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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Gosslett's Confessions in Love, Law,
+and The Civil Service, by Charles James Lever
+
+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: Paul Gosslett's Confessions in Love, Law, and The Civil Service
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Release Date: February 2, 2011 [EBook #35145]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAUL GOSSLETT'S CONFESSIONS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PAUL GOSSLETT'S CONFESSIONS IN LOVE, LAW, AND THE CIVIL SERVICE
+
+By Charles James Lever
+
+Boston: Little, Brown, And Company.
+
+1906.
+
+
+
+
+MY FIRST MISSION UNDER F. O.
+
+I was walking very sadly across the Green Park one day, my hat pressed
+over my eyes, not looking to right or left, but sauntering slowly along,
+depressed and heavy-hearted, when I felt a friendly arm slip softly
+within my own, while a friendly voice said,--"I think I have got
+something to suit you, for a few months at least. Don't you know
+Italian?"
+
+"In a fashion, I may say I do. I can read the small poets, and chat a
+little. I'll not say much more about my knowledge."
+
+"Quite enough for what I mean. Now tell me another thing. You 're not a
+very timid fellow, I know. Have you any objection to going amongst the
+brigands in Calabria,--on a friendly mission, of course,--where it will
+be their interest to treat you well?"
+
+"Explain yourself a little more freely. What is it I should have to do?"
+
+"Here's the whole affair; the son of a wealthy baronet, a Wiltshire
+M.P., has been captured and carried off by these rascals. They demand
+a heavy sum for his ransom, and give a very short time for the payment.
+Sir Joseph, the youth's father, is very ill, and in such a condition as
+would make any appeal to him highly dangerous; the doctors declare,
+in fact, it would be fatal; and Lady Mary S. has come up to town, in a
+state bordering on distraction, to consult Lord Scatterdale, the Foreign
+Secretary, who is a personal friend of her husband. The result is
+that his Lordship lias decided to pay the money at once; and the only
+question is now to find the man to take it out, and treat with these
+scoundrels."
+
+"That ought not to be a very difficult matter, one would say; there are
+scores of fellows with pluck for such a mission."
+
+"So there are, if pluck were the only requisite; but something more is
+needed. If Sir Joseph should not like to acknowledge the debt,--if, on
+his recovery, he should come to think that the thing might have been
+better managed, less cost incurred, and so on,--the Government will feel
+embarrassed; they can't well quarrel with an old supporter; they can't
+well stick the thing in the estimates; so that, to cover the outlay in
+some decent fashion, they must give it a public-service look before they
+can put it into the Extraordinaries; and so Lord S. has hit upon this
+scheme. You are aware that a great question is now disputed between the
+Bourbonists of Naples and the party of New Italy,--whether brigandage
+means highway robbery, or is the outburst of national enthusiasm in
+favor of the old dynasty. The friends of King Bomba, of course, call it
+a 'La Vendee;' the others laugh at this, and say that the whole affair
+is simply assassination and robbery, and totally destitute of any
+political coloring. Who knows on which side the truth lies, or whether
+some portion of truth does not attach to each of these versions? Now,
+there are, as you said awhile ago, scores of fellows who would have
+pluck enough to treat with the brigands; but there are not so many
+who could be trusted to report of them,--to give a clear and detailed
+account of what he saw of them,--of their organization, their
+sentiments, their ambitions, and their political views, if they have
+any. You are just the man to do this. You have that knack of observation
+and that readiness with your pen which are needed. In fact, you seem to
+me the very fellow to do this creditably."
+
+"Has Lord S. any distinct leanings in the matter?" asked I. "Does he
+incline to regard these men as political adherents, or as assassins,
+_purs et simples?_"
+
+"I see what you mean," said my friend, pinching my arm. "You want to
+know the tone of your employer before you enter his service. You would
+like to be sure of the tints that would please him."
+
+"Perhaps so. I won't go so far as to say it would frame my report,
+but it might serve to tinge it. Now, do you know his proclivities, as
+Jonathan would call them?"
+
+"I believe they are completely with the Italian view of the matter. I
+mean, he will not recognize anything political in these scoundrels."
+
+"I thought as much. Now as to the appointment. Do you think you could
+obtain it for me?"
+
+"You are ready to take it, then?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"And ready to start at once?"
+
+"To-night."
+
+"Come back with me now, and I will inquire if Lord S. will see us. He
+spoke to me yesterday evening on the matter, and somehow your name did
+not occur to me, and I certainly recommended another man,--Hitchins of
+the 'Daily News;' but I am sure he will not have sent for him yet, and
+that we shall be in good time."
+
+As we walked back towards Downing Street, my friend talked on
+incessantly about the advantages I might derive from doing this thing
+creditably. They were sure to make a Blue Book out of my report, and who
+knows if my name would not be mentioned in the House? At all events,
+the newspapers would have it; and the Government would be obliged,--they
+could n't help giving me something. "You'll have proved yourself a man
+of capacity," said he, "and that's enough. S. does like smart fellows
+under him, he is so quick himself; sees a thing with half an eye, and
+reads a man just as he reads a book." He rattled along in this fashion,
+alternately praising the great man, and assuring me that I was
+exactly the sort of fellow to suit him. "He 'll not burden you with
+instructions, but what he tells you will be quite sufficient; he is all
+clearness, conciseness, and accuracy. There's only one caution I have to
+give you,--don't ask him a question, follow closely all he says, and
+never ask him to explain anything that puzzles you. To suppose that he
+has not expressed himself clearly is a dire offence, mind that; and now,
+here we are. Crosby, is my Lord upstairs?" asked he of the porter; and
+receiving a bland nod in reply, he led the way to the Minister's
+cabinet.
+
+"I 'll ask to see him first myself," whispered he, as he sent in his
+card.
+
+Now, though my friend was an M.P., and a stanch supporter of the party,
+he manifested a considerable amount of anxiety and uneasiness when
+waiting for the noble secretary's reply. It came at last.
+
+"Can't possibly see you now, sir. Will meet you at the House at five
+o'clock."
+
+"Will you kindly tell his Lordship I have brought with me the gentleman
+I spoke to him about yesterday evening? He will know for what."
+
+The private secretary retired sullenly, and soon returned to say, "The
+gentleman may come in; my Lord will speak to him."
+
+The next moment I found myself standing in a comfortably furnished room,
+in front of a large writing-table, at which an elderly man with a small
+head, scantily covered with gray hair, was writing. He did not cease his
+occupation as I entered, nor notice me in any manner as I approached,
+but went on repeating to himself certain words as he wrote them; and at
+last, laying down his pen, said aloud, with a faint chuckle, "and your
+Excellency may digest it how you can."
+
+I gave a very slight cough. He looked up, stared at me, arose, and,
+walking to the fire, stood with his back to it for a couple of seconds
+without speaking. I could see that he had some difficulty in dismissing
+the topic which had just occupied him, and was only arriving at me by
+very slow stages and heavy roads.
+
+"Eh!" said he, at last; "you are the man of the paper. Not the 'Times
+'--but the--the--what's it?"
+
+"No, my Lord. I'm the other man," said I, quietly.
+
+"Ah, you 're the other man." And as he spoke, he hung his head, and
+seemed hopelessly lost in thought. "Have you seen Mr. Hammil?" asked he.
+
+"No, my Lord."
+
+"You must see Mr. Hammil. Till you see Mr. Hammil, you need n't come to
+me."
+
+"Very well, my Lord," said I, moving towards the door.
+
+"Wait a moment. You know Italy well, I am told. Do you know Cavour?"
+
+"No, my Lord," said I.
+
+"Ah! They say he over-eats; have you heard that?"
+
+"I can't say that I have, my Lord; but my acquaintance with Italy and
+with Italians is very slight, indeed."
+
+"Why did they recommend you, then, for this affair? I told Gresson that
+I wanted a man who could have ready access to their public men, who knew
+Balbi, Gino Capponi, Ricasoli, and the rest of them. Now, sir, how is it
+possible, without intimacy with these men and their opinions, that you
+could write such leading articles as I suggested in, their papers? How
+could you ever get admission to the columns of the 'Opinione' and the
+'Perseveranza,' eh? Answer me that."
+
+"I am afraid, my Lord, there is some grave misunderstanding here. I
+never dreamed of proposing myself for such a difficult task. I came here
+on a totally different mission. It was to take your Lordship's orders
+about the ransom and rescue of a young Englishman who has been captured
+by the brigands in Southern Italy--"
+
+"That scamp, St. John. A very different business, indeed. Why, sir, they
+value him at one thousand pounds, and I 'll venture to assert that his
+friends--if that be the name of the people who know him--would call him
+a dear bargain at twenty. I'm certain his own father would say so; but,
+poor fellow, he is very ill, and can't talk on this or any other matter
+just now. Lady Mary, however, insists on his release, and we must see
+what can be done. You know the habits and ways of these rascals,--these
+brigands,--don't you?"
+
+"No, my Lord; nothing whatever about them."
+
+"Then, in Heaven's name, sir, what do you know?"
+
+"Very little about anything, my Lord, I must confess; but as I am
+sorely pushed to find a livelihood, and don't fancy being a burden to
+my friends, I told Mr. Gresson, this morning, that I was quite ready to
+undertake the mission if I should be intrusted with it; and that, so far
+as bail or security went, my uncle Rankin, of Rankin and Bates, would
+unquestionably afford it."
+
+"Ah, this is very different, indeed," said he, ponderingly, and with a
+look of compassionate interest I had not thought his face capable of.
+"Gone too fast, perhaps; have been hit hard at Doncaster or Goodwood?"
+
+"No, my Lord; I never betted. I started with a few thousand pounds and
+lost them in a speculation."
+
+"Well, well. I have no right to enter into these things. Go and see Mr.
+Temple, the financial clerk. Take this to him, and see what he says to
+you. If he is satisfied, come down to the House to-night. But stay! You
+ought to start this evening, oughtn't you?"
+
+"I believe, my Lord, the time is very short. They require the money to
+be paid by the twelfth."
+
+"Or they'll cut his ears off, I suppose," said he, laughing. "Well, he's
+an ugly dog already; not that cropping will improve him. Here, take this
+to Temple, and arrange the matter between you."
+
+And he hurriedly wrote half a dozen lines, which he enclosed and
+addressed, and then returning to his seat, said, "_Bonne chance!_ I wish
+you success and a pleasant journey."
+
+I will not dwell upon the much longer and more commonplace interview
+that followed. Mr. Temple knew all about me,--knew my uncle, and
+knew the whole story of my misfortunes. He was not, however, the less
+cautious in every step he took; and as the sum to be intrusted to me
+was so large, he filled in a short bail-bond, and, while I sat with him,
+despatched it by one of his clerks to Lombard Street, for my uncle's
+signature. This came in due time; and, furnished with instructions how
+to draw on the Paymaster-General, some current directions how to proceed
+till I presented myself at the Legation at Naples, and a sum sufficient
+for the travelling expenses, I left London that night for Calais, and
+began my journey. If I was very anxious to acquit myself creditably in
+this my first employment in the public service, and to exhibit an
+amount of zeal, tact, and discretion that might recommend me for future
+employment, I was still not indifferent to the delights of a journey
+paid for at the Queen's expense, and which exacted from me none of those
+petty economies which mar the perfect enjoyment of travelling.
+
+If I suffer myself to dwell on this part of my history, I shall be
+ruined, for I shall never get on; and you will, besides, inevitably--and
+as unjustly as inevitably--set me down for a snob.
+
+I arrived at Naples at last. It was just as the day was closing in, but
+there was still light enough to see the glorious bay and the outline of
+Vesuvius in the background. I was, however, too full of my mission
+now to suffer my thoughts to wander to the picturesque, and so I made
+straight for the Legation.
+
+I had been told that I should receive my last instructions from H.M.'s
+Minister, and it was a certain Sir James Magruber that then held that
+office at Naples. I know so very little of people in his peculiar walk,
+that I can only hope he may not be a fair sample of his order; for he
+was the roughest, the rudest, and most uncourteous gentleman it has ever
+been my fortune to meet.
+
+He was dressing for dinner when I sent up my card, and at once ordered
+that I should be shown up to his room.
+
+"Where's your bag?" cried he, roughly, as I entered.
+
+Conceiving that this referred to my personal luggage, and was meant as
+the preliminary to inviting me to put up at his house, I said that I had
+left my "traps" at the hotel, and, with his permission, would install
+myself there for the few hours of my stay.
+
+"Confound your 'traps,' as you call them," said he. "I meant your
+despatches,--the bag from F. O. Ain't you the messenger?"
+
+"No, sir; I am not the messenger," said I, haughtily.
+
+"And what the devil do you mean, then, by sending me your card, and
+asking to see me at once?"
+
+"Because my business is peremptory, sir," said I, boldly, and proceeded
+at once to explain who I was and what I had come for. "To-morrow will
+be the tenth, sir," said I, "and I ought to be at Rocco d'Anco by the
+morning of the twelfth, at farthest."
+
+He was brushing his hair all the time I was speaking, and I don't think
+that he heard above half of what I said.
+
+"And do you mean to tell me they are such infernal fools at F.O. that
+they 're going to pay one thousand pounds sterling to liberate this
+scamp St. John?"
+
+"I think, sir, you will find that I have been sent out with this object"
+
+"Why, it's downright insanity! It is a thousand pities they had n't
+caught the fellow years ago. Are you aware that there's scarcely a crime
+in the statute-book he has not committed? I'd not say murder wasn't
+amongst them. Why, sir, he cheated me,--me,--the man who now speaks
+to you,--at billiards. He greased my cue, sir. It was proved,--proved
+beyond the shadow of a doubt. The fellow called it a practical joke,
+but he forgot I had five ducats on the game; and he had the barefaced
+insolence to amuse Naples by a representation of me as I sided my ball,
+and knocked the marker down afterwards, thinking it was his fault. He
+was attached, this St. John was, to my mission here at the time; but I
+wrote home to demand--not to ask, but demand--his recall. His father's
+vote was, however, of consequence to the Government, and they refused
+me. Yes, sir, they refused me; they told me to give him a leave of
+absence if I did not like to see him at the Legation; and I gave it,
+sir. And, thank Heaven, the fellow went into Calabria, and fell into the
+hands of the brigands,--too good company for him, I 'm certain. I 'll be
+shot if he could n't corrupt them; and now you 're come out here to pay
+a ransom for a fellow that any other country but England would send to
+the galleys."
+
+"Has he done nothing worse, sir," asked I, timidly, "than this stupid
+practical joke?"
+
+"What, sir, have you the face to put this question to me,--to H.M.'s
+Minister at this court,--the subject of this knavish buffoonery? Am I
+a fit subject for a fraud,--a--a freedom, sir? Is it to a house which
+displays the royal arms over the entrance-door men come to play blackleg
+or clown? Where have you lived, with whom have you lived, what pursuit
+in life have you followed, that you should be sunk in such utter
+ignorance of all the habits of life and civilization?"
+
+I replied that I was a gentleman, I trusted as well educated, and I knew
+as well-born, as himself.
+
+He sprang to the bell as I said this, and rang on till the room was
+crowded with servants, who came rushing in under the belief that it was
+a fire-alarm.
+
+"Take him away,--put him out--Giacomo,--Hippo-lyte,--Francis!" screamed
+he. "See that he's out of the house this instant. Send Mr. Carlyon here.
+Let the police be called, and order gendarmes if he resists."
+
+While he was thus frothing and foaming, I took my hat, and, passing
+quietly through the ranks of his household, descended the stairs, and
+proceeded into the street.
+
+I reached the "Vittoria" in no bland humor. I must own that I was
+flurried and irritated in no common degree. I was too much excited to
+be able, clearly, to decide how far the insult I had received required
+explanation and apology, or if it had passed the limits in which apology
+is still possible.
+
+Perhaps, thought I, if I call him out, he 'll hand me over to the
+police; perhaps he 'll have me sent over the frontier. Who knows what
+may be the limit to a minister's power? While I was thus speculating and
+canvassing with myself, a card was presented to me by the waiter,--"Mr.
+Sponnington, Attache, H.M.'s Legation, Naples,"--and as suddenly the
+owner of it entered the room.
+
+He was a fair-faced, blue-eyed young man, very shortsighted, with a
+faint lisp and an effeminate air. He bowed slightly as he came forward,
+and said, "You 're Mr. Goss-lett, ain't you?" And not waiting for any
+reply, he sat down and opened a roll of papers on the table. "Here are
+your instructions. You are to follow them when you can, you know, and
+diverge from them whenever you must. That is, do whatever you like,
+and take the consequences. Sir James won't see you again. He says you
+insulted him; but he says that of almost every one. The cook insults him
+when the soup is too salt, and I insulted him last week by writing with
+pale ink. But you 'd have done better if you 'd got on well with him. He
+writes home,--do you understand?--he writes home."
