good-humour, and ended by-- + +"I say, you're a good fellow, and I think you and I shall suit." + +Tom had his doubts, but did not express them. + +"Come up this afternoon and see my child; Mrs. Trebooze thinks it's +got swelled glands, or some such woman's nonsense. Bother them, why +can't they let the child alone, fussing and doctoring; and she will +have you. Heard of you from Mrs. Vavasour, I believe. Our doctor and I +have quarrelled, and she said, if I could get you, she'd sooner have +you than that old rum-puncheon Heale. And then, you'd better stop and +take pot-luck, and we'll make a night of it." + +"I have to go round Lord Minchampstead's estates, and will take you on +my way: but I'm afraid I shall be too dirty to have the pleasure of +dining with Mrs. Trebooze coming back." + +"Mrs. Trebooze! She must take what I like; and what's good enough for +me is good enough for her, I hope. Come as you are--Liberty Hall at +Trebooze;" and out he swaggered. + +"Does he bully her?" thought Tom, "or is he hen-pecked, and wants to +hide it? I'll see to-night, and play my cards accordingly." + +All which Miss Heale had heard. She had been peeping and listening +at the glass-door, and her mother also; for no sooner had Trebooze +entered the shop, than she had run off to tell her mother the +surprising fact, Trebooze's custom having been, for some years past, +courted in vain by Heale. So Miss Heale peeped and peeped at a man +whom she regarded with delighted curiosity, because he bore the +reputation of being "such a naughty wicked man!" and "so very handsome +too, and so distinguished as he looks!" said the poor little fool, to +whose novel-fed imagination Mr. Trebooze was an ideal Lothario. + +But the surprise of the two dames grew rapidly as they heard Tom's +audacity towards the country aristocrat. + +"Impudent wretch!" moaned Mrs. Heale to herself. "He'd drive away an +angel if he came into the shop." + +"Oh, ma! hear how they are going on now." + +"I can't bear it, my dear. This man will be the ruin of us. His +manners are those of the pot-house, when the cloven foot is shown, +which it's his nature as a child of wrath, and we can't expect +otherwise." + +"Oh, ma! do you hear that Mr. Trebooze has asked him to dinner?" + +"Nonsense!" + +But it was true. + +"Well! if there ain't the signs of the end of the world, which is? All +the years your poor father has been here, and never so much as send +him a hare, and now this young penniless interloper; and he to dine at +Trebooze off purple and fine linen." + +"There is not much of that there, ma; I'm sure they are poor enough, +for all his pride; and as for her--" + +"Yes, my dear; and as for her, though we haven't married squires, my +dear, yet we haven't been squires' housemaids, and have adorned our +own station, which was good enough for us, and has no need to rise out +of it, nor ride on Pharaoh's chariot-wheels after filthy lucre--" + +Miss Heale hated poor Mrs. Trebooze with a bitter hatred, because +she dreamed insanely that, but for her, she might have secured Mr. +Trebooze for herself. And though her ambition was now transferred to +the unconscious Tom, that need not make any difference in the said +amiable feeling. + +But that Tom was a most wonderful person, she had no doubt. He had +conquered her heart--so she informed herself passionately again and +again; as was very necessary, seeing that the passion, having no real +life of its own, required a good deal of blowing to keep it alight. +Yes, he had conquered her heart, and he was conquering all hearts +likewise. There must be some mystery about him--there should be. And +she settled in her novel-bewildered brain, that Tom must be a nobleman +in disguise--probably a foreign prince exiled for political offences. +Bah! perhaps too many lines have been spent on the poor little fool; +but as such fools exist, and people must be as they are, there is no +harm in drawing her; and in asking, too--Who will help those young +girls of the middle class who, like Miss Heale, are often really less +educated than the children of their parents' workmen; sedentary, +luxurious, full of petty vanity, gossip, and intrigue, without work, +without purpose, except that of getting married to any one who will +ask them--bewildering brain and heart with novels, which, after all, +one hardly grudges them; for what other means have they of learning +that there is any fairer, nobler life possible, at least on earth, +than that of the sordid money-getting, often the sordid puffery and +adulteration, which is the atmosphere of their home? Exceptions there +are, in thousands, doubtless; and the families of the great city +tradesmen, stand, of course, on far higher ground, and are often far +better educated, and more high-minded, than the fine ladies, their +parents' customers. But, till some better plan of education than +the boarding-school is devised for them; till our towns shall see +something like in kind to, though sounder and soberer in quality than, +the high schools of America; till in country villages the ladies who +interest themselves about the poor will recollect that the farmers' +and tradesmen's daughters are just as much in want of their influence +as the charity children, and will yield a far richer return for their +labour, though the one need not interfere with the other; so long will +England be full of Miss Heales; fated, when they marry, to bring up +sons and daughters as sordid and unwholesome as their mothers. + +Tom worked all that day in and out of the Pentremochyn cottages, +noting down nuisances and dilapidations: but his head was full of +other thoughts; for he had received, the evening before, news which +was to him very important, for more reasons than one. + +The longer he stayed at Aberalva, the longer he felt inclined to stay. +The strange attraction of Grace had, as we have seen, something to do +with his purpose: but he saw, too, a good opening for one of those +country practices, in which he seemed more and more likely to end. At +his native Whitbury, he knew, there was no room for a fresh medical +man; and gradually he was making up his mind to settle at Aberalva; to +buy out Heale, either with his own money (if he recovered it), or with +money borrowed from Mark; to bring his father down to live with him, +and in that pleasant wild western place, fold his wings after all his +wanderings. And therefore certain news which he had obtained the night +before was very valuable to him, in that it put a fresh person into +his power, and might, if cunningly used, give him a hold upon the +ruling family of the place, and on Lord Scoutbush himself. He had +found out that Lucia and Elsley were unhappy together; and found out, +too, a little more than was there to find. He could not, of course, be +a month among the gossips of Aberalva, without hearing hints that the +great folks at the court did not always keep their tempers; for, of +family jars, as of everything else on earth, the great and just law +stands true:--"What you do in the closet, shall be proclaimed on the +housetop." + +But the gossips of Aberalva, as women are too often wont to do, had +altogether taken the man's side in the quarrel. The reason was, I +suppose, that Lucia, conscious of having fallen somewhat in rank, +"held up her head" to Mrs. Trebooze and Mrs. Heale (as they themselves +expressed it), and to various other little notabilities of the +neighbourhood, rather more than she would have done had she married a +man of her own class. She was afraid that they might boast of being +intimate with her; that they might take to advising and patronising +her as an inexperienced young creature; afraid, even, that she might +be tempted, in some unguarded moment, to gossip with them, confide her +unhappiness to them, in the blind longing to open her heart to some +human being; for there were no resident gentry of her own rank in the +neighbourhood. She was too high-minded to complain much to Clara; and +her sister Valencia was the very last person to whom she would confess +that her run-away-match had not been altogether successful. So she +lived alone and friendless, shrinking into herself more and more, +while the vulgar women round mistook her honour for pride, and +revenged themselves accordingly. She was an uninteresting fine lady, +proud and cross, and Elsley was a martyr. "So handsome and agreeable +as he was--(and to do him justice, he was the former, and he could be +the latter when he chose)--to be tied to that unsociable, stuck-up +woman;" and so forth. + +All which Tom had heard, and formed his own opinion thereof; which +was,-- + +"All very fine: but I flatter myself I know a little what women are +made of; and this I know, that where man and wife quarrel, even if she +ends the battle, it is he who has begun it. I never saw a case yet +where the man was not the most in fault; and I'll lay my life John +Briggs has led her a pretty life: what else could one expect of him?" + +However, he held his tongue, and kept his eyes open withal whenever he +went up to Penalva Court, which he had to do very often; for though +he had cured the children of their ailments, yet Mrs. Vavasour was +perpetually, more or less, unwell, and he could not cure her. Her low +spirits, headaches, general want of tone and vitality, puzzled him +at first; and would have puzzled him longer, had he not settled with +himself that their cause was to be sought in the mind, and not in the +body; and at last, gaining courage from certainty, he had hinted as +much to Miss Clara the night before, when she came down (as she was +very fond of doing) to have a gossip with him in his shop, under the +pretence of fetching medicine. + +"I don't think I shall send Mrs. Vavasour any more, Miss Clara. There +is no use running up a long bill when I do no good; and, what is more, +suspect that I can do none, poor lady." And he gave the girl a look +which seemed to say, "You had better tell me the truth; for I know +everything already." + +To which Clara answered by trying to find out how much he did know: +but Tom was a cunninger diplomatist than she; and in ten minutes, +after having given solemn promises of secresy, and having, by strong +expressions of contempt for Mrs. Heale and the village gossips, made +Clara understand that he did not at all take their view of the case, +he had poured out to him across the counter all Clara's long-pent +indignation and contempt. + +"I never said a word of this to a living soul, sir; I was too proud, +for my mistress's sake, to let vulgar people know what we suffered. +We don't want any of their pity indeed; but you, sir, who have the +feelings of a gentleman, and know what the world is, like ourselves--" + +"Take care," whispered Tom; "that daughter of Heale's may be +listening." + +"I'd pull her hair about her ears if I caught her!" quoth Clara; and +then ran on to tell how Elsley "never kept no hours, nor no accounts +either; so that she has to do everything, poor thing; and no thanks +either. And never knows when he'll dine, or when he'll breakfast, or +when he'll be in, wandering in and out like a madman; and sits up all +night, writing his nonsense. And she'll go down twice and three times +a night in the cold, poor dear, to see if he's fallen asleep; and gets +abused like a pickpocket for her pains (which was an exaggeration); +and lies in bed all the morning, looking at the flies, and calls after +her if his shoes want tying, or his finger aches; as helpless as the +babe unborn; and will never do nothing useful himself, not even to +hang a picture or move a chair, and grumbles at her if he sees her +doing anything, because she ain't listening to his prosodies, and +snaps, and worrits, and won't speak to her sometimes for a whole +morning, the brute." + +"But is he not fond of his children?" + +"Fond? Yes, his way, and small thanks to him, the little angels! To +play with 'em when they're good, and tell them cock-and-a-bull fairy +tales--wonder why he likes to put such stuff into their heads--and +then send 'em out of the room if they make a noise, because it splits +his poor head, and his nerves are so delicate. Wish he had hers, or +mine either, Doctor Thurnall; then he'd know what nerves was, in a +frail woman, which he uses us both as his negro slaves, or would if I +didn't stand up to him pretty sharp now and then, and give him a piece +of my mind, which I will do, like the faithful servant in the parable, +if he kills me for it, Doctor Thurnall!" + +"Does he drink?" asked Tom, bluntly. + +"He!" she answered, in a tone which seemed to imply that even one +masculine vice would have raised him in her eyes. "He's not man +enough, I think; and lives on his slops, and his coffee, and his +tapioca; and how's he ever to have any appetite, always a sitting +about, heaped up together over his books, with his ribs growing into +his backbone?--If he'd only go and take his walk, or get a spade and +dig in the garden, or anything but them everlasting papers, which I +hates the sight of;" and so forth. + +From all which Tom gathered a tolerably clear notion of the poor +poet's state of body and mind; as a self-indulgent, unmethodical +person, whose ill-temper was owing partly to perpetual brooding over +his own thoughts, and partly to dyspepsia, brought on by his own +effeminacy--in both cases, not a thing to be pitied or excused by the +hearty and valiant Doctor. And Tom's original contempt for Vavasour +took a darker form, perhaps one too dark to be altogether just. + +"I'll tackle him, Miss Clara." + +"I wish you would: I'm sure he wants some one to look after him just +now. He's half wild about some review that somebody's been and done of +him in The Times, and has been flinging the paper about the room, and +calling all mankind vipers and adders, and hooting herds--it's as bad +as swearing, I say--and running to my mistress, to make her read it, +and see how the whole world's against him, and then forbidding her to +defile her eyes with a word of it; and so on, till she's been crying +all the morning, poor dear!" + +"Why not laughing at him?" + +"Poor thing; that's where it all is: she's just as anxious about his +poetry as he is, and would write it just as well as he, I'll warrant, +if she hadn't better things to do; and all her fuss is, that people +should 'appreciate' him. He's always talking about appreciating, till +I hate the sound of the word. How any woman can go on so after a man +that behaves as he does! but we're all soft fools, I'm afraid, Doctor +Thurnall." And Clara began a languishing look or two across the +counter, which made Tom answer to an imaginary Doctor Heale, whom he +heard calling from within. + +"Yes, Doctor! coming this moment, Doctor! Good-bye, Miss Clara. I must +hear more next time; you may trust me, you know; secret as the grave, +and always your friend, and your lady's too, if you will allow me to +do myself such an honour. Coming, Doctor!" + +And Tom bolted through the glass door, till Miss Clara was safe on her +way up the street. + +"Very well," said Tom to himself. "Knowledge is power: but how to use +it? To get into Mrs. Vavasour's confidence, and show an inclination to +take her part against her husband? If she be a true woman, she would +order me out of the house on the spot, as surely as a fish-wife would +fall tooth and nail on me as a base intruder, if I dared to interfere +with her sacred right of being beaten by her husband when she chooses. +No; I must go straight to John Briggs himself, and bind him over to +keep the peace; and I think I know the way to do it." + +So Tom pondered over many plans in his head that day; and then went to +Trebooze, and saw the sick child, and sat down to dinner, where his +host talked loud about the Treboozes of Trebooze, who fought in the +Spanish Armada--or against it; and showed an unbounded belief in +the greatness and antiquity of his family, combined with a historic +accuracy about equal to that of a good old dame of those parts, who +used to say "her family comed over the water, that she knew; but +whether it were with the Conqueror, or whether it were wi' Oliver, she +couldn't exactly say!" + +Then he became great on the subject of old county families in general, +and poured out all the vials of his wrath on "that confounded upstart +of a Newbroom, Lord Minchampstead," supplanting all the fine old blood +in the country--"Why, sir, that Pentremochyn, and Carcarrow moors too +(--good shooting there, there used to be), they ought to be mine, sir, +if every man had his rights!" And then followed a long story; and a +confused one withal, for by this time Mr. Trebooze had drunk a great +deal too much wine, and as he became aware of the fact, became +proportionately anxious that Tom should drink too much also; out of +which story Tom picked the plain facts, that Trebooze's father had +mortgaged Pentremochyn estate for more than its value, and that Lord +Minchampstead had foreclosed; while some equally respectable uncle, or +cousin, just deceased, had sold the reversion of Carcarrow to the same +mighty Cotton Lord twenty years before. "And this is the way, sir, +the land gets eaten up by a set of tinkers, and cobblers, and +money-lending jobbers, who suck the blood of the aristocracy!" +The oaths we omit, leaving the reader to pepper Mr. Trebooze's +conversation therewith, up to any degree of heat which may suit his +palate. + +Tom sympathised with him deeply, of course; and did not tell him, as +he might have done, that he thought the sooner such cumberers of the +ground were cleared off, whether by an encumbered estates' act, such +as we may see yet in England, or by their own suicidal folly, the +better it would be for the universe in general, and perhaps for +themselves in particular. But he only answered with pleasant +effrontery-- + +"Ah, my dear sir, I am sure there are hundreds of good sportsmen who +can sympathise with you deeply. The wonder is, that you do not unite +and defend yourselves. For not only in the West of England, but in +Ireland, and in Wales, and in the north, too, if one is to believe +those novels of Currer Bell's and her sister, there is a large and +important class of landed proprietors of the same stamp as yourself, +and exposed to the very same dangers. I wonder at times that you do +not all join, and use your combined influence on the Government." + +"The Government? All a set of Whig traitors! Call themselves +Conservative, or what they like. Traitors, sir! from that fellow +Peel upwards--all combined to crush the landed gentry--ruin +the Church--betray the country party--D'Israeli--Derby--Free +trade--ruined, sir!--Maynooth--Protection--treason--help yourself, and +pass the--you know, old fellow--" + +And Mr. Trebooze's voice died away, and he slumbered, but not softly. + +The door opened, and in marched Mrs. Trebooze, tall, tawdry, and +terrible. + +"Mr. Trebooze! it's past eleven o'clock!" + +"Hush, my dear madam! He is sleeping so sweetly," said Tom, rising, +and gulping down a glass, not of wine, but of strong ammonia and +water. The rogue had put a phial thereof in his pocket that morning, +expecting that, as Trebooze had said, he would be required to make a +night of it, + +She was silent; for to rouse her tyrant was more than she dare do. +If awakened, he would crave for brandy and water; and if he got that +sweet poison, he would probably become furious. She stood for half a +minute; and Tom, who knew her story well, watched her curiously. + +"She is a fine woman: and with a far finer heart in her than that +brute. Her eyebrow and eye, now, have the true Siddons' stamp; +the great white forehead, and sharp-cut little nostril, breathing +scorn--and what a Siddons-like attitude!--I should like, madam, to see +the child again before I go." + +"If you are fit, sir," answered she. + +"Brave woman; comes to the point at once, I am a poor doctor, madam, +and not a country gentleman; and have neither money nor health to +spend in drinking too much wine." + +"Then why do you encourage him in it, sir? I had expected a very +different sort of conduct from you, sir." + +Tom did not tell her what she would not (no woman will) understand; +that it is morally and socially impossible to escape from the table of +a fool, till either he or you are conquered; and she was too shrewd to +be taken in by commonplace excuses; so he looked her very full in +the face, and replied a little haughtily, with a slow and delicate +articulation, using his lips more than usual, and yet compressing +them:-- + +"I beg your pardon, madam, if I have unintentionally displeased you: +but if you ever do me the honour of knowing more of me, you will be +the first to confess that your words are unjust. Do you wish me to see +your son, or do you not?" + +Poor Mrs. Trebooze looked at him, with an eye which showed that +she had been accustomed to study character keenly, perhaps in +self-defence. She saw that Tom was sober; he had taken care to prove +that, by the way in which he spoke; and she saw, too, that he was a +better bred man than her husband, as well as a cleverer. She dropped +her eye before his; heaved something very like a sigh; and then +said, in her curt, fierce tone, which yet implied a sort of sullen +resignation-- + +"Yes; come up-stairs." + +Tom went up, and looked at the boy again, as he lay sleeping. A +beautiful child of four years old, as large and fair a child as man +need see; and yet there was on him the curse of his father's sins; and +Tom knew it, and knew that his mother knew it also. + +"What a noble boy!" said he, after looking, not without honest +admiration, upon the sleeping child, who had kicked off his +bed-clothes, and lay in a wild graceful attitude, as children are wont +to lie; just like an old Greek statue of Cupid, "It all depends upon +you, madam, now." + +"On me?" she asked, in a startled, suspicious tone. + +"Yes. He is a magnificent boy: but--I can only give palliatives. It +depends upon your care now." + +"He will have that, at least, I should hope," she said, nettled. + +"And on your influence ten years hence," went on Tom. + +"My influence?" + +"Yes; only keep him steady, and he may grow up a magnificent man. If +not--you will excuse me--but you must not let him live as freely as +his father; the constitutions of the two are very different." + +"Don't talk so, sir. Steady? His father makes him drunk now, if he +can; teaches him to swear, because it is manly--God help him and me!" + +Tom's cunning and yet kind shaft had sped. He guessed that with a +coarse woman like Mrs. Trebooze his best plan was to come as straight +to the point as he could; and he was right. Ere half an hour was over, +that woman had few secrets on earth which Tom did not know. + +"Let me give you one hint before I go," said he at last. "Persuade +your husband to go into a militia regiment." + +"Why? He would see so much company, and it would be so expensive." + +"The expense would repay itself ten times over. The company which he +would see would be sober company, in which he would be forced to keep +in order. He would have something to do in the world; and he'd do it +well. He is just cut out for a soldier, and might have made a gallant +one by now, if he had had other men's chances. He will find he does +his militia work well; and it will be a new interest, and a new pride, +and a new life to him. And meanwhile, madam, what you have said to me +is sacred. I do not pretend to advise or interfere. Only tell me if I +can be of use--how, when, and where--and command me as your servant." + +And Tom departed, having struck another root; and was up at four the +next morning (he never worked at night; for, he said, he never could +trust after-dinner brains), drawing out a detailed report of the +Pentremochyn cottages, which he sent to Lord Minchampstead with-- + +"And your lordship will excuse my saying, that to put the cottages +into the state in which your lordship, with your known wish for +progress of all kinds, would wish to see them is a responsibility +which I dare not take on myself, as it would involve a present outlay +of not less than £450. This sum would be certainly repaid to your +Lordship and your tenants, in the course of the next three years, by +the saving in poor-rates; an opinion for which I subjoin my grounds +drawn from the books of the medical officer, Mr. Heale: but the +responsibility and possible unpopularity, which employing so great +a sum would involve, is more than I can, in the present dependent +condition of poor-law medical officers, dare to undertake, in justice +to Mr. Heale my employer, save at your special command. I am bound, +however, to inform your lordship, that this outlay would, I think, +perfectly defend the hamlets, not only from that visit of the cholera +which we have every reason to expect next summer, but also from those +zymotic diseases which (as your lordship will see by my returns) make +up more than sixty-five per cent of the aggregate sickness of the +estate." + +Which letter the old Cotton Lord put in his pocket, rode into Whitbury +therewith, and showed it to Mark Armsworth. + +"Well, Mr. Armsworth, what am I to do?" + +"Well, my Lord; I told you what sort of a man you'd have to do +with; one that does his work thoroughly, and, I think, pays you a +compliment, by thinking that you want it done thoroughly." + +Lord Minchampstead was of the same opinion; but he did not say so. +Few, indeed, have ever heard Lord Minchampstead give his opinion: +though many a man has seen him act on it. + +"I'll send down orders to my agent." + +"Don't." + +"Why, then, my good friend?" + +"Agents are always in league with farmers, or guardians, or builders, +or drain-tile makers, or attorneys, or bankers, or somebody; and +either you'll be told that the work don't need doing; or have a job +brewed out of it, to get off a lot of unsaleable drain-tiles, or +cracked soil-pans; or to get farm ditches dug, and perhaps the highway +rates saved building culverts, and fifty dodges beside. I know their +game; and you ought, too, by now, my lord, begging your pardon." + +"Perhaps I do, Mark," said his lordship with a chuckle. + +"So, I say, let the man that found the fox, run the fox, and kill the +fox, and take the brush home." + +"And so it shall be," quoth my Lord Minchampstead. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +"AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?" + + +But what was the mysterious bond between La Cordifiamma and the +American, which had prevented Scoutbush from following the example +of his illustrious progenitor, and taking a viscountess from off the +stage? + +Certainly, any one who had seen her with him on the morning after +Scoutbush's visit to the Mellots, would have said that, if the cause +was love, the love was all on one side. + +She was standing by the fireplace in a splendid pose, her arm resting +on the chimney-piece, the book from which she had been reciting in one +hand, the other playing in her black curls, as her eyes glanced back +ever and anon at her own profile in the mirror. Stangrave was half +sitting in a low chair by her side, half kneeling on the footstool +before her, looking up beseechingly, as she looked down tyrannically. + +"Stupid, this reciting? Of course it is! I want realities, not shams; +life, not the stage; nature, not art." + +"Throw away the book, then, and words, and art, and live!" + +She knew well what he meant; but she answered as if she had +misunderstood him. + +"Thanks, I live already, and in good company enough. My ghost-husbands +are as noble as they are obedient; do all which I demand of them, and +vanish on my errands when I tell them. Can you guess who my last +is? Since I tired of Egmont, I have taken Sir Galahad, the spotless +knight. Did you ever read the Mort d'Arthur?" + +"A hundred times." + +"Of course!" and she spoke in a tone of contempt so strong that it +must have been affected. "What have you not read! And what have you +copied. No wonder that these English have been what they have been for +centuries, while their heroes have been the Galahads, and their Homer +the Mort d'Arthur." + +"Enjoy your Utopia!" said he bitterly. "Do you fancy they acted up to +their ideals? They dreamed of the Quest of the Sangreal: but which of +them ever went upon it?" + +"And does it count for nothing that they felt it the finest thing in +the world to have gone on it, had it been possible? Be sure if their +ideal was so self-sacrificing, so lofty, their practice was ruled by +something higher than the almighty dollar." + +"And so are some other men's, Marie," answered he reproachfully. + +"Yes, forsooth;--when the almighty dollar is there already, and a man +has ten times as much to spend every day as he can possibly invest in +French cookery, and wines, and fine clothes, then he begins to lay out +his surplus nobly on self-education, and the patronage of art, and the +theatre--for merely aesthetic purposes, of course; and when the lust +of the flesh has been satisfied, thinks himself an archangel, because +he goes on to satisfy the lust of the eye and the pride of life. +Christ was of old the model, and Sir Galahad was the hero. Now the one +is exchanged for Goethe, and the other for Wilhelm Meister." + +"Cruel! You know that my Goethe fever is long past. How would you have +known of its existence if I had not confessed it to you as a sin of +old years? Have I not said to you, again and again, show me the thing +which you would have me do for your sake, and see if I will not do +it!" + +"For my sake? A noble reason! Show yourself the thing which you will +do for its own sake; because it ought to be done. Show it yourself, I +say; I cannot show you. If your own eyes cannot see the Sangreal, and +the angels who are bearing it before you, it is because they are dull +and gross; and am I Milton's archangel, to purge them with euphrasy +and rue? If you have a noble heart, you will find for yourself the +noblest Quest. If not, who can prove to you that it is noble?" And +tapping impatiently with her foot, she went on to herself-- + + "'A gentle sound, an awful light! + Three angels bear the holy Grail; + With folded feet, in stoles of white, + On sleeping wings they sail. + + Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! + The spirit beats her mortal bars, + As down dark tides, the glory slides, + And star-like mingles with the stars.' + +"Why, there was not a knight of the round table, was there, who did +not give up all to go upon that Quest, though only one was found +worthy to fulfil it? But now-a-days, the knights sit drinking hock +and champagne, or drive sulky-wagons, and never fancy that there is a +Quest at all." + +"Why talk in these parables?" + +"So the Jews asked of their prophets. They are no parables to my +ghost-husband, Sir Galahad. Now go, if you please; I must be busy, and +write letters." + +He rose with a look, half of disappointment, half amused, and yet his +face bore a firmness which seemed to say, "You will be mine yet." As +he rose, he cast his eye upon the writing-table, and upon a letter +which lay there: and as he did so, his cheek grew pale, and his brows +knitted. + +The letter was addressed to "Thomas Thurnall, Esq., Aberalva." + +"Is this, then, your Sir Galahad?" asked he, after a pause, during +which he had choked down his rising jealousy, while she looked first +at herself in the glass, and then at him, and then at herself again, +with a determined and triumphant air. + +"And what if it be?" + +"So he, then, has achieved the Quest of the Sangreal?" + +Stangrave spoke bitterly, and with an emphasis upon the "he;" and-- + +"What if he have? Do you know him?" answered she, while her face +lighted up with eager interest, which she did not care to conceal, +perhaps chose, in her woman's love of tormenting, to parade. + +"I knew a man of that name once," he replied, in a carefully careless +tone, which did not deceive her; "an adventurer--a doctor, if I +recollect--who had been in Texas and Mexico, and I know not where +besides. Agreeable enough he was; but as for your Quest of the +Sangreal, whatever it may be, he seemed to have as little notion of +anything beyond his own interest as any Greek I ever met." + +"Unjust! Your words only show how little you can see! That man, of all +men I ever met, saw the Quest at once, and followed it, at the risk of +his own life, as far at least as he was concerned with it:--ay, even +when he pretended to see nothing. Oh, there is more generosity in that +man's affected selfishness, than in all the noisy good-nature which I +have met with in the world. Thurnall! oh, you know his nobleness as +little as he knows it himself." + +"Then he, I am to suppose, is your phantom-husband, for as long, at +least, as your present dream lasts?" asked he, with white, compressed +lips. + +"He might have been, I believe," she answered carelessly, "if he had +even taken the trouble to ask me." + +"Marie, this is too much! Do you not know to whom you speak? To one +who deserves, if not common courtesy, at least common mercy." + +"Because he adores me, and so forth? So has many a man done; or told +me that he has done so. Do you know that I might be a viscountess +to-morrow, so Sabina informs me, if I but chose?" + +"A viscountess? Pray accept your effete English aristocrat, and, as +far as I am concerned, accept my best wishes for your happiness." + +"My effete English aristocrat, did I show him that pedigree of mine +which I have ere now threatened to show you, would perhaps be less +horrified at it than you are." + +"Marie, I cannot bear this! Tell me only what you mean. What care I +for pedigree? I want you--worship you--and that is enough, Marie!" + +"You admire me because I am beautiful. What thanks do I owe you for +finding out so patent a fact? What do you do more to me than I do to +myself?" and she glanced back once more at the mirror. + +"Marie, you know that your words are false; I do more--" + +"You admire me," interrupted she, "because I am clever. What thanks +to you for that, again? What do you do more to me than you do to +yourself?" + +"And this, after all--" + +"After what? After you found me, or rather I found you--you, +the critic, the arbiter of the greenroom, the highly-organised +do-nothings--teaching others how to do nothing most gracefully; the +would-be Goethe who must, for the sake of his own self-development, +try experiments on every weak woman whom he met. And I, the new +phenomenon, whom you must appreciate to show your own taste, patronise +to show your own liberality, develop to show your own insight into +character. You found yourself mistaken! You had attempted to play +with the tigress--and behold she was talons; to angle for the silly +fish--and behold the fish was the better angler, and caught you." + +"Marie, have mercy! Is your heart iron?" + +"No; but fire, as my name shows:" and she stood looking down on him +with a glare of dreadful beauty. + +"Fire, indeed!" + +"Yes, fire, that I may scorch you, kindle you, madden you, to do my +work, and wear the heart of fire which I wear day and night!" + +Stangrave looked at her startled. Was she mad? Her face did not +say so; her brow was white, her features calm, her eye fierce and +contemptuous, but clear, steady, full of meaning. + +"So you know Mr. Thurnall?" said she, after a while. + +"Yes; why do you ask?" + +"Because he is the only friend I have on earth." + +"The only friend, Marie?" + +"The only one," answered she calmly, "who, seeing the right, has gone +and done it forthwith. When did you see him last?" + +"I have not been acquainted with Mr. Thurnall for some years," said +Stangrave, haughtily. + +"In plain words, you have quarrelled with him?" + +Stangrave bit his lip. + +"He and I had a difference. He insulted my nation, and we parted." + +She laughed a long, loud, bitter laugh, which rang through Stangrave's +ears. + +"Insulted your nation? And on what grounds, pray?" + +"About that accursed slavery question!" + +La Cordifiamma looked at him with firm-closed lips a while. + +"So then! I was not aware of this! Even so long ago you saw the +Sangreal, and did not know it when you saw it. No wonder that since +then you have been staring at it for months, in your very hands, +played with it, admired it, made verses about it, to show off your own +taste: and yet were blind to it the whole time! Farewell, then!" + +"Marie, what do you mean?" and Stangrave caught both her hands. + +"Hush, if you please. I know you are eloquent enough, when you choose, +though you have been somewhat dumb and monosyllabic to-night in the +presence of the actress whom you undertook to educate. But I know that +you can be eloquent, so spare me any brilliant appeals, which can only +go to prove that already settled fact. Between you and me lie two +great gulfs. The one I have told you of; and from it I shrink. The +other I have not told you of; from it you would shrink." + +"The first is your Quest of the Sangreal." + +She smiled assent, bitterly enough. + +"And the second?" + +She did not answer. She was looking at herself in the mirror; and +Stangrave, in spite of his almost doting affection, flushed with +anger, almost contempt, at her vanity. + +And yet, was it vanity which was expressed in that face? No; but +dread, horror, almost disgust, as she gazed with side-long, startled +eyes, struggling, and yet struggling in vain, to turn her face from +some horrible sight, as if her own image had been the Gorgon's head. + +"What is it? Marie, speak!" + +But she answered nothing. For that last question she had no heart to +answer; no heart to tell him that in her veins were some drops, at +least, of the blood of slaves. Instinctively she had looked round at +the mirror--for might he not, if he had eyes, discover that secret for +himself? Were there not in her features traces of that taint? And as +she looked,--was it the mere play of her excited fancy,--or did her +eyelid slope more and more, her nostril shorten and curl, her lips +enlarge, her mouth itself protrude? + +It was more than the play of fancy; for Stangrave saw it as well as +she. Her actress's imagination, fixed on the African type with an +intensity proportioned to her dread of seeing it in herself, had +moulded her features, for the moment, into the very shape which it +dreaded. And Stangrave saw it, and shuddered as he saw. + +Another half minute, and that face also had melted out of the mirror, +at least for Marie's eyes; and in its place an ancient negress, +white-haired, withered as the wrinkled ape, but with eyes closed--in +death. Marie knew that face well; a face which haunted many a dream +of hers; once seen, but never forgotten since; for to that old dame's +coffin had her mother, the gay quadroon woman, flaunting in finery +which was the price of shame, led Marie when she was but a three +years' child; and Marie had seen her bend over the corpse, and call it +her dear old granny, and weep bitter tears. + +Suddenly she shook off the spell, and looked round and down, +terrified, self-conscious. Her eye caught Stangrave's; she saw, or +thought she saw, by the expression of his face, that he knew all, and +burst away with a shriek. + +He sprang up and caught her in his arms. "Marie! Beloved Marie!" She +looked up at him struggling; the dark expression had vanished, and +Stangrave's love-blinded eyes could see nothing in that face but the +refined and yet rich beauty of the Italian. + +"Marie, this is mere madness; you excite yourself till you know not +what you say, or what you are--" + +"I know what I am," murmured she: but he hurried on unheeding. + +"You love me, you know you love me; and you madden yourself by +refusing to confess it!" He felt her heart throb as he spoke, and knew +that he spoke truth. "What gulfs are these you dream of? No; I will +not ask. There is no gulf between me and one whom I adore, who has +thrown a spell over me which I cannot resist, which I glory in not +resisting; for you have been my guide, my morning star, which has +awakened me to new life. If I have a noble purpose upon earth, if I +have roused myself from that conceited dream of self-culture which now +looks to me so cold, and barren, and tawdry, into the hope of becoming +useful, beneficent--to whom do I owe it but to you, Marie? No; there +is no gulf, Marie! You are my wife, and you alone!" And he held her +so firmly, and gazed down upon her with such strong manhood, that her +woman's heart quailed; and he might, perhaps, have conquered then and +there, had not Sabina, summoned by her shriek, entered hastily. + +"Good heavens! what is the matter?" + +"Wait but one minute, Mrs. Mellot," said he; "the next, I shall +introduce you to my bride." + +"Never! never! never!" cried she, and breaking from him, flew into +Sabina's arms. "Leave me, leave me to bear my curse alone!" + +And she broke out into such wild weeping, and refused so wildly to +hear another word from Stangrave, that he went away in despair, the +prize snatched from his grasp in the very moment of seeming victory. + +He went in search of Claude, who had agreed to meet him at the +Exhibition in Trafalgar Square. Thither Stangrave rolled away in his +cab, his heart full of many thoughts. Marie's words about him, though +harsh and exaggerated, were on the whole true. She had fascinated him +utterly. To marry her was now the one object of his life: she had +awakened in him, as he had confessed, noble desires to be useful: but +the discovery that he was to be useful to the negro, that abolition +was the Sangreal in the quest of which he was to go forth, was as +disagreeable a discovery as he could well have made. + +From public life in any shape, with all its vulgar noise, its petty +chicanery, its pandering to the mob whom he despised, he had always +shrunk, as so many Americans of his stamp have done. He had no wish to +struggle, unrewarded and disappointed, in the ranks of the minority; +while to gain place and power on the side of the majority was to lend +himself to that fatal policy which, ever since the Missouri Compromise +of 1820, has been gradually making the northern states more and more +the tools of the southern ones. He had no wish to be threatened in +Congress with having his Northerner's "ears nailed to the counter, +like his own base coin," or to be informed that he, with the +17,000,000 of the north, were the "White Slaves" of a southern +aristocracy of 350,000 slaveholders. He had enough comprehension +of, enough admiration for the noble principles of the American +Constitution to see that the democratic mobs of Irish and Germans, +who were stupidly playing into the hands of the Southerners, were not +exactly carrying them out; but he had no mind to face either Irish or +Southerners. The former were too vulgar for his delicacy; the latter +too aristocratic for his pride. Sprung, as he held (and rightly), from +as fine old English blood as any Virginian (though it did happen to be +Puritan, and not Cavalier), he had no lust to come into contact with +men who considered him much further below them in rank than an English +footman is below an English nobleman; who, indeed, would some of them +look down on the English nobleman himself as a mushroom of yesterday. +So he compounded with his conscience by ignoring the whole matter, and +by looking on the state of public affairs on his side of the Atlantic +with a cynicism which very soon (as is usual with rich men) passed +into Epicureanism. Poetry and music, pictures and statues, amusement +and travel, became his idols, and cultivation his substitute for the +plain duty of patriotism, and wandering luxuriously over the world, he +learnt to sentimentalise over cathedrals and monasteries, pictures and +statues, saints and kaisers, with a lazy regret that such "forms of +beauty and nobleness" were no longer possible in a world of scrip and +railroads: but without any notion that it was his duty to reproduce in +his own life, or that of his country, as much as he could of the said +beauty and nobleness. And now he was sorely tried. It was interesting +enough to "develop" the peculiar turn of Marie's genius, by writing +for her plays about liberty, just as he would have written plays +about jealousy, or anything else for representing which she had +"capabilities." But to be called on to act in that Slavery question, +the one in which he knew (as all sensible Americans do) that the life +and death of his country depended, and which for that very reason he +had carefully ignored till a more convenient season, finding in +its very difficulty and danger an excuse for leaving it to solve +itself:--to have this thrust on him, and by her, as the price of the +thing which he must have, or die! If she had asked for his right hand, +he would have given it sooner; and he entered the Royal Academy that +day in much the same humour as that of a fine lady who should find +herself suddenly dragged from the ball-room into the dust-hole, in her +tenderest array of gauze and jewels, and there peremptorily compelled +to sift the cinders, under the superintendence of the sweep and the +pot-boy. + +Glad to escape from questions which he had rather not answer too +soon, he went in search of Claude, and found him before one of those +pre-Raphaelite pictures, which Claude does not appreciate as he ought. + +"Desinit in Culicem mulier formosa supernè," said Stangrave, as he +looked over Claude's shoulder; "but I suppose he followed nature, and +copied his model." + +"That he didn't," said Claude, "for I know who his model was: but if +he did he had no business to do so. I object on principle to these +men's notion of what copying nature means. I don't deny him talent. +I am ready to confess that there is more imagination and more honest +work in that picture than in any one in the room. The hysterical, all +but grinning joy upon the mother's face is a miracle of truth; I have +seen the expression more than once; doctors see it often, in the +sudden revulsion from terror and agony to certainty and peace; I only +marvel where he ever met it: but the general effect is unpleasing, +marred by patches of sheer ugliness, like that child's foot. There is +the same mistake in all his pictures. Whatever they are, they are not +beautiful; and no magnificence of surface-colouring will make up, in +my eyes, for wilful ugliness of form. I say that nature is beautiful; +and therefore nature cannot have been truly copied, or the general +effect would have been beautiful also. I never found out the fallacy +till the other day, when looking at a portrait by one of them. The +woman for whom it was meant was standing by my side, young and lovely; +the portrait hung there neither young nor lovely, but a wrinkled +caricature twenty years older than the model." + +"I surely know the portrait you mean; Lady D----'s." + +"Yes. He had simply, under pretence of following nature, caricatured +her into a woman twenty years older than she is." + +"But did you ever see a modern portrait which more perfectly expressed +character; which more completely fulfilled the requirements which you +laid down a few evenings since?" + +"Never; and that makes me all the more cross with the wilful mistake +of it. He had painted every wrinkle." + +"Why not, if they were there?" + +"Because he had painted a face not one-twentieth of the size of life. +What right had he to cram into that small space all the marks which +nature had spread over a far larger one?" + +"Why not, again, if he diminished the marks in proportion?" + +"Just what neither he nor any man could do, without making them so +small as to be invisible, save under a microscope: and the result was, +that he had caricatured every wrinkle, as his friend has in those +horrible knuckles of Shem's wife. Besides, I deny utterly your +assertion that one is bound to paint what is there. On that very +fallacy are they all making shipwreck." + +"Not paint what is there? And you are the man who talks of art being +highest when it copies nature." + +"Exactly. And therefore you must paint, not what is there, but what +you see there. They forget that human beings are men with two eyes, +and not daguerreotype lenses with one eye, and so are contriving and +striving to introduce into their pictures the very defect of the +daguerreotype which the stereoscope is required to correct." + +"I comprehend. They forget that the double vision of our two eyes +gives a softness, and indistinctness, and roundness, to every +outline." + +"Exactly so; and therefore, while for distant landscapes, motionless, +and already softened by atmosphere, the daguerreotype is invaluable +(I shall do nothing else this summer but work at it), yet for taking +portraits, in any true sense, it will be always useless, not only for +the reason I just gave, but for another one which the pre-Raphaelites +have forgotten." + +"Because all the features cannot be in focus at once?" + +"Oh no, I am not speaking of that. Art, for aught I know, may overcome +that; for it is a mere defect in the instrument. What I mean is this: +it tries to represent as still what never yet was still for the +thousandth part of a second: that is, the human face; and as seen by a +spectator who is perfectly still, which no man ever yet was. My dear +fellow, don't you see that what some painters call idealising a +portrait is, if it be wisely done, really painting for you the face +which you see, and know, and love; her ever-shifting features, with +expression varying more rapidly than the gleam of the diamond on +her finger; features which you, in your turn, are looking at with +ever-shifting eyes; while, perhaps, if it is a face which you love and +have lingered over, a dozen other expressions equally belonging to it +are hanging in your memory, and blending themselves with the actual +picture on your retina:--till every little angle is somewhat rounded, +every little wrinkle somewhat softened, every little shade somewhat +blended with the surrounding light, so that the sum total of what +you see, and are intended by Heaven to see, is something far softer, +lovelier--younger, perhaps, thank Heaven--than it would look if your +head was screwed down in a vice, to look with one eye at her head +screwed down in a vice also:--though even that, thanks to the muscles +of the eye, would not produce the required ugliness; and the only +possible method of fulfilling the pre-Raphaelite ideal would be, to +set a petrified Cyclops to paint his petrified brother." + +"You are spiteful." + +"Not at all. I am standing up for art, and for nature too. For +instance: Sabina has wrinkles. She says, too, that she has grey hairs +coming. The former I won't see, and therefore don't. The latter I +can't see, because I am not looking for them." + +"Nor I either," said Stangrave smiling. "I assure you the announcement +is new to me." + +"Of course. Who can see wrinkles in the light of those eyes, that +smile, that complexion?" + +"Certainly," said Stangrave, "if I asked for her portrait, as I shall +do some day, and the artist sat down and painted the said 'wastes +of time,' on pretence of their being there, I should consider it an +impertinence on his part. What business has he to spy out what nature +has taken such charming trouble to conceal?" + +"Again," said Claude, "such a face as Cordifiamma's. When it is at +rest, in deep thought, there are lines in it which utterly puzzle +one--touches which are Eastern, Kabyle, almost Quadroon." + +Stangrave started. Claude went on unconscious:-- + +"But who sees them in the light of that beauty? They are defects, no +doubt, but defects which no one would observe without deep study of +the face. They express her character no more than a scar would; and +therefore when I paint her, as I must and will, I shall utterly ignore +them. If, on the other hand, I met the same lines in a face which I +knew to have Quadroon blood in it, I should religiously copy them; +because then they would be integral elements of the face. You +understand?" + +"Understand?--yes," answered Stangrave, in a tone which made Claude +look up. + +That strange scene of half an hour before flashed across him. What if +it were no fancy? What if Marie had African blood in her veins? And +Stangrave shuddered, and felt for the moment that thousands of pounds +would be a cheap price to pay for the discovery that his fancy was a +false one. + +"Yes--oh--I beg your pardon," said he, recovering himself. "I was +thinking of something else. But, as you say, what if she had Quadroon +blood?" + +"I? I never said so, or dreamt of it." + +"Oh! I mistook. Do you know, though, where she came from?" + +"I? You forget, my dear fellow, that you yourself introduced her to +us." + +"Of course; but I thought Mrs. Mellot might--women always makes +confidences." + +"All we know is, what I suppose you knew long ago, that her most +intimate friend, next to you, seems to be an old friend of ours, named +Thurnall." + +"An old friend of yours?" + +"Oh yes; we have known him these fifteen years. Met him first at +Paris; and after that went round the world with him, and saw infinite +adventures. Sabina and I spent three months with him once, among the +savages in a South-sea Island, and a very pretty romance our stay and +our escape would make. We were all three, I believe, to have been +cooked and eaten, if Tom had not got us off by that wonderful address +which, if you know him, you must know well enough." + +"Yes," answered Stangrave, coldly, as in a dream; "I have known +Mr. Thurnall in past years; but not in connection with La Signora +Cordifiamma. I was not aware till this moment--this morning, I +mean--that they knew each other." + +"You astound me; why, she talks of him to us all day long, as of one +to whom she has the deepest obligations; she was ready to rush into +our arms when she first found that we knew him. He is a greater hero +in her eyes, I sometimes fancy, than even you are. She does nothing +(or fancies that she does nothing, for you know her pretty wilfulness) +without writing for his advice." + +"I a hero in her eyes? I was really not aware of that fact," said +Stangrave, more coldly than ever; for bitter jealousy had taken +possession of his heart. "Do you know, then, what this same obligation +may be?" + +"I never asked. I hate gossiping, and I make a rule to inquire into no +secrets but such as are voluntarily confided to me; and I know that +she has never told Sabina." + +"I suppose she is married to him. That is the simplest explanation of +the mystery." + +"Impossible! What can you mean? If she ever marries living man, she +will marry you." + +"Then she will never marry living man," said Stangrave to himself. +"Good-bye, my dear fellow; I have an engagement at the Traveller's." +And away went Stangrave, leaving Claude sorely puzzled, but little +dreaming of the powder-magazine into which he had put a match. + +But he was puzzled still more that night, when by the latest post a +note came-- + +"From Stangrave!" said Claude. "Why, in the name of all wonders!"--and +he read:-- + +"Good-bye. I am just starting for the Continent, on sudden and urgent +business. What my destination is I hardly can tell you yet. You will +hear from me in the course of the summer." + +Claude's countenance fell, and the note fell likewise. Sabina snatched +it up, read it, and gave La Cordifiamma a look which made her spring +from the sofa, and snatch it in turn. + +She read it through, with trembling hands, and blanching cheeks, and +then dropped fainting upon the floor. + +They laid her on the sofa, and while they were recovering her, Claude +told Sabina the only clue which he had to the American's conduct, +namely, that afternoon's conversation. + +Sabina shook her head over it; for to her, also, the American's +explanation had suggested itself. Was Marie Thurnall's wife? Or did +she--it was possible, however painful--stand to him in some less +honourable relation, which she would fain forget now, in a new passion +for Stangrave? For that Marie loved Stangrave, Sabina knew well +enough. + +The doubt was so ugly that it must be solved; and when she had got the +poor thing safe into her bedroom she alluded to it as gently as she +could. + +Marie sprang up in indignant innocence. + +"He! Whatever he may be to others, I know not: but to me he has been +purity and nobleness itself--a brother, a father! Yes; if I had no +other reason for trusting him, I should love him for that alone; that +however tempted he may have been, and Heaven knows he was tempted, +he could respect the honour of his friend, though that friend lay +sleeping in a soldier's grave ten thousand miles away." + +And Marie threw herself upon Sabina's neck, and under the pressure of +her misery sobbed out to her the story of her life. What it was need +not be told. A little common sense, and a little knowledge of human +nature, will enable the reader to fill up for himself the story of a +beautiful slave. + +Sabina soothed her, and cheered her; and soothed and cheered her most +of all by telling her in return the story of her own life; not so dark +a one, but almost as sad and strange. And poor Marie took heart, when +she found in her great need a sister in the communion of sorrows. + +"And you have been through all this, so beautiful and bright as you +are! You whom I should have fancied always living the life of the +humming-bird: and yet not a scar or a wrinkle has it left behind!" + +"They were there once, Marie! but God and Claude smoothed them away." + +"I have no Claude,--and no God, I think, at times." + +"No God, Marie! Then how did you come hither?" + +Marie was silent, reproved; and then passionately-- + +"Why does He not right my people?" + +That question was one to which Sabina's little scheme of the universe +had no answer; why should it, while many a scheme which pretends to be +far vaster and more infallible has none as yet? + +So she was silent, and sat with Marie's head upon her bosom, caressing +the black curls, till she had soothed her into sobbing exhaustion. + +"There; lie there and rest: you shall be my child, my poor Marie. I +have a fresh child every week; but I shall find plenty of room in my +heart for you, my poor hunted deer." + +"You will keep my secret?" + +"Why keep it? No one need be ashamed of it here in free England." + +"But he--he--you do not know, Sabina! Those Northerners, with all +their boasts of freedom, shrink from us just as much as our own +masters." + +"Oh, Marie, do not be so unjust to him! He is too noble, and you must +know it yourself." + +"Ay, if he stood alone; if he were even going to live in England; if +he would let himself be himself; but public opinion," sobbed the poor +self-tormentor--"It has been his God, Sabina, to be a leader of +taste and fashion--admired and complete--the Crichton of Newport and +Brooklyn. And he could not bear scorn, the loss of society. Why should +he bear it for me? If he had been one of the abolitionist party, it +would have been different: but he has no sympathy with them, good, +narrow, pious people, or they with him: he could not be satisfied +in their society--or I either, for I crave after it all as much +as he--wealth, luxury, art, brilliant company, admiration,--oh, +inconsistent wretch, that I am! And that makes me love him all the +more, and yet makes me so harsh to him, wickedly cruel, as I was +to-day; because when I am reproving his weakness, I am reproving +my own, and because I am angry with myself, I grow angry with him +too--envious of him, I do believe at moments, and all his success and +luxury!" + +And so poor Marie sobbed out her confused confession of that strange +double nature which so many Quadroons seem to owe to their mixed +blood; a strong side of deep feeling, ambition, energy, an intellect +rather Greek in its rapidity than English in sturdiness; and withal +a weak side, of instability, inconsistency, hasty passion, love of +present enjoyment, sometimes, too, a tendency to untruth, which is +the mark, not perhaps of the African specially, but of every enslaved +race. + +Consolation was all that Sabina could give. It was too late to act. +Stangrave was gone, and week after week rolled by without a line from +the wanderer. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE RECOGNITION. + + +Elsley Vavasour is sitting one morning in his study, every comfort +of which is of Lucia's arrangement and invention, beating the +home-preserve of his brains for pretty thoughts. On he struggles +through that wild, and too luxuriant cover; now brought up by a +"lawyer," now stumbling over a root, now bogged in a green spring, now +flushing a stray covey of birds of Paradise, now a sphinx, chimaera, +strix, lamia, fire-drake, flying-donkey, two-headed eagle (Austrian, +as will appear shortly), or other portent only to be seen now-a-days +in the recesses of that enchanted forest, the convolutions of a poet's +brain. Up they whir and rattle, making, like most game, more noise +than they are worth. Some get back, some dodge among the trees; the +fair shots are few and far between: but Elsley blazes away right and +left with trusty quill; and, to do him justice, seldom misses his aim, +for practice has made him a sure and quick marksman in his own line. +Moreover, all is game which gets up to-day; for he is shooting for the +kitchen, or rather for the London market, as many a noble sportsman +does now-a-days, and thinks no shame. His new volume of poems ("The +Wreck" included) is in the press: but behold, it is not as long as the +publisher thinks fit, and Messrs. Brown and Younger have written down +to entreat in haste for some four hundred lines more, on any subject +which Mr. Vavasour may choose. And therefore is Elsley beating his +home covers, heavily shot over though they have been already this +season, in hopes that a few head of his own game may still be left: or +in default (for human nature is the same, in poets and in sportsmen), +that a few head may have strayed in out of his neighbours' manors. + +At last the sport slackens; for the sportsman is getting tired, and +hungry also, to carry on the metaphor; for he has seen the postman +come up the front walk a quarter of an hour since, and the letters +have not been brought in yet. + +At last there is a knock at the door, which he answers by a somewhat +testy "come in." But he checks the coming grumble, when not the maid, +but Lucia enters. + +Why not grumble at Lucia? He has done so many a time. + +Because she looks this morning so charming; really quite pretty again, +so radiant is her face with smiles. And because, also, she holds +triumphant above her head a newspaper. + +She dances up to him-- + +"I have something for you." + +"For me? Why, the post has been in this half-hour." + +"Yes, for you, and that's just the reason why I kept it myself. D'ye +understand my Irish reasoning?" + +"No, you pretty creature," said Elsley, who saw that whatever the news +was, it was good news. + +"Pretty creature, am I? I was once, I know; but I thought you had +forgotten all about that. But I was not going to let you have the +paper till I had devoured every word of it myself first." + +"Every word of what?" + +"Of what you shan't have unless you promise to be good for a week. +Such a Review; and from America! What a dear man he must be who wrote +it! I really think I should kiss him if I met him." + +"And I really think he would not say no. But as he's not here, I shall +act as his proxy." + +"Be quiet, and read that, if you can, for blushes;" and she spread out +the paper before him, and then covered his eyes with her hands. "No, +you shan't see it; it will make you vain." + +Elsley had looked eagerly at the honeyed columns; (as who would not +have done?) but the last word smote him. What was he thinking of? his +own praise, or his wife's love? + +"Too true," he cried, looking up at her. "You dear creature! Vain I +am, God forgive me: but before I look at a word of this I must have a +talk with you." + +"I can't stop; I must run back to the children. No; now don't look +cross;" as his brow clouded, "I only said that to tease you. I'll +stop with you ten whole minutes, if you won't look so very solemn and +important. I hate tragedy faces. Now what is it?" + +As all this was spoken while both her hands were clasped round +Elsley's neck, and with looks and tones of the very sweetest as well +as the very sauciest, no offence was given, and none taken: but +Elsley's voice was sad as he asked,-- + +"So you really do care for my poems?" + +"You great silly creature? Why else did I marry you at all? As if I +cared for anything in the world but your poems; as if I did not love +everybody who praises them; and if any stupid reviewer dares to say a +word against them I could kill him on the spot. I care for nothing in +the world but what people say of you.--And yet I don't care one pin; I +know what your poems are, if nobody else does; and they belong to me, +because you belong to me, and I must be the best judge, and care for +nobody, no not I!"--And she began singing, and then hung over him, +tormenting him lovingly while he read. + +It was a true American review, utterly extravagant in its laudations, +whether from over-kindness, or from a certain love of exaggeration and +magniloquence, which makes one suspect that a large proportion of the +Transatlantic gentlemen of the press must be natives of the sister +isle: but it was all the more pleasant to the soul of Elsley. + +"There," said Lucia, as she clung croodling to him; "there is a pretty +character of you, sir! Make the most of it, for it is all those +Yankees will ever send you." + +"Yes," said Elsley, "if they would send one a little money, instead of +making endless dollars by printing one's books, and then a few more by +praising one at a penny a line." + +"That's talking like a man of business: if instead of the review, now, +a cheque for fifty pounds had come, how I would have rushed out and +paid the bills!" + +"And liked it a great deal better than the review?" + +"You jealous creature! No. If I could always have you praised, I'd +live in a cabin, and go about the world barefoot, like a wild Irish +girl." + +"You would make a very charming one." + +"I used to, once, I can tell you, Valencia and I used to run about +without shoes and stockings at Kilanbaggan, and you can't think how +pretty and white this little foot used to look on a nice soft carpet +of green moss." + +"I shall write a sonnet to it." + +"You may if you choose, provided you don't publish it." + +"You may trust me for that. I am not one of those who anatomise their +own married happiness for the edification of the whole public, and +make fame, if not money, out of their own wives' hearts." + +"How I should hate you, if you did! Not that I believe their fine +stories about themselves. At least, I am certain it's only half the +story. They have their quarrels, my dear, just as you and I have but +they take care not to put them into poetry." + +"Well, but who could? Whether they have a right or not to publish the +poetical side of their married life, it is too much to ask them to +give you the unpoetical also." + +"Then they are all humbugs, and I believe, if they really love their +wives so very much, they would not be at all that pains to persuade +the world of it." + +"You are very satirical and spiteful, ma'am." + +"I always am when I am pleased. If I am particularly happy, I always +long to pinch somebody. I suppose it's Irish-- + + "'Comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down.'" + +"But you know, you rogue, that you care to read no poetry but love +poetry." + +"Of course not every woman does, but let me find you publishing any +such about me, and see what I will do to you! There, now I must go +to my work, and you go and write something extra superfinely grand, +because I have been so good to you. No. Let me go; what a bother you +are. Good-bye." + +And away she tripped, and he returned to his work, happier than he had +been for a week past. + +His happiness, truly, was only on the surface. The old wound had been +salved--as what wound cannot be?--by woman's love and woman's wit +but it was not healed. The cause of his wrong doing, the vain, +self-indulgent spirit, was there still unchastened, and he was +destined, that very day, to find that he had still to bear the +punishment of it. + +Now the reader must understand, that though one may laugh at Elsley +Vavasour, because it is more pleasant than scolding at him, yet have +Philistia and Fogeydom neither right nor reason to consider him a +despicable or merely ludicrous person, or to cry, "Ah, if he had been +as we are!" + +Had he been merely ludicrous, Lucia would never have married him; and +he could only have been spoken of with indignation, or left utterly +out of the story, as a simply unpleasant figure, beyond the purposes +of a novel, though admissible now and then into tragedy. One cannot +heartily laugh at a man if one has not a lurking love for him, as one +really ought to have for Elsley. How much value is to be attached to +his mere power of imagination and fancy, and so forth, is a question; +but there was in him more than mere talent: there was, in thought at +least, virtue and magnanimity. + +True, the best part of him, perhaps almost all the good part of him, +spent itself in words, and must be looked for, not in his life, but in +his books. But in those books it can be found; and if you look through +them, you will see that he has not touched upon a subject without +taking, on the whole, the right, and pure, and lofty view of it. +Howsoever extravagant he may be in his notions of poetic licence, that +licence is never with him a synonym for licentiousness. Whatever is +tender and true, whatever is chivalrous and high-minded, he loves at +first sight, and reproduces it lovingly. And it may be possible that +his own estimate of his poems was not altogether wrong; that his words +may have awakened here and there in others a love for that which is +morally as well as physically beautiful, and may have kept alive in +their hearts the recollection that, both for the bodies and the souls +of men forms of life far nobler and fairer than those which we see now +are possible; that they have appeared, in fragments at least, already +on the earth; that they are destined, perhaps, to reappear and combine +themselves in some ideal state, and in + + "One far-off divine event, + Toward which the whole creation moves." + +This is the special and proper function of the poet; that he may do +this, does God touch his lips with that which, however it may be +misused, is still fire from off the altar beneath which the spirits +of his saints cry,--"Lord, how long?" If he "reproduce the beautiful" +with this intent, however so little, then is he of the sacred guild. +And because Vavasour had this gift, therefore he was a poet. + +But in this he was weak: that he did not feel, or at least was +forgetting fast, that this gift had been bestowed on him for any +practical purpose. No one would demand that he should have gone forth +with some grand social scheme, to reform a world which looked to him +so mean and evil. He was not a man of business, and was not meant +to be one. But it was ill for him that in his fastidiousness and +touchiness he had shut himself out from that world, till he had quite +forgotten how much good there was in it as well as evil; how many +people--commonplace and unpoetical it may be--but still heroical in +God's sight, were working harder than he ever worked, at the divine +drudgery of doing good, and that in dens of darkness and sloughs of +filth, from which he would have turned with disgust; so that the +sympathy with the sinful and fallen which marks his earlier poems, and +which perhaps verges on sentimentalism, gradually gives place to a +Pharisaic and contemptuous tone; a tone more lofty and manful in +seeming, but far less divine in fact. Perhaps comparative success had +injured him. Whilst struggling himself against circumstances, poor, +untaught, unhappy, he had more fellow-feeling, with those whom +circumstance oppressed. At least, the pity which he could once bestow +upon the misery which he met in his daily walks, he now kept for the +more picturesque woes of Italy and Greece. + +In this, too, he was weak; that he had altogether forgotten that +the fire from off the altar could only be kept alight by continual +self-restraint and self-sacrifice, by continual gentleness and +humility, shown in the petty matters of everyday home-life; and that +he who cannot rule his own household can never rule the Church of God. +And so it befell, that amid the little cross-blasts of home squabbles +the sacred spark was fast going out. The poems written after he +settled at Penalva are marked by a less definite purpose, by a lower +tone of feeling: not, perhaps, by a lower moral tone; but simply by +less of any moral tone at all. They are more and more full of merely +sensuous beauty, mere word-painting, mere word-hunting. The desire of +finding something worth saying gives place more and more to that of +saying something in a new fashion. As the originality of thought +(which accompanies only vigorous moral purpose) decreases, the attempt +at originality of language increases. Manner, in short, has taken the +place of matter. The art, it may be, of his latest poems is greatest: +but it has been expended on the most unworthy themes. The later are +mannered caricatures of the earlier, without their soul; and the same +change seems to have passed over him which (with Mr. Ruskin's pardon) +transformed the Turner of 1820 into the Turner of 1850. + +Thus had Elsley transferred what sympathy he had left from +needle-women and ragged schools, dwellers in Jacob's Island and +sleepers in the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge, to sufferers of a more +poetic class. Whether his sympathies showed thereby that he had risen +or fallen, let my readers decide each for himself. It is a credit to +any man to feel for any human being; and Italy, as she is at this +moment, is certainly one of the most tragic spectacles which the world +has ever seen. Elsley need not be blamed for pitying her; only for +holding, with most of our poets, a vague notion that her woes were to +be cured by a hair of the dog who bit her; viz., by homoeopathic +doses of that same "art" which has been all along her morbid and +self-deceiving substitute for virtue and industry. So, as she had +sung herself down to the nether pit, Elsley would help to sing her up +again; and had already been throwing off, ever since 1848, a series +of sonnets which he entitled Eurydice, intimating, of course, that he +acted as the Orpheus. Whether he had hopes of drawing iron tears down +Pluto Radetzky's cheek, does not appear; but certainly the longer poem +which had sprung from his fancy, at the urgent call of Messrs. Brown +and Younger, would have been likely to draw nothing but iron balls +from Radetzky's cannon; or failing so vast an effect, an immediate +external application to the poet himself of that famous herb +Pantagruelion, cure for all public ills and private woes, which men +call hemp. Nevertheless, it was a noble subject; one which ought +surely to have been taken up by some of our poets, for if they do not +make a noble poem of it, it will be their own fault. I mean that +sad and fantastic tragedy of Fra Dolcino and Margaret, which Signor +Mariotti has lately given to the English public, in a book which, both +for its matter and its manner, should be better known than it is. +Elsley's soul had been filled (it would have been a dull one else) +with the conception of the handsome and gifted patriot-monk, his soul +delirious with, the dream of realising a perfect Church on earth; +battling with tongue and pen, and at last with sword, against the +villanies of pope and kaiser, and all the old devourers of the earth, +cheered only by the wild love of her who had given up wealth, fame, +friends, all which render life worth having, to die with him a death +too horrible for words. And he had conceived (and not altogether ill) +a vision, in which, wandering along some bright Italian bay, he met +Dolcino sitting, a spirit at rest but not yet glorified, waiting for +the revival of that dead land for which he had died; and Margaret +by him, dipping her scorched feet for ever in the cooling wave, and +looking up to the hero for whom she had given up all, with eyes of +everlasting love. There they were to prophesy to him such things as +seemed fit to him, of the future of Italy and of Europe, of the +doom of priests and tyrants, of the sorrows and rewards of genius +unappreciated and before its age; for Elsley's secret vanity could +see in himself a far greater likeness to Dolcino, than Dolcino--the +preacher, confessor, bender of all hearts, man of the world and man +of action, at last crafty and all but unconquerable guerilla +warrior--would ever have acknowledged in the self-indulgent dreamer. +However, it was a fair conception enough; though perhaps it never +would have entered Elsley's head, had Shelley never written the +opening canto of the Revolt of Islam. + +So Elsley, on a burning July forenoon, strolled up the lane and over +the down to King Arthur's Nose, that he might find materials for his +sea-shore scene. For he was not one of those men who live in such +quiet, everyday communication with nature, that they drink in her +various aspects as unconsciously as the air they breathe; and so can +reproduce them, out of an inexhaustible stock of details, simply and +accurately, and yet freshly too, tinged by the peculiar hue of the +mind in which they have been long sleeping. He walked the world, +either blind to the beauty round him, and trying to compose instead +some little scrap of beauty in his own self-imprisoned thoughts; or +else he was looking out consciously and spasmodically for views, +effects, emotions, images; something striking and uncommon which would +suggest a poetic figure, or help out a description, or in some way +re-furnish his mind with thought. From which method it befell, that +his lamp of truth was too often burnt out just when it was needed; and +that, like the foolish virgins, he had to go and buy oil when it +was too late; or failing that, to supply its place with some baser +artificial material. + +That day, however, he was fortunate enough; for wandering and +scrambling among the rocks, at a dead low spring tide, he came upon +a spot which would have made a poem of itself better than all Elsley +ever wrote, had he, forgetting all about Fra Dolcino, Italy, priests, +and tyrants, set down in black and white just what he saw; provided, +of course, that he had patience first to see the same. + +It was none other than that ghastly chasm across which Thurnall had +been so miraculously swept, on the night of his shipwreck. The same +ghastly chasm: but ghastly now no longer; and as Elsley looked down, +the beauty below invited him, and the coolness also; for the sun beat +on the flat rock above till it scorched the feet, and dazzled the eye, +and crisped up the blackening sea-weeds; while every sea-snail crept +to hide itself under the bladder-tangle, and nothing dared to peep or +stir save certain grains of gunpowder, which seemed to have gone mad, +so merrily did they hop about upon the surface of the fast evaporating +salt-pools. That wonder, indeed, Elsley stooped to examine, and drew +back his hands with an "ugh!" and a gesture of disgust, when he found +that they were "nasty little insects." For Elsley held fully the +poet's right to believe that all things are not very good; none, +indeed, save such as suited his eclectic and fastidious taste; and to +hold (on high aesthetic grounds, of course) toads and spiders in as +much abhorrence as does any boarding-school girl. However, finding +some rock ledges which formed a natural ladder, down he scrambled, +gingerly enough, for he was neither an active nor a courageous man. +But, once down, I will do him the justice to say, that for five whole +minutes he forgot all about Fra Dolcino, and, what was better, about +himself also. + +The chasm may have been fifteen feet deep, and above, about half that +breadth; but below, the waves had hollowed it into dark overhanging +caverns. Just in front of him a huge boulder spanned the crack; and +formed a natural doorway, through which he saw, like a picture set in +a frame, the far-off blue sea softening into the blue sky among brown +Eastern haze. Amid the haze a single ship hung motionless, like a +white cloud. Nearer, a black cormorant floated sleepily along, and +dived, and rose again. Nearer again, long lines of flat tide-rock, +glittering and quivering in the heat, sloped gradually under the +waves, till they ended in half-sunken beds of olive oar-weed, which +bent their tangled stems into a hundred graceful curves, and swayed to +and fro slowly and sleepily. The low swell slid whispering among their +floating palms, and slipped on toward the cavern's mouth, as if asking +wistfully (so Elsley fancied) when it would be time for it to return +to that cool shade, and hide from all the blinding blaze outside. But +when his eye was enough accustomed to the shade within, it withdrew +gladly from the glaring sea and glaring tide-rocks to the walls of the +chasm itself; to curved and polished sheets of stone, rich brown, with +snow-white veins, on which danced for ever a dappled network of pale +yellow light; to crusted beds of pink coralline; to caverns, in the +dark crannies of which hung branching sponges and tufts of purple +sea-moss; to strips of clear white sand, bestrewn with shells; to +pools, each a gay flower-garden of all hues, where branching sea-weeds +reflected blue light from every point, like a thousand damasked +sword-blades; while among them, dahlias and chrysanthemums, and many +another mimic of our earth-born flowers, spread blooms of crimson, and +purple, and lilac, and creamy grey, half-buried among feathered weeds +as brightly coloured as they; and strange and gaudy fishes shot across +from side to side, and chased each other in and out of hidden cells. + +Within and without all was at rest; the silence was broken only by the +timid whisper of the swell, and by the chime of dropping water within +some unseen cave: but what a different rest! Without, all lying +breathless, stupefied, sun-stricken, in blinding glare; within, all +coolness, and refreshing sleep. Without, all simple, broad, and vast; +within, all various, with infinite richness of form and colour.--An +Hairoun Alraschid's bower, looking out upon the-- + +Bother the fellow! Why will he go on analysing and figuring in this +way? Why not let the blessed place tell him what it means, instead of +telling it what he thinks? And--why, he is actually writing verses, +though not about Fra Dolcino! + + "How rests yon rock, whoso half-day's bath is done, + With broad bright sight, beneath the broad bright sun, + Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping. + Yet, nearer drawn, beneath her purple tresses, + From down-bent brows we find her slowly weeping, + So many a heart for cruel man's caresses + Must only pine and pine, and yet must bear + A gallant front beneath life's gaudy glare." + +Silly fellow! Do you think that Nature had time to think of such a +far-fetched conceit as that while it was making that rock and peopling +it with a million tiny living things, of which not one falleth to the +ground without your Father's knowledge, and each more beautiful than +any sea-nymph whom you ever fancied? For, after all, you cannot fancy +a whole sea nymph (perhaps in that case you could make one), but only +a very little scrap of her outside. Or if, as you boast, you are +inspired by the Creative Spirit, tell us what the Creative Spirit says +about that rock, and not such verse as that, the lesson of which you +don't yourself really feel. Pretty enough it is, perhaps: but in your +haste to say a pretty thing, just because it was pretty, you have not +cared to condemn yourself out of your own mouth. Why were you sulky, +sir, with Mrs. Vavasour this very morning, after all that passed, +because she would look over the washing-books, while you wanted her to +hear about Fra Dolcino? And why, though she was up to her knees among +your dirty shirts when you went out, did you not give her one parting +kiss, which would have transfigured her virtuous drudgery for her into +a sacred pleasure? One is heartily glad to see you disturbed, cross +though you may look at it, by that sturdy step and jolly whistle which +burst in on you from the other end of the chasm, as Tom Thurnall, with +an old smock frock over his coat and a large basket on his arm, comes +stumbling and hopping towards you, dropping every now and then on +hands and knees, and turning over on his back, to squeeze his head +into some muddy crack, and then withdraw it with the salt water +dripping down his nose. + +Elsley closed his eyes, and rested his head on his hand in a somewhat +studied "pose." But as he wished not to be interrupted, it may not +have been altogether unpardonable to pretend sleep. However, the +sleeping posture had exactly the opposite effect to that which he +designed. + +"Ah, Mr. Vavasour!" + +"Humph!" quoth he slowly, if not sulkily. + +"I admire your taste, sir; a charming summerhouse old Triton has +vacated for your use; but let me advise you not to go to sleep in it." + +"Why then, sir?" + +"Because--it's no business of mine, of course: but the tide has turned +already; and if a breeze springs up old Triton will be back again in a +hurry, and in a rage also; and--I may possibly lose a good patient." + +Elsley, who knew nothing about the tides, save that "the moon wooed +the ocean," or some such important fact, thanked him coolly enough, +and returned to a meditative attitude. Tom saw that he was in the +seventh heaven, and went on: but he had not gone three steps before he +pulled up short, slapping his hands together once, as a man does who +has found what he wants; and then plunged up to his knees in a rock +pool, and then began working very gently at something under water. + +Elsley watched him for full five minutes with so much curiosity, that, +despite of himself, he asked him what he was doing. + +Tom had his whole face under water, and did not hear, till Elsley had +repeated the question. + +"Only a rare zoophyte," said he at last, lifting his dripping visage, +and gasping for breath; and then he dived again. + +"Inexplicable pedantry of science!" thought Elsley to himself, while +Tom worked on steadfastly, and at last rose, and, taking out a phial +from his basket, was about to deposit in it something invisible. + +"Stay a moment; you really have roused my curiosity by your +earnestness. May I see what it is for which you have taken so much +trouble?" + +Tom held out on his finger a piece of slimy crust the size of a +halfpenny. Elsley could only shrug his shoulders. + +"Nothing to you, sir, I doubt not; but worth a guinea to me, even if +it be only to mount bits of it as microscopic objects." + +"So you mingle business with science?" said Elsley, rather in a +contemptuous tone. + +"Why not? I must live, and my father too; and it is as honest a way of +making money as any other: I poach in no man's manor for my game." + +"But what is your game! What possible attraction in that bit of dirt +can make men spend their money on it?" + +"You shall see," said Tom, dropping it into the phial of salt water, +and offering it to Elsley, with his pocket magnifier. + +"Judge for yourself." + +Elsley did so, and beheld a new wonder--a living plant of crystal, +studded with crystal bells, from each of which waved a crown of +delicate arms. It was the first time that Elsley had ever seen one +of those exquisite zoophytes which stud every rock and every tuft of +weed. + +"This is most beautiful," said he at length. + +"Humph! why should not Mr. Vavasour write a poem about it?" + +"Why not indeed?" thought Elsley. + +"It's no business of mine, no man's less: but I often wonder why you +poets don't take to the microscope, and tell us a little more about +the wonderful things which are here already, and not about those which +are not, and which, perhaps, never will be." + +"Well," said Elsley, after another look: "but, after all, these things +have no human interest in them." + +"I don't know that; they have to me, for instance. These are the +things which I would write about if I had any turn for verse, not +about human nature, of which I know, I'm afraid, a little too much +already. I always like to read old Darwin's 'Loves of the Plants;' +bosh as it is in a scientific point of view, it amuses one's fancy +without making one lose one's temper, as one must when one begins to +analyse the microscopic ape called self and friends. + +"You would like, then, the old Cosmogonies, the Eddas and the Vedas," +said Elsley, getting interested, as most people did after five +minutes' talk with the cynical doctor. "I suppose you would not say +much for their science; but, as poetry, they are just what you ask +for--the expression of thoughtful spirits, who looked round upon +nature with awe-struck, childlike eyes, and asked of all heaven and +earth the question, 'What are you? How came you to be?' Yet--it may be +my fault--while I admire them, I cannot sympathise with them. To me, +this zoophyte is as a being of another sphere; and till I can create +some link in my own mind between it and humanity it is as nothing in +my eyes." + +"There is link enough, sir, don't doubt, and chains of iron and brass +too." + +"You believe then, in the development theory of the 'Vestiges'?" + +"Doctors who have their bread to earn never commit themselves to +theories. No; all I meant was, that this little zoophyte lives by the +same laws as you and I; and that he, and the sea-weeds, and so forth, +teach us doctors certain little rules concerning life and death, which +you will have a chance soon of seeing at work on the most grand and +poetical, and indeed altogether tragic scale." + +"What do you mean?" + +"When the cholera comes here as it will, at its present pace, before +the end of the summer, then I shall have the zoophytes rising up in +judgment against me, if I have not profited by a leaf out of their +book." + +"The cholera?" said Elsley in a startled voice, forgetting Tom's +parables in the new thought. For Elsley had a dread more nervous than +really coward of infectious diseases; and he had also (and prided +himself, too, on having) all Goethe's dislike of anything terrible or +horrible, of sickness, disease, wounds, death, anything which jarred +with that "beautiful" which was his idol. + +"The cholera?" repeated he. "I hope not; I wish you had not mentioned +it, Mr. Thurnall." + +"I am very sorry that I did so, if it offends you. I had thought that +forewarned was forearmed. After all it is no business of mine; if I +have extra labour, as I shall have, I shall have extra experience; and +that will be a fair set-off, even if the board of guardians don't vote +me an extra remuneration, as they ought to do." + +Elsley was struck dumb; first by the certainty which Tom's words +expressed, and next by the coolness of their temper. At last he +stammered out, "Good heavens, Mr. Thurnall! you do not talk of that +frightful scourge--so disgusting, too, in its character--as a matter +of profit and loss? It is sordid, cold-hearted!" + +"My dear sir, if I let myself think, much more talk, about the matter +in any other tone, I should face the thing poorly enough when it came. +I shall have work enough to keep my head about the end of August +or beginning of September, and I must not lose it beforehand, +by indulging in any horror, disgust, or other emotion perfectly +justifiable in a layman." + +"But are not doctors men?" + +"That depends very much on what 'a man' means." + +"Men with human sympathy and compassion." + +"Oh, I mean by a man, a man with human strength. My dear sir, one may +be too busy, and at doing good too (though that is not my line, save +professionally, because it is my only way of earning money); but one +may be too busy at doing good to have time for compassion. If while +I was cutting a man's leg off I thought of the pain which he was +suffering--" + +"Thank heaven!" said Elsley, "that it was not my lot to become a +medical man." + +Tom looked at him with the quaintest smile: a flush of mingled anger +and contempt had been rising in him as he heard the ex-bottle-boy +talking sentiment: but he only went on quietly, + +"No, sir; with your more delicate sensibilities, you may thank Heaven +that you did not become a medical man; your life would have been one +of torture, disgust, and agonising sense of responsibility. But do you +not see that you must thank Heaven for the sufferer's sake also? I +will not shock you again by talking of amputation; but even in the +smallest matter--even if you were merely sending medicine to an old +maid--suppose that your imagination were preoccupied by the thought +of her old age, her sufferings, her disappointed hopes, her regretful +dream of bygone youth, and beauty, and love, and all the tender +fancies which might well spring out of such a mournful spectacle, +would you not be but too likely (pardon the bathos) to end by +sending her an elderly gentleman's medicine after all, and so either +frightfully increasing her sufferings, or ending them once for all?" + +Tom said this in the most quiet and natural tone, without even a +twinkle of his wicked eye: but Elsley heard him begin with reddening +face; and as he went on, the red had turned to purple, and then to +deadly yellow; till making a half-step forward he cried fiercely:-- + +"Sir!" and then stopped suddenly; for his feet slipped upon the +polished stone, and on his face he fell into the pool at Thurnall's +feet. + +"Well for both of us geese!" said Tom inwardly, as he went to pick him +up. "I verily believe he was going to strike me, and that would have +done for neither of us. I was a fool to say it; but the temptation was +so exquisite; and it must have come some day." + +But Vavasour staggered up of his own accord, and dashing away Tom's +proffered hand, was rushing off without a word. + +"Not so, Mr. John Briggs!" said Tom, making up his mind in a moment +that he must have it out now, or never; and that he might have +everything to fear from Vavasour if he let him go home furious. We do +not part thus, sir!" + +"We will meet again, if you will," foamed Vavasour, "but it shall end +in the death of one of us!" + +"By each other's potions? I can doctor myself, sir, thank you. Listen +to me, John Briggs! You shall listen!" and Tom sprang past him, and +planted himself at the foot of the rock steps, to prevent his escaping +upward. + +"What, do you wish to quarrel with me, sir? It is I who ought to +quarrel with you. I am the aggrieved party, and not you, sir! I have +not seen the son of the man who, when I was an apothecary's boy, +petted me, lent me books, introduced me as a genius, turned my head +for me, which was just what I was vain enough to enjoy--I have not +seen that man's son cast ashore penniless and friendless, and yet +never held out to him a helping hand, but tried to conceal my identity +from him, from a dirty shame of my honest father's honest name." + +Vavasour dropped his eyes, for was it not true? but he raised them +again more fiercely than ever. + +"Curse you! I owe you nothing. It was you who made me ashamed of it. +You rhymed on it, and laughed about poetry coming out of such a name." + +"And what if I did? Are poets to "be made of nothing but tinder and +gall?" Why could you not take an honest joke as it was meant, and +go your way like other people, till you had shown yourself worth +something, and won honour even, for the name of Briggs?" + +"And I have! I have my own station now, my own fame, sir, and it is +nothing to you what I choose to call myself. I have won my place, I +say, and your mean envy cannot rob me of it." + +"You have your station. Very good," said Tom, not caring to notice the +imputation; "you owe the greater part of it to your having made a most +fortunate marriage, for which I respect you, as a practical man. Let +your poetry be what it may (and people tell me that it is really very +beautiful), your match shows me that you are a clever, and therefore a +successful person." + +"Do you take me for a sordid schemer, like yourself? I loved what was +worthy of me, and won it because I deserved it." + +"Then, having won it, treat it as it deserves," said Tom, with a cool +searching look, before which Vavasour's eyes fell again. "Understand +me, Mr. John Briggs; it is of no consequence to me what you call +yourself: but it is of consequence to me that I should not have a +patient in my parish whom I cannot cure; for I cannot cure broken +hearts, though they will be simple enough to come to me for medicine." + +"You shall have no chance! You shall never enter my house! You shall +not ruin me, sir, by your bills!" + +Tom made no answer to this fresh insult. He had another game to play. + +"Take care what you say, Briggs; remember that, after all, you are in +my power, and I had better remind you plainly of the fact." + +"And you mean to make me your tool? I will die first!" + +"I believe that," said Tom, who was very near adding, "that he should +be sorry to work with such tools." + +"My tools are my lancet and my drugs," said he, quietly, "and all +I have to say refers to them. It suits my purpose to become the +principal medical man in this neighbourhood--" + +"And I am to tout for introductions for you?" + +"You are to be so very kind as to allow me to finish my sentence, +just as you would allow any other gentleman; and because I wish for +practice, and patients, and power, you will be so kind as to treat me +henceforth as one high-minded man would treat another, to whom he is +obliged. For you know, John Briggs, as well as I," said Tom, drawing +himself up to his full height, "look me in the face, if you can, ere +you deny it, that I was, while you knew me, as honourable a man, and +as kind-hearted a man, as you ever were; and that now--considering the +circumstances under which we meet,--you have more reason to trust me, +than I have, prima facie, to trust you." + +Vavasour answered not a word. + +"Good-bye, then," said Tom, drawing aside from the step; "Mrs. +Vavasour will be anxious about you. And mind! With regard to her first +of all, sir, and then with regard to other matters--as long, and only +as long, as you remember that you are John Briggs of Whitbury, I shall +be the first to forget it. There is my hand, for old acquaintance' +sake." + +Vavasour took the proffered hand coldly, paused a moment, and then +wrung it in silence, and hurried away home. + +"Have I played my ace ill after all?" said Tom, sitting down to +consider. "As for whether I should have played it all, that's no +business of mine now. Madam Might-have-been may see to that. But did +I play ill? for if I did, I may try a new lead yet. Ought I to have +twitted him about his wife? If he's venomous, it may only make matters +worse; and still worse if he be suspicious. I don't think he was +either in old times; but vanity will make a man so, and it may have +made him. Well, I must only ingratiate myself all the more with her; +and find out, too, whether she has his secret as well as I. What I am +most afraid of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power; +it's apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere +hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their +miserable selves. Never mind; he can't break my tackle; and besides, +that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor wretch was +beat, and thought himself let off easily--as indeed he is. We'll hope +so. Now, zoophytes, for another turn with you!" + +To tell the truth, however, Tom is looking for more than zoophytes, +and has been doing so at every dead low tide since he was wrecked. He +has heard nothing yet of his belt. The notes have not been presented +at the London bank; nobody in the village has been spending more money +than usual; for cunning Tom has contrived already to know how many +pints of ale every man of whom he has the least doubt has drunk. +Perhaps, after all, the belt may have been torn off in the life +struggle; it may have been for a moment in Grace's hands, and then +have been swept into the sea. What more likely? And what more likely, +in that case, that, sinking by its weight, it is wedged away in some +cranny of the rocks? + +So spring-tide after spring-tide Tom searches, and all the more +carefully because others are searching too, for waifs and strays from +the wreck. Sad relics of mortality he finds at times, as others do: +once, even, a dressing-case, full of rings and pins and chains, which +belonged, he fancied, to a gay young bride with whom he had waltzed +many a time on deck, as they slipped along before the soft trade-wind: +but no belt. He sent the dressing-case to the Lloyd's underwriters, +and searched on: but in vain. Neither could he find that any one else +had forestalled him; and that very afternoon, sulky and disheartened, +he determined to waste no more time about the matter, and strode home, +vowing signal vengeance against the thief, if he caught him. + +"And I will catch him! These west-country yokels, to fancy that they +can do Tom Thurnall! It's adding insult to injury, as Sam Weller's +parrot has it." + +Now his shortest way home lay across the shore, and then along the +beach, and up the steps by the little waterfall, past Mrs. Harvey's +door; and at that door sat Grace, sewing in the sun. She looked up and +bowed as his passed, smiling modestly, and little dreaming of what was +passing in his mind; and when a very lovely girl smiled and bowed to +Tom, he must needs do the same to her: whereon she added,-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir: have you heard anything of the money you +lost? I--we--have been so ashamed to think of such a thing happening +here." + +Tom's evil spirit was roused. + +"Have _you_ heard anything of it, Miss Harvey? For you seem to me the +only person in the place who knows anything about the matter." + +"I, sir?" cried Grace, fixing her great startled eyes full on him. + +"Why, ma'am," said Tom, with a courtly smile, "you may possibly +recollect, if you will so far tax your memory, that you had it in your +hands at least a moment, when you did me the kindness to save my life; +and as you were kind enough to inform me that I should recover it when +I was worthy of it, I suppose I have not yet risen in your eyes to +the required state of conversion and regeneration." And swinging +impatiently away, he walked on, really afraid lest he should say +something rude. + +Grace half called after him, and then suddenly checking herself, +rushed in to her mother with a wild and pale face. + +"What is this Mr. Thurnall has been saying to me about his belt and +money which he lost?" + +"About what? Has he been rude to you, the bad man?" cried Mrs. Harvey, +dropping the pie-dish in some confusion, and taking a long while to +pick up the pieces. + +"About the belt--the money which he lost? Why don't you speak, +mother?" + +"Belt--money? Ah, I recollect now. He has lost some money, he says." + +"Of course he has." + +"How should you know anything? I recollect there was some talk of it, +though. But what matter what he says? He was quite passed away, I'll +swear, when they carried him up." + +"But, mother! mother! he says that I know about it; that I had it in +my hands!" + +"You? Oh the wicked wretch, the false, ungrateful, slanderous child of +wrath, with adder's poison tinder his lips! No, my child! Though we're +poor, we're honest! Let him slander us, rob us, of our good name, send +us to prison, if he will--he cannot rob us of our souls. We'll be +silent; we'll turn the other cheek, and commit our cause to One above +who pleads for the orphan and the widow. We will not strive nor cry, +my child. Oh, no!" And Mrs. Harvey began fussing over the smashed +pie-dish. + +"I shall not strive nor cry, mother," said Grace, who had recovered +her usual calm: "but he must have some cause for these strange words. +Do you recollect seeing me with the belt?" + +"Belt, what's a belt? I know nothing about belts. I tell you he's a +villain, and a slanderer. Oh, that it should have come to this, to +have my child's fair fame blasted by a wretch that comes nobody knows +where from, and has been doing nobody knows what, for aught I know!" + +"Mother, mother! we know no harm of him. If he is mistaken, God +forgive him!" + +"If he is mistaken?" went on Mrs. Harvey, still over the pie-dish: but +Grace gave her no answer. + +She was deep in thought. She recollected now, that as she had gone up +the path, from the cove on that eventful morning, she had seen Willis +and Thurnall whispering earnestly together; and she recollected +now, for the first time, that there had been, a certain sadness and +perplexity, almost reserve, about Willis ever since. Good Heavens! +could he suspect her too? She would find out that at least; and no +sooner had her mother fussed away, talking angrily to herself, into +the back kitchen, than Grace put on her bonnet and shawl, and went +forth to find the Captain. + +In an hour she returned. Her lips were firm set, her cheeks pale, her +eyes red with weeping. She said nothing to her mother, who for her +part did not seem inclined to allude again to the matter. + +"Where have you been, child? You look quite poorly, and your eyes +red." + +"The wind is very cold, mother," said she, and went into her room. Her +mother looked sharply after her, and muttered to herself. + +Grace went in, and sat down on the bed. + +"What a coldness this is at my heart!" she said aloud to herself, +trying to smile; but she could not: and she sat on the bedside, +without taking off her bonnet and shawl, her hands hanging listlessly +by her side, her head drooping on her bosom, till her mother called +her to tea: then she was forced to rouse herself, and went out, +composed, but utterly wretched. + +Tom walked up homeward, very ill at ease. He had played, to use his +nomenclature, two trump cards running, and was by no means satisfied +that he had played them well. He had no right, certainly, to be +satisfied with either move; for both had been made in a somewhat evil +spirit, and certainly for no very disinterested end. + +That was a view of the matter, however, which never entered his mind; +there was only that general dissatisfaction with himself which is, +though men try hard to deny the fact, none other than the supernatural +sting of conscience. He tried "to lay to his soul the flattering +unction" that he might, after all, be of use to Mrs. Vavasour, by +using his power over her husband: but he knew in his secret heart that +any move of his in that direction was likely only to make matters +worse; that to-day's explosion might only have sent home the hapless +Vavasour in a more irritable temper than ever. And thinking over many +things, backward and forward, he saw his own way so little, that he +actually condescended to go and "pump" Frank Headley. So he termed it: +but, after all, it was only like asking advice of a good man, because +he did not feel himself quite good enough to advise himself. + +The curate was preparing to sally forth, after his frugal dinner. +The morning he spent at the schools, or in parish secularities; the +afternoon, till dusk, was devoted to visiting the poor; the night, not +to sleep, but to reading and sermon writing. Thus, by sitting up till +two in the morning, and rising again at six for his private devotions, +before walking a mile and a half up to church for the morning service, +Frank Headley burnt the candle of life at both ends very effectually, +and showed that he did so by his pale cheeks and red eyes. + +"Ah!" said Tom, as he entered. "As usual: poor Nature is being robbed +and murdered by rich Grace." + +"What do you mean now?" asked Frank, smiling, for he had become +accustomed enough to Tom's quaint parables, though he had to scold him +often enough for their irreverence. + +"Nature says, 'after dinner sit awhile;' and even the dumb animals +hear her voice, and lie by for a siesta when their stomachs are full. +Grace says, 'Jump up and rush out the moment you have swallowed your +food; and if you get an indigestion, abuse poor Nature for it; and lay +the blame on Adam's fall.'" + +"You are irreverent, my good sir, as usual; but you are unjust also +this time." + +"How then?" + +"Unjust to Grace, as you phrase it," answered Frank, with a quaint sad +smile. "I assure you on my honour, that Grace has nothing whatsoever +to do with my 'rushing out' just now, but simply the desire to do my +good works that they may be seen of men. I hate going out. I should +like to sit and read the whole afternoon: but I am afraid lest the +dissenters should say, 'He has not been to see so-and-so for the last +three days;' so off I go, and no credit to me." + +Why had Frank dared, upon a month's acquaintance, to lay bare his own +heart thus to a man of no creed at all? Because, I suppose, amid all +differences, he had found one point of likeness between himself and +Thurnall; he had found that Tom at heart was a truly genuine man, +sincere and faithful to his own scheme of the universe. + +How that man, through all his eventful life, had been enabled to + + "Bate not a jot of heart or hope, + But steer right onward," + +was a problem which Frank longed curiously, and yet fearfully withal, +to solve. There were many qualities in him which Frank could not but +admire, and long to imitate; and, "Whence had they come?" was another +problem at which he looked, trembling as many a new thought crossed +him. He longed, too, to learn from Tom somewhat at least of that +savoir faire, that power of "becoming all things to all men," which +St. Paul had; and for want of which Frank had failed. He saw, too, +with surprise, that Tom had gained in one month more real insight into +the characters of his parishioners than he had done in twelve; and +besides all, there was the craving of the lonely heart for human +confidence and friendship. So it befell that Frank spoke out his +inmost thought that day, and thought no shame; and it befell also, +that Thurnall, when he heard it, said in his heart-- + +"What a noble, honest fellow you are, when you--" + +But he answered enigmatically. + +"Oh, I quite agree with you that Grace has nothing to do with it. I +only referred it to that source because I thought you would do so." + +"You ought to be ashamed of your dishonesty, then." + +"I know it; but my view of the case is, that you rush out after +dinner for the very same reason that the Yankee storekeeper +does--from--You'll forgive me if I say it?" + +"Of course. You cannot speak too plainly to me." + +"Conceit; the Yankee fancies himself such an important person, that +the commercial world will stand still unless he flies back to its help +after ten minutes' gobbling, with his month full of pork and pickled +peaches. And you fancy yourself so important in your line, that the +spiritual world will stand still unless you bolt back to help it in +like wise. Substitute a half-cooked mutton chop for the pork, and the +cases are exact parallels." + +"Your parallel does not hold good, Doctor. The Yankee goes back to his +store to earn money for himself, and not to keep commerce alive." + +"While you go for utterly disinterested motives.--I see." + +"Do you?" said Frank. "If you think that I fancy myself a better man +than the Yankee, you mistake me: but at least you will confess that I +am not working for money." + +"No; you have your notions of reward, and he has his. He wants to +be paid by material dollars, payable next month; you by spiritual +dollars, payable when you die. I don't see the great difference." + +"Only the slight difference between what is material and what is +spiritual." + +"They seem to me, from all I can hear in pulpits, to be only two +different sorts of pleasant things, and to be sought after, both +alike, simply because they are pleasant. Self-interest, if you will +forgive me, seems to me the spring of both: only, to do you justice, +you are a farther-sighted and more prudent man than the Yankee +storekeeper; and having more exquisitely developed notions of what +your true self-interest is, are content to wait a little longer than +he." + +"You stab with a jest, Thurnall. You little know how your words hit +home." + +"Well, then, to turn from a matter of which I know nothing--I must +keep you in, and give you parish business to do at home. I am come to +consult you as my spiritual pastor and master." + +Frank looked a little astonished. + +"Don't be alarmed. I am not going to confess my own sins--only other +people's." + +"Pray don't, then. I know far more of them already than I can cure. I +am worn out with the daily discovery of fresh evil wherever I go." + +"Then why not comfort yourself by trying to find a little fresh good +wherever you go?" + +Frank sighed. + +"Perhaps, though, you don't care for any sort of good except your own +sort of good. You are fastidious. Well, you have your excuses. But you +can understand a poor fellow like me, who has been dragged through +the slums and sewers of this wicked world for fifteen years and more, +being very well content with any sort of good which I can light on, +and not particular as to either quantity or quality." + +"Perhaps yours is the healthier state of mind; if you can only +find the said good. The vulturine nose, which smells nothing but +corruption, is no credit to its possessor. And it would be pleasant, +at least, to find good in every man." + +"One can't do that in one's study. Mixing with them is the only plan. +No doubt they're inconsistent enough. The more you see of them, the +less you trust them; and yet the more you see of them, the more you +like them. Can you solve that paradox from your books?" + +"I will try," said Frank. "I generally have more than one to think +over when you go. But, surely, there are men so fallen that they are +utterly insensible to good." + +"Very likely. There's no saying in this world what may not be. Only I +never saw one. I'll tell you a story: you may apply it as you like. +When I was on the Texan expedition, and raw to soldiering and camping, +we had to sleep in low ground, and suffered terribly from a miasma. +Deadly cold, it was, when it came; and the man who once got chilled +through with it, just died. I was lying on the bare ground one night, +and chilly enough I was--for I was short of clothes, and had lost my +buffalo robe--but fell asleep: and on waking the next morning, I found +myself covered up in my comrade's blankets, even to his coat, while he +was sitting shivering in his shirt sleeves. The cold fog had come down +in the night, and the man had stripped himself, and sat all night with +death staring him in the face, to save my life. And all the reason he +gave was, that if one of us must die, it was better the older should +go first, and not a youngster like me. And," said Tom, lowering his +voice, "that man was a murderer!" + +"A murderer!" + +"Yes; a drunken, gambling, cut-throat rowdy as ever grew ripe for the +gallows. Now, will you tell me that there was nothing in that man but +what the devil put there?" + +Frank sat meditating awhile on this strange story, which is moreover a +true one; and then looked up with something like tears in his eyes. + +"And he did not die?" + +"Not he! I saw him die afterwards--shot through the heart, without +time even to cry out. But I have not forgotten what he did for me that +night; and I'll tell you what, sir! I do not believe that God has +forgotten it either." + +Frank was silent for a few moments, and then Tom changed the subject. + +"I want to know what you can tell me about this Mr. Vavasour." + +"Hardly anything, I am sorry to say. I was at his house at tea, two or +three times, when I first came; and I had very agreeable evenings, and +talks on art and poetry: but I believe I offended him by hinting that +he ought to come to church, which he never does, and since then our +acquaintance has all but ceased. I suppose you will say, as usual, +that I played my cards badly there also." + +"Not at all," said Tom, who was disposed to take any one's part +against Elsley. "If a clergyman has not a right to tell a man that, I +don't see what right he has of any kind. Only," added he, with one of +his quaint smiles, "the clergyman, if he compels a man to deal at his +store, is bound to furnish him with the articles which he wants." + +"Which he needs, or which he likes? For 'wanting' has both these +meanings." + +"With something that he finds by experience does him good; and so +learns to like it, because he knows that he needs it, as my patients +do my physic." + +"I wish my patients would do so by mine: but, unfortunately, half of +them seem to me not to know what their disease is, and the other half +do not think they are diseased at all." + +"Well," said Tom drily, "perhaps some of them are more right than you +fancy. Every man knows his own business best." + +"If it were so, they would go about it somewhat differently from what +most of the poor creatures do." + +"Do you think so? I fancy myself that not one of them does a wrong +thing, but what he knows it to be wrong just as well as you do, and is +much more ashamed and frightened about it already, than you can ever +make him by preaching at him." + +"Do you?" + +"I do. I judge of others by myself." + +"Then would you have a clergyman never warn his people of their sins?" + +"If I were he, I'd much sooner take the sins for granted, and say to +them, 'Now, my friends, I know you are all, ninety-nine out of the +hundred of you, not such bad fellows at bottom, and would all like +to be good, if you only knew how; so I'll tell you as far as I know, +though I don't know much about the matter. For the truth is, you must +have a hundred troubles every day which I never felt in my life; and +it must be a very hard thing to keep body and soul together, and +to get a little pleasure on this side the grave without making +blackguards of yourselves. Therefore I don't pretend to set myself up +as a better or a wiser man than you at all: but I do know a thing or +two which I fancy may be useful to you. You can but try it. So come +up, if you like, any of you, and talk matters over with me as between +gentleman and gentleman. I shall keep your secret, of course; and if +you find I can't cure your complaint, why, you can but go away and try +elsewhere.'" + +"And so the doctor's model sermon ends in proposing private +confession!" + +"Of course. The thing itself which will do them good, without the red +rag of an official name, which sends them cackling off like frightened +turkeys.--Such private confession as is going on between you and me +now. Here am I confessing to you all my unorthodoxy." + +"And I my ignorance," said Frank; "for I really believe you know more +about the matter than I do." + +"Not at all. I may be all wrong. But the fault of your cloth seems to +me to be that they apply their medicines without deigning, most of +them, to take the least diagnosis of the case. How could I cure a man +without first examining what was the matter with him?" + +"So say the old casuists, of whom I have read enough--some would say +too much; but they do not satisfy me. They deal with actions, and +motives, and so forth; but they do not go down to the one root of +wrong which is the same in every man." + +"You are getting beyond me: but why do you not apply a little of the +worldly wisdom which these same casuists taught you?" + +"To tell you the truth, I have tried in past years, and found that the +medicine would not act." + +"Humph! Well, that would depend, again, on the previous diagnosis of +human nature being correct; and those old monks, I should say, would +know about as much of human nature as so many daws in a steeple. +Still, you wouldn't say that what was the matter with old Heale was +the matter also with Vavasour?" + +"I believe from my heart that it is." + +"Humph! Then you know the symptoms of his complaint?" + +"I know that he never comes to church." + +"Nothing more? I am really speaking in confidence. You surely have +heard of disagreements between him and Mrs. Vavasour?" + +"Never, I assure you; you shock me." + +"I am exceedingly sorry, then, that I said a word about it: but the +whole parish talks of it," answered Tom, who was surprised at this +fresh proof of the little confidence which Aberalva put in their +parson. + +"Ah!" said Frank sadly, "I am the last person in the parish to hear +any news: but this is very distressing." + +"Very, to me. My honour, to tell you the truth, as a medical man, +is concerned in the matter; for she is growing quite ill from +unhappiness, and I cannot cure her; so I come to you, as soul-doctor, +to do what I, the body-doctor, cannot." + +Frank sat pondering for a minute, and then-- + +"You set me on a task for which I am as little fit as any man, by your +own showing. What do I know of disagreements between man and wife? And +one has a delicacy about offering her comfort. She must bestow her +confidence on me before I can use it: while he--" + +"While he, as the cause of the disease, is what you ought to treat; +and not her unhappiness, which is only a symptom of it." + +"Spoken like a wise doctor; but to tell you the truth, Thurnall, I +have no influence over Mr. Vavasour, and see no means of getting any. +If he recognised my authority, as his parish priest, then I should see +my way. Let him be as bad as he might, I should have a fixed point +from which to work; but with his free-thinking notions, I know +well--one can judge it too easily from his poems--he would look on me +as a pedant assuming a spiritual tyranny to which I have no claim." + +Tom sat awhile nursing his knee, and then-- + +"If you saw a man fallen into the water, what do you think would be +the shortest way to prove to him that you had authority from heaven +to pull him out? Do you give it up? Pulling him out would it not be, +without more ado?" + +"I should be happy enough to pull poor Vavasour out, if he would let +me. But till he believes that I can do it, how can I even begin!" + +"How can you expect him to believe, if he has no proof?" + +"There are proofs enough in the Bible and elsewhere, if he will but +accept them. If he refuses to examine into the credentials, the fault +is his, not mine. I really do not wish to be hard; but would not you +do the same, if any one refused to employ you, because he chose to +deny that you were a legally qualified practitioner?" + +"Not so badly put; but what should I do in that case? Go on quietly +curing his neighbours, till he began to alter his mind as to my +qualifications, and came in to be cured himself. But here's this +difference between you and me. I am not bound to attend to any one who +don't send for me; while you think that you are, and carry the notion +a little too far, for I expect you to kill yourself by it some day." + +"Well?" said Frank, with something of that lazy Oxford tone, which is +intended to save the speaker the trouble of giving his arguments, when +he has already made up his mind, or thinks that he has so done. + +"Well, if I thought myself bound to doctor the man, willy-nilly, as +you do, I would certainly go to him, and show him, at least, that I +understood his complaint. That would be the first step towards his +letting me cure him. How else on earth do you fancy that Paul cured +those Corinthians about whom I have been reading lately?" + +"Are you, too, going to quote Scripture against me? I am glad to find +that your studies extend to St. Paul." + +"To tell you the truth, your sermon last Sunday puzzled me. I could +not comprehend (on your showing) how Paul got that wonderful influence +over those pagans which he evidently had; and as how to get influence +is a very favourite study of mine, I borrowed the book when I went +home, and read for myself; and the matter at last seemed clear enough, +on Paul's own showing." + +"I don't doubt that: but I suspect your interpretation of the fact and +mine would not agree." + +"Mine is simple enough. He says that what proved him to be an apostle +was his power. He is continually appealing to his power; and what can +he mean by that, but that he could do, and had done, what he professed +to do? He promised to make those poor heathen rascals of Greeks +better, and wiser, and happier men; and, I suppose, he made them so; +and then there was no doubt of his commission, or his authority, or +anything else. He says himself he did not require any credentials, for +they were his credentials, read and known of every one; he had made +good men of them out of bad ones, and that was proof enough whose +apostle he was." + +"Well," said Frank half sadly, "I might say a great deal, of course, +on the other side of the question, but I prefer hearing what you +laymen think about it all." + +"Will you be angry if I tell you honestly?" + +"Did you ever find me angry at anything you said?" + +"No. I will do you the justice to say that. Well, what we laymen say +is this. If the parsons have the authority of which they boast, why +don't they use it? If they have commission to make bad people good, +they must have power too; for He whose commission they claim, is not +likely, I should suppose, to set a man to do what he cannot do." + +"And we can do it, if people would but submit to us. It all comes +round again to the same point." + +"So it does. How to get them to listen. I tried to find out how Paul +achieved that first step; and when I looked he told me plainly enough. +By becoming all things to all men; by showing these people that he +understood them, and knew what was the matter with them. Now do you go +and do likewise by Vavasour, and then exercise your authority like a +practical man. If you have power to bind and loose, as you told us +last Sunday, bind that fellow's ungovernable temper, and loose him +from the real slavery which he is in to his miserable conceit and +self-indulgence! and then if he does not believe in your 'sacerdotal +power,' he is even a greater fool than I take him for." + +"Honestly, I will try: God help me!" added Frank in a lower voice; +"but as for quarrels between man and wife, as I told you, no one +understands them less than I." + +"Then marry a wife yourself and quarrel a little with her for +experiment, and then you'll know all about it." + +Frank laughed in spite of himself. + +"Thank you. No man is less likely to try that experiment than I." + +"Hum!" + +"I have quite enough as a bachelor to distract me from my work, +without adding to them those of a wife and family, and those little +home lessons in the frailty of human nature, in which you advise me to +copy Mr. Vavasour." + +"And so," said Tom, "having to doctor human beings, +nineteen-twentieths of whom are married; and being aware that three +parts of the miseries of human life come either from wanting to be +married, or from married cares and troubles--you think that you will +improve your chance of doctoring your flock rightly by avoiding +carefully the least practical acquaintance with the chief cause of +their disease. Philosophical and logical, truly!" + +"You seem to have acquired a little knowledge of men and women, my +good friend, without encumbering yourself with a wife and children." + +"Would you like to go to the same school to which I went?" asked +Thurnall, with a look of such grave meaning that Frank's pure spirit +shuddered within him. "And I'll tell you this; whenever I see a woman +nursing her baby, or a father with his child upon his knees, I say to +myself--they know more, at this minute, of human nature, as of the +great law of 'C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour, which makes the world +go round,' than I am likely to do for many a day. I'll tell you what, +sir! These simple natural ties, which are common to us and the dumb +animals,--as I live, sir, they are the divinest things I see in the +world! I have but one, and that is love to my poor old father; that's +all the religion I have as yet: but I tell you, it alone has kept me +from being a ruffian and a blackguard. And I'll tell you more," said +Tom, warming, "of all diabolical dodges for preventing the parsons +from seeing who they are, or what human beings are, or what their work +in the world is, or anything else, the neatest is that celibacy of the +clergy. I should like to have you with me in Spanish America, or in +France either, and see what you thought of it then. How it ever came +into mortal brains is to me the puzzle. I've often fancied, when +I've watched those priests--and very good fellows, too, some of them +are--that there must be a devil after all abroad in the world, as you +say; for no human insanity could ever have hit upon so complete and +'cute a device for making parsons do the more harm, the more good they +try to do. There, I've preached you a sermon, and made you angry." + +"Not in the least: but I must go now and see some sick." + +"Well, go, and prosper; only recollect that the said sick are men and +women." + +And away Tom went, thinking to himself: "Well, that is a noble, +straightforward, honest fellow, and will do yet, if he'll only get a +wife. He's not one of those asses who have made up their minds by book +that the world is square, and won't believe it to be round for any +ocular demonstration. He'll find out what shape the world is before +long, and behave as such, and act accordingly." + +Little did Tom think, as he went home that day in full-blown +satisfaction with his sermon to Frank, of the misery he had caused, +and was going to cause for many a day, to poor Grace Harvey. It was a +rude shock to her to find herself thus suspected; though perhaps it +was one which she needed. She had never, since one first trouble ten +years ago, known any real grief; and had therefore had all the more +time to make a luxury of unreal ones. She was treated by the simple +folk around her as all but inspired; and being possessed of real +powers as miraculous in her own eyes as those which were imputed to +her were in theirs (for what are real spiritual experiences but daily +miracles?) she was just in that temper of mind in which she required, +as ballast, all her real goodness, lest the moral balance should +topple headlong after the intellectual, and the downward course of +vanity, excitement, deception, blasphemous assumptions be entered on. +Happy for her that she was in Protestant and common-sense England, and +in a country parish, where mesmerism and spirit-rapping were unknown. +Had she been an American, she might have become one of the most +lucrative "mediums;" had she been born in a Romish country, she would +have probably become an even more famous personage. There is no reason +why she should not have equalled or surpassed, the ecstasies of St. +Theresa, or of St. Hildegardis, or any other sweet dreamer of sweet +dreams; have founded a new order of charity, have enriched the clergy +of a whole province, and have died in seven years, maddened by +alternate paroxysms of self-conceit and revulsions of self-abasement. +Her own preachers and class-leaders, indeed (so do extremes meet), +would not have been sorry to make use of her in somewhat the same +manner, however feebly and coarsely: but her innate self-respect and +modesty had preserved her from the snares of such clumsy poachers; and +more than one good-looking young preacher had fled desperately from a +station where, instead of making a tool of Grace Harvey, he could only +madden his own foolish heart with love for her. + +So Grace had reigned upon her pretty little throne of not unbearable +sorrows, till a real and bitter woe came; one which could not be +hugged and cherished, like the rest; one which she tried to fling from +her, angrily, scornfully, and found to her horror, that, instead of +her possessing it, it possessed her, and coiled itself round her +heart, and would not be flung away. She--she, of all beings, to be +suspected as a thief, and by the very man whose life she had saved! +She was willing enough to confess herself--and confessed herself night +and morning--a miserable sinner, and her heart a cage of unclean +birds, deceitful, and desperately wicked--except in that. The +conscious innocence flashed up in pride and scorn, in thoughts, even +when she was alone, in words, of which she would not have believed +herself capable. With hot brow and dry eyes she paced her little +chamber, sat down on the bed, staring into vacancy, sprang up and +paced again: but she went into no trance--she dare not. The grief was +too great; she felt that, if she once gave way enough to lose her +self-possession, she should go mad. And the first, and perhaps not the +least good effect of that fiery trial was, that it compelled her to +a stern self-restraint, to which her will, weakened by mental +luxuriousness, had been long a stranger. + +But a fiery trial it was. The first wild (and yet not unnatural) +fancy, that heaven had given Thurnall to her, had deepened day by +day, by the mere indulgence of it. But she never dreamt of him as her +husband: only as a friendless stranger to be helped and comforted. And +that he was worthy of help; that some great future was in store +for him; that he was a chosen vessel marked out for glory, she had +persuaded herself utterly; and the persuasion grew in her day by day, +as she heard more and more of his cleverness, honesty, and kindliness, +mysterious and, to her, miraculous learning. Therefore she did not +make haste; she did not even try to see him, or to speak to him; +a civil bow in passing was all that she took or gave; and she was +content with that, and waited till the time came, when she was +destined to do for him--what she knew not; but it would be done if she +were strong enough. So she set herself to learn, and read, and trained +her mind and temper more earnestly than ever, and waited in patience +for God's good time. And now, behold, a black, unfathomable gulf of +doubt and shame had opened between them, perhaps for ever. And a +tumult arose in her soul, which cannot be, perhaps ought not to be, +analysed in words; but which made her know too well, by her own +crimson cheeks, that it was none other than human love strong as +death, and jealousy cruel as the grave. + +At last long and agonising prayer brought gentler thoughts, and mere +physical exhaustion a calmer mood. How wicked she had been; how +rebellious! Why not forgive him, as One greater than she had forgiven? +It was ungrateful of him; but was he not human? Why should she expect +his heart to be better than hers? Besides, he might have excuses for +his suspicion. He might be the best judge, being a man, and such a +clever one too. Yes; it was God's cross, and she would bear it; she +would try and forget him. No; that was impossible; she must hear of +him, if not see him, day by day: besides, was not her fate linked up +with his? And yet shut out from him by that dark wall of suspicion! It +was very bitter. But she could pray for him; she would pray for him +now. Yes; it was God's cross, and she would bear it. He would right +her if He thought fit; and if not, what matter? Was she not born to +sorrow? Should she complain if another drop, and that the bitterest of +all, was added to the cup? + +And bear her cross she did, about with her, coming in, and going out, +for many a weary day. There was no change in her habits or demeanour; +she was never listless for a moment in her school; she was more gay +and amusing than ever, when she gathered her little ones around her +for a story: but still there was the unseen burden, grinding her heart +slowly, till she felt as if every footstep was stained with a drop of +her heart's blood.... Why not? It would be the sooner over. + +Then, at times came that strange woman's pleasure in martyrdom, the +secret pride of suffering unjustly: but even that, after a while, she +cast away from her, as a snare, and tried to believe that she deserved +all her sorrow--deserved it, that is, in the real honest sense of the +word; that she had worked it out, and earned it, and brought it on +herself--how, she knew not, but longed and strove to know. No; it was +no martyrdom. She would not allow herself so silly a cloak of pride; +and she went daily to her favourite "Book of Martyrs," to contemplate +there the stories of those who really innocent, really suffered for +welldoing. And out of that book she began to draw a new and a strange +enjoyment, for she soon found that her intense imagination enabled +her to re-enact those sad and glorious stories in her own person; to +tremble, agonise, and conquer with those heroines who had been for +years her highest ideals--and what higher ones could she have? And +many a night, after extinguishing the light, and closing her eyes, she +would lie motionless for hours on her little bed, not to sleep, but to +feel with Perpetua the wild bull's horns, to hang with St. Maura on +the cross, or lie with Julitta on the rack, or see with triumphant +smile, by Anne Askew's side, the fire flare up around her at the +Smithfield stake, or to promise, with dying Dorothea, celestial +roses to the mocking youth, whose face too often took the form of +Thurnall's; till every nerve quivered responsive to her fancy in +agonies of actual pain, which died away at last into heavy slumber, as +body and mind alike gave way before the strain. Sweet fool! she knew +not--how could she know?--that she might be rearing in herself the +seeds of idiotcy and death: but who that applauds a Rachel or +a Ristori, for being able to make awhile their souls and their +countenances the homes of the darkest passions, can blame her for +enacting in herself, and for herself alone, incidents in which the +highest and holiest virtue takes shape in perfect tragedy? + +But soon another, and a yet darker cause of sorrow arose in her. It +was clear, from what Willis had told her, that she had held the lost +belt in her hand. The question was, how had she lost it? + +Did her mother know anything about it? That question could not but +arise in her mind, though, for very reverence she dared not put it to +her mother; and with it arose the recollection of her mother's +strange silence about the matter. Why had she put away the subject, +carelessly, and yet peevishly, when it was mentioned? Yes. Why? Did +her mother know anything? Was she--? Grace dared not pronounce the +adjective, even in thought; dashed it away as a temptation of the +devil; dashed away, too, the thought which had forced itself on +her too often already, that her mother was not altogether one who +possessed the single eye; that in spite of her deep religious feeling, +her assurance of salvation, her fits of bitter self-humiliation and +despondency, there was an inclination to scheming and intrigue, +ambition, covetousness; that the secrets which she gained as +class-leader too, were too often (Grace could but fear) used to her +own advantage; that in her dealings her morality was not above the +average of little country shopkeepers; that she was apt to have two +prices; to keep her books with unnecessary carelessness when the +person against whom the account stood was no scholar. Grace had more +than once remonstrated in her gentle way; and had been silenced, +rather than satisfied, by her mother's commonplaces as to the right of +"making those who could pay, pay for those who could not;" that "it +was very hard to get a living, and the Lord knew her temptations," +and "that God saw no sin in His elect," and "Christ's merits were +infinite," and "Christians always had been a backsliding generation;" +and all the other commonplaces by which such people drug their +consciences to a degree which is utterly incredible, except to those +who have seen it with their own eyes, and heard it with their own +ears, from childhood. + +Once, too, in those very days, some little meanness on her mother's +part brought the tears into Grace's eyes, and a gentle rebuke to her +lips: but her mother bore the interference less patiently than usual; +and answered, not by cant, but by counter-reproach. "Was she the +person to accuse a poor widowed mother, struggling to leave her child +something to keep her out of the workhouse? A mother that lived for +her, would die for her, sell her soul for her, perhaps--" + +And there Mrs. Harvey stopped short, turned pale, and burst into such +an agony of tears, that Grace, terrified, threw her arms round her +neck, and entreated forgiveness, all the more intensely on account of +those thoughts within which she dared not reveal. So the storm passed +over. But not Grace's sadness. For she could not but see, with her +clear pure spiritual eye, that her mother was just in that state in +which some fearful and shameful fall is possible, perhaps wholesome. +"She would sell her soul for me? What if she have sold it, and stopped +short just now, because she had not the heart to tell me that love for +me had been the cause? Oh! if she have sinned for my sake! Wretch that +I am! Miserable myself, and bringing misery with me! Why was I ever +born? Why cannot I die--and the world be rid of me?" + +No, she would not believe it. It was a wicked, horrible, temptation +of the devil. She would rather believe that she herself had been the +thief, tempted during her unconsciousness; that she had hidden it +somewhere; that she should recollect, confess, restore all some day. +She would carry it to him herself, grovel at his feet, and entreat +forgiveness. "He will surely forgive, when he finds that I was not +myself when--that it was not altogether my fault--not as if I had been +waking--yes, he will forgive!" And then on that thought followed a +dream of what might follow, so wild that a moment after she had hid +her blushes in her hands, and fled to books to escape from thoughts. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT. + + +We must now return to Elsley, who had walked home in a state of mind +truly pitiable. He had been flattering his soul with the hope that +Thurnall did not know him; that his beard, and the change which years +had made, formed a sufficient disguise: but he could not conceal +from himself that the very same alterations had not prevented his +recognising Thurnall; and he had been living for two months past in +continual fear that that would come which now had come. + +His rage and terror knew no bounds. Fancying Thurnall a merely mean +and self-interested worldling, untouched by those higher aspirations +which stood to him in place of a religion, he imagined him making +every possible use of his power; and longed to escape to the uttermost +ends of the earth from his old tormentor, whom the very sea would not +put out of the way, but must needs cast ashore at his very feet, to +plague him afresh. + +What a net he had spread around his own feet, by one act of foolish +vanity! He had taken his present name, merely as a _nom de guerre_, +when first he came to London as a penniless and friendless scribbler. +It would hide him from the ridicule (and, as he fancied, spite) of +Thurnall, whom he dreaded meeting every time he walked London streets, +and who was for years, to his melancholic and too intense fancy, his +_bête noir_, his Frankenstein's familiar. Beside, he was ashamed of +the name of Briggs. It certainly is not an euphonious or aristocratic +name; and "The Soul's Agonies, by John Briggs," would not have sounded +as well as "The Soul's Agonies, by Elsley Vavasour." Vavasour was a +very pretty name, and one of those which is supposed by novelists and +young ladies to be aristocratic;--why so is a puzzle; as its plain +meaning is a tenant-farmer, and nothing more nor less. So he had +played with the name till he became fond of it, and considered that +he had a right to it, through seven long years of weary struggles, +penury, disappointment, as he climbed the Parnassian Mount, writing +for magazines and newspapers, subediting this periodical and that; +till he began to be known as a ready, graceful, and trustworthy +workman, and was befriended by one kind-hearted _littérateur_ after +another. For in London, at this moment, any young man of real power +will find friends enough, and too many, among his fellow book-wrights, +and is more likely to have his head turned by flattery, than his heart +crushed by envy. Of course, whatsoever flattery he may receive, he is +expected to return; and whatsoever clique he may be tossed into on +his _début_, he is expected to stand by, and fight for, against the +universe; but that is but fair. If a young gentleman, invited to enrol +himself in the Mutual-puffery Society which meets every Monday and +Friday in Hatchgoose the publisher's drawing-room, is willing to +pledge himself thereto in the mystic cup of tea, is he not as solemnly +bound thenceforth to support those literary Catilines in their efforts +for the subversion of common sense, good taste, and established things +in general, as if he had pledged them, as he would have done in Rome +of old, in his own life-blood? Bound he is, alike by honour and by +green tea; and it will be better for him to fulfil his bond. For if +association is the cardinal principle of the age, will it not work as +well in book-making as in clothes-making? And shall not the motto +of the poet (who will also do a little reviewing on the sly) be +henceforth that which shines triumphant over all the world, on many a +valiant Scotchman's shield-- + + "Caw me, and I'll caw thee"? + +But to do John Briggs justice, he kept his hands, and his heart also, +cleaner than most men do, during this stage of his career. After the +first excitement of novelty, and of mixing with people who could +really talk and think, and who freely spoke out whatever was in them, +right or wrong, in language which at least sounded grand and deep, he +began to find in the literary world about the same satisfaction for +his inner life which he would have found in the sporting world, or the +commercial world, or the religious world, or the fashionable world, or +any other world and to suspect strongly that wheresoever a world is, +the flesh and the devil are not very far off. Tired of talking when +he wanted to think, of asserting when he wanted to discover, and +of hearing his neighbours do the same; tired of little meannesses, +envyings, intrigues, jobberies (for the literary world, too, has +its jobs), he had been for some time withdrawing himself from the +Hatchgoose soirées into his own thoughts, when his "Soul's Agonies" +appeared, and he found himself, if not a lion, at least a lion's cub. + +There is a house or two in Town where you may meet on certain +evenings, everybody; where duchesses and unfledged poets, bishops and +red republican refugees, fox-hunting noblemen and briefless barristers +who have taken to politics, are jumbled together for a couple of +hours, to make what they can out of each other, to the exceeding +benefit of them all. For each and every one of them finds his +neighbour a pleasanter person than he expected; and none need leave +those rooms without knowing something more than he did when he came +in, and taking an interest in some human being who may need that +interest. To one of these houses, no matter which, Elsley was invited +on the strength of the "Soul's Agonies;" found himself, for the first +time, face to face with high-bred Englishwomen; and fancied--small +blame to him--that he was come to the mountains of the Peris, and to +Fairy Land itself. He had been flattered already: but never with such +grace, such sympathy, or such seeming understanding; for there are few +high-bred women who cannot seem to understand, and delude a hapless +genius into a belief in their own surpassing brilliance and +penetration, while they are cunningly retailing again to him the +thoughts which they have caught up from the man to whom they spoke +last; perhaps--for this is the very triumph of their art--from the +very man to whom they are speaking. Small blame to bashful, clumsy +John Briggs, if he did not know his own children; and could not +recognise his own stammered and fragmentary fancies, when they were +re-echoed to him the next minute, in the prettiest shape, and with the +most delicate articulation, from lips which (like those in the fairy +tale) never opened without dropping pearls and diamonds. + +Oh, what a contrast, in the eyes of a man whose sense of beauty and +grace, whether physical or intellectual, was true and deep, to +that ghastly ring of prophetesses in the Hatchgoose drawing-room; +strong-minded and emancipated women, who prided themselves on having +cast off conventionalities, and on being rude, and awkward, and +dogmatic, and irreverent, and sometimes slightly improper; women +who had missions to mend everything in heaven and earth, except +themselves; who had quarrelled with their husbands, and had therefore +felt a mission to assert women's rights, and reform marriage in +general; or who had never been able to get married at all, and +therefore were especially competent to promulgate a model method of +educating the children whom they never had had; women who wrote poetry +about Lady Blanches whom they never had met, and novels about male and +female blackguards whom (one hopes) they never had met, or about whom +(if they had) decent women would have held their peace; and every one +of whom had in obedience to Emerson, "followed her impulses," and +despised fashion, and was accordingly clothed and bedizened as was +right in the sight of her own eyes, and probably in those of no one +else. + +No wonder that Elsley, ere long, began drawing comparisons, and using +his wit upon ancient patronesses, of course behind their backs, +likening them to idols fresh from the car of Juggernaut, or from the +stern of a South Sea canoe; or, most of all, to that famous +wooden image of Freya, which once leapt lumbering forth from her +bullock-cart, creaking and rattling in every oaken joint, to belabour +the too daring Viking who was flirting with her priestess. Even so, +whispered Elsley, did those brains and tongues creak and rattle, +lumbering before the blasts of Pythonic inspiration; and so, he verily +believed, would the awkward arms and legs have done likewise, if one +of the Pythonesses had ever so far degraded herself as to dance. + +No wonder, then, that those gifted dames had soon to complain +of Elsley Vavasour as a traitor to the cause of progress and +civilisation; a renegade who had fled to the camp of aristocracy, +flunkeydom, obscurantism, frivolity, and dissipation; though there was +not one of them but would have given an eye--perhaps no great loss to +the aggregate loveliness of the universe--for one of his invitations +to 999 Cavendish Street south-east, with the chance of being presented +to the Duchess of Lyonesse. + +To do Elsley justice, one reason why he liked his new acquaintances so +well was, that they liked him. He behaved well himself, and therefore +people behaved well to him. He was, as I have said, a very handsome +fellow in his way; therefore it was easy to him, as it is to all +physically beautiful persons, to acquire a graceful manner. Moreover, +he had steeped his whole soul in old poetry, and especially in +Spenser's Faery Queen. Good for him, had he followed every lesson +which he might have learnt out of that most noble of English books: +but one lesson at least he learnt from it; and that was, to be +chivalrous, tender, and courteous to all women, however old or ugly, +simply because they were women. The Hatchgoose Pythonesses did not +wish to be women, but very bad imitations of men; and therefore he +considered himself absolved from all knightly duties toward them: but +toward these Peris of the west, and to the dowagers who had been Peris +in their time, what adoration could be too great? So he bowed down +and worshipped; and, on the whole, he was quite right in so doing. +Moreover, he had the good sense to discover, that though the young +Peris were the prettiest to look at, the elder Peris were the better +company; and that it is, in general, from married women that a poet or +any one else will ever learn what woman's heart is like. And so well +did he carry out his creed, that before his first summer was over he +had quite captivated the heart of old Lady Knockdown, aunt to Lucia +St. Just, and wife to Lucia's guardian; a charming old Irishwoman, who +affected a pretty brogue, perhaps for the same reason that she wore a +wig, and who had been, in her day, a beauty and a blue, a friend +of the Miss Berrys, and Tommy Moore, and Grattan, and Lord Edward +Fitzgerald, and Dan O'Connell, and all other lions and lionesses which +had roared for the last sixty years about the Emerald Isle. There was +no one whom she did not know, and nothing she could not talk about. +Married up, when a girl, to a man for whom she did not care, and +having no children, she had indemnified herself by many flirtations, +and the writing of two or three novels, in which she penned on paper +the superfluous feeling which had no vent in real life. She had +deserted, as she grew old, the novel for unfulfilled prophecy; and was +a distinguished leader in a distinguished religious coterie: but she +still prided herself upon having a green head upon grey shoulders; and +not without reason; for underneath all the worldliness and intrigue, +and petty affectation of girlishness, which she contrived to jumble +in with her religiosity, beat a young and kindly heart. So she was +charmed with Mr. Vavasour's manners, and commended them much to Lucia, +who, a shrinking girl of seventeen, was peeping at her first season +from under Lady Knockdown's sheltering wing. + +"Me dear, let Mr. Vavasour be who he will, he has not only the +intellect of a true genius, but what is a great deal better for +practical purposes; that is, the manners of one. Give me the man +who will let a woman of our rank say what we like to him, without +supposing that he may say what he likes in return; and considers one's +familiarity as an honour, and not as an excuse for taking liberties. A +most agreeable contrast, indeed, to the young men of the present +day; who come in their shooting jackets, and talk slang to their +partners,--though really the girls are just as bad,--and stand with +their backs to the fire, and smell of smoke, and go to sleep after +dinner, and pay no respect to old age, nor to youth either, I think. +'Pon me word, Lucia, the answers I've heard young gentlemen make to +young ladies, this very season,--they'd have been called out the +next morning in my time, me dear. As for the age of chivalry, nobody +expects that to be restored: but really one might have been spared the +substitute for it which, we had when I was young, in the grand air of +the old school. It was a 'sham,' I daresay, as they call everything +now-a-days: but really, me dear, a pleasant sham is better to live +with than an unpleasant reality, especially when it smells of cigars." + +So it befell that Elsley Vavasour was asked to Lady Knockdown's, and +that there he fell in love with Lucia, and Lucia fell in love with +him. + +The next winter, old Lord Knockdown, who had been decrepit for some +years past, died; and his widow, whose income was under five hundred +a year,--for the estates were entailed, and mortgaged, and everything +else which can happen to an Irish property,--came to live with her +nephew, Lord Scoutbush, in Eaton Square, and take such care as she +could of Lucia and Valencia. + +So, after a dreary autumn and winter of parting and silence, Elsley +found himself the next season invited to Eaton Square; there the +mischief, if mischief it was, was done; and Elsley and Lucia started +in life upon two hundred a year. He had inherited some fifty of his +own; she had about a hundred and fifty, which, indeed, was not yet +her own by right; but little Scoutbush (who was her sole surviving +guardian) behaved on the whole very well for a young gentleman of +twenty-two, in a state of fury and astonishment. The old Lord had, +wisely enough, settled in his will that Lucia was to enjoy the +interest of her fortune from the time that she came out, provided she +did not marry without her guardian's leave; and Scoutbush, to avoid +esclandre and misery, thought it as well to waive the proviso, and +paid her her dividends as usual. + +But how had she contrived to marry at all without his leave? That is +an ugly question. I will not say that she had told a falsehood, +or that Elsley had forsworn himself when he got the licence: but +certainly both of them were guilty of something very like a white lie, +when they declared that Lucia had the consent of her sole surviving +guardian, on the strength of an half-angry, half-jesting expression of +Scoutbush's that she might marry whom she chose, provided she did not +plague him. In the first triumph of success and intoxication of wedded +bliss, Lucia had written him a saucy letter, reminding him of his +permission, and saying that she had taken him at his word: but her +conscience smote her; and Elsley's smote him likewise; and smote him +all the more, because he had been married under a false name, a fact +which might have ugly consequences in law which he did not like to +contemplate. To do him justice, he had been half-a-dozen times during +his courtship on the point of telling Lucia his real name and +history. Happy for him had he done so, whatever might have been the +consequences: but he wanted moral courage; the hideous sound of Briggs +had become horrible to him; and once his foolish heart was frightened +away from honesty, just as honesty was on the point of conquering, by +old Lady Knockdown's saying that she could never have married a man +with an ugly name, or let Lucia marry one. + +"Conceive becoming Mrs. Natty Bumppo, me dear, even for twenty +thousand a year. If you could summon up courage to do the deed, I +couldn't summon up courage to continue my correspondence with ye." + +Elsley knew that that was a lie; that the old lady would have let her +marry the most triumphant snob in England, if he had half that income: +but unfortunately Lucia capped her aunt's nonsense with "There is no +fear of my ever marrying any one who has not a graceful name," and a +look at Vavasour, which said--"And you have one, and therefore I--" +For the matter had then been settled between them. This was too much +for his vanity, and too much, also, for his fears of losing Lucia by +confessing the truth. So Elsley went on, ashamed of his real name, +ashamed of having concealed it, ashamed of being afraid that it would +be discovered,--in a triple complication of shame, which made him +gradually, as it makes every man, moody, suspicious, apt to take +offence where none is meant. Besides they were very poor. He, though +neither extravagant nor profligate, was, like most literary men who +are accustomed to live from hand to mouth, careless, self-indulgent, +unmethodical. She knew as much of housekeeping as the Queen of Oude +does; and her charming little dreams of shopping for herself were +rudely enough broken, ere the first week was out, by the horrified +looks of Clara, when she returned from her first morning's marketing +for the weekly consumption, with nothing but a woodcock, some +truffles, and a bunch of celery. Then the landlady of the lodgings +robbed her, even under the nose of the faithful Clara, who knew as +little about housekeeping as her mistress; and Clara, faithful as +she was, repaid herself by grumbling and taking liberties for being +degraded from the luxurious post of lady's maid to that of servant of +all work, with a landlady, and "marchioness" to wrestle with all day +long. Then, what with imprudence and anxiety, Lucia of course lost +her first child: and after that came months of illness, during which +Elsley tended her, it must be said for him, as lovingly as a mother; +and perhaps they were both really happier during that time of sorrow +than they had been in all the delirious bliss of the honeymoon. + +Valencia meanwhile defied old Lady Knockdown (whose horror and wrath +knew no bounds), and walked off one morning with her maid to see her +prodigal sister; a visit which not only brought comfort to the weary +heart, but important practical benefits. For going home, she seized +upon Scoutbush, and so moved his heart with pathetic pictures of +Lucia's unheard-of penury and misery, that his heart was softened; +and though he absolutely refused to call on Vavasour, he made him an +offer, through Lucia, of Penalva Court for the time being; and thither +they went--perhaps the best thing they could have done. + +There, of course, they were somewhat more comfortable. A very cheap +country, a comfortable house rent free, and a lovely neighbourhood, +were a pleasant change after dear London lodgings: but it is a +question whether the change made Elsley a better man. + +In the first place, he became a more idle man. The rich enervating +climate began to tell upon his mind, as it did upon Lucia's health. He +missed that perpetual spur of nervous excitement, change of society, +influx of ever-fresh objects, which makes London, after all, the best +place in the world for hard working; and which makes even a walk along +the streets an intellectual tonic. In the soft and luxurious West +Country Nature invited him to look at her, and dream; and dream he +did, more and more, day by day. He was tired, too--as who would not +be?--of the drudgery of writing for his daily bread; and relieved from +the importunities of publishers and printers'-devils, he sent up fewer +and fewer contributions to the magazines. He would keep his energies +for a great work; poetry was, after all, his forte: he would not +fritter himself away on prose and periodicals, but would win for +himself, etc. etc. If he made a mistake, it was at least a pardonable +one. + +But Elsley became not only a more idle, but a more morose man. He +began to feel the evils of solitude. There was no one near with whom +he could hold rational converse, save an antiquarian parson or two; +and parsons were not to his taste. So, never measuring his wits +against those of his peers, and despising the few men whom he met +as inferior to himself, he grew more and more wrapt up in his own +thoughts and his own tastes. His own poems, even to the slightest turn +of expression, became more and more important to him. He grew more +jealous of criticism, more confident in his own little theories, about +this and that, more careless of the opinion of his fellowmen, and, +as a certain consequence, more unable to bear the little crosses and +contradictions of daily life; and as Lucia, having brought one and +another child safely into the world, settled down into motherhood, he +became less and less attentive to her, and more and more attentive to +that self which was fast becoming the centre of his universe. + +True, there were excuses for him; for whom are there none? He was +poor and struggling; and it is much more difficult (as Becky Sharp, I +think, pathetically observes) to be good when one is poor than when +one is rich. It is (and all rich people should consider the fact) much +more easy, if not to go to heaven, at least to think one is going +thither, on three thousand a year, than on three hundred. Not only is +respectability more easy, as is proved by the broad fact that it is +the poor people who fill the gaols, and not the rich ones: but virtue, +and religion--of the popular sort. It is undeniably more easy to be +resigned to the will of Heaven, when that will seems tending just as +we would have it; much more easy to have faith in the goodness of +Providence, when that goodness seems safe in one's pocket in the +form of bank-notes; and to believe that one's children are under the +protection of Omnipotence, when one can hire for them in half an hour +the best medical advice in London. One need only look into one's own +heart to understand the disciples' astonishment at the news, that "How +hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven." + +"Who then can be saved?" asked they, being poor men, accustomed to +see the wealthy Pharisees in possession of "the highest religious +privileges, and means of grace." Who, indeed, if not the rich? If the +noblemen, and the bankers, and the dowagers, and the young ladies who +go to church, and read good books, and have been supplied from youth +with the very best religious articles which money can procure, and +have time for all manner of good works, and give their hundreds to +charities, and head reformatory movements, and build churches, +and work altar-cloths, and can taste all the preachers and +father-confessors round London, one after another, as you would taste +wines, till they find the spiritual panacea which exactly suits their +complaint--if they are not sure of salvation, who can be saved? + +Without further comment, the fact is left for the consideration of +all readers; only let them not be too hard upon Elsley and Lucia, if, +finding themselves sometimes literally at their wits' end, they went +beyond their poor wits into the region where foolish things are said +and done. + +Moreover, Elsley's ill-temper (as well as Lucia's) had its excuses in +physical ill-health. Poor fellow! Long years of sedentary work had +begun to tell upon him; and while Tom Thurnall's chest, under the +influence of hard work and oxygen, measured round perhaps six inches +more than it had done sixteen years ago, Elsley's, thanks to stooping +and carbonic acid, measured six inches less. Short breath, lassitude, +loss of appetite, heartburn, and all that fair company of miseries +which Mr. Cockle and his Antibilious Pills profess to cure, are no +cheering bosom friends; but when a man's breast-bone is gradually +growing into his stomach, they will make their appearance; and small +blame to him whose temper suffers from their gentle hints that he has +a mortal body as well as an immortal soul. + +But most fretting of all was the discovery that Lucia knew--if not all +about his original name--still enough to keep him in dread lest she +should learn more. + +It was now twelve months and more that this new terror had leapt up +and stared in his face. He had left a letter about--a thing which he +was apt to do--in which the Whitbury lawyer made some allusions to his +little property; and he was sure that Lucia had seen it; the hated +name of Briggs certainly she had not seen; for Elsley had torn it out +the moment he opened the letter: but she had seen enough, as he soon +found, to be certain that he had, at some time or other, passed under +a different name. + +If Lucia had been a more thoughtful or high-minded woman, she would +have gone straight to her husband, and quietly and lovingly asked him +to tell her all: but, in her left-handed Irish fashion, she kept the +secret to herself, and thought it a very good joke to have him in her +power, and to be able to torment him about that letter when he got out +of temper. It never occurred, however, to her that his present name +was the feigned one. She fancied that he had, in some youthful +escapade, assumed the name to which the lawyer alluded. So the +next time he was cross, she tried laughingly the effect of her +newly-discovered spell; and was horror-struck at the storm which she +evoked. In a voice of thunder, Elsley commanded her never to mention +the subject again; and showed such signs of terror and remorse, that +she obeyed him from that day forth, except when now and then she lost +her temper as completely, too, as he. Little she thought, in her +heedlessness, what a dark cloud of fear and suspicion, ever deepening +and spreading, she had put between his heart and hers. + +But if Elsley had dreaded her knowledge of his story, he dreaded ten +times more Tom's knowledge of it. What if Thurnall should tell Lucia? +What if Lucia should make a confidant of Thurnall? Women told their +doctors everything; and Lucia, he knew too well, had cause to complain +of him. Perhaps, thought he, maddened into wild suspicion by the sense +of his own wrong-doing, she might complain of him; she might combine +with Thurnall against him--for what purpose he knew not: but the +wildest imaginations flashed across him, as he hurried desperately +home, intending as soon as he got there to forbid Lucia's ever calling +in his dreaded enemy. No, Thurnall should never cross his door again! +On that one point he was determined, but on nothing else. + +However, his intention was never fulfilled. For long before he reached +home he began to feel himself thoroughly ill. His was a temperament +upon which mental anxiety acts rapidly and severely; and the burning +sun, and his rapid walk, combined with rage and terror to give him +such a "turn" that, as he hurried down the lane, he found himself +reeling like a drunken man. He had just time to hurry through the +garden, and into his study, when pulse and sense failed him, and he +rolled over on the sofa in a dead faint. + +Lucia had seen him come in, and heard him fall, and rushed in. The +poor little thing was at her wits' end, and thought that he had had +nothing less than a _coup-de-soleil._ And when he recovered from his +faintness, he began to be so horribly ill, that Clara, who had been +called in to help, had some grounds for the degrading hypothesis (for +which Lucia all but boxed her ears) that "Master had got away into the +woods, and gone eating toadstools, or some such poisonous stuff;" for +he lay a full half-hour on the sofa, death-cold, and almost pulseless; +moaning, shuddering, hiding his face in his hands, and refusing +cordials, medicines, and, above all, a doctor's visit. + +However, this could not be allowed to last. Without Elsley's +knowledge, a messenger was despatched for Thurnall, and luckily met +him in the lane; for he was returning to the town in the footsteps of +his victim. + +Elsley's horror was complete, when the door opened, and Lucia brought +in none other than his tormentor. + +"My dearest Elsley, I have sent for Mr. Thurnall. I knew you would not +let me, if I told you; but you see I have done it, and now you must +really speak to him." + +Elsley's first impulse was to motion them both away angrily; but the +thought that he was in Thurnall's power stopped him. He must not show +his disgust. What if Lucia were to ask its cause, even to guess it? +for to his fears even that seemed possible. A fresh misery! Just +because he shrank so intensely from the man, he must endure him! + +"There is nothing the matter with me," said he languidly. + +"I should be the best judge of that, after what Mrs. Vavasour has just +told me," said Tom, in his most professional and civil voice; and +slipped, catlike, into a seat beside the unresisting poet. + +He asked question on question: but Elsley gave such unsatisfactory +answers, that Lucia had to detail everything afresh for him, +with--"You know, Mr. Thurnall, he is always overtasking his brain, and +will never confess himself ill,"--and all a woman's anxious comments. + +Rogue Tom knew all the while well enough what was the cause: but he +saw, too, that Elsley was very ill. He felt that he must have the +matter out at once; and, by a side glance, sent the obedient Lucia out +of the room to get a table-spoonful of brandy. + +"Now, my dear sir, that we are alone," began he blandly. + +"Now, sir!" answered Vavasour, springing off the sofa, his whole +pent-up wrath exploding in hissing steam, the moment the safety-valve +was lifted. "Now, sir! What--what is the meaning of this insolence, +this intrusion?" + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Vavasour," answered Tom, rising, in a tone of +bland and stolid surprise. + +"What do you want here, with your mummery and medicine, when you know +the cause of my malady well enough already? Go, sir! and leave me to +myself." + +"My dear sir," said Tom firmly, "you seem to have forgotten what +passed between us this morning." + +"Will you insult me beyond endurance?" cried Elsley. + +"I told you that, as long as you chose, you were Elsley Vavasour, and +I the country doctor. We have met in that character. Why not sustain +it? You are really ill; and if I know the cause, I am all the more +likely to know the cure." + +"Cure?" + +"Why not? Believe me, it is in your power to become a much happier +man, simply by becoming a healthier one." + +"Impertinence!" + +"Pish! What can I gain by being impertinent, sir? I know very well +that you have received a severe shock; but I know equally well, that +if you were as you ought to be, you would not feel it in this way. +When one sees a man in the state of prostration in which you are, +common sense tells one that the body must have been neglected, for the +mind to gain such power over it." + +Elsley replied with a grunt; but Tom went on, bland and imperturbable. + +"Believe me, it may be a very materialist view of things: but fact +is fact--the _corpus sanum_ is father to the _mens sana_--tonics and +exercise make the ills of life look marvellously smaller. You have +the frame of a strong and active man; and all you want to make you +light-hearted and cheerful, is to develop what nature has given you." + +"It is too late," said Elsley, pleased, as most men are, by being told +that they might be strong and active. + +"Not in the least. Three months would strengthen your muscles, open +your chest again, settle your digestion, and make you as fresh as a +lark, and able to sing like one. Believe me, the poetry would be the +better for it, as well as the stomach. Now, positively, I shall begin +questioning you." + +So Elsley was won to detail the symptoms of internal _malaise_, which +he was only too much in the habit of watching himself; but there were +some among them which Tom could not quite account for on the ground of +mere effeminate habits. A thought struck him. + +"You sleep ill, I suppose?" said he carelessly. + +"Very ill." + +"Did you ever try opiates?" + +"No--yes--that is, sometimes." + +"Ah!" said Tom, more carelessly still, for he wished to hide, by all +means, the importance of the confession. "Well, they give relief for a +time: but they are dangerous things--disorder the digestion, and have +their revenge on the nerves next morning, as spitefully as brandy +itself. Much better try a glass of strong ale or porter just before +going to bed. I've known it give sleep, even in consumption--try it, +and exercise. You shoot?" + +"No." + +"Pity; there ought to be noble cocking in these woods. However, the +season's past. You fish?" + +"No." + +"Pity again. I hear Alva is full of trout. Why not try sailing? +Nothing oxygenates the lungs like a sail, and your friends the +fishermen would be delighted to have you as super-cargo. They are +always full of your stories to them, and your picking their brains for +old legends and adventures." + +"They are noble fellows, and I want no better company; but, +unfortunately, I am always sea-sick." + +"Ah! wholesome, but unpleasant: you are fond of gardening?" + +"Very; but stooping makes my head swim." + +"True, and I don't want you to stoop. I hope to see you soon as erect +as a Guardsman. Why not try walks?" + +"Abominable bores--lonely, aimless--" + +"Well, perhaps you're right. I never knew but three men who took long +constitutionals on principle, and two of them were cracked. But why +not try a companion; and persuade that curate, who needs just the same +medicine as you, to accompany you? I don't know a more gentleman-like, +agreeable, well-informed man than he is." + +"Thank you. I can choose my acquaintances for myself." + +"You touchy ass!" said Thurnall to himself. "If we were in the blessed +state of nature now, wouldn't I give you ten minutes' double thonging, +and then set you to work, as the runaway nigger did his master, Bird +o' freedom Sawin, till you'd learnt a thing or two." But blandly still +he went on. + +"Try the dumb-bells then. Nothing like them for opening your chest. +And do get a high desk made, and stand to your writing instead of +sitting." And Tom actually made Vavasour promise to do both, and bade +him farewell with-- + +"Now, I'll send you up a little tonic; and trouble you with no more +visits till you send for me. I shall see by one glance at your face +whether you are following my prescriptions. And, I say, I wouldn't +meddle with those opiates any more; try good malt and hops instead." + +"Those who drink beer, think beer," said Elsley, smiling; for he +was getting more hopeful of himself, and his terrors were vanishing +beneath Tom's skilful management. + +"And those who drink water, think water. The Elizabethans--Sidney and +Shakspeare, Burleigh and Queen Bess, worked on beef and ale,--and you +would not class them among the muddle-headed of the earth: Believe me, +to write well, you must live well. If you take it out of your brain, +you must put it in again. It's a question of fact. Try it for +yourself." And off Tom went; while Lucia rushed back to her husband, +covered him with caresses, assured him that he was seven times as ill +as he really was, and so nursed and petted him, that he felt himself, +for that time at least, a beast and a fool for having suspected her +for a moment. Ah, woman, if you only knew how you carry our hearts in +your hands, and would but use your power for our benefit, what angels +you might make us all! + +"So," said Tom, as he went home, "he has found his way to the +elevation-bottle, has he, as well as Mrs. Heale? It's no concern of +mine: but as a professional man, I must stop that. You will certainly +be no credit to me if you kill yourself under my hands." + +Tom went straight home, showed the blacksmith how to make a pair of +dumb-bells, covered them himself with leather, and sent them up the +next morning with directions to be used for half an hour morning and +evening. + +And something--whether it was the dumb-bells, or the tonic, or +wholesome fear of the terrible doctor--kept Elsley for the next month +in better spirits and temper than he had been in for a long while. + +Moreover, Tom set Lucia to coax him into walking with Headley. She +succeeded at last; and, on the whole, each of them soon found that +he had something to learn from the other. Elsley improved daily in +health, and Lucia wrote to Valencia flaming accounts of the wonderful +doctor who had been cast on shore in their world's end; and received +from her after a while this, amid much more--for fancy is not +exuberant enough to reproduce the whole of a young lady's letter. + +"--I am so ashamed. I ought to have told you of that doctor a +fortnight ago; but, rattle-pate as I am, I forgot all about it. Do +you know, he is Sabina Mellot's dearest friend; and she begged me to +recommend him to you; but I put it off, and then it slipped my memory, +like everything else good. She has told me the most wonderful stories +of his courage and goodness; and conceive--she and her husband were +taken prisoners with him by the savages in the South Seas, and going +to be eaten, she says: but he helped them to escape in a canoe--such +a story--and lived with them for three months on the most beautiful +desert island--it is all like a fairy tale. I'll tell it you when I +come, darling--which I shall do in a fortnight, and we shall be all so +happy. I have such a box ready for you and the chicks, which I shall +bring with me; and some pretty things from Scoutbush beside, who is +very low, poor fellow, I cannot conceive what about: but wonderfully +tender about you. I fancy he must be in love; for he stood up the +other day about you to my aunt, quite solemnly, with, 'Let her alone, +my lady. She's not the first whom love has made a fool of, and she +won't be the last: and I believe that some of the moves which look +most foolish, turn out best after all. Live and let live; everybody +knows his own business best; anything is better than marriage without +real affection.' Conceive my astonishment at hearing the dear little +fellow turn sage in that way! + +"By the way, I have had to quote his own advice against him; for I +have refused Lord Chalkclere after all. I told him (C. not S.) that he +was much too good for me: far too perfect and complete a person; that +I preferred a husband whom I could break in for myself, even though he +gave me a little trouble. Scoutbush was cross at first; but he said +afterwards that it was just like Baby Blake (the wretch always calls +me Baby Blake now, after that dreadful girl in Lever's Novel); and I +told him frankly that it was, if he meant that I had sooner break in +a thorough-bred for myself, even though I had a fall or two in the +process, than jog along on the most finished little pony on earth, who +would never go out of an amble. Lord Chalk may be very finished, and +learned, and excellent, and so forth: but, _ma chère_, I want, not a +white rabbit (of which he always reminds me), but a hero, even though +he be a naughty one. I always fancy people must be very little if they +can be finished off so rapidly; if there was any real verve in them, +they would take somewhat longer to grow. Lord Chalk would do very well +to bind in Russian leather, and put on one's library shelves, to be +consulted when one forgot a date; but really even your Ulysses of a +doctor--provided, of course, he turned out a prince in disguise, and +don't leave out his h's--would be more to the taste of your naughtiest +of sisters." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A PEER IN TROUBLE. + + +Somewhere in those days, so it seems, did Mr. Bowie call unto himself +a cab at the barrack-gate, and, dressed in his best array, repair +to the wilds of Brompton, and request to see either Claude or Mrs. +Mellot. + +Bowie is an ex-Scots-Fusilier, who, damaged by the kick of a horse, +has acted as valet, first to Scoutbush's father, and next to Scoutbush +himself. He is of a patronising habit of mind, as befits a tolerably +"leeterary" Scotsman of forty-five years of age and six-feet three in +height, who has full confidence in the integrity of his own virtue, +the infallibility of his own opinion, and the strength of his own +right arm; for Bowie, though he has a rib or two "dinged in," is +mighty still as Theseus' self; and both astonished his red-bearded +compatriots, and won money for his master, by his prowess in the late +feat of arms at Holland House. + +Mr. Bowie is asked to walk into Sabina's boudoir (for Claude is out in +the garden), to sit down, and deliver his message: which he does after +a due military salute, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and in a +solemn and sonorous voice. + +"Well, madam, it's just this, that his lordship would be very glad to +see ye and Mr. Mellot, for he's vary ill indeed, and that's truth; and +if he winna tell ye the cause, then I will--and it's just a' for love +of this play-acting body here, and more's the pity." + +"More's the pity, indeed!" + +"And it's my opeenion the puir laddie will just die, if nobody sees to +him; and I've taken the liberty of writing to Major Cawmill mysel', to +beg him to come up and see to him, for it's a pity to see his lordship +cast away, for want of an understanding body to advise him." + +"So I am not an understanding body, Bowie?" + +"Oh, madam, ye're young and bonny," says Bowie, in a tone in which +admiration is not unmingled with pity. + +"Young indeed! Mr. Bowie, do you know that I am almost as old as you?" + +"Hoot, hut, hut--" says Bowie, looking at the wax-like complexion and +bright hawk-eyes. + +"Really I am. I'm past five-and-thirty this many a day." + +"Weel, then, madam, if you'll excuse me, ye're old enough to be wiser +than to let his lordship be inveigled with any such play-acting." + +"Really he's not inveigled," says Sabina, laughing. "It is all his own +fault, and I have warned him how absurd and impossible it is. She has +refused even to see him; and you know yourself he has not been near +our house for these three weeks." + +"Ah, madam, you'll excuse me: but that's the way with that sort +of people, just to draw back and draw back, to make a poor young +gentleman follow them all the keener, as a trout does a minnow, the +faster you spin it." + +"I assure you no. I can't let you into ladies' secrets; but there is +no more chance of her listening to him than of me. And as for me, I +have been trying all the spring to marry him to a young lady with +eighty thousand pounds; so you can't complain of me." + +"Eh? No. That's more like and fitting." + +"Well, now. Tell his lordship that we are coming; and trust us, Mr. +Bowie: we do not look very villainous, do we?" + +"Faith, 'deed then, and I suppose not," said Bowie, using the verb +which, in his cautious, Scottish tongue, expresses complete certainty. +The truth is, that Bowie adores both Sabina and her husband, who are, +he says, "just fit to be put under a glass case on the sideboard, like +twa wee china angels." + +In half an hour they were in Scoutbush's rooms. They found the little +man lying on his sofa, in his dressing-gown, looking pale and pitiable +enough. He had been trying to read; for the table by him was covered +with books; but either gunnery and mathematics had injured his eyes, +or he had been crying; Sabina inclined to the latter opinion. + +"This is very kind of you both; but I don't want you, Claude. I want +Mrs. Mellot. You go to the window with Bowie." + +Bowie and Claude shrugged their shoulders at each other, and departed. + +"Now, Mrs. Mellot, I can't help looking up to you as a mother." + +"Complimentary to my youth," says Sabina, who always calls herself +young when she is called old, and old when she is called young. + +"I didn't mean to be rude. But one does long to open one's heart. I +never had any mother to talk to, you know; and I can't tell my aunt; +and Valencia is so flighty; and I thought you would give me one chance +more. Don't laugh at me, I say. I am really past laughing at." + +"I see you are, you poor creature," says Sabina, melting; and a long +conversation follows, while Claude and Bowie exchange confidences, and +arrive at no result beyond the undeniable assertion; "it is a very bad +job." + +Presently Sabina comes out, and Scoutbush calls cheerfully from the +sofa:-- + +"Bowie, get my bath and things to dress; and order me the cab in half +an hour. Good-bye, you dear people, I shall never thank you enough." + +Away go Claude and Sabina in a hack-cab. + +"What have you done?" + +"Given him what he entreated for--another chance with Marie." + +"It will only madden him all the more. Why let him try, when you know +it is hopeless." + +"Why, I had not the heart to refuse, that's the truth; and besides, I +don't know that it is hopeless." + +"All the naughtier of you, to let him run the chance of making a fool +of himself." + +"I don't know that he will make such a great fool of himself. As he +says, his grandfather married an actress, and why should not he?" + +"Simply because she won't marry him." + +"And how do you know that, sir? You fancy that you understand all the +women's hearts in England, just because you have found out the secret +of managing one little fool." + +"Managing her, quotha! Being managed by her, till my quiet house is +turned into a perfect volcano of match-making. Why, I thought he was +to marry Manchestrina." + +"He shall marry who he likes; and if Marie changes her mind, and +revenges herself on this American by taking Lord Scoutbush, all I can +say is, it will be a just judgment on him. I have no patience with the +heartless fellow, going off thus, and never even leaving his address." + +"And because you have no patience, you think Marie will have none?" + +"What do you know about women's hearts? Leave us to mind our own +matters." + +"Mr. Bowie will kill you outright, if your plot succeeds." + +"No, he won't. I know who Bowie wants to marry; and if he is not good, +he shan't have her. Besides, it will be such fun to spite old Lady +Knockdown, who always turns up her nose at me. How mad she will be! +Here we are at home. Now, I shall go and prepare Marie." + +An hour after, Scoutbush was pleading his cause with Marie; and had +been met, of course, at starting, with the simple rejoinder,-- + +"But, my lord, you would not surely have me marry where I do not +love?" + +"Oh, of course not; but, you see, people very often get love after +they are married:--and I am sure I would do all to make you love me. I +know I can't bribe you by promising you carriages and jewels, and all +that:--but you should have what you would like--pictures and statues, +and books--and all that I can buy--Oh, madam, I know I am not worthy +of you--I never have had any education as you have!"-- + +Marie smiled a sad smile. + +"But I would learn--I know I could--for I am no fool, though I say it: +I like all that sort of thing, and--and if I had you to teach me, I +should care about nothing else. I have given up all my nonsense since +I knew you; indeed I have--I am trying all day long to read--ever +since you said something about being useful, and noble, and doing +one's work:--I have never forgotten that, madam, and never shall; and +you would find me a pleasant person to live with, I do believe. At all +events, I would--oh, madam--I would be your servant, your dog--I would +fetch and carry for you like a negro slave!" + +Marie turned pale, and rose. + +"Listen to me, my lord; this must end. You do not know to whom you are +speaking. You talk of negro slaves. Know that you are talking to one!" + +Scoutbush looked at her in blank astonishment. + +"Madam? Excuse me: but my own eyes--" + +"You are not to trust them; I tell you fact." + +Scoutbush was silent. She misunderstood his silence: but went on +steadily. + +"I tell you, my lord, what I expect you to keep secret: and I know +that I can trust your honour." + +Scoutbush bowed. + +"And what I should never have told you, were it not my only chance of +curing you of this foolish passion. I am an American slave!" + +"Curse them! Who dared make you a slave?" cried Scoutbush, turning as +red as a game-cock. + +"I was born a slave. My father was a white gentleman of good family: +my mother was a quadroon; and therefore I am a slave;--a negress, +a runaway slave, my lord, who, if I returned to America, should be +seized, and chained, and scourged, and sold.--Do you understand me?" + +"What an infernal shame!" cried Scoutbush, to whom the whole thing +appeared simply as a wrong done to Marie. + +"Well, my lord?" + +"Well, madam?" + +"Does not this fact put the question at rest for ever?" + +"No, madam! What do I know about slaves? No one is a slave in England. +No madam; all that it does is to make me long to cut half-a-dozen +fellows' throats--" and Scoutbush stamped with rage. "No, madam, you +are you: and if you become my viscountess, you take my rank, I trust, +and my name is yours, and my family yours; and let me see who dare +interfere!" + +"But public opinion, my lord?" said Marie, half-pleased, +half-terrified to find the shaft which she had fancied fatal fall +harmless at her feet. + +"Public opinion? You don't know England, madam! What's the use of my +being a peer, if I can't do what I like, and make public opinion go +my way, and not I its? Though I am no great prince, madam, but only +a poor Irish viscount, it's hard if I can't marry whom I like--in +reason, that is--and expect all the world to call on her, and treat +her as she deserves. Why, madam, you will have all London at your feet +after a season or two, and all the more if they know your story: or if +you don't like that, or if fools did talk at first, why we'd go and +live quietly at Kilanbaggan, or at Penalva, and you'd have all the +tenants looking up to you as a goddess, as I do, madam.--Oh, madam, I +would go anywhere, live anywhere, only to be with you!" + +Marie was deeply affected. Making all allowances for the wilfulness of +youth, she could not but see that her origin formed no bar whatever to +her marrying a nobleman; and that he honestly believed that it would +form none in the opinion of his compeers, if she proved herself worthy +of his choice; and, full of new emotions, she burst into tears. + +"There, now, you are melting: I knew you would! Madam! Signora?" and +Scoutbush advanced to take her hand. + +"Never less," cried she, drawing back. "Do not;--you only make me +miserable! I tell you it is impossible. I cannot tell you all.--You +must not do yourself and yours such an injustice! Go, I tell you!" + +Scoutbush still tried to take her hand. + +"Go, I entreat you," cried she, at her wits' end, "or I will really +ring the bell for Mrs. Mellot!" + +"You need not do that, madam," said he, drawing himself up; "I am not +in the habit of being troublesome to ladies, or being turned out of +drawing-rooms. I see how it is--" and his tone softened; "you despise +me, and think me a vain, frivolous puppy.--Well; I'll do something yet +that you shall not despise!" And he turned to go. + +"I do not despise you; I think you a generous, high-hearted +gentleman--nobleman in all senses." + +Scoutbush turned again. + +"But, again, impossible! I shall always respect you; but we must never +meet again." + +She held out her hand. Little Freddy caught and kissed it till he was +breathless, and then rushed out, and blundered over Sabina in the next +room. + +"No hope?" + +"None." And though he tried to squeeze his eyes together very tight, +the great tears would come dropping down. + +Sabina took him to a sofa, and sat him down while he made his little +moan. + +"I told you that she was in love with the American." + +"Then why don't he come back and marry her! Hang him, I'll go after +him and make him!" cried Scoutbush, glad of any object on which to +vent his wrath. + +"You can't, for nobody knows where he is. Now do be good and patient; +you will forget all this." + +"I shan't!" + +"You will; not at first, but gradually; and marry some one really more +fit for you." + +"Ah, but if I marry her I shan't love her; and then, you know, Mrs. +Mellot, I shall go to the bad again, just as much as ever. Oh, I was +trying to be steady for her sake!" + +"You can be that still." + +"Yes, but it's so hard, with nothing to hope for. I'm not fit to take +care of myself. I'm fit for nothing, I believe, but to go out and be +shot by those Russians; and I'll do it!" + +"You must not; you are not strong enough. The doctors would not let +you go as you are." + +"Then I'll get strong; I'll--" + +"You'll go home, and be good." + +"Ain't I good now?" + +"Yes, you are a good, sensible fellow, and have behaved nobly, and I +honour you for it, and Claude shall come and see you every day." + +That evening a note came from Scoutbush. + +"DEAR MRS. MELLOT--Whom should I find when I went home, but Campbell? +I told him all; and he says that you and everybody have done quite +right, so I suppose you have; and that I am quite right in trying to +get out to the East, so I shall do it. But the doctor says I must +rest for six weeks at least. So Campbell has persuaded me to take the +yacht, which is at Southampton, and go down to Aberalva, and then +round to Snowdon, where I have a little slate-quarry, and get some +fishing. Campbell is coming with me, and I wish Claude would come too. +He knows that brother-in-law of mine, Vavasour, I think, and I shall +go and make friends with him. I've got very merciful to foolish lovers +lately, and Claude can help me to face him; for I am a little afraid +of genuises, you know. So there we'll pick up my sister (she goes down +by land this week), and then go on to Snowdon; and Claude can visit +his old quarters at the Royal Oak at Bettws, where he and I had that +jolly week among the painters. Do let him come, and beg La Signora not +to be angry with me. That's all I'll ever ask of her again." + +"Poor fellow! But I can't part with you, Claude." + +"Let him," said La Cordifiamma. "He will comfort his lordship; and do +you come with me." + +"Come with you! Where!" + +"I will tell you when Claude is gone." + +"Claude, go and smoke in the garden. Now?" + +"Come with me to Germany, Sabina." + +"To Germany? Why on earth to Germany?" + +"I--I only said Germany because it came first into my mind. Anywhere +for rest; anywhere to be out of that poor man's way." + +"He will not trouble you any more; and you will not surely throw up +your engagement?" + +"Of course not!" said she, half peevishly. "It will be over in a +fortnight; and then I must have rest. Don't you see how I want rest?" + +Sabina had seen it for some time past. That white cheek had been +fading more and more to a wax-like paleness; those black eyes +glittered with fierce unhealthy light; and dark rings round them told, +not merely of late hours and excitement, but of wild passion and +midnight tears. Sabina had seen all, and could not but give way, as +Marie went on. + +"I must have rest, I tell you! I am beginning--I can confess all +to you--to want stimulants. I am beginning to long for brandy and +water--pah!--to nerve me up to the excitement of acting, and then for +morphine to make me sleep after it. The very eau de Cologne flask +tempts me! They say that the fine ladies use it, before a ball, for +other purposes than scent. You would not like to see me commence that +practice, would you?" + +"There is no fear, dear." + +"There is fear! You do not know the craving for exhilaration, the +capability of self-indulgence, in our wild Tropic blood. Oh, Sabina, I +feel at times that I could sink so low--that I could be so wicked, so +utterly wicked, if I once began! Take me away, dearest creature, +take me away, and let me have fresh air, and fair quiet scenes, and +rest--rest--oh, save me, Sabina!" and she put her hands over her face, +and burst into tears. + +"We will go, then: to the Rhine, shall it be? I have not been there +now for these three years, and it will be such fun running about the +world by myself once more, and knowing all the while that--" and +Sabina stopped; she did not like to remind Marie of the painful +contrast between them. + +"To the Rhine? Yes. And I shall see the beautiful old world, the old +vineyards, and castles, and hills, which he used to tell me of--taught +me to read of in those sweet, sweet books of Longfellow's! So gentle, +and pure, and calm--so unlike me!" + +"Yes, we will see them; and perhaps--" + +Marie looked up at her, guessing her thoughts, and blushed scarlet. + +"You, too, think then, that--that--" she could not finish her +sentence. + +Sabina stooped over her, and the two beautiful mouths met. + +"There, darling, we need say nothing. We are both women, and can talk +without words." + +"Then you think there is hope!" + +"Hope? Do you fancy that he is gone so very far? or that if he were, I +could not hunt him out? Have I wandered half round the world alone for +nothing?" + +"No, but hope--hope that--" + +"Not hope, but certainty; if some one I know had but courage." + +"Courage--to do what!" + +"To trust him utterly." + +Marie covered her face with her hands, and shuddered in every limb. + +"You know my story. Did I gain or lose by telling my Claude all?" + +"I will!" she cried, looking up pale but firm. "I will!" and she +looked steadfastly into the mirror over the chimney-piece, as if +trying to court the reappearance of that ugly vision which haunted it, +and so to nerve herself to the utmost, and face the whole truth. + +In little more than a fortnight, Sabina and Marie, with maid and +courier (for Marie was rich now), were away in the old Antwerpen. +And Claude was rolling down to Southampton by rail, with Campbell, +Scoutbush, and last, but not least, the faithful Bowie; who had under +his charge what he described to the puzzled railway-guard as "goads +and cleiks, and pirns and creels, and beuks and heuks, enough for a' +the cods o' Neufundland." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +L'HOMME INCOMPRIS. + + +Elsley went on, between improved health and the fear of Tom Thurnall, +a good deal better for the next month. He began to look forward to +Valencia's visit with equanimity, and, at last, with interest; and was +rather pleased than otherwise when, in the last week of July, a fly +drove up to the gate of old Penalva Court, and he handed out therefrom +Valencia, and Valencia's maid. + +Lucia had discovered that the wind was east, and that she was afraid +to go to the gate for fear of catching cold; her real purpose being, +that Valencia should meet Elsley first. + +"She is so impulsive," thought the good little creature, always +plotting about her husband, "that she will rush upon me, and never see +him for the first five minutes; and Elsley is so sensitive--how can he +be otherwise, in his position, poor dear?" So she refrained herself, +like Joseph, and stood at the door till Valencia was half-way down the +garden-walk, having taken Elsley's somewhat shyly-offered arm; and +then she could refrain herself no longer, and the two women ran upon +each other, and kissed, and sobbed, and talked, till Lucia was out of +breath; but Valencia was not so easily silenced. + +"My darling! and you are looking so much better than I expected; but +not quite yourself yet. That naughty baby is killing you, I am sure! +And Mr. Vavasour too, I shall begin to call him Elsley to-morrow, if +I like him as much as I do now--but he is looking quite thin--wearing +himself out with writing so many beautiful books,--that Wreck was +perfect! And where are the children?--I must rush upstairs and devour +them!--and what a delicious old garden! and clipt yews, too, so dark +and romantic, and such dear old-fashioned flowers!--Mr. Vavasour must +show me all over it, and over that hanging wood, too. What a duck of a +place!--And oh, my dear, I am quite out of breath!" + +And so she swept in, with her arm round Lucia's waist; while Elsley +stood looking after her, well enough satisfied with her reception of +him, and only hoping that the stream of words would slaken after a +while. + +"What a magnificent creature!" said he to himself. "Who could believe +that the three years would make such a change!" + +And he was right. The tall lithe girl had bloomed into full glory' and +Valencia St. Just, though not delicately beautiful, was as splendid +an Irish damsel as man need look upon, with a grand masque, aquiline +features, luxuriant black hair, and--though it was the fag-end of the +London season--the unrivalled Irish complexion, as of the fair dame of +Kilkenny, whose + + "Lips were like roses, her cheeks were the same, + Like a dish of fresh strawberries smother'd in crame." + +Her figure was perhaps too tall, and somewhat too stout also; but its +size was relieved by the delicacy of those hands and feet of which +Miss Valencia was most pardonably proud, and by that indescribable +lissomeness and lazy grace which Irishwomen inherit, perhaps, with +their tinge of southern blood; and when, in half an hour, she +reappeared, with broad straw-hat, and gown tucked up _à la bergère_ +over the striped Welsh petticoat, perhaps to show off the ankles, +which only looked the finer for a pair of heavy laced boots, Elsley +honestly felt it a pleasure to look at her, and a still greater +pleasure to talk to her, and to be talked to by her; while she, bent +on making herself agreeable, partly from real good taste, partly from +natural good-nature, and partly, too, because she saw in his eyes that +he admired her, chatted sentiment about all heaven and earth. + +For to Miss Valencia--it is sad to have to say it--admiration had been +now, for three years, her daily bread. She had lived in the thickest +whirl of the world, and, as most do for a while, found it a very +pleasant place. + +She had flirted--with how many must not be told; and perhaps with more +than one with whom she had no business to flirt. Little Scoutbush had +remonstrated with her on some such affair, but she had silenced him +with an Irish jest,--"You're a fisherman, Freddy; and when you can't +catch salmon, you catch trout; and when you can't catch trout, you'll +whip on the shallow for poor little gubbahawns, and say that it is all +to keep your hand in--and so do I." + +The old ladies said that this was the reason why she had not married; +the men, however, asserted that no one dare marry her; and one +club-oracle had given it as his opinion that no man in his rational +senses was to be allowed to have anything to do with her, till she had +been well jilted two or three times, to take the spirit out of her: +but that catastrophe had not yet occurred, and Miss Valencia still +reigned "triumphant and alone," though her aunt, old Lady Knockdown, +moved all the earth, and some dirty places, too, below the earth, to +get the wild Irish girl off her hands; "for," quoth she, "I feel with +Valencia, indeed, just like one of those men who carry about little +dogs in the Quadrant. I always pity the poor men so, and think how +happy they must be when they have sold one. It is one chance less, you +know, of having it bite them horribly, and then run away after all." + +There was, however, no more real harm in Valencia, than there is in +every child of Adam. Town frivolity had not corrupted her. She was +giddy, given up to enjoyment of the present: but there was not a +touch, of meanness about her: and if she was selfish, as every one +must needs be whose thoughts are of pleasure, admiration, and success, +she was so unintentionally; and she would have been shocked and pained +at being told that she was anything but the most kind-hearted and +generous creature on earth. Major Campbell, who was her Mentor as well +as her brother's, had certainly told her so more than once; at which +she had pouted a good deal, and cried a little, and promised to amend; +then packed up a heap of cast-off things to send to Lucia--half of it +much too fine to be of any use to the quiet little woman; and lastly, +gone out and bought fresh finery for herself, and forgot all her good +resolutions. Whereby it befell that she was tolerably deep in debt at +the end of every season, and had to torment and kiss Scoutbush into +paying her bills, which he did, like a good brother, and often before +he had paid his own. + +But, howsoever full Valencia's head may have been of fine garments and +London flirtations, she had too much tact and good feeling to talk +that evening of a world of which even Elsley knew more than her +sister. For poor Lucia had been but eighteen at the time of her +escapade, and had not been presented twelve months; so that she was +as "inexperienced" as any one can be, who has only a husband, three +children, and a household to manage on less than three hundred a year. +Therefore Valencia talked only of things which would interest Elsley; +asked him to read his last new poem--which, I need not say, he did; +told him how she devoured everything he wrote; planned walks with him +in the country; seemed to consult his pleasure in every way. + +"To-morrow morning I shall sit with you and the children, Lucia; of +course I must not interrupt Mr. Vavasour: but really in the afternoon +I must ask him to spare a couple of hours from the Muses." + +Vavasour was delighted to do anything--"Where would she walk?" + +"Where? of course to see the beautiful schoolmistress who saved the +man from drowning; and then to see the chasm across which he was +swept. I shall understand your poem so much better, you know, if I +can but realise the people and the place. And you must take me to see +Captain Willis, too, and even the Lieutenant--if he does not smell too +much of brandy. I will be so gracious and civil, quite the lady of the +castle." + +"You will make quite a royal progress," said Lucia, looking at her +with sisterly admiration. + +"Yes, I intend to usurp as many of Scoutbush's honours as I can till +he comes. I must lay down the sceptre in a fortnight, you know, so I +shall make as much use of it as I can meanwhile." + +And so on, and so on; meaning all the while to put Elsley quite at his +ease, and let him understand that bygones were bygones, and that with +her any reconciliation at all was meant to be a complete one; which +was wise and right enough. But Valencia had not counted on the +excitable and vain nature with which she was dealing; and Lucia, who +had her own fears from the first evening, was the last person in the +world to tell her of it; first from pride in herself, and then from +pride in her husband. For even if a woman has made a foolish match, it +is hard to expect her to confess as much: and, after all, a husband +is a husband, and let his faults be what they might, he was still +her Elsley; her idol once; and perhaps (so she hoped) her idol again +hereafter, and if not, still he was her husband, and that was enough. + +"By which you mean, sir, that she considers herself bound to endure +everything and anything from him, simply because she had been married +to him in church?" + +Yes, and a great deal more. Not merely being married in church; but +what being married in church means, and what every woman who is a +woman understands; and lives up to without flinching, though she die +a martyr for it, or a confessor; a far higher saint, if the truth was +known, as it will be some day, than all the holy virgins who ever +fasted and prayed in a convent since the days when Macarius first +turned fakeer. For to a true woman, the mere fact of a man's being +her husband, put it on the lowest ground that you choose, is utterly +sacred, divine, all-powerful; in the might of which she can conquer +self in a way which is an everyday miracle; and the man who does not +feel about the mere fact of a woman's having given herself utterly to +him, just what she herself feels about it, ought to be despised by all +his fellows;--were it not that, in that case, it would be necessary to +despise more human beings than is safe for the soul of any man. + +That fortnight was the sunniest which Elsley had passed, since he made +secret love to Lucia in Eaton Square. Romantic walks, the company of a +beautiful woman as ready to listen as she was to talk, free licence to +pour out all his fancies, sure of admiration, if not of flattery, and +pardonably satisfied vanity--all these are comfortable things for most +men, who have nothing better to comfort them. But, on the whole, this +feast did not make Elsley a better or a wiser man at home. Why +should it? Is a boy's digestion improved by turning him loose into a +confectioner's shop? And thus the contrast between what he chose to +call Valencia's sympathy, and Lucia's want of sympathy, made him, +unfortunately, all the more cross to her when they were alone; and +who could blame the poor little woman for saying one night, angrily +enough: + +"Ah, yes! Valencia,--Valencia is imaginative--Valencia understands +you--Valencia sympathises--Valencia thinks ... Valencia has no +children to wash and dress, no accounts to keep, no linen to +mend--Valencia's back does not ache all day long, so that she would be +glad enough to lie on the sofa from morning till night, if she was not +forced to work whether she can work or not. No, no; don't kiss me, for +kisses will not make up for injustice, Elsley. I only trust that you +will not tempt me to hate my own sister. No: don't talk to me now, +let me sleep if I can sleep; and go and walk and talk sentiment with +Valencia to-morrow, and leave the poor little brood hen to sit on +her nest, and be despised." And refusing all Elsley's entreaties for +pardon, she sulked herself to sleep. + +Who can blame her? If there is one thing more provoking than another +to a woman, it is to see her husband Strass-engel, Haus-teufel, an +angel of courtesy to every woman but herself; to see him in society +all smiles and good stories, the most amiable and self-restraining of +men; perhaps to be complimented on his agreeableness: and to know all +the while that he is penning up all the accumulated ill-temper of the +day, to let it out on her when they get home; perhaps in the very +carriage as soon as it leaves the door. Hypocrites that you are, +some of you gentlemen! Why cannot the act against cruelty to women, +corporal punishment included, be brought to bear on such as you? And +yet, after all, you are not most to blame in the matter: Eve herself +tempts you, as at the beginning; for who does not know that the man is +a thousand times vainer than the woman? He does but follow the analogy +of all nature. Look at the Red Indian, in that blissful state of +nature from which (so philosophers inform those who choose to believe +them) we all sprang. Which is the boaster, the strutter, the bedizener +of his sinful carcase with feathers and beads, fox-tails and bears' +claws,--the brave, or his poor little squaw? An Australian settler's +wife bestows on some poor slaving gin a cast-off French bonnet; before +she has gone a hundred yards, her husband snatches it off, puts it on +his own mop, quiets her for its loss with a tap of the waddie, and +struts on in glory. Why not? Has he not the analogy of all nature +on his side? Have not the male birds and the male moths, the fine +feathers, while the females go soberly about in drab and brown? Does +the lioness, or the lion, rejoice in the grandeur of a mane; the hind, +or the stag, in antlered pride? How know we but that, in some more +perfect and natural state of society, the women will dress like so +many quakeresses; while the frippery shops will become the haunts +of men alone, and "browches, pearls and owches be consecrate to +the nobler sex?" There are signs already, in the dress of our young +gentlemen, of such a return to the law of nature from the present +absurd state of things, in which the human peahens carry about the +gaudy trains which are the peacocks' right. + +For there is a secret feeling in woman's heart that she is in her +wrong place; that it is she who ought to worship the man, and not the +man her; and when she becomes properly conscious of her destiny, has +not he a right to be conscious of his? If the grey hens will stand +round in the mire clucking humble admiration, who can blame the old +blackcock for dancing and drumming on the top of a moss hag, with +outspread wings and flirting tail, glorious and self-glorifying. He is +a splendid fellow; and he was made splendid for some purpose surely? +Why did Nature give him his steel-blue coat, and his crimson +crest, but for the very same purpose that she gave Mr. A---- his +intellect--to be admired by the other sex? And if young damsels, +overflowing with sentiment and Ruskinism, will crowd round him, ask +his opinion of this book and that picture, treasure his bon-mots, beg +for his autograph, looking all the while the praise which they do not +speak (though they speak a good deal of it), and when they go home +write letters to him on matters about which in old times girls used to +ask only their mothers;--who can blame him if he finds the little wife +at home a very uninteresting body, whose head is so full of petty +cares and gossip, that he and all his talents are quite unappreciated? +_Les femmes incomprises_ of France used to (perhaps do now) form a +class of married ladies, whose sorrows were especially dear to the +novelists, male or female; but what are their woes compared to those +of _l'homme incompris?_ What higher vocation for a young maiden than +to comfort the martyr during his agonies? And, most of all, where the +sufferer is not merely a genius, but a saint; persecuted, perhaps, +abroad by vulgar tradesmen and Philistine bishops, and snubbed at home +by a stupid wife, who is quite unable to appreciate his magnificent +projects for regenerating all heaven and earth; and only, humdrum, +practical creature that she is, tries to do justly, and love mercy, +and walk humbly with her God? Fly to his help, all pious maidens, +and pour into the wounded heart of the holy man the healing balm of +self-conceit; cover his table with confidential letters, choose him as +your father-confessor, and lock yourself up alone with him for an +hour or two every week, while the wife is mending his shirts +upstairs.--True, you may break the stupid wife's heart by year-long +misery, as she slaves on, bearing the burden and heat of the day, of +which you never dream; keeping the wretched man, by her unassuming +good example, from making a fool of himself three times a week; and +sowing the seed of which you steal the fruit. What matter? If your +immortal soul requires it, what matter what it costs her carnal heart? +She will suffer in silence; at least, she will not tell you. You think +she does not understand you. Well;--and she thinks in return that you +do not understand her, and her married joys and sorrows, and her five +children, and her butcher's bills, and her long agony of fear for the +husband of whom she is ten times more proud than you could be; for +whom she has slaved for years; whose defects she has tried to cure, +while she cured her own; for whom she would die to-morrow, did he fall +into disgrace, when you had flounced off to find some new idol: and so +she will not tell you: and what the ear heareth not, that the heart +grieveth not.--Go on and prosper! You may, too, ruin the man's +spiritual state by vanity: you may pamper his discontent with the +place where God has put him, till he ends by flying off to "some +purer Communion," and taking you with him. Never mind. He is a most +delightful person, and his intercourse is so improving. Why were sweet +things made, but to be eaten? Go on and prosper. + +Ah, young ladies, if some people had (as it is perhaps well for them +that they have not) the ordering of this same British nation, they +would certainly follow your example, and try to restore various +ancient institutions. And first among them would be that very ancient +institution of the cucking-stool; to be employed however, not as of +old, against married scolds (for whom those who have been behind +the scenes have all respect and sympathy), but against unmarried +prophetesses, who, under whatsoever high pretence of art or religion, +flirt with their neighbours' husbands, be they parson or poet. + +Not, be it understood, that Valencia had the least suspicion that +Elsley considered himself "incompris." If he had hinted the notion +to her, she would have resented it as an insult to the St. Justs +in general, and to her sister in particular; and would have said +something to him in her off-hand way, the like whereof he had seldom +heard, even from adverse reviewers. + +Elsley himself soon divined enough of her character to see that he +must keep his sorrows to himself, if he wished for Valencia's good +opinion; and soon,--so easily does a vain man lend himself to +meanness--he found himself trying to please Valencia, by praising to +her the very woman with whom he was discontented. He felt shocked and +ashamed when first his own baseness flashed across him: but the bait +was too pleasant to be left easily: and, after all, he was trying to +say to his guest what he knew his guest would like; and what was that +but following those very rules of good society, for breaking which +Lucia was always calling him gauche and morose? So he actually quieted +his own conscience by the fancy that he was bound to be civil, and to +keep up appearances, "even for Lucia's sake," said the self-deceiver +to himself. And thus the mischief was done; and the breach between +Lucia and her husband, which had been somewhat bridged over during the +last month or two, opened more wide than ever, without a suspicion on +Valencia's part that she was doing all she could to break her sister's +heart. + +She, meanwhile, had plenty of reasons which justified her new intimacy +to herself. How could she better please Lucia? How better show that +bygones were to be bygones, and that Elsley was henceforth to be +considered as one of the family, than by being as intimate as possible +with him? What matter how intimate? For, after all, he was only a +brother, and she his sister. + +She had law on her side in that last argument, as well as love of +amusement. Whether she had either common sense or Scripture, is a very +different question. + +Poor Lucia, too, tried to make the best of the matter; and to take the +new intimacy as Valencia would have had her take it, in the light of a +compliment to herself; and so, in her pride, she said to Valencia, and +told her that she should love her for ever for her kindness to Elsley, +while her heart was ready to burst. + +But ere the fortnight was over the Nemesis had come, and Lucia, woman +as she was, could not repress a thrill of malicious joy, even though +Elsley became more intolerable than ever at the change. + +What was the Nemesis, then? + +Simply that this naughty Miss St. Just began to smile upon Frank +Headley the curate, even as she had smiled upon Elsley Vavasour. + +It was very naughty; but she had her excuses. She had found Elsley +out; and it was well for both of them that she had done so. Already, +upon the strength of their supposed relationship, she had allowed him +to talk a great deal more nonsense to her,--harmless perhaps, but +nonsense still,--than she would have listened to from any other +man; and it was well for both of them that Elsley was a man without +self-control who began to show the weak side of his character freely +enough, as soon as he became at ease with his companion, and excited +by conversation. Valencia quickly saw that he was vain as a peacock, +and weak enough to be led by her in any and every direction, when she +chose to work on his vanity. And she despised him accordingly, and +suspected, too, that her sister could not be very happy with such a +man. + +None are more quick than sisters-in-law to see faults in the +brother-in-law, when once they have begun to look for them; and +Valencia soon remarked that Elsley showed Lucia no _petits soins_, +while he was ready enough to show them to her; that he took no real +trouble about his children, or about anything else; and twenty more +faults, which she might have perceived in the first two days of her +visit, if she had not been in such a hurry to amuse herself. But she +was too delicate to ask Lucia the truth, and contented herself with +watching all parties closely, and in amusing herself meanwhile--for +amusement she must have--in + + "Breaking a country heart + For pastime, ere she went to town." + +She had met Frank several times about the parish and in the schools, +and had been struck at once with his grace and high breeding, and with +that air of melancholy which is always interesting in a true woman's +eyes. She had seen, too, that Elsley tried to avoid him, naturally +enough not wishing an intrusion on their pleasant _têtes-à-tête._ +Whereon, half to spite Elsley, and half to show her own right to +chat with whom she chose, she made Lucia ask Frank to tea; and next +contrived to go to the school when he was teaching there, and to make +Elsley ask him to walk with them; and all the more, because she had +discovered that Elsley had discontinued his walks with Frank, as soon +as she had appeared at Penalva. + +Lucia was not sorry to countenance her in her naughtiness; it was a +comfort to her to have a fourth person in the room at times, and thus +to compel Elsley and Valencia to think of something beside each other; +and when she saw her sister gradually transferring her favours from +the married to the unmarried victim, she would have been more than +woman if she had not rejoiced thereat. Only, she began soon to be +afraid for Frank, and at last told Valencia so. + +"Do take care that you do not break his heart!" + +"My dear! You forget that I sit under Mr. O'Blareaway, and am to him +as a heathen and a publican. Fresh from St. Nepomuc's as he is, he +would as soon think of falling in love with an 'Oirish Prodestant,' +as with a malignant and a turbaned Turk. Besides, my dear, if the +mischief is going to be done, it's done already." + +"I dare say it is, you naughty beautiful thing. If anybody is goose +enough to fall in love with you, he'll be also goose enough, I don't +doubt, to do so at first sight. There, don't look perpetually in that +glass: but take care!" + +"What use? If it is going to happen at all, I say, it has happened +already; so I shall just please myself, as usual." + +And it had happened: and poor Frank had been, ever since the first day +he saw Valencia, over head and ears in love. His time had come, and +there was no escaping his fate. + +But to escape he tried. Convinced, with many good men of all ages and +creeds, that a celibate life was the fittest one for a clergyman, he +had fled from St. Nepomuc's into the wilderness to avoid temptation, +and beheld at his cell-door a fairer fiend than ever came to St. +Dunstan. A fairer fiend, no doubt; for St. Dunstan's imagination +created his temptress for him, but Valencia was a reality: and fact +and nature may be safely backed to produce something more charming +than any monk's brain can do. One questions whether St. Dunstan's +apparition was not something as coarse as his own mind, clever though +that mind was. At least, he would never have had the heart to apply +the hot tongs to such a nose as Valencia's, but at most have bowed +her out pityingly, as Frank tried to bow out Valencia from the sacred +place of his heart, but failed. + +Hard he tried, and humbly too. He had no proud contempt for married +parsons. He was ready enough to confess, that he, too, might be weak +in that respect, as in a hundred others. He conceived that he had no +reason, from his own inner life, to believe himself worthy of any +higher vocation--proving his own real nobleness of soul by that very +humility. He had rather not marry. He might do so some day: but he +would sacrifice much to avoid the necessity. If he was weak, he would +use what strength he had to the uttermost ere he yielded. And all the +more, because he felt, and reasonably enough, that Valencia was the +last woman in the world to make a parson's wife. He had his ideal of +what such a wife should be, if she were to be allowed to exist at +all--the same ideal which Mr. Paget has drawn in his charming little +book (would that all parsons' wives would read and perpend), the +"Owlet of Owlstone Edge." But Valencia would surely not make a +Beatrice. Beautiful she was, glorious, lovable, but not the helpmeet +whom he needed. And he fought against the new dream like a brave man. +He fasted, he wept, he prayed: but his prayers seemed not to be heard. +Valencia seemed to have enthroned herself, a true Venus victrix, in +the centre of his heart, and would not be dispossessed. He tried +to avoid seeing her: but even for that he had not strength: more +miserable each time, as fierce against himself and his own weakness as +if he had given way to wine or to oaths. In vain, too, he represented +to himself the ridiculous hopelessness of his passion; the +impossibility of the London beauty ever stooping to marry the poor +country curate. Fancies would come in, how such things, strange as +they might seem, had happened already; might happen again. It was a +class of marriages for which he had always felt a strong dislike, even +suspicion and contempt; and though he was far more fitted, in family +as well as personal excellence, for such a match, than three out of +four who make them, yet he shrank with disgust from the notion of +being himself classed at last among the match-making parsons. Whether +there was "carnal pride" or not in that last thought, his soul so +loathed it, that he would gladly have thrown up his cure at Aberalva; +and would have done so actually, but for one word which Tom Thurnall +had spoken to him, and that was--Cholera. + +That the cholera might come; that it probably would come, in the +course of the next two months, was news to him which was enough to +keep him at his post, let what would be the consequence. And gradually +he began to see a way out of his difficulty--and a very simple one; +and that was to die. + +"That is the solution after all," said he. "I am not strong enough for +God's work: but I will not shrink from it, if I can help. If I cannot +master it, let it kill me; so at least I may have peace. I have failed +utterly here: all my grand plans have crumbled to ashes between my +fingers. I find myself a cumberer of the ground, where I fancied that +I was going forth like a very Michael--fool that I was!--leader of +the armies of heaven. And now, in the one remaining point on which +I thought myself strong, I find myself weakest of all. Useless and +helpless! I have one chance left, one chance to show these poor souls +that I really love them, really wish their good--Selfish that I am! +What matter whether I do show it or not? What need to justify myself +to them? Self, self, creeping in everywhere! I shall begin next, I +suppose, longing for the cholera to come, that I may show off myself +in it, and make spiritual capital out of their dying agonies! Ah me! +that it were all over!--That this cholera, if it is to come, would +wipe out of this head what I verily believe nothing but death will +do!" And therewith Frank laid his head on the table, and cried till he +could cry no more. + +It was not over manly: but he was weakened with overwork and sorrow: +and, on the whole, it was perhaps the best thing he could do; for he +fell asleep there, with his head on the table, and did not wake till +the dawn blazed through his open window. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE DOCTOR AT BAY. + + +Did you ever, in a feverish dream, climb a mountain which grew higher +and higher as you climbed; and scramble through passages which changed +perpetually before you, and up and down break-neck stairs which broke +off perpetually behind you? Did you ever spend the whole night, foot +in stirrup, mounting that phantom hunter which never gets mounted, or, +if he does, turns into a pen between your knees; or in going to fish +that phantom stream which never gets fished? Did you ever, late +for that mysterious dinner-party in some enchanted castle, wander +disconsolately, in unaccountable rags and dirt, in search of that +phantom carpet-bag which never gets found? Did you ever "realise" to +yourself the sieve of the Danaides, the stone of Sisyphus, the wheel +of Ixion; the pleasure of shearing that domestic animal who (according +to the experience of a very ancient observer of nature) produces more +cry than wool; the perambulation of that Irishman's model bog, where +you slip two steps backward for one forward, and must, therefore, in +order to progress at all, turn your face homeward, and progress as +a pig does into a steamer, by going the opposite way? Were you ever +condemned to spin ropes of sand to all eternity, like Tregeagle the +wrecker; or to extract the cube roots of a million or two of hopeless +surds, like the mad mathematician; or last, and worst of all, to work +the Nuisances Removal Act? Then you can enter, as a man and a brother, +into the sorrows of Tom Thurnall, in the months of June and July, +1854. + +He had made up his mind, for certain good reasons of his own, that the +cholera ought to visit Aberalva in the course of the summer; and, of +course, tried his best to persuade people to get ready for their ugly +visitor: but in vain. The cholera come there? Why, it never had come +yet, which signified, when he inquired a little more closely, that +there had been only one or two doubtful cases in 1837, and five or six +in 1849. In vain he answered, "Very well; and is not that a proof that +the causes of cholera are increasing here? If you had one case the +first time, and five times as many the next, by the same rule you will +have five times as many more if it comes this summer." + +"Nonsense! Aberalva was the healthiest town on the coast." + +"Well but," would Tom say, "in the census before last, you had a +population of 1300 in 112 houses, and that was close packing enough, +in all conscience: and in the last census I find you had a population +of over 1400, which must have increased since; and there are eight or +nine old houses in the town pulled down, or turned into stores; so you +are more closely packed than ever. And mind, it may seem no very great +difference; but it is the last drop that fills the cup." + +What had that to do with cholera? And more than one gave him to +understand that he must be either a very silly or a very impertinent +person, to go poking into how many houses there were in the town, and +how many people lived in each. Tardrew, the steward, indeed, said +openly, that Mr. Thurnall was making disturbance enough in people's +property up at Pentremochyn, without bothering himself with Aberalva +too. He had no opinion of people who had a finger in everybody's pie. +Whom Tom tried to soothe with honeyed words, knowing him to be of the +original British bulldog breed, which, once stroked against the hair, +shows his teeth at you for ever afterwards. + +But staunch was Tardrew, unfortunately on the wrong side; and backed +by the collective ignorance, pride, laziness, and superstition +of Aberalva, showed to his new assailant that terrible front of +stupidity, against which, says Schiller, "the gods themselves fight in +vain." + +"Does he think we was all fools afore he came here?" + +That was the rallying cry of the Conservative party, worshippers of +Baalzebub, god of flies, and of that (so say Syrian scholars) from +which flies are bred. And, indeed, there were excuses for them, on the +Yankee ground, that "there's a deal of human natur' in man." It is +hard to human nature to make all the humiliating confessions which +must precede sanitary repentance; to say, "I have been a very nasty, +dirty fellow. I have lived contented in evil smells, till I care for +them no more than my pig does. I have refused to understand Nature's +broadest hints, that anything which is so disagreeable is not meant to +be left about. I have probably been more or less the cause of half my +own illnesses, and of three-fourths of the illness of my children; for +aught I know, it is very much my fault that my own baby has died of +scarlatina, and two or three of my tenants of typhus. No, hang it! +that's too much to make any man confess to! I'll prove my innocence +by not reforming!" So sanitary reform is thrust out of sight, simply +because its necessity is too humiliating to the pride of all, too +frightful to the consciences of many. + +Tom went to Trebooze. + +"Mr. Trebooze, you are a man of position in the county, and own some +houses in Aberalva. Don't you think you could use your influence in +this matter?" + +"Own some houses? Yes,"--and Mr. Trebooze consigned the said cottages +to a variety of unmentionable places; "cost me more in rates than they +bring in in rent, even if I get the rent paid. I should like to get a +six-pounder, and blow the whole lot into the sea. Cholera coming, eh? +D'ye think it will he there before Michaelmas?" + +"I do." + +"Pity I can't clear 'em out before Michaelmas. Else I'd have ejected +the lot, and pulled the houses down." + +"I think something should be done meanwhile, though, towards cleansing +them." + +"---- Let 'em cleanse them themselves! Soap's cheap enough with your +---- free trade, ain't it! No, sir! That sort of talk will do well +enough for my Lord Minchampstead, sir, the old money-lending Jew! ---- +but gentlemen, sir, gentlemen, that are half-ruined with free trade, +and your Whig policy, sir, you must give 'em back their rights before +they can afford to throw away their money on cottages. Cottages, +indeed! ---- upstart of a cotton-spinner, coming down here, buying +the lands over our heads, and pretends to show us how to manage our +estates; old families that have been in the county this four hundred +years, with the finest peasantry in the world ready to die for them, +sir, till these new revolutionary doctrines came in--Pride and +purse-proud conceit, just to show off his money! What do they want +with better cottages than their fathers had? Only put notions into +their heads, raise 'em above their station; more they have, more +they'll want. ---- sir, make chartists of 'em all before he's done! +I'll tell you what, sir,"--and Mr. Trebooze attempted a dignified and +dogmatic tone--"I never told it you before, because you were my very +good friend, sir: but my opinion is, sir, that by what you're doing +up at Pentremochyn, you're just spreading chartism--chartism, sir! Of +course I know nothing. Of course I'm nobody, in these days: but that's +my opinion, sir, and you've got it!" + +By which motion Tom took little. Mighty is envy always, and mighty +ignorance: but you become aware of their truly Titanic grandeur only +when you attempt to touch their owner's pocket. + +Tom tried old Heale: but took as little in that quarter. Heale had +heard of sanitary reform, of course; but he knew nothing about it, and +gave a general assent to Tom's doctrines, for fear of exposing his own +ignorance: acting on them was a very different matter. It is always +hard for an old medical man to confess that anything has been +discovered since the days of his youth; and beside, there were other +reasons behind, which Heale tried to avoid giving; and therefore +fenced off, and fenced off, till, pressed hard by Tom, wrath came +forth, and truth with it. + +"And what be you thinking of, sir, to expect me to offend all my best +patients? and not one of 'em but rents some two cottages, some a +dozen. And what'll they say to me if I go a routing and rookling in +their drains, like an old sow by the wayside, beside putting 'em to +all manner of expense? And all on the chance of this cholera coming, +which I have no faith in, nor in this new-fangled sanitary reform +neither, which is all a dodge for a lot of young Government puppies to +fill their pockets, and rule and ride over us: and my opinion always +was with the Bible, that 'tis jidgment, sir, a jidgment of God, and we +can't escape His holy will, and that's the plain truth of it." + +Tom made no answer to that latter argument. He had heard that "'tis +jidgment" from every mouth during the last few days; and had mortally +offended the Brianite preacher that very morning, by answering his +"'tis jidgment" with-- + +"But, my good sir! the Bible, I thought, says that Aaron stayed the +plague among the Israelites, and David the one at Jerusalem." + +"Sir, those was miracles, sir! and they was under the Law, sir, and +we'm under the Gospel, you'll be pleased to remember." + +"Humph!" said Tom, "then, by your showing, they were better off under +the Law than we are now, if they could have their plagues stopped by +miracles; and we cannot have ours stopped at all." + +"Sir, be you an infidel?" + +To which there was no answer to be made. + +In this case, Tom answered Heale with-- + +"But, my dear sir, if you don't like (as is reasonable enough) to take +the responsibility on yourself, why not go to the Board of Guardians, +and get them to put the Act in force?" + +"Boord, sir? and do you know so little of Boords as that? Why, there +ain't one of them but owns cottages themselves, and it's as much as my +place is worth--" + +"Your place as medical officer is just worth nothing, as you know; +you'll have been out of pocket by it seven or eight pounds this year, +even if no cholera comes." + +Tom knew the whole state of the case; but he liked tormenting Heale +now and then. + +"Well, sir! but if I get turned out next year, in steps that Drew over +at Carcarrow Churchtown into my district, and into the best of my +practice, too. I wonder what sort of a Poor Law district you were +medical officer of, if you don't know yet that that's why we take to +the poor." + +"My dear sir, I know it, and a good deal more beside." + +"Then why go bothering me this way?" + +"Why," said Tom, "it's pleasant to have old notions confirmed as often +as possible-- + + "'Life is a jest, and all things show it; + I thought so once, but now I know it.' + +What an ass the fellow must have been who had that put on his +tombstone, not to have found it out many a year before he died!" + +He went next to Headley the curate, and took little by that move; +though more than by any other. + +For Frank already believed his doctrines, as an educated London parson +of course would; was shocked to hear that they were likely to become +fact so soon and so fearfully; offered to do all he could: but +confessed that he could do nothing. + +"I have been hinting to them, ever since I came, improvements in +cleanliness, in ventilation, and so forth: but I have been utterly +unheeded: and bully me as you will, Doctor, about my cramming +doctrines down their throats, and roaring like a Pope's bull, I assure +you that, on sanitary reform, my roaring was as of a sucking dove, and +ought to have prevailed, if soft persuasion can." + +"You were a dove where you ought to have been a bull, and a bull where +you ought to have been a dove. But roar now, if ever you roared, in +the pulpit and out. Why not preach to them on it next Sunday?" + +"Well, I'd give a lecture gladly, if I could get any one to come and +hear it; but that you could do better than me." + +"I'll lecture them myself, and show them bogies, if my quarter-inch +will do its work. If they want seeing to believe, see they shall; I +have half-a-dozen specimens of water already which will astonish them. +Let me lecture, you must preach." + +"You must know, that there is a feeling,--you would call it a +prejudice,--against introducing such purely secular subjects into the +pulpit." + +Tom gave a long whistle. + +"Pardon me, Mr. Headley; you are a man of sense; and I can speak to +you as one human being to another, which I have seldom been able to do +with your respected cloth." + +"Say on; I shall not be frightened." + +"Well, don't you put up the Ten Commandments in your Church?" + +"Yes." + +"And don't one of them run: 'Thou shalt not kill.'" + +"Well?" + +"And is not murder a moral offence--what you call a sin?" + +"_Sans doute_." + +"If you saw your parishioners in the habit of cutting each other's +throats, or their own, shouldn't you think that a matter spiritual +enough to be a fit subject for a little of the drum ecclesiastic?" + +"Well?" + +"Well? Ill! There are your parishioners about to commit wholesale +murder and suicide, and is that a secular question? If they don't know +the fact, is not that all the more reason for your telling them of it? +You pound away, as I warned you once, at the sins of which they are +just as well aware as you; why on earth do you hold your tongue about +the sins of which they are not aware? You tell us every Sunday that we +do Heaven only knows how many more wrong things than we dream of. +Tell it us again now. Don't strain at gnats like want of faith and +resignation, and swallow such a camel as twenty or thirty deaths. +It's no concern of mine; I've seen plenty of people murdered, and may +again: I am accustomed to it; but if it's not your concern, what on +earth you are here for is more than I can tell." + +"You are right--you are right; but how to put it on religious +grounds--" + +Tom whistled again. + +"If your doctrines cannot be made to fit such plain matters as twenty +deaths, _tant pis pour eux_. If they have nothing to say on such +scientific facts, why the facts must take care of themselves, and the +doctrines may, for aught I care, go and--. But I won't be really rude. +Only think over the matter. If you are God's minister, you ought to +have something to say about God's view of a fact which certainly +involves the lives of his creatures, not by twos and threes, but by +tens of thousands." + +So Frank went home, and thought it through; and went once and again to +Thurnall, and condescended to ask his opinion of what he had said, +and whether he said ill or well. What Thurnall answered was--"Whether +that's sound Church doctrine is your business; but if it be, I'll +say with the man there in the Acts--what was his name?