+
+"So do most people," I said dryly.
+
+"Ah! but not the way he does. He writes home and has a fellow
+black-listed. Two crosses against you sends you to Greece, and three is
+ruin! Three means the United States."
+
+"I assure you, sir, that as regards myself, your chief's good opinion or
+good word are matters of supreme indifference."
+
+Had I uttered an outrageous blasphemy, he could not have looked at me
+with greater horror.
+
+"Well," said he, at last, "there it is; read it over. Bolton will cash
+your bills, and give you gold. You must have gold; they 'll not take
+anything else. I don't believe there is much more to say."
+
+"Were you acquainted with Mr. St. John?" asked I.
+
+"I should think I was. Rodney St John and I joined together."
+
+"And what sort of a fellow is he? Is he such a scamp as his chief
+describes?"
+
+"He's fast, if you mean that; but we 're all fast."
+
+"Indeed!" said I, measuring him with a look, and thinking to compute the
+amount of his colleague's iniquity.
+
+"But he's not worse than Stormont, or Mosely, or myself; only he's
+louder than we are. He must always be doing something no other fellow
+ever thought of. Don't you know the kind of thing I mean? He wants to be
+original. Bad style that, very. That 's the way he got into this scrape.
+He made a bet he 'd go up to Rocco d'Anco, and pass a week with Stoppa,
+the brigand,--the cruellest dog in Calabria. He didn't say when he'd
+come back again, though; and there he is still, and Stoppa sent one of
+his fellows to drop a letter into the Legation, demanding twenty-five
+thousand francs for his release, or saying that his ears, nose, &c, will
+be sent on by instalments during the month. Ugly, ain't it?"
+
+"I trust I shall be in time to save him. I suspect he's a good fellow."
+
+"Yes, I suppose he is," said he, with an air of uneasiness; "only I 'd
+not go up there, where you 're going, for a trifle, I tell you that."
+
+"Perhaps not," said I, quietly.
+
+"For," resumed he, "when Stoppa sees that you're a nobody, and not worth
+a ransom, he 'd as soon shoot you as look at you." And this thought
+seemed to amuse him so much that he laughed at it as he quitted the room
+and descended the stairs, and I even heard him cackling over it in the
+street.
+
+Before I went to bed that night I studied the map of Calabria
+thoroughly, and saw that by taking the diligence to Atri the next day I
+should reach Valdenone by about four o'clock, from which a guide could
+conduct me to Rocco d'Anco,--a mountain walk of about sixteen miles,--a
+feat which my pedestrian habits made me fully equal to. If the young
+attache's attempt to terrorize over me was not a perfect success, I am
+free to own that my enterprise appeared to me a more daring exploit than
+I had believed it when I thought of it in Piccadilly. It was not merely
+that I was nearer to the peril, but everything conspired to make me more
+sensible to the danger. The very map, where a large tract was marked
+"little known," suggested a terror of its own; and I fell asleep, at
+last, to dream of every wild incident of brigand life I had seen in
+pictures or witnessed on the stage.
+
+As that bland young gentleman so candidly told me, "I was a nobody,"
+and, consequently, of no interest to any one. Who would think of sending
+out an express messenger to ransom Paul Gosslett? At all events, I could
+console myself with the thought that if the world would give little
+for me, it would grieve even less; and with this not very cheering
+consolation I mounted to the banquette of the diligence, and started.
+
+After passing through a long, straggling suburb, not remarkable for
+anything but its squalor and poverty, we reached the seashore, and
+continued to skirt the bay for miles. I had no conception of anything
+so beautiful as the great sheet of blue water seen in the freshness of
+a glorious sunrise, with the white-sailed lateener skimming silently
+along, and reflected, as if in a mirror, on the unruffled surface. There
+was a peaceful beauty in all around, that was a positive enchantment,
+and the rich odors of the orange and the verbena filled the air almost
+to a sense of delicious stupefaction. Over and over did I say to
+myself, "Why cannot this delicious dream be prolonged for a lifetime? If
+existence could but perpetuate such a scene as this, let me travel along
+the shore of such a sea, overshadowed by the citron and the vine,--I ask
+for no more." The courier or conductor was my only companion,--an old
+soldier of the first empire, who had fought on the Beresina and in
+Spain,--a rough old sabreur, not to be appeased by my best cigars and my
+brandy-flask into a good word for the English. He hated them formerly,
+and he hated them still. There might be, he was willing to believe,
+one or two of the nation that were not cani; but he had n't met them
+himself, nor did he know any one who had. I relished his savagery, and
+somehow never felt in the slightest degree baffled or amazed by his
+rudeness. I asked him if he had heard of that unlucky countryman of mine
+who had been captured by the brigands, and he said that he had heard
+that Stoppa meant to roast him alive; for that Stoppa did n't like the
+English,--a rather strong mode of expressing a national antipathy, but
+one, on the whole, he did not entirely disapprove of.
+
+"Stoppa, however," said I, assuming as a fact what I meant for a
+question,--"Stoppa is a man of his word. If he offered to take a ransom,
+he'll keep his promise?"
+
+"That he will, if the money is paid down in zecchin gold. He 'll take
+nothing else. He 'll give up the man; but I 'd not fancy being the
+fellow who brought the ransom if there was a light piece in the mass."
+
+"He 'd surely respect the messenger who carried the money?"
+
+"Just as much as I respect that old mare who won't come up to her
+collar;" and he snatched the whip, as he spoke, from the driver, and
+laid a heavy lash over the sluggish beast's loins. "Look here," said
+he to me, as we parted company at Corallo, "you 're not bad,--for an
+Englishman, at least,---and I 'd rather you did n't come to trouble.
+Don't you get any further into these mountains than St. Andrea, and
+don't stay, even there, too long. Don't go in Stoppa's way; for if you
+have money, he 'll cut your throat for it, and if you have n't, he
+'ll smash your skull for being without it. I 'll be on the way back
+to Naples on Saturday; and if you'll take a friend's advice, you'll be
+beside me."
+
+I was not sorry to get away from my old grumbling companion; but his
+words of warning went with me in the long evening's drive up to
+St. Andrea, a wild mountain road, over which I jogged in a very
+uncomfortable barroccino.
+
+Was I really rushing into such peril as he described? And if so, why so?
+I could scarcely affect to believe that any motives of humanity moved
+me; still less, any sense of personal regard or attachment. I had never
+known--not even seen--Mr. St. John. In what I had heard of him there was
+nothing that interested me. It was true that I expected to be rewarded
+for my services; but if there was actual danger in what I was about to
+do, what recompense would be sufficient? And was it likely that this
+consideration would weigh heavily on the minds of those who employed me?
+Then, again, this narrative, or report, or whatever it was, how was I
+to find the material for it? Was it to be imagined that I was to
+familiarize myself with brigand life by living amongst these rascals,
+so as to be able to make a Blue Book about them? Was it believed that
+I could go to them, like a census commissioner, and ask their names and
+ages, how long they had been in their present line of life, and how
+they throve on it? I'll not harass myself more about them, thought I, at
+last. I 'll describe my brigand as I find him. The fellow who comes to
+meet me for the money shall be the class. "Ex pede Herculem" shall serve
+one here, and I have no doubt I shall be as accurate as the others who
+contribute to this sort of literature.
+
+I arrived at St. Andrea as the Angelus was ringing, and saw that pretty
+sight of a whole village on their knees at evening prayer, which would
+have been prettier had not the devotees been impressed with the most
+rascally countenances I ever beheld.
+
+From St. Andrea to Rocco was a walk of seventeen miles, but I was not
+sorry to exchange the wearisome barroccino I had been jolting in for the
+last six hours, for my feet; and after a light meal of bread and onions,
+washed down with a very muddy imitation of vinegar, I set forth with
+a guide for my destination. There was not much companionship in my
+conductor, who spoke a patois totally unintelligible to me, and who
+could only comprehend by signs. His own pantomime, however, conveyed to
+me that we were approaching the brigand region, and certain significant
+gestures about his throat and heart intimated to me that sudden death
+was no unusual casualty in these parts. An occasional rude cross erected
+on the roadside, or a painted memorial on the face of a rock, would also
+attest some bygone disaster, at the sight of which he invariably knelt
+and uttered a prayer, on rising from which he seemed to me, each time,
+but half decided whether he would accompany me farther.
+
+At last, after a four hours' hard walk, we gained the crest of a
+mountain ridge, from which the descent seemed nearly precipitous, and
+here my companion showed me, by the faint moonlight, a small heap of
+stones, in the midst of which a stake was placed upright; he muttered
+some words in a very low tone, and held up eight fingers, possibly to
+convey that eight people had been murdered or buried in that place.
+Whatever the idea, one thing was certain,--he would go no farther. He
+pointed to the zigzag path I was to follow, and stretched out his hand
+to show me, as I supposed, where Rocco lay, and then unslinging from his
+shoulder the light carpet-bag he had hitherto carried for me, he held
+out his palm for payment.
+
+I resolutely refused, however, to accept his resignation, and ordered
+him, by a gesture, to resume his load and march on; but the fellow shook
+his head doggedly, and pointed with one finger to the open palm of the
+other hand. The gesture was defiant and insolent; and as we were man to
+man, I felt it would be an ignominy to submit to him, so I again
+showed signs of refusal, and pointed to the bag. At this he drew a
+long thin-bladed knife from his garter; but, as quickly, I pulled out a
+revolver from my breast-pocket. The fellow's sharp ear caught the click
+of the lock, and, with a spring, he darted over the low parapet and
+disappeared. I never saw him more.
+
+A cold sweat broke over me as I took up my burden and resumed my way.
+There was but one path, so that I could not hesitate as to the road; but
+I own that I began that descent with a heart-sinking and a terror that
+I have no words to convey. That the fellow would spring out upon me at
+some turn of the way seemed so certain that at each sharp angle I halted
+and drew breath for the struggle I thought was coming. My progress was
+thus much retarded, and my fatigue greatly increased. The day broke at
+last, but found me still plodding on in a dense pine-wood which clothed
+the lower sides of the mountain. In addition to my carpet-bag I had
+the heavy belt in which the gold pieces were secured, and the weight of
+which became almost insupportable.
+
+What inconceivable folly had ever involved me in such an adventure? How
+could I have been so weak as to accept such a mission? Here was I, more
+than a thousand miles away from home, alone, on foot in the midst of a
+mountain tract, the chosen resort of the worst assassins of Europe, and,
+as if to insure my ruin, with a large sum in gold on my person. What
+could my friend have meant by proposing the enterprise to me? Did he
+imagine the mountain-paths of the Basilicata were like Pall Mall? or did
+he,--and this seemed more likely,--did he deem that the man who had
+so little to live for must, necessarily, care less for life? If I must
+enter the public service, thought I, at the peril of my neck, better to
+turn to some other means of living. Then I grew sardonic and malicious,
+declaring to myself how like a rich man it was to offer such an
+employment to a poor man, as though, when existence had so little to
+charm, one could not hold to it with any eagerness. The people, muttered
+I, who throw these things to us so contemptuously are careful enough of
+themselves. You never find one of them risk his life, no, nor even peril
+his health, in any enterprise.
+
+As the sun shone out and lit up a magnificent landscape beneath me,
+where, in the midst of a wooded plain, a beautiful lake lay stretched
+out, dotted over with little islands, I grew in better humor with
+myself and with the world at large. It was certainly very lovely. The
+snow-peaks of the Abruzzi could be seen, here and there, topping the
+clouds, which floated lightly up from the low-lying lands of the valley.
+Often and often had I walked miles and miles to see a scene not fit to
+be compared with this. If I had only brought my colors with me, what a
+bit of landscape I might have carried away! The pencil could do nothing
+where so much depended on tint and glow. A thin line of blue smoke rose
+above the trees near the lake, and this I guessed to proceed from the
+village of Rocco d'Anco. I plucked up my courage at the sight, and again
+set forth, weary and footsore, it is true, but in a cheerier, heartier
+spirit than before.
+
+Four hours' walking, occasionally halting for a little rest, brought me
+to Rocco, a village of about twenty houses, straggling up the side of
+a vine-clad hill, the crest of which was occupied by a church. The
+population were all seated at their doors, it being some festa, and
+were, I am bound to admit, about as ill-favored a set as one would wish
+to see. In the aspect of the men, and, indeed, still more in that of the
+women, one could at once recognize the place as a brigand resort. There
+were, in the midst of all the signs of squalor and poverty, rich scarfs
+and costly shawls to be seen; while some of the very poorest wore gold
+chains round their necks, and carried handsomely ornamented pistols and
+daggers at their waist-belts. I may as well mention here, not to let
+these worthy people be longer under a severe aspersion than needful,
+that they were not themselves brigands, but simply the friends and
+partisans of the gangs, who sold them the different spoils of which they
+had divested the travellers. The village was, in fact, little else than
+the receptacle of stolen goods until opportunity offered to sell them
+elsewhere. I had been directed to put up at a little inn kept by an
+ex-friar who went by the name of Fra Bartolo, and I soon found the place
+a very pleasant contrast, in its neatness and comfort, to the dirt
+and wretchedness around it. The Frate, too, was a fine, jovial,
+hearty-looking fellow, with far more the air of a Sussex farmer in his
+appearance than a Calabrian peasant. He set me at ease at once by saying
+that, of course, I came for the fishing, and added that the lake was
+in prime order and the fish plenty. This was said with such palpable
+roguery that I saw it was meant for the bystanders, and knew, at once,
+he had been prepared for my arrival and expected me. I was, however,
+more in need of rest and refreshment than of conversation, and, after
+a hearty but hurried meal, I turned in and fell off to sleep as I had
+never slept before. Twice or thrice I had a faint consciousness that
+attempts were made to awaken me, and once, that a candle was held close
+to my eyes; but these were very confused and indistinct sensations, and
+my stupor soon conquered them.
+
+"That 's pretty well for a nap. Just nine hours of it," said the Frate,
+as he jogged my shoulder, and insisted on arousing me.
+
+"I was so tired," said I, stretching myself, and half turning to the
+wall for another bout.
+
+"No, no; you mustn't go to sleep again," said he, bending over me. "He's
+come;" and he made a gesture with his thumb towards an adjoining room.
+"He's been there above an hour."
+
+"Do you mean--"
+
+"Hush!" he said cautiously. "We name no names here. Get up and see him;
+he never likes loitering down in these places. One can't be sure of
+everybody in this world." And here he threw up his eyes, and seemed for
+a moment overwhelmed at the thought of human frailty and corruption.
+
+"He is expecting me, then?" said I.
+
+"Very impatiently, sir. He wanted to arouse you when he arrived, and he
+has been twice in here to see if you were really asleep."
+
+Something like a thrill ran through me to think that, as I lay there,
+this brigand, this man of crimes and bloodshed,--for, of course, he was
+such--had stood by my bedside, and bent over me. The Frate, however,
+urging me to activity, left me no time for these reflections, and I
+arose quickly, and followed him. I was eager to know what manner of man
+it was to whom I was about to make my approach; but I was hurried along
+a passage, and half pushed into a room, and the door closed behind me,
+before I had time for a word.
+
+On a low settle-bed, just in front of me, as I entered, a man lay,
+smoking a short meerschaum, whose dress and get up, bating some signs of
+wear and ill-usage, would have made the fortune of a small theatre. His
+tall hat was wreathed with white roses, from the midst of which a tall
+feather, spray-like and light, stood up straight. His jacket of bright
+green, thrown open wide, displayed a scarlet waistcoat perfectly loaded
+with gold braiding. Leather breeches, ending above the knee, showed the
+great massive limb beneath to full advantage; while the laced stocking
+that came up to the calf served, on one side, as belt for a stiletto
+whose handle was entirely incrusted with precious stones. "You are a
+good sleeper, Signor Inglese," said he, in a pleasant, richly toned
+voice, "and I feel sorry to have disturbed you." This speech was
+delivered with all the ease and courtesy of a man accustomed to the
+world. "You may imagine, however, that I cannot well delay in places
+like this. Rocco, I believe, is very friendly to me; but where there are
+three hundred people there may easily be three traitors."
+
+I assented, and added that from what Fra Bartolo had told me, neither he
+nor his had much to fear in those parts.
+
+"I believe so, too," added he, caressing his immense mustache, which
+came down far below his chin on either side. "We have, between us, the
+best bond of all true friendship,--we need each other. You have brought
+the ransom in gold, I hope?"
+
+"Yes; in gold of the English mint, too."
+
+"I 'd rather have our own. The zecchin has less alloy than your coin,
+and as what we take generally goes into the crucible, the distinction is
+of value."
+
+"If I had only known--"
+
+"Never mind. It is too late, now, to think of it. Let us conclude the
+matter, for I wish to be away by daybreak."
+
+I unfastened my waist-belt, and, opening a secret spring, poured forth a
+mass of bright sovereigns on the table.