--'Almost thou +persuadest me to be a Christian.'" + +"Would God that you were one! for you would make a right good one." + +"Humph! at least you see what you can do, if you'll only face fact as +it stands, and talk about the realities of life. I'll puff your sermon +beforehand, I assure you, and bring all I can to hear it." + +So Frank preached a noble sermon, most rational, and most spiritual +withal; but he, too, like his tutor, took little by his motion. + +All the present fruit upon which he had to congratulate himself was, +that the Brianite preacher denounced him in chapel next Sunday as a +German Rationalist, who impiously pretended to explain away the Lord's +visitation into a carnal matter of drains, and pipes, and gases, and +such like; and that his rival of another denomination, who was a +fanatic on the teetotal question, denounced him as bitterly for +supporting the cause of drunkenness, by attributing cholera to want of +cleanliness, while all rational people knew that its true source was +intemperance. Poor Frank! he had preached against drunkenness many +a time and oft: but because he would not add a Mohammedan eleventh +commandment to those ten which men already find difficulty enough in +keeping, he was set upon at once by a fanatic whose game it was--as it +is that of too many--to snub sanitary reform, and hinder the spread of +plain scientific truth, for the sake of pushing their own nostrum for +all human ills. + +In despair, Tom went off to Elsley Vavasour. Would he help? Would he +join, as one of two householders, in making a representation to the +proper authorities? + +Elsley had never mixed in local matters: and if he had, he knew +nothing of how to manage men, or to read an Act of Parliament; so, +angry as Tom was inclined to be with him, he found it useless to +quarrel with a man so utterly unpractical, who would, probably, had he +been stirred into exertion, have done more harm than good. + +"Only come with me, and satisfy yourself as to the existence of one of +these nuisances, and then you will have grounds on which to go," said +Tom, who had still hopes of making a cat's-paw of Elsley, and by his +power over him, pulling the strings from behind. + +Sorely against his will, Elsley went, saw, and smelt; came home again; +was very unwell; and was visited nightly for a week after that by that +most disgusting of all phantoms, sanitary nightmare; which some +who have worked in the foul places of the earth know but too well. +Evidently his health could not stand it. There was no work to be got +out of him in that direction. + +"Would he write, then, and represent matters to Lord Scoutbush?" + +How could he? He did not know the man; not a line had ever been +exchanged between them. Their relations were so very peculiar. It +would seem sheer impertinence on his part to interfere with the +management of Lord Scoutbush's property. Really there was a great deal +to be said, Tom felt, for poor Elsley's dislike of meddling in that +quarter. + +"Would Mrs. Vavasour write, then?" + +"For Heaven's sake do not mention it to her. She would be so terrified +about the children; she is worn out with anxiety already,"--and so +forth. + +Tom went back to Frank Headley. + +"You see a good deal of Miss St. Just." + +"I?--No--why?--what?" said poor Frank, blushing. + +"Only that you must make her write to her brother about this cholera." + +"My dear fellow, it is such a subject for a lady to meddle with." + +"It has no scruple in meddling with ladies; so ladies ought to have +none in meddling with it. You must do it as delicately as you will: +but done it must be: it is our only chance. Tell her of Tardrew's +obstinacy, or Scoutbush will go by his opinion; and tell her to keep +the secret from her sister." + +Frank did it, and well. Valencia was horror-struck, and wrote. + +Scoutbush was away at sea, nobody knew where; and a full fortnight +elapsed before an answer came. + +"My dear, you are quite mistaken if you think I can do anything. +Nine-tenths of the houses in Aberalva are not in my hands; but +copyholds and long leases, over which I have no power. If the people +will complain to me of any given nuisance, I'll right it if I can; and +if the doctor wants money, and sees any ways of laying it out well, he +shall have what he wants, though I am very high in Queer Street just +now, ma'am, having paid your bills before I left town, like a good +brother: but I tell you again, I have no more power than you have, +except over a few cottages, and Tardrew assured me, three weeks ago, +that they were as comfortable as they ever had been." + +So Tardrew had forestalled Thurnall in writing to the Viscount. Well, +there was one more chance to be tried. + +Tom gave his lecture in the school-room. He showed them magnified +abominations enough to frighten all the children into fits, and +dilated on horrors enough to spoil all appetites: he proved to them +that, though they had the finest water in the world all over the +town, they had contrived to poison almost every drop of it; he waxed +eloquent, witty, sarcastic; and the net result was a general grumble. + +"How did he get hold of all the specimens, as he calls them? What +business has he poking his nose down people's wells and waterbutts?" + +But an unexpected ally arose at this juncture, in the coast-guard +lieutenant, who, being valiant after his evening's brandy-and-water, +rose and declared, "that Dr. Thurnall was a very clever man; that +by what he'd seen himself in the West Indies, it was all as true as +gospel; that the parish might have the cholera if it liked,"--and here +a few expletives occurred,--"but that he'd see that the coast-guard +houses were put to rights at once; for he would not have the lives of +Her Majesty's servants endangered by such dirty tricks, not fit for +heathen savages," etc. etc. + +Tom struck while the iron was hot. He saw that the great man's speech +had produced an impression. + +"Would he" (so he asked the lieutenant privately) "get some one to +join him, and present a few of these nuisances?" + +He would do anything in his contempt for "a lot of long-shore +merchant-skippers and herringers, who went about calling themselves +captains, and fancy themselves, sir, as good as if they wore the +Queen's uniform!" + +"Well, then, can't we find another householder--some cantankerous dog +who don't mind a row?" + +Yes, the cantankerous dog was found, in the person of Mr. John +Penruddock, coal-merchant, who had quarrelled with Tardrew, because +Tardrew said he gave short weight--which he very probably did--and had +quarrelled also with Thomas Beer, senior, shipbuilder, about right of +passage through a back-yard. + +Mr. Penruddock suddenly discovered that Mr. Beer kept up a dirt-heap +in the said back-yard, and with virtuous indignation vowed "he'd sarve +the old beggar out at last." + +So far so good. The weapons of reason and righteousness having failed, +Tom felt at liberty to borrow the devil's tools. Now to pack a vestry, +and to nominate a local committee. + +The vestry was packed; the committee nominated: of course half of +them refused to act--they "didn't want to go quarrelling with their +neighbours." + +Tom explained to them cunningly and delicately that they would have +nothing to do; that one or two (he did not say that he was the one, +and the two also) would do all the work, and bear all the odium; +whereon the malcontents subsided, considering it likely that, after +all, nothing would be done. + +Some may fancy that matters were now getting somewhat settled. Those +who do so know little of the charming machinery of local governments. +One man has "summat to say,"--utterly irrelevant. Another must needs +answer him with something equally irrelevant; a long chatter ensues, +in spite of all cries to order and question. Soon one and another gets +personal, and temper shows here and there. You would fancy that the +go-ahead party try to restore order, and help business on. Not in the +least. They have begun to cool a little. They are a little afraid that +they have committed themselves. If people quarrel with each other, +perhaps they may quarrel with them too. And they begin to be +wonderfully patient and impartial, in the hope of staving off the evil +day, and finding some excuse for doing nothing after all. "Hear 'mun +out!" ... "Vair and zoft, let ev'ry man ha' his zay!" ... "There's +vary gude rason in it!" ... "I didn't think of that avore;"--and so +forth; till in a quarter of an hour the whole question has to be +discussed over again, through the fog of a dozen fresh fallacies, and +the miserable earnest man finds himself considerably worse off than +when he began. Happy for him if some chance word is not let drop, +which will afford the whole assembly an excuse for falling on him +open-mouthed, as the cause of all their woes! + +That chance word came. Mr. Penruddock gave a spiteful hit, being, as +he said, of a cantankerous turn, to Mr. Treluddra, principal "jowder," +_i.e._ fish salesman, of Aberalva. Whereon Treluddra, whose conscience +told him that there was at present in his back-yard a cartload and +more of fish in every stage of putrefaction, which he had kept rotting +there rather than lower the market-price, rose in wrath. + +"An' if any committee puts its noz into my back-yard, if it doant get +the biggest cod's innards as I can collar hold on, about its ears, my +name is not Treluddra! A man's house is his castle, says I, and them +as takes up with any o' this open-day burglary, for it's nothing less, +has to do wi' me, that's all, and them as knows their interest, knows +me!" + +Terrible were these words; for old Treluddra, like most jowders, +combined the profession of money-lender with that of salesman; and +there were dozens in the place who were in debt to him for money +advanced to buy boats and nets, after wreck and loss. Besides, to +offend one jowder was to offend all. They combined to buy the fish at +any price they chose: if angered, they would combine now and then not +to buy it at all. + +"You old twenty per cent rascal," roared the Lieutenant, "after making +a fortune out of these poor fellows' mishaps, do you want to poison +'em all with your stinking fish?" + +"I say, Lieutenant," says old Beer, whose son owed Treluddra fifty +pounds at that moment, "fair's fair. You mind your Coastguard, and +we'm mind our trade. We'm free fishermen, by charter and right; you'm +not our master, and you shall know it." + +"Know it?" says the Lieutenant, foaming. + +"Iss; you put your head inside my presences, and I'll split mun open, +if I be hanged for it." + +"You split my head open?" + +"Iss, by--." And the old grey-bearded sea-king set his arms akimbo. + +"Gentlemen, gentlemen, for Heaven's sake!" cries poor Headley, "this +is really going too far. Gentlemen, the vestry is adjourned!" + +"Best thing too! oughtn't never to have been called," says one and +another. + +And some one, as he went out, muttered something about "interloping +strange doctors, colloquies with popish curates," which was answered +by a--"Put 'mun in the quay pule," from Treluddra. + +Tom stepped up to Treluddra instantly, "What were you so kind as to +say, sir?" + +Treluddra turned very pale. "I didn't say nought." + +"Oh, but I assure you I heard; and I shall be most happy to jump into +the quay pule this afternoon, if it will afford you the slightest +amusement. Say the word, and I'll borrow a flute, and play you the +Rogue's March all the while with my right hand, swimming with my left. +Now, gentlemen, one word before we part!" + +"Who be you?" cries some one. + +"A man at least, and ought to have a fair hearing. Now, I ask you, +what possible interest can I have in this matter? I knew when I began +that I should give myself a frightful quantity of trouble, and get +only what I have got." + +"Why did you begin at all, then?" + +"Because I was a very foolish, meddlesome ass, who fancied that I +ought to do my duty once in a way by my neighbours. Now, I have only +to say, that if you will but forgive and forget, and let bygones be +bygones, I promise you solemnly I'll never do my duty by you again +as long as I live, nor interfere with the sacred privilege of every +free-born Englishman, to do that which is right in the sight of his +own eyes, and wrong too!" + +"You'm making fun at us," said old Beer dubiously. + +"Well, Mr. Beer, and isn't that better than quarrelling with you? Come +along, we'll all go home and forget it, like good Christians. Perhaps +the cholera won't come; and if it does, what's the odds so long as +you're happy, eh?" + +And to the intense astonishment both of the Lieutenant and Frank, Tom +walked home with the malcontents, making himself so agreeable, that he +was forgiven freely on the spot. + +"What does the fellow mean? He's deserted us, sir, after bringing us +here to make fools of us!" + +Frank could give no answer; but Thurnall gave one himself that +evening, both to Frank and the Lieutenant. + +"The cholera will come; and these fellows are just mad; but I mustn't +quarrel with them, mad or not." + +"Why, then?" + +"For the same reason that you must not. If we keep our influence, +we may be able to do some good at the last, which means, in plain +English, saving a few human lives. As for you Lieutenant, you have +behaved like a hero, and have been served as heroes generally are. +What you must do is this. On the first hint of disease, pack up your +traps and your good lady, and go and live in the watch-house across +the river. As for the men's houses, I'll set them to rights in a day, +if you'll get the commander of the district to allow you a little +chloride of lime and whitewash." + +And so the matter ended. + +"You are a greater puzzle than ever to me, Thurnall," said Frank. "You +are always pretending to care for nothing but your own interest, and +yet here you have gone out of your way to incur odium, knowing, you +say, that your cause was all but hopeless." + +"Well, I do it because I like it. It's a sort of sporting with your +true doctor. He blazes away at a disease where he sees one, as he +would at a bear or a lion; the very sight of it excites his organ of +destructiveness. Don't you understand me? You hate sin, you know. +Well, I hate disease. Moral evil is your devil, and physical evil is +mine. I hate it, little or big; I hate to see a fellow sick; I hate +to see a child rickety and pale; I hate to see a speck of dirt in the +street; I hate to see a woman's gown torn; I hate to see her stockings +down at heel; I hate to see anything wasted, anything awry, anything +going wrong; I hate to see water-power wasted, manure wasted, land +wasted, muscle wasted, pluck wasted, brains wasted; I hate neglect, +incapacity, idleness, ignorance, and all the disease and misery which +spring out of that. There's my devil; and I can't help it for the life +of me, going right at his throat, wheresoever I meet him!" + +Lastly, rather to clear his reputation than in the hope of doing good, +Tom wrote up to London, and detailed the case to that much-calummated +body, the General Board of Health, informing them civilly, that the +Nuisances Removal Act was simply waste paper; that he could not get it +to bear at all on Aberalva; and that if he had done so, it would have +been equally useless, for the simple reason that it constituted the +offenders themselves judge and jury in their own case. + +To which the Board returned for answer, that they were perfectly aware +of the fact, and deeply deplored the same: but that as soon as cholera +broke out in Aberalva, they should be most happy to send down an +inspector. + +To which Tom replied courteously, that he would not give them the +trouble, being able, he trusted, to perform without assistance the not +uncommon feat of shutting the stable-door after the horse was stolen. + +And so was Aberalva left "a virgin city," undefiled by Government +interference, to the blessings of that "local government," which +signifies, in plain English, the leaving the few to destroy themselves +and the many, by the unchecked exercise of the virtues of pride and +ignorance, stupidity and stinginess. + +But to Tom, in his sorest need, arose a new and most unexpected +coadjutor; and this was the way in which it came to pass. + +For it befell in that pleasant summer time, "when small birds sing and +shaughs are green," that Thurnall started, one bright Sunday eve, to +see a sick child at an upland farm, some few miles from the town. +And partly because he liked the walk, and partly because he could no +other, having neither horse nor gig, he went on foot; and whistled as +he went like any throstle-cock, along the pleasant vale, by flowery +banks and ferny walls, by oak and ash and thorn, while Alva flashed +and swirled, between green boughs below, clear coffee-brown from last +night's rain. Some miles up the turnpike road he went, and then away +to the right, through the ash-woods of Trebooze, up by the rill which +drips from pool to pool over the ledges of grey slate, deep-bedded in +dark sedge, and broad bright burdock leaves, and tall angelica, and +ell-broad rings and tufts of king, and crown, and lady-fern, and all +the semi-tropic luxuriance of the fat western soil, and steaming +western woods; out into the boggy moor at the glen head, all fragrant +with the gold-tipped gale, where the turf is enamelled with the hectic +marsh violet, and the pink pimpernel, and the pale yellow leaf-stars +of the butterwort, and the blue bells and green threads of the +ivy-leaved campanula; out upon the steep smooth down above, and away +over the broad cattle-pastures; and then to pause a moment, and look +far and wide over land and sea. + +It was a "day of God." The earth lay like one great emerald, ringed +and roofed with sapphire; blue sea, blue mountain, blue sky overhead. +There she lay, not sleeping, but basking in her quiet Sabbath joy, as +though her two great sisters, of the sea and air, had washed her weary +limbs with holy tears, and purged away the stains of last week's +sin and toil, and cooled her hot worn forehead with their pure +incense-breath, and folded her within their azure robes, and brooded +over her with smiles of pitying love, till she smiled back in answer, +and took heart and hope for next week's weary work. + +Heart and hope for next week's work.--That was the sermon which it +preached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there alone, a stranger and a +wanderer, like Ulysses of old; but, like him, self-helpful, cheerful, +fate-defiant. In one respect indeed, he knew less than Ulysses, and +was more of a heathen than he; for he knew not what Ulysses knew, +that a heavenly guide was with him in his wanderings; still less what +Ulysses knew not, that what he called the malicious sport of fortune +was, in truth, the earnest education of a father; but who will blame +him for getting strength and comfort from such merely natural founts, +or say that the impulse came from below, and not from above, which +made him say-- + +"Brave old world she is, after all, and right well made; and looks +right well to-day, in her go-to-meeting clothes; and plenty of room +and chance in her for a brave man to earn his bread, if he will but go +right on about his business, as the birds and the flowers do, instead +of peaking and pining over what people think of him, like that +miserable Briggs. Hark to that jolly old missel-thrush below! he's had +his nest to build, and his supper to earn, and his young ones to feed, +and all the crows and kites in the wood to drive away, the sturdy John +Bull that he is; and yet he can find time to sing as merrily as +an abbot, morning and evening, since he sang the new year in last +January. And why should not I?" + +Let him be a while; there are sounds of deeper meaning in the air, +if his heart had ears to hear them; far off church-bells chiming to +even-song; hymn-tunes floating up the glen from the little chapel in +the vale. He may learn what they, too, mean some day. Honour to him, +at least, that he has learnt what the missel-thrush below can tell +him. If he accept cheerfully and manfully the things which he does +see, he will be all the more able to enter hereafter into the deeper +mystery of things unseen. The road toward true faith and reverence for +God's kingdom of heaven does not lie through Manichaean contempt and +slander of God's kingdom of earth. + +So let him stride over the down, enjoying the mere fact of life, and +health, and strength, and whistling shrilly to the bird below, who +trumpets out a few grand ringing notes, and repeats them again and +again, in saucy self-satisfaction; and then stops to listen for the +answer to this challenge; and then rattles on again with a fresh +passage, more saucily than ever, in a tone which seems to ask,--"You +could sing that, eh? but can you sing this, my fine fellow on the down +above?" So he seems to Tom to say; and, tickled with the fancy, Tom +laughs, and whistles, and laughs, and has just time to compose his +features as he steps up to the farm-yard gate. + +Let him be, I say again. He might have better Sunday thoughts; perhaps +he will have some day. At least he is a man, and a brave one; and as +the greater contains the less, surely before a man can be a good man, +he must be a brave one first, much more a man at all. Cowards, old +Odin held, inevitably went to the very bottom of Hela-pool, and by no +possibility, unless of course they became brave at last, could rise +out of that everlasting bog, but sank whining lower and lower, like +mired cattle, to all eternity in the unfathomable peat-slime. And if +the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation, and the eighth +verse, is to be taken as it stands, their doom has not altered since +Odin's time, unless to become still worse. + +Tom came up, over the home-close and through the barton-gate, through +the farm-yard, and stopped at last at the porch. The front door was +open, and the door beyond it; and ere he knocked, he stopped, looking +in silence at a picture which held him spellbound for a moment by its +rich and yet quiet beauty. + +Tom was no artist, and knew no more of painting, in spite of his +old friendship with Claude, than was to be expected of a keen and +observant naturalist who had seen half the globe. Indeed, he had been +in the habit of snubbing Claude's profession; and of arriving, on +pre-Raphaelite grounds, at a by no means pre-Raphaelite conclusion. +"A picture, you say, is worth nothing unless you copy Nature. But you +can't copy her. She is ten times more gorgeous than any man can dare +represent her. Ergo, every picture is a failure; and the nearest +hedge-bush is worth all your galleries together"--a syllogism of sharp +edge, which he would back up by Byron's-- + + "I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, + Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal." + +But here was one of Nature's own pictures, drawn and coloured by more +than mortal hand, and framed over and above, ready to his eye, by the +square of the dark doorway, beyond which all was flooded with the full +glory, of the low north-western sun. + +A dark oak-ribbed ceiling; walls of pale fawn-yellow; an open window, +showing a corner of rich olive-stone wall, enamelled with golden +lichens, orange and green combs of polypody, pink and grey tufts of +pellitory, all glowing in the sunlight. + +Above the window-sill rose a bush of maiden-blush roses; a tall spire +of blue monkshood; and one head of scarlet lychnis, like a spark +of fire; and behind all, the dark blue sea, which faded into the +pale-blue sky. + +At the window stood a sofa of old maroon leather, its dark hue +throwing out in strong relief two figures who sat upon it. And when +Tom had once looked at them, he looked at nothing else. + +There sat the sick girl, her head nestling upon the shoulder of Grace +Harvey; a tall, delicate thing of seventeen, with thin white cheeks, +the hectic spot aflame on each, and long fair curls, which mingled +lovingly with Grace's dark tresses, as they sat cheek against cheek, +and hand in hand. Her eyes were closed; Tom thought at first that she +was asleep: but there was a quiet smile about her pale lips; and every +now and then her left hand left Grace's, to move toward a leaf full of +strawberries which lay on Grace's lap; and Tom could see that she +was listening intently to Grace, who told and told, in that sweet, +measured voice of hers, her head erect, her face in the full blaze of +sunshine, her great eyes looking out far away beyond the sea, beyond +the sky, into some infinite which only she beheld. + +Tom had approached unheard, across the farm-yard straw. He stood and +looked his fill. The attitude of the two girls was so graceful, that +he was loth to disturb it; and loth, too, to disturb a certain sunny +calm which warmed at once and softened his stout heart. + +He wished, too--he scarce knew why--to hear what Grace was saying; +and as he listened, her voice was so distinct and delicate in its +modulations, that every word came clearly to his ear. + +It was the beautiful old legend of St. Dorothea:-- + +"So they did all sorts of dreadful things to her, and then led her +away to die; and they stood laughing there. But after a little time +there came a boy, the prettiest boy that ever was seen on earth, and +in his hand a basket full of fruits and flowers, more beautiful than +tongue can tell. And he said, 'Dorothea sends you these, out of the +heavenly garden which she told you of--will you believe her now?' And +then, before they could reply, he vanished away. And Theophilus looked +at the flowers, and tasted the fruit--and a new heart grew up within +him; and he said, 'Dorothea's God shall be my God, and I will die for +him like her.' + +"So you see, darling, there are sweeter fruits than these, and gayer +flowers, in the place to which you go; and all the lovely things in +this world here will seem quite poor and worthless beside the glory of +that better land which He will show you: and yet you will not care to +look at them; for the sight of Him will be enough, and you will care +to think of nothing else." + +"And you are sure He will accept me, after all?" asked the sick girl, +opening her eyes, and looking up at Grace. She saw Thurnall standing +in the doorway, and gave a little scream. + +Tom came forward, bowing. "I am very sorry to have disturbed you. I +suspect Miss Harvey was giving you better medicine than I can give." + +Now why did Tom say that, to whom the legend of St. Dorothea, and, +indeed, that whole belief in a better land, was as a dream fit only +for girls? + +Not altogether because he must need say something civil. True, he +felt, on the whole, about the future state as Goethe did--"To the able +man this world is not dumb: why should he ramble off into eternity? +Such incomprehensible subjects lie too far off, and only disturb our +thoughts, if made the subject of daily meditation." That there was a +future state he had no doubt. Our having been born once, he used to +say, is the strongest possible presumption in favour of our being born +again; and probably, as nature always works upward and develops higher +forms, in some higher state. Indeed, for aught he knew, the old +ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs might be alive now, as lions--or as +men. He himself, indeed, he had said, ere now, had been probably a +pterodactyle of the Lias, neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, +but crocodile and bat in one, able alike to swim, or run, or fly, eat +anything, and live in any element. Still it was no concern of his. He +was here; and here was his business. He had not thought of this life +before he came into it; and it would be time enough to think of the +next life when he got into it. Besides, he had all a doctor's dislike +of those terrors of the unseen world, with which some men are wont to +oppress still more failing nature, and break the bruised reed. His +business was to cure his patients' bodies; and if he could not do +that, at least to see that life was not shortened in them by nervous +depression and anxiety. Accustomed to see men of every character die +under every possible circumstance, he had come to the conclusion that +the "safety of a man's soul" could by no possibility be inferred from +his death-bed temper. The vast majority, good or bad, died in peace: +why not let them die so? If nature kindly took off the edge of sorrow, +by blunting the nervous system, what right had man to interfere with +so merciful an arrangement? Every man, he held in his easy optimism, +would go where he ought to go: and it could be no possible good to +him--indeed, it might be a very bad thing for him, as in this life--to +go where he ought not to go. So he used to argue, with three-fourths +of mankind, mingling truth and falsehood: and would, on these grounds, +have done his best to turn the dissenting preacher out of that house, +had he found him in it. But to-day he was in a more lenient, perhaps +in a more human, and therefore more spiritual mood. It was all very +well for him, full of life, and power, and hope, to look on death in +that cold, careless way; but for that poor young thing, cut off just +as life opened from all that made life lovely--was not death for her a +painful, ugly anomaly? Could she be blamed, if she shuddered at going +forth into the unknown blank, she knew not whither? All very well for +the old emperor of Rome, who had lived his life and done his work, to +play with the dreary question-- + + "Animula, vagula, blandula, + Hospes comesque corporis, + Quae nunc abibis in loca, + Rigidula, nudula, pallida?--" + +But she, who had lived no life, and done no work--only had pined +through weary years of hideous suffering; crippled and ulcerated with +scrofula, now dying of consumption: was it not a merciful dream, a +beautiful dream, a just dream--so beautiful and just, that perhaps it +might be true,--that in some fairer world, all this, and more, might +be made up to her? If not, was it not a mistake and an injustice, that +she should ever have come into the world at all? And was not Grace +doing a rational as well as a loving work, in telling her, under +whatsoever symbols, that such a home of rest and beauty awaited her? +It was not the sort of place to which he expected, perhaps even +wished, to go: but it fitted well enough with a young girl's hopes, a +young girl's powers of enjoyment. Let it be; perhaps there was such a +place,--why not?--fitted for St. Dorothea, and those cut off in youth +like her; and other places fit for such as he. And he spoke more +tenderly than usual (though he was never untender), as he said,-- + +"And you feel better to-day? I am sure you must, with such a kind +friend, to tell you such sweet tales." + +"I do not feel better, thank you. And why should I wish to do so? You +all take too much trouble about me; why do you want to keep me here?" + +"We are loth to lose you; and besides, while you can be kept here, it +is a sign that you ought to be here." + +"So Grace tells me. Yes, I will be patient, and wait till He has done +His work. I am more patient now; am I not, Grace?" And she fondled +Grace's hand, and looked up in her face. + +"Yes," said Grace, who was standing near, with downcast face, trying +to avoid Tom's eye. "Yes, you are very good; but you must not talk:" +but the girl went on, with kindling eye,-- + +"Ah--I was very fretful at first, because I could not go to heaven +at once: but Grace showed me how it was good to be here, as well +as there, as long as He thought that I might be made perfect by +sufferings. And since then, my pain has become quite pleasant to me, +and I am ready to wait and bear--wait and bear." + +"You must not talk,--see, you are beginning to cough," said Tom, who +wished somehow to stop a form of thought which so utterly puzzled him. +Not that he had not heard it before; commonplace enough indeed it is, +thank God: but that day the words came home to him with spirit and +power, all the more solemnly from their contrast with the scene +around--without, all sunshine, joy, and glory: all which could tempt +a human being to linger here: and within, that young girl longing to +leave it all, and yet content to stay and suffer. What mysteries there +were in the human spirit--mysteries to which that knowledge of mankind +on which he prided himself gave him no key! + +"What if I were laid on my back to-morrow for life, by a fall, a blow, +as I have seen many a better man than me;--should I not wish to have +one to talk to me, as she was talking to that child?" And for a moment +a yearning after Grace came over him, as it had done before, and swept +from his mind the dark cloud of suspicion. + +"Now I must talk with your mother," said he; "for you have better +company than mine; and I hear her just coming in." + +He settled little matters for his patient's comfort with the farmer's +wife. When he returned to bid her good-bye Grace was gone. + +"I hope I have not driven her away." + +"Oh no; she had been here an hour, and she must go back now, to get +her mother's supper." + +"That is a good girl," said Tom, looking after her as she went down +the field. + +"She's an angel from heaven, sir. Not a three days go over without +her walking up here all this way after her work, to comfort my poor +maid--and all of us as well. It's like the dew of heaven upon us. +Pity, sir, you didn't see her home." + +"I should have liked it well enough; but folks might talk, if two +young people were seen walking together Sunday evening." + +"Oh, sir, they know her too well by now, for miles round: and you too, +sir, I'll make bold to say." + +"Well, at least I'll go after her." + +So Tom went, and kept Grace in sight, till she had crossed the little +moor, and disappeared in the wood below. + +He had gone about a hundred yards into the wood, when he heard voices +and laughter--then a loud shriek. He hurried forward. In another +minute, Grace rushed up to him, her eyes wide with terror and +indignation. + +"What is it?" cried he, trying to stop her: but, not seeming to see +him, she dashed past him, and ran on. Another moment, and a man +appeared in full pursuit. + +It was Trebooze of Trebooze, an evil laugh upon his face. + +Tom planted himself across the narrow path in an attitude which there +was no mistaking. + +Not a word passed between them. Silently and instinctively, like two +fierce dogs, the two men flew upon each other; Tom full of righteous +wrath, and Trebooze of half-drunken passion, turned to fury by the +interruption. + +He was a far taller and heavier man than Thurnall, and, as the bully +of the neighbourhood, counted on an easy victory. But he was mistaken. +After the first rush was over, he found it impossible to close +with his foe, and saw in the doctor's face, now grown cool and +business-like as usual, the wily smile of superior science and +expected triumph. + +"Brandy-and-water in the morning ought not to improve the wind," said +Tom to himself, as his left hand countered provokingly, while his +right rattled again and again upon Trebooze's watch-chain. "Justice +will overtake you in the offending part, which I take to be the +epigastric region." + +In a few minutes more the scuffle ended shamefully enough for the +sottish squireen. + +Tom stood over him for a minute, as he sat grovelling and groaning +among the long grass. "I may as well see that I have not killed him. +No, he will do as well as ever--which is not saying much.... Now, +sir! Go home quietly, and ask Mrs. Trebooze for a little rhubarb and +salvolatile. I'll call up in the course of to-morrow to see how you +are." + +"I'll kill you, if I catch you!" + +"As a man, I am open of course to be killed by any fair means; but as +a doctor, I am still bound to see after my patient's health." And +Tom bowed civilly, and walked back up the path to find Grace, after +washing face and hands in the brook. + +He found her up at Tolchard's farm, trembling and thankful. + +"I cannot do less than see Miss Harvey safe home." + +Grace hesitated. + +"Mrs. Tolchard, I am sure, will walk with us; it would be safer, in +case you felt faint again." + +But Mrs. Tolchard would not come to save Grace's notions of propriety; +so Tom passed Grace's arm through his own. She offered to withdraw it. + +"No; you will require it. You do not know yet how much you have gone +through. My fear is, that you will feel it all the more painfully when +the excitement is past. I shall send you up a cordial; and you must +promise me to take it. You owe me a little debt you know, to-day; you +must pay it by taking my medicines." + +Grace looked up at him sidelong; for there was a playful tenderness +in his voice which was new to her, and which thrilled her through and +through. + +"I will indeed, I promise you. But I am so much better now. Really, I +can walk alone!" And she withdrew her arm from his, but not hastily. + +After that they walked on awhile in silence. Grace kept her veil +down, for her eyes were full of tears. She loved that man intensely, +utterly. She did not seek to deny it to herself. God had given him to +her, and hers he was. The very sea, the devourer whom she hated, who +hungered to swallow up all young fair life, the very sea had yielded +him up to her, alive from the dead. And yet that man, she knew, +suspected her of a base and hateful crime. It was too dreadful! She +could not exculpate herself, save by blank denial--and what would that +avail? The large hot drops ran down her cheeks. She had need of all +her strength to prevent sobbing. + +She looked round. In the bright summer evening, all things were full +of joy and love. The hedge-banks were gay as flower gardens; the +swifts chased each other, screaming harsh delight; the ring-dove +murmured in the wood beneath his world-old song, which she had taught +the children a hundred times-- + + "Curuckity coo, curuck coo; + You love me, and I love you!" + +The woods slept golden in the evening sunlight; and over head brooded, +like one great smile of God, the everlasting blue. + +"He will right me!" she said. "'Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide +patiently, and He will make thy righteousness clear as the light, and +thy just dealing as the noon-day!'" And after that thought she wept no +more. + +Was it as a reward for her faith that Tom began to talk to her? He had +paced on by her side, serious, but not sad. True, he had suspected +her; he suspected her still. But that scene with the dying child had +been no sham. There, at least, there was nothing to suspect, nothing +to sneer at. The calm purity, self-sacrifice, hope, which was +contained in it, had softened his world-hardened spirit, and woke up +in him feelings which were always pleasant, feelings which the sight +of his father, or the writing to his father, could only awaken. +Quaintly enough, the thought of Grace and of his father seemed +intertwined, inextricable. If the old man had but such a nurse as she! +And for a moment he felt a glow of tenderness toward her, because he +thought she would be tender to his father. She had stolen his money, +certainly; or if not, she knew where it was, and would not tell him. +Well, what matter just then? He did not want the money at that minute. +How much pleasanter and wiser to take things as they came, and enjoy +himself while he could; and fancy that she was always what he had seen +her that day. After all, it was much more pleasant to trust people +than to suspect them: "Handsome is who handsome does! And besides, she +did me the kindness of saving my life; so it would but be civil to +talk to her a little." + +He began to talk to her about the lovely scene around; and found, to +his surprise, that she saw as much of it as he, and saw a great deal +more in it than he. Her answers were short, modest, faltering; but +each one of them suggestive; and Tom soon found that he had met with +a mind which contained all the elements of poetry, and needed only +education to develop them. + +"What a blue stocking, pre-Raphaelite seventh-heavenarian she would +have been, if she had had the misfortune to be born in that station of +life!" But where a clever man is talking to a beautiful woman, talk he +will, and must, for the mere sake of showing off, though she be but +a village schoolmistress; and Tom soon found himself, with a secret +sneer at his own vanity, displaying before her all the much finer +things that he had seen in his travels; and as he talked, she +answered, with quiet expressions of wonder, sympathy, regret at her +own narrow sphere of experience, till, as if the truth was not enough, +he found himself running to the very edge of exaggeration, and a +little over it, in the enjoyment of calling out her passion for the +marvellous, especially when called out in honour of himself. + +And she, simple creature, drank it all in as sparkling wine, and only +dreaded lest the stream should cease. Adventures with noble savages +in palm-fringed coral-islands, with greedy robbers amid the fragrant +hills of Greece, with fierce Indians beneath the snow-peaks of the Far +West, with coward Mexicans among tunals of cactus and agave, beneath +the burning tropic sun--What a man he was! Where had he not been? and +what had he not seen? And how he had been preserved--for her? And his +image seemed to her utterly beautiful and glorious, clothed as it +was in the beauty and glory of all that he had seen, and done, and +suffered. Oh Love, Love, Love, the same in peasant and in peer! The +more honour to you, then, old Love, to be the same thing in this world +which is common to peasant and to peer. They say that you are blind; +a dreamer, an exaggerator--a liar, in short. They know just nothing +about you, then. You will not see people as they seem, and as they +have become, no doubt: but why? because you see them as they ought +to be, and are, in some deep way, eternally, in the sight of Him who +conceived and created them. + +At last she started, as if waking from a pleasant dream, and spoke, +half to herself-- + +"Oh, how foolish of me--to be idling away this opportunity; the only +one, perhaps, which I may have! Oh, Mr. Thurnall, tell me about this +cholera!" + +"What about it?" + +"Everything. Ever since I heard of what you have been saying to the +people, ever since Mr. Headley's sermon, it has been like fire in my +ears!" + +"I am truly glad to hear it. If all parsons had preached about it for +the last fifteen years as Mr. Headley did last Sunday, if they had +told people plainly that, if the cholera was God's judgment at all, it +was His judgment of the sin of dirt, and that the repentance which +He required was to wash and be clean in literal earnest, the cholera +would be impossible in England by now." + +"Oh, Mr. Thurnall: but is it not God's doing? and can we stop His +hand?" + +"I know nothing about that, Miss Harvey. I only know that wheresoever +cholera breaks out, it is some one's fault; and if deaths occur, some +one ought to be tried for manslaughter--I had almost said murder, and +transported for life." + +"Someone? Who?" + +"That will be settled in the next generation, when men have common +sense enough to make laws for the preservation of their own lives, +against the dirt, and covetousness, and idleness, of a set of human +hogs." + +Grace was silent for awhile. + +"But can nothing be done to keep it off now? Must it come?" + +"I believe it must. Still one may do enough to save many lives in the +meanwhile." + +"Enough to save many lives--lives?--immortal souls, too! Oh, what +could I do?" + +"A great deal, Miss Harvey," said Tom, across whom the recollection of +Grace's influence flashed for the first time. What a help she might be +to him! + +And he talked on and on to her, and found that she entered into his +plans with all her wild enthusiasm, but also with sound practical +common sense; and Tom began to respect her intellect as well as her +heart. + +At last, however, she faltered-- + +"Oh, if I could but believe all this! Is it not fighting against God?" + +"I do not know what sort of God yours is, Miss Harvey. I believe in +some One who made all that!" and he pointed round him to the glorious +woods and glorious sky; "I should have fancied from your speech to +that poor girl, that you believed in Him also. You may, however, only +believe in the same being in whom the Methodist parson believes, one +who intends to hurl into endless agony every human being who has not +had a chance of hearing the said preacher's nostrum for delivering men +out of the hands of Him who made them!" + +"What do you mean?" asked Grace, startled alike by Tom's words, and +the intense scorn and bitterness of his tone. + +"That matters little. What do you mean in turn? What did you mean by +saying, that saving lives is saving immortal souls?" + +"Oh, is it not giving them time to repent? What will become of them, +if they are cut off in the midst of their sins?" + +"If you had a son whom it was not convenient to you to keep at home, +would his being a bad fellow--the greatest scoundrel on the earth--be +a reason for your turning him into the streets to live by thieving, +and end by going to the dogs for ever and a day?" + +"No; but what do you mean?" + +"That I do not think that God, when He sends a human being out of this +world, is more cruel than you or I would be. If we transport a man +because he is too bad to be in England, and he shows any signs of +mending, we give him a fresh chance in the colonies, and let him start +again, to try if he cannot do better next time. And do you fancy that +God, when He transports a man out of this world, never gives him a +fresh chance in another--especially when nine out of ten poor rascals +have never had a fair chance yet?" + +Grace looked up in his face astonished. + +"Oh, if I could but believe that! Oh! it would give me some gleam of +hope for my two!--But no--it's not in Scripture. Where the tree falls +there it lies." + +"And as the fool dies, so dies the wise man; and there is one account +to the righteous and to the wicked. And a man has no pre-eminence over +a beast, for both turn alike to dust; and Solomon does not know, +he says, or any one else, anything about the whole matter, or even +whether there be any life after death at all; and so, he says, the +only wise thing is to leave such deep questions alone, for Him who +made us to settle in His own way, and just to fear God and keep His +commandments, and do the work which lies nearest us with all our +might." + +Grace was silent. + +"You are surprised to hear me quote Scripture, and well you may be: +but that same book of Ecclesiastes is a very old favourite with me; +for I am no Christian, but a worlding, if ever there was one. But it +does puzzle me why you, who are a Christian, should talk one half-hour +as you have been talking to that poor girl, and the next go +for information about the next life to poor old disappointed, +broken-hearted Solomon, with his three hundred and odd idolatrous +wives, who confesses fairly that this life is a failure, and that he +does not know whether there is any next life at all." + +Whether Tom was altogether right or not, is not the question here; the +novelist's business is to represent the real thoughts of mankind, when +they are not absolutely unfit to be told; and certainly Tom spoke the +doubts of thousands when he spoke his own. + +Grace was silent still. + +"Well," he said, "beyond that I can't go, being no theologian. But +when a preacher tells people in one breath of a God who so loves men +that He gave His own Son to save them, and in the next, that the same +God so hates men that He will cast nine-tenths of them into hopeless +torture for ever,--(and if that is not hating, I don't know what +is),--unless he, the preacher, gets a chance of talking to them for a +few minutes--Why, I should like, Miss Harvey, to put that gentleman +upon a real fire for ten minutes, instead of his comfortable Sunday's +dinner, which stands ready frying for him, and which he was going home +to eat, as jolly as if all the world was not going to destruction; and +there let him feel what fire was like, and reconsider his statements." + +Grace looked up at him no more; but walked on in silence, pondering +many things. + +"Howsoever that may be, sir, tell me what to do in this cholera, and I +will do it, if I kill myself with work or infection!" + +"You shan't do that. We cannot spare you from Aberalva, Grace," said +Tom; "you must save a few more poor creatures ere you die, out of +the hands of that Good Being who made little children, and love, and +happiness, and the flowers, and the sunshine, and the fruitful earth; +and who, you say, redeemed them all again, when they were lost, by an +act of love which passes all human dreams." + +"Do not talk so!" cried Grace. "It frightens me; it puzzles me, and +makes me miserable. Oh, if you would but become a Christian!" + +"And listen to the Gospel?" + +"Yes--oh yes!" + +"A gospel means good news, I thought. When you have any to tell me, I +will listen. Meanwhile, the news that three out of four of those poor +fellows down town are going to a certain place, seems to me such +terribly bad news, that I can't help fancying that it is not the +Gospel at all; and so get on the best way I can, listening to the good +news about God which this grand old world, and my microscope, and my +books, tell me. No, Grace, I have more good news than that, and I'll +confess it to you." + +He paused, and his voice softened. + +"Say what the preacher may. He must be a good God who makes such +creatures as you, and sends them into the world to comfort poor +wretches. Follow your own sweet heart, Grace, and torment yourself no +more with these dark dreams!" + +"My heart?" cried she, looking down; "it is deceitful and desperately +wicked." + +"I wish mine were too, then," said Tom: "but it cannot be, as long as +it is so unlike yours. Now stop, Grace, I want to speak to you." + +There was a gate in front of them, leading into the road. + +As they came to it, Tom lingered with his hand upon the top bar, that +Grace might stop. She did stop, half-frightened. Why did he call her +Grace? + +"I wish to speak to you on one matter, on which I believe I ought to +have spoken long ago." + +She looked up at him, surprise in her large eyes: and turned pale as +he went on. + +"I ought long ago to have begged your pardon for something rude which +I said to you at your own door. This day has made me quite ashamed +of--" + +But she interrupted him, quite wildly, gasping for breath. + +"The belt? The belt? Oh, my God! my God! Have you heard anything +more?--anything more?" + +"Not a word; but--" + +To his astonishment, she heaved a deep sigh, as if relieved from a +sudden fear. His face clouded, and his eyebrows rose. Was she guilty, +then, after all? + +With the quick eyes of love, she saw the change; and broke out +passionately,-- + +"Yes; suspect me! suspect me, if you will! only give me time! Send me +to prison, innocent as I am--innocent as that child there above--would +God I were dying like her!--Only give me time! O misery! I had hoped +you had forgotten--that it was lost in the sea--that--what am I +saying?--Only give me time!"--and she dropped on her knees before him, +wringing her hands. + +"Miss Harvey! This is not worthy of you. If you be innocent, as I +don't doubt, what more do you need--or I?" + +He took her hands, and lifted her up: but she still kept looking down, +round, upwards, like a hunted deer, and pleading in words which seemed +sobbed out--as by some poor soul on the rack--between choking spasms +of agony. + +"Oh, I don't know,--God help me! O Lord, help me! I will try and find +it--I know I shall find it! only have patience; have patience with me +a little, and I know I shall bring it you; and then--and then you will +forgive?--forgive?" + +And she laid her hands upon his arms, and looked up in his face with a +piteous smile of entreaty. + +She had never looked so beautiful as at that moment. The devil saw it; +and entered into the heart of Thomas Thurnall. He caught her in his +arms, kissed away her tears, stopped her mouth with kisses. "Yes! I'll +wait--wait for ever, if you will! I'll lose another belt, for such +another look as that!" + +She was bewildered for a moment, poor fond wretch, at finding herself +where she would gladly have stayed for ever: but quickly she recovered +her reason. + +"Let me go!" she cried, struggling. "This is not right! Let me go, +sir!" and she tried to cover her burning cheeks with her hands. + +"I will not, Grace! I love you! I love you, I tell you!" + +"You do not, sir!" and she struggled still more fiercely. "Do not +deceive yourself! Me you cannot deceive! Let me go, I say! You could +not demean yourself to love a poor girl like me!" + +Utterly losing his head, Tom ran on with passionate words. + +"No, sir! you know that I am not fit to be your wife: and do you fancy +that I--" + +Maddened now, Tom went on, ere he was aware, from a foolish deed to a +base speech. + +"I know nothing, but that I shall keep you in pawn for my belt. Till +that is at least restored, you are in my power, Grace! Remember that!" + +She thrust him away with so sudden and desperate a spasm, that he was +forced to let her go. She stood gazing at him, a trembling deer no +longer, but rather a lioness at bay, her face flashing beautiful +indignation. + +"In your power! Yes, sir! My character, my life, for aught I know: but +not my soul, Send me to Bodmin Gaol if you will; but offer no more +insults to a modest maiden! Oh!"--and her expression changed to one +of lofty sorrow and pity;--"Oh! to find all men alike at heart? After +having fancied you--fancied you" (what she had fancied him her woman's +modesty dare not repeat)--"to find you even such another as Mr. +Trebooze!" + +Tom was checked. As for mere indignation, in such cases, he had seen +enough of that to trust it no more than "ice that is one night old:" +but pity for him was a weapon of defence to which he was unaccustomed. +And there was no contempt in her pity; and no affectation either. Her +voice was solemn, but tender, gently upbraiding, like her countenance. +Never had he felt Grace's mysterious attraction so strong upon him; +and for the first and last time, perhaps, for many a year, he answered +with downcast eyes of shame. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss Harvey. I have been rude--mad. If you will +look in your glass when you go home, and have a woman's heart in you, +you may at least see an excuse for me: but like Mr. Trebooze I am not. +Forgive and forget, and let us walk home rationally." And he offered +to take her hand. + +"No: not now! Not till I can trust you, sir!" said she. The words were +lofty enough: but there was a profound melancholy in their tone which +humbled Tom still more. Was it possible--she seemed to have hinted +it--that she had thought him a very grand personage till now, and that +he had disgraced himself in her eyes? + +If a man had suspected Tom of such a feeling, I fear he would have +cared little, save how to restore the balance by making a fool of the +man who fancied him a fool: but no male self-sufficiency or pride +is proof against the contempt of woman; and Tom slunk along by the +schoolmistress's side, as if he had been one of her naughtiest +school-children. He tried, of course, to brazen it out to his own +conscience. He had done no harm, after all; indeed, never seriously +meant any. She was making a ridiculous fuss about nothing. It was all +part and parcel of her methodistical cant. He dared say that she was +not as prudish with the methodist parson. And at that base thought he +paused; for a flush of rage, and a strong desire on such hypothesis to +slay the said methodist parson, or any one else who dared even to look +sweet on Grace, showed him plainly enough what he had long been afraid +of, that he was really in love with her; and that, as he put it, if +she did not make a fool of herself about him, he was but too likely to +end in making a fool of himself about her. However, he must speak, to +support his own character as a man of the world;--it would never do to +knock under to a country girl in this way;--she might go and boast of +it all over the town;--beside, foiled or not, he would not give in +without trying her mettle somewhat further. + +"Miss Harvey, will you forgive me?" + +"I have forgiven you." + +"Will you forget?" + +"If I can!" she said, with a marked expression, which signified +(though, of course, she did not mean Tom to understand it), "some of +what is past is too precious, and some too painful, to forget." + +"I do not ask you to forget all which has passed!" + +"I am afraid that there is nothing which would be any credit to you, +sir, to have remembered." + +"Credit or none," said Tom, unabashed, "do not forget one word that I +said." + +She looked hastily and sidelong round,--"That I am in your power?" + +"No! curse it! I wish I had bitten out my tongue before I had said +that. No! that I am in your power, Miss Harvey." + +"Sir! I never heard you say that; and if you had, the sooner anything +so untrue is forgotten the better." + +"I said that I loved you, Grace; and if that does not mean that--" + +"Sir! Mr. Thurnall! I cannot, I will not hear! You only insult me, +sir, by speaking thus, when you know that--that you consider me--a +thief!" and the poor girl burst into tears again. + +"I do not! I do not;" cried Tom, growing really earnest at the sight +of her sorrow, "Did I not begin this unhappy talk by begging your +pardon for ever having let such a thought cross my mind?" + +"But you do! you do! you told me as much at my own door; and I have +seen it ever since, till I have almost gone mad under it!" + +"I will swear to you by all that is sacred that I do not! Oh, Grace, +the first moment I saw you my heart told me that it was impossible; +and now, this afternoon, as I listened to you with that sick girl, I +felt a wretch for ever having--Grace, I tell you, you made me feel, +for the moment, a better man than I ever felt in my life before. A +poor return I have made for that, truly!" + +Grace looked up in his face gasping. + +"Oh, say that! say that again. Oh, good Lord, merciful Lord, at last! +Oh, if you knew what it was to have even one weight lifted off, among +all my heavy burdens, and that weight the hardest to bear. God forgive +me that it should have been so! Oh, I can breathe freely now again, +that I know I am not suspected by you." + +"By you?" Tom could not but see what, after all, no human being can +conceal, that Grace cared for him. And the devil came and tempted +him once more: but this time it was in vain. Tom's better angel had +returned; Grace's tender guilelessness, which would with too many men +only have marked her out as the easier prey, was to him as a sacred +shield before her innocence. So noble, so enthusiastic, so pure! He +could not play the villain with that woman. + +But there was plainly a mystery. What were the burdens, heavier even +than unjust suspicion, of which she had spoken? There was no harm in +asking. + +"But, Grace--Miss Harvey--You will not be angry with me if I ask?--Why +speak so often, as if finding this money depended on you alone? You +wish me to recover it, I know; and if you can counsel me, why not do +so? Why not tell me whom you suspect?" + +Her old wild terror returned in an instant. She stopped short-- + +"Suspect? I suspect? Oh, I have suspected too many already! Suspected +till I began to hate my fellow-creatures--hate life itself, when I +fancied that I saw 'thief' written on every forehead. Oh, do not ask +me to suspect any more!" + +Tom was silent. + +"Oh," she cried, after a moment's pause. "Oh, that we were back in +those old times I have read of, when they used to put people to the +torture to make them confess!" + +"Why, in Heaven's name?" + +"Because then I should have been tortured, and have confessed it, true +or false, in the agony, and have been hanged. They used to hang them +then, and put them out of their misery; and I should have been put out +of mine, and no one have been blamed but me for ever more." + +"You forget," said Tom, lost in wonder, "that then I should have +blamed you, as well as every one else." + +"True; yes, it was a foolish faithless word. I did not take it, and it +would have been no good to my soul to say I did. Lies cannot prosper, +cannot prosper, Mr. Thurnall!" and she stopped short again. + +"What, my dear Grace?" said he, kindly enough; for he began to fear +that she was losing her wits. + +"I saved your life!" + +"You did, Grace." + +"Then, I never thought to ask for payment; but, oh, I must now. Will +you promise me one thing in return?" + +"What you will, as I am a man and a gentleman; I can trust you to ask +nothing which is not worthy of you." + +Tom spoke truth. He felt,--perhaps love made him feel it all the more +easily,--that whatever was behind, he was safe in that woman's hands. + +"Then promise me that you will wait one month, only one month: ask no +questions; mention nothing to any living soul. And if, before that +time, I do not bring you that belt back, send me to Bodmin Gaol, and +let me bear my punishment." + +"I promise," said Tom. And the two walked on again in silence, till +they neared the head of the village. + +Then Grace went forward, like Nausicaa when she left Ulysses, lest the +townsfolk should talk; and Tom sat down upon a bank and watched her +figure vanishing in the dusk. + +Much he puzzled, hunting up and down in his cunning head for an +explanation of the mystery. At last he found one which seemed to fit +the facts so well, that he rose with a whistle of satisfaction, and +walked homewards. + +Evidently, her mother had stolen the belt; and Grace was, if not a +repentant accomplice--for that he could not believe,--at least aware +of the fact. + +"Well, it is a hard knot for her to untie, poor child; and on the +strength of having saved my life, she shall untie it her own way. I +can wait. I hope the money won't be spent meanwhile, though, and the +empty leather returned to me when wanted no longer. However, that's +done already, if done at all. I was a fool for not acting at once;--a +double fool for suspecting her! Ass that I was, to take up with +a false scent, and throw myself off the true one! My everlasting +unbelief in people has punished itself this time. I might have got a +search-warrant three months ago, and had that old witch safe in the +bilboes. But no--I might not have found it, after all, and there would +have been only an esclandre; and if I know that girl's heart, she +would have been ten times more miserable for her mother than for +herself, so it's as well as it is. Besides, it's really good fun to +watch how such a pretty plot will work itself out;--as good as a pack +of harriers with a cold scent and a squatted hare. So, live and let +live. Only, Thomas Thurnall, if you go for to come for to go for to +make such an abominable ass of yourself with that young lady any more, +like a miserable school-boy, you will be pleased to make tracks, and +vanish out of these parts for ever. For my purse can't afford to have +you marrying a schoolmistress in your impoverished old age; and my +character, which also is my purse, can't afford worse." + +One word of Grace's had fixed itself in Tom's memory. What did she +mean by "her two?" + +He contrived to ask Willis that very evening. + +"Oh, don't you know, sir? She had a young brother drowned, a long +while ago, when she was sixteen or so. He went out fishing on the +Sabbath, with another like him, and both were swamped. Wild young +lads, both, as lads will be. But she, sweet maid, took it so to heart, +that she never held up her head since; nor will, I think, at times, to +her dying day." + +"Humph! Was she fond of the other lad, then?" + +"Sir," said Willis, "I don't think it's fair like,--not decent, if +you'll excuse an old sailor,--to talk about young maids' affairs, that +they wouldn't talk of themselves, perhaps not even to themselves. So I +never asked any questions myself." + +"And think it rude in me to ask any. Well, I believe you're right, +good old gentleman that you are. What a nobleman you'd have made, if +you had had the luck to have been born in that station of life!" + +"I have found too much trouble, in doing my duty in my humble place, +to wish to be in any higher one." + +"So!" thought Tom to himself, "a girl's fancy: but it explains so much +in the character, especially when the temperament is melancholic. +However, to quote Solomon once more, 'A live dog is better than a dead +lion;' and I have not much to fear from a rival who has been washed +out of this world ten years since. Heyday! Rival! quotha? Tom +Thurnall, you are going to make a fool of yourself. You must go, sir! +I warn you; you must flee, till you have recovered your senses." + +There appeared next morning in Tom's shop a new phenomenon. A smart +youth, dressed in what he considered to be the newest London fashion; +but which was really that translation of last year's fashion which +happened to be current in the windows of the Bodmin tailors. Tom knew +him by sight and name,--one Mr. Creed, a squireen like Trebooze, and +an especial friend of Trebooze's, under whose tutelage he had learned +to smoke cavendish assiduously from the age of fifteen, thereby +improving neither his stature, nor his digestion, his nerves, nor the +intelligence of his countenance. + +He entered with a lofty air, and paused awhile as he spoke. + +"Is it possible," said Tom to himself, "that Trebooze has sent me a +challenge? It would be too good fun. I'll wait and see." So he went on +rolling pills. + +"I say, sir," quoth the youth, who had determined, as an owner of +land, to treat the doctor duly _de haut en bas_, and had a vague +notion that a liberal use of the word "sir" would both help thereto, +and be consonant with professional style of duel diplomacy, whereof he +had read in novels. + +Tom turned slowly, and then took a long look at him over the counter +through halfshut eye-lids, with chin upraised, as if he had been +suddenly afflicted with short sight; and worked on meanwhile steadily +at his pills. + +"That is, I wish--to speak to you, sir--ahem--!" went on Mr. Creed; +being gradually but surely discomfited by Tom's steady gaze. + +"Don't trouble yourself, sir: I see your case in your face. A slight +nervous affection--will pass as the digestion improves. I will make +you up a set of pills for the night; but I should advise a little +ammonia and valerian at once. May I mix it?" + +"Sir! you mistake me, sir!" + +"Not in the least; you have brought me a challenge from Mr. Trebooze." + +"I have, sir!" said the youth with a grand air, at once relieved by +having the awful words said for him, and exalted by the dignity of his +first, and perhaps last, employment in that line. + +"Well, sir," said Tom deliberately, "Mr. Trebooze does me a kindness +for which I cannot sufficiently thank him, and you also, as his +second. It is full six months since I fought, and I was getting hardly +to know myself again." + +"You will have to fight now, sir!" said the youth, trying to brazen +off by his discourtesy increasing suspicion that he had "caught a +Tartar." + +"Of course, of course. And of course, too, I fight you afterwards." + +"I--I, sir? I am Mr. Trebooze's friend, his second, sir. You do not +seem to understand, sir!" + +"Pardon me, young gentleman," said Tom, in a very quiet, determined +voice; "it is I who have a right to tell you that you do not +understand in such matters as these. I had fought my man, and more +than one of them, while you were eating blackberries in a short +jacket." + +"What do you mean, sir?" quoth the youth in fury; and began swearing a +little. + +"Simple fact. Are you not about twenty-three years old?" + +"What is that to you, sir?" + +"No business of mine, of course. You may be growing into your second +childhood for aught I care: but if, as I guess, you are about +twenty-three, I, as I know, am thirty-six: then I fought my first duel +when you were five years old, and my tenth, I should say, when you +were fifteen; at which time, I suppose, you were not ashamed either of +the jacket or the blackberries." + +"You will find me a man now, sir, at all events," said Creed, justly +wroth at what was, after all, a sophism; for if a man is not a man at +twenty, he never will be one. + +"_Tant mieux_. You know, I suppose, that as the challenged, I have the +choice of weapons?" + +"Of course, sir," said Creed, in an off-hand generous tone, because he +did not very clearly know. + +"Then, sir, I always fight across a handkerchief. You will tell Mr. +Trebooze so; he is, I really believe, a brave man, and will accept the +terms. You will tell yourself the same, whether you be a brave man or +not." + +The youth lost the last words in those which went before them. He was +no coward: would have stood up to be shot at, at fifteen paces, +like any one else; but the deliberate butchery of fighting across a +handkerchief-- + +"Do I understand you, sir?" + +"That depends on whether you are clever enough, or not, to comprehend +your native tongue. Across a handkerchief, I say, do you hear that?" +And Tom rolled on at his pills. + +"I do." + +"And when I have fought him, I fight you!" And the pills rolled +steadily at the same pace. + +"But--sir?--Why--sir?" + +"Because," said Tom, looking him full in the face, "because you, +calling yourself a gentleman, and being, more shame for you, one by +birth, dare to come here, for a foolish vulgar superstition called +honour, to ask me, a quiet medical man, to go and be shot at by a man +whom you know to be a drunken, profligate, blackguard: simply because, +as you know as well as I, I interfered to prevent his insulting a poor +helpless girl: and in so doing, was forced to give him what you, if +you are (as I believe) a gentleman, would have given him also, in my +place." + +"I don't understand you, sir!" said the lad, blushing all the while, +as one honestly conscience-stricken; for Tom had spoken the exact +truth, and he knew it. + +"Don't lie, sir, and tell me that you don't understand; you understand +every word which I have spoken, and you know that it is true." + +"Lie?" + +"Yes, lie. Look you, sir; I have no wish to fight--" + +"You will fight, though, whether you wish it or not," said the youth +with a hysterical laugh, meant to be defiant. + +"But--I can snuff a candle; I can split a bullet on a penknife at +fifteen paces." + +"Do you mean to frighten us by boasting? We shall see what you can do +when you come on the ground." + +"Across a handkerchief: but on no other condition; and, unless you +will accept that condition, I will assuredly, the next time I see you, +be we where we may, treat you as I treated your friend Mr. Trebooze. +I'll do it now! Get out of my shop, sir! What do you want here, +interfering with my honest business?" + +And, to the astonishment of Mr. Trebooze's second, Tom vaulted clean +over the counter, and rushed at him open-mouthed. + +Sacred be the honour of the gallant West country: but, "both being +friends," as Aristotle has it, "it is a sacred duty to speak the +truth." Mr. Creed vanished through the open door. + +"I rid myself of the fellow jollily," said Tom to Frank that day, +after telling him the whole story. + +"And no credit to me. I saw from the minute he came in there was no +fight in him." + +"But suppose he had accepted--or suppose Trebooze accepts still?" + +"There was my game--to frighten him. He'll take care Trebooze shan't +fight, for he knows that he must fight next. He'll go home and patch +the matter up, trust him. Meanwhile, the oaf had not even _savoir +faire_ enough to ask for my second. Lucky for me; for I don't know +where to have found one, save the lieutenant; and though he would +have gone out safe enough, it would have been a bore for the good old +fellow." + +"And," said Prank, utterly taken aback by Tom's business-like levity, +"you would actually have stood to shoot, and be shot at, across a +handkerchief?" + +Tom stuck out his great chin, and looked at him with one of his quaint +sidelong moues. + +"You are my very good friend, sir: but not my father-confessor." + +"I know that: but really--as a mere question of human curiosity--" + +"Oh, if you ask me on the human ground, and not on the sacerdotal, +I'll tell you. I've tried it twice, and I should be sorry to try it +again; though it's a very easy dodge. Keep your right elbow up--up to +your ear--and the moment you hear the word, fire. A high elbow and a +cool heart--that's all; and that wins." + +"Wins? Good heavens? As you are here alive you must have killed your +man?" + +"No. I only shot my men each through the body; and each of them +deserved it: but it is an ugly chance; I should have been sorry to try +it on that yokel. The boy may make a man yet. And what's more," said +Tom, bursting into a great laugh, "he will make a man, and go down +to his fathers in peace, _quant à moi_; and so will that wretched +Trebooze. For I'll bet you my head to a China orange, I hear no more +of this matter; and don't even lose Trebooze's custom." + +"Upon my word, I envy your sanguine temperament!" + +"Mr. Headley, I shall quietly make my call at Trebooze to-morrow, as +if nothing had happened. What will you bet me that I am not received +as usual?" + +"I never bet," said Frank. + +"Then you do well. It is a foolish and a dirty trick; playing with +edge tools, and cutting one's own fingers. Nevertheless, I speak +truth, as you will see." + +"You are a most extraordinary man. All this is so contrary to your +usual caution." + +"When you are driven against the ropes, 'hit out' is the old rule of +Fistiana and common sense. It is an extreme bore: all the more reason +for showing such an ugly front, as to give people no chance of its +happening again. Nothing so dangerous as half-measures, Headley. +'Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,' your creed says. Mine +only translates it into practice." + +"I have no liking for half-measures myself." + +"Did you ever," said Tom, "hear the story of the two Sandhurst +broom-squires?" + +"Broomsquires?" + +"So we call, in Berkshire, squatters on the moor who live by tying +heath into brooms. Two of them met in Reading market once, and fell +out:-- + +"'How ever do you manage to sell your brooms for three halfpence? I +steals the heth, and I steals the binds, and I steals the handles: and +yet I can't afoord to sell 'em under twopence.' + +"Ah, but you see,' says the other, 'I steals mine ready made.' + +"Moral--If you're going to do a thing, do it outright." + +That very evening, Tom came in again. + +"Well; I've been to Trebooze." + +"And fared, how?" + +"Just as I warned you. Inquired into his symptoms; prescribed for his +digestion--if he goes on as he is doing, he will soon have none left +to prescribe for; and, finally, plastered, with a sublime generosity, +the nose which my own knuckles had contused." + +"Impossible! you are the most miraculously impudent of men!" + +"Pish! simple common sense. I knew that Mrs. Trebooze would suspect +that the world had heard of his mishap, and took care to let her know +that I knew, by coming up to inquire for him." + +"_Cui bono?_" + +"Power. To have them, or any one, a little more in my power. Next, +I knew that he dared not fly out at me, for fear I should tell Mrs. +Trebooze what he had been after--you see? Ah, it was delicious to have +the great oaf sitting sulking under my fingers, longing to knock my +head off, and I plastering away, with words of deepest astonishment +and condolence. I verily believe that, before we parted, I had +persuaded him that his black eye proceeded entirely from his having +run up against a tree in the dark." + +"Well," said Frank, half sadly, though enjoying the joke in spite of +himself, "I cannot help thinking it would have been a fit moment for +giving the poor wretch a more solemn lesson." + +"My dear sir,--a good licking--and he had one, and something over--is +the best lesson for that manner of biped. That's the way to school +him: but as we are on lessons, I'll give you a hint." + +"Go on, model of self-sufficiency!" said Frank. + +"Scoff at me if you will, I am proof. But hearken--you mustn't turn +out that schoolmistress. She's an angel, and I know it; and if I say +so of any human being, you may be sure I have pretty good reasons." + +"I am beginning to be of your mind myself," said Frank. + + +END OF VOL. 1. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Two Years Ago, Volume I, by Charles Kingsley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO YEARS AGO, VOLUME I *** + +***** This file should be named 10920-8.txt or 10920-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/2/10920/ + +Produced by Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Two Years Ago, Volume I + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10920] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO YEARS AGO, VOLUME I *** + + + + +Produced by Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +TWO YEARS AGO + +[Illustration] + + + + +TWO YEARS AGO + +BY CHARLES KINGSLEY + +IN TWO VOLS.--VOL. I + + +1901 + + + + +CONTENTS OF VOL.I. + + CHAP + + INTRODUCTORY + I POETRY AND PROSE + II STILL LIFE + III ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE + IV FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND + V THE WAY TO WIN THEM + VI AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE + VII LA CORDIFIAMMA + VIII TAKING ROOT + IX "AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?" + X THE RECOGNITION + XI THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT + XII A PEER IN TROUBLE + XIII L'HOMME INCOMPRIS + XIV THE DOCTOR AT BAY + + + + +TWO YEARS AGO. + +INTRODUCTORY. + + +It may seem a somewhat Irish method of beginning the story of "Two +Years Ago" by a scene which happened but a month since. And yet, will +not the story be on that very account a better type of many a man's +own experiences! How few of us had learnt the meaning of "Two Years +Ago," until this late quiet autumn time; and till Christmas, too, with +its gaps in the old ring of friendly faces, never to be filled up +again on earth, began to teach us somewhat of its lesson. + +Two years ago, while pestilence was hovering over us and ours; while +the battle-roar was ringing in our ears; who had time to think, to ask +what all that meant; to seek for the deep lesson which we knew must +lie beneath? Two years ago was the time for work; for men to do with +all their might whatsoever their hands found to do. But now the storm +has lulled once more; the air has cleared awhile, and we can talk +calmly over all the wonders of that sudden, strange, and sad "Two +years ago." + +So felt, at least, two friends who went down, just one week before +Christmas-day, to Whitbury, in Berkshire. Two years ago had come to +one of them, as to thousands more, the crisis of his life; and he was +talking of it with his companion; and was on his way, too, to learn +more of that story, which this book contains, and in which he had +borne his part. + +They were both of them men who would at first sight interest a +stranger. The shorter of the two he might have seen before--at picture +sales, Royal Academy meetings, dinner parties, evening parties, +anywhere and everywhere, in town; for Claude Mellot is a general +favourite, and a general guest. + +He is a tiny, delicate-featured man, with a look of half-lazy +enthusiasm about his beautiful face, which reminds you much of +Shelley's portrait; only he has what Shelley had not, clustering +auburn curls, and a rich brown beard, soft as silk. You set him +down at once as a man of delicate susceptibility, sweetness, +thoughtfulness; probably (as he actually is) an artist. + +His companion is a man of statelier stamp, tall, dark, and handsome, +with a very large forehead; if the face has a fault, it is that the +mouth is too small; that, and the expression of face too, and the +tone of voice, seem to indicate over-refinement, possibly a too +aristocratic exclusiveness. He is dressed like a very fine gentleman +indeed, and looks and talks like one. Aristocrat, however, in the +common sense of the word, he is not; for he is a native of the Model +Republic, and sleeping-partner in a great New York merchant firm. + +He is chatting away to Claude Mellot, the artist, about Fremont's +election; and on that point seems to be earnest enough, though patient +and moderate. + +"My dear Claude, our loss is gain. The delay of the next four years +was really necessary, that we might consolidate our party. And I leave +you to judge, if it has grown to its present size in but a few months, +what dimensions it will have attained before the next election. We +require the delay, too, to discover who are our really best men; not +merely as orators, but as workers; and you English ought to know +better than any nation, that the latter class of men are those whom +the world most needs--that though Aaron may be an altogether inspired +preacher, yet it is only slow-tongued practical Moses, whose spokesman +he is, who can deliver Israel from their taskmasters. Besides, my dear +fellow, we really want the next four years--'tell it not in Gath'--to +look about us and see what is to be done. Your wisest Englishmen +justly complain of us, that our 'platform' is as yet a merely negative +one; that we define what the South shall not do, but not what the +North shall. Ere four years be over, we will have a 'positive +platform,' at which you shall have no cause to grumble." + +"I still think with Marie, that your 'positive platform' is already +made for you, plain as the sun in heaven, as the lightnings of Sinai. +Free those slaves at once and utterly!" + +"Impatient idealist! By what means? By law, or by force? Leave us to +draw a _cordon sanitaire_ round the tainted States, and leave the +system to die a natural death, as it rapidly will if it be prevented +from enlarging its field. Don't fancy that a dream of mine. None know +it better than the Southerners themselves. What makes them ready +just now to risk honour, justice, even the common law of nations +and humanity, in the struggle for new slave territory? What but the +consciousness that without virgin soil, which will yield rapid and +enormous profit to slave labour, they and their institution must be +ruined!" + +"The more reason for accelerating so desirable a consummation, by +freeing the slaves at once." + +"Humph!" said Stangrave with a smile. "Who so cruel at times as your +too benevolent philanthropist? Did you ever count the meaning of those +words? Disruption of the Union, an invasion of the South by the North; +and an internecine war, aggravated by the horrors of a general rising +of the slaves, and such scenes as Hayti beheld sixty years ago. If you +have ever read them, you will pause ere you determine to repeat them +on a vaster scale." + +"It is dreadful, Heaven knows, even in thought! But, Stangrave, can +any moderation on your part ward it off? Where there is crime, there +is vengeance; and without shedding of blood is no remission of sin." + +"God knows! It may be true: but God forbid that I should ever do aught +to hasten what may come. Oh, Claude, do you fancy that I, of all men, +do not feel at moments the thirst for brute vengeance?" + +Claude was silent. + +"Judge for yourself, you who know all--what man among us Northerners +can feel, as I do, what those hapless men may have deserved?--I who +have day and night before me the brand of their cruelty, filling my +heart with fire? I need all my strength, all my reason, at times to +say to myself, as I say to others--'Are not these slaveholders men of +like passions with yourself? What have they done which you would not +have done in their place?' I have never read that key to Uncle Tom's +Cabin. I will not even read this Dred, admirable as I believe it to +be." + +"Why should you?" said Claude. "Have you not a key to Uncle Tom's +Cabin, more pathetic than any word of man's or woman's?" + +"But I do not mean that! I will not read them, because I have the key +to them in my own heart, Claude: because conscience has taught me to +feel for the Southerner as a brother, who is but what I might have +been; and to sigh over his misdirected courage and energy, not with +hatred, not with contempt: but with pity, all the more intense the +more he scorns that pity; to long, not merely for the slaves' sake, +but for the masters' sake, to see them--the once chivalrous gentlemen +of the South--delivered from the meshes of a net which they did not +spread for themselves, but which was round their feet, and round their +fathers', from the day that they were born. You ask me to destroy +these men. I long to save them from their certain doom!" + +"You are right, and a better Christian than I am, I believe. Certainly +they do need pity, if any sinners do; for slavery seems to be--to +judge from Mr. Brooks's triumph--a great moral curse, and a heavier +degradation to the slaveholder himself, than it can ever be to the +slave." + +"Then I would free them from that curse, that degradation. If the +negro asks, 'Am I not a man and a brother?' have they no right to ask +it also? Shall I, pretending to love my country, venture on any rash +step which may shut out the whole Southern white population from their +share in my country's future glory? No; have but patience with us, you +comfortable liberals of the Old World, who find freedom ready made to +your hands, and we will pay you all. Remember, we are but children +yet; our sins are the sins of youth,--greediness, intemperance, +petulance, self-conceit. When we are purged from our youthful sins, +England will not be ashamed of her child." + +"Ashamed of you? I often wish I could make Americans understand the +feeling of England to you--the honest pride, as of a mother who has +brought into the world the biggest baby that ever this earth beheld, +and is rather proud of its stamping about and beating her in its +pretty pets. Only the old lady does get a little cross when she hears +you talk of the wrongs which you have endured from her, and teaching +your children to hate us as their ancient oppressors, on the ground of +a foolish war, of which every Englishman is utterly ashamed, and in +the result of which he glories really as much as you do." + +"Don't talk of 'you,' Claude! You know well what I think on that +point. Never did one nation make the _amende honorable_ to another +more fully and nobly than you have to us; and those who try to keep up +the quarrel are--I won't say what. But the truth is, Claude, we +have had no real sorrows; and therefore we can afford to play with +imaginary ones. God grant that we may not have our real ones--that we +may not have to drink of the cup of which our great mother drank two +years ago!" + +"It was a wholesome bitter for us; and it may be so for you likewise: +but we will have no sad forebodings on the eve of the blessed +Christmas-tide. He lives, He loves, He reigns; and all is well, for we +are His, and He is ours." + +"Ah," said Stangrave, "when Emerson sneered at you English for +believing your Old Testament, he little thought that that was the +lesson which it had taught you; and that that same lesson was the +root of all your greatness. That that belief in God's being, in some +mysterious way, the living King of England and of Christendom, has +been the very idea which has kept you in peace and safety, now for +many a hundred years, moving slowly on from good to better, not +without many backslidings and many shortcomings, but still finding +out, quickly enough, when you were on the wrong road, and not ashamed +to retrace your steps, and to _reform_, as brave strong men should +dare to do; a people who have been for many an age in the vanguard +of all the nations, and the champions of sure and solid progress +throughout the world; because what is new among you is not patched +artificially on to the old, but grows organically out of it, with +a growth like that of your own English oak, whose every new-year's +leaf-crop is fed by roots which burrow deep in many a buried +generation, and the rich soil of full a thousand years." + +"Stay!" said the little artist. "We are quite conceited enough +already, without your eloquent adulation, sir! But there is a truth +in your words. There is a better spirit roused among us, and that +not merely of two years ago. I knew this part of the country well in +1846-7-8, and since then, I can bear witness, a spirit of self-reform +has been awakened round here, in many a heart which I thought once +utterly frivolous. I find, in every circle of every class, men and +women asking to be taught their duty, that they may go and do it; +I find everywhere schools, libraries, and mechanics' institutes +springing up: and rich and poor meeting together more and more in the +faith that God has made them all. As for the outward and material +improvements--you know as well as I, that since free trade and +emigration, the labourers confess themselves better off than they +have been for fifty years; and though you will not see in the chalk +counties that rapid and enormous agricultural improvement which you +will in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, or the Lothians, yet you shall see +enough to-day to settle for you the question whether we old-country +folk are in a state of decadence and decay. _Par exemple_--" + +And Claude pointed to the clean large fields, with their neat +close-clipt hedge-rows, among which here and there stood cottages, +more than three-fourths of them new. + +"Those well-drained fallow fields, ten years ago, were poor clay +pastures, fetlock deep in mire six months in the year, and accursed in +the eyes of my poor dear old friend, Squire Lavington; because they +were so full of old moles'-nests, that they threw all horses down. I +am no farmer: but they seem surely to be somewhat altered since then." + +As he spoke, they turned off the main line of the rolling clays toward +the foot of the chalk hills, and began to brush through short cuttings +of blue gault and "green sand," so called by geologists, because its +usual colours are bright brown, snow-white, and crimson. + +Soon they get glimpses of broad silver Whit, as she slides, with +divided streams, through bright water-meadows, and stately groves of +poplar, and abele, and pine; while, far aloft upon the left, the downs +rise steep, crowned with black fir spinnies, and dotted with dark box +and juniper. + +Soon they pass old Whitford Priory, with its numberless gables, +nestling amid mighty elms, and the Nunpool flashing and roaring as of +old, and the broad shallow below sparkling and laughing in the low, +but bright December sun. + +"So slides on the noble river, for ever changing, and yet for ever the +same--always fulfilling its errand, which yet is never fulfilled," +said Stangrave,--he was given to half-mystic utterances, and +hankerings after Pagan mythology, learnt in the days when he +worshipped Emerson, and tried (but unsuccessfully) to worship Margaret +Fuller Ossoli,--"Those old Greeks had a deep insight into nature, +when they gave to each river not merely a name, but a semi-human +personality, a river-god of its own. It may be but a collection +of ever-changing atoms of water;--what is your body but a similar +collection of atoms, decaying and renewing every moment? Yet you are a +person; and is not the river, too, a person--a live thing? It has +an individual countenance which you love, which you would recognise +again, meet it where you will; it marks the whole landscape; it +determines probably the geography and the society of a whole district. +It draws you, too, to itself by an indefinable mesmeric attraction. If +you stop in a strange place, the first instinct of your idle +half-hour is, to lounge by the river. It is a person to you; you call +it--Scotchmen do, at least--she, and not it. How do you know that you +are not philosophically correct, and that the river has a spirit as +well as you?" + +"Humph!" said Claude, who talks mysticism himself by the hour, but +snubs it in every one else. "It has trout, at least; and they stand, +I suppose, for its soul, as the raisins did for those of Jean Paul's +gingerbread bride and bridegroom and peradventure baby." + +"Oh you materialist English! sporting-mad all of you, from the duke +who shooteth stags to the clod who poacheth rabbits!" + +"And who therefore can fight Russians at Inkermann, duke and clod +alike, and side by side; never better (says the chronicler of old) +than in their first battle. I can neither fight nor fish, and on the +whole agree with you: but I think it proper to be as English as I can +in the presence of an American." + +A whistle--a creak--a jar; and they stop at the little Whitford +station, where a cicerone for the vale, far better than Claude was, +made his appearance, in the person of Mark Armsworth, banker, railway +director, and _de facto_ king of Whitbury town, long since elected by +universal suffrage (his own vote included) as permanent _locum tenens_ +of her gracious Majesty. + +He hails Claude cheerfully from the platform, as he waddles about, +with a face as of the rising sun, radiant with good fun, good humour, +good deeds, good news, and good living. His coat was scarlet once; but +purple now. His leathers and boots were doubtless clean this morning; +but are now afflicted with elephantiasis, being three inches deep in +solid mud, which his old groom is scraping off as fast as he can. His +cap is duntled in; his back bears fresh stains of peat; a gentle rain +distils from the few angles of his person, and bedews the platform; +for Mark Armsworth has "been in Whit" to-day. + +All porters and guards touch their hats to him; the station-master +rushes up and down frantically, shouting, "Where are those +horse-boxes? Now then, look alive!" for Mark is chairman of the line, +and everybody's friend beside; and as he stands there being scraped, +he finds time to inquire after every one of the officials by turns, +and after their wives, children, and sweethearts beside. + +"What a fine specimen of your English squire!" says Stangrave. + +"He is no squire; he is the Whitbury banker, of whom I told you." + +"Armsworth!" said Stangrave, looking at the old man with interest. + +"Mark Armsworth himself. He is acting as squire, though, now; for he +has hunted the Whitford Priors ever since poor old Lavington's death." + +"Now then--those horse-boxes!"... + +"Very sorry, sir; I telegraphed up, but we could get but one down." + +"Put the horses into that, then; and there's an empty carriage! Jack, +put the hounds into it, and they shall all go second class, as sure as +I'm chairman!" + +The grinning porters hand the strange passengers in, while Mark counts +the couples with his whip-point,-- + +"Ravager--Roysterer; Melody--Gay-lass; all right. Why, where's that +old thief of a Goodman?" + +"Went over a gate as soon as he saw the couples; and wouldn't come +in at any price, sir," says the huntsman. "Gone home by himself, I +expect." + +"Goodman, Goodman, boy!" And forthwith out of the station-room slips +the noble old hound, grey-nosed, grey-eyebrowed, who has hidden, for +purposes of his own, till he sees all the rest safe locked in. + +Up he goes to Mark, and begins wriggling against his knees, and +looking up as only dogs can. "Oh, want to go first-class with me, eh? +Jump in, then!" And in jumps the hound, and Mark struggles after him. + +"Hillo, sir! Come out! Here are your betters here before you," as he +sees Stangrave, and a fat old lady in the opposite corner. + +"Oh, no; let the dog stay!" says Stangrave. + +"I shall wet you, sir, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, no." + +And Mark settles himself, puffing, with the hound's head on his knees, +and begins talking fast and loud. + +"Well, Mr. Mellot, you're a stranger here. Haven't seen you since poor +Miss Honour died. Ah, sweet angel she was! Thought my Mary would never +get over it. She's just such another, though I say it, barring the +beauty. Goodman, boy! You recollect old Goodman, son of Galloper, that +the old squire gave our old squire?" + +Claude, of course, knows--as all do who know those parts--who The Old +Squire is; long may he live, patriarch of the chase! The genealogy he +does not. + +"Ah, well--Miss Honour took to the pup, and used to walk him out; and +a prince of a hound he is; so now he's old we let him have his own +way, for her sake; and nobody'll ever bully _you_, will they, Goodman, +my boy?" + +"I want to introduce you to a friend of mine." + +"Proud to know any friend of yours, sir." + +"Mr. Stangrave--Mr. Armsworth. Mr. Stangrave is an American gentleman, +who is anxious to see Whitbury and the neighbourhood." + +"Well, I shall be happy to show it him, then--can't have a better +guide, though I say it--know everything by this time, and everybody, +man, woman, and child, as I hope Mr. Stangrave'll find when he gets to +know old Mark." + +"You must not speak of getting to know you, my dear sir; I know +you intimately already, I assure you; and more, am under very deep +obligations to you, which, I regret to say, I can only repay by +thanks." + +"Obligation to me, my dear sir?" + +"Indeed I am: I will tell you all when we are alone." And Stangrave +glanced at the fat old woman, who seemed to be listening intently. + +"Oh, never mind her," says Armsworth; "deaf as a post: very good +woman, but so deaf--ought to speak to her, though"--and, reaching +across, to the infinite amusement of his companions, he roared in the +fat woman's face, with a voice as of a speaking-trumpet--"Glad to see +you, Mrs. Grove! Got those dividends ready for you next time you come +into town." + +"Yah!" screamed the hapless woman, who (as the rest saw) heard +perfectly well. "What do you mean, frightening a lady in that way? +Deaf, indeed!" + +"Why," roared Mark again, "ain't you Mrs. Grove, of Drytown +Dirtywater?" + +"No, nor no acquaintance! What business is it of your'n, sir, to go +hollering in ladies' faces at your age?" + +"Well:--but I'll swear if you ain't her, you're somebody else. I know +you as well as the town clock" + +"Me? If you must know, sir, I'm Mrs. Pettigrew's mother, the +Linendraper's establishment, sir; a-going down for Christmas, sir!" + +"Humph!" says Mark: "you see--was sure I knew her--know everybody +here. As I said, if she wasn't Mrs. Grove, she was somebody else. Ever +in these parts before?" + +"Never: but I have heard a good deal of them; and very much charmed +with them I am. I have seldom seen a more distinctive specimen of +English scenery." + +"And how you are improving round here!" said Claude, who knew Mark's +weak points, and wanted to draw him out. "Your homesteads seem all +new; three fields have been thrown into one, I fancy, over half the +farms." + +Mark broke out at once on his favourite topic,--"I believe you! I'm +making the mare go here in Whitford, without the money too, sometimes. +I'm steward now, bailiff--ha! ha! these four years past--to Mrs. +Lavington's Irish husband; I wanted him to have a regular agent, a +canny Scot, or Yorkshireman. Faith, the poor man couldn't afford it, +and so fell back on old Mark. Paddy loves a job, you know. So I've the +votes and the fishing, and send him his rents, and manage all the rest +pretty much, my own way." + +When the name of Lavington was mentioned, Mark observed Stangrave +start; and an expression passed over his face difficult to be +defined--it seemed to Mark mingled pride and shame. He turned to +Claude, and said, in a low voice, but loud enough for Mark to hear,-- + +"Lavington? Is this their country also? As I am going to visit the +graves of my ancestors, I suppose I ought to visit those of hers." + +Mark caught the words which he was not intended to. + +"Eh? Sir, do you belong to these parts?" + +"My family, I believe, lived in the neighbourhood of Whitbury, at a +place called Stangrave-end." + +"To be sure! Old farm-house now; fine old oak carving in it, though; +fine old family it must have been; church full of their monuments. +Hum,--ha! Well! that's pleasant, now! I've often heard there were good +old families away there in New England; never thought that there were +Whitbury people among them. Hum--well! the world's not so big as +people think, after all. And you spoke of the Lavingtons? They are +great folks here--or were--" He was going to rattle on: but he saw a +pained expression on both the travellers' faces, and Stangrave stopped +him, somewhat drily-- + +"I know nothing of them, I assure you, or they of me. Your country +here is certainly charming, and shows little of those signs of decay +which some people in America impute to it." + +"Decay!" Mark went off at score. "Decay be hanged! There's life in the +old dog yet, sir! and dead pigs are looking up since free trade and +emigration. Cheap bread and high wages now: and instead of lands +going out of cultivation, as they threatened--bosh! there's a greater +breadth down in wheat in the vale now than there ever was; and look +at the roots. Farmers must farm now, or sink; and by George! they are +farming, like sensible fellows: and a fig for that old turnip ghost of +Protection! There was a fellow came down from the Carlton--you know +what that is!" Stangrave bowed, and smiled assent. "From the Carlton, +sir, two years since, and tried it on, till he fell in with old Mark. +I told him a thing or two; among the rest, told him to his face that +he was a liar; for he wanted to make farmers believe they were ruined, +when he knew they were not; and that he'd get 'em back Protection, +when he knew that he couldn't--and, what's more, he didn't mean to. So +he cut up rough, and wanted to call me out." + +"Did you go?" asked Stangrave, who was fast becoming amused with his +man, + +"I told him that that wasn't my line, unless he'd try Eley's greens at +forty yards; and then I was his man: but if he laid a finger on me, +I'd give him as sound a horsewhipping, old as I am, as ever man had +in his life. And so I would." And Mark looked complacently at his own +broad shoulders. "And since then, my lord and I have had it all our +own way; and Minchampstead and Co. is the only firm in the vale." + +"What's become of a Lord Vieuxbois, who used to live somewhere +hereabouts? I used to meet him at Rome." + +"Rome?" said Mark solemnly. "Yes; he was too fond of Rome, awhile +back: can't see what people want running into foreign parts to look at +those poor idolators, and their Punch and Judy plays. Pray for 'em, +and keep clear of them, is the best rule:--but he has married my +lord's youngest daughter; and three pretty children he has,--ducks of +children. Always comes to see me in my shop, when he drives into town. +Oh!--he's doing pretty well.--One of these new between-the-stools, +Peelites they call them--hope they'll be as good as the name. However, +he's a freetrader, because he can't help it. So we have his votes; and +as to his Conservatism, let him conserve hips and haws if he chooses, +like a 'pothecary. After all, why pull down anything, before it's +tumbling on your head? By the by, sir, as you're a man of money, +there's that Stangrave-end farm in the market now. Pretty little +investment,--I'd see that you got it cheap; and my lord wouldn't bid +against you, of course, as you're a liberal--all Americans, are, I +suppose. And so you'd oblige us, as well as yourself, for it would +give us another vote for the county." + +"Upon my word, you tempt me; but I do not think that this is just +the moment for an American to desert his own country, and settle in +England. I should not be here now, had I not this autumn done all I +could for America in America, and so crossed the sea to serve her, if +possible, in England." + +"Well, perhaps not; especially if you're a Fremonter." + +"I am, I assure you." + +"Thought as much, by your looks. Don't see what else an honest man can +be just now." + +Stangrave laughed. "I hope every one thinks so in England." + +"Trust us for that, sir! We know a man when we see him here; I hope +they'll do the same across the water." + +There was silence for a minute or two; and then Mark began again. + +"Look!--there's the farm; that's my lord's. I should like to show +you the short-horns there, sir!--all my Lord Ducie's and Sir Edward +Knightley's stock; bought a bull-calf of him the other day myself for +a cool hundred, old fool that I am. Never mind, spreads the breed. And +here are mills--four pair of new stones. Old Whit don't know herself +again. But I dare say they look small enough to you, sir, after your +American water-power." + +"What of that? It is just as honourable in you to make the most of a +small river, as in us to make the most of a large one." + +"You speak like a book, sir. By the by, if you think of taking home a +calf or two, to improve your New England breed--there are a good many +gone across the sea in the last few years--I think we could find you +three or four beauties, not so very dear, considering the blood." + +"Thanks; but I really am no farmer." + +"Well--no offence, I hope: but I am like your Yankees in one thing, +you see;--always have an eye to a bit of business. If I didn't, I +shouldn't be here now." + +"How very tasteful!--our own American shrubs! what a pity that they +are not in flower! What is this," asked Stangrave,--"one of your +noblemen's parks?" + +And they began to run through the cutting in Minchampstead Park, where +the owner has concealed the banks of the rail for nearly half a mile, +in a thicket of azaleas, rhododendrons, and clambering roses. + +"All!--isn't it pretty? His lordship let us have the land for a song; +only bargained that we should keep low, not to spoil his view; and so +we did; and he's planted our cutting for us. I call that a present to +the county, and a very pretty one too! Ah, give me these new brooms +that sweep clean!" + +"Your old brooms, like Lord Vieuxbois, were new brooms once, and swept +well enough five hundred years ago," said Stangrave, who had that +filial reverence for English antiquity which sits so gracefully upon +many highly educated and far-sighted Americans. + +"Worn to the stumps, now, too many of them, sir; and want new-hething, +as our broom-squires would say; and I doubt whether most of them are +worth the cost of a fresh bind. Not that I can say that of the young +lord. He's foremost in all that's good, if he had but money; and +when he hasn't, he gives brains. Gave a lecture, in our institute at +Whitford, last winter, on the four great Poets. Shot over my head a +little, and other people's too: but my Mary--my daughter, sir, thought +it beautiful; and there's nothing that she don't know." + +"It is very hopeful, to see your aristocracy joining in the general +movement, and bringing their taste and knowledge to bear on the lower +classes." + +"Yes, sir! We're going all right now, in the old country. Only have +to steer straight, and not put on too much steam. But give me the +new-comers, after all. They may be close men of business;--how else +could one live? But when it comes to giving, I'll back them against +the old ones for generosity, or taste either. They've their proper +pride, when they get hold of the land; and they like to show it, and +quite right they. You must see my little place too. It's not in such +bad order, though I say it, and am but a country banker: but I'll back +my flowers against half the squires round--my Mary's, that is--and my +fruit too.--See, there! There's my lord's new schools, and his model +cottages, with more comforts in them, saving the size, than my +father's house had; and there's his barrack, as he calls it, for the +unmarried men--reading-room, and dining-room, in common; and a library +of books, and a sleeping-room for each." + +"It seems strange to complain of prosperity," said Stangrave; "but I +sometimes regret that in America there is so little room for the very +highest virtues; all are so well off, that one never needs to give; +and what a man does here for others, they do for themselves." + +"So much the better for them. There are other ways of being generous +besides putting your hand in your pocket, sir! By Jove! there'll be +room enough (if you'll excuse me) for an American to do fine things, +as long as those poor negro slaves--" + +"I know it; I know it," said Stangrave, in the tone of a man who had +already made up his mind on a painful subject, and wished to hear no +more of it. "You will excuse me; but I am come here to learn what I +can of England. Of my own country I know enough, I trust, to do my +duty in it when I return." + +Mark was silent, seeing that he had touched a tender place; and +pointed out one object of interest after another, as they ran through +the flat park, past the great house with its Doric facade, which +the eighteenth century had raised above the quiet cell of the +Minchampstead recluses. + +"It is very ugly," said Stangrave; and truly. + +"Comfortable enough, though; and, as somebody said, people live inside +their houses, and not outside 'em. You should see the pictures there, +though, while you're in the country. I can show you one or two, too, I +hope. Never grudge money for good pictures. The pleasantest furniture +in the world, as long as you keep them; and if you're tired of them, +always fetch double their price." + +After Minchampstead, the rail leaves the sands and clays, and turns up +between the chalk hills, along the barge river which it has rendered +useless, save as a supernumerary trout-stream; and then along Whit, +now flowing clearer and clearer, as we approach its springs amid the +lofty clowns. On through more water-meadows, and rows of pollard +willow, and peat-pits crested with tall golden reeds, and still +dykes,--each in summer a floating flower-bed; while Stangrave looks +out of the window, his face lighting up with curiosity. + +"How perfectly English! At least, how perfectly un-American! It is +just Tennyson's beautiful dream--" + + 'On either side the river lie + Long fields, of barley and of rye, + Which clothe the wold and meet the sky, + And through the field the stream runs by, + To many towered Camelot.' + +"Why, what is this?" as they stop again at a station, where the board +bears, in large letters, "Shalott." + +"Shalott? Where are the + + 'Four grey walls, and four grey towers,' + +which overlook a space of flowers?" + +There, upon the little island, are the castle-ruins, now converted +into a useful bone-mill. "And the lady?--is that she?" + +It was only the miller's daughter, fresh from a boarding-school, +gardening in a broad straw-hat. + +"At least," said Claude, "she is tending far prettier flowers than +ever the lady saw; while the lady herself, instead of weaving and +dreaming, is reading Miss Young's novels, and becoming all the wiser +thereby, and teaching poor children in Hemmelford National School." + +"And where is her fairy knight," asked Stangrave, "whom one half hopes +to see riding down from that grand old house which sulks there +above among the beech-woods as if frowning on all the change and +civilisation below!" + +"You do old Sidricstone injustice. Vieuxbois descends from thence, +now-a-days, to lecture at mechanics' institutes, instead of the fairy +knight, toiling along in the blazing summer weather, sweating in +burning metal, like poor Perillus in his own bull." + +"Then the fairy knight is extinct in England!" asked Stangrave, +smiling. + +"No man less; only he (not Vieuxbois, but his younger brother) has +found a wide-awake cooler than an iron kettle, and travels by rail +when he is at home; and when he was in the Crimea, rode a shaggy pony, +and smoked cavendish all through the battle of Inkermann." + +"He showed himself the old Sir Lancelot there," said Stangrave, + +"He did. Wherefore the lady married him when the Guards came home; and +he will breed prize pigs; and sit at the board of guardians; and take +in the Times; clothed, and in his right mind; for the old Berserk +spirit is gone out of him; and he is become respectable, in a +respectable age, and is nevertheless just as brave a fellow as ever." + +"And so all things are changed, except the river; where still-- + + 'Willows whiten, aspens quiver. + Little breezes dash and shiver + On the stream that runneth ever.'" + +"And," said Claude, smiling, "the descendants of mediaeval trout snap +at the descendants of mediaeval flies, spinning about upon just the +same sized and coloured wings on which their forefathers spun a +thousand years ago; having become, in all that while, neither bigger +nor wiser." + +"But is it not a grand thought," asked Stangrave,--"the silence and +permanence of nature amid the perpetual flux and noise of human +life?--a grand thought that one generation goeth and another cometh, +and the earth abideth for ever?" + +"At least it is so much the worse for the poor old earth, if her doom +is to stand still, while man improves and progresses from age to age." + +"May I ask one question, sir?" said Stangrave, who saw that their +conversation was puzzling their jolly companion. "Have you heard any +news yet of Mr. Thurnall!" + +Mark looked him full in the face. + +"Do you know him?" + +"I did, in past years, most intimately." + +"Then you knew the finest fellow, sir, that ever walked mortal earth." + +"I have discovered that, sir, as well as you. I am under obligations +to that man which my heart's blood will not repay. I shall make no +secret of telling you what they are at a fit time." + +Mark held out his broad red hand, and grasped Stangrave's till the +joints cracked: his face grew as red as a turkey-cock's; his eyes +filled with tears. + +"His father must hear that! Hang it; his father must hear that! And +Grace too!" + +"Grace!" said Claude: "and is she with you?" + +"With the old man, the angel! tending him night and day." + +"And as beautiful as ever?" + +"Sir!" said Mark solemnly, "when any one's soul is as beautiful as +hers is, one never thinks about her face." + +"Who is Grace?" asked Stangrave. + +"A saint and a heroine!" said Claude. "You shall know all; for you +ought to know. But you have no news of Tom; and I have none either. I +am losing all hope now." + +"I'm not, sir!" said Mark fiercely. "Sir, that boy's not dead; he +can't be. He has more lives than a cat, and if you know anything of +him, you ought to know that." + +"I have good reason to know it, none more: but--" + +"But, sir! But what? Harm come to him, sir? The Lord wouldn't harm him +for his father's sake; and as for the devil!--I tell you, sir, if he +tried to fly away with him, he'd have to drop him before he'd gone a +mile!" And Mark began blowing his nose violently, and getting so red +that he seemed on the point of going into a fit. + +"Tell you what it is, gentlemen," said he at last, "you come and stay +with me, and see his father. It will comfort the old man--and--and +comfort me too; for I get down-hearted about him at times." + +"Strange attraction there was about that man," says Stangrave, _sotto +voce_ to Claude. + +"He was like a son to him--" + +"Now, gentlemen. Mr. Mellot, you don't hunt?" + +"No, thank you," said Claude. + +"Mr. Stangrave does, I'll warrant." + +"I have at various times, both in England and in Virginia." + +"Ah! Do they keep up the real sport there, eh? Well that's the best +thing I've heard of them, sir!--My horses are yours!--A friend of that +boy, sir, is welcome to lame the whole lot, and I won't grumble. Three +days a week, sir. Breakfast at eight, dinner at 5.30--none of your +late London hours for me, sir; and after it the best bottle of port, +though I say it, short of my friend S----'s, at Reading." + +"You must accept," whispered Claude, "or he will be angry." + +So Stangrave accepted; and all the more readily because he wanted to +hear from the good banker many things about the lost Tom Thurnall. + + * * * * * + +"Here we are," cries Mark. "Now, you must excuse me: see to +yourselves. I see to the puppies. Dinner at 5.30, mind! Come along, +Goodman, boy!" + +"Is this Whitbury?" asks Stangrave. + +It was Whitbury, indeed. Pleasant old town, which slopes down the +hill-side to the old church,--just "restored," though by Lords +Minchampstead and Vieuxbois, not without Mark Armsworth's help, to its +ancient beauty of grey flint and white clunch chequer-work, and quaint +wooden spire. Pleasant churchyard round it, where the dead lie looking +up to the bright southern sun, among huge black yews, upon their knoll +of white chalk above the ancient stream. Pleasant white wooden bridge, +with its row of urchins dropping flints upon the noses of elephantine +trout, or fishing over the rail with crooked pins, while hapless +gudgeon come dangling upward between stream and sky, with a look +of sheepish surprise and shame, as of a school-boy caught stealing +apples, in their foolish visages. Pleasant new national schools at +the bridge end, whither the urchins scamper at the sound of the two +o'clock bell. Though it be an ugly pile enough of bright red brick, it +is doing its work, as Whitbury folk know well by now. Pleasant, too, +though still more ugly, those long red arms of new houses which +Whitbury is stretching out along its fine turnpikes,--especially up +to the railway station beyond the bridge, and to the smart new hotel, +which hopes (but hopes in vain) to outrival the ancient "Angler's +Rest." Away thither, and not to the Railway Hotel, they trundle in a +fly--leaving Mark Armsworth all but angry because they will not sleep, +as well as breakfast, lunch, and dine with him daily,--and settle +in the good old inn, with its three white gables overhanging the +pavement, and its long lattice window buried deep beneath them, +like--so Stangrave says--to a shrewd kindly eye under a bland white +forehead. + +No, good old inn; not such shall be thy fate, as long as trout are +trout, and men have wit to catch them. For art thou not a sacred +house? Art thou not consecrate to the Whitbury brotherhood of anglers! +Is not the wainscot of that long low parlour inscribed with many a +famous name? Are not its walls hung with many a famous countenance? +Has not its oak-ribbed ceiling rung, for now a hundred years, to the +laughter of painters, sculptors, grave divines (unbending at least +there), great lawyers, statesmen, wits, even of Foote and Quin +themselves; while the sleek landlord wiped the cobwebs off another +magnum of that grand old port, and took in all the wisdom with a quiet +twinkle of his sleepy eye? He rests now, good old man, among the yews +beside his forefathers; and on his tomb his lengthy epitaph, writ by +himself; for Barker was a poet in his way. + +Some people hold the same epitaph to be irreverent, because in a list +of Barker's many blessings occurs the profane word "trout:" but those +trout, and the custom which they brought him, had made the old man's +life comfortable, and enabled him to leave a competence for his +children; and why should not a man honestly thank Heaven for that +which he knows has done him good, even though it be but fish? + +He is gone: but the Whit is not, nor the Whitbury club; nor will, +while old Mark Armsworth is king in Whitbury, and sits every evening +in the Mayfly season at the table head, retailing good stones of the +great anglers of his youth,--names which you, reader, have heard many +a time,--and who could do many things besides handling a blow-line. +But though the club is not what it was fifty years ago,--before Norway +and Scotland became easy of access,--yet it is still an important +institution of the town, to the members whereof all good subjects +touch their hats; for does not the club bring into the town good +money, and take out again only fish, which cost nothing in the +breeding? Did not the club present the Town-hall with a portrait of +the renowned fishing Sculptor? and did it not (only stipulating that +the school should be built beyond the bridge to avoid noise) give +fifty pounds to the said school but five years ago, in addition to +Mark's own hundred? + +But enough of this:--only may the Whitbury club, in recompense for my +thus handing them down to immortality, give me another day next +year, as they gave me this: and may the Mayfly be strong on, and a +south-west gale blowing! + +In the course of the next week, in many a conversation, the three men +compared notes as to the events of two years ago; and each supplied +the other with new facts, which shall be duly set forth in this tale, +saving and excepting, of course, the real reason why everybody did +everything. For--as everybody knows who has watched life--the true +springs of all human action are generally those which fools will not +see, which wise men will not mention; so that, in order to present +a readable tragedy of Hamlet, you must always "omit the part of +Hamlet,"--and probably the ghost and the queen into the bargain. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +POETRY AND PROSE. + + +Now, to tell my story--if not as it ought to be told, at least as I +can tell it,--I must go back sixteen years,--to the days when Whitbury +boasted of forty coaches per diem, instead of one railway,--and set +forth how, in its southern suburb, there stood two pleasant houses +side by side, with their gardens sloping down to the Whit, and parted +from each other only by the high brick fruit-wall, through which there +used to be a door of communication; for the two occupiers were fast +friends. In one of these two houses, sixteen years ago, lived our +friend Mark Armsworth, banker, solicitor, land-agent, churchwarden, +guardian of the poor, justice of the peace,--in a word, viceroy of +Whitbury town, and far more potent therein than her gracious majesty +Queen Victoria. In the other, lived Edward Thurnall, esquire, doctor +of medicine, and consulting physician of all the country round. These +two men were as brothers; and had been as brothers for now twenty +years, though no two men could be more different, save in the two +common virtues which bound them to each other; and that was, that they +both were honest and kind-hearted men. What Mark's character was, and +is, I have already shown, and enough of it, I hope, to make my readers +like the good old banker: as for Doctor Thurnall, a purer or gentler +soul never entered a sick-room, with patient wisdom in his brain, and +patient tenderness in his heart. Beloved and trusted by rich and poor, +he had made to himself a practice large enough to enable him to settle +two sons well in his own profession; the third and youngest was still +in Whitbury. He was something of a geologist, too, and a botanist, and +an antiquarian; and Mark Armsworth, who knew, and knows still, nothing +of science, looked up to the Doctor as an inspired sage, quoted him, +defended his opinion, right or wrong, and thrust him forward at public +meetings, and in all places and seasons, much to the modest Doctor's +discomfiture. + +The good Doctor was sitting in his study on the morning on which my +tale begins; having just finished his breakfast, and settled to his +microscope in the bay-window opening on the lawn. + +A beautiful October morning it was; one of those in which Dame Nature, +healthily tired with the revelry of summer, is composing herself, with +a quiet satisfied smile, for her winter's sleep. Sheets of dappled +cloud were sliding slowly from the west; long bars of hazy blue hung +over the southern chalk downs which gleamed pearly grey beneath the +low south-eastern sun. In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist +still hung over the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the +huge elms and poplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering down +at the very rustle of the western breeze, spotting the grass below. +The river swirled along, glassy no more, but dingy grey with autumn +rains and rotten leaves. All beyond the garden told of autumn; bright +and peaceful, even in decay: but up the sunny slope of the garden +itself, and to the very window sill, summer still lingered. The beds +of red verbena and geranium were still brilliant, though choked with +fallen leaves of acacia and plane; the canary plant, still untouched +by frost, twined its delicate green leaves, and more delicate yellow +blossoms, through the crimson lacework of the Virginia-creeper; and +the great yellow noisette swung its long canes across the window, +filling all the air with fruity fragrance. + +And the good Doctor, lifting his eyes from his microscope, looked out +upon it all with a quiet satisfaction, and though his lips did not +move, his eyes seemed to be thanking God for it all; and thanking Him, +too, perhaps, that he was still permitted to gaze upon that fair world +outside. For as he gazed, he started, as if with sudden pain, and +passed his hand across his eyes, with something like a sigh, and then +looked at the microscope no more, but sat, seemingly absorbed in +thought, while upon his delicate toil-worn features, and high, bland, +unwrinkled forehead, and the few soft grey locks which not time--for +he was scarcely fifty-five--but long labour of brain, had spared to +him, there lay a hopeful calm, as of a man who had nigh done his work, +and felt that he had not altogether done it ill;--an autumnal calm, +resigned, yet full of cheerfulness, which harmonised fitly with the +quiet beauty of the decaying landscape before him. + +"I say, daddy, you must drop that microscope, and put on your shade. +You are ruining those dear old eyes of yours again, in spite of what +Alexander told you." + +The Doctor took up the green shade which lay beside him, and replaced +it with a sigh and a smile. + +"I must use the old things now and then, till you can take my place +at the microscope, Tom; or till we have, as we ought to have, a +first-rate analytical chemist settled in every county-town, and paid, +in part at least, out of the county rates." + +The "Tom" who had spoken was one of two youths of eighteen, who stood +in opposite corners of the bay-window, gazing out upon the landscape, +but evidently with thoughts as different as were their complexions. + +Tom was of that bull-terrier type so common in England; sturdy, and +yet not coarse; middle-sized, deep-chested, broad-shouldered; with +small, well-knit hands and feet, large jaw, bright grey eyes, crisp +brown hair, a heavy projecting brow; his face full of shrewdness and +good-nature, and of humour withal, which might be at whiles a little +saucy and sarcastic, to judge from the glances which he sent forth +from the corners of his wicked eyes at his companion on the other side +of the window. He was evidently prepared for a day's shooting, in +velveteen jacket and leather gaiters, and stood feeling about in +his pockets to see whether he had forgotten any of his tackle, and +muttering to himself amid his whistling,--"Capital day. How the birds +will lie. Where on earth is old Mark? Why must he wait to smoke his +cigar after breakfast? Couldn't he have had it in the trap, the +blessed old chimney that he is?" + +The other lad was somewhat taller than Tom, awkwardly and plainly +dressed, but with a highly-developed Byronic turn-down collar, and +long black curling locks. He was certainly handsome, as far as the +form of his features and brow; and would have been very handsome, +but for the bad complexion which at his age so often accompanies a +sedentary life, and a melancholic temper. One glance at his face +was sufficient to tell that he was moody, shy, restless, perhaps +discontented, perhaps ambitious and vain. He held in his hand a volume +of Percy's Reliques, which he had just taken down from Thurnall's +shelves; yet he was looking not at it, but at the landscape. +Nevertheless, as he looked, one might have seen that he was thinking +not so much of it as of his own thoughts about it. His eye, which was +very large, dark, and beautiful, with heavy lids and long lashes, +had that dreamy look so common among men of the poetic temperament; +conscious of thought, if not conscious of self; and as his face +kindled, and his lips moved more and more earnestly, he began +muttering to himself half-aloud, till Tom Thurnall burst into an open +laugh. + +"There's Jack at it again! making poetry, I'll bet my head to a China +orange." + +"And why not?" said his father, looking up quietly, but reprovingly, +as Jack winced and blushed, and a dark shade of impatience passed +across his face. + +"Oh! it's no concern of mine. Let everybody please themselves. The +country looks very pretty, no doubt, I can tell that; only my notion +is, that a wise man ought to go out and enjoy it--as I am going to +do--with a gun on his shoulder, instead of poking at home like a +yard-dog, and behowling oneself in po-o-oetry;" and Tom lifted up his +voice into a doleful mastiff's howl. + +"Then be as good as your word, Tom, and let every one please +themselves," said the Doctor; but the dark youth broke out in sudden +passion. + +"Mr. Thomas Thurnall! I will not endure this! Why are you always +making me your butt,--insulting me, sir, even in your father's house? +You do not understand me; and I do not care to understand you. If my +presence is disagreeable to you, I can easily relieve you of it!" and +the dark youth turned to go away like Naaman, in a rage. + +"Stop, John," said the Doctor. "I think it would be the more courteous +plan for Tom to relieve you of his presence. Go and find Mark, Tom; +and please to remember that John Briggs is my guest, and that I will +not allow any rudeness to him in my house." + +"I'll go, daddy, to the world's end, if you like, provided you won't +ask me to write poetry. But Jack takes offence so soon. Give us your +hand, old tinder-box! I meant no harm, and you know it." + +John Briggs took the proffered hand sulkily enough; and Tom went out +of the glass door, whistling as merry as a cricket. + +"My dear boy," said the Doctor, when they were alone, "you must try to +curb this temper of yours. Don't be angry with me, but--" + +"I should be an ungrateful brute if I was, sir. I can bear anything +from you. I ought to, for I owe everything to you; but--" + +"But, my dear boy--'better is he that ruleth his spirit, than he that +taketh a city.'" + +John Briggs tapped his foot on the ground impatiently. "I cannot +help it, sir. It will drive me mad, I think at times,--this +contrast between what I might be, and what I am, I can bear it no +longer--mixing medicines here, when I might be educating myself, +distinguishing myself--for I can do it; have you not said as much +yourself to me again and again?" + +"I have, of course; but--" + +"But, sir, only hear me. It is in vain to ask me to command my temper +while I stay here. I am not fit for this work; not fit for the dull +country. I am not appreciated, not understood; and I shall never be, +till I can get to London,--till I can find congenial spirits, and take +my rightful place in the great parliament of mind. I am Pegasus in +harness, here!" cried the vain, discontented youth. "Let me but once +get there,--amid art, civilisation, intellect, and the company of men +like that old Mermaid Club, to hear and to answer-- + + 'words, + So nimble, and so full of subtle flame, + As one had put his whole soul in a jest;'-- + +and then you shall see whether Pegasus has not wings, and can use them +too!" And he stopped suddenly, choking with emotion, his nostril and +chest dilating, his foot stamping impatiently on the ground. + +The Doctor watched him with a sad smile. + +"Do you remember the devil's temptation of our Lord--'Cast thyself +down from hence; for, it is written, He shall give His angels charge +over thee?" + +"I do; but what has that to do with me?" + +"Throw away the safe station in which God has certainly put you, to +seek, by some desperate venture, a new, and, as you fancy, a grander +one for yourself? Look out of that window, lad; is there not poetry +enough, beauty and glory enough, in that sky, those fields,--ay, in +every fallen leaf,--to employ all your powers, considerable as I +believe them to be? Why spurn the pure, quiet, country life, in which +such men as Wordsworth have been content to live and grow old?" + +The boy shook his head like an impatient horse. "Too slow--too slow +for me, to wait and wait, as Wordsworth did, through long years of +obscurity, misconception, ridicule. No. What I have, I must have +at once; and, if it must be, die like Chatterton--if only, like +Chatterton, I can have my little day of success, and make the world +confess that another priest of the beautiful has arisen among men." + +Now, it can scarcely be denied, that the good Doctor was guilty of a +certain amount of weakness in listening patiently to all this rant. +Not that the rant was very blamable in a lad of eighteen; for have we +not all, while we are going through our course of Shelley, talked very +much the same abominable stuff, and thought ourselves the grandest +fellows upon earth on account of that very length of ear which was +patent to all the world save our precious selves; blinded by our +self-conceit, and wondering in wrath why everybody was laughing at us? +But the truth is, the Doctor was easy and indulgent to a fault, and +dreaded nothing so much, save telling a lie, as hurting people's +feelings; besides, as the acknowledged wise man of Whitbury, he was a +little proud of playing the Maecenas; and he had, and not unjustly, +a high, opinion of John Briggs's powers. So he had lent him books, +corrected his taste in many matters, and, by dint of petting and +humouring, had kept the wayward youth half-a-dozen times from running +away from his father, who was an apothecary in the town, and from the +general practitioner, Mr. Bolus, under whom John Briggs fulfilled the +office of co-assistant with Tom Thurnall. Plenty of trouble had +both the lads given the Doctor in the last five years, but of very +different kinds, Tom, though he was in everlasting hot water, as the +most incorrigible scapegrace for ten miles round, contrived to confine +his naughtiness strictly to play-hours, while he learnt everything +which was to be learnt with marvellous quickness, and so utterly +fulfilled the ideal of a bottle-boy (for of him, too, as of all +things, I presume, an ideal exists eternally in the supra-sensual +Platonic universe), that Bolus told his father,--"In hours, sir, he +takes care of my business as well as I could myself; but out of hours, +sir, I believe he is possessed by seven devils." + +John Briggs, on the other hand, sinned in the very opposite direction. +Too proud to learn his business, and too proud also to play the +scapegrace as Tom did, he neglected alike work and amusement, for lazy +mooning over books, and the dreams which books called up. He made +perpetual mistakes in the shop; and then considered himself insulted +by an "inferior spirit," if poor Bolus called him to account for it. +Indeed, had it not been for many applications of that "precious oil of +unity," with which the good Doctor daily anointed the creaking wheels +of Whitbury society, John Briggs and his master would have long ago +"broken out of gear," and parted company in mutual wrath and fury. +And now, indeed, the critical moment seemed come at last; for the lad +began afresh to declare his deliberate intention of going to London to +seek his fortune, in spite of parents and all the world. + +"To live on here, and never to rise, perhaps, above the post of +correspondent to a country newspaper!--To publish a volume of poems +by subscription and have to go round, hat in hand, begging +five shillings' worth of patronage from every stupid country +squire--intolerable! I must go! Shakespeare was never Shakespeare till +he fled from miserable Stratford, to become at once the friend of +Sidney and Southampton." + +"But John Briggs will be John Briggs still, if he went to the moon," +shouted Tom Thurnall, who had just come up to the window. "I advise +you to change that name of yours, Jack, to Sidney, or Percy, or Walker +if you like; anything but the illustrious surname of Briggs the +poisoner!" + +"What do you mean, sir!" thundered John, while the Doctor himself +jumped up; for Tom was red with rage. + +"What is this, Tom!" + +"What's that?" screamed Tom, bursting, in spite of his passion into +roars of laughter. "What's that?"--and he held out a phial "Smell it! +taste it! Oh, if I had but a gallon of it to pour down your throat! +That's what you brought Mark Armsworth last night, instead of his +cough mixture, while your brains were wool-gathering after poetry!" + +"What is it?" gasped John Briggs. + +"Miss Twiddle's black dose;--strong enough to rive the gizard out of +an old cock!" + +"It's not!" + +"It is!" roared Mark Armsworth from behind as he rushed in, in +shooting-jacket and gaiters, his red face redder with fury, his red +whiskers standing on end with wrath like a tiger's, his left hand upon +his hapless hypogastric region, his right brandishing an empty glass, +which smelt strongly of brandy and water. "It is! And you've given me +the cholera, and spoilt my day's shooting; and if I don't serve you +out for it there's no law in England!" + +"And spoilt my day's shooting, too; the last I shall get before I'm +off to Paris! To have a day in Lord Minchampstead's preserves, and to +be baulked of it in this way!" + +John Briggs stood as one astonied. + +"If I don't serve you out for this!" shouted Mark. + +"If I don't serve you out for it! You shall never hear the last of +it!" shouted Tom. "I'll take to writing, after all I'll put it in the +papers. I'll make the name of Briggs the poisoner an abomination in +the land." + +John Briggs turned and fled. + +"Well!" said Mark, "I must spend my morning at home, I suppose. So I +shall just sit and chat with you, Doctor." + +"And I shall go and play with Molly," said Tom, and walked off to +Armsworth's garden. + +"I don't care for myself so much," said Mark; "but I'm sorry the boy's +lost his last day's shooting." + +"Oh, you will be well enough by noon, and can go then; and as for the +boy, it is just as well for him not to grow too fond of sports in +which he can never indulge." + +"Never indulge? Why not? He vows he'll go to the Rocky Mountains, and +shoot a grizzly bear; and he'll do it." + +"He has a great deal to do before that, poor fellow; and a great deal +to learn." + +"And he'll learn it. You're always down-hearted about the boy, +Doctor." + +"I can't help feeling the parting with him: and for Paris, too:--such +a seat of temptation. But it is his own choice; and, after all, he +must see temptation, wherever he goes." + +"Bless the man! if a boy means to go to the bad, he'll go just as +easily in Whitbury as in Paris. Give the lad his head, and never fear; +he'll fall on his legs like a cat, I'll warrant him, whatever happens. +He's as steady as old Time, I tell you; there's a grey head on green +shoulders there." + +"Steady?" said the Doctor, with a smile and a shrug. + +"Steady, I tell you at heart; as prudent as you or I; and never lost +you a farthing, that you know. Hang good boys! give me one who knows +how to be naughty in the right place; I wouldn't give sixpence for a +good boy; I never was one myself, and have no faith in them. Give me +the lad who has more steam up than he knows what to do with, and must +needs blow off a little in larks. When once he settles down on the +rail, it'll send him along as steady as a luggage train. Did you never +hear a locomotive puffing and roaring before it gets under way? well, +that's what your boy is doing. Look at him now, with my poor little +Molly." + +Tom was cantering about the garden with a little weakly child of eight +in his arms. The little thing was looking up in his face with delight, +screaming at his jokes. + +"You are right, Mark: the boy's heart cannot be in the wrong place +while he is so fond of little children." + +"Poor Molly! How she'll miss him! Do you think she'll ever walk, +Doctor?" + +"I do indeed." + +"Hum! ah! well! if she grows up, Doctor, and don't go to join her poor +dear mother up there, I don't know that I'd wish her a better husband +than your boy." + +"It would be a poor enough match for her." + +"Tut! she'll have the money, and he the brains. Mark my words, Doctor, +that boy'll be a credit to you; he'll make a noise in the world, or I +know nothing. And if his fancy holds seven years hence, and he wants +still to turn traveller, let him. If he's minded to go round the +world, I'll back him to go, somehow or other, or I'll eat my head, Ned +Thurnall!" + +The Doctor acquiesced in this hopeful theory, partly to save an +argument; for Mark's reverence for his opinion was confined to +scientific matters; and he made up to his own self-respect by +patronising the Doctor, and, indeed, taking him sometimes pretty +sharply to task on practical matters. + +"Best fellow alive is Thurnall; but not a man of business, poor +fellow. None of your geniuses are. Don't know what he'd do without +me." + +So Tom carried Mary about all the morning, and went to Minchampstead +in the afternoon, and got three hours' good shooting; but in the +evening he vanished; and his father went into Armsworth's to look for +him. + +"Why do you want to know where he is?" replied Mark, looking sly. +"However, as you can't stop him now, I'll tell you. He is just about +this time sewing up Briggs's coat-sleeves, putting copperas into his +water jug, and powdered galls on his towel, and making various other +little returns for this morning's favour." + +"I dislike practical jokes." + +"So do I; especially when they come in the form of a black dose. Sit +down, old boy, and we'll have a game at cribbage." + +In a few minutes Tom came in--"Here's a good riddance. The poisoner +has fabricated his pilgrim's staff, to speak scientifically, and +perambulated his calcareous strata." + +"What!" + +"Cut his stick, and walked his chalks; and is off to London." + +"Poor boy," said the Doctor, much distressed. + +"Don't cry, daddy; you can't bring him back again. He's been gone +these four hours. I went to his room, at Bolus's, about a little +business, and saw at once that he had packed up, and carried off all +he could. And, looking about, I found a letter directed to his father. +So to his father I took it; and really I was sorry for the poor +people. I left them all crying in chorus." + +"I must go to them at once;" and up rose the Doctor. + +"He's not worth the trouble you take for him--the addle-headed, +ill-tempered coxcomb," said Mark. "But it's just like your +soft-heartedness. Tom, sit down, and finish the game with me." + +So vanished from Whitbury, with all his aspirations, poor John Briggs; +and save an occasional letter to his parents, telling them that he +was alive and well, no one heard anything of him for many a year. The +Doctor tried to find him out in London, again and again; but without +success. His letters had no address upon them, and no clue to his +whereabouts could be found. + +And Tom Thurnall went to Paris, and became the best pistol-shot +and billiard-player in the Quartier Latin; and then went to St. +Mumpsimus's Hospital in London, and became the best boxer therein, +and captain of the eight-oar, besides winning prizes and certificates +without end, and becoming in due time the most popular house-surgeon +in the hospital: but nothing could keep him permanently at home. Stay +drudging in London he would not. Settle down in a country practice +he would not. Cost his father a farthing he would not. So he started +forth into the wide world with nothing but his wits and his science, +as anatomical professor to a new college in some South American +republic. Unfortunately, when he got there, he found that the annual +revolution had just taken place, and that the party who had founded +the college had been all shot the week before. Whereat he whistled, +and started off again, no man knew whither. + +"Having got round half the world, daddy," he wrote home, "it's hard if +I don't get round the other half. So don't expect me till you see me; +and take care of your dear old eyes." + +With which he vanished into infinite space, and was only heard of by +occasional letters dated from the Rocky Mountains (where he did shoot +a grizzly bear), the Spanish West Indies, Otahiti, Singapore, the +Falkland Islands, and all manner of unexpected places; sending +home valuable notes (sometimes accompanied by valuable specimens), +zoological and botanical; and informing his father that he was doing +very well; that work was plentiful, and that he always found two fresh +jobs before he had finished one old one. + +His eldest brother, John, died meanwhile. His second brother, William, +was in good general practice in Manchester. His father's connections +supported him comfortably; and if the old Doctor ever longed for Tom +to come home, he never hinted it to the wanderer, but bade him go on +and prosper, and become (which he gave high promise of becoming) a +distinguished man of science. Nevertheless the old man's heart sank at +last, when month after month, and at last two full years, had passed +without any letter from Tom. + +At last, when full four years were past and gone since Tom started +for South America, he descended from the box of the day-mail, with a +serene and healthful countenance; and with no more look of interest in +his face than if he had been away on a two days' visit, shouldered his +carpet-bag, and started for his father's house. He stopped, however; +as there appeared from the inside of the mail a face which he must +surely know. A second look told him that it was none other than +John Briggs. But how altered! He had grown up into a very handsome +man,--tall and delicate-featured, with long black curls, and a black +moustache. There was a slight stoop about his shoulders, as of a +man accustomed to too much sitting and writing; and he carried an +eye-glass, whether for fashion's sake, or for his eyes' sake, was +uncertain. He was wrapt in a long Spanish cloak, new and good; wore +well-cut trousers, and (what Tom, of course, examined carefully) +French boots, very neat, and very thin. Moreover, he had lavender +kid-gloves on. Tom looked and wondered, and walked half round him, +sniffing like a dog when he examines into the character of a fellow +dog. + +"Hum!--his mark seems to be at present P.P.--prosperous party: so +there can be no harm in renewing our acquaintance. What trade on +earth does he live by, though? Editor of a newspaper? or keeper of a +gambling-table? Begging his pardon, he looks a good deal more like the +latter than the former. However--" + +And he walked up and offered his hand, with "How d'e do, Briggs? Who +would have thought of our falling from the skies against each other in +this fashion?" + +Mr. Briggs hesitated a moment, and then took coldly the offered hand. + +"Excuse me; but the circumstances of my visit here are too painful to +allow me to wish for society." + +And Mr. Briggs withdrew, evidently glad to escape. + +"Has he vampoosed with the contents of a till, that he wishes so for +solitude?" asked Tom; and, shouldering his carpet-bag a second time, +with a grim inward laugh, he went to his father's house, and hung up +his hat in the hall, just as if he had come in from a walk, and walked +into the study; and not finding the old man, stepped through the +garden to Mark Armsworth's, and in at the drawing-room window, +frightening out of her wits a short, pale, ugly girl of seventeen, +whom he discovered to be his old playfellow, Mary. However, she soon +recovered her equanimity: he certainly never lost his. + +"How d'e do, darling? How you are grown! and how well you look! How's +your father? I hadn't anything particular to do, so I thought I'd come +home and see you all, and get some fishing." + +And Mary, who had longed to throw her arms round his neck, as of old, +and was restrained by the thought that she was grown a great girl now, +called in her father, and all the household; and after a while the old +Doctor came home, and the fatted calf was killed, and all made merry +over the return of this altogether unrepentant prodigal son, who, +whether from affectation, or from that blunted sensibility which often +comes by continual change and wandering, took all their affection and +delight with the most provoking coolness. + +Nevertheless, though his feelings were not "demonstrative," as fine +ladies say now-a-days, he evidently had some left in some corner of +his heart; for after the fatted calf was eaten, and they were all +settled in the Doctor's study, it came out that his carpet-bag +contained little but presents, and those valuable ones--rare minerals +from the Ural for his father; a pair of Circassian pistols for +Mark; and for little Mary, to her astonishment, a Russian malachite +bracelet, at which Mary's eyes opened wide, and old Mark said-- + +"Pretty fellow you are, to go fooling your money away like that. What +did that gimcrack cost, pray, sir?" + +"That is no concern of yours, sir, or mine either; for I didn't pay +for it." + +"Oh!" said Mary, doubtingly. + +"No, Mary. I killed a giant, who was carrying off a beautiful +princess; and this, you see, he wore as a ring on one of his fingers: +so I thought it would just suit your wrist." + +"Oh, Tom--Mr. Thurnall--what nonsense!" + +"Come, come," said his father: "instead of telling us these sort of +stories, you ought to give an account of yourself, as you seem quite +to forget that we have not heard from you for more than two years." + +"Whew! I wrote," said Tom, "whenever I could. However, you can have +all my letters in one now." + +So they sat round the fire, and Tom gave an account of himself; +while his father marked with pride that the young man had grown and +strengthened in body and in mind; and that under that nonchalant, +almost cynical outside, the heart still beat honest and kindly. +For before Tom began, he would needs draw his chair closer to his +father's, and half-whispered to him,-- + +"This is very jolly. I can't be sentimental, you know. Knocking about +the world has beat all that out of me: but it is very comfortable, +after all, to find oneself with a dear old daddy and a good coal +fire." + +"Which of the two could you best do without?" + +"Well, one takes things as one finds them. It don't do to look too +deeply into one's feelings. Like chemicals, the more you analyse them, +the worse they smell." + +So Tom began his story. + +"You heard from me at Bombay; after I'd been up to the Himalaya with +an old Mumpsimus friend?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, I worked my way to Suez on board a ship whose doctor had fallen +ill; and then I must needs see a little of Egypt; and there robbed was +I, and nearly murdered, too; but I take a good deal of killing." + +"I'll warrant you do," said Mark, looking at him with pride. + +"So I begged my way to Cairo; and there I picked up a Yankee--a New +Yorker, made of money, who had a yacht at Alexandria, and travelled +_en prince_; and nothing would serve him but I must go with him to +Constantinople; but there he and I quarrelled--more fools, both of us! +I wrote to you from Constantinople." + +"We never got the letter." + +"I can't help that; I wrote. But there I was on the wide world again. +So I took up with a Russian prince, whom I met at a gambling-table +in Pera,--a mere boy, but such a plucky one,--and went with him to +Circassia, and up to Astrakhan, and on to the Kirghis steppes; and +there I did see snakes." + +"Snakes?" says Mary. "I should have thought you had seen plenty in +India already." + +"Yes, Mary! but these were snakes spiritual and metaphorical. For, +poking about where we had no business, Mary, the Tartars caught us, +and tied us to their horses' tails, after giving me this scar across +the cheek, and taught us to drink mares' milk, and to do a good deal +of dirty work beside. So there we stayed with them six months, and +observed their manners, which were none, and their customs, which were +disgusting, as the midshipman said in his diary; and had the honour of +visiting a pleasant little place in No-man's Land, called Khiva, which +you may find in your atlas, Mary; and of very nearly being sold for +slaves into Persia, which would not have been pleasant; and at last, +Mary, we ran away--or rather, rode away, on two razor-backed Calmuc +ponies, and got back to Russia, _via_ Orenberg,--for which consult +your atlas again; so the young prince was restored to the bosom of his +afflicted family; and a good deal of trouble I had to get him safe +there, for the poor boy's health gave way. They wanted me to stay with +them, and offered to make my fortune." + +"I'm so glad you didn't," said Mary. + +"Well--I wanted to see little Mary again, and two worthy old gentlemen +beside, you see. However, those Russians are generous enough. They +filled my pockets, and heaped me with presents; that bracelet among +them. What's more, Mary, I've been introduced to old Nick himself, +and can testify, from personal experience, to the correctness of +Shakspeare's opinion that the prince of darkness is a gentleman." + +"And now you are going to stay at home?" asked the Doctor. + +"Well, if you'll take me in, daddy, I'll send for my traps from +London, and stay a month or so." + +"A month!" cried the forlorn father. + +"Well, daddy, you see, there is a chance of more fighting in Mexico, +and I shall see such practice there; beside meeting old friends who +were with me in Texas. And--and I've got a little commission, too, +down in Georgia, that I should like to go and do." + +"What is that?" + +"Well,--it's a long story and a sad one: but there was a poor Yankee +surgeon with the army in Circassia--a Southerner, and a very good +fellow; and he had taken a fancy to some coloured girl at home--poor +fellow, he used to go half mad about her sometimes, when he was +talking to me, for fear she should have been sold--sent to the New +Orleans market, or some other devilry; and what could I say to comfort +him? Well, he got his mittimus by one of Schamyl's bullets; and when +he was dying, he made me promise (I hadn't the heart to refuse) to +take all his savings, which he had been hoarding for years for no +other purpose, and see if I couldn't buy the girl, and get her away to +Canada. I was a fool for promising. It was no concern of mine; but the +poor fellow wouldn't die in peace else. So what must be, must." + +"Oh, go! go!" said Mary. "You will let him go, Doctor Thurnall, and +see the poor girl free? Think how dreadful it must be to be a slave." + +"I will, my little Miss Mary; and for more reasons than you think of. +Little do you know how dreadful it is to be a slave." + +"Hum!" said Mark Armsworth. "That's a queer story. Tom, have you got +the poor fellow's money? Didn't lose it when you were taken by those +Tartars?" + +"Not I. I wasn't so green as to carry it with me. It ought to have +been in England six months ago. My only fear is, it's not enough." + +"Hum!" said Mark. "How much more do you think you'll want?" + +"Heaven knows. There is a thousand dollars; but if she be half as +beautiful as poor Wyse used to swear she was, I may want more than +double that." + +"If you do, pay it, and I'll pay you again. No, by George!" said Mark, +"no one shall say that while Mark Armsworth had a balance at his +bankers' he let a poor girl--" and, recollecting Mary's presence, he +finished his sentence by sundry stamps and thumps on the table. + +"You would soon exhaust your balance, if you set to work to free all +poor girls who are in the same case in Georgia," said the Doctor. + +"Well, what of that? Them I don't know of, and so I ain't responsible +for them; but this one I do know of, and so--there, I can't argue; +but, Tom, if you want the money, you know where to find it." + +"Very good. By the by--I forgot it till this moment--who should come +down in the coach with me but the lost John Briggs." + +"He is come too late, then," said the Doctor. "His poor father died +this morning." + +"Ah! then Briggs knew that he was ill? That explains the Manfredic +mystery and gloom with which he greeted me." + +"I cannot tell. He has written from time to time, but he has never +given any address; so that no one could write in return." + +"He may have known. He looked very downcast. Perhaps that explains his +cutting me dead." + +"Cut you?" cried Mark. "I dare say he's been doing something he's +ashamed of, and don't want to be recognised. That fellow has been +after no good all this while, I'll warrant. I always say he's +connected with the swell mob, or croupier at a gambling-table, or +something of that kind. Don't you think it's likely, now?" + +Mark was in the habit of so saying for the purpose of tormenting the +Doctor, who held stoutly to his old belief, that John Briggs was +a very clever man, and would turn up some day as a distinguished +literary character. + +"Well," said Tom, "honest or not, he's thriving; came down inside the +coach, dressed in the distinguished foreigner style, with lavender kid +gloves, and French boots." + +"Just like a swell pickpocket," said Mark. "I always told you so, +Thurnall." + +"He had the old Byron collar, and Raphael hair, though." + +"Nasty, effeminate, un-English foppery," grumbled Mark; "so he may be +in the scribbling line after all." + +"I'll go and see if I can find him," quoth the Doctor. + +"Bother you," said Mark, "always running out o' nights after somebody +else's business, instead of having a jolly evening. You stay, Tom, +like a sensible fellow, and tell me and Mary some more travellers' +lies. Had much sporting, boy?" + +"Hum! I've shot and hunted every beast, I think, shootable and +huntable, from a humming-bird to an elephant; and I had some splendid +fishing in Canada; but, after all, give me a Whitbury trout, on a +single-handed Chevalier. We'll at them to-morrow, Mr. Armsworth." + +"We will, my boy! never so many fish in the river as this year, or in +season so early." + +The good Doctor returned; but with no news which could throw light +on the history of the now mysterious Mr. John Briggs. He had locked +himself into the room with his father's corpse, evidently in great +excitement and grief; spent several hours in walking up and down there +alone; and had then gone to an attorney in the town, and settled +everything about the funeral "in the handsomest way," said the man of +law; "and was quite the gentleman in his manner, but not much of a man +of business; never had even thought of looking for his father's will; +and was quite surprised when I told him that there ought to be a fair +sum--eight hundred or a thousand, perhaps, to come in to him, if the +stock and business were properly disposed of. So he went off to London +by the evening mail, and told me to address him to the post-office in +some street off the Strand. Queer business, sir, isn't it?" + +John Briggs did not reappear till a few minutes before his father's +funeral, witnessed the ceremony evidently with great sorrow, bowed off +silently all who attempted to speak to him, and returned to London +by the next coach--leaving matter for much babble among all Whitbury +gossips. One thing at least was plain, that he wished to be forgotten +in his native town; and forgotten he was, in due course of time. + +Tom Thurnall stayed his month at home, and then went to America; +whence he wrote home, in about six months, a letter, of which only one +paragraph need interest us, + +"Tell Mark I have no need for his dollars. I have done the deed; and, +thanks to the underground railway, done it nearly gratis; which was +both cheaper than buying her, and infinitely better for me; so that +she has all poor Wyse's dollars to start with afresh in Canada. I +write this from New York. I could accompany her no farther; for I must +get back to the South in time for the Mexican expedition." + +Then came a long and anxious silence; and then a letter, not from +Mexico but from California,--one out of several which had been posted; +and then letters, more regularly from Australia. Sickened with +Californian life, he had crossed the Pacific once more, and was hard +at work in the diggings, doctoring and gold-finding by turns. + +"A rolling stone gathers no moss," said his father. + +"He has the pluck of a hound, and the cunning of a fox," said Mark; +"and he'll be a credit to you yet." + +And Mary prayed every morning and night for her old playfellow; and so +the years slipped on till the autumn of 1853. + +As no one has heard of Tom now for eight months and more (the pulse of +Australian postage being of a somewhat intermittent type), we may as +well go and look for him. + +A sheet of dark rolling ground, quarried into a gigantic rabbit +burrow, with hundreds of tents and huts dotted about among the heaps +of rubbish; dark evergreen forests in the distance, and, above all, +the great volcanic mountain of Buninyong towering far aloft--these are +the "Black Hills of Ballarat;" and that windlass at that shaft's mouth +belongs in part to Thomas Thurnall. + +At the windlass are standing two men, whom we may have seen in +past years, self-satisfied in countenance, and spotless in array, +sauntering down Piccadilly any July afternoon, or lounging in Haggis's +stable-yard at Cambridge any autumn morning. Alas! how changed from +the fast young undergraduates, with powers of enjoyment only equalled +by their powers of running into debt, are those two black-bearded and +mud-bespattered ruffians, who once were Smith and Brown of Trinity. +Yet who need pity them, as long as they have stouter limbs, healthier +stomachs, and clearer consciences, than they have had since they left +Eton at seventeen? Would Smith have been a happier man as a briefless +barrister in a dingy Inn of Law, peeping now and then into third-rate +London society, and scribbling for the daily press! Would Brown have +been a happier man had he been forced into those holy orders for which +he never felt the least vocation, to pay off his college debts out +of his curate's income, and settle down on his lees, at last, in the +family living of Nomansland-cum-Clayhole, and support a wife and five +children on five hundred a-year, exclusive of rates and taxes? Let +them dig, and be men. + +The windlass rattles and the rope goes down. A shout from the bottom +of the shaft proclaims all right; and in due time, sitting in +the noose of the rope, up comes Thomas Thurnall, bare-footed and +bare-headed, in flannel trousers and red jersey, begrimed with slush +and mud; with a mahogany face, a brick-red neck, and a huge brown +beard, looking, to use his own expression, "as jolly as a sandboy." + +"A letter for you, Doctor, from Europe." + +Tom takes it, and his countenance falls; for it is black-edged and +black-sealed. The handwriting is Mary Armsworth's. + +"I suppose the old lady who is going to leave me a fortune is dead," +says he drily, and turns away to read. + +"Bad luck, I suppose," he says to himself, "I have not had any for +full six months, so I suppose it is time for Dame Fortune to give me +a sly stab again. I only hope it is not my father; for, begging the +Dame's pardon, I can bear any trick of hers but that." And he sets his +teeth doggedly, and reads. + +"My dear Mr. Thurnall,--My father would have written himself, but he +thought, I don't know why, that I could tell you better than he. Your +father is quite well in health,"--Thurnall breathes freely again--"but +he has had heavy trials since your poor brother William's death." + +Tom opens his eyes and sets his teeth more firmly. "Willy dead? I +suppose there is a letter lost: better so; better to have the whole +list of troubles together, and so get them sooner over. Poor Will!" + +"Your father caught the scarlet fever from him, while he was attending +him, and was very ill after he came back. He is quite well again now; +but if I must tell you the truth, the disease has affected his eyes. +You know how weak they always were, and how much worse they have grown +of late years; and the doctors are afraid that he has little chance of +recovering the sight, at least of the left eye." + +"Recovering? He's blind, then." And Tom set his teeth more tightly +than ever. He felt a sob rise in his throat, but choked it down, +shaking his head like an impatient bull. + +"Wait a bit, Tom," said he to himself, "before you have it out with +Dame Fortune. There's more behind, I'll warrant. News like this lies +in pockets, and not in single nuggets." And he read on-- + +"And--for it is better you should know all--something has happened +to the railroad in which he had invested so much. My father has lost +money in it also; but not much: but I fear that your poor dear father +is very much straitened. My father is dreadfully vexed about it, and +thinks it all his fault in not having watched the matter more closely, +and made your father sell out in time: and he wants your father to +come and live with us: but he will not hear of it. So he has given up +the old house, and taken one in Water Street, and, oh! I need not tell +you that we are there every day, and that I am trying to make him as +happy as I can--but what can I do? And then followed kind womanly +commonplaces, which Tom hurried over with fierce impatience. + +"He wants you to come home; but my father has entreated him to let you +stay. You know, while we are here, he is safe; and my father begs +you not to come home, if you are succeeding as well as you have been +doing." + +There was much more in the letter, which I need not repeat; and, after +all, a short postscript, by Mark himself, followed:-- + +"Stay where you are, boy, and keep up heart; while I have a pound, +your father shall have half of it; and you know Mark Armsworth." + +He walked away slowly into the forest. He felt that the crisis of his +life was come; that he must turn his hand henceforth to quite new +work; and as he went he "took stock," as it were, of his own soul, to +see what point he had attained--what he could do. + +Fifteen years of adventure had hardened into wrought metal a character +never very ductile. Tom was now, in his own way, an altogether +accomplished man of the world, who knew (at least in all companies and +places where he was likely to find himself) exactly what to say, to +do, to make, to seek, and to avoid. Shifty and thrifty as old Greek, +or modern Scot, there were few things he could not invent, and perhaps +nothing he could not endure. He had watched human nature under every +disguise, from the pomp of the ambassador to the war-paint of the +savage, and formed his own clear, hard, shallow, practical estimate +thereof. He looked on it as his raw material, which he had to work up +into subsistence and comfort for himself. He did not wish to live on +men, but live by them he must; and for that purpose he must study +them, and especially their weaknesses. He would not cheat them; for +there was in him an innate vein of honesty, so surly and explosive, +at times, as to give him much trouble. The severest part of his +self-education had been the repression of his dangerous inclination to +call a sham a sham on the spot, and to answer fools according to their +folly. That youthful rashness, however, was now well-nigh subdued, +and Tom could flatter and bully also, when it served his turn--as who +cannot? Let him that is without sin among my readers, cast the first +stone. Self-conscious he was, therefore, in every word and action; not +from morbid vanity, but a necessary consequence of his mode of life. +He had to use men, and therefore to watch how he used them; to watch +every word, gesture, tone of voice, and, in all times and places, do +the fitting thing. It was hard work: but necessary for a man who stood +alone and self-poised in the midst of the universe; fashioning for +himself everywhere, just as far as his arm could reach, some not +intolerable condition; depending on nothing but himself, and caring +for little but himself and the father whom, to do him justice, he +never forgot. If I wished to define Tom Thurnall by one epithet, I +should call him specially an ungodly man--were it not that scriptural +epithets have, now-a-days, such altogether conventional and official +meanings, that one fears to convey, in using them, some notion quite +foreign to the truth. Tom was certainly not one of those ungodly whom +David had to deal with of old, who robbed the widow, and put the +fatherless to death. His morality was as high as that of the average; +his sense of honour far higher. He was generous and kind-hearted. No +one ever heard him tell a lie; and he had a blunt honesty about him, +half real, because he liked to be honest, and yet half affected too, +because he found it pay in the long run, and because it threw off +their guard the people whom he intended to make his tools. But of +godliness in its true sense--of belief that any Being above cared for +him, and was helping him in the daily business of life--that it was +worth while asking that Being's advice, or that any advice would be +given if asked for; of any practical notion of a Heavenly Father, or +a Divine education--Tom was as ignorant as thousands of respectable +people who go to church every Sunday, and read good books, and believe +firmly that the Pope is Antichrist. He ought to have learnt it, no +doubt; for his father was a religious man: but he had not learnt +it--any more than thousands learn it, who have likewise religious +parents. He had been taught, of course, the common doctrines and +duties of religion; but early remembrances had been rubbed out, as off +a schoolboy's slate, by the mere current of new thoughts and objects, +in his continual wanderings. Disappointments he had had, and dangers +in plenty; but only such as rouse a brave and cheerful spirit to +bolder self-reliance and invention; not those deep sorrows of the +heart which leave a man helpless in the lowest pit, crying for help +from without, for there is none within. He had seen men of all creeds, +and had found in all alike (so he held) the many rogues, and the few +honest men. All religions were, in his eyes, equally true and equally +false. Superior morality was owing principally to the influences of +race and climate; and devotional experiences (to judge, at least, from +American camp-meetings and popish-cities) the results of a diseased +nervous system. + +Upon a man so hard and strong this fearful blow had fallen, and, to do +him justice, he took it like a man. He wandered on and on for an hour +or more, up the hills, and into the forest, talking to himself. + +"Poor old Willy! I should have liked to have looked into his honest +face before he went, if only to make sure that we were good friends. +I used to plague him sadly with my tricks. But what is the use of +wishing for what cannot be? I recollect I had just the same feeling +when John died; and yet I got over it after a time, and was as +cheerful as if he were alive again, or had never lived at all. And so +I shall get over this. Why should I give way to what I know will pass, +and is meant to pass? It is my father I feel for. But I couldn't be +there; and it is no fault of mine that I was not there. No one told me +what was going to happen; and no one could know: so again,--why grieve +over what can't be helped?" + +And then, to give the lie to all his cool arguments, he sat down among +the fern, and burst into a violent fit of crying. "Oh, my poor dear +old daddy!" + +Yes; beneath all the hard crust of years, that fountain of life still +lay pure as when it came down from heaven--love for his father. + +"Come, come, this won't do; this is not the way to take stock of my +goods, either mental or worldly. I can't cry the dear old man out of +this scrape." + +He looked up. The sun was setting. Beneath the dark roof of evergreens +the eucalyptus boles stood out, like basalt pillars, black against a +background of burning flame. The flying foxes shot from tree to tree, +and moths as big as sparrows whirred about the trunks, one moment +black against the glare beyond, and vanishing the next, like imps of +darkness, into their native gloom. There was no sound of living thing +around, save the ghastly rattle of the dead bark-tassels which swung +from every tree, and far away, the faint clicking of the diggers at +their work, like the rustle of a gigantic ant-hill. Was there one +among them all who cared for him? who would not forget him in a week +with--"Well, he was pleasant company, poor fellow," and go on digging +without a sigh? What, if it were his fate to die, as he had seen many +a stronger man, there in that lonely wilderness, and sleep for ever, +unhonoured and unknown, beneath that awful forest roof, while his +father looked for bread to others' hands? + +No man was less sentimental, no man less superstitious than Thomas +Thurnall; but crushed and softened--all but terrified (as who would +not have been?)--by that day's news, he could not struggle against the +weight of loneliness which fell upon him. For the first and last time, +perhaps, in his life, he felt fear; a vague, awful dread of unseen and +inevitable possibilities. Why should not calamity fall on him, wave +after wave? Was it not falling on him already? Why should he not grow +sick to-morrow, break his leg, his neck--why not? What guarantee had +he in earth or heaven that he might not be "snuffed out silently," as +he had seen hundreds already, and die and leave no sign? And there +sprang up in him at once the intensest yearning after his father and +the haunts of his boyhood, and the wildest dread that he should never +see them. Might not his father be dead ere he could return?--if ever +he did return. That twelve thousand miles of sea looked to him a gulf +impassable. Oh, that he were safe at home! that he could start that +moment! And for one minute a helplessness, as of a lost child, came +over him. + +Perhaps it had been well for him had he given that feeling vent, +and, confessing himself a lost child, cried out of the darkness to a +Father; but the next minute he had dashed it proudly away. + +"Pretty baby I am, to get frightened, at my time of life, because +I find myself in a dark wood--and the sun shining all the while as +jollily as ever away there in the west! It is morning somewhere or +other now, and it will be morning here again to-morrow. 'Good times +and bad times, and all times pass over;'--I learnt that lesson out of +old Bewick's vignettes, and it has stood me in good stead this many +a year, and shall now. Die? Nonsense. I take more killing than that +comes to. So for one more bout with old Dame Fortune. If she throws me +again, why, I'll get up again, as I have any time these fifteen years. +Mark's right. I'll stay here and work till I make a hit, or luck +runs dry, and then home and settle; and, meanwhile, I'll go down to +Melbourne to-morrow, and send the dear old man two hundred pounds; and +then back again here, and to it again." + +And with a fate-defiant smile, half bitter and half cheerful, Tom +rose and went down again to his mates, and stopped their inquiries +by--"What's done can't be mended, and needn't be mentioned; whining +won't make me work the harder, and harder than ever I must work." + +Strange it is, how mortal man, "who cometh up and is cut down like the +flower," can thus harden himself into stoical security, and count on +the morrow, which may never come. Yet so it is; and, perhaps, if it +were not so, no work would get done on earth,--at least by the many +who know not that God is guiding them, while they fancy that they are +guiding themselves. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +STILL LIFE. + + +I must now, if I am to bring you to "Two years ago," and to my story, +as it was told to me, ask you to follow me into the good old West +Country, and set you down at the back of an old harbour pier; thirty +feet of grey and brown boulders, spotted aloft with bright yellow +lichens, and black drops of tar, polished lower down by the surge of +centuries, and towards the foot of the wall roughened with crusts +of barnacles, and mussel-nests in crack and cranny, and festoons of +coarse dripping weed. + +On a low rock at its foot, her back resting against the Cyclopean +wall, sits a young woman of eight-and-twenty, soberly, almost primly +dressed, with three or four tiny children clustering round her. In +front of them, on a narrow spit of sand between the rocks, a dozen +little girls are laughing, romping, and pattering about, turning the +stones for "shannies" and "bullies," and other luckless fish left by +the tide; while the party beneath the pier wall look steadfastly down +into a little rock-pool at their feet,--full of the pink and green +and purple cut-work of delicate weeds and coralline, and starred with +great sea-dahlias, crimson and brown and grey, and with the waving +snake-locks of the Cercus, pale blue, and rose-tipped like the fingers +of the dawn. One delicate Medusa is sliding across the pool, by slow +pantings of its crystal bell; and on it the eyes of the whole group +are fixed,--for it seems to be the subject of some story which the +village schoolmistress is finishing in a sweet, half-abstracted +voice,-- + +"And so the cruel soldier was changed into a great rough red starfish, +who goes about killing the poor mussels, while nobody loves him, or +cares to take his part; and the poor little girl was changed into a +beautiful bright jelly-fish, like that one, who swims about all day in +the pleasant sunshine, with a red cross stamped on its heart." + +"Oh, mistress, what a pretty story!" cry the little ones, with tearful +eyes. "And what shall we be changed to when we die?" + +"If we will only be good we shall go up to Jesus, and be beautiful +angels, and sing hymns. Would that it might be soon, soon; for you and +me, and all!" And she draws the children, to her, and looks upward, as +if longing to bear them with her aloft. + +Let us leave the conversation where it is, and look into the face of +the speaker, who, young as she is, has already meditated so long upon +the mystery of death that it has grown lovely in her eyes. + +Her figure is tall, graceful, and slight, the severity of its outlines +suiting well with the severity of her dress, with the brown stuff gown +and plain grey whittle. Her neck is long, almost too long: but all +defects are forgotten in the first look at her face. We can see it +fully, for her bonnet lies beside her on the rock. + +The masque, though thin, is perfect. The brow, like that of Greek +statue, looks lower than it really is, for the hair springs from below +the bend of the forehead. The brain is very long, and sweeps backward +and upward in grand curves, till it attains above the ears a great +expanse and height. She should be a character more able to feel +than to argue; full of all a woman's veneration, devotion, love of +children,--perhaps, too, of a woman's anxiety. + +The nose is slightly aquiline; the sharp-cut nostrils indicate a +reserve of compressed strength and passion; the mouth is delicate; +the lips, which are full and somewhat heavy, not from coarseness, but +rather from languor, show somewhat of both the upper and the under +teeth. Her eyes are bent on the pool at her feet; so that we can see +nothing of them but the large sleepy lids, fringed with lashes so long +and dark that the eye looks as if it had been painted, in the Eastern +fashion, with antimony; the dark lashes, dark eyebrows, dark hair, +crisped (as West-country hair so often is) to its very roots, increase +the almost ghostlike paleness of the face, not sallow, not snow-white, +but of a clear, bloodless, waxen hue. + +And now she lifts her eyes,--dark eyes, of preternatural largeness; +brilliant, too, but not with the sparkle of the diamond; brilliant as +deep clear wells are, in which the mellow moonlight sleeps fathom-deep +between black walls of rock; and round them, and round the wide-opened +lips, and arching eyebrow, and slightly wrinkled forehead, hangs an +air of melancholy thought, vague doubt, almost of startled fear; then +that expression passes, and the whole face collapses into a languor of +patient sadness, which seems to say,--"I cannot solve the mystery. Let +Him solve it as seems good to Him." + +The pier has, as usual, two stages; the upper and narrower for a +public promenade, the lower and broader one for business. Two rough +collier-lads, strangers to the place, are lounging on the wall above, +and begin, out of mere mischief, dropping pebbles on the group below. + +"Hillo! you young rascals," calls an old man lounging like them on +the wall; "if you don't drop that, you're likely to get your heads +broken." + +"Will you do it?" + +"I would thirty years ago; but I'll find a dozen in five minutes who +will do it now. Here, lads! here's two Welsh vagabonds pelting our +schoolmistress." + +This is spoken to a group of Sea-Titans, who are sitting about on +the pier-way behind him, in red caps, blue jackets, striped jerseys, +bright brown trousers, and all the picturesque comfort of a +fisherman's costume, superintending the mending of a boat. + +Up jump half-a-dozen off the logs and baulkings, where they have been +squatting, doubled up knee to nose, after the fashion of their class, +and a volley of execrations, like a storm of grape, almost blows +the two offenders off the wall. The bolder, however, lingers, +anathematising in turn; whereon a black-bearded youth, some six feet +four in height, catches up an oar, makes a sweep at the shins of +the lad above his head, and brings him writhing down upon the upper +pier-way, whence he walks off howling, and muttering threats of +"taking the law." In vain;--there is not a magistrate within ten +miles; and custom, Lynch-law, and the coast-guard lieutenant, settle +all matters in Aberalva town, and do so easily enough; for the petty +crimes which fill our gaols are all unknown among those honest +Vikings' sons; and any man who covets his neighbour's goods, instead +of stealing them has only to go and borrow them, on condition, of +course, of lending in his turn. + +"What's that collier-lad hollering about, Captain Willis?" asks Mr. +Tardrew, steward to Lord Scoutbush, landlord of Aberalva, as he comes +up to the old man. + +"Gentleman Jan cut him over, for pelting the schoolmistress below +here." + +"Serve him right; he'll have to cut over that curate next, I reckon." + +"Oh, Mr. Tardrew, don't you talk so; the young gentleman is as kind a +man as I ever saw, and comes in and out of our house like a lamb." + +"Wolf in sheep's clothing," growls Tardrew. + +"What d'ye think he says to me last week? Wanted to turn the +schoolmistress out of her place because she went to chapel sometimes." + +"I know, I know," replied Willis, in the tone of a man who wished to +avoid a painful subject. "And what did you answer, then, Mr. Tardrew?" + +"I told him he might if he liked; but he'd make the place too hot +to hold him, if he hadn't done it already, with his bowings and his +crossings, and his chantings, and his Popish Gregories,--and tells one +he's no Papist; called him Pope Gregory himself. What do we want with +popes' tunes here, instead of the Old Hundredth and Martyrdom? I +should like to see any Pope of the lot make a tune like them." + +Captain Willis listened with a face half sad, half slily amused. He +and Tardrew were old friends; being the two most notable persons in +the parish, save Jones the lieutenant, Heale the doctor, and another +gentleman, of whom we shall speak presently. Both of them too, were +thorough-going Protestants, and though Churchmen, walked sometimes +into the Brianite Chapel of an afternoon, and thought it no sin. But +each took the curate's "Puseyism" in a different way, being two men as +unlike each other as one could well find. + +Tardrew--steward to Lord Scoutbush, the absentee landlord,--was a +shrewd, hard-bitten, choleric old fellow, of the shape, colour, and +consistence of a red brick; one of those English types which Mr. +Emerson has so well hit off in his rather confused and contradictory +"Traits:"-- + +"He hides virtues under vices, or, rather, under the semblance of +them. It is the misshapen, hairy, Scandinavian Troll again who lifts +the cart out of the mire, or threshes the corn which ten day-labourers +could not end: but it is done in the dark, and with muttered +maledictions. He is a churl with a soft place in his heart, whose +speech is a brash of bitter waters, but who loves to help you at a +pinch. He says, No; and serves you, and his thanks disgust you." Such, +was Tardrew,--a true British bulldog, who lived pretty faithfully up +to his Old Testament, but had, somehow, forgotten the existence of the +New. + +Willis was a very different and a very much nobler person; the most +perfect specimen which I ever have met (for I knew him well, and loved +him) of that type of British sailor which good Captain Marryat has +painted in his Masterman Ready, and painted far better than I can, +even though I do so from life. A tall and graceful old man, though +stooping much from lumbago and old wounds; with snow-white hair and +whiskers, delicate aquiline features, the manners of a nobleman, and +the heart of a child. All children knew that latter fact, and clung +to him instinctively. Even "the Boys," that terrible Berserk-tribe, +self-organised, self-dependent, and bound together in common +iniquities and the dread of common retribution, who were in Aberalva, +as all fishing towns, the torment and terror of all douce fogies, male +and female,--even the Boys, I say, respected Captain Willis, so potent +was the influence of his gentleness; nailed not up his shutters, nor +tied fishing-lines across his doorway; tail-piped not his dog, nor +sent his cat to sea on a barrel-stave; nor put live crabs into his +pocket, nor dead dog-fish into his well; yea, even when judgment, too +long provoked, made bare her red right hand, and the lieutenant vowed +by his commission that he would send half-a-dozen of them to the +treadmill, they would send up a deputation to "beg Captain Willis to +beg the schoolmistress to beg them off." For between Willis and +that fair young creature a friendship had grown up, easily to be +understood. Willis was one of those rare natures upon whose purity no +mire can cling; who pass through the furnace, and yet not even the +smell of fire has passed upon them. Bred, almost born, on board a +smuggling cutter, in the old war-times; then hunting, in the old +coast-blockade service, the smugglers among whom he had been trained; +watching the slow horrors of the Walcheren; fighting under Collingwood +and Nelson, and many another valiant Captain; lounging away years +of temptation on the West-Indian station, as sailing-master of a +ship-of-the-line; pensioned comfortably now for many a year in his +native town, he had been always the same gentle, valiant, righteous +man; sober in life, strict in duty, and simple in word; a soul as +transparent as crystal, and as pure. He was the oracle of +Aberalva now; and even Lieutenant Brown would ask his +opinion,--non-commissioned officer though he was,--in a tone which was +all the more patronising, because he stood a little in awe of the old +man. + +But why, when the boys wanted to be begged off, was the schoolmistress +to be their advocate? Because Grace Harvey exercised, without +intending anything of the kind, an almost mesmeric influence on every +one in the little town. Goodness rather than talent had given her +wisdom, and goodness rather than courage a power of using that wisdom, +which, to those simple, superstitious folk, seemed altogether an +inspiration. There was a mystery about her, too, which worked strongly +on the hearts of the West-country people. She was supposed to be at +times "not right;" and wandering intellect is with them, as with +many primitive peoples, an object more of awe than of pity. Her deep +melancholy alternated with bursts of wild eloquence, with fantastic +fables, with entreaties and warnings against sin, full of such pity +and pathos that they melted, at times, the hardest hearts. A whole +world of strange tales, half false, half true, had grown up around +her as she grew. She was believed to spend whole nights in prayer; to +speak with visitors from the other world; even to have the power of +seeing into futurity. The intensity of her imagination gave rise to +the belief that she had only to will, and she could see whom she +would, and all that they were doing, even across the seas; her +exquisite sensibility, it was whispered, made her feel every bodily +suffering she witnessed, as acutely as the sufferer's self, and in the +very limb in which he suffered. Her deep melancholy was believed to be +caused by some dark fate--by some agonising sympathy with evil-doers; +and it was sometimes said in Aberalva,--"Don't do that, for poor +Grace's sake. She bears the sins of all the parish." + +So it befell that Grace Harvey governed, she knew not how or why, all +hearts in that wild simple fishing-town. Rough men, fighting on the +quay, shook hands at Grace's bidding. Wives who could not lure their +husbands from the beer-shop, sent Grace in to fetch them home, sobered +by shame: and woe to the stranger who fancied that her entrance into +that noisy den gave him a right to say a rough word to the fair girl! +The maidens, instead of envying her beauty, made her the confidant of +all their loves; for though many a man would gladly have married her, +to woo her was more than any dared; and Gentleman Jan himself, the +rightful bully of the quay, as being the handsomest and biggest +man for many a mile, beside owning a tidy trawler and two good +mackerel-boats, had said openly, that if any man had a right to her, +he supposed he had; but that he should as soon think of asking her to +marry him, as of asking the moon. + +But it was in the school, in the duty which lay nearest to her, that +Grace's inward loveliness shone most lovely. Whatever dark cloud of +melancholy lay upon her own heart, she took care that it should never +overshadow one of those young innocents, whom she taught by love and +ruled by love, always tender, always cheerful, even gay and playful; +punishing, when she rarely punished, with tears and kisses. To make +them as happy as she could in a world where there was nothing but +temptation, and disappointment, and misery; to make them "fit for +heaven," and then to pray that they might go thither as speedily +as possible, this had been her work for now seven years; and that +Manichaeism which has driven darker and harder natures to destroy +young children, that they might go straight to bliss, took in her the +form of outpourings of gratitude (when the first natural tears were +dried), as often as one of her little lambs was "delivered out of the +miseries of this sinful world." But as long as they were in the +world, she was their guardian angel; and there was hardly a mother in +Aberalva who did not confess her debt to Grace, not merely for her +children's scholarship, but for their characters. + +Frank Headley the curate, therefore, had touched altogether the +wrong chord when he spoke of displacing Grace. And when, that same +afternoon, he sauntered down to the pier-head, wearied with his +parish work, not only did Tardrew stump away in silence as soon as he +appeared, but Captain Willis's face assumed a grave and severe look, +which was not often to be seen on it. + +"Well, Captain Willis?" said Frank, solitary and sad; longing for a +talk with someone, and not quite sure whether he was welcome. + +"Well, sir?" and the old man lifted his hat, and made one of his +princely bows. "You look tired, sir; I am afraid you're doing too +much." + +"I shall have more to do, soon," said the curate, his eye glancing +towards the schoolmistress, who, disturbed by the noise above, was +walking slowly up the beach, with a child holding to every finger, and +every fold of her dress. + +Willis saw the direction of his eye, and came at once to the point, in +his gentle, straightforward fashion. + +"I hear you have thoughts of taking the school from her, sir?" + +"Why--indeed--I shall be very sorry; but if she will persist in going +to the chapel, I cannot overlook the sin of schism." + +"She takes the children to church twice a Sunday, don't she? And +teaches them all that you tell her--" + +"Why--yes--I have taken the religious instruction almost into my own +hands now." + +Willis smiled quietly. + +"You'll excuse an old sailor, sir; but I think that's more than mortal +man can do. There's no hour of the day but what she's teaching them +something. She's telling them Bible stories now, I'll warrant, if you +could hear her." + +Frank made no answer. + +"You wouldn't stop her doing that? Oh, sir," and the old man spoke +with a quiet earnestness which was not without its effect, "just look +at her now, like the Good Shepherd with His lambs about His feet, and +think whether that's not much too pretty a sight to put an end to, in +a poor sinful world like this." + +"It is my duty," said Frank, hardening himself. "It pains me +exceedingly, Willis;--I hope I need not tell you that." + +"If I know aught of Mr. Headley's heart by his ways, you needn't +indeed, sir." + +"But I cannot allow it.--Her mother a class leader among these +Dissenters, and one of the most active of them, too.--The school next +door to her house. The preacher, of course, has influence there, and +must have. How am I to instil Church principles into them, if he is +counteracting me the moment my back is turned? I have made up my mind, +Willis, to do nothing in a hurry. Lady-day is past, and she must go on +till Midsummer; then I shall take the school into my own hands, and +teach them myself, for I can pay no mistress or master; and Mr. St. +Just--" + +Frank checked himself as he was going to speak the truth; namely, that +his sleepy old absentee rector, Lord Scoutbush's uncle, would yawn and +grumble at the move, and wondering why Frank "had not the sense to +leave ill alone," would give him no manner of assistance beyond his +pittance of eighty pounds a-year, and five pounds at Christmas to +spend on the poor. + +"Excuse me, sir, I don't doubt that you'll do your best in teaching, +as you always do: but I tell you honestly, you'll get no children to +teach." + +"No children?" + +"Their mothers know the worth of Grace too well, and the children too, +sir; and they'll go to her all the same, do what you will; and never a +one will enter the church door from that day forth." + +"On their own heads be it!" said Frank, a little testily; "but I +should not have fancied Miss Harvey the sort of person to set up +herself in defiance of me." + +"The more reason, sir, if you'll forgive me, for your not putting upon +her." + +"I do not want to put upon her or any one. I will do everything. I +will--I do--work day and night for these people, Mr. Willis. I tell +you, as I would my own father. I don't think I have another object +on earth--if I have, I hope I shall forget it--than the parish: but +Church principles I must carry out." + +"Well, sir, certainly no man ever worked here as you do. If all had +been like you, sir, there would not be a Dissenter here now; but +excuse me, sir, the Church is a very good thing, and I keep to mine, +having served under her Majesty, and her Majesty's forefathers, and +learnt to obey orders, I hope; but don't you think, sir, you're taking +it as the Pharisees took the Sabbath-day?" + +"How then!" + +"Why, as if man was made for the Church, and not the Church for man." + +"That is a shrewd thought, at least. Where did you pick it up?" + +"'Tis none of my own, sir; a bit of wisdom that my maid let fall; and +it has stuck to me strangely ever since." + +"Your maid?" + +"Yes, Grace there. I always call her my maid; having no father, poor +thing, she looks up to me as one, pretty much,--the dear soul. Oh, +sir! I hope you'll think over this again, before you do anything. It's +done in a day: but years won't undo it again." + +So Grace's sayings were quoted against him. Her power was formidable +enough, if she dare use it. He was silent awhile, and then-- + +"Do you think she has heard of this--of my--" + +"Honesty's the best policy, sir: she has; and that's the truth. You +know how things get round." + +"Well; and what did she say?" + +"I'll tell you her very words, sir; and they were these, if you'll +excuse me. 'Poor dear gentleman,' says she, 'if he thinks chapel-going +so wrong, why does he dare drive folks to chapel? I wonder, every time +he looks at that deep sea, he don't remember what the Lord said about +it, and those who cause his little ones to offend.'" + +Frank was somewhat awed. The thought was new; the application of the +text, as his own scholarship taught him, even more exact than Grace +had fancied. + +"Then she was not angry?" + +"She, sir! You couldn't anger her if you tore her in pieces with hot +pincers, as they did those old martyrs she's always telling about." + +"Good-bye, Willis," said Frank, in a hopeless tone of voice, and +sauntered to the pier-end, down the steps, and along the lower +pier-way, burdened with many thoughts. He came up to the knot of +chatting sailors. Not one of them touched his cap, or moved out of the +way for him. The boat lay almost across the whole pier-way; and he +stopped, awkwardly enough, for there was not room to get by. + +"Will you be so kind as to let me pass?" asked he, meekly enough. But +no one stirred. + +"Why don't you get up, Tom?" asked one. + +"I be lame." + +"So be I." + +"The gentleman can step over me, if he likes," said big Jan; a +proposition the impossibility whereof raised a horse-laugh. + +"Ain't you ashamed of yourselves, lads?" said the severe voice of +Willis, from above. The men rose sulkily; and Frank hastened on, as +ready to cry as ever he had been in his life. Poor fellow! he had been +labouring among these people for now twelve months, as no man had ever +laboured before, and he felt that he had not won the confidence of a +single human being,--not even of the old women, who took his teaching +for the sake of his charity, and who scented popery, all the while, in +words in which there was no popery, and in doctrines which were just +the same, on the whole, as those of the dissenting preacher, simply +because he would sprinkle among them certain words and phrases which +had become "suspect," as party badges. His church was all but empty; +the general excuse was, that it was a mile from the town: but Frank +knew that that was not the true reason; that all the parish had got it +into their heads that he had a leaning to popery; that he was going +over to Rome; that he was probably a Jesuit in disguise. + +Now, be it always remembered, Frank Headley was a good man, in every +sense of the word. He had nothing, save the outside, in common with +those undesirable coxcombs, who have not been bred by the High Church +movement, but have taken refuge in its cracks, as they would have done +forty years ago in those of the Evangelical,--youths who hide their +crass ignorance and dulness under the cloak of Church infallibility, +and having neither wit, manners, learning, humanity, or any other +dignity whereon to stand, talk loud, _pour pis aller_, about the +dignity of the priesthood. Such men Frank had met at neighbouring +clerical meetings, overbearing and out-talking the elder and the wiser +members; and finding that he got no good from them, had withdrawn into +his parish-work, to eat his own heart, like Bellerophon of old. For +Frank was a gentleman and a Christian, if ever one there was. Delicate +in person, all but consumptive; graceful and refined in all his works +and ways; a scholar, elegant rather than deep, yet a scholar still; +full of all love for painting, architecture, and poetry, he had come +down to bury himself in this remote curacy, in the honest desire of +doing good. He had been a curate in a fashionable London Church; but +finding the atmosphere thereof not over wholesome to his soul, he +had had the courage to throw off St. Nepomuc's, its brotherhoods, +sisterhoods, and all its gorgeous and highly-organised appliances for +enabling five thousand rich to take tolerable care of five hundred +poor: and had fled from "the holy virgins" (as certain old ladies, +who do twice their work with half their noise, call them) into the +wilderness of Bethnal Green. But six months' gallant work there, with +gallant men (for there are High Churchmen there who are an honour to +England), brought him to death's door. The doctors commanded some soft +western air. Frank, as chivalrous as a knight-errant of old, would +fain have died at his post, but his mother interfered; and he could +do no less than obey her. So he had taken this remote west country +curacy; all the more willingly because he knew that nine-tenths of the +people were Dissenters. To recover that place to the Church would be +something worth living for. So he had come, and laboured late and +early; and behold, he had failed utterly; and seemed farther than +ever from success. He had opened, too hastily, a crusade against the +Dissenters, and denounced where he should have conciliated. He had +overlooked--indeed he hardly knew--the sad truth, that the mere fact +of his being a clergyman was no passport to the hearts of his people. +For the curate who preceded him had been an old man, mean, ignorant, +incapable, remaining there simply because nobody else would have him, +and given to brandy-and-water as much as his flock. + +The rector for the last fifteen years, Lord Scoutbush's uncle, was a +cypher. The rector before him had notoriously earned the living by a +marriage with a lady who stood in some questionable relation to Lord +Scoutbush's father, and who had never had a thought above his dinner +and his tithes; and all that the Aberalva fishermen knew of God or +righteousness, they had learnt from the _soi-disant_ disciples of John +Wesley. So Frank Headley had to make up, at starting, the arrears +of half-a-century of base neglect; but instead of doing so, he had +contrived to awaken against himself that dogged hatred of popery which +lies inarticulate and confused, but deep and firm, in the heart of the +English people. Poor fellow! if he made a mistake, he suffered for it. +There was hardly a sadder soul than poor Frank, as he went listlessly +up the village street that afternoon, to his lodging at Captain +Willis's, which he had taken because he preferred living in the +village itself to occupying the comfortable rectory a mile out of +town. + +However we cannot set him straight;--after all, every man must perform +that office for himself. So the best thing we can do, as we landed, +naturally, at the pier-head, is to walk up-street after him, and see +what sort of a place Aberalva is. + +Beneath us, to the left hand, is the quay-pool, now lying dry, in +which a dozen trawlers are lopping over on their sides, their red +sails drying in the sun, the tails of the trawls hauled up to the +topmast heads; while the more handy of their owners are getting on +board by ladders, to pack away the said red sails; for it will blow +to night. In the long furrows which their keels have left, and in the +shallow muddy pools, lie innumerable fragments of exenterated maids +(not human ones, pitiful reader, but belonging to the order Pisces, +and the family Raia), and some twenty non-exenterated ray-dogs and +picked dogs (Anglice, dog-fish), together with a fine basking shark, +at least nine feet long, out of which the kneeling Mr. George Thomas, +clothed in pilot cloth patches of every hue, bright scarlet, blue and +brown (not to mention a large square of white canvas which has been +let into that part of his trousers which is now uppermost), is +dissecting the liver for the purpose of greasing his "sheaves" with +the fragrant oil thereof. The pools in general are bedded with black +mud, and creamed over with oily flakes which may proceed from the tar +on the vessels' sides, and may also from "decomposing animal matter," +as we euphemise it now-a-days. The hot pebbles, at high-tide +mark,--crowned with a long black row of herring and mackerel boats, +laid up in ordinary for the present--are beautifully variegated with +mackerels' heads, gurnets' fins, old hag, lobworm, and mussel-baits, +and the inwards of a whole ichthyological museum; save at one spot +where the Cloaca maxima and Port Esquiline of Aberalva town (small +enough, considering the place holds fifteen hundred souls) murmurs +from beneath a grey stone arch toward the sea, not unfraught with dead +rats and cats, who, their ancient feud forgotten, combine lovingly at +last in increasing the health of the blue-trousered urchins who are +sailing upon that Acherontic stream bits of board with a feather stuck +in it, or of their tiny sisters who are dancing about in the dirtiest +pool among the trawlers in a way which (if your respectable black coat +be seen upon the pier) will elicit from one of the balconied windows +above, decked with reeking shirts and linen, some such shriek as-- + +"Patience Penberthy, Patience Penberthy--a! You nasty, dirty, little +ondecent hussy--a! What be playing in the quay-pool for--a! A pulling +up your pesticoats before the quality--a!" Each exclamation being +followed with that groaning grunt, with which the West-country folk, +after having screamed their lungs empty through their noses, recover +their breath for a fresh burst. + +Never mind; it is no nosegay, certainly as a whole: but did you ever +see sturdier, rosier, nobler-looking children,--rounder faces, raven +hair, bright grey eyes, full of fun and tenderness? As for the dirt, +that cannot harm them; poor people's children must be dirty--why not? +Look on fifty yards to the left. Between two ridges of high pebble +bank, some twenty yards apart, comes Alva river rushing to the sea. +On the opposite ridge, a low white house, with three or four white +canvas-covered boats, and a flag-staff with sloping cross-yard, +betokens the coast-guard station. Beyond it rise black jagged cliffs; +mile after mile of iron-bound wall; and here and there, at the glens' +mouths, great banks and denes of shifting sand. In front of it, upon +the beach, are half-a-dozen great green and grey heaps of Welsh +limestone; behind it, at the cliff foot, is the lime-kiln, with its +white dusty heaps, and brown dusty men, its quivering mirage of hot +air, its strings of patient hay-nibbling donkeys, which look as +if they had just awakened out of a flour bin. Above, a green down +stretches up to bright yellow furze-crofts far aloft. Behind a reedy +marsh, covered with red cattle, paves the valley till it closes in; +the steep sides of the hills are clothed in oak and ash covert, in +which, three months ago, you could have shot more cocks in one day +than you would in Berkshire in a year. Pleasant little glimpses there +are, too, of grey stone farm-houses, nestling among sycamore and +beech; bright-green meadows, alder-fringed; squares of rich red +fallow-field, parted by lines of golden furze; all cut out with a +peculiar blackness, and clearness, soft and tender withal, which +betokens a climate surcharged with rain. Only in the very bosom of +the valley, a soft mist hangs, increasing the sense of distance, and +softening back one hill and wood behind another, till the great brown +moor which backs it all seems to rise out of the empty air. For a +thousand feet it ranges up, in rude sheets of brown heather, and grey +cairns and screes of granite, all sharp and black-edged against the +pale blue sky; and all suddenly cut off above by one long horizontal +line of dark grey cloud, which seems to hang there motionless, and yet +is growing to windward, and dying to leeward, for ever rushing out of +the invisible into sight, and into the invisible again, at railroad +speed. Out of nothing the moor rises, and into nothing it ascends,--a +great dark phantom between earth and sky, boding rain and howling +tempest, and perhaps fearful wreck--for the groundswell moans and +thunders on the beach behind us, louder and louder every moment. + +Let us go on, and up the street, after we have scrambled through the +usual labyrinth of timber-baulks, rusty anchors, boats which have been +dragged, for the purpose of mending and tarring, into the very middle +of the road, and old spars stowed under walls, in the vain hope that +they may be of some use for something some day, and have stood the +stares and welcomes of the lazy giants who are sitting about upon +them, black-locked, black-bearded, with ruddy, wholesome faces, and +eyes as bright as diamonds; men who are on their own ground, and know +it; who will not touch their caps to you, or pull the short black pipe +from between their lips as you pass, but expect you to prove yourself +a gentleman, by speaking respectfully to them; which, if you do, you +will find them as hearty, intelligent, brave fellows as ever walked +this earth, capable of anything, from working the naval-brigade +guns at Sevastopol, down to running up to ... a hundred miles in a +cockleshell lugger, to forestall the early mackerel market. God be +with you, my brave lads, and with your children after you; for as long +as you are what I have known you, Old England will rule the seas, and +many a land beside! + +But in going up Aberalva Street, you remark several things; first, +that the houses were all white-washed yesterday, except where the +snowy white is picked out by buttresses of pink and blue; next, +that they all have bright green palings in front, and bright green +window-sills and frames; next, that they are all roofed with shining +grey slate, and the space between the window and the pales flagged +with the same; next, that where such space is not flagged, it is full +of flowers and shrubs which stand the winter only in our greenhouses. +The fuchsias are ten feet high, laden with ripe purple berries running +over (for there are no birds to pick them off); and there in the front +of the coast-guard lieutenant's house, is Cobaea scandens, covered +with purple claret-glasses, as it has been ever since Christmas: for +Aberalva knows no winter: and there are grown-up men in it who never +put on a skate, or made a snowball in their lives. A most cleanly, +bright-coloured, foreign-looking street, is that long straggling one +which runs up the hill towards Penalva Court: only remark, that this +cleanliness is gained by making the gutter in the middle street the +common sewer of the town, and tread clear of cabbage-leaves, pilchard +bones, _et id genus omne_. For Aberalva is like Paris (if the answer +of a celebrated sanitary reformer to the Emperor be truly reported), +"fair without but foul within." + +However, the wind is blowing dull and hollow from south-west; the +clouds are rolling faster and faster up from the Atlantic; the sky to +westward is brassy green; the glass is falling fast; and there will +be wind and rain enough to-night to sweep even Aberalva clean for the +next week. + +Grace Harvey sees the coming storm, as she goes slowly homewards, +dismissing her little flock; and she lingers long and sadly outside +her cottage door, looking out over the fast blackening sea, and +listening to the hollow thunder of the groundswell, against the back +of the point which shelters Aberalva Cove. + +Far away on the horizon, the masts of stately ships stand out against +the sky, driving fast to the eastward with shortened sail. They, too, +know what is coming; and Grace prays for them as she stands, in her +wild way, with half outspoken words. + +"All those gallant ships, dear Lord! and so many beautiful men in +them, and so few of them ready to die; and all those gallant soldiers +going to the war;--Lord, wilt thou not have mercy? Spare them for +a little time before--. Is not that cruel, man-devouring sea full +enough, Lord; and brave men's bones enough, strewn up and down all +rocks and sands? And is not that dark place full enough, O Lord, of +poor souls cut off in a moment, as my two were? Oh, not to-night, dear +Lord! Do not call any one to-night--give them a day more, one chance +more, poor fellows--they have had so few, and so many temptations, +and, perhaps, no schooling. They go to sea so early, and young things +will be young things, Lord. Spare them but one night more--and yet He +did not spare my two--they had no time to repent, and have no time for +ever, evermore!" + +And she stands looking out over the sea; but she has lost sight of +everything, save her own sad imaginations. Her eyes open wider and +wider, as if before some unseen horror; the eyebrows contract upwards; +the cheeks sharpen; the mouth parts; the lips draw back, showing +the white teeth, as if in intensest agony. Thus she stands long, +motionless, awe-frozen, save when a shudder runs through every limb, +with such a countenance as that "fair terror" of which Shelley sang-- + + "Its horror and its beauty are divine; + Upon its lips and eyelids seem to lie + Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, + Fiery and lucid, struggling underneath, + The agonies of anguish and of death." + +Her mother comes out from the cottage door behind, and lays her hand +upon the girl's shoulder. The spell is broken; and hiding her face in +her hands, Grace bursts into violent weeping. + +"What are you doing, my poor child, here in the cold night air?" + +"My two, mother, my two!" said she; "and all the poor souls at sea +to-night!" + +"You mustn't think of it. Haven't I told you not to think of it? One +would lose one's wits if one did too often." + +"If it is all true, mother, what else is there worth thinking of in +heaven or earth?" + +And Grace goes in with a dull, heavy look of utter exhaustion, bodily +and mental, and quietly sets the things for supper, and goes about her +cottage work as one who bears a heavy chain, but has borne it too long +to let it hinder the daily drudgery of life. + +Grace had reason to pray at least, for the soldiers who were going +to the war. For as she prayed, the Orinoco, Ripon, and Manilla, were +steaming down Southampton Water, with the Guards on board; and but +that morning little Lord Scoutbush, left behind at the depot, had bid +farewell to his best friend, opposite Buckingham Palace, while the +bearskins were on the bayonet-points, with-- + +"Well, old fellow, you have the fun, after all, and I the work;" and +had been answered with-- + +"Fun? there will be no fighting; and I shall only have lost my season +in town." + +Was there, then, no man among them that day, who + + "As the trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll, + Heard in the wild March morning the angels call his soul"? + + * * * * * + +Verily they are gone down to Hades, even many stalwart souls of +heroes. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE. + + +Penalva Court, about half a mile from the quay, is "like a house in a +story;"--a house of seven gables, and those very shaky ones; a house +of useless long passages, useless turrets, vast lumber attics where +maids see ghosts, lofty garden and yard walls of grey stone, round +which the wind and rain are lashing through the dreary darkness; low +oak-ribbed ceilings; windows which once were mullioned with stone, but +now with wood painted white; walls which were once oak-wainscot, +but have been painted like the mullions, to the disgust of Elsley +Vavasour, poet, its occupant in March 1854, who forgot that, while the +oak was left dark, no man could have seen to read in the rooms a yard +from the window. + +He has, however, little reason to complain of the one drawing-room, +where he and his wife are sitting, so pleasant has she made it look, +in spite of the plainness of the furniture. A bright log-fire is +burning on the hearth. There are a few good books too, and a few +handsome prints; while some really valuable nick-nacks are set out, +with pardonable ostentation, on a little table covered with crimson +velvet. It is only cotton velvet, if you look close at it; but the +things are pretty enough to catch the eye of all visitors; and Mrs. +Heale, the Doctor's wife (who always calls Mrs. Vavasour "my lady," +though she does not love her), and Mrs. Trebooze, of Trebooze, always +finger them over when they have any opportunity, and whisper to each +other half contemptuously,--"Ah, poor thing! there's a sign that she +has seen better days." + +And better days, in one sense, Mrs. Vavasour has seen. I am afraid, +indeed, that she has more than once regretted the morning when she ran +away in a hack-cab from her brother Lord Scoutbush's house in Eaton +Square, to be married to Elsley Vavasour, the gifted author of "A +Soul's Agonies and other Poems." He was a lion then, with foolish +women running after him, and turning his head once and for all; and +Lucia St. Just was a wild Irish girl, new to London society, all +feeling and romance, and literally all; for there was little real +intellect underlying her passionate sensibility. So when the +sensibility burnt itself out, as it generally does; and when children, +and the weak health which comes with them, and the cares of a +household, and money difficulties were absorbing her little powers, +Elsley Vavasour began to fancy that his wife was a very commonplace +person, who was fast losing even her good looks and her good temper. +So, on the whole, they were not happy. Elsley was an affectionate man, +and honourable to a fantastic nicety; but he was vain, capricious, +over-sensitive, craving for admiration and distinction; and it was not +enough for him that his wife loved him, and bore him children, kept +his accounts, mended and moiled all day long for him and his; he +wanted her to act the public for him exactly when he was hungry for +praise; and that not the actual, but an altogether ideal, public; to +worship him as a deity, "live for him and him alone," "realise" his +poetic dreams of marriage bliss, and talk sentiment with him, or +listen to him talking sentiment to her, when she would much sooner be +safe in bed burying all the petty cares of the day, and the pain in +her back too, poor thing! in sound sleep; and so it befell that they +often quarrelled and wrangled, and that they were quarrelling and +wrangling this very night. + +Who cares to know how it began? Who cares to hear how it went on,--the +stupid, aimless skirmish of bitter words, between two people who had +forgotten themselves? I believe it began with Elsley's being vexed +at her springing up two or three times, fancying that she heard the +children cry, while he wanted to be quiet, and sentimentalise over the +roaring of the wind outside. Then--she thought of nothing but those +children. Why did she not take a book and occupy her mind? To which +she had her pert, though just answer, about her mind having quite +enough to do to keep clothes on the children's backs, and so +forth,--let who list imagine the miserable little squabble;--till she +says,--"I know what has put you out so to-night; nothing but the news +of my sister's coming." He answers,--"That her sister is as little to +him as to any man; as welcome to come now as she has been to stay away +these three years." + +"Ah, it's very well to say that; but you have been a different person +ever since that letter came." And so she torments him into an angry +self-justification (which she takes triumphantly as a confession) that +"it is very disagreeable to have his thoughts broken in on by one who +has no sympathy with him and his pursuits--and who" and at that point +he wisely stops short, for he was going to throw down a very ugly gage +of battle. + +Thrown down or not, Lucia snatches at it. + +"Ah, I understand; poor Valentia! You always hated her." + +"I did not: but she is so brusque, and excited, and--" + +"Be so kind as not to abuse my family. You may say what you will of +me; but--" + +"And what have your family done for me, pray?" + +"Why, considering that we are now living rent-free in my brother's +house, and--" She stops in her turn; for her pride and her prudence +also will not let her tell him that Valentia has been clothing her and +the children for the last three years. He is just the man to forbid +her on the spot to receive any more presents, and to sacrifice her +comfort to his own pride. But what she has said is quite enough to +bring out a very angry answer, which she expecting, nips in the bud +by-- + +"For goodness' sake, don't speak so loud; I don't want the servants to +hear." + +"I am not speaking loud"--(he has not yet opened his lips). "That is +your old trick to prevent my defending myself, while you are driving +one mad. How dare you taunt me with being a pensioner on your +brother's bounty? I'll go up to town again and take lodgings there. +I need not be beholden to any aristocrat of them all. I have my own +station in the real world,--the world of intellect; I have my own +friends; I have made myself a name without his help; and I can live +without his help, he shall find!" + +"Which name were you speaking of?" rejoins she looking up at him, with +all her native Irish humour flashing up for a moment in her naughty +eyes. The next minute she would have given her hand not to have said +it; for, with a very terrible word, Elsley springs to his feet and +dashes out of the room. + +She hears him catch up his hat and cloak, and hurry out into the rain, +slamming the door behind him. She springs up to call him back, but +he is gone;--and she dashes herself on the floor, and bursts into an +agony of weeping over "young bliss never to return"? Not in the least. +Her principal fear is, lest he should catch cold in the rain. She +takes up her work again, and stitches away in the comfortable +certainty that in half an hour she will have recovered her temper, and +he also; that they will pass a sulky night; and to-morrow, by about +mid-day, without explanation or formal reconciliation, have become as +good friends as ever. "Perhaps," says she to herself, with a woman's +sense of power, "if he be very much ashamed and very wet, I'll pity +him and make friends to-night." + +Miserable enough are these little squabbles. Why will two people, who +have sworn to love and cherish each other utterly, and who, on the +whole, do what they have sworn, behave to each other as they dare for +very shame behave to no one else? Is it that, as every beautiful thing +has its hideous antitype, this mutual shamelessness is the devil's +ape of mutual confidence? Perhaps it cannot be otherwise with beings +compact of good and evil. When the veil of reserve is withdrawn from +between two souls, it must be withdrawn for evil, as for good, till +the two natures, which ought to seek rest, each in the other's inmost +depths, may at last spring apart, confronting each other recklessly +with,--"There, you see me as I am; you know the worst of me, and I of +you; take me as you find me--what care I?" + +Elsley and Lucia have not yet arrived at that terrible crisis: though +they are on the path toward it,--the path of little carelessnesses, +rudenesses, ungoverned words and tempers, and, worst of all, of that +half-confidence, which is certain to avenge itself by irritation and +quarrelling; for if two married people will not tell each other in +love what they ought, they will be sure to tell each other in anger +what they ought not. It is plain enough already that Elsley has his +weak point, which must not be touched; something about "a name," which +Lucia is to be expected to ignore,--as if anything which really exists +could be ignored while two people live together night and day, for +better for worse. Till the thorn is out, the wound will not heal; and +till the matter (whatever it may be) is set right, by confession and +absolution, there will be no peace for them, for they are living in a +lie; and, unless it be a very little one indeed, better, perhaps, that +they should go on to that terrible crisis of open defiance. It may +end in disgust, hatred, madness; but it may, too, end in each +falling again upon the other's bosom, and sobbing out through holy +tears,--"Yes, you do know the worst of me, and yet you love me still. +This is happiness, to find oneself most loved when one most hates +oneself! God, help us to confess our sins to Thee, as we have done to +each other, and to begin life again like little children, struggling +hand in hand out of this lowest pit, up the steep path which leads to +life, and strength, and peace." + +Heaven grant that it may so end! But now Elsley has gone raging out +into the raging darkness; trying to prove himself to himself the most +injured of men, and to hate his wife as much as possible: though the +fool knows the whole time that he loves her better than anything on +earth, even than that "fame," on which he tries to fatten his lean +soul, snapping greedily at every scrap which falls in his way, and, in +default, snapping at everybody and everything else. And little comfort +it gives him. Why should it? What comfort, save in being wise and +strong? And is he the wiser or stronger for being told by a reviewer +that he has written fine words, or has failed in writing them; or to +have silly women writing to ask for his autograph, or for leave to set +his songs to music? Nay,--shocking as the question may seem,--is +he the wiser and stronger man for being a poet at all, and a +genius?--provided, of course, that the word genius is used in its +modern meaning, of a person who can say prettier things than his +neighbours. I think not. Be it as it may, away goes the poor genius; +his long cloak, picturesque enough in calm weather, fluttering about +uncomfortably enough, while the rain washes his long curls into swabs; +out through the old garden, between storm-swept laurels, beneath dark +groaning pines, and through a door in the wall which opens into the +lane. + +The lane leads downward, on the right, into the village. He is in no +temper to meet his fellow-creatures,--even to see the comfortable +gleam through their windows, as the sailors close round the fire with +wife and child; so he turns to the left, up the deep stone-banked +lane, which leads towards the cliff, dark now as pitch, for it is +overhung, right and left, with deep oak-wood. + +It is no easy matter to proceed, though, for the wind pours down the +lane as through a funnel, and the road is of slippery bare slate, worn +here and there into puddles of greasy clay, and Elsley slips back half +of every step, while his wrath, as he tires, oozes out of his heels. +Moreover, those dark trees above him, tossing their heads impatiently +against the scarcely less dark sky, strike an awe into him,--a sense +of loneliness, almost of fear. An uncanny, bad night it is; and he is +out on a bad errand; and he knows it, and wishes that he were home +again. He does not believe, of course, in those "spirits of the +storm," about whom he has so often written, any more than he does in a +great deal of his fine imagery; but still in such characters as his, +the sympathy between the moods of nature and those of the mind is +most real and important; and Dame Nature's equinoctial night wrath is +weird, gruesome, crushing, and can be faced (if it must be faced) in +real comfort only when one is going on an errand of mercy, with +a clear conscience, a light heart, a good cigar, and plenty of +Mackintosh. + +So, ere Elsley had gone a quarter of a mile, he turned back, and +resolved to go in, and take up his book once more. Perhaps Lucia might +beg his pardon; and if not, why, perhaps he might beg hers. The rain +was washing the spirit out of him, as it does out of a thin-coated +horse. + +Stay! What was that sound above the roar of the gale? a cannon? + +He listened, turning his head right and left to escape the howling of +the wind in his ears. A minute, and another boom rose and rang aloft. +It was near, too. He almost fancied that he felt the concussion of the +air. + +Another, and another; and then, in the village below, he could see +lights hurrying to and fro. A wreck at sea? He turned again up the +lane. He had never seen a wreck. What an opportunity for a poet; and +on such a night too: it would be magnificent if the moon would but +come out! Just the scene, too, for his excited temper! He will work on +upward, let it blow and rain as it may. He is not disappointed. Ere he +has gone a hundred yards, a mass of dripping oil-skins runs full butt +against him, knocking him against the bank; and, by the clank of +weapons, he recognises the coast-guard watchman. + +"Hillo!--who's that? Beg your pardon, sir," as the man recognises +Elsley's voice. + +"What is it?--what are the guns?" + +"God knows, sir! Overright the Chough and Crow; on 'em, I'm afeard. +There they go again!--hard up, poor souls! God help them!" and the man +runs shouting down the lane. + +Another gun, and another; but long ere Elsley reaches the cliff, they +are silent; and nothing is to be heard but the noise of the storm, +which, loud as it was below among the wood, is almost intolerable now +that he is on the open down. + +He struggles up the lane toward the cliff, and there pauses, gasping, +under the shelter of a wall, trying to analyse that enormous mass of +sound which fills his ears and brain, and flows through his heart +like maddening wine. He can bear the sight of the dead grass on the +cliff-edge, weary, feeble, expostulating with its old tormentor the +gale; then the fierce screams of the blasts as they rush up across the +layers of rock below, like hounds leaping up at their prey; and far +beneath, the horrible confused battle-roar of that great leaguer of +waves. He cannot see them, as he strains his eyes over the wall into +the blank depth,--nothing but a confused welter and quiver of mingled +air, and rain, and spray, as if the very atmosphere were writhing in +the clutches of the gale: but he can hear,--what can he not hear? It +would have needed a less vivid brain than Elsley's to fancy another +Badajos beneath. There it all is:--the rush of columns to the breach, +officers cheering them on,--pauses, breaks, wild retreats, upbraiding +calls, whispering consultations,--fresh rush on rush, now here, now +there,--fierce shouts above, below, behind,--shrieks of agony, choked +groans and gasps of dying men,--scaling-ladders hurled down with all +their rattling freight,--dull mine-explosions, ringing cannon-thunder, +as the old fortress blasts back its besiegers pell-mell into the deep. +It is all there: truly enough there, at least, to madden yet more +Elsley's wild angry brain, till he tries to add his shouts to the +great battle-cries of land and sea, and finds them as little audible +as an infant's wail. + +Suddenly, far below him, a bright glimmer;--and, in a moment, a +blue-light reveals the whole scene, in ghastly hues,--blue leaping +breakers, blue weltering sheets of foam, blue rocks, crowded with blue +figures, like ghosts, flitting to and fro upon the brink of that blue +seething Phlegethon, and rushing up towards him through the air, a +thousand flying blue foam-sponges, which dive over the brow of the +hill and vanish, like delicate fairies fleeing before the wrath of the +gale:--but where is the wreck? The blue-light cannot pierce the grey +veil of mingled mist and spray which hangs to seaward; and her guns +have been silent for half an hour and more. + +Elsley hurries down, and finds half the village collected on the +long sloping point of down below. Sailors wrapped in pilot-cloth, +oil-skinned coast-guardsmen, women with their gowns turned over their +heads, staggering restlessly up and down, and in and out, while every +moment some fresh comer stumbles down the slope, thrusting himself +into his clothes as he goes, and asks, "Where's the wreck!" and gets +no answer, but a surly advice to "hold his noise," as if they had hope +of hearing the wreck which they cannot see; and kind women, with their +hearts full of mothers' instincts, declare that they can hear little +children crying, and are pooh-poohed down by kind men, who, man's +fashion, don't like to believe anything too painful, or, if they +believe it, to talk of it. + +"What were the guns from, then, Brown?" asks the Lieutenant of the +head-boatman. + +"Off the Chough and Crow, I thought, sir. God grant not!" + +"You thought, sir!" says the great man, willing to vent his vexation +on some one. "_Why_ didn't you make sure?" + +"Why, just look, Lieutenant," says Brown, pointing into the "blank +height of the dark;" "and I was on the pier too, and couldn't see; but +the look-out man here says--" A shift of wind, a drift of cloud, and +the moon flashes out a moment.