+
+"I have such perfect reliance in your honor, signor," said I, "that I
+make no conditions, I ask no questions. That you will at once release my
+countryman, I do not doubt for an instant."
+
+"He is already at liberty," said he, as he continued to pile the coin
+in little heaps of ten each. "Every step you took since you arrived
+at Naples was known to me. I knew the moment you came, the hotel you
+stopped at, the visit you paid to your minister, the two hours passed
+in the Bank, your departure in the diligence; and the rascal you engaged
+for a guide came straight to me after he left you. My police, _signor
+mio_, is somewhat better organized than Count Cavour's," said he, with a
+laugh.
+
+The mention of the Count's name reminded me at once to sound him on
+politics, and see if he, and others like him, in reality interested
+themselves as partisans on either side.
+
+"Of course," said he, "we liked the old dynasty better than the present
+people. A splendid court and a brilliant capital attracted strangers
+from all quarters of Europe. Strangers visited Capri, Amalfi, Paestum;
+they went here and there and everywhere. And they paid for their
+pleasures like gentlemen. The officials, too, of those days were men
+with bowels, who knew every one must live. What have we now? Piedmontese
+dogs, who are not Italians; who speak no known tongue, and who have no
+other worship than the house of Savoy."
+
+"Might I venture to ask," said I, obsequiously, "how is it that I find a
+man of your acquirements and ability in such a position as this?"
+
+"Because I like this life better than that of an 'Impiegato' with
+five hundred ducats a year! Perhaps I don't follow it all from choice.
+Perhaps I have my days of regrets, and such like. But for that, are you
+yourself so rightly fitted in life--I ask at random--that you feel you
+are doing the exact thing that suits you? Can you say, as you rise of a
+morning, 'I was cut out for this kind of existence,--I am exactly where
+I ought to be'?"
+
+I shook my head in negative, and for some seconds nothing was said on
+either side.
+
+"The score is all right," said he, at last. "Do you know,"--here he gave
+a very peculiar smile; indeed, his face, so far as I could see,
+beneath the shadow of his hat and his bushy beard, actually assumed an
+expression of intense drollery,--"do you know, I begin to think we have
+made a bad bargain here!"
+
+"How so?" asked I.
+
+"I begin to suspect," said he, "that our prisoner was worth a much
+heavier ransom, and that his friends would willingly have paid four
+times this sum for him."
+
+"You are entirely mistaken there," said I. "It is the astonishment of
+every one that he has been ransomed at all. He is a good-for-nothing
+spendthrift fellow, whom most families would be heartily glad to be rid
+of; and so far from being worth a thousand pounds, I believe nine out of
+ten parents would n't have paid as many shillings for him."
+
+"We all liked him," said he. "We found him pleasant company; and he fell
+into all our ways like one of ourselves."
+
+"A scamp was sure to do that easier than an honest man," said I,
+forgetting, in my eagerness, how rude my speech was.
+
+"Perhaps there is truth in what you say, sir," said he, haughtily.
+"Communities like ours scarcely invite men of unblemished morals, and
+therefore I do not ask you to return with me."
+
+He arose as he spoke, and swept the coin into a bag which he wore at
+his side. Still, thought I, he might tell me something more about
+these brigands. Are they partisans of the Bourbons, or are they mere
+highwaymen? Here is a man fully equal to the discussion of such a
+question. Shall I ask him to decide the matter?
+
+"I see," said he, laughing, as I propounded my mystery; "you want to
+make a book about us. But our people don't understand that sort of
+curiosity; they distrust, and they occasionally resent it. Stay a week
+or ten days where you are. Fra Bartolo will feed you better than we
+should, and cram you with brigand stories better still. You 'll find
+it far pleasanter, and your readers will think so too. Addio;" and he
+touched his hat in a half-haughty way, and strolled out. I sat down for
+an instant to recover myself, when the quick clatter of a horse's feet
+aroused me, and he was gone.
+
+There was no doubt of it; he was a very remarkable man,--one who in
+happier circumstances might have made a figure in life, and achieved a
+conspicuous position. Who was he; whence came he? The Frate could tell
+me all these things. As the robber said, he could cram me admirably.
+I arranged at once to stay a week there. My week was prolonged to a
+fortnight, and I was well into the third week ere I shook his great hand
+and said good-bye.
+
+During all this I wrote, I may say, from morning till night. At one
+time it was my Blue Book; at another I took a spell at stories of robber
+life. I wrote short poems,--songs of the brigands I called them. In
+fact, I dished up my highwayman in a score of ways, and found him good
+in all. The portmanteau which I had brought out full of gold I now
+carried back more closely packed with MSS. I hurried to England, only
+stopping once to call at the Legation, and learn that Mr. St. John had
+returned to his post, and was then hard at work in the Chancellerie.
+When I arrived in London, my report was ready; but as the ministry had
+fallen the week before, I was obliged to rewrite it, every word. Lord
+Muddlemore had succeeded my patron, Lord Scatterdale; and as he was a
+strong Tory, the brigands must be Bourbons for him; and they were so. I
+had lived amongst them for months, and had eaten of their raw lamb
+and drunk of their fiery wine, and pledged toasts to the health of
+Francesco, and "Morte" to everybody else. What splendid fellows I made
+them! Every chief was a La Rochejaquelin; and as for the little bit of
+robbery they did now and then, it was only to pay for masses for their
+souls when they were shot by the Bersaglieri. My Blue Book was printed,
+quoted by the "Times," cited in the House; I was called "the intrepid
+and intelligent witness" by Disraeli; and I was the rage. Dinners fell
+in showers over me, and invitations to country-houses came by every
+post. Almost worn out by these flatteries, I was resolving on a course
+of abstinence, when a most pressing invitation came to a country
+gathering where Mr. St. John was to be of the party. I had never
+met him, and, indeed, was rather irritated at the ingratitude he had
+displayed in never once acknowledging, even by a few lines, the great
+service I had rendered him. Still I was curious to see a man whose
+figure occupied so important a place in my life's tableau.
+
+I went; but St. John had not arrived,--he was detained by important
+affairs in town, and feared he should not be able to keep his promise.
+For myself, perhaps, it was all the better. I had the whole field my
+own, and discoursed brigandage without the fear of a contradiction.
+
+A favorite representation with me was my first night at Rocco. I used
+to give it with considerable success. I described the village and the
+Frate, and then went on to my first sight of the renowned chief himself;
+for, of course, I never hesitated to call in Stoppa, any more than
+to impart to his conversation a much higher and wider reach than it
+actually had any claim to.
+
+My "Stoppa" was pronounced admirable. I lounged, smoked, gesticulated,
+and declaimed him to perfection. I made him something between William
+Tell and the Corsican brothers; and nervous people would n't have seen
+him, I ween, for worlds.
+
+On the occasion that I speak of, the company was a large one, and I
+outdid myself in my pains to succeed. I even brought down with me the
+identical portmanteau, and actually appeared in the veritable hat and
+coat of the original adventure.
+
+My audience was an excellent one; they laughed where I was droll, and
+positively shrieked where I became pathetic. I had sent round little
+water-colors of the scenery, and was now proceeding to describe the inn
+of the Frate, and my first arrival there.
+
+"I will not affect to declare," said I, "that it was altogether without
+some sense of anxiety--I might even say fear--that I approached the room
+where this man of crime and bloodshed awaited me. Stoppa! a name
+that brought terror wherever it was uttered, the word that called the
+soldiers to arms from the bivouac, and silenced the babe as it sobbed on
+its mother's breast. I entered the room, however, boldly, and, advancing
+to the bed where he lay, said in a careless tone, 'Capitano,'--they like
+the title,--'Capitano, how goes it?'"
+
+Just as I uttered the words, a heavy hand fell on my shoulder! I turned,
+and there, there at my side, stood Stoppa himself, dressed exactly as I
+saw him at Rocco.
+
+Whether it was the terrible look of the fellow, or some unknown sense
+of fear that his presence revived, or whether it was a terror lest my
+senses were deceiving me, and that a wandering brain alone had conjured
+up the image, I cannot say; but I fainted, and was carried senseless and
+unconscious to my room. A doctor was sent for, and said something about
+"meningitis." "I had overworked my brain, overstrained my faculties, and
+so forth;" with rest and repose, however, I should get over the attack.
+I had a sharp attack, but in about a week was able to get up again. As
+all were enjoined to avoid strictly any reference to the topic which it
+was believed had led to my seizure, and as I myself did not venture to
+approach it, days passed over with me in a half-dreamy state, my mind
+continually dwelling on the late incident, and striving to find out some
+explanation of it.
+
+"Mr. St. John, sir, wishes to pay you a visit," said the servant one
+morning, as I had just finished my breakfast; and as the man retired,
+St. John entered the room.
+
+"I am sorry I gave you such a start the other evening," he began. But I
+could not suffer him to proceed; for, clutching him by the arm, I cried
+out, "For Heaven's sake, don't trifle with a brain so distracted as
+mine, but tell me at once, are you--"
+
+"Of course I am," said he, laughing. "You don't fancy, do you, that you
+are the only man with a gift for humbug?"
+
+"And it was to you I paid the ransom?" gasped I out.
+
+"Who had a better right to it, old fellow? Tell me that," said he, as he
+drew forth a cigar and lighted it. "You see, the matter was thus: I
+had lost very heavily at 'Baccarat' at the club; and having already
+overdrawn my allowance, I was sorely put to. My chief had no great
+affection for me, and had intimated to the banker that, if I wanted
+an advance, it would be as well to refuse me. In a word, I found every
+earth stopped, and was driven to my wits' end. I thought I 'd turn
+brigand,--indeed, if the occasion had offered, perhaps I should,--and
+then I thought I 'd get myself captured by the brigands. No man could
+complain of a fellow being a defaulter if he had been carried off by
+robbers. With this intention I set out for Rocco, which had got the
+reputation of being a spot in favor with these gentry; but, to my
+surprise, on arriving there, I discovered Rocco was out of fashion. No
+brigand had patronized the place for the last three years or more, and
+the landlord of the White Fox told me that the village was going fast
+to decay. The Basilicata, in fact, was no longer 'the mode;' and
+every brigand who had any sense of dignity had betaken himself to
+the mountains below Atri. Fra Bartolo's account of Stoppa was not so
+encouraging that I cared to follow him there. He had taken a fancy, of
+late, for sending the noses as well as the ears of the captives to
+their friends at Naples, and I shrank from contributing my share to this
+interesting collection; and it was then it occurred to me to pretend I
+had been captured, and arrange the terms of my own ransom. Fra Bartolo
+helped me throughout,--provided my costume, wrote my letters, and, in
+a word, conducted the whole negotiation like one thoroughly acquainted
+with all the details. I intended to have confided everything to you so
+soon as I secured the money, but I saw you so bent on being the hero of
+a great adventure, and so full of that blessed Blue Book you had come
+to write, that I felt it would be a sin to disenchant you. There's the
+whole story; and if you only keep my secret, I'll keep yours. I 'm off
+this week to Rio as second Secretary, so that, at all events, wait till
+I sail."
+
+"You may trust my prudence for a longer term than that," said I.
+
+"I rather suspect so," said he, laughing. "They say that your clever
+report on brigandage is to get you a good berth, and I don't think you
+'ll spoil your advancement by an indiscreet disclosure."
+
+We parted with a hearty shake hands, and I never met him till ten years
+after. How that meeting came about, and why I now reveal this incident,
+I may relate at another time.
+
+
+
+
+CONFESSION THE SECOND.
+
+AS TO LOVE.
+
+
+CHAPTER I. "IN DOUBT"
+
+The door into the anteroom where I was waiting stood half-open, and
+I heard a very imperious voice say, "Tell Mr. Gosslett it is
+impossible,--quite impossible! There are above three hundred applicants,
+and I believe he is about the least suitable amongst them." A
+meek-looking young gentleman came out after this; and, closing the door
+cautiously, said, "My Lord regrets extremely, Mr. Gosslett, that you
+should have been so late in forwarding your testimonials. He has already
+filled the place; but if another vacancy occurs, his Lordship will bear
+your claims in mind."
+
+I bowed in silent indignation, and withdrew. How I wished there had been
+any great meeting, any popular gathering, near me at that moment, that I
+might go down and denounce, with all the force of a wounded and insulted
+spirit, the insolence of office and the tyranny of the place-holder!
+With what withering sarcasm I would have flayed those parasites of
+certain great houses who, without deserts of their own, regard every
+office under the Crown as their just prerogative! Who was Henry Lord
+Scatterdale that he should speak thus of Paul Gosslett? What evidences
+of ability had he given to the world? What illustrious proofs of high
+capacity as a minister, that he should insult one of those who, by the
+declared avowal of his party, are the bone and sinew of England? Let
+Beales only call another meeting, and shall I not be there to expose
+these men to the scorn and indignation of the country? Down with the
+whole rotten edifice of pampered menials and corrupt place-men,--down
+with families patented to live on the nation,--down with a system which
+perpetuates the worst intrigues that ever disgraced and demoralized a
+people,--a system worse than the corrupt rule of the Bourbons of Naples,
+and more degrading than--
+
+"Now, stoopid!" cried a cabman, as one of his shafts struck me on the
+shoulder, and sent me spinning into an apple-stall.
+
+I recovered my legs, and turned homewards to my lodgings in a somewhat
+more subdued spirit.
+
+"Please, sir," said a dirty maid-of-all-work, entering my room after
+me, "Mrs. Mechim says the apartment is let to another gentleman
+after Monday, and please begs you have to pay one pound fourteen and
+threepence, sir."
+
+"I know, I know," said I, impatiently.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the smutty face, still standing in the same place.
+
+"Well, I have told you I know all that. You have got your answer,
+haven't you?"
+
+"Please yes, sir, but not the money."
+
+"Leave the room," said I, haughtily; and my grand imperious air had its
+success, for I believe she suspected I was a little deranged.
+
+I locked the door to be alone with my own thoughts, and, opening my
+writing-desk, I spread before me four sovereigns and some silver.
+"Barely my funeral expenses," said I, bitterly. I leaned my head on my
+hand, and fell into a mood of sad thought. I was n't a bit of a poet. I
+could n't have made three lines of verse had you given me a million for
+it; but somehow I bethought me of Chatterton in his garret, and said
+to myself, "Like him, poor Gosslett sunk, famished in the midst of
+plenty,--a man in all the vigor of youth, able, active, and energetic,
+with a mind richly gifted, and a heart tender as a woman's." I could n't
+go on. I blubbered out into a fit of crying that nearly choked me.
+
+"Please, sir," said the maid, tapping at the door, "the gentleman in the
+next room begs you not to laugh so loud."
+
+"Laugh!" burst I out. "Tell him, woman, to take care and be present
+at the inquest. His evidence will be invaluable." As I spoke, I threw
+myself on my bed, and fell soon after into a sound sleep.
+
+When I woke, it was night. The lamps were lighted in the street, and
+a small, thin rain was falling, blurring the gas-flame, and making
+everything look indistinct and dreary. I sat at the window and looked
+out, I know not how long. The world was crape-covered to me; not a
+thought of it that was not dark and dismal. I tried to take a retrospect
+of my life, and see where and how I might have done better; but all I
+could collect was, that I had met nothing but ingratitude and injustice,
+while others, with but a tithe of my capacity, had risen to wealth
+and honor. I, fated to evil from my birth, fought my long fight with
+fortune, and sank at last, exhausted. "I wonder will any one ever say,
+'Poor Gosslett'? I wonder will there be--even late though it be--one
+voice to declare, 'That was no common man! Gosslett, in any country but
+our own, would have been distinguished and honored. To great powers
+of judgment he united a fancy rich, varied, and picturesque; his
+temperament was poetic, but his reasoning faculties asserted the mastery
+over his imagination '? Will they be acute enough to read me thus? Will
+they know,--in one word,--will they know the man they have suffered to
+perish in the midst of them?" My one gleam of comfort was the unavailing
+regret I should leave to a world that had neglected me. "Yes," said I,
+bitterly, "weep on, and cease not."
+
+I made a collection of all my papers,--some of them very curious
+indeed,--stray fragments of my life,--brief jottings of my opinions on
+the current topics of the day. I sealed these carefully up, and began
+to bethink me whom I should appoint my literary executor. I had not the
+honor of his acquaintance, but how I wished I had known Martin Tupper!
+There were traits in that man's writings that seemed to vibrate in the
+closer chambers of my heart. While others gave you words and phrases,
+he gave you the outgushings of a warm nature,--the overflowings of an
+affectionate heart. I canvassed long with myself whether a stranger
+might dare to address him, and prefer such a request as mine; but I
+could not summon courage to take the daring step.