--"There she is, sir!" + +Some three hundred yards out at sea lies a long curved black line, +beautiful, severe, and still, amid those white wild leaping hills. +A murmur from the crowd, which swells into a roar, as they surge +aimlessly up and down. + +Another moment, and it is cut in two by a white +line--covered--lost--all hold their breaths. No; the sea passes on, +and still the black curve is there; enduring. + +"A terrible big ship!" + +"A Liverpool clipper, by the lines of her." + +"God help the poor passengers, then!" sobs a woman. "They're past our +help: she's on her beam ends." + +"And her deck upright toward us." + +"Silence! Out of the way you loafing long-shores!" shouts the +Lieutenant. "Brown--the rockets!" + +What though the Lieutenant be somewhat given to strong liquors, and +stronger language? He wears the Queen's uniform; and what is more, he +knows his work, and can do it; all make a silent ring while the fork +is planted; the Lieutenant, throwing away the end of his cigar, kneels +and adjusts the stick; Brown and his mates examine and shake out the +coils of line. + +Another minute, and the magnificent creature rushes forth with a +triumphant roar, and soars aloft over the waves in a long stream of +fire, defiant of the gale. + +Is it over her? No! A fierce gust, which all but hurls the spectators +to the ground; the fiery stream sweeps away to the left, in a grand +curve of sparks, and drops into the sea. + +"Try it again!" shouts the Lieutenant, his blood now up. "We'll see +which will beat, wind or powder." + +Again a rocket is fixed, with more allowance for the wind; but the +black curve has disappeared, and he must wait awhile. + +"There it is again! Fly swift and sure," cries Elsley, "thou fiery +angel of mercy, bearing the saviour-line! It may not be too late yet." + +Full and true the rocket went across her; and "three cheers for the +Lieutenant!" rose above the storm. + +"Silence, lads! Not so bad, though;" says he, rubbing his wet hands. +"Hold on by the line, and watch for a bite, Brown." + +Five minutes pass. Brown has the line in his hand, waiting for any +signal touch from the ship: but the line sways limp in the surge. + +Ten minutes. The Lieutenant lights a fresh cigar, and paces up and +down, smoking fiercely. + +A quarter of an hour; and yet no response. The moon is shining clearly +now. They can see her hatchways, the stumps of her masts, great +tangles of rigging swaying and lashing down across her deck; but that +delicate upper curve is becoming more ragged after every wave; and the +tide is rising fast. + +"There's a pull!" shouts Brown.... "No, there ain't ... God have +mercy, sir! She's going!" + +The black curve boils up, as if a mine had been sprung on board, leaps +into arches, jagged peaks, black bars crossed and tangled; and then +all melts away into the white seething waste; while the line floats +home helplessly, as if disappointed; and the billows plunge more +sullenly and sadly towards the shore, as if in remorse for their dark +and reckless deed. + +All is over. What shall we do now? Go home, and pray that God may have +mercy on all drowning souls? Or think what a picturesque and tragical +scene it was, and what a beautiful poem it will make, when we have +thrown it into an artistic form, and bedizened it with conceits and +analogies stolen from all heaven and earth by our own self-willed +fancy? + +Elsley Vavasour--through whose spectacles, rather than with my own +eyes, I have been looking at the wreck, and to whose account, not +to mine, the metaphors and similes of the last two pages must be +laid--took the latter course; not that he was not awed, calmed, and +even humbled, as he felt how poor and petty his own troubles +were, compared with that great tragedy: but in his fatal habit of +considering all matters in heaven and earth as bricks and mortar for +the poet to build with, he considered that he had "seen enough;" as if +men were sent into the world to see and not to act; and going home too +excited to sleep, much more to go and kiss forgiveness to his sleeping +wife, sat up all night, writing "The Wreck," which may be (as the +reviewer in "The Parthenon" asserts) an exquisite poem; but I cannot +say that it is of much importance. + +So the delicate genius sate that night, scribbling verses by a +warm fire, and the rough Lieutenant settled himself down in his +Mackintoshes, to sit out those weary hours on the bare rock, having +done all that he could do, and yet knowing that his duty was, not to +leave the place as long as there was a chance of saving--not a life, +for that was past all hope--but a chest of clothes, or a stick of +timber. There he settled himself, grumbling, yet faithful; and filled +up the time with sleepy maledictions against some old admiral, who +had--or had not--taken a spite to him in the West Indies thirty years +before, else he would have been a post captain by now, comfortably in +bed on board a crack frigate, instead of sitting all night out on +a rock, like an old cormorant, etc. etc. Who knows not the woes of +ancient coast-guard lieutenants? + +But as it befell, Elsley Vavasour was justly punished for going home, +by losing the most "poetical" incident of the whole night. + +For with the coast-guardsmen many sailors stayed. There was nothing to +be earned by staying: but still, who knew but they might be wanted? +And they hung on with the same feeling which tempts one to linger +round a grave ere the earth is filled in, loth to give up the last +sight, and with it the last hope. The ship herself, over and above her +lost crew, was in their eyes a person to be loved and regretted. And +Gentleman Jan spoke, like a true sailor-- + +"Ah, poor dear! And she such a beauty, Mr. Brown; as any one might see +by her lines, even that way off. Ah, poor dear!" + +"And so many brave souls on board; and, perhaps, some of them not +ready, Mr. Beer," says the serious elderly chief boatman. "Eh, Captain +Willis?" + +"The Lord has had mercy on them, I don't doubt." answers the old man, +in his quiet sweet voice. "One can't but hope that he would give them +time for one prayer before all was over; and having been drowned +myself, Mr. Brown, three times, and taken up for dead--that is, +once in Gibraltar Bay, and once when I was a total wreck in the old +Seahorse, that was in the hurricane in the Indies; after that when +I fell over quay-head here, fishing for bass,--why, I know well how +quick the prayer will run through a man's heart, when he's a-drowning, +and the light of conscience, too, all one's life in one minute, +like--" + +"It arn't the men I care for," says Gentleman Jan; "they're gone to +heaven, like all brave sailors do as dies by wreck and battle: but the +poor dear ship, d'ye see, Captain Willis, she ha'n't no heaven to go +to, and that's why I feel for her so." + +Both the old men shake their heads at Jan's doctrine, and turn the +subject off. + +"You'd better go home, Captain, 'fear of the rheumatics. It's a rough +night for your years; and you've no call, like me." + +"I would, but my maid there; and I can't get her home; and I can't +leave her." And Willis points to the schoolmistress, who sits upon +the flat slope of rock, a little apart from the rest, with her face +resting on her hands, gazing intently out into the wild waste. + +"Make her go; it's her duty--we all have our duties. Why does her +mother let her out at this time of night? I keep my maids tighter than +that, I warrant." And disciplinarian Mr. Brown makes a step towards +her. + +"Ah, Mr. Brown, don't now! She's not one of us. There's no saying +what's going on there in her. Maybe she's praying; maybe she sees more +than we do, over the sea there." + +"What do you mean? There's no living body in those breakers, be sure!" + +"There's more living things about on such a night than have bodies to +them, or than any but such as she can see. If any one ever talked +with angels, that maid does; and I've heard her, too; I can say I +have--certain of it. Those that like may call her an innocent: but I +wish I were such an innocent, Mr. Brown. I'd be nearer heaven then, +here on earth, than I fear sometimes I ever shall be, even after I'm +dead and gone." + +"Well, she's a good girl, mazed or not; but look at her now! What's +she after?" + +The girl had raised her head, and was pointing, with one arm stretched +stiffly out toward the sea. + +Old Willis went down to her, and touched her gently on the shoulder. + +"Come home, my maid, then, you'll take cold, indeed;" but she did not +move or lower her arm. + +The old man, accustomed to her fits of fixed melancholy, looked down +under her bonnet, to see whether she was "past," as he called it. By +the moonlight he could see her great eyes steady and wide open. She +motioned him away, half impatiently, and then sprang to her feet with +a scream. + +"A man! A man! Save him!" + +As she spoke, a huge wave rolled in, and shot up the sloping end of +the point in a broad sheet of foam. + +And out of it struggled, on hands and knees, a human figure. He looked +wildly up, and round, and then his head dropped again on his breast; +and he lay clinging with outspread arms, like Homer's polypus in the +Odyssey, as the wave drained back, in a thousand roaring cataracts, +over the edge of the rock. + +"Save him!" shrieked she again, as twenty men rushed forward--and +stopped short. The man was fully thirty yards from them: but close to +him, between them and him, stretched a long ghastly crack, some ten +feet wide, cutting the point across. All knew it: its slippery edge, +its polished upright sides, the seething cauldrons within it; and +knew, too, that the next wave would boil up from it in a hundred jets, +and suck in the strongest to his doom, to fall, with brains dashed +out, into a chasm from which was no return. + +Ere they could nerve themselves for action, the wave had come. Up the +slope it went, one half of it burying the wretched mariner, and fell +over into the chasm. The other half rushed up the chasm itself, and +spouted forth again to the moonlight in columns of snow, in time to +meet the wave from which it had just parted, as it fell from above; +and then the two boiled up, and round, and over, and swirled along the +smooth rock to their very feet. + +The schoolmistress took one long look; and as the wave retired, rushed +after it to the very brink of the chasm, and flung herself on her +knees. + +"She's mazed!" + +"No, she's not!" almost screamed old Willis, in mingled pride and +terror, as he rushed after her. "The wave has carried him across the +crack and she's got him!" And he sprang upon her, and caught her round +the waist. + +"Now, if you be men!" shouted he, as the rest hurried down. + +"Now, if you be men; before the next wave comes!" shouted Big Jan. +"Hands together, and make a line!" And he took a grip with one hand +of the old man's waistband, and held out the other for who would to +seize. + +Who took it? Frank Headley, the curate, who had been watching all +sadly apart, longing to do something which no one could mistake. + +"Be you man enough?" asked big Jan doubtfully. + +"Try," said Frank. + +"Really, you ben't, sir," said Jan, civilly enough. "Means no offence, +sir; your heart's stout enough, I see; but you don't know what'll be." +And he caught the hand of a huge fellow next him, while Frank shrank +sadly back into the darkness. + +Strong hand after hand was clasped, and strong knee after knee dropped +almost to the rock, to meet the coming rush of water; and all who knew +their business took a long breath,--they might have need of one. + +It came, and surged over the man, and the girl, and up to old Willis's +throat, and round the knees of Jan and his neighbour; and then +followed the returning out-draught, and every limb quivered with the +strain: but when the cataract had disappeared, the chain was still +unbroken. + +"Saved!" and a cheer broke from all lips, save those of the girl +herself; she was as senseless as he whom she had saved. They hurried +her and him up the rock ere another wave could come; but they had much +ado to open her hands, so firmly clenched together were they round his +waist. + +Gently they lifted each, and laid them on the rock; while old Willis, +having recovered his breath, set to work crying like a child, to +restore breath to "his maiden." + +"Run for Dr. Heale, some good Christian!" But Frank, longing to escape +from a company who did not love him, and to be of some use ere the +night was out, was already half-way to the village on that very +errand. + +However, ere the Doctor could be stirred out of his boozy slumbers, +and thrust into his clothes by his wife, the schoolmistress was safe +in bed at her mother's house; and the man, weak, but alive, carried +triumphantly up to Heale's door; which having been kicked open, the +sailors insisted in carrying him right upstairs, and depositing him on +the best spare bed. + +"If you won't come to your patients, Doctor, your patients shall come +to you. Why were you asleep in your liquors, instead of looking out +for poor wratches, like a Christian? You see whether his bones be +broke, and gi'un his medicines proper; and then go and see after the +schoolmistress; she'm worth a dozen of any man, and a thousand of you! +We'll pay for 'un like men; and if you don't, we'll break every bottle +in your shop." + +To which, what between bodily fear and real good-nature, old Heale +assented; and so ended that eventful night. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +FLOTSOM, JETSOM, AND LAGEND. + + +About nine o'clock the next morning, Gentleman Jan strolled into Dr. +Heale's surgery, pipe in mouth, with an attendant satellite; for every +lion, poor as well as rich,--in country as in town, must needs have +his jackal. + +Heale's surgery--or, in plain English, shop--was a doleful hole +enough; in such dirt and confusion as might be expected from a drunken +occupant, with a practice which was only not decaying because there +was no rival in the field. But monopoly made the old man, as it makes +most men, all the more lazy and careless; and there was not a drug on +his shelves which could be warranted to work the effect set forth in +that sanguine and too trustful book, the Pharmacopoeia, which, like +Mr. Pecksniff's England, expects every man to do his duty, and is, +accordingly (as the Lancet and Dr. Letheby know too well), grievously +disappointed. + +In this kennel of evil savours, Heale was slowly trying to poke things +into something like order; and dragging out a few old drugs with a +shaky hand, to see if any one would buy them, in a vague expectation +that something must needs have happened to somebody the night before, +which would require somewhat of his art. + +And he was not disappointed. Gentleman Jan, without taking his pipe +out of his mouth, dropped his huge elbows on the counter, and his +black-fringed chin on his fists; took a look round the shop, as if to +find something which would suit him; and then-- + +"I say, Doctor, gi's some tackleum." + +"Some diachylum plaster, Mr. Beer?" says Heale, meekly. "What for, +then?" + +"To tackle my shins. I barked 'em cruel against King Arthur's nose +last night. Hard in the bone he is;--wish I was as hard." + +"How much diachylum will you want, then, Mr. Beer?" + +"Well, I don't know. Let's see!" and Jan pulls up his blue trousers, +and pulls down his grey rig and furrows, and considers his broad and +shaggy shins. + +"Matter of four pennies broad: two to each leg;" and then replaces his +elbows, and smokes on. + +"I say, Doctor, that 'ere curate come out well last night. I shall go +to church next Sunday." + +"What," asks the satellite, "after you upset he that fashion +yesterday?" + +"I don't care what you thinks;" says Jan, who, of course, bullies his +jackal, like most lions: "but I goes to church. He's a good 'un, say +I,--little and good, like a Welshman's cow; and clapped me on the back +when we'd got the man and the maid safe, and says,--'Well done our +side, old fellow!' and stands something hot all round, what's more, in +at the Mariner's Rest.--I say, Doctor, where's he as we hauled ashore? +I'll go up and see 'un." + +"Not now, then, Mr. Beer; not now, then. He's sleeping, indeed he is, +like any child." + +"So much the better. We wain't be bothered with his hollering. But go +up I will. Do ye let me now; I'll be as still as a maid." + +And Jan kicked off his shoes, and marched on tip-toe through the shop, +while Dr. Heale, moaning professional ejaculations, showed him the +way. + +The shipwrecked man was sleeping sweetly; and little was to be seen of +his face, so covered was it with dark tangled curls and thick beard. + +"Ah! a 'Stralian digger, by the beard of him, and his red jersey," +whispered Jan, as he bent tenderly over the poor fellow, and put his +head on one side to listen to his breathing. "Beautiful he sleeps, to +be sure!" said Jan: "and a tidy-looking chap, too. 'Tis a pity to +wake 'un, poor wratch; and he, perhaps, with a sweetheart aboard, and +drownded; or else all his kit lost.--Let 'un sleep so long as he can: +he'll find all out soon enough, God help him!" + +And big Jan stole down the stairs gently and reverently, like a true +sailor; and took his diachylum, and went off to plaster his shins. + +About ten minutes afterwards, Heale was made aware that his guest was +awake, "by sundry grunts and ejaculations, which ended in a series of +long and doleful whistles, and then broke out into a song. So he went +up, and found the stranger sitting upright in bed, combing his curls +with his fingers, and chaunting unto himself a cheerful ditty. + +"Good morning, Doctor," quoth he, as his host entered. "Very kind of +you, this. Hope I haven't turned a better man than myself out of his +bed." + +"Delighted to see you so well. Very near drowned, though. We were +pumping at your lungs for a full half hour." + +"Ah? nothing, though, for an experienced professional man like you!" + +"Hum! speaks well for your discrimination," says Heale, flattered. +"Very well-spoken young person, though his beard is a bit wild.--How +did you know, then, that I was a doctor?" + +"By the reverend looks of you, sir. Besides, I smelt the rhubarb +and senna all the way up-stairs, and knew that I'd fallen among +professional brethren;-- + + "'Oh, then this valiant mariner, + Which sailed across the sea, + He came home to his own sweetheart, + With his heart so full of glee; + + With his heart so full of glee, sir, + And his pockets full of gold, + And his bag of drugget, with many a nugget, + As heavy as he could hold.' + +"Don't you wish yours was, Doctor?" + +"Eh, eh, eh," sniggered Heale. + +"Mine was last night. Now, Doctor, let's have a glass of +brandy-and-water, hot with, and an hour's more sleep; and then kick +me out, and into the workhouse. Was anybody else saved from the wreck +last night?" + +"Nobody, sir," said Heale; and said "sir," because, in spite of the +stranger's rough looks, his accent,--or rather, his no-accent,--showed +him that he had fallen in with a very different, and probably a very +superior stamp of man to himself; in the light of which conviction +(and being withal a good-natured old soul), he went down and mixed him +a stiff glass of brandy-and water, answering his wife's remonstrances +by-- + +"The party up-stairs is a bit of a frantic party, certainly; but he is +certainly a very superior party, and has the true gentleman about him, +any one can see. Besides, he's shipwrecked, as you and I may be any +day; and what's like brandy-and-water?" + +"I should like to know when I'm like to be shipwrecked, or you +either;" says Mrs. Heale, in a tone slightly savouring of indignation +and contempt. "You think of nothing but brandy-and-water." But she let +the doctor take the glass upstairs, nevertheless. + +A few minutes afterwards, Frank came in, and inquired for the +shipwrecked man. + +"Well enough in body, sir; and rather requires your skill than mine," +said the old time-server. "Won't you walk up?" + +So up Frank was shown. + +The stranger was sitting up in bed. "Capital, your brandy is, +Doctor,--Ah, sir," seeing Frank, "it is very kind of you, I am sure, +to call on me! I presume you are the clergyman?" + +But before Frank could answer, Heale had broken forth into loud +praises of him, setting forth how the stranger owed his life entirely +to his superhuman strength and courage. + +"'Pon my word, sir," said the stranger,--looking them both over and +over, through and through, as if to settle how much of all this he was +to believe,--"I am deeply indebted to you for your gallantry. I only +wish it had been employed on a better subject." + +"My good sir," said Frank, blushing, "you owe your life not to me. I +would have helped if I could; but was not thought worthy by our sons +of Anak here. Your actual preserver was a young girl." + +And Frank told him the story. + +"Whew! I hope she won't expect me to marry her as payment.--Handsome?" + +"Beautiful," said Frank. + +"Money?" + +"The village schoolmistress." + +"Clever?" + +"A sort of half-baked body," said Heale. + +"A very puzzling intellect," said Frank + +"Ah--well--that's a fair excuse for declining the honour. I can't be +expected to marry a frantic party, as you called me down stairs just +now, Doctor." + +"I, sir?" + +"Yes, I heard; no offence, though, my good sir,--but I've the ears +of a fox. I hope really, though, that she is none the worse for her +heroic flights." + +"How is she this morning, Mr. Heale?" + +"Well--poor thing, a little light-headed last night: but kindly when I +went in last." + +"Whew! I hope she has not fallen in love with me. She may fancy me her +property--a private waif and stray. Better send for the Coast-guard +officer, and let him claim me as belonging to the Admiralty, as +flotsom, jetsom, and lagend; for I was all three last night." + +"You were, indeed, sir," said Frank, who began to be a little tired of +this levity; "and very thankful to Heaven you ought to be." + +Frank spake this in a somewhat professional tone of voice; at which +the stranger arched his eyebrows, screwed his lips up, and laid his +ears back, like a horse when he meditates a kick, + +"You must be better acquainted with my affairs than I am, my dear sir, +if you are able to state that fact.--Doctor! I hear a patient coming +into the surgery." + +"Extraordinary power of hearing, to be sure," said Heale, toddling +down stairs, while the stranger went on, looking Frank full in the +face. + +"Now that old fogy's gone down stairs, my dear sir, let us come to an +understanding at the beginning of our acquaintance. Of course, you're +bound by your cloth to say that sort of thing to me, just as I am +bound by it not to swear in your company: but you'll allow me to +remark, that it would be rather trying even to your faith, if you were +to be thrown ashore with nothing in the world but an old jersey and a +bag of tobacco, two hundred miles short of the port where you hoped to +land with fifteen hundred well-earned pounds in your pocket." + +"My dear sir," said Frank, after a pause, "whatsoever comes from our +Father's hand must be meant in love. 'The Lord gave, and the Lord hath +taken away.'" + +A quaint wince passed over the stranger's face. + +"Father, sir? That fifteen hundred pounds was going to my father's +hand, from whosesoever hand it came, or the loss of it. And now +what is to become of the poor old man, that hussy Dame Fortune only +knows--if she knows her own mind an hour together, which I very much +doubt. I worked early and late for that money, sir; up to my knees +in mud and water. Let it be enough for your lofty demands on poor +humanity, that I take my loss like a man, with a whistle and a laugh, +instead of howling and cursing over it like a baboon. Let's talk of +something else; and lend me five pounds, and a suit of clothes. I +shan't run away with them, for as I've been thrown ashore here, here I +shall stay." + +Frank almost laughed at the free and easy request, though he felt +at once pained by the man's irreligion, and abashed by his +Stoicism;--would he have behaved even as well in such a case? + +"I have not five pounds in the world." + +"Good! we shall understand each other better." + +"But the suit of clothes you shall have at once." + +"Good again! Let it be your oldest; for I must do a little +rock-scrambling here, for purposes of my own." + +So off went Frank to fetch the clothes, puzzling over his new +parishioner. The man was not altogether well bred, either in voice or +manner; but there was an ease, a confidence, a sense of power, which +made Frank feel that he had fallen in with a very strong nature; and +one which had seen many men, and many lands, and profited by what it +had seen. + +When he returned, he found the stranger busy at his ablutions, and +gradually appearing as a somewhat dapper, handsome fellow, with a +bright grey eye, a short nose, a firm, small mouth, a broad and +upright forehead, across the left side of which ran a fearful scar. + +"That's a shrewd mark," said he, as he caught Frank's eye fixed on it, +while he sat coolly arranging himself on the bedside. "I got it in +fair fight, though, by a Crow's tomahawk in the Rocky Mountains. And +here's another token (lifting up his black curls), which a Greek +robber gave me in the Morea. I've another under my head, for which I +have to thank a Tartar, and one or two more little remembrances of +flood and field up and down me. Perhaps they may explain to you why +I take life and death so coolly. I've looked too often at the little +razor-bridge which parts them, to care much for either. Now, don't +let me trouble you any longer. You have your flock to see to, I don't +doubt. You'll find me at church on Sunday. I always do at Rome as Rome +does." + +"Then you will stay away," said Frank, with a sad smile. + +"Ah? No. Church is respectable and aristocratic; and there one don't +get sent to a place unmentionable, ten times an hour, by some inspired +tinker. Beside, country people like the Doctor to go to church with +their betters; and the very fellows who go to the Methodist meeting +themselves would think it _infra dig._ in me to walk in there. Now, +good-bye--though I haven't introduced myself--not knowing the name of +my kind preserver." + +"My name is Frank Headley, Curate of the Parish," said Frank, smiling: +though he saw the man was rattling on for the purpose of preventing +his talking on serious matters. + +"And mine is Tom Thurnall, F.R.C.S., Licentiate of the Universities +of Paris, Glasgow, and whilome surgeon of the good clipper Hesperus, +which you saw wrecked last night. So, farewell!" + +"Come over with me, and have some breakfast." + +"No, thanks; you'll be busy. I'll screw some out of old bottles here." + +"And now," said Tom Thurnall to himself, as Frank left the room, "to +begin life again with an old penknife and a pound of honeydew. I +wonder which of them got my girdle. I'll stick here till I find out +that one thing, and stop the notes by to-day's post if I can but +recollect them all;--if I could but stop the nugget, too!" + +So saying, he walked down into the surgery, and looked round. +Everything was in confusion. Cobwebs were over the bottles, and armies +of mites played at bo-peep behind them. He tried a few drawers, and +found that they stuck fast; and when he at last opened one, its +contents were two old dried-up horse-balls, and a dirty tobacco-pipe. +He took down a jar marked Epsom salts, and found it full of Welsh +snuff; the next, which was labelled cinnamon, contained blue vitriol. +The spatula and pill-roller were crusted with deposits of every hue. +The pill-box drawer had not a dozen whole boxes in it; and the counter +was a quarter of an inch deep in deposit of every vegetable and +mineral matter, including ends of string, tobacco ashes, and broken +glass. + +Tom took up a dirty duster, and set to work coolly to clear up, +whistling away so merrily that he brought in Heale. + +"I'm doing a little in the way of business, you see." + +"Then you really are a professional practitioner, sir, as Mr. Headley +informs me: though, of course, I don't doubt the fact?" said Heale, +summoning up all the little courage he had, to ask the question with. + +"F.R.C.S. London, Paris, and Glasgow. Easy enough to write and +ascertain the fact. Have been medical officer to a poor-law union, and +to a Brazilian man-of-war. Have seen three choleras, two army fevers, +and yellow-jack without end. Have doctored gunshot wounds in the two +Texan wars, in one Paris revolution, and in the Schleswig-Holstein +row; beside accident practice in every country from California to +China, and round the world and back again. There's a fine nest of Mr. +Weekes's friend (if not creation), Acarus Horridus," and Tom went on +dusting and arranging. + +Heale had been fairly taken aback by the imposing list of +acquirements, and looked at his guest awhile with considerable awe: +suddenly a suspicion flashed across him, which caused him (not unseen +by Tom) a start and a look of self-congratulatory wisdom. He next +darted out of the shop, and returned as rapidly, rather redder about +the eyes, and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. + +"But, sir, though, though"--began he--"but, of course you will allow +me, being a stranger--and as a man of business--all I have to say is, +if--that is to say--" + +"You want to know why, if I've had all these good businesses, why I +haven't kept them?" + +"Ex--actly," stammered Heale much relieved. + +"A very sensible and business-like question: but you needn't have been +so delicate about asking it as to want a screw before beginning." + +"Ah, you're a wag, sir," keckled the old man, + +"I'll tell you frankly; I have an old father, sir,--a gentleman, and a +scholar, and a man of science; once in as good a country practice as +man could have, till, God help him, he went blind, sir--and I had to +keep him, and have still. I went over the world to make my fortune and +never made it; and sent him home what I did make, and little enough +too. At last, in my despair, I went to the diggings, and had a pretty +haul--I needn't say how much. That matters little now; for I suppose +it's at the bottom of the sea. There's my story, sir, and a poor +one enough it is,--for the dear old man, at least." And Tom's voice +trembled so as he told it, that old Heale believed every word, and, +what is more, being--like most hard drinkers--not "unused to the +melting mood," wiped his eyes fervently, and went off for another drop +of comfort; while Tom dusted and arranged on, till the shop began to +look quite smart and business-like. + +"Now, sir!"--when the old man came back--"business is business, +and beggars must not be choosers. I don't want to meddle with your +practice; I know the rules of the profession: but if you'll let me +sit here and mix your medicines for you, you'll have the more time to +visit your patients, that's clear,"--and, perhaps (thought he), to +drink your brandy-and-water,--"and when any of them are poisoned by +me, it will be time to kick me out. All I ask is, bed and board. Don't +be frightened for your spirit-bottle, I can drink water; I've done it +many a time, for a week together, in the prairies, and been thankful +for a half-pint in the day." + +"But, sir, your dignity as a--" + +"Fiddlesticks for dignity; I must live, sir. Only lend me a couple of +sheets of paper and two queen's heads, that I may tell my friends my +whereabouts,--and go and talk it over with Mrs. Heale. We must never +act without consulting the ladies." + +That day Tom sent off the following epistle:-- + +"_To_ CHARLES SHUTER, Esq., M.D, _St. Mumpsimus's Hospital, London_. + +"DEAR CHARLEY-- + + "'I do adjure thee, by old pleasant days, + Quartier Latin, and neatly-shod grisettes + By all our wanderings in quaint by-ways, + By ancient frolics, and by ancient debts,' + +"Go to the United Bank of Australia forthwith, and stop the notes +whose numbers--all, alas! which I can recollect--are enclosed. Next, +lend me five pounds. Next, send me down, as quick as possible, five +pounds' worth of decent drugs, as per list; and--if you can borrow +me one--a tolerable microscope, and a few natural history books, to +astound the yokels here with: for I was shipwrecked here last night, +after all at a dirty little west-country port, and what's worse, +robbed of all I had made at the diggings, and start fair, once more, +to run against cruel Dame Fortune, as Colston did against the Indians, +without a shirt to my back. Don't be a hospitable fellow, and ask me +to come up and camp with you. Mumpsimus's and all old faces would be a +great temptation: but here I must stick till I hear of my money, and +physic the natives for my daily bread." + +To his father he wrote thus, not having the heart to tell the truth:-- + +"_To_ EDWARD THURNALL, Esq., M.D., _Whitbury_. + +"My Dearest Old Father--I hope to see you again in a few weeks, as +soon as I have settled a little business here, where I have found a +capital opening for a medical man. Meanwhile let Mark or Mary write +and tell me how you are--and for sending you every penny I can spare, +trust me. I have not had all the luck I expected; but am as hearty as +a bull, and as merry as a cricket, and fall on my legs, as of old, +like a cat. I long to come to you; but I mustn't yet. It is near three +years since I had a sight of that blessed white head, which is the +only thing I care for under the sun, except Mark and little Mary--big +Mary I suppose she is now, and engaged to be married to some 'bloated +aristocrat.' Best remembrances to old Mark Armsworth. + +"Your affectionate son, + +"T.T." + +"Mr. Heale," said Tom next, "are we Whigs or Tories here?" + +"Why--ahem, sir, my Lord Scoutbush, who owns most hereabouts, and my +Lord Minchampstead, who has bought Carcarrow moors above,--very old +Whig connections, both of them; but Mr. Trebooze, of Trebooze, he, +again, thorough-going Tory--very good patient he was once, and may be +again--ha! ha! Gay young man, sir--careless of his health; so you see +as a medical man, sir--" + +"Which is the liberal paper? This one? Very good." And Tom wrote off +to the liberal paper that evening a letter, which bore fruit ere the +week's end, in the shape of five columns, headed thus:-- + +WRECK OF THE "HESPERUS." + +"The following detailed account of this lamentable catastrophe has +been kindly contributed by the graphic pen of the only survivor, +Thomas Thurnall, Esquire, F.R.C.S., &c. &c. &c., late surgeon on board +the ill-fated vessel." Which five columns not only put a couple of +guineas into Tom's pocket, but, as he intended they should, brought +him before the public as an interesting personage, and served as +a very good advertisement to the practice which Tom had already +established in fancy. + +Tom had not worked long, however, before the Coast-guard Lieutenant +bustled in. He had trotted home to shave and get his breakfast, and +was trotting back again to the shore. + +"Hillo, Heale! can I see the fellow who was saved last night?" + +"I am that fellow," says Tom. + +"The dickens you are! you seem to have fallen on your legs quickly +enough." + +"It's a trick I've had occasion to learn, sir," says Tom. "Can I +prescribe for you this morning?" + +"Medicine?" roars the Lieutenant, laughing. "Catch me at it! No; I +want you to come down to the shore, and help to identify goods and +things. The wind has chopped up north, and is blowing dead on; and, +with this tide, we shall have a good deal on shore. So, if you're +strong enough--" + +"I'm always strong enough to do my duty," said Tom. + +"Hum! Very good sentiment, young man. Always strong enough for +duty.--Hum! worthy of Nelson; said pretty much the same, didn't he? +something about duty I know it was, and always thought it uncommon +fine.--Now, then, what can you tell me about this business?" + +It was a sad story; but no sadder than hundreds beside. They had been +struck by the gale to the westward two days before, with the wind +south; had lost their foretopmast and boltsprit, and become all but +unmanageable; had tried during a lull to rig a jury-mast, but were +prevented by the gale, which burst on them with fresh fury from the +south-west, with very heavy rain and fog; had passed a light in the +night, which they took for Scilly, but which must have been the +Longships; had still fancied that they were safe, running up Channel +with a wide berth, when, about sunset, the gale had chopped again to +north-west;--and Tom knew no more. "I was standing on the poop with +the captain about ten o'clock. The last words he said to me were,--'If +this lasts, we shall see Brest harbour to-morrow,' when she struck, +and stopped dead. I was chucked clean off the poop, and nearly +overboard; but brought up in the mizen rigging. Where the captain +went, poor fellow, Heaven alone knows; for I never saw him after. +The mainmast went like a carrot. The mizen stood. I ran round to the +cabin-doors. There were four men steering; the wheel had broke out of +the poor fellows' hands, and knocked them over,--broken their limbs, +I believe. I was stooping to pick them up, when a sea came into the +waist, and then aft, washing me in through the saloon-doors, among the +poor half-dressed women and children. Queer sight, Lieutenant! I've +seen a good many, but never worse than that. I bolted to my cabin, +tied my notes and gold round me, and out again." + +"Didn't desert the poor things?" + +"Couldn't if I'd tried; they clung to me like a swarm of bees. 'Gad, +sir, that was hard lines! to have all the pretty women one had waltzed +with every evening through the Trades, and the little children one had +been making playthings for, holding round one's knees, and screaming +to the doctor to save them. And how the ---- was I to save them, +sir?" cried Tom, with a sudden burst of feeling, which, as in so many +Englishmen, exploded in anger to avoid melting in tears. + +"Ought to be a law against it, sir," growled the Lieutenant; "against +women-folk and children going to sea. It's murder and cruelty. I've +been wrecked, scores of times; but it was with honest men, who could +shift for themselves, and if they were drowned, drowned; but didn't +screech and catch hold--I couldn't stand that! Well?" + +"Well, there was a pretty little creature, an officer's widow, and two +children. I caught her under one arm, and one of the children under +the other;--said 'I can't take you all at once; I'll come back for the +rest, one by one.'--Not that I believed it; but anything to stop the +screaming; and I did hope to put some of them out of the reach of the +sea, if I could get them forward. I knew the forecastle was dry, for +the chief officer was firing there. You heard him?" + +"Yes, five or six times; and then he stopped suddenly." + +"He had reason.--We got out. I could see her nose up in the air forty +feet above us, covered with fore-cabin passengers. I warped the lady +and the children upward--Heaven knows how; for the sea was breaking +over us very sharp--till we were at the mainmast stump, and holding on +by the wreck of it. I felt the ship stagger as if a whale had struck +her, and heard a roar and a swish behind me, and looked back--just in +time to see mizen, and poop, and all the poor women and children in +it, go bodily, as if they had been shaved off with a knife. I suppose +that altered her balance; for before I could turn again she dived +forward, and then rolled over upon her beam ends to leeward, and I saw +the sea walk in over her from stem to stern like one white wall, and I +was washed from my hold, and it was all over." + +"What became of the lady?" + +"I saw a white thing flash by to leeward,--what's the use of asking?" + +"But the child you held?" + +"I didn't let it go till there was good reason." + +"Eh?" + +Tom tapped the points of his fingers smartly against the side of +his head, and then went on, in the same cynical drawl, which he had +affected throughout-- + +"I heard that--against a piece of timber as we went overboard And, +as a medical man, I considered after that, that I had done my duty. +Pretty little boy it was, just six years old: and such a fancy for +drawing." + +The Lieutenant was quite puzzled by Tom's seeming nonchalance. + +"What do you mean, sir? Did you leave the child to perish?" + +"Confound you, sir! If you will have plain English, here it is. I tell +you I heard the child's skull crack like an egg-shell! There, let's +talk no more about it, or the whole matter. It's a bad business, and +I'm not answerable for it, or you either; so let's go and do what we +are answerable for, and identify--" + +"Sir! you will be so good as to recollect," said the Lieutenant, with +ruffled plumes. + +"I do; I do! I beg your pardon a thousand times, I'm sure, for being +so rude: but you know as well as I, sir, there are a good many things +in the world which won't stand too much thinking over; and last night +was one." + +"Very true, very true; but how did you get ashore?" + +"I get ashore? Oh, well enough! Why not?" + +"'Gad, sir, you were near enough being drowned at last; only that +girl's pluck saved you." + +"Well; but it did save me: and here I am, as I knew I should be when I +first struck out from the ship." + +"Knew!--that is a bold word for mortal man at sea." + +"I suppose it is: but we doctors, you see, get into the way of looking +at things as men of science; and the ground of science is experience; +and, to judge from experience, it takes more to kill me than I have +yet met with. If I had been going to be snuffed out, it would have +happened long ago." + +"Hum! It's well to carry a cheerful heart; but the pitcher goes often +to the well, and comes home broken at last." + +"I must be a gutta-percha pitcher, I think, then, or else-- + + "'There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft,' etc. + +as Dibdin has it. Now, look at the facts yourself, sir," continued the +stranger, with a recklessness half true, half assumed to escape from +the malady of thought. "I don't want to boast, sir; I only want +to show you that I have some practical reason for wearing as my +motto--'Never say die.' I have had the cholera twice, and yellow-jack +beside: five several times I have had bullets through me; I have been +bayoneted and left for dead; I have been shipwrecked three times--and +once, as now, I was the only man who escaped; I have been fatted by +savages for baking and eating, and got away with a couple of friends +only a day or two before the feast. One really narrow chance I had, +which I never expected to squeeze through: but, on the whole, I have +taken full precautions to prevent its recurrence." + +"What was that, then?" + +"I have been hanged, sir," said the doctor quietly. + +"Hanged?" cried the Lieutenant, facing round upon his strange +companion with a visage which asked plainly enough--"You hanged! I +don't believe you; and if you have been hanged, what have you been +doing to get hanged?" + +"You need not take care of your pockets, sir,--neither robbery +nor murder was it which brought me to the gallows; but innocent +bug-hunting. The fact is, I was caught by a party of Mexicans, during +the last war, straggling after plants and insects, and hanged as a +spy. I don't blame the fellows: I had no business where I was; and +they could not conceive that a man would risk his life for a few +butterflies." + +"But if you were hanged, sir--" + +"Why did I not die?--By my usual luck. The fellows were clumsy, and +the noose would not work; so that the Mexican doctor, who meant to +dissect me, brought me round again; and being a freemason, as I am, +stood by me,--got me safe off, and cheated the devil." + +The worthy Lieutenant walked on in silence, stealing furtive glances +at Tom, as if he had been a guest from the other world, but not +disbelieving his story in the least. He had seen, as most old navy +men, so many strange things happen, that he was prepared to give +credit to any tale when told, as Tom's was, with a straightforward and +unboastful simplicity. + +"There lives the girl who saved you," said he, as they passed Grace +Harvey's door. + +"Ah? I ought to call and pay my respects." + +But Grace was not at home. The wreck had emptied the school; and Grace +had gone after her scholars to the beach. + +"We couldn't keep her away, weak as she was," said a neighbour, "as +soon as she heard the poor corpses were coming ashore." + +"Hum?" said Tom. "True woman. Quaint,--that appetite for horrors the +sweet creatures have. Did you ever see a man hanged, Lieutenant?--No? +If you had, you would have seen two women in the crowd to one man. Can +you make out the philosophy of that?" + +"I suppose they like it, as some people do hot peppers." + +"Or donkeys thistles;--find a little pain pleasant! I had a patient +once in France, who read Dumas' 'Crimes Celebres' all the week, and +the 'Vies des Saints' on Sundays, and both, as far as I could see, for +just the same purpose,--to see how miserable people could be, and how +much pinching and pulling they could bear." + +So they walked on, along a sheep-path, and over the Spur, and down to +the Cove. + +It was such a morning as often follows a gale, when the great +firmament stares down upon the ruin which it has made, bright and +clear, and bold; and seems to say, with shameless smile,--"There, +I have done it; and am as merry as ever after it all!" Beneath a +cloudless sky, the breakers, still grey and foul from the tempest, +were tumbling in before a cold northern breeze. Half a mile out at +sea, the rough backs of the Chough and Crow loomed black and sulky in +the foam. At their feet, the rocks and shingle of the Cove were alive +with human beings--groups of women and children clustering round a +corpse or a chest; sailors, knee-deep in the surf hauling at floating +spars and ropes; oil-skinned coast-guardsmen pacing up and down in +charge of goods, while groups of farmers' men, who had hurried down +from the villages inland, lounged about on the top of the cliff, +looking sulkily on, hoping for plunder: and yet half afraid to mingle +with the sailors below, who looked on them as an inferior race, and +refused, in general, to intermarry with them. + +The Lieutenant plainly held much the same opinion; for as a party of +them tried to descend the narrow path to the beach, he shouted after +them to come back. + +"Eh! you won't?" and out rattled from its scabbard the old worthy's +sword. "Come back, I say, you loafing, miching, wrecking crow-keepers; +there are no pickings for you here. Brown, send those fellows back +with the bayonet. None but blue-jackets allowed on the beach!" And the +labourers go up again, grumbling. + +"Can't trust those landsharks. They'll plunder even the rings off a +corpse's fingers. They think every wreck a godsend. I've known them, +after they've been driven off, roll great stones over the cliff at +night on the coast-guard, just out of spite; while these blue-jackets +here--I can depend on them. Can you tell me the reason of that, as you +seem a bit of a philosopher?" + +"It is easy enough; the sailors have a fellow-feeling with sailors, +and the landsmen have none. Besides, the sailors are finer fellows, +body and soul; and the reason is that they have been brought up to +face danger, and the landsmen haven't." + +"Well," said the Lieutenant, "unless a man has been taught to look +death in the face, he never will grow up, I believe, to be much of a +man at all." + +"Danger, my good sir, is a better schoolmaster than all your new model +schools, diagrams, and scientific apparatus. It made our forefathers +the masters of the sea, though they never heard of popular science; +and I dare say couldn't, one out of ten of them, spell their own +names." + +This sentiment elicited from the Lieutenant a grunt of approbation, as +Tom intended that it should do; shrewdly arguing that the old martinet +was no friend to the modern superstition, that all which is required +to cast out the devil is a smattering of the 'ologies. + +"Will the gentleman see the corpses?" asked Brown; "we have fourteen +already;"--and he led the way to where, along the shingle at +high-water mark, lay a ghastly row, some fearfully bruised and +mutilated, cramped together by the death-agony; others with the +peaceful smile which showed that they had sunk to sleep in that +strange water-death, amid a wilderness of pleasant dreams. Strong men +lay there, little children, women, whom the sailors' wives had covered +decently with cloaks and shawls; and at their heads stood Grace +Harvey, motionless, with folded hands, gazing into the dead faces +with her great solemn eyes. Her mother and Captain Willis stood by, +watching her with a sort of superstitions awe. She took no notice +either of Thurnall or of the Lieutenant, as the doctor identified the +bodies one by one, without a remark which indicated any human emotion. + +"A very sensible man, Willis," said the Lieutenant apart, as Tom knelt +awhile to examine the crushed features of a sailor; and then looking +up said simply,-- + +"James Macgillivray, second mate. Cause of death, contusions; probably +by the fall of the main-mast." + +"A very sensible man, and has seen a deal of life, and kept his eyes +open; but a terrible hard-plucked one. Talked like a book to me all +the way; but, be hanged if I don't think he has a thirty-two pound +shot under his ribs instead of a heart.--Doctor Thurnall, that is Miss +Harvey,--the young person who saved your life last night." + +Tom rose, took off his hat (Frank Headley's), and made her a bow, of +which an ambassador need not have been ashamed. + +"I am exceedingly shocked that Miss Harvey should have run so much +danger for anything so worthless as my life." + +She looked up at him, and answered, not him, but her own thoughts. + +"Strange, is it not, that it was a duty to pray for all these poor +things last night, and a sin to pray for them this morning?" + +"Grace, dear!" interposed her mother, "don't you hear the gentleman +thanking you?" + +She started, as one awaking out of a dream, and looked into his face, +blushing scarlet. + +"Good heavens, what a beautiful creature!" said Tom to himself, as +quite a new emotion passed through him. Quite new it was, whatsoever +it was; and he was aware of it. He had had his passions, his +intrigues, in past years, and prided himself--few men more--on +understanding women; but the expression of the face, and the strange +words with which she had greeted him, added to the broad fact of +her having offered her own life for his, raised in him a feeling of +chivalrous awe and admiration, which no other woman had ever called +up. + +"Madam," he said again; "I can repay you with nothing but thanks: but, +to judge from your conduct last night, you are one of those people +who will find reward enough in knowing that you have done a noble and +heroic action." + +She looked at him very steadfastly, blushing still. Thurnall, be it +understood, was (at least, while his face was in the state in which +Heaven intended it to be, half hidden in a silky-brown beard) a very +good-looking fellow; and (to use Mark Armsworth's description) "as +hard as a nail; as fresh as a rose; and stood on his legs like a +game-cock." Moreover, as Willis said approvingly, he had spoken to her +"as if he was a duke, and she was a duchess." Besides, by some blessed +moral law, the surest way to make oneself love any human being is to +go and do him a kindness; and therefore Grace had already a tender +interest in Tom, not because he had saved her, but she him. And so it +was, that a strange new emotion passed through her heart also, though +so little understood by her, that she put it forthwith into words. + +"You might repay me," she said in a sad and tender tone. + +"You have only to command me," said Tom, wincing a little as the words +passed his lips. + +"Then turn to God, now in the day of His mercies. Unless you have +turned to Him already." + +One glance at Tom's rising eyebrows told her what he thought upon +those matters. + +She looked at him sadly, lingeringly, as if conscious that she ought +not to look too long, and yet unable to withdraw her eyes.--"Ah! and +such a precious soul as yours must be; a precious soul--all taken, and +you alone left! God must have high things in store for you. He must +have a great work for you to do. Else, why are you not as one of +these! Oh, think! where would you have been at this moment if God had +dealt with you as with them?" + +"Where I am now, I suppose," said Tom quietly. + +"Where you are now?" + +"Yes: where I ought to be. I am where I ought to be now. I suppose if +I had found myself anywhere else this morning, I should have taken it +as a sign that I was wanted there, and not here." + +Grace heaved a sigh at words which were certainly startling. The Stoic +optimism of the world-hardened doctor was new and frightful to her. + +"My good madam," said he, "the part of Scripture which I appreciate +best, just now, is the case of poor Job, where Satan has leave to rob +and torment him to the utmost of his wicked will, provided only he +does not touch his life, I wish," he went on, lowering his voice, "to +tell you something which I do not wish publicly talked of; but in +which you may help me. I had nearly fifteen hundred pounds about me +when I came ashore last night, sewed in a belt round my waist. It is +gone. That is all." + +Tom looked steadily at her as he spoke. She turned pale, red, pale +again, her lips quivered: but she spoke no word. + +"She has it, as I live!" thought Tom to himself. "'Frailty, thy name +is woman!' The canting, little, methodistical humbug! She must have +slipped it off my waist as I lay senseless. I suppose she means to +keep it in pawn, till I redeem it by marrying her. Well I might take +an uglier mate certainly; but when I do enter into the bitter bonds of +matrimony, I should like to be sure, beforehand, that my wife was not +a thief!" + +Why, then, did not Tom, if he were so very sure of Grace's having the +belt, charge her with the theft? because he had found out already how +popular she was, and was afraid of merely making himself unpopular; +because, too, he took for granted that whosoever had his belt, had +hidden it already beyond the reach of a search warrant; and, because, +after all, an honourable shame restrained him. It would be a poor +return to the woman who had saved his life to charge her with theft +the next morning; and more, there was something about that girl's face +which had made him feel that, if he had seen her put the belt into her +pocket before his eyes, he could not have found the heart to have sent +her to gaol. "No!" thought he; "I'll get it out of her, or whoever has +it, and stay here till I do get it. One place is as good as another to +me." + +But what was Grace saying? + +She had turned, after two or three minutes' astonished silence, to her +mother and Captain Willis-- + +"Belt! Mother! Uncle! What is this? The gentleman has lost a belt?" + +"Dear me!--a belt! Well, child, that's not much to grieve over, when +the Lord has spared his life and soul from the pit!" said her mother, +somewhat testily. + +"You don't understand. A belt, I say, full of money--fifteen hundred +pounds; he lost it last night. Uncle! Speak, quick! Did you see a +belt?" + +Willis shook his head meditatively. "I don't, and yet I do, and yet +I don't again. My brains were, well-nigh washed out of me, I know. +However, sir, I'll think, and talk it over with you too; for if it be +in the village, found it ought to be, and will be, with God's help." + +"Found?" cried Grace, in so high a key, that Tom entreated her to calm +herself, and not make the matter public.--"Found? yes; and shall be +found, if there be justice in heaven. Shame that west-country folk +should turn robbers and wreckers! Mariners, too, and manners' wives, +who should be praying for those who are wandering far away, each man +with his life in his hand! Ah, what a world! When will it end? soon, +too soon, when west-country folk rob shipwrecked men! But you will +find your belt; yes, sir, you will find it. Wait till you have learnt +to do without it. Man does not live by bread alone. Do you think he +lives by gold? Only be patient; and when you are worthy of it, you +shall find it again, in the Lord's good time." + +To the doctor this seemed a mere burst of jargon, invented for the +purpose of hiding guilt; and his faith in womankind was not heightened +when he heard Grace's mother say, _sotto voce_ to Willis, that--"In +wrecks, and fires, and such like, a many people complained of having +lost more than ever they had." + +"Oh ho! my old lady, is that the way the fox is gone?" quoth Tom to +that trusty counsellor, himself; and began carefully scrutinising Mrs. +Harvey's face. It had been very handsome: it was still very clever: +but the eyebrows, crushed together downwards above her nose, and +rising high at the outer corners, indicated, as surely as the restless +down-dropt eye, a character self-conscious, furtive, capable of great +inconsistencies, possibly of great deceits. + +"You don't look me in the face, old lady!" quoth Tom to himself. "Very +well! between you two it lies; unless that old gentleman implicates +himself also, in his approaching confession." + +He took his part at once. "Well, well, you will oblige me by saying +nothing more about it. After all, as this good lady says, the loss of +a little money is not worth complaining over, when one has escaped +with life. Good morning; and many thanks for all your kindness!" + +And Tom made another grand bow, and went off to the Lieutenant. + +Grace looked after him awhile, as one stunned; and then turned to her +mother. + +"Let us go home." + +"Go home? Why there, dear?" + +"Let me go home; you need not come. I am sick of this world. Is it +not enough to have misery and death (and she pointed to the row of +corpses), but we must have sin, too, wherever we turn! Meanness and +theft:--and ingratitude too!" she added, in a lower tone. + +She went homeward; her mother, in spite of her entreaties, accompanied +her; and, for some reason or other, did not lose sight of her all that +day, or for several days after. + +Meanwhile, Willis had beckoned the Doctor aside. His face was serious +and sad, and his lips were trembling. + +"This is a very shocking business, sir. Of course, you've told the +Lieutenant." + +"Not yet, my good sir." + +"But--excuse my boldness; what plainer way of getting it back from the +rascal, whoever he is?" + +"Wait awhile," said Tom; "I have my reasons." + +"But, sir--for the honour of the place, the matter should be cleared +up; and till the thief's found, suspicion will lie on a dozen innocent +men; myself among the rest, for that matter." + +"You?" said Tom, smiling. "I don't know who I have the honour to speak +to; but you don't look much like a gentleman who wishes for a trip to +Botany Bay." + +The old man chuckled, and then his face dropped again. + +"I'm glad you take the thing so like a man, sir; but it is really no +laughing matter. It's a scoundrelly job, only fit for a Maltee off the +Nix Mangeery. If it had been a lot of those carter fellows that had +carried you up, I could have understood it; wrecking's born in the +bone of them: but for those four sailors that carried you up, 'gad +sir! they'd have been shot sooner. I've known 'em from boys!" and the +old man spoke quite fiercely, and looked up; his lip trembling, and +his eye moist. + +"There's no doubt that you are honest--whoever is not," thought Tom; +so he ventured a further question. + +"Then you were by all the while?" + +"All the while? Who more? And that's just what puzzles me." + +"Pray don't speak loud," said Tom. "I have my reasons for keeping +things quiet." + +"I tell you, sir. I held the maid, and big John Beer (Gentleman Jan +they call him) held me; and the maid had both her hands tight in your +belt. I saw it as plain as I see you, just before the wave covered +us, though little I thought what was in it; and should never have +remembered you had a belt at all, if I hadn't thought over things in +the last five minutes." + +"Well, sir, I am lucky in having come straight to the fountain head; +and must thank you for telling me so frankly what you know." + +"Tell you, sir? What else should one do but tell you? I only wish I +knew more; and more I'll know, please the Lord. And you'll excuse an +old sailor (though not of your rank, sir) saying that he wonders a +little that you don't take the plain means of knowing more yourself." + +"May I take the liberty of asking your name?" said Tom; who saw by +this time that the old man was worthy of his confidence. + +"Willis, at your service, sir. Captain they call me, though I'm none. +Sailing-master I was, on board of His Majesty's ship Niobe, 84;" and +Willis raised his hat with such an air, that Tom raised his in return. + +"Then, Captain Willis, let me have five words with you apart; first +thanking you for having helped to save my life." + +"I'm very glad I did, sir; and thanked God for it on my knees this +morning: but you'll excuse me, sir, I was thinking--and no blame to +me--more of saving my poor maid's life than yours, and no offence to +you, for I hadn't the honour of knowing you; but for her, I'd have +been drowned a dozen times over." + +"No offence, indeed," said Tom; and hardly knew what to say next. "May +I ask, is she your niece? I heard her call you uncle." + +"Oh, no--no relation; only I look on her as my own, poor thing, having +no father; and she always calls me uncle, as most do us old men in the +West." + +"Well, then, sir," said Tom, "you will answer for none of the four +sailors having robbed me?" + +"I've said it, sir." + +"Was any one else close to her when we were brought ashore?" + +"No one but I. I brought her round myself." + +"And who took her home?" + +"Her mother and I." + +"Very good. And you never saw the belt after she had her hands in it?" + +"No; I'm sure not." + +"Was her mother by her when she was lying on the rock?" + +"No; came up afterwards, just as I got her on her feet." + +"Humph! What sort of a character is her mother?" + +"Oh, a tidy, God-fearing person, enough. One of these Methodist +class-leaders, Brianites they call themselves. I don't hold with them, +though I do go to chapel at whiles: but there are good ones among +them; and I do believe she's one, though she's a little fretful +at times. Keeps a little shop that don't pay over well; and those +preachers live on her a good deal, I think. Creeping into widows' +houses, and making long prayers--you know the text." + +"Well, now, Captain Willis, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but do +you not see that one of two things I must believe,--either that the +belt was torn off my waist, and washed back into the sea, as it may +have been after all; or else, that--" + +"Do you mean that she took it?" asked Willis, in voice of such +indignant astonishment that Tom could only answer by a shrug of the +shoulders. + +"Who else could have done so, on your own showing?" + +"Sir!" said Willis, slowly. "I thought I had to do with a gentleman: +but I have my doubts of it now. A poor girl risks her life to drag you +out of that sea, which but for her would have hove your body up to lie +along with that line there,"--and Willis pointed to the ghastly row--" +and your soul gone to give in its last account--You only know what +that would have been like--And the first thing you do in payment is +to accuse her of robbing you--her, that the very angels in heaven, I +believe, are glad to keep company with;" and the old man turned and +paced the beach in fierce excitement. + +"Captain Willis," said Tom, "I'll trouble you to listen patiently and +civilly to me a minute." + +Willis stopped, drew himself up, and touched his hat mechanically. + +"Just because I am a gentleman, I have not accused her; but held +my tongue, and spoken to you in confidence. Now, perhaps, you will +understand why I have said nothing to the Lieutenant." + +Willis looked up at him. + +"I beg your pardon, sir. I see now, and I'm sorry if I was rude; but +it took me aback, and does still. I tell you, sir," quoth he, warming +again, "whatever's true,--that's false. You're wrong there, if you +never are wrong again; and you'll say so yourself, before you've known +her a week. No, sir! If you could make me believe that, I should never +believe in goodness again on earth; but hold all men, and women too, +and those above, for aught I know, that are greater than men and +women, for liars together." + +What was to be answered? Perhaps only what Tom did answer. + +"My good sir, I will say no more. I would not have said that much if I +had thought I should have pained you so. I suppose that the belt was +washed into the sea. Why not?" + +"Why not, indeed, sir? That's a much more Christian-like way of +looking at it, than to blacken your own soul before God by suspecting +that sweet innocent creature." + +"Be it so, then. Only say nothing about the matter; and beg them to +say nothing. If it be jammed among the rocks (as it might be, heavy as +it is), talking about it will only set people looking for it; and +I suppose there is a man or two, even in Aberalva, who would find +fifteen hundred pounds a tempting bait. If, again, some one finds it, +and makes away with it, he will only be the more careful to hide it if +he knows that I am on the look-out. So just tell Miss Harvey and her +mother that I think it must have been lost, and beg them to keep my +secret. And now shake hands with me." + +"The best plan, I believe, though bad, is the best," said Willis, +holding out his hand; and he walked away sadly. His spirit had been +altogether ruffled by the imputation on Grace's character: and, +besides, the chances of Thurnall's recovering his money seemed to him +very small. + +In five minutes he returned. + +"If you would allow me, sir, there's a man there of whom I should like +to ask one question. He who held me, and, after that, helped to carry +you up;" and he pointed to Gentleman Jan, who stood, dripping from the +waist downward, over a chest which he had just secured. "Just let us +ask him, off-hand like, whether you had a belt on when he carried you +up. You may trust him, sir. He'd knock you down as soon as look at +you; but tell a lie, never." + +They went to the giant; and, after cordial salutations, Tom propounded +his question carelessly, with something like a white lie. + +"It's no great matter; but it was an old friend, you see, with +fittings for my knife and pistols, and I should be glad to find it +again." + +Jan thrust his red hand through his black curls, and meditated while +the water surged round his ankles. + +"Never a belt seed I, sir; leastwise while you were in my hands. I had +you round the waist all the way up, so no one could have took it off. +Why should they? And I undressed you myself; and nothing, save your +presence, was there to get off, but jersey and trousers, and a lump of +backy against your skin that looked the right sort." + +"Have some, then," said Tom, pulling out the honey-dew. "As for the +belt, I suppose it's gone to choke the dog-fish." + +And there the matter ended, outwardly at least; but only outwardly. +Tom had his own opinion, gathered from Grace's seemingly guilty +face, and to it he held, and called old Willis, in his heart, a +simple-minded old dotard, who had been taken in by her hypocrisy. + +And Tom accompanied the Lieutenant on his dreary errand that day, and +several days after, through depositions before a justice, interviews +with Lloyd's underwriters, and all the sad details which follow a +wreck. Ere the week's end, forty bodies and more had been recovered, +and brought up, ten or twelve at a time, to the churchyard, and upon +the down, and laid side by side in one long shallow pit, where Frank +Headley read over them the blessed words of hope, amid the sobs of +women, and the grand silence of stalwart men, who knew not how soon +their turn might come; and after each procession came Grace Harvey, +with all her little scholars two and two, to listen to the funeral +service; and when the last corpse was buried, they planted flowers +upon the mound, and went their way again to learn hymns and read +their Bible--little ministering angels to whom, as to most sailors' +children, death was too common a sight to have in it aught of hideous +or strange. + +And this was the end of the good ship Hesperus, and all her gallant +crew. + +Verily, however important the mere animal lives of men may be, and +ought to be, at times, in our eyes, they never have been so, to judge +from floods and earthquakes, pestilence and storm, in the eyes of +Him who made and loves us all. It is a strange fact, better for us, +instead of shutting our eyes to it because it interferes with our +modern tenderness of pain, to ask honestly what it means. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE WAY TO WIN THEM. + + +So, for a week or more, Tom went on thrivingly enough, and became a +general favourite in the town. Heale had no reason to complain of +boarding him; for he had dinner and supper thrust on him every day by +one and another, who were glad enough to have him for the sake of his +stories, and songs, and endless fun and good-humour. The Lieutenant, +above all, took the new-comer under his especial patronage, and was +paid for his services in some of Tom's incomparable honey-dew. The +old fellow soon found that the Doctor knew more than one old foreign +station of his, and ended by pouring out to him his ancient wrongs, +and the evil doings of the wicked admiral; all of which Tom heard with +deepest sympathy, and surprise that so much naval talent had remained +unappreciated by the unjust upper powers; and the Lieutenant, of +course, reported of him accordingly to Heale. + +"A very civil spoken and intelligent youngster, Mr. Heale, d'ye see, +to my mind; and you can't do better than accept his offer; for you'll +find him a great help, especially among the ladies, d'ye see. They +like a good-looking chap, eh, Mrs. Jones?" + +On the fourth day, by good fortune, what should come ashore but +Tom's own chest--moneyless, alas! but with many useful matters still +unspoilt by salt water. So, all went well, and indeed somewhat too +well (if Tom would have let it), in the case of Miss Anna Maria Heale, +the Doctor's daughter. + +She was just such a girl as her father's daughter was likely to be; a +short, stout, rosy, pretty body of twenty, with loose red lips, thwart +black eyebrows, and right naughty eyes under them; of which Tom took +good heed: for Miss Heale was exceedingly inclined, he saw, to make +use of them in his behoof. Let others who have experience in, and +taste for such matters, declare how she set her cap at the dapper +young surgeon; how she rushed into the shop with sweet _abandon_ ten +times a-day, to find her father; and, not finding him, giggled, and +blushed, and shook her shoulders, and retired, to peep at Tom through +the glass door which led into the parlour; how she discovered that +the muslin curtain of the said door would get out of order every ten +minutes; and at last called Mr. Thurnall to assist her in rearranging +it; how, bolder grown, she came into the shop to help herself to +various matters, inquiring tenderly for Tom's health, and giggling +vulgar sentiments about "absent friends, and hearts left behind;" in +the hope of fishing out whether Tom had a sweetheart or not. How, at +last, she was minded to confide her own health to Tom, and to instal +him as her private physician; yea, and would have made him feel her +pulse on the spot, had he not luckily found some assafoetida, and +therewith so perfumed the shop, that her "nerves" (of which she was +always talking, though she had nerves only in the sense wherein a +sirloin of beef has them) forced her to beat a retreat. + +But she returned again to the charge next day, and rushed bravely +through that fearful smell, cleaver in hand, as the carrier set down +at the door a huge box, carriage-paid, all the way from London, and +directed to Thomas Thurnall, Esquire. She would help to open it: and +so she did, while old Heale and his wife stood by curious,--he with a +maudlin wonder and awe (for he regarded Tom already as an altogether +awful and incomprehensible "party"), and Mrs. Heale with a look of +incredulous scorn, as if she expected the box to be a mere sham, +filled probably with shavings. For (from reasons best known to +herself) she had never looked pleasantly on the arrangement which +entrusted to Tom the care of the bottles. She had given way from +motives of worldly prudence, even of necessity; for Heale had been +for the greater part of the week quite incapable of attending to his +business: but black envy and spite were seething in her foolish heart, +and seethed more and more fiercely when she saw that the box did +not contain shavings, but valuables of every sort and kind--drugs, +instruments, a large microscope (which Tom delivered out of Miss +Heale's fat clumsy fingers only by strong warnings that it would go +off and shoot her), books full of prints of unspeakable monsters; and +finally, a little packet, containing not one five-pound note, but +four, and a letter which Tom, after perusing, put into Mr. Heale's +hands, with a look of honest pride. + +The Mumpsimus men, it appeared, had "sent round the hat" for him, and +here were the results; and they would send the hat round again every +month, if he wanted it; or, if he would come up, board, lodge, and +wash him gratis. The great Doctor Bellairs, House Physician, and +Carver, the famous operator (names at which Heale bowed his head +and worshipped), sent compliments, condolences, offers of +employment--never was so triumphant a testimonial; and Heale, in his +simplicity, thought himself (as indeed he was) the luckiest of country +doctors; while Mrs. Heale, after swelling and choking for five +minutes, tottered into the back room, and cast herself on the sofa in +violent hysterics. + +As she came round again, Tom could not but overhear a little that +passed. And this he overheard among other matters:-- + +"Yes, Mr. Heale, I see, I see too well, which your natural blindness, +sir, and that fatal easiness of temper, will bring you to a premature +grave within the paupers' precincts; and this young designing infidel, +with his science and his magnifiers, and his callipers, and philosophy +falsely so called, which in our true Protestant youth there was none, +nor needed none, to supplant you in your old age, and take the bread +out of your grey hairs, which he will bring with sorrow to the grave, +and mine likewise, which am like my poor infant here, of only too +sensitive sensibilities! Oh, Anna Maria, my child, my poor lost child! +which I can feel for the tenderness of the inexperienced heart! My +Virgin Eve, which the Serpent has entered into your youthful paradise, +and you will find; alas! too late, that you have warmed an adder into +your bosom!" + +"Oh, Ma, how indelicate!" giggled Anna Maria, evidently not +displeased. "If you don't mind he will hear you, and I should never be +able to look him in the face again." And therewith she looked round to +the glass door. + +What more passed, Tom did not choose to hear; for he began making all +the bustle he could in the shop, merely saying to himself,-- + +"That flood of eloquence is symptomatic enough: I'll lay my life the +old dame knows her way to the laudanum bottle." + +Tom's next business was to ingratiate himself with the young curate. +He had found out already, cunning fellow, that any extreme intimacy +with Headley would not increase his general popularity; and, as we +have seen already, he bore no great affection to "the cloth" in +general: but the curate was an educated gentleman, and Tom wished for +some more rational conversation than that of the Lieutenant and Heale. +Besides, he was one of those men, with whom the possession of power, +sought at first from self-interest, has become a passion, a species of +sporting, which he follows for its own sake. To whomsoever he met he +must needs apply the moral stethoscope; sound him, lungs, heart, and +liver; put his tissues under the microscope, and try conclusions on +him to the uttermost. They might be useful hereafter; for knowledge +was power: or they might not. What matter? Every fresh specimen of +humanity which he examined was so much gained in general knowledge. +Very true, Thomas Thurnall; provided the method of examination be the +sound and the deep one, which will lead you down in each case to the +real living heart of humanity: but what if your method be altogether a +shallow and a cynical one, savouring much more of Gil Blas than of +St. Paul, grounded not on faith and love for human beings, but on +something very like suspicion and contempt? You will be but too +likely, Doctor, to make the coarsest mistakes, when you fancy yourself +most penetrating; to mistake the mere scurf and disease of the +character for its healthy organic tissue, and to find out at last, +somewhat to your confusion, that there are more things, not only in +heaven, but in the earthiest of the earth, than are dreamt of in your +philosophy. You have already set down Grace Harvey as a hypocrite, and +Willis as a dotard. Will you make up your mind in the same foolishness +of over-wisdom, that Frank Headley is a merely narrow-headed and +hard-hearted pedant, quite unaware that he is living an inner life of +doubts, struggles, prayers, self-reproaches, noble hunger after an +ideal of moral excellence, such as you, friend Tom, never yet dreamed +of, which would be to you as an unintelligible gibber of shadows out +of dreamland, but which is to him the only reality, the life of life, +for which everything is to be risked and suffered? You treat his +opinions (though he never thrusts them on you) about "the Church," and +his duty, and the souls of his parishioners, with civil indifference, +as much ado about nothing; and his rubrical eccentricities as +puerilities. You have already made up your mind to "try and put a +little common sense into him," not because it is any concern of yours +whether he has common sense or not, but because you think that it +will be better for you to have the parish at peace; but has it ever +occurred to you how noble the man is, even in his mistakes? How that +one thought, that the finest thing in the world is to be utterly good, +and to make others good also, puts him three heavens at least above +you, you most unangelic terrier-dog, bemired all day long by grubbing +after vermin! What if his idea of "the Church" be somewhat too narrow +for the year of grace 1854, is it no honour to him that he has such +an idea at all; that there has risen up before him the vision of a +perfect polity, a "Divine and wonderful Order," linking earth to +heaven, and to the very throne of Him, who died for men; witnessing to +each of its citizens what the world tries to make him forget, namely, +that he is the child of God himself; and guiding and strengthening +him, from the cradle to the grave, to do his Father's work? Is it a +shame to him that he has seen that such a polity must exist, that he +believes that it does exist; or that he thinks he finds it in its +highest, if not its perfect form, in the most ancient and august +traditions of his native land? True, he has much to learn, and you +may teach him something of it; but you will find some day, Thomas +Thurnall, that, granting you to be at one pole of the English +character, and Frank Headley at the other, he is as good an Englishman +as you, and can teach you more than you can him. + +The two soon began to pass almost every evening together, pleasantly +enough; for the reckless and rattling manner which Tom assumed +with the mob, he laid aside with the curate, and showed himself as +agreeable a companion as man could need; while Tom in his turn found +that Headley was a rational and sweet-tempered man, who, even where +he had made up his mind to differ, could hear an adverse opinion, put +sometimes in a startling shape, without falling into any of those male +hysterics of sacred horror, which are the usual refuge of ignorance +and stupidity, terrified by what it cannot refute. And soon Tom began +to lay aside the reserve which he usually assumed to clergymen, and to +tread on ground which Headley would gladly have avoided. For, to tell +the truth, ever since Tom had heard of Grace's intended dismissal, the +curate's opinions had assumed a practical importance in his eyes; and +he had vowed in secret that, if his cunning failed him not, turned out +of her school she should not be. Whether she had stolen his money or +not, she had saved his life; and nobody should wrong her, if he could +help it. Besides, perhaps she had not his money. The belt might have +slipped off in the struggle; some one else might have taken it off in +carrying him up; he might have mistaken the shame of innocence in her +face for that of guilt. Be it as it might, he had not the heart +to make the matter public, and contented himself with staying at +Aberalva, and watching for every hint of his lost treasure. + +By which it befell that he was thinking, the half of every day at +least, about Grace Harvey; and her face was seldom out of his mind's +eye; and the more he looked at it, either in fancy or in fact, the +more did it fascinate him. They met but rarely, and then interchanged +the most simple and modest of salutations: but Tom liked to meet her, +would have gladly stopped to chat with her; however, whether from +modesty or from a guilty conscience, she always hurried on in silence. + +And she? Tom's request to her, through Willis, to say nothing about +the matter, she had obeyed, as her mother also had done. That Tom +suspected her was a thought which never crossed her mind; to suspect +any one herself was in her eyes a sin; and if the fancy that this man +or that, among the sailors who had carried Tom up to Heale's, might +have been capable of the baseness, she thrust the thought from her, +and prayed to be forgiven for her uncharitable judgment. + +But night and day there weighed on that strange and delicate spirit +the shame of the deed, as heavily, if possible, as if she herself had +been the doer. There was another soul in danger of perdition; another +black spot of sin, making earth hideous to her. The village was +disgraced; not in the public eyes, true: but in the eye of heaven, and +in the eyes of that stranger for whom she was beginning to feel an +interest more intense than she ever had done in any human being +before. Her saintliness (for Grace was a saint in the truest sense of +that word) had long since made her free of that "communion of saints" +which consists not in Pharisaic isolation from "the world," not in the +mutual flatteries and congratulations of a self-conceited clique; but +which bears the sins and carries the sorrows of all around: whose +atmosphere is disappointed hopes and plans for good, and the +indignation which hates the sin because it loves the sinner, and +sacred fear and pity for the self-inflicted miseries of those who +might be (so runs the dream, and will run till it becomes a waking +reality) strong, and free, and safe, by being good and wise. To such +a spirit this bold cunning man had come, stiff-necked and +heaven-defiant, a "brand plucked from the burning:" and yet equally +unconscious of his danger, and thankless for his respite. Given, too, +as it were, into her hands; tossed at her feet out of the very mouth +of the pit,--why but that she might save him? A far duller heart, a +far narrower imagination than Grace's would have done what Grace's +did--concentrate themselves round the image of that man with all the +love of woman. For, ere long, Grace found that she did love that man, +as a woman loves but once in her life; perhaps in all time to come. +She found that her heart throbbed, her cheek flushed, when his name +was mentioned; that she watched, almost unawares to herself, for his +passing; and she was not ashamed at the discovery. It was a sort of +melancholy comfort to her that there was a great gulf fixed between +them. His station, his acquirements, his great connections and friends +in London (for all Tom's matters were the gossip of the town, as, +indeed, he took care that they should be), made it impossible that he +should ever think of her; and therefore she held herself excused +for thinking of him, without any fear of that "self-seeking," and +"inordinate affection," and "unsanctified passions," which her +religious books had taught her to dread. Besides, he was not "a +Christian." That five minutes on the shore had told her that; and even +if her station had been the same as his, she must not be "unequally +yoked with an unbeliever." And thus the very hopelessness of her love +became its food and strength; the feeling which she would have checked +with maidenly modesty, had it been connected even remotely with +marriage, was allowed to take immediate and entire dominion; and she +held herself permitted to keep him next her heart of hearts, because +she could do nothing for him but pray for his conversion. + +And pray for him she did, the noble, guileless girl, day and night, +that he might be converted; that he might prosper, and become--perhaps +rich, at least useful; a mighty instrument in some good work. And then +she would build up one beautiful castle in the air after another, out +of her fancies about what such a man, whom she had invested in her own +mind with all the wisdom of Solomon, might do if his "talents were +sanctified." Then she prayed that he might recover his lost gold--when +it was good for him; that he might discover the thief: no, that would +only involve fresh shame and sorrow: that the thief, then, might be +brought to repentance, and confession, and restitution. That was the +solution of the dark problem, and for that she prayed; while her face +grew sadder and sadder day by day. + +For a while, over and above the pain which the theft caused her, there +came--how could it be otherwise?--sudden pangs of regret that this +same love was hopeless, at least upon this side of the grave. +Inconsistent they were with the chivalrous unselfishness of her usual +temper; and as such she dashed them from her, and conquered them, +after a while, by a method which many a woman knows too well. It was +but "one cross more;" a natural part of her destiny--the child of +sorrow and heaviness of heart. Pleasure in joy she was never to find +on earth; she would find it, then, in grief. And nursing her own +melancholy, she went on her way, sad, sweet, and steadfast, and +lavished more care and tenderness, and even gaiety, than ever upon her +neighbours' children, because she knew that she should never have a +child of her own. + +But there is a third damsel, to whom, whether more or less engaging +than Grace Harvey or Miss Heale, my readers must needs be introduced. +Let Miss Heale herself do it, with eyes full of jealous curiosity. + +"There is a foreign letter for Mr. Thurnall, marked Montreal, and sent +on here from Whitbury," said she, one morning at breakfast, and in a +significant tone; for the address was evidently in a woman's hand. + +"For me--ah, yes; I see," said Tom, taking it carelessly, and +thrusting it into his pocket. + +"Won't you read it at once, Mr. Thurnall? I'm sure you must be anxious +to hear from friends abroad;" with an emphasis on the word friends. + +"I have a good many acquaintances all over the world, but no friends +that I am aware of," said Tom, and went on with his breakfast. + +"Ah--but some people are more than friends. Are the Montreal ladies +pretty, Mr. Thurnall?" + +"Don't know; for I never was there." + +Miss Heale was silent, being mystified: and, moreover, not quite sure +whether Montreal was in India or in Australia, and not willing to show +her ignorance. + +She watched Tom through the glass door all the morning to see if he +read the letter, and betrayed any emotion at its contents: but Tom +went about his business as usual, and, as far as she saw, never read +it at all. + +However, it was read in due time; for, finding himself in a lonely +place that afternoon, Tom pulled it out with an anxious face, and read +a letter written in a hasty ill-formed hand, underscored at every +fifth word, and plentifully bedecked with notes of exclamation. + +"What? my dearest friend, and fortune still frowns upon you? Your +father blind and ruined! Ah, that I were there to comfort him for your +sake! And ah, that I were anywhere, doing any drudgery, which might +prevent my being still a burden to my benefactors. Not that they are +unkind; not that they are not angels! I told them at once that you +could send me no more money till you reached England, perhaps not +then; and they answered that God would send it; that He who had sent +me to them would send the means of supporting me; and ever since they +have redoubled their kindness: but it is intolerable, this dependence, +and on you, too, who have a father to support in his darkness. Oh, +how I feel for you! But to tell you the truth, I pay a price for this +dependence. I must needs be staid and sober; I must needs dress +like any Quakeress; I must not read this book nor that; and my +Shelley--taken from me, I suppose, because it spoke too much +'Liberty,' though, of course, the reason given was its infidel +opinions--is replaced by 'Law's Serious Call.' 'Tis all right and +good, I doubt not: but it is very dreary; as dreary as these black +fir-forests, and brown snake fences, and that dreadful, dreadful +Canadian winter which is past, which went to my very heart, day after +day, like a sword of ice. Another such winter, and I shall die, as one +of my own humming-birds would die, did you cage him here, and prevent +him from fleeing home to the sunny South when the first leaves begin +to fall. Dear children of the sun! my heart goes forth to them; and +the whir of their wings is music to me, for it tells me of the South, +the glaring South, with its glorious flowers, and glorious woods, its +luxuriance, life, fierce enjoyments--let fierce sorrows come with +them, if it must be so! Let me take the evil with the good, and live +my rich wild life through bliss and agony, like a true daughter of the +sun, instead of crystallising slowly here into ice, amid countenances +rigid with respectability, sharpened by the lust of gain; without +taste, without emotion, without even sorrow! Let who will be the +stagnant mill-head, crawling in its ugly spade-cut ditch to turn the +mill. Let me be the wild mountain brook, which foams and flashes over +the rocks--what if they tear it?--it leaps them nevertheless, and goes +laughing on its way. Let me go thus, for weal or woe! And if I sleep +awhile, let it be like the brook, beneath the shade of fragrant +magnolias and luxuriant vines, and image, meanwhile, in my bosom +nothing but the beauty around. + +"Yes, my friend, I can live no longer this dull chrysalid life, in +comparison with which, at times, even that past dark dream seems +tolerable--for amid its lurid smoke were flashes of brightness. A +slave? Well; I ask myself at times, and what were women meant for +but to be slaves? Free them, and they enslave themselves again, or +languish unsatisfied; for they must love. And what blame to them +if they love a white man, tyrant though he be, rather than a +fellow-slave? If the men of our own race will claim us, let them prove +themselves worthy of us! Let them rise, exterminate their tyrants, or, +failing that, show that they know how to die. Till then, those who are +the masters of their bodies will be the masters of our hearts. If they +crouch before the white like brutes, what wonder if we look up to him +as to a god? Woman must worship, or be wretched. Do I not know it? +Have I not had my dream--too beautiful for earth? Was there not one +whom you knew, to hear whom call me slave would have been rapture; to +whom I would have answered on my knees, Master, I have no will but +yours! But that is past--past. One happiness alone was possible for a +slave, and even that they tore from me; and now I have no thought, no +purpose, save revenge. + +"These good people bid me forgive my enemies. Easy enough for +them, who have no enemies to forgive. Forgive? Forgive injustice, +oppression, baseness, cruelty? Forgive the devil, and bid him go in +peace, and work his wicked will? Why have they put into my hands, +these last three years, books worthy of a free nation?--books which +call patriotism divine; which tell me how in every age and clime men +have been called heroes who rose against their conquerors; women +martyrs who stabbed their tyrants, and then died? Hypocrites! Did +their grandfathers meekly turn the other cheek when your English taxed +them somewhat too heavily? Do they not now teach every school-child to +glory in their own revolution, their own declaration of independence, +and to flatter themselves into the conceit that they are the lords of +creation, and the examples of the world, because they asserted that +sacred right of resistance which is discovered to be unchristian in +the African? They will free us, forsooth, in good time (is it to be +in God's good time, or in their own?) if we will but be patient, +and endure the rice-swamp, the scourge, the slave-market, and shame +unspeakable, a few years more, till all is ready and safe,--for them. +Dreamers as well as hypocrites! What nation was ever freed by others' +help? I have been reading history to see,--you do not know how much +I have been reading,--and I find that freemen have always freed +themselves, as we must do; and as they will never let us do, because +they know that with freedom must come retribution; that our Southern +tyrants have an account to render, which the cold Northerner has no +heart to see him pay. For, after all, he loves the Southerner better +than the slave; and fears him more also. What if the Southern +aristocrat, who lords it over him as the panther does over the ox, +should transfer (as he has threatened many a time) the cowhide from +the negro's loins to his? No; we must free ourselves! And there lives +one woman, at least, who, having gained her freedom, knows how to use +it in eternal war against all tyrants. Oh, I could go down, I think at +moments, down to New Orleans itself, with a brain and lips of fire, +and speak words--you know how I could speak them--which would bring me +in a week to the scourge, perhaps to the stake. The scourge I could +endure. Have I not felt it already? Do I not bear its scars even now, +and glory in them; for they were won by speaking as a woman should +speak? And even the fire?--Have not women been martyrs already? +and could not I be one? Might not my torments madden a people into +manhood, and my name become a war-cry in the sacred fight? And yet, +oh my friend, life is sweet!--and my little day has been so dark and +gloomy!--may I not have one hour's sunshine, ere youth and vigour are +gone, and my swift-vanishing Southern womanhood wrinkles itself +up into despised old age? Oh, counsel me,--help me, my friend, my +preserver, my true master now, so brave, so wise, so all-knowing; +under whose mask of cynicism lies hid (have I not cause to know it?) +the heart of a hero. + +"MARIE" + +If Miss Heale could have watched Tom's face as he read, much more +could she have heard his words as he finished, all jealousy would have +passed from her mind: for as he read, the cynical smile grew sharper +and sharper, forming a fit prelude for the "Little fool!" which was +his only comment. + +"I thought you would have fallen in love with some honest farmer +years ago: but a martyr you shan't be, even if I have to send for you +hither; though how to get you bread to eat I don't know. However, you +have been reading your book, it seems,--clever enough you always were, +and too clever; so you could go out as governess, or something. Why, +here's a postscript dated three months afterwards! Ah, I see; this +letter was written last July, in answer to my Australian one. What's +the meaning of this?" And he began reading again. + +"I wrote so far; but I had not the heart to send it: it was so full +of repinings. And since then,--must I tell the truth?--I have made a +step; do not call it a desperate one; do not blame me, for your blame +I cannot bear: but I have gone on the stage. There was no other means +of independence open to me; and I had a dream, I have it still, that +there, if anywhere, I might do my work. You told me that I might +become a great actress: I have set my heart on becoming one; on +learning to move the hearts of men, till the time comes when I can +tell them, show them, in living flesh and blood, upon the stage, the +secrets of a slave's sorrows, and that slave a woman. The time has not +come for that yet here: but I have had my success already, more than I +could have expected; and not only in Canada, but in the States. I have +been at New York, acting to crowded houses. Ah, when they applauded +me, how I longed to speak! to pour out my whole soul to them, and call +upon them, as men, to--. But that will come in time. I have found a +friend, who has promised to write dramas especially for me. Merely +republican ones at first; in which I can give full vent to my passion, +and hurl forth the eternal laws of liberty, which their consciences +may--must--at last, apply for themselves. But soon, he says, we shall +be able to dare to approach the real subject, if not in America, still +in Europe; and then, I trust, the coloured actress will stand forth +as the championess of her race, of all who are oppressed, in every +capital in Europe, save, alas! Italy and the Austria who crushes her. +I have taken, I should tell you, an Italian name. It was better, I +thought, to hide my African taint, forsooth, for awhile. So the wise +New Yorkers have been feting, as Maria Cordifiamma, the white woman +(for am I not fairer than many an Italian signora?), whom they +would have looked upon as an inferior being under the name of Marie +Lavington: though there is finer old English blood running in +my veins, from your native Berkshire, they say, than in any a +Down-Easter's who hangs upon my lips. Address me henceforth, then, as +La Signora Maria Cordifiamma. I am learning fast, by the by, to speak +Italian. I shall be at Quebec till the end of the month. Then, I +believe, I come to London; and we shall meet once more: and I shall +thank you, thank you, thank you, once more, for all your marvellous +kindness." + +"Humph!" said Tom, after a while. "Well, she is old enough to choose +for herself. Five-and-twenty she must be by now.... As for the stage, +I suppose it is the best place for her; better, at least, than turning +governess, and going mad, as she would do, over her drudgery and +her dreams. But who is this friend? Singing-master, scribbler, or +political refugee? or perhaps all three together? A dark lot, those +fellows. I must keep my eye on him; though it's no concern of mine. +I've done my duty by the poor thing; the devil himself can't deny +that. But, somehow, if this play-writing worthy plays her false, I +feel very much as if I should be fool enough to try whether I have +forgotten my pistol-shooting." + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +AN OLD FOE WITH A NEW FACE. + + +"This child's head is dreadfully hot; and how yellow he does look!" +says Mrs. Vavasour, fussing about in her little nursery. "Oh, Clara, +what shall I do? I really dare not give them any more medicine myself; +and that horrid old Doctor Heale is worse than no one." + +"Ah, ma'am," says Clara, who is privileged to bemoan herself, and to +have sad confidences made to her, "if we were but in town now, to see +Mr. Chilvers, or any one that could be trusted; but in this dreadful +out-of-the-way place--" + +"Don't talk of it, Clara! Oh, what will become of the poor children?" +And Mrs. Vavasour sits down and cries, as she does three times at +least every week. + +"But indeed, ma'am, if you thought you could trust him, there is that +new assistant--" + +"The man who was saved from the wreck? Why, nobody knows who he is." + +"Oh, but indeed, ma'am, he is a very nice gentleman, I can say that; +and so wonderfully clever; and has cured so many people already, they +say, and got down a lot of new medicines (for he has great friends +among the doctors in town), and such a wonderful magnifying glass, +with which he showed me himself, as I dropped into the shop +promiscuous, such horrible things, ma'am, in a drop of water, that I +haven't dared hardly to wash my face since." + +"And what good will the magnifying glass do to us?" says the poor +little Irish soul, laughing up through its tears. "He won't want it +to see how ill poor Frederick is, I'm sure; but you may send for him, +Clara." + +"I'll go myself, ma'am, and make sure," says Clara; glad enough of a +run, and chance of a chat with the young Doctor. + +And in half an hour Mr. Thurnall is announced. + +Though Mrs. Vavasour has a flannel apron on (for she will wash the +children herself, in spite of Elsley's grumblings), Tom sees that she +is a lady; and puts on, accordingly, his very best manner, which, as +his experience has long since taught him, is no manner at all. + +He does his work quietly and kindly, and bows himself out. + +"You will be sure to send the medicine immediately, Mr. Thurnall." + +"I will bring it myself, madam; and, if you like, administer it. +I think the young gentleman has made friends with me sufficiently +already." + +Tom keeps his word, and is back, and away again to his shop, in a +marvellously short space, having "struck a fresh root," as he calls +it; for-- + +"What a very well-behaved sensible man that Mr. Thurnall is," says +Lucia to Elsley, an hour after, as she meets him coming in from +the garden, where he has been polishing his "Wreck." "I am sure he +understands his business; he was so kind and quiet, and yet so ready, +and seemed to know all the child's symptoms beforehand, in such a +strange way. I do hope he'll stay here. I feel happier about the poor +children than I have for a long time." + +"Thurnall?" asks Elsley, who is too absorbed in the "Wreck" to ask +after the children; but the name catches his ear. + +"Mr. Heale's new assistant--the man who was wrecked," answers she, +too absorbed, in her turn, in the children to notice her husband's +startled face. + +"Thurnall? Which Thurnall?" + +"Do you know the name? It's not a common one," says she, moving to the +door. + +"No--not a common one at all! You said the children were not well?" + +"I am glad that you thought of asking after the poor things." + +"Why, really, my dear--" But before he can finish his excuse (probably +not worth hearing), she has trotted up-stairs again to the nest, and +is as busy as ever. Possibly Clara might do the greater part of what +she does, and do it better: but still, are they not her children? Let +those who will call a mother's care mere animal instinct, and liken it +to that of the sparrow or the spider: shall we not rather call it a +Divine inspiration, and doubt whether the sparrow and the spider must +not have souls to be saved, if they, too, show forth that faculty of +maternal love which is, of all human feelings, most inexplicable and +most self-sacrificing; and therefore, surely, most heavenly? If that +does not come down straight from heaven, a "good and perfect gift," +then what is heaven, and what the gifts which it sends down? + +But poor Elsley may have had solid reasons for thinking more of the +name of Thurnall than of his children's health: we will hope so for +his sake; for, after sundry melodramatic pacings and starts (Elsley +was of a melodramatic turn, and fond of a scene, even when he had no +spectator, not even a looking-glass;) besides ejaculations of "It +cannot be!" "If it were!" "I trust not!" "A fresh ghost to torment +me!" "When will come the end of this accursed coil which I have wound +round my life?" and so forth, he decided aloud that the suspense was +intolerable; and enclosing himself in his poetical cloak and Mazzini +wide-awake, strode down to the town, and into the shop. And as he +entered it, "his heart sank to his midriff, and his knees below were +loosed." For there, making up pills, in a pair of brown holland +sleeves of his own manufacture (for Tom was a good seamster, as all +travellers should be), whistled Lilliburlero, as of old, the Tom of +other days, which Elsley's muse would fain have buried in a thousand +Lethes. + +Elsley came forward to the counter carelessly, nevertheless, after a +moment. "What with my beard, and the lapse of time," thought he, "he +cannot know me." So he spoke,-- + +"I understand you have been visiting my children, sir. I hope you did +not find them seriously indisposed?" + +"Mr. Vavasour?" says Tom, with a low bow. + +"I am Mr. Vavasour!" But Elsley was a bad actor, and hesitated and +coloured so much as he spoke, that if Tom had known nothing, he might +have guessed something. + +"Nothing serious, I assure you, sir: unless you are come to announce +any fresh symptom." + +"Oh, no--not at all--that is--I was passing on my way to the quay, and +thought it as well to have your own assurance; Mrs. Vavasour is so +over-anxious." + +"You seem to partake of her infirmity, sir," says Tom, with a smile +and a bow. "However, it is one which does you both honour." + +An awkward pause. + +"I hope I am not taking a liberty, sir; but I think I am bound to--" + +"What in heaven is he going to say?" thought Elsley to himself, +feeling very much inclined to run away. + +"Thank you for all the pleasure and instruction which your writings +have given me in lonely hours, and lonely places too. Your first +volume of poems has been read by one man, at least, beside wild +watchfires in the Rocky Mountains." + +Tom did not say that he pitched the said volume into the river in +disgust; and that it was, probably, long since used up as house +material by the caddis-baits of those parts,--for doubtless there are +caddises there as elsewhere. + +Poor Elsley rose at the bait, and smiled and bowed in silence. + +"I have been so long absent from England, and in utterly wild +countries, too, that I need hardly be ashamed to ask if you have +written anything since 'The Soul's Agonies'? No doubt if you have, I +might have found it at Melbourne, on my way home: but my visit there +was a very hurried one. However, the loss is mine, and the fault too, +as I ought to call it." + +"Pray make no excuses," says Elsley, delighted. "I have written, of +course. Who can help writing, sir, while Nature is so glorious, and +man so wretched? One cannot but take refuge from the pettiness of the +real in the contemplation of the ideal. Yes, I have written. I will +send you my last book down. I don't know whether you will find me +improved." + +"How can I doubt that I shall?" + +"Saddened, perhaps; perhaps more severe in my taste; but we will not +talk of that. I owe you a debt, sir, for having furnished me with +one of the most striking 'motifs' I ever had. I mean that miraculous +escape of yours. It is seldom enough, in this dull every-day world, +one stumbles on such an incident ready made to one's hands, and +needing only to be described as one sees it." + +And the weak, vain man chatted on, and ended by telling Tom all about +his poem of "The Wreck," in a tone which seemed to imply that he had +done Tom a serious favour, perhaps raised him to immortality, by +putting him in a book. + +Tom thanked him gravely for the said honour, bowed him at last out of +the shop, and then vaulted back clean over the counter, as soon as +Elsley was out of sight, and commenced an Indian war-dance of frantic +character, accompanying himself by an extemporary chaunt, with which +the name of John Briggs was frequently intermingled;-- + + "If I don't know you, Johnny, my boy, + In spite of all your beard; + Why then I am a slower fellow, + Than ever has yet appeared, + +"Oh if it was but he! what a card for me! What a world it is for poor +honest rascals like me to try a fall with!-- + + "Why didn't I take bad verse to make, + And call it poetry; + And so make up to an earl's daughter, + Which was of high degree? + +"But perhaps I am wrong after all: no--I saw he knew me, the humbug; +though he never was a humbug, never rose above the rank of fool. +However, I'll make assurance doubly sure, and then,--if it pays me not +to tell him I know him, I won't tell him; and if it pays me to tell +him, I will tell him. Just as you choose, my good Mr. Poet." And Tom +returned to his work, singing an extempore parody of "We met, 'twas in +a crowd," ending with-- + + "And thou art the cause of this anguish, my pill-box," + +in a howl so doleful, that Mrs. Heale marched into the shop, evidently +making up her mind for an explosion. + +"I am very sorry, sir, to have to speak to you upon such a subject, +but I must say, that the profane songs, sir, which our house is not at +all accustomed to them; not to mention that at your time of life, and +in your position, sir, as my husband's assistant, though there's no +saying (with a meaning toss of the head) how long it may last,"--and +there, her grammar having got into a hopeless knot, she stopped. + +Tom looked at her cheerfully and fixedly. "I had been expecting this," +said he to himself. "Better show the old cat at once that I carry +claws as well as she." + +"There _is_ saying, madam, humbly begging your pardon, how long my +present engagement will last. It will last just as long as I like." + +Mrs. Heale boiled over with rage: but ere the geyser could explode, +Tom had continued in that dogged, nasal Yankee twang which he assumed +when he was venomous: + +"As for the songs, ma'am, there are two ways of making oneself happy +in this life; you can judge for yourself which is best. One is to do +one's work like a man, and hum a tune, to keep one's spirits up; the +other is to let the work go to rack and ruin, and keep one's spirits +up, if one is a gentleman, by a little too much brandy;--if one is a +lady, by a little too much laudanum." + +"Laudanum, sir?" almost screamed Mrs. Heale, turning pale as death. + +"The pint bottle of best laudanum, which I had from town a fortnight +ago, ma'am, is now nearly empty, ma'am. I will make affidavit that I +have not used a hundred drops, or drunk one. I suppose it was the cat. +Cats have queer tastes in the west, I believe. I have heard the cat +coming down stairs into the surgery, once or twice after I was in bed; +so I set my door ajar a little, and saw her come up again: but whether +she had a vial in her paws--" + +"Oh, sir!" says Mrs. Heale, bursting into tears. "And after the +dreadful toothache which I have had this fortnight, which nothing but +a little laudanum would ease it; and at my time of life, to mock a +poor elderly lady's infirmities, which I did not look for this cruelty +and outrage!" + +"Dry your tears, my dear madam," says Tom, in his most winning tone. +"You will always find me the thorough gentleman, I am sure. If I had +not been one, it would have been easy enough for me, with my powerful +London connections,--though I won't boast,--to set up in opposition to +your good husband, instead of saving him labour in his good old age. +Only, my dear madam, how shall I get the laudanum-bottle refilled +without the doctor's--you understand?" + +The wretched old woman hurried upstairs, and brought him down a +half-sovereign out of her private hoard, trembling like an aspen leaf, +and departed. + +"So--scotched, but not killed. You'll gossip and lie too. Never +trust a laudanum-drinker. You'll see me, by the eye of imagination, +committing all the seven deadly sins; and by the tongue of inspiration +go forth and proclaim the same at the town-head. I can't kill you, and +I can't cure you, so I must endure you. What said old Goethe, in all +the German I ever cared to recollect:-- + + "'Der Wallfisch hat doch seine Laus; + Muss auch die meine haben.' + +"Now, then, for Mrs. Penberthy's draughts. I wonder how that pretty +schoolmistress goes on. If she were but honest, now, and had fifty +thousand pounds--why then, she wouldn't marry me; and so why now, I +wouldn't marry she,--as my native Berkshire grammar would render it." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LA CORDIFIAMMA. + + +This chapter shall begin, good reader, with one of those startling +bursts of "illustration," with which our most popular preachers are +wont now to astonish and edify their hearers, and after starting with +them at the opening of the sermon from the north-pole, the Crystal +Palace, or the nearest cabbage-garden, float them safe, upon the +gushing stream of oratory, to the safe and well-known shores of +doctrinal commonplace, lost in admiration at the skill of the good man +who can thus make all roads lead, if not to heaven, at least to strong +language about its opposite. True, the logical sequence of their +periods may be, like that of the coming one, somewhat questionable, +reminding one at moments of Fluellen's comparison between Macedon and +Monmouth, Henry the Fifth and Alexander: but, in the logic of the +pulpit, all's well that ends well, and the end must needs sanctify +the means. There is, of course, some connection or other between all +things in heaven and earth, or how would the universe hold together? +And if one has not time to find out the true connection, what is left +but to invent the best one can for oneself? Thus argues, probably, +the popular preacher, and fills his pews, proving thereby clearly the +excellence of his method. So argue also, probably, the popular poets, +to whose "luxuriant fancy" everything suggests anything, and thought +plays leap-frog with thought down one page and up the next, till +one fancies at moments that they had got permission from the higher +powers, before looking at the universe, to stir it all up a few times +with a spoon. It is notorious, of course, that poets and preachers +alike pride themselves upon this method of astonishing; that +the former call it, "seeing the infinite in the finite;" the +latter--"pressing secular matters into the service of the sanctuary," +and other pretty phrases which, for reverence' sake, shall be omitted. +No doubt they have their reasons and their reward. The style takes; +the style pays; and what more would you have? Let them go on +rejoicing, in spite of the cynical pedants in the Saturday Review, who +dare to accuse (will it be believed?) these luminaries of the age +of talking merely irreverent nonsense. Meanwhile, so evident is the +success (sole test of merit) which has attended the new method, that +it is worth while trying whether it will not be as taking in the novel +as it is in the chapel; and therefore the reader is requested to pay +special attention to the following paragraph, modelled carefully after +the exordiums of a famous Irish preacher, now drawing crowded houses +at the West End of Town. As thus;--"It is the pleasant month of May, +when, as in old Chaucer's time, the-- + + "Smale foules maken melodie, + That slepen alle night with open eye + So priketh hem nature in their corages. + Then longen folk to goe on pilgrimages, + And specially from every shire's end + Of Englelond, to Exeter-hall they wend," + +till the low places of the Strand blossom with white cravats, those +lilies of the valley, types of meekness and humility, at least in the +pious palmer--and why not of similar virtues in the undertaker, the +concert-singer, the groom, the tavern-waiter, the croupier at +the gaming-table, and Frederick Augustus Lord Scoutbush, who, +white-cravated like the rest, is just getting into his cab at the door +of the Never-mind-what Theatre, to spend an hour at Kensington before +sauntering in to Lady M----'s ball? + +Why not, I ask, at least in the case of little Scoutbush? For +Guardsman though he be, coming from a theatre and going to a ball, +there is meekness and humility in him at this moment, as well as in +the average of the white-cravated gentlemen who trotted along that +same pavement about eleven o'clock this forenoon. Why should not his +white cravat, like theirs, be held symbolic of that fact? However, +Scoutbush belongs rather to the former than the latter of Chaucer's +categories; for a "smale foule" he is, a little bird-like fellow, who +maketh melodie also, and warbles like a cock-robin; we cannot liken +him to any more dignified songster. Moreover, he will sleep all night +with open eye; for he will not be in bed till five to-morrow morning; +and pricked he is, and that sorely, in his courage; for he is as much +in love as his little nature can be, with the new actress, La Signora +Cordifiamma, of the Never-mind-what Theatre. + +How exquisitely, now (for this is one of the rare occasions in which +a man is permitted to praise himself), is established hereby an +unexpected bond of linked sweetness long drawn out between things +which had, ere they came beneath the magic touch of genius, no more +to do with each other than this book has with the Stock Exchange. Who +would have dreamed of travelling from the Tabard in Southwark to the +last new singer, _via_ Exeter-hall and the lilies of the valley, and +touching en passant on to cardinal virtues and an Irish Viscount? But +see; given only a little impudence, and less logic, and hey presto! +the thing is done; and all that remains to be done is to dilate (as +the Rev. Dionysius O'Blareaway would do at this stage of the process) +upon the moral question which has been so cunningly raised, and to +inquire, firstly,--how the virtues of meekness and humility could be +predicated of Frederick Augustus St. Just, Viscount Scoutbush and +Baron Torytown, in the peerage of Ireland; and secondly,--how those +virtues were called into special action by his questionably wise +attachment to a new actress, to whom he had never spoken a word in his +life. + +First, then, "Little Freddy Scoutbush," as his compeers irreverently +termed him, was, by common consent of her Majesty's Guards, a "good +fellow." Whether the St. James' Street definition of that adjective +be the perfect one or not, we will not stay to inquire; but in the +Guards' club-house it meant this: that Scoutbush had not an enemy in +the world, because he deserved none; that he lent, and borrowed not; +gave, and asked not again; envied not; hustled not; slandered not; +never bore malice, never said a cruel word, never played a dirty +trick, would hear a fellow's troubles out to the end, and if he could +not counsel, at least would not laugh at them, and at all times and +in all places lived and let live, and was accordingly a general +favourite. His morality was neither better nor worse than the average +of his companions; but if he was sensual, he was at least not base; +and there were frail women who blessed "little Freddy," and his shy +and secret generosity, from having saved them from the lowest pit. + +_Au reste_, he was idle, frivolous, useless; but with these two +palliating facts, that he knew it and regretted it; and that he never +had a chance of being aught else. His father and mother had died when +he was a child. He had been sent to Eton at seven, where he learnt +nothing, and into the Guards at seventeen, where he learnt less than +nothing. His aunt, old Lady Knockdown, who was a kind old Irish woman, +an ex-blue and ex-beauty, now a high Evangelical professor, but as +worldly as her neighbours in practice, had tried to make him a good +boy in old times: but she had given him up, long before he left Eton, +as a "vessel of wrath" (which he certainly was, with his hot Irish +temper); and since then she had only spoken of him with moans, and to +him just as if he and she had made a compact to be as worldly as they +could, and as if the fact that he was going, as she used to tell +her private friends, straight to the wrong place, was to be utterly +ignored before the pressing reality of getting him and his sisters +well married. And so it befell, that Lady Knockdown, like many more, +having begun with too high (or at least precise) a spiritual standard, +was forced to end practically in having no standard at all; and that +for ten years of Scoutbush's life, neither she nor any other human +being had spoken to him as if he had a soul to be saved, or any duty +on earth save to eat, drink, and be merry. + +And all the while there was a quaint and pathetic consciousness in the +little man's heart that he was meant for something better; that he was +no fool, and was not intended to be one. He would thrust his head into +lectures at the Polytechnic and the British Institution, with a dim +endeavour to guess what they were all about, and a good-natured envy +of the clever fellows who knew about "science, and all that." He would +sit and listen, puzzled and admiring, to the talk of statesmen, and +confide his woe afterwards to some chum.