+
+After all, thought I, a man's relatives are his natural heirs. My
+mother's sister had married a Mr. Morse, who had retired from business,
+and settled down in a cottage near Rochester. He had been "in rags"--I
+mean the business of that name--for forty years, and made a snug thing
+of it; but, by an unlucky speculation, had lost more than half of his
+savings. Being childless, and utterly devoid of affection for any one,
+he had purchased an annuity on the joint lives of his wife and himself,
+and retired to pass his days near his native town.
+
+I never liked him, nor did he like me. He was a hard, stern,
+coarse-natured man, who thought that any one who had ever failed in
+anything was a creature to be despised, and saw nothing in want of
+success but an innate desire to live in indolence, and be supported by
+others. He often asked me why I did n't turn coal-heaver? He said
+he would have been a coal-heaver rather than be dependent upon his
+relations.
+
+My aunt might originally have been somewhat softer-natured, but time and
+association had made her very much like my uncle. Need I say that I
+saw little of them, and never, under any circumstances, wrote a line to
+either of them?
+
+I determined I would go down and see them, and, not waiting for morning
+nor the rail, that I would go on foot. It was raining torrents by this
+time, but what did I care for that? When the ship was drifting on the
+rocks, what mattered a leak more or less?
+
+It was dark night when I set out; and when day broke, dim and dreary, I
+was soaked thoroughly through, and not more than one-fifth of the way.
+There was, however, that in the exercise, and in the spirit it called
+forth, to rally me out of my depression; and I plodded along through
+mud and mire, breasting the swooping rain in a far cheerier frame than
+I could have thought possible. It was closing into darkness as I reached
+the little inn where the cottage stood, and I was by this time fairly
+beat between fatigue and hunger.
+
+"Here's a go!" cried my uncle, who opened the door for me. "Here's Paul
+Gosslett, just as we're going to dinner."
+
+"The very time to suit him," said I, trying to be jocular.
+
+"Yes, lad, but will it suit us? We 've only an Irish stew, and not too
+much of it, either."
+
+"How are you, Paul?" said my aunt, offering her hand. "You seem wet
+through. Won't you dry your coat?"
+
+"Oh, it's no matter," said I. "I never mind wet."
+
+"Of course he does n't," said my uncle. "What would he do if he was up
+at the 'diggins'? What would he do if he had to pick rags as I have,
+ten, twelve hours at a stretch, under heavier rain than this?"
+
+"Just so, sir," said I, concurring with all he said.
+
+"And what brought you down, lad?" asked he.
+
+"I think, sir, it was to see you and my aunt. I haven't been very well
+of late, and I fancied a day in the country might rally me."
+
+"Stealing a holiday,--the old story," muttered he. "Are you doing
+anything now?"
+
+"No, sir. I have unfortunately nothing to do."
+
+"Why not go on the quay then, and turn coal-heaver? I 'd not eat bread
+of another man's earning when I could carry a sack of coals. Do you
+understand that?"
+
+"Perhaps I do, sir; but I'm scarcely strong enough to be a coal-porter."
+
+"Sell matches, then,--lucifer matches!" cried he, with a bang of his
+hand on the table, "or be a poster."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" cried my aunt, who saw that I had grown first red, and then
+sickly pale all over.
+
+"As good men as he have done both. But here's the dinner, and I suppose
+you must have your share of it."
+
+I was in no mood to resent this invitation, discourteous as it was,
+for I was in no mood to resent anything. I was crushed and humbled to a
+degree that I began to regard my abject condition as a martyr might his
+martyrdom.
+
+The meal went over somewhat silently; little was spoken on any side. A
+half-jocular remark on the goodness of my appetite was the only approach
+to a pleasantry. My uncle drank something which by the color I judged
+to be port, but he neither offered it to my aunt nor myself. She
+took water, and I drank largely of beer, which once more elicited a
+compliment to me on my powers of suction.
+
+"Better have you for a week than a fortnight, lad," said my uncle, as we
+drew round the fire after dinner.
+
+My aunt now armed herself with some knitting apparatus, while my uncle,
+flanked by a smoking glass of toddy on one side and the "Tizer" on the
+other, proceeded to fill his pipe with strong tobacco, puffing out at
+intervals short and pithy apothegms about youth being the season for
+work and age for repose,--under the influence of whose drowsy wisdom,
+and overcome by the hot fire, I fell off fast asleep. For a while I was
+so completely lost in slumber that I heard nothing around. At last I
+began to dream of my long journey, and the little towns I had passed
+through, and the places I fain would have stopped at to bait and rest,
+but nobly resisted, never breaking bread nor tasting water till I had
+reached my journey's end. At length I fancied I heard people calling me
+by my name, some saying words of warning or caution, and others jeering
+and bantering me; and then quite distinctly,--as clearly as though the
+words were in my ear,--I heard my aunt say,--"I'm sure Lizzy would take
+him. She was shamefully treated by that heartless fellow, but she's
+getting over it now; and if any one, even Paul there, offered, I 'm
+certain she 'd not refuse him."
+
+"She has a thousand pounds," grunted out my uncle.
+
+"Fourteen hundred in the bank; and as they have no other child, they
+must leave her everything they have, when they die."
+
+"It won't be much. Old Dan has little more than his vicarage, and he
+always ends each year a shade deeper in debt than the one before it."
+
+"Well, she has her own fortune, and nobody can touch that."
+
+I roused myself, yawned aloud, and opened my eyes.
+
+"Pretty nigh as good a hand at sleeping as eating," said my uncle,
+gruffly.
+
+"It's a smart bit of a walk from Duke Street, Piccadilly," said I, with
+more vigor than I had yet assumed.
+
+"Why, a fellow of your age ought to do that twice a week just to keep
+him in wind."
+
+"I say, Paul," said my aunt, "were you ever in Ireland?"
+
+"Never, aunt. Why do you ask me?"
+
+"Because you said a little while back that you felt rather poorly of
+late,--low and weakly."
+
+"No loss of appetite, though," chuckled in my uncle.
+
+"And we were thinking," resumed she, "of sending you over to stay a few
+weeks with an old friend of ours in Donegal. He calls it the finest air
+in Europe; and I know he 'd treat you with every kindness."
+
+"Do you shoot?" asked my uncle.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Nor fish?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"What are you as a sportsman? Can you ride? Can you do anything?"
+
+"Nothing whatever, sir. I once carried a game-bag, and that was all."
+
+"And you're not a farmer nor a judge of cattle. How are you to pass your
+time, I 'd like to know?"
+
+"If there were books, or if there were people to talk to--"
+
+"Mrs. Dudgeon's deaf,--she's been deaf these twenty years; but she has a
+daughter. Is Lizzy deaf?"
+
+"Of course she's not," rejoined my aunt, tartly.
+
+"Well, she'd talk to you; and Dan would talk. Not much, I believe,
+though; he a'n't a great fellow for talk."
+
+"They 're something silent all of them, but Lizzy is a nice girl and
+very pretty,--at least she was when I saw her here two years ago."
+
+"At all events, they are distant connections of your mother's; and as
+you are determined to live on your relations, I think you ought to give
+them a turn."
+
+"There is some justice in that, sir," said I, determined now to resent
+no rudeness, nor show offence at any coarseness, however great it might
+be.
+
+"Well, then, I 'll write to-morrow, and say you 'll follow my letter,
+and be with them soon after they receive it. I believe it's a lonely
+sort of place enough,--Dan calls it next door to Greenland; but there's
+good air, and plenty of it."
+
+We talked for some time longer over the family whose guest I was to be,
+and I went off to bed, determined to see out this new act of my life's
+drama before I whistled for the curtain to drop.
+
+It gave a great additional interest besides to my journey to have
+overheard the hint my aunt threw out about a marriage. It was something
+more than a mere journey for change of air. It might be a journey to
+change the whole character and fortune of my life. And was it not thus
+one's fate ever turned? You went somewhere by a mere accident, or you
+stopped at home. You held a hand to help a lady into a boat, or you
+assisted her off her horse, or you took her in to dinner; and out of
+something insignificant and trivial as this your whole life's destiny
+was altered. And not alone your destiny, but your very nature; your
+temper, as fashioned by another's temper; your tastes as moulded by
+others' tastes; and your morality, your actual identity, was the sport
+of a casualty too small and too poor to be called an incident.
+
+"Is this about to be the turning-point in my life?" asked I of myself.
+"Is Fortune at last disposed to bestow a smile upon me? Is it out of the
+very depth of my despair I 'm to catch sight of the first gleam of light
+that has fallen upon my luckless career?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE REV. DAN DUDGEON.
+
+My plan of procedure was to be this. I was supposed to be making a tour
+in Ireland, when, hearing of certain connections of my mother's family
+living in Donegal, I at once wrote to my uncle Morse for an introduction
+to them, and he not only provided me with a letter accrediting me, but
+wrote by the same post to the Dudgeons to say I was sure to pay them a
+visit.
+
+On arriving in Dublin I was astonished to find so much that seemed
+unlike what I had left behind me. That intense preoccupation, that
+anxious eager look of business so remarkable in Liverpool, was not to
+be found here. If the people really were busy, they went about their
+affairs in a half-lounging, half-jocular humor, as though they wouldn't
+be selling hides, or shipping pigs, or landing sugar hogsheads, if they
+had anything else to do,--as if trade was a dirty necessity, and the
+only thing was to get through with it with as little interruption as
+possible to the pleasanter occupations of life.
+
+Such was the aspect of things on the quays. The same look pervaded the
+Exchange, and the same air of little to do, and of deeming it a joke
+while doing it, abounded in the law courts, where the bench exchanged
+witty passages with the bar; and the prisoners, the witnesses, and
+the jury fired smart things at each other with a seeming geniality and
+enjoyment that were very remarkable. I was so much amused by all I saw,
+that I would willingly have delayed some days in the capital; but my
+uncle had charged me to present myself at the vicarage without any
+unnecessary delay; so I determined to set out at once. I was not, I
+shame to own, much better up in the geography of Ireland than in that of
+Central Africa, and had but a very vague idea whither I was going.
+
+"Do you know Donegal?" asked I of the waiter, giving to my pronunciation
+of the word a long second and a short third syllable.
+
+"No, your honor, never heard of him," was the answer.
+
+"But it's a place I'm asking for,--a county," said I, with some
+impatience.
+
+"Faix, maybe it is," said he; "but it's new to me, all the same."
+
+"He means Donegal," said a red-whiskered man with a bronzed
+weather-beaten face, and a stern defiant air, that invited no
+acquaintanceship.
+
+"Oh, Donegal," chimed in the waiter. "Begorra! it would n't be easy to
+know it by the name your honor gav' it."
+
+"Are you looking for any particular place in that county?" asked the
+stranger in a tone sharp and imperious as his former speech.
+
+"Yes," said I, assuming a degree of courtesy that I thought would be the
+best rebuke to his bluntness; "but I 'll scarcely trust myself with the
+pronunciation after my late failure. This is the place I want;" and I
+drew forth my uncle's letter and showed the address.
+
+"Oh, that's it, is it?" cried he, reading aloud. "'The Reverend Daniel
+Dudgeon, Killyrotherum, Donegal.' And are you going there? Oh, I see you
+are," said he, turning his eyes to the foot of the address. '"Favored by
+Paul Gosslett, Esq.' and you are Paul Gosslett."
+
+"Yes, sir, with your kind permission, I am Paul Gosslett," said I, with
+what I hoped was a chilling dignity of manner.
+
+"If it's only my permission you want, you may be anything you please,"
+said he, turning his insolent stare full on me.
+
+I endeavored not to show any sensitiveness to this impertinence, and
+went on with my dinner, the stranger's table being quite close to mine.
+
+"It's your first appearance in Ireland, I suspect," said he, scanning me
+as he picked his teeth, and sat carelessly with one leg crossed over the
+other.
+
+I bowed a silent acquiescence, and he went on. "I declare that I believe
+a Cockney, though he has n't a word of French, is more at home on the
+Continent than in Ireland." He paused for some expression of opinion on
+my part, but I gave none. I filled my glass, and affected to admire the
+color of the wine, and sipped it slowly, like one thoroughly engaged in
+his own enjoyments.
+
+"Don't you agree with me?" asked he, fiercely.
+
+"Sir, I have not given your proposition such consideration as would
+entitle me to say I concur with it or not."
+
+"That's not it at all!" broke he in, with an insolent laugh; "but you
+won't allow that you 're a Cockney."
+
+"I protest, sir," said I, sternly; "I have yet to learn that I 'm bound
+to make a declaration of my birth, parentage, and education to the first
+stranger I sit beside in a coffee-room."
+
+"No, you 're not,--nothing of the kind,--for it's done for you. It 's
+done in spite of you, when you open your mouth. Did n't you see the
+waiter running out of the room with the napkin in his mouth when you
+tried to say Donegal? Look here, Paul," said he, drawing his chair
+confidentially towards my table. "We don't care a rush what you do with
+your H's, or your W's, either; but, if we can help it, we won't have our
+national names miscalled. We have a pride in them, and we 'll not suffer
+them to be mutilated or disfigured. Do you understand me now?"
+
+"Sufficiently, sir, to wish you a very good-night," said I, rising from
+the table, and leaving my pint of sherry, of which I had only drunk one
+glass.
+
+As I closed the coffee-room door, I thought--indeed, I 'm certain--I
+heard a loud roar of laughter.
+
+"'Who is that most agreeable gentleman I sat next at dinner?" asked I of
+the waiter.
+
+"Counsellor MacNamara, sir. Isn't he a nice man?"
+
+"A charming person," said I.
+
+"I wish you heard him in the coort, sir. By my conscience, a witness has
+a poor time under him! He 'd humbug you if you was an archbishop."
+
+"Call me at five," said I, passing up the stairs, and impatient to gain
+my room and be alone with my indignation.
+
+I passed a restless, feverish night, canvassing with myself whether I
+would not turn back and leave forever a country whose first aspect was
+so forbidding and unpromising. What stories had I not heard of Irish
+courtesy to strangers,--Irish wit and Irish pleasantry! Was this, then,
+a specimen of that captivating manner which makes these people the
+French of Great Britain? Why, this fellow was an unmitigated savage!
+
+Having registered a vow not to open my lips to a stranger till I reached
+the end of my journey, and to affect deafness rather than be led into
+conversation, I set off the next day, by train, for Derry. True to my
+resolve, I only uttered the word "beer" till I arrived in the evening.
+The next day I took the steamer to a small village called Cushnagorra,
+from whence it was only ten miles by a good mountain-road to
+Killyrotherum Bay. I engaged a car to take me on, and at last found
+myself able to ask a few questions without the penalty of being
+cross-examined by an impertinent barrister, and being made the jest of a
+coffee-room.
+
+I wanted to learn something about the people to whose house I was going,
+and asked Pat, accordingly, if he knew Mr. Dudgeon.
+
+"Troth I do, sir, well," said he.
+
+"He's a good kind of man, I'm told," said I.
+
+"He is, indeed, sir; no betther."
+
+"Kind to the poor, and charitable?"
+
+"Thrue for you; that's himself."
+
+"And his family is well liked down here?"
+
+"I'll be bound they are. There's few like them to the fore."
+
+Rather worried by the persistent assent he gave me, and seeing that I
+had no chance of deriving anything like an independent opinion from my
+courteous companion, I determined to try another line. After smoking
+a cigar and giving one to my friend, who seemed to relish it vastly, I
+said, as if incidentally, "Where I got that cigar, Paddy, the people are
+better off than here."
+
+"And where's that, sir?"
+
+"In America, in the State of Virginia."
+
+"That's as thrue as the Bible. It's elegant times they have there."
+
+"And one reason is," said I, "every man can do what he likes with his
+own. You have a bit of land here, and you dare n't plant tobacco; or if
+you sow oats or barley, you must n't malt it. The law says, 'You may
+do this, and you sha'n't do that;' and is that freedom, I ask, or is it
+slavery?"
+
+"Slavery,--devil a less," said he, with a cut of his whip that made the
+horse plunge into the air.
+
+"And do you know why that's done? Do you know the secret of it all?"
+
+"Sorra a bit o' me."
+
+"I'll tell you, then. It's to keep up the Church; it's to feed the
+parsons that don't belong to the people,--that's what they put the taxes
+on tobacco and whiskey for. What, I 'd like to know, do you and I
+want with that place there with the steeple? What does the Rev. Daniel
+Dudgeon do for you or me? Grind us,--squeeze us,--maybe, come down on us
+when we 're trying to scrape a few shillings together, and carry it off
+for tithes."
+
+"Shure and he's a hard man! He's taking the herrins out of the net this
+year,--for every ten herrins he takes one."
+
+"And do they bear that?"
+
+"Well, they do," said he, mournfully; "they've no spirit down here; but
+over at Muggle-na-garry they put slugs in one last winter."
+
+"One what?"
+
+"A parson, your honor; and it did him a dale o' good. He 's as meek as a
+child now about his dues, and they 've no trouble with him in life."
+
+"They'll do that with Dudgeon yet, maybe?" asked I.