--"Ah, if I had had the chance +now that my cousin Chalkclere has! If I had had two or three tutors, +and a good mother, too, keeping me in a coop, and cramming me with +learning, as they cram chickens for the market, I fancy I could have +shown my comb and hackles in the House as well as some of them. I +fancy I could make a speech in parliament now, with the help of a +little Irish impudence, if I only knew anything to speak about." + +So Scoutbush clung, in a childish way, to any superior man who would +take notice of him, and not treat him as the fribble which he seemed. +He had taken to that well-known artist, Claude Mellot, of late, simply +from admiration of his brilliant talk about art and poetry; and boldly +confessed that he preferred one of Mellot's orations on the sublime +and beautiful, though he didn't understand a word of them, to the +songs and jokes (very excellent ones in their way) of Mr. Hector +Harkaway, the distinguished Irish novelist, and boon companion of her +Majesty's Life Guards Green. His special intimate and Mentor, however, +was a certain Major Campbell, of whom more hereafter; who, however, +being a lofty-minded and perhaps somewhat Pharisaic person, made +heavier demands on Scoutbush's conscience than he had yet been able to +meet; for fully as he agreed that Hercules' choice between pleasure +and virtue was the right one, still he could not yet follow that +ancient hero along the thorny path, and confined his conception of +"duty" to the minimum guard and drill. He had estates in Ireland, +which had almost cleared themselves during his long minority, but +which, since the famine, had cost him about as much as they brought +him in; and estates in the West, which, with a Welsh slate-quarry, +brought him in some seven or eight thousand a-year; and so kept his +poor little head above water, to look pitifully round the universe, +longing for the life of him to make out what it all meant, and hoping +that somebody would come and tell him. + +So much for his meekness and humility in general; as for the +particular display of those virtues which he has shown to-day, it must +be understood that he has given a promise to Mrs. Mellot not to make +love to La Cordifiamma; and, on that only condition, has been allowed +to meet her to-night at one of Claude Mellot's petits soupers. + +La Cordifiamma has been staying, ever since she came to England, with +the Mellots in the wilds of Brompton; unapproachable there, as in all +other places. In public, she is a very Zenobia, who keeps all animals +of the other sex at an awful distance; and of the fifty young puppies +who are raving about her beauty, her air, and her voice, not one has +obtained an introduction; while Claude, whose studio used to be a +favourite lounge of young Guardsmen, has, as civilly as he can, closed +his doors to those magnificent personages ever since the new singer +became his guest. + +Claude Mellot seems to have come into a fortune of late years, large +enough, at least, for his few wants. He paints no longer, save when he +chooses; and has taken a little old house in one of those back lanes +of Brompton, where islands of primaeval nursery garden still remain +undevoured by the advancing surges of the brick and mortar deluge. +There he lives, happy in a green lawn, and windows opening thereon; +in three elms, a cork, an ilex, and a mulberry, with a great standard +pear, for flower and foliage the queen of all suburban trees. There he +lies on the lawn, upon strange skins, the summer's day, playing with +cats and dogs, and making love to his Sabina, who has not lost +her beauty in the least, though she is on the wrong side of +five-and-thirty. He deludes himself, too, into the belief that he is +doing something, because he is writing a treatise on the "Principles +of Beauty;" which will be published, probably, about the time the +Thames is purified, in the season of Latter Lammas and the Greek +Kalends; and the more certainly so, because he has wandered into the +abyss of conic sections and curves of double curvature, of which, if +the truth must be spoken, he knows no more than his friends of the +Life Guards Green. + +To this charming little nest has Lord Scoutbush procured an evening's +admission after abject supplication to Sabina, who pets him because he +is musical, and solemn promises neither to talk or look any manner of +foolishness. + +"My dearest Mrs. Mellot," says the poor wretch, "I will be good, +indeed I will; I will not even speak to her. Only let me sit and +look,--and--and--why, I thought you understood all about such things, +and could pity a poor fellow who was spoony." + +And Sabina, who prides herself much on understanding such things, +and on having, indeed, reduced them to a science in which she +gives gratuitous lessons to all young gentlemen and ladies of her +acquaintance, receives him pityingly, in that delicious little back +drawing-room, whither whosoever enters is in no hurry to go out again. + +Claude's house is arranged with his usual defiance of all +conventionalities. Dining or drawing-room proper there is none; the +large front room is the studio, where he and Sabina eat and drink, as +well as work and paint but out of it opens a little room, the walls of +which are so covered with gems of art (where the rogue finds money to +buy them is a puzzle), that the eye can turn nowhere without taking +in some new beauty, and wandering on from picture to statue, from +portrait to landscape, dreaming and learning afresh after every +glance. At the back, a glass bay has been thrown out, and forms a +little conservatory, for ever fresh and gay with tropic ferns and +flowers; gaudy orchids dangle from the roof, creepers hide the +framework, and you hardly see where the room ends, and the +winter-garden begins; and in the centre an ottoman invites you +to lounge. It costs Claude money, doubtless; but he has his +excuse,--"Having once seen the tropics, I cannot live without some +love-tokens from their lost paradises; and which is the wiser plan, to +spend money on a horse and brougham, which we don't care to use, and +on scrambling into society at the price of one great stupid party a +year, or to make our little world as pretty as we can, and let those +who wish to see us, take us as they find us?" + +In this "nest," as Claude and Sabina call it, sacred to the +everlasting billing and cooing of that sweet little pair of human +love-birds who have built it, was supper set. La Cordifiamma, all the +more beautiful from the languor produced by the excitement of acting, +lay upon a sofa; Claude attended, talking earnestly; Sabina, according +to her custom, was fluttering in and out, and arranging supper with +her own hands; both husband and wife were as busy as bees; and yet any +one accustomed to watch the little ins and outs of married life, could +have seen that neither forgot for a moment that the other was in the +room, but basked and purred, like two blissful cats, each in the +sunshine of the other's presence; and he could have seen, too, that La +Cordifiamma was divining their thoughts, and studying all their little +expressions, perhaps that she might use them on the stage; perhaps, +too, happy in sympathy with their happiness: and yet there was a shade +of sadness on her forehead. + +Scoutbush enters, is introduced, and receives a salutation from the +actress haughty and cold enough to check the forwardest; puts on the +air of languid nonchalance which is considered (or was before the +little experiences of the Crimea) fit and proper for young gentlemen +of rank and fashion. So he sits down, and feasts his foolish eyes upon +his idol, hoping for a few words before the evening is over. Did I not +say well, then, that there was as much meekness and humility under +Scoutbush's white cravat as under others? But his little joy is +soon dashed; for the black boy announces (seemingly much to his own +pleasure) a tall personage, whom, from his dress and his moustachio, +Scoutbush takes for a Frenchman, till he hears him called Stangrave. +The intruder is introduced to Lord Scoutbush, which ceremony is +consummated by a microscopic nod on either side; he then walks +straight up to La Cordifiamma; and Scoutbush sees her cheeks flush as +he does so. He takes her hand, speaks to her in a low voice, and sits +down by her, Claude making room for him; and the two engage earnestly +in conversation. + +Scoutbush is much inclined to walk out of the room;--was he brought +there to see that? Of course, however, he sits still, keeps his own +counsel, and makes himself agreeable enough all the evening, like a +good-natured kind-hearted little man, as he is. Whereby he is repaid; +for the conversation soon becomes deep, and even too deep for him; and +he is fain to drop out of the race, and leave it to his idol and to +the new-comer, who seems to have seen, and done, and read everything +in heaven and earth, and probably bought everything also; not to +mention that he would be happy to sell the said universe again, at a +very cheap price, if any one would kindly take it off his hands. Not +that he boasts, or takes any undue share of the conversation; he +is evidently too well bred for that; but every sentence shows an +acquaintance with facts of which Eton has told Scoutbush nothing, the +barrack-room less, and after which he still craves, the good little +fellow, in a very honest way, and would soon have learnt, had he had a +chance; for of native Irish smartness he had no lack. + +"Poor Flake was half mad about you, Signora, in the stage-box +to-night," said Sabina. "He says that he shall not sleep till he has +painted you." + +"Do let him!" cried Scoutbush: "what a picture he will make!" + +"He may paint a picture, but not me; it is quite enough, Lord +Scoutbush, to be some one else for two hours every night, without +going down to posterity, as some one else for ever. If I am painted, I +will be painted by no one who cannot represent my very self." + +"You are right!" said Stangrave: "and you will do the man himself good +by refusing; he has some notion still of what a portrait ought to be. +If he once begins by attempting passing expressions of passion, which +is all stage portraits can give, he will find them so much easier than +honest representations of character, that he will end, where all our +moderns seem to do, in merest melodrama." + +"Explain!" said she. + +"Portrait painters now depend for their effect on the mere accidents +of the _entourage_; on dress, on landscape, even on broad hints of a +man's occupation, putting a plan on the engineer's table, and a roll +in the statesman's hands, like the old Greek who wrote 'this is an ox' +under his picture. If they wish to give the face expression, though +they seldom aim so high, all they can compass is a passing emotion; +and one sitter goes down to posterity with an eternal frown, another +with an eternal smile." + +"Or, if he be a poet," said Sabina, "rolls his eye for ever in a fine +frenzy." + +"But would you forbid them to paint passion?" + +"Not in its place; when the picture gives the causes of the passion, +and the scene tells its own story. But then let us not have merely +Kean as Hamlet, but Hamlet's self; let the painter sit down and +conceive for himself a Hamlet, such as Shakspeare conceived; not +merely give us as much of him as could be pressed at a given moment +into the face of Mr. Kean. He will be only unjust to both actor and +character. If Flake paints Marie as Lady Macbeth, he will give us +neither her nor Lady Macbeth; but only the single point at which their +two characters can coincide." + +"How rude!" said Sabina, laughing; "what is he doing but hinting +that La Signora's conception of Lady Macbeth is a very partial and +imperfect one?" + +"And why should it not be?" asked the actress, humbly enough. + +"I meant," he answered warmly, "that there was more, far more in her +than in any character which she assumes; and I do not want a painter +to copy only one aspect, and let a part go down to posterity as a +representation of the whole." + +"If you mean that, you shall be forgiven. No; when she is painted, she +shall be painted as herself, as she is now. Claude shall paint her." + +"I have not known La Signora long enough," said Claude, "to aspire to +such an honour. I paint no face which I have not studied for a year." + +"Faith!" said Scoutbush, "you would find no more in most faces at the +year's end, than you did the first day." + +"Then I would not paint them. If I paint a portrait, which I seldom +do, I wish to make it such a one as the old masters aimed at,--to give +the sum total of the whole character; traces of every emotion, if it +were possible, and glances of every expression which have passed over +it since it was born into the world. They are all here, the whole past +and future of the man; and every man, as the Mohammedans say, carries +his destiny on his forehead." + +"But who has eyes to see it?" + +"The old masters had; some of them at least. Raphael had; Sebastian +del Piombo had; and Titian, and Giorgione. There are portraits painted +by them which carry a whole life-history concentrated into one +moment." + +"But they," said Stangrave, "are the portraits of men such as they saw +around them; natures who were strong for good and evil, who were not +ashamed to show their strength. Where will a painter find such among +the poor, thin, unable mortals who come to him to buy immortality at +a hundred and fifty guineas apiece, after having spent their lives in +religiously rubbing off their angles against each other, and forming +their characters, as you form shot, by shaking them together in a bag +till they have polished each other into dullest uniformity?" + +"It's very true," said Scoutbush, who suffered much at times from a +certain wild Irish vein, which stirred him up to kick over the traces. +"People are horribly like each other; and if a poor fellow is bored, +and tries to do anything spicy or original, he has half-a-dozen people +pooh-poohing him down on the score of bad taste." + +"Men can be just as original now as ever," said La Signora, "if they +had but the courage, even the insight. Heroic souls in old times had +no more opportunities than we have: but they used them. There were +daring deeds to be done then--are there none now? Sacrifices to be +made--are there none now? Wrongs to be redressed--are there none now? +Let any one set his heart, in these days, to do what is right, and +nothing else; and it will not be long ere his brow is stamped with all +that goes to make up the heroical expression--with noble indignation, +noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows; perhaps, even, with +the print of the martyr's crown of thorns." + +She looked at Stangrave as she spoke, with an expression which +Scoutbush tried in vain to read. The American made no answer, and +seemed to hang his head awhile. After a minute he said tenderly:-- + +"You will tire yourself if you talk thus, after the evening's fatigue. +Mrs. Mellot will sing to us, and give us leisure to think over our +lesson." + +And Sabina sang; and then Lord Scoutbush was made to sing; and sang +his best, no doubt. + +So the evening slipt on, till it was past eleven o'clock, and +Stangrave rose. "And now," said he, "I must go to Lady M----'s ball; +and Marie must rest." + +As he went, he just leaned over La Cordifiamma. + +"Shall I come in to-morrow morning? We ought to read over that scene +together before the rehearsal." + +"Early then, or Sabina will be gone out; and she must play soubrette +to our hero and heroine." + +"You will rest? Mrs. Mellot, you will see that she does not sit up." + +"It is not very polite to rob us of her, as soon as you cannot enjoy +her yourself." + +"I must take care of people who do not take care of themselves;" and +Stangrave departed. + +Great was Scoutbush's wrath when he saw Marie rise and obey orders. +"Who was this man? what right had he to command her?" + +He asked as much of Sabina the moment La Cordifiamma had retired. + +"Are you not going to Lady M---- 's, too?" + +"No; that is, I won't go yet; not till you have explained all this to +me." + +"Explained what?" asked Sabina, looking as demure as a little brown +mouse. + +"Why, what did you ask me here for?" + +"Lord Scoutbush should recollect that he asked himself." + +"You cruel venomous creature! do you think I would have come, if I had +known that I was to see another man making love to her before my very +eyes? I could kill the fellow;--who is he?" + +"A New York merchant, unworthy of your aristocratic powder and ball." + +"The confounded Yankee!" muttered Scoutbush. + +"If people swear in my house, I fine them a dozen of kid gloves. Did +you not promise me that you would not make love to her yourself?" + +"Well--but, it is too cruel of you, before my very eyes." + +"I saw no love-making to-night." + +"None? Were you blind?" + +"Not in the least; but you cannot well see a thing making which has +been made long ago." + +"What! Is he her husband?" + +"No." + +"Engaged to her?" + +"No." + +"What then!" + +"Don't you know already that this is a house of mystery, full of +mysterious people? I tell you this only, that if she ever marries any +one, she will marry him; and that if I can, I will make her." + +"Then you are my enemy after all." + +"I! Do you think that Sabina Mellot can see a young viscount loose +upon the universe, without trying to make up a match for him? No; I +have such a prize for you,--young, handsome, better educated than any +woman whom you will meet to-night. True, she is a Manchester girl: but +then she has eighty thousand pounds." + +"Eighty thousand nonsense? I'd sooner have that divine creature +without a penny, than--" + +"And would my lord viscount so far debase himself as to marry an +actress?" + +"Humph! Faith, my grandmother was an actress; and we St. Justs are +none the worse for that fact, as far as I can see,--and certainly none +the uglier--the women at least. Oh Sabina--Mrs. Mellot, I mean--only +help me this once!" + +"This once? Do you intend to marry by my assistance this time, and by +your own the next? How many viscountesses are there to be?" + +"Don't laugh at me, you cruel woman: you don't know; you fancy that +I am not in love--" and the poor fellow began pouring out these +commonplaces, which one has heard too often to take the trouble of +repeating, and yet which are real enough, and pathetic too; for in +every man, however frivolous, or even worthless, love calls up to the +surface the real heroism, the real depth of character--all the more +deep because common to poet and philosopher, guardsman and country +clod. + +"I'll leave town to-morrow. I'll go to the Land's-end,--to Norway,--to +Africa--" + +"And forget her in the bliss of lion-hunting." + +"Don't, I tell you; here I will not stay to be driven mad. To think +that she is here, and that hateful Yankee at her elbow. I'll go--" + +"To Lady M----'s ball?" + +"No, confound it; to meet that fellow there! I should quarrel +with him, as sure as there is hot Irish blood in my veins. The +self-satisfied puppy! to be flirting and strutting there, while such a +creature as that is lying thinking of him." + +"Would you have him shut himself up in his hotel, and write poetry; or +walk the streets all night, sighing at the moon?" + +"No; but the cool way in which he went off himself, and sent her to +bed. Confound him! commanding her. It made my blood boil." + +"Claude, get Lord Scoutbush some iced soda-water." + +"If you laugh at me, I'll never speak to you again." + +"Or buy any of Claude's pictures?" + +"Why do you torment me so? I'll go, I say,--leave town +to-morrow,--only I can't with this horrid depot work! What shall I do? +It's too cruel of you, while Campbell is away in Ireland, too; and I +have not a soul but you to ask advice of, for Valencia is as great a +goose as I am;" and the poor little fellow buried his hands in his +curls, and stared fiercely into the fire, as if to draw from thence +omens of his love, by the spodomantic augury of the ancient Greeks; +while Sabina tripped up and down the room, putting things to rights +for the night, and enjoying his torments as a cat does those of the +mouse between her paws; and yet not out of spite, but from pure and +simple fun. + +Sabina is one of those charming bodies who knows everybody's business, +and manages it. She lives in a world of intrigue, but without a +thought of intriguing for her own benefit. She has always a match +to make, a disconsolate lover to comfort, a young artist to bring +forward, a refugee to conceal, a spendthrift to get out of a scrape; +and, like David in the mountains, "every one that is discontented, and +every one that is in debt, gather themselves to her." The strangest +people, on the strangest errands, run over each other in that cosy +little nest of hers. Fine ladies with over-full hearts, and seedy +gentlemen with over-empty pockets, jostle each other at her door; and +she has a smile, and a repartee, and good, cunning, practical wisdom +for each and every one of them, and then dismisses them to bill and +coo with Claude, and laugh over everybody and everything. The only +price which she demands for her services is, to be allowed to laugh; +and if that be permitted, she will be as busy, and earnest, and +tender, as Saint Elizabeth herself. "I have no children of my own," +she says, "so I just make everybody my children, Claude included; and +play with them, and laugh at them, and pet them, and help them out of +their scrapes, just as I should if they were in my own nursery." And +so it befalls that she is every one's confidant; and though every one +seems on the point of taking liberties with her, yet no one does: +partly because they are in her power, and partly because, like an +Eastern sultana, she carries a poniard, and can use it, though only in +self-defence. So if great people, or small people either (who can give +themselves airs as well as their betters), take her plain speaking +unkindly, she just speaks a little more plainly, once for all, and +goes off smiling to some one else; as a hummingbird, if a flower has +no honey in it, whirs away, with a saucy flirt of its pretty little +tail, to the next branch on the bush. + +"I must know more of this American," said Scoutbush, at last. + +"Well, he would be very improving company for you; and I know you like +improving company." + +"I mean--what has he to do with her?" + +"That is just what I will not tell you. One thing I will tell you, +though, for it may help to quench any vain hopes on your part; and +that is, the reason which she gives for not marrying him." + +"Well?" + +"Because he is an idler." + +"What would she say of me, then?" groaned Scoutbush. + +"Very true; for, you must understand, this Mr. Stangrave is not what +you or I should call an idle man. He has travelled over half the world +and made the best use of his eyes. He has filled his house in New +York, they say, with gems of art gathered from every country in +Europe. He is a finished scholar; talks half-a-dozen different +languages, sings, draws, writes poetry, reads hard every day, at every +subject, from gardening to German metaphysics--altogether, one of the +most highly cultivated men I know, and quite an Admirable Crichton in +his way." + +"Then why does she call him an idler?" + +"Because, she says, he has no great purpose in life. She will marry +no one who will not devote himself, and all he has, to some great, +chivalrous, heroic enterprise; whose one object is to be of use, even +if he has to sacrifice his life to it. She says that there must be +such men still left in the world; and that if she finds one, him she +will marry, and no one else." + +"Why, there are none such to be found now-a-days, I thought?" + +"You heard what she herself said on that very point." + +There was a silence for a minute or two. Scout-bush had heard, and was +pondering it in his heart. At last,-- + +"I am not cut out for a hero; so I suppose I must give her up. But I +wish sometimes I could be of use, Mrs. Mellot: but what can a fellow +do?" + +"I thought there was an Irish tenantry to be looked after, my lord, +and a Cornish tenantry too." + +"That's what Campbell is always saying: but what more can I do than I +do? As for those poor Paddies, I never ask them for rent; if I did, I +should not get it; so there is no generosity in that. And as for the +Aberalva people, they have got on very well without me for twenty +years; and I don't know them, nor what they want; nor even if they do +want anything, except fish enough, and I can't put more fish into the +sea, Mrs. Mellot!" + +"Try and be a good soldier, then," said she, laughing. "Why should not +Lord Scoutbush emulate his illustrious countryman, conquer at a second +Waterloo, and die a duke?" + +"I'm not cut out for a general, I am afraid; but if--I don't say if I +could marry that woman--I suppose it would be a foolish thing--though +I shall break my heart, I believe, if I do not. Oh, Mrs. Mellot, you +cannot tell what a fool I have made myself about her; and I cannot +help it! It's not her beauty merely; but there is something so noble +in her face, like one of those Greek goddesses Claude talks of; +and when she is acting, if she has to say anything grand, or +generous--or--you know the sort of thing,--she brings it out with such +a voice, and such a look, from the very bottom of her heart,--it makes +me shudder; just as she did when she told that Yankee, that every one +could be a hero, or a martyr, if he chose. Mrs. Mellot, I am sure she +is one, or she could not look and speak as she does." + +"She is one!" said Sabina; "a heroine, and a martyr too." + +"If I could,--that was what I was going to say,--if I could but win +that woman's respect--as I live, I ask no more; only to be sure she +didn't despise me. I'd do--I don't know what I wouldn't do. I'd--I'd +study the art of war: I know there are books about it. I'd get out +to the East, away from this depot work; and if there is no fighting +there, as every one says there will not be, I'd go into a marching +regiment, and see service. I'd,--hang it, if they'd have me,--I'd even +go to the senior department at Sandhurst, and read mathematics!" + +Sabina kept her countenance (though with difficulty) at this +magnificent bathos; for she saw that the little man was really in +earnest; and that the looks and words of the strange actress had +awakened in him something far deeper and nobler than the mere sensual +passion of a boy. + +"Ah, if I had but gone out to Varna with the rest! I thought myself a +lucky fellow to be left here." + +"Do you know that it is getting very late?" + +So Frederick Lord Scoutbush went home to his rooms: and there sat +for three hours and more with his feet on the fender, rejecting the +entreaties of Mr. Bowie, his servant, either to have something, or to +go to bed; yea, he forgot even to smoke, by which Mr. Bowie "jaloused" +that he was hit very hard indeed: but made no remark, being a +Scotchman, and of a cautious temperament. + +However, from that night Scoutbush was a changed man, and tried to be +so. He read of nothing but sieges and stockades, brigade evolutions, +and conical bullets; he drilled his men till he was an abomination in +their eyes, and a weariness to their flesh; only every evening he went +to the theatre, watched La Cordifiamma with a heavy heart, and then +went home to bed; for the little man had good sense enough to ask +Sabina for no more interviews with her. So in all things he acquitted +himself as a model officer, and excited the admiration and respect of +Serjeant Major MacArthur, who began fishing at Bowie to discover the +cause of this strange metamorphosis in the rackety little Irishman. + +"Your master seems to be qualifying himself for the adjutant's post, +Mr. Bowie. I'm jalousing he's fired with martial ardour since the war +broke out." + +To which Bowie, being a brother Scot, answered Scottice, by a crafty +paralogism. + +"I've always held it as my opeeeenion, that his lordship is a youth of +very good parts, if he was only compelled to employ them." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +TAKING ROOT. + + +Whosoever enjoys the sight of an honest man doing his work well, +would have enjoyed the sight of Tom Thurnall for the next two months. +In-doors all the morning, and out of doors all the afternoon, was that +shrewd and good-natured visage, calling up an answering smile on every +face, and leaving every heart a little lighter than he found it. +Puzzling enough it was, alike to Heale and to Headley, how Tom +contrived, as if by magic, to gain every one's good word--their own +included. For Frank, in spite of Tom's questionable opinions, had +already made all but a confidant of the Doctor; and Heale, in spite +of envy and suspicion, could not deny that the young man was a very +valuable young man, if he wasn't given so much to those new-fangled +notions of the profession. + +By which term Heale indicated the, to him, astounding fact, that Tom +charged the patients as little, instead of as much as possible, and +applying to medicine the principles of an enlightened political +economy, tried to increase the demand by cheapening the supply. + +"Which is revolutionary doctrine, sir," said Heale to Lieutenant +Jones, over the brandy-and-water, "and just like what the Cobden +and Bright lot used to talk, and have been the ruin of British +agriculture, though don't say I said so, because of my Lord +Minchampstead. But, conceive my feelings, sir, as the father of a +family, who have my bread to earn, this very morning.--In comes old +Dame Penaluna (which is good pay I know, and has two hundred and more +out on a merchant brig) for something; and what was my feelings, sir, +to hear this young party deliver himself--'Well, ma'am,' says he, as I +am a living man, 'I can cure you, if you like, with a dozen bottles of +lotion, at eighteenpence a-piece; but if you'll take my advice, you'll +buy two pennyworth of alum down street, do what I tell you with it, +and cure yourself.' It's robbery, sir, I say, all these out-of-the-way +cheap dodges, which arn't in the pharmacopoeia, half of them; it's +unprofessional, sir--quackery." + +"Tell you what, Doctor, robbery or none, I'll go to him to-morrow, +d'ye see, if I live as long, for this old ailment of mine. I never +told you of it, old pill and potion, for fear of a swinging bill: but +just grinned and bore it, d'ye see." + +"There it is again," cries Heale in despair. "He'll ruin me." + +"No, he won't, and you know it." + +"What d'ye think he served me last week? A young chap comes in, +consumptive, he said, and I dare say he's right--he is uncommonly +'cute about what he calls diagnosis. Says he, 'You ought to try +Carrageen moss. It's an old drug, but it's a good one.' There was a +drawer full of it to his hand; had been lying there any time this ten +years: I go to open it; but what was my feelings when he goes on, as +cool as a cucumber--'And there's bushels of it here,' says he, 'on +every rock; so if you'll come down with me at low tide this afternoon, +I'll show you the trade, and tell you how to boil it.' I thought I +should have knocked him down." + +"But you didn't," said Jones, laughing in every muscle of his body. +"Tell you what, Doctor, you've got a treasure; he's just getting back +your custom, d'ye see, and when he's done that, he'll lay on the bills +sharp enough. Why, I hear he's up at Mrs. Vavasour's every day." + +"And not ten shillings' worth of medicine sent up to the house any +week." + +"He charges for his visits, I suppose." + +"Not he! If you'll believe me, when I asked him if he wasn't going +to, he says, says he, that Mrs. Vavasour's company was quite payment +enough for him." + +"Shows his good taste. Why, what now, Mary?" as the maid opens the +door. + +"Mr. Thurnall wants Mr. Heale." + +"Always wanting me," groans Heale, hugging his glass, "driving me +about like any negro slave. Tell him to come in." + +"Here, Doctor," says the Lieutenant, "I want you to prescribe for me, +if you'll do it gratis, d'ye see. Take some brandy and water." + +"Good advice costs nothing," says Tom, filling; "Mr. Heale, read that +letter." + +And the Lieutenant details his ailments, and their supposed cause, +till Heale has the pleasure of hearing Tom answer-- + +"Fiddlesticks! That's not what's the matter with you. I'll cure you +for half-a-crown, and toss you up double or quits. + +"Oh!" groans Heale, as he spells away over the letter,-- + +"Lord Minchampstead having been informed by Mr. Armsworth that Mr. +Thurnall is now in the neighbourhood of his estates of Pentremochyn, +would feel obliged to him at his earliest convenience to examine into +the sanitary state of the cottages thereon, which are said to be much +haunted by typhus and other epidemics, and to send him a detailed +report, indicating what he thinks necessary for making them thoroughly +healthy. Mr. Thurnall will be so good as to make his own charge." + +"Well, Mr. Thurnall, you ought to turn a good penny by this," said +Heale, half envious of Tom's connection, half contemptuous at his +supposed indifference to gain. + +"I'll charge what it's worth," said Tom. "Meanwhile, I hope you're +going to see Miss Beer to-night." + +"Couldn't you just go yourself, my dear sir? It is so late." + +"No; I never go near young women. I told you so at first, and I stick +to my rule. You'd better go, sir, on my word, or if she's dead before +morning, don't say it's my fault." + +"Did you ever hear a poor old man so tyrannised over?" said Heale, as +Tom coolly went into the passage, brought in the old man's great coat +and hat, arrayed him and marched him out, civilly, but firmly. + +"Now, Lieutenant, I've half an hour to spare; let's have a jolly chat +about the West Indies." + +And Tom began with anecdote and joke, and the old seaman laughed till +he cried, and went to bed vowing that there never was such a pleasant +fellow on earth, and he ought to be physician to Queen Victoria. + +Up at five the next morning, the indefatigable Tom had all his work +done by ten; and was preparing to start for Pentremochyn, ere Heale +was out of bed, when a customer came in who kept him half an hour. + +He was a tall broad-shouldered young man, with a red face, protruding +bull's eyes, and a moustachio. He was dressed in a complete suit of +pink and white plaid, cut jauntily enough. A bright blue cap, a thick +gold watch-chain, three or four large rings, a dog-whistle from his +button-hole, a fancy cane in his hand, and a little Oxford meerschaum +in his mouth, completed his equipment. He lounged in, with an air of +careless superiority, while Tom, who was behind the counter, cutting +up his day's provision of honey-dew, eyed him curiously. + +"Who are you, now? A gentleman? Not quite, I guess. Some squireen of +the parts adjacent, and look in somewhat of a crapulocomatose state +moreover. I wonder if you are the great Trebooze of Trebooze." + +"I say," yawned the young gentleman, "where's old Heale?" and an oath +followed the speech, as it did every other one herein recorded. + +"The playing half of old Heale is in bed, and I'm his working half. +Can I do anything for you?" + +"Cool fish," thought the customer. "I say--what have you got there?" + +"Australian honey-dew. Did you ever smoke it?" + +"I've heard of it; let's see:" and Mr. Trebooze--for it was he--put +his hand across the counter unceremoniously, and clawed up some. + +"Didn't know you sold tobacco here. Prime stuff. Too strong for me, +though, this morning, somehow." + +"Ah? A little too much claret last night? I thought so. We'll set that +right in five minutes." + +"Eh? How did you guess that?" asked Trebooze, with a larger oath than +usual. + +"Oh, we doctors are men of the world," said Tom, in a cheerful and +insinuating tone, as he mixed his man a draught. + +"You doctors? You're a cock of a different hackle from old Heale, +then." + +"I trust so," said Tom. + +"By George, I feel better already. I say, you're a trump; I suppose +you're Heale's new partner, the man who was washed ashore!" + +Tom nodded assent; + +"I say--How do you sell that honey-dew?" + +"I don't sell it; I'll give you as much as you like, only you shan't +smoke it till after dinner." + +"Shan't?" said Trebooze, testy and proud. + +"Not with my leave, or you'll be complaining two hours hence that I am +a humbug, and have done you no good. Get on your horse, and have four +hours' gallop on the downs, and you'll feel like a buffalo bull by two +o'clock." + +Trebooze looked at him with a stupid curiosity and a little awe. He +saw that Tom's cool self-possession was not meant for impudence; and +something in his tone and manner told him that the boast of being "a +man of the world" was not untrue. And of all kinds of men, a man of +the world was the man of whom Trebooze stood most in awe. A small +squireen, cursed with six or seven hundreds a year of his own, never +sent to school, college, or into the army, he had grown up in a narrow +circle of squireens like himself, without an object save that of +gratifying his animal passions; and had about six years before, being +then just of age, settled in life by marrying his housemaid--the only +wise thing, perhaps, he ever did. For she, a clever and determined +woman, kept him, though not from drunkenness and debt, at least from +delirium tremens and ruin, and was, in her rough, vulgar way, his +guardian angel--such a one at least, as he was worthy of. More than +once has one seen the same seeming folly turn out in practice as wise +a step as could well have been taken; and the coarse nature of the +man, which would have crushed and ill-used a delicate and high-minded +wife, subdued to something like decency by a help literally meet for +it. + +There was a pause. Trebooze fancied, and wisely, that the Doctor was a +cleverer man than he, and of course would want to show it. So, after +the fashion of a country squireen, he felt a longing to "set him +down." "He's been a traveller, they say," thought he in that +pugnacious, sceptical spirit which is bred, not, as twaddlers fancy, +by too extended knowledge, but by the sense of ignorance, and a narrow +sphere of thought, which makes a man angry and envious of any one who +has seen more than he. + +"Buffalo bulls?" said he, half contemptuously; "what do you know about +buffalo bulls?" + +"I was one once myself," said Tom, "where I lived before." + +Trebooze swore. "Don't you put your traveller's lies on me, sir." + +"Well, perhaps I dreamt it," said Tom, placidly; "I remember I dreamt +at the same time that you were a grizzly bear, fourteen feet long, and +wanted to eat me up: but you found me too tough about the hump ribs." + +Trebooze stared at his audacity. + +"You're a rum hand." + +To which Tom made answer in the same elegant strain; and then began a +regular word-battle of slang, in which Tom showed himself so +really witty a proficient, that Mr. Trebooze laughed himself into +good-humour, and ended by-- + +"I say, you're a good fellow, and I think you and I shall suit." + +Tom had his doubts, but did not express them. + +"Come up this afternoon and see my child; Mrs. Trebooze thinks it's +got swelled glands, or some such woman's nonsense. Bother them, why +can't they let the child alone, fussing and doctoring; and she will +have you. Heard of you from Mrs. Vavasour, I believe. Our doctor and I +have quarrelled, and she said, if I could get you, she'd sooner have +you than that old rum-puncheon Heale. And then, you'd better stop and +take pot-luck, and we'll make a night of it." + +"I have to go round Lord Minchampstead's estates, and will take you on +my way: but I'm afraid I shall be too dirty to have the pleasure of +dining with Mrs. Trebooze coming back." + +"Mrs. Trebooze! She must take what I like; and what's good enough for +me is good enough for her, I hope. Come as you are--Liberty Hall at +Trebooze;" and out he swaggered. + +"Does he bully her?" thought Tom, "or is he hen-pecked, and wants to +hide it? I'll see to-night, and play my cards accordingly." + +All which Miss Heale had heard. She had been peeping and listening +at the glass-door, and her mother also; for no sooner had Trebooze +entered the shop, than she had run off to tell her mother the +surprising fact, Trebooze's custom having been, for some years past, +courted in vain by Heale. So Miss Heale peeped and peeped at a man +whom she regarded with delighted curiosity, because he bore the +reputation of being "such a naughty wicked man!" and "so very handsome +too, and so distinguished as he looks!" said the poor little fool, to +whose novel-fed imagination Mr. Trebooze was an ideal Lothario. + +But the surprise of the two dames grew rapidly as they heard Tom's +audacity towards the country aristocrat. + +"Impudent wretch!" moaned Mrs. Heale to herself. "He'd drive away an +angel if he came into the shop." + +"Oh, ma! hear how they are going on now." + +"I can't bear it, my dear. This man will be the ruin of us. His +manners are those of the pot-house, when the cloven foot is shown, +which it's his nature as a child of wrath, and we can't expect +otherwise." + +"Oh, ma! do you hear that Mr. Trebooze has asked him to dinner?" + +"Nonsense!" + +But it was true. + +"Well! if there ain't the signs of the end of the world, which is? All +the years your poor father has been here, and never so much as send +him a hare, and now this young penniless interloper; and he to dine at +Trebooze off purple and fine linen." + +"There is not much of that there, ma; I'm sure they are poor enough, +for all his pride; and as for her--" + +"Yes, my dear; and as for her, though we haven't married squires, my +dear, yet we haven't been squires' housemaids, and have adorned our +own station, which was good enough for us, and has no need to rise out +of it, nor ride on Pharaoh's chariot-wheels after filthy lucre--" + +Miss Heale hated poor Mrs. Trebooze with a bitter hatred, because +she dreamed insanely that, but for her, she might have secured Mr. +Trebooze for herself. And though her ambition was now transferred to +the unconscious Tom, that need not make any difference in the said +amiable feeling. + +But that Tom was a most wonderful person, she had no doubt. He had +conquered her heart--so she informed herself passionately again and +again; as was very necessary, seeing that the passion, having no real +life of its own, required a good deal of blowing to keep it alight. +Yes, he had conquered her heart, and he was conquering all hearts +likewise. There must be some mystery about him--there should be. And +she settled in her novel-bewildered brain, that Tom must be a nobleman +in disguise--probably a foreign prince exiled for political offences. +Bah! perhaps too many lines have been spent on the poor little fool; +but as such fools exist, and people must be as they are, there is no +harm in drawing her; and in asking, too--Who will help those young +girls of the middle class who, like Miss Heale, are often really less +educated than the children of their parents' workmen; sedentary, +luxurious, full of petty vanity, gossip, and intrigue, without work, +without purpose, except that of getting married to any one who will +ask them--bewildering brain and heart with novels, which, after all, +one hardly grudges them; for what other means have they of learning +that there is any fairer, nobler life possible, at least on earth, +than that of the sordid money-getting, often the sordid puffery and +adulteration, which is the atmosphere of their home? Exceptions there +are, in thousands, doubtless; and the families of the great city +tradesmen, stand, of course, on far higher ground, and are often far +better educated, and more high-minded, than the fine ladies, their +parents' customers. But, till some better plan of education than +the boarding-school is devised for them; till our towns shall see +something like in kind to, though sounder and soberer in quality than, +the high schools of America; till in country villages the ladies who +interest themselves about the poor will recollect that the farmers' +and tradesmen's daughters are just as much in want of their influence +as the charity children, and will yield a far richer return for their +labour, though the one need not interfere with the other; so long will +England be full of Miss Heales; fated, when they marry, to bring up +sons and daughters as sordid and unwholesome as their mothers. + +Tom worked all that day in and out of the Pentremochyn cottages, +noting down nuisances and dilapidations: but his head was full of +other thoughts; for he had received, the evening before, news which +was to him very important, for more reasons than one. + +The longer he stayed at Aberalva, the longer he felt inclined to stay. +The strange attraction of Grace had, as we have seen, something to do +with his purpose: but he saw, too, a good opening for one of those +country practices, in which he seemed more and more likely to end. At +his native Whitbury, he knew, there was no room for a fresh medical +man; and gradually he was making up his mind to settle at Aberalva; to +buy out Heale, either with his own money (if he recovered it), or with +money borrowed from Mark; to bring his father down to live with him, +and in that pleasant wild western place, fold his wings after all his +wanderings. And therefore certain news which he had obtained the night +before was very valuable to him, in that it put a fresh person into +his power, and might, if cunningly used, give him a hold upon the +ruling family of the place, and on Lord Scoutbush himself. He had +found out that Lucia and Elsley were unhappy together; and found out, +too, a little more than was there to find. He could not, of course, be +a month among the gossips of Aberalva, without hearing hints that the +great folks at the court did not always keep their tempers; for, of +family jars, as of everything else on earth, the great and just law +stands true:--"What you do in the closet, shall be proclaimed on the +housetop." + +But the gossips of Aberalva, as women are too often wont to do, had +altogether taken the man's side in the quarrel. The reason was, I +suppose, that Lucia, conscious of having fallen somewhat in rank, +"held up her head" to Mrs. Trebooze and Mrs. Heale (as they themselves +expressed it), and to various other little notabilities of the +neighbourhood, rather more than she would have done had she married a +man of her own class. She was afraid that they might boast of being +intimate with her; that they might take to advising and patronising +her as an inexperienced young creature; afraid, even, that she might +be tempted, in some unguarded moment, to gossip with them, confide her +unhappiness to them, in the blind longing to open her heart to some +human being; for there were no resident gentry of her own rank in the +neighbourhood. She was too high-minded to complain much to Clara; and +her sister Valencia was the very last person to whom she would confess +that her run-away-match had not been altogether successful. So she +lived alone and friendless, shrinking into herself more and more, +while the vulgar women round mistook her honour for pride, and +revenged themselves accordingly. She was an uninteresting fine lady, +proud and cross, and Elsley was a martyr. "So handsome and agreeable +as he was--(and to do him justice, he was the former, and he could be +the latter when he chose)--to be tied to that unsociable, stuck-up +woman;" and so forth. + +All which Tom had heard, and formed his own opinion thereof; which +was,-- + +"All very fine: but I flatter myself I know a little what women are +made of; and this I know, that where man and wife quarrel, even if she +ends the battle, it is he who has begun it. I never saw a case yet +where the man was not the most in fault; and I'll lay my life John +Briggs has led her a pretty life: what else could one expect of him?" + +However, he held his tongue, and kept his eyes open withal whenever he +went up to Penalva Court, which he had to do very often; for though +he had cured the children of their ailments, yet Mrs. Vavasour was +perpetually, more or less, unwell, and he could not cure her. Her low +spirits, headaches, general want of tone and vitality, puzzled him +at first; and would have puzzled him longer, had he not settled with +himself that their cause was to be sought in the mind, and not in the +body; and at last, gaining courage from certainty, he had hinted as +much to Miss Clara the night before, when she came down (as she was +very fond of doing) to have a gossip with him in his shop, under the +pretence of fetching medicine. + +"I don't think I shall send Mrs. Vavasour any more, Miss Clara. There +is no use running up a long bill when I do no good; and, what is more, +suspect that I can do none, poor lady." And he gave the girl a look +which seemed to say, "You had better tell me the truth; for I know +everything already." + +To which Clara answered by trying to find out how much he did know: +but Tom was a cunninger diplomatist than she; and in ten minutes, +after having given solemn promises of secresy, and having, by strong +expressions of contempt for Mrs. Heale and the village gossips, made +Clara understand that he did not at all take their view of the case, +he had poured out to him across the counter all Clara's long-pent +indignation and contempt. + +"I never said a word of this to a living soul, sir; I was too proud, +for my mistress's sake, to let vulgar people know what we suffered. +We don't want any of their pity indeed; but you, sir, who have the +feelings of a gentleman, and know what the world is, like ourselves--" + +"Take care," whispered Tom; "that daughter of Heale's may be +listening." + +"I'd pull her hair about her ears if I caught her!" quoth Clara; and +then ran on to tell how Elsley "never kept no hours, nor no accounts +either; so that she has to do everything, poor thing; and no thanks +either. And never knows when he'll dine, or when he'll breakfast, or +when he'll be in, wandering in and out like a madman; and sits up all +night, writing his nonsense. And she'll go down twice and three times +a night in the cold, poor dear, to see if he's fallen asleep; and gets +abused like a pickpocket for her pains (which was an exaggeration); +and lies in bed all the morning, looking at the flies, and calls after +her if his shoes want tying, or his finger aches; as helpless as the +babe unborn; and will never do nothing useful himself, not even to +hang a picture or move a chair, and grumbles at her if he sees her +doing anything, because she ain't listening to his prosodies, and +snaps, and worrits, and won't speak to her sometimes for a whole +morning, the brute." + +"But is he not fond of his children?" + +"Fond? Yes, his way, and small thanks to him, the little angels! To +play with 'em when they're good, and tell them cock-and-a-bull fairy +tales--wonder why he likes to put such stuff into their heads--and +then send 'em out of the room if they make a noise, because it splits +his poor head, and his nerves are so delicate. Wish he had hers, or +mine either, Doctor Thurnall; then he'd know what nerves was, in a +frail woman, which he uses us both as his negro slaves, or would if I +didn't stand up to him pretty sharp now and then, and give him a piece +of my mind, which I will do, like the faithful servant in the parable, +if he kills me for it, Doctor Thurnall!" + +"Does he drink?" asked Tom, bluntly. + +"He!" she answered, in a tone which seemed to imply that even one +masculine vice would have raised him in her eyes. "He's not man +enough, I think; and lives on his slops, and his coffee, and his +tapioca; and how's he ever to have any appetite, always a sitting +about, heaped up together over his books, with his ribs growing into +his backbone?--If he'd only go and take his walk, or get a spade and +dig in the garden, or anything but them everlasting papers, which I +hates the sight of;" and so forth. + +From all which Tom gathered a tolerably clear notion of the poor +poet's state of body and mind; as a self-indulgent, unmethodical +person, whose ill-temper was owing partly to perpetual brooding over +his own thoughts, and partly to dyspepsia, brought on by his own +effeminacy--in both cases, not a thing to be pitied or excused by the +hearty and valiant Doctor. And Tom's original contempt for Vavasour +took a darker form, perhaps one too dark to be altogether just. + +"I'll tackle him, Miss Clara." + +"I wish you would: I'm sure he wants some one to look after him just +now. He's half wild about some review that somebody's been and done of +him in The Times, and has been flinging the paper about the room, and +calling all mankind vipers and adders, and hooting herds--it's as bad +as swearing, I say--and running to my mistress, to make her read it, +and see how the whole world's against him, and then forbidding her to +defile her eyes with a word of it; and so on, till she's been crying +all the morning, poor dear!" + +"Why not laughing at him?" + +"Poor thing; that's where it all is: she's just as anxious about his +poetry as he is, and would write it just as well as he, I'll warrant, +if she hadn't better things to do; and all her fuss is, that people +should 'appreciate' him. He's always talking about appreciating, till +I hate the sound of the word. How any woman can go on so after a man +that behaves as he does! but we're all soft fools, I'm afraid, Doctor +Thurnall." And Clara began a languishing look or two across the +counter, which made Tom answer to an imaginary Doctor Heale, whom he +heard calling from within. + +"Yes, Doctor! coming this moment, Doctor! Good-bye, Miss Clara. I must +hear more next time; you may trust me, you know; secret as the grave, +and always your friend, and your lady's too, if you will allow me to +do myself such an honour. Coming, Doctor!" + +And Tom bolted through the glass door, till Miss Clara was safe on her +way up the street. + +"Very well," said Tom to himself. "Knowledge is power: but how to use +it? To get into Mrs. Vavasour's confidence, and show an inclination to +take her part against her husband? If she be a true woman, she would +order me out of the house on the spot, as surely as a fish-wife would +fall tooth and nail on me as a base intruder, if I dared to interfere +with her sacred right of being beaten by her husband when she chooses. +No; I must go straight to John Briggs himself, and bind him over to +keep the peace; and I think I know the way to do it." + +So Tom pondered over many plans in his head that day; and then went to +Trebooze, and saw the sick child, and sat down to dinner, where his +host talked loud about the Treboozes of Trebooze, who fought in the +Spanish Armada--or against it; and showed an unbounded belief in +the greatness and antiquity of his family, combined with a historic +accuracy about equal to that of a good old dame of those parts, who +used to say "her family comed over the water, that she knew; but +whether it were with the Conqueror, or whether it were wi' Oliver, she +couldn't exactly say!" + +Then he became great on the subject of old county families in general, +and poured out all the vials of his wrath on "that confounded upstart +of a Newbroom, Lord Minchampstead," supplanting all the fine old blood +in the country--"Why, sir, that Pentremochyn, and Carcarrow moors too +(--good shooting there, there used to be), they ought to be mine, sir, +if every man had his rights!" And then followed a long story; and a +confused one withal, for by this time Mr. Trebooze had drunk a great +deal too much wine, and as he became aware of the fact, became +proportionately anxious that Tom should drink too much also; out of +which story Tom picked the plain facts, that Trebooze's father had +mortgaged Pentremochyn estate for more than its value, and that Lord +Minchampstead had foreclosed; while some equally respectable uncle, or +cousin, just deceased, had sold the reversion of Carcarrow to the same +mighty Cotton Lord twenty years before. "And this is the way, sir, +the land gets eaten up by a set of tinkers, and cobblers, and +money-lending jobbers, who suck the blood of the aristocracy!" +The oaths we omit, leaving the reader to pepper Mr. Trebooze's +conversation therewith, up to any degree of heat which may suit his +palate. + +Tom sympathised with him deeply, of course; and did not tell him, as +he might have done, that he thought the sooner such cumberers of the +ground were cleared off, whether by an encumbered estates' act, such +as we may see yet in England, or by their own suicidal folly, the +better it would be for the universe in general, and perhaps for +themselves in particular. But he only answered with pleasant +effrontery-- + +"Ah, my dear sir, I am sure there are hundreds of good sportsmen who +can sympathise with you deeply. The wonder is, that you do not unite +and defend yourselves. For not only in the West of England, but in +Ireland, and in Wales, and in the north, too, if one is to believe +those novels of Currer Bell's and her sister, there is a large and +important class of landed proprietors of the same stamp as yourself, +and exposed to the very same dangers. I wonder at times that you do +not all join, and use your combined influence on the Government." + +"The Government? All a set of Whig traitors! Call themselves +Conservative, or what they like. Traitors, sir! from that fellow +Peel upwards--all combined to crush the landed gentry--ruin +the Church--betray the country party--D'Israeli--Derby--Free +trade--ruined, sir!--Maynooth--Protection--treason--help yourself, and +pass the--you know, old fellow--" + +And Mr. Trebooze's voice died away, and he slumbered, but not softly. + +The door opened, and in marched Mrs. Trebooze, tall, tawdry, and +terrible. + +"Mr. Trebooze! it's past eleven o'clock!" + +"Hush, my dear madam! He is sleeping so sweetly," said Tom, rising, +and gulping down a glass, not of wine, but of strong ammonia and +water. The rogue had put a phial thereof in his pocket that morning, +expecting that, as Trebooze had said, he would be required to make a +night of it, + +She was silent; for to rouse her tyrant was more than she dare do. +If awakened, he would crave for brandy and water; and if he got that +sweet poison, he would probably become furious. She stood for half a +minute; and Tom, who knew her story well, watched her curiously. + +"She is a fine woman: and with a far finer heart in her than that +brute. Her eyebrow and eye, now, have the true Siddons' stamp; +the great white forehead, and sharp-cut little nostril, breathing +scorn--and what a Siddons-like attitude!--I should like, madam, to see +the child again before I go." + +"If you are fit, sir," answered she. + +"Brave woman; comes to the point at once, I am a poor doctor, madam, +and not a country gentleman; and have neither money nor health to +spend in drinking too much wine." + +"Then why do you encourage him in it, sir? I had expected a very +different sort of conduct from you, sir." + +Tom did not tell her what she would not (no woman will) understand; +that it is morally and socially impossible to escape from the table of +a fool, till either he or you are conquered; and she was too shrewd to +be taken in by commonplace excuses; so he looked her very full in +the face, and replied a little haughtily, with a slow and delicate +articulation, using his lips more than usual, and yet compressing +them:-- + +"I beg your pardon, madam, if I have unintentionally displeased you: +but if you ever do me the honour of knowing more of me, you will be +the first to confess that your words are unjust. Do you wish me to see +your son, or do you not?" + +Poor Mrs. Trebooze looked at him, with an eye which showed that +she had been accustomed to study character keenly, perhaps in +self-defence. She saw that Tom was sober; he had taken care to prove +that, by the way in which he spoke; and she saw, too, that he was a +better bred man than her husband, as well as a cleverer. She dropped +her eye before his; heaved something very like a sigh; and then +said, in her curt, fierce tone, which yet implied a sort of sullen +resignation-- + +"Yes; come up-stairs." + +Tom went up, and looked at the boy again, as he lay sleeping. A +beautiful child of four years old, as large and fair a child as man +need see; and yet there was on him the curse of his father's sins; and +Tom knew it, and knew that his mother knew it also. + +"What a noble boy!" said he, after looking, not without honest +admiration, upon the sleeping child, who had kicked off his +bed-clothes, and lay in a wild graceful attitude, as children are wont +to lie; just like an old Greek statue of Cupid, "It all depends upon +you, madam, now." + +"On me?" she asked, in a startled, suspicious tone. + +"Yes. He is a magnificent boy: but--I can only give palliatives. It +depends upon your care now." + +"He will have that, at least, I should hope," she said, nettled. + +"And on your influence ten years hence," went on Tom. + +"My influence?" + +"Yes; only keep him steady, and he may grow up a magnificent man. If +not--you will excuse me--but you must not let him live as freely as +his father; the constitutions of the two are very different." + +"Don't talk so, sir. Steady? His father makes him drunk now, if he +can; teaches him to swear, because it is manly--God help him and me!" + +Tom's cunning and yet kind shaft had sped. He guessed that with a +coarse woman like Mrs. Trebooze his best plan was to come as straight +to the point as he could; and he was right. Ere half an hour was over, +that woman had few secrets on earth which Tom did not know. + +"Let me give you one hint before I go," said he at last. "Persuade +your husband to go into a militia regiment." + +"Why? He would see so much company, and it would be so expensive." + +"The expense would repay itself ten times over. The company which he +would see would be sober company, in which he would be forced to keep +in order. He would have something to do in the world; and he'd do it +well. He is just cut out for a soldier, and might have made a gallant +one by now, if he had had other men's chances. He will find he does +his militia work well; and it will be a new interest, and a new pride, +and a new life to him. And meanwhile, madam, what you have said to me +is sacred. I do not pretend to advise or interfere. Only tell me if I +can be of use--how, when, and where--and command me as your servant." + +And Tom departed, having struck another root; and was up at four the +next morning (he never worked at night; for, he said, he never could +trust after-dinner brains), drawing out a detailed report of the +Pentremochyn cottages, which he sent to Lord Minchampstead with-- + +"And your lordship will excuse my saying, that to put the cottages +into the state in which your lordship, with your known wish for +progress of all kinds, would wish to see them is a responsibility +which I dare not take on myself, as it would involve a present outlay +of not less than L450. This sum would be certainly repaid to your +Lordship and your tenants, in the course of the next three years, by +the saving in poor-rates; an opinion for which I subjoin my grounds +drawn from the books of the medical officer, Mr. Heale: but the +responsibility and possible unpopularity, which employing so great +a sum would involve, is more than I can, in the present dependent +condition of poor-law medical officers, dare to undertake, in justice +to Mr. Heale my employer, save at your special command. I am bound, +however, to inform your lordship, that this outlay would, I think, +perfectly defend the hamlets, not only from that visit of the cholera +which we have every reason to expect next summer, but also from those +zymotic diseases which (as your lordship will see by my returns) make +up more than sixty-five per cent of the aggregate sickness of the +estate." + +Which letter the old Cotton Lord put in his pocket, rode into Whitbury +therewith, and showed it to Mark Armsworth. + +"Well, Mr. Armsworth, what am I to do?" + +"Well, my Lord; I told you what sort of a man you'd have to do +with; one that does his work thoroughly, and, I think, pays you a +compliment, by thinking that you want it done thoroughly." + +Lord Minchampstead was of the same opinion; but he did not say so. +Few, indeed, have ever heard Lord Minchampstead give his opinion: +though many a man has seen him act on it. + +"I'll send down orders to my agent." + +"Don't." + +"Why, then, my good friend?" + +"Agents are always in league with farmers, or guardians, or builders, +or drain-tile makers, or attorneys, or bankers, or somebody; and +either you'll be told that the work don't need doing; or have a job +brewed out of it, to get off a lot of unsaleable drain-tiles, or +cracked soil-pans; or to get farm ditches dug, and perhaps the highway +rates saved building culverts, and fifty dodges beside. I know their +game; and you ought, too, by now, my lord, begging your pardon." + +"Perhaps I do, Mark," said his lordship with a chuckle. + +"So, I say, let the man that found the fox, run the fox, and kill the +fox, and take the brush home." + +"And so it shall be," quoth my Lord Minchampstead. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +"AM I NOT A WOMAN AND A SISTER?" + + +But what was the mysterious bond between La Cordifiamma and the +American, which had prevented Scoutbush from following the example +of his illustrious progenitor, and taking a viscountess from off the +stage? + +Certainly, any one who had seen her with him on the morning after +Scoutbush's visit to the Mellots, would have said that, if the cause +was love, the love was all on one side. + +She was standing by the fireplace in a splendid pose, her arm resting +on the chimney-piece, the book from which she had been reciting in one +hand, the other playing in her black curls, as her eyes glanced back +ever and anon at her own profile in the mirror. Stangrave was half +sitting in a low chair by her side, half kneeling on the footstool +before her, looking up beseechingly, as she looked down tyrannically. + +"Stupid, this reciting? Of course it is! I want realities, not shams; +life, not the stage; nature, not art." + +"Throw away the book, then, and words, and art, and live!" + +She knew well what he meant; but she answered as if she had +misunderstood him. + +"Thanks, I live already, and in good company enough. My ghost-husbands +are as noble as they are obedient; do all which I demand of them, and +vanish on my errands when I tell them. Can you guess who my last +is? Since I tired of Egmont, I have taken Sir Galahad, the spotless +knight. Did you ever read the Mort d'Arthur?" + +"A hundred times." + +"Of course!" and she spoke in a tone of contempt so strong that it +must have been affected. "What have you not read! And what have you +copied. No wonder that these English have been what they have been for +centuries, while their heroes have been the Galahads, and their Homer +the Mort d'Arthur." + +"Enjoy your Utopia!" said he bitterly. "Do you fancy they acted up to +their ideals? They dreamed of the Quest of the Sangreal: but which of +them ever went upon it?" + +"And does it count for nothing that they felt it the finest thing in +the world to have gone on it, had it been possible? Be sure if their +ideal was so self-sacrificing, so lofty, their practice was ruled by +something higher than the almighty dollar." + +"And so are some other men's, Marie," answered he reproachfully. + +"Yes, forsooth;--when the almighty dollar is there already, and a man +has ten times as much to spend every day as he can possibly invest in +French cookery, and wines, and fine clothes, then he begins to lay out +his surplus nobly on self-education, and the patronage of art, and the +theatre--for merely aesthetic purposes, of course; and when the lust +of the flesh has been satisfied, thinks himself an archangel, because +he goes on to satisfy the lust of the eye and the pride of life. +Christ was of old the model, and Sir Galahad was the hero. Now the one +is exchanged for Goethe, and the other for Wilhelm Meister." + +"Cruel! You know that my Goethe fever is long past. How would you have +known of its existence if I had not confessed it to you as a sin of +old years? Have I not said to you, again and again, show me the thing +which you would have me do for your sake, and see if I will not do +it!" + +"For my sake? A noble reason! Show yourself the thing which you will +do for its own sake; because it ought to be done. Show it yourself, I +say; I cannot show you. If your own eyes cannot see the Sangreal, and +the angels who are bearing it before you, it is because they are dull +and gross; and am I Milton's archangel, to purge them with euphrasy +and rue? If you have a noble heart, you will find for yourself the +noblest Quest. If not, who can prove to you that it is noble?" And +tapping impatiently with her foot, she went on to herself-- + + "'A gentle sound, an awful light! + Three angels bear the holy Grail; + With folded feet, in stoles of white, + On sleeping wings they sail. + + Ah, blessed vision! blood of God! + The spirit beats her mortal bars, + As down dark tides, the glory slides, + And star-like mingles with the stars.' + +"Why, there was not a knight of the round table, was there, who did +not give up all to go upon that Quest, though only one was found +worthy to fulfil it? But now-a-days, the knights sit drinking hock +and champagne, or drive sulky-wagons, and never fancy that there is a +Quest at all." + +"Why talk in these parables?" + +"So the Jews asked of their prophets. They are no parables to my +ghost-husband, Sir Galahad. Now go, if you please; I must be busy, and +write letters." + +He rose with a look, half of disappointment, half amused, and yet his +face bore a firmness which seemed to say, "You will be mine yet." As +he rose, he cast his eye upon the writing-table, and upon a letter +which lay there: and as he did so, his cheek grew pale, and his brows +knitted. + +The letter was addressed to "Thomas Thurnall, Esq., Aberalva." + +"Is this, then, your Sir Galahad?" asked he, after a pause, during +which he had choked down his rising jealousy, while she looked first +at herself in the glass, and then at him, and then at herself again, +with a determined and triumphant air. + +"And what if it be?" + +"So he, then, has achieved the Quest of the Sangreal?" + +Stangrave spoke bitterly, and with an emphasis upon the "he;" and-- + +"What if he have? Do you know him?" answered she, while her face +lighted up with eager interest, which she did not care to conceal, +perhaps chose, in her woman's love of tormenting, to parade. + +"I knew a man of that name once," he replied, in a carefully careless +tone, which did not deceive her; "an adventurer--a doctor, if I +recollect--who had been in Texas and Mexico, and I know not where +besides. Agreeable enough he was; but as for your Quest of the +Sangreal, whatever it may be, he seemed to have as little notion of +anything beyond his own interest as any Greek I ever met." + +"Unjust! Your words only show how little you can see! That man, of all +men I ever met, saw the Quest at once, and followed it, at the risk of +his own life, as far at least as he was concerned with it:--ay, even +when he pretended to see nothing. Oh, there is more generosity in that +man's affected selfishness, than in all the noisy good-nature which I +have met with in the world. Thurnall! oh, you know his nobleness as +little as he knows it himself." + +"Then he, I am to suppose, is your phantom-husband, for as long, at +least, as your present dream lasts?" asked he, with white, compressed +lips. + +"He might have been, I believe," she answered carelessly, "if he had +even taken the trouble to ask me." + +"Marie, this is too much! Do you not know to whom you speak? To one +who deserves, if not common courtesy, at least common mercy." + +"Because he adores me, and so forth? So has many a man done; or told +me that he has done so. Do you know that I might be a viscountess +to-morrow, so Sabina informs me, if I but chose?" + +"A viscountess? Pray accept your effete English aristocrat, and, as +far as I am concerned, accept my best wishes for your happiness." + +"My effete English aristocrat, did I show him that pedigree of mine +which I have ere now threatened to show you, would perhaps be less +horrified at it than you are." + +"Marie, I cannot bear this! Tell me only what you mean. What care I +for pedigree? I want you--worship you--and that is enough, Marie!" + +"You admire me because I am beautiful. What thanks do I owe you for +finding out so patent a fact? What do you do more to me than I do to +myself?" and she glanced back once more at the mirror. + +"Marie, you know that your words are false; I do more--" + +"You admire me," interrupted she, "because I am clever. What thanks +to you for that, again? What do you do more to me than you do to +yourself?" + +"And this, after all--" + +"After what? After you found me, or rather I found you--you, +the critic, the arbiter of the greenroom, the highly-organised +do-nothings--teaching others how to do nothing most gracefully; the +would-be Goethe who must, for the sake of his own self-development, +try experiments on every weak woman whom he met. And I, the new +phenomenon, whom you must appreciate to show your own taste, patronise +to show your own liberality, develop to show your own insight into +character. You found yourself mistaken! You had attempted to play +with the tigress--and behold she was talons; to angle for the silly +fish--and behold the fish was the better angler, and caught you." + +"Marie, have mercy! Is your heart iron?" + +"No; but fire, as my name shows:" and she stood looking down on him +with a glare of dreadful beauty. + +"Fire, indeed!" + +"Yes, fire, that I may scorch you, kindle you, madden you, to do my +work, and wear the heart of fire which I wear day and night!" + +Stangrave looked at her startled. Was she mad? Her face did not +say so; her brow was white, her features calm, her eye fierce and +contemptuous, but clear, steady, full of meaning. + +"So you know Mr. Thurnall?" said she, after a while. + +"Yes; why do you ask?" + +"Because he is the only friend I have on earth." + +"The only friend, Marie?" + +"The only one," answered she calmly, "who, seeing the right, has gone +and done it forthwith. When did you see him last?" + +"I have not been acquainted with Mr. Thurnall for some years," said +Stangrave, haughtily. + +"In plain words, you have quarrelled with him?" + +Stangrave bit his lip. + +"He and I had a difference. He insulted my nation, and we parted." + +She laughed a long, loud, bitter laugh, which rang through Stangrave's +ears. + +"Insulted your nation? And on what grounds, pray?" + +"About that accursed slavery question!" + +La Cordifiamma looked at him with firm-closed lips a while. + +"So then! I was not aware of this! Even so long ago you saw the +Sangreal, and did not know it when you saw it. No wonder that since +then you have been staring at it for months, in your very hands, +played with it, admired it, made verses about it, to show off your own +taste: and yet were blind to it the whole time! Farewell, then!" + +"Marie, what do you mean?" and Stangrave caught both her hands. + +"Hush, if you please. I know you are eloquent enough, when you choose, +though you have been somewhat dumb and monosyllabic to-night in the +presence of the actress whom you undertook to educate. But I know that +you can be eloquent, so spare me any brilliant appeals, which can only +go to prove that already settled fact. Between you and me lie two +great gulfs. The one I have told you of; and from it I shrink. The +other I have not told you of; from it you would shrink." + +"The first is your Quest of the Sangreal." + +She smiled assent, bitterly enough. + +"And the second?" + +She did not answer. She was looking at herself in the mirror; and +Stangrave, in spite of his almost doting affection, flushed with +anger, almost contempt, at her vanity. + +And yet, was it vanity which was expressed in that face? No; but +dread, horror, almost disgust, as she gazed with side-long, startled +eyes, struggling, and yet struggling in vain, to turn her face from +some horrible sight, as if her own image had been the Gorgon's head. + +"What is it? Marie, speak!" + +But she answered nothing. For that last question she had no heart to +answer; no heart to tell him that in her veins were some drops, at +least, of the blood of slaves. Instinctively she had looked round at +the mirror--for might he not, if he had eyes, discover that secret for +himself? Were there not in her features traces of that taint? And as +she looked,--was it the mere play of her excited fancy,--or did her +eyelid slope more and more, her nostril shorten and curl, her lips +enlarge, her mouth itself protrude? + +It was more than the play of fancy; for Stangrave saw it as well as +she. Her actress's imagination, fixed on the African type with an +intensity proportioned to her dread of seeing it in herself, had +moulded her features, for the moment, into the very shape which it +dreaded. And Stangrave saw it, and shuddered as he saw. + +Another half minute, and that face also had melted out of the mirror, +at least for Marie's eyes; and in its place an ancient negress, +white-haired, withered as the wrinkled ape, but with eyes closed--in +death. Marie knew that face well; a face which haunted many a dream +of hers; once seen, but never forgotten since; for to that old dame's +coffin had her mother, the gay quadroon woman, flaunting in finery +which was the price of shame, led Marie when she was but a three +years' child; and Marie had seen her bend over the corpse, and call it +her dear old granny, and weep bitter tears. + +Suddenly she shook off the spell, and looked round and down, +terrified, self-conscious. Her eye caught Stangrave's; she saw, or +thought she saw, by the expression of his face, that he knew all, and +burst away with a shriek. + +He sprang up and caught her in his arms. "Marie! Beloved Marie!" She +looked up at him struggling; the dark expression had vanished, and +Stangrave's love-blinded eyes could see nothing in that face but the +refined and yet rich beauty of the Italian. + +"Marie, this is mere madness; you excite yourself till you know not +what you say, or what you are--" + +"I know what I am," murmured she: but he hurried on unheeding. + +"You love me, you know you love me; and you madden yourself by +refusing to confess it!" He felt her heart throb as he spoke, and knew +that he spoke truth. "What gulfs are these you dream of? No; I will +not ask. There is no gulf between me and one whom I adore, who has +thrown a spell over me which I cannot resist, which I glory in not +resisting; for you have been my guide, my morning star, which has +awakened me to new life. If I have a noble purpose upon earth, if I +have roused myself from that conceited dream of self-culture which now +looks to me so cold, and barren, and tawdry, into the hope of becoming +useful, beneficent--to whom do I owe it but to you, Marie? No; there +is no gulf, Marie! You are my wife, and you alone!" And he held her +so firmly, and gazed down upon her with such strong manhood, that her +woman's heart quailed; and he might, perhaps, have conquered then and +there, had not Sabina, summoned by her shriek, entered hastily. + +"Good heavens! what is the matter?" + +"Wait but one minute, Mrs. Mellot," said he; "the next, I shall +introduce you to my bride." + +"Never! never! never!" cried she, and breaking from him, flew into +Sabina's arms. "Leave me, leave me to bear my curse alone!" + +And she broke out into such wild weeping, and refused so wildly to +hear another word from Stangrave, that he went away in despair, the +prize snatched from his grasp in the very moment of seeming victory. + +He went in search of Claude, who had agreed to meet him at the +Exhibition in Trafalgar Square. Thither Stangrave rolled away in his +cab, his heart full of many thoughts. Marie's words about him, though +harsh and exaggerated, were on the whole true. She had fascinated him +utterly. To marry her was now the one object of his life: she had +awakened in him, as he had confessed, noble desires to be useful: but +the discovery that he was to be useful to the negro, that abolition +was the Sangreal in the quest of which he was to go forth, was as +disagreeable a discovery as he could well have made. + +From public life in any shape, with all its vulgar noise, its petty +chicanery, its pandering to the mob whom he despised, he had always +shrunk, as so many Americans of his stamp have done. He had no wish to +struggle, unrewarded and disappointed, in the ranks of the minority; +while to gain place and power on the side of the majority was to lend +himself to that fatal policy which, ever since the Missouri Compromise +of 1820, has been gradually making the northern states more and more +the tools of the southern ones. He had no wish to be threatened in +Congress with having his Northerner's "ears nailed to the counter, +like his own base coin," or to be informed that he, with the +17,000,000 of the north, were the "White Slaves" of a southern +aristocracy of 350,000 slaveholders. He had enough comprehension +of, enough admiration for the noble principles of the American +Constitution to see that the democratic mobs of Irish and Germans, +who were stupidly playing into the hands of the Southerners, were not +exactly carrying them out; but he had no mind to face either Irish or +Southerners. The former were too vulgar for his delicacy; the latter +too aristocratic for his pride. Sprung, as he held (and rightly), from +as fine old English blood as any Virginian (though it did happen to be +Puritan, and not Cavalier), he had no lust to come into contact with +men who considered him much further below them in rank than an English +footman is below an English nobleman; who, indeed, would some of them +look down on the English nobleman himself as a mushroom of yesterday. +So he compounded with his conscience by ignoring the whole matter, and +by looking on the state of public affairs on his side of the Atlantic +with a cynicism which very soon (as is usual with rich men) passed +into Epicureanism. Poetry and music, pictures and statues, amusement +and travel, became his idols, and cultivation his substitute for the +plain duty of patriotism, and wandering luxuriously over the world, he +learnt to sentimentalise over cathedrals and monasteries, pictures and +statues, saints and kaisers, with a lazy regret that such "forms of +beauty and nobleness" were no longer possible in a world of scrip and +railroads: but without any notion that it was his duty to reproduce in +his own life, or that of his country, as much as he could of the said +beauty and nobleness. And now he was sorely tried. It was interesting +enough to "develop" the peculiar turn of Marie's genius, by writing +for her plays about liberty, just as he would have written plays +about jealousy, or anything else for representing which she had +"capabilities." But to be called on to act in that Slavery question, +the one in which he knew (as all sensible Americans do) that the life +and death of his country depended, and which for that very reason he +had carefully ignored till a more convenient season, finding in +its very difficulty and danger an excuse for leaving it to solve +itself:--to have this thrust on him, and by her, as the price of the +thing which he must have, or die! If she had asked for his right hand, +he would have given it sooner; and he entered the Royal Academy that +day in much the same humour as that of a fine lady who should find +herself suddenly dragged from the ball-room into the dust-hole, in her +tenderest array of gauze and jewels, and there peremptorily compelled +to sift the cinders, under the superintendence of the sweep and the +pot-boy. + +Glad to escape from questions which he had rather not answer too +soon, he went in search of Claude, and found him before one of those +pre-Raphaelite pictures, which Claude does not appreciate as he ought. + +"Desinit in Culicem mulier formosa superne," said Stangrave, as he +looked over Claude's shoulder; "but I suppose he followed nature, and +copied his model." + +"That he didn't," said Claude, "for I know who his model was: but if +he did he had no business to do so. I object on principle to these +men's notion of what copying nature means. I don't deny him talent. +I am ready to confess that there is more imagination and more honest +work in that picture than in any one in the room. The hysterical, all +but grinning joy upon the mother's face is a miracle of truth; I have +seen the expression more than once; doctors see it often, in the +sudden revulsion from terror and agony to certainty and peace; I only +marvel where he ever met it: but the general effect is unpleasing, +marred by patches of sheer ugliness, like that child's foot. There is +the same mistake in all his pictures. Whatever they are, they are not +beautiful; and no magnificence of surface-colouring will make up, in +my eyes, for wilful ugliness of form. I say that nature is beautiful; +and therefore nature cannot have been truly copied, or the general +effect would have been beautiful also. I never found out the fallacy +till the other day, when looking at a portrait by one of them. The +woman for whom it was meant was standing by my side, young and lovely; +the portrait hung there neither young nor lovely, but a wrinkled +caricature twenty years older than the model." + +"I surely know the portrait you mean; Lady D----'s." + +"Yes. He had simply, under pretence of following nature, caricatured +her into a woman twenty years older than she is." + +"But did you ever see a modern portrait which more perfectly expressed +character; which more completely fulfilled the requirements which you +laid down a few evenings since?" + +"Never; and that makes me all the more cross with the wilful mistake +of it. He had painted every wrinkle." + +"Why not, if they were there?" + +"Because he had painted a face not one-twentieth of the size of life. +What right had he to cram into that small space all the marks which +nature had spread over a far larger one?" + +"Why not, again, if he diminished the marks in proportion?" + +"Just what neither he nor any man could do, without making them so +small as to be invisible, save under a microscope: and the result was, +that he had caricatured every wrinkle, as his friend has in those +horrible knuckles of Shem's wife. Besides, I deny utterly your +assertion that one is bound to paint what is there. On that very +fallacy are they all making shipwreck." + +"Not paint what is there? And you are the man who talks of art being +highest when it copies nature." + +"Exactly. And therefore you must paint, not what is there, but what +you see there. They forget that human beings are men with two eyes, +and not daguerreotype lenses with one eye, and so are contriving and +striving to introduce into their pictures the very defect of the +daguerreotype which the stereoscope is required to correct." + +"I comprehend. They forget that the double vision of our two eyes +gives a softness, and indistinctness, and roundness, to every +outline." + +"Exactly so; and therefore, while for distant landscapes, motionless, +and already softened by atmosphere, the daguerreotype is invaluable +(I shall do nothing else this summer but work at it), yet for taking +portraits, in any true sense, it will be always useless, not only for +the reason I just gave, but for another one which the pre-Raphaelites +have forgotten." + +"Because all the features cannot be in focus at once?" + +"Oh no, I am not speaking of that. Art, for aught I know, may overcome +that; for it is a mere defect in the instrument. What I mean is this: +it tries to represent as still what never yet was still for the +thousandth part of a second: that is, the human face; and as seen by a +spectator who is perfectly still, which no man ever yet was. My dear +fellow, don't you see that what some painters call idealising a +portrait is, if it be wisely done, really painting for you the face +which you see, and know, and love; her ever-shifting features, with +expression varying more rapidly than the gleam of the diamond on +her finger; features which you, in your turn, are looking at with +ever-shifting eyes; while, perhaps, if it is a face which you love and +have lingered over, a dozen other expressions equally belonging to it +are hanging in your memory, and blending themselves with the actual +picture on your retina:--till every little angle is somewhat rounded, +every little wrinkle somewhat softened, every little shade somewhat +blended with the surrounding light, so that the sum total of what +you see, and are intended by Heaven to see, is something far softer, +lovelier--younger, perhaps, thank Heaven--than it would look if your +head was screwed down in a vice, to look with one eye at her head +screwed down in a vice also:--though even that, thanks to the muscles +of the eye, would not produce the required ugliness; and the only +possible method of fulfilling the pre-Raphaelite ideal would be, to +set a petrified Cyclops to paint his petrified brother." + +"You are spiteful." + +"Not at all. I am standing up for art, and for nature too. For +instance: Sabina has wrinkles. She says, too, that she has grey hairs +coming. The former I won't see, and therefore don't. The latter I +can't see, because I am not looking for them." + +"Nor I either," said Stangrave smiling. "I assure you the announcement +is new to me." + +"Of course. Who can see wrinkles in the light of those eyes, that +smile, that complexion?" + +"Certainly," said Stangrave, "if I asked for her portrait, as I shall +do some day, and the artist sat down and painted the said 'wastes +of time,' on pretence of their being there, I should consider it an +impertinence on his part. What business has he to spy out what nature +has taken such charming trouble to conceal?" + +"Again," said Claude, "such a face as Cordifiamma's. When it is at +rest, in deep thought, there are lines in it which utterly puzzle +one--touches which are Eastern, Kabyle, almost Quadroon." + +Stangrave started. Claude went on unconscious:-- + +"But who sees them in the light of that beauty? They are defects, no +doubt, but defects which no one would observe without deep study of +the face. They express her character no more than a scar would; and +therefore when I paint her, as I must and will, I shall utterly ignore +them. If, on the other hand, I met the same lines in a face which I +knew to have Quadroon blood in it, I should religiously copy them; +because then they would be integral elements of the face. You +understand?" + +"Understand?--yes," answered Stangrave, in a tone which made Claude +look up. + +That strange scene of half an hour before flashed across him. What if +it were no fancy? What if Marie had African blood in her veins? And +Stangrave shuddered, and felt for the moment that thousands of pounds +would be a cheap price to pay for the discovery that his fancy was a +false one. + +"Yes--oh--I beg your pardon," said he, recovering himself. "I was +thinking of something else. But, as you say, what if she had Quadroon +blood?" + +"I? I never said so, or dreamt of it." + +"Oh! I mistook. Do you know, though, where she came from?" + +"I? You forget, my dear fellow, that you yourself introduced her to +us." + +"Of course; but I thought Mrs. Mellot might--women always makes +confidences." + +"All we know is, what I suppose you knew long ago, that her most +intimate friend, next to you, seems to be an old friend of ours, named +Thurnall." + +"An old friend of yours?" + +"Oh yes; we have known him these fifteen years. Met him first at +Paris; and after that went round the world with him, and saw infinite +adventures. Sabina and I spent three months with him once, among the +savages in a South-sea Island, and a very pretty romance our stay and +our escape would make. We were all three, I believe, to have been +cooked and eaten, if Tom had not got us off by that wonderful address +which, if you know him, you must know well enough." + +"Yes," answered Stangrave, coldly, as in a dream; "I have known +Mr. Thurnall in past years; but not in connection with La Signora +Cordifiamma. I was not aware till this moment--this morning, I +mean--that they knew each other." + +"You astound me; why, she talks of him to us all day long, as of one +to whom she has the deepest obligations; she was ready to rush into +our arms when she first found that we knew him. He is a greater hero +in her eyes, I sometimes fancy, than even you are. She does nothing +(or fancies that she does nothing, for you know her pretty wilfulness) +without writing for his advice." + +"I a hero in her eyes? I was really not aware of that fact," said +Stangrave, more coldly than ever; for bitter jealousy had taken +possession of his heart. "Do you know, then, what this same obligation +may be?" + +"I never asked. I hate gossiping, and I make a rule to inquire into no +secrets but such as are voluntarily confided to me; and I know that +she has never told Sabina." + +"I suppose she is married to him. That is the simplest explanation of +the mystery." + +"Impossible! What can you mean? If she ever marries living man, she +will marry you." + +"Then she will never marry living man," said Stangrave to himself. +"Good-bye, my dear fellow; I have an engagement at the Traveller's." +And away went Stangrave, leaving Claude sorely puzzled, but little +dreaming of the powder-magazine into which he had put a match. + +But he was puzzled still more that night, when by the latest post a +note came-- + +"From Stangrave!" said Claude. "Why, in the name of all wonders!"--and +he read:-- + +"Good-bye. I am just starting for the Continent, on sudden and urgent +business. What my destination is I hardly can tell you yet. You will +hear from me in the course of the summer." + +Claude's countenance fell, and the note fell likewise. Sabina snatched +it up, read it, and gave La Cordifiamma a look which made her spring +from the sofa, and snatch it in turn. + +She read it through, with trembling hands, and blanching cheeks, and +then dropped fainting upon the floor. + +They laid her on the sofa, and while they were recovering her, Claude +told Sabina the only clue which he had to the American's conduct, +namely, that afternoon's conversation. + +Sabina shook her head over it; for to her, also, the American's +explanation had suggested itself. Was Marie Thurnall's wife? Or did +she--it was possible, however painful--stand to him in some less +honourable relation, which she would fain forget now, in a new passion +for Stangrave? For that Marie loved Stangrave, Sabina knew well +enough. + +The doubt was so ugly that it must be solved; and when she had got the +poor thing safe into her bedroom she alluded to it as gently as she +could. + +Marie sprang up in indignant innocence. + +"He! Whatever he may be to others, I know not: but to me he has been +purity and nobleness itself--a brother, a father! Yes; if I had no +other reason for trusting him, I should love him for that alone; that +however tempted he may have been, and Heaven knows he was tempted, +he could respect the honour of his friend, though that friend lay +sleeping in a soldier's grave ten thousand miles away." + +And Marie threw herself upon Sabina's neck, and under the pressure of +her misery sobbed out to her the story of her life. What it was need +not be told. A little common sense, and a little knowledge of human +nature, will enable the reader to fill up for himself the story of a +beautiful slave. + +Sabina soothed her, and cheered her; and soothed and cheered her most +of all by telling her in return the story of her own life; not so dark +a one, but almost as sad and strange. And poor Marie took heart, when +she found in her great need a sister in the communion of sorrows. + +"And you have been through all this, so beautiful and bright as you +are! You whom I should have fancied always living the life of the +humming-bird: and yet not a scar or a wrinkle has it left behind!" + +"They were there once, Marie! but God and Claude smoothed them away." + +"I have no Claude,--and no God, I think, at times." + +"No God, Marie! Then how did you come hither?" + +Marie was silent, reproved; and then passionately-- + +"Why does He not right my people?" + +That question was one to which Sabina's little scheme of the universe +had no answer; why should it, while many a scheme which pretends to be +far vaster and more infallible has none as yet? + +So she was silent, and sat with Marie's head upon her bosom, caressing +the black curls, till she had soothed her into sobbing exhaustion. + +"There; lie there and rest: you shall be my child, my poor Marie. I +have a fresh child every week; but I shall find plenty of room in my +heart for you, my poor hunted deer." + +"You will keep my secret?" + +"Why keep it? No one need be ashamed of it here in free England." + +"But he--he--you do not know, Sabina! Those Northerners, with all +their boasts of freedom, shrink from us just as much as our own +masters." + +"Oh, Marie, do not be so unjust to him! He is too noble, and you must +know it yourself." + +"Ay, if he stood alone; if he were even going to live in England; if +he would let himself be himself; but public opinion," sobbed the poor +self-tormentor--"It has been his God, Sabina, to be a leader of +taste and fashion--admired and complete--the Crichton of Newport and +Brooklyn. And he could not bear scorn, the loss of society. Why should +he bear it for me? If he had been one of the abolitionist party, it +would have been different: but he has no sympathy with them, good, +narrow, pious people, or they with him: he could not be satisfied +in their society--or I either, for I crave after it all as much +as he--wealth, luxury, art, brilliant company, admiration,--oh, +inconsistent wretch, that I am! And that makes me love him all the +more, and yet makes me so harsh to him, wickedly cruel, as I was +to-day; because when I am reproving his weakness, I am reproving +my own, and because I am angry with myself, I grow angry with him +too--envious of him, I do believe at moments, and all his success and +luxury!" + +And so poor Marie sobbed out her confused confession of that strange +double nature which so many Quadroons seem to owe to their mixed +blood; a strong side of deep feeling, ambition, energy, an intellect +rather Greek in its rapidity than English in sturdiness; and withal +a weak side, of instability, inconsistency, hasty passion, love of +present enjoyment, sometimes, too, a tendency to untruth, which is +the mark, not perhaps of the African specially, but of every enslaved +race. + +Consolation was all that Sabina could give. It was too late to act. +Stangrave was gone, and week after week rolled by without a line from +the wanderer. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE RECOGNITION. + + +Elsley Vavasour is sitting one morning in his study, every comfort +of which is of Lucia's arrangement and invention, beating the +home-preserve of his brains for pretty thoughts. On he struggles +through that wild, and too luxuriant cover; now brought up by a +"lawyer," now stumbling over a root, now bogged in a green spring, now +flushing a stray covey of birds of Paradise, now a sphinx, chimaera, +strix, lamia, fire-drake, flying-donkey, two-headed eagle (Austrian, +as will appear shortly), or other portent only to be seen now-a-days +in the recesses of that enchanted forest, the convolutions of a poet's +brain. Up they whir and rattle, making, like most game, more noise +than they are worth. Some get back, some dodge among the trees; the +fair shots are few and far between: but Elsley blazes away right and +left with trusty quill; and, to do him justice, seldom misses his aim, +for practice has made him a sure and quick marksman in his own line. +Moreover, all is game which gets up to-day; for he is shooting for the +kitchen, or rather for the London market, as many a noble sportsman +does now-a-days, and thinks no shame. His new volume of poems ("The +Wreck" included) is in the press: but behold, it is not as long as the +publisher thinks fit, and Messrs. Brown and Younger have written down +to entreat in haste for some four hundred lines more, on any subject +which Mr. Vavasour may choose. And therefore is Elsley beating his +home covers, heavily shot over though they have been already this +season, in hopes that a few head of his own game may still be left: or +in default (for human nature is the same, in poets and in sportsmen), +that a few head may have strayed in out of his neighbours' manors. + +At last the sport slackens; for the sportsman is getting tired, and +hungry also, to carry on the metaphor; for he has seen the postman +come up the front walk a quarter of an hour since, and the letters +have not been brought in yet. + +At last there is a knock at the door, which he answers by a somewhat +testy "come in." But he checks the coming grumble, when not the maid, +but Lucia enters. + +Why not grumble at Lucia? He has done so many a time. + +Because she looks this morning so charming; really quite pretty again, +so radiant is her face with smiles. And because, also, she holds +triumphant above her head a newspaper. + +She dances up to him-- + +"I have something for you." + +"For me? Why, the post has been in this half-hour." + +"Yes, for you, and that's just the reason why I kept it myself. D'ye +understand my Irish reasoning?" + +"No, you pretty creature," said Elsley, who saw that whatever the news +was, it was good news. + +"Pretty creature, am I? I was once, I know; but I thought you had +forgotten all about that. But I was not going to let you have the +paper till I had devoured every word of it myself first." + +"Every word of what?" + +"Of what you shan't have unless you promise to be good for a week. +Such a Review; and from America! What a dear man he must be who wrote +it! I really think I should kiss him if I met him." + +"And I really think he would not say no. But as he's not here, I shall +act as his proxy." + +"Be quiet, and read that, if you can, for blushes;" and she spread out +the paper before him, and then covered his eyes with her hands. "No, +you shan't see it; it will make you vain." + +Elsley had looked eagerly at the honeyed columns; (as who would not +have done?) but the last word smote him. What was he thinking of? his +own praise, or his wife's love? + +"Too true," he cried, looking up at her. "You dear creature! Vain I +am, God forgive me: but before I look at a word of this I must have a +talk with you." + +"I can't stop; I must run back to the children. No; now don't look +cross;" as his brow clouded, "I only said that to tease you. I'll +stop with you ten whole minutes, if you won't look so very solemn and +important. I hate tragedy faces. Now what is it?" + +As all this was spoken while both her hands were clasped round +Elsley's neck, and with looks and tones of the very sweetest as well +as the very sauciest, no offence was given, and none taken: but +Elsley's voice was sad as he asked,-- + +"So you really do care for my poems?" + +"You great silly creature? Why else did I marry you at all? As if I +cared for anything in the world but your poems; as if I did not love +everybody who praises them; and if any stupid reviewer dares to say a +word against them I could kill him on the spot. I care for nothing in +the world but what people say of you.--And yet I don't care one pin; I +know what your poems are, if nobody else does; and they belong to me, +because you belong to me, and I must be the best judge, and care for +nobody, no not I!"--And she began singing, and then hung over him, +tormenting him lovingly while he read. + +It was a true American review, utterly extravagant in its laudations, +whether from over-kindness, or from a certain love of exaggeration and +magniloquence, which makes one suspect that a large proportion of the +Transatlantic gentlemen of the press must be natives of the sister +isle: but it was all the more pleasant to the soul of Elsley. + +"There," said Lucia, as she clung croodling to him; "there is a pretty +character of you, sir! Make the most of it, for it is all those +Yankees will ever send you." + +"Yes," said Elsley, "if they would send one a little money, instead of +making endless dollars by printing one's books, and then a few more by +praising one at a penny a line." + +"That's talking like a man of business: if instead of the review, now, +a cheque for fifty pounds had come, how I would have rushed out and +paid the bills!" + +"And liked it a great deal better than the review?" + +"You jealous creature! No. If I could always have you praised, I'd +live in a cabin, and go about the world barefoot, like a wild Irish +girl." + +"You would make a very charming one." + +"I used to, once, I can tell you, Valencia and I used to run about +without shoes and stockings at Kilanbaggan, and you can't think how +pretty and white this little foot used to look on a nice soft carpet +of green moss." + +"I shall write a sonnet to it." + +"You may if you choose, provided you don't publish it." + +"You may trust me for that. I am not one of those who anatomise their +own married happiness for the edification of the whole public, and +make fame, if not money, out of their own wives' hearts." + +"How I should hate you, if you did! Not that I believe their fine +stories about themselves. At least, I am certain it's only half the +story. They have their quarrels, my dear, just as you and I have but +they take care not to put them into poetry." + +"Well, but who could? Whether they have a right or not to publish the +poetical side of their married life, it is too much to ask them to +give you the unpoetical also." + +"Then they are all humbugs, and I believe, if they really love their +wives so very much, they would not be at all that pains to persuade +the world of it." + +"You are very satirical and spiteful, ma'am." + +"I always am when I am pleased. If I am particularly happy, I always +long to pinch somebody. I suppose it's Irish-- + + "'Comes out, meets a friend, and for love knocks him down.'" + +"But you know, you rogue, that you care to read no poetry but love +poetry." + +"Of course not every woman does, but let me find you publishing any +such about me, and see what I will do to you! There, now I must go +to my work, and you go and write something extra superfinely grand, +because I have been so good to you. No. Let me go; what a bother you +are. Good-bye." + +And away she tripped, and he returned to his work, happier than he had +been for a week past. + +His happiness, truly, was only on the surface. The old wound had been +salved--as what wound cannot be?--by woman's love and woman's wit +but it was not healed. The cause of his wrong doing, the vain, +self-indulgent spirit, was there still unchastened, and he was +destined, that very day, to find that he had still to bear the +punishment of it. + +Now the reader must understand, that though one may laugh at Elsley +Vavasour, because it is more pleasant than scolding at him, yet have +Philistia and Fogeydom neither right nor reason to consider him a +despicable or merely ludicrous person, or to cry, "Ah, if he had been +as we are!" + +Had he been merely ludicrous, Lucia would never have married him; and +he could only have been spoken of with indignation, or left utterly +out of the story, as a simply unpleasant figure, beyond the purposes +of a novel, though admissible now and then into tragedy. One cannot +heartily laugh at a man if one has not a lurking love for him, as one +really ought to have for Elsley. How much value is to be attached to +his mere power of imagination and fancy, and so forth, is a question; +but there was in him more than mere talent: there was, in thought at +least, virtue and magnanimity. + +True, the best part of him, perhaps almost all the good part of him, +spent itself in words, and must be looked for, not in his life, but in +his books. But in those books it can be found; and if you look through +them, you will see that he has not touched upon a subject without +taking, on the whole, the right, and pure, and lofty view of it. +Howsoever extravagant he may be in his notions of poetic licence, that +licence is never with him a synonym for licentiousness. Whatever is +tender and true, whatever is chivalrous and high-minded, he loves at +first sight, and reproduces it lovingly. And it may be possible that +his own estimate of his poems was not altogether wrong; that his words +may have awakened here and there in others a love for that which is +morally as well as physically beautiful, and may have kept alive in +their hearts the recollection that, both for the bodies and the souls +of men forms of life far nobler and fairer than those which we see now +are possible; that they have appeared, in fragments at least, already +on the earth; that they are destined, perhaps, to reappear and combine +themselves in some ideal state, and in + + "One far-off divine event, + Toward which the whole creation moves." + +This is the special and proper function of the poet; that he may do +this, does God touch his lips with that which, however it may be +misused, is still fire from off the altar beneath which the spirits +of his saints cry,--"Lord, how long?" If he "reproduce the beautiful" +with this intent, however so little, then is he of the sacred guild. +And because Vavasour had this gift, therefore he was a poet. + +But in this he was weak: that he did not feel, or at least was +forgetting fast, that this gift had been bestowed on him for any +practical purpose. No one would demand that he should have gone forth +with some grand social scheme, to reform a world which looked to him +so mean and evil. He was not a man of business, and was not meant +to be one. But it was ill for him that in his fastidiousness and +touchiness he had shut himself out from that world, till he had quite +forgotten how much good there was in it as well as evil; how many +people--commonplace and unpoetical it may be--but still heroical in +God's sight, were working harder than he ever worked, at the divine +drudgery of doing good, and that in dens of darkness and sloughs of +filth, from which he would have turned with disgust; so that the +sympathy with the sinful and fallen which marks his earlier poems, and +which perhaps verges on sentimentalism, gradually gives place to a +Pharisaic and contemptuous tone; a tone more lofty and manful in +seeming, but far less divine in fact. Perhaps comparative success had +injured him. Whilst struggling himself against circumstances, poor, +untaught, unhappy, he had more fellow-feeling, with those whom +circumstance oppressed. At least, the pity which he could once bestow +upon the misery which he met in his daily walks, he now kept for the +more picturesque woes of Italy and Greece. + +In this, too, he was weak; that he had altogether forgotten that +the fire from off the altar could only be kept alight by continual +self-restraint and self-sacrifice, by continual gentleness and +humility, shown in the petty matters of everyday home-life; and that +he who cannot rule his own household can never rule the Church of God. +And so it befell, that amid the little cross-blasts of home squabbles +the sacred spark was fast going out. The poems written after he +settled at Penalva are marked by a less definite purpose, by a lower +tone of feeling: not, perhaps, by a lower moral tone; but simply by +less of any moral tone at all. They are more and more full of merely +sensuous beauty, mere word-painting, mere word-hunting. The desire of +finding something worth saying gives place more and more to that of +saying something in a new fashion. As the originality of thought +(which accompanies only vigorous moral purpose) decreases, the attempt +at originality of language increases. Manner, in short, has taken the +place of matter. The art, it may be, of his latest poems is greatest: +but it has been expended on the most unworthy themes. The later are +mannered caricatures of the earlier, without their soul; and the same +change seems to have passed over him which (with Mr. Ruskin's pardon) +transformed the Turner of 1820 into the Turner of 1850. + +Thus had Elsley transferred what sympathy he had left from +needle-women and ragged schools, dwellers in Jacob's Island and +sleepers in the dry arches of Waterloo Bridge, to sufferers of a more +poetic class. Whether his sympathies showed thereby that he had risen +or fallen, let my readers decide each for himself. It is a credit to +any man to feel for any human being; and Italy, as she is at this +moment, is certainly one of the most tragic spectacles which the world +has ever seen. Elsley need not be blamed for pitying her; only for +holding, with most of our poets, a vague notion that her woes were to +be cured by a hair of the dog who bit her; viz., by homoeopathic +doses of that same "art" which has been all along her morbid and +self-deceiving substitute for virtue and industry. So, as she had +sung herself down to the nether pit, Elsley would help to sing her up +again; and had already been throwing off, ever since 1848, a series +of sonnets which he entitled Eurydice, intimating, of course, that he +acted as the Orpheus. Whether he had hopes of drawing iron tears down +Pluto Radetzky's cheek, does not appear; but certainly the longer poem +which had sprung from his fancy, at the urgent call of Messrs. Brown +and Younger, would have been likely to draw nothing but iron balls +from Radetzky's cannon; or failing so vast an effect, an immediate +external application to the poet himself of that famous herb +Pantagruelion, cure for all public ills and private woes, which men +call hemp. Nevertheless, it was a noble subject; one which ought +surely to have been taken up by some of our poets, for if they do not +make a noble poem of it, it will be their own fault. I mean that +sad and fantastic tragedy of Fra Dolcino and Margaret, which Signor +Mariotti has lately given to the English public, in a book which, both +for its matter and its manner, should be better known than it is. +Elsley's soul had been filled (it would have been a dull one else) +with the conception of the handsome and gifted patriot-monk, his soul +delirious with, the dream of realising a perfect Church on earth; +battling with tongue and pen, and at last with sword, against the +villanies of pope and kaiser, and all the old devourers of the earth, +cheered only by the wild love of her who had given up wealth, fame, +friends, all which render life worth having, to die with him a death +too horrible for words. And he had conceived (and not altogether ill) +a vision, in which, wandering along some bright Italian bay, he met +Dolcino sitting, a spirit at rest but not yet glorified, waiting for +the revival of that dead land for which he had died; and Margaret +by him, dipping her scorched feet for ever in the cooling wave, and +looking up to the hero for whom she had given up all, with eyes of +everlasting love. There they were to prophesy to him such things as +seemed fit to him, of the future of Italy and of Europe, of the +doom of priests and tyrants, of the sorrows and rewards of genius +unappreciated and before its age; for Elsley's secret vanity could +see in himself a far greater likeness to Dolcino, than Dolcino--the +preacher, confessor, bender of all hearts, man of the world and man +of action, at last crafty and all but unconquerable guerilla +warrior--would ever have acknowledged in the self-indulgent dreamer. +However, it was a fair conception enough; though perhaps it never +would have entered Elsley's head, had Shelley never written the +opening canto of the Revolt of Islam. + +So Elsley, on a burning July forenoon, strolled up the lane and over +the down to King Arthur's Nose, that he might find materials for his +sea-shore scene. For he was not one of those men who live in such +quiet, everyday communication with nature, that they drink in her +various aspects as unconsciously as the air they breathe; and so can +reproduce them, out of an inexhaustible stock of details, simply and +accurately, and yet freshly too, tinged by the peculiar hue of the +mind in which they have been long sleeping. He walked the world, +either blind to the beauty round him, and trying to compose instead +some little scrap of beauty in his own self-imprisoned thoughts; or +else he was looking out consciously and spasmodically for views, +effects, emotions, images; something striking and uncommon which would +suggest a poetic figure, or help out a description, or in some way +re-furnish his mind with thought. From which method it befell, that +his lamp of truth was too often burnt out just when it was needed; and +that, like the foolish virgins, he had to go and buy oil when it +was too late; or failing that, to supply its place with some baser +artificial material. + +That day, however, he was fortunate enough; for wandering and +scrambling among the rocks, at a dead low spring tide, he came upon +a spot which would have made a poem of itself better than all Elsley +ever wrote, had he, forgetting all about Fra Dolcino, Italy, priests, +and tyrants, set down in black and white just what he saw; provided, +of course, that he had patience first to see the same. + +It was none other than that ghastly chasm across which Thurnall had +been so miraculously swept, on the night of his shipwreck. The same +ghastly chasm: but ghastly now no longer; and as Elsley looked down, +the beauty below invited him, and the coolness also; for the sun beat +on the flat rock above till it scorched the feet, and dazzled the eye, +and crisped up the blackening sea-weeds; while every sea-snail crept +to hide itself under the bladder-tangle, and nothing dared to peep or +stir save certain grains of gunpowder, which seemed to have gone mad, +so merrily did they hop about upon the surface of the fast evaporating +salt-pools. That wonder, indeed, Elsley stooped to examine, and drew +back his hands with an "ugh!" and a gesture of disgust, when he found +that they were "nasty little insects." For Elsley held fully the +poet's right to believe that all things are not very good; none, +indeed, save such as suited his eclectic and fastidious taste; and to +hold (on high aesthetic grounds, of course) toads and spiders in as +much abhorrence as does any boarding-school girl. However, finding +some rock ledges which formed a natural ladder, down he scrambled, +gingerly enough, for he was neither an active nor a courageous man. +But, once down, I will do him the justice to say, that for five whole +minutes he forgot all about Fra Dolcino, and, what was better, about +himself also. + +The chasm may have been fifteen feet deep, and above, about half that +breadth; but below, the waves had hollowed it into dark overhanging +caverns. Just in front of him a huge boulder spanned the crack; and +formed a natural doorway, through which he saw, like a picture set in +a frame, the far-off blue sea softening into the blue sky among brown +Eastern haze. Amid the haze a single ship hung motionless, like a +white cloud. Nearer, a black cormorant floated sleepily along, and +dived, and rose again. Nearer again, long lines of flat tide-rock, +glittering and quivering in the heat, sloped gradually under the +waves, till they ended in half-sunken beds of olive oar-weed, which +bent their tangled stems into a hundred graceful curves, and swayed to +and fro slowly and sleepily. The low swell slid whispering among their +floating palms, and slipped on toward the cavern's mouth, as if asking +wistfully (so Elsley fancied) when it would be time for it to return +to that cool shade, and hide from all the blinding blaze outside. But +when his eye was enough accustomed to the shade within, it withdrew +gladly from the glaring sea and glaring tide-rocks to the walls of the +chasm itself; to curved and polished sheets of stone, rich brown, with +snow-white veins, on which danced for ever a dappled network of pale +yellow light; to crusted beds of pink coralline; to caverns, in the +dark crannies of which hung branching sponges and tufts of purple +sea-moss; to strips of clear white sand, bestrewn with shells; to +pools, each a gay flower-garden of all hues, where branching sea-weeds +reflected blue light from every point, like a thousand damasked +sword-blades; while among them, dahlias and chrysanthemums, and many +another mimic of our earth-born flowers, spread blooms of crimson, and +purple, and lilac, and creamy grey, half-buried among feathered weeds +as brightly coloured as they; and strange and gaudy fishes shot across +from side to side, and chased each other in and out of hidden cells. + +Within and without all was at rest; the silence was broken only by the +timid whisper of the swell, and by the chime of dropping water within +some unseen cave: but what a different rest! Without, all lying +breathless, stupefied, sun-stricken, in blinding glare; within, all +coolness, and refreshing sleep. Without, all simple, broad, and vast; +within, all various, with infinite richness of form and colour.