+
+"With the Lord's blessing, sir," said he, piously.
+
+Satisfied now that it was not a very hopeful task to obtain much
+information about Ireland from such a source, I drew my hat over my eyes
+and affected to doze for the remainder of the journey.
+
+We arrived, at length, at the foot of a narrow road, impassable by the
+car, and here the driver told me I must descend and make the rest of my
+way on foot.
+
+"The house wasn't far," he said; "only over the top of the hill in front
+of me,--about half-a-quarter of a mile away."
+
+Depositing my portmanteau under a clump of furze, I set out,--drearily
+enough, I will own. The scene around me, for miles, was one of arid
+desolation. It was not that no trace of human habitation, nor of any
+living creature was to be seen, but that the stony, shingly soil,
+totally destitute of all vegetation, seemed to deny life to anything.
+The surface rose and fell in a monotonous undulation, like a great
+sea suddenly petrified, while here and there some greater boulders
+represented those mighty waves which in the ocean seem to assert
+supremacy over their fellows.
+
+At last I gained the crest of the ridge, and could see the Atlantic,
+which indented the shore beneath into many a little bay and inlet; but
+it was some time ere I could distinguish a house which stood in a narrow
+cleft of the mountain, and whose roof, kept down by means of stones and
+rocks, had at first appeared to me as a part of the surface of the soil.
+The strong wind almost carried me off my legs on this exposed ridge; so,
+crouching down, I began my descent, and after half an hour's creeping
+and stumbling, I reached a little enclosed place, where stood the house.
+It was a long, one-storied building, with cow-house and farm-offices
+under the same roof. The hall-door had been evidently long in disuse,
+since it was battened over with strong planks, and secured, besides,
+against the northwest wind by a rough group of rocks. Seeing entrance to
+be denied on this side, I made for the rear of the house, where a woman,
+beating flax under a shed, at once addressed me civilly, and ushered me
+into the house.
+
+"His riv'rence is in there," said she, pointing to a door, and leaving
+me to announce myself. I knocked, and entered. It was a small room, with
+an antiquated fireplace, at which the parson and his wife and daughter
+were seated,---he reading a very much-crumpled newspaper, and they
+knitting.
+
+"Oh, this is Mr. Gosslett. How are you, sir?" asked Mr. Dudgeon, seizing
+and shaking my hand; while his wife said, "We were just saying we 'd
+send down to look after you. My daughter Lizzy, Mr. Gosslett."
+
+Lizzy smiled faintly, but did not speak. I saw, however, that she was
+a pretty, fair-haired girl, with delicate features and a very gentle
+expression.
+
+"It's a wild bit of landscape here, Mr. Gosslett; but of a fine day,
+with the sun on it, and the wind not so strong, it's handsome enough."
+
+"It 's grand," said I, rather hesitating to find the epithet I wanted.
+
+Mrs. D. sighed, and I thought her daughter echoed it; but as his
+reverence now bustled away to send some one to fetch my trunk, I took my
+place at the fire, and tried to make myself at home.
+
+A very brief conversation enabled me to learn that Mr. Dudgeon came
+to the parish on his marriage, about four-and-twenty years before, and
+neither he nor his wife had ever left it since. They had no neighbors,
+and only six parishioners of their own persuasion. The church was about
+a mile off, and not easily approached in bad weather. It seemed, too,
+that the bishop and Mr. D. were always at war. The diocesan was a Whig,
+and the parson a violent Orangeman, who loved loyal anniversaries,
+demonstrations, and processions, the latter of which came twice
+or thrice a year from Derry to visit him and stir up any amount
+of bitterness and party strife; and though the Rev. Dan, as he was
+familiarly called, was obliged to pass the long interval between these
+triumphant exhibitions exposed to the insolence and outrage of the large
+masses he had offended, be never blinked the peril, but actually dared
+it, wearing his bit of orange ribbon in his button-hole as he went down
+the village, and meeting Father Lafferty's scowl with a look of defiance
+and insult fierce as his own.
+
+After years of episcopal censure and reproof, administered without the
+slightest amendment,--for Dan never appeared at a visitation, and none
+were hardy enough to follow him into his fastness,--he was suffered
+to do what he pleased, and actually abandoned as one of those hopeless
+cases which time alone can clear off and remedy. An incident, however,
+which had befallen about a couple of years back, had almost released the
+bishop from his difficulty.
+
+In an affray following on a twelfth of July demonstration, a man had
+been shot; and though the Rev. Dan was not in any degree implicated in
+the act, some imprudent allusion to the event in his Sunday's discourse
+got abroad in the press, and was so severely commented on by a young
+barrister on the trial, that an inhibition was issued against him, and
+his church closed for three months.
+
+I have been, thus far, prolix in sketching the history of those with
+whom I was now to be domesticated, because, once placed before the
+reader, my daily life is easily understood. We sat over the fire nearly
+all day, abusing the Papists, and wondering if England would ever
+produce one man who could understand the fact that unless you banished
+the priests and threw down the chapels there was no use in making laws
+for Ireland.
+
+Then we dined, usually on fish, and a bit of bacon, after which we drank
+the glorious, pious, and immortal memory, with the brass money, the
+wooden shoes, and the rest of it,--the mild Lizzy herself being "told
+off" to recite the toast, as her father had a sore throat and could
+n't utter; and the fair, gentle lips, that seldom parted save to smile,
+delivered the damnatory clause against all who would n't drink that
+toast, and sentenced them to be "rammed, jammed, and crammed," as the
+act declares, in a way that actually amazed me.
+
+If the peasant who drove me over to Killyrotherum did not add much to my
+knowledge of Ireland by the accuracy of his facts or the fixity of his
+opinions, the Rev. Dan assuredly made amends for all these shortcomings;
+for he saw the whole thing at a glance, and knew why Ireland was
+ungovernable, and how she could be made prosperous and happy, just as he
+knew how much poteen went to a tumbler of punch; and though occasionally
+despondent when the evening began, as it grew towards bedtime and the
+decanter waxed low, he had usually arrived at a glorious millennium,
+when every one wore an orange lily, and the whole world was employed in
+singing "Croppies lie down."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE RUNAWAY.
+
+I suppose I must be a very routine sort of creature, who loves to get
+into a groove and never leave it. Indeed, I recognize this feature of my
+disposition in the pleasure I feel in being left to myself, and my own
+humdrum way of diverting my time. At all events, I grew to like my life
+at Killyrotherum.
+
+The monotony that would have driven most men to despair was to me
+soothing and grateful.
+
+A breezy walk with Lizzy down to the village after breakfast, where she
+made whatever purchases the cares of household demanded, sufficed for
+exercise. After that I wrote a little in my own room,--short, jotting
+notes, that might serve to recall, on some future day, the scarcely
+tinted surface of my quiet existence, and occasionally putting down such
+points as puzzled me,--problems whose solution I must try to arrive at
+with time and opportunity. Perhaps a brief glance at the pages of this
+diary, as I open it at random, may serve to show how time went over with
+me.
+
+Here is an entry:--
+
+_Friday, 17th November_.--Mem., to find out from D. D. the exact
+explanation of his words last night, and which possibly fatigue may have
+made obscure to me. Is it Sir Wm. Vernon or the Pope who is Antichrist?
+
+Query: also, would not brass money be better than no halfpence? and are
+not wooden shoes as good as bare feet?
+
+Why does the parish clerk always bring up a chicken when he comes with a
+message?
+
+Lizzy did not own she made the beefsteak dumpling, but the maid seemed
+to let the secret out by bringing in a little amethyst ring she had
+forgotten on the kitchen table. I wish she knew that I 'd be glad she
+could make dumplings. I am fond of dumplings. To try and tell her this.
+
+Mrs. D. suspects Lizzy is attached to me. I don't think she approves of
+it. D. D. would not object if I became an Orangeman. Query, what effect
+would that have on my future career? Could I be an Orangeman without
+being able to sing the "Boyne Water"? for I never could hum a tune in my
+life. To inquire about this.
+
+Who was the man who behaved badly to Lizzy? And how did he behave badly?
+This is a very vital point, though not easy to come at.
+
+_18th._--Lizzy likes--I may say loves--me. The avowal was made this
+morning, when I was carrying up two pounds of sugar and one of soap from
+the village. She said, "Oh, Mr. Gosslett, if you knew how unhappy I am!"
+
+And I laid down the parcel, and, taking her hand in mine, said,
+"Darling, tell me all!" and she grew very red and flurried, and said,
+"Nonsense, don't be a fool! Take care Tobias don't run away with the
+soap. I wanted to confide in you, to trust you. I don't want to--" And
+there she fell a-crying, and sobbed all the way home, though I tried to
+console her as well as the basket would permit me. Mem.--Not to be led
+into any tendernesses till the marketing is brought home. Wonder does
+Lizzy require me to fight the man who behaved badly? What on earth was
+it he did?
+
+A great discovery coming home from church to-day. D. D. asked me if
+I had detected anything in his sermon of that morning which I could
+possibly call violent, illiberal, or uncharitable. As I had not listened
+to it, I was the better able to declare that there was not a word of it
+I could object to. "Would you believe it, Gosslett," said he,--and he
+never had called me Gosslett before,--"that was the very sermon they
+arraigned me for in the Queen's Bench; and that mild passage about the
+Virgin Mary, you 'd imagine it was murder I was instilling. You heard
+it to-day, and know if it's not true. Well, sir," continued he, after
+a pause, "Tom MacNamara blackguarded me for twenty minutes on it before
+the whole court, screeching out, 'This is your parson! this is your
+instructor of the poor man! your Christian guide! your comforter! These
+are the teachings that are to wean the nation from bloodshed, and make
+men obedient to the law and grateful for its protection!' Why do you
+think he did this? Because I wouldn't give him my daughter,--a Papist
+rascal as he is! That's the whole of it. I published my sermon and
+sent it to the bishop, and he inhibited me! It was clear enough what he
+meant; he wanted to be made archbishop, and he knew what would please
+the Whigs. 'My Lord,' said I, 'these are the principles that placed
+the Queen on the throne of this realm. If it was n't to crush Popery he
+came, King William crossed the Boyne for nothing.'"
+
+He went on thus till we reached home; but I had such a headache, from
+his loud utterance, that I had to lie down and sleep it off.
+
+_Monday, 31st_.--A letter from Aunt Morse. Very dry and cold. Asks if
+I have sufficiently recovered from my late attack to be able to resume
+habits of activity and industry? Why, she knows well enough I have
+nothing to engage my activity and industry, for I will not be a
+coal-heaver, let uncle say what he likes. Aunt surmises that possibly
+some tender sentiment may be at the bottom of my attachment to Ireland,
+and sternly recalls me to the fact that I am not the possessor of landed
+property and an ancient family mansion in a good county. What can she
+mean by these warnings? Was it not herself that I overheard asking my
+uncle, "Would not he do for Lizzy?" How false women are! I wish I could
+probe that secret about the man that behaved ill; there are so many ways
+to behave ill, and to be behaved ill by. Shall I put a bold face on it,
+and ask Lizzy?
+
+Great news has the post brought. Sir Morris Stamer is going out Lord
+High Commissioner to the Ionian Islands, and offers to take me as
+private sec.
+
+It is a brilliant position, and one to marry on. I shall ask Lizzy
+to-day.
+
+Wednesday, all settled;--but what have I not gone through these
+last three days! She loves me to distraction; but she 'll tell
+nothing,--nothing till we 're married. She says, and with truth,
+"confidence is the nurse of love." I wish she was n't so coy. I have not
+even kissed her hand. She says Irish girls are all coy.
+
+We are to run away, and be married at a place called Articlane. I don't
+know why we run away; but this is another secret I 'm to hear later on.
+Quiet and demure as she looks, Lizzy has a very decided disposition. She
+overbears all opposition, and has a peremptory way of saying, "Don't be
+a fool, G.!"--she won't call me Paul, only G.,--"and just do as I bade
+you." I hope she 'll explain why this is so,--after our marriage.
+
+I'm getting terribly afraid of the step we're about to take. I feel
+quite sure it was the Rev. Dan who shot the Papist on that anniversary
+affair; and I know he'd shoot me if he thought I had wronged him. Is
+there any way out of this embarrassment?
+
+What a headache I have! We have been singing Orange songs for four
+hours. I think I hear that odious shake on the word "ba-a-t-tle," as it
+rhymes to "rat--tie," in old Dan's song. It goes through my brain still;
+and tomorrow, at daybreak, we're to run away! Lizzy's bundle is here, in
+my room; and Tom Ryan's boat is all ready under the rocks, and we're to
+cross the bay. It sounds very rash when one comes to think of it. I'm
+sure my Aunt Morse will never forgive it. But Lizzy, all so gentle and
+docile as she seems, has a very peremptory way with her; and as she
+promises to give me explanations for everything later on, I have agreed
+to all. How it blows! There has not been so bad a night since I came
+here. If it should be rough to-morrow morning, will she still insist on
+going? I 'm a poor sort of sailor at the best of times; but if there's
+a sea on, I shall be sick as a dog! And what a situation,--a seasick
+bridegroom running off with bis bride! That was a crash! I thought the
+old house was going clean away. The ploughs and harrows they 've put on
+the roof to keep the slates down perform very wild antics in a storm.
+
+I suppose this is the worst climate in Europe. D. D. said, yesterday,
+that the length of the day made the only difference between summer and
+winter; and, oh dear! what an advantage does this confer on winter?
+
+Now to bed,--though I'm afraid not to sleep; amid such a racket and
+turmoil, rest is out of the question. Who knows when, where, and how I
+shall make the next entry in this book? But, as Mr. Dudgeon says, when
+he finishes his tumbler, "Such is life! such is life!"
+
+I wonder will Lizzy insist on going on if the weather continues like
+this? I'm sure no boatman with a wife and family could be fairly asked
+to go out in such a storm. I do not think I would have the right to
+induce a poor man to peril his life, and the support of those who depend
+upon him, for my own--what shall I call it?--my own gratification,--that
+might be for a picnic;--my own,--no, not happiness, because that is a
+term of time and continuity;--my own--There goes a chimney, as sure as
+fate! How they sleep here through everything! There 's that fellow
+who minds the cows snoring through it all in the loft overhead; and he
+might, for all he knew, have been squashed under that fall of masonry.
+Was that a tap at the door? I thought I heard it twice.
+
+Yes, it was Lizzy. She had not been to bed. She went out as far as
+the church rock to see the sea. She says it was grander than she could
+describe. There is a faint moon, and the clouds are scudding along, as
+though racing against the waves below; but I refuse to go out and
+see it, all the same. I 'll turn in, and try to get some sleep before
+morning.
+
+I was sound asleep, though the noise of the storm was actually
+deafening, when Lizzy again tapped at my door, and at last, opening it
+slightly, pushed a lighted candle inside, and disappeared. If there be a
+dreary thing in life, it is to get up before day of a dark, raw morning,
+in a room destitute of all comfort and convenience, and proceed to wash
+and dress in cold, gloom, and misery, with the consciousness that what
+you are about to do not only might be safer and better undone, but may,
+and not at all improbably will, turn out the rashest act of your life.
+
+Over and over I said to myself, "If I were to tell her that I have a
+foreboding,--a distinct foreboding of calamity; that I dreamed a dream,
+and saw myself on a raft, while waves, mountain high, rose above me, and
+depths yawned beneath,--dark, fathomless, and terrible,--would she mind
+it?" I declare, on my sacred word of honor,--I declare I think she'd
+laugh at me!
+
+"Are you ready?" whispered a soft voice at the door; and I saw at once
+my doom was pronounced.
+
+Noiselessly, stealthily, we crept down the stairs, and, crossing the
+little flagged kitchen, undid the heavy bars of the door. Shall I own
+that a thought of treason shot through me as I stood with the great bolt
+in my hands, and the idea flashed across me, "What if I were to let it
+fall with a crash, and awake the household?" Did she divine what was
+passing in my head, as she silently took the bar from me, and put it
+away?
+
+We were now in the open air, breasting a swooping nor'-wester that
+chilled the very marrow of my bones. She led the way through the dark
+night as though it were noonday, and I followed, tumbling over stones
+and rocks and tufts of heather, and falling into holes, and scrambling
+out again like one drunk. I could hear her laughing at me too,--she who
+so seldom laughed; and it was with difficulty she could muster gravity
+enough to say she hoped I had not hurt myself.
+
+We gained the pier at last, and, guided by a lantern held by one of the
+boatmen, we saw the boat bobbing and tossing some five feet down below.
+Lizzy sprang in at once, amidst the applauding cheers of the crew; and
+then several voices cried out, "Now, sir! Now, your honor!" while two
+stout fellows pushed me vigorously, as though to throw me into the sea.
+I struggled and fought manfully, but in vain. I was jerked off my legs,
+and hurled headlong down, and found myself caught below by some strong
+arms, though not until I had half sprained my wrist, and barked one of
+my shins from knee to instep. These sufferings soon gave way to others,
+as I became sea-sick, and lay at the bottom of the boat, praying we
+might all go down, and end a misery I could no longer endure. That
+spars struck me, and ballast rolled over me; that heavy-footed sailors
+trampled me, and seemed to dance on me,--were things I minded not. Great
+waves broke over the bows, and came in sheets of foam and water over
+me. What cared I? I had that death-like sickness that makes all life
+hideous, and I felt I had reached a depth of degradation and misery in
+which there was only one desire,--that for death. That we succeeded in
+clearing the point which formed one side of the bay was little short of
+a miracle, and I remember the cheer the boatmen gave as the danger was
+passed, and my last hope of our all going down left me. After this, I
+know no more.
+
+A wild confusion of voices, a sort of scuffling uproar, a grating sound,
+and more feet dancing over me, aroused me. I looked up. It was dawn;
+a gray murky streak lay towards the horizon, and sheets of rain were
+carried swiftly on the winds. We were being dragged up on a low shingly
+shore, and the men--up to their waists in water--were carrying the boat
+along.
+
+As I looked over the gunwale, I saw a huge strong fellow rush down the
+slope, and breasting the waves as they beat, approach the boat.
+Lizzy sprang into his arms at once, and he carried her back to land
+triumphantly. I suppose at any other moment a pang of jealousy might
+have shot through me. Much sea-sickness, like perfect love, overcometh
+all things. I felt no more, as I gazed, than if it had been a bundle he
+had been clasping to his bosom.
+
+They lifted me up, and laid me on the shingle.
+
+"Oh, do, Tom; he is such a good creature!" said a voice which, low as it
+was, I heard distinctly.
+
+"By all that's droll! this is the Cockney I met at Mor-risson's!" cried
+a loud voice. I looked up; and there, bending over me, was Counsellor
+MacNamara, the bland stranger I had fallen in with at Dublin.
+
+"Are you able to get on your legs," asked he, "or shall we have you
+carried?"
+
+"No," said I, faintly; "I 'd rather lie here."
+
+"Oh, we can't leave him here, Tom; it's too cruel."
+
+"I tell you, Lizzy," said he, impatiently, "there's not a minute to
+lose."
+
+"Let them carry him, then," said she, pleadingly.
+
+I mildly protested my wish to live and die where I lay; but they carried
+me up somewhere, and they put me to bed, and they gave me hot drinks,
+and I fell into, not a sleep, but a trance, that lasted twenty-odd
+hours.
+
+"Faix! they had a narrow escape of it," were the first intelligible
+words I heard on awaking. "They were only just married and druv off when
+old Dan Dudgeon came up, driving like mad. He was foaming with passion,
+and said if he went to the gallows for it, he 'd shoot the rascal that
+abused his hospitality and stole his daughter. The lady left this note
+for your honor."
+
+It went thus:--
+
+"Dear Mr. Gosslett,--You will, I well know, bear me no ill-will for the
+little fraud I have practised on you. It was an old engagement, broken
+off by a momentary imprudence on Tom's part; but as I knew he loved me,
+it was forgiven. My father would not have ever consented to the match,
+and we were driven to this strait. I entreat you to forgive and believe
+me
+
+"Most truly yours,
+
+"Lizzy MacNamara."
+
+
+I stole quietly out of Ireland after this, and got over to the Isle
+of Man, where I learned that my patron had thrown up his Ionian
+appointment, and I was once again on the world.
+
+
+
+
+CONFESSION THE LAST.
+
+AS TO LAW.
+
+I do not exactly know why I sit down to make this my last confession. I
+can scarcely be a guide to any one. I even doubt if I can be a warning,
+for when a man is as miserably unlucky as I have proved myself, the
+natural inference is to regard him as the exception to the ordinary lot
+of mortals,--a craft fated to founder ere it was launched. It's all very
+well to deny the existence of such a thing as luck. It sounds splendidly
+wise in the Latin moralist to say, "_Non numen habes fortuna si sit
+prudentia_," which is the old story of putting the salt on the bird's
+tail over again, since, I say, we can always assume the "prudentia"
+where there is the "fortuna," and in the same way declare that the
+unlucky man failed because he was deficient in that same gift of
+foresight.
+
+Few men knew life so thoroughly in every condition, and under every
+aspect, as the first Napoleon, and he invariably asked, when inquiring
+into the fitness of a man for a great command, "Is he lucky?" To my own
+thinking, it would be as truthful to declare that there was no element
+of luck in whist, as to say there was no such thing as luck in life.
+Now, all the "prudentia" in the world will not give a man four by
+honors; and though a good player may make a better fight with a bad
+hand than an indifferent performer, there is that amount of badness
+occasionally dealt out that no skill can compensate; and do what he may,
+he must lose the game.
+
+Now, I am by no means about to set up as a model of prudence, industry,
+or perseverance; as little can I lay claim to anything like natural
+ability or cleverness. I am essentially common-place,--one of those men
+taken "ex medio acervo" of humanity, whose best boast is that they form
+the staple of the race, and are the majority in all nations.
+
+There is a very pleasant passage in Lockhart's Life of Scott. I cannot
+lay my hand on it, and may spoil it in the attempt to quote, but the
+purport is, that one day when Lockhart had used the word "vulgar" in
+criticising the manners of some people they had been discussing,
+Sir Walter rebuked him for the mistaken sense he had ascribed to the
+expression. Vulgar, said he, is only common, and common means general;
+and what is the general habit and usage of mankind has its base and
+foundation in a feeling and sentiment that we must not lightly censure.
+It is, at all events, human.
+
+I wish I could give the text of the passage, for I see how lamentably I
+have rendered it, but this was the meaning it conveyed to me, and I own
+I have very often thought over it with comfort and with gratitude.
+
+If the great thinkers--the men of lofty intellects and high-soaring
+faculties--were but to know how, in vindicating the claims of every-day
+people to respect and regard, in shielding them from the sneers of smart
+men and the quips of witty men, they were doing a great and noble work,
+for which millions of people like myself would bless them, I am certain
+we should find many more such kindly utterances as that of the great Sir
+Walter.
+
+I ask pardon for my digression, so selfish as it is, and return to my
+narrative.
+
+After that famous "fiasco" I made in Ireland, I--as the cant phrase has
+it--got dark for some time. My temper, which at first sustained me under
+any amount of banter and ridicule, had begun to give way, and I avoided
+my relations, who certainly never took any peculiar pains to treat me
+with delicacy, or had the slightest hesitation in making me a butt for
+very coarse jokes and very contemptible drollery.
+
+I tried a number of things,--that is, I begun them. I begun to read for
+the law; I begun a novel; I begun to attend divinity lectures; I got
+a clerkship in a public office, as supernumerary; I was employed as
+traveller to a house in the wooden-clock trade; I was secretary to
+an Association for the Protection of Domestic Cats, and wrote the
+prospectus for the "Cats' Home:" but it's no use entering into details.
+I failed in all; and to such an extent of notoriety had my ill-fortune
+now attained, that the very mention of my name in connection with a new
+project would have sentenced it at once to ruin.
+
+Over and over again have I heard my "friends," when whispering together
+over some new scheme, mutter, "Of course Paul is to have nothing to do
+with it," "Take care that Paul Gosslett is n't in it," and such-like
+intimations, that gave me the sensation of being a sort of moral
+leper, whose mere presence was a calamity. The sense of being deemed
+universally an unlucky fellow is one of the most depressing things
+imaginable,--to feel that your presence is accounted an evil
+agency,--and that your co-operation foreshadows failure,--goes a
+considerable way towards accomplishing the prediction announced.
+
+Though my uncle's stereotyped recommendation to become a coal-heaver was
+not exactly to my taste, I had serious thoughts of buying a sack, and by
+a little private practice discovering whether the profession might
+not in the end become endurable. I was fairly at my wits'-end for
+a livelihood; and the depression and misery my presence occasioned
+wherever I went reacted on myself, and almost drove me to desperation.
+
+I was actually so afraid of an evil temptation that I gave up my
+little lodging that I was so fond of, near Putney, and went to live at
+Hampstead, where there was no water deep enough to drown a rat. I also
+forewent shaving, that I might banish my razors, and in all respects set
+myself steadily to meet the accidents of life with as near an approach
+to jollity as I could muster.
+
+The simple pleasures of nature--the enjoyment of the fields and the wild
+flowers; the calm contemplation of the rising or setting sun; the varied
+forms of insect life; the many-tinted lichens; the ferns; the mosses
+that clothe the banks of shady alleys; the limpid pools, starred and
+broken by the dragon-fly, so full of their own especial charm for the
+weary voluptuary sick of pampered pleasures and exotic luxuries--do
+not appeal to the senses of the poor man with that wonderful force of
+contrast which gives them all their excellence. I have seen an alderman
+express himself in ecstasies over a roast potato, which certainly
+would not have called forth the same show of appreciation from an Irish
+peasant. We like what awakens a new sensation in us, what withdraws
+us even in imagination from the routine of our daily lives. There is a
+great self-esteem gratified when we say how simple we can be, how happy
+in humility, how easily satisfied, and how little dependent on mere
+luxury or wealth.
+
+The postman who passed my window every morning had long ceased to be an
+object of interest or anxiety to me; for others he brought tidings, good
+or ill as it might be, but to me, forgotten and ignored of the world,
+no news ever came; when one day, to my intense surprise, at first to my
+perfect incredulity, I saw him draw forth a letter, and make a sign to
+me to come down and take it. Yes, there it was, "Paul Gosslett, Esq.,
+The Flaggers, Putney," with "Try Sandpit Cottages, Hampstead," in
+another hand, in the corner. It was from my aunt, and ran thus:--
+
+"The Briars, Rochester.
+
+"Dear Paul,--I am rejoiced to say there is a good chance of a situation
+for you with handsome pay and most agreeable duty. You are to come down
+here at once, and see your uncle, but on no account let it be known that
+I have mentioned to you the prospect of employment.
+
+"Your affectionate aunt,
+
+"Jane Morse."
+
+
+I took the morning train, and arrived at Rochester by nine o'clock,
+remembering, not without pain, my last experiences of my uncle's
+hospitality. I breakfasted at the inn, and only arrived at the house
+when he had finished his morning meal, and was smoking his pipe in the
+garden.
+
+"What wind blows you down here, lad?" cried he. "Where are you bound for
+now?"
+
+"You forget, my dear," said my aunt, "you told me, the other evening,
+you would be glad to see Paul."
+
+"Humph!" said he, with a grunt. "I 've been a-think-ing over it since,
+and I suspect it would n't do. He 'd be making a mess of it, the way he
+does of everything; that blessed luck of his never leaves him, eh?"
+
+Seeing that this was meant as an interrogation, I replied faintly: "You
+'re quite right, uncle. If I am to depend on my good fortune, it will be
+a bad look-out for me."
+
+"Not that I value what is called luck a rush," cried he, with energy. "I
+have had luck, but I had energy, industry, thrift, and perseverance. If
+I had waited for luck, I 'd have lived pretty much like yourself, and I
+don't know anything to be very proud of in that, eh?"
+
+"I am certainly not proud of my position, sir."
+
+"I don't understand what you mean by your position; but I know I 'd
+have been a coal-heaver rather than live on my relations. I 'd have sold
+sulphur matches, I 'd have been a porter!"
+
+"Well, sir, I suppose I may come to something of that kind yet; a little
+more of the courteous language I am now listening to will make the step
+less difficult."
+
+"Eh?--What! I don't comprehend. Do you mean anything offensive?"
+
+"No, dear, he does not," broke in my aunt; "he only says he 'd do
+anything rather than be a burden to his family, and I 'm sure he would;
+he seems very sorry about all the trouble he has cost them."
+
+My uncle smoked on for several minutes without a word; at last he
+came to the end of his pipe, and, having emptied the ashes, and gazed
+ruefully at the bowl, he said: "There 's no more in the fellow than
+in that pipe! Not a bit. I say," cried he, aloud, and turning to me,
+"you've had to my own knowledge as good as a dozen chances, and you've
+never succeeded in one of them."
+
+"It's all true," said I, sorrowfully.
+
+"Owing to luck, of course," said he, scornfully; "luck makes a man lazy,
+keeps him in bed when he ought to be up and at work; luck makes him
+idle, and gets him plucked for his examinations. I tell you this, sir: I
+'d rather a man would give me a fillip on the nose than talk to me about
+luck. If there's a word in the language I detest and hate, it is luck."
+
+"I'm not in love with it myself, sir," said I, trying to smile.
+
+"Did you ever hear of luck mending a man's shoes or paying his
+washerwoman? Did luck ever buy a beefsteak, eh?"
+
+"That might admit of discussion."
+
+"Then let me have no discussion. I like work, and I dislike wrangling.
+Listen to me, and mend now, sir. I want an honest, sober, fixed
+determination,--no caprice, no passing fancy. Do you believe you are
+capable of turning over a new leaf, and sitting down steadily to the
+business of life, like a patient, industrious, respectable man who
+desires to earn his own bread, and not live on the earnings of others?"
+
+"I hope so." "Don't tell me of hope, sir. Say you will, or you will not"
+
+"I will," said I, resolutely.
+
+"You will work hard, rise early, live frugally, give up dreaming about
+this, that, or the other chance, and set to like a fellow that wants to
+do his own work with his own hands?"
+
+"I promise it all."
+
+My uncle was neither an agreeable nor a very clear exponent of
+his views, and I shall save my reader and myself some time and
+unpleasantness if I reduce the statement he made to me to a few words. A
+company had been formed to start an hydropathic establishment on a small
+river, a tributary of the Rhine,--the Lahn. They had acquired, at a
+very cheap rate of purchase, an old feudal castle and its surrounding
+grounds, and had converted the building into a most complete and
+commodious residence, and the part which bordered the river into a
+beautiful pleasure-ground. The tinted drawings which represented various
+views of the castle and the terraced gardens, were something little
+short of fairyland in captivation. Nor was the pictorial effect lessened
+by the fact that figures on horseback and on foot, disporting in boats
+or driving in carriages, gave a life and movement to the scene, and
+imparted to it the animation and enjoyment of actual existence. The
+place of director was vacant, and I was to be appointed to it. My
+salary was to be three hundred a year, but my table, my horses, my
+servants,--in fact, all my household, were to be maintained for me on
+a liberal scale; and my duties were to be pretty much what I pleased to
+make them. My small smattering of two or three languages--exalted by
+my uncle into the reputation of a polyglot--had recommended me to the
+"Direction;" and as my chief function was to entertain a certain number
+of people twice or thrice a week at dinner, and suggest amusements to
+fill up their time, it was believed that my faculties were up to the
+level of such small requirements.
+
+From the doctor down to the humblest menial all were to be under my
+sway; and as the establishment numbered above a hundred officials, the
+command was extensive, if not very dignified. I will own, frankly, I
+was out of myself with joy at the prospect; nor could all the lowering
+suggestions of my uncle, and the vulgar cautions he instilled, prevent
+my feeling delighted with my good fortune. I need not say what resolves
+I made; what oaths I registered in my own heart to be a good and
+faithful steward, and while enjoying to the full the happiness of my
+fortunate existence, to neglect no item of the interests confided to me.
+
+All that I had imagined or dreamed of the place itself was as nothing to
+the reality; nor shall I ever forget the sense of overwhelming delight
+in which I stood on the crest of the hill that looked down over the
+wooded glen and winding river, the deep-bosomed woods, the wandering
+paths of lawn or of moss, the gently flowing stream in which the castle,
+with its tall towers, was tremblingly reflected, seemed to me like a
+princely possession, and, for once, I thought that Paul Gosslett had
+become the favorite child of fortune, and asked myself what had I done
+to deserve such luck as this?
+
+If habit and daily use deaden the pangs of suffering, and enable us to
+bear with more of patience the sorrows of adverse fortune, they, on the
+other hand, serve to dull the generous warmth of that gratitude we first
+feel for benefits, and render us comparatively indifferent to enjoyments
+which, when first tasted, seemed the very ecstasy of bliss. I am sorry
+to make this confession; sorry to admit that after some months at
+"Lahneck," I was, although very happy and satisfied, by no means so much
+struck by the beauty of the place and the loveliness of the scenery as
+on my first arrival, and listened to the raptures of the newcomers
+with a sort of compassionate astonishment. Not but I was proud of
+the pretentious edifice, proud of its lofty towers and battlemented
+terraces, its immense proportion, and splendid extent. It was, besides,
+a complete success as an enterprise. We were always full; applications
+for rooms poured in incessantly, and when persons vacated their
+quarters, any change of mind made restitution impossible. I believed
+I liked the despotism I exercised; it was a small, commonplace sort
+of sovereignty over bath-men and kitchen-folk, it is true; but in the
+extent of my command I discovered a kind of dignity, and in the implicit
+obedience and deference I felt something like princely sway.