--An +Hairoun Alraschid's bower, looking out upon the-- + +Bother the fellow! Why will he go on analysing and figuring in this +way? Why not let the blessed place tell him what it means, instead of +telling it what he thinks? And--why, he is actually writing verses, +though not about Fra Dolcino! + + "How rests yon rock, whoso half-day's bath is done, + With broad bright sight, beneath the broad bright sun, + Like sea-nymph tired, on cushioned mosses sleeping. + Yet, nearer drawn, beneath her purple tresses, + From down-bent brows we find her slowly weeping, + So many a heart for cruel man's caresses + Must only pine and pine, and yet must bear + A gallant front beneath life's gaudy glare." + +Silly fellow! Do you think that Nature had time to think of such a +far-fetched conceit as that while it was making that rock and peopling +it with a million tiny living things, of which not one falleth to the +ground without your Father's knowledge, and each more beautiful than +any sea-nymph whom you ever fancied? For, after all, you cannot fancy +a whole sea nymph (perhaps in that case you could make one), but only +a very little scrap of her outside. Or if, as you boast, you are +inspired by the Creative Spirit, tell us what the Creative Spirit says +about that rock, and not such verse as that, the lesson of which you +don't yourself really feel. Pretty enough it is, perhaps: but in your +haste to say a pretty thing, just because it was pretty, you have not +cared to condemn yourself out of your own mouth. Why were you sulky, +sir, with Mrs. Vavasour this very morning, after all that passed, +because she would look over the washing-books, while you wanted her to +hear about Fra Dolcino? And why, though she was up to her knees among +your dirty shirts when you went out, did you not give her one parting +kiss, which would have transfigured her virtuous drudgery for her into +a sacred pleasure? One is heartily glad to see you disturbed, cross +though you may look at it, by that sturdy step and jolly whistle which +burst in on you from the other end of the chasm, as Tom Thurnall, with +an old smock frock over his coat and a large basket on his arm, comes +stumbling and hopping towards you, dropping every now and then on +hands and knees, and turning over on his back, to squeeze his head +into some muddy crack, and then withdraw it with the salt water +dripping down his nose. + +Elsley closed his eyes, and rested his head on his hand in a somewhat +studied "pose." But as he wished not to be interrupted, it may not +have been altogether unpardonable to pretend sleep. However, the +sleeping posture had exactly the opposite effect to that which he +designed. + +"Ah, Mr. Vavasour!" + +"Humph!" quoth he slowly, if not sulkily. + +"I admire your taste, sir; a charming summerhouse old Triton has +vacated for your use; but let me advise you not to go to sleep in it." + +"Why then, sir?" + +"Because--it's no business of mine, of course: but the tide has turned +already; and if a breeze springs up old Triton will be back again in a +hurry, and in a rage also; and--I may possibly lose a good patient." + +Elsley, who knew nothing about the tides, save that "the moon wooed +the ocean," or some such important fact, thanked him coolly enough, +and returned to a meditative attitude. Tom saw that he was in the +seventh heaven, and went on: but he had not gone three steps before he +pulled up short, slapping his hands together once, as a man does who +has found what he wants; and then plunged up to his knees in a rock +pool, and then began working very gently at something under water. + +Elsley watched him for full five minutes with so much curiosity, that, +despite of himself, he asked him what he was doing. + +Tom had his whole face under water, and did not hear, till Elsley had +repeated the question. + +"Only a rare zoophyte," said he at last, lifting his dripping visage, +and gasping for breath; and then he dived again. + +"Inexplicable pedantry of science!" thought Elsley to himself, while +Tom worked on steadfastly, and at last rose, and, taking out a phial +from his basket, was about to deposit in it something invisible. + +"Stay a moment; you really have roused my curiosity by your +earnestness. May I see what it is for which you have taken so much +trouble?" + +Tom held out on his finger a piece of slimy crust the size of a +halfpenny. Elsley could only shrug his shoulders. + +"Nothing to you, sir, I doubt not; but worth a guinea to me, even if +it be only to mount bits of it as microscopic objects." + +"So you mingle business with science?" said Elsley, rather in a +contemptuous tone. + +"Why not? I must live, and my father too; and it is as honest a way of +making money as any other: I poach in no man's manor for my game." + +"But what is your game! What possible attraction in that bit of dirt +can make men spend their money on it?" + +"You shall see," said Tom, dropping it into the phial of salt water, +and offering it to Elsley, with his pocket magnifier. + +"Judge for yourself." + +Elsley did so, and beheld a new wonder--a living plant of crystal, +studded with crystal bells, from each of which waved a crown of +delicate arms. It was the first time that Elsley had ever seen one +of those exquisite zoophytes which stud every rock and every tuft of +weed. + +"This is most beautiful," said he at length. "Humph! why should not +Mr. Vavasour write a poem about it?" + +"Why not indeed?" thought Elsley. + +"It's no business of mine, no man's less: but I often wonder why you +poets don't take to the microscope, and tell us a little more about +the wonderful things which are here already, and not about those which +are not, and which, perhaps, never will be." + +"Well," said Elsley, after another look: "but, after all, these things +have no human interest in them." + +"I don't know that; they have to me, for instance. These are the +things which I would write about if I had any turn for verse, not +about human nature, of which I know, I'm afraid, a little too much +already. I always like to read old Darwin's 'Loves of the Plants;' +bosh as it is in a scientific point of view, it amuses one's fancy +without making one lose one's temper, as one must when one begins to +analyse the microscopic ape called self and friends. + +"You would like, then, the old Cosmogonies, the Eddas and the Vedas," +said Elsley, getting interested, as most people did after five +minutes' talk with the cynical doctor. "I suppose you would not say +much for their science; but, as poetry, they are just what you ask +for--the expression of thoughtful spirits, who looked round upon +nature with awe-struck, childlike eyes, and asked of all heaven and +earth the question, 'What are you? How came you to be?' Yet--it may be +my fault--while I admire them, I cannot sympathise with them. To me, +this zoophyte is as a being of another sphere; and till I can create +some link in my own mind between it and humanity it is as nothing in +my eyes." + +"There is link enough, sir, don't doubt, and chains of iron and brass +too." + +"You believe then, in the development theory of the 'Vestiges'?" + +"Doctors who have their bread to earn never commit themselves to +theories. No; all I meant was, that this little zoophyte lives by the +same laws as you and I; and that he, and the sea-weeds, and so forth, +teach us doctors certain little rules concerning life and death, which +you will have a chance soon of seeing at work on the most grand and +poetical, and indeed altogether tragic scale." + +"What do you mean?" + +"When the cholera comes here as it will, at its present pace, before +the end of the summer, then I shall have the zoophytes rising up in +judgment against me, if I have not profited by a leaf out of their +book." + +"The cholera?" said Elsley in a startled voice, forgetting Tom's +parables in the new thought. For Elsley had a dread more nervous than +really coward of infectious diseases; and he had also (and prided +himself, too, on having) all Goethe's dislike of anything terrible or +horrible, of sickness, disease, wounds, death, anything which jarred +with that "beautiful" which was his idol. + +"The cholera?" repeated he. "I hope not; I wish you had not mentioned +it, Mr. Thurnall." + +"I am very sorry that I did so, if it offends you. I had thought that +forewarned was forearmed. After all it is no business of mine; if I +have extra labour, as I shall have, I shall have extra experience; and +that will be a fair set-off, even if the board of guardians don't vote +me an extra remuneration, as they ought to do." + +Elsley was struck dumb; first by the certainty which Tom's words +expressed, and next by the coolness of their temper. At last he +stammered out, "Good heavens, Mr. Thurnall! you do not talk of that +frightful scourge--so disgusting, too, in its character--as a matter +of profit and loss? It is sordid, cold-hearted!" + +"My dear sir, if I let myself think, much more talk, about the matter +in any other tone, I should face the thing poorly enough when it came. +I shall have work enough to keep my head about the end of August +or beginning of September, and I must not lose it beforehand, +by indulging in any horror, disgust, or other emotion perfectly +justifiable in a layman." + +"But are not doctors men?" + +"That depends very much on what 'a man' means." + +"Men with human sympathy and compassion." + +"Oh, I mean by a man, a man with human strength. My dear sir, one may +be too busy, and at doing good too (though that is not my line, save +professionally, because it is my only way of earning money); but one +may be too busy at doing good to have time for compassion. If while +I was cutting a man's leg off I thought of the pain which he was +suffering--" + +"Thank heaven!" said Elsley, "that it was not my lot to become a +medical man." + +Tom looked at him with the quaintest smile: a flush of mingled anger +and contempt had been rising in him as he heard the ex-bottle-boy +talking sentiment: but he only went on quietly, + +"No, sir; with your more delicate sensibilities, you may thank Heaven +that you did not become a medical man; your life would have been one +of torture, disgust, and agonising sense of responsibility. But do you +not see that you must thank Heaven for the sufferer's sake also? I +will not shock you again by talking of amputation; but even in the +smallest matter--even if you were merely sending medicine to an old +maid--suppose that your imagination were preoccupied by the thought +of her old age, her sufferings, her disappointed hopes, her regretful +dream of bygone youth, and beauty, and love, and all the tender +fancies which might well spring out of such a mournful spectacle, +would you not be but too likely (pardon the bathos) to end by +sending her an elderly gentleman's medicine after all, and so either +frightfully increasing her sufferings, or ending them once for all?" + +Tom said this in the most quiet and natural tone, without even a +twinkle of his wicked eye: but Elsley heard him begin with reddening +face; and as he went on, the red had turned to purple, and then to +deadly yellow; till making a half-step forward he cried fiercely:-- + +"Sir!" and then stopped suddenly; for his feet slipped upon the +polished stone, and on his face he fell into the pool at Thurnall's +feet. + +"Well for both of us geese!" said Tom inwardly, as he went to pick him +up. "I verily believe he was going to strike me, and that would have +done for neither of us. I was a fool to say it; but the temptation was +so exquisite; and it must have come some day." + +But Vavasour staggered up of his own accord, and dashing away Tom's +proffered hand, was rushing off without a word. + +"Not so, Mr. John Briggs!" said Tom, making up his mind in a moment +that he must have it out now, or never; and that he might have +everything to fear from Vavasour if he let him go home furious. We do +not part thus, sir!" + +"We will meet again, if you will," foamed Vavasour, "but it shall end +in the death of one of us!" + +"By each other's potions? I can doctor myself, sir, thank you. Listen +to me, John Briggs! You shall listen!" and Tom sprang past him, and +planted himself at the foot of the rock steps, to prevent his escaping +upward. + +"What, do you wish to quarrel with me, sir? It is I who ought to +quarrel with you. I am the aggrieved party, and not you, sir! I have +not seen the son of the man who, when I was an apothecary's boy, +petted me, lent me books, introduced me as a genius, turned my head +for me, which was just what I was vain enough to enjoy--I have not +seen that man's son cast ashore penniless and friendless, and yet +never held out to him a helping hand, but tried to conceal my identity +from him, from a dirty shame of my honest father's honest name." + +Vavasour dropped his eyes, for was it not true? but he raised them +again more fiercely than ever. + +"Curse you! I owe you nothing. It was you who made me ashamed of it. +You rhymed on it, and laughed about poetry coming out of such a name." + +"And what if I did? Are poets to "be made of nothing but tinder and +gall?" Why could you not take an honest joke as it was meant, and +go your way like other people, till you had shown yourself worth +something, and won honour even, for the name of Briggs?" + +"And I have! I have my own station now, my own fame, sir, and it is +nothing to you what I choose to call myself. I have won my place, I +say, and your mean envy cannot rob me of it." + +"You have your station. Very good," said Tom, not caring to notice the +imputation; "you owe the greater part of it to your having made a most +fortunate marriage, for which I respect you, as a practical man. Let +your poetry be what it may (and people tell me that it is really very +beautiful), your match shows me that you are a clever, and therefore a +successful person." + +"Do you take me for a sordid schemer, like yourself? I loved what was +worthy of me, and won it because I deserved it." + +"Then, having won it, treat it as it deserves," said Tom, with a cool +searching look, before which Vavasour's eyes fell again. "Understand +me, Mr. John Briggs; it is of no consequence to me what you call +yourself: but it is of consequence to me that I should not have a +patient in my parish whom I cannot cure; for I cannot cure broken +hearts, though they will be simple enough to come to me for medicine." + +"You shall have no chance! You shall never enter my house! You shall +not ruin me, sir, by your bills!" + +Tom made no answer to this fresh insult. He had another game to play. + +"Take care what you say, Briggs; remember that, after all, you are in +my power, and I had better remind you plainly of the fact." + +"And you mean to make me your tool? I will die first!" + +"I believe that," said Tom, who was very near adding, "that he should +be sorry to work with such tools." + +"My tools are my lancet and my drugs," said he, quietly, "and all +I have to say refers to them. It suits my purpose to become the +principal medical man in this neighbourhood--" + +"And I am to tout for introductions for you?" + +"You are to be so very kind as to allow me to finish my sentence, +just as you would allow any other gentleman; and because I wish for +practice, and patients, and power, you will be so kind as to treat me +henceforth as one high-minded man would treat another, to whom he is +obliged. For you know, John Briggs, as well as I," said Tom, drawing +himself up to his full height, "look me in the face, if you can, ere +you deny it, that I was, while you knew me, as honourable a man, and +as kind-hearted a man, as you ever were; and that now--considering the +circumstances under which we meet,--you have more reason to trust me, +than I have, prima facie, to trust you." + +Vavasour answered not a word. + +"Good-bye, then," said Tom, drawing aside from the step; "Mrs. +Vavasour will be anxious about you. And mind! With regard to her first +of all, sir, and then with regard to other matters--as long, and only +as long, as you remember that you are John Briggs of Whitbury, I shall +be the first to forget it. There is my hand, for old acquaintance' +sake." + +Vavasour took the proffered hand coldly, paused a moment, and then +wrung it in silence, and hurried away home. + +"Have I played my ace ill after all?" said Tom, sitting down to +consider. "As for whether I should have played it all, that's no +business of mine now. Madam Might-have-been may see to that. But did +I play ill? for if I did, I may try a new lead yet. Ought I to have +twitted him about his wife? If he's venomous, it may only make matters +worse; and still worse if he be suspicious. I don't think he was +either in old times; but vanity will make a man so, and it may have +made him. Well, I must only ingratiate myself all the more with her; +and find out, too, whether she has his secret as well as I. What I am +most afraid of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power; +it's apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere +hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their +miserable selves. Never mind; he can't break my tackle; and besides, +that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor wretch was +beat, and thought himself let off easily--as indeed he is. We'll hope +so. Now, zoophytes, for another turn with you!" + +To tell the truth, however, Tom is looking for more than zoophytes, +and has been doing so at every dead low tide since he was wrecked. He +has heard nothing yet of his belt. The notes have not been presented +at the London bank; nobody in the village has been spending more money +than usual; for cunning Tom has contrived already to know how many +pints of ale every man of whom he has the least doubt has drunk. +Perhaps, after all, the belt may have been torn off in the life +struggle; it may have been for a moment in Grace's hands, and then +have been swept into the sea. What more likely? And what more likely, +in that case, that, sinking by its weight, it is wedged away in some +cranny of the rocks? + +So spring-tide after spring-tide Tom searches, and all the more +carefully because others are searching too, for waifs and strays from +the wreck. Sad relics of mortality he finds at times, as others do: +once, even, a dressing-case, full of rings and pins and chains, which +belonged, he fancied, to a gay young bride with whom he had waltzed +many a time on deck, as they slipped along before the soft trade-wind: +but no belt. He sent the dressing-case to the Lloyd's underwriters, +and searched on: but in vain. Neither could he find that any one else +had forestalled him; and that very afternoon, sulky and disheartened, +he determined to waste no more time about the matter, and strode home, +vowing signal vengeance against the thief, if he caught him. + +"And I will catch him! These west-country yokels, to fancy that they +can do Tom Thurnall! It's adding insult to injury, as Sam Weller's +parrot has it." + +Now his shortest way home lay across the shore, and then along the +beach, and up the steps by the little waterfall, past Mrs. Harvey's +door; and at that door sat Grace, sewing in the sun. She looked up and +bowed as his passed, smiling modestly, and little dreaming of what was +passing in his mind; and when a very lovely girl smiled and bowed to +Tom, he must needs do the same to her: whereon she added,-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir: have you heard anything of the money you +lost? I--we--have been so ashamed to think of such a thing happening +here." + +Tom's evil spirit was roused. + +"Have _you_ heard anything of it, Miss Harvey? For you seem to me the +only person in the place who knows anything about the matter." + +"I, sir?" cried Grace, fixing her great startled eyes full on him. + +"Why, ma'am," said Tom, with a courtly smile, "you may possibly +recollect, if you will so far tax your memory, that you had it in your +hands at least a moment, when you did me the kindness to save my life; +and as you were kind enough to inform me that I should recover it when +I was worthy of it, I suppose I have not yet risen in your eyes to +the required state of conversion and regeneration." And swinging +impatiently away, he walked on, really afraid lest he should say +something rude. + +Grace half called after him, and then suddenly checking herself, +rushed in to her mother with a wild and pale face. + +"What is this Mr. Thurnall has been saying to me about his belt and +money which he lost?" + +"About what? Has he been rude to you, the bad man?" cried Mrs. Harvey, +dropping the pie-dish in some confusion, and taking a long while to +pick up the pieces. + +"About the belt--the money which he lost? Why don't you speak, +mother?" + +"Belt--money? Ah, I recollect now. He has lost some money, he says." + +"Of course he has." + +"How should you know anything? I recollect there was some talk of it, +though. But what matter what he says? He was quite passed away, I'll +swear, when they carried him up." + +"But, mother! mother! he says that I know about it; that I had it in +my hands!" + +"You? Oh the wicked wretch, the false, ungrateful, slanderous child of +wrath, with adder's poison tinder his lips! No, my child! Though we're +poor, we're honest! Let him slander us, rob us, of our good name, send +us to prison, if he will--he cannot rob us of our souls. We'll be +silent; we'll turn the other cheek, and commit our cause to One above +who pleads for the orphan and the widow. We will not strive nor cry, +my child. Oh, no!" And Mrs. Harvey began fussing over the smashed +pie-dish. + +"I shall not strive nor cry, mother," said Grace, who had recovered +her usual calm: "but he must have some cause for these strange words. +Do you recollect seeing me with the belt?" + +"Belt, what's a belt? I know nothing about belts. I tell you he's a +villain, and a slanderer. Oh, that it should have come to this, to +have my child's fair fame blasted by a wretch that comes nobody knows +where from, and has been doing nobody knows what, for aught I know!" + +"Mother, mother! we know no harm of him. If he is mistaken, God +forgive him!" + +"If he is mistaken?" went on Mrs. Harvey, still over the pie-dish: but +Grace gave her no answer. + +She was deep in thought. She recollected now, that as she had gone up +the path, from the cove on that eventful morning, she had seen Willis +and Thurnall whispering earnestly together; and she recollected +now, for the first time, that there had been, a certain sadness and +perplexity, almost reserve, about Willis ever since. Good Heavens! +could he suspect her too? She would find out that at least; and no +sooner had her mother fussed away, talking angrily to herself, into +the back kitchen, than Grace put on her bonnet and shawl, and went +forth to find the Captain. + +In an hour she returned. Her lips were firm set, her cheeks pale, her +eyes red with weeping. She said nothing to her mother, who for her +part did not seem inclined to allude again to the matter. + +"Where have you been, child? You look quite poorly, and your eyes +red." + +"The wind is very cold, mother," said she, and went into her room. Her +mother looked sharply after her, and muttered to herself. + +Grace went in, and sat down on the bed. + +"What a coldness this is at my heart!" she said aloud to herself, +trying to smile; but she could not: and she sat on the bedside, +without taking off her bonnet and shawl, her hands hanging listlessly +by her side, her head drooping on her bosom, till her mother called +her to tea: then she was forced to rouse herself, and went out, +composed, but utterly wretched. + +Tom walked up homeward, very ill at ease. He had played, to use his +nomenclature, two trump cards running, and was by no means satisfied +that he had played them well. He had no right, certainly, to be +satisfied with either move; for both had been made in a somewhat evil +spirit, and certainly for no very disinterested end. + +That was a view of the matter, however, which never entered his mind; +there was only that general dissatisfaction with himself which is, +though men try hard to deny the fact, none other than the supernatural +sting of conscience. He tried "to lay to his soul the flattering +unction" that he might, after all, be of use to Mrs. Vavasour, by +using his power over her husband: but he knew in his secret heart that +any move of his in that direction was likely only to make matters +worse; that to-day's explosion might only have sent home the hapless +Vavasour in a more irritable temper than ever. And thinking over many +things, backward and forward, he saw his own way so little, that he +actually condescended to go and "pump" Frank Headley. So he termed it: +but, after all, it was only like asking advice of a good man, because +he did not feel himself quite good enough to advise himself. + +The curate was preparing to sally forth, after his frugal dinner. +The morning he spent at the schools, or in parish secularities; the +afternoon, till dusk, was devoted to visiting the poor; the night, not +to sleep, but to reading and sermon writing. Thus, by sitting up till +two in the morning, and rising again at six for his private devotions, +before walking a mile and a half up to church for the morning service, +Frank Headley burnt the candle of life at both ends very effectually, +and showed that he did so by his pale cheeks and red eyes. + +"Ah!" said Tom, as he entered. "As usual: poor Nature is being robbed +and murdered by rich Grace." + +"What do you mean now?" asked Frank, smiling, for he had become +accustomed enough to Tom's quaint parables, though he had to scold him +often enough for their irreverence. + +"Nature says, 'after dinner sit awhile;' and even the dumb animals +hear her voice, and lie by for a siesta when their stomachs are full. +Grace says, 'Jump up and rush out the moment you have swallowed your +food; and if you get an indigestion, abuse poor Nature for it; and lay +the blame on Adam's fall.'" + +"You are irreverent, my good sir, as usual; but you are unjust also +this time." + +"How then?" + +"Unjust to Grace, as you phrase it," answered Frank, with a quaint sad +smile. "I assure you on my honour, that Grace has nothing whatsoever +to do with my 'rushing out' just now, but simply the desire to do my +good works that they may be seen of men. I hate going out. I should +like to sit and read the whole afternoon: but I am afraid lest the +dissenters should say, 'He has not been to see so-and-so for the last +three days;' so off I go, and no credit to me." + +Why had Frank dared, upon a month's acquaintance, to lay bare his own +heart thus to a man of no creed at all? Because, I suppose, amid all +differences, he had found one point of likeness between himself and +Thurnall; he had found that Tom at heart was a truly genuine man, +sincere and faithful to his own scheme of the universe. + +How that man, through all his eventful life, had been enabled to + + "Bate not a jot of heart or hope, + But steer right onward," + +was a problem which Frank longed curiously, and yet fearfully withal, +to solve. There were many qualities in him which Frank could not but +admire, and long to imitate; and, "Whence had they come?" was another +problem at which he looked, trembling as many a new thought crossed +him. He longed, too, to learn from Tom somewhat at least of that +savoir faire, that power of "becoming all things to all men," which +St. Paul had; and for want of which Frank had failed. He saw, too, +with surprise, that Tom had gained in one month more real insight into +the characters of his parishioners than he had done in twelve; and +besides all, there was the craving of the lonely heart for human +confidence and friendship. So it befell that Frank spoke out his +inmost thought that day, and thought no shame; and it befell also, +that Thurnall, when he heard it, said in his heart-- + +"What a noble, honest fellow you are, when you--" + +But he answered enigmatically. + +"Oh, I quite agree with you that Grace has nothing to do with it. I +only referred it to that source because I thought you would do so." + +"You ought to be ashamed of your dishonesty, then." + +"I know it; but my view of the case is, that you rush out after +dinner for the very same reason that the Yankee storekeeper +does--from--You'll forgive me if I say it?" + +"Of course. You cannot speak too plainly to me." + +"Conceit; the Yankee fancies himself such an important person, that +the commercial world will stand still unless he flies back to its help +after ten minutes' gobbling, with his month full of pork and pickled +peaches. And you fancy yourself so important in your line, that the +spiritual world will stand still unless you bolt back to help it in +like wise. Substitute a half-cooked mutton chop for the pork, and the +cases are exact parallels." + +"Your parallel does not hold good, Doctor. The Yankee goes back to his +store to earn money for himself, and not to keep commerce alive." + +"While you go for utterly disinterested motives.--I see." + +"Do you?" said Frank. "If you think that I fancy myself a better man +than the Yankee, you mistake me: but at least you will confess that I +am not working for money." + +"No; you have your notions of reward, and he has his. He wants to +be paid by material dollars, payable next month; you by spiritual +dollars, payable when you die. I don't see the great difference." + +"Only the slight difference between what is material and what is +spiritual." + +"They seem to me, from all I can hear in pulpits, to be only two +different sorts of pleasant things, and to be sought after, both +alike, simply because they are pleasant. Self-interest, if you will +forgive me, seems to me the spring of both: only, to do you justice, +you are a farther-sighted and more prudent man than the Yankee +storekeeper; and having more exquisitely developed notions of what +your true self-interest is, are content to wait a little longer than +he." + +"You stab with a jest, Thurnall. You little know how your words hit +home." + +"Well, then, to turn from a matter of which I know nothing--I must +keep you in, and give you parish business to do at home. I am come to +consult you as my spiritual pastor and master." + +Frank looked a little astonished. + +"Don't be alarmed. I am not going to confess my own sins--only other +people's." + +"Pray don't, then. I know far more of them already than I can cure. I +am worn out with the daily discovery of fresh evil wherever I go." + +"Then why not comfort yourself by trying to find a little fresh good +wherever you go?" + +Frank sighed. + +"Perhaps, though, you don't care for any sort of good except your own +sort of good. You are fastidious. Well, you have your excuses. But you +can understand a poor fellow like me, who has been dragged through +the slums and sewers of this wicked world for fifteen years and more, +being very well content with any sort of good which I can light on, +and not particular as to either quantity or quality." + +"Perhaps yours is the healthier state of mind; if you can only +find the said good. The vulturine nose, which smells nothing but +corruption, is no credit to its possessor. And it would be pleasant, +at least, to find good in every man." + +"One can't do that in one's study. Mixing with them is the only plan. +No doubt they're inconsistent enough. The more you see of them, the +less you trust them; and yet the more you see of them, the more you +like them. Can you solve that paradox from your books?" + +"I will try," said Frank. "I generally have more than one to think +over when you go. But, surely, there are men so fallen that they are +utterly insensible to good." + +"Very likely. There's no saying in this world what may not be. Only I +never saw one. I'll tell you a story: you may apply it as you like. +When I was on the Texan expedition, and raw to soldiering and camping, +we had to sleep in low ground, and suffered terribly from a miasma. +Deadly cold, it was, when it came; and the man who once got chilled +through with it, just died. I was lying on the bare ground one night, +and chilly enough I was--for I was short of clothes, and had lost my +buffalo robe--but fell asleep: and on waking the next morning, I found +myself covered up in my comrade's blankets, even to his coat, while he +was sitting shivering in his shirt sleeves. The cold fog had come down +in the night, and the man had stripped himself, and sat all night with +death staring him in the face, to save my life. And all the reason he +gave was, that if one of us must die, it was better the older should +go first, and not a youngster like me. And," said Tom, lowering his +voice, "that man was a murderer!" + +"A murderer!" + +"Yes; a drunken, gambling, cut-throat rowdy as ever grew ripe for the +gallows. Now, will you tell me that there was nothing in that man but +what the devil put there?" + +Frank sat meditating awhile on this strange story, which is moreover a +true one; and then looked up with something like tears in his eyes. + +"And he did not die?" + +"Not he! I saw him die afterwards--shot through the heart, without +time even to cry out. But I have not forgotten what he did for me that +night; and I'll tell you what, sir! I do not believe that God has +forgotten it either." + +Frank was silent for a few moments, and then Tom changed the subject. + +"I want to know what you can tell me about this Mr. Vavasour." + +"Hardly anything, I am sorry to say. I was at his house at tea, two or +three times, when I first came; and I had very agreeable evenings, and +talks on art and poetry: but I believe I offended him by hinting that +he ought to come to church, which he never does, and since then our +acquaintance has all but ceased. I suppose you will say, as usual, +that I played my cards badly there also." + +"Not at all," said Tom, who was disposed to take any one's part +against Elsley. "If a clergyman has not a right to tell a man that, I +don't see what right he has of any kind. Only," added he, with one of +his quaint smiles, "the clergyman, if he compels a man to deal at his +store, is bound to furnish him with the articles which he wants." + +"Which he needs, or which he likes? For 'wanting' has both these +meanings." + +"With something that he finds by experience does him good; and so +learns to like it, because he knows that he needs it, as my patients +do my physic." + +"I wish my patients would do so by mine: but, unfortunately, half of +them seem to me not to know what their disease is, and the other half +do not think they are diseased at all." + +"Well," said Tom drily, "perhaps some of them are more right than you +fancy. Every man knows his own business best." + +"If it were so, they would go about it somewhat differently from what +most of the poor creatures do." + +"Do you think so? I fancy myself that not one of them does a wrong +thing, but what he knows it to be wrong just as well as you do, and is +much more ashamed and frightened about it already, than you can ever +make him by preaching at him." + +"Do you?" + +"I do. I judge of others by myself." + +"Then would you have a clergyman never warn his people of their sins?" + +"If I were he, I'd much sooner take the sins for granted, and say to +them, 'Now, my friends, I know you are all, ninety-nine out of the +hundred of you, not such bad fellows at bottom, and would all like +to be good, if you only knew how; so I'll tell you as far as I know, +though I don't know much about the matter. For the truth is, you must +have a hundred troubles every day which I never felt in my life; and +it must be a very hard thing to keep body and soul together, and +to get a little pleasure on this side the grave without making +blackguards of yourselves. Therefore I don't pretend to set myself up +as a better or a wiser man than you at all: but I do know a thing or +two which I fancy may be useful to you. You can but try it. So come +up, if you like, any of you, and talk matters over with me as between +gentleman and gentleman. I shall keep your secret, of course; and if +you find I can't cure your complaint, why, you can but go away and try +elsewhere.'" + +"And so the doctor's model sermon ends in proposing private +confession!" + +"Of course. The thing itself which will do them good, without the red +rag of an official name, which sends them cackling off like frightened +turkeys.--Such private confession as is going on between you and me +now. Here am I confessing to you all my unorthodoxy." + +"And I my ignorance," said Frank; "for I really believe you know more +about the matter than I do." + +"Not at all. I may be all wrong. But the fault of your cloth seems to +me to be that they apply their medicines without deigning, most of +them, to take the least diagnosis of the case. How could I cure a man +without first examining what was the matter with him?" + +"So say the old casuists, of whom I have read enough--some would say +too much; but they do not satisfy me. They deal with actions, and +motives, and so forth; but they do not go down to the one root of +wrong which is the same in every man." + +"You are getting beyond me: but why do you not apply a little of the +worldly wisdom which these same casuists taught you?" + +"To tell you the truth, I have tried in past years, and found that the +medicine would not act." + +"Humph! Well, that would depend, again, on the previous diagnosis of +human nature being correct; and those old monks, I should say, would +know about as much of human nature as so many daws in a steeple. +Still, you wouldn't say that what was the matter with old Heale was +the matter also with Vavasour?" + +"I believe from my heart that it is." + +"Humph! Then you know the symptoms of his complaint?" + +"I know that he never comes to church." + +"Nothing more? I am really speaking in confidence. You surely have +heard of disagreements between him and Mrs. Vavasour?" + +"Never, I assure you; you shock me." + +"I am exceedingly sorry, then, that I said a word about it: but the +whole parish talks of it," answered Tom, who was surprised at this +fresh proof of the little confidence which Aberalva put in their +parson. + +"Ah!" said Frank sadly, "I am the last person in the parish to hear +any news: but this is very distressing." + +"Very, to me. My honour, to tell you the truth, as a medical man, +is concerned in the matter; for she is growing quite ill from +unhappiness, and I cannot cure her; so I come to you, as soul-doctor, +to do what I, the body-doctor, cannot." + +Frank sat pondering for a minute, and then-- + +"You set me on a task for which I am as little fit as any man, by your +own showing. What do I know of disagreements between man and wife? And +one has a delicacy about offering her comfort. She must bestow her +confidence on me before I can use it: while he--" + +"While he, as the cause of the disease, is what you ought to treat; +and not her unhappiness, which is only a symptom of it." + +"Spoken like a wise doctor; but to tell you the truth, Thurnall, I +have no influence over Mr. Vavasour, and see no means of getting any. +If he recognised my authority, as his parish priest, then I should see +my way. Let him be as bad as he might, I should have a fixed point +from which to work; but with his free-thinking notions, I know +well--one can judge it too easily from his poems--he would look on me +as a pedant assuming a spiritual tyranny to which I have no claim." + +Tom sat awhile nursing his knee, and then-- + +"If you saw a man fallen into the water, what do you think would be +the shortest way to prove to him that you had authority from heaven +to pull him out? Do you give it up? Pulling him out would it not be, +without more ado?" + +"I should be happy enough to pull poor Vavasour out, if he would let +me. But till he believes that I can do it, how can I even begin!" + +"How can you expect him to believe, if he has no proof?" + +"There are proofs enough in the Bible and elsewhere, if he will but +accept them. If he refuses to examine into the credentials, the fault +is his, not mine. I really do not wish to be hard; but would not you +do the same, if any one refused to employ you, because he chose to +deny that you were a legally qualified practitioner?" + +"Not so badly put; but what should I do in that case? Go on quietly +curing his neighbours, till he began to alter his mind as to my +qualifications, and came in to be cured himself. But here's this +difference between you and me. I am not bound to attend to any one who +don't send for me; while you think that you are, and carry the notion +a little too far, for I expect you to kill yourself by it some day." + +"Well?" said Frank, with something of that lazy Oxford tone, which is +intended to save the speaker the trouble of giving his arguments, when +he has already made up his mind, or thinks that he has so done. + +"Well, if I thought myself bound to doctor the man, willy-nilly, as +you do, I would certainly go to him, and show him, at least, that I +understood his complaint. That would be the first step towards his +letting me cure him. How else on earth do you fancy that Paul cured +those Corinthians about whom I have been reading lately?" + +"Are you, too, going to quote Scripture against me? I am glad to find +that your studies extend to St. Paul." + +"To tell you the truth, your sermon last Sunday puzzled me. I could +not comprehend (on your showing) how Paul got that wonderful influence +over those pagans which he evidently had; and as how to get influence +is a very favourite study of mine, I borrowed the book when I went +home, and read for myself; and the matter at last seemed clear enough, +on Paul's own showing." + +"I don't doubt that: but I suspect your interpretation of the fact and +mine would not agree." + +"Mine is simple enough. He says that what proved him to be an apostle +was his power. He is continually appealing to his power; and what can +he mean by that, but that he could do, and had done, what he professed +to do? He promised to make those poor heathen rascals of Greeks +better, and wiser, and happier men; and, I suppose, he made them so; +and then there was no doubt of his commission, or his authority, or +anything else. He says himself he did not require any credentials, for +they were his credentials, read and known of every one; he had made +good men of them out of bad ones, and that was proof enough whose +apostle he was." + +"Well," said Frank half sadly, "I might say a great deal, of course, +on the other side of the question, but I prefer hearing what you +laymen think about it all." + +"Will you be angry if I tell you honestly?" + +"Did you ever find me angry at anything you said?" + +"No. I will do you the justice to say that. Well, what we laymen say +is this. If the parsons have the authority of which they boast, why +don't they use it? If they have commission to make bad people good, +they must have power too; for He whose commission they claim, is not +likely, I should suppose, to set a man to do what he cannot do." + +"And we can do it, if people would but submit to us. It all comes +round again to the same point." + +"So it does. How to get them to listen. I tried to find out how Paul +achieved that first step; and when I looked he told me plainly enough. +By becoming all things to all men; by showing these people that he +understood them, and knew what was the matter with them. Now do you go +and do likewise by Vavasour, and then exercise your authority like a +practical man. If you have power to bind and loose, as you told us +last Sunday, bind that fellow's ungovernable temper, and loose him +from the real slavery which he is in to his miserable conceit and +self-indulgence! and then if he does not believe in your 'sacerdotal +power,' he is even a greater fool than I take him for." + +"Honestly, I will try: God help me!" added Frank in a lower voice; +"but as for quarrels between man and wife, as I told you, no one +understands them less than I." + +"Then marry a wife yourself and quarrel a little with her for +experiment, and then you'll know all about it." + +Frank laughed in spite of himself. + +"Thank you. No man is less likely to try that experiment than I." + +"Hum!" + +"I have quite enough as a bachelor to distract me from my work, +without adding to them those of a wife and family, and those little +home lessons in the frailty of human nature, in which you advise me to +copy Mr. Vavasour." + +"And so," said Tom, "having to doctor human beings, +nineteen-twentieths of whom are married; and being aware that three +parts of the miseries of human life come either from wanting to be +married, or from married cares and troubles--you think that you will +improve your chance of doctoring your flock rightly by avoiding +carefully the least practical acquaintance with the chief cause of +their disease. Philosophical and logical, truly!" + +"You seem to have acquired a little knowledge of men and women, my +good friend, without encumbering yourself with a wife and children." + +"Would you like to go to the same school to which I went?" asked +Thurnall, with a look of such grave meaning that Frank's pure spirit +shuddered within him. "And I'll tell you this; whenever I see a woman +nursing her baby, or a father with his child upon his knees, I say to +myself--they know more, at this minute, of human nature, as of the +great law of 'C'est l'amour, l'amour, l'amour, which makes the world +go round,' than I am likely to do for many a day. I'll tell you what, +sir! These simple natural ties, which are common to us and the dumb +animals,--as I live, sir, they are the divinest things I see in the +world! I have but one, and that is love to my poor old father; that's +all the religion I have as yet: but I tell you, it alone has kept me +from being a ruffian and a blackguard. And I'll tell you more," said +Tom, warming, "of all diabolical dodges for preventing the parsons +from seeing who they are, or what human beings are, or what their work +in the world is, or anything else, the neatest is that celibacy of the +clergy. I should like to have you with me in Spanish America, or in +France either, and see what you thought of it then. How it ever came +into mortal brains is to me the puzzle. I've often fancied, when +I've watched those priests--and very good fellows, too, some of them +are--that there must be a devil after all abroad in the world, as you +say; for no human insanity could ever have hit upon so complete and +'cute a device for making parsons do the more harm, the more good they +try to do. There, I've preached you a sermon, and made you angry." + +"Not in the least: but I must go now and see some sick." + +"Well, go, and prosper; only recollect that the said sick are men and +women." + +And away Tom went, thinking to himself: "Well, that is a noble, +straightforward, honest fellow, and will do yet, if he'll only get a +wife. He's not one of those asses who have made up their minds by book +that the world is square, and won't believe it to be round for any +ocular demonstration. He'll find out what shape the world is before +long, and behave as such, and act accordingly." + +Little did Tom think, as he went home that day in full-blown +satisfaction with his sermon to Frank, of the misery he had caused, +and was going to cause for many a day, to poor Grace Harvey. It was a +rude shock to her to find herself thus suspected; though perhaps it +was one which she needed. She had never, since one first trouble ten +years ago, known any real grief; and had therefore had all the more +time to make a luxury of unreal ones. She was treated by the simple +folk around her as all but inspired; and being possessed of real +powers as miraculous in her own eyes as those which were imputed to +her were in theirs (for what are real spiritual experiences but daily +miracles?) she was just in that temper of mind in which she required, +as ballast, all her real goodness, lest the moral balance should +topple headlong after the intellectual, and the downward course of +vanity, excitement, deception, blasphemous assumptions be entered on. +Happy for her that she was in Protestant and common-sense England, and +in a country parish, where mesmerism and spirit-rapping were unknown. +Had she been an American, she might have become one of the most +lucrative "mediums;" had she been born in a Romish country, she would +have probably become an even more famous personage. There is no reason +why she should not have equalled or surpassed, the ecstasies of St. +Theresa, or of St. Hildegardis, or any other sweet dreamer of sweet +dreams; have founded a new order of charity, have enriched the clergy +of a whole province, and have died in seven years, maddened by +alternate paroxysms of self-conceit and revulsions of self-abasement. +Her own preachers and class-leaders, indeed (so do extremes meet), +would not have been sorry to make use of her in somewhat the same +manner, however feebly and coarsely: but her innate self-respect and +modesty had preserved her from the snares of such clumsy poachers; and +more than one good-looking young preacher had fled desperately from a +station where, instead of making a tool of Grace Harvey, he could only +madden his own foolish heart with love for her. + +So Grace had reigned upon her pretty little throne of not unbearable +sorrows, till a real and bitter woe came; one which could not be +hugged and cherished, like the rest; one which she tried to fling from +her, angrily, scornfully, and found to her horror, that, instead of +her possessing it, it possessed her, and coiled itself round her +heart, and would not be flung away. She--she, of all beings, to be +suspected as a thief, and by the very man whose life she had saved! +She was willing enough to confess herself--and confessed herself night +and morning--a miserable sinner, and her heart a cage of unclean +birds, deceitful, and desperately wicked--except in that. The +conscious innocence flashed up in pride and scorn, in thoughts, even +when she was alone, in words, of which she would not have believed +herself capable. With hot brow and dry eyes she paced her little +chamber, sat down on the bed, staring into vacancy, sprang up and +paced again: but she went into no trance--she dare not. The grief was +too great; she felt that, if she once gave way enough to lose her +self-possession, she should go mad. And the first, and perhaps not the +least good effect of that fiery trial was, that it compelled her to +a stern self-restraint, to which her will, weakened by mental +luxuriousness, had been long a stranger. + +But a fiery trial it was. The first wild (and yet not unnatural) +fancy, that heaven had given Thurnall to her, had deepened day by +day, by the mere indulgence of it. But she never dreamt of him as her +husband: only as a friendless stranger to be helped and comforted. And +that he was worthy of help; that some great future was in store +for him; that he was a chosen vessel marked out for glory, she had +persuaded herself utterly; and the persuasion grew in her day by day, +as she heard more and more of his cleverness, honesty, and kindliness, +mysterious and, to her, miraculous learning. Therefore she did not +make haste; she did not even try to see him, or to speak to him; +a civil bow in passing was all that she took or gave; and she was +content with that, and waited till the time came, when she was +destined to do for him--what she knew not; but it would be done if she +were strong enough. So she set herself to learn, and read, and trained +her mind and temper more earnestly than ever, and waited in patience +for God's good time. And now, behold, a black, unfathomable gulf of +doubt and shame had opened between them, perhaps for ever. And a +tumult arose in her soul, which cannot be, perhaps ought not to be, +analysed in words; but which made her know too well, by her own +crimson cheeks, that it was none other than human love strong as +death, and jealousy cruel as the grave. + +At last long and agonising prayer brought gentler thoughts, and mere +physical exhaustion a calmer mood. How wicked she had been; how +rebellious! Why not forgive him, as One greater than she had forgiven? +It was ungrateful of him; but was he not human? Why should she expect +his heart to be better than hers? Besides, he might have excuses for +his suspicion. He might be the best judge, being a man, and such a +clever one too. Yes; it was God's cross, and she would bear it; she +would try and forget him. No; that was impossible; she must hear of +him, if not see him, day by day: besides, was not her fate linked up +with his? And yet shut out from him by that dark wall of suspicion! It +was very bitter. But she could pray for him; she would pray for him +now. Yes; it was God's cross, and she would bear it. He would right +her if He thought fit; and if not, what matter? Was she not born to +sorrow? Should she complain if another drop, and that the bitterest of +all, was added to the cup? + +And bear her cross she did, about with her, coming in, and going out, +for many a weary day. There was no change in her habits or demeanour; +she was never listless for a moment in her school; she was more gay +and amusing than ever, when she gathered her little ones around her +for a story: but still there was the unseen burden, grinding her heart +slowly, till she felt as if every footstep was stained with a drop of +her heart's blood.... Why not? It would be the sooner over. + +Then, at times came that strange woman's pleasure in martyrdom, the +secret pride of suffering unjustly: but even that, after a while, she +cast away from her, as a snare, and tried to believe that she deserved +all her sorrow--deserved it, that is, in the real honest sense of the +word; that she had worked it out, and earned it, and brought it on +herself--how, she knew not, but longed and strove to know. No; it was +no martyrdom. She would not allow herself so silly a cloak of pride; +and she went daily to her favourite "Book of Martyrs," to contemplate +there the stories of those who really innocent, really suffered for +welldoing. And out of that book she began to draw a new and a strange +enjoyment, for she soon found that her intense imagination enabled +her to re-enact those sad and glorious stories in her own person; to +tremble, agonise, and conquer with those heroines who had been for +years her highest ideals--and what higher ones could she have? And +many a night, after extinguishing the light, and closing her eyes, she +would lie motionless for hours on her little bed, not to sleep, but to +feel with Perpetua the wild bull's horns, to hang with St. Maura on +the cross, or lie with Julitta on the rack, or see with triumphant +smile, by Anne Askew's side, the fire flare up around her at the +Smithfield stake, or to promise, with dying Dorothea, celestial +roses to the mocking youth, whose face too often took the form of +Thurnall's; till every nerve quivered responsive to her fancy in +agonies of actual pain, which died away at last into heavy slumber, as +body and mind alike gave way before the strain. Sweet fool! she knew +not--how could she know?--that she might be rearing in herself the +seeds of idiotcy and death: but who that applauds a Rachel or +a Ristori, for being able to make awhile their souls and their +countenances the homes of the darkest passions, can blame her for +enacting in herself, and for herself alone, incidents in which the +highest and holiest virtue takes shape in perfect tragedy? + +But soon another, and a yet darker cause of sorrow arose in her. It +was clear, from what Willis had told her, that she had held the lost +belt in her hand. The question was, how had she lost it? + +Did her mother know anything about it? That question could not but +arise in her mind, though, for very reverence she dared not put it to +her mother; and with it arose the recollection of her mother's +strange silence about the matter. Why had she put away the subject, +carelessly, and yet peevishly, when it was mentioned? Yes. Why? Did +her mother know anything? Was she--? Grace dared not pronounce the +adjective, even in thought; dashed it away as a temptation of the +devil; dashed away, too, the thought which had forced itself on +her too often already, that her mother was not altogether one who +possessed the single eye; that in spite of her deep religious feeling, +her assurance of salvation, her fits of bitter self-humiliation and +despondency, there was an inclination to scheming and intrigue, +ambition, covetousness; that the secrets which she gained as +class-leader too, were too often (Grace could but fear) used to her +own advantage; that in her dealings her morality was not above the +average of little country shopkeepers; that she was apt to have two +prices; to keep her books with unnecessary carelessness when the +person against whom the account stood was no scholar. Grace had more +than once remonstrated in her gentle way; and had been silenced, +rather than satisfied, by her mother's commonplaces as to the right of +"making those who could pay, pay for those who could not;" that "it +was very hard to get a living, and the Lord knew her temptations," +and "that God saw no sin in His elect," and "Christ's merits were +infinite," and "Christians always had been a backsliding generation;" +and all the other commonplaces by which such people drug their +consciences to a degree which is utterly incredible, except to those +who have seen it with their own eyes, and heard it with their own +ears, from childhood. + +Once, too, in those very days, some little meanness on her mother's +part brought the tears into Grace's eyes, and a gentle rebuke to her +lips: but her mother bore the interference less patiently than usual; +and answered, not by cant, but by counter-reproach. "Was she the +person to accuse a poor widowed mother, struggling to leave her child +something to keep her out of the workhouse? A mother that lived for +her, would die for her, sell her soul for her, perhaps--" + +And there Mrs. Harvey stopped short, turned pale, and burst into such +an agony of tears, that Grace, terrified, threw her arms round her +neck, and entreated forgiveness, all the more intensely on account of +those thoughts within which she dared not reveal. So the storm passed +over. But not Grace's sadness. For she could not but see, with her +clear pure spiritual eye, that her mother was just in that state in +which some fearful and shameful fall is possible, perhaps wholesome. +"She would sell her soul for me? What if she have sold it, and stopped +short just now, because she had not the heart to tell me that love for +me had been the cause? Oh! if she have sinned for my sake! Wretch that +I am! Miserable myself, and bringing misery with me! Why was I ever +born? Why cannot I die--and the world be rid of me?" + +No, she would not believe it. It was a wicked, horrible, temptation +of the devil. She would rather believe that she herself had been the +thief, tempted during her unconsciousness; that she had hidden it +somewhere; that she should recollect, confess, restore all some day. +She would carry it to him herself, grovel at his feet, and entreat +forgiveness. "He will surely forgive, when he finds that I was not +myself when--that it was not altogether my fault--not as if I had been +waking--yes, he will forgive!" And then on that thought followed a +dream of what might follow, so wild that a moment after she had hid +her blushes in her hands, and fled to books to escape from thoughts. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +THE FIRST INSTALMENT OF AN OLD DEBT. + + +We must now return to Elsley, who had walked home in a state of mind +truly pitiable. He had been flattering his soul with the hope that +Thurnall did not know him; that his beard, and the change which years +had made, formed a sufficient disguise: but he could not conceal +from himself that the very same alterations had not prevented his +recognising Thurnall; and he had been living for two months past in +continual fear that that would come which now had come. + +His rage and terror knew no bounds. Fancying Thurnall a merely mean +and self-interested worldling, untouched by those higher aspirations +which stood to him in place of a religion, he imagined him making +every possible use of his power; and longed to escape to the uttermost +ends of the earth from his old tormentor, whom the very sea would not +put out of the way, but must needs cast ashore at his very feet, to +plague him afresh. + +What a net he had spread around his own feet, by one act of foolish +vanity! He had taken his present name, merely as a _nom de guerre_, +when first he came to London as a penniless and friendless scribbler. +It would hide him from the ridicule (and, as he fancied, spite) of +Thurnall, whom he dreaded meeting every time he walked London streets, +and who was for years, to his melancholic and too intense fancy, his +_bete noir_, his Frankenstein's familiar. Beside, he was ashamed of +the name of Briggs. It certainly is not an euphonious or aristocratic +name; and "The Soul's Agonies, by John Briggs," would not have sounded +as well as "The Soul's Agonies, by Elsley Vavasour." Vavasour was a +very pretty name, and one of those which is supposed by novelists and +young ladies to be aristocratic;--why so is a puzzle; as its plain +meaning is a tenant-farmer, and nothing more nor less. So he had +played with the name till he became fond of it, and considered that +he had a right to it, through seven long years of weary struggles, +penury, disappointment, as he climbed the Parnassian Mount, writing +for magazines and newspapers, subediting this periodical and that; +till he began to be known as a ready, graceful, and trustworthy +workman, and was befriended by one kind-hearted _litterateur_ after +another. For in London, at this moment, any young man of real power +will find friends enough, and too many, among his fellow book-wrights, +and is more likely to have his head turned by flattery, than his heart +crushed by envy. Of course, whatsoever flattery he may receive, he is +expected to return; and whatsoever clique he may be tossed into on +his _debut_, he is expected to stand by, and fight for, against the +universe; but that is but fair. If a young gentleman, invited to enrol +himself in the Mutual-puffery Society which meets every Monday and +Friday in Hatchgoose the publisher's drawing-room, is willing to +pledge himself thereto in the mystic cup of tea, is he not as solemnly +bound thenceforth to support those literary Catilines in their efforts +for the subversion of common sense, good taste, and established things +in general, as if he had pledged them, as he would have done in Rome +of old, in his own life-blood? Bound he is, alike by honour and by +green tea; and it will be better for him to fulfil his bond. For if +association is the cardinal principle of the age, will it not work as +well in book-making as in clothes-making? And shall not the motto +of the poet (who will also do a little reviewing on the sly) be +henceforth that which shines triumphant over all the world, on many a +valiant Scotchman's shield-- + + "Caw me, and I'll caw thee"? + +But to do John Briggs justice, he kept his hands, and his heart also, +cleaner than most men do, during this stage of his career. After the +first excitement of novelty, and of mixing with people who could +really talk and think, and who freely spoke out whatever was in them, +right or wrong, in language which at least sounded grand and deep, he +began to find in the literary world about the same satisfaction for +his inner life which he would have found in the sporting world, or the +commercial world, or the religious world, or the fashionable world, or +any other world and to suspect strongly that wheresoever a world is, +the flesh and the devil are not very far off. Tired of talking when +he wanted to think, of asserting when he wanted to discover, and +of hearing his neighbours do the same; tired of little meannesses, +envyings, intrigues, jobberies (for the literary world, too, has +its jobs), he had been for some time withdrawing himself from the +Hatchgoose soirees into his own thoughts, when his "Soul's Agonies" +appeared, and he found himself, if not a lion, at least a lion's cub. + +There is a house or two in Town where you may meet on certain +evenings, everybody; where duchesses and unfledged poets, bishops and +red republican refugees, fox-hunting noblemen and briefless barristers +who have taken to politics, are jumbled together for a couple of +hours, to make what they can out of each other, to the exceeding +benefit of them all. For each and every one of them finds his +neighbour a pleasanter person than he expected; and none need leave +those rooms without knowing something more than he did when he came +in, and taking an interest in some human being who may need that +interest. To one of these houses, no matter which, Elsley was invited +on the strength of the "Soul's Agonies;" found himself, for the first +time, face to face with high-bred Englishwomen; and fancied--small +blame to him--that he was come to the mountains of the Peris, and to +Fairy Land itself. He had been flattered already: but never with such +grace, such sympathy, or such seeming understanding; for there are few +high-bred women who cannot seem to understand, and delude a hapless +genius into a belief in their own surpassing brilliance and +penetration, while they are cunningly retailing again to him the +thoughts which they have caught up from the man to whom they spoke +last; perhaps--for this is the very triumph of their art--from the +very man to whom they are speaking. Small blame to bashful, clumsy +John Briggs, if he did not know his own children; and could not +recognise his own stammered and fragmentary fancies, when they were +re-echoed to him the next minute, in the prettiest shape, and with the +most delicate articulation, from lips which (like those in the fairy +tale) never opened without dropping pearls and diamonds. + +Oh, what a contrast, in the eyes of a man whose sense of beauty and +grace, whether physical or intellectual, was true and deep, to +that ghastly ring of prophetesses in the Hatchgoose drawing-room; +strong-minded and emancipated women, who prided themselves on having +cast off conventionalities, and on being rude, and awkward, and +dogmatic, and irreverent, and sometimes slightly improper; women +who had missions to mend everything in heaven and earth, except +themselves; who had quarrelled with their husbands, and had therefore +felt a mission to assert women's rights, and reform marriage in +general; or who had never been able to get married at all, and +therefore were especially competent to promulgate a model method of +educating the children whom they never had had; women who wrote poetry +about Lady Blanches whom they never had met, and novels about male and +female blackguards whom (one hopes) they never had met, or about whom +(if they had) decent women would have held their peace; and every one +of whom had in obedience to Emerson, "followed her impulses," and +despised fashion, and was accordingly clothed and bedizened as was +right in the sight of her own eyes, and probably in those of no one +else. + +No wonder that Elsley, ere long, began drawing comparisons, and using +his wit upon ancient patronesses, of course behind their backs, +likening them to idols fresh from the car of Juggernaut, or from the +stern of a South Sea canoe; or, most of all, to that famous +wooden image of Freya, which once leapt lumbering forth from her +bullock-cart, creaking and rattling in every oaken joint, to belabour +the too daring Viking who was flirting with her priestess. Even so, +whispered Elsley, did those brains and tongues creak and rattle, +lumbering before the blasts of Pythonic inspiration; and so, he verily +believed, would the awkward arms and legs have done likewise, if one +of the Pythonesses had ever so far degraded herself as to dance. + +No wonder, then, that those gifted dames had soon to complain +of Elsley Vavasour as a traitor to the cause of progress and +civilisation; a renegade who had fled to the camp of aristocracy, +flunkeydom, obscurantism, frivolity, and dissipation; though there was +not one of them but would have given an eye--perhaps no great loss to +the aggregate loveliness of the universe--for one of his invitations +to 999 Cavendish Street south-east, with the chance of being presented +to the Duchess of Lyonesse. + +To do Elsley justice, one reason why he liked his new acquaintances so +well was, that they liked him. He behaved well himself, and therefore +people behaved well to him. He was, as I have said, a very handsome +fellow in his way; therefore it was easy to him, as it is to all +physically beautiful persons, to acquire a graceful manner. Moreover, +he had steeped his whole soul in old poetry, and especially in +Spenser's Faery Queen. Good for him, had he followed every lesson +which he might have learnt out of that most noble of English books: +but one lesson at least he learnt from it; and that was, to be +chivalrous, tender, and courteous to all women, however old or ugly, +simply because they were women. The Hatchgoose Pythonesses did not +wish to be women, but very bad imitations of men; and therefore he +considered himself absolved from all knightly duties toward them: but +toward these Peris of the west, and to the dowagers who had been Peris +in their time, what adoration could be too great? So he bowed down +and worshipped; and, on the whole, he was quite right in so doing. +Moreover, he had the good sense to discover, that though the young +Peris were the prettiest to look at, the elder Peris were the better +company; and that it is, in general, from married women that a poet or +any one else will ever learn what woman's heart is like. And so well +did he carry out his creed, that before his first summer was over he +had quite captivated the heart of old Lady Knockdown, aunt to Lucia +St. Just, and wife to Lucia's guardian; a charming old Irishwoman, who +affected a pretty brogue, perhaps for the same reason that she wore a +wig, and who had been, in her day, a beauty and a blue, a friend +of the Miss Berrys, and Tommy Moore, and Grattan, and Lord Edward +Fitzgerald, and Dan O'Connell, and all other lions and lionesses which +had roared for the last sixty years about the Emerald Isle. There was +no one whom she did not know, and nothing she could not talk about. +Married up, when a girl, to a man for whom she did not care, and +having no children, she had indemnified herself by many flirtations, +and the writing of two or three novels, in which she penned on paper +the superfluous feeling which had no vent in real life. She had +deserted, as she grew old, the novel for unfulfilled prophecy; and was +a distinguished leader in a distinguished religious coterie: but she +still prided herself upon having a green head upon grey shoulders; and +not without reason; for underneath all the worldliness and intrigue, +and petty affectation of girlishness, which she contrived to jumble +in with her religiosity, beat a young and kindly heart. So she was +charmed with Mr. Vavasour's manners, and commended them much to Lucia, +who, a shrinking girl of seventeen, was peeping at her first season +from under Lady Knockdown's sheltering wing. + +"Me dear, let Mr. Vavasour be who he will, he has not only the +intellect of a true genius, but what is a great deal better for +practical purposes; that is, the manners of one. Give me the man +who will let a woman of our rank say what we like to him, without +supposing that he may say what he likes in return; and considers one's +familiarity as an honour, and not as an excuse for taking liberties. A +most agreeable contrast, indeed, to the young men of the present +day; who come in their shooting jackets, and talk slang to their +partners,--though really the girls are just as bad,--and stand with +their backs to the fire, and smell of smoke, and go to sleep after +dinner, and pay no respect to old age, nor to youth either, I think. +'Pon me word, Lucia, the answers I've heard young gentlemen make to +young ladies, this very season,--they'd have been called out the +next morning in my time, me dear. As for the age of chivalry, nobody +expects that to be restored: but really one might have been spared the +substitute for it which, we had when I was young, in the grand air of +the old school. It was a 'sham,' I daresay, as they call everything +now-a-days: but really, me dear, a pleasant sham is better to live +with than an unpleasant reality, especially when it smells of cigars." + +So it befell that Elsley Vavasour was asked to Lady Knockdown's, and +that there he fell in love with Lucia, and Lucia fell in love with +him. + +The next winter, old Lord Knockdown, who had been decrepit for some +years past, died; and his widow, whose income was under five hundred +a year,--for the estates were entailed, and mortgaged, and everything +else which can happen to an Irish property,--came to live with her +nephew, Lord Scoutbush, in Eaton Square, and take such care as she +could of Lucia and Valencia. + +So, after a dreary autumn and winter of parting and silence, Elsley +found himself the next season invited to Eaton Square; there the +mischief, if mischief it was, was done; and Elsley and Lucia started +in life upon two hundred a year. He had inherited some fifty of his +own; she had about a hundred and fifty, which, indeed, was not yet +her own by right; but little Scoutbush (who was her sole surviving +guardian) behaved on the whole very well for a young gentleman of +twenty-two, in a state of fury and astonishment. The old Lord had, +wisely enough, settled in his will that Lucia was to enjoy the +interest of her fortune from the time that she came out, provided she +did not marry without her guardian's leave; and Scoutbush, to avoid +esclandre and misery, thought it as well to waive the proviso, and +paid her her dividends as usual. + +But how had she contrived to marry at all without his leave? That is +an ugly question. I will not say that she had told a falsehood, +or that Elsley had forsworn himself when he got the licence: but +certainly both of them were guilty of something very like a white lie, +when they declared that Lucia had the consent of her sole surviving +guardian, on the strength of an half-angry, half-jesting expression of +Scoutbush's that she might marry whom she chose, provided she did not +plague him. In the first triumph of success and intoxication of wedded +bliss, Lucia had written him a saucy letter, reminding him of his +permission, and saying that she had taken him at his word: but her +conscience smote her; and Elsley's smote him likewise; and smote him +all the more, because he had been married under a false name, a fact +which might have ugly consequences in law which he did not like to +contemplate. To do him justice, he had been half-a-dozen times during +his courtship on the point of telling Lucia his real name and +history. Happy for him had he done so, whatever might have been the +consequences: but he wanted moral courage; the hideous sound of Briggs +had become horrible to him; and once his foolish heart was frightened +away from honesty, just as honesty was on the point of conquering, by +old Lady Knockdown's saying that she could never have married a man +with an ugly name, or let Lucia marry one. + +"Conceive becoming Mrs. Natty Bumppo, me dear, even for twenty +thousand a year. If you could summon up courage to do the deed, I +couldn't summon up courage to continue my correspondence with ye." + +Elsley knew that that was a lie; that the old lady would have let her +marry the most triumphant snob in England, if he had half that income: +but unfortunately Lucia capped her aunt's nonsense with "There is no +fear of my ever marrying any one who has not a graceful name," and a +look at Vavasour, which said--"And you have one, and therefore I--" +For the matter had then been settled between them. This was too much +for his vanity, and too much, also, for his fears of losing Lucia by +confessing the truth. So Elsley went on, ashamed of his real name, +ashamed of having concealed it, ashamed of being afraid that it would +be discovered,--in a triple complication of shame, which made him +gradually, as it makes every man, moody, suspicious, apt to take +offence where none is meant. Besides they were very poor. He, though +neither extravagant nor profligate, was, like most literary men who +are accustomed to live from hand to mouth, careless, self-indulgent, +unmethodical. She knew as much of housekeeping as the Queen of Oude +does; and her charming little dreams of shopping for herself were +rudely enough broken, ere the first week was out, by the horrified +looks of Clara, when she returned from her first morning's marketing +for the weekly consumption, with nothing but a woodcock, some +truffles, and a bunch of celery. Then the landlady of the lodgings +robbed her, even under the nose of the faithful Clara, who knew as +little about housekeeping as her mistress; and Clara, faithful as +she was, repaid herself by grumbling and taking liberties for being +degraded from the luxurious post of lady's maid to that of servant of +all work, with a landlady, and "marchioness" to wrestle with all day +long. Then, what with imprudence and anxiety, Lucia of course lost +her first child: and after that came months of illness, during which +Elsley tended her, it must be said for him, as lovingly as a mother; +and perhaps they were both really happier during that time of sorrow +than they had been in all the delirious bliss of the honeymoon. + +Valencia meanwhile defied old Lady Knockdown (whose horror and wrath +knew no bounds), and walked off one morning with her maid to see her +prodigal sister; a visit which not only brought comfort to the weary +heart, but important practical benefits. For going home, she seized +upon Scoutbush, and so moved his heart with pathetic pictures of +Lucia's unheard-of penury and misery, that his heart was softened; +and though he absolutely refused to call on Vavasour, he made him an +offer, through Lucia, of Penalva Court for the time being; and thither +they went--perhaps the best thing they could have done. + +There, of course, they were somewhat more comfortable. A very cheap +country, a comfortable house rent free, and a lovely neighbourhood, +were a pleasant change after dear London lodgings: but it is a +question whether the change made Elsley a better man. + +In the first place, he became a more idle man. The rich enervating +climate began to tell upon his mind, as it did upon Lucia's health. He +missed that perpetual spur of nervous excitement, change of society, +influx of ever-fresh objects, which makes London, after all, the best +place in the world for hard working; and which makes even a walk along +the streets an intellectual tonic. In the soft and luxurious West +Country Nature invited him to look at her, and dream; and dream he +did, more and more, day by day. He was tired, too--as who would not +be?--of the drudgery of writing for his daily bread; and relieved from +the importunities of publishers and printers'-devils, he sent up fewer +and fewer contributions to the magazines. He would keep his energies +for a great work; poetry was, after all, his forte: he would not +fritter himself away on prose and periodicals, but would win for +himself, etc. etc. If he made a mistake, it was at least a pardonable +one. + +But Elsley became not only a more idle, but a more morose man. He +began to feel the evils of solitude. There was no one near with whom +he could hold rational converse, save an antiquarian parson or two; +and parsons were not to his taste. So, never measuring his wits +against those of his peers, and despising the few men whom he met +as inferior to himself, he grew more and more wrapt up in his own +thoughts and his own tastes. His own poems, even to the slightest turn +of expression, became more and more important to him. He grew more +jealous of criticism, more confident in his own little theories, about +this and that, more careless of the opinion of his fellowmen, and, +as a certain consequence, more unable to bear the little crosses and +contradictions of daily life; and as Lucia, having brought one and +another child safely into the world, settled down into motherhood, he +became less and less attentive to her, and more and more attentive to +that self which was fast becoming the centre of his universe. + +True, there were excuses for him; for whom are there none? He was +poor and struggling; and it is much more difficult (as Becky Sharp, I +think, pathetically observes) to be good when one is poor than when +one is rich. It is (and all rich people should consider the fact) much +more easy, if not to go to heaven, at least to think one is going +thither, on three thousand a year, than on three hundred. Not only is +respectability more easy, as is proved by the broad fact that it is +the poor people who fill the gaols, and not the rich ones: but virtue, +and religion--of the popular sort. It is undeniably more easy to be +resigned to the will of Heaven, when that will seems tending just as +we would have it; much more easy to have faith in the goodness of +Providence, when that goodness seems safe in one's pocket in the +form of bank-notes; and to believe that one's children are under the +protection of Omnipotence, when one can hire for them in half an hour +the best medical advice in London. One need only look into one's own +heart to understand the disciples' astonishment at the news, that "How +hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven." + +"Who then can be saved?" asked they, being poor men, accustomed to +see the wealthy Pharisees in possession of "the highest religious +privileges, and means of grace." Who, indeed, if not the rich? If the +noblemen, and the bankers, and the dowagers, and the young ladies who +go to church, and read good books, and have been supplied from youth +with the very best religious articles which money can procure, and +have time for all manner of good works, and give their hundreds to +charities, and head reformatory movements, and build churches, +and work altar-cloths, and can taste all the preachers and +father-confessors round London, one after another, as you would taste +wines, till they find the spiritual panacea which exactly suits their +complaint--if they are not sure of salvation, who can be saved? + +Without further comment, the fact is left for the consideration of +all readers; only let them not be too hard upon Elsley and Lucia, if, +finding themselves sometimes literally at their wits' end, they went +beyond their poor wits into the region where foolish things are said +and done. + +Moreover, Elsley's ill-temper (as well as Lucia's) had its excuses in +physical ill-health. Poor fellow! Long years of sedentary work had +begun to tell upon him; and while Tom Thurnall's chest, under the +influence of hard work and oxygen, measured round perhaps six inches +more than it had done sixteen years ago, Elsley's, thanks to stooping +and carbonic acid, measured six inches less. Short breath, lassitude, +loss of appetite, heartburn, and all that fair company of miseries +which Mr. Cockle and his Antibilious Pills profess to cure, are no +cheering bosom friends; but when a man's breast-bone is gradually +growing into his stomach, they will make their appearance; and small +blame to him whose temper suffers from their gentle hints that he has +a mortal body as well as an immortal soul. + +But most fretting of all was the discovery that Lucia knew--if not all +about his original name--still enough to keep him in dread lest she +should learn more. + +It was now twelve months and more that this new terror had leapt up +and stared in his face. He had left a letter about--a thing which he +was apt to do--in which the Whitbury lawyer made some allusions to his +little property; and he was sure that Lucia had seen it; the hated +name of Briggs certainly she had not seen; for Elsley had torn it out +the moment he opened the letter: but she had seen enough, as he soon +found, to be certain that he had, at some time or other, passed under +a different name. + +If Lucia had been a more thoughtful or high-minded woman, she would +have gone straight to her husband, and quietly and lovingly asked him +to tell her all: but, in her left-handed Irish fashion, she kept the +secret to herself, and thought it a very good joke to have him in her +power, and to be able to torment him about that letter when he got out +of temper. It never occurred, however, to her that his present name +was the feigned one. She fancied that he had, in some youthful +escapade, assumed the name to which the lawyer alluded. So the +next time he was cross, she tried laughingly the effect of her +newly-discovered spell; and was horror-struck at the storm which she +evoked. In a voice of thunder, Elsley commanded her never to mention +the subject again; and showed such signs of terror and remorse, that +she obeyed him from that day forth, except when now and then she lost +her temper as completely, too, as he. Little she thought, in her +heedlessness, what a dark cloud of fear and suspicion, ever deepening +and spreading, she had put between his heart and hers. + +But if Elsley had dreaded her knowledge of his story, he dreaded ten +times more Tom's knowledge of it. What if Thurnall should tell Lucia? +What if Lucia should make a confidant of Thurnall? Women told their +doctors everything; and Lucia, he knew too well, had cause to complain +of him. Perhaps, thought he, maddened into wild suspicion by the sense +of his own wrong-doing, she might complain of him; she might combine +with Thurnall against him--for what purpose he knew not: but the +wildest imaginations flashed across him, as he hurried desperately +home, intending as soon as he got there to forbid Lucia's ever calling +in his dreaded enemy. No, Thurnall should never cross his door again! +On that one point he was determined, but on nothing else. + +However, his intention was never fulfilled. For long before he reached +home he began to feel himself thoroughly ill. His was a temperament +upon which mental anxiety acts rapidly and severely; and the burning +sun, and his rapid walk, combined with rage and terror to give him +such a "turn" that, as he hurried down the lane, he found himself +reeling like a drunken man. He had just time to hurry through the +garden, and into his study, when pulse and sense failed him, and he +rolled over on the sofa in a dead faint. + +Lucia had seen him come in, and heard him fall, and rushed in. The +poor little thing was at her wits' end, and thought that he had had +nothing less than a _coup-de-soleil._ And when he recovered from his +faintness, he began to be so horribly ill, that Clara, who had been +called in to help, had some grounds for the degrading hypothesis (for +which Lucia all but boxed her ears) that "Master had got away into the +woods, and gone eating toadstools, or some such poisonous stuff;" for +he lay a full half-hour on the sofa, death-cold, and almost pulseless; +moaning, shuddering, hiding his face in his hands, and refusing +cordials, medicines, and, above all, a doctor's visit. + +However, this could not be allowed to last. Without Elsley's +knowledge, a messenger was despatched for Thurnall, and luckily met +him in the lane; for he was returning to the town in the footsteps of +his victim. + +Elsley's horror was complete, when the door opened, and Lucia brought +in none other than his tormentor. + +"My dearest Elsley, I have sent for Mr. Thurnall. I knew you would not +let me, if I told you; but you see I have done it, and now you must +really speak to him." + +Elsley's first impulse was to motion them both away angrily; but the +thought that he was in Thurnall's power stopped him. He must not show +his disgust. What if Lucia were to ask its cause, even to guess it? +for to his fears even that seemed possible. A fresh misery! Just +because he shrank so intensely from the man, he must endure him! + +"There is nothing the matter with me," said he languidly. + +"I should be the best judge of that, after what Mrs. Vavasour has just +told me," said Tom, in his most professional and civil voice; and +slipped, catlike, into a seat beside the unresisting poet. + +He asked question on question: but Elsley gave such unsatisfactory +answers, that Lucia had to detail everything afresh for him, +with--"You know, Mr. Thurnall, he is always overtasking his brain, and +will never confess himself ill,"--and all a woman's anxious comments. + +Rogue Tom knew all the while well enough what was the cause: but he +saw, too, that Elsley was very ill. He felt that he must have the +matter out at once; and, by a side glance, sent the obedient Lucia out +of the room to get a table-spoonful of brandy. + +"Now, my dear sir, that we are alone," began he blandly. + +"Now, sir!" answered Vavasour, springing off the sofa, his whole +pent-up wrath exploding in hissing steam, the moment the safety-valve +was lifted. "Now, sir! What--what is the meaning of this insolence, +this intrusion?" + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Vavasour," answered Tom, rising, in a tone of +bland and stolid surprise. + +"What do you want here, with your mummery and medicine, when you know +the cause of my malady well enough already? Go, sir! and leave me to +myself." + +"My dear sir," said Tom firmly, "you seem to have forgotten what +passed between us this morning." + +"Will you insult me beyond endurance?" cried Elsley. + +"I told you that, as long as you chose, you were Elsley Vavasour, and +I the country doctor. We have met in that character. Why not sustain +it? You are really ill; and if I know the cause, I am all the more +likely to know the cure." + +"Cure?" + +"Why not? Believe me, it is in your power to become a much happier +man, simply by becoming a healthier one." + +"Impertinence!" + +"Pish! What can I gain by being impertinent, sir? I know very well +that you have received a severe shock; but I know equally well, that +if you were as you ought to be, you would not feel it in this way. +When one sees a man in the state of prostration in which you are, +common sense tells one that the body must have been neglected, for the +mind to gain such power over it." + +Elsley replied with a grunt; but Tom went on, bland and imperturbable. + +"Believe me, it may be a very materialist view of things: but fact +is fact--the _corpus sanum_ is father to the _mens sana_--tonics and +exercise make the ills of life look marvellously smaller. You have +the frame of a strong and active man; and all you want to make you +light-hearted and cheerful, is to develop what nature has given you." + +"It is too late," said Elsley, pleased, as most men are, by being told +that they might be strong and active. + +"Not in the least. Three months would strengthen your muscles, open +your chest again, settle your digestion, and make you as fresh as a +lark, and able to sing like one. Believe me, the poetry would be the +better for it, as well as the stomach. Now, positively, I shall begin +questioning you." + +So Elsley was won to detail the symptoms of internal _malaise_, which +he was only too much in the habit of watching himself; but there were +some among them which Tom could not quite account for on the ground of +mere effeminate habits. A thought struck him. + +"You sleep ill, I suppose?" said he carelessly. + +"Very ill." + +"Did you ever try opiates?" + +"No--yes--that is, sometimes." + +"Ah!" said Tom, more carelessly still, for he wished to hide, by all +means, the importance of the confession. "Well, they give relief for a +time: but they are dangerous things--disorder the digestion, and have +their revenge on the nerves next morning, as spitefully as brandy +itself. Much better try a glass of strong ale or porter just before +going to bed. I've known it give sleep, even in consumption--try it, +and exercise. You shoot?" + +"No." + +"Pity; there ought to be noble cocking in these woods. However, the +season's past. You fish?" + +"No." + +"Pity again. I hear Alva is full of trout. Why not try sailing? +Nothing oxygenates the lungs like a sail, and your friends the +fishermen would be delighted to have you as super-cargo. They are +always full of your stories to them, and your picking their brains for +old legends and adventures." + +"They are noble fellows, and I want no better company; but, +unfortunately, I am always sea-sick." + +"Ah! wholesome, but unpleasant: you are fond of gardening?" + +"Very; but stooping makes my head swim." + +"True, and I don't want you to stoop. I hope to see you soon as erect +as a Guardsman. Why not try walks?" + +"Abominable bores--lonely, aimless--" + +"Well, perhaps you're right. I never knew but three men who took long +constitutionals on principle, and two of them were cracked. But why +not try a companion; and persuade that curate, who needs just the same +medicine as you, to accompany you? I don't know a more gentleman-like, +agreeable, well-informed man than he is." + +"Thank you. I can choose my acquaintances for myself." + +"You touchy ass!" said Thurnall to himself. "If we were in the blessed +state of nature now, wouldn't I give you ten minutes' double thonging, +and then set you to work, as the runaway nigger did his master, Bird +o' freedom Sawin, till you'd learnt a thing or two." But blandly still +he went on. + +"Try the dumb-bells then. Nothing like them for opening your chest. +And do get a high desk made, and stand to your writing instead of +sitting." And Tom actually made Vavasour promise to do both, and bade +him farewell with-- + +"Now, I'll send you up a little tonic; and trouble you with no more +visits till you send for me. I shall see by one glance at your face +whether you are following my prescriptions. And, I say, I wouldn't +meddle with those opiates any more; try good malt and hops instead." + +"Those who drink beer, think beer," said Elsley, smiling; for he +was getting more hopeful of himself, and his terrors were vanishing +beneath Tom's skilful management. + +"And those who drink water, think water. The Elizabethans--Sidney and +Shakspeare, Burleigh and Queen Bess, worked on beef and ale,--and you +would not class them among the muddle-headed of the earth: Believe me, +to write well, you must live well. If you take it out of your brain, +you must put it in again. It's a question of fact. Try it for +yourself." And off Tom went; while Lucia rushed back to her husband, +covered him with caresses, assured him that he was seven times as ill +as he really was, and so nursed and petted him, that he felt himself, +for that time at least, a beast and a fool for having suspected her +for a moment. Ah, woman, if you only knew how you carry our hearts in +your hands, and would but use your power for our benefit, what angels +you might make us all! + +"So," said Tom, as he went home, "he has found his way to the +elevation-bottle, has he, as well as Mrs. Heale? It's no concern of +mine: but as a professional man, I must stop that. You will certainly +be no credit to me if you kill yourself under my hands." + +Tom went straight home, showed the blacksmith how to make a pair of +dumb-bells, covered them himself with leather, and sent them up the +next morning with directions to be used for half an hour morning and +evening. + +And something--whether it was the dumb-bells, or the tonic, or +wholesome fear of the terrible doctor--kept Elsley for the next month +in better spirits and temper than he had been in for a long while. + +Moreover, Tom set Lucia to coax him into walking with Headley. She +succeeded at last; and, on the whole, each of them soon found that +he had something to learn from the other. Elsley improved daily in +health, and Lucia wrote to Valencia flaming accounts of the wonderful +doctor who had been cast on shore in their world's end; and received +from her after a while this, amid much more--for fancy is not +exuberant enough to reproduce the whole of a young lady's letter. + +"--I am so ashamed. I ought to have told you of that doctor a +fortnight ago; but, rattle-pate as I am, I forgot all about it. Do +you know, he is Sabina Mellot's dearest friend; and she begged me to +recommend him to you; but I put it off, and then it slipped my memory, +like everything else good. She has told me the most wonderful stories +of his courage and goodness; and conceive--she and her husband were +taken prisoners with him by the savages in the South Seas, and going +to be eaten, she says: but he helped them to escape in a canoe--such +a story--and lived with them for three months on the most beautiful +desert island--it is all like a fairy tale. I'll tell it you when I +come, darling--which I shall do in a fortnight, and we shall be all so +happy. I have such a box ready for you and the chicks, which I shall +bring with me; and some pretty things from Scoutbush beside, who is +very low, poor fellow, I cannot conceive what about: but wonderfully +tender about you. I fancy he must be in love; for he stood up the +other day about you to my aunt, quite solemnly, with, 'Let her alone, +my lady. She's not the first whom love has made a fool of, and she +won't be the last: and I believe that some of the moves which look +most foolish, turn out best after all. Live and let live; everybody +knows his own business best; anything is better than marriage without +real affection.' Conceive my astonishment at hearing the dear little +fellow turn sage in that way! + +"By the way, I have had to quote his own advice against him; for I +have refused Lord Chalkclere after all. I told him (C. not S.) that he +was much too good for me: far too perfect and complete a person; that +I preferred a husband whom I could break in for myself, even though he +gave me a little trouble. Scoutbush was cross at first; but he said +afterwards that it was just like Baby Blake (the wretch always calls +me Baby Blake now, after that dreadful girl in Lever's Novel); and I +told him frankly that it was, if he meant that I had sooner break in +a thorough-bred for myself, even though I had a fall or two in the +process, than jog along on the most finished little pony on earth, who +would never go out of an amble. Lord Chalk may be very finished, and +learned, and excellent, and so forth: but, _ma chere_, I want, not a +white rabbit (of which he always reminds me), but a hero, even though +he be a naughty one. I always fancy people must be very little if they +can be finished off so rapidly; if there was any real verve in them, +they would take somewhat longer to grow. Lord Chalk would do very well +to bind in Russian leather, and put on one's library shelves, to be +consulted when one forgot a date; but really even your Ulysses of a +doctor--provided, of course, he turned out a prince in disguise, and +don't leave out his h's--would be more to the taste of your naughtiest +of sisters." + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +A PEER IN TROUBLE. + + +Somewhere in those days, so it seems, did Mr. Bowie call unto himself +a cab at the barrack-gate, and, dressed in his best array, repair +to the wilds of Brompton, and request to see either Claude or Mrs. +Mellot. + +Bowie is an ex-Scots-Fusilier, who, damaged by the kick of a horse, +has acted as valet, first to Scoutbush's father, and next to Scoutbush +himself. He is of a patronising habit of mind, as befits a tolerably +"leeterary" Scotsman of forty-five years of age and six-feet three in +height, who has full confidence in the integrity of his own virtue, +the infallibility of his own opinion, and the strength of his own +right arm; for Bowie, though he has a rib or two "dinged in," is +mighty still as Theseus' self; and both astonished his red-bearded +compatriots, and won money for his master, by his prowess in the late +feat of arms at Holland House. + +Mr. Bowie is asked to walk into Sabina's boudoir (for Claude is out in +the garden), to sit down, and deliver his message: which he does after +a due military salute, sitting bolt upright in his chair, and in a +solemn and sonorous voice. + +"Well, madam, it's just this, that his lordship would be very glad to +see ye and Mr. Mellot, for he's vary ill indeed, and that's truth; and +if he winna tell ye the cause, then I will--and it's just a' for love +of this play-acting body here, and more's the pity." + +"More's the pity, indeed!" + +"And it's my opeenion the puir laddie will just die, if nobody sees to +him; and I've taken the liberty of writing to Major Cawmill mysel', to +beg him to come up and see to him, for it's a pity to see his lordship +cast away, for want of an understanding body to advise him." + +"So I am not an understanding body, Bowie?" + +"Oh, madam, ye're young and bonny," says Bowie, in a tone in which +admiration is not unmingled with pity. + +"Young indeed! Mr. Bowie, do you know that I am almost as old as you?" + +"Hoot, hut, hut--" says Bowie, looking at the wax-like complexion and +bright hawk-eyes. + +"Really I am. I'm past five-and-thirty this many a day." + +"Weel, then, madam, if you'll excuse me, ye're old enough to be wiser +than to let his lordship be inveigled with any such play-acting." + +"Really he's not inveigled," says Sabina, laughing. "It is all his own +fault, and I have warned him how absurd and impossible it is. She has +refused even to see him; and you know yourself he has not been near +our house for these three weeks." + +"Ah, madam, you'll excuse me: but that's the way with that sort +of people, just to draw back and draw back, to make a poor young +gentleman follow them all the keener, as a trout does a minnow, the +faster you spin it." + +"I assure you no. I can't let you into ladies' secrets; but there is +no more chance of her listening to him than of me. And as for me, I +have been trying all the spring to marry him to a young lady with +eighty thousand pounds; so you can't complain of me." + +"Eh? No. That's more like and fitting." + +"Well, now. Tell his lordship that we are coming; and trust us, Mr. +Bowie: we do not look very villainous, do we?" + +"Faith, 'deed then, and I suppose not," said Bowie, using the verb +which, in his cautious, Scottish tongue, expresses complete certainty. +The truth is, that Bowie adores both Sabina and her husband, who are, +he says, "just fit to be put under a glass case on the sideboard, like +twa wee china angels." + +In half an hour they were in Scoutbush's rooms. They found the little +man lying on his sofa, in his dressing-gown, looking pale and pitiable +enough. He had been trying to read; for the table by him was covered +with books; but either gunnery and mathematics had injured his eyes, +or he had been crying; Sabina inclined to the latter opinion. + +"This is very kind of you both; but I don't want you, Claude. I want +Mrs. Mellot. You go to the window with Bowie." + +Bowie and Claude shrugged their shoulders at each other, and departed. + +"Now, Mrs. Mellot, I can't help looking up to you as a mother." + +"Complimentary to my youth," says Sabina, who always calls herself +young when she is called old, and old when she is called young. + +"I didn't mean to be rude. But one does long to open one's heart. I +never had any mother to talk to, you know; and I can't tell my aunt; +and Valencia is so flighty; and I thought you would give me one chance +more. Don't laugh at me, I say. I am really past laughing at." + +"I see you are, you poor creature," says Sabina, melting; and a long +conversation follows, while Claude and Bowie exchange confidences, and +arrive at no result beyond the undeniable assertion; "it is a very bad +job." + +Presently Sabina comes out, and Scoutbush calls cheerfully from the +sofa:-- + +"Bowie, get my bath and things to dress; and order me the cab in half +an hour. Good-bye, you dear people, I shall never thank you enough." + +Away go Claude and Sabina in a hack-cab. + +"What have you done?" + +"Given him what he entreated for--another chance with Marie." + +"It will only madden him all the more. Why let him try, when you know +it is hopeless." + +"Why, I had not the heart to refuse, that's the truth; and besides, I +don't know that it is hopeless." + +"All the naughtier of you, to let him run the chance of making a fool +of himself." + +"I don't know that he will make such a great fool of himself. As he +says, his grandfather married an actress, and why should not he?" + +"Simply because she won't marry him." + +"And how do you know that, sir? You fancy that you understand all the +women's hearts in England, just because you have found out the secret +of managing one little fool." + +"Managing her, quotha! Being managed by her, till my quiet house is +turned into a perfect volcano of match-making. Why, I thought he was +to marry Manchestrina." + +"He shall marry who he likes; and if Marie changes her mind, and +revenges herself on this American by taking Lord Scoutbush, all I can +say is, it will be a just judgment on him. I have no patience with the +heartless fellow, going off thus, and never even leaving his address." + +"And because you have no patience, you think Marie will have none?" + +"What do you know about women's hearts? Leave us to mind our own +matters." + +"Mr. Bowie will kill you outright, if your plot succeeds." + +"No, he won't. I know who Bowie wants to marry; and if he is not good, +he shan't have her. Besides, it will be such fun to spite old Lady +Knockdown, who always turns up her nose at me. How mad she will be! +Here we are at home. Now, I shall go and prepare Marie." + +An hour after, Scoutbush was pleading his cause with Marie; and had +been met, of course, at starting, with the simple rejoinder,-- + +"But, my lord, you would not surely have me marry where I do not +love?" + +"Oh, of course not; but, you see, people very often get love after +they are married:--and I am sure I would do all to make you love me. I +know I can't bribe you by promising you carriages and jewels, and all +that:--but you should have what you would like--pictures and statues, +and books--and all that I can buy--Oh, madam, I know I am not worthy +of you--I never have had any education as you have!"-- + +Marie smiled a sad smile. + +"But I would learn--I know I could--for I am no fool, though I say it: +I like all that sort of thing, and--and if I had you to teach me, I +should care about nothing else. I have given up all my nonsense since +I knew you; indeed I have--I am trying all day long to read--ever +since you said something about being useful, and noble, and doing +one's work:--I have never forgotten that, madam, and never shall; and +you would find me a pleasant person to live with, I do believe. At all +events, I would--oh, madam--I would be your servant, your dog--I would +fetch and carry for you like a negro slave!" + +Marie turned pale, and rose. + +"Listen to me, my lord; this must end. You do not know to whom you are +speaking. You talk of negro slaves. Know that you are talking to one!" + +Scoutbush looked at her in blank astonishment. + +"Madam? Excuse me: but my own eyes--" + +"You are not to trust them; I tell you fact." + +Scoutbush was silent. She misunderstood his silence: but went on +steadily. + +"I tell you, my lord, what I expect you to keep secret: and I know +that I can trust your honour." + +Scoutbush bowed. + +"And what I should never have told you, were it not my only chance of +curing you of this foolish passion. I am an American slave!" + +"Curse them! Who dared make you a slave?" cried Scoutbush, turning as +red as a game-cock. + +"I was born a slave. My father was a white gentleman of good family: +my mother was a quadroon; and therefore I am a slave;--a negress, +a runaway slave, my lord, who, if I returned to America, should be +seized, and chained, and scourged, and sold.--Do you understand me?" + +"What an infernal shame!" cried Scoutbush, to whom the whole thing +appeared simply as a wrong done to Marie. + +"Well, my lord?" + +"Well, madam?" + +"Does not this fact put the question at rest for ever?" + +"No, madam! What do I know about slaves? No one is a slave in England. +No madam; all that it does is to make me long to cut half-a-dozen +fellows' throats--" and Scoutbush stamped with rage. "No, madam, you +are you: and if you become my viscountess, you take my rank, I trust, +and my name is yours, and my family yours; and let me see who dare +interfere!" + +"But public opinion, my lord?" said Marie, half-pleased, +half-terrified to find the shaft which she had fancied fatal fall +harmless at her feet. + +"Public opinion? You don't know England, madam! What's the use of my +being a peer, if I can't do what I like, and make public opinion go +my way, and not I its? Though I am no great prince, madam, but only +a poor Irish viscount, it's hard if I can't marry whom I like--in +reason, that is--and expect all the world to call on her, and treat +her as she deserves. Why, madam, you will have all London at your feet +after a season or two, and all the more if they know your story: or if +you don't like that, or if fools did talk at first, why we'd go and +live quietly at Kilanbaggan, or at Penalva, and you'd have all the +tenants looking up to you as a goddess, as I do, madam.--Oh, madam, I +would go anywhere, live anywhere, only to be with you!" + +Marie was deeply affected. Making all allowances for the wilfulness of +youth, she could not but see that her origin formed no bar whatever to +her marrying a nobleman; and that he honestly believed that it would +form none in the opinion of his compeers, if she proved herself worthy +of his choice; and, full of new emotions, she burst into tears. + +"There, now, you are melting: I knew you would! Madam! Signora?" and +Scoutbush advanced to take her hand. + +"Never less," cried she, drawing back. "Do not;--you only make me +miserable! I tell you it is impossible. I cannot tell you all.--You +must not do yourself and yours such an injustice! Go, I tell you!" + +Scoutbush still tried to take her hand. + +"Go, I entreat you," cried she, at her wits' end, "or I will really +ring the bell for Mrs. Mellot!" + +"You need not do that, madam," said he, drawing himself up; "I am not +in the habit of being troublesome to ladies, or being turned out of +drawing-rooms. I see how it is--" and his tone softened; "you despise +me, and think me a vain, frivolous puppy.--Well; I'll do something yet +that you shall not despise!" And he turned to go. + +"I do not despise you; I think you a generous, high-hearted +gentleman--nobleman in all senses." + +Scoutbush turned again. + +"But, again, impossible! I shall always respect you; but we must never +meet again." + +She held out her hand. Little Freddy caught and kissed it till he was +breathless, and then rushed out, and blundered over Sabina in the next +room. + +"No hope?" + +"None." And though he tried to squeeze his eyes together very tight, +the great tears would come dropping down. + +Sabina took him to a sofa, and sat him down while he made his little +moan. + +"I told you that she was in love with the American." + +"Then why don't he come back and marry her! Hang him, I'll go after +him and make him!" cried Scoutbush, glad of any object on which to +vent his wrath. + +"You can't, for nobody knows where he is. Now do be good and patient; +you will forget all this." + +"I shan't!" + +"You will; not at first, but gradually; and marry some one really more +fit for you." + +"Ah, but if I marry her I shan't love her; and then, you know, Mrs. +Mellot, I shall go to the bad again, just as much as ever. Oh, I was +trying to be steady for her sake!" + +"You can be that still." + +"Yes, but it's so hard, with nothing to hope for. I'm not fit to take +care of myself. I'm fit for nothing, I believe, but to go out and be +shot by those Russians; and I'll do it!" + +"You must not; you are not strong enough. The doctors would not let +you go as you are." + +"Then I'll get strong; I'll--" + +"You'll go home, and be good." + +"Ain't I good now?" + +"Yes, you are a good, sensible fellow, and have behaved nobly, and I +honour you for it, and Claude shall come and see you every day." + +That evening a note came from Scoutbush. + +"DEAR MRS. MELLOT--Whom should I find when I went home, but Campbell? +I told him all; and he says that you and everybody have done quite +right, so I suppose you have; and that I am quite right in trying to +get out to the East, so I shall do it. But the doctor says I must +rest for six weeks at least. So Campbell has persuaded me to take the +yacht, which is at Southampton, and go down to Aberalva, and then +round to Snowdon, where I have a little slate-quarry, and get some +fishing. Campbell is coming with me, and I wish Claude would come too. +He knows that brother-in-law of mine, Vavasour, I think, and I shall +go and make friends with him. I've got very merciful to foolish lovers +lately, and Claude can help me to face him; for I am a little afraid +of genuises, you know. So there we'll pick up my sister (she goes down +by land this week), and then go on to Snowdon; and Claude can visit +his old quarters at the Royal Oak at Bettws, where he and I had that +jolly week among the painters. Do let him come, and beg La Signora not +to be angry with me. That's all I'll ever ask of her again." + +"Poor fellow! But I can't part with you, Claude." + +"Let him," said La Cordifiamma. "He will comfort his lordship; and do +you come with me." + +"Come with you! Where!" + +"I will tell you when Claude is gone." + +"Claude, go and smoke in the garden. Now?" + +"Come with me to Germany, Sabina." + +"To Germany? Why on earth to Germany?" + +"I--I only said Germany because it came first into my mind. Anywhere +for rest; anywhere to be out of that poor man's way." + +"He will not trouble you any more; and you will not surely throw up +your engagement?" + +"Of course not!" said she, half peevishly. "It will be over in a +fortnight; and then I must have rest. Don't you see how I want rest?" + +Sabina had seen it for some time past. That white cheek had been +fading more and more to a wax-like paleness; those black eyes +glittered with fierce unhealthy light; and dark rings round them told, +not merely of late hours and excitement, but of wild passion and +midnight tears. Sabina had seen all, and could not but give way, as +Marie went on. + +"I must have rest, I tell you! I am beginning--I can confess all +to you--to want stimulants. I am beginning to long for brandy and +water--pah!--to nerve me up to the excitement of acting, and then for +morphine to make me sleep after it. The very eau de Cologne flask +tempts me! They say that the fine ladies use it, before a ball, for +other purposes than scent. You would not like to see me commence that +practice, would you?" + +"There is no fear, dear." + +"There is fear! You do not know the craving for exhilaration, the +capability of self-indulgence, in our wild Tropic blood. Oh, Sabina, I +feel at times that I could sink so low--that I could be so wicked, so +utterly wicked, if I once began! Take me away, dearest creature, +take me away, and let me have fresh air, and fair quiet scenes, and +rest--rest--oh, save me, Sabina!" and she put her hands over her face, +and burst into tears. + +"We will go, then: to the Rhine, shall it be? I have not been there +now for these three years, and it will be such fun running about the +world by myself once more, and knowing all the while that--" and +Sabina stopped; she did not like to remind Marie of the painful +contrast between them. + +"To the Rhine? Yes. And I shall see the beautiful old world, the old +vineyards, and castles, and hills, which he used to tell me of--taught +me to read of in those sweet, sweet books of Longfellow's! So gentle, +and pure, and calm--so unlike me!" + +"Yes, we will see them; and perhaps--" + +Marie looked up at her, guessing her thoughts, and blushed scarlet. + +"You, too, think then, that--that--" she could not finish her +sentence. + +Sabina stooped over her, and the two beautiful mouths met. + +"There, darling, we need say nothing. We are both women, and can talk +without words." + +"Then you think there is hope!" + +"Hope? Do you fancy that he is gone so very far? or that if he were, I +could not hunt him out? Have I wandered half round the world alone for +nothing?" + +"No, but hope--hope that--" + +"Not hope, but certainty; if some one I know had but courage." + +"Courage--to do what!" + +"To trust him utterly." + +Marie covered her face with her hands, and shuddered in every limb. + +"You know my story. Did I gain or lose by telling my Claude all?" + +"I will!" she cried, looking up pale but firm. "I will!" and she +looked steadfastly into the mirror over the chimney-piece, as if +trying to court the reappearance of that ugly vision which haunted it, +and so to nerve herself to the utmost, and face the whole truth. + +In little more than a fortnight, Sabina and Marie, with maid and +courier (for Marie was rich now), were away in the old Antwerpen. +And Claude was rolling down to Southampton by rail, with Campbell, +Scoutbush, and last, but not least, the faithful Bowie; who had under +his charge what he described to the puzzled railway-guard as "goads +and cleiks, and pirns and creels, and beuks and heuks, enough for a' +the cods o' Neufundland." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +L'HOMME INCOMPRIS. + + +Elsley went on, between improved health and the fear of Tom Thurnall, +a good deal better for the next month. He began to look forward to +Valencia's visit with equanimity, and, at last, with interest; and was +rather pleased than otherwise when, in the last week of July, a fly +drove up to the gate of old Penalva Court, and he handed out therefrom +Valencia, and Valencia's maid. + +Lucia had discovered that the wind was east, and that she was afraid +to go to the gate for fear of catching cold; her real purpose being, +that Valencia should meet Elsley first. + +"She is so impulsive," thought the good little creature, always +plotting about her husband, "that she will rush upon me, and never see +him for the first five minutes; and Elsley is so sensitive--how can he +be otherwise, in his position, poor dear?" So she refrained herself, +like Joseph, and stood at the door till Valencia was half-way down the +garden-walk, having taken Elsley's somewhat shyly-offered arm; and +then she could refrain herself no longer, and the two women ran upon +each other, and kissed, and sobbed, and talked, till Lucia was out of +breath; but Valencia was not so easily silenced. + +"My darling! and you are looking so much better than I expected; but +not quite yourself yet. That naughty baby is killing you, I am sure! +And Mr. Vavasour too, I shall begin to call him Elsley to-morrow, if +I like him as much as I do now--but he is looking quite thin--wearing +himself out with writing so many beautiful books,--that Wreck was +perfect! And where are the children?