+
+As the host, too, I received a very flattering amount of homage;
+foreigners always yield a willing respect to anything in authority,
+and my own countrymen soon caught up the habit, as though it implied a
+knowledge of life and the world. I had not the slightest suspicion
+that my general manners or bearing were becoming affected by these
+deferences, till I accidentally overheard a Cockney observe to his wife,
+"I think he's pompious," a censure that made me very unhappy, and led me
+to much self-examination and reflection.
+
+Had I really grown what the worthy citizen called "pom-pious,"--had I
+become puffed up by prosperity, and over-exalted in self-conceit? If so,
+it were time to look to this at once.
+
+The directors, generally, were well pleased with me. Very gratifying
+testimonials of their approval reached me; and it was only my uncle's
+opposition prevented my salary being augmented. "Don't spoil the
+fellow," he said; "you'll have him betting on the Derby, or keeping a
+yacht at Cowes, if you don't look out sharp. I 'd rather cut him down a
+hundred than advance him fifty." This fiat from my own flesh and blood
+decided the matter. I sulked on this. I had grown prosperous enough to
+feel indignant, and I resolved to afford myself the well-to-do luxury of
+discontent. I was, therefore, discontented. I professed that to maintain
+my position--whatever that meant--I was obliged to draw upon my own
+private resources; and I went so far as to intimate to the visitors that
+if I had n't been a man of some fortune the place would be my ruin!
+Of course my hint got bruited about, and the people commonly said, "If
+Gosslett goes, the whole concern will break up. They 'll not easily find
+a man of good private fortune, willing to spend his money here, like
+Gosslett," and such like, till I vow and declare I began to believe my
+own fiction, and regard it as an indelible fact. If my letter was not on
+record, I would not now believe the fact; but the document exists, and
+I have seen it, where I actually threaten to send my resignation if
+something--I forget what--is not speedily conceded to my demands; and
+it was only on receiving an admonition in the mild vein peculiar to my
+uncle that I awoke to a sense of my peril, and of what became me.
+
+I know that there are critics who, pronouncing upon this part of my
+career, will opine that the Cockney was right, and that I had really
+lost my head in my prosperity. I am not disposed to say now that there
+might not have been some truth in this judgment. Things are generally
+going on tolerably well with a man's material interests when he has time
+to be dyspeptic. Doctors assure us that savage nations, amidst whom
+the wants of life call for daily, hourly efforts, amidst whom all is
+exigency, activity, and resource, have no dyspepsia. If, then, I had
+reasoned on my condition,--which I did not,--I should have seen that
+the world went too smoothly with me, and that, in consequence, my health
+suffered. Just as the fish swallow stones to aid the digestion, we need
+the accidents and frictions of life to triturate our moral pabulum, and
+render it more easily assimilable to our constitutions. With dyspepsia
+I grew dull, dispirited, and dissatisfied. I ceased to take pleasure in
+all that formerly had interested me. I neglected duty, and regarded my
+occupation with dislike. My house dinners, which once I took an especial
+pride in, seeking not only that the wines and the cookery should be
+excellent, but that their success as social gatherings should attract
+notoriety, I now regarded with apathy. I took no pains about either
+company or cookery, and, in consequence, contrarieties and bad contrasts
+now prevailed, where, before, all had been in perfect keeping and
+true artistic shading. My indolence and indifference extended to those
+beneath me. Where all had once been order, discipline, and propriety,
+there now grew up carelessness, disorder, and neglect. The complaints
+of the visitors were incessant. My mornings were passed in reading. I
+rarely replied to the representations and demands of outraged guests.
+At last the public press became the channel of these complaints; and
+"Publicola," and "One who had Suffered," and a number of similarly named
+patriots declared that the hydropathic establishment at Lahneck was a
+delusion and a sham; that it was a camp of confusion and mismanagement;
+and that though a certain P. Gosslett was the nominal director, yet that
+visitors of three months' standing averred they had never seen him,
+and the popular belief was that he was a nervous invalid who accepted
+a nominal duty in recompense for the benefit of air and climate to
+himself. "How," wrote one indignant correspondent of the Times,--"how
+the company who instituted this enterprise, and started it on a scale
+of really great proportions, can find it to their advantage to continue
+this Mr. Gosslett in a post he so inadequately fills, is matter of
+daily astonishment to those who have repaired to Lahneck for healthful
+exercise and amusement, and only found there indifferent attendance and
+universal inattention."
+
+From the day this appeared I was peppered at every post with letters
+from the secretary, demanding explanations, reports, returns, what
+not. The phrase, "The Managing Committee, who are hourly less and less
+satisfied with Mr. Gosslett's conduct," used to pass through all my
+dreams.
+
+As for my uncle, his remarks were less measured. One of his epistles--I
+have it still by me--runs thus: "What do you mean? Are you only an
+idiot, or is there some deeper rascality under all this misconduct?
+Before I resigned my place at the Board, yesterday, I gave it as my
+deliberate opinion that a warrant should be issued against you for fraud
+and malversation, and that I would hail your conviction as the only
+solace this nefarious concern could afford me. Never dare to address me
+again. I have forbidden your aunt to utter your name in my presence."
+
+I don't know how it was, but I read this with as much unconcern as
+though it had been an advertisement about the Sydenham trousers or
+Glenfield starch. There must be a great dignity in a deranged digestion,
+for it certainly raises one above all the smaller excitements and
+conditions of passing events; and when, on the same morning that this
+epistle arrived, the steward came to inform me that of three hundred and
+twenty-four rooms twelve only were occupied, though this was what would
+be called the height of the season, I blandly remarked, "Let us not be
+impatient, Mr. Deechworth, they'll come yet." This was in June; by July
+the twelve diminished to eight. No new arrival came; and as August drew
+to a close we had three! All September,--and the place was then in full
+beauty,--the mountains glowing with purple and scarlet heath, the cactus
+plants on the terrace in blossom, the Virginian acanthus hanging in
+tangled masses of gorgeous flowers from every tree, the river ever
+plashing with the leaping trout,--we had not one stranger within our
+gates. My morning report ran, "Arrivals, none; departures, none; present
+in house, none;" and when I put "Paul Gosslett" at the bottom of this, I
+only wonder why I did not take a header into the Lahn!
+
+As we had at this period eighty-four servants in the house, sixteen
+horses in the stables, and a staff of thirty-two gardeners and boatmen,
+not to speak of runners, commissionaires, and general loungers, I was
+not amazed when a telegram came, in these words: "Close the house,
+place Deechworth in charge, and come over to London." To this I replied,
+"Telegram received; compliance most undesirable. Autumn season just
+opening. Place in full beauty.--P. G." I will not weary the reader with
+a mere commercial wrangle,--how the Committee reproached me, and how I
+rejoined; how they called names, and I hinted at defamation; how they
+issued an order for my dismissal, and I demurred, and demanded due
+notice. We abused each other all September, and opened October in full
+cry of mutual attack and defence. By this time, too, we were at law.
+They applied for a "mandamus" to get rid of me, and my counsel argued
+that I was without the four seas of the realm, and could not be
+attacked. They tried to reach me by the statute of frauds; but there was
+no treaty with Nassau, and I could not be touched. All this contention
+and quarrelling was like sulphate of quinine to me,--I grew robust and
+strong under the excitement, and discovered a lightness of heart and a
+buoyancy of nature I had believed had long left me forever; and though
+they stopped my salary and dishonored my drafts, I lived on fruit
+and vegetables, and put the garrison on the same diet, with a liberal
+allowance of wine, which more than reconciled them to the system.
+
+So matters went on till the ninth of October,--a memorable day to me,
+which I am not like to forget. It was near sunset, and I sat on the
+terrace, enjoying the delicious softness of the evening air, and
+watching the varying tints on the river, as the golden and green light
+came slanting through the trees and fell upon the water, when I heard
+the sound of wheels approaching. There had been a time when such sounds
+would have awakened no attention, when arrivals poured in incessantly,
+and the coming or the departing guest evoked nothing beyond the
+courtesy of a greeting. Now, however, a visitor was an event; and as the
+post-horses swept round the angle of the wood, and disappeared behind a
+wing of the castle, I felt a strange sensation through my heart, and a
+soft voice seemed to say, "Paul, Fate is dealing with you now." I fell
+into a revery, however, and soon forgot all about the arrival, till Mr.
+Deech-worth came up with a card in his hand. "Do you know this name,
+sir,--Mrs. Pultney Dacre? She has only her maid with her, but seems a
+person of condition." I shook my head in ignorance of the name, and he
+went on: "She wants rooms on the ground floor, where she can walk out
+into the garden; and I have thought of No. 4."
+
+"No. 4, Deechworth? that apartment costs sixty francs a day."
+
+"Well, sir, as there are few people now in the house,"--this was an
+euphemism for none,--"I have said she might have the rooms for forty."
+
+"It may be done for one week," said I, "but take care to caution her not
+to mention it to her friends. We have trouble enough with those tiresome
+people in London without this. What is she like?"
+
+"A very handsome figure, sir; evidently young; but had a double veil
+down, and I could n't see her face."
+
+"How long does she talk of staying?"
+
+"A month, sir. A husband is expected back from India early in November,
+and she is to wait for him here."
+
+"So," said I, thoughtfully, and I am sure I cannot say why thoughtfully,
+"she is waiting for her husband's arrival."
+
+"Those young women whose husbands are in India are always pretty;
+haven't you remarked that, sir?"
+
+"I can't say that I have, Deechworth. These are speculations of a kind
+that do not occur to me. Let her have No. 4;" and with the air of one
+who dismissed the theme, I waved my hand, and sent him away.
+
+No. 4--for so the occupant was called, her name being entirely merged
+in her number--never appeared in the grounds, nor showed in any way. The
+small garden which belonged to her apartment had a separate enclosure
+of its own, and within this she walked every evening. How she passed
+her days I know not. I was told that she sang like an angel, but I never
+heard her. She was, however, a most persistent bather. There was not
+a douche in the establishment she did not try, and possibly, by way of
+pastime, she was constantly experimenting on new modes and fashions of
+bathing.
+
+When the establishment had been crowded and in full work, I had my time
+so completely occupied that I had little difficulty in keeping my mind
+estranged from the gossip and tittle-tattle which beset such places; but
+now, when the roof sheltered a single guest, it was wonderful how, in
+spite of all my determination on the subject, I became perversely uneasy
+to hear about her; to know whether she read or wrote; whether she got
+letters or answered them; what she thought of the place; whether she was
+or was not pleased with it; did she praise the camellias? What did she
+think of the cook? She was evidently "gourmet," and the little dinners
+she ordered were remarkable for a taste and piquancy that stimulated my
+curiosity; for there is something very significant in this phase of
+the feminine nature; and when I heard she liked her ortolans "au beurre
+d'anchois," I confess I wanted much to see her.
+
+This, evidently, was not an easy matter, for she courted retirement,
+and her maid let it be known that if her mistress found herself in the
+slightest degree molested by strangers, or her privacy invaded, she
+would order her horses, and set off for somewhere else without
+a moment's hesitation. I was obliged, therefore, to respect this
+intimation. First of all, I felt that as long as No. 4 remained I was
+sustained in my resolve not to close the establishment. I was like a
+deposed monarch at whose residence one envoy still remained, and whose
+sovereignty, therefore, was yet recognized, and I clung to this last
+link that united me to the world of material interest with intense
+eagerness.
+
+I ventured to present Mr. Gosslett's respectful compliments in a small
+note, and inquire if Mrs. Pultney Dacre would wish to see the Park, in
+which case his phaeton and ponies were always at her disposal, as also
+his boat if she felt disposed to take an airing on the river; but a few
+lines declined these offers,--in very polite terms, it is true, yet in
+a fashion that said, "No more of these attentions, Paul,"--at least, it
+was thus I read her.
+
+Although my contention with the company still continued, and some new
+menace of law was sure to reach me by every second post, and my own
+counsel feelingly warned me that I had n't an inch of ground to stand
+on, and my costs when "cast" would be something overwhelming, I had
+steeled myself so thoroughly to all consequences, had so resolved to
+make the most of the present, that I read these minatory documents with
+an unmoved heart, and a degree of placid composure that now strikes me
+as something heroic.
+
+I was sitting one evening in study, thinking over these things,--not
+depressively, not desperately; for, strangely enough, since misfortune
+had befallen me, I had acquired a most wonderful stock of equanimity;
+but I was canvassing with myself what was to come next, when the fatal
+hour struck, as strike it must, that sounded my expulsion from Eden,
+when a gentle tap came to my door. I said, "Come in;" and Virginie,
+Mrs. Dacre's French maid, entered. She was profuse of apologies for
+"deranging" me. She was in despair at the bare thought of interrupting
+I do not know what or which of my learned occupations, but her mistress
+had had an accident!
+
+"An accident!" I started as I repeated the word.
+
+"Oh! it was not serious," she said, with a sweet smile. "It was only
+troublesome, as occurring in a remote spot, and to a person who, like
+Madame, was of such refined delicacy, and who could not bear consulting
+a strange physician,--her own doctor was on his way from India,"--she
+went on rambling thus, so that it was with difficulty I learned at last,
+that Madame, when feeding the gold-fish in the pond of the garden, had
+stepped on the rock-work and turned her ankle. The pain was very great,
+and Virginie feared something had been broken, though Madame was certain
+it was a mere sprain; and now, as the doctor had been dismissed, Madame
+wished to know where medical advice could be soonest obtained. I at once
+declared I was fully competent to treat such an injury. I had studied
+surgery, and could certainly pronounce whether the case was a grave one
+or a mere passing accident. Virginie smiled dubiously.
+
+"Monsieur was very young. Madame never consulted a doctor under
+fifty-five or sixty."
+
+"Possibly," suggested I, "in an ordinary case, and where there were time
+and opportunity to choose; but here, and with an accident,--an accident
+that, if neglected or improperly treated--"
+
+"Ah, _mon Dieu!_" cried she, "don't say it! Don't say there might be
+unhappy results; come at once and see her!" She almost dragged me along,
+such was her impatience, to her mistress's room; and in less than a
+minute I was standing beside a sofa in a half-darkened room, where a
+lady lay, her face closely veiled, and a large shawl so enveloping her
+that all guess as to her figure or probable age was impossible. A
+light cambric handkerchief was spread over one foot, which rested on
+a cushion, and this kerchief the maid hastily snatched away as I
+approached, saying,--"Monsieur is a doctor himself, Madame, and will
+cure you immediately."
+
+"La!" cried she, pointing to the foot. "La!"
+
+And certainly I needed no more formal invitation to gaze on a foot and
+ankle of such faultless mould and symmetry as never, even in the Greek
+statues, had I seen equalled. Whether there had not been time for the
+process of inflammation to have set up swelling or disfigurement, or
+whether the injury itself had been less grave than might have been
+apprehended, I am not able to say; but the beautiful proportions of that
+rounded instep, the tapering of the foot, the hollowing of the sole, the
+slightly mottled marble of the flesh, the blue veins swelling through
+the transparent skin, were all uninjured and unmarred. Ivory itself
+could not have been more smoothly turned than the ankle, nor of a more
+dazzling whiteness. To have been permitted to kneel down and kiss that
+foot, I would have sworn myself her slave forever. I suppose I must
+have shown some signs of the rapture that was consuming me, for the maid
+said,--"What does the man mean? has he lost his senses?"
+
+"I must examine the part," said I; and, kneeling down, I proceeded with
+what I imagined to be a most chirurgical air, to investigate the injury.
+As a worshipper might have touched a holy relic, I suffered my hand to
+glide over that beautifully rounded instep, but all so delicately and
+gently that I could not say whether the thrill that touch sent through
+me was not the act of my own nerves. She seemed, however, to tremble;
+her foot moved slightly, and a gentle action of her shoulders, like a
+shudder, bespoke pain. It was the sort of movement that one might make
+in being tickled; and as great agony causes this movement occasionally,
+I said, "I trust I have not hurt you? I 'd not have done so for worlds."
+She took her handkerchief and pressed it to her face, and I thought she
+sobbed; but she never said a word.
+
+"Alors!" cried the maid. "What do you say is to be done?"
+
+"Ice," said I. "Iced water and perfect repose."
+
+"And where are we to get ice in this barbarous place?"
+
+"Madame," said I, "the place is less savage than you deem, and ice
+shall be procured. There is a monastery at Offenbach where they have ice
+throughout the year. I will despatch an estafette there at once."
+
+The lady bent forward, and whispered something in the maid's ear.
+
+"Madame desires to thank you sincerely," said the maid. "She is much
+impressed by your consideration and kindness."
+
+"I will return in a couple of hours," said I, with a most doctorial
+sententiousness, and in reality eagerly desiring to be alone, and in
+the privacy of my own room, before I should break out in those wild
+ecstasies which I felt were struggling within me for utterance.
+
+I sat down to make a clean breast of it in these confessions, but I must
+ask my reader to let me pass over unrecorded the extravagances I gave
+way to when once more alone.
+
+There are men--I am one of them--who require, constitutionally require,
+to be in love. That necessity which Don Quixote proclaimed to be a
+condition of knightly existence,--the devotion to a mistress,--is an
+essential to certain natures. This species of temperament pertained to
+me in my boyhood. It has followed me through life with many pains and
+suffering, but also with great compensations. I have ever been a poor
+man,--my friends can tell that I have not been a lucky one,--and yet to
+be rich and fortunate together, I would not resign that ecstasy, that
+sentiment of love, which, though its object may have changed, has still
+power to warm up the embers of my heart, and send through me a glow that
+revives the days of my hot youth and my high hopes.
+
+I was now in love, and cared as little for Boards of Directors and
+resolutions passed in committee as for the ordinances of the Grand Lama.
+It might rain mandamuses and warrants, they had no power to trouble me.
+As I wended my way to No. 4 with my bowl of ice, I felt like a votary
+bearing his offering to the shrine of his patron saint. My gift might
+lie on the altar, but the incense of my devotion soared up to heaven.
+
+I would gladly have visited her every hour, but she would only permit
+me to come twice a day. I was also timid, and when Virginie said my
+ten minutes was up I was dismissed. I tried to bribe Virginie, but the
+unworthy creature imagined, with the levity of her nation, I had designs
+on her own affections, and threatened to denounce me to her mistress,--a
+menace which cost me much mortification and more money.
+
+I don't know that the cure made great progress,--perhaps I have learned
+since why this was so; at all events, I pursued my treatment with
+assiduity, and was rewarded with a few soft-voiced words, as thus: "How
+kind you are!" "What a gentle hand you have!" "How pleasant that ice
+is!" At length she was able to move about the room. I wished to offer my
+arm, but she declined. Virginie was strong enough to support her. How
+I detested that woman! But for her, how many more opportunities had I
+enjoyed of offering small services and attentions! Her very presence was
+a perpetual restraint. She never took her eyes off me while I was in
+the room with her mistress,--black-beady, inexpressive eyes for the most
+part, but with something devilish in their inscrutability that always
+frightened me. That she saw the passion that was consuming me, that she
+read me in my alternate paroxysm of delight or despair, was plain enough
+to me; but I could not make her my friend. She would take my presents
+freely, but always with the air of one whose silence was worth buying
+at any price, but whose co-operation or assistance no sum could compass.
+Her very mode of accepting my gifts had something that smote terror into
+me. She never thanked me, nor even affected gratitude. She would shake
+her head mournfully and gloomily, as though matters had come to a pretty
+pass between us, and as though some dreadful reckoning must one day be
+expected to account for all this corruption. "Ah, Monsieur Gosslett,"
+said she one day with a sigh, "what a precipice we are all standing
+beside! Have you thought of the ruin you are leading us to?" These were
+very strange words; and though I took my watch and chain from my pocket,
+and gave them to her in order to induce her to explain her meaning,
+she only burst into tears and rushed out of the room. Was I then the
+happiest of mortals or the most wretched? Such was the problem that
+drove sleep that long night from my eyelids, and found me still trying
+to solve it when the day broke.
+
+Days would often pass now without Mrs. Dacre permitting me to visit her,
+and then Virginie significantly hinted that she was right in this,--that
+it was for my good as well as her own, and so on. I mourned over my
+banishment and bewailed it bitterly. "One would think, sir, you forget
+my mistress was married," said Virginie to me one day; and I protest it
+was no more than the truth. I had completely, utterly forgotten it; and
+the stern fact thus abruptly announced almost felled me to the earth.
+
+Mrs. Dacre had promised to take a drive with me as soon as she felt
+able to bear the motion of a carriage; but though I often recalled the
+pledge, she found excuses of one kind or other to defer performance, and
+as I now rarely saw her, she would write me a line, sometimes two lines,
+on a scrap of paper, which Virginie would lay open on my table and
+generally shake her head very meaningly as I read it.
+
+If Mrs. Dacre's notes were very brief, they were not less
+enigmatical,--she was the strangest writer that ever put pen to paper.
+Thus, to give an instance: the ice application she always referred to
+as "my coldness," and she would say, "How long is your coldness to
+continue? have I not had enough of it yet? This coldness is becoming
+tiresome, and if it be continued, how am I to go out with you?" In
+another note, referring to our intended drive, she says, "If it is a
+question of running away, I must have a word to say first; for though
+I believe you have no fears on that score, I am not so courageous."
+Virginie had been telling stories about my ponies; they were frisky,
+it is true, and it was thus her mistress alluded to them. Some
+disparagement of me as a whip provoked this remark from her: "As the
+time draws nearer, I ask myself, Shall I trust myself to your guidance?
+Who can say what may come of it?"
+
+At last came this one line: "I have summoned up all my courage, and I
+will go with you this evening. Come up at eight, and I will be ready."
+I ought to have mentioned before this that for nigh three weeks a
+vulgar-looking man, middle-aged and robust, had come to take the waters;
+and though he only spoke a few words of bad French, being English, had
+continued to put himself on terms of intimacy with all the subordinates
+of the household, and was constantly seen laughing with the boatmen and
+trying to converse with the gardeners.
+
+Deechworth had conceived suspicion about him from the first; he
+connected him with the law proceedings that the company had instituted
+against me, and warned me to be cautious of the man. His opinion was
+that he belonged to the "Force." "I know it, sir," said he, "by his walk
+and his laugh." The detectives, according to Deechworth, have a laugh
+quite peculiar to themselves; it never takes them off what they are
+saying or thinking about In fact, it is like the bassoon in a band; it
+serves just to mark the time while the air is being played by the other
+instruments.
+
+"I don't like that Mr. Bracken, sir," Deechworth would say; "he ain't
+here for no good, you'll see, sir;" and it is not improbable that I
+should have perfectly agreed with this opinion if I had ever troubled
+my head about him at all, but the fact was my mind was very differently
+occupied. All Scotland Yard and Sir Richard himself might have been
+domiciled at the establishment without their ever giving me a moment of
+uneasy reflection.
+
+Whether Mrs. Dacre's scruples were those of prudery or cowardice,
+whether she dreaded me as a companion or feared me as a coachman, I
+cannot say; but she constantly put off our intended drive, and though
+occasionally the few words in which she made her apologies set my heart
+half wild with delight, simply because I pleased to read them in a sense
+of my own invention, yet I grew feverish and uneasy at these delays. At
+last there came the one line in pencil, "I have made up my mind I will
+go with you to-morrow evening." It is in no extravagance or mock rapture
+I say it, but in plain homely truth, I would not have changed that scrap
+of paper for a check of ten thousand on Coutts.
+
+It was my habit to lay all the little notes I received from her before
+me on my writing-table, and as I passed them under review, to weave out
+for myself a story of the progress of my love. The servants who waited
+on me, and who alone entered my study, were foreigners, and ignorant
+of English, so that I could permit myself this indulgence without
+fear. Now, on the afternoon on which I had received the latest of
+her despatches, I sauntered out into the wood to be alone with my own
+thoughts, unmolested and undisturbed. I wandered on for hours, too happy
+to count the time, and too deeply lost in my imaginings to remember
+anything but my own fancies. What was to come of this strange imbroglio
+in which I now stood; how was Fate about to deal with me? I had clearly
+arrived at a point where the roads led right and left Which was I to
+take, and which was the right one?
+
+Thus canvassing and discussing with myself, it was very late ere I got
+back to the castle; but I carried the key of a small portal gate that
+admitted me to my own quarters unobserved, and I could enter or pass out
+unnoticed. As I found myself in my study and lit my lamp, I turned to my
+writing-table. I started with amazement on discovering that the
+little notes and scraps of paper which bore Mrs. Dacre's writing had
+disappeared. These, and a small notebook, a sort of diary of my own,
+had been taken away; and that the act was not that of a common thief was
+clear, from the fact that a valuable silver inkstand and an onyx
+seal mounted in gold, and some other small objects of value lay about
+untouched. A cold sweat broke over me as I stood there overwhelmed and
+panic-stricken by this discovery. The terrors of a vague and undefined
+danger loom over a man with an intensity far greater than the fears of a
+known and palpable peril. I examined the fastenings of the door and the
+windows to see whether force had been used, but there was no sign of
+such. And as I had locked the door when leaving and found it locked on
+my return, how had this thief found entrance except by a key? I rung the
+bell; but the servants were all in bed, and it was long before any one
+replied to my summons. Of course, servant-like, they had seen
+nothing, heard nothing. I sent for Deechworth; he was asleep, and came
+unwillingly and angry at being routed out of bed. He, too, knew nothing.
+He questioned me closely as to whether I had seen the papers on my table
+before I left home for my walk, and half vexed me by the pertinacity of
+his examination, and, finally, by the way in which he depreciated the
+value of my loss, and congratulated me on the circumstance that nothing
+of real worth had been abstracted. This was too much for my patience,
+and I declared that I had rather the thief had left me without a coat or
+without a shilling than taken these precious scraps of paper. "Oh," said
+he, with a sort of sneer, "I had not the slightest suspicion of the
+value you attached to them." "Well, sir," said I, losing all control
+over my passion, "now that you see it, now that you hear it, now that
+you know it, will you tell me at what price you will restore them to
+me?"
+
+"You mean that it was I who took them?" said he, quietly, and without
+any show of warmth.
+
+"I don't suppose you will deny it," was my answer.
+
+"That will do, Mr. Gosslett," said he; "that's quite enough. I hope to
+be able to teach you that it's one thing to defy a board of directors,
+and it's another to defame a respectable man. I'll make you smart for
+this, sir;" and with these words he turned away and left the room.
+
+I don't know when or how the servants retired,--whether I dismissed
+them, or whether they went of their own accord. I was like a madman.
+My temper, excited to the last limits of reason, impelled me to this
+or that act of insanity. At one moment I thought of hastening after
+Deechworth, and, with a revolver in my hand, compelling him to give up
+the stolen papers; and I shuddered as to what I should do if he refused.
+At another, I determined to follow him, and offer him everything I had
+in the world for them; for, all this time, I had worked myself up to the
+conviction that he, and he alone, was the thief. Oh, thought I, if I had
+but the aid of one of those clever fellows of the detective order, whose
+skill wants but the faintest clew to trace out these mysteries! and,
+suddenly, I bethought me of Mr. Bracken, whom Deechworth himself had
+pronounced to be "one of the Force."
+
+I rung my bell, and desired Mr. Bracken might be sent to me. The
+messenger was a long time absent, and came, at last, to say that Mr.
+Bracken had left the castle that evening, and taken all his luggage with
+him. The tidings struck me like a blow,--here, then, was the thief! And
+for what purpose could such a theft have been accomplished? "Tell Mr.
+Deechworth I want him," cried I, being no less eager to make him my
+deepest apologies for my false accusation than to consult his strong
+common-sense in my difficulty.
+
+The servant returned to say Mr. Deechworth had gone too. He had left the
+castle almost immediately after our stormy interview, and was already
+miles away on his road to the Rhine.
+
+In my misery and desolation, in that abandonment to utter terror and
+confusion in which, with the drowning instinct, one snatches at straws,
+I sent to know if I could speak to Mrs. Dacre, or even her maid. How
+shall I describe my horror as I heard that they also were gone! They
+had left soon after Mr. Bracken; in fact, the post-horses that took them
+away had passed Mr. Bracken at the gate of the park.
+
+I know no more how the rest of the night was passed by me, how the hours
+were spent till daybreak, than I could recount the incidents of delirium
+in fever. I must have had something like a paroxysm of insanity, for I
+appear to have rushed from room to room, calling for different people,
+and in tones of heart-rending entreaty begging that I might not be
+deserted. Towards morning I slept,--slept so soundly that the noises of
+the house did not disturb me. It was late in the afternoon when I awoke.
+The servant brought me my coffee and my letters; but I bade him leave
+me, and fell off to sleep again. In this way, and with only such
+sustenance as a cup of milk or coffee would afford, I passed fourteen
+days, my state resembling that of a man laboring under concussion of
+the brain; indeed, so closely did the symptoms resemble those of this
+affection, that the doctor carefully examined my head to see whether I
+had not incurred some actual injury. It was five weeks before I could
+leave my bed, and crawl down with difficulty to my study. The table was
+covered with the accumulated letters of thirty-odd posts, and I turned
+over the envelopes, most of which indicated communications from the
+company. There was also one in my uncle's hand. This I opened and read.
+It was in these words:--
+
+"So, sir, not satisfied with a life of indolence and dependence, you
+have now added infamy to your worthlessness, and have not even spared
+the members of your own family the contagion of your vice. If you can
+give information as to the present abode of your wretched victim, do so,
+as the last amends in your power, and the last act of reparation, before
+you are consigned to that jail in which it is to be hoped you will end
+your days."
+
+I read this till my head reeled. Who were the members of my family I had
+contaminated or corrupted? Who was my wretched victim? And why I was to
+die in prison I knew not. And the only conclusion I could draw from it
+all was that my uncle was hopelessly mad, and ought to be shut up.
+
+A strange-looking, coarse-papered document, that till then had escaped
+my notice, now caught my eye. It was headed "Court of Probate and
+Divorce," and set forth that on a certain day in term the case of
+"MacNamara _versus_ Mac-Namara, Gosslett, co-respondent," would come on
+for trial; the action being to obtain a rule _nisi_ for divorce, with
+damages against the co-respondent.
+
+A notice of service, duly signed by one of my own people, lay beside
+this; so that at last I got a faint glimmering of what my uncle meant,
+and clearly descried what was im plied by my "victim."
+
+I believe that most readers of the "Times" or the "Morning Post" could
+finish my story; they, at all events, might detail the catastrophe
+with more patience and temper than I could. The MacNamara divorce was a
+nine-days' scandal. And "if the baseness of the black-hearted iniquity
+of the degraded creature who crept into a family as a supplicant that
+he might pollute it with dishonor; who tracked his victim, as the Indian
+tracks his enemy, from lair to lair,--silent, stealthily, and
+with savage intensity,--never faltering from any momentary pang of
+conscience, nor hesitating in his vile purpose from any passing gleam of
+virtue,--if this wretch, stigmatized by nature with a rotten heart, and
+branded by a name that will sound appropriately in the annals of crime,
+for he is called Gosslett,"--if all this, and a great deal more in the
+same fashion, is not familiar to the reader, it is because he has not
+carefully studied the Demosthenic orations of the Court of Arches. In
+one word, I was supposed to have engaged the affections and seduced the
+heart of Mrs. MacNamara, who was a cousin of my own, and the daughter of
+the Rev. W. Dudgeon, in whose house I had been "brought up," &c. I had
+withdrawn her from her husband, and taken her to live with me at Lahneck
+under the name of Dacre, where our course of life--openly, fearlessly
+infamous--was proved by a host of witnesses; in particular, by a certain
+Virginie, maid of the respondent, who deposed to having frequently found
+me at her feet, and who confessed to have received costly presents
+to seduce her into favoring the cause of the betrayer. Mr. Bracken,
+a retired detective, who produced what were called the love-letters,
+amused the jury considerably by his account of my mad freaks and
+love-sick performances. As for Mrs. MacNamara herself, she entered
+no appearance to the suit; and the decree _nisi_ was pronounced, with
+damages of five thousand pounds, against Paul Gosslett, who, the counsel
+declared, was in "a position to pay handsomely for his vices, and who
+had ample means to afford himself the luxury of adultery." I was told
+that the mob were prepared to stone me if I had been seen; and that,
+such was the popular excitement about me, a strong police force was
+obliged to accompany a red-whiskered gentleman to his house because
+there was a general impression abroad that he was Gosslett.
+
+Of course I need not say I never ventured back to England; and I indite
+this, my last confession, from a small village in Bohemia, where I live
+in board--partial board it is--with a very humble family, who, though
+not complimentary to me in many things, are profuse in the praises of my
+appetite.
+
+I rarely see an English newspaper; but a Galignani fell in my way about
+a week ago, in which I read the marriage of Mrs. MacNamara with R. St.
+John, Esq., the then Secretary of Legation at Rio. This piece of news
+gave me much matter of reflection as to my unhappy victim, and has
+also enabled me to unseal my lips about the bridegroom, of whom I knew
+something once before.
+
+The man who is always complaining is the terror of his friends; hence,
+if nothing but bad luck attend we, I shall trouble the world no more
+with my Confessions; if Fate, however, should be pleased to smile ever
+so faintly on me, you shall hear once more from poor Paul Gosslett.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Paul Gosslett's Confessions in Love,
+Law, and The Civil Service, by Charles James Lever
+
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