--I must rush upstairs and devour +them!--and what a delicious old garden! and clipt yews, too, so dark +and romantic, and such dear old-fashioned flowers!--Mr. Vavasour must +show me all over it, and over that hanging wood, too. What a duck of a +place!--And oh, my dear, I am quite out of breath!" + +And so she swept in, with her arm round Lucia's waist; while Elsley +stood looking after her, well enough satisfied with her reception of +him, and only hoping that the stream of words would slaken after a +while. + +"What a magnificent creature!" said he to himself. "Who could believe +that the three years would make such a change!" + +And he was right. The tall lithe girl had bloomed into full glory' and +Valencia St. Just, though not delicately beautiful, was as splendid +an Irish damsel as man need look upon, with a grand masque, aquiline +features, luxuriant black hair, and--though it was the fag-end of the +London season--the unrivalled Irish complexion, as of the fair dame of +Kilkenny, whose + + "Lips were like roses, her cheeks were the same, + Like a dish of fresh strawberries smother'd in crame." + +Her figure was perhaps too tall, and somewhat too stout also; but its +size was relieved by the delicacy of those hands and feet of which +Miss Valencia was most pardonably proud, and by that indescribable +lissomeness and lazy grace which Irishwomen inherit, perhaps, with +their tinge of southern blood; and when, in half an hour, she +reappeared, with broad straw-hat, and gown tucked up _a la bergere_ +over the striped Welsh petticoat, perhaps to show off the ankles, +which only looked the finer for a pair of heavy laced boots, Elsley +honestly felt it a pleasure to look at her, and a still greater +pleasure to talk to her, and to be talked to by her; while she, bent +on making herself agreeable, partly from real good taste, partly from +natural good-nature, and partly, too, because she saw in his eyes that +he admired her, chatted sentiment about all heaven and earth. + +For to Miss Valencia--it is sad to have to say it--admiration had been +now, for three years, her daily bread. She had lived in the thickest +whirl of the world, and, as most do for a while, found it a very +pleasant place. + +She had flirted--with how many must not be told; and perhaps with more +than one with whom she had no business to flirt. Little Scoutbush had +remonstrated with her on some such affair, but she had silenced him +with an Irish jest,--"You're a fisherman, Freddy; and when you can't +catch salmon, you catch trout; and when you can't catch trout, you'll +whip on the shallow for poor little gubbahawns, and say that it is all +to keep your hand in--and so do I." + +The old ladies said that this was the reason why she had not married; +the men, however, asserted that no one dare marry her; and one +club-oracle had given it as his opinion that no man in his rational +senses was to be allowed to have anything to do with her, till she had +been well jilted two or three times, to take the spirit out of her: +but that catastrophe had not yet occurred, and Miss Valencia still +reigned "triumphant and alone," though her aunt, old Lady Knockdown, +moved all the earth, and some dirty places, too, below the earth, to +get the wild Irish girl off her hands; "for," quoth she, "I feel with +Valencia, indeed, just like one of those men who carry about little +dogs in the Quadrant. I always pity the poor men so, and think how +happy they must be when they have sold one. It is one chance less, you +know, of having it bite them horribly, and then run away after all." + +There was, however, no more real harm in Valencia, than there is in +every child of Adam. Town frivolity had not corrupted her. She was +giddy, given up to enjoyment of the present: but there was not a +touch, of meanness about her: and if she was selfish, as every one +must needs be whose thoughts are of pleasure, admiration, and success, +she was so unintentionally; and she would have been shocked and pained +at being told that she was anything but the most kind-hearted and +generous creature on earth. Major Campbell, who was her Mentor as well +as her brother's, had certainly told her so more than once; at which +she had pouted a good deal, and cried a little, and promised to amend; +then packed up a heap of cast-off things to send to Lucia--half of it +much too fine to be of any use to the quiet little woman; and lastly, +gone out and bought fresh finery for herself, and forgot all her good +resolutions. Whereby it befell that she was tolerably deep in debt at +the end of every season, and had to torment and kiss Scoutbush into +paying her bills, which he did, like a good brother, and often before +he had paid his own. + +But, howsoever full Valencia's head may have been of fine garments and +London flirtations, she had too much tact and good feeling to talk +that evening of a world of which even Elsley knew more than her +sister. For poor Lucia had been but eighteen at the time of her +escapade, and had not been presented twelve months; so that she was +as "inexperienced" as any one can be, who has only a husband, three +children, and a household to manage on less than three hundred a year. +Therefore Valencia talked only of things which would interest Elsley; +asked him to read his last new poem--which, I need not say, he did; +told him how she devoured everything he wrote; planned walks with him +in the country; seemed to consult his pleasure in every way. + +"To-morrow morning I shall sit with you and the children, Lucia; of +course I must not interrupt Mr. Vavasour: but really in the afternoon +I must ask him to spare a couple of hours from the Muses." + +Vavasour was delighted to do anything--"Where would she walk?" + +"Where? of course to see the beautiful schoolmistress who saved the +man from drowning; and then to see the chasm across which he was +swept. I shall understand your poem so much better, you know, if I +can but realise the people and the place. And you must take me to see +Captain Willis, too, and even the Lieutenant--if he does not smell too +much of brandy. I will be so gracious and civil, quite the lady of the +castle." + +"You will make quite a royal progress," said Lucia, looking at her +with sisterly admiration. + +"Yes, I intend to usurp as many of Scoutbush's honours as I can till +he comes. I must lay down the sceptre in a fortnight, you know, so I +shall make as much use of it as I can meanwhile." + +And so on, and so on; meaning all the while to put Elsley quite at his +ease, and let him understand that bygones were bygones, and that with +her any reconciliation at all was meant to be a complete one; which +was wise and right enough. But Valencia had not counted on the +excitable and vain nature with which she was dealing; and Lucia, who +had her own fears from the first evening, was the last person in the +world to tell her of it; first from pride in herself, and then from +pride in her husband. For even if a woman has made a foolish match, it +is hard to expect her to confess as much: and, after all, a husband +is a husband, and let his faults be what they might, he was still +her Elsley; her idol once; and perhaps (so she hoped) her idol again +hereafter, and if not, still he was her husband, and that was enough. + +"By which you mean, sir, that she considers herself bound to endure +everything and anything from him, simply because she had been married +to him in church?" + +Yes, and a great deal more. Not merely being married in church; but +what being married in church means, and what every woman who is a +woman understands; and lives up to without flinching, though she die +a martyr for it, or a confessor; a far higher saint, if the truth was +known, as it will be some day, than all the holy virgins who ever +fasted and prayed in a convent since the days when Macarius first +turned fakeer. For to a true woman, the mere fact of a man's being +her husband, put it on the lowest ground that you choose, is utterly +sacred, divine, all-powerful; in the might of which she can conquer +self in a way which is an everyday miracle; and the man who does not +feel about the mere fact of a woman's having given herself utterly to +him, just what she herself feels about it, ought to be despised by all +his fellows;--were it not that, in that case, it would be necessary to +despise more human beings than is safe for the soul of any man. + +That fortnight was the sunniest which Elsley had passed, since he made +secret love to Lucia in Eaton Square. Romantic walks, the company of a +beautiful woman as ready to listen as she was to talk, free licence to +pour out all his fancies, sure of admiration, if not of flattery, and +pardonably satisfied vanity--all these are comfortable things for most +men, who have nothing better to comfort them. But, on the whole, this +feast did not make Elsley a better or a wiser man at home. Why +should it? Is a boy's digestion improved by turning him loose into a +confectioner's shop? And thus the contrast between what he chose to +call Valencia's sympathy, and Lucia's want of sympathy, made him, +unfortunately, all the more cross to her when they were alone; and +who could blame the poor little woman for saying one night, angrily +enough: + +"Ah, yes! Valencia,--Valencia is imaginative--Valencia understands +you--Valencia sympathises--Valencia thinks ... Valencia has no +children to wash and dress, no accounts to keep, no linen to +mend--Valencia's back does not ache all day long, so that she would be +glad enough to lie on the sofa from morning till night, if she was not +forced to work whether she can work or not. No, no; don't kiss me, for +kisses will not make up for injustice, Elsley. I only trust that you +will not tempt me to hate my own sister. No: don't talk to me now, +let me sleep if I can sleep; and go and walk and talk sentiment with +Valencia to-morrow, and leave the poor little brood hen to sit on +her nest, and be despised." And refusing all Elsley's entreaties for +pardon, she sulked herself to sleep. + +Who can blame her? If there is one thing more provoking than another +to a woman, it is to see her husband Strass-engel, Haus-teufel, an +angel of courtesy to every woman but herself; to see him in society +all smiles and good stories, the most amiable and self-restraining of +men; perhaps to be complimented on his agreeableness: and to know all +the while that he is penning up all the accumulated ill-temper of the +day, to let it out on her when they get home; perhaps in the very +carriage as soon as it leaves the door. Hypocrites that you are, +some of you gentlemen! Why cannot the act against cruelty to women, +corporal punishment included, be brought to bear on such as you? And +yet, after all, you are not most to blame in the matter: Eve herself +tempts you, as at the beginning; for who does not know that the man is +a thousand times vainer than the woman? He does but follow the analogy +of all nature. Look at the Red Indian, in that blissful state of +nature from which (so philosophers inform those who choose to believe +them) we all sprang. Which is the boaster, the strutter, the bedizener +of his sinful carcase with feathers and beads, fox-tails and bears' +claws,--the brave, or his poor little squaw? An Australian settler's +wife bestows on some poor slaving gin a cast-off French bonnet; before +she has gone a hundred yards, her husband snatches it off, puts it on +his own mop, quiets her for its loss with a tap of the waddie, and +struts on in glory. Why not? Has he not the analogy of all nature +on his side? Have not the male birds and the male moths, the fine +feathers, while the females go soberly about in drab and brown? Does +the lioness, or the lion, rejoice in the grandeur of a mane; the hind, +or the stag, in antlered pride? How know we but that, in some more +perfect and natural state of society, the women will dress like so +many quakeresses; while the frippery shops will become the haunts +of men alone, and "browches, pearls and owches be consecrate to +the nobler sex?" There are signs already, in the dress of our young +gentlemen, of such a return to the law of nature from the present +absurd state of things, in which the human peahens carry about the +gaudy trains which are the peacocks' right. + +For there is a secret feeling in woman's heart that she is in her +wrong place; that it is she who ought to worship the man, and not the +man her; and when she becomes properly conscious of her destiny, has +not he a right to be conscious of his? If the grey hens will stand +round in the mire clucking humble admiration, who can blame the old +blackcock for dancing and drumming on the top of a moss hag, with +outspread wings and flirting tail, glorious and self-glorifying. He is +a splendid fellow; and he was made splendid for some purpose surely? +Why did Nature give him his steel-blue coat, and his crimson +crest, but for the very same purpose that she gave Mr. A---- his +intellect--to be admired by the other sex? And if young damsels, +overflowing with sentiment and Ruskinism, will crowd round him, ask +his opinion of this book and that picture, treasure his bon-mots, beg +for his autograph, looking all the while the praise which they do not +speak (though they speak a good deal of it), and when they go home +write letters to him on matters about which in old times girls used to +ask only their mothers;--who can blame him if he finds the little wife +at home a very uninteresting body, whose head is so full of petty +cares and gossip, that he and all his talents are quite unappreciated? +_Les femmes incomprises_ of France used to (perhaps do now) form a +class of married ladies, whose sorrows were especially dear to the +novelists, male or female; but what are their woes compared to those +of _l'homme incompris?_ What higher vocation for a young maiden than +to comfort the martyr during his agonies? And, most of all, where the +sufferer is not merely a genius, but a saint; persecuted, perhaps, +abroad by vulgar tradesmen and Philistine bishops, and snubbed at home +by a stupid wife, who is quite unable to appreciate his magnificent +projects for regenerating all heaven and earth; and only, humdrum, +practical creature that she is, tries to do justly, and love mercy, +and walk humbly with her God? Fly to his help, all pious maidens, +and pour into the wounded heart of the holy man the healing balm of +self-conceit; cover his table with confidential letters, choose him as +your father-confessor, and lock yourself up alone with him for an +hour or two every week, while the wife is mending his shirts +upstairs.--True, you may break the stupid wife's heart by year-long +misery, as she slaves on, bearing the burden and heat of the day, of +which you never dream; keeping the wretched man, by her unassuming +good example, from making a fool of himself three times a week; and +sowing the seed of which you steal the fruit. What matter? If your +immortal soul requires it, what matter what it costs her carnal heart? +She will suffer in silence; at least, she will not tell you. You think +she does not understand you. Well;--and she thinks in return that you +do not understand her, and her married joys and sorrows, and her five +children, and her butcher's bills, and her long agony of fear for the +husband of whom she is ten times more proud than you could be; for +whom she has slaved for years; whose defects she has tried to cure, +while she cured her own; for whom she would die to-morrow, did he fall +into disgrace, when you had flounced off to find some new idol: and so +she will not tell you: and what the ear heareth not, that the heart +grieveth not.--Go on and prosper! You may, too, ruin the man's +spiritual state by vanity: you may pamper his discontent with the +place where God has put him, till he ends by flying off to "some +purer Communion," and taking you with him. Never mind. He is a most +delightful person, and his intercourse is so improving. Why were sweet +things made, but to be eaten? Go on and prosper. + +Ah, young ladies, if some people had (as it is perhaps well for them +that they have not) the ordering of this same British nation, they +would certainly follow your example, and try to restore various +ancient institutions. And first among them would be that very ancient +institution of the cucking-stool; to be employed however, not as of +old, against married scolds (for whom those who have been behind +the scenes have all respect and sympathy), but against unmarried +prophetesses, who, under whatsoever high pretence of art or religion, +flirt with their neighbours' husbands, be they parson or poet. + +Not, be it understood, that Valencia had the least suspicion that +Elsley considered himself "incompris." If he had hinted the notion +to her, she would have resented it as an insult to the St. Justs +in general, and to her sister in particular; and would have said +something to him in her off-hand way, the like whereof he had seldom +heard, even from adverse reviewers. + +Elsley himself soon divined enough of her character to see that he +must keep his sorrows to himself, if he wished for Valencia's good +opinion; and soon,--so easily does a vain man lend himself to +meanness--he found himself trying to please Valencia, by praising to +her the very woman with whom he was discontented. He felt shocked and +ashamed when first his own baseness flashed across him: but the bait +was too pleasant to be left easily: and, after all, he was trying to +say to his guest what he knew his guest would like; and what was that +but following those very rules of good society, for breaking which +Lucia was always calling him gauche and morose? So he actually quieted +his own conscience by the fancy that he was bound to be civil, and to +keep up appearances, "even for Lucia's sake," said the self-deceiver +to himself. And thus the mischief was done; and the breach between +Lucia and her husband, which had been somewhat bridged over during the +last month or two, opened more wide than ever, without a suspicion on +Valencia's part that she was doing all she could to break her sister's +heart. + +She, meanwhile, had plenty of reasons which justified her new intimacy +to herself. How could she better please Lucia? How better show that +bygones were to be bygones, and that Elsley was henceforth to be +considered as one of the family, than by being as intimate as possible +with him? What matter how intimate? For, after all, he was only a +brother, and she his sister. + +She had law on her side in that last argument, as well as love of +amusement. Whether she had either common sense or Scripture, is a very +different question. + +Poor Lucia, too, tried to make the best of the matter; and to take the +new intimacy as Valencia would have had her take it, in the light of a +compliment to herself; and so, in her pride, she said to Valencia, and +told her that she should love her for ever for her kindness to Elsley, +while her heart was ready to burst. + +But ere the fortnight was over the Nemesis had come, and Lucia, woman +as she was, could not repress a thrill of malicious joy, even though +Elsley became more intolerable than ever at the change. + +What was the Nemesis, then? + +Simply that this naughty Miss St. Just began to smile upon Frank +Headley the curate, even as she had smiled upon Elsley Vavasour. + +It was very naughty; but she had her excuses. She had found Elsley +out; and it was well for both of them that she had done so. Already, +upon the strength of their supposed relationship, she had allowed him +to talk a great deal more nonsense to her,--harmless perhaps, but +nonsense still,--than she would have listened to from any other +man; and it was well for both of them that Elsley was a man without +self-control who began to show the weak side of his character freely +enough, as soon as he became at ease with his companion, and excited +by conversation. Valencia quickly saw that he was vain as a peacock, +and weak enough to be led by her in any and every direction, when she +chose to work on his vanity. And she despised him accordingly, and +suspected, too, that her sister could not be very happy with such a +man. + +None are more quick than sisters-in-law to see faults in the +brother-in-law, when once they have begun to look for them; and +Valencia soon remarked that Elsley showed Lucia no _petits soins_, +while he was ready enough to show them to her; that he took no real +trouble about his children, or about anything else; and twenty more +faults, which she might have perceived in the first two days of her +visit, if she had not been in such a hurry to amuse herself. But she +was too delicate to ask Lucia the truth, and contented herself with +watching all parties closely, and in amusing herself meanwhile--for +amusement she must have--in + + "Breaking a country heart + For pastime, ere she went to town." + +She had met Frank several times about the parish and in the schools, +and had been struck at once with his grace and high breeding, and with +that air of melancholy which is always interesting in a true woman's +eyes. She had seen, too, that Elsley tried to avoid him, naturally +enough not wishing an intrusion on their pleasant _tetes-a-tete._ +Whereon, half to spite Elsley, and half to show her own right to +chat with whom she chose, she made Lucia ask Frank to tea; and next +contrived to go to the school when he was teaching there, and to make +Elsley ask him to walk with them; and all the more, because she had +discovered that Elsley had discontinued his walks with Frank, as soon +as she had appeared at Penalva. + +Lucia was not sorry to countenance her in her naughtiness; it was a +comfort to her to have a fourth person in the room at times, and thus +to compel Elsley and Valencia to think of something beside each other; +and when she saw her sister gradually transferring her favours from +the married to the unmarried victim, she would have been more than +woman if she had not rejoiced thereat. Only, she began soon to be +afraid for Frank, and at last told Valencia so. + +"Do take care that you do not break his heart!" + +"My dear! You forget that I sit under Mr. O'Blareaway, and am to him +as a heathen and a publican. Fresh from St. Nepomuc's as he is, he +would as soon think of falling in love with an 'Oirish Prodestant,' +as with a malignant and a turbaned Turk. Besides, my dear, if the +mischief is going to be done, it's done already." + +"I dare say it is, you naughty beautiful thing. If anybody is goose +enough to fall in love with you, he'll be also goose enough, I don't +doubt, to do so at first sight. There, don't look perpetually in that +glass: but take care!" + +"What use? If it is going to happen at all, I say, it has happened +already; so I shall just please myself, as usual." + +And it had happened: and poor Frank had been, ever since the first day +he saw Valencia, over head and ears in love. His time had come, and +there was no escaping his fate. + +But to escape he tried. Convinced, with many good men of all ages and +creeds, that a celibate life was the fittest one for a clergyman, he +had fled from St. Nepomuc's into the wilderness to avoid temptation, +and beheld at his cell-door a fairer fiend than ever came to St. +Dunstan. A fairer fiend, no doubt; for St. Dunstan's imagination +created his temptress for him, but Valencia was a reality: and fact +and nature may be safely backed to produce something more charming +than any monk's brain can do. One questions whether St. Dunstan's +apparition was not something as coarse as his own mind, clever though +that mind was. At least, he would never have had the heart to apply +the hot tongs to such a nose as Valencia's, but at most have bowed +her out pityingly, as Frank tried to bow out Valencia from the sacred +place of his heart, but failed. + +Hard he tried, and humbly too. He had no proud contempt for married +parsons. He was ready enough to confess, that he, too, might be weak +in that respect, as in a hundred others. He conceived that he had no +reason, from his own inner life, to believe himself worthy of any +higher vocation--proving his own real nobleness of soul by that very +humility. He had rather not marry. He might do so some day: but he +would sacrifice much to avoid the necessity. If he was weak, he would +use what strength he had to the uttermost ere he yielded. And all the +more, because he felt, and reasonably enough, that Valencia was the +last woman in the world to make a parson's wife. He had his ideal of +what such a wife should be, if she were to be allowed to exist at +all--the same ideal which Mr. Paget has drawn in his charming little +book (would that all parsons' wives would read and perpend), the +"Owlet of Owlstone Edge." But Valencia would surely not make a +Beatrice. Beautiful she was, glorious, lovable, but not the helpmeet +whom he needed. And he fought against the new dream like a brave man. +He fasted, he wept, he prayed: but his prayers seemed not to be heard. +Valencia seemed to have enthroned herself, a true Venus victrix, in +the centre of his heart, and would not be dispossessed. He tried +to avoid seeing her: but even for that he had not strength: more +miserable each time, as fierce against himself and his own weakness as +if he had given way to wine or to oaths. In vain, too, he represented +to himself the ridiculous hopelessness of his passion; the +impossibility of the London beauty ever stooping to marry the poor +country curate. Fancies would come in, how such things, strange as +they might seem, had happened already; might happen again. It was a +class of marriages for which he had always felt a strong dislike, even +suspicion and contempt; and though he was far more fitted, in family +as well as personal excellence, for such a match, than three out of +four who make them, yet he shrank with disgust from the notion of +being himself classed at last among the match-making parsons. Whether +there was "carnal pride" or not in that last thought, his soul so +loathed it, that he would gladly have thrown up his cure at Aberalva; +and would have done so actually, but for one word which Tom Thurnall +had spoken to him, and that was--Cholera. + +That the cholera might come; that it probably would come, in the +course of the next two months, was news to him which was enough to +keep him at his post, let what would be the consequence. And gradually +he began to see a way out of his difficulty--and a very simple one; +and that was to die. + +"That is the solution after all," said he. "I am not strong enough for +God's work: but I will not shrink from it, if I can help. If I cannot +master it, let it kill me; so at least I may have peace. I have failed +utterly here: all my grand plans have crumbled to ashes between my +fingers. I find myself a cumberer of the ground, where I fancied that +I was going forth like a very Michael--fool that I was!--leader of +the armies of heaven. And now, in the one remaining point on which +I thought myself strong, I find myself weakest of all. Useless and +helpless! I have one chance left, one chance to show these poor souls +that I really love them, really wish their good--Selfish that I am! +What matter whether I do show it or not? What need to justify myself +to them? Self, self, creeping in everywhere! I shall begin next, I +suppose, longing for the cholera to come, that I may show off myself +in it, and make spiritual capital out of their dying agonies! Ah me! +that it were all over!--That this cholera, if it is to come, would +wipe out of this head what I verily believe nothing but death will +do!" And therewith Frank laid his head on the table, and cried till he +could cry no more. + +It was not over manly: but he was weakened with overwork and sorrow: +and, on the whole, it was perhaps the best thing he could do; for he +fell asleep there, with his head on the table, and did not wake till +the dawn blazed through his open window. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE DOCTOR AT BAY. + + +Did you ever, in a feverish dream, climb a mountain which grew higher +and higher as you climbed; and scramble through passages which changed +perpetually before you, and up and down break-neck stairs which broke +off perpetually behind you? Did you ever spend the whole night, foot +in stirrup, mounting that phantom hunter which never gets mounted, or, +if he does, turns into a pen between your knees; or in going to fish +that phantom stream which never gets fished? Did you ever, late +for that mysterious dinner-party in some enchanted castle, wander +disconsolately, in unaccountable rags and dirt, in search of that +phantom carpet-bag which never gets found? Did you ever "realise" to +yourself the sieve of the Danaides, the stone of Sisyphus, the wheel +of Ixion; the pleasure of shearing that domestic animal who (according +to the experience of a very ancient observer of nature) produces more +cry than wool; the perambulation of that Irishman's model bog, where +you slip two steps backward for one forward, and must, therefore, in +order to progress at all, turn your face homeward, and progress as +a pig does into a steamer, by going the opposite way? Were you ever +condemned to spin ropes of sand to all eternity, like Tregeagle the +wrecker; or to extract the cube roots of a million or two of hopeless +surds, like the mad mathematician; or last, and worst of all, to work +the Nuisances Removal Act? Then you can enter, as a man and a brother, +into the sorrows of Tom Thurnall, in the months of June and July, +1854. + +He had made up his mind, for certain good reasons of his own, that the +cholera ought to visit Aberalva in the course of the summer; and, of +course, tried his best to persuade people to get ready for their ugly +visitor: but in vain. The cholera come there? Why, it never had come +yet, which signified, when he inquired a little more closely, that +there had been only one or two doubtful cases in 1837, and five or six +in 1849. In vain he answered, "Very well; and is not that a proof that +the causes of cholera are increasing here? If you had one case the +first time, and five times as many the next, by the same rule you will +have five times as many more if it comes this summer." + +"Nonsense! Aberalva was the healthiest town on the coast." + +"Well but," would Tom say, "in the census before last, you had a +population of 1300 in 112 houses, and that was close packing enough, +in all conscience: and in the last census I find you had a population +of over 1400, which must have increased since; and there are eight or +nine old houses in the town pulled down, or turned into stores; so you +are more closely packed than ever. And mind, it may seem no very great +difference; but it is the last drop that fills the cup." + +What had that to do with cholera? And more than one gave him to +understand that he must be either a very silly or a very impertinent +person, to go poking into how many houses there were in the town, and +how many people lived in each. Tardrew, the steward, indeed, said +openly, that Mr. Thurnall was making disturbance enough in people's +property up at Pentremochyn, without bothering himself with Aberalva +too. He had no opinion of people who had a finger in everybody's pie. +Whom Tom tried to soothe with honeyed words, knowing him to be of the +original British bulldog breed, which, once stroked against the hair, +shows his teeth at you for ever afterwards. + +But staunch was Tardrew, unfortunately on the wrong side; and backed +by the collective ignorance, pride, laziness, and superstition +of Aberalva, showed to his new assailant that terrible front of +stupidity, against which, says Schiller, "the gods themselves fight in +vain." + +"Does he think we was all fools afore he came here?" + +That was the rallying cry of the Conservative party, worshippers of +Baalzebub, god of flies, and of that (so say Syrian scholars) from +which flies are bred. And, indeed, there were excuses for them, on the +Yankee ground, that "there's a deal of human natur' in man." It is +hard to human nature to make all the humiliating confessions which +must precede sanitary repentance; to say, "I have been a very nasty, +dirty fellow. I have lived contented in evil smells, till I care for +them no more than my pig does. I have refused to understand Nature's +broadest hints, that anything which is so disagreeable is not meant to +be left about. I have probably been more or less the cause of half my +own illnesses, and of three-fourths of the illness of my children; for +aught I know, it is very much my fault that my own baby has died of +scarlatina, and two or three of my tenants of typhus. No, hang it! +that's too much to make any man confess to! I'll prove my innocence +by not reforming!" So sanitary reform is thrust out of sight, simply +because its necessity is too humiliating to the pride of all, too +frightful to the consciences of many. + +Tom went to Trebooze. + +"Mr. Trebooze, you are a man of position in the county, and own some +houses in Aberalva. Don't you think you could use your influence in +this matter?" + +"Own some houses? Yes,"--and Mr. Trebooze consigned the said cottages +to a variety of unmentionable places; "cost me more in rates than they +bring in in rent, even if I get the rent paid. I should like to get a +six-pounder, and blow the whole lot into the sea. Cholera coming, eh? +D'ye think it will he there before Michaelmas?" + +"I do." + +"Pity I can't clear 'em out before Michaelmas. Else I'd have ejected +the lot, and pulled the houses down." + +"I think something should be done meanwhile, though, towards cleansing +them." + +"---- Let 'em cleanse them themselves! Soap's cheap enough with your +---- free trade, ain't it! No, sir! That sort of talk will do well +enough for my Lord Minchampstead, sir, the old money-lending Jew! ---- +but gentlemen, sir, gentlemen, that are half-ruined with free trade, +and your Whig policy, sir, you must give 'em back their rights before +they can afford to throw away their money on cottages. Cottages, +indeed! ---- upstart of a cotton-spinner, coming down here, buying +the lands over our heads, and pretends to show us how to manage our +estates; old families that have been in the county this four hundred +years, with the finest peasantry in the world ready to die for them, +sir, till these new revolutionary doctrines came in--Pride and +purse-proud conceit, just to show off his money! What do they want +with better cottages than their fathers had? Only put notions into +their heads, raise 'em above their station; more they have, more +they'll want. ---- sir, make chartists of 'em all before he's done! +I'll tell you what, sir,"--and Mr. Trebooze attempted a dignified and +dogmatic tone--"I never told it you before, because you were my very +good friend, sir: but my opinion is, sir, that by what you're doing +up at Pentremochyn, you're just spreading chartism--chartism, sir! Of +course I know nothing. Of course I'm nobody, in these days: but that's +my opinion, sir, and you've got it!" + +By which motion Tom took little. Mighty is envy always, and mighty +ignorance: but you become aware of their truly Titanic grandeur only +when you attempt to touch their owner's pocket. + +Tom tried old Heale: but took as little in that quarter. Heale had +heard of sanitary reform, of course; but he knew nothing about it, and +gave a general assent to Tom's doctrines, for fear of exposing his own +ignorance: acting on them was a very different matter. It is always +hard for an old medical man to confess that anything has been +discovered since the days of his youth; and beside, there were other +reasons behind, which Heale tried to avoid giving; and therefore +fenced off, and fenced off, till, pressed hard by Tom, wrath came +forth, and truth with it. + +"And what be you thinking of, sir, to expect me to offend all my best +patients? and not one of 'em but rents some two cottages, some a +dozen. And what'll they say to me if I go a routing and rookling in +their drains, like an old sow by the wayside, beside putting 'em to +all manner of expense? And all on the chance of this cholera coming, +which I have no faith in, nor in this new-fangled sanitary reform +neither, which is all a dodge for a lot of young Government puppies to +fill their pockets, and rule and ride over us: and my opinion always +was with the Bible, that 'tis jidgment, sir, a jidgment of God, and we +can't escape His holy will, and that's the plain truth of it." + +Tom made no answer to that latter argument. He had heard that "'tis +jidgment" from every mouth during the last few days; and had mortally +offended the Brianite preacher that very morning, by answering his +"'tis jidgment" with-- + +"But, my good sir! the Bible, I thought, says that Aaron stayed the +plague among the Israelites, and David the one at Jerusalem." + +"Sir, those was miracles, sir! and they was under the Law, sir, and +we'm under the Gospel, you'll be pleased to remember." + +"Humph!" said Tom, "then, by your showing, they were better off under +the Law than we are now, if they could have their plagues stopped by +miracles; and we cannot have ours stopped at all." + +"Sir, be you an infidel?" + +To which there was no answer to be made. + +In this case, Tom answered Heale with-- + +"But, my dear sir, if you don't like (as is reasonable enough) to take +the responsibility on yourself, why not go to the Board of Guardians, +and get them to put the Act in force?" + +"Boord, sir? and do you know so little of Boords as that? Why, there +ain't one of them but owns cottages themselves, and it's as much as my +place is worth--" + +"Your place as medical officer is just worth nothing, as you know; +you'll have been out of pocket by it seven or eight pounds this year, +even if no cholera comes." + +Tom knew the whole state of the case; but he liked tormenting Heale +now and then. + +"Well, sir! but if I get turned out next year, in steps that Drew over +at Carcarrow Churchtown into my district, and into the best of my +practice, too. I wonder what sort of a Poor Law district you were +medical officer of, if you don't know yet that that's why we take to +the poor." + +"My dear sir, I know it, and a good deal more beside." + +"Then why go bothering me this way?" + +"Why," said Tom, "it's pleasant to have old notions confirmed as often +as possible-- + + "'Life is a jest, and all things show it; + I thought so once, but now I know it.' + +What an ass the fellow must have been who had that put on his +tombstone, not to have found it out many a year before he died!" + +He went next to Headley the curate, and took little by that move; +though more than by any other. + +For Frank already believed his doctrines, as an educated London parson +of course would; was shocked to hear that they were likely to become +fact so soon and so fearfully; offered to do all he could: but +confessed that he could do nothing. + +"I have been hinting to them, ever since I came, improvements in +cleanliness, in ventilation, and so forth: but I have been utterly +unheeded: and bully me as you will, Doctor, about my cramming +doctrines down their throats, and roaring like a Pope's bull, I assure +you that, on sanitary reform, my roaring was as of a sucking dove, and +ought to have prevailed, if soft persuasion can." + +"You were a dove where you ought to have been a bull, and a bull where +you ought to have been a dove. But roar now, if ever you roared, in +the pulpit and out. Why not preach to them on it next Sunday?" + +"Well, I'd give a lecture gladly, if I could get any one to come and +hear it; but that you could do better than me." + +"I'll lecture them myself, and show them bogies, if my quarter-inch +will do its work. If they want seeing to believe, see they shall; I +have half-a-dozen specimens of water already which will astonish them. +Let me lecture, you must preach." + +"You must know, that there is a feeling,--you would call it a +prejudice,--against introducing such purely secular subjects into the +pulpit." + +Tom gave a long whistle. + +"Pardon me, Mr. Headley; you are a man of sense; and I can speak to +you as one human being to another, which I have seldom been able to do +with your respected cloth." + +"Say on; I shall not be frightened." + +"Well, don't you put up the Ten Commandments in your Church?" + +"Yes." + +"And don't one of them run: 'Thou shalt not kill.'" + +"Well?" + +"And is not murder a moral offence--what you call a sin?" + +"_Sans doute_." + +"If you saw your parishioners in the habit of cutting each other's +throats, or their own, shouldn't you think that a matter spiritual +enough to be a fit subject for a little of the drum ecclesiastic?" + +"Well?" + +"Well? Ill! There are your parishioners about to commit wholesale +murder and suicide, and is that a secular question? If they don't know +the fact, is not that all the more reason for your telling them of it? +You pound away, as I warned you once, at the sins of which they are +just as well aware as you; why on earth do you hold your tongue about +the sins of which they are not aware? You tell us every Sunday that we +do Heaven only knows how many more wrong things than we dream of. +Tell it us again now. Don't strain at gnats like want of faith and +resignation, and swallow such a camel as twenty or thirty deaths. +It's no concern of mine; I've seen plenty of people murdered, and may +again: I am accustomed to it; but if it's not your concern, what on +earth you are here for is more than I can tell." + +"You are right--you are right; but how to put it on religious +grounds--" + +Tom whistled again. + +"If your doctrines cannot be made to fit such plain matters as twenty +deaths, _tant pis pour eux_. If they have nothing to say on such +scientific facts, why the facts must take care of themselves, and the +doctrines may, for aught I care, go and--. But I won't be really rude. +Only think over the matter. If you are God's minister, you ought to +have something to say about God's view of a fact which certainly +involves the lives of his creatures, not by twos and threes, but by +tens of thousands." + +So Frank went home, and thought it through; and went once and again to +Thurnall, and condescended to ask his opinion of what he had said, +and whether he said ill or well. What Thurnall answered was--"Whether +that's sound Church doctrine is your business; but if it be, I'll +say with the man there in the Acts--what was his name?--'Almost thou +persuadest me to be a Christian.'" + +"Would God that you were one! for you would make a right good one." + +"Humph! at least you see what you can do, if you'll only face fact as +it stands, and talk about the realities of life. I'll puff your sermon +beforehand, I assure you, and bring all I can to hear it." + +So Frank preached a noble sermon, most rational, and most spiritual +withal; but he, too, like his tutor, took little by his motion. + +All the present fruit upon which he had to congratulate himself was, +that the Brianite preacher denounced him in chapel next Sunday as a +German Rationalist, who impiously pretended to explain away the Lord's +visitation into a carnal matter of drains, and pipes, and gases, and +such like; and that his rival of another denomination, who was a +fanatic on the teetotal question, denounced him as bitterly for +supporting the cause of drunkenness, by attributing cholera to want of +cleanliness, while all rational people knew that its true source was +intemperance. Poor Frank! he had preached against drunkenness many +a time and oft: but because he would not add a Mohammedan eleventh +commandment to those ten which men already find difficulty enough in +keeping, he was set upon at once by a fanatic whose game it was--as it +is that of too many--to snub sanitary reform, and hinder the spread of +plain scientific truth, for the sake of pushing their own nostrum for +all human ills. + +In despair, Tom went off to Elsley Vavasour. Would he help? Would he +join, as one of two householders, in making a representation to the +proper authorities? + +Elsley had never mixed in local matters: and if he had, he knew +nothing of how to manage men, or to read an Act of Parliament; so, +angry as Tom was inclined to be with him, he found it useless to +quarrel with a man so utterly unpractical, who would, probably, had he +been stirred into exertion, have done more harm than good. + +"Only come with me, and satisfy yourself as to the existence of one of +these nuisances, and then you will have grounds on which to go," said +Tom, who had still hopes of making a cat's-paw of Elsley, and by his +power over him, pulling the strings from behind. + +Sorely against his will, Elsley went, saw, and smelt; came home again; +was very unwell; and was visited nightly for a week after that by that +most disgusting of all phantoms, sanitary nightmare; which some +who have worked in the foul places of the earth know but too well. +Evidently his health could not stand it. There was no work to be got +out of him in that direction. + +"Would he write, then, and represent matters to Lord Scoutbush?" + +How could he? He did not know the man; not a line had ever been +exchanged between them. Their relations were so very peculiar. It +would seem sheer impertinence on his part to interfere with the +management of Lord Scoutbush's property. Really there was a great deal +to be said, Tom felt, for poor Elsley's dislike of meddling in that +quarter. + +"Would Mrs. Vavasour write, then?" + +"For Heaven's sake do not mention it to her. She would be so terrified +about the children; she is worn out with anxiety already,"--and so +forth. + +Tom went back to Frank Headley. + +"You see a good deal of Miss St. Just." + +"I?--No--why?--what?" said poor Frank, blushing. + +"Only that you must make her write to her brother about this cholera." + +"My dear fellow, it is such a subject for a lady to meddle with." + +"It has no scruple in meddling with ladies; so ladies ought to have +none in meddling with it. You must do it as delicately as you will: +but done it must be: it is our only chance. Tell her of Tardrew's +obstinacy, or Scoutbush will go by his opinion; and tell her to keep +the secret from her sister." + +Frank did it, and well. Valencia was horror-struck, and wrote. + +Scoutbush was away at sea, nobody knew where; and a full fortnight +elapsed before an answer came. + +"My dear, you are quite mistaken if you think I can do anything. +Nine-tenths of the houses in Aberalva are not in my hands; but +copyholds and long leases, over which I have no power. If the people +will complain to me of any given nuisance, I'll right it if I can; and +if the doctor wants money, and sees any ways of laying it out well, he +shall have what he wants, though I am very high in Queer Street just +now, ma'am, having paid your bills before I left town, like a good +brother: but I tell you again, I have no more power than you have, +except over a few cottages, and Tardrew assured me, three weeks ago, +that they were as comfortable as they ever had been." + +So Tardrew had forestalled Thurnall in writing to the Viscount. Well, +there was one more chance to be tried. + +Tom gave his lecture in the school-room. He showed them magnified +abominations enough to frighten all the children into fits, and +dilated on horrors enough to spoil all appetites: he proved to them +that, though they had the finest water in the world all over the +town, they had contrived to poison almost every drop of it; he waxed +eloquent, witty, sarcastic; and the net result was a general grumble. + +"How did he get hold of all the specimens, as he calls them? What +business has he poking his nose down people's wells and waterbutts?" + +But an unexpected ally arose at this juncture, in the coast-guard +lieutenant, who, being valiant after his evening's brandy-and-water, +rose and declared, "that Dr. Thurnall was a very clever man; that +by what he'd seen himself in the West Indies, it was all as true as +gospel; that the parish might have the cholera if it liked,"--and here +a few expletives occurred,--"but that he'd see that the coast-guard +houses were put to rights at once; for he would not have the lives of +Her Majesty's servants endangered by such dirty tricks, not fit for +heathen savages," etc. etc. + +Tom struck while the iron was hot. He saw that the great man's speech +had produced an impression. + +"Would he" (so he asked the lieutenant privately) "get some one to +join him, and present a few of these nuisances?" + +He would do anything in his contempt for "a lot of long-shore +merchant-skippers and herringers, who went about calling themselves +captains, and fancy themselves, sir, as good as if they wore the +Queen's uniform!" + +"Well, then, can't we find another householder--some cantankerous dog +who don't mind a row?" + +Yes, the cantankerous dog was found, in the person of Mr. John +Penruddock, coal-merchant, who had quarrelled with Tardrew, because +Tardrew said he gave short weight--which he very probably did--and had +quarrelled also with Thomas Beer, senior, shipbuilder, about right of +passage through a back-yard. + +Mr. Penruddock suddenly discovered that Mr. Beer kept up a dirt-heap +in the said back-yard, and with virtuous indignation vowed "he'd sarve +the old beggar out at last." + +So far so good. The weapons of reason and righteousness having failed, +Tom felt at liberty to borrow the devil's tools. Now to pack a vestry, +and to nominate a local committee. + +The vestry was packed; the committee nominated: of course half of +them refused to act--they "didn't want to go quarrelling with their +neighbours." + +Tom explained to them cunningly and delicately that they would have +nothing to do; that one or two (he did not say that he was the one, +and the two also) would do all the work, and bear all the odium; +whereon the malcontents subsided, considering it likely that, after +all, nothing would be done. + +Some may fancy that matters were now getting somewhat settled. Those +who do so know little of the charming machinery of local governments. +One man has "summat to say,"--utterly irrelevant. Another must needs +answer him with something equally irrelevant; a long chatter ensues, +in spite of all cries to order and question. Soon one and another gets +personal, and temper shows here and there. You would fancy that the +go-ahead party try to restore order, and help business on. Not in the +least. They have begun to cool a little. They are a little afraid that +they have committed themselves. If people quarrel with each other, +perhaps they may quarrel with them too. And they begin to be +wonderfully patient and impartial, in the hope of staving off the evil +day, and finding some excuse for doing nothing after all. "Hear 'mun +out!" ... "Vair and zoft, let ev'ry man ha' his zay!" ... "There's +vary gude rason in it!" ... "I didn't think of that avore;"--and so +forth; till in a quarter of an hour the whole question has to be +discussed over again, through the fog of a dozen fresh fallacies, and +the miserable earnest man finds himself considerably worse off than +when he began. Happy for him if some chance word is not let drop, +which will afford the whole assembly an excuse for falling on him +open-mouthed, as the cause of all their woes! + +That chance word came. Mr. Penruddock gave a spiteful hit, being, as +he said, of a cantankerous turn, to Mr. Treluddra, principal "jowder," +_i.e._ fish salesman, of Aberalva. Whereon Treluddra, whose conscience +told him that there was at present in his back-yard a cartload and +more of fish in every stage of putrefaction, which he had kept rotting +there rather than lower the market-price, rose in wrath. + +"An' if any committee puts its noz into my back-yard, if it doant get +the biggest cod's innards as I can collar hold on, about its ears, my +name is not Treluddra! A man's house is his castle, says I, and them +as takes up with any o' this open-day burglary, for it's nothing less, +has to do wi' me, that's all, and them as knows their interest, knows +me!" + +Terrible were these words; for old Treluddra, like most jowders, +combined the profession of money-lender with that of salesman; and +there were dozens in the place who were in debt to him for money +advanced to buy boats and nets, after wreck and loss. Besides, to +offend one jowder was to offend all. They combined to buy the fish at +any price they chose: if angered, they would combine now and then not +to buy it at all. + +"You old twenty per cent rascal," roared the Lieutenant, "after making +a fortune out of these poor fellows' mishaps, do you want to poison +'em all with your stinking fish?" + +"I say, Lieutenant," says old Beer, whose son owed Treluddra fifty +pounds at that moment, "fair's fair. You mind your Coastguard, and +we'm mind our trade. We'm free fishermen, by charter and right; you'm +not our master, and you shall know it." + +"Know it?" says the Lieutenant, foaming. + +"Iss; you put your head inside my presences, and I'll split mun open, +if I be hanged for it." + +"You split my head open?" + +"Iss, by--." And the old grey-bearded sea-king set his arms akimbo. + +"Gentlemen, gentlemen, for Heaven's sake!" cries poor Headley, "this +is really going too far. Gentlemen, the vestry is adjourned!" + +"Best thing too! oughtn't never to have been called," says one and +another. + +And some one, as he went out, muttered something about "interloping +strange doctors, colloquies with popish curates," which was answered +by a--"Put 'mun in the quay pule," from Treluddra. + +Tom stepped up to Treluddra instantly, "What were you so kind as to +say, sir?" + +Treluddra turned very pale. "I didn't say nought." + +"Oh, but I assure you I heard; and I shall be most happy to jump into +the quay pule this afternoon, if it will afford you the slightest +amusement. Say the word, and I'll borrow a flute, and play you the +Rogue's March all the while with my right hand, swimming with my left. +Now, gentlemen, one word before we part!" + +"Who be you?" cries some one. + +"A man at least, and ought to have a fair hearing. Now, I ask you, +what possible interest can I have in this matter? I knew when I began +that I should give myself a frightful quantity of trouble, and get +only what I have got." + +"Why did you begin at all, then?" + +"Because I was a very foolish, meddlesome ass, who fancied that I +ought to do my duty once in a way by my neighbours. Now, I have only +to say, that if you will but forgive and forget, and let bygones be +bygones, I promise you solemnly I'll never do my duty by you again +as long as I live, nor interfere with the sacred privilege of every +free-born Englishman, to do that which is right in the sight of his +own eyes, and wrong too!" + +"You'm making fun at us," said old Beer dubiously. + +"Well, Mr. Beer, and isn't that better than quarrelling with you? Come +along, we'll all go home and forget it, like good Christians. Perhaps +the cholera won't come; and if it does, what's the odds so long as +you're happy, eh?" + +And to the intense astonishment both of the Lieutenant and Frank, Tom +walked home with the malcontents, making himself so agreeable, that he +was forgiven freely on the spot. + +"What does the fellow mean? He's deserted us, sir, after bringing us +here to make fools of us!" + +Frank could give no answer; but Thurnall gave one himself that +evening, both to Frank and the Lieutenant. + +"The cholera will come; and these fellows are just mad; but I mustn't +quarrel with them, mad or not." + +"Why, then?" + +"For the same reason that you must not. If we keep our influence, +we may be able to do some good at the last, which means, in plain +English, saving a few human lives. As for you Lieutenant, you have +behaved like a hero, and have been served as heroes generally are. +What you must do is this. On the first hint of disease, pack up your +traps and your good lady, and go and live in the watch-house across +the river. As for the men's houses, I'll set them to rights in a day, +if you'll get the commander of the district to allow you a little +chloride of lime and whitewash." + +And so the matter ended. + +"You are a greater puzzle than ever to me, Thurnall," said Frank. "You +are always pretending to care for nothing but your own interest, and +yet here you have gone out of your way to incur odium, knowing, you +say, that your cause was all but hopeless." + +"Well, I do it because I like it. It's a sort of sporting with your +true doctor. He blazes away at a disease where he sees one, as he +would at a bear or a lion; the very sight of it excites his organ of +destructiveness. Don't you understand me? You hate sin, you know. +Well, I hate disease. Moral evil is your devil, and physical evil is +mine. I hate it, little or big; I hate to see a fellow sick; I hate +to see a child rickety and pale; I hate to see a speck of dirt in the +street; I hate to see a woman's gown torn; I hate to see her stockings +down at heel; I hate to see anything wasted, anything awry, anything +going wrong; I hate to see water-power wasted, manure wasted, land +wasted, muscle wasted, pluck wasted, brains wasted; I hate neglect, +incapacity, idleness, ignorance, and all the disease and misery which +spring out of that. There's my devil; and I can't help it for the life +of me, going right at his throat, wheresoever I meet him!" + +Lastly, rather to clear his reputation than in the hope of doing good, +Tom wrote up to London, and detailed the case to that much-calummated +body, the General Board of Health, informing them civilly, that the +Nuisances Removal Act was simply waste paper; that he could not get it +to bear at all on Aberalva; and that if he had done so, it would have +been equally useless, for the simple reason that it constituted the +offenders themselves judge and jury in their own case. + +To which the Board returned for answer, that they were perfectly aware +of the fact, and deeply deplored the same: but that as soon as cholera +broke out in Aberalva, they should be most happy to send down an +inspector. + +To which Tom replied courteously, that he would not give them the +trouble, being able, he trusted, to perform without assistance the not +uncommon feat of shutting the stable-door after the horse was stolen. + +And so was Aberalva left "a virgin city," undefiled by Government +interference, to the blessings of that "local government," which +signifies, in plain English, the leaving the few to destroy themselves +and the many, by the unchecked exercise of the virtues of pride and +ignorance, stupidity and stinginess. + +But to Tom, in his sorest need, arose a new and most unexpected +coadjutor; and this was the way in which it came to pass. + +For it befell in that pleasant summer time, "when small birds sing and +shaughs are green," that Thurnall started, one bright Sunday eve, to +see a sick child at an upland farm, some few miles from the town. +And partly because he liked the walk, and partly because he could no +other, having neither horse nor gig, he went on foot; and whistled as +he went like any throstle-cock, along the pleasant vale, by flowery +banks and ferny walls, by oak and ash and thorn, while Alva flashed +and swirled, between green boughs below, clear coffee-brown from last +night's rain. Some miles up the turnpike road he went, and then away +to the right, through the ash-woods of Trebooze, up by the rill which +drips from pool to pool over the ledges of grey slate, deep-bedded in +dark sedge, and broad bright burdock leaves, and tall angelica, and +ell-broad rings and tufts of king, and crown, and lady-fern, and all +the semi-tropic luxuriance of the fat western soil, and steaming +western woods; out into the boggy moor at the glen head, all fragrant +with the gold-tipped gale, where the turf is enamelled with the hectic +marsh violet, and the pink pimpernel, and the pale yellow leaf-stars +of the butterwort, and the blue bells and green threads of the +ivy-leaved campanula; out upon the steep smooth down above, and away +over the broad cattle-pastures; and then to pause a moment, and look +far and wide over land and sea. + +It was a "day of God." The earth lay like one great emerald, ringed +and roofed with sapphire; blue sea, blue mountain, blue sky overhead. +There she lay, not sleeping, but basking in her quiet Sabbath joy, as +though her two great sisters, of the sea and air, had washed her weary +limbs with holy tears, and purged away the stains of last week's +sin and toil, and cooled her hot worn forehead with their pure +incense-breath, and folded her within their azure robes, and brooded +over her with smiles of pitying love, till she smiled back in answer, +and took heart and hope for next week's weary work. + +Heart and hope for next week's work.--That was the sermon which it +preached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there alone, a stranger and a +wanderer, like Ulysses of old; but, like him, self-helpful, cheerful, +fate-defiant. In one respect indeed, he knew less than Ulysses, and +was more of a heathen than he; for he knew not what Ulysses knew, +that a heavenly guide was with him in his wanderings; still less what +Ulysses knew not, that what he called the malicious sport of fortune +was, in truth, the earnest education of a father; but who will blame +him for getting strength and comfort from such merely natural founts, +or say that the impulse came from below, and not from above, which +made him say-- + +"Brave old world she is, after all, and right well made; and looks +right well to-day, in her go-to-meeting clothes; and plenty of room +and chance in her for a brave man to earn his bread, if he will but go +right on about his business, as the birds and the flowers do, instead +of peaking and pining over what people think of him, like that +miserable Briggs. Hark to that jolly old missel-thrush below! he's had +his nest to build, and his supper to earn, and his young ones to feed, +and all the crows and kites in the wood to drive away, the sturdy John +Bull that he is; and yet he can find time to sing as merrily as +an abbot, morning and evening, since he sang the new year in last +January. And why should not I?" + +Let him be a while; there are sounds of deeper meaning in the air, +if his heart had ears to hear them; far off church-bells chiming to +even-song; hymn-tunes floating up the glen from the little chapel in +the vale. He may learn what they, too, mean some day. Honour to him, +at least, that he has learnt what the missel-thrush below can tell +him. If he accept cheerfully and manfully the things which he does +see, he will be all the more able to enter hereafter into the deeper +mystery of things unseen. The road toward true faith and reverence for +God's kingdom of heaven does not lie through Manichaean contempt and +slander of God's kingdom of earth. + +So let him stride over the down, enjoying the mere fact of life, and +health, and strength, and whistling shrilly to the bird below, who +trumpets out a few grand ringing notes, and repeats them again and +again, in saucy self-satisfaction; and then stops to listen for the +answer to this challenge; and then rattles on again with a fresh +passage, more saucily than ever, in a tone which seems to ask,--"You +could sing that, eh? but can you sing this, my fine fellow on the down +above?" So he seems to Tom to say; and, tickled with the fancy, Tom +laughs, and whistles, and laughs, and has just time to compose his +features as he steps up to the farm-yard gate. + +Let him be, I say again. He might have better Sunday thoughts; perhaps +he will have some day. At least he is a man, and a brave one; and as +the greater contains the less, surely before a man can be a good man, +he must be a brave one first, much more a man at all. Cowards, old +Odin held, inevitably went to the very bottom of Hela-pool, and by no +possibility, unless of course they became brave at last, could rise +out of that everlasting bog, but sank whining lower and lower, like +mired cattle, to all eternity in the unfathomable peat-slime. And if +the twenty-first chapter of the Book of Revelation, and the eighth +verse, is to be taken as it stands, their doom has not altered since +Odin's time, unless to become still worse. + +Tom came up, over the home-close and through the barton-gate, through +the farm-yard, and stopped at last at the porch. The front door was +open, and the door beyond it; and ere he knocked, he stopped, looking +in silence at a picture which held him spellbound for a moment by its +rich and yet quiet beauty. + +Tom was no artist, and knew no more of painting, in spite of his +old friendship with Claude, than was to be expected of a keen and +observant naturalist who had seen half the globe. Indeed, he had been +in the habit of snubbing Claude's profession; and of arriving, on +pre-Raphaelite grounds, at a by no means pre-Raphaelite conclusion. +"A picture, you say, is worth nothing unless you copy Nature. But you +can't copy her. She is ten times more gorgeous than any man can dare +represent her. Ergo, every picture is a failure; and the nearest +hedge-bush is worth all your galleries together"--a syllogism of sharp +edge, which he would back up by Byron's-- + + "I've seen much finer women, ripe and real, + Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal." + +But here was one of Nature's own pictures, drawn and coloured by more +than mortal hand, and framed over and above, ready to his eye, by the +square of the dark doorway, beyond which all was flooded with the full +glory, of the low north-western sun. + +A dark oak-ribbed ceiling; walls of pale fawn-yellow; an open window, +showing a corner of rich olive-stone wall, enamelled with golden +lichens, orange and green combs of polypody, pink and grey tufts of +pellitory, all glowing in the sunlight. + +Above the window-sill rose a bush of maiden-blush roses; a tall spire +of blue monkshood; and one head of scarlet lychnis, like a spark +of fire; and behind all, the dark blue sea, which faded into the +pale-blue sky. + +At the window stood a sofa of old maroon leather, its dark hue +throwing out in strong relief two figures who sat upon it. And when +Tom had once looked at them, he looked at nothing else. + +There sat the sick girl, her head nestling upon the shoulder of Grace +Harvey; a tall, delicate thing of seventeen, with thin white cheeks, +the hectic spot aflame on each, and long fair curls, which mingled +lovingly with Grace's dark tresses, as they sat cheek against cheek, +and hand in hand. Her eyes were closed; Tom thought at first that she +was asleep: but there was a quiet smile about her pale lips; and every +now and then her left hand left Grace's, to move toward a leaf full of +strawberries which lay on Grace's lap; and Tom could see that she +was listening intently to Grace, who told and told, in that sweet, +measured voice of hers, her head erect, her face in the full blaze of +sunshine, her great eyes looking out far away beyond the sea, beyond +the sky, into some infinite which only she beheld. + +Tom had approached unheard, across the farm-yard straw. He stood and +looked his fill. The attitude of the two girls was so graceful, that +he was loth to disturb it; and loth, too, to disturb a certain sunny +calm which warmed at once and softened his stout heart. + +He wished, too--he scarce knew why--to hear what Grace was saying; +and as he listened, her voice was so distinct and delicate in its +modulations, that every word came clearly to his ear. + +It was the beautiful old legend of St. Dorothea:-- + +"So they did all sorts of dreadful things to her, and then led her +away to die; and they stood laughing there. But after a little time +there came a boy, the prettiest boy that ever was seen on earth, and +in his hand a basket full of fruits and flowers, more beautiful than +tongue can tell. And he said, 'Dorothea sends you these, out of the +heavenly garden which she told you of--will you believe her now?' And +then, before they could reply, he vanished away. And Theophilus looked +at the flowers, and tasted the fruit--and a new heart grew up within +him; and he said, 'Dorothea's God shall be my God, and I will die for +him like her.' + +"So you see, darling, there are sweeter fruits than these, and gayer +flowers, in the place to which you go; and all the lovely things in +this world here will seem quite poor and worthless beside the glory of +that better land which He will show you: and yet you will not care to +look at them; for the sight of Him will be enough, and you will care +to think of nothing else." + +"And you are sure He will accept me, after all?" asked the sick girl, +opening her eyes, and looking up at Grace. She saw Thurnall standing +in the doorway, and gave a little scream. + +Tom came forward, bowing. "I am very sorry to have disturbed you. I +suspect Miss Harvey was giving you better medicine than I can give." + +Now why did Tom say that, to whom the legend of St. Dorothea, and, +indeed, that whole belief in a better land, was as a dream fit only +for girls? + +Not altogether because he must need say something civil. True, he +felt, on the whole, about the future state as Goethe did--"To the able +man this world is not dumb: why should he ramble off into eternity? +Such incomprehensible subjects lie too far off, and only disturb our +thoughts, if made the subject of daily meditation." That there was a +future state he had no doubt. Our having been born once, he used to +say, is the strongest possible presumption in favour of our being born +again; and probably, as nature always works upward and develops higher +forms, in some higher state. Indeed, for aught he knew, the old +ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs might be alive now, as lions--or as +men. He himself, indeed, he had said, ere now, had been probably a +pterodactyle of the Lias, neither fish, flesh, nor good red herring, +but crocodile and bat in one, able alike to swim, or run, or fly, eat +anything, and live in any element. Still it was no concern of his. He +was here; and here was his business. He had not thought of this life +before he came into it; and it would be time enough to think of the +next life when he got into it. Besides, he had all a doctor's dislike +of those terrors of the unseen world, with which some men are wont to +oppress still more failing nature, and break the bruised reed. His +business was to cure his patients' bodies; and if he could not do +that, at least to see that life was not shortened in them by nervous +depression and anxiety. Accustomed to see men of every character die +under every possible circumstance, he had come to the conclusion that +the "safety of a man's soul" could by no possibility be inferred from +his death-bed temper. The vast majority, good or bad, died in peace: +why not let them die so? If nature kindly took off the edge of sorrow, +by blunting the nervous system, what right had man to interfere with +so merciful an arrangement? Every man, he held in his easy optimism, +would go where he ought to go: and it could be no possible good to +him--indeed, it might be a very bad thing for him, as in this life--to +go where he ought not to go. So he used to argue, with three-fourths +of mankind, mingling truth and falsehood: and would, on these grounds, +have done his best to turn the dissenting preacher out of that house, +had he found him in it. But to-day he was in a more lenient, perhaps +in a more human, and therefore more spiritual mood. It was all very +well for him, full of life, and power, and hope, to look on death in +that cold, careless way; but for that poor young thing, cut off just +as life opened from all that made life lovely--was not death for her a +painful, ugly anomaly? Could she be blamed, if she shuddered at going +forth into the unknown blank, she knew not whither? All very well for +the old emperor of Rome, who had lived his life and done his work, to +play with the dreary question-- + + "Animula, vagula, blandula, + Hospes comesque corporis, + Quae nunc abibis in loca, + Rigidula, nudula, pallida?--" + +But she, who had lived no life, and done no work--only had pined +through weary years of hideous suffering; crippled and ulcerated with +scrofula, now dying of consumption: was it not a merciful dream, a +beautiful dream, a just dream--so beautiful and just, that perhaps it +might be true,--that in some fairer world, all this, and more, might +be made up to her? If not, was it not a mistake and an injustice, that +she should ever have come into the world at all? And was not Grace +doing a rational as well as a loving work, in telling her, under +whatsoever symbols, that such a home of rest and beauty awaited her? +It was not the sort of place to which he expected, perhaps even +wished, to go: but it fitted well enough with a young girl's hopes, a +young girl's powers of enjoyment. Let it be; perhaps there was such a +place,--why not?--fitted for St. Dorothea, and those cut off in youth +like her; and other places fit for such as he. And he spoke more +tenderly than usual (though he was never untender), as he said,-- + +"And you feel better to-day? I am sure you must, with such a kind +friend, to tell you such sweet tales." + +"I do not feel better, thank you. And why should I wish to do so? You +all take too much trouble about me; why do you want to keep me here?" + +"We are loth to lose you; and besides, while you can be kept here, it +is a sign that you ought to be here." + +"So Grace tells me. Yes, I will be patient, and wait till He has done +His work. I am more patient now; am I not, Grace?" And she fondled +Grace's hand, and looked up in her face. + +"Yes," said Grace, who was standing near, with downcast face, trying +to avoid Tom's eye. "Yes, you are very good; but you must not talk:" +but the girl went on, with kindling eye,-- + +"Ah--I was very fretful at first, because I could not go to heaven +at once: but Grace showed me how it was good to be here, as well +as there, as long as He thought that I might be made perfect by +sufferings. And since then, my pain has become quite pleasant to me, +and I am ready to wait and bear--wait and bear." + +"You must not talk,--see, you are beginning to cough," said Tom, who +wished somehow to stop a form of thought which so utterly puzzled him. +Not that he had not heard it before; commonplace enough indeed it is, +thank God: but that day the words came home to him with spirit and +power, all the more solemnly from their contrast with the scene +around--without, all sunshine, joy, and glory: all which could tempt +a human being to linger here: and within, that young girl longing to +leave it all, and yet content to stay and suffer. What mysteries there +were in the human spirit--mysteries to which that knowledge of mankind +on which he prided himself gave him no key! + +"What if I were laid on my back to-morrow for life, by a fall, a blow, +as I have seen many a better man than me;--should I not wish to have +one to talk to me, as she was talking to that child?" And for a moment +a yearning after Grace came over him, as it had done before, and swept +from his mind the dark cloud of suspicion. + +"Now I must talk with your mother," said he; "for you have better +company than mine; and I hear her just coming in." + +He settled little matters for his patient's comfort with the farmer's +wife. When he returned to bid her good-bye Grace was gone. + +"I hope I have not driven her away." + +"Oh no; she had been here an hour, and she must go back now, to get +her mother's supper." + +"That is a good girl," said Tom, looking after her as she went down +the field. + +"She's an angel from heaven, sir. Not a three days go over without +her walking up here all this way after her work, to comfort my poor +maid--and all of us as well. It's like the dew of heaven upon us. +Pity, sir, you didn't see her home." + +"I should have liked it well enough; but folks might talk, if two +young people were seen walking together Sunday evening." + +"Oh, sir, they know her too well by now, for miles round: and you too, +sir, I'll make bold to say." + +"Well, at least I'll go after her." + +So Tom went, and kept Grace in sight, till she had crossed the little +moor, and disappeared in the wood below. + +He had gone about a hundred yards into the wood, when he heard voices +and laughter--then a loud shriek. He hurried forward. In another +minute, Grace rushed up to him, her eyes wide with terror and +indignation. + +"What is it?" cried he, trying to stop her: but, not seeming to see +him, she dashed past him, and ran on. Another moment, and a man +appeared in full pursuit. + +It was Trebooze of Trebooze, an evil laugh upon his face. + +Tom planted himself across the narrow path in an attitude which there +was no mistaking. + +Not a word passed between them. Silently and instinctively, like two +fierce dogs, the two men flew upon each other; Tom full of righteous +wrath, and Trebooze of half-drunken passion, turned to fury by the +interruption. + +He was a far taller and heavier man than Thurnall, and, as the bully +of the neighbourhood, counted on an easy victory. But he was mistaken. +After the first rush was over, he found it impossible to close +with his foe, and saw in the doctor's face, now grown cool and +business-like as usual, the wily smile of superior science and +expected triumph. + +"Brandy-and-water in the morning ought not to improve the wind," said +Tom to himself, as his left hand countered provokingly, while his +right rattled again and again upon Trebooze's watch-chain. "Justice +will overtake you in the offending part, which I take to be the +epigastric region." + +In a few minutes more the scuffle ended shamefully enough for the +sottish squireen. + +Tom stood over him for a minute, as he sat grovelling and groaning +among the long grass. "I may as well see that I have not killed him. +No, he will do as well as ever--which is not saying much.... Now, +sir! Go home quietly, and ask Mrs. Trebooze for a little rhubarb and +salvolatile. I'll call up in the course of to-morrow to see how you +are." + +"I'll kill you, if I catch you!" + +"As a man, I am open of course to be killed by any fair means; but as +a doctor, I am still bound to see after my patient's health." And +Tom bowed civilly, and walked back up the path to find Grace, after +washing face and hands in the brook. + +He found her up at Tolchard's farm, trembling and thankful. + +"I cannot do less than see Miss Harvey safe home." + +Grace hesitated. + +"Mrs. Tolchard, I am sure, will walk with us; it would be safer, in +case you felt faint again." + +But Mrs. Tolchard would not come to save Grace's notions of propriety; +so Tom passed Grace's arm through his own. She offered to withdraw it. + +"No; you will require it. You do not know yet how much you have gone +through. My fear is, that you will feel it all the more painfully when +the excitement is past. I shall send you up a cordial; and you must +promise me to take it. You owe me a little debt you know, to-day; you +must pay it by taking my medicines." + +Grace looked up at him sidelong; for there was a playful tenderness +in his voice which was new to her, and which thrilled her through and +through. + +"I will indeed, I promise you. But I am so much better now. Really, I +can walk alone!" And she withdrew her arm from his, but not hastily. + +After that they walked on awhile in silence. Grace kept her veil +down, for her eyes were full of tears. She loved that man intensely, +utterly. She did not seek to deny it to herself. God had given him to +her, and hers he was. The very sea, the devourer whom she hated, who +hungered to swallow up all young fair life, the very sea had yielded +him up to her, alive from the dead. And yet that man, she knew, +suspected her of a base and hateful crime. It was too dreadful! She +could not exculpate herself, save by blank denial--and what would that +avail? The large hot drops ran down her cheeks. She had need of all +her strength to prevent sobbing. + +She looked round. In the bright summer evening, all things were full +of joy and love. The hedge-banks were gay as flower gardens; the +swifts chased each other, screaming harsh delight; the ring-dove +murmured in the wood beneath his world-old song, which she had taught +the children a hundred times-- + + "Curuckity coo, curuck coo; + You love me, and I love you!" + +The woods slept golden in the evening sunlight; and over head brooded, +like one great smile of God, the everlasting blue. + +"He will right me!" she said. "'Hold thee still in the Lord, and abide +patiently, and He will make thy righteousness clear as the light, and +thy just dealing as the noon-day!'" And after that thought she wept no +more. + +Was it as a reward for her faith that Tom began to talk to her? He had +paced on by her side, serious, but not sad. True, he had suspected +her; he suspected her still. But that scene with the dying child had +been no sham. There, at least, there was nothing to suspect, nothing +to sneer at. The calm purity, self-sacrifice, hope, which was +contained in it, had softened his world-hardened spirit, and woke up +in him feelings which were always pleasant, feelings which the sight +of his father, or the writing to his father, could only awaken. +Quaintly enough, the thought of Grace and of his father seemed +intertwined, inextricable. If the old man had but such a nurse as she! +And for a moment he felt a glow of tenderness toward her, because he +thought she would be tender to his father. She had stolen his money, +certainly; or if not, she knew where it was, and would not tell him. +Well, what matter just then? He did not want the money at that minute. +How much pleasanter and wiser to take things as they came, and enjoy +himself while he could; and fancy that she was always what he had seen +her that day. After all, it was much more pleasant to trust people +than to suspect them: "Handsome is who handsome does! And besides, she +did me the kindness of saving my life; so it would but be civil to +talk to her a little." + +He began to talk to her about the lovely scene around; and found, to +his surprise, that she saw as much of it as he, and saw a great deal +more in it than he. Her answers were short, modest, faltering; but +each one of them suggestive; and Tom soon found that he had met with +a mind which contained all the elements of poetry, and needed only +education to develop them. + +"What a blue stocking, pre-Raphaelite seventh-heavenarian she would +have been, if she had had the misfortune to be born in that station of +life!" But where a clever man is talking to a beautiful woman, talk he +will, and must, for the mere sake of showing off, though she be but +a village schoolmistress; and Tom soon found himself, with a secret +sneer at his own vanity, displaying before her all the much finer +things that he had seen in his travels; and as he talked, she +answered, with quiet expressions of wonder, sympathy, regret at her +own narrow sphere of experience, till, as if the truth was not enough, +he found himself running to the very edge of exaggeration, and a +little over it, in the enjoyment of calling out her passion for the +marvellous, especially when called out in honour of himself. + +And she, simple creature, drank it all in as sparkling wine, and only +dreaded lest the stream should cease. Adventures with noble savages +in palm-fringed coral-islands, with greedy robbers amid the fragrant +hills of Greece, with fierce Indians beneath the snow-peaks of the Far +West, with coward Mexicans among tunals of cactus and agave, beneath +the burning tropic sun--What a man he was! Where had he not been? and +what had he not seen? And how he had been preserved--for her? And his +image seemed to her utterly beautiful and glorious, clothed as it +was in the beauty and glory of all that he had seen, and done, and +suffered. Oh Love, Love, Love, the same in peasant and in peer! The +more honour to you, then, old Love, to be the same thing in this world +which is common to peasant and to peer. They say that you are blind; +a dreamer, an exaggerator--a liar, in short. They know just nothing +about you, then. You will not see people as they seem, and as they +have become, no doubt: but why? because you see them as they ought +to be, and are, in some deep way, eternally, in the sight of Him who +conceived and created them. + +At last she started, as if waking from a pleasant dream, and spoke, +half to herself-- + +"Oh, how foolish of me--to be idling away this opportunity; the only +one, perhaps, which I may have! Oh, Mr. Thurnall, tell me about this +cholera!" + +"What about it?" + +"Everything. Ever since I heard of what you have been saying to the +people, ever since Mr. Headley's sermon, it has been like fire in my +ears!" + +"I am truly glad to hear it. If all parsons had preached about it for +the last fifteen years as Mr. Headley did last Sunday, if they had +told people plainly that, if the cholera was God's judgment at all, it +was His judgment of the sin of dirt, and that the repentance which +He required was to wash and be clean in literal earnest, the cholera +would be impossible in England by now." + +"Oh, Mr. Thurnall: but is it not God's doing? and can we stop His +hand?" + +"I know nothing about that, Miss Harvey. I only know that wheresoever +cholera breaks out, it is some one's fault; and if deaths occur, some +one ought to be tried for manslaughter--I had almost said murder, and +transported for life." + +"Someone? Who?" + +"That will be settled in the next generation, when men have common +sense enough to make laws for the preservation of their own lives, +against the dirt, and covetousness, and idleness, of a set of human +hogs." + +Grace was silent for awhile. + +"But can nothing be done to keep it off now? Must it come?" + +"I believe it must. Still one may do enough to save many lives in the +meanwhile." + +"Enough to save many lives--lives?--immortal souls, too! Oh, what +could I do?" + +"A great deal, Miss Harvey," said Tom, across whom the recollection of +Grace's influence flashed for the first time. What a help she might be +to him! + +And he talked on and on to her, and found that she entered into his +plans with all her wild enthusiasm, but also with sound practical +common sense; and Tom began to respect her intellect as well as her +heart. + +At last, however, she faltered-- + +"Oh, if I could but believe all this! Is it not fighting against God?" + +"I do not know what sort of God yours is, Miss Harvey. I believe in +some One who made all that!" and he pointed round him to the glorious +woods and glorious sky; "I should have fancied from your speech to +that poor girl, that you believed in Him also. You may, however, only +believe in the same being in whom the Methodist parson believes, one +who intends to hurl into endless agony every human being who has not +had a chance of hearing the said preacher's nostrum for delivering men +out of the hands of Him who made them!" + +"What do you mean?" asked Grace, startled alike by Tom's words, and +the intense scorn and bitterness of his tone. + +"That matters little. What do you mean in turn? What did you mean by +saying, that saving lives is saving immortal souls?" + +"Oh, is it not giving them time to repent? What will become of them, +if they are cut off in the midst of their sins?" + +"If you had a son whom it was not convenient to you to keep at home, +would his being a bad fellow--the greatest scoundrel on the earth--be +a reason for your turning him into the streets to live by thieving, +and end by going to the dogs for ever and a day?" + +"No; but what do you mean?" + +"That I do not think that God, when He sends a human being out of this +world, is more cruel than you or I would be. If we transport a man +because he is too bad to be in England, and he shows any signs of +mending, we give him a fresh chance in the colonies, and let him start +again, to try if he cannot do better next time. And do you fancy that +God, when He transports a man out of this world, never gives him a +fresh chance in another--especially when nine out of ten poor rascals +have never had a fair chance yet?" + +Grace looked up in his face astonished. + +"Oh, if I could but believe that! Oh! it would give me some gleam of +hope for my two!--But no--it's not in Scripture. Where the tree falls +there it lies." + +"And as the fool dies, so dies the wise man; and there is one account +to the righteous and to the wicked. And a man has no pre-eminence over +a beast, for both turn alike to dust; and Solomon does not know, +he says, or any one else, anything about the whole matter, or even +whether there be any life after death at all; and so, he says, the +only wise thing is to leave such deep questions alone, for Him who +made us to settle in His own way, and just to fear God and keep His +commandments, and do the work which lies nearest us with all our +might." + +Grace was silent. + +"You are surprised to hear me quote Scripture, and well you may be: +but that same book of Ecclesiastes is a very old favourite with me; +for I am no Christian, but a worlding, if ever there was one. But it +does puzzle me why you, who are a Christian, should talk one half-hour +as you have been talking to that poor girl, and the next go +for information about the next life to poor old disappointed, +broken-hearted Solomon, with his three hundred and odd idolatrous +wives, who confesses fairly that this life is a failure, and that he +does not know whether there is any next life at all." + +Whether Tom was altogether right or not, is not the question here; the +novelist's business is to represent the real thoughts of mankind, when +they are not absolutely unfit to be told; and certainly Tom spoke the +doubts of thousands when he spoke his own. + +Grace was silent still. + +"Well," he said, "beyond that I can't go, being no theologian. But +when a preacher tells people in one breath of a God who so loves men +that He gave His own Son to save them, and in the next, that the same +God so hates men that He will cast nine-tenths of them into hopeless +torture for ever,--(and if that is not hating, I don't know what +is),--unless he, the preacher, gets a chance of talking to them for a +few minutes--Why, I should like, Miss Harvey, to put that gentleman +upon a real fire for ten minutes, instead of his comfortable Sunday's +dinner, which stands ready frying for him, and which he was going home +to eat, as jolly as if all the world was not going to destruction; and +there let him feel what fire was like, and reconsider his statements." + +Grace looked up at him no more; but walked on in silence, pondering +many things. + +"Howsoever that may be, sir, tell me what to do in this cholera, and I +will do it, if I kill myself with work or infection!" + +"You shan't do that. We cannot spare you from Aberalva, Grace," said +Tom; "you must save a few more poor creatures ere you die, out of +the hands of that Good Being who made little children, and love, and +happiness, and the flowers, and the sunshine, and the fruitful earth; +and who, you say, redeemed them all again, when they were lost, by an +act of love which passes all human dreams." + +"Do not talk so!" cried Grace. "It frightens me; it puzzles me, and +makes me miserable. Oh, if you would but become a Christian!" + +"And listen to the Gospel?" + +"Yes--oh yes!" + +"A gospel means good news, I thought. When you have any to tell me, I +will listen. Meanwhile, the news that three out of four of those poor +fellows down town are going to a certain place, seems to me such +terribly bad news, that I can't help fancying that it is not the +Gospel at all; and so get on the best way I can, listening to the good +news about God which this grand old world, and my microscope, and my +books, tell me. No, Grace, I have more good news than that, and I'll +confess it to you." + +He paused, and his voice softened. + +"Say what the preacher may. He must be a good God who makes such +creatures as you, and sends them into the world to comfort poor +wretches. Follow your own sweet heart, Grace, and torment yourself no +more with these dark dreams!" + +"My heart?" cried she, looking down; "it is deceitful and desperately +wicked." + +"I wish mine were too, then," said Tom: "but it cannot be, as long as +it is so unlike yours. Now stop, Grace, I want to speak to you." + +There was a gate in front of them, leading into the road. + +As they came to it, Tom lingered with his hand upon the top bar, that +Grace might stop. She did stop, half-frightened. Why did he call her +Grace? + +"I wish to speak to you on one matter, on which I believe I ought to +have spoken long ago." + +She looked up at him, surprise in her large eyes: and turned pale as +he went on. + +"I ought long ago to have begged your pardon for something rude which +I said to you at your own door. This day has made me quite ashamed +of--" + +But she interrupted him, quite wildly, gasping for breath. + +"The belt? The belt? Oh, my God! my God! Have you heard anything +more?--anything more?" + +"Not a word; but--" + +To his astonishment, she heaved a deep sigh, as if relieved from a +sudden fear. His face clouded, and his eyebrows rose. Was she guilty, +then, after all? + +With the quick eyes of love, she saw the change; and broke out +passionately,-- + +"Yes; suspect me! suspect me, if you will! only give me time! Send me +to prison, innocent as I am--innocent as that child there above--would +God I were dying like her!--Only give me time! O misery! I had hoped +you had forgotten--that it was lost in the sea--that--what am I +saying?--Only give me time!"--and she dropped on her knees before him, +wringing her hands. + +"Miss Harvey! This is not worthy of you. If you be innocent, as I +don't doubt, what more do you need--or I?" + +He took her hands, and lifted her up: but she still kept looking down, +round, upwards, like a hunted deer, and pleading in words which seemed +sobbed out--as by some poor soul on the rack--between choking spasms +of agony. + +"Oh, I don't know,--God help me! O Lord, help me! I will try and find +it--I know I shall find it! only have patience; have patience with me +a little, and I know I shall bring it you; and then--and then you will +forgive?--forgive?" + +And she laid her hands upon his arms, and looked up in his face with a +piteous smile of entreaty. + +She had never looked so beautiful as at that moment. The devil saw it; +and entered into the heart of Thomas Thurnall. He caught her in his +arms, kissed away her tears, stopped her mouth with kisses. "Yes! I'll +wait--wait for ever, if you will! I'll lose another belt, for such +another look as that!" + +She was bewildered for a moment, poor fond wretch, at finding herself +where she would gladly have stayed for ever: but quickly she recovered +her reason. + +"Let me go!" she cried, struggling. "This is not right! Let me go, +sir!" and she tried to cover her burning cheeks with her hands. + +"I will not, Grace! I love you! I love you, I tell you!" + +"You do not, sir!" and she struggled still more fiercely. "Do not +deceive yourself! Me you cannot deceive! Let me go, I say! You could +not demean yourself to love a poor girl like me!" + +Utterly losing his head, Tom ran on with passionate words. + +"No, sir! you know that I am not fit to be your wife: and do you fancy +that I--" + +Maddened now, Tom went on, ere he was aware, from a foolish deed to a +base speech. + +"I know nothing, but that I shall keep you in pawn for my belt. Till +that is at least restored, you are in my power, Grace! Remember that!" + +She thrust him away with so sudden and desperate a spasm, that he was +forced to let her go. She stood gazing at him, a trembling deer no +longer, but rather a lioness at bay, her face flashing beautiful +indignation. + +"In your power! Yes, sir! My character, my life, for aught I know: but +not my soul, Send me to Bodmin Gaol if you will; but offer no more +insults to a modest maiden! Oh!"--and her expression changed to one +of lofty sorrow and pity;--"Oh! to find all men alike at heart? After +having fancied you--fancied you" (what she had fancied him her woman's +modesty dare not repeat)--"to find you even such another as Mr. +Trebooze!" + +Tom was checked. As for mere indignation, in such cases, he had seen +enough of that to trust it no more than "ice that is one night old:" +but pity for him was a weapon of defence to which he was unaccustomed. +And there was no contempt in her pity; and no affectation either. Her +voice was solemn, but tender, gently upbraiding, like her countenance. +Never had he felt Grace's mysterious attraction so strong upon him; +and for the first and last time, perhaps, for many a year, he answered +with downcast eyes of shame. + +"I beg your pardon, Miss Harvey. I have been rude--mad. If you will +look in your glass when you go home, and have a woman's heart in you, +you may at least see an excuse for me: but like Mr. Trebooze I am not. +Forgive and forget, and let us walk home rationally." And he offered +to take her hand. + +"No: not now! Not till I can trust you, sir!" said she. The words were +lofty enough: but there was a profound melancholy in their tone which +humbled Tom still more. Was it possible--she seemed to have hinted +it--that she had thought him a very grand personage till now, and that +he had disgraced himself in her eyes? + +If a man had suspected Tom of such a feeling, I fear he would have +cared little, save how to restore the balance by making a fool of the +man who fancied him a fool: but no male self-sufficiency or pride +is proof against the contempt of woman; and Tom slunk along by the +schoolmistress's side, as if he had been one of her naughtiest +school-children. He tried, of course, to brazen it out to his own +conscience. He had done no harm, after all; indeed, never seriously +meant any. She was making a ridiculous fuss about nothing. It was all +part and parcel of her methodistical cant. He dared say that she was +not as prudish with the methodist parson. And at that base thought he +paused; for a flush of rage, and a strong desire on such hypothesis to +slay the said methodist parson, or any one else who dared even to look +sweet on Grace, showed him plainly enough what he had long been afraid +of, that he was really in love with her; and that, as he put it, if +she did not make a fool of herself about him, he was but too likely to +end in making a fool of himself about her. However, he must speak, to +support his own character as a man of the world;--it would never do to +knock under to a country girl in this way;--she might go and boast of +it all over the town;--beside, foiled or not, he would not give in +without trying her mettle somewhat further. + +"Miss Harvey, will you forgive me?" + +"I have forgiven you." + +"Will you forget?" + +"If I can!" she said, with a marked expression, which signified +(though, of course, she did not mean Tom to understand it), "some of +what is past is too precious, and some too painful, to forget." + +"I do not ask you to forget all which has passed!" + +"I am afraid that there is nothing which would be any credit to you, +sir, to have remembered." + +"Credit or none," said Tom, unabashed, "do not forget one word that I +said." + +She looked hastily and sidelong round,--"That I am in your power?" + +"No! curse it! I wish I had bitten out my tongue before I had said +that. No! that I am in your power, Miss Harvey." + +"Sir! I never heard you say that; and if you had, the sooner anything +so untrue is forgotten the better." + +"I said that I loved you, Grace; and if that does not mean that--" + +"Sir! Mr. Thurnall! I cannot, I will not hear! You only insult me, +sir, by speaking thus, when you know that--that you consider me--a +thief!" and the poor girl burst into tears again. + +"I do not! I do not;" cried Tom, growing really earnest at the sight +of her sorrow, "Did I not begin this unhappy talk by begging your +pardon for ever having let such a thought cross my mind?" + +"But you do! you do! you told me as much at my own door; and I have +seen it ever since, till I have almost gone mad under it!" + +"I will swear to you by all that is sacred that I do not! Oh, Grace, +the first moment I saw you my heart told me that it was impossible; +and now, this afternoon, as I listened to you with that sick girl, I +felt a wretch for ever having--Grace, I tell you, you made me feel, +for the moment, a better man than I ever felt in my life before. A +poor return I have made for that, truly!" + +Grace looked up in his face gasping. + +"Oh, say that! say that again. Oh, good Lord, merciful Lord, at last! +Oh, if you knew what it was to have even one weight lifted off, among +all my heavy burdens, and that weight the hardest to bear. God forgive +me that it should have been so! Oh, I can breathe freely now again, +that I know I am not suspected by you." + +"By you?" Tom could not but see what, after all, no human being can +conceal, that Grace cared for him. And the devil came and tempted +him once more: but this time it was in vain. Tom's better angel had +returned; Grace's tender guilelessness, which would with too many men +only have marked her out as the easier prey, was to him as a sacred +shield before her innocence. So noble, so enthusiastic, so pure! He +could not play the villain with that woman. + +But there was plainly a mystery. What were the burdens, heavier even +than unjust suspicion, of which she had spoken? There was no harm in +asking. + +"But, Grace--Miss Harvey--You will not be angry with me if I ask?--Why +speak so often, as if finding this money depended on you alone? You +wish me to recover it, I know; and if you can counsel me, why not do +so? Why not tell me whom you suspect?" + +Her old wild terror returned in an instant. She stopped short-- + +"Suspect? I suspect? Oh, I have suspected too many already! Suspected +till I began to hate my fellow-creatures--hate life itself, when I +fancied that I saw 'thief' written on every forehead. Oh, do not ask +me to suspect any more!" + +Tom was silent. + +"Oh," she cried, after a moment's pause. "Oh, that we were back in +those old times I have read of, when they used to put people to the +torture to make them confess!" + +"Why, in Heaven's name?" + +"Because then I should have been tortured, and have confessed it, true +or false, in the agony, and have been hanged. They used to hang them +then, and put them out of their misery; and I should have been put out +of mine, and no one have been blamed but me for ever more." + +"You forget," said Tom, lost in wonder, "that then I should have +blamed you, as well as every one else." + +"True; yes, it was a foolish faithless word. I did not take it, and it +would have been no good to my soul to say I did. Lies cannot prosper, +cannot prosper, Mr. Thurnall!" and she stopped short again. + +"What, my dear Grace?" said he, kindly enough; for he began to fear +that she was losing her wits. + +"I saved your life!" + +"You did, Grace." + +"Then, I never thought to ask for payment; but, oh, I must now. Will +you promise me one thing in return?" + +"What you will, as I am a man and a gentleman; I can trust you to ask +nothing which is not worthy of you." + +Tom spoke truth. He felt,--perhaps love made him feel it all the more +easily,--that whatever was behind, he was safe in that woman's hands. + +"Then promise me that you will wait one month, only one month: ask no +questions; mention nothing to any living soul. And if, before that +time, I do not bring you that belt back, send me to Bodmin Gaol, and +let me bear my punishment." + +"I promise," said Tom. And the two walked on again in silence, till +they neared the head of the village. + +Then Grace went forward, like Nausicaa when she left Ulysses, lest the +townsfolk should talk; and Tom sat down upon a bank and watched her +figure vanishing in the dusk. + +Much he puzzled, hunting up and down in his cunning head for an +explanation of the mystery. At last he found one which seemed to fit +the facts so well, that he rose with a whistle of satisfaction, and +walked homewards. + +Evidently, her mother had stolen the belt; and Grace was, if not a +repentant accomplice--for that he could not believe,--at least aware +of the fact. + +"Well, it is a hard knot for her to untie, poor child; and on the +strength of having saved my life, she shall untie it her own way. I +can wait. I hope the money won't be spent meanwhile, though, and the +empty leather returned to me when wanted no longer. However, that's +done already, if done at all. I was a fool for not acting at once;--a +double fool for suspecting her! Ass that I was, to take up with +a false scent, and throw myself off the true one! My everlasting +unbelief in people has punished itself this time. I might have got a +search-warrant three months ago, and had that old witch safe in the +bilboes. But no--I might not have found it, after all, and there would +have been only an esclandre; and if I know that girl's heart, she +would have been ten times more miserable for her mother than for +herself, so it's as well as it is. Besides, it's really good fun to +watch how such a pretty plot will work itself out;--as good as a pack +of harriers with a cold scent and a squatted hare. So, live and let +live. Only, Thomas Thurnall, if you go for to come for to go for to +make such an abominable ass of yourself with that young lady any more, +like a miserable school-boy, you will be pleased to make tracks, and +vanish out of these parts for ever. For my purse can't afford to have +you marrying a schoolmistress in your impoverished old age; and my +character, which also is my purse, can't afford worse." + +One word of Grace's had fixed itself in Tom's memory. What did she +mean by "her two?" + +He contrived to ask Willis that very evening. + +"Oh, don't you know, sir? She had a young brother drowned, a long +while ago, when she was sixteen or so. He went out fishing on the +Sabbath, with another like him, and both were swamped. Wild young +lads, both, as lads will be. But she, sweet maid, took it so to heart, +that she never held up her head since; nor will, I think, at times, to +her dying day." + +"Humph! Was she fond of the other lad, then?" + +"Sir," said Willis, "I don't think it's fair like,--not decent, if +you'll excuse an old sailor,--to talk about young maids' affairs, that +they wouldn't talk of themselves, perhaps not even to themselves. So I +never asked any questions myself." + +"And think it rude in me to ask any. Well, I believe you're right, +good old gentleman that you are. What a nobleman you'd have made, if +you had had the luck to have been born in that station of life!" + +"I have found too much trouble, in doing my duty in my humble place, +to wish to be in any higher one." + +"So!" thought Tom to himself, "a girl's fancy: but it explains so much +in the character, especially when the temperament is melancholic. +However, to quote Solomon once more, 'A live dog is better than a dead +lion;' and I have not much to fear from a rival who has been washed +out of this world ten years since. Heyday! Rival! quotha? Tom +Thurnall, you are going to make a fool of yourself. You must go, sir! +I warn you; you must flee, till you have recovered your senses." + +There appeared next morning in Tom's shop a new phenomenon. A smart +youth, dressed in what he considered to be the newest London fashion; +but which was really that translation of last year's fashion which +happened to be current in the windows of the Bodmin tailors. Tom knew +him by sight and name,--one Mr. Creed, a squireen like Trebooze, and +an especial friend of Trebooze's, under whose tutelage he had learned +to smoke cavendish assiduously from the age of fifteen, thereby +improving neither his stature, nor his digestion, his nerves, nor the +intelligence of his countenance. + +He entered with a lofty air, and paused awhile as he spoke. + +"Is it possible," said Tom to himself, "that Trebooze has sent me a +challenge? It would be too good fun. I'll wait and see." So he went on +rolling pills. + +"I say, sir," quoth the youth, who had determined, as an owner of +land, to treat the doctor duly _de haut en bas_, and had a vague +notion that a liberal use of the word "sir" would both help thereto, +and be consonant with professional style of duel diplomacy, whereof he +had read in novels. + +Tom turned slowly, and then took a long look at him over the counter +through halfshut eye-lids, with chin upraised, as if he had been +suddenly afflicted with short sight; and worked on meanwhile steadily +at his pills. + +"That is, I wish--to speak to you, sir--ahem--!" went on Mr. Creed; +being gradually but surely discomfited by Tom's steady gaze. + +"Don't trouble yourself, sir: I see your case in your face. A slight +nervous affection--will pass as the digestion improves. I will make +you up a set of pills for the night; but I should advise a little +ammonia and valerian at once. May I mix it?" + +"Sir! you mistake me, sir!" + +"Not in the least; you have brought me a challenge from Mr. Trebooze." + +"I have, sir!" said the youth with a grand air, at once relieved by +having the awful words said for him, and exalted by the dignity of his +first, and perhaps last, employment in that line. + +"Well, sir," said Tom deliberately, "Mr. Trebooze does me a kindness +for which I cannot sufficiently thank him, and you also, as his +second. It is full six months since I fought, and I was getting hardly +to know myself again." + +"You will have to fight now, sir!" said the youth, trying to brazen +off by his discourtesy increasing suspicion that he had "caught a +Tartar." + +"Of course, of course. And of course, too, I fight you afterwards." + +"I--I, sir? I am Mr. Trebooze's friend, his second, sir. You do not +seem to understand, sir!" + +"Pardon me, young gentleman," said Tom, in a very quiet, determined +voice; "it is I who have a right to tell you that you do not +understand in such matters as these. I had fought my man, and more +than one of them, while you were eating blackberries in a short +jacket." + +"What do you mean, sir?" quoth the youth in fury; and began swearing a +little. + +"Simple fact. Are you not about twenty-three years old?" + +"What is that to you, sir?" + +"No business of mine, of course. You may be growing into your second +childhood for aught I care: but if, as I guess, you are about +twenty-three, I, as I know, am thirty-six: then I fought my first duel +when you were five years old, and my tenth, I should say, when you +were fifteen; at which time, I suppose, you were not ashamed either of +the jacket or the blackberries." + +"You will find me a man now, sir, at all events," said Creed, justly +wroth at what was, after all, a sophism; for if a man is not a man at +twenty, he never will be one. + +"_Tant mieux_. You know, I suppose, that as the challenged, I have the +choice of weapons?" + +"Of course, sir," said Creed, in an off-hand generous tone, because he +did not very clearly know. + +"Then, sir, I always fight across a handkerchief. You will tell Mr. +Trebooze so; he is, I really believe, a brave man, and will accept the +terms. You will tell yourself the same, whether you be a brave man or +not." + +The youth lost the last words in those which went before them. He was +no coward: would have stood up to be shot at, at fifteen paces, +like any one else; but the deliberate butchery of fighting across a +handkerchief-- + +"Do I understand you, sir?" + +"That depends on whether you are clever enough, or not, to comprehend +your native tongue. Across a handkerchief, I say, do you hear that?" +And Tom rolled on at his pills. + +"I do." + +"And when I have fought him, I fight you!" And the pills rolled +steadily at the same pace. + +"But--sir?--Why--sir?" + +"Because," said Tom, looking him full in the face, "because you, +calling yourself a gentleman, and being, more shame for you, one by +birth, dare to come here, for a foolish vulgar superstition called +honour, to ask me, a quiet medical man, to go and be shot at by a man +whom you know to be a drunken, profligate, blackguard: simply because, +as you know as well as I, I interfered to prevent his insulting a poor +helpless girl: and in so doing, was forced to give him what you, if +you are (as I believe) a gentleman, would have given him also, in my +place." + +"I don't understand you, sir!" said the lad, blushing all the while, +as one honestly conscience-stricken; for Tom had spoken the exact +truth, and he knew it. + +"Don't lie, sir, and tell me that you don't understand; you understand +every word which I have spoken, and you know that it is true." + +"Lie?" + +"Yes, lie. Look you, sir; I have no wish to fight--" + +"You will fight, though, whether you wish it or not," said the youth +with a hysterical laugh, meant to be defiant. + +"But--I can snuff a candle; I can split a bullet on a penknife at +fifteen paces." + +"Do you mean to frighten us by boasting? We shall see what you can do +when you come on the ground." + +"Across a handkerchief: but on no other condition; and, unless you +will accept that condition, I will assuredly, the next time I see you, +be we where we may, treat you as I treated your friend Mr. Trebooze. +I'll do it now! Get out of my shop, sir! What do you want here, +interfering with my honest business?" + +And, to the astonishment of Mr. Trebooze's second, Tom vaulted clean +over the counter, and rushed at him open-mouthed. + +Sacred be the honour of the gallant West country: but, "both being +friends," as Aristotle has it, "it is a sacred duty to speak the +truth." Mr. Creed vanished through the open door. + +"I rid myself of the fellow jollily," said Tom to Frank that day, +after telling him the whole story. + +"And no credit to me. I saw from the minute he came in there was no +fight in him." + +"But suppose he had accepted--or suppose Trebooze accepts still?" + +"There was my game--to frighten him. He'll take care Trebooze shan't +fight, for he knows that he must fight next. He'll go home and patch +the matter up, trust him. Meanwhile, the oaf had not even _savoir +faire_ enough to ask for my second. Lucky for me; for I don't know +where to have found one, save the lieutenant; and though he would +have gone out safe enough, it would have been a bore for the good old +fellow." + +"And," said Prank, utterly taken aback by Tom's business-like levity, +"you would actually have stood to shoot, and be shot at, across a +handkerchief?" + +Tom stuck out his great chin, and looked at him with one of his quaint +sidelong moues. + +"You are my very good friend, sir: but not my father-confessor." + +"I know that: but really--as a mere question of human curiosity--" + +"Oh, if you ask me on the human ground, and not on the sacerdotal, +I'll tell you. I've tried it twice, and I should be sorry to try it +again; though it's a very easy dodge. Keep your right elbow up--up to +your ear--and the moment you hear the word, fire. A high elbow and a +cool heart--that's all; and that wins." + +"Wins? Good heavens? As you are here alive you must have killed your +man?" + +"No. I only shot my men each through the body; and each of them +deserved it: but it is an ugly chance; I should have been sorry to try +it on that yokel. The boy may make a man yet. And what's more," said +Tom, bursting into a great laugh, "he will make a man, and go down +to his fathers in peace, _quant a moi_; and so will that wretched +Trebooze. For I'll bet you my head to a China orange, I hear no more +of this matter; and don't even lose Trebooze's custom." + +"Upon my word, I envy your sanguine temperament!" + +"Mr. Headley, I shall quietly make my call at Trebooze to-morrow, as +if nothing had happened. What will you bet me that I am not received +as usual?" + +"I never bet," said Frank. + +"Then you do well. It is a foolish and a dirty trick; playing with +edge tools, and cutting one's own fingers. Nevertheless, I speak +truth, as you will see." + +"You are a most extraordinary man. All this is so contrary to your +usual caution." + +"When you are driven against the ropes, 'hit out' is the old rule of +Fistiana and common sense. It is an extreme bore: all the more reason +for showing such an ugly front, as to give people no chance of its +happening again. Nothing so dangerous as half-measures, Headley. +'Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,' your creed says. Mine +only translates it into practice." + +"I have no liking for half-measures myself." + +"Did you ever," said Tom, "hear the story of the two Sandhurst +broom-squires?" + +"Broomsquires?" + +"So we call, in Berkshire, squatters on the moor who live by tying +heath into brooms. Two of them met in Reading market once, and fell +out:-- + +"'How ever do you manage to sell your brooms for three halfpence? I +steals the heth, and I steals the binds, and I steals the handles: and +yet I can't afoord to sell 'em under twopence.' + +"Ah, but you see,' says the other, 'I steals mine ready made.' + +"Moral--If you're going to do a thing, do it outright." + +That very evening, Tom came in again. + +"Well; I've been to Trebooze." + +"And fared, how?" + +"Just as I warned you. Inquired into his symptoms; prescribed for his +digestion--if he goes on as he is doing, he will soon have none left +to prescribe for; and, finally, plastered, with a sublime generosity, +the nose which my own knuckles had contused." + +"Impossible! you are the most miraculously impudent of men!" + +"Pish! simple common sense. I knew that Mrs. Trebooze would suspect +that the world had heard of his mishap, and took care to let her know +that I knew, by coming up to inquire for him." + +"_Cui bono?_" + +"Power. To have them, or any one, a little more in my power. Next, +I knew that he dared not fly out at me, for fear I should tell Mrs. +Trebooze what he had been after--you see? Ah, it was delicious to have +the great oaf sitting sulking under my fingers, longing to knock my +head off, and I plastering away, with words of deepest astonishment +and condolence. I verily believe that, before we parted, I had +persuaded him that his black eye proceeded entirely from his having +run up against a tree in the dark." + +"Well," said Frank, half sadly, though enjoying the joke in spite of +himself, "I cannot help thinking it would have been a fit moment for +giving the poor wretch a more solemn lesson." + +"My dear sir,--a good licking--and he had one, and something over--is +the best lesson for that manner of biped. That's the way to school +him: but as we are on lessons, I'll give you a hint." + +"Go on, model of self-sufficiency!" said Frank. + +"Scoff at me if you will, I am proof. But hearken--you mustn't turn +out that schoolmistress. She's an angel, and I know it; and if I say +so of any human being, you may be sure I have pretty good reasons." + +"I am beginning to be of your mind myself," said Frank. + + +END OF VOL. 1. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Two Years Ago, Volume I, by Charles Kingsley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TWO YEARS AGO, VOLUME I *** + +***** This file should be named 10920.txt or 10920.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/2/10920/ + +Produced by Josephine Paolucci and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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